Catholicism, Black Saints, and Brotherhoods
As previously noted, Portuguese colonizers introduced Roman Catholicism in West Central Africa during their first exchanges with the rulers of the Kingdom of Kongo in the fifteenth century.
As these sovereigns accepted conversion, they instructed their subjects in the Catholic faith. Some historians interpreted the introduction and incorporation of Christian symbols, rituals, patron saints, and festivals in Kongo as syncretism, an approach that privileges the combination of different cultures and religions.4 To study African cultures and religions in the Americas and to understand these interactions in the broader context of the African diaspora, I embrace here the notion of “spaces of correlation.” This is a phrase proposed by the art historian Cécile Fromont, who has emphasized how Kongo rulers and elites did not simply combine African and Christian religious “disparate elements” but rather “transformed and redefined them... into a new system of religious thought, artistic expression, and political organization.”5It is known that many captives transported from the Iberian Peninsula and West Central Africa to the Americas had already been converted to Catholicism. During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, other European powers, such as France and the Kingdoms of Castile and Aragón, also forced Catholic baptism and conversion on bondspeople transported to their colonies in the Americas, as we have seen. Likewise, the English and the Dutch imposed Protestant Christianity on bondspeople transported to their colonies in mainland North America and the West Indies. The rulers of the Kingdom of Kongo could embrace Catholicism on their own terms, but enslaved Africans transported to the Americas did not have the same choice. Despite this imposition, it is nonetheless true that the Roman Catholic Church, with its lay brotherhoods, festivals, and processions; Protestant denominations, with their multiple organizations; and traditional Black churches all offered spaces of autonomy to enslaved individuals in the Americas.
Ultimately, the interactions between Christianity and African religions in Europe, Africa, and the Americas gave rise to new ways to display faith in the public space, a process in which enslaved Africans and their descendants played a crucial role.Black devotional images emerged before the rise of the Atlantic slave trade. In European regions where Romance languages predominated (today’s Italy, France, Portugal, Spain, and Romania), these images appeared between the ninth and thirteenth centuries, when the Muslims were occupying a significant part of the Iberian Peninsula. Initially, most of these representations depicted the Virgin Mary as Black. The Virgin being Black carried a variety of meanings and was not an automatic indication of Black African origins. For instance, images of Black Saint Maurice and of the Black magus (Balthasar) emerged in the following centuries as well.6 Starting in the fifteenth century, exchanges between European and Black Africa led to the adoption of ancient Ethiopian Black saints and of enslaved Black saints. As the Atlantic slave trade evolved in the late fifteenth century, the devotion of these saints first emerged in the Iberian Peninsula and was then transplanted to the Spanish Americas and Brazil, where enslaved and freed Black populations created brotherhoods and confraternities to worship them.
Among the most important of these saints was Saint Elesbán (or Elesbão in Portuguese), who was initially worshipped in the Ethiopian and Coptic churches. Elesbán was an actual historical figure, originally named Kaleb, who ruled the kingdom of Aksum, in present-day Ethiopia and Eritrea, during the sixth century CE. Also from Ethiopia was Efigenia, a legendary beautiful princess, whose story emerged in the first century CE.7 As early as 1475, Seville had a chapel honoring Saints Elesbán and Efigenia.8 In addition, two enslaved Black saints, Benedict of Palermo and Saint Anthony of Noto (or Saint Anthony of CategerĂł), who emerged in Sicily, acquired fame in the Iberian Peninsula during the sixteenth century.
In the Iberian Peninsula, West Central Africa, and the Americas, the devotion to these saints was organized through lay brotherhoods of the Catholic Church. For example, among the seven Black sodalities that existed in Mexico City in the late sixteenth century, there was one Black confraternity of Saint Efigenia located at the Mercedarian monastery. There was also another brotherhood dedicated to Saint Benedict and Coronation Christ housed at the Franciscan monastery.9 The same way West Central Africans embraced Christianity, African-born enslaved men and women and their descendants who were converted to Catholicism did not simply abandon their African religions. The devotion to a Catholic saint was not necessarily exclusive and did not prevent enslaved people from continuing to worship African deities.
