21 August 1611
Luís Brandão defends the slave trade in a letter to Alonso de Sandoval
Luanda, Angola, and the Atlantic trade to Spanish America and Brazil
Jesuit rector Luís Brandão replied from Luanda to Alonso de Sandoval’s inquiry about the legitimacy of enslaving Africans shipped to the Americas. Brandão appealed to clerical approval and established trading practice, discouraged questioning captives about their enslavement, and argued that conversion outweighed the wrongful enslavement he acknowledged.
Dates preserve the source’s precision. This entry is part of a selected historical record; its qualifications and sources are retained below.
Context / qualification
Sandoval’s inquiry was dated 12 March 1610; the fuller modern translation dates Brandão’s reply to 21 August 1611. Donnan’s abridged extract instead carries a 1610 heading. The date here follows Sandoval’s introduction as translated by von Germeten, also corroborated in Caldeira’s study. The letter records Brandão’s justification, not a universal Church ruling or proof that captures were lawful.
Sources
- Howard Zinn, A People’s History of the United States, chapter 2; supplied print pages, edition/year unidentified
- Alonso de Sandoval, Treatise on Slavery, translated by Nicole von Germeten (Hackett, 2008), pp. 51–52: Brandão letter
- Hackett, Treatise on Slavery: translator, 2008 publication and relationship to Sandoval’s 1627 treatise ↗
- Elizabeth Donnan, Documents Illustrative of the History of the Slave Trade to America, vol. 1 (1930), pp. 123–124, document 20: abridged letter; editorial 1610 heading differs from the fuller translation ↗
- Arlindo Manuel Caldeira, Escravos de mar em fora, in Trabalho forçado africano (2009), p. 16, table source 4: dates the letter 21 August 1611 and cites Sandoval (1627), f. 66 ↗