António Vieira’s 27th Sermon: the ascetic life of the pious slave

Adrià Fernández Lull

Universidade de Coimbra - University of Groningen

Renaissance Humanism

Abstract

This paper analyses the portrayal of slavery and the conception of African slaves in António

Vieira's 27th Sermon from the series Maria Rosa Mística, delivered in 17th-century Brazil.

Vieira, a Jesuit priest and influential intellectual, framed the physical suffering of African

slaves as the only and divinely ordained path to achieve their spiritual salvation. Distinguishing

between the body’s captivity and the soul’s liberty, he advocates rigorous spiritual practices

akin to monastic discipline. This analysis reveals how Vieira’s theological justifications and

moral teachings were used to legitimize and provide a narrative of hope and spiritual

redemption for enslaved Africans. By focusing on the sermon’s content and context, the paper

explores the intersection of religious ideology and the realities of slavery, highlighting how

Vieira’s discourse served both pastoral and colonial interests.

Keywords

António Vieira, Colonial Brazil, African slavery, Society of Jesus, Pastoral power.

Introduction

Slavery is not just the object of moral consideration, but it is a means of production that

was the basis of several economies in the world throughout the history —or better histories—

of humankind. It is hard to think of an example among the ancient civilizations without slavery

as the main productive system: the Egyptians are told to have enslaved the Jewish people

according to Exodus; also, the Homeric poems mention slaves on several occasions; the
presence of slavery in Rome was significant for every age, the very initial kingdom, the

posterior republic, and the latter empire; in Persia, in India, in several stages within the history

of China, in Ethiopia, either was it not unknown for America’s native peoples. We find slaves

everywhere in literature, and consequently, it may not be surprising that intellectuals and

legislators try to criticise or defend it as a human institution.

After the first arrival to the American continent by the European powers and the further

colonisation, these unspoilt lands were seen as a powerful lure. The requirement of numerous

and intensive work labour was solved with captivity and enslavement of natives, and

eventually, with the trade of African slaves, namely in the American territory of Portuguese

empire. The Society of Jesus was stablished there, seeking for the conversion of the natives,

and trying to spread the moral and religious values of the order. Among all the intellectual

figures that analysed the slavery and who spoke publicly on the topic, we find one of the most

famous writers of Portuguese literature, António Vieira.

Vieira was a Portuguese preacher, priest and a member of the Royal Council of the king

João IV. He was born in 1608, as the eldest son of a family of minor officials in Lisbon, before

moving to Brazil. Though he was accused of heresy and investigated by the Inquisition in the

1660s, the high impact and influence of his activity is still undoubted. Due to the excellence he

had shown during his education in Jesuit schools throughout Europe and Latin America, he

joined the Society of Jesus as soon as he turned fifteen, as it was usual for students with a

similar profile. His contact with native and African slaves began in Brazil, where vocation led

him to proposing to the advisors a plan that consisted in learning native languages in order to

teach the Christian doctrine more effectively.1 Nevertheless, the Jesuit superiors did not accept

this divergence from the standard academic track, so they assigned him the teaching of Latin

instead. He finished the Jesuit school in 1630, and after that “Vieira had a meteoric rise. His

1
This is an example of the “accommodation” method, as explained by Casanova 2024: 36.
demonstrations of oratorical skill on the most important national stage earned him recognition

and the support of influential political allies (…) [that] turned the gifted preacher into a

powerful figure”.2 He was also recognised as the most prominent intellectual in the Portuguese

empire, since he “was an adviser to kings, confessor to queens, preceptor of princes, a diplomat

in European courts, an advocate of the New Christians, a missionary in Maranhão and Pará,

and finally the provincial superior of the Jesuits in Bahia”.3

His work can be divided in two big blocks: the pastoral and the prophetic writings. The

first one displays his Jesuit formation and his deeply rooted conviction of the possibility of

conversion and salvation, while the second one is more of a mystic, messianic and apocalyptic-

inspired vision about a divine plan for the Portuguese Empire. As a reaction to these prophetic

accounts, the Inquisition moved against him and ended up condemning his claims as heretical

in 1667. His influence, his rhetorical skill and his theological formation always helped him.

After years of incessant intent, he achieved the tribunal to close the file on his cause in 1681,

and this allowed him to come back to Brazil and devote himself to the edition and publication

of his works.

