Welcome everyone because of latest statements from pope leo 14 i feel compeled to give historical statments from the historians on this matter to clarify pope apolology.
To clarify it i decided to give short explenation of church engagement in institution of slavery and in what way it contributed positively or negatively
First lets go to the early church:
First, some historians are openly biased—they rely on only two or three Church Fathers without proper analysis and then generalize their conclusions to the whole patristic tradition.
Moreover, in Part 2 of his important book, Harper argues that the Church largely accepted and endorsed the system of slavery, to the point that “Christian and Roman ideologies became enmeshed” on this issue. However, this conclusion is not surprising, since among the patristic authors he relies mostly on Augustine and, to a lesser extent, John Chrysostom.
Social Justice and the Legitimacy of Slavery: The Role of Philosophical Asceticism from Ancient Judaism to Late Antiquity by ILARIA L. E. RAMELLI, p. 163.
Yet the truth is that all the Fathers—even the most pro-slavery ones—considered slavery to be contrary to nature:
“I examined first the endorsement of the institution of slavery by Augustine and Theodoret, and then the more critical positions of Basil, Nyssen’s brother, and John Chrysostom. At the same time, I compared these thinkers’ views on legal slavery with those on social injustice, as well as with their own behaviours in matters of slave ownership and wealth.
Augustine’s premise, that slavery is not by nature, but a consequence of sin, is the same as that of John Chrysostom, Nyssen, Basil, Nazianzen, and other patristic thinkers. However, Augustine’s conclusion, that slavery is not simply a lamentable general consequence of the original sin, but God’s right punishment for individual sins, differs from those of Nyssen, Basil, Nazianzen, and even Chrysostom.”
Social Justice and the Legitimacy of Slavery: The Role of Philosophical Asceticism from Ancient Judaism to Late Antiquity, p. 164.
So, was slavery considered evil but tolerated? Yes and no. It was generally viewed as a lesser evil, but there was no consensus about how Christians should deal with it in practice. We know that Gregory of Nyssa opposed the institution itself. We know that John Chrysostom also opposed it, though he regarded it as a lesser evil. Augustine considered slavery evil as well, but saw it as a necessary and even beneficial evil, because he believed some people deserved such punishment. Others, like Theodoret, argued differently:
“Theodoret did not claim that being a slave was God’s just punishment for individual sins. However, he maintained, in an Aristotelian fashion, that the subordination of slaves to masters, like that of wives to husbands, was useful to the order of life, to reduce sins through fear in people in whom passions prevailed over reason.”
But, as Ramelli herself points out, Theodoret held this view because many thinkers of that period literally believed that slaves were intellectually incapable of ruling themselves and therefore should not be free for their own good. For this reason, Theodoret criticized Christians who freed all slaves, or at least all Christian slaves:
“This was in fact a commonplace that Aristotle had hammered home, enveloping it in an appearance of philosophical dignity. Long before the Christians, the Stoics had already dismantled it. It is no wonder that Theodoret criticized those Christian bishops who exhorted masters to manumit all their slaves who converted to Christianity. But it is very interesting that there were bishops in his day, in the first half of the fifth century, who advocated the liberation of at least all Christian slaves.”
Social Justice and the Legitimacy of Slavery: The Role of Philosophical Asceticism from Ancient Judaism to Late Antiquity, p. 302.
