The author reflects on the confrontation that took place in America between two ways of understanding the conquest and its effects: that of the Spaniard conquistadors who invaded the Indies with the hope of obtaining prizes and grants, which they believed to be a credit against the crown on occasion of the capitulaciones, the assumption they supported of the costs of the expeditions and their warlike performance (Prize System)
and that of the theologians-philosophers-jurists who, combining these three disciplines, ended up defending the aborigines with respect to the claims of the invaders. It is exemplified through the case of Paraguay and the actions of Domingo Martínez de Irala and Alvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca.
Keywords:
Conquest of America, Prize system, University of Salamanca, Francisco de Vitoria, Domingo de Soto, Domingo Martínez de Irala, Alvar Núñez Cadeza de Vaca, Capitulaciones
Leiva, A. D. (2022). Two legal traditions opposed during the colonization of the west indies: natural law versus the spanish crown’s prize system. Revista Chilena De Historia Del Derecho, 1(26), Pág. 307–318. Retrieved from https://revistaderechoambiental.uchile.cl/index.php/RCHD/article/view/68231