One of the most controversial topics within his pastoral writings is slavery, mainly treated

in the Sermon of the Epiphany, Sermon of Saint Anthony4 and the series of sermons devoted to

Our Lady of the Rosary, the patron saint of the African communities, among other works. The

political implications of these reflections are manifest, especially regarding the a priori striking

distinction he stablishes between “Indian” and “Black” slaves —using Vieira’s words. In the

context of conflict between Jesuit and settlers, he defended with the Jesuits the right of natives

to be free and work the land, offering the aldeias or aldeamentos5 to protect them from settlers’

incursions that pursued illegal enslavement. The main arguments concerning the legality of

2
Leal da Silva, Brockey 2018: 6.
3
Botelho 2011: 288-289.
4
Leal da Silva, Brockey 2018: 61-92.
5
Botelho 2011: 276; Eisenberg 2003: 91.
slavery during the seventeenth century were both drawn from the Justinian Digest, and

consisted firstly (1) in the generally accepted captivity of “just war” prisoners, as an alternative

to killing them, and secondly (2) in everyone’s right to voluntarily become a slave selling their

own liberty —or one’s own child as long as he or she is under twenty-one years old.6 Although

the second argument was contested by Thomist theology, the first one was truly held and used

in legislations. In 1595, Phillip II declared —during the sixty years of Spanish rule in

Portugal— that all the Brazilian natives were free citizens of the empire, arguing that they

could only be enslaved in the context of a “just war”. Fencing this argument, Vieira and other

Jesuits opposed to the actions of the settlers who captured native workers from the aldeias,

defending that they had the right to own their liberty with no perpetual contracts such as the

encomiendas, that he —following the Spanish jurist Solorzano y Pereira— deeply disapproved

as unfair and an actual lack of freedom. It consisted in feudal labour relation7 according to

which the “Indians [were commended] to settlers, who had the right to exact labour or tribute

from the Indians for the rest of their lives. In return, the encomenderos were obliged to provide

religious instruction and to protect the Indians”.8

Moreover, in 1537 Pope Paul III promulgated a bull under the name of Sublimus Dei,

acknowledging in the name of the Church the right of the “Indians and all other people who

may later be discovered by Christians” to “enjoy their liberty and the possession of their

property”.9 Taking into consideration the fact that the proper long-term colonisation began in

1530 with the first arrival of Portuguese people willing to settle on the land (mainly men), it is

implied the fact that Jesuitic mission was determined or at least influenced by this papal bull

and the apparent prohibition of Indian slavery. In fact, the fierce defence of Native liberty held

by António Vieira contrasts directly with the economic needs of the Brazilian society, and the

6
Eisenberg 2003: 89; Sweet 1978: 93-94.
7
Eisenberg 2003: 93.
8
Eisenberg 2003: 90-91. My italics.
9
Quoted and translated by Botelho 2011: 286.
regular activities of the Society of Jesus. Vieira’s position on this topic has been disputed

during the years by several scholars. He was an activist in favour of the Indian right to own

their liberty, but he acknowledged and accepted the status of Africans as slaves for the sake of

their own salvation, apparently. His arguments are often displayed in a hyperbolic, baroque,

erudite and sometimes prophetic tone that creates some contradictions, namely this ambiguous

position on “just” captivity of natives and Africans. Rather than avoiding the use of slaves as

workforce in both cases, he even asked for more African slaves in a personal letter to the

governor of the Brazilian province: “please send some Blacks, men and women, at the earliest

opportunity (…) because we need them badly. They have no place to run away to here; so, if

you can get them cheaper because they're runaways, so much the better”.10

As a small contribution to the study of the ideology within and behind his work, this

paper will focus on the 27th Sermon from the series called Maria Rosa Mística11 and the way

António Vieira provides a framework to understand African slavery as a fact of theological and

moral implications, and how does he set an ethical system for both slaves and slaveholders.

We will comment this analysis in relation to the demographic and economic needs of the

Portuguese Colonies in America during the 17th century. Some references to other works will

be made when needed, but the focus will be on the 27th sermon, as it is relevant at outlining the

actual policy of the Jesuits, therefore implying their impact in the material world against and

despite their renowned spiritual mission.

