Dr Jacques COULARDEAU

Never Forget Slavery

ONCE A CHRISTIAN SLAVE IN MEXICO, NOT FOR VERY LONG!

https://jacquescoulardeau.medium.com/never-forget-slavery-5b1cc509ebec

Colonial Blackness by Herman L. Bennett is trying to rebuild the past of Mexico when it was using a lot of Black slaves. He is not so much interested in their treatment under slavery, but what they became after slavery and how they managed to get out of it fast and in great numbers. Manumission was the main way for them to get their freedom back, and in Catholic Mexico, manumission worked very well. You arrived a slave in Mexico, but many, though we have no real data, did not die slaves.

The Catholic Church, both the Inquisition and the Crown, imposed very strict rules about slaves having to be christened and to become Christians with the necessary education to be able to take part in the various rituals and services. The very first rule was slaves had to marry, and that’s where Bennett found most of his information since slavery had no archives and registries were fictitious. But religious or royal courts were a lot more faithful and detailed.

It is this catholic policy that considered the salves had been entrusted to Christians in Mexico for these Christians to take care of them. Thus, they could not remain slaves very long and they had to prove they were worth being freed. They had many occasions to prove their worthiness: delivering and collecting messages, providing the households with what they needed to just plainly live, hence go “shopping” or rather “marketing.” They could also be used as a guarantee in some commercial bargain.

Bennett insists on the fact that the shift to Catholicism was essential for these slaves to know they were not entirely and forever slaves. If they could be christened, if they could really believe in Jesus Christ, they had some inner worth as individuals, as human beings, as persons. The shift from African heritage or Indian heritage led the Black slaves who married Indian women to shift their religious faith together, simultaneously and reciprocally.

Open question: How did the Mayas shift from Kukulkan to Jesus Christ?

Academia.edu Comment

Jacques Coulardeau uploaded a paper

Bennett did a pretty interesting research there, though he did not specify how, for example, a Maya woman could shift before marrying her slave Black husband-to-be from Kukulkan or Jun Nal Ye to Jesus Christ.

Never Forget Slavery

by Jacques Coulardeau

2025 • Éditions La Dondaine, Medium.com

11 Pages

History of Slavery,  * Spain,  * Mexico,  * Catholic Church,  * Manumission

# posted by Dr. Jacques COULARDEAU @ 2:23 AM 0 comments