TOMÁS DE AQUINO E OS BÁRBAROS NA APOLOGIA DE LAS CASAS (C. 1-5)

In this article, I will seek to study how Bartolomé de Las Casas (1484-1566) uses a doctrine of Thomas Aquinas in a part of his work Apologia. This work was written by Las Casas to refute four arguments that a contemporary of his, called Juan Ginés de Sepúlveda, proposed in order to defend that the wars of the Spanish against the Indians were just. I intend to examine how Las Casas uses Thomas Aquinas's doctrine about the concept of "barbarian" in treating of the first argument of Sepúlveda, that affirms that such wars are just, because the Indians are barbarians, illiterate and slaves by nature. I will make an exposition of the pertinent texts of Thomas Aquinas's Commentary on Aristotle's Politics and of Las Casas's Apologia. I will conclude by saying that Las Casas knows the essentials of Thomas's doctrine and has the art of prolonging the master's primordial inspiration.