The Roman Catholic Missionaries’ Attitudes Towards Slavery in the Archipelago of Cape Verde (Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries)

This paper analyses the attitudes of the Roman Catholic missionaries towards the institution of slavery in Cape Verde during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. In the first part of the paper, I briefly discuss the particular features of the Cape Verdean slave-based society of the time, before analyzing the primary components of the Church’s approach to Negro slavery at the dawn of the Portuguese seaborne empire. The second part is dedicated to the analysis of concrete cases to shed light on the missionaries’ attitudes towards the institution of slavery in Cape Verde. As references for the discussion I examine the behaviours of the missionaries towards illegal slavery and the enforcement of normative principles regarding the baptism of slaves. I argue that there was a remarkable harmony between the positions of the missionaries stationed in Cape Verde and the mainstream teachings of Iberian theologians/lawyers of the time. In other words, the missionaries did not question the moral legitimacy of the institution of slavery per se but showed some commitment in fighting the abuses of the system in order to bring the institution closer to a more humane/Christian standard.

Publication year:2020

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CSS-citation score:1

Authors from:Higher Education

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