The “spirit” of slavery and the “salvation” of the soul

The demographical challenge of Portuguese American colonies was a major obstacle to

reach the expected levels of production. Native population was scattered in small groups, with

no possible comparison to the situation of other parts of the New World —namely those

10
Quoted by Sweet 1978: 122. The reference is partial, and therefore we could not find the edition referred.
11
Leal da Silva, Brockey 2018: 163-197.
occupied by the Spanish empire facing the complex state organizations of pre-Colombian

civilizations.12 The colony had to satisfy a need of production that could only be sustained with

a labour force way bigger than the number of actual inhabitants. In a developing territory with

no lineages and far from the European old world, one could have expected new systems to

appear. Rather, a feudal spirit led almost all the economic activities. “Slavery was the

predominant labour relation”,13 and settlers cared not much about its accordance with

aforementioned laws.

The sugar industry was growing. Brazilian society was built around the engenhos —or

sugar mill farms—, and the needs of its expanding economy could not afford the obstacles of

a devastating epidemic that killed the native slaves.14 Several arguments were given in favour

of the insertion of African slaves, for instance their superior strength and resistance, the fact

that once removed from their homeland they will not have where to flee, etc.15 According to

Contrera Rodrigues, African slaves amounted to 110 000 by 1660, and to 242 000 by 1690,

against the 30 and 74 thousands of white and native free people during both decades

respectively. On Herbert Klein’s account, “a total of 50 000 slaves arriving on Portuguese-

American shores in the sixteenth century (1530-1600), 560 000 in the seventeenth century,

1.68 million in the eighteenth century, and 1.72 million in the nineteenth century up to 1852”.16

Although these data are in fact estimations, it looks like someone found a solution for the

production needs demanded by the sugar industry as a nuclear part of Brazilian society:17

bringing African slaves to America.

In the context of an increasing slave trade to the Portuguese colonies, some groups of

African Christian converts were created. The 27th sermon we preached to a confraternity of

12
Botelho 2011: 278.
13
Botelho 2011: 281.
14
Sweet 1978: 104.
15
Menezes 2006: 217.
16
All the numbers were drawn from Botelho 2011: 280.
17
Botelho 2011: 285.
African slaves and freedmen in the mid-1680s in the region of Bahia. Although the text

addresses also to female slaves and slave owners as if they were in the audience, the

confraternity was a male group dedicated to Our Lady of the Rosary, the patron of slaves whom

they must worship daily and thank for being delivered to America.18

Since the very beginning of his sermon, Vieira compares “the transmigration of the

Ethiopian peoples”19 to Aeneas’ flight from Troy after the war, and the voyage of the Israelites

fleeing captivity under the Egyptian rule. The discourse is manifestly a consolation to the

audience.20 Its purpose is not condemning nor preaching against the institution of slavery. Even

the most notorious figures of Aeneid and the Old Testament had been enslaved, but the

consequences of it are Rome and the arrival of the Christ. It is therefore a good thing, though

it appears as something created by humankind. Everything is inscribed in God’s plan, according

to Vieira:

I compare the present with the future, time with eternity, what I see with what I believe,

and I cannot understand how God, who created these men as much in His image and

likeness as all others, would predestine them for two Hells, one in this life, another in the

other. But when I see them today so devout and merry before the Altars of Our Lady of

the Rosary, all siblings together like that Lady’s Children, then I am persuaded beyond

doubt that the captivity of the first transmigration is ordained by His mercy for the freedom

of the second one.21

As he will develop and explain, the reason for this first “transmigration” is a part of the

divine plan to achieve the freedom of the enslaved people in a further eternal life. In doing so,

he gives a symbolic interpretation to justify the actual captivity using the following sentence

—that also works as the epigraph of the sermon—: Iosias autem genuit Iechoniam, & fratres

18
Leal da Silva, Brockey 2018: 26. We will analyse this detail below, with Sweet 1978: 104-107.
19
Leal da Silva, Brockey 2018: 163.
20
“This is what I shall preach you today for your consolation” Leal da Silva, Brockey 2018: 166.
21
Leal da Silva, Brockey 2018: 165.
ejus in transmigratione Babylonis. Et post transmigrationem Babylonis, Iechonias genuit

Salathiel.22 And this is his significative symbolic analysis:

Josiah means Ignis Domini, fire of God; Jeconiah means Præparatio Domini, preparation

of God. The text thus says, or means, that in the Babylonian transmigration the fire of God

begat the preparation of God. Why? Because fire burns and illuminates; and, in the

