Black Catholic Worlds: Religious Geographies of Eighteenth-Century Afro-Colombia

by Bethan Fisk

Overview

Centring the lived experiences of enslaved and free people of colour, Black Catholic Worlds illustrates how geographies and mobilities – between continents, oceans, and region – were at the heart of the formation and circulation of religious cultures by people of African descent in the face of racialisation and slavery. This book examines black Catholicism in different sites – towns, mines, haciendas, rochelas, and maroon communities – across New Granada, and frames African-descended religions in the region as “interstitial religions.” People of African descent engaged in religious practice and knowledge production in the interstices, in liminal places and spaces that were physical sites but also figurative openings, in a society shaped by slavery. Bringing together fleeting moments from colonial archives, Fisk traces black religious knowledge production and sacramental practice just as gold, mined by enslaved people, again began to flow from the Pacific coast to the Atlantic world.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781009543538
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
Publication date:	09/11/2025
Series:	Afro-Latin America
Pages:	308
Product dimensions:	6.50(w) x 1.50(h) x 9.50(d)

About the Author

Bethan Fisk is Lecturer in Colonial Latin American History at the University of Bristol. This is her first book.

Table of Contents

Introduction: Part I. Black Geographies; 1. African diasporic worlds; 2. Healing and ritual on the move; Part II. Religion in Place; 3. Black catholic knowledge in the Caribbean; 4. Spiritual pasture in the Pacific; Part III. In the Interstices; 5. Administering the sacraments; Conclusion; Appendices; Bibliography.

Editorial Reviews

‘Black Catholic Worlds is a moving and groundbreaking examination of African-descended people’s Catholic popular religiosities and practices in one of the most important sites of the early modern African diaspora: eighteenth-century Colombia. Impressively stitching together archival fragments across eighteenth-century Afro-Colombia, Fisk manages the seemingly impossible task of centering the interior lives of people of African descent as they created religious and sacramental Catholic knowledge ‘on the move.’ An instant classic.’ Yesenia Barragan, Rutgers University

‘Fisk's geopolitical approach to slavery, colonial rule, and Black religious practice in New Granada reveals the ways that Afro-descendants of various lineages constituted belonging through mobility and dispersal. By examining the ways Afro-descendants developed social and spiritual communities in motion, Black Catholic Worlds reveals the making of the Afro-Caribbean and Afro-Pacific lowland territories across New Granada.’ Sherwin K. Bryant, author of Rivers of Gold, Lives of Bondage: Governing through Slavery in Colonial Quito

‘In this wonderful book, Fisk explodes numerous binaries - Atlantic/Pacific, land/water, place/movement, sacred/secular, centre/margin, African/creole - in a meticulously documented endeavour to establish African-descent people in colonial Colombia as active creators and circulators of religious knowledge. Essential reading for anyone interested in the history of African diasporas in the Americas.’ Peter Wade, University of Manchester

‘Extensively researched and compellingly argued, Black Catholic Worlds is a groundbreaking contribution to Afro-Latin American studies. Fisk significantly expands our knowledge of the uses people of African descent made of Catholicism. A must-read for any student of the African diaspora.’ Miguel Valerio, author of Sovereign Joy: Afro-Mexican Kings and Queens, 1539–1640

‘Fisk vividly underscores how free and enslaved Black people mobilized the brutality and bounty of New Granada to make of early modern Catholicism what they willed.’ Danielle Terrazas Williams, author of The Capital of Free Women: Race, Legitimacy, and Liberty in Colonial Mexico

From the Publisher