The Requerimiento and the Theological "Knot" of European Expansionism: Jews, Muslims, and the Arawakan-speaking peoples of the Caribbean in Juan López de Palacios Rubios's Juridical theory of Dominion (1512).

This article examines Juan López de Palacios Rubios's 1512 treatise *Libellus de insulis oceanis* and its role in justifying Spanish Crown policies of war and enslavement against the Arawakan-speaking peoples of the Caribbean. It highlights López de Palacios Rubios's reliance on medieval canon law and the legal theory of the Dominican friar Matías de Paz, rather than Aristotle's theory of natural slavery, to formulate the legal framework of the *Requerimiento*—a ritualized declaration demanding indigenous submission before conquest. The article situates López de Palacios Rubios's work within the broader context of Spanish expansionism, linking the treatment of Amerindians to that of Iberian Jews and Muslims, and underscores how his juridical project provided theological and legal justification for Castilian imperial ambitions across the Americas, North Africa, and Europe. It also addresses the Dominican critique of colonial abuses and the demographic collapse of indigenous populations that prompted these legal debates.