The early modern period has many peculiar characteristics which have made it a source of intense study by historians from the nineteenth century (as in the works of Leopold von Ranke and Jakob Burckhardt) to the present. Loosely defined as beginning after the Black Death and ending in the time of the mercantilist wars of the eighteenth century, the early modern period is characterized by three main intellectual movements: the Renaissance, the Religious Reformations (both Protestant and Catholic), and the Scientific Revolution. These general paradigmatic processes, in a sense, spurred a series of offspring such as the printing revolution, the voyages of discovery, and the missionary movements of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. In essence, the fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth centuries witnessed the expansion of the European world to include the recently discovered New World, parts of the Far East, and parts of Africa. Because of improved maritime technology, social conditions that permitted a class of investors for the often expensive ventures, and political unity in the nascent nation-states of Europe, the sailors of Western Europe were able to reach new lands and make contact with different populations. This all would have seemed impossible in the plague-stricken Europe of the fourteenth century; yet, by the seventeenth century most of the New World, the West coast of Africa, and various enclaves in India and China were under European influence and in some cases, its control. This expansion of the European world would have long-term effects on the cultural and demographic nature of the world's populations.
However, the Early Modern Period was not merely a political or demographic expansion it was also an expansion of European religion. The sixteenth and seventeenth centuries saw the beginning of the European missionary movement which continued in different forms into modern times. The missionary movement was in many ways part of the more general trend in Early Modern Europe toward religious homogeneity. Processes such as the Wars of Religion in France, the reforms of the Council of Trent, and even the establishment of the Inquisition in Spain and Portugal were part of the attempts by cooperating clerical and political elites to impose religious uniformity in their realms and possessions. In an epoch where religious dissent was used as a smokescreen to hide political dissent, the monarchies of Spain, France, and Austria authorized and supported all attempts of having their subject populations practicing one faith. For example, the Spanish monarchs established the Holy Office of the Inquisition to deal with those who did not follow Catholic orthodoxy, made it part of their colonial policy to force settlers in the New World to take an active part in the Christianization of the Amerindians, and in Spain expelled the Jews in 1492 and the Muslims in 1502. The English crown attempted many times in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries to force its population to follow the official Church teachings and, via colonization, succeeded in expelling many who refused to do so. The French crown, seeing the potentially disastrous effects recognition of Calvinism had for the kingdom, outlawed the Huguenots. Christianity in Western Europe was possessed with an energy and militaristic vision that would help spur persons to cross wide oceans to convert others to their faith. In essence, the spread of clergy all over the world in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries was the colonial extension of religious uniformity imposed in the states of Europe.
However, not all missionary movements were equally successful. In fact, for the most part, attempts to Christianize the African, Asian, and American populations were very unsuccessful. The French Jesuits in North America were not able to convert any significant numbers of Native Americans. The Christian populations in China and Japan were a vast minority of the overall populations of their respective nations. Even the Portuguese, who like their Iberian neighbor, Spain, had granted their clergy the right to Christianize their possessions were, in the long run, unsuccessful in converting the African population to Catholicism. This is in sharp contrast with the prodigious success the Spanish clergy had in converting millions of Amerindians to Christianity within a seventy-five to one hundred year time span. The Spanish missionary impulse has been the subject of many detailed studies perhaps because of its overwhelming success.(1)
This brings up two related questions or questions which are actually mirror images of each other. Why were the Spanish missionaries so successful in converting their colonial populations? This question has been addressed on a more general and abstract level by many historians of the colonial period in Latin America, although it has not been analyzed in sufficient detail on a local parish level to see the application of the varying theories. The second question concerns the apparent failure of the Portuguese. Why, if the Portuguese had many of the same experiences and cultural antecedents which aided the Spanish in the Americas, were they unable to convert the African populations under their colonial rule? Did the Portuguese have less of a commitment to Christianization than the Spanish? Or was it simply a function of a significant difference in population between the two Iberian neighbors?
These issues will be developed by a simple breakdown of the Portuguese Church's activities in
Western Africa. First, the differences between the human resources of Spain and Portugal will be
analyzed to deal with the simpler issue of the ability of the Portuguese, in terms of manpower, to
Christianize West Africa. Second, in somewhat grossly general terms the peoples and religion of
Africa will be examined especially to contrast them with the aborigines converted by the Spanish
in the Americas. Third, the Portuguese elites' correspondence, pontifical bulls, and other
ecclesiastic documents will be used as examples of the Portuguese Church's activities and goals
among the Western African peoples. That will, in turn, be compared to similar evidence from the
Spanish American case. Through these analyses it is hoped this essay will contribute to a clearer
understanding of how and when attempts at conversion were more or less successful and what
this says about the meaning of religious change in history.
Portugal's Expansion into West Africa
The first meeting of the Portuguese world with Africa resulted from the Reconquista battles against the Moors. Soon after gaining the Moorish possession of Ceuta in 1415, the Portuguese, under the leadership of King John's son, Prince Henry, invested heavily in seafaring both by setting up schools of navigation in Sagres and Lagos and by facilitating investment of capital for seafarers.(2) From Lagos, Henry sent larger ships equipped with the newest technology of the astrolabe to explore the West African coast. During Henry's lifetime, Portuguese merchants discovered the Madeiras and the Azores, rounded Cape Bojador, and entered the Gulf of Guinea. By 1469 the Portuguese, led by the merchant Fernâo Gomes, had established contacts with the African peoples of the West Coast, which they generically referred to as Guiné. There they established trade negotiations with the local people, bartering in slaves, gold, and ivory. From their posts in Guiné, the Balearic Islands, and Sâo Tomé. The Portuguese explorers, known as fazendos, reached the kingdom of Congo in 1483; as in the case of Guinea, they established extensive trade contacts. By the early fifteenth century Portuguese sailors had made contacts with the peoples of Africa's west coast, reaching as far south as present day Angola.
