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A Religious Dilemma in Colonial Brazil

BY AWAKE! WRITER IN BRAZIL

ON November 30, 1996, representatives from the Conference on World Mission and Evangelism, organized by the World Council of Churches, gathered at a dockside in Salvador, Brazil. The location was significant. In past centuries at this very port, millions of Africans had been sold as slaves. “This sea gathered their tears,” remarked one clergyman, referring to the captives’ ill-fated journey. On this special day of remembrance, remorse was expressed for what one speaker called Christianity’s scandalous participation in slavery. How was religion involved in the slave trade in colonial Brazil?

“Saving Lost Souls”

In 1441—nearly 60 years before the official discovery of Brazil—Portuguese navigator Antão Gonçalves captured and transported the first shipment of African tribesmen to Portugal. Few in medieval society questioned the morality of enslaving prisoners of war, especially those whom the church labeled as “infidels.” Over the next two decades, however, the lucrative peacetime slave trade did require justification. Some claimed that by enslaving Africans, they would be “saving lost souls,” as they were rescuing these foreigners from their pagan way of life.

The Romanus Pontifex bull, issued by Pope Nicholas V on January 8, 1455, gave formal support for the already thriving slave trade. Thus, the church was no bulwark against slavery. On the contrary, some of its clergymen were “stubborn advocates,” observes Brazilian historian João Dornas Filho. The stage was thus set for slavery to spread to Brazil when Portuguese colonists settled there.

“The Only Option”

In 1549, newly arrived Jesuit missionaries were alarmed to discover that much of Brazil’s work force was made up of illegally captured slaves. Landowners had simply rounded them up to work on their farms and sugar plantations. “Most men have a troubled conscience because of the slaves they possess,” wrote Jesuit superior Manuel de Nóbrega in 1550. Still, the landowners kept their enslaved labor force, even if it meant that they might not be granted absolution by the church.

But soon the Jesuits in Brazil faced a dilemma. Limited finances made it difficult for them to perform their charitable works. One solution was for them to farm land granted them by the government and use the profits from the produce to fund religious activities. But who would work on these farms? “The only option,” says Portuguese historian Jorge Couto, “was Negro slave labor—a solution that raised scruples of a moral nature, which the Jesuit superior in Brazil decided to ignore.”

The Jesuits added their voice to a growing lobby of landowners clamoring for African slaves. The Indian slaves seemed to have difficulty adapting to intensive farming, and often they rebelled or simply escaped into the forests.a Africans, on the other hand, had been tried and tested on sugar plantations in Portugal’s island colonies in the Atlantic. “They never ran away, nor did they have anywhere to run,” claimed one writer at the time.

Thus, with clerical blessing the importation of African slaves steadily increased. Brazil became heavily dependent on the Atlantic slave trade. By 1768 the Jesuit-owned Santa Cruz farm had 1,205 slaves. The Benedictines and the Carmelites also acquired properties and large numbers of slaves. “The monasteries are full of slaves,” cried 19th-century Brazilian abolitionist Joaquim Nabuco.

Since farming was a competitive business, slave owners on church properties often imposed a brutal work regimen. Professor of history Stuart Schwartz notes that even many of those clerics who protested the abuse of slaves had “a low regard for Africans” and “held that discipline, chastisement, and work were the only way to overcome the slaves’ superstition, indolence, and lack of civility.”

“Slavery Theology”

As the clergy strove to reconcile Christian values with a system that was powered by relentless exploitation, they created a moral support for slavery—what one theologian calls a slavery theology. Since the cramped, disease-ridden holds of slave vessels claimed the lives of a large proportion of their human cargo, the church insisted on baptizing Africans before they departed for the New World.b Of course, converts rarely received religious instruction prior to baptism.—See the box “Instant Christians?”

In any event, long working hours and a drastically reduced life span meant that slaves had little chance to practice their new faith. However, church doctrines regarding “the separation of the body and the soul” smoothed over this problem. ‘True, Africans languished in brutal slavery, but their souls were free,’ clerics reasoned. ‘Slaves should therefore accept their humiliation with joy, as part of the divine plan to prepare them for glory.’

Meanwhile, the church reminded slave owners of their moral duty to allow their charges to attend church, keep religious festivals, and marry. Priests criticized severe maltreatment, but they were also careful to stress the dangers of being too indulgent. “Let there be whippings, chains, and leg irons, all in their proper time and with due order and moderation, and you will see how the rebelliousness of servants is quickly contained,” advised one Jesuit priest.

