Seeking the King’s Royal Justice: Slavery and Petitioning in Portugal’s 15th- and 16th-Century Empire

On the eve of Portugal’s arrival on the West African coast in the mid fifteenth century, bondage was well-established among noble Portuguese households as an emblem of status and prestige. Early bondspeople often were Muslim (mouros or escravos brancos), and sometimes had been captured during military campaigns carried out in Morocco. Subsumed within broader Iberian networks of patronage and dependency, in rare instances, such individuals could appeal to the King for privileges–including manumission. Enslaved Africans arriving in Portugal from the Senegambia and Gold Coast regions in the following one hundred years would similarly use appeals to the King to secure their freedom. Meanwhile, monarchs, beginning with Afonso V, granted privileges to enslaved subjects while also using their seignorial authority to demand freed people’s service in Portugal’s exploration and settlement of West Africa. This presentation examines the paternalistic and political logics at work in royal petitioning by enslaved women during an era of increasing commercialization of Iberian slavery. Through an engagement with dozens of legal actions initiated by the enslaved, it demonstrates that bondswomen, in seeking the King’s justice, helped to extend royal dominion to new regions of West Africa while also securing greater autonomy from their owners.