A small step in the wrong direction can sometimes be magnified by greed and willful moral blindness. This was the case seventy years before St. Peter Claver was born in 1580 to a farming family outside of Barcelona, Spain. King Ferdinand of Spain authorized the purchase of 250 African slaves in Lisbon for his territories in New Spain. One hundred years later, 10,000 African slaves were arriving every year to the New Kingdom of Granada, today known as Columbia. The king’s small decision to supposedly help farmers and landowners in New Spain meet their need for laborers allowed the slave trade to grow to epidemic proportions throughout the Americas. 

St. Peter life’s work as a Jesuit priest was among the men and women who arrived exhausted, maltreated, and sick in the port city of Cartagena. He would meet the ships upon their arrival and go down into the holds where the human cargo was packed tightly together. It is estimated that one third of the men and women died in transit. Peter would carry medicine, food, bread, and lemons to those who survived. He attended to their human needs first and then, over time, tried his best to meet their spiritual needs. 

Peter also preached the Gospel message to the merchants, sailors, and ship owners. He tried to impress upon them that we are all human beings and that we have a common need to be treated with dignity and respect. When he visited the plantations where the African Americans were working, he would stay with them rather than in the comfortable homes of the landowners. He preached in the city squares, country areas, and was often among the sick in the hospitals. Fellow Jesuit Fr. John Harden could have been reflecting on the life of Peter Claver when he recently wrote: “Love is shown more in deeds than in words. Love does not mean that I like doing what I’m doing, love means that I do it, and the doing is your love.”   

Over the course of his life, the conservative estimate is that Peter baptized 300,000 people - and he continued his instructions after they were baptized by distributing holy pictures and having translators help him to preach. He heard 5,000 confessions on a yearly basis.

It should be no surprise that his last years were filled with ill health. Unable to leave his room, his community assigned an ex-slave to attend to his needs. Unfortunately, this man abused him and stole his food. Peter did not complain, seeing his ill treatment as a penance for his sins. When he died on September 8, 1654, word spread quickly. People came from all over the countryside to visit his room, which was soon stripped of everything that could be seen as a relic. His life was such a heroic example of the Christian praxis of love and the exercise of human rights that September 9th, the day after Peter’s death, is celebrated today in Columbia as Human Rights Day. 

St. Peter Claver, pray for us.