Bartolomé de Albornoz and Slavery ¿A criticism from a Philosophy of Economics perspective?

Abstract

Bartolomé de Albornoz’s Arte de los contractos (1573), was perceived by Hanke (1959), Davis (1966) and other authors as a strong critic of slavery. Recently, J. Tellkamp (2004) criticized these interpretations, pointing out that in his opinion a complete reading of Arte de los Contractos shows a less forceful opposition than was attributed to it. For him, the criticism of slavery that can be read there, analyzed from Political Philosophy perspective, is, at least, ambiguous. In this article I will review Albornoz’s position on slavery, and, assuming some of the aspects proposed by Tellkamp, I will offer an alternative explanation for this alleged ambiguity. I will try to show that in the case of Albornoz there is a conscious attempt to have certain discussions, usually raised in Philosophy of Law or in Political Philosophy, in the epistemological framework of the Philosophy of Economics. If this is correct, then Albornoz uses an alternative argumentation to the usual ones, and for this reason, looking at his work from this perspective, it shows a strong critic of slavery.