Context: During 16th and 17th century several Popes made proclamations to the effect that “slavery is bad” especially on Christians.
Slave traders involved in the Atlantic trade were quick to adopt the newfangled idea that all of humanity can be divided into “races” based on skin color and physical features. Africa was their largest source of slaves, and if they could convince everyone that African people were somehow not fully deserving of (what at the time passed for) human rights it would mean extreme profits.
The cross logo belongs to the Portuguese royal monopoly Casa da Índia and is a bit anachronistic since the slave trade was fully privatized by late 1500s
It’s funny (not ha-ha funny) how the desire for unfree labor was undermined by the control of the colonizing states, which had to, by the tenets of their own faith, push a faith which made the enslaved coreligionists. What do you do when you convert all the locals under your authority? Look for a foreign supply of infidels from somewhere that isn’t profitable to directly control yet.
Fucking vile.
You can see the last echoes of the pre-racist (or at least pre-modern racist - religious and culturally chauvinist attitudes were rampant, but hereditary/phenotypical disgust was not very strong) attitude in the expedition of Cristóvão da Gama to reinforce the Christian Ethiopians against a Muslim jihad. They were coreligionists, even if of a different sect, so they were ‘good’.
