Valladolid
A city of Castile. Charles V assembled theologians and jurists there in 1550 to hear Las Casas and Sepúlveda dispute the lawfulness of the conquests in the Americas.
Valladolid lies on the plateau of Old Castile in north-western Spain. Bartolomé de Las Casas says that the New Laws of 1542 were made after many conferences and debates among learned men assembled in the town (Las Casas, Short Account p. 413), and the additions to those laws are dated there on 4 June 1543 (New Laws of the Indies closing clause of the additions, 4 June 1543). The title page of the tract he printed in 1552 records that the king ordered theologians and jurists to assemble at Valladolid in 1550 to hear his dispute with Juan Ginés de Sepúlveda (Las Casas, Disputation with Sepúlveda title page). See Rome Declares the Peoples of the Americas Free.
What happened here
- 2 June 1537, firm dateRome Declares the Peoples of the Americas Free
In the bull Sublimis Deus Pope Paul III declares that the peoples of the Americas are truly human, capable of the Christian faith, and not to be enslaved or deprived of their property. Las Casas and the Crown’s own laws show that enslavement went on.