His apostolate extended beyond his care for slaves.
During the 40 years of his ministry, Claver instructed and baptized an estimated 300,000 slaves. With the help of interpreters he gave basic instructions and assured his brothers and sisters of their human dignity and God's saving love. 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. 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."Īs soon as a slave ship entered the port, Peter Claver moved into its infested hold to minister to the ill-treated and exhausted passengers.
Although the practice of slave-trading was condemned by Pope Paul III and later labeled "supreme villainy" by Pius IX, it continued to flourish. 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. He was ordained there in 1615.īy this time the slave trade had been established in the Americas for nearly 100 years, and Cartagena was a chief center for it. He sailed into Cartagena (now in Colombia), a rich port city washed by the Caribbean. 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.
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