Babylonian captivity, God not only burned and punished the Israelites, but He also

illuminated them. And because He punished and illuminated them in the captivity of the

first transmigration, In transmigratione Babylonis, through this, and with this, He readied

and prepared them for the freedom of the second one, Et post transmigrationem

Babylonis.23

Their captivity is like the fire: it is a mark of oppression, but also illuminates them. It is

just an opportunity to redeem their sins and reach the Heaven in the afterlife, which is the real

and eternal life. Although he acknowledges here the sufferings and the toil of being a slave, he

also neglects the material world and puts the blame on the victims for following formerly

idolatrous practices. In the second chapter of the sermon, he displays a kind of anthropological

dualism according to which the captivity of the body does not imply the captivity of the soul:

“that which is and is called a Slave is not the whole man, but only half of him”.24 The list of

authorities quoted by Vieira does not include René Descartes, renowned also for his dualism,

but his work was published during the beginning of the 17th century and it is really likely that

it influenced other Christian scholars on the topic. Nevertheless, this dualistic vision is still part

of the consolation: the slaves can be upset due to their material situation since it is not under

their control, but they can decide what to do with their souls and achieve a further and eternal

freedom. Even the pagans knew this: there he includes quotations from Clement of Alexandria

22
Matthew 1:11-12.
23
Leal da Silva, Brockey 2018: 166. Italics in the original.
24
Leal da Silva, Brockey 2018: 167.
paraphrasing Homer,25 and other two from Seneca.26 In the subsequent pages, several other

authors are adduced to justify this image of the institution of slavery as a partial captivity,

inferring that physical harm is less important than the spiritual liberty they can get in exchange.

This rejection of materiality favours a spiritual interpretation of life based always on their

salvation, that is supposed to be the central interest of Vieira here.

Consequently, he gives a prescription regarding the daily religious practices they must

follow. Their obligation was to pray and show constant devotion to the Virgin Mary, wearing

a Rosary bracelet and a necklace:

It is recounted in the Second Book of Maccabees that the Tyrant had the Captives of

Jerusalem marked with an Ivy leaf, so that they would profess themselves Slaves of the

God Bacchus, to whom that plant was dedicated. And what mark more befitting the Slaves

of the Rosary than a Rose, not only as the glorious brand of their new captivity, but as a

public sign and seal of their Letter of Manumission? Those of you who are, or who were,

marked, bear one mark on your chest and another on your arm. In the same way Our Lady

of the Rosary wants you to bear her mark: Pone me ut signaculum super cor tuum, ut

signaculum super brachium tuum. Let the strings of Beads that you carry wrapped around

your wrists and around your necks (I speak to the Black women) be all made of Rosary

Beads. Those around your neck, falling over your chests, shall be the mark of the chest,

Pone me ut signaculum super cor tuum, and those around your wrists like bracelets shall

be the mark of the arm, Ut signaculum super brachium tuum. And the one and the other

mark, in your heart as in your works, shall be a testimony and public revelation for all that

your Souls are already free from the captivity of the Devil and of sin, never again to serve

him: Et post transmigrationem Babylionis.27

25
Altitonans Iupiter viro, quem alii servire necesse est, aufert dimidium. From Stromata, 4. Leal da Silva, Brockey
2018: 167
26
The first one: Errat, si quis existimat servitutem in totum hominem descendere: pars melior ejus excepta est.
The second one: Corpus itaque est, quod domino fortuna tradidit. Hoc emit, hoc vendit; interior illa pars mancipio
dari non potest. Both from De beneficiis, 3, 20. Leal da Silva, Brockey 2018: 167-168.
27
Leal da Silva, Brockey 2018: 183. Italics in the original.
 This prescription may be seen as a pastoral discipline and analysed as the result of a

religious power relation. Vieira is a member of the oppressing party, here performing an

authoritative role that can give the audience their salvation through specific acts and

behaviours. The baroque erudition shown within his discourses is not only a mark of style, nor

a topic —it is innocent to think that something is innocent—, but rather it can be seen as a

public demonstration of intellectual power and authority. For instance, we may ask about the

purpose of quoting Latin sources and then adding the translation, since the audience was not

really used to these authors, either to read in general, or to understand Latin. In other words,

this general strategy shows Vieira’s intended intellectual domination over the audience, to gain

their trust and faith.

