The Matter Of Empire

This book examines the philosophical principles invoked by apologists of the Spanish empire that laid the foundations for the exploitation of the Andean region between 1520 and 1640. Bentancor ties the colonizers' attempts to justify the abuses wrought on the environment and the indigenous population to their larger ideology concerning mining, science, and the empire's rightful place in the global sphere. Bentancor grounds this metaphysical framework in a close reading of sixteenth-century debates on Spanish sovereignty in the Americas. To Bentancor, their presuppositions were a major turning point for colonial expansion and paved the way to global mercantilism.