Iberian Expansion and the Issue of Black Slavery: Changing Portuguese Attitudes, 1440–1770

Abstract

The arrival of the cargo of black slaves was the first encounter of the Portuguese with the institution of slavery. In the Iberian Peninsula both the principles justifying enslavement of blacks and the institution of slavery were subjects of debate. With Portuguese expansion into the Indian Ocean and South China Sea and to the Americas, Asiatic and Amerindian slaves were sent to Portugal. The debate in Portugal over black slavery and the slave trade never equalled that in Spain over the enslavement of Amerindians. Portuguese attitudes toward black slavery, both in the mother country and later in the colony, were not limited to the realm of theological and moral debate. Portuguese attitudes justifying black slavery, rooted in medieval views of man and society, survived in colonial Brazil and, after 1822, in an independent Brazil, despite their demise in Portugal itself.