| Sumario: | In this paper the author reads the figure of Shakespeare's Caliban from The Tempest through the lens of the legal dispute on how the inhabitants of lands colonized by European countries are legal subjects. Half human, half monster, son of a witch, forced into slavery by Prospero, Caliban represents an issue considered in 1550 during the Valladolid Debate, and his portrayal reveals the tension between the views of Bartolomé de Las Casas (who believed that Indigenous peoples and Europeans should be equal before the law) and Juan Ginés de Sepúlveda (who believed that Indigenous peoples are predestined to be slaves and legally traded items). In Shakespeare's case, however, it is interesting to see who decides on Caliban's status – and the decision belongs to Prospero, who is the exponent of the state. Shakespeare therefore mirrors Alberico Gentili's theories of that time on banishing theologians from the field of law and ceding the sovereignty to determine its subject to the ruler of the state as a basic element of international order.
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