This message is to discuss an historial fact. This article is for our Sister/Mother Sheila Johnson, who was finally laid to rest on April
25, 2006; she loved her people and their hist- ory; she is our beloved. She loved history, therefore, it is fitting that this article deal-
ing with the most important part of African his-
tory, concerns African American people, our brother in South America, those taken to the West Indies, and all Africans in the Diaspora.
This article will discuss and show that by the
issuance of a number of Papal Bulls several popes impregnated the Catholic Church, and by
way of that fertilization, the Catholic Church
gave birth to the TransAtlantic Slave Trade. The first of these impregnating documents was issued by Pope Martin V (1417-1431), and was referred to as a grant in another papal bull; The Bull Romanus pontifex, January 8, 1455, is-
sued by Pope Nicholas V (1447-1455). This papal bull is critical to the case of whether or not
the popes condemned the enslavement of African
peoples and/or "racial" slavery from the very
beginning as claimed by Fr. Joel S. Panzer in his book, "The Popes and Slavery" (1996). The Bull Romanus pontifex states in part: "...More
over, since, some time ago, it had come to the knowledge of the said infante that never, or at least not within the memory of men, had it been customary to sail on this ocean sea toward the southren and eastern shores, and that it was so unknown to us westerners that we had no certain knowledge of the peoples of those parts, belie-ving that he would best perform his duty to God in this matter,...most sacred name of Christ, strengthened, however, always by the royal auth-
ority, he has not ceased for twenty-five years past to send almost yearly an army of the peo-
ples of the said kingdoms....they at length came to the province of Guinea, and having tak-
en possession of some islands and harbors and the sea adjacent to that province, sailing far- ther they came to the mouth of a certain great river commonly supposed to be the Nile, and war was waged for some years against the peoples of those parts in the name of the said King Alfon-
so and of the infante, and in it very many is-
lands in that neighborhood were subdued and peacefully possessed, as they are still possess-
ed together with the adjacent. Thence also many Guineamen and other negroes, taken by force... A large number of these have been converted to the Catholic faith, and it hoped, by the help of divine mercy, that if such progress of con-
tinued with them, either those people will be converted to the faith or at least the souls of many of them will be gained for Christ." That reminds me of an old line from a movie "DEAD OR ALIVE, YOU'RE COMING WITH ME". Back in "the Bull": "We [therefore] weighing all and sing-
ular the premises with due meditation, and not-
ing that since we had formerly by other letters of ours granted among other things free and ample faculty to the aforesaid King Alfonso--
to invade, search out, capture, vanquish, and subdue all Saracens and pagans whatsoever, and other enemies of Christ wheresoever placed, and the kingdoms, dukedoms, principalities, domin-
ions, possessions, and all movable and immov-
able goods whatsoever held and possessed by them and to reduce their persons to perpetual slavery, and to appy and appropriate