Subject Area
Religion, Theology/Religious Education, History
Abstract
Histories of Christianity in Latin America root its development in the encounters of Iberian Catholic missionaries with indigenous populations. Beginning with 16th century evangelization and jumping to 20th century liberation movements, the study of Christianity in Latin America remains enigmatic for those who seek to understand the early Atlantic encounter with enslaved Africans. “Slave Servants and Saved Souls: Jesuit Evangelization and the Development of Afro-Catholic Mission, 1605-1654” illuminates this gap through an exploration of the early 17th century Jesuit mission for enslaved Africans in the cosmopolitan port city Cartagena de las Indias, shedding light on the initial processes of Christianization of enslaved Africans—often ignored yet vital to the development of Latin American religion and society.
In 1605, Alonso de Sandoval, S.J. established the first American mission dedicated to the material well-being and spiritual salvation of enslaved Africans. Recording its purpose in a monumental 1627 treatise, De Instauranda Aethiopum Salute, Sandoval elucidates the first comprehensive argument justifying the incorporation of enslaved Africans into the Church. He reveals a network of communication with slaves, traders, Jesuits, travelers, and merchants throughout the Atlantic, through which he and his pupil Pedro Claver, S.J. appraised the conditions of enslavement and errors of evangelization. Proposing serious implications for the Church’s failure to minister to Blacks, they together developed a system of accompanying the enslaved in their “miserable state.” While unprecedented for its time, their singular focus on salvation raises questions about the function of race, slavery, class, and religion in the early colonial processes of evangelization. Utilizing Sandoval’s treatise, Jesuit reports, and the documented testimony of Claver’s life collected by the Catholic Church, this project refreshes our understanding of the Catholic inculturation of enslaved Africans, contending that these innovative missionary methods, while exacerbating particular inequalities, nonetheless created the first sustained space of African engagement with Catholicism in the Americas, marking a pivotal development in the history of Latin American missions.
Degree Date
Winter 12-20-2025
Document Type
Dissertation
Degree Name
Ph.D.
Department
Graduate Program in Religious Studies
Advisor
Carlos Cardoza Orlandi
Second Advisor
James K. Lee
Third Advisor
Rubén Sánchez-Godoy
Fourth Advisor
Peter Casarella
Number of Pages
190
Format
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 4.0 License
Recommended Citation
Santana, Jose, "Slave Servants and Saved Souls: Jesuit Evangelization and the Development of Afro-Catholic Mission, 1605-1654" (2025). Religious Studies Theses and Dissertations. 45.
https://scholar.smu.edu/religious_studies_etds/45
Included in
Catholic Studies Commons, History of Christianity Commons, History of Religion Commons, Latin American History Commons, Missions and World Christianity Commons
