Biography

Thiago C. Sapede is Assistant Professor of African History at the Federal University of Bahia (UFBA) in Brazil. His research focuses on the political and global history of Africa from the 17th to 19th centuries. He holds a PhD in History from the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (EHESS) of Paris. His doctoral thesis received three awards in France: the Thesis Prize ("Lauréat") from the Fondation pour la Mémoire de l'Esclavage; another Thesis Prize ("Lauréat") from the Chancellerie des Universités de Paris in the field of Humanities and Letters; and the accessit (2nd prize) for the EHESS Thesis Prize across all disciplines in 2021.

Project Summary

Dr. Sapede’s project investigates the role of “church slaves,” nleke (baleke pl.), in the 17th and 18th-century Kingdom of Kongo. The “church slaves” worked in the Catholic monasteries of the most important mbanzas, towns, that held Italian Capuchin missionary facilities. In those urban settings, the slaves of the church provided basic assistance during the rituals of mass and daily support for the missionaries, doing domestic work, protecting the church, building and rebuilding chapels, and growing crops on the church lands to feed the priests. Likewise, the baleke were particularly important during the Capuchins’ voyages from those convents to other provinces or mbanzas, where they served as guides, translators, carriers, and provided security and food to the European clergy. The goal of the project is to take an in-depth look at the documentation of the Vatican, Propaganda Fide and local Capuchin archives, aiming to analyse this type of slavery not as European colonial imposition, but as a particular historical adaptation between local rule and the external Catholic mission in Kongo. This research will also illuminate the web of global political and religious relations involving Africa, Rome and the Portuguese Empire.