Catholic lay brotherhoods were not sites of insurrection, but they did provide enslaved Africans with some degree of agency, which in some cases offered them pathways to freedom. Because these associations required membership fees, they may have offered loans to their members to allow them to purchase their freedom.10 But above all, by joining these organizations, these men and women re-created kin ties and new networks that associated them with other freed and free Black individuals who helped them navigate Brazilian slave society and eventually find the means to purchase their freedom. Likewise, as we already discussed, these organizations ensured that their members could have a dignified burial service.
Starting in the early colonial period, Portuguese colonizers through their religious orders transplanted Catholic lay brotherhoods to Brazil. Spanish settlers did the same in their colonies in the Americas. These lay brotherhoods (irmandades in Brazil, cofradĂas in the Spanish Americas) and cabildos de naciĂłn in Cuba congregated devotees of a particular patron saint. In Brazil, Catholic lay brotherhoods included Black members who were either enslaved or descendants of enslaved individuals.
Some Black brotherhoods brought together enslaved and freed African-born persons belonging to the same “nation” or “provenience group.”11 As noted in previous chapters, these “nations” often corresponded to the regions on the African coasts where enslaved people were embarked. But sometimes these labels conferred on African-born bondspeople could also be associated with specific ethnic groups. For example, “nations” such as Angola, Jeje, and Nagô rarely corresponded to a specific ethnic group. But by embracing a particular “nation,” enslaved Africans reconsidered who they were, based on their existing ties with the African continent and on their needs for physical and cultural survival. Hence, the idea of “nation” referred at the same time to peoples, ethnolinguistic groups, religions, and other forms of association that arose during the period during which they lived under slavery in the Americas.12Undoubtedly the most popular brotherhood among Black men and women was the brotherhood of Our Lady of the Rosary. The rosary devotion was associated with a circlet of beads used for prayer that became known as a rosarium. As the Atlantic slave trade gradually intensified, on both sides of the South Atlantic brotherhoods of the rosary attracted a significant number of enslaved Africans and their descendants, who joined them in great part because of the central role rosary prayer beads played during their evangelization.13
As early as 1495, Portuguese settlers built a church to host the Black brotherhood of Our Lady of the Rosary on Santiago, an island of Cape Verde’s archipelago. A brotherhood of Our Lady of the Rosary of the Black Men was also established on São TomĂ© in 1526.14 Starting in the late fifteenth century, Black persons were members of the lay brotherhood of Our Lady of the Rosary in Lisbon. Black members, who were visible in the public activities of the confraternity, even performed a play during the festivities to welcome King Manuel and Queen Leonor in Lisbon in 1521.15
Although initially these brotherhoods were not exclusively intended for Black persons, this context gradually changed.16 In 1565, the brotherhood of Our Lady of the Rosary of the Black Men was officially established in the Monastery of São Domingos in Lisbon.
Its bylaws indicated that one of the main goals of the association was to organize the patron saint’s feast including a procession held in July on an annual basis. Moreover, the brotherhood also included several elected positions such as kings, princes, and mordomos (managing directors) who organized the processions, in addition to dukes, earls, marquises, and cardinals.17 Lisbon’s tangible traces of Black devotion to Our Lady of the Rosary also remain alive in other temples. In the sacristy of the Catholic Church of Santa Catarina, a painted retable produced between the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries portrays a Black man and a Black woman revering the Virgin of the Rosary and the baby Jesus, who are framed by the rosary (figure 14.1).18
Figure 14.1. Anonymous, Retable of Our Lady of the Rosary, Church of Santa Catarina, Lisbon, Portugal. Photograph by Ana Lucia Araujo, 2022.