Using Foucauldian terminology, religious power has always the eye on the “detail”, and

the detail focuses on the “body” and the private “confession”. This kind of discipline is obtained

through “the mystical calculus of the infinitesimal and the infinite”, so is to say, through the

perpetual and individual vigilance of God.28 Therefore, it is pastoral power since the actual

vigilance is displayed by the priests and the pastors, who assist the believers and prescribe them

actions to be performed seeking for forgiveness. Even though this analysis works here, Vieira

explains in another discourse29 how forced labour and spiritual freedom of the slaves overlap,

and then he recommends avoiding religious practices in benefit of the works imposed by their

owners: “Vieira reconhece que o trabalho não deixa tempo para que o escravo se dedique

intensamente às coisas sagradas. Dessa forma, em Vieira, a moral religiosa subordina-se às

28
Carrette 2013: 369.
29
We took this information from Menezes (s. next note), where the title of the sermon is not mentioned. Instead,
the author quotes a complete volume of Vieira’s works in Brazil. Since we could not find this edition either, we
include here the exact given reference in page 228: Vieira, P. A. Sermões pregados no Brasil — II A vida social
e moral na colônia (vol. III). Lisboa: Agência Geral das Colonias, 1940. The reference in question corresponds
to pages 28-29 and 33-34 of the volume.
necessidades da produção, pois a atividade religiosa do escravo não pode sobrepor-se à outra

atividade, esta, sim, fundamental”.30

The moralizing power is even more violent when Vieira states that to achieve heavenly

salvation, the slaves may even die rather that following sinful commands, committing the usual

romanticization of martyrdom. Death and harm is understood here under the framework of

martyrdom, which is not only positive, but even the most desirable act of praising God’s work

and existence through the imitation of Christ:

If the Master were to command a male Slave, or want from the female Slave, something

that would gravely offend the Soul and the conscience, just as he may not want or

command it, so the Slave is obliged not to obey. Say constantly that you shall not offend

God. And if, because of that, they threaten and punish you, suffer in a valorous and

Christian manner, even if it be for your whole life, because those punishments are

martyrdoms.31

In case the command of the earthly Master overlaps with the command of the real Master,

God, to save their souls through active correctness they must disobey and accept the

punishment in their bodies. For the rest of the cases, they must serve their master as if they

were serving God himself, sicut Domino & non hominibus,32 although disobedience is allowed

to that extent. The chief Master is always judging and considering human actions, so no one

should sell their soul to the Devil in advance,33 but rather behave correctly to be forgiven for

their already sinful status.

The slaves could imitate Christ. Vieira’s analysis of religious orders stablishes for them

a new example of asceticism, that he tries to redefine as a system of monastic control and

discipline over the African slaves:

30
Menezes 2006: 227.
31
Leal da Silva, Brockey 2018: 174.
32
Leal da Silva, Brockey 2018: 185.
33
The first formulation of this analysis in this text is given in Leal da Silva, Brockey 2018: 170, but it is
repeated and developed within the following pages.
 You are bound to them, because you cannot leave their captivity, and they are not bound

to you, because they can sell you to another when they want. Only in your Religious order

is a contract like this one to be found, making it singular in this regard, too. (…) In short,

every Religious order has a particular purpose, vocation, and grace. The grace of yours

consists of Lashes and Punishments, Hæc est gratia apud Deum. Your vocation is the

imitation of the patience of Christ, In hoc vocati estis, quia & Christus passus est.34

This creates an ethical method for them directly compared to the monastic asceticism,

that is surprisingly close to the protestant rationalization of daily ethics, as observed by Weber:

[E]l católico medieval vive, desde un punto de vista moral, “al día” en cierta medida.

