The bull Dum Diversas granted Portugal a claimed religious and political warrant to conquer territories ruled by non-Christians and reduce people to perpetual servitude. It helped give a Christian legal vocabulary to Portuguese expansion, although it did not itself create the later plantation system. A decolonial reading places this document within the alliance of papal authority, monarchy, commerce, and armed conquest that helped normalize enslavement.
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What did Dum Diversas help justify?
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Explanation
It linked papal authority to Portuguese expansion and enslavement; it did not itself create the later plantation system.
Dum Diversas helped provide a religious and political warrant for Portuguese conquest and enslavement.
🎉😄
😢
Explanation
The 1452 bull linked papal authority to Portugal’s claims of conquest and perpetual servitude.