Enslaved Africans and their descendants who joined Catholic brotherhoods shared the same African gods and rituals, and in many cases, they also shared the same language and culture. In the Iberian Peninsula, Africa, and the Americas, members of Black brotherhoods participated in festivals to honor Black saints. These festivals and processions were spaces to celebrate their African origins and their public Catholic identity through dance and music. Many textual and visual records documented their activities in the Iberian Peninsula, West Central Africa, and the Spanish and Portuguese Americas throughout the era of slavery and the Atlantic slave trade. In 1619, King Filipe III, who ruled Portugal and Spain between 1598 and 1621, during the Iberian Union (1580–1640), attended a sumptuous multiday festival in Lisbon in which members of Black confraternities carried a Saint Benedict’s flag, suggesting that the saint’s devotion was well established in Lisbon.19
In the early seventeenth century, white brotherhoods, such as the Holy House of Mercy in Bahia, Brazil, attracted several rich slave traders.
Similarly, the third orders, which were also lay associations subordinated to religious orders (usually the Franciscans, Jesuits, Dominicans, and Carmelites), including the devotees of a specific saint, accepted only white people as members.20 Consequently, as slavery expanded in Brazil and the Spanish Americas, African-born and locally born enslaved people created new Catholic lay brotherhoods and joined the existing ones that accepted nonwhite members. In Peru, for instance, Black confraternities emerged as early as the years immediately following the Spanish conquest in the sixteenth century.21 Because colonial authorities recognized that Black confraternities offered autonomy to Black subjects, these authorities attempted to oppose the confraternities’ existence in colonial Mexico. Likewise, in Cartagena, public officials in the late seventeenth century also feared that these brotherhoods would serve as spaces of resistance that could offer enslaved people many opportunities to organize rebellions.22 But despite occasional hostilities, Black brotherhoods and Black saints continued to exist throughout the entire era of Atlantic slavery and exist to this day in many Latin American countries.During the seventeenth century, brotherhoods dedicated to Our Lady of the Rosary and their churches became quite popular among Africans and their descendants in colonial Brazil, and still today their buildings and brotherhoods can be found in various parts of the country. It would not be an exaggeration to state that wherever there is a church dedicated to Our Lady of the Rosary, there is also a Black community linked to it. During the eighteenth century, the city of Salvador in Bahia hosted fifteen Black brotherhoods, including seven dedicated to Our Lady of the Rosary, three dedicated to Saint Benedict, one to Saint Efigenia, and one to Saint Anthony of Categeró. Few Black brotherhoods had their own churches, and some churches hosted more than one brotherhood by dedicating a chapel inside to venerate their patron saints.23
This was the case of the brotherhood of Our Lady of the Rosary of Black Men in Salvador, Bahia, which was founded in 1604. The brotherhood accepted any members, regardless of sex or legal status. Among its founders were probably African-born individuals identified as “Angolas,” whose origins are linked to Bantu-speaking regions in West Central Africa, though over the years most of the members were their Brazilian-born descendants. By the end of the eighteenth century, other African groups also became members of the brotherhood, including individuals from the Bight of Benin associated with the Jeje “nation,” a label comprising enslaved Africans from the Gbe-speaking area such as the Ewe from southwest region of present-day Togo, the Fon from Abomey, the Gun from Porto-Novo, the Hueda from Ouidah, the Gen from Little Popo (present-day Aného), and the Mahi from Savalou.24
Between 1703 and 1704, the members of the brotherhood of Our Lady of the Rosary of the Black Men amassed funds to construct their own church, designed by a white carpenter called Gabriel Ribeiro.25 Although the original building was a modest chapel, the foreman Caetano JosĂ© da Costa created a more elaborated facade and added to the construction two towers and two lateral naves in 1780.26 Today, the church Our Lady of the Rosary of the Black Men continues to preserve its long-lasting ties with the history of slavery in Bahia. Attracting Black devotees and tourists who attend the masses and visit the church, the building also features a rich material heritage of slavery that tells the story of how Black men and women venerated Catholic Black saints. The church’s nave, altar, and sacristy display various statues of Black saints such as Elesbão (figure 14.2) and Saint Anthony of CategerĂł. Also, as we noted in chapter 5, the flagstones covering the building’s floors are the tombstones of the brotherhood’s deceased members who, until the early twentieth century, were buried inside the church. Among the prominent Bahia Black citizens interred in the building is the intellectual and artist Manuel Raimundo Querino.27 Likewise, Rodolfo Manoel Martins de Andrade (Bamboxê Obtikô), one of the founders of Casa Branca, the oldest temple of CandomblĂ© in Bahia, and probably in Brazil as well, is also buried in the building.28
Figure 14.2. Anonymous, Saint Elesbão, Church of Our Lady of the Rosary of the Black Men, Salvador, Bahia, Brazil. Photograph by Ana Lucia Araujo, 2009.
