 European-derived philosophy began in Latin America in the sixteenth century. Among the most notable figures of this period is Bartolomé de Las Casas (1484–1566), whose work on the rights of conquered Amerindians has had a particularly important and long-lasting legacy. Scholasticism, introduced by the Spanish and Portuguese clergy that arrived with the conquistadores, was the dominant philosophical perspective. Most of the work produced during the first two centuries in the colonies was cast in the framework used in the Iberian peninsula. It was particularly indebted to the thought of both sixteenth-century Iberians and their medieval predecessors. Important figures included Francisco Suárez (1548–1617) and Francisco de Vitoria (1492–1546), and earlier medieval philosopher-theologians, such as Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274) and John Duns Scotus (1265/6–1308). Most of these authors were born in the Iberian peninsula, but many of them had settled in the colonies. Among the most important, apart from Las Casas, are Alonso de la Vera Cruz (ca.  1504–84), who composed the first fully philosophical treatises in Latin America, Tomás de Mercado (ca. 1530–1575), and Antonio Rubio (1548–1615). Some of the works of these authors, such as Rubio’s Logica mexicana, were known and used in Europe.