All mankind is one. It took a long time for this revolutionary argument, with its inheritance from Aristotle and Thomist doctrine, to gain firm purchase in the West. In the age of Atlantic empire and the Middle Passage, when shiploads of black Africans were being sent to the Americas, Europeans’ instincts and self-interest ran very much the other way. Nonetheless, the nagging doubt that had triggered the Valladolid debate in the first place remained. By what right did one race of men enslave another race, Europeans continued to ask (if only in whispers), when they shared the same rational
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