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

Daniel Allemann

ISBN 10: 900476058X / ISBN 13: 9789004760585

Published by Brill, NL, 2026

About this Item

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.

Seller Inventory # LU-9789004760585

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Empires of Slavery: Rights and Power in the Early Modern Iberian World
• Publisher: Brill, NL
• Publication Date: 2026
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 900476058X
• ISBN 13: 9789004760585
• Binding: Hardback
• Condition: New
• Dimensions: 15.5W x 2.5H x 23.5D centimeters 15.5 centimeters width by 2.5 centimeters height by 23.5 centimeters depth
• Weight: 623 grams

About this title

Synopsis

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.

About the Author

Daniel Allemann, Ph.D. (2020), University of Cambridge, is Scientific Collaborator at the University of Geneva. A historian of the late medieval and early modern periods, he studies how intellectual traditions shaped ideas of empire, rights, and religion. He co-edited Conceptions of Space in Intellectual History (2018).