Cumple a conciencia los deberes tradicionales. Pero las “buenas obras” que van más allá

son, normalmente, una serie de acciones aisladas, sin ningún plan, que él realiza para

compensar determinados pecados o por influencia de la actuación pastoral o, al fin de su

vida, en cierto sentido como una prima de seguro. El Dios del calvinismo, por el contrario,

exige de los suyos y produce en ellos no “buenas obras”, sino una “vida santa”, es decir,

una santificación por las obras elevada a sistema. (…) Pues sólo un cambio fundamental

del sentido de la vida entera, en cada momento y en cada acción, puede acreditar el efecto

de gracia como una liberación del hombre del status naturae al status gratiae.35

It is necessary to point out the details that fundamentally differentiate the puritan

Calvinist life from Vieira’s prescription to the African slaves. Even though the result may be a

similar ascetic ideal, the basis is different, since Clavin’s approach denies the possibility to

acquiring the status gratiae: God already made his choice, and it is definitive.36 Their

professional performance responded to a “calling” that was itself the proof of their personal

salvation in a mystical relation with God through work. In the case of this kind of “monastic”

slavery, Vieira is trying to persuade the captives to achieve salvation through certain actions

34
Leal da Silva, Brockey 2018: 188. Italics and capitals in the original.
35
Weber 2001: 138-139. Italics and quotation marks in the original.
36
Weber 2001: 119.
—far from Calvinist determinism—, since they live in a sinful status naturae. But the occasion

to be saved is continuous rather than eventual, and consequently it may develop a daily

methodical life-plan. This life-plan is the imitation Christi, which is their actual calling, as

Vieira says: In hoc vocati estis, quia & Christus passus est. It may be notices that this is not a

freely chosen calling. Against Calvinist determinism, Catholic church was more likely to

accept a passive free will, but there is not a hint for African slaves —as we have seen in the

Sublimus Dei papal bull—: they are legally enslaved and, according to Vieira, their captivity

constitutes an occasion to be purely free in their souls. Have you ever wondered what happens

when you use “freedom” to define “captivity”? Probably what happens is captivity.

In general, monastic Jesuit life was driven by rationality and planification, like Calvinist

approach. We can establish here that analysing the slaves as a monastic order, after giving them

other rules to behave in order to achieve salvation, and finally describing their calling, is double

action of pastoral power through ascetic discipline that aims to ensure the productive system

of slavery.

El ascetismo cristiano tiene ya realmente este carácter racional en sus formas más elevadas

en la Edad Media. En este carácter reside la significación para la historia universal del

modo de vida monacal en Occidente en contraposición al monacato oriental. Aquel ya se

liberó de ser una huida del mundo sin plan alguno y del autotormento de los virtuosos, en

principio, con las Reglas de San Benito y aún más con los cluniacenses y los cistercienses

y, finalmente, de manera más decisiva con los jesuitas. El modo de vida monacal se

convirtió en un método de un modo de vida racional, construido de manera sistemática,

con el objetivo de superar el status naturae, sustraer al hombre del poder de los instintos

irracionales y de la dependencia de la naturaleza y del mundo, someterlo a la supremacía

de la voluntad planificada, someter sus acciones a un autocontrol constante y a una

valoración de su dimensión ética y educar al monje (…) como un obrero al servicio del
 reino de Dios, asegurándole de este modo (…) la salvación de su alma. Este es el modo de

vida del puritanismo, así como es también el fin de los exercitia de San Ignacio.37

In both cases, the intention is to educate the monk in a self-controlled and willingly

planned life, but, although Vieira tries to compare the monastic life with the life of the slaves,38

they lack will and therefore he needs to convince them to accept their status. He tries to console

the multitude of African slaves to whom he is addressing through the image of Christ's suffering

and his passion, evoking a cognitive model of acceptance through imitation: “The Passion of

Christ had two purposes: the remedy and the example”.39

Conclusion

Vieira seems interested in the spiritual liberation of the slaves, but the fact is that there’s

a limit to that interest: the need of the slavery as a means of production. It can be seen in the

example of the Rosary and the urgent need of working and obeying the master, rather than

devoting to sacred activities.40 Our thesis is that he was trying to maintain the institution of

slavery since it was useful to the economic and political needs of the time, namely those of the

Society of Jesus.41 This is not a hard thesis to defend since he did not actually question the

institution of slavery as a productive system, but he acknowledged in his Semon of the

Epiphany that it was “not my intention to ban slavery”.42

On the one hand, the different policy applied to native-American, and the African slaves

is remarkable. As mentioned above, Jesuits tried to achieve the freedom of natives, while at the

same time Vieira was asking for more slaves from Africa. Also, the Jesuit order was a major

