On June 18, 1452, Pope Nicholas V issued a document that would reshape the Atlantic world.

Dum Diversas — “Until Different” — granted King Alfonso V of Portugal the authority to “invade, search out, capture, vanquish, and subdue all Saracens and pagans whatsoever, and other enemies of Christ wheresoever placed.” The bull authorized the Portuguese crown to “reduce their persons to perpetual slavery.”¹

This was not about race. This was about religion.

The document made no mention of skin color, ethnicity, or continental origin. The sorting mechanism was faith: Christian versus non-Christian. Believer versus enemy of Christ.

The legal framework for everything that followed — the depopulation of Labrador, the slave markets of Seville, the transformation of Cape Verde from uninhabited islands to Atlantic slave port — began with this single papal decree.

Dum Diversas was not theoretical. It was operational.

The papal bull established “perpetual slavery” as a “legal art” — a juridical mechanism for the systematic enslavement of non-Christians.¹ The document didn’t create slavery; it legalized it under church authority and made it hereditary.

The children of the enslaved would remain enslaved. Their children’s children would remain enslaved. Forever.

This was revolutionary.

Previous forms of bondage — in medieval Europe, in Islamic territories, in indigenous American societies — typically allowed for manumission, adoption, or integration across generations. Dum Diversas created a new category: permanent, inheritable, religiously sanctioned slavery for all enemies of Christ.

The Portuguese crown now had papal authority to enslave anyone who was not Christian. The definition of “Saracen and pagan” would expand to include anyone the Portuguese encountered who did not accept the Catholic faith.

Three years later, the same pope issued Romanus Pontifex.

Where Dum Diversas had authorized enslavement, Romanus Pontifex authorized territorial conquest. Together, the two bulls established the Doctrine of Discovery — the legal principle that Christian European powers could claim any land not occupied by Christians.¹

The doctrine was elegantly circular: if you were not Christian, you had no property rights. If you had no property rights, your land could be claimed.