Some historians, most notably John Thornton, have argued that Portuguese expansion into Africa (and eventually around the Cape of Good Hope into India) was a haphazard and random process that did not have a central logic of operation.(3)It is clear that merchants dealing with the Africans did not realize the potential for trade with the various peoples; once this trade was discovered it created a greater push for commercial contacts and expeditions into Africa. From its very beginning Portuguese maritime expansion had the dual mission of commercial expansion and Christian militarism. The two motivations, not being mutually exclusive, were intrinsically linked in providing a guiding agenda for Portuguese maritime ventures. For example, in writing to the maritime school in Sagres, Prince Henry proposed that "[w]e shall circle the Moorish lands and end Mohammedism in Africa and spread the Lord's way to all those peoples we are able to save."(4) Therefore, the Portuguese expansion into West Africa was not a haphazard commercial enterprise; rather, it was a programmatic incursion into the world of the infidels to profit their souls and the Portuguese traders.
The Portuguese presence in West Africa was also commercial in nature. The Portuguese
monarchy led by Joâo II was determined to find the sea route to the East around the Cape of
Good Hope. This was finally achieved by Bartolomeu Dias in 1487 and consolidated by Vasco da
Gama's expedition around the Cape all the way to India in 1497. However, Portugal was unable
to maintain a colonial presence in Asia and Africa because it simply did not have the resources to
do so. Portugal in the fifteenth century only had a population of 1.5 million people, with an
exceptionally large clerical population(5). Therefore, it simply did not have the manpower to
effectively establish hegemony over the peoples of West Africa and Asia. In addition, Portugal
during the sixteenth century was involved in conflicts with its stronger neighbor, Spain, coming
under the Spanish crown for several decades. Portugal's role in West African history in the
sixteenth century was not one of colonial rule but one of cooperation and alliance. This inability to
force the African peoples to adopt its customs and religion made Portugal adopt a different
strategy of conversion than that employed by the Spanish in the New World.
Spanish Expansion into the Americas
The pattern and background of Spanish expansion into the Americas has both commonalities and differences with Portuguese patterns. Like Portuguese expansion, Spanish expansion was heavily influenced by the antecedents of the Reconquista. Spanish explorers and soldiers possessed a militaristic religious zeal surmounting that of the Portuguese. Spanish militarism was evident not only against the Moors but against any infidel they encountered. This religious chauvinism affected the manner in which the Spaniards dealt with Amerindian religion and how they subverted the various aboriginal societies. The Spanish pattern of conquest and colonization, however, was a result of the practice used by the Castilian monarchs during the period of the Reconquest. The Castilian kings granted mercenaries the right of title to lands and the labor of persons in areas they reconquered from the Muslims. This institution, known as encomienda,became one of the motivations for the final push of the Reconquest that ended with the fall of Granada in 1492. More importantly, the ease of acquiring title and labor made social title, rather than the acquisition of wealth, the primordial goal of Spanish society.(6) Wealth was still an important motivation for the Spanish who crossed the Atlantic (as evidenced in their demands for gold and silver from the Andeans and the Mesoamericans), but it was title that inspired persons to come and set up their fiefs in the New World. Therefore, unlike the Portuguese, Spain's background of the Reconquista laid the foundations for the Spanish conquering the Amerindians rather than only trading with them.
There were other factors which help explain the difference between the nature of Portuguese presence in Africa and of Spanish presence in the New World. First, the Spanish population has been estimated as being between six and eight million people in 1500. This is roughly four to five times larger than the Portuguese population of the same period. This difference in manpower allowed for greater migration of settlers, greater number of soldiers and mercenaries, and more importantly for reasons of conversion and control, a greater number of clergy and missionaries. Secondly, European diseases which decimated Amerindian populations especially in the Central Valley of Mexico and in Peru helped Spanish troops conquer the natives and bring them under the control of the Spanish empire.(7) Finally, the thrust of Spanish colonial control was over the more socially stratified and politically centralized communities of Mesoamerica and the Andes while smaller, less politically centralized peoples, such as the Chichimecs of Northern Mexico and the Araucanians of the Southern Cone, only came under colonial control in the late seventeenth century. Because of the preexisting socio-political conditions of the peoples in Mesoamerica and the Andes, it was a simpler process for the Spanish to simply step in and replace native hierarchies.(8) Because of all these factors the Spanish immigrants to the Americas were able to establish a colonial order and consolidate power.
Therefore, at the root of the differences in the Portuguese evangelical effort and the Spanish
evangelical effort is the character of their administrative and military presence in their respective
spheres. This was partly dictated by the peoples of these areas. The native peoples of Africa and
the Americas should be compared to each other to see if their religions, that Christian evangelizers
were trying to replace, were as different as Portuguese and Spanish colonization.
African Religion
The task of arriving at certain key elements of African traditional religion is complex and difficult, as shown in the work of John Mbiti.(9) First, there are many different forms of African traditional religion corresponding with the different peoples of the continent. Second, even though it is possible that certain aspects of cosmology and world view of the varying religions have remained the same, it is probable that significant changes resulted since the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. However, as Mbiti has tried to focus on the overall similarities of African traditional religion, so will the similarities be the focus here to provide points of comparison with native American religions.
One characteristic of many African traditional religions is the belief in the spiritual value of objects. For example, in the Yoruba religion stones that may come from a sacred river are themselves a central part of various religious ceremonies. This does not mean that the object itself is the subject of worship as was incorrectly assumed by foreigners when they labeled such practices with the title "animism". Rather, these objects are symbols of the deities who either created these places or are believed to rule over them or inhabit them. This is related to another important aspect of African religion, its pantheistic nature. African religion believes that the forces of divinity are not distant in the sky but are everywhere in every aspect of nature and life. The deities are in the rivers, the mountains, even in the villages of their faithful. It is, in other words, the belief that the deities in essence live among the people and thus must be respected and given proper ceremony. This presented a special problem for those who try to extirpate African religion by force. Unlike other faiths where temples and altars could simply be destroyed, the manifestations of religion in nature as observed by the Africans could not be physically obliterated. Evangelizers would have a similar problem in the Andes.
