In this way, the notion that the Black peoples who inhabited this part of Africa, which was coming under exploration by Europeans for the first time, were uniquely wretched and lacking in the redeeming attributes of civilization by virtue of their color was first mobilized in the 1440s. And this idea was married with another, equally damning thought: these were pagans, perfectly distinct in religious terms from the Moors whom the Portuguese recognized as Muslims, and hence, even though mortal enemies, people who were, like themselves, nonetheless “of the Book.”
