Abstract
The final article in this collection, Ronald J. Morgan’s ‘Reading Beneath the Hegemonic Discourse: Finding African Agency and Voice in the Seventeenth-Century Canonisation Inquest of San Pedro Claver,’ moves beyond the borders of Europe. Using the canonisation inquest of the Jesuit saint Pedro Claver, held in 1657, Morgan studies the everyday life of Africans and their descendants in the New World. In the document, the mostly black population of Cartagena appear as objects of the holy man’s virtuous deeds; at the same time, this source allows the modern researcher to examine black actors as subjects in their own right. In the centre of Morgan’s analysis are the sacraments, which were Claver’s primary instrument in his quest of holiness, and the ways the established characteristics of sainthood were shaped to fit in the religious and cultural situation of Cartagena.
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Notes
- 1.
Splendiani and Aristizábal Giraldo (2002, 413–14).
- 2.
Seventeenth-century beatification inquests for a variety of Spanish-American social types include the following: Saint Rose of Lima (1630s), Martín de Porres (1660, 1664, 1671), Mariana de Jesús de Quito (1670–1678).
- 3.
The editors of Proceso de beatificación y canonización de San Pedro Claver [hereafter Proceso], Splendiani and Aristizábal Giraldo, refer to the ‘parade’ of testimony as an occasionally monotonous read, full of repetition (xv).
- 4.
In colonial Spanish-American usage, the term casta referred to non-white socioethnic types, famously catalogued in the casta art of eighteenth-century New Spain.
- 5.
Matovelle Maldonado (1990, 352, 450, 456–67, 466). Two Finnish scholars give attention to ‘lived religion’ as a remedy to the dichotomisation of ‘popular’ and ‘elite’ religion. In their usage, the term ‘religion’ ‘does not refer to a single creed or set of beliefs as defined by one institution, but includes the multiplicity of religious cultures of the period, […] [highlighting] variations […] in different strata, in rural and urban cultures, and in trade and political cultures’. See Katajala-Peltomaa and Toivo (2016, 1–2).
- 6.
In her close reading of the fifteenth-century canonisation inquests for the eventual Saint Vincent Ferrer, Laura Ackerman Smoller argues that despite the growing centralisation of the canonisation process in the late medieval and early modern eras, ‘individuals crafted narratives of the putative saint and their encounters with him in such a way as to make their own claims about their social and spiritual worth’. See Smoller (2014, 12).
- 7.
Sandoval originally published the work in four books under the title Naturaleza, policia sagrada I profana, costumbres I ritos, disciplina I catecismo evangélico de todos etíopes (Seville, 1627) and subsequently as De instauranda Aethiopum salute (Madrid, 1647). In keeping with scholarly convention, as well as with the usage of Sandoval and his contemporaries, I consistently refer to his treatise as De instauranda Aethiopum salute, or more succinctly, De instauranda. For a discussion of the publication history, see the critical introduction to the Sandoval treatise in Vila Vilar 1987. Unless otherwise indicated, all English translations cited below are from Nicole von Germeten’s English-language abridgement [von Germeten 2008]. In addition to page number, I cite book and chapter numbers to facilitate consultation of other editions of the Sandoval treatise.
- 8.
See Proceso, 5, where Miguel Antonio, Bishop of Cartagena, expresses ‘no qualms about comparing this venerable servant of God with St. Francis Xavier’.
- 9.
The concept of ‘detachable fragments’ is from Zupanov (1999, 194).
- 10.
For a description of Spanish Cartagena de Indias in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, see Valtierra (1980, I, 375–407). For a shorter version in English, consult Sandoval, Treatise, x–xiii.
- 11.
Proceso, 125–29.
- 12.
- 13.
This emphasis on De instauranda as a book about slavery and slave trading is clear from the three titles under which the original 1627 edition has been published over the past six decades: De instauranda aethiopum salute; el mundo de la esclavitud negra en América 1956 [De instauranda aethiopum; the world of black slavery in the Americas]; Un tratado sobre la esclavitud. De instauranda aethiopum salute 1987 [A treatise on slavery: De instauranda aethiopum salute ]; and Treatise on Slavery: Selections from De instauranda Aethiopum salute 2008. See full citations in bibliography.
- 14.
- 15.
Valtierra (1980, I: 206–76).
- 16.
Valtierra (1980, I: 371–74).
- 17.
Created in 1542 and ruled from the administrative capital of Lima, the Spanish viceroyalty of Peru stretched from today’s Venezuela, Colombia and Panama in the north to much of contemporary Argentina and Chile in the south. Slaves sold to buyers in these regions worked on haciendas and plantations, as well as in gold and silver mining, industrial obrajes, or domestic service. See Bowser (1974; 1984, 2: 357–59).
- 18.
