IAS Book Launch: Lourenço da Silva Mendonça and the Black Atlantic Abolitionist Movement

ABOUT THE BOOK
Lourenço da Silva Mendonça and the Black Atlantic Abolitionist Movement in the Seventeenth Century tells the story of the highly organised, international legal court case for the abolition of slavery spearheaded by Prince Lourenço da Silva Mendonça in the seventeenth century. The case, presented before the Vatican, called for the freedom of all enslaved people and other oppressed groups. This included New Christians (Jews converted to Christianity), Indigenous Americans, and Black Christians from Angola, Brazil, Portugal and Spain. Abolition debate is generally believed to have been dominated by white Europeans. By centring African agency, Nafafé offers a new perspective on the abolition movement, showing how the legal debate was begun not by Europeans, but by Africans. 

Lourenço da Silva Mendonça and the Black Atlantic Abolitionist Movement in the Seventeenth Century is published by Cambridge University Press: https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/lourenco-da-silva-mendonca-and-the-black-atlantic-abolitionist-movement-in-the-seventeenth-century/B030B16D932D0C6A971FAC1BF9A19F5C#fndtn-information

ABOUT THE EVENT
The author, José Lingna Nafafé, will present the book which will be followed by a response by UCL History Associate Lecturer Michael Pope and a Q&A. The evening will be chaired either by Hélène Neveu Kringelbach.