The debate on the control of the seas in the Spanish empire during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries

Abstract

This paper studies the debate about the domain of the seas in the 16th and 17th centuries in the Spanish empire. We can find two branches, that of scholastic authors such as Francisco de Vitoria (1483 or 1486-1546) or Fernando Vázquez de Menchaca (1512-1569) who used property theory to defend the freedom of the seas regardless of the political and commercial interests of his nation. But we will also see other authors who adapted their doctrine for the political benefit of the empire and built a theory against the demands of freedom in the oceans of rival nations. Within this last group, this paper finds the work of Nicolás Bonaert (1564- ¿), a Jesuit who prepared the first known answer to Mare Liberum by Hugo Grocio.