Most African religions were for the most part polytheistic. These religions had pantheons of divinities that either ruled an element or were connected to one ethnic group within an African nation. For example, the Gola people of Liberia believed there was a god of thunder and one above him who ruled the sky. However, even though African religions were polytheistic, their cosmologies often included belief in one chief god who created and ruled all the other divinities and spirits. Most West African religions have creation myths where the one God created the others and rules over them from a distance, leaving humans to seek the minor gods for help in their daily lives. For example, in Yoruba religion Olodumare is the chief of all the gods but he lives in the sky, away from the people who must seek his avatars on Earth, Orunmila and Obatala, to find truth and assistance.
Another characteristic of African religion is the importance of the dead and the ancestors. Although the dead are not worshiped, they are respected and ceremonies are performed to honor them. This is linked to the African belief in time and memory. Africans see the dead as being in the past but still part of the community if he or she is remembered. Only when there are no more persons alive who knew someone personally does that person drift into the distant past and out of the community. It is very important for one to remember the dead in order to ensure that one will be remembered after death. Respect for the dead and those who came before in the community was a very important part of African religion. Especially when one considers that those who have died, if they had already passed to the realm of the past, were considered dangerous spirits. Therefore, it was important to honor the dead if not simply for memory's sake, to avoid mishaps.
It is almost impossible to determine the exact nature of African religion in the sixteenth century
because of the lack of extant sources. Only through detailed analysis of present African religions
can one understand the basic structure of African religions. These elements, which are so much a
part of the culture of these various peoples, can be assumed to have been present in some form
during the time under scrutiny. However, like the religions of the peoples in the Americas,
scholars only have contemporary foreign records and anthropological studies of the present to
decipher the faith of Africans in the Early Modern period.
Amerindian Religion
Just as there was a variety of religions in the African continent at the moment of contact with the Europeans so were there many different religions in the Americas when the Spanish and Portuguese arrived. However, unlike African traditional religions, which survive in many parts of Africa in the present, Amerindian religions were for the most part successfully stamped out by the Spanish clergy. However, unlike African traditional religions, there are a good number of written sources for deriving a picture of Amerindian religion in the sixteenth century, although they were collected and/or edited by Spanish transcribers. Through more contemporaneous evidence certain clear characteristics of Amerindian religion can be determined and compared to African traditional religions.
One element between Amerindian and African traditional religions that can be compared is their pantheistic nature. The clearest example of this is Andean religion. At the center of Andean religion was the veneration of huacas. In its simplest terms a huaca was a manifestation of the deity which gave origin to the ayllu or clan unit; yet, what was revered as a huaca could vary. For example, Mt. Aconagua in the Andes was a site of veneration because in local traditions it was claimed as a point of origin by many ayllus. Objects such as stones that came from the holy place of origin were considered holy also and used in religious ceremonies. So, in appearance, as the foreigners believed about Africans, the Spaniards believed the people of the Andes worshiped stones and other inanimate objects. In fact, one of the clerical chroniclers of Andean religion, Father Bernabé Cobo, used a form of the term, "animistic."(10) Like many African religions, Amerindian religions saw objects as representations of holy places and deities.
Another point of comparison between African and American traditional religions is the importance of ancestors and the dead in religion. In many American religions the dead are respected and honored. For example, in naming emperors in the Aztec empire it was first determined which ancestor's spirit offered protection and then one might assume his name or wear his emblem. In Andean religion ancestors, especially those believed to be the founders of the ayllu, were revered; some even become huacas themselves, receiving tribute and sacrifice. In many villages the founder of the village or the clan was kept in a shrine in a mummified state. When the Spanish clergy in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth century carried out a program of trying to destroy all manifestations of the huacas they documented with horror how every Andean village kept their founders as mummies in shrines.(11) Just as the Africans revered and respected the dead of their village, so too, the Andeans honored their dead.
A more obvious similarity between American and African traditional religion was their polytheistic nature. Practically all the religions practiced by the natives of the New World fostered a belief in more than one deity. Like African religions, most believed in a creator god and/or a ruling god who reigned supreme over all the other deities and humans. For example, in Nahua cosmology there were many gods and goddesses worshiped, including deities such as Tonantzin and Quetzalcoatl. However, the main Nahua god was the hummingbird war god, Huitzilopochtli, to whom the huge temple in Tenochtitlan was built in the fifteenth century. In Andean cosmology there were many gods such as Pacha Camac and Inti, the sun-god. However the main god was the creator Cuni Raya who was the main figure in all Andean mythologies.(12) The cosmologic structure of American religions closely resembled that of African traditional religions.
Even though there were differences between African and Amerindian traditional religions, in
fundamental ways at least, during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries there were many more
similarities than differences. For example, they offered sacrifices both of food and animals. Both
were polytheistic and had a special role for ancestors and the dead. Both had a pantheistic faith
rather than more formal and abstract faiths such as Judaism, Islam, and Christianity. In addition,
some scholars have suggested that there were indeed contacts between the Africans and the
Amerindians before the arrival of Europeans. This theory has never been successfully established
as a possibility, however. But one must also deal with the similarities of African traditional and
Amerindian religion. Therefore, the apparent differences in the success and execution of the
Christianization processes carried out by the Portuguese and the Spanish was not a result of the
difference in the belief of the people they encountered. Rather, it may have been a combination of
different goals of conversion and, as noted before, different ability to carry out such goals.
Through analysis of correspondence and official letters one can arrive at a picture of how the
Portuguese tried to convert the African peoples they encountered.
The Portuguese Missionary Impulse
It is clear that from the beginning Portugal saw itself as a defender of the general interests of Christianity. Prince Henry the Navigator and his father King John were committed to maritime expansion to further Christianity and determined to deal a blow to the Islamic world. This messianic movement to spread Christianity possessed certain key elements that were to some degree present in the Portuguese attempts at conversion of the West African peoples. First, the conversion of these peoples must be seen as a general Christian concern requiring the involvement of ecclesiastic authorities even in the Vatican. Second, conversion implies, by its very nature, extirpation of existing native religions. That is, the Portuguese saw native African religion as something erroneous and worthless which had to be eradicated by the Portuguese clergy. Third, the active involvement of the crown was necessary in the context of the Iberian patronage system where the monarch named the clergy who occupied episcopal posts in Africa and in the New World. All of these elements were evident in Portuguese attempts at converting the African peoples to Christianity or, ideally, to Catholicism.
