Besides being concerned with influencing individual behavior, the
Church insisted that it was a social institution with the right
to interfere in matters relating to public morals. In fact, it
was through this role that the Church was able to exercise its
worldly powers. While condemning slavery as an evil and warning
that it endangered those who participated in it, the Church found
it expedient to accept slavery as a labor system. However, it
insisted that the African slaves must be Christianized. Missionaries
were sent to the trading stations on the African coast where the
captives were baptized and catechized. The Church feared that the
purity of the faith might be undermined by the infusion of pagan
influences. Then, when a slave ship reached the New World, a
friar boarded the ship and examined the slaves to see that the
requirements had been met. The Church also insisted that the slaves
become regular communicants, and it liked to view itself as the
champion of their human rights.
The degree to which the individual rights of the slave were either
protected or totally suppressed provides a clearer insight to the
differences between North American and South American slavery.
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