It is well documented that in the process of colonial conquest missionaries appropriated religious thought to justify the forced conversion of enslaved Africans. Yet, few scholars of Christianity have deeply examined the multifaceted encounters out of which these conversions were borne. As churches in Latin America and the U.S. attempt to reckon with their role in the institutionalization of slavery and racism, exploration of these early encounters can illuminate the complexities of enslaved African evangelization. “Slave Servants and Saved Souls” engages these gaps in examining the earliest known Catholic mission to enslaved Africans in the Americas. This 17th-century Jesuit mission in Cartagena de las Indias Christianized thousands of enslaved Africans as they awaited passage to other parts of the Americas. Analyzing the thought and methods employed in this unique setting, this project argues that this encounter was central to the early formation of an Afro-diasporic appropriation of Christianity while reproducing racialized narratives of difference.

Between 1607 and 1654, Spanish Jesuits Alonso de Sandoval and Pedro Claver dedicated themselves to the well-being and spiritual salvation of enslaved Africans. Through networks of communication, they promoted not only the necessity but the capacity of slaves to be Christianized. However, in their unique methods, they also reproduced inequalities founded upon religious difference that spurred nascent racial conceptualizations. Through archival research, this project historically and theologically interrogates their varied motivations within an Atlantic sphere of exchange. This framework, which examines the transmission of ideas and draws links between places and periods throughout the Americas, enriches our comprehension of the formation of these events, understanding that this missionary encounter in a globalizing world had outgrowth effects for the Catholic Church that resound in Latin America and the U.S. today.