The Portuguese crown was constantly writing to the Vatican requesting approval of candidates chosen by the Portuguese monarch. One of the effects of Portuguese competition with Spain for the New World was the granting of the royal patronage (padroado real) to Portugal as had been done with Spain. The padroado was confirmed by a series of papal bulls from 1456 to 1514. This right allowed the Portuguese crown to name its own clergy to occupy ecclesiastic offices in its possessions and was expanded to include the west coast of Africa. Therefore, most papal communications were requests for nominal blessing and recognition of clerics who the Portuguese crown had already named, believing them to be the best for the conversion of West Africans. In a 1540 letter to the Pope, King Joao III stated why it was important for the Pope to place a competent bishop in the see of Sâo Tomé:
Because said bishopric has the dioceses of the Kingdom of Congo and others inhabited by negros, many of them being Christians who have begun to take the Christian doctrine and those of our Holy Catholic Faith but others are in a state of infidelity and gentileness and it is very necessary to serve God and for the growth of our holy faith.(13)
The presence of glorified clergy was paramount to the Portuguese crown because of the environment created by the Catholic reforms. The various Portuguese monarchs were constantly making similar pleas to the Holy See or to generals and provincials of the monastic orders. In another letter from King Joao III to the General of the Dominican Order, it is clearly established how much the Portuguese crown felt the monastic orders were a necessity for the conversion of the African peoples:
I am now asking the Holy Father that Friar Bernardo da Cruz be invested as bishop of Sao Tomé
because in said diocese there are many lands and peoples who must be converted to our Holy
Catholic faith and others that continue to live in gentileness and infidelity and it is necessary for
said bishopric to have a prelate who possesses the knowledge to teach the doctrine to the dwellers
of said parts in our Holy Catholic faith."(14)
The Catholic Reforms initiated by Ximenés de Cisneros and influencing the Portuguese church as early as the 1520's foreshadowed the Counter-Reformation stipulations calling for the proper education and training of the clergy to properly spread the doctrine to the people. The monastic orders in Portugal and Spain underwent a rigorous process of reform to ensure that they were living their monastic lives according to Benedictine rules and that they were properly educated in theology to be able to instruct their parishioners. This clerical design, as seen above and in numerous other examples, was also a concern of the Portuguese crown.
For the most part, epistolary evidence reveals that the Portuguese monarchs were not only involved in the venture of converting the African peoples on a superficial level but, rather, they were involved in the everyday mundane aspects of African conversion. In one letter addressed to a member of his exchequer King Manuel I made sure a cleric being sent to the kingdom of Benin was properly provided for: "We, the King order you Ruy Leite receiver of our treasure and as part of your office give from these to Bastiam de Vargas which said is the bishop of Cafy be given vestments while he is sent to Benin on a sacred endeavor."(15)King Manuel made a similar request of this same Rui Leite that he provide supplies to another cleric, Pero Barroso: "We order you give Pero Barroso who will soon be meeting with the King of Benin a velvet coat, all the vermilion of whatever color he needs, and the shoes that he most desires."(16)
The level of personal involvement of the Portuguese monarchs was not restricted to dealing with members of the European clergy. There was also a good amount of correspondence between the Portuguese kings and the kings of the kingdom of Congo who converted to Catholicism during the latter decades of the fifteenth century(17). As stated earlier, Portuguese relations with the Congo kingdom were based on equality and cooperation. In most of the Portuguese monarchs' dealings with the Congolese the language was one of equals and of diplomacy. In a 1529 letter to the king of Congo King Joao III wrote,
Noble and Powerful King of Congo:
Through the letters I have received from Luis Eanes, the servant you sent me and I learnedthat
some Frenchmen took one of your naturals abusing of your kindness, and that you justly took
them prisoner. While the prisoners you sent me I will release and send back to their lands because
of my love and respect for you. But be careful because these Frenchmen are not Christians but
thieves and when the King of France gives them his justice you need not worry that you will
receive goods and people will have caution of you.(18)
As seen above, the interaction between Portugal and the Congo was one of equality and respect. Yet, this is a relationship which had one very important commonality in the context of the sixteenth century: both monarchs and courts were Christian. It seems clear that the Portuguese who saw all non-Christians as infidels who needed to be converted or destroyed would not have treated the Congolese with such respect and cooperation if the Congolese had remained pagan. This, of course, does not mean that they would have conquered the people of Congo if they had not converted; Portugal clearly lacked the manpower to do so. But certainly there would not have been the close diplomatic and cultural relations between the two monarchies if the Congo elite had not accepted Christianity.
The personal involvement of the Portuguese monarchs in missionary activities in Western Africa cannot be overemphasized. The effort which the Portuguese kings put forth to send good clerics to missionize Africa, place competent bishops in the important sees of Luanda and Sâo Tomé, and aid in any way possible with the maintenance of Christianity in the Congo shows their commitment to the missionary activity in West Africa. Such a commitment makes it difficult to characterize Portuguese expansion into West Africa as merely a mercantile venture. It seems clear that the Portuguese elite wanted a healthy clerical presence in West Africa and to spread the Catholic faith. Surely it would have been possible for the Portuguese to trade with pagan Africans (which they did in many cases) and not care about the religious errors of the African peoples. However, the notion that Portuguese elites did not want to spread their faith is absurd within the context of the strict religious confessionalization and revival that characterized the faithful in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. For Portugal, which had just undergone a period of conflict with Islam, it was natural that religious zeal brought with it a desire for Christian expansion. Portuguese desire for Christian expansion into West Africa was certainly not atypical. But the desire for Christian expansion also meant the criticism and eradication of the religions that existed before. This dogmatic chauvinism was also a part of Portuguese missionary activity in West Africa.
