Filomena Saraswati Giese
Berkeley, Oct. 5, 2018

I. Afro-Sri Lankan Slavery from the 16th to the 19th centuries
II. St. Joseph Vaz (1651-1711) and African slaves in Sri Lanka

I. Afro-Sri Lankan Slavery from the 16th to the 19th centuries

Asia was not new to the trade in African slaves. It had been going on for a millennium from before and after Islam became a major force for trade and conquest in Asia, it became of Arab trade and commerce.

When the Portuguese followed Arab traders and rulers along the coast of Africa, they ferried African slaves as part of the trade continued after western conquest and colonialism reached Asia. Thus the Portuguese brought African slaves to their colonial possessions in Goa and Sri Lanka. African soldiers, a part of the African slave trade and indentured laborers, were known as Siddis in India and Kaffirs in Sri Lanka. In India, they led an independence movement against the British in Karnataka. In Sri Lanka, the Portuguese and Dutch, as well as native Buddhist and Hindu rulers, valued their valor and skill and used Kaffirs, as Afro Sri Lankan soldiers were known, in their defense forces.
The Dutch ousted the Portuguese in Sri Lanka in 1656 and the British defeated the Dutch in 1802. Both colonial powers continued a small trade in African slaves in Sri Lanka. In fact, the area where slaves were traded and kept was adjacent to Colombo, Sri Lanka’s major port, which became its capital from the times of the Portuguese, Dutch, and British rule. It became famously known as “Slave Island,” and still carries that historical name in Colombo.

In 2017, the Afro Sri Lankans left in Sri Lanka celebrated their 500 years in that island and 200 years of their freedom from slavery. When the British Parliament passed the Abolition of the Slave Trade Act in 1807, the end of slavery in British controlled countries began. It was Sir Alexander Johnston, Chief Justice of Sri Lanka (1806-1819) who urged for the gradual abolition of domestic slavery in Sri Lanka. This led to the eventual freeing of all children born of Afro-Sri Lankan slaves after 1806 and the end of slavery in Sri Lanka. Most descendants of African slaves intermarried with the majority Sinhalese population of Sri Lanka after the abolition of slavery. Today there are still several hundred descendants of African slaves.

II. St. Joseph Vaz (1651-1711) and African slaves in Sri Lanka

In 2015, Pope Francis came to Sri Lanka to canonize that country’s first Catholic Saint, Indian born St. Joseph Vaz, who famously raised the Church from the ashes during the Dutch persecution. It is well known that this first Catholic saint of two states in India, Goa and Karnataka, as well as of Sri Lanka, ministered to a diversity of people of various races, religions and cultures. His ministry touched the Konkani, Kannada, and Malayalam speaking peoples in India as well as Tamils and Sinhalese, the Portuguese, and the Burghers of mixed race in Sri Lanka. From the historical Oratorian records of his life and work it is clear that St. Joseph Vaz had a very special concern for slaves. During his first journey to Kanara, south of his native Goa, we read that he used his personal funds and borrowed money to ransom Christian slaves in that part of India. His ministry to the Afro Sri Lankan slaves on Colombo’s Slave Island was part of his underground ministry to the persecuted Catholics there. Among their historical memories of this long period, is the tenacious preservation of their faith and their relationship to this great Saint among the remaining Afro Sri Lankan families still left in Sri Lanka. There are still a few Afro Sri Lankan families who are members of Catholic parishes around Puttalam and Negombo where they have re-settled. They still preserve a devotion to St. Joseph Vaz as their Apostle during the difficult times of persecution under the Dutch.