Usually, when we learn about what schools of thought influenced the American Revolution, our history teachers rightly point out the influence of the British, Scottish, and the French Enlightenments. This fits in nicely with the narrative of the typical Western Civilization course taught in many American high schools, where students are introduced to John Locke, Montesquieu, Voltaire, and maybe even Edmund Burke.

But missing from this narrative is the existence of the Spanish Enlightenment of the 16th century, known today as the School of Salamanca, and the influence it had on the American Founding Fathers. This rich school of thought flourished with the Dominican Francisco de Vitoria and may be said to have culminated with the Jesuit Juan de Mariana.

To the south of the Rio Grande, we grow up learning about the influence the French Revolution and the ideas of Rousseau had on the Latin American Founding Fathers. This narrative, too, misses the much greater influence of the ideas shared by the School of Salamanca and the American Revolution: that all men are created equal, that sovereignty resides in the people, limited government, no taxation without representation, among others.

Ángel Fernández Álvarez, member of the History of Economic Thought Research Group at the Complutense University of Madrid, says that Juan de Mariana, the direct heir to the School of Salamanca, is a precursor to Western liberalism. Doctor Fernández documents this in his thesis (now published as a book: La Escuela de Escuela Española de Economía, Unión Editorial 2017). Fernández shows us how widely read Mariana was in England, despite the censorship of the writings of Catholics. He zeroes in on the influence the Spanish Jesuits had over John Locke and on one of America’s Founding Fathers, John Adams.

This is relevant for all Americans—northern, central and southern—because it allows us to debunk the historical myth that somehow we don’t all share the legacy of Western Civilization. It is also important for the English and Spaniards, because very few of them know of a liberal tradition within the Spanish Empire and its influence in one of England’s greatest philosophers —John Locke.

With regards to Locke, Fernández points out the striking similarities between Locke’s Two Treatises on Government (1689) and Mariana’s On the King and the Royal Institution (De Rege et Regis Institutione, 1599). We know that Locke actually read Juan de Mariana by way of a couple of surviving documents where he included a detailed citation of one of Mariana’s works and where he listed Mariana’s The General History of Spain among the greatest, most important history books that every aspiring gentleman should read.

Mariana and Locke concurred that men enter into society because in the state of nature they are worse off. They both also agreed that civil society precedes government and that government is established to safeguard the individual’s natural rights. These rights, as well as certain obligations, according to both Mariana and Locke, are independent of any positive legislation and are accorded to individuals “by nature.”

Fernández also points out that Locke’s argument for “no taxation without representation” is almost identical to Mariana’s. Compare both pertinent quotes (boldface added):