Event Details

This one of a series of events taking place in October to mark Black History Month.

Africans’ involvement in the abolition of slavery is often confined to cases of ‘shipboard revolts’, ‘maroon communities’ and ‘individual fugitive slaves”. In this paper I examine the highly-organised, international-scale legal case for liberation headed by Angolan nobleman Lourenço da Silva Mendonça and the Vatican response to the case through 11 propositions. I argue that a movements for the abolition of slavery led by an African in solidarity with other marginalised groups pre-dates European abolitionist. The court case presented in the Vatican on the 6th of March 1684 by Mendonça argued for the abolition of slavery included groups of African descent in Spain, Portugal, Brazil as well as constituencies of New Christians and Native Americans. This scale of this international initiative calling for abolition of slavery in the Atlantic led by Africans themselves has hitherto not been part of the history of abolitionist movements. In his address to the Vatican Mendonça questioned the institution of Atlantic slavery, using four core principles to bolster his argument: Human, Natural, Divine, and Civil Laws. I argue that Mendonça’s relationship with New Christians, Native Brazilians and other Africans was central to a distinct case for universal human rights, liberty and humanity.

José Lingna Nafafé is Senior Lecturer in Portuguese and Lusophone Studies and co-Director of Teaching for Hispanic, Portuguese and Latin American Studies at University of Bristol.