| Summary: | The conquest of the New World prompted very violent debates in Spain in the sixteenth century, centered on two major questions concerning the right of the Spaniards to the conquest and domination of the Indies and their right to reduce Indians to slavery. To answer these questions, the Spanish theologians and jurists of the order of Saint Dominic have made two great innovations, which this article undertakes to develop. The first was to support and reinforce their legal reasoning on the basis of anthropological considerations, which led them to release inalienable human rights. The second was to consider that the social context could have an impact on the development of rational faculties, which can explain the strangeness of Indian manners.
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