The African Commission on Human and People’s Rights, meeting at its 73rd Ordinary Session held in Banjul, The Gambia, from 21 October 2022 – 9 November 2022 issued its Resolution on Africa’s Reparations Agenda and The Human Rights of Africans In the Diaspora and People of African Descent Worldwide - ACHPR/Res.543 (LXXIII) 2022 that called upon member states
to establish a committee to consult, seek the truth, and conceptualise reparations from Africa’s perspective, describe the harm occasioned by the tragedies of the past, establish a case for reparations (or Africa’s claim), and pursue justice for the trade and trafficking in enslaved Africans, colonialism and colonial crimes, and racial segregation and contribute to non-recurrence and reconciliation of the past; . . . Encourages civil society and academia in Africa, to embrace and pursue the task of conceptualising Africa’s reparations agenda with urgency and determination.
In 2017, Georg Olms Verlag published The Popes, the Catholic Church and the Transatlantic Enslavement of Black Africans 1418-1839 by Pius Onyemechi Adiele that successfully lays the foundation for Africa’s Reparation Claim through the details of who did what and when to initiatie what would become known as the Trans Atlantic Slave Trade. Siphiwe Baleka soon took up the work of campaigning to spread the new narrative of Africa’s Reparations Claim, presenting it most recently at the Accra Summit II: Centering Healing hosted by the GCRH, the Justice and Repair Initiative of the African Transitional Justice Legacy Fund (ATJLF) in partnership with the African Union. Below are the relevant excerpts from The Popes, the Catholic Church and the Transatlantic Enslavement of Black Africans 1418-1839 by Pius Onyemechi Adiele that lay the foundation for THE NEW NARRATIVE FOR THE AFRICAN UNION'S THEMED YEAR "REPARATIONS FOR AFRICANS AND PEOPLE OF AFRICAN DESCENT THROUGH REPARATIONS"
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III. The Catholic Church and Black African Enslavement ........………………………………………………………........... 213
1. Early Beginnings of Church’s Involvement in the Enslavement of Black Africans .................…................. 213
1.1 Brief Introduction ........................................................................………………………………………………………………........ 213
1.2 Strategical Background of the Church in the Enslavement of Black Africans ........…................................ 215
1.3 The Church and Non-Catholics in Medieval Times ...........………………………………………………………............ 215
1.4 The Theory of Medieval Papal Universal Authority ..................'………………………………………………………....... 218
1.5 Crusade seen as Mission to Re-Conquer Former Christian Lands ................................................................ 227
1.6 The Position of the Church on the Right of Infidels or Pagans to Possess Private Proper..................... 238
2. Foundational Papal Bulls in the Enslavement of Black Africans .……………………………………………………… 249
2.1 Brief Introduction ....................................................................………………………………………………………………............ 249
2.2 A Background Knowledge to these Papal Bulls .......................………………………………………………………....... 251
2.2.1 Portuguese “Royal Marriage” with the Papacy (Padroado Real).………………………………………………….. 251
2.2.2 Re-enactment of this Royal Relation with the Renaissance Papacy in the Conquest of West African Atlantic Coasts ....………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..... 258
2.2.3 The Conquest of Ceuta and the Papal Bulls of Crusade in Africa ……………………………………………….. 263
2.3 The Bull “Sane Charissimus” of Pope Martin V in 1418 ......…………………………………………………………........ 268
2.4 The Bull “Dudum Cum” of Pope Eugene IV in 1436 ..............…………………………………………………………....... 275
2.5 The Bull “Etsi Suscepti” of Pope Eugene IV in 1442 .............…………………………………………………………........ 280
2.6 The Bull “Illius Qui” of Pope Eugene IV in 1442 ....................……………………………………………………………...... 284
3. Papal Bulls Empowering Portugal to Reduce Black Africans to Slaves (1452-1455) ................................... 289
3.1 Prelude to this Empowering: The Royal Charter of 1443 .....……………………………………………………….......... 289
3.2 Prince Henry the Navigator and the Great Event of 1444/5 ...………………………………………………………..... 295
3.3 Pope Nicholas V and his Approval of the Atlantic Enslavement of Black Africans................................... 305
3.4 The Bull “Dum Diversas” of Pope Nicholas V in 1452 ....…………………………………………………………............. 309
3.4.1 Brief Introduction ......................................................................…………………………………………………………….......... 309
3.4.2 The Bull “Dum Diversas” and Enslavement of Black Africans……………………………………………………..... 311
3.5 The Bull “Romanus Pontifex” of Pope Nicholas V in 1454 ......…………………………………………………………... 316
3.5.1 Brief Introduction .........................................................................……………………………………………………………....... 316
3.5.2 The Bull “Romanus Pontifex” and the Transatlantic Enslavement of Black Africans............................ 318
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“Also the historian Thomas Hugh recorded that: “The king of Portugal made two million reis in 1506 from the slave trade, from taxes and duties paid on each slave.”10
Other motives given above by Azurara for this conquest and discovery of West Africa such as the Crusade against Islam and the conversion of the pagans of West Africa into the Christian religion were secondary and only provided the moral support for the conquest-thirsty maritime Portuguese Prince and his team of Conquistadors for the military invasion of West Africa. And to enable him justify his intentions, he turned to the popes for support of his discovery and the extension of the Christian faith to the lands he was about to discover in the course of his conquest and explorations. And it was for this purpose that he sought and secured the permission of pope Eugene IV in 1443, who granted him the authority and the right of ownership over all the lands and places discovered along the West Atlantic Coast of Africa since the capture and fall of the North African city of Ceuta in 1415.144 According to the historian John Ure, with the papal Bull of 1443: “Pope Eugene IV granted Prince Henry's requests. The pope was probably glad enough to hear of the prospects of new conquests for Christianity at a time when the Eastern fringes of Christendom were under such pressure from the Ottoman Turks.”145 Continuing, John Ure affirmed that pope Eugene IV additionally granted Prince Henry: “Indulgences for the Church of Santa Maria da Africa which the latter had founded in Ceuta in 1418. Thus no doubts consciously consolidating the Church's hold on that city at a moment when its surrender might still come under contemplation.”146 All the rights and privileges granted to Prince Henry the Navigator and the Royal Crown in Portugal by pope Eugene IV were confirmed by his predecessors especially pope Nicholas V in 1452 and 1454 respectively.147 This shows the relevance of the papal Bull of 1443 as a foundational papal Bull in the history of the establishment of the Atlantic slave trade. It sets in motion all the powers both temporal and spiritual which the Crown of Portugal enjoyed in its history in West Africa. These powers were consolidated by pope Nicholas V (1447- 1455) who in his two Bulls “Dum Diversas” of 1452 and “Romanus Pontifex” 148 of January 8, 1454 granted to Prince Henry among other things: the right to conquer as well as to reduce to the status of slaves the native Africans living South of Cape Bojador. Empowered by the authority of these papal Bulls as well as the Bulls of other popes issued before it, Prince Henry the Navigator gathered together geographers, astronomers and all those, who were experienced in the art of seafaring and explorations to embark on this mission.149 They met for the first time in Algarve in 1421, where they outlined their plans on how best to carry out their voyage on the West African coast of Guinea. In their deliberations and wider consultations, it was discovered that the very source of the African gold - Rio de Oro (the gold river) was precisely unknown, but it was believed that it came from the region that lay beyond the Sahara which could easily be reached by sea routes without even going through the traditional Saharan routes, which was at this time operated and controlled by the Arab Muslim merchants. From 1418 onwards, Prince Henry the Navigator began sending his Caravels and captains into the Atlantic to round up the Cape which had baffled all his Caravels due to its powerful and dangerous currents. This fact was echoed by the historian G. R. Crone when he said: “It is not surprising that the fifteenth century witnessed many determined efforts by sea and land routes to discover whence the gold came.”15
In 1443 Prince Henry the Navigator was given in the Royal Charter of 1443 the right of monopoly control over the entire trade in West African Atlantic and he exercised this role from his residence in Sagres in the Algarve until his death in 1460. He appointed the chief Treasurer of his Villa as the Official in-charge of fitting out his ships for the Guinea trade. This “Official was also responsible for receiving the ships on return to Portugal loaded with Moors, gold, silver etc.”161 In accordance with this Royal Charter of 1443, all other ships going to West African Atlantic must obtain authorization directly from Prince Henry. According to the historian M. Saunders: “This authorization usually had to be bought from the Royal or princely monopolists, who in addition levied special duties and imposts on all goods brought back from Africa.”162
In 1444, the company “Lancarote de Freitas was founded in the Portuguese haven called Lagos. It was precisely founded to carry on Portuguese enterprise in West Africa. It obtained license for its operations in the Atlantic trade directly from the Royal Prince Henry the Navigator. Shareholders of this company were the members of the military Order of Christ163 which financed the previous expeditions made by Prince Henry the Navigator. The first ship sent by this company on the Atlantic Coasts of Africa carried among other things 235 Black Africans captured and forcefully taken into Portugal as slaves.164 It landed on the Lagos island of Portugal on the 6th day of August 1444. With this huge success, Basil Davidson is of the opinion that: “The overseas slave trade may really be said to have begun.” 165
There were four great military Orders in the history of the Church in Portugal in the Middle Ages. These are: The military Order of St. John, the military Order of Santiago, the military Order of Aviz and lastly the military Order of Christ. The “Military Order of Christ” was a knightly Association founded in Portugal to carry out Crusades against the militant Islamic religion in both Portugal and Spain. This Order of Christ was in the words of John Ure: “A Portuguese derivative of the Knights Templar to whom had fallen the task in the preceding two centuries of keeping open the routes to the Holy Land and in effect, of forming the storm troops of Christendom.” See: Ure, Prince Henry The Navigator, p. 33. The father of Prince Henry the Navigator, king John I, was the first Grandmaster of this Order. This post was later transferred to Prince Henry the Navigator who held this post for a long period of time. And with the help of the heavy financial power at the disposal of this Order, Prince Henry was able to carry out his military expeditions and explorations in Africa. And in order to compensate this Order of Christ for its huge expenses incurred in the financing of the Crusades and expeditions in West Africa, Prince Henry the Navigator decreed that a “standard levy on the value of all Goods and slaves imported from Guinea or from the Atlantic Islands should be payable to the Order's treasury.” See, Russell, Prince Henry “The Navigator,” p. 77. The referred payment herein is the payment of “Vintena Tax” to the Order of Christ which the Prince approved for this Order on December 28, 1458. In this approval, the Prince said among other things: “That the said Order should receive One Twentieth of all merchandise from Guinea, slaves, gold and all other articles, the rest of the profit to fall to the Prince's successor in this kingdom of Seas.” Cf. Beazley, Prince Henry The Navigator, p. 304.]
The Portuguese led by Dinis Dias carried on their expedition further down to the Senegalese coast in 1444. On reaching this coast, they found the area something of their long expected promised land, with cultivated fields and nice tropical savannah. They explored deeper into the interiors of Senegal and landed in the island of Gorée - the present day Dakar, which later on became an important Portuguese slave trading centre during the Transatlantic slave trade. When Dias and his men attempted to catch the natives of this island as slaves by their usual method of razzias, the inhabitants of Goreé island put up a strong resistance against them. Wooden boats and canoes powered by paddles were constructed by the inhabitants of Goreé to ward off the incursions of the Portuguese. It was during one of their encounters that Prince Henry’s chieftain Antão Goncalves, who began this razzia and the discovery of the West Atlantic Coast of Guinea lost his life. Many of the Portuguese were seized and killed, including Nuno Tristão in 1448. When the Portuguese could no longer contend with such a resistance, they learnt to behave themselves by negotiating with some Moorish Africans to buy slaves from them. These Muslims were the Tuaregs known for their method of catching slaves by raids. It was these Muslims, who served as Middlemen for the Arab Muslim slave merchants during the Mediterranean slave trade. With their help, Portugal began to organise slave trading in Africa. To serve this purpose well, a trading centre was located on the island of Arguin in 1448. It was on this island that the Portuguese constructed a castle and a trading post in 1461 which according to the historian Thomas Hugh “was the most important European gateway into the Western Sahara.”168 In order to avoid the loss of his most valued explorers, Prince Henry the Navigator decided to make a treaty with the local chiefs of Senegal in 1448. His team of negotiators was led by Diogo Gomes, who came to Goreé with three caravans loaded with gift items. These served as gifts to pacify the native Africans of this Island and to assure them that they have not come to harass them as it was the case before, but rather to do a bilateral trade business with them. Some African chiefs were also offered to make a visit to Portugal by way of consolidating trade relations with them. With this treaty of 1448, the Portuguese were allowed to settle in Senegal. And from their settlement, they were able to reach down to Gambia in the same year.
Prince Henry the Navigator sent the last expedition into West Africa before his death to explore the island of Sierra Leone. But he died in 1460 before he could hear of the promising discovery made in this place. After his death, the onus of continuing the administration of the Portuguese large enterprise and colonies in Africa fell into the hands of his nephew and his adoptive son Infante Fernando. Unfortunately, the young Fernando had no interest to continue this enterprise. His brother king Alfonso V (*1432, reigned 1438-1481) of Portugal showed also no interest in this regard. However, king Alfonso V assigned this duty to a popular entrepreneur of Lisbon called Fernão Gomes in 1469, who was mandated to be making annual returns to the amount of 200,000 reis to the Royal Crown in Portugal and the mandate to discover yearly new territories in Africa for the king of Portugal.169 His captains sailed to the southern part of Sierra Leone and arrived in Liberia, Ivory Coast and the Gold Coast of Ghana between 1460 and 1462. Later they sailed further down west of Ghana and landed to the famous “slave coast” of Dahomey – the present day Republic of Benin and then to the Bight of Benin and Biafra in the southern part of Nigeria.
In 1470, the island of São Tomé was discovered. This island later became a very important centre of trade and slave depot for the Portuguese, from which millions of Black Africans were shipped to the Portuguese Brazilian colony and into the Spanish colonies in the New World. And in 1471 the island of Fernando Po located at the present day Equatorial Guinea was founded. It was named after the man who discovered it Fernão do Po. In the 1480s, Portugal furthered its discovery ambitions during the reign of king John II. He encouraged his trusted navigator and explorer Diogo Cão (1452-1486) to explore further down to the southernmost part of the West African Atlantic Coast. With the navigating experience of Diogo Cão, he was able to sail down to the Congo Rivers and discovered in 1483 the kingdoms of Kongo and Angola, and thereby opened for the Portuguese the gates of the Central Africa which later became a rich source of slave supply to the Portuguese Brazilian colony and to the Spanish colonies in the New World. Also the majority of the slaves from the Kongo and Angola were used by the Portuguese to populate the sparsely populated islands of São Tome and Principe as they did also in the West Atlantic islands of Madeira, Azores and the Cape Verde islands in the 1450s. These slaves sent to São Tome were used to cultivate the Portuguese sugar-cane and other agricultural plantations, whose products were brought home and sold throughout Europe. The huge profit accruing from the Portuguese sugar and other agricultural productions in São Tome as well as the riches of the African trade under the monopoly of Portugal became the envy of other European nations. That is why, the early stage of this trade witnessed the participation of merchants from both Spain and England, who were at this period doing secret business in Africa. Many licenses to trade on the Coast of Guinea were also given to the captains from Spain in the 1470s, who carried a good number of slaves from the coast of Guinea into Seville and Valencia. In 1481, English merchants showed interest in the trade on African products such as gold, ivory and pepper but Portugal refused to give licenses to them. That notwithstanding, the English captains and other sea Pirates from Holland continued to trade secretly and illegally in Africa. In order to hold onto their monopoly of trade in Africa, the new king of Portugal king João II commissioned Diogo de Azambuja (1432-1518)170 and his team of engineers and architects to construct the famous Portuguese fortress in Elmina - Ghana in 1481. This was the first meaningful European Castle in tropical West Africa. Its purpose was to protect Portuguese interests in West Africa against foreign interlopers from both Spain, England, Holland and other European nations that might in future join the trade on the African slaves and gold. It provided also the store rooms for slaves before their transportation into Europe and to the Spanish Americas as well as provided security to the Portuguese ships and Naval Fleets. With this fortress on ground, Portugal strongly safeguarded its hold on the control of the African trade on both gold, silver, ivory, pepper and slaves by issuing a set of laws in 1482 to control the flow of African products into other European markets. Parts of these laws stated that all ships carrying African goods and slaves must first and foremost land into Portugal before they disembark to other places such as Seville, Spain, Valencia etc. All ships sailing down to Africa must also register in Lisbon. These rules were put in place in order to ensure that: licences to trade in Africa were issued from Lisbon that slaves reached the approved markets meant for them and that duty was paid for any trade transactions with Africans by interlopers. This set of rules continued to safeguard Portuguese enterprise in Africa mid-way when the Transatlantic slave trade came into full swing after the discovery of the Spanish New World by Christopher Columbus.
At this juncture however, one is wont to ask this pertinent question: How did Black Africans come into the scene of the discoveries made outside of their Black Continent in the New World, which did not concern them at all? What could have informed the choice of the Black Africans to replace the native Brazilians and Indians of the West Indies as made by the Portuguese as well as the Spanish Caribbean colonists in the cultivation of agricultural plantations and sugar production in their various colonies in the New World? On the superficial level, many have attempted to answer this question without first and foremost pausing to think deeply on the main reason behind this decision. And on the long run, they ended up with hasty and frivolous answers, which purported to mean that Black Africans were chosen because, they knew the art of farming and were used to hard work and suffering. 175 Following this opinion, a German called Sömmering in one of his reports on the “Guinea Coast” claimed that Black Africans were chosen as slaves of the Caribbean sugar and other agricultural plantations because, they are less-sensible to pains and more adapted to be slaves of other peoples than other races of men in the world. This view was made when he wrote as follows: “The people there are more insensible than others towards pain and natural evils, as well as towards injurious and unjust treatment. In short, there are none so well adapted to be the slaves of others, and who therefore, have been armed with so much passive obedience.”176 And very akin to this opinion was the view recorded by the historian Peter Russell when he observed that: “As domestic servants, Blacks in those early days were seen in Europe as exotic household luxuries for the rich.”177
The genuine reasons that appeal to human reason for the choice of Black Africans as victims of the Transatlantic slavery as one can see from the suggestions made by Peter Russell and Philip Curtin above therefore point to the fact of their race and their skin color. They were chosen as slaves by reason of their skin color and this points to the racial character of this Transatlantic slave trade.
Over and above all these, the pressure which the demand on sugar exerted on the plantations owners and colonialists cannot be overemphasized. It was as a result of the huge profit and the high demand for both Brazilian and Caribbean sugar products in both Europe and America that opened up the floodgate of enslavement of the Black Africans in the New World, who were forcefully brought into plantation slavery for the purpose of cultivating the sugar-cane plantations whose harsh and hard labouring conditions went beyond the limit of human endurance for both the native Indian population and those of the white indentured servants forced to work on these plantations before the arrival of Black Africans.
III. The Catholic Church and Black African Enslavement
1.3 The Church and Non Catholics in Medieval Times
A very basic question with which the Church really concerned herself in the medieval period was the question of the fate of non-Christians at the end of times. It is a question that really touches on the very goal of the Church namely - salvation. The question of salvation was one, which preoccupied every true and genuine medieval Christian. Membership of the Church was seen as a “conditio sine qua non” for salvation. The Church's hierarchy spoke plainly in her teaching about those who will be saved at the end of the time. She had always held, taught and maintained the famous maxim that says: “Extra Ecclesiam nulla salus (outside of the Church, there is no salvation).”5 This maxim was coined by St. Cyprian of Carthage (+14.9.258) and is contained in his letter titled “Ad Jubajanum de haereticis baptizandis.”
April 2000 Edition of the “New African” Magazine.1 In her April 2000 edition, this magazine alleged inter alia, that the Catholic Church did not only approve of the slave trade but also benefited from it. According to this publication of the New African magazine:
The Church benefited as much from slavery as the monarchs, merchants and governments of Europe. Various papal Bulls from 1447 onwards approved and encouraged slavery. When the Portuguese Prince Henry the Navigator sought the approval for his trade in Africans in the early 1440s, pope Eugene IV declared that whoever should participate in it would completely get his sins forgiven.2
Also such accusation of involvement and complicity is to be seen in the litigations made by Bob Brown, a civil rights activist and co-founder of the Illinois Black Panther Party in the United States of America. In what I might describe as a “frenzy manner,” Brown boldly accused the Vatican of enslavement. This accusation is contained in his 200-page Lawsuit filed in the Federal Lawsuit in Chicago which partly reads:
The Vatican knows that slavery was and is illegal and the Vatican will come to the court house and stand before God and the Judge and tell us so. The pope must come and say the truth...He must come and tell us why certain Catholic forces disobeyed Catholic laws, enslaved us and became unjustly enriched upon us. He must open the Vatican library and disclose the Files.3
This kind of teaching ran through the whole life and breath of the medieval Catholic Church like a red thread as one can read from the writings of the popes and the professions of faith by the various Councils of the Church until the period of the Vatican Council II. It formed the backbone of the very mentality with which the medieval Catholic Church understood non-Christians and served as the prism through which she viewed and treated non-European people especially the Black Africans. In other words, all peoples and Nations, who at this time were not Christians, were classified as enemies of the Church destined for damnation in hell fire. And to save them from such damnation, they have to be brought into the fold of the Catholic Church. To achieve this goal, the Church most often encouraged the use of brute force and subjection. Most of the popes of the late medieval period used this method against the so-called “pagan” nations of the world. This was a decisive factor that informed the writings of the various papal Bulls that are connected with the beginnings of the internationally acclaimed racial slavery in history. The only wrongdoing committed by these so-called “pagans” found in the West African Atlantic Coasts of Africa was that they were not Christians and therefore it was justified to make wars against them and subject them to enslavement as pronounced by the renaissance popes as we shall later see in the next chapter of this work.
1.4 The Theory of Medieval Papal Universal Authority
Closely related to the Church's attitude towards non-believers in the medieval Christianity was her concept of papal universal authority. Historians have always considered medieval Europe as one that was strongly dominated by the power struggle between the two acknowledged medieval authorities - Sacerdotium and Imperium, emperor and pope. Both powers traced their origin from the same source - God. And the struggle among them consisted chiefly in the question, which office among the two powers has the supreme authority to make rules that should guide the lives of the Christians of the medieval “societas Christiana” (Christian world)? Put in another way, the question was asked: Who is the supreme judge and universal law-giver of the then known Christian world, the pope or the emperor? Like one will expect, the medieval canonists, popes and papalists gave as answer to this question, that the sacerdotal (auctoritas sacrata Pontificum) authority is superior to the temporal power (regalis potestas) just in the same manner that the soul is superior to the body, spirit to matter. And as such the Supreme Pontiff has the supreme juridical authority to rule the Christian world including the emperor and kings. This answer was reflected in the teachings of pope Gelasius I (date of birth unknown, pontificate 492-496) in 494 to settle a conflict that erupted between him and the Byzantine emperor Anastasios I (*430, ruled 491-518).
The aim of this medieval papal universal authority consisted in the establishment of a universal monarchy with the pope as a world emperor. And this is to be established within the ambient of a universally ecclesiastical vision, where juridical authority and power rested in the hand of one and only man - the pope. At the basis of this concept is the Pauline theology of the Church as a body of Christ with many parts, where the pope is considered to be its very visible head. The Church conceived in this light therefore, means that her members are directly under the authority and care of the pope, who in his fullness of power has the authority to integrate them to this body or to cut them off from it. In such a “hierocratic system,” the pope possessed a direct political and spiritual authority over all men and their affairs irrespective of religion, place and time. Michael Wilks traces this hierocratic conception of papal supreme universal authority as an idea, whose origin is to be traced back to the word “Ecclesia.” According to this author, the term Ecclesia:
stands for the corporate union of the whole Christian people into one body, the 'unum corpus' of the Pauline Epistles. It is a society resting upon and oriented by the tenets of the Christian Faith. But it is not merely a spiritual unity; it is just as much a civil society, a universal body politics. For this reason, it is commonly described as a city or kingdom. In short, it is a Christianized version of the universal empire of the Romans.14
The establishment of this universal ecclesiastical empire dominated the pontificates of the major powerful and very influential medieval popes such as Gregory VII (*1028, pontificate 1073-1085), Urban II (*1035, pontificate 1088-1099), Alexander III (*1105, pontificate 1159-1181), Innocent III (*1161, pontificate 1198-1216), Gregory IX (*1170, pontificate 1227-1241), Innocent IV (*1195, pontificate 1243-1254) and Boniface VIII (*1235, pontificate 1294- 1303). That means, from the early eleventh century and up to the early beginnings of the fourteenth century, this hierocratic concept of jurisdiction preoccupied the papacy and through the pursuit of this aim, the office of the pope attained the heights of its glorious and worldwide influence. All these popes were famous intellectuals, canonists and lawyers and were united with this single papal universally authoritative view of the Church.