Few contemplated using less-painful means of converting Africans. Rather, outspoken supporters of slavery, including Brazilian Bishop Azeredo Coutinho, gave the impression that slave traders were doing Africans a favor! In his vigorous defense of slavery published in 1796, Coutinho asked: “Would it be better and more fitting if Christianity were to allow [Africans] to die in paganism and idolatry than in our holy religion?” In a similar vein, leading Jesuit missionary António Vieira exhorted Africans: “Give infinite thanks to God for . . . bringing you to this [land], where, once instructed in the faith, you live as Christians and are saved.”

The Price of Slavery

By endorsing slavery, the church had hoped to “save lost souls.” Ironically, it merely sowed seeds of division, for the Africans were highly resistant to abandoning their religious customs and beliefs. Thus, today a large number of Brazilians practice syncretism—a fusion of Catholicism and African tribal religion.

While the church’s acceptance of economic imperatives in colonial Brazil seemed a good policy to some at the time, in the long term it proved disastrous. The death and suffering it caused raise questions about the church’s ethics, and these questions cannot be answered satisfactorily. For one historian, the sanctioning of slavery was taking the attitude of those whom the prophet Isaiah denounced because they were saying: “Good is bad and bad is good.”—Isaiah 5:20.

Abusive Slavery Is Incompatible With the Bible

The Bible makes it clear that Jehovah God does not approve of ‘man dominating man to his injury,’ and this would include abusive slavery. (Ecclesiastes 8:9) For example, God’s Law to Israel stated that kidnapping and selling a human being was punishable by death. (Exodus 21:16) True, a system of servitude existed among God’s ancient people, but that did not resemble the tyrannical form of bondage discussed in this article. Indeed, the fact that some Israelite slaves chose to remain with their master when they were eligible for release is clear indication that slavery among God’s people was not abusive. (Deuteronomy 15:12-17) Hence, it would be a gross distortion of Scripture to claim that Israelite slavery provides justification for the inhumanity that has taken place throughout history.c

In his Word, the Holy Bible, Jehovah God promises that all forms of slavery will soon end. How happy we can be that in God’s new world, people will not live in fear under the tyrannical control of a harsh master. Instead, “they will actually sit, each one under his vine and under his fig tree, and there will be no one making them tremble.”—Micah 4:4.

[Footnotes]

[Blurb on page 15]

Jehovah God promises that all forms of slavery will soon disappear

[Box/Pictures on page 13]

FOR GOD OR FOR GAIN?

Fernão de Oliveira, a Portuguese scholar of the 16th century, asserted that greed—not evangelical fervor—motivated slave traders. Ships from Europe carrying manufactured goods bartered for captives at African ports. These captives were then transported to the Americas and traded for sugar, which was then taken back to Europe to be sold. This triangular trade route generated huge profits both for merchants and for the Portuguese Crown. Even the clergy stood to gain, for priests charged a per capita tax for baptizing Africans before they were carried off to the Americas.

[Box on page 14]

INSTANT CHRISTIANS?

“In the early seventeenth century, it became customary for slaves in Africa to be baptized before their departure,” writes historian Hugh Thomas in his book The Slave Trade. “The slaves had, as a rule, received no instruction whatever before this ceremony, and many, perhaps most, of them had had no previous indication that there was such a thing as a Christian God. So the christening was perfunctory.”

Professor Thomas notes that typically the captives were taken to a church, where a catechist—usually a slave himself—spoke to the slaves in their native tongue about their conversion. “Then a priest would pass among the bewildered ranks,” adds Thomas, “giving to each one a Christian name, which had earlier been written on a piece of paper. He would also sprinkle salt on the tongues of the slaves, and follow that with holy water. Finally, he might say, through an interpreter: ‘Consider that you are now children of Christ. You are going to set off for Portuguese territory, where you will learn matters of the Faith. Never think any more of your place of origin. Do not eat dogs, nor rats, nor horses. Be content.’”

[Picture on page 13]

Pope Nicholas V

[Credit Line]

Culver Pictures

[Picture on page 15]

Public whipping, depicted by 19th-century eyewitness Johann Rugendas

[Picture Credit Line on page 15]

Slave paintings on pages 13 and 15: De Malerische Reise in Brasilien de Johann Moritz Rugendas, cortesia da Biblioteca Mário de Andrade, São Paulo, Brasil