The New World: an Introduction
In 1493, Pope Alexander VI issued a Papal Bull granting a protectorate of the New World to Spain. The subsequent attempt to rationalize and justify administrative dominance in lands with complex indigenous cultures (Inca and Aztec) led to much debate and to attempts to reconcile European political ideas with "new world" social and economic conditions. The trans-Atlantic encounter gave impetus to the development of international law, comparative ethnology, and theories of cultural development. By 1520,
"New Spain" comprised two viceroyalties, in Mexico City and Lima. Meanwhile, encomiendas or feudal fiefdoms had been established on the conquered soil by the colonizers. In 1542, the Spanish "New Laws" decreed…show more content… L. Let us return, then, to the business at hand. Now show me the reasons, if there are any, by which you believe that war can be undertaken and waged in a just and pious manner.
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D. A just war requires not only just causes for its undertaking, but also legitimate authority and upright spirit in whoever declares it and a proper manner in its conduct....
L.... But what happens if a ruler, moved not by avarice or thirst for power, but by the narrowness of the borders of his state or by its poverty, should wage war upon his neighbors in order to seize their fields as an almost necessary prize?
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D. That would not be war but theft. For a war to be just, the causes must be just....
Among the causes of a just war the most important, as well as the most natural, is that of repelling force with force when it is not possible to proceed in any other fashion.... The second cause of a just war is the recovery of things seized unjustly.... It is licit to recover
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