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Christian Churches and Slavery in the New World: A Comparative Perspective

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Křížová M.
Acta Comeniana (International review of Comenius studies and early modern intellectual history)
|
2007
|
vol. 20-21
65-103
EN
The text focuses on one of the crucial phenomena of the history of American colonization – the restitution of slavery in the New World. It places this phenomenon within the frame of the intellectual history of Europe, and especially within the frame of the social-reformist, ‘utopian’ thinking of the Early Modern era. While the enslaving of Native Americans and black Africans revealed the aggressive nature of European expansion, it also coincided intimately with the missionary activities of Roman Catholic as well as the Protestant churches. The aim was to analyze the seemingly ambiguous efforts of missionizing slavers as a response to the intellectually challenging period of overseas discoveries. Besides being an economic institution, slavery constituted part of the effort for reform that took place within the framework of the colonizing process. Of the three groups under consideration, two of them, the Jesuits and the ‘Moravians’ (members of the Protestant Unitas Fratrum, or Unity of Brethren), in spite of numerous theological differences and demonstrative mutual opposition, coincided significantly in their attitude towards slavery. The slave-operated plantation offered them a prospect of combining the vision of a traditional patriarchal order with ‘modern’ ideals of efficiency and engineered incentive. Both the Jesuits and the Moravians adhered to the Aristotelian ideal of an intelligent and virtuous authority ruling the irrational forces of the world, and considered themselves to be those chosen to rule and to be an example to others in secular and spiritual life, even against their will. In contrast, the critique of slavery on the part of two Capuchin missionaries contained the traditional, ‘Medieval’ view of Christian duty, renouncing secular activity in favour of prayer and contemplation and advocating the equalitarian strain, latently present in Christian teaching.
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