Dum Diversas

Dum Diversas (english: Until different) is a papal bull issued on 18 June 1452 by Pope Nicholas V. It authorized Afonso V of Portugal to conquer "Saracens (Muslims) and pagans" in a disputed territory in Africa and consign them to "perpetual servitude". This and the subsequent bull (Romanus Pontifex), issued by Nicholas in 1455, gave the Portuguese the rights to acquire slaves along the African coast by force or trade. The edicts are thus seen as having facilitated the Portuguese slave trade from West Africa and as having legitimized the European colonization of the African continent.^[1] It recognized Portugal's rights to territories it had discovered along the West African coast, and the reduction of the infidels and non-Christians territories to perpetual vassals of the Christian monarch.^[2]

Pope Calixtus III reiterated this in the 1456 bull Inter caetera (not to be confused with Alexander VI's bull of the same title), renewed by Pope Sixtus IV in 1481 and Pope Leo X in 1514 with Precelse denotionis. The concept of the consignment of exclusive spheres of influence to certain nation states was extended to the Americas in 1493 by Pope Alexander VI with Inter caetera.^[3]^[4]

^ Gill, Joseph. Nicholas V. Britannica.
^ Davenport, Frances Gardiner, and Paullin, Charles Oscar. 1917. European Treaties Bearing on the History of the United States and Its Dependencies to 1684. Carnegie Institution of Washington. p. 12. A large excerpt of the bull, in Latin, can be found in Davenport, p. 17, Doc. 1, note 37.
^ Hart, Jonathan Locke. 2003. Comparing Empires: European colonialism from Portuguese expansion to the Spanish–American War. Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 1-4039-6188-3. p. 18.
^ Bourne, Edward Gaylord. 1903. The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803. The A.H. Clark company. p. 136.

[1] Gill, Joseph. Nicholas V. Britannica.

[2] Davenport, Frances Gardiner, and Paullin, Charles Oscar. 1917. European Treaties Bearing on the History of the United States and Its Dependencies to 1684. Carnegie Institution of Washington. p. 12. A large excerpt of the bull, in Latin, can be found in Davenport, p. 17, Doc. 1, note 37.

[3] Hart, Jonathan Locke. 2003. Comparing Empires: European colonialism from Portuguese expansion to the Spanish–American War. Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 1-4039-6188-3. p. 18.

[4] Bourne, Edward Gaylord. 1903. The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803. The A.H. Clark company. p. 136.

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