Sac.Rituum Congregatione 1696 [M.DC.XCVI].
- 19.
See Proceso, xxii–xxiii, where the editors provide a brief manuscript and publication history.
- 20.
- 21.
- 22.
For an index of these seventy topical headings, Proceso, vii–ix. All my citations from the Proceso will include both page numbers and these organising numbers (números) for a dual point of reference.
- 23.
Reff (2005).
- 24.
Proceso, 78–84 (número 7).
- 25.
Proceso, 84–124 (número 8).
- 26.
Proceso, 167–89 (número 14).
- 27.
On the mistreatment and neglect of newly arrived slaves in these holding corrals or patios, see de Sandoval (2008, 57–59) (Book 1, Ch. 18).
- 28.
Chandler (1974, 51–88).
- 29.
Proceso, 426–27 (número 45).
- 30.
In this case, ‘the land of the rivers’ refers to the Senegambia region of far West Africa, a region known even at that time for great linguistic diversity.
- 31.
Proceso, 110–11 (número 8).
- 32.
Baptising with an asterisk (sub conditione) was a provision that the church made available for priests working among populations, like African slaves in transit, whose previous baptismal status either could not be determined or was judged to be invalid. Sandoval, Treatise, 111–16 (Book 3, Ch. 4).
- 33.
Proceso, 78–84 (número 7), 101–5 (número 8), 212–14 (número 16), 420–21 (número 42).
- 34.
The lineage of this trope can be traced at least to the fifth-century Life of St Martin of Tours by Sulpicius Severus. There St Martin, both ascetic monk and bishop, heals a leper by kissing him.
- 35.
- 36.
Proceso, 104–5, 117 (número 8) and 232 (número 17).
- 37.
Proceso, 232–35 (número 17). González adds that whenever he reminded Ignacio Angola of the case, the latter would say something like ‘I’ll have you know that when we sat her on his mantel, and parts of her flesh came off on it, he showed no sign of disgust, as if it were nothing’ (234).
- 38.
Proceso, 232–35 (número 17). Father González fails to speculate on an explanation for these abscesses, which may have been the result of a tropical parasite known as Lagochilascaris minor, but more likely from metal collars that would have been placed on Africans to prevent their running away. On the parasite, see Cook and Zumla (2009, 1526).
- 39.
Proceso, 236–37 (número 17).
- 40.
For the 1604 perspective of Father Martín de Funes, S.J., regarding the poor spiritual condition of the blacks in and around Cartagena, see Pacheco (1954, I: 245–46).
- 41.
de Sandoval (2008, 120) (Book 3, Ch. 5), emphasis mine. The concept of baptism as healing ritual appears in a separate passage in which Sandoval argues that the only thing standing between the so-called bozal African and an adequate understanding of Christian baptism and doctrine is clear communication through trained interpreters. To illustrate the point, he tells of one black man who approached him pleading for baptism, reporting that he could not sleep at night for terrible headaches [109, (Book 3, Ch. 3)].
- 42.
Sandoval, Treatise, 143 (Book 3, Ch. 12).
- 43.
Proceso, 105–8 (número 8). During pre-baptismal instruction, Claver often awarded fast learners with little gifts, but gave slow students a rap on the head with the key that always hung from a cord at his waist. In order to create an association between baptismal water and Christ’s sacrificial blood, he would display a picture (cuadro) that showed blood pouring from Christ’s body into a pot from which a tonsured priest administered baptism.
- 44.
Proceso, 105–8 (número 8).
- 45.
Proceso, 108–10 (número 8). Don Diego Villegas describes the loud ‘shouts, cries and sighs’ with which blacks responded to spoken and visual images of infernal suffering (pages 225–27, número 16).
- 46.
Proceso, 111–12 (número 8). The testimony of Fray Juan García, Provincial and visitor of the Convento de San Agustín, suggests that the Jesuits used the medallions in just such terms.
- 47.
de Sandoval (2008, 144) (Book 3, Ch. 12). In the 1657 inquest, one twenty-year-old black witness explained that after arriving in Cartagena at age 10, he had interacted with Father Claver for around five years, up to the time of the priest’s death. Explaining his baptism at the hands of the revered Jesuit, Manuel de Cabo Verde admits that he does not remember the method of the baptism, nor what image was on the lead medallion, but does affirm having received the medallion. See Proceso, 105–8 (número 8). Katajala-Peltomaa and Toivo (2016, 3), observe that due to its connection with social hierarchy, religion ‘was also a means to manifest and negotiate one’s position in a community’, including the negotiation of insider and outsider status.
- 48.
de Sandoval (2008, 144) (Book 3, Ch. 12).
- 49.
de Sandoval (2008, 144–45) (Book 3, Ch. 12). Emphasis mine.
- 50.
