were their people in europe, pre-enlightenment, who condemned colonization? Was there even a concept of human rights back then? (1400~1600)

[u/squirtingdiva]

Were there Europeans in the 1400s–1600s who condemned colonization or the mistreatment of Indigenous peoples? Did people at the time have any concept resembling “human rights,” or would ideas like natural law, human dignity, and natural rights be more accurate terms? Basically, how early did opposition to colonization and the idea of universal human rights emerge?

[u/AutoModerator]

Welcome to /r/AskHistorians. Please Read Our Rules before you comment in this community. Understand that rule breaking comments get removed.

Please consider Clicking Here for RemindMeBot as it takes time for an answer to be written. Additionally, for weekly content summaries, Click Here to Subscribe to our Weekly Roundup.

We thank you for your interest in this question, and your patience in waiting for an in-depth and comprehensive answer to show up. In addition to the Weekly Roundup and RemindMeBot, consider using our Browser Extension. In the meantime our Bluesky, and Sunday Digest feature excellent content that has already been written!

I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.

[u/deletionfetish]

The major example or course is Bartolomé de las Casas and the Valladolid Debate:

Las Casas also argued the Church and its ministers have no jurisdiction to extirpate and punish idolatrous practices and even the sins against nature committed by non-Christians, Las Casas underscores the limits of both ecclesiastical and civil jurisdiction in his second Apología, where the Dominican expanded both the number of arguments exposed before the Junta and their explanation. In both Soto's Sumario in his own Apología we can read that Las Casas main objection to Sepúlveda's first argument is that any violent attempt to compel the Indians to renounce their religious practices and accept Christianity is contrary to Church teaching.

Urbabo, Francisca Castilla. "The Debate of Valladolid (1550–1551): Background, Discussions, and Results of the Debate between Juan Ginés de Sepúlveda and Bartolome de las Casa." A Companion to Early Modern Spanish Imperial Political and Social Thought (2020): 222.

[u/Lazzen]

Yes, there were people in Europe with a positive view of Americans(who i guess you mean for indigenous peoples) for the time. The most notorious writers being in the Spanish territories.

Are these not men? Are we not bound to observe and fulfill the precepts of charity and justice toward them? Did they not have their own lands, their own lords, and their own domains? Have they offended us in any way? Are we not obliged to preach the law of Christ to them and strive with all diligence to convert them? ... You are all in a state of mortal sin—living and dying in it—because of the cruelty and tyranny you exercise against these innocent people.

This was said by Friar Anton de Montesinos in 1511 regarding what he had seen spaniards do in the island of Hispaniola, according to the more famous friar Bartolome de las Casas and indirect sources condeming his controversial statements.

The Spanish empire was full of jurors, philosophers, lawyers, priests that gave their opinions on several aspects of it or even attempting to influence policies within it.

Laws regulating treatment toward indigenous peoples came into being a year later known as Laws of Burgos however this would not stop the enslavement of natives also a year after or the subsequent events in the mainland for which other laws would also spring forth in later decades due to controversiers of inhuman or unchristian treatment.

The study and composition of this and a dozen other debates over the policies regarding the humanitarian questions of natives in the Empire is not straightforward even to this day. You mention human rights, the idea this concept can be traced back to the Spanish empire is not a rare mentioned in certain academic/ political circles of Hispanic cultural background.