By its very nature, conversion of a group of people to a new faith is an exclusivist process. This is certainly true in the case of Christianity which unlike many non-Western religions was very exclusivist. The act of trying to make a person adopt a new faith necessarily includes him/her forsaking the old faith. This means that the cleric attempting the conversion needs to discredit and vilify the previous religion. This is just a function of the conversion process. When this characteristic was compounded with the Iberian propensity towards religious militarism it is easy to see why Iberian clerics in Africa and in the New World were so hostile to the religious beliefs of the Africans and Americans.
Portuguese efforts at conversion in the New World were no exception to this trend. The Portuguese clergy in their letters and chronicles did not hide their dislike of African religious practices. These, of course, were not informed discussions because, as far as the evidence shows, the Portuguese clergy did not make the effort (as was done by the Spanish in the New World) to learn the particulars of the various African religions they encountered. They merely referred to them as idolatries not making clear distinctions between the different sets of beliefs.(19) The Portuguese viewed African religion as inherently false and therefore part of the overall plan of Satan to pervert humanity from the true Christian path. In a letter back to their Provincials in Lisbon, two Franciscan friars, Frey Antonio and Frey Francisco recount in horror the religious practices of the Benin kingdom. They viewed the king as someone who offered sacrifices to "the Enemy of Man" (i.e., the Devil) and who "covered himself with human blood and practiced many other superstitions abominations and errors."(20)
It is difficult to assert with any certainty whether the clerics' accounts of human sacrifices and smearing of blood over the body were true. There is always the possibility these witnesses were exaggerating. However, the fact remains that for European observers the perception existed that Africans of the West Coast took part in diabolic rituals. This affected the manner in which the Portuguese clergy dealt with African traditional religions. From a Western European perception, any diabolic faith had to be eradicated. It is clear that the Portuguese clergy viewed traditional religion as forms of alliance with the devil either consciously or unconsciously. Therefore, they moved against these religions with particular zeal and militarism.
This attitude towards African religion was not a function of initial shock upon first contact and confrontation. Rather, its permanence and existence even into the seventeenth centuries shows how central religious chauvinism was in Portuguese missionary activity in West Africa.(21)
Portuguese missionaries maintained hostile attitudes towards native African religions and possessed a strong desire to extirpate diabolical practices. Therefore, one cannot decisively conclude (as some historians like John Thornton and Eric Axelson have assumed) that because traditional religions survived in the long run in West Africa that the Portuguese were somehow more tolerant of native religions and did not vehemently try to uproot them.(22) Thornton argues that the Portuguese Catholic Church in Goa and the Congo was more tolerant of heterodox beliefs than they would be in the nineteenth century. This is an erroneous conclusion based on the inability of the Portuguese to impose a more orthodox form of Catholicism. It seems clear from the ecclesiastical correspondence and official letters that the Portuguese missionaries and monarchy were just as adamantly opposed to traditional forms of religion in Africa as the Spaniards were in the New World. The commonly held perception that the Portuguese were lax in their missionary activities in Africa cannot be used as an explanation for ultimate failure and is more a function of ability than intent.
The Catholic Church, as established in West Africa in the sixteenth and seventeenth century, showed a particular form of Roman Catholicism. The doctrine and the forms of Catholicism which were being preached to the African peoples was heavily laden with influences of the Catholic reforms of the sixteenth century, especially after the Council of Trent (1563). This is partially explained by the various orders sent to convert the West Africans. During the early phase (as was the case in the Spanish empire) there was much more diversity of orders going to Africa. Dominicans, Franciscans, and Benedictines were sent by the crown to evangelize in Africa. This changed by the later sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries as two typical Counter-Reformation clerical orders, the Jesuits and the Capuchins, were sent by the Portuguese crown to missionize Africa. The first Capuchins went to Africa without royal blessing from Italy and Spain but eventually swore allegiance to the padroado by 1649.(23) The Portuguese crown sent the first Jesuits to the Congo and Benin as part of a diplomatic mission in 1560. These Jesuits eventually established a presence in the Congolese and Benin courts and they became very influential in the conversion and instruction of African elites during the following decades.(24) The presence of these orders would have a natural effect on the form of Catholicism which was imposed on the African peoples. Especially in the case of the Jesuits, these orders were heavily influenced by Counter-Reformation theology. This meant, in practical terms, that clerics placed greater emphasis on the correct enactment of the sacraments, maintained stricter to established theology, showed a desire to learn the native languages so as to preach to the peoples in their language, and, as a product of religious conflict with Protestantism, exhibited greater religious intolerance.
This new emphasis on correct clerical living and proper doctrine was proscribed even by the Portuguese monarchs. In a letter to the King of Congo written in 1564, King Sebastiao I notified the King that "all Catholic kings are obligated to do as the Council [of Trent] has decreed."(25) In addition, the changes effected by the Council of Trent was imposed by the Portuguese royal and ecclesiastic elites and extended into Africa. As already noted, the Portuguese clergy in Africa had already changed not only their particular composition but also their methods and theology. The clergy that arrived in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries were better educated as the Cisnerian and Tridentine reforms called for the clergy to be effectively educated in the proper, Orthodox theology. Orthodox theology, as newly defined by the Catholic Church in the sixteenth century, attempted to exclude local variations and establish a universality to the faith. Catholics all over the world were expected to know the same prayers and receive and administer the sacraments in the same manner according to the catechisms that were being produced at that time. Before this period Catholicism was full of local variants and the administration of the sacraments was haphazard at best. Orthodox theology was in essence then a sixteenth-century construct that became possible with the use of printed standardized manuals. The clergy as a whole showed great efforts that Catholic theology be described in a clear and literal manner and that this theology be instructed to all peoples and in this case, to African peoples. The clearest examples of this shift were the differences in catechisms.