On the Muslim prayers and Koranic verses that African slaves used as amulets in the Americas, see Reis (1993, 93–111).
- 51.
Olsen (2004, 122–52).
- 52.
- 53.
Olsen (2004, 129–30).
- 54.
Proceso, 112–13 (número 8).
- 55.
Proceso, 222–23 (número 16).
- 56.
Proceso, 219–20 (número 16).
- 57.
Proceso; see testimonies of Ignacio Angola (106, número 8); Francisco Yolofo (116–17, número 8); and Andrés Sacabuche (207–10, número 16).
- 58.
Proceso, 222–24 (número 16); 113 (número 8). The rumor also spread among Africans that their new masters intended to kill them and turn their bodies to dust (219, número 16).
- 59.
Proceso, 219 (número 16). According to slave interpreter Ignacio Angola, Father Claver would counter these African fears and misconceptions by telling newly-arrived slaves to thank God for bringing them to the land of the Spaniards where they might be made Christians and children of God. Moreover, Claver would add, slaves who served their Spanish masters well could expect to receive such material benefits as decent clothing. At such news, observed Ignacio Angola, the slaves would often rejoice. In response to such discourse, theologian Katie Walker Grimes is uncompromising in her critique of the hypocrisy that has characterised the church’s promotion of saints Pedro Claver and Martín de Porres, the latter a mixed-race Dominican lay brother in early seventeenth-century Lima. Noting that the church has used the careers of both saints as a way to ‘remember itself as a hero to black slaves and their racialised descendants’, Grimes argues that just the opposite was true: ‘[R]ather than protecting black slaves from slavery, as his champions claim, Claver instead helped to incorporate them into it. And rather than using Christian humility in order to subvert the racial order, Porres enacted a racially bifurcated version of it’. Grimes (2017, xi, xiii).
- 60.
Proceso, 222–23 (número 16).
- 61.
Records from the Cartagena inquisition of 1639 show that when runaway slaves appeared before inquisitors, they and their lawyers often justified flight as essential for the salvation of the slave’s own soul, arguing that when their cruel masters kept them from confession and the mass, they placed the slave’s eternal salvation in jeopardy. See Block (2012, 21, 53).
- 62.
Proceso, 192 (número 15).
- 63.
de Sandoval (2008, 108) (Book 3, Ch. 3); also Proceso, 190–92 (número 15). Significantly, on the topic of the little ‘gifts’ that Claver distributed to encourage African participation in his sacramental ministries, the slave-interpreters show themselves more attuned than other witnesses to the material value of these distributions to malnourished Africans, for they enumerate in detail the sorts of foods the priest would hand out. Ignacio Angola lists citrus and other fruits, potatoes, bananas, tobacco, and more (217, número 16); Francisco Yolofo specifies biscuits, plantains, merengues, lemons, and tobacco (113, número 8); while José Monzolo remembers a similar array of treats, to which he adds potatoes and cassava (223, número 16).
- 64.
Proceso, 190–92 (número 15).
- 65.
Proceso, 190–92 (número 15).
- 66.
Proceso, 196–97 (número 15).
- 67.
Thornton (1998, 235).
Bibliography
Printed Sources
de Sandoval, Alonso, S.J. 1956. De instauranda aethiopum salute; el mundo de la esclavitud negra en América, ed. Angel Valtierra, S.J. Bogotá: Empresa Nacional de Publicaciones.
de Sandoval, Alonso, S.J. 1987. Un tratado sobre la esclavitud [De instauranda Aethiopum salute], ed. Enriqueta Vila Vilar. Madrid: Alianza Editorial.
de Sandoval, Alonso, S.J. 2008. Treatise on Slavery: Selections from De instauranda Aethiopum salute [1627]. Ed. and Trans. Nicole von Germeten. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing.
Sac. Rituum Congregatione sivè Eminentissimo, et Reverendissimo Domino Card. De Abdua Cartagenen, Beatificationis, et Canonizationis Ven. Servi Dei Patri Claver Sacerdotis Societ.Iesu: positio super dubio an sit Signanda Commissio pro introductione Causae. Romae, Typis Rev. Camerae Apost. M.DC.XCVI.
Splendiani, Anna Maria and Tulio Aristizábal Giraldo, S.J., ed. 2002. Proceso de beatificación y canonización de San Pedro Claver. Bogotá: Centro Editorial Javeriano (CEJA).
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Morgan, R.J. (2019). Reading Beneath the Hegemonic Discourse: Finding African Agency and Voice in the Seventeenth-Century Canonisation Inquest of San Pedro Claver. In: Kuuliala, J., Peake, RM., Räisänen-Schröder, P. (eds) Lived Religion and Everyday Life in Early Modern Hagiographic Material. Palgrave Studies in the History of Experience. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-15553-7_12
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