PAPAL BULL DUM DIVERSAS, issued by Pope Nicholas V in 1452, granted to King Alfonso V of Portugal, who sought confirmation that they could enslave infidels, “…full and free permission to invade, search out, capture and subjugate the Saracens and pagans and any other unbelievers and enemies of Christ…to reduce their persons into perpetual slavery.”
This was explicitly confirmed in 1454, in Pope Nicholas’ Romanus Pontifex, the rights granted to King Alfonso V in Dum Diversas and further granted to Alfonso “…the rights of conquest and permissions previously granted not only to the territories already acquired but also those that might be acquired in the future.”
Papal Bull Romanus Pontifex continued: “Weighing all and singular the premises with due meditation, and noting that since we had formerly by other letters of ours granted among other things free and ample faculty to the aforesaid King Alfonso – to invade, search out, capture, vanquish, and subdue all Saracens, and other enemies of Christ wheresoever placed, and the kingdoms, dukedoms, principalities, dominions, possessions, and all movable and immovable goods whatsoever held and possessed by them and to reduce their persons to perpetual slavery, and to apply and appropriate to himself and his successors the kingdoms, dukedoms, counties, principalities, dominions, possessions, and goods, and to convert them to his and their use and profit.”
In 1456, Pope Calixtus III confirmed these grants to the kings of Portugal.
They were renewed by Pope Sixtus IV in 1481 and finally, in 1514, Pope Leo repeated verbatim all these documents and approved, renewed and confirmed them.
These papal bulls came to serve as a justification for the subsequent era of slave trade and European colonisation.
Pope Alexander VI awarded colonial rights over most of the newly discovered lands to Spain and Portugal and the ensuing patronato system allowed State authorities, not the Vatican, to control all clerical appointments in the new colonies.
The first extensive shipment of Africans, in what became known as the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade, was initiated at the request of Bishop Las Casas and authorised by Charles V Holy Roman Emperor, in 1517.
Vast numbers of Africans were captured and shipped to the new colonies to replace the shortage of enslaved indigenous people that resulted through the depopulation of the Americas that resulted from harsh treatment and of diseases brought over by Europeans settlers.
Later, Las Casas rejected all forms of unjust slavery and became famous as the great protector of Indian (the First Nations) rights.
No papal condemnation of Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade was made at the time.
In 1547, La Casas declared that the Spanish never waged a just war against the Indians since they did not have a just cause for doing so.
Early Christianity rarely criticised the actual institution of slavery and while the Pentateuch gave protection to fugitive slaves, the Roman Church often condemned with anathema slaves who fled from their masters and refused them Eucharistic communion.
In fact, some Catholic clergy, religious orders and Popes also owned slaves; and the naval galleys of the papal States used captured Muslims as galley (on ships) slaves. In 1488, Pope Innocent VIII accepted the gift of 100 slaves from Ferdinand II of Aragon and distributed those slaves to his cardinals and the Roman nobility.
The papal estates alone possessed several hundred slaves despite Pope Gregory I’s rhetoric in his Pastoral Care on the natural liberty of mankind.
He wrote: “Slaves should be told …(not) to despise their masters and recognise they are only slaves.”
The text remained popular for centuries.
Pope Gregory I, in his Commentary on the Book of Job, wrote: “All men are equal by nature but …. a hidden dispensation by providence has arranged a hierarchy of merit and rulership, in that differences between classes of men have arisen as a result of sin and are ordained by divine justice.”
Pope Gregory directed slaves to be employed by monasteries as well as forbidding the unrestricted allowance of slaves joining the monastery to escape their servitude.
Upon manumitting two slaves held by the Church, he wrote: “Since our Redeemer, the Maker of every creature, was pleased mercifully to assume human flesh in order to break the chain of slavery in which we were held captive, and restore us to our pristine liberty, it is right that men, whom nature from the beginning produced free, and whom the law of nations has subjected to the yoke of slavery, should be restored by the benefit of manumission to the liberty in which they were born.”
During the 16th Century, the morality of slavery and, consequently, the shortage of slaves in the ‘New World’ stimulated increasing debate in the Christian Church.
In 1435, Roman Catholic teaching began to turn against ‘unjust’ forms of slavery, prohibiting the enslavement of recently-baptised indigenous people; eventually culminating in the condemnation of the enslavement of indigenous peoples by Pope Paul III in 1537.
Beginning in the 15th Century, the Age of Discovery saw the expansion of Western Europe’s political and cultural influence worldwide.
Because of the prominent role the strongly Catholic nations of Spain and Portugal played in Western colonialism, Catholicism was spread to the Americas, Asia and Oceania by explorers, conquistadors and missionaries, as well as by the transformation of societies through the socio-political mechanisms of colonial rule.
Spain and Portugal were the leaders in the Age of Discovery and took their slave-making attitudes to their new territories in the Americas.
The Age of Discovery also witnessed a great increase in the number of slaves owned by Christians.
However, the clergy’s response, under strong political pressures, was confused and ineffective in preventing the establishment of slave societies in the colonies of Catholic countries.
In 1521, Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan made the first Catholic converts in the Philippines. Elsewhere, Portuguese missionaries under the Spanish Jesuit Francis Xavier evangelised in India, China and Japan.
A number of Popes issued papal bulls condemning ‘unjust’ enslavement although ‘just’ enslavement was still accepted as a form of punishment.
The mistreatment of indigenous Native Americans by Spanish and Portuguese colonials was, however, largely ignored.
The earlier papal bulls permitting the ‘perpetual servitude of Saracens and pagans in Africa’, were used to justify enslavement of indigenous people and the unjust appropriation of their lands during this era.
Some Catholic missionaries, such as the Jesuits, who also owned slaves, reportedly worked to alleviate the suffering of Native American slaves in the New World while debate about the morality of slavery continued throughout this period.
Capuchin missionaries were excommunicated for calling for the emancipation of slaves in the Americas.
In 1741, Pope Benedict XIV promulgated the Papal Bull Immensa Pastorum Principis against the enslavement of the indigenous peoples of the Americas and other countries.
In spite of a stronger condemnation of unjust types of slavery by Pope Gregory XVI, in his Papal Bull In supremo apostolates, issued in 1839, some American bishops continued to support slave-holding interests until the abolition of slavery.
In 1866, Pope Pius IX affirmed that, ‘subject to conditions’, it was not against divine law for a slave to be sold, bought or exchanged.
The Catholic Encyclopedia argues, in order for the Church to have condemned slavery, it would have had to be willing to incite a revolution that could have resulted in the destruction of ‘all civilisation’!
By the 18th Century, both the slave colonies in the New World became very important economically to Britain and France as well as Spain and Portugal.
The 18th Century also witnessed the growth of opposition to slavery in principle, leading to political movements, based on Christian ethical principles related to the enlightenment for the abolition of slavery.
The Age of Enlightenment, from the 17th Century onward, questioned the power and influence of the Catholic Church over Western society
Dr Michelina Andreucci is a Zimbabwean-Italian researcher, industrial design consultant and is a published author in her field.
For views and comments, email: linamanucci@gmail.com