scholarly journals To Walk with Slaves: Jesuit Contexts and the Atlantic World in the Cartagena Mission to Enslaved Africans, 1605–1654

Religions ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (5) ◽  
pp. 334
Author(s):  
José L. Santana
Keyword(s):  
Latin America ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
East Asia ◽  
Atlantic World ◽  
Society Of Jesus ◽  
Colonial Latin America ◽  
Religious Context ◽  
Catholic Faith ◽  
Early Colonial ◽  
Jesuit Missionary

The Jesuit mission to enslaved Africans founded in 1605 in Cartagena de las Indias is amongst the most extraordinary religious developments of early colonial Latin America. By the time Alonso de Sandoval, S.J. and Pedro Claver, S.J. began their work to baptize and catechize the thousands of slaves who passed through Cartagena’s port each year, the Society of Jesus had already established a global missionary enterprise, including an extensive network of communication amongst its missionaries and colleges. Amidst this intramissionary context, Sandoval wrote De instauranda Aethiopum salute—a treatise informed largely by these annual letters, personal correspondences, and interactions with the diverse multitudes of people who could be encountered in this early colonial cosmopolitan city—aimed at promoting the necessity of African salvation. From East Asia to Latin America, Jesuits followed the example of their apostolic missionary, Francis Xavier, to bring the Catholic faith to non-Christian peoples. Through De instauranda and the Catholic Church’s collected testimony for the sainthood of Claver, we see how Sandoval and Claver, like other Jesuits of the time, arose as innovative and unique missionaries, adapting to their context while attempting to model the Jesuit missionary spirit. In doing so, this article posits, the historical-religious context of the early modern Atlantic world and global Jesuit missions influenced Sandoval and Claver to accompany enslaved Africans as a missionary theology.

Becoming “Indians”: The Jesuit Missionary Path from Italy to Asia

2020 ◽  
Vol 43 (1) ◽  
pp. 9-50
Author(s):  
Camilla Russell
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Early Modern Period ◽  
Society Of Jesus ◽  
Modern Period ◽  
Jesuit Missions ◽  
Archival Documents ◽  
Italian Provinces ◽  
Jesuit Missionaries ◽  
Jesuit Missionary

The Jesuit missions in Asia were among the most audacious undertakings by Europeans in the early modern period. This article focuses on a still relatively little understood aspect of the enterprise: its appointment process. It draws together disparate archival documents to recreate the steps to becoming a Jesuit missionary, specifically the Litterae indipetae (petitions for the “Indies”), provincial reports about missionary candidates, and replies to applicants from the Jesuit superior general. Focusing on candidates from the Italian provinces of the Society of Jesus, the article outlines not just how Jesuit missionaries were appointed but also the priorities, motivations, and attitudes that informed their assessment and selection. Missionaries were made, the study shows, through a specific “way of proceeding” that was negotiated between all parties and seen in both organizational and spiritual terms, beginning with the vocation itself, which, whether the applicant departed or not, earned him the name indiano.

Spiritualité, Spirituality, and Espiritualidad

2021 ◽  
Vol 101 (4) ◽  
pp. 496-525
Author(s):  
Rady Roldán-Figueroa
Keyword(s):  
Latin America ◽  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Primary Source ◽  
Source Material ◽  
Modern Concept ◽  
Colonial Latin America ◽  
Conceptual History ◽  
Academic Study

Abstract This article offers a corrective to the widely held idea that the modern concept of spirituality is traceable to the seventeenth century French notion of spiritualité. Instead, the argument is made that the sixteenth and seventeenth century Spanish terms spiritual and spiritualidad are earlier expressions of the modern concept of spirituality. The article opens with an examination of the place of spirituality in the academic study of religion and proceeds to a discussion of the premises of conceptual history and modern lexicography. In the closing section, the author analyses a plethora of lexicographical and other primary source material from the medieval to the early modern periods that demonstrate the usage of the terms spirital and espiritualidad in Spain as well as in colonial Latin America. Among the sources examined are Sebastián de Covarrubias Orozco, Tesoro de la lengua castellana (Madrid: Luis Sánchez, 1611); Fernando de Valverde, Vida de Jesu Christo nuestro señor (Lima: Luis de Lyra, 1657); and Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Madrid: En la imprenta de Francisco del Hierro, 1726–1739).

