Examining the moral justification of the West African slave trade through the use of religion

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 …

Callie (Seoyoung) Yoo and Olivier Croston (Seminar members from the 2022-23 cohort), have been awarded ‘Highly Commended Entrants’ in the History Category of The Global Undergraduate Awards 2023.

Callie and Olivier wrote their research essays for the UCL History Second-Year Research Seminar, 'Black Lives in the South Atlantic: West Africa, Americas, and the Caribbean in the Early Modern Era'. Callie's essay analysed 'The significance of Western Europe cartographic representation in West African sovereignty' and Olivier's essay explored, 'The role of the sacrament of …

New Essays Published by the 2022-23 Seminar

Exploring the Creolisation of Christianity in the Kingdom of the Kongo

The Kongolese Kingdom remains an anomaly in the history of Western Central Africa as the only Kingdom to see a widespread voluntary acceptance of Christianity in the early modern period. As an anomaly, it has been subject to significant historical debate. This debate has largely revolved around the purpose of Christianity within the Kongolese Kingdom, …

Religion and Diplomacy between Europe and Africa in the Early Years of the Transatlantic Slave Trade

Since European and African kingdoms came into contact in the 15th century, religion and diplomacy were intertwined with one another. Both Africans and Europeans saw religion as a means of establishing diplomatic relations.1 To reveal the role religion played in diplomacy between Europe and Africa, this article will explore two sources. The first is Portuguese …

Strategic confessions during the inquisition trials in 17th century Spanish America and Portuguese West Africa

The Holy Offices of the Inquisition in the seventeenth century Spanish America and Portuguese West Africa conducted inquisition trials against suspected 'witches' under European tropes of ‘witchcraft’.[1] In doing so, they racially persecuted groups that ‘disrupt[ed] social orders’ in their standards.[2] The inquisitors especially feared African ritual specialists for their social status and political power …

Riches in West Africa: Portuguese Colonisers, English Slave Traders, and African Kings on the West African Coast in the late 16th century.

You might have wondered about the early motivations for European expeditions to the coast of West Africa that eventually resulted in the enslavement and forced displacement of some 12 million Africans across the Atlantic Ocean. Well, that is exactly what this article explores. This article analyses two primary sources: the first is an anonymous report …

Queen Njinga’s Diplomacy: An Exploration of Seventeenth-Century Ndongo-Portuguese Negotiations

Figure 1. Queen Nzinga Mbande (Anna de Sousa Nzinga), ACHILLE DEVÉRIA, Reference Collection NPG D34632. Copyright of the image © National Portrait Gallery,https://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/portrait/mw150782/Ann-Zingha Queen Njinga, seventeenth-century ruler of Ndongo (and later Matamba) - central African Kingdoms situated in northern Angola - is widely renowned for her masterful navigation of diplomacy and politics during a period …

Zahra Farooque (Black Atlantics seminar alumna, 2019-20) selected as 2021 Regional Winner for Europe in the Global Undergraduate Awards for dissertation on Capoeria in Rio de Janeiro

Zahra Farooque selected as Regional Winner for Europe in the Global Undergraduate Awards for her final year dissertation, ‘Jogando Capoeira: African roots, Performance and Resistance in Nineteenth Century Brazil’. We chatted to Zahra about her essay. Read the interview at UCL History News.

UCL History student Shelby de Rond (Black Atlantics Seminar 2020-21) is highly commended entrant to the Global Undergraduate Awards for her essay ‘Agency Within Motherhood: Exploring how Enslaved Women in the Middle Passage and Colonial Latin America Raised Children and Constructed Avenues to Freedom’.

Read the Interview with Shelby about her essay ‘Agency Within Motherhood: Exploring how Enslaved Women in the Middle Passage and Colonial Latin America Raised Children and Constructed Avenues to Freedom’ here: https://www.ucl.ac.uk/history/news/2021/oct/ucl-history-student-shelby-de-rond-highly-commended-entrant-global-undergraduate

Two seminar members share their experiences about studying Black History at university. UCL History news feature

UCL History students Adila & Britney offer their reflections as students studying Black History at university; both were students in the 2nd-year undergraduate Research Seminar Black Atlantics in the Global South in the 2019-2020 cohort. 

Black Agency in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth century Upper Guinea: Afro Portuguese Trading Towns and African Kingship.

Whether implicitly or explicitly, popular opinion in the United Kingdom has often assumed European-African relations were antagonistic as early as 1415, with European technological advantages enabling them to forcefully control Africans and limit their agency. This idea is challenged when considering the day-to-day relations between Afro-Europeans in late sixteenth and early seventeenth century Cacheu, Guinea. …

Exploring the Legal Agency and Strategy of Enslaved Blacks in Eighteenth-Century Spanish-America.

Colonial slavery can be characterized, simply, by a slave owner’s absolute dominion over their slaves. This statement was truer of Anglo-American slavery than in Spanish-America, where enslaved Blacks possessed some legal agency independent of their owners. Hence, this blogpost explores how eighteenth-century Spain ‘enable[d] enslaved litigants [across its colonies] to access justice from the same …

The Lives of Afro-Peruvian Women Through the Lens of Colonial Documentation

It is the work of social historians and scholars of the Iberian transatlantic slave trade to ‘capture the voice and mentalité of the colonial subaltern’, a task often attempted through the analysis of official colonial documents such as testaments, or more commonly referred to as wills.[1] Testaments were important documents during the colonial period, giving voice and platform …

Exploring the significance of moral introspection among the Portuguese during the operation of trans-Atlantic slavery systems