Operating from a papal Office adorned with this kind of hierocratic robe, it was not surprising to anyone then that pope Innocent III once described himself as: “Lower than God but higher than men.”26 In the same light, he referred to the papal Office with the following words: “The Roman Pontiff was not the vicar of man but the vicar of God on earth.”27 Continuing, he said: “Christ left to Peter not only the universal Church, but the whole world to govern.”28 “He can do and say whatever he pleases, in all and everything.”29 That would imply that even though, he is a mortal being, he is not in any way answerable to any mortal. This means in the language of the canonist Giles of Rome, that the pope in his Office and power has “plenitudine potestatis” as successor and heir of St. Peter. In his view: “Such papal power is one, untrammelled by any earthly constraint from which all lesser powers are derived like streams from a source.”30 In such plenitude of powers, the pope in the teaching of medieval canonists is therefore, the master of the whole world, Christian and non Christian world put together. Using this position, pope Innocent IV maintained in his “Commentary on Decretales” as follows: “We believe that the pope as the vicar of Christ on earth has power not only over all Christians, but also over all unbelievers just as Christ had power over all humans.”31 This assertion of the pope has its foundation in the preaching of Christ as contained in the Gospel of St. John, where He said: “There are other sheep which belong to me that are not in this sheepfold. I must bring them too, they will listen to my voice and they will become one flock with one shepherd” (John 10:16). Interpreting this saying of Christ, Innocent IV further said: “All men, faithful and infidels alike are through their creation the sheep of Christ.”32 And as such are under the command and authority of the Vicar of Christ. The force of this claim served in the hands of the fifteenth century popes as justification for sanctioning the use of force by means of a religious war against the Saracens of Northern Africa and the enslavement of non Christians of Black African origin in the period of the Transatlantic slave trade. The attitude and actions of the popes of the aforesaid century towards the Black Africans depended heavily on this tradition of universal authority even in the territories located outside of the anbient of the Western Christendom. But the greatest ecclesiastical event in history where this claim was manifested was in the time of the Crusades which was used to expand this worldwide authority of the popes. Assenting to this fact, Walter Ullmann, a jurist and professor of medieval history at the University of Leeds maintained that: “The idea of Crusades was born by the papal office as a means of demonstrating papal dominion over the entire known universe. The Crusades were considered only as a stepping stone in the direction of the eventual establishment of a full fledged world government.”
On the part of the Portuguese kings on the other hand, who began this enslavement in the early beginnings of the fifteenth century, this concept gave them a convincing assurance, that they were backed up by this unchallengeable authority of the popes, upon which they heavily relied in establishing the Transatlantic slave trade.
1.5 Crusade seen as Mission to Re-conquer Former Christian Lands
The Crusade was a practical demonstration of the worldwide authority and dominion of the medieval papacy as articulated above. It was another tradition of the Church, which found much expression in the build-up to the establishment of the Transatlantic slave trade in the fifteenth century. Etymologically, the word Crusade comes from the Medieval Latin word “cruciare” which means, “to mark with a cross.”35 By way of definition, Crusade can be defined as any of the series of the religiously military campaigns carried out by the Christian forces of Western Europe from the eleventh to the thirteenth century mainly to re-capture the Holy Land from the hands of the Muslims. For Jonathan Riley-Smith, to crusade means: “to engage in a war that was both holy, because it was believed to be waged on God's behalf, and penitential, because those taking part in it considered themselves to be performing an act of penance.”3
Saracens were depicted as those who have no sense of the sacred in the things and places held sacrosanct by Christians. Concerning such matters, the letter reads: “Sacrilege (the conversion of Churches into stables and Brothels) was combined with sexual violence (the gang-rape of mothers in front of their daughters and vice versa) and unnatural vice (sodomising of captured men, including a bishop).”56 And in a work edited by Joseph Stevenson, the Saracens were even denied the right of being viewed as humans and as such were considered as those who have no human souls in need of redemption. In this work, it was asserted that the Muslim Turks: “Were not fellow humans whose souls might be saved, but irredeemable agents of the Devil. It was at best to despatch them as soon as possible to the burning and sulphurous lake of hell and perpetual damnation.”57 In such a negative portrayal of peoples of nonChristian religions, even Mohammed, the founder of Islamic religion was not spared by these Christian stereotypes. He was depicted as being “a seducer who fashioned his great heresy around the embrace of life's easy options - carnality instead of spirituality, licentiousness instead of abstinence.”5
Unfortunately, these negative portrayals of the Saracens in the preaching of the first Crusade as we shall later see, were unmistakably transferred over to the pagan natives of West Africa in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, when the Portuguese began their conquest of Africa and the discovery of the Western Atlantic Coasts of Africa. In the Bulls of Crusades given to the Portuguese kings by the popes of the aforesaid centuries, the papacy and the Portuguese Christian kings and their Conquistadors did not make any difference between the pagans of West Africa who were non-Muslims and the actual Muslims of North Africa. Instead, the papacy and the Portuguese Crown classified them as one and the same enemy of the Christian Name to be handled in the same manner, and against whom it was justified not only to make wars with but also to be driven into perpetual enslavement as well as to be dispossessed of their lands and other possessions.
Be that as it may, all these depictions of the Saracens and later on of the Black African natives of West Africa as articulated in section two above, were geared towards making them appear to be demons in the eyes of the Christian Crusaders so that they would be held and treated as arch-enemies of the Christian religion, who must be resisted with every military force in order to prevent them from unleashing their evil acts on Christians. Put in other words, they were meant to inculcate in the minds of the Crusaders that fighting the Saracens was not only a just war fought in God's Name, but also a defensive and restorative war.
In the opinion of the German historian and author Klaus Hebers the Crusades became a tradition that transported the authority of the Latin Church's hierarchy to the Christians living in the East and subjected them to the primacy of the Roman Pontiff.62 This same advantage, which the Crusades to the Holy Land brought to the medieval papacy, will be repeated in the Crusades launched in the Iberian Peninsula and in West Africa in the twelfth and the fifteenth centuries respectively. It went into the annals of history as a tradition, whose effect did not only adversely affect the followers of Islamic religion but also dangerously affected the lives and dignity of the then pagan peoples of the non-Muslim territories of West Africa, a tradition that declared them infidels, enemies of the Christian faith, children of the Devil that should be hated, resented, fought against and be enslaved in perpetuity, thus leading to their subjection and enslavement during the Transatlantic slave trade.
The consideration about to be made herein will put this work in a better footing to determine the brain behind the papacy's declaration of Crusades against the natives of West Africa in the wake of the Portuguese quest for economic aggrandizement and territorial expansion of their kingdom in the fifteenth century, a quest that led to the establishment of the Transatlantic slave trade and the consequent enslavement of Black Africans in the manner as we saw in section one of this work.
The question of whether the pope has any right to declare a military campaign in non-Christian territories and over their rights to properties or not, really caused a hair-splitting problem to the papacy of the most influential medieval pope Innocent III, who in his pontificate declared not less than three Crusades aimed at regaining territories that formerly belonged to the Western Christian world. Medieval canonists on their own part were not left out in the hairsplitting nature of this question. The discussion which this question raised among them was a type that left them divided into two opposing camps. This made the famous pope Innocent III (though a canonist and lawyer himself) to turn to the renowned medieval canonist and lawyer Sinibaldo Fieschi - the later pope Innocent IV for consultations on how best to go with such a problem. Both the two camps of canonists accepted a common scriptural view that says: “The world and all that is in it belong to the Lord, the earth and all who live on it are His” (Psalm 24:1). From this common ground both camps agreed that the pope being the vicarius Christi on earth has the power of interference not only over all Christians but also over all infidels even in non-Christian territories 64 and as such can use military force to invade them and dispossess them of their properties. But the manner of exercising this power of the Roman Pontiff was differently interpreted by both camps.
The other camp of canonists represented by another medieval “heavy weight” canonist, jurist and the cardinal archbishop of Ostia Henry of Segusio popularly known among Church historians as Hostiensis (1200-1271) interpreted the power of the Vicar of Christ over non-Christians as a right which he possesses not only in principle (de jure) but also in fact (de facto). That means, that the pope in carrying out his authority as the Vicar of Christ on earth is not in any way restricted by place or time. In other words, the pope has the authority to declare war on infidels and pagan territories and can order their inhabitants to be dispossessed of their lands and personal belongings. Hostiensis and other canonists in his camp argued that the coming of Christ into the world has deprived infidels and pagans of their rights to possessions, dominion and rulership over themselves, and that these rights have been handed over to the faithful in Christ.66 Put in another way, it is the onus of the faithful in Christ to rule over infidels and pagans even in their own very lands. This transfer of the rights of infidels and pagans to the Christian faithful was based on the dignity of Christ, who was not only a priest but also a king, and that these same sacerdotal and kingly powers of Christ were handed over to the pope as Vicar of Christ on earth.67 And based on this reason therefore, Hostiensis maintained that: “All pagans should be subjected to the faithful.”68 Even his fellow Church-man cardinal Godffredus de Trano (1200-1245)69 went as far as stating that: “It seems so that the Church had given general authority to Catholics to exterminate heretics and unbelievers and to deprive them of their dominion.”
[A]n Italian Dominican monk Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) . . . St. Thomas Aquinas, whose ideas immensely influenced the theological and philosophical discussions of medieval Christianity answered this question with the distinction he made between Muslims and non-believers in Christ (pagans and Jews). According to him, the Muslims are unbelievers and should be treated as enemies of Christ based on the fact that they have heard the laws and teachings of Christ but refused to accept them. They are therefore responsible for their ignorance of the teachings of Christ. Consequent upon this fact, it was justified to make wars against them and to dispossess them of their land and properties as enemies of Christ. Expressing this view, Aquinas wrote: “The refusal of the Saracens to believe in Christ is a blameable fault, since they have already heard of the laws and teachings of Christ, and are therefore the declared enemies of the Christian religion.“72 On the part of pagans, Aquinas followed in the footsteps of pope Innocent IV on this matter in the sense that he argued that other unbelievers in Christ such as pagans should not be regarded as enemies of Christ because, their lack of knowledge of the teachings and laws of Christ is not of their own making. Consequently, the pope does not have the power to deprive them of their right to dominion and to private possessions.
In the light of this, Aquinas ruled out the right of the popes to declare wars against them. This position was stated in an unmistakable term when he asserted as follows: Among unbelievers there are some who have never received the faith, such as the heathens and the Jews: and these are by no means to be compelled to the faith, in order that they may believe, because to believe depends on the will. The lack of faith is nevertheless not sinful provided that it is a product of a lack of knowledge, and in this case, it is not justified to make wars against them.7
The third group of unbelievers are the pagans who lived in areas unknown to the Christian kings and who were neither subjects of the Christian kings nor under the Roman Empire, but were only discovered by Christians like in the case of the pagans of West African Atlantic. For cardinal Cajetan, this last group of unbelievers are neither subjects of the Christian kings in principle (de jure) nor de facto. For him therefore, there is no just ground for making wars against such people in the name of conversion or mission. They could only be converted via peaceful means and not by means of war. In other words, the pope has no authority to legislate the use of war against them.75
John Whyclif (1330-1384), who together with the Waldensians77 taught and propagated the tenet that Grace is a necessary condition for a title of dominion and private property. And this being the case, they held the view that pagans and other unbelievers in the Christian religion who are not in possession of the Christian Grace have no rights to dominion and possessions based on the one and only reason that they are barbarians and non Christians. Believing firmly in the medieval Christian teaching which held that pagans, who worship idols lived in mortal sins and as such will be condemned to hell fire, Wyclif taught that anyone, who is in possession of a mortal sin has no right to dominion. This teaching is made clear when he wrote: “No one is a civil owner, while he is in mortal sin.”
The wrangling which this problem brought about in the circle of thirteenth century canonists did not however come to an end. Instead, it proceeded unto the sixteenth century as the above testifies. Despite the clear position of the scholars on the camp of Innocent IV and St. Thomas Aquinas on this matter under discussion, there were still evidences of the emergence of hard-liner canonists and papalists, who could not welcome any idea that will lessen the supreme power of the Roman Pontiff over all mankind both in spiritual and temporal matters. Among such papal loyalists and canonists are: Giles of Rome, Guilelmus de Amidanis, Andreas de Perusio, Petrus Bertrandi etc. All these influential canonists of the fourteenth century maintained an extreme position on this subject in the sense that they made a departure from the positions of both pope Innocent IV and St. Thomas Aquinas on this issue and embraced the position of Hostiensis and the men of his school of thought, who gave the Church under the headship of the pope the undeniable and unrestricted right to invade non-Christian territories as well as to dispossess those living in them of all their belongings. The chief protagonist of these hard-liner canonists was Giles of Rome (1243-1316),85 who was given the title “Doctor Fundatissimus” (the best-grounded teacher) by pope Benedict XIV (*1675, pontificate 1740- 1758).
And in the same tone, Cardinal Bertrandi upheld that: “The pope was the rightful and lawful owner of the whole world.”92 The implication of this statement is that all pagans and unbelievers who live in their own territories and own properties in them are illegal occupants and possessors of such territories and belongings, and as a result of this, they are only at the mercy of the pope, who can order them to be deprived of their possessions. In other words, even the right to live in their own territories was seen as a privilege which could be taken away from them at any given point in time.
It was this very position that dominated the entire fourteenth century medieval Christian attitude towards pagans and other unbelievers in the Christian religion. And this position was adopted by the fifteenth century papacy as an official Catholic Church tradition upon which matters relating to pagans of West Africa were handled in the wake of the Portuguese quest for discovery and expedition in the West African Atlantic. It was this very tradition that gave the Christian kings of Portugal and Spain the impetus to penetrate into Muslim and pagan territories in Africa and in the “New World,” made wars on the peoples, dispossessed them of their lands and properties and finally turned to the popes for authority and official recognition of the conquered territories as belonging to them and their kingdoms. According to Milhou Alain, it was as a result of this that: “The privileges which were granted to the Mudejares in Spain or to the vassal kingdom of Granada were only tolerated. And due to the fact that the unbelievers were not accorded any rights, it was then lawful for the Christian kings to invade and conquer their territories and then turned to the pope for confirmation of their conquests.” 93
In summa, the various traditions of the Church treated in this chapter are the major practices of the medieval Christian Church which characterised the attitude of the medieval Christians and papacy towards non-members of the Catholic Church. They were the products of the medieval papacy's quest for control over all mankind - Christians and non-Christians alike. It was this attitude that made the popes to wrest salvation into their very hands such that only those loyal to them will attain salvation and others will perish. It was this same attitude that sanctioned the shedding of human blood as manifested in the Crusades as a just act. It was this attitude that informed the use of military force to rob pagans and other unbelievers of their right to both landed and non-landed properties as well as their right to self-rule. The historical outcome of this attitude with an international dimension was the establishment of Transatlantic slave trade, which totally changed the normal course of events in the world and drastically affected millions of lives of men, women and children of Black African origin. It was therefore the aforesaid traditions of the Catholic Church that paved the way for this trade on humans. And the Church's very role in this slave trade traces its root first and foremost back to her justification of slavery based on the Aristotelian cum thomistic ideas of slavery as well as to these traditions as discussed above. And these medieval traditions of the Church found their concrete implementation in the hands of the renaissance popes in the issuing of the papal Bulls to the Portuguese Crown in support for its quest for economic and territorial expansion in Africa under the cover of religious Crusades in the fifteenth and the sixteenth centuries which led to the legitimization of the enslavement of Black Africans as human goods needed for the propagation and success of this slave trade. With the papal authority contained in these Bulls, the Church gave away Africa to the king of Portugal and left her at the mercy of the inhuman hearts of the Portuguese Conquistadors and slavers. And by so doing, Africa became a playground, where the slave merchants of Portugal, Spain, Holland, France, Britain and other enslaving nations of Europe displayed their unbridled greed for gold and Black slaves. The proof of this papal legitimization of this slave trade and the justification of the enslavement of Black Africans during the operations of this slave trade will form the major subject of consideration in the next chapter of this work.
2. Foundational Papal Bulls in the Enslavement of Black Africans (1418-1447)
2.1 Brief Introduction
In chapter one of our consideration of the role which the Church played in the enslavement of Black Africans, we discovered that from the eleventh century up till the fifteenth century, the central traditional teaching of the medieval papacy was that the pope as “Vicarius Dei” has a universal authority over all mankind, Christians and non-Christians alike. And this was interpreted by a group of canonists headed by cardinal Hostiensis and Archbishop Giles of Rome to practically mean that the pope has unrestricted authority even in nonChristian territories. This unrestricted papal authority gave the pope the right to declare a Crusade against pagans and infidels even in their own territories and to deprive them of all their possessions irrespective of whether such territories were once under the dominion of the Christendom or not. He can as well command the withdrawal of the right of ownership of such pagan territories from their original possessors and transfers such rights to the Christian kings of his choice.
The actualisation of such universal and unchallengeable papal authority was realised in the early beginnings of the fifteenth century in Africa, when king John I of Portugal and his Royal sons came up with their politically and economically motivated plans of territorial expansion of their kingdom hatched up in form of religious Crusades in Africa, with the view to uproot Islam and allegedly to convert the pagan natives located on the Western Atlantic Coasts of Africa to the Christian faith. When this plan was communicated to the papacy, it was given an urgent positive response and full support by the papacy through the in-flow of well-articulated Apostolic Letters known as “papal Bulls.”94 The contents of such papal Bulls through which the popes granted support to the Portuguese territorial expansion and economic quests in Africa will form the subject matter of this chapter This chapter therefore, sets out to investigate critically and carefully the early beginnings of an influx of Royal Charters issued by the kings of Portugal through which they appealed to the popes for support of their maritime and economic expansion under the cover of discovery and religious Crusades against the so called “enemies of the Christian faith” - the Saracens, pagans and other unbelievers in the Christian religion located in Africa. The goal of this chapter is first and foremost to establish how the popes with the help of the papal Bulls issued in the first half of the fifteenth century responded to those Portuguese Royal requests for support of their interests in Africa. And secondly, to find out if these Apostolic documents corroborated or counteracted the accusations of the Church’s role and involvement in the establishment of the Transatlantic slave trade and the consequent enslavement of Black Africans.
2.2 A Background Knowledge to these Papal Bulls
2.2.1 Portuguese “Royal Marriage” with the Papacy (Padroado Real)
The relationship which linked the Portuguese Royal Crown with the papacy is one that has a long standing history. King John I (*1358, kingship 1385-1433)95 of Portugal and his Royal sons did not just wake up one early morning and went to the popes to request for their protection and support in the political and economic interests which they had already begun in Africa as far back as 1415. The Royal Crown's request from the popes and its granting was as old as the institution of the first Portuguese Royal dynasty itself. It traces its origin back to the time of the first king of Portugal Alfonso Henriques I (*1109, reigned 1128-1185)96 who linked the Crown of Portugal with the papacy during his reign precisely in 1143. Having won the great Battle of Ourique against the Muslim army on the feast day of St. James (25th July) 1139, Alfonso Henriques proclaimed himself king “for the first time in the presence of the high clergy and the members of his Cortés (parliament) in the town of Lamego.”97 And from this point onwards, he began to attach the title of a king to his name in this manner: “The illustrious king Alfonso, nephew of the most glorious emperor of Spain, son of Count Henry and Queen Teresa, and by the Grace of God ruler of the entire province of Portugal.”98 Even though he adorned himself with this kingly title, Alfonso Henriques still lacked authenticity and official recognition both in the eyes of the king of Leon-Castile under whose kingdom he was officially recognized only as a duke of Portugal and not as a king, as well as the approval of the medieval Christendom's “king makers” - the Roman Pontiffs, in whose hands it lies to grant an official and international acknowledgement of such kingly status to the Christian kings. It was in his bid to attain this recognition that Alfonso Henriques sought a way of ratification of this proclamation from the papacy.
And to do this, he now followed the example of some Spanish kings such as king Sancho Ramirez of Aragon (*1042, reigned 1063-1094), who in a quest to gain papal protection for his kingship declared himself in the year 1089 a vassal king of the Holy See as a knight of St. Peter and promised to pay to the Roman Pontiffs an annual tribute with silver in honour for the papal recognition of his title of a Catholic king and as a sign of his dependency to the Holy See. And being fully aware of this tradition, Alfonso Henriques actualised his goal by also declaring himself a knight of St. Peter and pledged to make annual tributes of four ounces of gold to the Roman Pontiff.99 This declaration of Royal relationship with the papacy was begun officially with the oath of allegiance which king Alfonso Henriques swore to pope Innocent II (1130-1143) with the Royal Charter “Claves regni” of December 13, 1143. With this Charter, Alfonso Henriques declared himself a tutelage king and vassal of the Holy See in the following words: “As knight of St. Peter and of the Roman Pontiffs, I hold myself, my lands and all dignities and honours pertaining to them to be for the defence and solace of the Apostolic See, and I will accept the authority of no other Ecclesiastical or secular Lord.”100 This oath was not only sworn for the purpose of gaining a political independence but also was taken with the view to secure an ecclesiastical independence for the Portuguese Church which before this date was still a suffragan Church under the metropolitan Church of Spain. Referring to this Royal relation, Bernhard Wenzel said:
With this feudal oath of allegiance, Alfonso Henriques proposed to the cardinal legate the signing of a contract with the Roman Church. Cardinal Guido received this proposal with a handshake in the name of pope Innocent II as his representative. This solemn proclamation by Alfonso Henriques was the first Portuguese contract with the Apostolic See, which the first king of Portugal officially certified in a legal form with his Letter “Claves regni” of 13th December 1143.101
In this document, the king promised his unalloyed loyalty to the popes of the Roman Catholic Church more than he would to any secular ruler on earth. He also gave his inherited lands to the Church as well as promised to give the lands which he would acquire in future to the papacy. Commenting on this Royal promise to the papacy, Carl Erdmann affirmed: “The king did not stop with his confession of being an obedient son of the pope and an enthusiastic soldier of the Blessed Peter, but also went as far as promising the pope that he will be loyal to the Roman curia more than to any other temporal princes: he not only gave to St. Peter his inherited land but also promised to conquer more extensive lands for the Apostolic patrimony. 102 This oath of allegiance received official recognition and acknowledgement from the papacy thirty-six years after it was made. The delay in receiving this anticipated recognition from the papal Office was caused by a lot of reasons, among which was the sudden death of pope Innocent II who died before his envoy carrying this message could reach Rome to deliver this document to him. Another reason proffered for this delay borders on the fears entertained by the papacy at that time that such grant of an independent kingdom of Portugal separate from the kingdom of Leon-Castile could endanger the papal strategy in the Iberian Peninsula of relying on the cooperate existence and assistance of the region to forestall peace and defence of the Christian frontiers against the incursions of the Iberian Muslim expansion. That was why, pope Celestine II (date of birth unknown, pontificate 1143-1144), who succeeded pope Innocent II did not give any reply to this request. His successor, pope Lucius II (date of birth unknown, pontificate 1144-1145) did give a response by accepting the tribute of gold but in the final analysis did not grant the expected recognition of the independence of the kingdom of Portugal from Spain. However, he promised Alfonso Henriques the protection of St. Peter but still addressed him as a duke (dux) and not as a king (rex) as Alfonso would have wished to be recognized.103
As a matter of fact, the anticipated recognition took place only during the pontificate of pope Alexander III (1159-1181) with the Bull “Manifestis comprobatum” of May 23, 1179. This Bull of 1179 granted to king Alfonso Henriques the protection of the Holy See and officially recognized Portugal as an independent kingdom separate from Castile in both political and ecclesiastical affairs.
In the introductory part of this Bull, the pope addressed king Alfonso Henriques in his chosen title of “illustrious king of Portugal” and praised him for his excellent and emulative efforts in fighting against the Iberian Muslims in his province. Thus in the words contained in this papal Bull, the pope said:
“Alexander, Bishop, Servant of the servants of God, to the dearest son in Christ, Alfonso, illustrious king of Portugal, and to his heirs in perpetuity. It has been clearly demonstrated that through military action and strenuous effort you have been an intrepid destroyer of the enemies of the name of Christ and a diligent supporter of the Christian faith; and as a good son and Catholic Prince you have also shown various benevolent attitudes to your mother the Holy Church, leaving to posterity a praiseworthy name and an example to imitate.”104
Having said this, the pope now moved to justify his action for granting this request as a decision made on the grounds of the emulative characters of the king and adjudged him worthy of being an ideal Christian king to be entrusted with the divine duty of governing the people of God. Based on this point, the pope officially recognised a full independence of Portugal from the kingdom of Leon-Castile both in political and ecclesiastical affairs and placed both the kingdom and its king under the protection of St. Peter and of the Holy See and granted him the right of ownership over all territories he re-conquered from the Iberian Muslims during his numerous wars of reconquest of the lands in the hands of the Muslims. The pope also gave him the right of ownership over territories that he would still re-conquer from the Muslims in future. All these are carefully articulated by the pope when he confirmed:
The Apostolic See must love with sincere affection and strive to efficiently attend in their just requirements to those chosen by the Divine providence for the government and salvation of the people. Therefore, recognising that your character is graced with prudence and justice, and thus suitable to govern, we receive you and the kingdom of Portugal under the protection of St. Peter and ourselves, with all the honours and dignity pertaining to royalty, and by Apostolic authority we confirm you in possession of all the places which, with the help of Divine grace, you can wrest from the hands of the Saracens and where your neighbouring kings have no just claims.105
Furthermore, all the rights and privileges granted to king Alfonso Henriques in this document were not meant to be terminated by his demise, rather it was a grant, whose validity was meant to last in perpetuity. To make this realisable, the pope extended this grant to the future Royal princes who would ascend to the Portuguese Royal throne, thereby giving this throne a hereditary right of succession. This point is made clearer when the pope said: “In order that devotion and obedience to St. Peter, Prince of the Apostles, and to the Holy See should increase more and more, that which we have conceded to you personally, we also grant to your heirs. We take it as a duty of the apostolic office to defend them and with the aid of God, all that we have granted.”106 And with the effect of this papal Bull, king Alfonso Henriques received a papal recognition and approval of his kingship in its full regalia and with all the rights and privileges accorded to a medieval Christian king as a ruler ordained by God to rule and oversee the spiritual and material wellbeing of all the Christians within his kingdom, defending the Christian faith against the attacks of heretics and infidels. And in return for this official recognition of his autonomy and full title as the king of Portugal in this Bull: “King Alfonso undertook to quadruple the Portuguese papal tributes to a total of two marks of gold per annum, along with a one-off payment of a thousand gold coins.”107 This amount of gold paid in appreciation for this recognition showed the remarkable impact, which this papal approval made in the life of this first king of Portugal.
