St. Peter Claver (1581-1654)
A
native of Spain, young Jesuit Peter Claver left his homeland forever in
1610 to be a missionary in the colonies of the New World. He sailed
into Cartagena (now in Colombia), a rich port city washed by the
Caribbean. He was ordained there in 1615.
By this time the slave trade had been established in the Americas for
nearly 100 years, and Cartagena was a chief center for it. Ten thousand
slaves poured into the port each year after crossing the Atlantic from
West Africa under conditions so foul and inhuman that an estimated
one-third of the passengers died in transit. Although the practice of
slave-trading was condemned by Pope Paul III and later labeled "supreme
villainy" by Pius IX, it continued to flourish.
Peter Claver's
predecessor, Jesuit Father Alfonso de Sandoval, had devoted himself to
the service of the slaves for 40 years before Claver arrived to continue
his work, declaring himself "the slave of the Negroes forever."
As
soon as a slave ship entered the port, Peter Claver moved into its
infested hold to minister to the ill-treated and exhausted passengers.
After the slaves were herded out of the ship like chained animals and
shut up in nearby yards to be gazed at by the crowds, Claver plunged in
among them with medicines, food, bread, brandy, lemons and tobacco. With
the help of interpreters he gave basic instructions and assured his
brothers and sisters of their human dignity and God's saving love.
During the 40 years of his ministry, Claver instructed and baptized an
estimated 300,000 slaves.
His apostolate extended beyond his care
for slaves. He became a moral force, indeed, the apostle of Cartagena.
He preached in the city square, gave missions to sailors and traders as
well as country missions, during which he avoided, when possible, the
hospitality of the planters and owners and lodged in the slave quarters
instead.
After four years of sickness which forced the saint to
remain inactive and largely neglected, he died on September 8, 1654. The
city magistrates, who had previously frowned at his solicitude for the
black outcasts, ordered that he should be buried at public expense and
with great pomp.
He was canonized in 1888, and Pope Leo XIII declared him the worldwide patron of missionary work among black slaves.
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