Governing misery: Slavery, poverty, and charity in portuguese america at the beginning of the 18th century

Abstract

In 1693, a memorial sent to the king of Portugal contained denunciations about the complete indifference of slave owners in relation to religious doctrine, the sacramental life, and the funerals of slaves in Rio de Janeiro and Salvador. In that very year, debates were held with civil and religious authorities with the aim of reforming the disregard for rituals of slaves. Of particular importance in this process of reordering the attributes of the civil and ecclesiastic spheres regarding the domestic rule of slaves were the works of two Jesuits - Jorge Benci and André João Antonil -, and the convention established by the First Constitutions of the Archbishopric of Bahia in 1707. In this article, we seek to analyze how the controversies established at the end of the seventeenth century opened a new perspective towards the ethical defense of the Christian treatment of slaves, based on the principle of the authority to spiritually govern the miserable claimed by the Church.