. . . .fulfil the expectations of the popes from a secular ruler - providing defence for the Christendom within and outside of his kingdom. This corresponded with the duty of the king as contained in the coronation order of the tenth century Pontificale Romano-Germanicum which stresses the duty of an ideal Christian king to the Church. According to this tenth century Church document, these duties included among others: “To protect the Church, people and kingdom. The king must not stay on the defensive: he must also fight against the heathen peoples outside the kingdom, as well as false Christians and enemies of Christendom. The end was peace, and the king's means to that end should be justice and military action.”110 And in a similar manner, the German historian Ernst-Dieter Hehl commenting on the traditional duties of the Christian kings in his essay on “War, Peace and the Christian Order” identified the primary duty of the Christian kings as one of providing defence and security of his kingdom and that of the Christian Church. This is seen in clear terms when he wrote:
It was the duty of kings to guarantee the existence, rights and safety of the Church in their kingdoms. They could not evade the need to help the Christian Church by force of arms. If they refused, they were threatened with excommunication, which meant that their subjects could withdraw their obedience. They would probably be deposed as a result. Protecting the Church, like defending the kingdom was one of the duties of the kingly office.”111 It was exactly this tradition of an ideal Christian king that both St. Bernard of Clairvaux and cardinal Giles of Rome were referring to, when they compared the two powers - sacerdotal and imperial with the two-sword symbolism as we explained in the preceding chapter, whereby the king is nothing but the swordbearer of the Roman Pontiff. The Portuguese kings, who ruled after king Alfonso Henriques continued this tradition, in the sense that from time to time they requested from the papacy a re-promulgation of this establishing Bull “Manifestis Comprobatum” as was done during the reign of Sancho I who requested pope Clement III (*1130, pontificate 1187-1191) to re-issue this Bull in May 1190. Also the influential medieval papacy under the pontificate of pope Innocent III re-issued this Bull on April 16, 1212 at the request of king Alfonso II (*1185, reigned 1212-1223) of Portugal. And this tradition was kept alive throughout the entire medieval history of Portuguese imperium until the fifteenth century, when the Portuguese second Royal dynasty came into being with king John I as its first king, who began the conquest of Africa with the full support of the renaissance popes.
2.2.2 Re-enactment of this Royal Relation with the Renaissance Papacy in the Conquest of West African Atlantic Coasts
The same tradition of the medieval papacy which adopted Crusade as a just war and justified it as a war of defence and restoration found much expression in the Crusade of Africa carried out by the Portuguese Royal Crown with the authority of the renaissance papacy. The term “renaissance papacy” is used to describe the period of ecclesiastical history between the time of the great Western schism and the beginning of the protestant reformation. Scholars of ecclesiastical history agree that this period began in 1417 with pope Martin V (*1368, pontificate 1417-1431) and lasted up to the period of the pontificate of pope Clement VII (*1478, pontificate 1523-1534) in 1534. It was a very significant period in the history of the papacy marked with nepotism, luxurious lifestyle, political intrigues and manoeuvring, conquest, dominance of the papacy by powerful Catholic monarchies of Europe and influential Italian families such as the house of Borgia, house of della Rovere and house of Medici, each of which gave two popes to the Roman Catholic Church respectively. In this period of time, about fourteen popes ascended the throne of St. Peter as Roman Pontiffs and Heads of the Roman Catholic Church. Most, if not all of these popes had one thing or the other to do either with the establishment or with the promotion of the Atlantic enslavement of Black Africans through their partnership with the Royal Crown in Portugal.
This time around, it was no longer the case of the pope calling for a Crusade to liberate a particular place important for the religious life and practices of Christians like the Holy Land. Crusade of Africa was rather purely politically and economically motivated and carried out with just a tincture of religious motive that was in effect far much removed from the minds and plans of the major Portuguese Conquistadors - king John I and his Royal son Prince Henry the Navigator. The Crusade of Africa was therefore motivated by the major interests of the two major role players in the Transatlantic enslavement of Black African namely: the king of Portugal and the occupants of the Holy Chair of St. Peter in Rome - the renaissance popes.
On the part of the renaissance papacy, the Crusade of Africa which consequently led to the enslavement of Black Africans, presented a new opportunity for the papacy to make a comeback on the international stage of exercising a universal and unlimited papal authority over the whole world, an authority which it enjoyed from the eleventh to the fourteenth century, but which has now been lost after the humiliating onslaught on its glorious image in the early beginnings of the fourteenth century with the capitulation of pope Boniface VIII by king Philip IV of France in 1303. Having barely survived the humiliating “Babylonian exile” in the French city of Avignon (1305-1377) and the great Western schism of 1378-1417, the renaissance papacy was under increasing struggles and mounting pressures to regain as well as to repair its image torn apart by the crisis of its Babylonian exile in Avignon and the great Western schism. And one of the major concerns of the papacy in the renaissance Europe was the union of all Christians as well as bringing nonChristians into the fold of the Church with the pope as the supreme leader of the whole human race. This politically motivated need to re-position itself at the centre of the entire human affairs with supreme authority received a rebirth in the renaissance period. And this was a major goal which pope Eugene IV set for himself in the convocation of the Council of Basel and which he achieved after much wrangling with the Council fathers at the Council of Basel. In the Union decree of July 6, 1439 issued by the Council fathers, the primacy of the Roman Pontiff over the entire Christendom was re-defined and reemphasized. According to this Union decree it was agreed that:
the Holy Apostolic See and the Bishop of Rome has the primacy over the whole world, that the Bihop of Rome is the successor of St. Peter the Prince of the Apostles, he is the true vicar of Christ, Head of the universal Church and the teacher of all Christians, that he was given through St. Peter by our Lord Jesus Christ the full authority to feed, lead and direct the entire Church as it was contained in the decrees of the ecumenical Councils and in the holy canons of the Church.112
With this redefinition of primacy of the Bishop of Rome, the renaissance papacy moved with vigour to pursue the goal of stretching its authority over the entire known universe as it was the case from the eleventh to the fourteenth century, when this papal Office commanded European Christian kings and their armies and sent them as Crusaders to recover all territories including the Holy Land, that once belonged to the then known Christian world. This time around this vision was to be achieved in West Africa using the same method of Crusade with the emerging new twin-factors of discovery and mission to the pagans and infidels as part of this union of the entire Christendom. The historian Alain Milhou referred to this zeal of the popes of the renaissance for union of Christians when he said: “There was no other time when the dream of union of all Christians became so important in the history of the Church than in the period between the end of the great Western schism and the period of Martin Luther's separation from the Church.”113 Motivated by the above given reasons, the renaissance popes such as Martin V (*1368, pontificate 1417-1431), Eugene IV (*1383, pontificate 1431-1447), Nicholas V (*1393, pontificate 1447-1455), Callistus III (*1375, pontificate 1455-1458) and Pius II (*1405, pontificate 1458-1464), who showed great interests in world mission made frantic efforts both in the Orient and in Africa to establish relationship with the separated early Christian communities in Ethiopia and the Church of the Apostle Thomas in Indian, which were once parts of the Church of Rome. Also the search for the legendary powerful Christian king Prester John believed to be in an undisclosed location in Africa so as to form an alliance with him in the Crusade against Islam, was once again begun with renewed vigour.
To all these efforts and the vision of these popes towards Christian union, Islamic expansion in Africa proved a big stumbling block and diminished the hope of realising this goal. By reason of this hindrance posited by the Islamic expansion in Africa, the idea of its removal via military conquest was not only born but also became a matter of expediency. It was therefore, no surprise then to learn that this same goal of union and the need to uproot Islam featured among the major reasons that led to the convocation of the Council of Basel in 1435. In the program drawn by the Benedictine monk Andreas von Escobar in 1435 for the realisation of this union, it was believed by the Council fathers that the Council of Basel:
should make effort to reform the Roman Catholic Church both in its Head and Members...to convert the infidel Moors and pagans to the faith in Christ, to reconquer the Holy Land and all the territories that once belonged to the Christendom, to reduce the number of schismatic Greeks as well as the Armenians as much as possible, and also to integrate the Christians of India, who were converted by the Apostle Thomas into the fold of Christianity under the authority of one Shepherd and pope of the universal Roman Church. 114
This ambition of the renaissance papacy as contained in the above citation as well as its quest to secure its realisation linked the popes with the Transatlantic enslavement of Black Africans living around the regions of the West African Atlantic. On the part of the Royal Crown in Portugal, the Crusade of Africa was a continuation of the reconquista, which was begun by the first king of Portugal. The Crusade was here seen as a channel through which the African wealth based on gold, ivory and spices could be brought under the full control and authority of the king of Portugal and by so being, to serve the Portuguese major interests of economic aggrandizement and territorial expansion. Emerging from a tradition which swore an oath of allegiance to the Holy See to remain an ideal Christian king, whose duty was that of a warrior and a swordbearer of the Roman Pontiff in the war of defence against Islam and knowing the economic and political advantage it will bring to his kingdom, king John I, who was himself a military knight, conceived the idea of launching a Crusade in Africa in his quest to enrich himself and his kingdom politically and economically. While planning this Crusade, he was convinced that based on the Royal relationship with the Holy Office in Rome, his plan will receive papal blessings when presented to this Holy Office. But the only obstacle to this plan of economic and political enrichment in Africa was Islam. And to this Portuguese king therefore, Islamic expansion was also a cog in his wheel of progress and interests in West Africa and the hope of gaining control of the Indian trade, which in the fifteenth century was under the control of the Arab and North African Muslims. It was feared that with such Islamic expansion going on, the route to the Indian wealth which West Africa provided in the said century could be endangered.And the only alternative left, was to remove the dreaded enemy (Islam) through military conquests. Commenting on this fact, Kevin Ward said: “For the Portuguese, Africa was both near at hand and a necessary stage on the way to the distant goal of Eastern wealth.”115
In the light of this, both the Holy Office of the pope and the Royal Crown of Portugal found each other in the same position of having a common enemy and saw the need to fight and to eliminate the enemy (Islam), whose adherents were rated alongside with pagans and other non-believers in the Christian religion in West Africa as the arch-enemies of the Christendom. Thus, when king John I and his son Prince Henry the Navigator came up with the report that the discovery of Africa will lead them to establish contact with the St. Thomas Christians in India and along their way, bring the Gospel of Christ to the regions of the pagans of West Africa and finally lead them to establish relationship with Prester John in East Africa so as to win him and his powerful Christian kingdom as partners in the fight against Islam, and having shown their readiness to launch a whooping military conquest against the Saracens in their own territories in Africa, the renaissance papacy saw in them an important instrument in its hands in the realisation of its own dream of bringing all into the fold of Christendom under the authority of the pope. Corroborating this fact, the German born historian and author of many Books Eugen Weber affirmed: “However, the supreme Head of the Christendom needed above all someone, who could undertake the huge task of missionary activities, which he now suddenly saw through the discoveries, which he mostly wanted as something that would solve this problem.”116
Based on this fact, the renaissance popes did not hesitate to bless the military conquest and politico-economic enterprise of king John I and his Royal son Prince Henry the Navigator in Africa. This approval was articulated in a number of Crusade Bulls, wherein the popes stated in unmistakeable terms their support for the Crusade against Islam and pagans of West Africa. For the renaissance papacy, faced with the thirst for mounting up the international stage of relevance once again, the Crusade of Africa provided a good channel for this task. The Crusade of Africa therefore, is a resurrection of the medieval papacy's vision of reunion of all human race into the “ovile ecclesiae” (one fold of the Church) with the pope once again as the Commander in-chief and feudal overlord, whose authority knows no bounds and as someone who was to decide what is to be done in the newly discovered and conquered territories in West Africa. In this re-positioning of its international universal character, the renaissance papacy saw in the king of Portugal an embodiment of an ideal Catholic king ready to serve the papacy as its vassal and sword-bearer in the fight against Islam in North Africa and as an “apostle” in the mission to the pagans of West Africa, who had nothing to do with either Islam or the Saracens. Despite this fact, the renaissance popes did not make any difference between the innocent natives of West Africa and the Saracens of North Africa in their Crusade Bulls issued from 1418 to 1514 which bore the mark of the eleventh century drafting of Crusade Bulls issued for the Crusades to the Holy Land. And in a sheer exercise of papal authority which knows no bounds as expressed by the famous canonists and papalists of the medieval Christendom cardinal Hostiensis and Giles of Rome, the renaissance popes commanded that the whole of West Africa should be invaded by the king of Portugal and the military outfits under the command of Prince Henry the Navigator. And to show that the world and all it contains are really theirs as the above named canonists taught and maintained, and that they can give pagan and infidel territories to the Christian kings of their choice, the Portuguese Crown was given full authority by these popes to dispossess the innocent West African pagan natives of their territories, lands and private belongings and to make them their own as well as to force them into perpetual slavery. By so doing, the popes demonstrated that they are really lords over the known and the unknown worlds yet to be discovered by the Portuguese Conquistadors and that they have the authority to grant ownership of the New Worlds to the Catholic kings of their choice. And the first place in Africa, where this took place was in the ancient Moroccan city of Ceuta in 1415, which was used as a base for the Portuguese discovery and military conquest of West Africa. This conquest which brought the Island of Ceuta under the power and control of Portugal was very remarkable in the history of both Portugal and West Africa in the sense that it marked the beginning of the Portuguese African military conquest and opened up for Portugal all other avenues for its future conquest in the African territories in the build up to the Transatlantic enslavement of West Africans.
2.2.3 The Conquest of Ceuta and the Papal Bulls of Crusade in Africa
The business monopoly which Portugal enjoyed in Africa under the support of the renaissance papacy began as far back as 1415. That means, after the attack on the city of Ceuta and its fall to the military powers of king John I of Portugal and his Royal sons. Ceuta was a name known in the ancient times as “Septa,” meaning a city of seven hills formerly located at the North African country in the present day Morocco. But today, this city belongs to Spain since 1580. The city of Ceuta was the chief port of Morocco and according to Raymond Beazley: “It was a centre of commerce for the trade routes of the South and East as well as a centre of piracy for the Barbary corsairs.”117 To demonstrate its strategic position which it occupied in the trade on African gold and other products, John Ure gave information that at the time of its conquest by king John I and his Portuguese army in 1415, “Ceuta contained 24,000 commercial establishments dealing in gold, silver, copper and brass as well as in silks, spices and weapons imported from the Orient and the interiors of Africa.”118 Its strategic importance does not only lie in its being a major commercial centre, but also in its being a famous and strongest fortress in the Mediterranean sea. As a major sea port on the Mediterranean, Ceuta served as a northern terminal of the Trans-Saharan caravan trade. It was from here that the European silver as well as the North African artefacts and horses were carried by caravans across the desert to the powerful Muslim empire of Sahel. In return, these caravans carried back with them gold, slaves, ivory and other luxury goods from West Africa to the North. To gain control of this strategic site of Ceuta therefore, will imply to gain control of the way to this trade which according to Peter Russell was the channel: ”Through which the gold that Europe needed so badly reached the Christian world from the distant and mysterious mines of Black Africa.”119 That notwithstanding, Ceuta offered also a sea way to discovering a new route of reaching the Atlantic Coasts of West Africa through seafaring. With the help of this discovery, Portugal wanted to overcome the Arab Muslim merchants, who were controlling the land route of this trade on humans, gold and other African products. It was therefore in their bid to gain a monopolist control of this trade on West African products that king John I of Portugal marshalled out a great army of unprecedented chivalry with the sole purpose of attacking this city of Ceuta on July 26, 1415. It was presumed to be an army of Crusaders, whose major purpose was to attack the Moors so as to spread the Gospel of Christ in the North African city of Ceuta. According to a report given to Prince Henry the Navigator by a Castilian attached to the household of Prince Fernando (the fourth son of king John I), the king of Portugal assembled for this Crusade on Ceuta an army of “5400 men-at-arms, 1900 mounted bowmen, 3000 unmounted bowmen, 9000 footmen, a total of some 19000 men.”120 With this number of men on the military side of the Portuguese king, the Moorish inhabitants of this northern city of Morocco were invaded. This attack took place on one single day, precisely on August 21, 1415, when the Portuguese expansive army overran the unprepared and poorly equipped Moorish army and took over their city of Ceuta by surprise. After this attack and the fall of this city, the treasures of this Moorish city were plundered and looted by the Portuguese crusading knights and Squires, the great central Mosque in Ceuta was confiscated, ritually cleansed, blessed for Christian worship and dedicated to Sancta Maria da Misericordia. It was in this Mosque now-turned Church that king John I of Portugal knighted the young Prince Henry and his other brothers. At the end of this ceremony and the great celebrations that accompanied it, king John I proclaimed “the annexation of the city of Ceuta as a city now formally belonging to the kingdom of Portugal and attached to the titles of his kingdom 'Lord of Ceuta' to the traditional Portuguese Royal titles.“121 He appointed a distinguished Portuguese soldier Pedro de Meneses as governor of the newly acquired Portuguese territory and commander of the over 3000 soldiers stationed at Ceuta so as to ward off a possible Moorish attack who were bent on regaining their lost Muslim stronghold. King John I also honoured his son Prince Henry with the title of the duke of Viseu and lord of Covilhã and announced to his Cortés (Parliament) that: “He has appointed Prince Henry to be responsible for all matters pertaining to our city of Ceuta and the defence thereof.”122
The motive for carrying out this attack on the city of Ceuta was given by king John I of Portugal to be purely a religious Crusade against the “so-called enemies” of the Christian faith - the Moors and pagans in Africa, who, as alleged by the Portuguese king were preventing the spread of the Gospel in Africa. Such a claim was made so as to capture cheaply the support of the papacy of pope Martin V and his approval of this pretence of the Portuguese king and his army of fighting a just war against the “unbelievers” in Africa. As a matter of fact, one does not expect the pope to refuse whatever reason given by an “ideal Christian king” for attacking a Muslim stronghold, who in actual fact was acting on the conviction that he was a right-hand-man and a sword-bearer of the pope in the fight against Islam. But contrary to this claim of the king, modern historians and research scholars vast in the Portuguese maritime and exploratory history such as Raymond Beazley, John Ure, William D. Phillips, Peter Russell, inter alia, have in the recent times discredited this belief and found it to be a mere façade. Peter Russell for instance, is of the view that even though there were skirmishes of conflicts between the Christian merchants of Europe and the Moors of North Africa in Ceuta, such did not hinder both from having a smooth commercial relationship. In his opinion, there was a well-established relationship among them. As a proof of such good relationship, he maintained that even Christians were employed in the services of the Sultans in Morocco as bodyguards. To maintain his ground firmly, Russell recorded that: “Since the thirteenth century, the personal bodyguards of the Marinid Sultans had routinely consisted of Christian troops who were considered, because of their religious and cultural isolations less likely to be seduced from their loyalty than Muslim soldiers.”123 Continuing to lay credence to this view, Russell maintained that the European Christian merchants were even allowed to practice their faith in Ceuta and that at the time of this invasion on the city of Ceuta, there were some Franciscan monks who lived in their Hermitage in Morocco. This is made vividly clear when he wrote: “Christian merchants were allowed to practice their religion freely in their trading factories. While it is somewhat doubtful how far the titular Christian bishops of Morocco, routinely nominated by the Roman Curia, actually were permitted to reside there, there is some evidence that the Franciscans were permitted to maintain in Ceuta a hermitage which was turned into a convent after the Portuguese conquest.”124 While regretting such an attack on Ceuta, Russell concluded that: “It was then, this delicately balanced economic, political and religious structure, highly important to the trade of various Christian states bordering on the Mediterranean that a Portuguese army, preaching a Crusade 'a l' outrance' against the infidel, would shatter in 1415.”125 Russell is not a lone voice in contesting this claimed motive of the king of Portugal for the invasion of Ceuta. Other renowned historians of Iberian maritime history are also of the view that the motive for this expansive military expedition was not purely borne out of religious and crusading zeal. It was rather an ambitious quest of the Portuguese Royal family to expand their territory as well as to gain economic powers to improve on the poor economic situation of their kingdom and for its survival. William D. Phillips for instance summed up this motive as follows:
Their motives were numerous and many of them were long-standing: Expansion into Morocco offered enticing possibilities for solving or at least alleviating a number of significant economic concerns that Europe generally and Portugal particularly faced at the beginning of the 15th century. The nobility from the greatest lords to the simplest Knights were particularly hard-pressed... the Crown in Portugal needed more gold which came from the sub-Saharan gold-fields of Africa via the desert caravan routes...”126
From the evidence of facts contained in this citation therefore, the crusading attack on Ceuta was more of economic and political Crusade than of a religious one. For the above mentioned scholars, it was an attack aimed at sustaining the Estates of the Portuguese Royal princes, which were so poor that relying alone on the internal revenues of their kingdom, could not survive in the competition among their fellow princes in England and France, who measured their greatness on the amount of wealth their Estates could boast of. Therefore, to attack Ceuta proved to be the only way out for the Portuguese Royal family to solve their economic problem as well as to expand their territorial boundaries. Be that as it may, the king of Portugal even without getting a prior permission of the pope for this invasion, was convinced in his presumption that he was carrying out a religious Crusade as a just war against the infidels as approved by the Church's canon laws and supported by the popes. Under normal circumstances, the king has no right to carry out a Crusade without papal authority. For a Crusade to be a just war, it has to be declared and summoned by the pope. Going by the logic of this set down rule guiding the Christian Crusades, it goes without saying then, that any invasion conducted by a Christian king for personal reasons without papal authority does not qualify to bear the name of a Christian Crusade. Despite this lack of papal authority in this invasion, king John I was certain that he would get the support of all Christian rulers to assist him on his mission if he turned to the popes for approval of his ambition in Africa. And this turned out to be the case later on. His presumption was based on the fact that he was acting in the name of the pope. And this being the case, it was therefore, not surprising that as soon as he turned to pope Martin V through one of his sons - Prince Henry, with his deceptive and hidden motive for military invasions of Africa, he had no restraints in obtaining a Bull of Crusade from the reigning pope Martin V, who made this invasion to wear the face of a religious Crusade and helped king John I to secure the already conquered city of Ceuta as officially belonging to him and called on all other Christian kings, princes, rulers and administrators to assist him and his army of Crusaders in their other planned attacks and invasion of other regions of Africa. This was done as a proof that the pope has authority in the newly acquired territory of Portugal and has the power to give the right of ownership of this new Portuguese state to the king of Portugal so as to prevent any other European Christian king from intruding into this newly acquired Portuguese colony. It was from this point onward that Portugal began to make claims of ownership over the Atlantic ocean and the whole region of West Africa. This papal authority and approval given to the Portuguese Royal Crown by pope Martin V is contained in the Bull “Sane Charissimus” of April 4, 1418. This Bull served as the first foundational papal Bull that supported such an invasion of Africa. Casting a brief glance at this Bull will help us to evaluate the very papal support given to this political goal of Portugal in Africa.
2.3 The Bull “Sane Charissimus” of Pope Martin V in 1418
Pope Martin V (*1368, pontificate 1417-1431) was born into the family of Agapitus and Caterina Colonna in the town of Genazzano in Rome. He was a Roman to the core and his family belonged to one of the oldest but famous influential families in Rome that dominated the papacy for a long period of time. His original name was Oddone Colonna. The great scholar and historian Hubert Jedin described him as: “Ein Römer im vollen Sinne des Wortes” (a Roman in the full sense of the word).”127 He made a quick rise to prominence in the Roman Curia. This began with his appointment as Apostolic pronotary by pope Urban VI (*1318, pontificate 1378-1389). In 1405, pope Innocent VII (*1339, pontificate 1404-1406) created him a cardinal. He played an active role during the great schism that nearly destroyed the Western Church such that in 1410, he was appointed a papal delegate of the anti-pope Alexander V (*1339, pontificate 1409-1410) to represent him at the hearing of an appeal made to the papacy by the excommunicated Czech priest, philosopher and reformer Jan Hus (1369-1415). Odonne Colonna was elected as pope Martin V on St. Martin's day (November 11, 1417) during the conclave that took place at the Council of Constance (1414-1418) in Germany (which consisted only of 23 cardinals and 30 delegates). His election to the papacy marked the end of having three sitting popes at a time in the history of the Catholic Church in the West and laid to rest the greatest Western schism in Christian history. He returned to Rome on September 28, 1420. As a pope, he worked very assiduously to restore the papal monarchy to its known prestige and independence. He died in Rome on February 20, 1431 at the age of 63 years.128 Pope Martin V played a key role in the history of the Portuguese military expeditions and trade along the Western coast of the African Atlantic. In pursuit of the official teachings of the Church which held that: “Outside of the Catholic Church, there is no salvation,”129 and that the pope has a universal authority over all mankind, pope Martin V issued the Bull “Sane Charissimus” on April 4, 1418 as a Crusade Bull against the infidels in Africa. With this Bull, the pope boosted the Portuguese military raids against the Saracens and other non-Christians in West Africa. This Bull is very important in the history of the Portuguese relationship with the papacy which lasted for centuries and their entire trading business in Africa. Its importance lies in the fact that it serves as the first foundational papal Bull in the whole political and economic enterprise of the Portuguese in Africa. It opened as we shall see later, the way as well as served as a reference point for other Bulls issued by the renaissance papacy from 1418 to 1514 with which the renaissance popes donated Africa to the kings of Portugal and their successors in perpetuity. It also served as a source of authority in the hands of these popes in their treatment of matters concerning Africa and Africans, Portugal and other European nations and gave authenticity to their subsequent Bulls issued with regard to the business enterprise of the Portuguese in Africa.
In its tone and character, the Bull “Sane Charissimus” is a Crusade Bull declaring war on Africa and served as a papal legitimization of the Portuguese economic and politically motivated military raids in Africa. It shows the papacy's unbreakable link with the Portuguese Crown since 1179 when the papacy promised this Crown of its protection and assistance if the king of Portugal remains a “Defensor fidei” (defender of the faith) and the swordbearer of the Roman Pontiffs in the fight against the Saracens within and outside Portugal. With the force of this Bull, pope Martin V made a fervent call on all Christian kings, princes, prelates of the Church and all the faithful to support king John I of Portugal with all the necessary weapons and other means he required in his bid to fight and conquer the Saracens and other “unbelievers” in Africa with the view of extending his territory to Africa and to spread the Christian religion there.
