St. Peter Claver
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St. Peter Claver
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A Jesuit priest known for his work ministering to enslaved Africans in seventeenth-century South America
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Born on June 26, 1580, in Verdú, Spain, St. Peter Claver was a Jesuit priest who spent the majority of his life stationed as a missionary in South America. Claver joined the Society of Jesus in 1602. He was later sent to the Spanish colonies, arriving in Cartagena in 1610.
Cartagena was a major hub of the slave trade. Claver devoted himself to ministering to the thousands of enslaved people arriving from West Africa each year, who endured horrific conditions on the brutal transatlantic crossing and arrival. During his life, he is said to have baptized more than 300,000 individuals. Claver was one of the few individuals allowed to enter the ship to administer these baptisms. Claver cared for the physical needs of enslaved Africans when they arrived and on visits to local plantations, where he advocated for plantation owners to treat enslaved people humanely.
Claver was, however, also a slaveholder, purchasing enslaved people to perform labor within his ministry. He also rented enslaved Africans from other enslavers for use in his ministry. According to some sources, Claver was known to physically punish enslaved people. Some scholars have reassessed his missionary work among the enslaved, questioning whether through baptism and stripping them of previous cultural ties, Claver's actions supported the slave economy.
Today, Claver is honored at Loyola University Maryland through the naming of Claver Hall, a dormitory for students, as well as in a stained-glass depiction of Claver blessing a kneeling enslaved man located in Alumni Memorial Chapel.
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June 24, 1580
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September 8, 1654
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von Germeten, Nicole. “A Century of Promoting Saint Peter Claver and Catholicism to African Americans: Claverian Historiography from 1868-1965.” JSTOR, 2005, www.jstor.org/stable/44194944?seq=4.
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Grimes, Katie Walker. Fugitive Saints: Catholicism and the Politics of Slavery. 1517 Media, 2017.
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