From the archives




 

Church of São Domingos



Privilege of manumitting enslaved members granted to the Brotherhood of Our Lady of the Rosary of Lisbon (1518)
I further approve black members and stewards of the Brotherhood, by their own action or through their representatives, demanding and asserting the liberation and manumission of whichever black man or woman who will be members of the Brotherhood.

(Privileges and liberties granted by King John III to the Brotherhood of Our Lady of the Rosary of the Island of São Tomé, 9 July 1526, in Lisbon, Arquivo Nacional da Torre do Tombo, Chancelaria de D. João III, liv. 12, fl. 134v)


Original

Outro sy me praz que os homes pretos e mordomos da dita Comfraria, posam por sy e por seus procuradores demãdar e obrigar a ljberdade e alforria de quaesquer pretos e pretas que forem comfrades.
 




 

Split of the Brotherhood of Our Lady of the Rosary of Lisbon (c. 1551)
And the Brotherhood of Our Lady of the Rosary, which is divided into two branches, that of the honourable persons and the other of the black freedmen and slaves of Lisbon.

(Cristóvão Rodrigues de Oliveira, Sumario e[m] que breuemente se contem alguas cousas assi ecclesiasticas como seculares que ha na cidade de Lisboa. Lisbon: Germain Gaillard [post 1554], fl. 27v)
Original


E a confraria de nossa senhora do rosairo repartida em duas, hûa de pessoas honrradas, E outra dos pretos forros E escrauos de Lixboa.






Mark