As one can read from its introductory part, this Bull was addressed to all: “Venerabilis Fratris, Archiepiscopis, ac dilectis filiis Electis, Administratoribus, Abbatibus, Prioribus, aliisque ecclesiarum et monasteriorum Praelatis, necnon caeteris Christianae Religionis professoribus ubilibet constitutis, ad quos praesentes literae pervenerint, Salutem et Apostolicam Benedictionem.” 130 He praised the effort of king John I of Portugal for invading the city of Ceuta and praised him as an “Athlete of the Christian faith,” who has committed every resource under his control to wage war against the Saracens and other “unbelievers” in Africa with the hope of bringing them into the Catholic fold. This fact is seen when the pope said:
This king, who is a defender of the Catholic Faith and a strong hero, strives for victory over the unbelievers in the Christian faith, and wishes to gather an army of believers around himself in order to wage war against the Saracens and unbelievers with the intention of subjugating them as well as to bring back the territories under their control into the fold of the true faith once more. To carry out this, he wishes to assemble all his armies and kingdoms and pleads humbly for our Apostolic assistance and that of the entire Catholic Church, so that this intention of his will be fully and joyfully realised.131
Having found this task as a worthy one, pope Martin V then declared a Crusade against Africa and pleaded with the emperors, kings, princes, army generals and all those occupying positions of power and honour in the society, their representatives, parishes and states etc., to support the king of Portugal in his war against Africa. In his very words, the pope appealed:
We welcome gladly in the name of the Lord, this intention of the king of Portugal. We would like to request the help and attention of all emperors, kings, dukes, counts, princes, barons, army commanders, magistrates and all public officials and their representatives, parishes, communities, states, villages, and all with the burning desire for the interest and good of the Christian faith, to rise up in support of this intention of the king, undertaken for the sake of heaven and for which we are very grateful to him. We beseech all who strive for the forgiveness of their sins, to make themselves courageous and ready to make war against the unbelievers and to destroy their heresy. We hereby urge and invite you all to give heed to this call of the king of Portugal, to support him with various means through which his plan could be realised, and with this decree we undertake the responsibility by reason of the grant we made to our brother (king of Portugal).132
The German historian Jörg Fisch was right to assert that this Bull was a serious appeal made to the kings and princes of the then Christian Europe to engage themselves in the fight against the Saracens and pagans in the northern and western regions of Africa. This is seen when he wrote: “The Christian princes were exhorted to arm themselves for the eradication of the unbelievers and their heretical teachings.” 133 With this in mind, pope Martin V then revealed the “good plan” of king John I of Portugal to the entire Christian World of his time to raise a formidable and strong army that would be able to defeat the Saracens and other unbelievers in Africa and called on all the patriarchs, archbishops, administrators and all the prelates of the Church to lend their support with weapons and other necessary assistance to the king of Portugal that will enable him carry out his goal in Africa. He also enjoined them to raise their voices in their dioceses, monasteries, parishes, states and villages so as to convince their subjects to freely engage themselves in this war against the Saracens and other non-believers in the Christian religion. This request of Martin V is vividly made clear when he wrote:
Therefore, we wish to communicate to you through this Apostolic letter, patriarchs, archbishops, the chosen ones, administrators and prelates of the Church, that king John of Portugal intends to raise a strong and powerful army to fight against the unbelievers. It is our wish to support this enterprise of king John as long as he lives, then it requires some armament in order to carry out successfully such a responsible and salutary enterprise. That is why, we urge you to strongly raise your voices in the states where you plan to assemble, through you, and other public officials, whom you consider worthy and capable of appealing to the feelings of those faithful Christians, who through God's providence will be streaming to listen to their preaching, and feeling led by true penance and confession of their sins, will be ready to render such a service in defence of the Christian faith. When you impose on them 40 days fasting, by reason of our apostolic authority, they will be granted complete absolution for their sins.134
In other to encourage all those who might take part in this war against the Saracens and other unbelievers in Africa, Martin V made to them in the same manner that pope Urban II did to the Crusaders of the Crusades to the Holy Land in 1095, a promise of perpetual indulgence for the punishment due to sin, so that at the moment of death, they might go to heaven. In view of this, Martin V asserted:
In order to motivate them with a burning zeal and to receive more graces, with the help of the mercy of Almighty God, and that of the holy Apostles Peter and Paul, on whose authority we rely, and with the authority, though, unworthily granted to us by God to bind and to lose, we grant all those faithful who have taken up the sign of the cross in this manner to take part in this war against the unbelievers, the forgiveness of all their sins, which they truly renounced with all their hearts and truly confessed with their mouths, and we promise them an increase of the eternal salvation for the recovery of the righteous.135
The pope, now acting on the ground of the tradition of the Roman Pontiffs as those who have the authority to give the right of possession of non-Christian territories to the Christian kings of their choice, finally reminded all the kings, archbishops, bishops, prelates of the Church and other addressees of this Bull that the right to own the territories that will fall into the hands of king John of Portugal after this Crusade against Africa will exclusively belong to him alone and his successors. According to him: “It is very befitting to grant benevolence to those, who raised such an army, or those who send others to fight in war, or who give help to the army through good advice or through their deeds: all territories and places namely, which through this military enterprise would be retrieved from the hands of the barbarians, will be subjected to the control of the king of Portugal and his successors.” 136 By so doing, pope Martin V went into the annals of history as the first pope of the Holy Roman Catholic Church who, not only sanctioned but also blessed the Portuguese plan of territorial expansion and business monopoly in Africa under the cover of spreading the Gospel of salvation to Africa. This action of his, like we shall later see in this work, will serve as a justification for the behaviours of other popes towards Africa and Africans in general, who ruled the Church after him in all their dealings with the kings of Portugal in matters relating to Africa. It became the stepping stone and a means of justification in the hands of the popes that ruled the Church after Martin V, from which they gave other grants and privileges to the kings of Portugal as well as their support and authority behind all the activities of the Portuguese in Africa. A proof of this fact has been confirmed by the most famous Bull “Romanus Pontifex” of Nicholas V of 1454, issued 36 years after “Sane Charissimus.” In confirming this Bull as a reference point for the future support of the popes with regard to the Portuguese activities in Africa and the authenticity of the grants made to Portugal in this Bull of Martin V, pope Nicholas V affirmed:
Moreover, since this is fitting in many ways for the perfecting of a work of this kind, we allow that the aforesaid king Alfonso and his successors and the Infante (Prince Henry) as also the persons to whom they, or any one of them shall think that this work ought to be committed, may according to the grant made to the said king John by Martin V of happy memory, and another grant made also to king Edward, king of the same kingdoms, father of the said king Alfonso by Eugene IV, of pious memory, Roman Pontiffs, our predecessors.137
Martin V also issued another Bull “Cum Charissimus” a year later in 1419, with the help of which he once again confirmed his unalloyed support for the ongoing mission of political conquest and economic pursuits of the Portuguese in Africa. In this Bull, he admonished all Christians to remain steadfast in their financial support to the king of Portugal in his war against the so-called “enemies” of the Christian faith. In this appeal the pope said as follows:
...We wish our trusted allies to give their support through proper means to the above mentioned king of Portugal, who had undertaken to carry out this praiseworthy action in defence of the faith. We need your entire support, and we exhort and remind you in view of this, of your duty to defend the faith and the Christendom by rendering help and sacrifice to those who have undertaken to engage themselves in so pious and praiseworthy work of defending the reverence of God and of the Christian religion. 138
As a sign of his gratitude to pope Martin V for supporting his work of territorial expansion in Africa and for granting the request of his father king John I, Prince Henry the Navigator, who was a “major role player” in the Portuguese expeditions in West Africa, gave to the pope as gifts some of the first set of African captives brought into Portugal in 1421. These were men taken by force during the first expedition and military conquest of Africa led by captains Antão Gonçalves and Nunó Tristão during this period. Attesting to this development, a Portuguese traveller and historian João de Barros (1496- 1579) wrote as follows:
Since the major intention of Prince Henry the Navigator for discovering these lands was geared towards subjecting the barbaric nations under the yoke of Christ and to extend the Royal heritage as well as to promote the honour and the glory of the Portuguese empire, and he (Henry the Navigator), through the captives, which Antão Gonçalves and Nunó Tristão brought from Africa, and through whom they received information about the inhabitants of those lands in Africa, he wanted to proclaim this good news to pope Martin V, who then was the Head of the Catholic Church by giving him the first fruits of this enterprise, which duly belonged to him, because this work was performed to the glory of God and for the spread of the Christian faith.139
By so doing, Prince Henry the Navigator intended to beg the pope to allot a perpetual right of ownership to the Crown in Portugal over other explorations and discoveries that will be made in future along the Atlantic Coasts of Africa. He also begged for the granting of plenary indulgence to any one of his military crew who may lose his life in the course of fighting the natives in Africa so that his soul will be given a place of rest at the bosom of St. Peter the head of the Apostles. These intentions have been corroborated by João de Barros when he further wrote:
also he wanted to beg him (pope Martin V), while he had begun this enterprise for many years and by so doing... had spent a greater part of his wealth on this expedition, that it might please him (Martin V) to donate perpetually to the Crown of Portugal all the lands discovered along the African Atlantic which lay beyond Cape Bojador and extending up to the Indian coast; and to grant eternal forgiveness of sins to all those who might die in the course of carrying out this conquest, since God had placed him (Martin V) on the throne of Saint Peter.140
All these privileges were granted to Prince Henry as he requested. And J. Goni Ganztambide was correct when he said that: “The Holy See did all in order to promote this enterprise. Martin V summoned in 1418 the entire Portuguese to engage in the Crusade against the Moors for the spread of the Christian faith.”141 In 1436, the Venetian pope Eugene IV (*1383, pontificate 1431-1447) confirmed these privileges contained in the Apostolic letter of his predecessor Martin V in the three Bulls “Dudum Cum”of 1436, “Illius Qui” and “Etsi Suscepti” he issued in 1442 respectively. Let us at this juncture briefly examine the contents of these Bulls.
2.4 The Bull “Dudum Cum” of Pope Eugene IV in 1436
Pope Eugene IV (1431-1447) was born in Venice in 1383. His real name was Gabriele Condulmaro. His father was a successful rich merchant from Venice. His mother was a sister to the nepotistic Pope Gregory XII. As a young man, Gabriele entered into the St. George monastery in Venice, where he received his formation as an Augustinian monk. In 1407 his uncle pope Gregory XII appointed him bishop of the diocese of Siena when he was just 23 years of age, a position he could not fit in well as a result of his tender age. That notwithstanding, he was made a cardinal priest of St. Clement a year later in 1408 by his uncle pope Gregory XII. In the conclave that took place in Rome to elect a possible successor of Martin V on March 3, 1431, Gabriele was elected pope as a compromise candidate on March 16, 1431 and he chose the papal name Eugene IV to succeed pope Martin V. His pontificate was characterised by many worldly and theological struggles especially his struggle with the Council of Basel (1431-1437), where he sought to dissolve the Council due to its hostility towards the papacy. The Council fathers however, opposed this move and declared the superiority of the Council over the pope in 1433. Worthy of mention in his pontificate is his love for the unity of the entire Church, especially reuniting the Greek Church with the Roman Catholic Church. This union, although temporarily made, saw the light of the day on July 6, 1439 and was proclaimed with the papal document “Laetentur Caeli.” His other successes include among others, the restoration of the papal authority and sovereignty to the Church at the Council of Basel. He died in Rome on February 23, 1447.142
His Bull “Dudum Cum” was issued as a result of the complaints made to him by king Eduard of Portugal (1433-1438) concerning the attitude of the king of Magazan (Castile in Spain), who felt unjustly cheated by the grants and rights given to king John I of Portugal over Africa as contained in the Bulls of pope Martin V in 1418 and 1419 respectively. This exclusion of the king of Castile brought about conflicts between him and king Eduard of Portugal. All the efforts made by the king of Castile to obtain the right of ownership over the regions he conquered in Africa, where the Portuguese had not even registered any presence before, was not rewarded by pope Eugene IV. Instead, the pope listened to the reports made by Prince Henry the Navigator, who falsely claimed that he had rescued the Atlantic islands of Madeira, Porto Santo and Ilhas Dessertas from the hands of their pagan rulers while he was indeed pursuing his economic and colonizing ambition in the African Atlantic. The truth of the matter remains that at the time he discovered these islands in the 1420s, they were still uninhabited with neither Saracens nor other unbelievers in Africa whom as he claimed had been converted to Christianity through his conquest. Based on this truth, Prince Henry therefore fed the ears of pope Eugene IV in this case with erroneous information, who at the time was ignorant of the facts on ground in the African Atlantic. In reference to this fact, Peter Russell affirmed that Prince Henry: “Had Eugenius IV informed that he had freed Madeira and its neighbouring islands from the Saracens' yoke and returned their (then non-existent) inhabitants to the Christian faith.”143 Going a step further in demonstrating his distrust of the genuine intention of Prince Henry the Navigator in the West African Atlantic Coasts, Russell is of the view that even though Prince Henry was a dedicated Christian, he all the same “never considered that there was anything wrong with feeding successive popes with misleading information if it would help them to help him.”144 With this kind of tricks on the side of Prince Henry the Navigator and the existing relationship of the papacy with the Portuguese Crown, pope Eugene IV decided this conflict between the king of Portugal and Castile in favour of the former by extending the power and right of Portugal to claim ownership over all the regions in Africa already within and outside of its possession. This power and grants made by pope Eugene IV are contained in the Bull “Dudum Cum” of 1436, where he confirmed the grants and right of ownership given to Prince Henry over the Atlantic Islands mentioned in the Royal Charter of 1433.
Eugene IV hinged his decision to make these grants in favour of the Crown in Portugal and Prince Henry the Navigator on the letter tendered to him by the delegates sent by king Eduard.145 This letter is a Royal Charter issued at Sintra by king Eduard on the 26th day of September, in the same year (1433) of his ascension to power, wherein he granted his brother Prince Henry the Navigator the right to own (as a life-long property) as well as to govern the islands of Madeira, Porto Santo, Ilhas Dessertas and others discovered along the Atlantic Coasts of West Africa which Prince Henry and his military Order of Christ had earlier discovered.146 In brief, this letter contained among other things:
Prince Eduard, by God's grace the king of Portugal, Algarve and the lord of Ceuta. To all those who will see this letter, let it be known to all, that we want to make a mark of favour to my brother Prince Henry: we find it worth-doing and pleasing and declare that he has received from us as long as he lives, the islands of Madeira, Porto Santo, Deserta and all other islands located in Africa with all their rights and incomes, including their civil justice and jurisdiction, but excluding death sentences and cutting-off of limbs, which are the exclusive reserves of the Court of Justice in Lisbon; we also empower him to undertake and make use of all the benefits and improvements of the landed properties of the said islands in accordance to his will, and to give definitely or indefinitely to whom ever he wishes the said landed properties, but however, without violating the lease-form, with which we have provided the islands.... 147
Furthermore, this Royal letter granted Prince Henry the right and power to receive tax payments from those who might settle in the said islands or make trade businesses with the inhabitants of the said islands and other regions of Africa in future. These rights were clearly spelt out in the following words:
We wish to assure the said Prince Henry that he is empowered to rent the lands partly or wholly to all those who in his lifetime would come to dwell in the said islands, with the hope that they will also continue to make payment for the lands even after the death of the said Prince Henry... Moreover, we wish to issue the following guidelines for the occupation of the islands: if the said Prince Henry rents the land to someone, then let it really belong to him, if the favoured person dies, the land will belong to his children, provided that they will pay the dues according to the dictates of the rentage agreement. However, it remains our exclusive right to ensure that the said Prince Henry does not permit the printing of a different currency for usage in the said islands, we want instead, that our currency remains the permitted currency in use in these islands. We are sending him this letter with our great support and assurance, it was signed by us and stamped with our lead-seal by Dante in the city of Sintra on the 26th day of September. The king granted permission to write this letter and Affonso Cotrim wrote it in the year of the Lord 1433.148
This Royal Charter of 1433 is very significant in the history of the Portuguese monopolistic enterprise in Africa in the sense that it served as a landmark in the history of the Portuguese overseas colonies in the African Atlantic. According to Peter Russell: “It marked the adoption by the Portuguese Royal Crown of a form of overseas government that would become the norm in all the Atlantic islands. In it, we see the Portuguese Royal Crown, after the death of king John I, relinquishing the task of itself attempting directly to colonize or administer any of them. Instead they were handed over, as semi-feudal fiefs, to a donatory (Prince Henry) who, it was assumed, would for a variety of motives among which self-interest predominated, set about developing them as he could.”149 On the strength of the significance of the contents of this letter and in the awareness of the fact that the king of Portugal is only a sword-bearer and an “extended hand” of the pope in the war against Islam, pope Eugene IV henceforth did not hesitate to issue the Bull “Dudum Cum” in favour of king Eduard of Portugal and Prince Henry, so as to encourage them to pursue with vigour their economic and political interests undisturbed in Africa under the cover of religious Crusade. In the introductory part of this Bull, the pope acknowledged having received the delegates sent by king Eduard of Portugal and assured him of his readiness to grant him more rights so as to edify him to remain steadfast in his purported works of spreading the Gospel in the conquered regions of Africa. This assurance of pope Eugene IV was made clearly when he said:
Your Highness, due to the fact that your envoys appeared before us and requested many things on your behalf, we would like to please Your Highness by granting You many favours for the preservation and defence of the city called Ceuta, which Your father of blessed memory captured with a strong army and retrieved from the hands of the godless Saracens located in some parts of Africa, and surely for the recovery of other areas, places and towns, which were built up and inhabited by these godless Saracens.150
The pope acknowledged in this Bull that he has also received the delegation sent by the king of Castile and the letters he sent, through which he expressed his dissatisfaction over the rights granted to king John I of Portugal by Martin V which excluded him from having any right of ownership over the regions his troops conquered in Africa. He assured king Eduard of Portugal that he intended in no way with the tenor of this Bull to grant the king of Castile any right of ownership in Africa as he demanded. All these are made clearer when the pope wrote:
But due to the fact that our illustrious son in Christ, John, king of Castile and Leon subsequently learned of the concessions we granted to You as contained in the above named letter, and sent his envoys often-times with letters wherein he complained to us and declared that a big quarrel arose among you as a result of our aforesaid letter, which as he complained, tended to lessen his rights of possession of the aforesaid regions and islands in Africa, which he had previously conquered from the hands of Saracens. While we do not want to give room for such quarrel to arise as a result of our concessions earlier made to You, and at the same time we do not intend in any way to withdraw the right that belongs to anyone, which he has duly acquired. We have recently through our letter announced, that it was, and remains still our intention in no way through such concessions to decide beforehand over the rights of the aforesaid king.151
This Bull ended with an appeal to king Eduard of Portugal to avoid any further action that will disrupt his peace as well as admonished him to restrain from any quarrel with the king of Castile and Leon. In his own words the pope admonished as follows:
therefore, we would want to counter all annoyances, that could arise from this quarrel and ensure that nothing new arises which could disturb Your peace in anyway; we appeal to Your Majesty to consider our letters with mature deliberation and wise advice so that nothing will occur again that would renew the denial of rights or quarrels with the aforesaid king of Castile, and that You do not give any ground for quarrels or an occasion that would call for any annoyance in future.152
With the Bull “Dudum Cum” pope Eugene IV exercised his role on the international scene as an arbiter and a judge among Catholic kings, a role which was very characteristic of the renaissance papacy. With this role of an arbiter, whose decision must be obeyed by all men for fear of the hammer of excommunication, he brought to rest the claim and agitations of the king of Castile and Leon to be given the right of ownership in the Atlantic islands of Madeira, Porto Santo and other islands along the North-West Atlantic Coasts of Africa. Six years after this, he issued another Bull “Etsi Suscepti” where he granted the requests of both kings Eduard and Alfons V of Portugal to grant the right of authority to Prince Henry the Navigator and his military Order of Christ to oversee the Portuguese enterprise in Africa and all other missions of Portugal in overseas.
2.5 The Bull “Etsi Suscepti” of Pope Eugene IV in 1442
As we stated above, the Bull “Etsi Suscepti” was issued as a confirmation of the decision made by kings Eduard and Alfonso V of Portugal to transfer the authority for the administration of their missions in Africa and other places to the military Order of Christ (militia Christi) with the appointment of Prince Henry the Navigator as its administrator. This decision was taken in recognition of another grant earlier made by their late father king John I of Portugal, who requested pope Martin V on May 25, 1420 to appoint his son Prince Henry the Navigator the administrator General of this Order.153 The document containing this grant made to Prince Henry the Navigator by his brother, king Eduard is a Royal Charter issued by the king himself on October 26, 1434. When Prince Henry the Navigator wanted to make use of the authority of this Royal letter to receive favours from the reigning pope Eugene IV, it was discovered that the content of the said letter in its originality was not only unreadable but also damaged as a result of the quality of the writing materials in vogue at that time. He now went to the reigning king and his nephew, king Alfonso V, who then ordered that a new copy of this letter should be issued to Prince Henry the Navigator from the preserved copy in the palace registry for this purpose. This fact is shown in the concluding part of this letter which partly reads as follows:
..I hereby confirm that a copy of this letter was therefore sent to the aforesaid Prince Henry, since he declared that his original copy was damaged and is therefore unreadable. Given in Lisbon on the 20th day of May. The king Afonso V gave orders to write this letter to a member of his Council doctor João Dossem through his grand Chancellor Luis Fernandes in the year of the Lord 1439.154
In the main body of the said Royal Charter, king Eduard granted Prince Henry the Navigator and his military Order of Christ the power to administer spiritual authority over the islands discovered and conquered by the Portuguese explorers and army in the various regions of Africa. The grants and rights made in this letter by king Eduard in 1434 were confirmed by king Alfonso V in 1439 as follows:
Prince Alfonso, by God's grace the king of Portugal and Algarve and lord of Ceuta. To all who will see this letter, we declare that a copy of this letter was presented to me, which was sealed with our stamp and signed by a member of our Council doctor João Dossem and our grand chancellor in favour of my uncle Prince Henry, whose wordings are as follow: king Alfonso etc. To all, who will see this letter, we declare that a letter was registered in our palace register in the reigning time of king Eduard my father, may God grant him peace, whose wordings are: To all who will see this letter, we declare that we, who are in the service of God and in honour of the military Order of Christ, and at the request of Prince Henry, my brother, the Grandmaster and commander in chief of the said military Order, grant to him and the said military Order in perpetuity from today onwards all the spiritual rights for the administration of our islands of Madeira, Porto Santo, Dezerta and others located along the Atlantic Coasts of Africa; the said islands could now be possessed by Prince Henry under our authority and in consideration of any other decisions to be made by him with regard to the future dwellers of the said islands. However the rents to be paid for the leasing of the said islands and the payment of one tenth tax that will accrue from them and other Royal benefits will remain our exclusive reserves and that of the Crown of our kingdoms; and we are sending to him this letter signed by us and sealed by our Royal seal, and therewith request the Holy Father, in his Holiness to grant and confirm this grant and favour we made to the said Order of Christ. Given in Santarem on the 26th day of October, Lopo Affonco wrote this letter in the year of the incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ 1434.155
Armed with this letter as well as the confirmation of the grants and privileges made by king Alfonso V, pope Eugene IV therefore did not hesitate to issue this Bull for the purpose of continuing the economic mission of Prince Henry the Navigator in Africa on January 9, 1442. In stating the purpose of issuing this Bull, the pope affirmed:
...also if you are supported with care and so be guided that some persons and individual places were marked with the title of religion so as to improve their condition in a blissful manner, this, we still have to give our support with the help of our fatherly will, we therefore confirm to the military Order of Christ and certainly their brothers and persons, who through individual helps intend to bring about benefits through those who made requests that they could make constant progress through prayers in the Lord.156
The pope then proceeded to confirm the appointment of Prince Henry the Navigator as the administrator of the military Order of Christ and recognised his authority to exercise both temporal and spiritual powers in all the Portuguese islands in Africa. What the pope did here is a reconfirmation of the Bull “Manifestis Comprobatum” of 1179, which granted to the first king of Portugal among other things the right to be totally in-charge of the organisation of the Church within his kingdom. This right includes the power to appoint bishops, Priests and all those to be sent as missionaries in all the territories of Portugal overseas. That means that the pope acknowledged the Portuguese overseas missions and territories as places under the sovereign power of the king of Portugal. And the king through his representative in the overseas missions - Prince Henry the Navigator, has the right to determine what is to be done in these territories. In recognition of these powers conferred on Prince Henry the Navigator, the pope said:
From this, it came to be that we recognise as a noble and esteemed son Prince Henry, the duke of Viseu, adjudged by the Holy See as Official of the Order of Christ and to appear as administrator in spiritual and temporal matters of his Order, and according to what was presented to us on his behalf, he is entitled to carry out the usual activities of the Order in accordance with the rules to be set down by his brothers.” 157
Pope Eugene IV also recognised in this Bull the authority of the members of the military Order of Christ to exercise the same power that was given to their Grandmaster Prince Henry the Navigator so as to be able to carry out this mission in Africa and elsewhere even after the death of Prince Henry the Navigator. The pope concluded this apostolic letter with the placement of the wrath of God on anyone that might attempt to go contrary to the authority of the decision made in this Bull. This fact is brought to light when the pope authoritatively asserted:
No one is allowed in any way to invalidate or refute any part of our concessions and instructions stated on this page, or to resist and defy the contents of this letter through reckless venture. But if anyone attempts to do this at all, let him know that the wrath of the Almighty God and those of the holy Apostles Peter and Paul will fall upon him.158
Pope Eugene IV also issued another Bull titled “Illius Qui” in the same year with the above Bull under discussion, where he granted the military Order of Christ the right to organise military raids and expeditions in Africa and gave the blessing of indulgence for the forgiveness of the sins of their members and all those who might lose their lives in the course of the slave raids viewed as Crusade against Africa by Prince Henry. Let us cast a brief glance at the content of this Bull and examine carefully its contribution to this economic ambition of Prince Henry and the Crown in Portugal which they hoped to achieve via the trade on African gold and human beings.
