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
4 - Mendonça’s Journey to Portugal and Spain, and the Network of the Hebrew Nation and Indigenous Americans
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
Chapter 4 looks at Mendonça’s journey to Portugal and Spain, and the network he established. It examines his education in Braga, his appointment as an attorney of the Confraternity of Our Lady Star of the Negroes in Lisbon and Toledo and the alliances he formed with the New Christians in Lisbon, in particular the Mesquita family. Then it interrogates his association with Indigenous Americans in Toledo. It presents the period 1670–1681 in Lisbon as crucial for his compact with the Apostolic Notary in Lisbon, Gaspar Mesquita, and his connection with ‘the New Christian question’ in Lisbon and the Atlantic. Their search for freedom is examined in relation to the denial of enslaved Africans’ freedom. The unity of the regional confederation in West Central Africa shaped Mendonça’s engagement with the freedom of enslaved Africans in Angola, Brazil, Spain and Portugal. It also served as a springboard for his networking with the Indigenous people and New Christians in the Atlantic, Portugal and Spain. Engaging with this dialogue provides a better understanding of how those whose liberty had been denied sought to overcome this by allying with different constituencies in the Atlantic region.
Keywords
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Lourenço da Silva Mendonça and the Black Atlantic Abolitionist Movement in the Seventeenth Century , pp. 275 - 322Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2022