Dum Diversas

Dum Diversas is a papal bull issued on June 18, 1452 by Pope Nicholas V, that is credited by some with "ushering in the West African slave trade."Love, David A. June 16, 2007. "The Color of Law On the Pope, Paternalism and Purifying the Savages." ZNet. It authorized Afonso V of Portugal to conquer Saracens and pagans and consign them to indefinite slavery.Davenport, Frances Gardiner, and Paullin, Charles Oscar. 1917. European Treaties Bearing on the History of the United States and Its Dependencies to 1684. Carnegie Institution of Washington. p. 12. A large excerpt of the bull, in Latin, can be found in Davenport, p. 17, Doc. 1, note 37., Pope Calixtus III reiterated the bull in 1456 with Etsi cuncti, renewed by Pope Sixtus IV in 1481 and Pope Leo X in 1514 with Precelse denotionis. The concept of the consignment of exclusive spheres of influence to certain nation states was extended to the Americas in 1493 by Pope Alexander VI with Inter caetera.Hayes, Diana. 1998. "Reflections on Slavery." in Curran, Charles E. Change in Official Catholic Moral Teaching.Hart, Jonathan Locke. 2003. Comparing Empires: European colonialism from Portuguese expansion to the Spanish-American War. Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 1403961883. p. 18.Bourne, Edward Gaylord. 1903. The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803. The A.H. Clark company. p. 136.
Issued one year before the Fall of Constantinople in 1453, the bull may have been intended to begin another crusade against the Ottoman Empire. Nicholas V's nephew, Loukas Notaras, was Megas Doux of the Byzantine Empire.Eaglestone, C.R. 1878. The siege of Constantinople, 1453. p. 7. Some historians view these bulls together as extending the theological legacy of Pope Urban II's Crusades to justify European colonization and expansionism,Sardar, Ziauddin, and Davies, Merryl Wyn. 2004. The No-Nonsense Guide to Islam. Verso. ISBN 1859844545. p. 94. accommodating "both the marketplace and the yearnings of the Christian soul."Hood, Robert Earl. 1994. Begrimed and Black: Christian Traditions on Blacks and Blackness. Fortress Press. ISBN 0800627679. p. 117. Dum Diversas was essentially "geographically unlimited" in its application, perhaps the most important papal act relating to Portuguese colonization.Grewe, Wilhelm Georg. 2000. The Epochs of International Law. Walter de Gruyter. ISBN 3110153394. p. 230.
Dum Diversas provided:
In 1537 pope Paul III explicitly condemned enslaving non-Christians in Sublimus Dei http://www.papalencyclicals.net/Paul03/p3subli.htm. In 1686 the Holy Office limited the bull by decreeing that Africans enslaved by unjust wars should be freed.
Dum Diversas, along with other bulls such as Romanus Pontifex (1454), Ineffabilis et summi (1497), Dudum pro parte (1516), and Aequum reputamus (1534) document the Portuguese ius patronatus.Desai, Guarav Gajanan, and Nair, Supriya. 2005. Postcolonialisms: An Anthology of Cultural Theory and Criticism. Rutgers University Press. ISBN 0813535522. p. 52.Mudimb̂ae, Valentin Yves, and Mudimbé, Vumbi Yoka. 1994. The Idea of Africa. Indiana University Press. ISBN 0253208726. p. 31. Pope Alexander VI, a native of Valencia, issued a series of bulls limiting Portuguese power in favor of that of Spain, most notably Dudem siquidem (1493).Hart, 2003, p. 19.
==References==
Category:15th-century papal bulls