2.6 The Bull “Illius Qui” of Pope Eugene IV in 1442
The Bull “Illius Qui” is a quintessence example of the manipulative ploys of Prince Henry used to impress the popes in order to get an uninterrupted flow of approval and support of the papacy in the military raids carried out by the members of his military Order of Christ in Africa. The goal of his military raids was to capture innocent natives of Black Africa as slaves so as to boost his economic quest. As already observed in section one above, the ambition of Prince Henry the Navigator to carry out exploration in Africa has been on a very high course since the rounding of Cape Bojador by one of his captains Gil Eannes in 1434. From this point onwards, news of a great profit that laid in store for his collection started trickling in and he was indeed gladdened with such. We have to recall here that it was in 1441 that the first set of Black African slaves arrived in Portugal. They were captured in a slave raiding voyage ordered by Prince Henry himself and carried out by two of his trusted men and captains: Antão Gonsalvez (his Chamberlain and a young captain) and Nuno Tristão (a noble knight of the Order of Christ). These two men set off with their armed caravel and landed safely in the land of the Blacks. According to Raymond Beazley, Tristão had for this voyage: “An express order from his lord (Prince Henry) to go to the port of Gallee and as far beyond as he could, and that he should try and make some prisoners by every means in his powers.” 159 This order yielded good results by the first expedition undertaken in that year and they caught about 38 Black captives. Among them was a native chief called Adahu who helped Prince Henry with the information he needed to know more about the land, its king and people. With the other captives that arrived in this caravel, the Prince rejoiced that he was making profit and progress in his discovery and decided to send more caravels so as to yield more captives to be sold as slaves. To achieve this goal, he has first and foremost to raise troops for the raids by attracting them with the promise of a perpetual indulgence and to elevate the slave raids to the status of a Crusade so as to attract the interest of the papacy to give support and blessing to this mission. This mission was so important to the Prince that it did not of course escape the attention of the Royal chronicler Gomes Eannes de Azurara (attached to the service of Prince Henry), who included it in his day to day recording of the history of the discovery and conquest of Guinea. According to him:
The Prince was so gladdened and encouraged by the sight of the first captives that he at once began to think 'how it would be necessary to send to those parts many a time his ships and crews well-armed, where they would have to fight with the infidels. So he determined to send at once his embassy to the Holy Father to ask of him to make a Partition with himself of the treasures of the Holy Church for the salvation of the souls of those who in the toils of that conquest should meet their end.160
The very man sent to the then reigning pope Eugene IV by Prince Henry the Navigator to make this request was “a honourable Cavalier of the Order of Christ, called Fernão Lopez de Azervedo, a man of great counsel and authority on account of which he had been made chief commander in the same Order and was of the council of the king and the Infant (Prince Henry).”161 To achieve his objectives, the Prince gave Fernão Lopez among other things, a copy of a Royal Charter obtained from his nephew, the youthful king Afonso V issued in 1439, which confirmed to him all the grants made to him and his military Order of Christ in the past by the Royal Crown in Portugal. And with this new confirmation contained in this Royal Charter, he went to pope Eugene IV to secure his blessings and approval. The wordings of the said Royal Charter read as follows:
King Alfonso etc. To all who will see this letter that is known to us, we wanted to make favours and graces to the Order of our Lord Jesus Christ of which Prince Henry is its Governor and Grandmaster, duke of Viseu and lord of Coujilhã, my very dear and beloved uncle. We have confirmed to him all those things and privileges, graces, favours and liberties that were given and granted to him by the various letters of the kings of Portugal that were before us, all the things that were in the possession and use of this kingdom until the death of my virtuous and of glorious memory, the king, my Lord and father, may he rest in the Lord;.... Given in Almada on the first day of June in the year of the incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ 1439. The king sent this letter with the authority of Her Majesty the Queen, his mother, as her Guardian and Councellor and in agreement with Prince Pedro, his uncle, defender of the said kingdom and empires.162
The response of the pope to this request made by Prince Henry was immediate and positive. Azurara even added in his chronicle that: “The Holy Father (Eugene IV) was very glad to grant him such a grace as he was requested.”163 Attesting to the positive response of the pope to grant such a request geared towards capturing innocent Black natives for sale as slaves under the cover of a religious Crusade, Raymond Beazley cynically wrote: “Pope Eugenius IV, then reigning, if not governing in the great Apostolic See of the West, answered this appeal with great joy and with all the rhetoric of the papal Register.”164 It was therefore in the bid to fulfil this request of Prince Henry the Navigator and to show him the full support of his papacy that pope Eugene IV issued this Bull on January 19, 1442 which now made this slave-raiding mission to wear the face of a Crusade. In its introduction, the pope acting as the very one who ordered this mission to convert the Saracens and pagans in West Africa either by persuasive or forceful means did not refuse to accept the false assurance made by Prince Henry the Navigator that it is only through the means of his military expeditions in Africa that the souls of the unbelievers could be saved. This point is made clear when the pope stated: “Even though the benefits of those people, who do not refuse to make sacrifices for the saving of the flock of God is held undeservedly on earth, we are being directed with constant requests that the superstition of the unbelievers and their errors could be driven aback and by so doing the number of the souls of the believers will continue to increase.” 165 But the records of this expedition by the Portuguese Royal chronicler proved this reasoning of the pope in this introduction to be very misleading. In his account of the second voyage sent by Prince Henry in 1441 which took place before pope Eugene IV made this claim above, Azurara spoke of the tactics employed by Prince Henry's men while conducting their slave raiding from one village to another in Arguin and Senegambia in order to please the Prince. According to him, the men of Prince Henry laid ambush to capture unarmed and innocent natives and waited until the men and women came out of their dwellings. And when all their calculations were rightly made, they fell on them and took them captive.166 And on this day alone, the captures made by Prince Henry's men - Antão Goncalvez and Gill Eannes were placed at 165 persons. This figure was confirmed to be true by Azurara when he observed: “And at last our Lord God, who gives to all a due reward, gave to our men that day a victory over their enemies in recompense for all their toil in His service, for they took captive of those Moors, worth with men, women and children, a hundred and sixty-five, without counting the slain.”167 Going by the fact of the above citations, it was therefore this kind of operation and kidnapping of innocent civilians to be used as slaves that Eugene IV gave his approval and went as far as extending this approval to the military Order of Christ, so that in the event of Prince Henry's demise, this murderous enslaving mission will continue in West Africa. And using the power of apostolic authority, Eugene IV granted perpetual indulgence for the forgiveness of sins to Prince Henry and all those in his military expeditions against the Saracens and “other enemies” of the Christian faith in Africa. This fact is seen when the pope wrote:
If the attack constantly continues, as it was made known to us through our highly esteemed son, the noble man Prince Henry, the duke of Viseu, who suggests in his capacity as an official of the Order of Christ, recognized by the Holy See as administrator of the said Order to carry out the activities of his Order in both spiritual and temporal matters, that it is by confusing and chasing away of the Saracens and other enemies of the Christian faith that the preaching of the Catholic faith in those parts held in the possession of the Saracens could be achieved. This, he personally intends to achieve by launching a strong military charge in those regions and with a powerful army to direct an attack against the Saracens and other likely enemies of the Church. Strengthened with strong faith in the Lord, and with the fact that this war could go on for a long time when he could no longer be present to send soldiers and the brothers of the said Order of Christ and certainly many other Christians whom he brought under the fold of this Order to fight against the Saracens and other enemies for the glory of the Almighty: in order to motivate the Christian believers with a burning spirit, we therefore grant to him through our Apostolic authority a complete forgiveness of sins confessed and repented of, to these and others who will take part in this conflict and war against unbelievers. 168
And as it is always the case when such important grants are given by the popes, this Bull ended with a strong warning with the penalty of excommunication and the invocation of the eternal wrath of the Apostles Peter and Paul on all those who may venture to weaken or nullify the authority and the grants contained in this Apostolic Letter. This threat is pronounced by the pope in these words: “No one is allowed in any way to invalidate the concessions and instructions we granted on this page or dares to nullify it by any act of reckless venture. But if anyone attempts to go contrary to this, let it be known to him, that the wrath of the Almighty God and those of the holy Apostles Peter and Paul will descend upon him.”169 Based on the authority of the apostolic power therefore: “Any doubts about the legitimacy of enslaving the earliest prisoners taken in the expedition of 1441 quickly disappeared when the wars were recognized as Crusades and therefore indisputably just.”170 The Bull “Illius Qui” therefore, served as a legitimization of the use of military raids against the natives of West Africa as a just war. This Bull also serves as a perpetual assurance to the members of the military Order of Christ that the papacy is fully behind them in such acts of slave-drive, and that they have nothing to fear even in danger of death in the course of carrying out their slave raids against the Saracens and other unbelievers in Africa. With the effects of these Bulls issued by Eugene IV, aware of the dangerous economic motive at the back of Prince Henry's mind, the Prince had succeeded in drawing to his side the popes of this period under discussion to his enslaving enterprise. Entrapped in this web of deception, pope Eugene IV gave as the above Bulls showed, his full support to the enslaving mission of Prince Henry in Africa under the cover of a religious Crusade aimed at saving the souls of “unbelievers” in Africa. By so doing, the military raids conducted by Prince Henry and his military Order of Christ for the kidnapping of innocent civilians for use as slaves in Portugal and in other European countries for economic gains were now freed from any hindrance to deal with the natives of their discovered and colonized territories in Africa without any qualms of conscience.
Other subsequent Bulls issued by other renaissance popes after Eugene IV will serve as re-confirmation and strengthening of the various grants and approval given to the Crown and Prince Henry of Portugal by popes Martin V and Eugene IV respectively. And like we shall see, they will speak in one accord, without contradicting each other to authorize Portugal to reduce Black Africans to perpetual enslavement and colonisation. The proof of this fact, is the goal of the next chapter of this work.
3. Papal Bulls Empowering Portugal to Reduce Black Africans to Slaves (1452-1455)
3.1 Prelude to this Empowering: The Royal Charter of 1443
The expeditions undertaken in the West African Atlantic by Prince Henry the Navigator and his military Order of Christ mainly for economic and political reasons received a serious boost during the pontificate of pope Eugene IV as we saw in the preceding chapter of this work. Much encouraged by the Bulls of the aforesaid pope and the imminent profits made from the sales of the first 165 Black African slaves that arrived in Portugal in 1441, the Prince now decided to make sure that no one should venture to go into the land beyond Cape Bojador to undertake any money-yielding ventures without first and foremost obtaining his approval. To secure his business in Guinea against foreign interlopers therefore, he now turned to the Crown in Portugal under the ruler-ship of his young nephew king Alfonso V and obtained from him a Royal Charter issued on October 22, 1443. This Royal Brief granted him the sole right of ownership of all the regions of Guinea (West Africa) and the right of monopoly over all trades transacted in the said regions in Africa such that all ships travelling to Cape Bojador and beyond it, must buy licences from him or risked confiscation.
In the introductory part of this Royal Charter, the king praised the efforts of his uncle (Prince Henry) and narrated how he had undertaken to do this work in the service of God and with all the risks involved, he dared to send 15 times his ships into those regions of Africa, whose names according to him, were never mentioned on the maps of the world and very unknown to the Western world.171 This remark was vividly stated when king Alfonso V said:
King Afonso, etc...we want to make known to all who will see this Letter, that Prince Henry, my highly esteemed and beloved uncle undertakes in accordance with the mind of Christ and the desire to render services to us, to send his ships to Africa in order to explore the land lying beyond Cape Bojador, because until now, no one throughout the whole Christendom had ever ventured to explore this part of land located beyond the said cape Bojador, and no one neither knew if any people ever existed there nor if it was really included on the maritime and geographical maps of the world, or if its knowledge appeared at all in the discretion of those people who made the map of the world. While it is a very risky venture to be undertaken, and as such people did not trust themselves to go into such areas, the said Prince Henry has already sent expeditions for 15 good times to this land in order to gain information about the said land. And his captains brought to him 38 captured Moors172, and he commanded that a sea chart be made and he informed us that it is his intention to send more ships later-on to the said land in order to explore it. And he approached us to ask for a favour to be granted him in written form, so that no one dares to sail to the said lands without first and foremost obtaining his permission and consent, be it to make war or to conduct trading business, and that we transfer to him the right to collect the payment of the Fifth and the Tenth taxes that rightly belongs to the Crown, from all those that he will be sending to these lands and others who will obtain licenses from him.173
What king Alfonso V attempted to do in this introduction, was to present the intention of Prince Henry to explore the Atlantic Coasts of West Africa (to all who will come in contact with this letter including pope Nicholas V as we shall see later) in a manner that would capture their interest on reading it, while at the same time he tried to hide the quest for economic motive as the major motive behind the exploration of the African Atlantic as we have shown in the preceding chapter of this work. That means, he made a projection of this project as a novelty that has never been undertaken before and to be carried out in a land unheard of before, whose people had never been known to the Christian world of his time. Such is a portrayal of ignorance of historical knowledge on the part of king Alfonso V. Even before his uncle Prince Henry was born, evidence of the knowledge of the people of West Africa and their lands was already identifiable on the world map of the time and the story of the riches in the African trade in gold, ivory and silver was not something strange in the Western world of his time. This view had been maintained by renowned historians such as C. R. Crone, Peter Russell, Edgar Prestage, Raymond Beazley, E.W. Bovill et al., who argued that prior to the Portuguese incursions on the Atlantic Coast of Africa, information about the very source of the African richness- gold, was already making its rounds in Europe. Already in 1375, the Catalan map of emperor Charles V, which was drawn by the Majorcan cartographer Abraham Cresques provided information about the Black Africans, West African interior and the source of the African gold. The historian and author E. W. Bovill for instance, presented a copy of this map wherein Abraham Cresques made a representation of a West African king sitting on a throne at the middle of the desert fully adorned with all his kingly regalia, with a staff of his office (sceptre) on his left hand and holding a ball of gold in his right hand which he presented to a horse rider approaching his palace. This king was Mansa Musa of Mali (+1332). The inscription written on this map reads as follows: “This Negro lord is called Musa Mali, lord of the Negroes of Guinea. So abundant is the gold which is found in his country that he is the richest and most noble king in all the land.”174 Bovill added to this inscription a short remarks which read: “The fame of this great Negro ruler long persisted, and many believed him to be no less a personage than the mythical Prester John.”175
Alluding to the information provided in the same Catalan map of 1375, C. R. Crone wrote: “It is probable that some knowledge of the Coast of West Africa as far as the Gulf of Guinea176 was current in Western Europe at the time. The Catalan Atlas of 1375, which may be taken as a typical fourteenth century cartographic document displays some slight acquaintance with the trade routes and markets of the Niger Basin.”177 Going a step further, Crone mentioned another historic document which showed that the trading activities going on in the African regions of the Gulf of Guinea were already familiar in Europe. According to him:
“This document recorded a voyage by Jaune Ferrer in 1346 along the Coast in search of the semi-legendary Rio de Oro. From another contemporary document, the “Libro del Conoscimiento” of the anonymous Spanish Franciscan, it is possible to obtain a glimpse of the trading activities of the Moors along this coast, and to deduce that these extended as far as the Gulf of Guinea.”178
Peter Russell on his part argued that Prince Henry and his men were not the first to discover this region of West Africa via the sea way. According to him prior to the rounding of Cape Bojador by Gil Eannes in 1434, there were other European seamen who had rounded and crossed this Cape many years before the Prince sent his men there. Confirming this, Russell recorded as follows:
“From Azurara onwards, this event, which took place in 1434, has been described as the first time any European seamen passed the Cape and returned home to tell the tale. It seems pretty certain, however that a party of European seamen had reached the Cape, landed near it, and carried out some reconnaissance of the region thirty-three years before the celebrated voyage of Gil Eannes.” 179 Continuing, Russell made reference to the very historic source that gives credence to his argument above. This source was a chronicle popularly known as 'Le Canarien' written in French on the Canarian island of Lanzarote around 1402-1404. Making reference to this chronicle, Russell recorded: “The season before we arrived in this region (in 1401), a boat carrying fifteen compaignons set out from one of our islands called Erbania (Fuerteventura) and sailed to Cape Bojador, which is in the kingdom of Guinea and twelve leagues away from where we are. They took captive there some people of the country, and then returned to Grand Canary, where they found their ship, which was waiting for them.”180
And from all these historical sources, it is therefore unhistorical for king Alfonso V of Portugal to present to the world of his age those voyages undertaken by his uncle Prince Henry on the Atlantic Coasts of West Africa as a novelty. In the same token, to claim that knowledge of West Africa and the source of its wealth - gold, was not known in Europe at the time Prince Henry began his explorations into the coastal regions of West Africa does not represent a fact of historical reality at all. The historian and author C. R. Crone was therefore right to deduce that: “The voyages initiated by Prince Henry were not therefore thrusts into the Unknown, but part of a sustained attempt to wrest control of an important economic artery then in alien and often hostile hands.”181 And having wrested control of this trade from the alien and hostile hands of the Moors of North Africa by means of the discovered sea route to the source of this trade, Prince Henry now received from king Alfonso V the right of ownership that gave him control over all the regions of the West African Atlantic Coasts to the effect that no one is allowed to reach the source of the gold, which dominated the trading activities in the Gulf of Guinea. That would imply, that it is only the ships sent by him and of those, whose owners obtained licence from him that could venture to use this seaway to transact trade business with the Black Africans. In the light of this injunction, king Alfonso V decreed:
And as we are very certain of what he writes and are in possession of the knowledge of the huge expenditure which he had invested in this venture, we decree that as long as my aforesaid uncle is alive, that no one is allowed to cross the said Cape Bojador without his orders and permission. And that all those who might attempt to do this, will forfeit and lose their ship or ships with which they sailed there, to the aforesaid Prince, my uncle. And we order our palace officials and judicial officers to carry out these instructions to the fullest, without any delay or hindrance, and if they do the contrary of our instructions, let them know that we are going to take an action against them like we treat those who violate our own command and orders. 182
It is difficult to ascertain to what extent the exercise of this control was able to reach. But some evidence showed that it was not binding on the whole of the merchants and captains of Europe in the sense that the right of the king of Portugal to make such a rule was only restricted to the kingdoms and peoples under his power. For this decree therefore to receive an international status, which will enable it to be binding on others outside the territorial influence of the king of Portugal, it has to be issued by the pope, whose authority was the only authority at that time that has an international recognition and binding force. This view was hinted by Peter Russell when he rightly pointed out that: “The 1443 monopoly granted to the Prince by the Royal Regent was of course only effective as far as the subjects and territories of the Portuguese Crown were concerned. It could have no international validity unless it was underwritten by the authority of the pope.”183
Despite this lack of international character of this Royal Charter of 1443, it suffices here to say that it was able to help the Prince at least internally to control the flow of commercial movement along the Western Coasts of the African Atlantic such that it helped him to make profits from the goods brought into Portugal from this West African Atlantic. In addition to this, the king waved off for Prince Henry all the taxes known as “Quinto e Dizima,”184 which were the prerogatives of the Royal Crown obtained from the goods such as gold, slaves and other products brought into Portugal from West Africa by the ships belonging to the Portuguese merchants. In the light of this grant, the king affirmed:
because we want to render our help to him, in order to reward him for what he has done, and while we want to grant him favours and graces, we consider it something good if we grant him from now onwards, as long as our favour lasts, the Fifth and the Tenth of all that the said ships will bring into our kingdom, either the one sent by him or those that sailed with his permission. And we command also our immigration and seaports officials to carry out our instructions without neglecting any part of what they contain, and that they communicate this instruction properly to those sailors whom the said Prince Henry had allowed to sail to the said Cape Bojador. Given in Villa of Panela on the 22nd day of October, by the authority of our Lord Prince Pedro, regent and defender of our kingdom etc. Afonso Anes wrote it down in the year of our Lord Jesus Christ 1443.185
To show the importance of the grants made in this Royal Charter of 1443 in the hands of Prince Henry in the history of the Transatlantic slave trade, the palace chronicler attached to the service of the Prince documented it in his record of events. According to him: “Also the Infant Don Pedro who at that time ruled the kingdom in the name of the king, gave the Infant Prince Henry his brother a Charter by which he granted him the whole of the Fifth that appertained to the king and this on account of the great expenses he had incurred in the matter... And considering how by him alone, the discoveries were made, not without great trouble and expense, he granted him moreover this right, that no one should be able to go there without his license and special mandate.”186 From all this, it has now been made crystal clear that the goal of this voyages reckoned as a great feat in this Charter was to control this trade so as to make maximal profit from it. The historian E. W. Bovill was right to say that the missionary motive put forward by Prince Henry and the Portuguese Crown and presented to the popes of his time as the goal of his explorations of the Guinea Coast was a mere hypocrisy. According to him: “Their real purpose was not as they pretended, to spread the Gospel, but to discover the source of the gold which was being imported into Morocco overland by the Taghaza road.”187 With this Royal Charter now in his hand, all is now set for the Prince to prove to the European world of his time that his claimed crusading zeal against “unbelievers” in Africa was not born out of a religious and devotional spirit for the spread of the Gospel in West Africa but rather, it was born out of material greed to spread in Europe and beyond innocent Black Africans as slaves in an unprecedented mass that was never known before in the European and the entire Western history. The veracity of this fact is shown in his action just few months after obtaining this Royal Charter, when he sent a military expedition of six caravels in 1444 under the captain-ship of Lançarote with the mandate to ransack and attack the villages in the Gulf of Guinea for the sole purpose of catching innocent civilians for sales as slaves in Europe. A cursory look at this great event of 1444 will enable us a great deal to know the very character and attitude of this great Portuguese Prince towards his claimed religious motive, which he would present to pope Nicholas V as a major motive for undertaking to explore the West African Atlantic regions. The knowledge gained from this, will open our eyes to know really what pope Nicholas V and his successors would be supporting under the cover of religion by issuing Bulls that would help Prince Henry the Navigator to accomplish his ulterior and selfish motive in West Africa.
3.2 Prince Henry the Navigator and the Great Event of 1444/5
The year 1444 went into the annals of historical record as a great year in the Portuguese exploratory mission on the Atlantic Waters of West Africa. It was the year in which Portugal under the influence of king Alfonso V and Prince Henry the Navigator had her foretaste of the Transatlantic slave trade. On this day a total of 235 to 240 kidnapped Black Africans arrived the Portuguese Lagos shores as slaves and were auctioned before the watching eyes of the crusading Prince Henry. Peter Russell rightly observed with regard to this event that: “The first Portuguese expedition beyond Cape Bojador to be overtly concerned with nothing except slave-raiding on a substantial scale was organized in 1444.”188 The very Portuguese, who served as overseer of the six caravels that carried out this slave razzias was Prince Henry's strongman Lançarote da Ilha, who served the Henrican expeditions in the capacity of a Royal tax collector in Lagos (in Portugal). Together with some other Lagos merchants and adventurers, he obtained licence from the Prince and promised to play the game according to the rules of paying the 5% tax to the Prince on all goods including slaves brought from the West African Atlantic Coasts. Referring to this incidence as the beginning of the Transatlantic slave trade, Gomes Eannes Azurara, the renowned Portuguese Royal chronicler said as follows:
One Lançarote... a man of great good sense was the spokesman of these merchant adventurers. He won his grant very easily, the Infant (Prince Henry) was very glad of his request, and bade him sail under the banner of the Order of Christ, so that six caravels started in the spring of 1444 on the first exploring voyage that we can call national since the Prince had begun his work... what was more unfortunate, from a modern standpoint, the African slave trade, as a part of European commerce begins here too. It is useless to try to explain it away.189
Azurara has confessed truely in the above citation that this incident flagged off the beginning of the Transatlantic slave trade. Toeing in his footsteps, the historian John Ure also recorded this great event as the major beginning of the Transatlantic slave trade. He was truthful enough to describe the method of the raid that yielded such a huge number of captives as a raid conducted with no other purpose than to capture the natives as slaves for sales in Portugal. Thus he presented this incident in the following words: “Prince Henry fitted out six caravels. Among their commanders was Gil Eannes who had first rounded Cape Bojador. They returned to the Bay beyond Cape Blanco in which Arguin and other islands lay scattered, and they systematically set about raiding the mainland and the island for natives.”190 Continuing, he gave insights into the nationality and number of these captives brought into Portugal by Prince Henry the Navigator and his men and emphatically asserted that with their arrival in Portugal, the Transatlantic slave trade had really begun. This point was revealed when he wrote: “Between them they captured two hundred, ranging in color from the darkest black to the lighter shades of those who had admixtures of Arab or Berber blood. These captives were no longer specimens of new breeds brought home for the disinterested study of Prince Henry. They were a commercial commodity. The European slave trade had begun.”191 All these authors cited above speak with one voice in establishing that this event marked officially the beginning of the Transatlantic slave trade.