Catechisms were brought and even produced in Africa before the Council of Trent. Perhaps the most interesting of the catechisms was one produced by the Jesuit, Father Mateus Cardoso in 1624 simply entitled Doutrina Christaa. It reveals the influence of the Tridentine decrees requiring that people be preached to in their own language(26). The work was published in three languages Latin, Portuguese, and in "the language of Congo," as it was described. This is an example of the implementation of a decree calling for the intelligibility of the Holy Word to the people. This particular catechism was not commissioned by the Portuguese crown but by the Congo king, Dom Pedro which shows how Reformed Catholicism had made certain inroads into even the African psyche. Another catechism, Gentilis Angolae Fidei Mysteris, was published by Capuchin missionaries, Anthony Couto and Antonio Marian, in 1636, instructing in the Latin, Portuguese, and "Angolan" languages. Again, we see the application of Tridentine instructions on language in distant West Africa. The importance of language for missionaries was made clear in a letter from the Provincial of the Society of Jesus in Portugal to all bishops overseas:
It is of greatest help to all ministers of the gospel and for the good of all souls that we look at and
approve all dictionaries, vocabularies, linguistic works, catechisms and doctrines that are made in
your provinces. We must see the names of the authors and make sure all is correct and well
understood or else it would not help in the work the Society does for salvation of souls.(27)
As seen above in the example of language, the Catholic Church in West Africa was not isolated
from Counter-Reformation changes in practice, if not theology. This raises an important point of
the Portuguese missionary initiatives in West Africa. The Portuguese did not view their
ecclesiastic activities as secondary considerations. They sent qualified clerics to West Africa,
provided them with everything necessary to survive and be successful in their missionary
endeavors, and were constantly watchful that the Church in West Africa was ministering to the
people with the proper methods and in a manner which the people could understand. This leads
one to conclude that the Portuguese were motivated and strongly desired that Catholicism take
root and flourish in Africa. The continual support of the Portuguese crown for ecclesiastic
activities in Africa along with clerical determination to uproot idolatry reveals how the Portuguese
intended to make Africa a Christian continent. In many ways the Portuguese missionary impulse
in Africa was similar to the Spanish missionary impulse in the New World but with vastly different
long-term results.
The Spanish Missionary Impulse
The similar methods and characteristics of the Spanish missionaries to those of the Portuguese in Africa is linked to the historical similarities between the two neighbors. As previously mentioned, Spaniards had undergone centuries of conflict with non-Christians which helped galvanize a sentiment of religious militarism. This religious militarism made its way across the Atlantic as the Spanish missionaries and soldiers made every effort to eradicate native religions and replace them with Orthodox Catholicism. One of the major elements in which both missionary activities were similar was in the level of royal involvement in the assignation of clerics to ecclesiastic office and in the daily activities of the missionaries. Fernando and Isabel were able to obtain the right of royal patronage (patronato real) for Granada and the Canaries in 1486 and eventually for the New World in 1501 and 1508. Spanish patronage was different from Portuguese patronage in that not only did the Spanish crown name all appointments to ecclesiastic office but also controlled the collection of tithes and all papal bulls, and other documents had to pass through the Council of Indies to be approved. This difference was based on the greater political power exerted by the Spanish monarchs, especially because the Spanish king, Charles I, was also Holy Roman Emperor during most of the sixteenth century. Like the Portuguese, the Spanish monarchs had to name a good number of clergymen to the various posts in the expanding New World. They were just as careful in naming qualified clerics as the Portuguese (the correspondence reveals many references to the need for good orthodox men knowledgeable of the Gospel to minister to the people). Like their Portuguese counterparts, the Spanish monarchs were determined to send the right persons to uproot idolatry and spread the Holy Catholic Faith to infidels.
The amount of personal involvement by the Spanish crown in the missionary endeavor was great. Most of the involvement of the crown was either referent to the patronato or to the question of justification of the treatment of the natives in the New World. The debates over whether or not the newly encountered peoples were human and how or even if they should be converted was not an element of Portuguese missionary activity in Africa. This was because black Africans were known in Iberia since before large-scale contact in West Africa so they were not viewed as alien or mythical, as the Spanish perceived the Amerindians.
In Spain there were many theological debates; the most famous occurred between Juan Ginés de Sepulveda and Bartolomé de Las Casas at Valladolid. They debated the nature of the Amerindians, if they could be enslaved, and how best to convert them to Christianity. This last issue required careful consideration by monarchs from Fernando and Isabel until it was finally resolved by Charles I with the issuance of the New Laws of 1542. These laws gave encomenderos responsibility in ensuring that all natives were Christianized or else their labor would be taken away. Before this time Charles I's mother, Juana, issued the Laws of Burgos in 1512 which provided guidelines for the baptism and Christianization of the Amerindians. The nature and manner of Christianization of the natives in the New World was of paramount importance to the Spanish monarchy. The Spanish crown, like the Portuguese kings, saw the expansion of empire not merely as a territorial and economic expansion but also as an expansion of the Holy Catholic Faith.
Another common element between the Spanish and Portuguese missionary efforts is the adamant intolerance of native religions. The Spanish clerics who crossed the ocean were appalled by the manifestations of native religion and universally agreed that the natives had been duped by Satan since they did not have the benefit of clerical instruction to save them from their errors. In writing about Mesoamerican religion, chroniclers such as Toribio de Motolinía, Bernardino de Sahagún, and Jerónimo Mendieta all stated that Nahuas were devil worshipers and were ruled by sorcerers. In the Andes, chroniclers such as Bernabé Cobo, José de Acosta, and Pablo José de Arriaga echoed these sentiments adding that saving these peoples from the Devil was part of the divine mission given to the Church.(28) There were manuals written by clerics, most notably Arriaga, that detailed step by step how to destroy Andean religion. In fact, one of the few ethnographic sources that survives from colonial Andean religion was commissioned by an "extirpator," Francisco Avila, to learn via native myths what the various huacas were and thus be able to more effectively destroy them.(29) It seems clear there was a common Iberian militarism in the Portuguese and Spanish Early Modern church which sought to destroy the native religions of the peoples they encountered in Africa and the New World.
