To Walk with Slaves: Jesuit Contexts and the Atlantic World in the Cartagena Mission to Enslaved Africans, 1605–1654

José L Santana

doi:10.3390/rel12050334

Abstract

The Jesuit mission to enslaved Africans founded in 1605 in Cartagena de las Indias is amongst the most extraordinary religious developments of early colonial Latin America. By the time Alonso de Sandoval, S.J. and Pedro Claver, S.J. began their work to baptize and catechize the thousands of slaves who passed through Cartagena’s port each year, the Society of Jesus had already established a global missionary enterprise, including an extensive network of communication amongst its missionaries and colleges. Amidst this intramissionary context, Sandoval wrote De instauranda Aethiopum salute—a treatise informed largely by these annual letters, personal correspondences, and interactions with the diverse multitudes of people who could be encountered in this early colonial cosmopolitan city—aimed at promoting the necessity of African salvation. From East Asia to Latin America, Jesuits followed the example of their apostolic missionary, Francis Xavier, to bring the Catholic faith to non-Christian peoples. Through De instauranda and the Catholic Church’s collected testimony for the sainthood of Claver, we see how Sandoval and Claver, like other Jesuits of the time, arose as innovative and unique missionaries, adapting to their context while attempting to model the Jesuit missionary spirit. In doing so, this article posits, the historical-religious context of the early modern Atlantic world and global Jesuit missions influenced Sandoval and Claver to accompany enslaved Africans as a missionary theology.

Highlights

Cardoza-OrlandiAs one of the earliest gentile populations to receive the Christian faith, the 1622 reconversion of the Ethiopic kingdom to Catholicism was declared by Alonso de Sandoval to be one of the most important Jesuit undertakings
Asia to Latin America, Jesuits followed the example of their apostolic missionary, Francis Xavier, to bring the Catholic faith to non-Christian peoples
Informed by the communications of other Jesuits across the globe, Sandoval wrote this appraisal of Jesuit missions in Ethiopia and elsewhere as part of a monumental treatise in which he fervently promoted the evangelization of Aethiopians across the Atlantic in the cosmopolitan port city of Cartagena de las Indias

Summary

Introduction

As one of the earliest gentile populations to receive the Christian faith, the 1622 reconversion of the Ethiopic kingdom to Catholicism was declared by Alonso de Sandoval to be one of the most important Jesuit undertakings. In Sandoval’s vision, this conversion restored the spiritual health of the Ethiopians in re-entering the proto-orthodox Catholic faith and would be symbolic of the restoration of the spiritual health of all Aethiopians (black peoples) into Catholicism.. Informed by the communications of other Jesuits across the globe, Sandoval wrote this appraisal of Jesuit missions in Ethiopia and elsewhere as part of a monumental treatise in which he fervently promoted the evangelization of Aethiopians across the Atlantic in the cosmopolitan port city of Cartagena de las Indias.. In Sandoval’s vision, this conversion restored the spiritual health of the Ethiopians in re-entering the proto-orthodox Catholic faith and would be symbolic of the restoration of the spiritual health of all Aethiopians (black peoples) into Catholicism. Informed by the communications of other Jesuits across the globe, Sandoval wrote this appraisal of Jesuit missions in Ethiopia and elsewhere as part of a monumental treatise in which he fervently promoted the evangelization of Aethiopians across the Atlantic in the cosmopolitan port city of Cartagena de las Indias. Published in 1627, De instauranda Aethiopum salute, or On

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