In the early June of 1444, Lançarote and his crew numbering about 30 men landed on the shores of West Africa and began attacking the villages on the Island of Arguin and forcefully taking them as war booty. Those of the natives who refused to be taken as captives were mercilessly butchered by the men of Prince Henry. And getting information from the captured natives that there were other neighbouring islands near the bay of Arguin, “they raided these for more prisoners. In their next descent, they could not catch any men, but of women and little children, not yet able to run, they seized seventeen or eighteen.”192 The actual number of seizures made on this slave raiding voyage was placed at 235 captives. Gomes Azurara, who recorded this expedition of 1444 in the palace register gave also an inkling into the nature of the attacks launched by the men of Prince Henry on the innocent natives of the region of Guinea. According to him: “The actual seizure of the captives-Moors and Negroes along the Coast of Guinea, was as barbarous and as ruthless as most slave-driving. There was hardly a capture made without violence and bloodshed, a raid on a village, a fire and sack and butchery was the usual course of things and the order of the day.”193 With the help of this report on the nature of the expedition of 1444, one could adduce that this voyage has nothing in its nature and manner of conduct that makes it deserve the name “discovery” or mission of reuniting all into one fold of the Church as agreed with the Councils fathers and pope Eugene IV at the Council of Basel. This is just Prince Henry's own hidden agenda. It was in the words of Raymond Beazley at best: “A slave chase from first to last and two hundred and thirty-five Blacks were the result.”194
The said six caravels returned from their slave raiding mission on the 6th day of August 1444 with human cargoes of great magnitude. Confirming the size of these human cargoes in number, Azurara, the palace chronicler recorded as follows: “I hear the prayers of the innocent souls of those barbarous peoples, almost infinite in number, whose ancient race since the beginning of the world had never seen the divine light.”195 The reference of barbarity made of these Black captives herein is among the criteria that convinced the Portuguese to begin this enslavement of Black Africans as we saw in the justification of the Transatlantic enslavement of Black Africans in section two of this work. The strangeness of the arrival of the caravels carrying such a huge crowd of Black captives on the port of Lagos in Portugal made it to be a great historical feat in the history of Portuguese maritime enterprise. To demonstrate its historical landmark, their arrival was publicly announced throughout the whole kingdom of Portugal. On disembarkation at the Lagos port, a huge crowd of spectators gathered to witness this historic breakthrough in the maritime adventures of Prince Henry, who on this very occasion was indeed the very man to watch and as such the man of the day. In a very short speech made by Prince Henry's chief executor of this slave-raiding voyage conducted in a manner of a handover-ceremony to his master, Lançarote addressed the Prince in the following words: “My lord, your grace well knoweth that you have to receive the Fifth of these Moors and of all others that we have gained in that land whither you sent us for the service of God and of yourself.”196 Sitting on the back of his white princely horse, Prince Henry smiled at such a great feat made by Lançarote and his crew members, and watched with great admiration the disembarkation of the scared and frightened innocent Black captives of this murderous expedition ordered by him. The decision to make such a public exhibition of these Black Africans was in the views of Peter Russell a way of promoting his political interest before the people as well as to show that Portugal has now become a slave-holding nation like the Genoese, Catalans and Valencians. It was therefore for this reason that Prince Henry “decided to make a major public spectacle of the disembarkation and disposal of the large number of captive men, women and children taken by force of arms in a distant land never seen by Europeans until about ten years (1434-1444) before.197
After their disembarkation on this very day, these Black African captives were divided into five groups according to their market value. This division brought about separation of family members from one another. Mothers carrying their little children in their hands refused to be separated from their children, but the men of Prince Henry pitilessly snatched these children away from their mothers. The cries and wailing of these men and women that ensued from this could be heard and felt with sympathy by all but one man - Prince Henry, who rather rejoiced because of the profits he was about to make from their auctioning. In a long narrative passage in his “Chronicle of Guinea,” which deserves a considerable attention in this chapter, Gomes Azurara made a very passionate description of this separation and the sorrows it wrought in the hearts of these kidnapped natives of West Africa. According to him:
These people, assembled together on that open place were an astonishing sight to behold. Among them were some who were quite white-skinned, handsome and of good appearance; others were less white, seeming more like brown men; others still were as black as Ethiopians, so deformed of face and body that, to those who stared at them, it almost seemed that they were looking at spirits from the lowest hemisphere. But what heart, however hardened it might be, could not be pierced by a feeling of pity at the sight of that company? Some held their heads low, their faces bathed in tears as they looked at each other, some groaned very piteously, looking towards the heavens fixedly and crying out aloud, as if they were calling on the father of the universe to help them. Others struck their faces with their hands and threw themselves full length on the ground, yet others lamented in the form of a chant, according to the custom of their native land, and though the words of the language in which they sang could not be understood by our people, the chant revealed clearly enough the degree of their grief. To increase their anguish still more, those who had charge of the division then arrived and began to separate them one from another so that they formed five equal lots. This made it necessary to separate sons from their fathers and wives from their husbands and brother from brother. No account was taken of friendship or relationship, but each one ending up where chance placed him. Who could carry out such a division without difficulty for as soon as the children who had been assigned to one group saw their parents in another, they jumped up and ran towards them; mothers clasped their other children in their arms and lay face downwards on the ground, accepting wounds with contempt for the suffering of their flesh rather than let their children be torn from them.198
Unmoved by the feelings of human tragedy caused by this separation, the Prince now ordered for their auctioning. This was carried out in accordance with the value of the individual slaves. The able-bodied young men and women were exchanged for one Portuguese peça each. Non able-bodied men, women and children who in the eyes of Prince Henry's Auctioneers did not worth a peça were separated from each other irrespective of their family-ties and ages, and grouped into two or three persons to be auctioned as an equivalent for one peça.199 This being the case, Prince Henry and his men laid by this action, a foundation for the future humiliation and devaluation of Black Africans on an international level that was witnessed throughout the period of the Atlantic slave trade. These were men and women, whose salvation he claimed to bring about in the course of his exploration of the West African Atlantic and for which he was given support and approval by the popes. In his characteristics as a cunning and tricky religious Crusader, he ordered in the course of this auctioning that some slaves should be given as a gift to the Churches in Portugal, so as to evoke in the minds of the people gathered for this brutal human auctioning the feeling that he was really doing this outrageous enslavement as a service to God and to the Christian Church. According to Russell, the Prince ordered his men to give as a present: “One captive to the principal Catholic Church in Lagos and another to the Franciscan monastery on Cape St. Vincent. This was intended both as a thanks-offering to God for the success of the venture and to give force to the claim that it was concern for the salvation of the souls of these captives and nothing else that had caused the Prince to arrange for them to be brought to Portugal.”200
But this pretence on the part of the Prince could no longer be hidden as it was shortly learnt that he collected for his own part the tax of the Royal Fifth (Quinto) per capita of all these captives granted to him in the Royal Charter of 1443. In all, Prince Henry collected for himself 46 able-bodied Black African men and women as a portion due to him from these Black African captives. Commenting on this, Peter Russell rightly observed: “The Prince, who mounted on a horseback, supervised the proceedings, taking for himself as the Royal Fifth some forty-six of the best slaves. These already, had been specially set aside for him.”201 His military Order of Christ under whose banner this slave raiding voyage was conducted likewise received her Royal Twentieth (Vintena) per capita of these captives during the auctioning.
However, this conduct of the Prince and the auctioning of these human Black cargoes in 1444 was not watched by all with great admiration as the Prince did, and would have expected his spectators to have done on that infamous day. Instead, there were among the common folk those, who were outraged by the conduct of this auctioning and the inhuman treatment associated with it. What really moved those men and women was not that they were opposed to the enslavement of their fellow humans of West African origin, but rather the human misery and the tragedy they saw in the wailing and cries of those mothers, whose children were mercilessly separated and torn from their hands by the feeling-less hands of the Auctioneers carrying out the order from their master Prince Henry the Navigator. Commenting on this incident, M. Saunders remarks: “There is no doubt that the Portuguese saw and could be moved by the sufferings caused by slavery: in 1444 for instance, the first slave auction at Lagos was interrupted by the common folk, who were enraged at seeing the separation of the families of slaves.”202 Their reaction and disapproval of such humiliating conduct on the side of the Prince and his men did not escape the human feelings of the palace chronicler Gomes Azurara, who gave a recorded account of this event. Azurara, though a knighted member of this Order of Christ under whose banner this seizure and auctioning of innocent Black African men and women was conducted, refused to reason monetarily like his co-members did at this event. Instead he was moved with pity at the human tragedy elicited in the fate of those Black African captives and acknowledged at least the fact of a common humanity he shared with those greatly terrified and humiliated Black Africans, whose fate was decided by the Prince at this event. Expressing his feelings for these traumatized and auctioned Black African captives, this chronicler wrote:
I pray Thee that my tears may not wrong my conscience, for it is not their religion but their humanity that maketh mine to weep in pity for their sufferings. And if the brute animals, with their bestial feelings, by a natural instinct understand the sufferings of their own kind, what wouldst Thou have my human nature to do on seeing before my eyes that miserable company and remembering that they too are of the generation of the sons of Adam.203
Despite his pity for the enslaved Black Africans and the recognition of a common humanity with them, one would not of course expect Gomes Azurara to make a paradigm-shift from the dominant thought and mentality of the medieval Christians on the issue of dehumanizing and humiliation of nonChristians considered as enemies of the Christian faith. He was therefore, as convinced as his master Prince Henry and his co-members of the military Order of Christ were, that these captives were the accursed descendants of Ham, whose enslavement and humiliation was demonstrated as an act designed by God by the early patristic and medieval Christian writers. And that such treatment of humiliation and sufferings meted out on these unfortunate Black captives were nothing to compare with the conversion and salvation, which their enslavement now hold in stock for them at the end of life. As a proof of this fact, Gomes Azurara could not hide his religious background and state of mind while addressing this issue in form of an intercessory prayer for the enslaved, requesting that God will open their hearts to come to the realisation of the goal (salvation) of their enslavement. Thus in the following words, Azurara prayed: “Oh! All-Powerful Fortune, whose wheel moves forwards and backwards arranging the affairs of the world according to your whims, at least place before the eyes of these miserable people some awareness of the wonderful new things that await them at life's end, so that they may receive some consolation in the middle of their present great distress.”204
Undoubtedly, Azurara saw the salvation of these Black Africans as the sole goal of his master and his military Order of Christ and he tried all he could in the record of this event to view the conduct of his master on this occasion with a positive lens. And even when the Prince rejoiced for the profit that he has made from this auctioning, Azurara would interpret the source of his master's delight as something that was not coming from the material benefits he had won, but rather as something that comes from the salvation of the souls of his victims, which his hands had caused to bring about. This effort of Azurara to wash the hands of Prince Henry clean from the stains of blood and of the evils of the slave trade has been uncovered by Peter Russell when he wrote:
Azurara, anxious to make sure that future readers of his chronicle could not fall into the error of thinking that Henry was involved in the slave trade for the money, proceeded to give his readers a final assurance that it was not the fact that forty-six valuable slaves had just become the Prince's property which pleased him, but the thought of all the souls, who, thanks to the action of Lançarote and his companions, had been saved from eternal perdition. 205
But for the Prince, it mattered less to him, whatsoever the position of his critics on this issue was. What mattered most to him was his irresistible desire and interest on continuing his economic enterprise in Africa. Lured by the gains he had already made in the human cargoes of 1444 therefore, Prince Henry just a few months afterwards, sent another caravels led by Lançarote to West Africa in 1445. Using the same method of slave razzias, Lançarote was able to come home with another huge human cargoes. On arrival in Lagos, the same display of a spectacular disembarkation of the slave captives was ceremoniously made like in the previous one. Writing on this, the chronicler Azurara described it as follows:
How could anyone not take pleasure on observing the multitude of people who rushed to see the caravels? As soon as these had lowered their sails, the officers who collect the imposts due to the king were rowed out in boats from the waterfront to verify where these ships came from and what they carried. When they returned, the news that they carried a cargo of slaves spread in a very short time and so many people went aboard the caravels that these were in danger of sinking. The crowd were no less the following day when the captives were brought ashore from the ships to be marched to the Prince's palace, which was a considerable distance from the waterfront. From all over the city people rushed to the streets through which they would have to be taken... when they watched the prisoners bound with rope being marched through the streets, the tumult of the people was so great as they praised aloud the great virtues of the Prince that if anyone had dared to voice a contrary opinion to theirs, he would very quickly have been obliged to withdraw it... The Prince himself was away in Viseu from where he gave orders for the disposal of his Fifth of the captives. As for the rest of them, the captains of the caravels arranged for them to be auctioned in the city as a result of which each one secured great profits.206
Be that as it may, the events of 1444 and 1445 in Portugal had helped to unravel the hidden agenda of the “saintly” Prince Henry of Portugal, who since the fall of Ceuta in 1415 began his dreamt mission of exploring the Western Atlantic Coasts of Africa. His hidden agenda has now come to a point where it could no longer be hidden from the ambient of critical rational minds. The goal of his enterprise was nothing other than the enslavement of the Black Africans. And the very method employed in doing this was the Crusade as a just war, which turned out in his hands to be a method of conducting slave drives for his personal economic aggrandizement. His on-the-spot knighting of a slave raiding champion like Lançarote as a key member of the military Order of Christ to herald the end of this auctioning, is in the views of Peter Russell: “A seal of his approval of the whole thing”207 that took place on that occasion. No matter how he would further and cunningly present his goal for the voyages in West Africa to the popes so as to garner their support and approval, the human cargoes of 1444 and 1445 respectively are an indubitable proof of the fact that it was not for the salvation of the pagans in West Africa that he set-out to achieve through his explorations, rather to enrich himself and the kingdom of Portugal economically. If this great “Crusader Prince” of Portugal considered such slave-raiding voyages in West Africa as evangelization of the pagan natives of Guinea region and expected to go down into the annals of history as one, who brought the light of the Gospel to the so-called “Gentiles” of the said regions, one would better suppose that he got it completely wrong. Today, modern history views him unfortunately with a very negative lens. Modern historians of the Iberian maritime history such as Peter Russell, Edgar Prestage, M. Saunders, Raymond Beazley, Samuel Johnson, E. W. Bovill, C. R. Crone, John Ure, inter alia, hold him in a very poor light as far as the Transatlantic enslavement of Black Africans is concerned. Samuel Johnson for instance, observed that the Prince's association with the enslavement of the Black Africans “made it difficult to decide, taking everything into account, whether he had been a force for good or for evil in World history.”208 M. Saunders described the human cargoes brought into Portugal by Prince Henry as inauguration of the Atlantic Slave Trade. Thus in his very words, Saunders remarked: “The introduction of Black slaves into Portugal marks a turning point in the history of slavery. The voyages of the Portuguese’s caravels were the inauguration of the Atlantic slave trade and from thenceforward, Black slavery was to be a typical feature of Atlantic civilization in early modern times.”209 Bovill on his part, viewed the introduction of Black Africans as slaves into Portugal by Prince Henry as a scandal that brought tragic consequences not only to the Portuguese but to Europeans at large. Referring to the human cargoes of 1444 in Portugal, Bovill said: “Later, a whole cargo of captives was shipped to Lisbon where they were sold into slavery, with profoundly tragic consequences, for it taught Europeans how rapidly money could be made by the enslavement of Africans. The character of the voyages then began quickly to change.”210 On the same parameter, C. R. Crone shared the same view with Bovill and reduced the voyages sent into West Africa by the Prince to a mere level of a journey made to acquire quick money. According to Crone: “As soon as it was quickly realised that there was money in the enslavement of Black Africans and thenceforward the character of these voyages altered. Discovery was no longer pursued for its own ends, but as a source of personal gain. Buccaneers regularly descended on the north-west coast of Africa to raid the Azaneguys. All, who resisted capture, were ruthlessly slain.”211 Even the liberator of the enslaved Indians, bishop Bartolomé da Las Casas, but unfortunately the very one who in the sixteenth century suggested replacing Indians with the Black Africans in the New World did not fail to castigate the Prince's method of evangelization with a barrel of criticisms. In the views of Las Casas, Prince Henry and his men are: “Violent evil-doers, who, while professing to spread the faith, had in fact broken in Guinea most of the Church's laws and teachings.”212
In all of these, the action of Prince Henry and his men in the years of 1444 and 1445 respectively had cast a big cloud of doubt on his genuine intention of exploring the Western Coasts of the African Atlantic. The huge human cargoes of those years brought into Portugal had led many to crown him with an honorary title of a “slave Prince,” the first Patron of the Transatlantic slave trade as well as the first European that opened the seaway for the first time for the Atlantic transportation of Black Africans into Europe. This fact was echoed by Peter Russell when he said: “What is unique about the event of that year is that the Prince was the first European to use the Atlantic for long distance seaborne transport to Europe of Africans of diverse racial origins captured or bought by barter in the newly discovered lands beyond Cape Bojador.”213 And by so doing, Prince Henry was crowned by history with the title of being the first man that brought Portugal on an International scene as a slave holding nation and largest supplier of slaves of Black African origin worldwide. In the light of this, Russell was therefore right to remark that by reason of this particular Henrican initiative: “Portugal became during the Prince's lifetime an important and ever-growing market which supplied Castile especially Seville and the Crown of Aragon especially Valencia with slaves from Black Africa.”214 From this year of great event onwards, that is, from 1444 to 1448, it is on record that the Prince sent over 40 ships into West Africa for the same economic purpose of capturing Black natives of the Gulf of Guinea for sale in the European slave markets. It is estimated that over 900 Blacks were brought into Portugal as slaves. Confirming this, Raymond Beazley observed that from 1444 to 1448: “More than forty ships sailed out, more than nine hundred captives were brought home, and the new lands found are all discovered by three or four explorers. And the rest?”215 The answer to this question here like many historians believe, is that they (explorers) were simply merchants and enslavers.
But would the popes of this period pay attention to this statistic records in dealing with the Prince when they will be approached for further support of this Henrican business enterprise in Guinea or would they rather pretend not to be aware of the evil machinations of the said Prince and allow themselves to be roped into this evil business done on the altar of evangelization of the natives of the West African Atlantic? How they would fare in this task, is definitely left open for the pontificates of pope Nicholas V and his successors to show in the next sub-section of this chapter.
3.3 Pope Nicholas V and his Approval of the Atlantic Enslavement of Black Africans
The above treatment of the Royal Charter of 1443 and the great event of 1444/5 coupled with the papal support given to the business enterprise of Prince Henry the Navigator as we saw in the preceding chapter of this work, had now placed us on a better footing to understand the very mission of Prince Henry the Navigator and the Crown in Portugal in embarking upon an exploring mission on the Atlantic Coasts of West Africa. Having begun a booming economic enterprise in Africa through the help of the Royal monopoly contained in the Royal Charter of 1443 and the unflinching papal support received during the pontificates of popes Martin V and Eugene IV respectively, which made this business ambition of Prince Henry to put-on the face of a religious Crusade in Africa, the Prince is now faced with the task of protecting the flow of this economic booming enterprise against the encroachment of unauthorized foreign interlopers. Owing to the fact that the monopoly-control he won from the Portuguese Crown in 1443 was limited in power to bind on other non-Portuguese nations, merchants as well as adventurers so as to prevent them from sailing on the Atlantic Coasts of West Africa for business enterprise, the Prince now needed again the support of the popes to give this Royal monopoly an international character and undertone. And at that time, this could only be granted by the authority of the pope, whose power is binding on all Christian nations, kings and their subjects. It is based on this motive that Prince Henry now sought the intervention of the reigning pope Nicholas V, who in his pontificate, not only blessed this adventure but also gave it an unlimited scope and support that remained unrivalled throughout the history of the papacy and the Transatlantic slave trade. This, he did by issuing two important Bulls in the history of the Transatlantic slave trade that gave approval and great support to the economic ambitions of this Portuguese Prince and his kingdom in West Africa.
While the previous Bulls of his predecessors Martin V and Eugene IV as we saw in chapter two above concentrated on the rights of ownership granted to Portugal over the properties in her conquered territories in the Muslim areas of Morocco and other islands along the Western Coasts of the African Atlantic, the Bulls of Nicholas V did not only acknowledge such rights but also included them among the new rights granted to Portugal in the regions of the Western Coasts of Africa - the so-called Guinea and land of the Blacks. Nicholas V failed to know that Portugal’s newly discovered territory of the Gulf of Guinea was not the land of Saracens but that of believers in African traditional religion, who did not in any manner posit any threat to the practice of faith for the European Christians. He neglected the fundamental answer given to the medievalist canonists' question which asked: “Is it just to make wars on territories which had never been in Christian hands before or not?” The reply given to this question especially by the renowned medieval canonist Sinibaldo Fieschi - the future pope Innocent IV was absolutely No. For this great canonist: “Unbelievers should not be converted into the Christian faith by means of force but by persuasive means, and he denied Christians of having any right of the use of force to convert them, make wars against them or to deprive them of their possessions.”216 The use of force could only be employed when such territories were used as a base for attack against Christians or if Christian missionaries were refused entry into such territories to preach the Gospel message.217 All this in the opinion of Ernst-Dieter Hehl means that: “Only the lands belonging to the ancient Roman Empire were open to Christian reconquest and attacks.”218 In all this, the region of West African Guinea did not fall into the category of regions or peoples, who should be attacked or be converted with force by Christians, for they did neither refuse to accept the Gospel of Christ nor posed any threat to the missionaries. Moreover, the said region was never before a part of the defunct ancient Roman Empire and as such should not be a subject of Christian reconquest and attacks. That notwithstanding, pope Nicholas V abandoned this teaching and adopted the extreme position of cardinal Hostiensis and archbishop Giles of Rome, who as we saw in chapter one of this section of our work granted the popes an unrestricted authority in the whole world and gave them the right to launch military conquest under the umbrella of a “just war” against pagans even in their own territories and to dispossess them of all their rights and possessions. It was exactly in this very tradition of unrestricted papal authority that Nicholas V as an ardent renaissance pope, found justification for his action against the peoples of West Africa in granting Prince Henry and the Crown in Portugal the authority to forcefully handle and treat the natives of this region in the same manner that Saracens of North Africa were handled. And by so doing, he authorised the king of Portugal and his successors to use military force against them, to capture them, and gave them the right to possess them together with their land as well as to enslave the natives living along the Western Coast (Guinea Coast) of Africa. These authority and rights are contained in the Bulls “Dum Diversas” and “Romanus Pontifex” issued by the Genoese and renaissance pope Nicholas V in 1452 and 1455 respectively.
Pope Nicholas V (*1397, pontificate 1447-1455) was a native of Sarzana in the Genoese republic. His original name was Tommaso Parentucelli. He was the only child of his impoverished parents. As a young priest, he worked as a librarian for the bishop of Bologna Niccolo Albergati, whom he later succeeded as bishop in 1443. He was created a cardinal by pope Eugene IV in December 1446. In the conclave that assembled after the death of pope Eugene IV in 1447, he was elected a pope and successor of pope Eugene IV. Tommaso Parentucelli was also a known humanist. His humanistic tendencies made him to devote much time and resources to scholarship and learning. He conceived for the first time the very idea of building the new Basilica of St. Peter in Rome and founded the Vatican Library which today serves as the crowning glory of his pontificate. He also encouraged the translation of many Greek texts into Latin and proclaimed the Jubilee year in 1450, which attracted pilgrims to Rome from all over the world. With the help of this Jubilee celebration, the influence of the papacy around the globe as the centre of the Church was enhanced. He has been described by some authors and historians such as Joseph Gill, Ferdinand Gregorovius etc. as the most liberal of all popes of the Holy Roman Catholic Church. Joseph Gill for example, made reference to this aspect of his life when he wrote: “In his literary pursuits, Nicholas V spent vast sum of money and was generous to a fault to the humanists, several of them Greek refugees, who thronged the papal court.”219 Also one notices a trait of his negative generosity from the tone of his two Bulls “Romanus Pontifex and Dum Diversas” through which he opened the gate widely for the traffic in Black African natives which dominated the entire trade along the Atlantic Coast of West Africa. However, he will always be remembered by historians as a pope of peace and unity, who dedicated himself to peace and unity of the whole Christendom and saw this, as the only way out for the Church to survive the incessant incursions and threats of Islam and the Turks. But unfortunately his dreams did not come through, primarily due to the fact that the many European states and their rulers pursued particular economic and political interests for the maintenance and progress of their respective states and as a result, were no longer willing to risk their wealth for the protection of the Christendom. On the other hand, this goal of uniting the entire Christendom against the threats of Turks and Islam did not see the light of the day due to the much deteriorated health of Nicholas V and his subsequent death on March 24, 1455. But three years before his death, he made a remarkable impact to the Portuguese business monopoly and control of the Western regions of the African Atlantic. Such impacts are clearly seen in the tone and the authority of the rights and favours he granted to king Alfonso V of Portugal and his successors. Let us now turn to these favours as contained in his first Bull “Dum Diversas” of 1452.220
3.4 The Bull “Dum Diversas” of Pope Nicholas V in 1452
3.4.1 Brief Introduction
The Bull “Dum Diversas” was the first Bull written by Nicholas V on the issue of the Black African enslavement together with the right of ownership granted to Portugal over West Africa. It was issued on June 18, 1452, exactly ten years after the Bull 'Illius Qui' of Eugene IV of 1442 (see chapter two above) which raised the slave raids organised by Prince Henry in West Africa to the status of a religious Crusade. Writing in connection with this, M. Saunders remarked: “Ten years later, the Portuguese sought confirmation that they could enslave infidels seized in the Crusade. The pope responded with 'Dum Diversas,' which allowed them to conquer and reduce to perpetual slavery all Saracens and pagans and other infidels and enemies of Christ in West Africa.”221 Prince Henry the Navigator obtained this grant from pope Nicholas V by using exactly the same deceptive ploys as he did in obtaining the approval for his selfish ambition from pope Eugene IV in 1442, which as we earlier saw, culminated in the slave-raiding and capture of over two hundred Black African natives forcefully brought into Portugal and auctioned as slaves in 1444. While pursuing a pure economic interest in West Africa, Prince Henry would once again present this interest to the reigning pope in a form of a religious interest of fighting the Muslims and spreading the Gospel message to West Africa which as we saw earlier was also among the interests of the renaissance popes in their ambition to establish a world-wide monarchy with themselves as monarchs having international authority. And to achieve this, Prince Henry first and foremost received from his nephew king Alfonso V a Royal Charter in the name of the military Order of Christ, whose Grandmaster he was at that time, granting him and this Order a reconfirmation of all the rights and privileges granted to him by the former kings of Portugal who were solidly behind his economic and political interests in West Africa. The reconfirmation of all the grants, which he enjoyed since ever he began this economic-political ambition in Africa that began with the attack and fall of Ceuta in 1415, is contained in a Royal Charter entitled “Carta de Dom Afonso V ao Ordem de Cristo” issued at the Portuguese city of Santarem on June 27, 1449. This Royal Brief reads as follows:
King Alfonso etc. To all who will come in contact with this letter, let them know that we wanted to grant favours to the Order of our Lord Jesus Christ, whose Governor and Grandmaster is Prince Henry, the duke of Viseu and lord of Covilhã, my most respected and beloved uncle. We find it worthy to grant him a favour by confirming to him all honour, privileges, freedom, graces and favours which were granted to him through the letters of the kings of Portugal who ruled our kingdom before us and in whose possession and use these favours were kept until the death of the virtuous king of blessed memory, my lord and father, whose soul is now resting in God.222
Continuing, king Alfonso V ordered all his Royal officials and other persons including the popes to ensure that these grants made to Prince Henry beginning from the reign of the great king John I of Portugal are respected and to avoid anything contrary to that which could proof a hindrance to the Prince in carrying out his economic and politically set objectives in Africa. This order is seen when the king stated.