A final common element between the Spanish and Portuguese Catholic Church in overseas possessions was the patterns of clerical involvement and the spreading of Reformed Catholicism into these areas. In the early phases of clerical contacts in the Caribbean, and for a long time in Mesoamerica, the principal orders were the Dominicans, Franciscans, and Augustinians. These were the missionaries who converted what little populations of Arawak people remained in the Caribbean and also, for the most part, converted the Nahua and Maya peoples. However, as in Africa during the later sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the majority of the clerics were from orders more identified with the Counter-Reformation such as the Jesuits and Capuchins. In essence, the Andes and the rest of South America were almost exclusively Christianized by the Society of Jesus. Like their counterparts in Africa, these clerics brought with them many elements of the Counter-Reformation. For example, there were a series of synods held in Lima in 1590 and 1610 which specifically called for the adoption of Tridentine catechisms, practices, and ceremonies. The Catholic Church, as established in the Andes and later in Mexico, was a Tridentine institution with all the dogmas and ceremonies as set down by the Council much as the Portuguese crown and missionaries attempted for Africa.
Parallel examples can be drawn between the Portuguese clergy's emphasis on preaching to the
people in their own language and the same emphasis by the Spanish. One of the most influential
catechisms for the Andes was written by Fray Luis Gerónimo de Oré who was actually born in
Peru. His work, entitled Rituale, seu Manuale Peruanum et forma brevis administrandi apud
Indos sacrosancta Baptismi, Poenitentiae, Eucharistiae, Matrimonis, & Extremae unctionis
Sacramento, was written not only in Spanish, Latin, and Portuguese but also contained texts in
lesser known languages such as Guaraní, Aymara, and the language of the Amazonian natives.(30)
There were other such catechisms and doctrines produced in the Andes during the end of the
sixteenth and beginning of the seventeenth centuries but none had the linguistic array of Oré's
work. These elements of the Spanishmissionary impulse in the New World have been dealt with
at length in various works dealing with the colonial Church and the "spiritual conquest" of the
New World. The emphasis and clarification that is being sought here is not that the Spanish elites
were deeply committed to spreading Christianity to the New World, but rather that in its most
fundamental elements the Spanish missionary impulse was not radically different from Portuguese
missionary activity in Africa. As mentioned before, the difference in results between Spanish and
Portuguese missionization was not because of a difference in goals or even methods. Other
reasons must be sought to understand the differences.
African Cooperation in Christianization
Even though throughout this essay the Portuguese efforts at Christianization have been labeled an overall failure, there is one example of Portuguese success, the Congo kingdom. The Congo kingdom has been the subject of numerous studies for several reasons. First, the Congo was virtually the only kingdom converted to Christianity by outsiders whose form of Christianity was along European models (specifically along Roman Catholic models). This made it anomalous in the sixteenth century since even after several decades of Portuguese conversion attempts most of Africa and even most of West Africa was not Christian. Second, because of the acceptance by the Congolese of the Portuguese language, culture, and religion they carried on a long and plentiful correspondence with Portugal and the Vatican. The extant correspondence and chronicles make this period in the Congo the most documented. These are the reasons that Congo Christianity in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries remains one of the most studied of all periods.
This section will stress, however, how Christianity in the Congo was achieved with the active cooperation of Congolese elites. This has led some to point out that the Congo basically converted itself.(31) There is a clear indication that the Congo kings and nobles were active in soliciting clergy and the reinforcement of Christianity in their kingdom. However, the impetus for conversion was a Portuguese effort and the efforts of the earliest missionaries to the Congo were the main reason the ruling classes accepted Christianity in the first place. Christianity was not a native Congo religion and therefore was only present in the kingdom because of European influence.
The Portuguese had assistance in conversion from other West Africans along with the help they received in the Congo. The Portuguese had contacts with Benin, a highly developed West African kingdom, since the middle of the fifteenth century. The first missionaries to arrive there went in 1482 and had contacts with the Benin kings. It seems that for matters of trade, and perhaps out of curiosity, the Benin kings requested missionaries (it is unclear why the Benin kings made the request, since there is much less documentation for their case than for the Congo).(32)
Benin kings requested missionaries from Portugal to make themselves appear in alliance with the Portuguese and increase their power in local power struggles. Indeed, this seems to be the pattern of Portuguese involvement throughout the West Coast. The Portuguese were simply absorbed into the politics of the areas with which they were in contact. They served as players in the balance-of-power struggles between the various peoples on the coast and interior. The Portuguese certainly did not have the ability to conquer these peoples. However, they were able to exert a certain amount of influence in local politics as seen in the desire of the Benin kings to show signs of Luso-Benin cooperation. The acceptance of Portuguese religion was simply a step towards strengthening this image of alliance.
African elites' patterns of tolerating or tacitly accepting Christianity were common throughout West Africa. However, the long-term results show that these peoples only accepted Christianity superficially and maintained allegiance to their traditional religions. Nonetheless, was this also the pattern in the Congo? Was the acceptance of Christianity simply an example of realpolitik for the Congo elite? This is not as clear for the Congo as it is for Benin. The Congo kings showed a deeper acceptance of Portuguese culture. For example, they adopted the Portuguese language and Congolese monarchs adopted Portuguese names and titles. And, as seen in the conflicts of civil war and the millenarian movement of Doña Beatriz in the late seventeenth century, it appears Christianity was accepted by the nobility to a large degree. This tendency by the Congolese to "go foreign" allows for the possibility that they truly were sincere in their acceptance of Christianity.
Dom Alfonso, one of the most pious and enthusiastic of the Congo monarchs, was deeply committed to the spreading of the Christian faith in his kingdom.(33) The reason for this commitment is not clear from the evidence. It is, of course, possible that Dom Alfonso was a genuine convert to Catholicism and wished that the salvation he believed he experienced be experienced by all his people. It is certainly less clear what benefit continuous confession and influx of clergy would have had for diplomatic relations between the Congo and Portugal. Indeed, the apparent reluctance by Joao III to send additional missionaries to the Congo seems to show that the Portuguese felt the Congo was sufficiently Christianized for their standards. At least in Dom Alfonso's case, it seems the Congo kings were genuinely concerned with the state of the Christian faith in the kingdom.
