While “not all Europeans who engaged in the early slave trade accepted without question [its] legal and moral basis.”[1] Nevertheless, the main reason the Portuguese were able to disregard the ethical issues of the slave trade is through their religious principles. Religious precepts were the focus of the debate over the morality of the slave trade, and they were used to justify the practise.
The first source is a letter, written in 1610, and is a response from an Angolan-based Jesuit rector, Luis Brandoan, to a Cartagena-based Catholic priest, Father Sandoval, concerning the ways in which Africans were enslaved and the treatment that they experienced. Whereas the second source, is dated from 1444 and is written by Chief Royal Chronicler, Gomes Eanes de Zurara, to document the arrival of the first slave ship. Zurara’s comments on his sympathy towards enslaved people imply there was ongoing debate over enslavement’s morality in Portugal. This blogpost will explore how moral inquiry into the slave trade was perceived by two distinct individuals, separated by over 150 years, and yet arrived at similar conclusions regarding their sentiment toward the slave trade because of religious principles.
Father Sandoval voiced his concerns over whether the Blacks were “legally captured” [2] to which it is Brandoan the reassures him that the legality has already been questioned by the Board of Conscious. King Joao III established the Board of Consciousness in 1532 to serve as the “keeper of the king’s conscience,” meaning that their job was to make sure that everything that happened in the empire was morally acceptable.[3] This underscores the notion that religion was used to validate the slave trade. According to the rector, if prominent clergy members cannot identify any legal or moral objections, then the act of enslavement is considered morally upright and honest.
In both sources, however, there is a degree of sympathy implied for the enslaved Africans. In the second source Zurara writes ‘for it is not their religion but their humanity that makes me weep in pity for their sufferings.’[4] It is paradoxical at how Zurara claims to weep for the Moors’ ‘humanity’ but the next line following, juxtaposes this sentiment of humanity where he refers to them as “brute animals” with “bestial feelings.” It is as if the concept of feeling pity for the enslaved victims is so demeaning that they must be reduced to less than. Hence showing how superficial the sympathy towards the enslaved victims was from Zurara. Similar dehumanising language can be seen as Brandoan’s letter writing: ‘it is a generally accepted opinion that the owner who owns anything in good faith can sell it and that it can be bought.’ [5] By referring to the enslaved as “it” and “anything,” they are merely perceived as property rather than human beings. Furthermore, Brandoan’s dismissal of Sandoval’s scepticism is another great indicator of how the enslaved victims were regarded in a dehumanised nature, much like Zurara.
Despite the time gap between Zurara and Brandoan’s writings, both rationalized the slave trade through the principle of salvation, morally justifying it and absolving themselves of guilt. Newitt writes in the in the abstract of the source that the conclusion Zurara came to was that the slave trade was justified since the souls of the enslaved will be saved. [6] This can be seen where Zurara ends his account with praise at how the conversion of the captured Black Africans was so successful it was as if “they were directly descended from those who were baptised into the law of Christ.”[7] Brandoan echoes this viewpoint and employs religion to rationalize the slave trade, asserting that it serves a divine purpose by saving souls through religious conversion. Therefore, to hinder the slave trade would be considered disrespectful to God. Philip Havik argues that the inter-ethnic relationships fostered by the Atlantic slave trade were closely connected to the spread of Christianity.[8]
The Portuguese especially believed it was their Christian duty to enslave those who were not Christian and whose souls needed saving, exemplifying how religion and slavery were continually interlinked. In subsequent years, those who had been slaves fought for their freedom, using religion as evidence that their servitude was unjustified. Thus, demonstrating how deeply ingrained the notion of religious salvation was in the justification of slavery.
Overall, what both sources reveal, despite being written over a century apart, was the integral role religion played in justifying the transatlantic slave trade and how it was used to uphold its validity. While there may have been some individuals like Sandoval that questioned the morality of enslavement, it is vital to acknowledge this was not the common ground of thinking. What was similar was the dehumanisation of the captives and the devout belief that were following their Christian duty of guiding misguided souls into salvation.
The historical narratives of both the Portuguese and the enslaved Africans underscore the enduring entanglement of religion and slavery, illustrating how the notion of religious salvation served as a potent tool for perpetuating the transatlantic slave trade and rationalizing its brutality.
Bibliography:
Primary Sources:
- A Jesuit justifies the trade in African slaves to a skeptical colleague (1610) Brother Luis Brandaon, letter to Father Sandoval, March 12, 1610, in Worger, William H. , Nancy L. Clark, and Edward A. Alpers, eds., Africa and the West: A Documentary History: Volume 1: From the Slave Trade to Conquest, 1441-1905, Edition 2, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), 30-31
- Newitt, Malyn. 2010. The Portuguese in West Africa, 1415-1670: A Documentary History. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 148-158
Secondary Sources:
- Dauril Alden, The making of an enterprise: The society of Jesus in Portugal, Its Empire and Beyond, 1540-1750, (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1996)
- Havik, P. J. “Gendering the Black Atlantic: Women’s Agency in Coastal Trade Settlements in the Guinea Bissau Region,” in Women in Port, Gendering Communities, Economies, and Social Networks in Atlantic Port Cities, 1500-1800. Edited by D. Catterall and J. Campbell, 2012
[1] Worger, William, H., Nancy. L. Clark, and Edward A. Alpers. 2010. Africa and the West: A Documentary History: Volume 1: From the Slave Trade to Conquest, 1441-1905. New York, New York: Oxford University Press, 30
[2]Ibid, 31
[3] Dauril Alden, The making of an enterprise: The society of Jesus in Portugal, Its Empire and Beyond, 1540-1750, (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1996), 510
[4] Newitt, Malyn. 2010. The Portuguese in West Africa, 1415–1670: A Documentary History. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 150
[5] Worger, et al (Oxford, 2010), 31
[6] Newit (Cambridge 2010), 149
[7] Ibid, 151
[8] P. J. Havik, ‘Gendering the Black Atlantic: Women’s Agency in Coastal Trade Settlements in the Guinea Bissau Region’, in D. Catterall and J. Campbell (eds.), Women in Port, Gendering Communities, Economies, and Social Networks in Atlantic Port Cities, 1500-1800(Brill, 2012), 318
Black Lives in the South Atlantic: 