And we command also all the officials and other persons in authority to fulfil and uphold these grants and ensure that they are kept and carried out, without posing any hindrance to the Prince in obtaining them. And as a proof of our authority, we send him (Prince Henry) this Brief signed by us and sealed with our Royal emblem. Given in our city of Santarem, on the 27th day of February. The king sent this letter. Martim Gill prepared it in the year of our Lord Jesus Christ 1449.223
With this Royal Brief, The Prince was able to convince pope Nicholas V in 1452, who in his Bull “Dum Diversas” even went beyond the detects of the grants contained in the said Royal Briefs to give approval to his selfish economic ambition in Africa. What surprises historians in this matter is the ease with which the popes granted Prince Henry whatever he requested from them on matters bordering on Africa and Africans in general, and always raised in such Bulls the impression that it was only for a religious purpose that those grants were made, while on the contrary, the opposite is the case. But the truth of the matter remains in the fact that both pope Nicholas V and the Prince were using the Crusade and mission to the West African Atlantic as a cover-up in pursuing their different goals in West Africa and in that sense, were complementing each other. While the Prince was pursuing the goal of expanding and enriching himself and the kingdom of Portugal which was placed under the protection and lordship of the pope since 1179, the pope on the other hand was pursuing the obligations of the papal Office to fulfil his part in the aforesaid deal signed with the Crown in Portugal as well as establishing his papal authority in the places discovered by Prince Henry and the king of Portugal. Based on the terms of this Padroado Real (Royal Patronage) of 1179, it implies that any new territory discovered, including the “New World” of the Portuguese in West Africa, invariably fell automatically under the lordship and authority of the pope. That means that this newly discovered region of Africa becomes automatically a part of the papal world-wide hierocracy, where the pope could extend his universal authority in deciding what is to be done in this “New World.” And in this whole arrangement, the king of Portugal serves only as a papal tutelage and vassal king of the newly discovered regions in Africa. On the matter now at hand, pope Nicholas V having this in mind therefore, ignored all the obvious reasons that showed that Prince Henry the Navigator had ulterior motives other than what he presented to him. This being the case, the pope now carved this request in the mould of a crusading Bull so that anyone who reads it at first glance, would definitely believe that it was purely issued for a religious purpose. But the undeniable historical fact still remains that this purported religious motive of this Bull was very far from being the historical reality surrounding this ulterior pursuit. That notwithstanding, Nicholas V patterned the structure and the wordings of this Bull to that of a crusading Bull which in the words of Frances Davenport “granted king Alfonso V general and indefinite powers to search out and conquer all pagans, enslave them and appropriate their lands and goods.”224
3.4.2 The Bull “Dum Diversas” and Enslavement of Black Africans
In the introductory part of this Bull, Nicholas V made known his intention for issuing this Bull. It was for no other reason than that of eliminating the so-called enemies of the Christian faith and to spread the Christian faith in order to bring those outside of its enclave into the fold of the Church under the authority of the pope. That is to say, that he was pursuing a realization of the Church’s teaching that: “Outside of the Catholic Church there is no salvation.” This intention is therefore seen when he asserted: “While we, who are by the Grace of God entrusted with the Apostolic Office, and faced by all sorts of worries and also driven by zealous encouragement, we consider the following thought and bear those concerns in mind, especially, that the wrath of the enemies of Christ against the orthodox faith will be pushed back and be subjected to the Christian religion.”225 Continuing, Nicholas V praised the kings of Portugal as those, who had professed faith in the true religion and are still bent on ensuring with stronger hands to suppress the influence of the enemies of the faith and bring them under their subjection. This, the pope considered as a work that ought to be supported by the use of the apostolic authority in defence and spread of the message of the Gospel of Christ. And he called on all the Christian faithful to support this mission of Prince Henry and the king of Portugal in Africa. In his own words, he said as follows:
For this reason, and while the occasion required it and we direct our eagerness towards this goal, and due to the fact that individual faithful Christians especially the beloved sons in Christ, the noble kings who confessed the Christian faith, who in honour and to the glory of the Eternal King defend the Christian faith and seek to defeat those enemies with a powerful arm. Therefore, we are pursuing this with paternal feeling, and we intend to participate in this redemptive work that serves the defence and the spread of the Christian religion. So we would like to encourage individual Christian believers to apply their forces in support of the Christian faith through spiritual works. 226
In the main body of this Bull, Nicholas V accepted the claim that it was as a result of the religious zeal of Prince Henry and the king of Portugal in fighting the Saracens and other enemies of the Christendom that they have undertaken this course and not in pursuit of an economic and political ambitions as we have observed above. And for that reason, and coupled with the fact that he has the authority to deprive non-Christians of their rights to self-rule, and to own property and can give these to a Catholic king of his choice, the pope then assured Prince Henry and his kingdom of the recognition and support of the Apostolic authority in this venture. And to match his words with action, he permitted the king and Prince Henry to invade, search out, dispossess the Saracens, pagans and other unbelievers in the Christian religion of all their kingdoms, possessions, lands, locations, villas and all movable and immovable properties and to make them their own. This papal permission granted to the king of Portugal to take over West Africans and their possessions is made clearer when the pope decreed:
As we can see that you seek out of devotion and Christian desire to subjugate the enemies of Christ, especially the Saracens, and with a strong hand to spread the Christian faith, therefore the Apostolic authority will be granted to you for this purpose.... Justly desiring that whatever concerns the integrity and spread of the faith, for which Christ our God shed his blood shall flourish in the souls of the faithful, and inspired by the love of the Christians, and as required by our pastoral office... we therefore permit you to dispossess the Saracens, pagans and other infidels, and all enemies of Christ, of all their kingdoms, commands, dominance, other belongings, lands, towns, villas, castles and all other possessions, movable and immovable property which they have held, under whatever name they are also made.227
The remaining part of the main body of this Bull contained the very lines and words which indicated the active role of the leadership of the Church in the Black African enslavement. In these lines, the Church represented by pope Nicholas V declared a just war against the Saracens of North Africa as well as the natives of the regions of the West African Atlantic Coasts as enemies of Christ. He commanded the king of Portugal to search out, capture, colonise, subjugate and to reduce the natives of this region of West Africa to perpetual slavery, thereby approving as well as authorising the trade on human beings of Black African origin. This attitude of the pope here made David Brion Davis to justly remark that: “In 1452 pope Nicholas V authorized the king of Portugal to deprive Moors and pagans of their liberty.”228 In the light of this, pope Nicholas V said authoritatively and without mincing words to king Alfonso V of Portugal:
We grant to you complete indulgence for the forgiveness of sins and also to the esteemed noble commander, barons and soldiers and other Christian believers, who are on your side in this battle of faith and are helping you with their goods, and who, with the intention of receiving salvation are more eager to attack the enemies of the Christian faith. Therefore, we assure you and all the Christian faithful of both sexes who are giving you aids in this work of faith, and even those who do not want to take part in person, but who are ready to make contributions from their property according to their capacity, the mercy of the Almighty God and that of the holy Apostles Peter and Paul.232
Like it is always the case when the popes grant Apostolic privileges of this magnitude to the Christian kings, this Bull ended with the threat of excommunication on all those who might venture to infringe on the contents of this papal grant or in any way challenge the authority contained therein. In the light of this, the pope threatened: “No one is allowed to challenge this document issued by us, our recovery, our will, our forbearance and our decisions or to act contrary to its detects. Should anyone attempt to do this, let him know that the indignation of the Almighty God and those of the holy Apostles Peter and Paul will fall upon him. Given in St. Peter at Rome, on the 18th day of June 1452, in the sixth year of our pontificate.” 233
With this Bull, the Church under the papacy of pope Nicholas V officially supported and blessed the enslavement of Black Africans as a way of promoting the faith and encouraging Catholic kings in doing the same. By commanding the king of Portugal and Prince Henry the navigator to force the Black Africans into perpetual enslavement, he has not only approved of the continuation of the Church's support and teaching on the institution of slavery in vogue since the time of the patristic and the medieval period in the history of the Catholic Church, but also accepted as correct all the Western institutions and schools of thoughts which approved of the Aristotelian theory of natural slavery as we saw in the justification of slavery in section two of this work. That would mean that Black Africans for pope Nicholas V were slaves of nature whose enslavement was justified on the grounds of their barbarity and lack of enough wisdom to rule themselves and as such should be ruled and governed by the stronger and wiser Portuguese folk. In the light of this action of pope Nicholas V herein, Prince Henry the Navigator and his men have been freed from any hindrance and qualms of conscience in pursuing their economic and political ambitions in Africa. And as such they are now free to use as well as deal cruelly with the innocent natives of West Africa as their slaves to be captured via incessant military slave raids and to be auctioned as slaves as they did in Portugal in 1444/5 for the enrichment of themselves and that of their kingdom Portugal.
This same procedure and attitude of the popes in treating matters relating to Black Africans of this period under discussion was again repeated by pope Nicholas V in the second Bull “Romanus Pontifex” he issued with regard to the Transatlantic enslavement of Black Africans. With this Bull, whose contents we shall now consider in this discussion, the whole of the Atlantic Waters of West Africa and beyond, became an exclusive right of Prince Henry and the Royal Crown of Portugal.
3.5 The Bull “Romanus Pontifex” of Pope Nicholas V in 1454
3.5.1 Brief Introduction
The business monopoly which Portugal has continued to enjoy in West Africa has remained a source of an irresistible economic interest for most European nations and kings. As of 1452, this Portuguese trade in African gold and slaves was yielding so much money for Portugal that everyone wanted to have a share in it. Upon learning about this flourishing trade in Guinean Africa, it is not surprising that the famous Venetian traveller and merchant Alvise Cadamosto (1432-1483) quickly bought a license from Prince Henry the Navigator and navigated to the Atlantic Coast of West Africa in 1455 in order to engage himself in this trade. Having witnessed the great profit flowing from this trade, he confessedly expressed the hope of the gains in this trade in the following words: “From no traffic in the world could the like be had.”234
That being the case, it is little wonder then that king Juan II (*1405, reigned 1406-1454) of Spain also renewed his interest to carry out exploration on the Atlantic Coast of West Africa. In his bid to realise his dream of having a share in this flourishing trade, king Juan II without first of all obtaining permission from Prince Henry and the king of Portugal, gave licence to the duke of Medina Sidonia in 1449 to explore and at the same time exploit the land facing the Canary islands south of Cape Bojador with the claim that his ancestors had earlier been in possession of this region of Africa. The king of Portugal was alarmed at this interference in what he called his “Waters.” Portugal became watchful by stationing her army on the West African island of Arguin. In 1454 Portugal intercepted and seized a Castilian ship belonging to the captains and merchants of king Juan II of Castile which was heading to the Coast of Guinea in West Africa under the full control of the king of Portugal. As a result of this seizure, king Juan II of Castile wrote a letter to king Alfonso V of Portugal in 1454, wherein he protested against the seizure of his ship and demanded the restitution of the captured vessels and the release of his subjects from captivity.235 After noticing that his letter did not yield the required results, king Juan II now sent ambassadors to the king of Portugal and threatened to make war against him unless he desisted from the conquest of Barbary islands and that of Guinea, which he claimed had belonged to him and his kingdom of Castile. The king of Portugal replied that the authority of the Bulls of pope Eugene IV and Dum Diversas of Nicholas V assigned Guinea to him and his successors in perpetuity. He made recourse to Rome to seek aid from the pope, who at that time was seen and upheld as an arbitrator between nations and kings partly because of his independent potentate position as well as his spiritual powers especially his powers of excommunication and interdict. What we witnessed above in this quarrel between the kings of Portugal and Castile is a concrete example of the weakness and the limit of the binding force of the Royal Charter of 1443, which as we observed above gave Prince Henry the sole right of monopoly control over the flourishing trade on gold and slaves from West Africa and prohibited other merchants from sailing on the Atlantic Waters of West Africa without the permission of Prince Henry. That the king of Castile ever ventured to send his captains and ships to the regions of Guinea, unveiled the very shortcomings of this Royal Charter, and established the fact that its binding force really lacked an international character. And it can only receive such a force, if and only if, it was underwritten by the pope. To achieve this, a copy of this Royal Charter of 1443 was now presented to pope Nicholas V through the diplomats of Prince Henry in Rome for his acknowledgement and recognition that he knew that Portugal had conquered and owned Africa as far as the Gulf of Guinea and beyond is concerned. It is only by doing so, that what Portugal claimed to be her own in Africa could be internationally recognized and be respected by all Christian kings and their kingdoms.
However, the pope as an arbitrator among medieval Christian kings and princes decided this matter in favour of the king of Portugal. And this decision of pope Nicholas V on this matter is the birth of this most famous papal Bull “Romanus Pontifex” of January 8, 1454, wherein the pope reconfirmed the papal grants he made to Portugal in “Dum Diversas,” acknowledged those of his predecessors Martin V and Eugene IV as well as recognized the grants made to Prince Henry in the Royal Charter of 1443 and raised its status to an international law having a binding force of law on all Christian kings, kingdoms and nations the world over. While making reference to this decision of Nicholas V in this Bull, Peter Russell made this observation: “Nicholas V in the famous Bull Romanus Pontifex exercised his temporal power to cede the lordship of Guinea for all time jointly to the king of Portugal and to Prince Henry. In the light of the 1443 donations, this meant that in practice, Prince Henry alone was, if only in terms of papal authority, titular lord of Guinea until his death.“236 And as an insight of what this decision of Nicholas V meant for both the kings of Portugal and Castile, Frances Gardiner Davenport rightly observed that this decision of Nicholas V marked an important stage both in the history of Portugal and its colonies and gave her a monopoly right over the territories discovered in Africa. She gave a clue to the geographical areas involved in this papal grant made to Portugal, which in her view covered the whole of “Ceuta and the district from Capes Boyador and Não through all Guinea and beyond towards that southern shore and declared that this together with all other lands acquired by Portugal from the infidels before or after 1452, belonged to king Alfonso, his successors and Prince Henry, and to no others.”237
The papal Bull “Romanus Pontifex” is therefore, an official apostolic declaration and confirmation of the Western Coasts and regions of Africa as a private property of Portugal and her Royal Crown. In this Bull, Nicholas V outlisted and gave approval to all the political and economic feats which Prince Henry the Navigator had accomplished for his kingdom since the on-start of Portuguese maritime territorial expansion and exploration of Africa in the early beginnings of the fifteenth century. Little wonder then did many historians like Thomas Hugh describe it as an apostolic compendium of Portugal’s monopoly in politics, trade and religion in Africa.238 This Bull has much in common with the Bull “Dum Diversas” which preceded it. Based on this fact, we shall bring out only those things that are new and peculiar to Romanus Pontifex in this section of our discussion so as to avoid unnecessary repetitions.
3.5.2 The Bull “Romanus Pontifex” and the Transatlantic Enslavement of Black Africans
Like Dum Diversas written two years before it, Nicholas V for the second time in series, while protecting and promoting the monopolistic business interests of Portugal in Africa, tried to raise a non-existent situation among readers of this Bull by given this Bull a crusading tone as if there was a war of faith going on between Portugal and the pagan natives of West Africa. But the obvious fact remained as we have observed above that he was supporting the economic and political interests of Prince Henry and the king of Portugal in West Africa as part of his quest to have a universal authority in the whole world and to show that he is the one, who has the authority to decide what is to happen in the newly discovered territory of West Africa and beyond. In his bid to achieve this, he presented his intention for issuing this Bull in the introductory part of it, to be the same motive of bringing all into the same fold of Christianity, which has remained part of the political interests of the renaissance papacy in its quest to establish a quasi-world-wide monarchy with the popes as the head and the king of Portugal as the vassal king of the newly discovered territories. The papacy found in the king of Portugal and Prince Henry the executors of this politically motivated papal project in the “New World” of the Portuguese in Africa.
On a careful reading of the introductory part of this Bull, one notices a hidden intention for its issuance. As it were, the main intention of Nicholas V for issuing this Bull is nothing other than to bestow favours to the Catholic kings and princes of Portugal as a reward for being an extended arm of the popes as well as the sword-bearer of the popes in the Crusade against Saracens and other “perceived enemies” of the Christian faith. That is to say, that it was written to grease the palms of king Alfonso V and Prince Henry of Portugal with the oil of a monopoly in trade, politics and control over all material goods in West Africa for extending the political powers of the popes to this new Portuguese domain. This was done so as to encourage them for more military actions against Muslims, pagans and other perceived enemies of the Catholic Church even in the regions, where no such “perceived enemies” ever existed in West Africa and subjecting them to their temporal powers and indirectly to the papal authority of the popes. This intention of Nicholas V was brought to a limelight when he wrote:
…contemplating with a father's mind all the several climes of the world and the characteristics of all the nations dwelling in them and seeking and desiring the salvation of all, wholesomely ordains and disposes upon careful deliberation those things which he sees will be agreeable to the Divine Majesty and by which he may bring the sheep entrusted to him by God into the single divine fold, and may acquire for them the reward of eternal felicity and obtain pardon for their souls. This we believe will more certainly come to pass through the aid of the Lord, if we bestow suitable favours and special graces on those Catholic kings and Princes, who like athletes and intrepid champions of the Christian faith, as we know by the evidence of facts, not only restrain the savage excesses of the Saracens and of other infidels, enemies of the Christian name, but also for the defence and increase of the faith, vanquish them and their kingdoms and habitations, though situated in the remotest parts unknown to us, and subject them to their own temporal dominion sparing no labour and expense, in order that those kings and Princes relieved of all obstacles, may be the more animated to the prosecution of so salutary and laudable a work.239
The later part of the introductory stage of this document recognised the zealousness of Prince Henry the Navigator who followed in the footsteps of his father late king John I in spreading the Gospel of Christ in some areas in the North African city of Ceuta and to bring the enemies of the Christian faith (Saracens and other non-Christians) under his own subjection. This recognition is made known when this document reads:
We have lately heard, not without great joy and gratification, how our beloved son, the noble personage Henry, Prince of Portugal, uncle of our most dear son in Christ, the illustrious Alfonso V, king of the kingdoms of Portugal and Algarve, treading in the footsteps of John I, of famous memory, king of the said kingdoms, his father, and greatly inflamed with zeal for the salvation of souls...has aspired from his early youth with his utmost might to cause the most glorious Name of the said Creator to be published, extolled and revered throughout the whole world, even in the remote and undiscovered places, and also to bring into the bosom of his faith the perfidious enemies of Him and of the life-giving Cross by which we have been redeemed, namely the Saracens and all other infidels whatsoever.24
Acting on the information provided to him by Prince Henry and king Afonso V of Portugal on the claimed motives of Prince Henry to explore the Western Atlantic Coasts of Africa, Nicholas V outlined these motives as contained in the Royal Charter241 of 1443 and using the information contained therein, he showered praises on Prince Henry the Navigator for his discovery of a new route to Africa through the sea voyage along which contact could be established with the Christians in the East (Indians) so as to enter into alliance with them in the fight against the Saracens and other enemies of Christ. Relying on this Royal Charter as his “instrumentum laboris” for writing this Bull, he fell into the same historical loophole just like king Afonso V did on the issue of the strangeness of the knowledge of the lands and peoples of West Africa among Europeans in the fifteenth century. In view of this, Nicholas V affirmed:
Moreover, since some time ago, it had come to the knowledge of the said Prince that never, or at least not within the memory of men, had it been customary to sail on this ocean sea toward the southern and eastern shores, and that it was so unknown to us Westerners that we had no certain knowledge of the peoples of those parts, believing that he would best perform his duty to God in this matter, if by his effort and industry that sea might become navigable as far as to the Indians who are said to worship the name of Christ, and that thus he might be able to enter into relation with them, and to incite them to aid the Christians against the Saracens and other such enemies of the faith, and might also be able forthwith to subdue certain gentile or pagan peoples living between, who are entirely free from infection by the sect of the most impious Mahomet, and to preach and cause to be preached to them the unknown but most sacred Name of Christ.242
This papal document also recalled the many military conquest which Prince Henry the Navigator and his men had long undertaken in Africa and regretted the huge losses in human and material wealth he suffered in the course of his expeditions in Africa. It recognised and confirmed that through such military actions taken by Prince Henry against the natives of the Gulf of Guinea, many harbours, islands and seas in both the provinces of Guinea and Senegal are in the possession of Prince Henry the Navigator and his kingdom. This section of Romanus Pontifex also confirmed the truth in the behaviours of Prince Henry the Navigator and his men who, using their military prowess in the slave-raids of 1444 as we witnessed above, attacked the innocent natives of West Africa and forcefully took at once 235 of them into captives which they auctioned as slaves in the great event of June 1444 in Portugal.
It is very surprising here, that the pope learnt of such criminal slave raiding conducted by Prince Henry and his men in West Africa and yet he did not see anything wrong in that action of Prince Henry as well as in the first slave auctioning of 1444 in Portugal. Instead, he approved of it and encouraged it, and even went as far as expressing hope that if Prince Henry continued to forcefully catch such innocent civilians and deprive them of their freedom as humans just for his selfish economic aggrandizement, they might be converted to the Christian faith. This attitude of Nicholas V here is in the opinion of a Jesuit Priest Michael Stogre, S.J, an introduction of force rather than a peaceful means of evangelization. According to him: “Romanus Pontifex introduced the concept of military force rather than peaceful evangelization for missionary purposes and that it applied to lands that had never previously been subjected to Christian ownership subsequently leading to brutal dispossession and enslavement of the indigenous population.”243 This method of forcefully catching the natives of West Africa, turning them into slaves by auctioning in order to convert them to the Christian faith had led a German historian Jörg Fisch to conclude that the pope placed enslavement of Black Africans before their conversion in this papal document. This view was maintained by Fisch when he observed: “The Portuguese have acquired slaves in Guinea. Many of them have already become Christians, there is still hope for the conversion of others. Enslavement was therefore placed before conversion.”244 This expression of hope of conversion in this manner and the approval of this unjust manner of acquiring innocent Black African natives as slaves by Prince Henry the Navigator was praised and encouraged in this Bull when pope Nicholas V unmistakably wrote:
strengthened, however always by the Royal authority, he has not ceased for twenty five years past to send almost yearly an army of the peoples of the said kingdom, with the greatest labour, danger and expense, in very swift ships of this kind had explored and taken possession of very many harbours, islands and seas, they at length came to the province of Guinea, and having taken possession of some islands, harbours and sea adjacent to that province, sailing farther they came to the mouth of a certain great river commonly supposed to be the Nile, and war was waged for some years against the peoples of those parts in the name of the said king Alfonso and of the Infante, and in it very many islands in that neighbourhood were subdued and peacefully possessed together with the adjacent sea. Thence also many Guinea-men and other Negroes, taken by force, and some by barter of unprohibited articles, or by other lawful contract of purchase have been sent to the said kingdom. A large number of these have been converted to the Catholic faith, and it is hoped, by the help of divine mercy, that if such progress be continued with them, either those peoples will be converted to the faith or at least the souls of many of them will be gained for Christ.245
And refusing to care for the protection and well-being of those Black Africans enslaved by Prince Henry the Navigator, as well as feeling less-concerned with those of them, who were slaughtered while refusing to be taken as slaves by the men of Prince Henry, the pope, as this document demonstrated, was rather concerned with the protection of the victimizers themselves and regretted the loss in human and material goods which Prince Henry suffered in the course of his slave-raids in Guinea. And to prevent any further losses as well as to avoid any incursion in the conquered territories now belonging to Prince Henry the Navigator and the king of Portugal, Nicholas V acknowledged and at the same time gave authority to the prohibitions made by the king of Portugal in the said Royal Charter of 1443 against any external interference in those territories already acquired by them through the use of force. He allayed fears that such external interference might bring aids to the natives of the conquered regions of Guinea in form of supplying of iron, wooden materials for construction of weapons for use in defence of their lives and properties.246 In modern parlance, he called for a military blockade and sanctions against the Black Africans in these regions of Guinea, so that by means of trade relations with other foreigners, they could not obtain any weaponry to defend themselves against their unjust Portuguese aggressors. And to achieve this aim, the pope banned all other Christian kings and their subjects from trading and sailing on the rivers and seas of this province of Guinea already in the possession of Prince Henry and his kingdom. And by so doing, he confirmed the Royal letter of 1443 made to Prince Henry, authorising the Prince and his military Order of Christ to take into their possession the entire Africa for the kingdom of Portugal. All these were confirmed by pope Nicholas V when he decreed:
Fearing lest strangers induced by covetousness should sail to those parts… either for the sake of gain or through malice, carry or transmit iron, arms, wood used for construction, and other things and goods prohibited to be carried to infidels or should teach those infidels the art of navigation, whereby they would become more powerful and obstinate enemies of the king and the Prince, and the prosecution of this enterprise would either be hindered or would perhaps entirely fail, not without great offence to God and great reproach to all Christianity. To prevent this and to conserve their right of possession, under certain most severe penalties then expressed, have prohibited and in general had ordained that none, unless with their sailors and ships and on payment of a certain tribute and with an express licence previously obtained from the said king, should presume to sail to the said provinces or to trade in their ports or to fish in their sea.247
In recognition of this right of ownership over the Western part of Africa given to Portugal, Nicholas V reiterated the authenticity and validity of the previous grants made to Portugal as contained in his preceding Bull Dum Diversas. As we saw above, this document authorized Portugal once again to deal with the innocent natives of West African Guinea and to handle them in the same manner in which the Saracens of North African Morocco were handled, especially to reduce them to perpetual slavery as well as to dispossess them of all their possessions and lands. He quoted word for word all that contained in his previous document and added more strength and force to them with the effect that the entire Africa together with her possessions belonged to and will continue to belong to king Alfonso V and Prince Henry the Navigator and to all their successors in perpetuity. These grants and powers to possess all the regions of West Africa and to reduce her sons and daughters to perpetual enslavement were made when the pope unmistakably and authoritatively stated:
We, therefore weighing all and singular the premises with due meditation, and noting that since we had formerly by other letters of ours granted among other things free and ample faculty to the aforesaid king Alfonso to invade, search out, capture, vanquish and subdue all Saracens and pagans whatsoever, and other enemies of Christ where so ever placed, and the kingdoms, dukedoms, principalities, dominions, possessions and all movable and immovable goods whatsoever held and possessed by them and to reduce their persons to perpetual slavery, and to apply and appropriate to himself and his successors the kingdoms, dukedoms, counties, principalities, dominions, possessions and goods, and to convert them to his and their use and profit. By having secured the said faculty, the said king Alfonso, or by his authority, the aforesaid Prince, justly and lawfully has acquired and possessed, and do possess these Islands, lands, harbours and seas, and they do of right belong and pertain to the said king Alfonso and his successors, nor without any special license from king Alfonso and his successors themselves has any other even of the faithful of Christ been entitled hitherto, nor is he by any means now entitled lawfully to meddle therewith.248
In the light of the above citation, the historian and author M. Saunders was justified to say that: “In the Bull Romanus Pontifex of 1444, pope Nicholas V ceded the conquest and more importantly, granted a commercial monopoly of Atlantic Africa south of Cape Bojador to the Portuguese, who, assured of papal approval, proceeded to extend the slave trade ever further south along the Western coast of Africa.”249 The German historian Jörg Fisch blamed the attitude of the pope in connection with his failure to differentiate between Muslims and the pagans of Guinea whom the pope collectively branded “enemies of Christ” that deserved punishement with perpetual enslavement and deprivation of all their possessions and lands. The position of this historian is vividly seen when he remarked: “In this Bull, Portugal was granted exclusive rights in Africa. The pope praised the Portuguese for their attacks against Saracens and other infidels in Africa. There was no difference made between the action carried out against Saracens and other unbelievers.”250 Going a step further, Fisch identified in this Bull a glaring mistake made by the pope for not recognizing the rights of the native population of Guinea in decreeing that their fundamental rights as humans and that of owning movable and immovable possessions should be taken away from them. Thus according to him: “The complete disregard of possible rights of the inhabitants of those regions, especially with regard to the international human rights is a breach of the respect to the rights of these people. The Bulls from 1455 to 1456 went further and granted the right to enslave the native population, a legacy which comes from the struggle against Islam.” 251
However, this legacy of depriving the pagan natives of West Africa of all rights, private possessions and loss of freedom is not just a legacy that comes from the hatred against Islam but also one that incoporated many other legacies in the past history of the Church such as the attitude of the Christian Church towards the Black African race since the patristic and medieval times. One notices in the above citation that the pope was really operating from the background of the aforesaid tradition. Without mentioning them by name, he adopted these traditions whole and entire and crowned all the legacies and anti-Blacks attitudes of the Church, which ranged from her viewing Black African race as an accursed race of Ham punished with blackness of skin-color and perpetual enslavement, as a barbarous and an inferior race of people, that is good for nothing and synonymous with sin and all sorts of abonminations, and worst of all, to her viewing the Black Africans as children of the evil One, enemies of the Christian faith, whose existence in this life should be extinguished like a wild fire by the Christians etc. This is the tradition which pope Nicholas V was fostering and implementing in this Bull by decreeing in the above citation that the Black Africans should be invaded, raided, deprived of all possessions and be forcefully held by the Portuguese Christians as slaves in perpetuity.