Congo cooperation in the Christianization of the kingdom facilitated the process of conversion.
The sources are clear that for whatever specific reason the Congo kings were active in the
Christianization of the kingdom.(34) This means that they assisted the Portuguese clergy and
monarchs in their program of converting the African peoples to Catholicism. Again it must be
pointed out that even though the Congo elites took an active role in the missionary impulse it was
still initiated from the outside by the Portuguese. So, in a sense, the Congo was the lone success
of the Portuguese missionary activity in West Africa. However, because of avid Congo assistance
and the eventual reversal of a Christianity resembling Portuguese Christianity it is unclear whether
this temporary success was even of their own doing.
Amerindian Cooperation in Christianization
Spanish missionaries also received a great deal of assistance from the peoples they were trying to convert. Yet, this assistance was not as active as the Congo assistance. Rather, it was the tacit assistance of a conquered people who saw the acceptance of the European God as a manner of assimilation into the colonial order. The help of American natives in the Cristianization process was, nevertheless, still very important. Even though the Spanish clerical population in absolute numbers was greater than Portuguese clerical populations, they were still a vast minority in centers of native population like Mesoamerica and the Andes. Only through the assistance of the remaining native nobility could the conversion of the Americas have been possible at all.
In Mesoamerica the best example of Amerindian assistance was the involvement of the Aztec nobility in the Christianization of the people. Both the Spanish and the Portuguese missionaries followed an old pattern of conversion. This pattern was the same as followed by the first Christian missionaries of late antiquity who converted the Germanic tribes of Northern Europe. The method was to convert the chief of the local kin unit, nation, or even empire and through him or her have the rest of the population accept the Faith. It is clear the Portuguese clergy followed such a method in their attempts to convert the kings of Benin and Congo. In the Caribbean and Mesoamerica the Spaniards did the same. For example, the first targets of Christian conversion was the ruling class of the Aztec empire including the emperor Moctezuma himself who was the target of many conversion attempts.(35) After the initial phases of conquest the Spanish missionaries adopted a different strategy altogether. They concentrated on the education of Nahua children in the Faith. This served the purpose of raising an entire new generation in the Catholic faith after the conquest. This method also used the children as familiars to make known to the Spanish clergy if the children's parents were relapsing into their traditional religion. In fact, many cases of the Mexican Inquisition were initiated by children who informed the clergy of the "diabolic rituals" of their parents.(36) The Nahua and Maya people did not solicit more missionaries as the Congo kings did probably because there was such a clerical presence that the needs of the people were met for the most part. Mesoamerican cooperation came with the acceptance of defeat by conquest and eventual total acceptance of the Spanish God.
There are fewer examples of Andean cooperation with the Spanish missionary impulse. There was, however, a tacit acceptance of the new Christian faith. In fact, one of the major complaints as expressed by the clerical chroniclers, Bernabé Cobo and José de Acosta, was that the Andeans did not understand accepting Christianity meant the abandonment of their Andean "devils." The Andeans quite naturally accepted Christianity but adapted it to their cosmological system believing in some ways that Jesus Christ was the huaca of the Spanish conquerors. Andean peoples assisted the Spanish clergy in seeking out the huacas and helping destroy them. For example, the Andeans who were under the jurisdiction of Father Avila in the central Andean region, Huarochiri (or San Damián), detailed their myths to the great extirpator so as to facilitate his location of the huacas. In fact, within the text of the myths the Andean scribes inserted many references to how the deities being discussed were actually devils and offensive to the Holy Faith.(37) As in Mesoamerica, in the Andes the first to adopt the new faith were the Inca nobility including Atahualpa himself who accepted Christianity and adopted the name of his executioner, Francisco Pizarro. Even though the active assistance of the Andean peoples in spreading Christianity was not as apparent as in Mesoamerica, it seems the Andeans accepted the faith of their conquerors quickly, as seen in the ordainment of Andean clergy by the middle of the seventeenth century.
The success of the Spanish missionary activity in the Americas was not merely a result of the
efforts of the Spanish clergy. Rather, it was a process of successful negotiation where Amerindian
traditional religions, which were very adaptable (as seen in the integration of non-Inca and
non-Aztec deities by the imperial powers), adopted Christianity. Once the religion and its
principles were understood and accepted by the peoples the Spanish missionaries then
concentrated on destroying Amerindian allegiance to their traditional religions. Therefore, as
successful as the Spanish missionary impulse was, it was only possible because the absorbent
quality of the existing native traditional religions allowed the seed of Christianity to be planted and
flourish.
Mirror Images of Evangelization
This comparison, both of the abilities and objectives of Portuguese and Spanish missionary activities, reveals a peculiar similarity. These similarities range from the traditional religions of the peoples they were trying to convert to their methods and goals in the Christianizing of these peoples. Though the objectives for both Spain and Portugal may have been the same for their points of contact, the reality of their situations dictated their results. Portugal did not have a colonial relationship with West Africa. The people of West Africa were not conquered by Portuguese arms as the New World had been conquered by Spanish force. The Portuguese were not in a position to step into an existent order and dictate their religion to a conquered people like the Spanish did. Therefore, even though the objectives of the Portuguese in West Africa may have been the same as those of the Spanish in the New World they were unable to implement their religious programs in the same way.
The Portuguese were just as committed to converting the West Africans to Christianity as the
Spanish were to converting the Amerindians. Yet, because of circumstances, such as conquest and
demographics (both demographic collapse of the Amerindians and demographic majority of the
Spanish), the Spaniards were able to force their religion upon natives in the New World while the
Portuguese could not do the same in West Africa. This comparison is useful in this aspect
because it shows that one cannot look at objectives and ideas as being the most important agents
of religious change. Rather, the social and political realities often have more to say about the
outcome of missionary and conversion activity than anything else.
NOTES:
1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37.