These markers highlight the multiple links between the members of Black brotherhoods and the leaders of Candomblé, an Afro-Brazilian religion based on multiple deities, divination, music, dance, and spirit possession.29 As we will see later, from the era of slavery to this day, Catholicism and African-based religions were not mutually exclusive. Indeed, enslaved people and their descendants often associated Catholic saints with Orisha, Vodun, and West Central African deities brought to Brazil and the Spanish Americas.30 But in the case of Cuba, for example, John K. Thornton has argued that the worship of Catholic saints by enslaved West Central Africans transported to Cuba was more likely related to the long history of Christianity in the Kingdom of Kongo.31 In other words, the long-lasting exchanges between Africans and Europeans were what allowed African religions and Catholicism to remain alive among Black populations in Brazil and Cuba.
Rio de Janeiro’s brotherhood of Our Lady of the Rosary and Saint Benedict of the Black Men opened its own very modest church building in 1737. Travelers such as the British scientist Thomas Ewbank, who visited the church in 1846, recorded the presence of a statue depicting the Black Saint Benedict, “Black as jet, and rather low in stature, the baby in his arms, being any thing but a white one.” Yet, he also noted the building’s state of decay: “Every thing looked old, mean, and worn out, for want of soap and paint.”32 The church is also likely to be the place where the devotion of the enslaved saint Anastácia emerged in the twentieth century.
Although not officially recognized by the Catholic Church, Anastácia became a popular saint not only among Black Catholics but also among devotees of Umbanda, an Afro-Brazilian religion in which several deities represent enslaved people.33 According to one legend explaining the saint’s origin, Anastácia’s mother was raped by her white owner. Born as a racially mixed woman, despite her Black skin, she had beautiful blue eyes, which in the Brazilian context is still today a marker of European ancestry. Her mistress was jealous, so she forced Anastácia to wear a mask hiding her face. However, popular culture emphasizes that she was able to communicate with other enslaved people just using her eyes.
Figure 14.3. Châtiments des esclaves (BrĂ©sil) (Punishment of Slaves [Brazil]), in Jacques Arago, Souvenirs d’un aveugle: Voyage autour du monde, vol. 1 (Paris: H. Lebrun, 1842), 119.
Despite these stories, the legend only partly explains why Anastácia is depicted as a bondswoman muzzled by a face mask that during the period of slavery was used to prevent slaves from eating dirt.34 It is likely that this image emerged through the intervention of Yolando Guerra. One of the members of the brotherhood of Our Lady of the Rosary and Saint Benedict of the Black Men, Guerra was also the director of the Black’s Museum (Museu do Negro), a small and modest institution maintained by the brotherhood since 1938, at the back of the church’s building.35 Guerra curated an exhibition to commemorate the eightieth anniversary of the abolition of slavery in Brazil in 1968.36 On that occasion, he displayed on one of the museum’s walls an engraving depicting an enslaved man that illustrated the nineteenth-century travelogue Souvenirs d’un aveugle: Voyage autour du monde (figure 14.3) by French traveler Jacques Étienne Victor Arago.37 Although legendary Anastácia was a woman, Guerra started lecturing about her using the image of the muzzled enslaved man taken from Arago’s travel account, hence circulating her picture as she is currently known in Brazil. Anastácia gained many new followers during the second half of the twentieth century, and through existing brotherhoods of the Rosary, her devotion was disseminated to other Brazilian states. Rio de Janeiro’s Black’s Museum displays many images of Anastácia. Likewise, the sacristy and an altar of a slave cemetery in Salvador’s Church of Our Lady of the Rosary of the Black Men also feature numerous images depicting Anastácia. Moreover, to this day, the brotherhood’s members celebrate a Catholic mass paying homage to the enslaved saint on May 13, the date of the abolition of slavery in Brazil.