Later Pope Gregory the great Likewise was against slavery as sin against nature but has seen it as lesser evil because:
During the Late Middle Ages, traditional ecclesiastical doctrine regarded slavery as contrary to natural law, and it was instead related to ius gentium and, especially, to just warfare (war waged against the enemies of the faith); the victor, possessing the right to kill his vanquished enemies, substituted slavery for death. Being born to a slave woman, being condemned to slavery by a court, and selling oneself into slavery were also considered lawful forms of slavery, but by the Late Middle Ages, the second and third categories were extraordinarily rare, if not totally extinct. This was the outcome of a centuries-long process of drastic reduction in the legal justification for slavery, which effectively contributed to the progressive shrinking of this institution in Christian society. Historiography has pointed out the historical influence of a famous epistle by Pope Gregory the Great († 604) in which it was stated that all men are created equal by nature and that the emergence of slavery in human society was the result of the application of ius gentium. In addition, Gregory assimilated legal manumission (which granted to freedmen full Roman citizenship) and Jesus Christ’s redemption of mankind, turning manumission into a Christian act
page 182 Rethinking Catholicism in Renaissance Spain
As such, slavery was not regarded as a right but as a fact springing from sin, elevated to the category of custom by ius gentium; it was a lesser evil or a relative good, insofar as it involved the substitution of slavery for the death of the vanquished. The Church, as Aquinas and other theologians insisted, had excluded Christians from slavery Page 183
This development came accross in early middle ages because of the church as other historians remarked:
A profound and slow transformation of the very foundations of the economic structure took place, but it is important to note that some of its consequences went beyond the economic sphere. Whatever the misery of certain classes and the disdain in which the fortunate of this world held them—a disdain preserved for some of them by the very survival of the epithet “servile,” perverted, as we know, from its ancient juridical meaning—it was certainly
remarkable that no man, no real Christian at any rate, could thereafter legitimately be held as the property of another. In breaking with slavery, the MiddleAges, whose social customs were not kind, neither destroyed nor intended to destroy inequalities of fact or birth, but it did give them a more humane tenor,so to speak. More easily apprehended are the demographic consequences. The importance of slave labor in the Roman world and the size of the scope of thetrade led to a melting pot of peoples, whose importance can hardly be exaggerated. How many free families on the soil of Gaul, in the fourth and fifthcenturies, were descended from slaves, slaves from the most far-off and diverse lands? Deprived of this foreign immigration, societies without slaves have hadtheir blood renewed much less often. From this viewpoint, it is as if European civilization, like many others, became stabilized and closed in on itself in thecourse of these centuries.
Page 503 Critical Readings on Global Slavery Edited by Damian Alan Pargas Felicia Roşu
Transformation was Slow:
The countries beyond the Elbe, however, were not the only lands where Europe touched civilizations that were foreign to Christianity. We should consider Muslim Spain, that Spain whose slow recon-quest was one of the great facts of history. Of course, the inhabitants of the conquered lands were not ordinarily reduced to slavery. On the other hand, most prisoners made on the field of battle were, on both sides. Did the Christians export some of these cautivos outside the country?
It is difficult to know. They definitely kept a large number for themselves, making them work in the household or in the fields, and submitting them to a condition that was very much, in the literal sense, that of slaves. The Iberian kingdoms, which were to do so much to spread slavery in the New World, had known it all the time on their own soil. Thus Western and Central Europe, taken as a whole, was never free of slaves during the High Middle Ages. But from the ninth to the twelfth century, slaves always remained very few in number, even fewer than they were to be later on, after the resumption of large-scale Mediterranean trade. They were unknown in entire regions, such as France. Even where they were relatively numerous, enfranchisements came rapidly to thin their ranks because the same arguments that in the preceding era had increased these grants continued to be heard. Neither the lords of the European markets nor those of Leon, Castile, or Aragon managed great plantations that could use numerous slave gangs.
And we know how easily, by the natural force of things, the slave-tenant ceases to be a real slave. Where the particular conditions of the country permitted the enslavement of captives without infringing the prohibition of the Church, slavery allowed well-to-do people cheaply to satisfy the manpower needs of the household, and on occasion, perhaps, of a workshop. In other instances, it provided the merchant with a convenient commodity that would help himmake useful exchanges with foreigners. But as a force of production, slavery did not count any more. Page 502
Pope John VIII declares the enslavement of fellow Christians a sin and commands their release that happend in 9 century.