Europeans complicit in trans-Atlantic slavery systems are customarily viewed as callous individuals devoid of empathy and morality. This blogpost explores the significance of introspection among some Portuguese men in an attempt at discerning whether such monolithic presentations are justified or, as Worger posits, “not all Europeans who engaged in the early slave trade accepted without …

Illuminating Free Black Agency and Legacy in Colonial Latin America

Scholars of the Black Atlantic face sources of unequal power[1] - sources where marginalized, illiterate people of African origin or decent are acknowledged and mediated by lettered, colonial culture. It is important to explore the voices and humanity of Africand and their descendents, for while they may only appear subtly in Colonial records, their contributions …

Assessing meanings of “freedom” and “agency” in colonial Spanish America through exploring Paula de Eguiluz

An attempt to reassess definitions of “freedom” and “agency” for peoples of African descent in colonial Spanish America has been a major preoccupation of recent scholarship. People of African descent in colonial Spanish Americas existed as “imperial subjects” entitled to both a “public” and “private” life, which precipitated an ongoing “negotiation” of boundaries and hierarchies …

Exploring the role of religion in Afro-European relations

Throughout the fifteenth to seventeenth century, religion was intimately connected to the public policy and ambitions of European and African leaders. To illustrate the role of Christianity in Afro-European relations, I will look at two sources. The first is an extract written by Rui de Pina, a Portuguese chronicler, which details the conversion to Catholicism …

Navigating the Colonial Patriarchy: 17th Century Women of African Descent

Although it is undoubtedly true that women who suffered the horrors of colonialism were particularly vulnerable to male despots, some found ways to draw on their diplomatic and judicial knowledge to make colonial societies more viable. Analysing the experiences of two women, Paula de Eguiluz, a healer tried for witchcraft in colonial Cartagena de Indias, …

Exploring the role of religion in Afro-European relations

Throughout the fifteenth to seventeenth century, religion was intimately connected to the public policy and ambitions of both European and African leaders. To illustrate the role of religion, notably Catholicism, in Afro-European relations, I will look at two sources. The first is an extract written by Rui de Pina, a Portuguese chronicler, which details the …

Experiences of Freedom and the Language of Negotiation in Maroon Communities

For students of history today, it can be difficult to see slavery as anything but a binary: one is either free or enslaved, and enslaved people can do nothing to change their situation. Yet such a binary is ahistorical; for one, there existed no truly “free” Africans and African-descendants in Spanish America if such freedom is …

Luigi Muci (Black Atlantics Seminar 2018/19) was selected as a Highly Commended Entrant in the History category of The Global Undergraduate Awards, for his essay ‘Infamous Bondage’: Comparing European and African Visions of Slavery in the 16th and 17th century Black Atlantic’.

Read the Interview with Luigi on UCL History news here. https://www.ucl.ac.uk/history/news/2020/oct/ug-student-luigi-muci-selected-highly-commended-entrant-global-undergraduate-awards

The Language of Diplomacy and the Paradoxical Importance of Fugitive Enslaved Subjects in the Iberian Empire, Esmeraldas (Present-day Ecuador) 1586.

If like me, at school you were only ever taught about the history of the trans-atlantic slave trade from a US or British perspective, you might be as surprised as I was to read that it was the Iberian Transatlantic Slave trade (~1500-1800) which was the most prolific in history. Slavery was, in the vast majority …

Black Maroon Societies: A ‘Safe Haven’ for the Enslaved?

Many enslaved Africans and peoples of the African diaspora fled and resisted enslavement by joining maroon societies. However, to what extent did these societies offer freedom and safety from colonialism and slavery? This blog will examine the various experiences of people living in the maroon society Palenque del Limon located near the port of Cartagena …

Exploring slave agency within the Trans-Atlantic

Yasmin Namoun The agency of enslaved subjects is an important area to research when studying the Atlantic world, Spanish America and the trans-Atlantic slave trade in particular – ‘their ability to fashion their lives and institutions in ways that alleviated the burdens of their situation’.[1] What forms of power did enslaved subjects  have? Were they completely powerless? …

Examining Justifications for the West African Slave Trade in 16th and early 17th Centuries

The European demand for slaves in West Africa, which peaked from 1650-1850, accentuated and increased the volume of the Atlantic slave trade. This development appears to suggest that Europeans normalised the instigation of atrocities against Africans and became immune to their inhumane practices. However, the growing availability of sources from the sixteenth and seventeenth century …

Examining ideas about Slavery and Freedom in the New World through legal testimonies.

How can we truly understand slavery and freedom in the New World without having access to the voices of enslaved and free blacks? This question struck me when I first approached colonial Latin America and, whilst it may initially appear daunting, it challenges us to find unique avenues to document the lives of these key …

The use of religion to justify the trans-Atlantic slave trade

By Zahra Farooque The trans-Atlantic slave trade is often presented in popular historical representations as a picture of remorseless slave owners on the one hand and exploited enslaved peoples on the other. However, the reality is much more nuanced. It is therefore eye opening to realise that the legality of slavery was in fact questioned …

Free Black Women in 18th century Peru: protecting their freedom.

Free Black Women in 18th century Peru: protecting their freedom. Peru was a viceroyalty in the Spanish empire, where enslaved subjects could be granted their legal freedom. However, the experiences of free black women in Colonial Peru were neither fixed nor monolithic. In many ways the category was contentious and everchanging, with a constant need …

Colonial Catholicism: Portuguese Relations with Kongo in the 15th and 16th Centuries

In contemporary historical discourse, the legacy of the slave trade is considered as one of complete domination by the colonial powers of Europe. However, growing accessibility to sources from the early Iberian Atlantic world, particularly from the 15th and 16th centuries, is forcing a revision of established ideas about the early period of relations between …