37
Weber 2001: 140. Italics in the original.
38
Cfr. Casanova 2024: 31-32. It would be interesting to analyse Vieira’s prescriptions to African slaves throughout
his works in comparison to St. Ignatius’ Exercitia Spiritualia, but this is not the place, nor the moment to do it.
39
Leal da Silva, Brockey 2018: 187.
40
This is in fact an intertextual contradiction between the said sermon and the 27th sermon. Apparently, slaves
ought to disobey their earthly Masters if their commands are against the glory of God, according to the latter. But,
according to the former, they cannot devote themselves to sacred activities since the work is too demanding. Cfr.
Menezes 2006: 227 and Sweet 1978: 106.
41
Sweet 1978: 121.
42
Quoted and translated by Botelho 2011: 290. We could not find the original edition to which this author
refers. Also quoted and translated by Sweet 1978: 122.
owner of domestic and agricultural African slaves during these centuries,43 and little by little

became the biggest owner of sugar mills in Brazil, of course worked mainly by African slaves.

Slavery was the major means of colonial production of the time, although peripheral in

European urban societies,44 and we may understand this as a movement to “reconcile their

consciences with economic reality”,45 or, to say it with other words, they faced with the

secularizing effect of richness.46 “Although Vieira's proposal entailed the de facto elimination

of the encomiendas, he knew the settlers needed the Indians' labour force to cany out their

economic activities. Vieira proposed that the Aldeia Indians work for the settler for half of the

year, switching from their own crops to the settler farms every two months”.47

This “kindly” treatment to the Indians may be produced by several facts. As we have

seen before, unlike other parts of conquered Americas, the native population of Portuguese

colonies consisted in several disseminated small communities48 that were not enough in

number for the needed workforce. We also find a general and orientalist comparison between

those two peoples, Americans and Africans, in terms of civilisation and the possibility of being

converted. “Indians were recognized as human beings with souls, and their enslavement was

an obstacle to an efficient conversion. The enslavement of Africans was accepted as a natural

way to save their souls to rescue them from that continent where conversion was impossible”.49

It is important to consider that the main intention of the Society of Jesus was colonization

through conversion. In the case of American slaves, it was easier to know the origin of

enslavement and determine its legality according to the “just war” concept, and apparently it

was also easier to convert them in exchange for their freedom. With African, slaves it was

43
Botelho 2011: 291; Sweet 1978: 94.
44
Sweet 1978: 86.
45
Sweet 1978: 120. Quoting the historian Serafim Leite.
46
Weber 2001: 228. Cfr. Casanova 2024: 39.
47
Eisenberg 2003: 92. Italics in the original.
48
Botelho 2011: 278.
49
Botelho 2011: 290.
impossible to track their enslavement and difficult to convert them, so it was easy to justify

their exploitation.50

Vieira’s erudition and intelligence is evident. The whole discourse works as a consolation

and as a pastoral prescription: he is trying to accommodate their wills to the economic needs,

and therefore justifying the institution. He gives an analysis of African sinful status naturae,

that can only be changed into a status gratiae through the “willing work” of the slaves.

Therefore, he creates an ascetic ideal life for them, according to which they must praise the

Virgin Mary of the Rosary and achieve their further eternal freedom through the subjugation

to their Masters. They must serve them as if they were serving God, enduring toil and harm as

Christ did, imitating him to glorify him. Consequently, the slavery would survive as production

system, and the Society of Jesus could get enriched to expand their colleges all over the world.51

References

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America, 1500-1700”, IRSH 56: 275-296.

Carrette, J. (2013), "Foucault, Religion, and Pastoral Power", in C. Falzon, T. O'Leary

and J. Sawicki (eds) A Companion to Foucault: Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell, 368-383.

Casanova, J. (2024), “Jesuits and Early Modern Globalization: Contributions to Global

Connectivity and Global Consciousness in the Early Modern Era”, in L. Hosteler (ed.)

Reimagining the Globe and Cultural Exchange: The East Asian Legacies of Matteo Ricci's

World Map. Leiden, Boston: Brill, 25-44.

Eisenberg, J. (2003), “António Vieira and the Justification of Indian Slavery”, Luso-

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50
Sweet 1978: 99.
51
Casanova 2024: 30.
 Leal da Silva, M., Brockey, L. M. (2018), António Vieira. Six Sermons. New York:

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Menezes, S. L. (2006), “Escravidão e educação nos escritos de António Vieira e Jorge

Benci”, Diálogos v. 10, n. 3: 215-228.

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Slavery in 17th-Century Latin America”, Revista de Historia de América 86: 87–133.

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