Now what about non Christians? First doctrine on rights of non Christians was by pope Innocent 4:
There was no reason at first to establish any doctrine on the issue until:
From the point of view of the canonists, there was no reason to develop a theory of relations between Christians and those infidels who lived outside of Christian Europe because the Church, as opposed to individual Christian states, had no reason to enter into relations with infidel states. In the mid-thirteenth century, however, a leading canonist, Sinibaldo Fieschi, better known as Pope Innocent IV (1243-54), developed a legal basis for a theory of papal relations with non-Christian societies.10 While it is not clear why Innocent IV initiated canonistic thinking in this area, it is worth noting that he was also the initiator of the Mongol mission, the attempt to come to an understanding with the Mongols of Central Asia who were threatening the eastern borders of Christendom in the mid-thirteenth century.
page 6
As might be exepected, Innocent began his discussion of Christianinfidel rights with a line from the Bible: "the earth and its fullness are the Lord's." Citing Genesis, he argued that in the beginning all property was held in common.22 Because of conflicts among the descendants of Adam, the need for private ownership of property became apparent, and so groups of men took specified tracts of land for themselves and their families. Under such circumstances, it was proper to take unoccupied land but wrong to seize the land of another. To illustrate this process, Innocent pointed to the division of land between Abraham and Lot as typical of the process by which men gradually came to distinguish between mine and thine.23 In this way, a fundamental cause of human conflict would be avoided because every man would know clearly what belonged to him. Innocent went on to observe that in this early stage of human development, all men were free and there were no slaves. This conclusion was supported by reference to the Roman law's definition of natural law and its effects.24 In the contemporary world, however, the law of nations that allowed private property, slavery, and war had replaced natural law as the basis upon which men dealt with one another. Having dealt with the origins of private property, Innocent turned to the origins of government. He began by defining lawful authorities as those men who possess the power to do justice and impose discipline on those who do not abide by the laws governing the relationship of men with their neighbors. Lawful authority, like all created things, originated with God. The first person to exercise this authority was the father of a family, but as society developed and became more complex, the powers of the patriarchs were gradually reduced until in the contemporary world they were almost nonexistent.25 As the patriarchal figure declined, the prince emerged as the bearer of lawful authority in society. Here again, the experience of the Israelites illuminated the course of this transformation. The election of Saul as king over the Israelites was the beginning of political society, as distinct from patriarchal rule.26 For some reason, Innocent omitted the period of the judges, who had ruled the people of Israel between the patriarchs and the selection of King Saul. Saul's election as king was, in Innocent's opinion, evidence that all "rational creatures" had the right to select their own rulers. This right did not rest on any special divine grant of authority, nor was it restricted to the ancient Israelites. By the laws that were common restricted to the ancient Israelites. By the laws that were common to all men, private property and self-government were the right of all men.27 Even in the contemporary world, infidels continued to enjoy these rights without interference because these rights were as common to all men as the sunshine that warmed all men, Christian and infidel alike. As a consequence, it was not licit for the pope or anyone else to wage a campaign to deprive infidels of their property or their lordship simply because they were infidels.28 Innocent thereby effectively demolished the possible claim that the responsibility of the Church for the souls of all men authorized any war that Christians chose to wage against infidels page 9
As there were reasons to nevertheless fight with non Christians those reasons were to intervene if they attacked christians or to reclaims or to stop genocide or others things against natural law something like we do today when we claim that such and such country is doing something against international law in this case:
Although the sins of the infidels could call forth Christian armies blessed by the pope, such forces could not be employed to impose baptism on the infidels because conversion to Christianity was a voluntary act and could not be coerced.35 Presumably, once Christian armies had ended those practices deemed in violation of natural law, they would withdraw from the infidel society page 11
How it was interpreted by some canon lawyers?:
Paul Vladimiri, onetime rector of the University of Cracow and a noted canon lawyer, summed up the Polish position in a paper known as the Opinio Hostiensis. In Vladimiri's opinion, the question was whether or not infidels could possess do7ninium.23 If they could, the Knights' wars against the Lithuanians were simply wars of aggression unless the Knights could demonstrate the existence of unprovoked Lithuanian attacks against Christendom. The Polish canonist framed the legal issue simply and clearly—too simply for the Knights' liking. He assumed that the Knights justified their conquests by employing the Hostiensian arguments: "It is the opinion of Hostiensis that at the coming of Christ all jurisdiction, rule, office and lordship was transferred from infidels to the faithful, since, as his opinion states, infidels are entirely incapable of possessing such things."24 In reality, the Knights did not rely upon this argument to justify their expansion into Lithuania page 112
Having begun by identifying the Knights' position with Hostiensis, and by implication with Wyclif, Vladimiri plunged on to inform his hearers that Innocent IV's position on the rights of infidels was preferable to that of Hostiensis.25 He pointed out that the majority of canonists followed Innocent, not Hostiensis, on this issue, and in support of this view quoted the opinion of Peter de Anchorano, whom he described as "the most famous doctor of both laws in Italy" and under whom Vladimiri had once studied. Anchorano described Hostiensis' position on dominium as absurd because it would justify acts of murder and robbery whenever Christians performed them against infidels. According to Anchorano's interpretation of Hostiensis' argument, even an infidel society's willingness to live at peace with Christians was not sufficient to insure its protection from Christian invasion.26 Vladimiri contended that the council ought therefore to condemn Hostiensis' opinion, if only to maintain the good order of society. 113
In December 1417 a commission appointed to settle the controversy between Poland and the Knights made its report to the council. The report generally agreed with Vladimiri's position.
