Heathens among the Flock: Converting African-Born Slaves in Eighteenth-Century Rio de Janeiro

Abstract

This article maps the intersections between three sets of ecclesiastical rules issued in Rome, Portugal and Brazil that dealt with the conversion and baptism of African slaves in order to analyze the conversion and baptism of African slaves in eighteenth-century Brazil. Making use of Catholic records from Rio de Janeiro, the article explores the particular place of African-born slaves in Portuguese ecclesiastical legislation, providing a new way to understand how Africans were situated within the Catholic Church and helping reveal the factors encouraging the continuity of traditional African practices inside the Church itself throughout Brazil's colonial period.