Abstract

The title of this book is not really catchpenny; it fairly indicates the contents. The theological disputation, held at Valladolid in 1550, about the lawfulness of the Spanish conquests in the New World, did largely turn upon the question whether the Indians were slaves in Aristotle’s sense or not. The entanglement of the institution of slavery with the natural law and the jus gentium is a very old one. It was not seriously undermined until the Stoics taught the universal citizenship of the world and, far more effectively in the long run, Christianity taught the dignity of human nature. But the institution survived far into modern times—and perhaps still survives. Professor Hanke finds that some apologists of racial segregation in the United States and of apartheid in South Africa hold views scarcely distinguishable from Aristotle’s—that some men are naturally inferior and, in their own interests, should be ruled by the more capable.