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Contested enslavement: the Portuguese in Angola and the problem of debt, c. 1600–1800

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 September 2015

Judith Spicksley
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Abstract

The Portuguese were keen slave traders on the west central coast of Africa in the early modern period, but governors in Angola appear to have been increasingly unhappy about certain aspects of enslavement in relation to debt, and in particular that of children. Slavery for debt was uncommon in early modern Europe, where three arguments, drawn from Roman law, were usually cited by way of justification: birth; war; and self-sale. Cavazzi, an Italian Capuchin missionary travelling around Angola between 1654 and 1665, suggested several similarities between the legal justifications for slavery in Africa and Europe, but also pointed up a major difference: while in Angola in the early modern period enslavement could result from a number of instances of default, in Portugal at the same time - and in Europe more widely – debtors tended to find themselves imprisoned if they defaulted on a payment, rather than enslaved. This paper will consider the nature of debt enslavement in Angola in the early modern period, and how it impacted on the transatlantic slave trade.

Keywords

Africaslave tradePortuguese empiredebtlegal history
Type
Articles
Information
Itinerario , Volume 39 , Issue 2: Africa In The Atlantic World , August 2015 , pp. 247 - 275
Copyright
© 2015, Research Institute for History, Leiden University 

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Footnotes

*

Judith Spicksley BA Hons (Hull), MA, Phd (Hull) is an early modern historian specialising in the economic and social history of seventeenth century England and the history of slavery. The primary research for this article was undertaken in Lisbon in 2008 and the author wishes to express her thanks to the Nuffield Foundation for funding it. The advice of the anonymous referees was a great help in improving the article, and the author is also deeply indebted to the work of the historians cited here for access through publication to the rich Angolan records that are used to support and extend her argument. Any errors in interpretation remain her own.

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