Book contents
- Lourenço da Silva Mendonça and the Black Atlantic Abolitionist Movement in the Seventeenth Century
- Cambridge Studies on the African Diaspora
- Lourenço da Silva Mendonça and the Black Atlantic Abolitionist Movement in the Seventeenth Century
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Tables
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- 1 The Municipal Council of Luanda and the Politics of the Portuguese Governors in Angola
- 2 Ndongo’s Political and Cultural Environment: Alliance, Internal Struggle, Puppeteering and Decline
- 3 The Journey of Mendonça: The Princes of Pungo-Andongo in Brazil
- 4 Mendonça’s Journey to Portugal and Spain, and the Network of the Hebrew Nation and Indigenous Americans
- 5 Mendonça’s Discourse in the Vatican: Liberation as a Wider Atlantic Question
- 6 Mendonça’s Quest for Abolition and the Tussle between the Portuguese Overseas Council and the House of Ndongo
- Conclusion
- Bibliography
- Index
Introduction
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 18 August 2022
- Lourenço da Silva Mendonça and the Black Atlantic Abolitionist Movement in the Seventeenth Century
- Cambridge Studies on the African Diaspora
- Lourenço da Silva Mendonça and the Black Atlantic Abolitionist Movement in the Seventeenth Century
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Tables
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- 1 The Municipal Council of Luanda and the Politics of the Portuguese Governors in Angola
- 2 Ndongo’s Political and Cultural Environment: Alliance, Internal Struggle, Puppeteering and Decline
- 3 The Journey of Mendonça: The Princes of Pungo-Andongo in Brazil
- 4 Mendonça’s Journey to Portugal and Spain, and the Network of the Hebrew Nation and Indigenous Americans
- 5 Mendonça’s Discourse in the Vatican: Liberation as a Wider Atlantic Question
- 6 Mendonça’s Quest for Abolition and the Tussle between the Portuguese Overseas Council and the House of Ndongo
- Conclusion
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
In 1684, Lourenço da Silva de Mendonça from the kingdom of Kongo in the Indies ‘arrived in Rome to take up an important role for Black peoples’. That role was to bring an ethical and criminal kufunda (case) before the Vatican court, which accused the nations involved in Atlantic slavery, including the Vatican, Italy, Spain and Portugal, of committing crimes against humanity. It detailed the ‘tyrannical sale of human beings … the diabolic abuse of this kind of slavery … which they committed against any Divine or Human law’. Mendonça was a member of the Ndongo royal family, rulers of Pedras (Stones) of Pungo-Andongo, situated in what is now modern Angola. He carried with him the hopes of enslaved Africans and other oppressed groups in what was a remarkable moment that, I would argue, challenges the established interpretation of the history of abolition.
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- Lourenço da Silva Mendonça and the Black Atlantic Abolitionist Movement in the Seventeenth Century , pp. 1 - 56Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2022