Portuguese participation in the slave trade 137between just and unjust wars. The prisoners of a just war could be reduced to
slavery, and if they embraced the Christian faith all the cruelties associated
with their condition were justified. Nevertheless, it is clear from accounts that
have come down to us that some charitable souls strove to draw attention to
the horrible fate of the poor wretches who were uprooted from their homeland
and separated from their kin in conditions of unspeakable misery. For instance,
Zurara in his Chronica da Guiñé, while exalting Prince Henry's virtues, records
how the slaves were split up quite without pity, the sole criterion for the
division being equality between 'lots', in turn subdivided into 'pieces'. It
was not until a century later, however, that a voice was boldly and vehemently
raised in opposition. It was that of Fr Fernando de Oliveira, who in 1555, in
his book Arte da Guerra do Mar, severely criticized the slave trade in general
and denounced the criterion of the just war. He asserted in substance that it
is wrong to make war on people who are not warring and who want peace;
that a slave should only serve for a time limited by law; that slave-traders do
not seek only the slaves' conversion, for if ' their advantage were removed, they
would not go in search of them ; and slaves serve their masters much more
than they do God, since they are compelled to carry out certain tasks which
are contrary to divine law'.
Down the centuries, there is no lack of descriptions of the violence
involved in the capture of slaves in Africa and at the depots while awaiting
shipment, and then the horrors of the crossing in the tumbeiros, or coffins, as
the slave-ships were called. The level of losses, initially as high as 20 per cent,
fell as time went out, reaching an average of 5 per cent towards the end. The re-
bellions and the ensuing punishments, the epidemics, the disasters in storms—
all this has come down to us in eye-witness accounts, often imbued with horror
or compassion. Yet the slave trade was only enabled to last so long because
there was a convergence of economic interests, coupled with a religious justi-
fication, and because circumstances in Africa were propitious. Few African
chiefs were averse from taking part in a trade from which they stood to gain.
Paradoxically, the Jesuits, in protecting the Indians against the Brazilian
colonists, encouraged the slave trade. When they first arrived on the American
continent the colonists enslaved the native Indians, who were neither as tough
nor such good workers as Negroes. The Jesuits took their part successfully,
thanks to their influence at Court and the eloquence of the most famous of
their number, Antonio Vieira. He also protested, along with other Jesuits,
against the despotic attitude of the slave-masters towards their Negro slaves;
but they never condemned the principle of the Negro trade. The ban on the
enslaving of Indians, proclaimed by the government in Lisbon in 1570, served
on the contrary to give it a new lease of life.
The Church's attitude with regard to the question was moreover ambi-
valent. Whereas under the Papal Pull of 1639 all Catholics who engaged in