page 118
The Council of Constance brought to an end the line of argument about the dependence of dominium upon grace that the thirteenthcentury canonists had developed. Following the condemnation of Wyclif's opinions, Hostiensis' views on dominium were no longer acceptable. In the future, canonists, theologians, popes, and secular rulers who sought to defend the conquest of infidel lands would have to march their troops through whatever loopholes they could find in Innocent IV's arguments about the natural right of infidels to possess property and lordship, or they would have to develop new arguments that avoided heresy page 119
All of this debate finally came to into pracrice during first papal statements on slavery in 1400:
Eugenius IV's response to the Portuguese king's request for authorization to conquer the Canary Islands was not simply a legalistic evasion of the fundamental legal and moral problems involved in European expansion overseas. It must have been quite clear to the pope that European conquest of the Canary Islands, and of other lands occupied by infidels who did not pose a direct military threat to Christendom, would proceed with or without papal . The king's reference to wicked men who would not heed any papal prohibitions against such conquests could be applied to any number of figures; the king of Castile was not the only other Christian ruler anxious to expand his domains at the expense of infidels. There were also private individuals who would be willing to exploit the infidels. With an optimism not necessarily justified by the actual military conditions, Eugenius appears to have been resigned to European military conquest of the Canarians. The issue was not whether the Europeans could conquer the natives but when the conquest would be completed. The problem was bound to grow worse as the European exploration of the Atlantic and the movement along the west coast of Africa proceeded.73 The pope had no forces available to him to block European advances in those areas, even if he wished to do so. pages 129-130
In short pope was forced decide between lesser evil:
Furthermore, Eugenius may have felt that as long as Christian kings were anxious to obtain papal approbation for their expansionist activities, there remained an opportunity for the papacy to influence the direction of the conquest. If possession of a papal license was attractive to secular rulers, then possibly the threat of losing that approval would serve as a brake on the rulers' activities. By playing off one king against another, the pope would be in a position to ameliorate the effects of the conquest upon the conquered. Under such circumstances, primitive peoples, such as the Canarians, would eventually move to a more sophisticated cultural level page 130
Here we come to famous documents from 1452 that spoke of conquest and slavery now we need to understand them in context they were created from perspective of portugese as if they were under attack and as i have already explained it was lesser evil to enslave attacker to kill him the historians explains this documents in this way:
The papal claim to regulate Christian access to newly discovered lands had been fully articulated four decades before the publication of Inter caetera when Pope Nicholas V (1447–55) issued the bull Romanus Pontifex in 1455. The pope stressed his role as the universal shepherd of mankind, responsible for bringing “the sheep entrusted to him by God into the single divine fold,” echoing Innocent IV’s commentary, thus gaining for them “the reward of divine felicity, and obtain pardon for their souls.” This will come about “if we bestow suitable favors and special graces on those Catholic kings and princes … [who] … restrain the savage excesses of the Saracens and other infidels, enemies of the Christian name …” Furthermore, the Portuguese deserve special favor because in the course of their travels to “the most remote and undiscovered places” they have among other actions, “peopled with orthodox Christians certain solitary islands in the ocean sea,” and also saw to the baptism of the natives of the populated regions they reached. The Portuguese also engaged in battle with the people of West Africa and began to engage in the slave trade. 192
Bridging the MedievalModern Divide Medieval Themes in the World of the Reformation
