Slavery and religious conversion in Portugal's Indian empire, 1500-1700 / Stephanie Hassell.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Hassell, Stephanie, 1985- author.

Series:

Indian Ocean studies series

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Slavery--India--Goa (State)--History.

Slavery.

Portuguese--India--Goa (State)--History.

Portuguese.

Slavery and the church--India--Goa (State)--History.

Slavery and the church.

Conversion--Catholic Church--History.

Conversion.

Christianity and other religions--India--Goa (State).

Christianity and other religions.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xii, 228 pages).

Other Title:

Path to Open

Place of Publication:

Athens, Ohio : Ohio University Press, 2025.

Summary:

"In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, enslaved Africans and Asians were part of the larger Portuguese project of building and maintaining a Catholic empire in the Indian Ocean. Both the Church and the Crown influenced the owner-slave relationship across households, the most basic organizational unit of power over the populace. Responsible for their enslaved dependents’ conversion to Catholicism, slaveholders became religious stewards whose spiritual duties toward their slaves helped expand the Christian population. This converted population was part of the imperial security apparatus, which conceptualized enslaved Catholics as loyal allies against neighboring Muslim states. They became members of the broader colonial community in which Catholicism also conveyed rights, enabled agency, and provoked household struggles between owners and slaves. Thus, the making of a Catholic empire was a contested process tied to the complex relationships between enslaved individuals, their enslavers, and the Church. The Portuguese Inquisition was a hybrid ecclesiastical and state institution, and its records detail the Crown’s commitment to the creation of a worldwide Catholic empire. Accordingly, inquisitorial encounters brought conversion, slavery, and empire into one field of vision. The Portuguese Inquisition had only one overseas tribunal, located in Goa, India. While most trial records of the Goa Tribunal were destroyed, author Stephanie Hassell has utilized extant sixteenth- and seventeenth-century cases featuring enslaved defendants and witnesses. Her use of thousands of case summaries provides a broader inquisitorial context by showing how prosecutorial trends reflected the anxieties of the Portuguese imperial state. Parish records, ecclesiastical council records, and municipal council records likewise emphasize the significance of religious conversion."-- Provided by publisher.

Contents:

Introduction slavery and religious conversion

Slavery and the household

Enslavers as religious stewards

Arming slaves for the Catholic empire

Bonds of conversion

Choosing Catholic community

Conclusion.

Notes:

Title from online title page (viewed on May 2, 2025).

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Other Format:

Print version: Hassell, Stephanie, 1985- Slavery and religious conversion in Portugal's Indian empire, 1500-1700

ISBN:

9780821425954

0821425951

OCLC:

1492298519

Access Restriction:

Restricted for use by site license.