Saint Peter Claver

Priest, Apostle of the Slaves
(1580–1654)

Saint Peter Claver was born in 1580 at Verdu in Catalonia, Spain, and entered the Society of Jesus in 1602. During his novitiate he was profoundly influenced by the lay brother Alphonsus Rodriguez, who urged him with great insistence to go to the New World and work for souls. In 1610 he was sent to Cartagena in what is now Colombia, the principal slave-trading port of the Americas, where he was ordained a priest in 1616.

Cartagena was the point of entry for the Atlantic slave trade into Spanish South America, and ships bringing enslaved Africans arrived regularly from the west coast of Africa, their human cargo packed into holds in conditions of indescribable horror. Peter Claver resolved to make the service of these enslaved people the work of his life, and he signed himself in a letter as the slave of the Negroes forever.

For over forty years, whenever a slave ship arrived in port, he was among the first to board it, going down into the stinking holds with food, medicine, brandy, lemons, and tobacco, and with the help of interpreters he ministered to those who were dying, baptised the dying, cared for the sick, and began the instruction of all who were to be sold into slavery. He worked tirelessly among the sugar plantations and mines to which the enslaved people were sent, making regular visits to care for their physical and spiritual needs.

He is estimated to have baptised more than three hundred thousand enslaved Africans in the course of his apostolate. In his last years he was crippled by illness, neglected and mistreated by those who cared for him, and largely confined to his room, a period he bore with characteristic patience. He died on September 8, 1654. He was canonised by Leo XIII in 1888 and declared patron of all missionary work among African peoples. His feast is celebrated on September 9th.