Jesuits in Colonial Latin America

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Guillermo Wilde
Keyword(s):  
Latin America ◽  
Local Governments ◽  
Indigenous Populations ◽  
Society Of Jesus ◽  
Colonial Latin America ◽  
Council Of Trent ◽  
Political Activities ◽  
Counter Reformation ◽  
History Of ◽  
Jesuit Order

The Jesuits have impacted the history of colonial Latin America as have few other religious orders. Founded in 1540 by Ignatius of Loyola and a group of companions, the Society of Jesus defined its profile from the beginning as an order devoted to apostolic activity, especially through missions, and education, which led it to promote new forms of preaching and teaching. Its expansion in the world coincides with the Catholic Counter-Reformation fostered by the Council of Trent (1545–1563), in which the Jesuits had a decisive participation. The growth and expansion of the order in Latin America was rapid and continuous. The first Jesuits arrived in Brazil in 1549, in Peru in 1568, and in Mexico in 1572, and they soon became involved in the main religious, social, economic, and political activities of each region. They founded numerous colleges and residences in the most important cities and dozens of missions, or reducciones, villages among the indigenous populations living on the so-called borderlands of the colonial domains of Spain and Portugal. The several Jesuit establishments in Latin America were territorially organized into provinces, which maintained constant and fluid communication with the headquarters of the order in Rome, where its highest authority, the superior general, resided. Demands by local governments, an increase in the number of operarios, and an expansion of the political and ecclesiastical jurisdictions led to the establishment of new Jesuit provinces in the 17th century, most especially that of Paraguay, which became one of the most famous in Latin America. Each province was staffed by both priests and coadjutor brothers (lay Jesuits who had not completed their training) from different European countries, mainly Spain, as well as Creoles and mestizos born in America. Both internally and externally, the writing of documents of different types served as a central instrument of communication and government of the various Jesuit establishments. This abundance of documents produced is why the corpus of research of the Jesuit order in Latin America is profuse.

«Ultimamente con non poco travaglio alla Cocincina si videro»: viaggiatori gesuiti in Asia orientale nel secolo XVII

2021 ◽  
pp. 219-262
Author(s):  
Carlo Pelliccia
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
East Asia ◽  
17Th Century ◽  
Geographical Information ◽  
Society Of Jesus ◽  
Unpublished Manuscript ◽  
Mutual Knowledge ◽  
Early Modern Era ◽  
Modern Era

This article examines one section, Regno della Cocincina of the unpublished manuscript Ragguaglio della missione del Giappone (17th century) preserved in the Archivum Romanum Societatis Iesu (ARSI). I analyze the historical-political, socio-cultural, ethnographic, and geographical information conveyed by the report’s author. The text explores the role of the Society of Jesus’ correspondence in the phenomenon of cultural interaction and mutual knowledge between Europe and East Asia in the early modern era.

Unsettling Inscriptions: An Interview with Michael Gaudio

Public ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 29 (58) ◽  
pp. 22-30
Author(s):  
Michael Litwack ◽  
Michael Gaudio
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Atlantic World ◽  
Colonial Modernity ◽  
Theoretical Approaches ◽  
Early Colonial ◽  
Visual Cultures

Michael Gaudio is an art historian whose far-reaching scholarship has transformed archival and theoretical approaches to the visual cultures of the early modern Atlantic world. In this interview, Gaudio considers smoke’s (dis)organizing vocation within the archives of early colonial modernity. Following smoke’s pathways leads to a discussion of the structure and limits of representation; ephemerality and protocols of reading; the racialized vexations of materiality; and the possibilities of thinking the question of medium otherwise.

Religion and Race in the Early Modern Iberian Atlantic

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jessica L. Delgado ◽  
Kelsey C. Moss
Keyword(s):  
Latin America ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Spanish America ◽  
Colonial Latin America ◽  
The West ◽  
New Directions ◽  
Religion And Race ◽  
Early Modern Era ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Modern Era

This chapter reviews the scholarly treatment of religion and race in the early modern Iberian Atlantic world and colonial Latin America and suggests new directions for research. Through a critical reflection of the place that Spain and colonial Latin America have held in histories of race in the West, the chapter challenges historians of the Americas to rethink their understanding of the relationship between religion and race in the early modern era. It highlights processes and ideologies visible in Spanish America and calls for investigation into similar dynamics in the Anglophone colonies.

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