Empires of Slavery: Rights and Power in the Early Modern Iberian World

Daniel Allemann
Max Planck Studies in Global Legal History of the Iberian Worlds, Band: 7
Leiden: Brill 2026

ISBN (Hardback): 978-90-04-76058-5
ISBN (e-book): 978-90-04-76059-2

Enslavement was central to the early modern Iberian empires. No one at the time seriously questioned its legality, yet widespread reports of violent practices of captivity and human trafficking contrasted sharply with the Christian ideal of charity. This volume explores how Spanish and Portuguese theologians, jurists, and missionaries grappled with this moral dilemma. These thinkers developed ideological tools to protect the souls of those who appeared to be in a state of mortal damnation. Slavery prompted Iberian intellectuals to rethink the boundaries between property and person, law and religion, and household and commonwealth. By reconstructing these debates, this volume offers a new narrative about the relationship between individual rights and political power in the early modern Iberian world.

Contents

Acknowledgments

Introduction

Part 1 Slavery in the Iberian World

1 The Iberian Imperial Theorists in History
1.1 The Iberian Imperial Theorists in the History of Slavery
1.2 Slavery, Empire, and Global Intellectual History

2 Mediterranean Geographies of Slavery
2.1 Theoretical Foundations: Natural Law, the ius gentium, and Civil Slavery
2.2 War and Punishment in Castile
2.3 Fugitive Slaves in the Mediterranean

3 Trade and Trafficking in Sub-Saharan Africa and Beyond
3.1 Slavery between Mission, War, and Commerce
3.2 Luis De Molina on Atlantic Slavery
3.3 Sites of Slaving in the Indian and Pacific Ocean

Part 2 Slavery and the Household

4 Marriage and Slavery
4.1 Slaves, Children, and the Nature of Marriage
4.2 The Politics of Slave Marriage
4.3 Breaking Marriage and Ending Slavery
4.4 Enslavement, Marriage, and “Human Rights”

5 Punishment, Power, and Care
5.1 Dominium and Human Life
5.2 Punishment and Incarceration
5.3 Care and Carelessness
5.4 Spiritual Care for Enslaved Children

Part 3 Slavery and Labor Coercion in the Americas

6 Forced Labor and the Politics of Empire
6.1 The Rise of Forced Labor
6.2 Colonial Law and Colonial Clamor
6.3 The Persistence of a Paradox
6.4 Subjection and Protection

7 Revisiting Atlantic Slavery
7.1 Revisiting the Foundations of the Slave Trade
7.2 Moirans against the Iberian Imperial Theorists
7.3 The Reinvention of Biblical Slavery

Conclusion: Modes of Protection

Bibliography

Index