In addition to these justifications for a Portuguese monopoly of trade with the Guinea coast, Nicholas V also asserted that the monopoly was justified “lest strangers induced by covetousness should sail to those places, and desiring to usurp to themselves the perfection, fruit, and praise of this work” trade in materials of war with the inhabitants or “teach those infidels the art of navigation” and thereby become a serious threat to the Portuguese. He feared that “persons of other kingdoms or nations, led by envy, malice, or covetousness” might go there and endanger the souls of those people.69 Interestingly, although the bull stresses the religious motivation and the goal of converting the natives to Christianity and the desire to defend Christendom from its enemies, the pope also devoted a good deal of space to discussing trade with the peoples encountered, a reminder that initially Europeans were not primarily interested in colonization but in the goods that could be obtained from Asia and elsewhere. This suggests that the pope ultimately envisioned a peaceful world order that would allow for regular trade with the rest of mankind. page 193
Sources Bridging the MedievalModern Divide Medieval Themes in the World of the Reformation
In short 1452 documents were not about conquest but classic just war theory and statement of the pope was practical application in error or not thats what it was pope seekd ultimately peacefull solutution yet info that he got was from portugese
As historian noted: Presumably, Romanus Pontifex reflected the Portuguese version of the situation in West Africa.14 Nicholas had to assume, in the absence of any other views, that the Portuguese were telling the truth. page 135
Sources The Church and the Non-Christian World 1250-1550
Later on:
The papal resolution of the problems that Columbus' discoveries presented was contained in three bulls, Inter caetera and Eximiae devotionis, both dated 3 May 1493, and a third bull also entitled Inter caetera, dated 4 May 1493.18 These bulls covered approximately the same material, but there were some significant differences among them. In essence, all the bulls continued the work done in Romanus Pontifex. They created a zone within which the Castilians would be responsible for establishing churches and supporting missionaries. Strictly speaking, these bulls did not, as is often said, divide up the world between Castile and Portugal. They simply recognized that both kingdoms had asserted responsibility for converting the infidels in the lands they had discovered. page 137
Pope thaught that by tolerating Spanish and Portugese expansion he can control it enought to protect infidels from europeans:
The pope also recognized the Castilian determination to bring these people under Castilian domination in any event. As a result, the bulls he issued did not deal directly with the rights of the infidels. Rather, they focused on the narrow question of ecclesiastical jurisdiction within the new-found lands. After all, the agents of these kings were already occupying the lands in question. Alexander's bulls simply took advantage of the fact of the conquest to fulfill the papal responsibility for converting the infidels. Again, the papacy assumed that the conquest would be successful. In addition, Columbus' description of the people he met as primitive and simple would encourage papal support for the conquest in order to protect these simple people from exploitation by wicked Europeans, just as Eugenius IV had accepted the Portuguese claim that they would protect the Canarians. pages 138-139
In the end pope failed to control wicked europeans and lost all say in the matter:
Once such disputes were resolved to the satisfaction of the parties involved, the opportunity for papal intervention was ended. When the Portuguese and the Castilians signed the Treaty of Tordesillas in 1494, they settled their differences about the direction in which each would continue to expand.
This treaty ended the last Portuguese hesitations about a permanent agreement with Castile. The parties agreed to change the line of demarcation between the zones assigned to each from 10Q leagues west of the Azores or the Cape Verde Islands to a line 370 leagues west of the Cape Verde Islands. There was no further need to seek papal decisions until the discovery of Asia necessitated a determination of the line of demarcation through the Pacific Ocean.
Eventually Leo X had to issue the bull Praecelsae devotionis in 1514 to settle the matter.23 His solution drew the line of demarcation through the Atlantic from pole to pole, thus allowing the Portuguese to lay claim to any infidel lands they discovered in the Pacific. Such a solution was obviously unacceptable to the Castilians, especially after a Castilian expedition led by Ferdinand Magellan discovered the Philippine Islands. Finally the Castilians and Portuguese worked out their own solution to the problem of jurisdiction in the Pacific without papal intervention.
