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Paper short abstract:

Africans' involvement in the abolition of slavery is often confined to sporadic cases, none of which examines the highly-organised, international-scale legal liberation headed by Mendonça in the Vatican on 6 March 1684. Mendonça questioned slavery using: Human, Natural, Divine, and Civil Laws.

Paper long abstract:

Africans' involvement in the abolition of slavery is often confined to sporadic cases namely those of 'shipboard revolts', 'maroon communities', 'individual fugitive slaves", and 'household revolts'. Notwithstanding, none of these studies have gone beyond the obvious economic disruptions caused by slaves on plantations, to examine the highly-organised, international-scale legal liberation headed by Mendonça in the Vatican on the 6th of March 1684. The court case presented by Mendonça on the abolition of slavery included different organizations, brotherhoods of Black people, and interest groups of 'men', 'women' and 'young people' of African descent in Spain, Portugal, Brazil and Africa. In addition to these groups, Mendonça also included other constituencies such as New Christians and the Native Americans. This scale of international initiative in the Atlantic led by Africans themselves has not before been researched since the inception of the Lusophone Atlantic slavery in the 15th century by Europeans. Mendonça questioned the institution of the Atlantic slavery, using four core principles to bolster his argument: Human, Natural, Divine, and Civil Laws.

I argue that the relationship between Africans' abolition discourse, the Inquisition of the New Christians, Native Brazilians and their common search for liberty, and how the denial of religious freedom was implicated with the denial of enslaved Africans' humanity, is a nexus of dialogues that have not been considered as a whole in the context of the Atlantic.