Saints Browns and Blacks in America: Catholicism, Slavery, Mestiçagens and Color Hierarchies

Abstract

This article focuses on the role of devotion to so-called saints of color as an element of the construction of hierarchies in the slave society that was built in Portuguese America. Analyzing the discourse contained in hagiographies, we try to think about the role of catechesis for blacks and understand how the rhetoric of conversion sought to promote the subordinate position of Africans and their descendants in colonial Christendom, while they had to adapt to the limits imposed by the action of those individuals in the face of rereading it came to promoting the Catholic symbols.

Keywords

• culto a los santos
• hagiografía
• esclavitud
• mestizaje
• jerarquías de colores