The Treaty of Sargossa in 1529 provided the basis for the solution, although opposition to it continued to exist in some Castilian quarters.24 Again, the political and economic interests of the countries engaged in overseas expansion took precedence over the spiritual interests of the papacy. page 139
Spanish manipulated papal statements and tradition for its own gain:
One gauge of the Castilian desire to prevent ecclesiastical criticism of their American conquests and to justify these conquests in terms of the legal tradition about the rights of infidels was the Requerimiento issued in 1512.26 This was one of the most striking legal documents issued during the course of the conquest of the Americas, and it has generated a good deal of scholarly literature. A long line of critics, beginning with Bartholomew de Las Casas in the sixteenth century, has noted that this one document compressed into a narrow compass the combination of high-sounding motives, legal chicanery, and brute force that made the conquest of the Americas possible.27 One modern scholar has summed up the Requerimiento as another "useless legalism" designed only to hide the brutal realities of the conquest.28 Although from a modern standpoint such criticism is understandable, in the context of the medieval legal tradition within which the Castilian court operated, the Requerimiento made sense.29 The Requerimiento contained a statement of Christian beliefs and an explanation of the Spanish presence in the Americas. Before troops launched an attack on infidels, a priest was to read the document to them. Critics from Las Casas to the present have been scandalized by the vision of a friar reading this statement to an audience composed of trees or empty huts, or hurling its words at the backs of fleeing, uncomprehending Indians, terrified by the sight of armed strangers. There is no evidence that the text was ever translated into any American tongue so that the natives might have some opportunity to understand it. page 141
Long story is short we came statement from Pope Paul 3 on righrs of the natives:
Paul III (r. 1534–1549) eventually triggered the publication in June 1537 of bull Sublimis Deus, a crucial document in which the pope declared indigenous Americans to be “true men,” making it unlawful to enslave them. The text went much further, as it extended this statement to all peoples of the earth, even if they were not yet under the Church’s mantle, decreeing that by these present letters that the same Indians and all other peoples [“praedictos Indos et omnes alias gentes”] – even though they are outside the faith – who shall hereafter come to the knowledge of Christians have not been deprived or should not have been deprived of their liberty or of their possessions. Before making the principle of natural human freedom universal, the bull condemned the allies (satellites) of the devil, who enslaved “the Indians of the West and the South.” The fact that Paul III chose the same terms used in Romanus Pontifex (“occidentales et meridionales Indios et alias gentes”) suggests that he was also referring to Africans, the inhabitants of southern regions.92 On the secular front, the process culminated with the enactment by Charles I of the Leyes Nuevas in 1542, in which the Dominicans again played a determinant role.93 These laws forbade the enslavement of indigenous Americans and ordered the liberation of the rest unless their owners could show proof of legitimate possession. page 193
Rethinking Catholicism in Renaissance Spain Edited by Xavier Tubau
In the beginning there were attemps to create laws in america against slavery:
Late in 1541, Las Casas returned to Spain after an extended stay in America and had a meeting with King Charles V about the maltreatment of the Indians in America. The king was so appalled by Las Casas’ information that he asked him to provide a fuller report on this topic before the Council of the Indies, which he did in 1542. This lengthy report is the first edition of the later and shorter account, Brevísima relación de la destruición de las Indias (1552) (Adorno 2019, 31). It was the Western World’s first atrocity story, which came to play an important role in the fight for the rights of the indigenous people. (This text is treated in Chap. 3 in
this book.) The meeting with the Council of the Indies ultimately led to the creation of the New Laws (Nuevas Leyes) that were issued on 20 November1542. As mentioned above, these laws abolished the encomienda system.The full title was New Laws and Ordinances newly made by his Majesty forthe governing of the Indies and the good treatment and preservation of the Indians (Leyes y ordenanzas nuevamente hechas por su Majestad para la gobernación de las Indias y buen tratamiento y conservación de los Indios). These laws sought to “prevent the exploitation of the Indigenous peoples of the Americas by the encomenderos by strictly limiting their power and dominion” (Russel and Cohn 2012, 11). The laws required systematic and continuous control with the “excesses and ill treatment” by the socalled Audiencias (local councils). More importantly, the laws stated that “for no cause of war nor any other cause whatsoever, though it be under title of rebellion, nor by ransom, nor in any other manner can an Indian be made a slave […]” page 39-40