Furthermore, in order to encourage king Afonso V and Prince Henry the more to continue with their dispossession of the lands and properties belonging to the native inhabitants of these West African regions, the pope assured them of his continuous supports and approvals. He recognized and confirmed all the previous faculties given in the past to the king and to Prince Henry to own and possess all the territories under her control and authority as lawfully made and possessed by the kingdom of Portugal. This came about, when the pope extended the right of ownership to both discovered and yet to be discovered territories beginning from Ceuta, Cape Bojador, Guinea and finally to the island of Não.252 Commenting on this, Jörg Fisch noted as follows: “In the Bull Romanus Pontifex of 1455 the Portuguese were granted for the first time monopoly rights. The pope prohibited all other powers and their families to conduct any activity in the Portuguese area. Portugal received exclusive rights from Cape Bojador to the whole of Guinea and beyond it, stretching to those southern coasts.” 253 This was done so as to exclude the king of Castile (Spain) from making any further claim of rights of ownership of Africa. And by so doing, the pope decided the struggle to own Africa and to dominate the lucrative trade along the Western Coast of Africa in favour of king Alfonso V and his successors. This decision of the pope was distinctly made in the following words:
We, being very fully informed of all and singular the premises, do motu proprio, not at the instance of king Alfonso or the Infante, or on the petition of any other offered to us on their behalf in respect to this matter, and after mature deliberation, by Apostolic authority, and from certain knowledge, in the fullness of Apostolic powers, by the tenor of these presents, decree and declare that the aforesaid letters of faculty (the tenor whereof we wish to be considered as inserted word for word in these presents, with all and singular the clauses contained therein) are extended to Ceuta and to the aforementioned and all other acquisitions whatsoever, even those acquired before the date of the said letters of faculty, and to all those provinces, islands, harbours, and seas whatsoever, which hereafter, in the name of the said king Alfonso and of his successors and of the Infante, in those parts and the adjoining, and in the more distant and remote parts, can be acquired from the hands of infidels or pagans, and that they are comprehended under the said letters of faculty. And by force of those and of the present letters of faculty the acquisitions already made, and what hereafter shall happen to be acquired, after they shall have been acquired. We do by the tenor of these presents, decree and declare have pertained, and forever of right do belong and pertain to the aforesaid king and to his successors, and that the right of conquest which in the course of these letters we declare to be extended from the capes of Bojador and of Nao, as far as through all Guinea and beyond toward that southern shore, has belonged and pertained and forever of right belongs and pertains to the said king Alfonso and his successors and the Infante and not to any others.254
To show king Alfonso V and the Prince that he does not leave any stone unturned in supporting their ambition in Africa, Nicholas V went as far as bending the ecclesiastical laws prohibiting any form of business transactions with the so called arch-enemies of the Church - the Saracens, pagans as well as other unbelievers in Christ and thereby permitted the king of Portugal and Prince Henry to conduct such trade with them. This permission was made by the pope in the following words:
Moreover, since this is fitting in many ways for the perfecting of a work of this kind, we allow that the aforesaid king Alfonso and his successors and the Infante, and also the persons to whom they, or any one of them shall think that this work ought to be committed, may, according to the grant made to the said king John by Martin V, and another grant made also to king Edward of illustrious memory king of the said kingdoms, father of the said king Alfonso by Eugenius IV, make purchases and sales of any thing and goods whatsoever, as it shall seem fit with any Saracens and infidels in the said regions, and also may enter into any contracts, transact business, bargain, buy and negotiate and carry any commodities whatsoever to the places of those Saracens and infidels, provided they be not iron instruments, woods to be used for construction, cordage, ships or any kind of armour and may sale them to the said Saracens and infidels.255
Having granted and fulfilled the cardinal wishes and ambitions of king Alfonso V and Prince Henry the Navigator in Africa which include among others: to extend the Portuguese kingdom to Africa by way of conquests and colonisation as well as to gain monopolist control over the wealth and resources flowing in Africa, the pope now gave them and their kingdoms the right of spiritual powers which was an exclusively reserved papal powers and rights to establish Churches and organise missions in all the regions of Africa that are in their possession. This included among others, the power to select and send missionaries of their choice to the mission lands as well as to appoint bishops as shepherds of those overseas missions. This transfer of papal juridical powers to the kings of Portugal and their successors was clearly made when Nicholas V commanded that:
The same king Alfonso V, his successors and the Infante, in the provinces, islands and places already acquired and to be acquired by him, may found and cause to be founded and built any Churches, monasteries or other pious places whatsoever, and also may send over to them any ecclesiastical persons whatsoever, as volunteers, both secular and regulars of any of the mendicant Orders, and that those persons may abide there as long as they shall live, and hear confessions of all who live in the said parts or who come thither, and after the confessions have been heard, they may give due absolution in all cases, except those reserved to the aforesaid See, and enjoin salutary penance and also administer the ecclesiastical sacraments freely and lawfully. And this we allow and grant to Alfonso himself and his successors, the kings of Portugal who shall come afterwards and to the aforesaid Infante.256
To supplement what was lacking (international character) in the binding force of the Royal Charter of 1443 which could not prevent foreign captains, merchants, travellers, kings and kingdoms from sailing on the Atlantic Coasts of West Africa for business transactions along the Gulf of Guinea, Nicholas V now made his full papal authority to bear on the limited powers of this Royal Charter and hereby raised it to an international law, binding on all Christian nations, kings, kingdoms and all Christian faithful, to the effect that none of them is allowed to go or caused to go into the Gulf of Guinea and beyond, without first and foremost getting approval from Prince Henry and the Portuguese Royal Crown. This international prohibition on the ecclesiastical level served in the hands of the kings of Portugal as a bulwark (as we shall see in the next section of this work) in preventing even the papal curia and other Christian nations and kings from sending missionaries into Africa even when Portugal was no longer in the position to supply missionaries in the areas, where they eventually opened ecclesiastical overseas missions 30 years after obtaining this privilege from pope Nicholas V. The raising of this Royal Charter of 1443 into an international law was made when the pope ordered:
And also by this perpetual edict of prohibition, we more strictly inhibit all and singular the faithful of Christ, ecclesiastics, seculars and regulars of whatsoever orders, in whatsoever part of the world they live, and of whatsoever state, degree, order, condition or pre-eminence they shall be, although endowed with Arch-episcopal, Episcopal, imperial, royal, queenly, ducal or any other greater ecclesiastical or worldly dignity, that they do not by any means presume to carry arms, iron, wood for construction, and other things prohibited by law from being in any way carried to the Saracens, to any of the provinces, islands, harbours, seas and places whatsoever, acquired or possessed in the name of king Afonso, or situated in this conquest or elsewhere, to the Saracens, infidels, or pagans. Or even without special license from the said king Afonso V and his successors and the Infante, to carry or cause to be carried merchandise and other things permitted by law, or to navigate or cause to be navigated those seas, or to fish in them, or to meddle with the provinces, islands, harbors, seas and places or nay of them, or to do anything by themselves or another, or others directly or indirectly by deed or counsel, or to offer any obstructions whereby the aforesaid king Afonso V and his successors and the Infante may be hindered from quietly enjoying their acquisitions and possessions, and prosecuting and carrying out this conquest.257
To ensure that these decrees and the grants which they contained are well secured and protected and shall not be tampered with in any manner and form, Nicholas V spelt out penalties in form of excommunication and interdict to be incurred by anyone or by a group of individuals who may dare to infringe on them in any manner in future. The words establishing these penalties are seen when he decreed:
We decree that whosoever shall infringe these orders, besides the punishments pronounced by law against those who carry arms and other prohibited things to any of the Saracens, which we wish them to incur by so doing; if they be single persons, they shall incur the sentence of excommunication, if a community or corporation of a city, castle, village or place, that city or village shall be thereby subject to the interdict; and we decree further that transgressors, collectively or individually, shall not be absolved from the sentence of excommunication, nor be able to obtain the relaxation of this interdict, by Apostolic or any other authority, unless they shall first have made due satisfaction for their transgressions to Alfonso himself and his successors and to the Prince, or shall have amicably agreed with them thereupon.258
In order to make these penalties effective and binding on all, Nicholas V enjoined the bishops of Lisbon, Silves and Ceuta to enforce them into law and to pronounce this excommunication on all offenders during the celebration of the Holy Mass and on festive days of the Church, where a large community of believers had gathered for Divine worship. In the light of this, the pope said as follows:
We enjoin our venerable brothers the archbishop of Lisbon, and the bishops of Silves and Ceuta, that they as often as they be required on Sundays and other festival days in the Churches, while a large multitude of people shall assemble for Divine worship, do declare and denounce by Apostolic authority that those individuals or group of persons who have been proved to have incurred such sentences of excommunication and interdict, are excommunicated and interdicted, and have been and are involved in the other punishments aforesaid. And we decree that they shall also cause them to be denounced by others, and to be strictly avoided by all, till they shall have made satisfaction for or compromised their transgressions as aforesaid. Offenders are to be held in check by ecclesiastical censure, without regard to appeal, the Apostolic constitutions and ordinances and all other things whatsoever to the contrary notwithstanding.259
Finally, this document ended with a warning that no other ecclesiastical ordinary or authority should dare to alter or nullify any part of the grants and rights over Africa and Africans given to Portugal as contained in this papal document. Such nullifications and alterations, if there be any in foreseeable future according to this document, shall remain null and void. It went further to threaten with the wrath of God any one, who should attempt to tamper with the real words of this document and all that they contained. In emulation of the judgement delivered by Pontius Pilate, Nicholas V maintained that what he has decided over Africa in this papal document is, “Roma locuta est, causa finita” and that it will remain so forever and ever. This decision is made clearer when Nicholas V authoritatively warned:
But in order that the present letters, which have been issued by us of our certain knowledge and after mature deliberation thereupon, may not hereafter be impugned by anyone as fraudulent, secret, or void, and by the authority, knowledge and power aforementioned, we do likewise by these letters decree and declare that the said letters and what is contained therein cannot in any wise be impugned, or the effect thereof hindered or obstructed on account of any defect or nullity, not even from a defect of the ordinary or of any authority, or from any other defect, but that they shall be valid forever and shall obtain full authority. And if anyone by whatever authority, shall wittingly or unwittingly attempt anything inconsistent with these orders, we decree that his act shall be null and void… Therefore let no one infringe or with rash boldness contravene this our declaration, constitution, gift, grant, appropriation, decree, supplication, exhortation, injunction, inhibition, mandate, and will. But if anyone should presume to do so, be it known to him that he will incur the wrath of Almighty God and of the blessed Apostles Peter and Paul. Given at Rome, at Saint Peter’s, on the eighth day of January, in the year of the incarnation of our Lord one thousand four hundred and fifty-four, and in the eighth year of our pontificate.260
In summa, with the words of this document and in the exercise of his authority as a pope to give nations to Christian kings, Nicholas V excluded the king of Spain completely from having any entitlement in Africa. And in this manner, Spain lost completely her supposed rights and interest to operate on the Atlantic Coasts of West Africa. As important as this document on the one hand might have been, it made a land-mark achievement as expected by the Crown in Portugal by cladding the Royal Charter of 1443 with the robe of an international law prohibiting other Christian kings and their subjects from interference in the Portuguese's Africa. That being the case, the whole of Africa and other territories yet to be discovered were made an exclusive property and right of Prince Henry the Navigator and king Alfonso V of Portugal and their successors in perpetuity. But on the other hand, there were also a good number of issues raised by Nicholas V in this Bull, which needed to be given a considerable attention in this work. On the issue of the role of the Catholic Church and her leadership in the Atlantic enslavement of Black Africans, Nicholas V really involved and implicated the Church to a level that can no longer be hidden from the evidence of historical truth. In his bid to place the maritime politico-economic expansion of Portugal under papal authority and protection, the pope conceived of this Bull as a crusading Bull so as to enable Prince Henry the Navigator and the Crown of Portugal to achieve the goal of their ventures in Africa. And by so doing, he adjudged the military raids of the Portuguese conducted with a view to take Black Africans as war prisoners and later to be turned into slaves in Portugal as a just war. With the effect of this, the pope has sanctioned the use of the just war theory of St. Thomas Aquinas and other Scholastics as a just means of acquiring slaves and ipso facto, he established a justified condition for the enslavement of Black Africans as witnessed during the Transatlantic slave trade.
His re-introduction of the use of military force in the service of these interests of Prince Henry and the Crown of Portugal in Africa is very questionable. From the evidence of historical facts as one can see in the first section of this work, Prince Henry had as far back as 1445 dropped the idea of military cum religious Crusade as a means of acquiring slaves from West Africa for sales in Portugal and had settled for a peaceful economic negotiations with the native chiefs of Senegambia. In view of this, the historian of Iberian maritime history M. Saunders observed with certainty that the period of Portuguese military raid in Africa was brief. According to him: “The period in which the Portuguese relied upon warfare for the majority of their Black slaves was actually very brief, no more than a few years in the 1440s.”261 This decision made to drop the idea of a religious Crusade in West Africa by Prince Henry the Navigator came about after recording a heavy loss in humans during the slave raids of 1445 as we showed in the first section of this work. Attesting to this fact, Peter Russell maintained that the crusading undertone which the pope gave to this Bull had been dropped ten years ago before the writing of this Bull. Thus in his own words, Russell confirmed that: “Since 1444, as a result of defeats suffered by the soldiers and sailors aboard the caravels at the hands of the Black warriors of Senegambia, Prince Henry had decreed that crusading there was to be replaced by peaceful trading.262 And to achieve this motive, Prince Henry appointed his chief negotiator Gomes Pirés to sue for peace with the local chiefs and natives of the said regions with the assurance that the Portuguese came only to make a peaceful trading transaction with them. Through this means, they were able to obtain permission from the natives of Arguin to stay in the place where they latter built a fortress in 1448 for the control of the trade on African products. In the words of the Venetian traveller and merchant Cadamosto, who visited Arguin in 1455: “The lord Infante (Prince Henry) therefore caused a castle to be built on this island to protect the trade forever.”263 If all this were to be taken as historical facts, why then did pope Nicholas V re-introduce the idea of a religious Crusade and the use of military raids (for the purpose of catching slaves for sales) into this Portuguese business in Africa almost ten years after the chief proprietor and patron of this trade (Prince Henry) had settled for a peaceful trade with the natives of the said region of West Africa? This leaves no one in doubt that the aforesaid pope in his two Bulls considered above, encouraged this Atlantic slave trade beyond the level and manner in which it was proposed and carried out by Prince Henry the Navigator and the various kings of Portugal involved in the so called discovery of West Africa.
Also, we noticed that in Romanus Pontifex, Nicholas V gave the king of Portugal and Prince Henry permission to build Churches and to send missionaries into the Gulf of Guinea for the conversion of the pagans of this region as a justification for his issuance of this Bull. But what he wished to be done here, did not in any way correspond with the intentions of both king Alfonso V and Prince Henry the Navigator. And to prove to the pope that the idea of a religious Crusade, which prominently featured in this Bull was far removed from their intentions, there was no historical trace of evangelizing missions undertaken in West Africa throughout the life time of both Prince Henry (+1460) and king Alfonso V (+1481) as the principal recipients of this Bull. That means from 1454 to 1481, that is, 27 years after obtaining this mandate that purported to be an apostolic mandate for the spread of the Gospel in the West African Atlantic, no Churches were built and not a single soul was saved on the West African soil either by baptism or by conversion. Those who eventually received baptism were only slaves meant for shipment to Europe in the days of these major role players in the Atlantic slave trade. It was only during the reign of king John II (*1455, reigned 1481-1495), who succeeded Alfonso V that an attempt to evangelize West Africa was ever made. Peter Russell gave credence to this fact when he wrote: “As for attempts at evangelization in Guinea, all the evidence suggests that until John II's time, this was not really attempted at all, despite assurances to Rome that the work was proceeding apace. It was John II, who for the first time seriously set about trying to give some semblance of reality to the Portuguese commitment.”264 In other words, the inclusion of evangelization of Black Africans in this Bull therefore served only as a deceptive means aimed at confusing its readers, which actually had nothing to do either with the intentions of the principal recipients of the numerous grants contained in this Bull or with that of its guarantor.
Furthermore, Nicholas V also brought in the method of military occupation and colonization of Black Africans in this Bull when he commanded the kings and princes of Portugal and their successors to occupy the lands and properties belonging to the Black Africans and to dispossess them of all they possessed and to make them their own. The question raised by this attitude of Nicholas V here is: Was this papal command necessary at all? We recall here that the erection of the Portuguese trade fortress in 1448 in Arguin was a product of a peaceful negotiation and permission to stay which was granted to the Portuguese by the local chiefs and people of Senegambia. And six years after erecting this fortress, this papal document under examination here was issued. What then is the rationale behind the command given by pope Nicholas V to occupy militarily the lands of the native population and to dispossess them of all that they had? Did the pope want to prove to history that he preferred the use of force to peaceful means in human relations? One is left here only with the option to ask this basic but very simple question: Did the pope really know what he was actually writing about and authorizing in this Bull? And from the look of things as the above shows, it is to say the least that he was completely out of touch with the actual situation of things on grounds in West Africa while issuing this Bull. But even at this point, his action herein has some implications. For instance, by commanding Prince Henry and the kings of Portugal to forcefully take away the lands of the poor and innocent natives of West Africa and their possessions and to occupy them, means that he adjudged the aforesaid natives in this Bull as those, who have no right to self-dominion and to own private possessions even in their own territories. In his judgement here, he allowed himself to be guided by two theories namely: Aristotelian theory of natural slavery, whereby the pope adjudged the said natives of West Africa to fall into the category of slaves of nature (physei doulos) as propagated by Aristotle and further taken up by St. Aquinas and the theologians of the School of Salamanca in Spain as we saw in section two of this work. And secondly, the pope was guided by the theory of papal universal authority, whereby he merely put into practice in this Bull the powers given to the popes by the papalist theologians and canonists of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries with an extreme view of papal authority such as Giles of Rome, cardinal Hostiensis etc., who as we saw in the first chapter of this section of our work, maintained that the pope has unrestricted powers and authority to take off the lands and private possessions of non-Christians and give them to the Catholic kings of his choice. The justification given by the aforesaid theologians for this kind of teaching is that the natives concerned in this Bull under discussion, are not Christians.
Over and above all this, one can also argue in the action of pope Nicholas V concerning the inhabitants of West Africa in this Bull that even if he lost touch with the actual situations of things going on in West Africa, it is more likely true that he knew about the flow of human cargoes of Black African origin crossing the Atlantic Waters annually and entering into Europe via Portugal. From 1443, when king Alfonso V granted Prince Henry a monopoly right of the trade in regions of Guinea, a good number of natives of West Africa were brought into Portugal as captives. The Royal chronicler Gomes Azurara, who was in the habit of shielding his master Prince Henry the Navigator from the guilt of the Atlantic slave trade reduced drastically the number of Black African slaves being brought into Portugal during the life time of his master. In view of this, he recorded that in Prince Henry's life time, up to the year 1448, only 927 Black African slaves were brought into Portugal.265 But from another historical source, there are facts and figures showing that more Black African captives were trooping into Portugal as slaves during the life time of the Prince more than Azurara would like us to know. For instance, the Venetian merchant and adventurer, who travelled to the West African island of Arguin for this trade in 1448 and participated in it, had to write in his memos that: “Every year, the Portuguese carry away from Arguin a thousand slaves.”266 And corroborating this observation made by Cadamosto, a Portuguese historian Godinho Magalhaes confessed that in the 1450s, between 1000-2000 slaves were shipped into Portugal per annum from West Africa.267 Working with all these data, Peter Russell was then correct to remark that: “It can very tentatively be concluded that for the whole of the Henrican period, some 15,000 to 20,000 Black Africans were imported into Portugal as slaves on the Prince's behalf or under licence from him.”268 All this happened before pope Nicholas V issued this papal Bull under discussion here. Then the very perturbing question that arises here is: Did pope Nicholas V know all this? Was he aware of the fact that 5% profit per capita of every Black African captive brought into Portugal as slave was flowing into the private pockets of Prince Henry whom he continued to praise in this Bull as a delighted son of the Church? Did he know that 20% profit per capita of these slaves was cashed by the knighted members of the military Order of Christ who were at the helm of affairs of the slave raids made in West Africa? Is there any intrinsical connection between the spread of the Gospel message of Christ and such blood money acruing from the slaves? What these statistics succeed to establish here is that ever before issuing this Bull, the pope knew all this, he also knew that the Atlantic slave trade had begun.269 Why didn't he then condemn it rather than approve of it? Judging from the point of view of a statement made by Kenneth Setton, who described the papacy in the medieval time as “the conscience of Europe,”270 one is wont to conclude here that the papacy represented at that time by Nicholas V really failed to be a good conscience to Europe and particularly to Portugal represented by king Alfonso V and Prince Henry the Navigator in this regard. In the light of this failure, one should not blame Peter Russell, when he considered pope Nicholas V as the very one, who led Prince Henry to get himself entangled on a large scale with the dehumanising enterprise of the slave trade. In his own words, Russell said: “It would have been impossible for a Prince of his standing, and with his highly publicized dedication to religious values, to have become involved in the slave trade in a major way without the ideological support and the authority of the Roman Curia.”271 Prince Henry undoubtedly was propelled by the quest for fame and wealth and this landed him into doing things which are irreconciliable with his status as the Grandmaster and governor of a highly rated military Order of Christ. As implied by Russell in the above citation, it is undeniably true that Prince Henry received a serious boost for his deep involvement in the inhuman trade on slaves of Black African origin from his mentor - pope Nicholas V. And of course, it was a type that was not easy to be resisted by a fame and wealththirsty-prince like Prince Henry the Navigator. And by so doing, pope Nicholas V chose to write his name wrongly on the sand of history as the pope that not only supported the Atlantic slave trade but also commanded Prince Henry and king Alfonso V of Portugal to force Black Africans into perpetual enslavement on the large scale witnessed during the Transatlantic slave trade. But the question now begging for an answer is: Was he the only pope of the Church that did so? The anwser to this question would be found in the brief consideration of the pontificates of his immediate successors up to the sixteenth century in the next chapter. “
CONTINUE YOUR EDUCATION ON THE NEW NARRATIVE FOR THE AFRICAN UNION'S THEMED YEAR "REPARATIONS FOR AFRICANS AND PEOPLE OF AFRICAN DESCENT THROUGH REPARATIONS"