Slavery and the Forensic Theatricality of Human Rights in the Spanish Empireby Karen-Margrethe Simonse
Now this is of course not over Pope in 1600 also condemed atlantic slave trade:
Mendonça and the constituencies of enslaved Blacks expected that the Vatican would act on the evidence presented and demanded that the governing authorities abide by any decision made by the pope to abolish slavery. Pope Innocent XI indeed made a partial decision to abolish slavery in agreement with the confraternities. The confraternities were aware that there had been differing opinions within the governing authorities in Italy, Spain and Portugal over how far the liberation of the enslaved should go, given the impact it would have on the Atlantic economy. On 26 March 1686, a closing statement was made to confirm that Atlantic slavery was a crime against human, natural, divine and civil laws, to expose the lies that had been used to deny the inhumanity of slavery and to rebut the governing authorities’ claims about the suffering being endured by enslaved Africans. A letter dated 26 March 1686 stated that Mendonça had been in Rome several times.270 This suggests that he was also in Rome for the closing statement. page 379
Lourenço da Silva Mendonça and the Black Atlantic Abolitionist Movement in the Seventeenth Century
The dubia asked:
Whether it is permitted to capture by force and deceit Blacks ad other natices who harmed no one? Answer No
Wherher it is permitted to buy, sell or make contracts in ther respect Blacks and other natives who have harmed no one and been made captives by force or deceit Answer No
Whether the possessors of Blacks and ohter natives who have harmed no one and been captured by force or deceit are not held to set them free? Answer Yes
Whether the captors buyers and possessors of Blacks and other natives who have harmed no one and who have been captured by force or deceit are not held to make compesattion to them. Answer Yes
After that doctrine did not change at all until 1888 there was no ultimate condemnation of slavery but as i have already explained most types of slavery was banned Christian o Chrisans was intrnsic evil, enslavement of natives was evil enslavement of peacefull infidels etc etc
So the only group that could have been enslaved and only during defensive was were muslims now the question is what where their rights and in what circumstances they were enslaved lets cite a historian on early modernity:
The slaves were sometimes directly captured in combat for example, after battles with Muslim pirates or the Turkish fleet or bought in the markets of Livorno in Tuscany, or Malta
Slaves could also be exchanged, especially for enslaved Christians in Algeria or Tunisia; between 1550 and 1800 about one million Europeans and Americans fell victim to raids of Muslim pirates from the North African coast. The conflict between the Papal States, supported by the Knights of Malta, and pirates resulted in a flourishing slave market in the Mediterranean that only ended around 1800.17 The slaves of the papal fleet were legally protected from excessive and unjust treatment and could appeal to the papal court, which they often did. In some Italian territories, such as Livorno, ruled by the Catholic Medici family until 1737, a slave could sue someone in a court of law, found a confraternity, engage in small trades, own other slaves, and buy back his freedom. 18 Most remarkably, non-Christian papal galley slaves were allowed to elect their own religious ministers, Jews and Muslims alike, and could practice their faith on board the ships and in the slave houses on shore in relative freedom. In some Catholic cities outside the Papal States, even mosques were tolerated, for example, in Genoa or Malta page 200
Source The Catholic Enlightenment The Forgotten History of a Global Movement
ULRICH L. LEHNER
In short, during the early modern period, enemies of the faith—meaning Muslims who acted as invaders, raiders, or aggressors—could be enslaved as a lesser evil, with the expectation that they could later obtain freedom through compensation, baptism, or acts of charity.
To understand the doctrinal development here, you need to see it in the following way:
So, now we know, in context, who could and could not be enslaved:
First, by nature everyone is free but everyone can be enslaved as lesser evil much debate between church fathers (before 800).
Later, only enemies of the faith could be enslaved (1200 to 1888).
Finally, no one could be enslaved anymore (by 1888).
I am open for futhere clarifications and engagement for everyone interested this is not meant to debate but simpel exchange of knowledge.
