ABSTRACT
In The Calling of St Matthew, the Afro-Hispanic painter Juan de Pareja positioned his self-portrait against the backdrop of the local and transatlantic slave trades, the final expulsion of the Muslims between 1607 and 1614, and the post-Tridentine mission of Christianization of enslaved Africans in early modern Spain. Manumission or legal freedom from slavery was uncommon in early modern Spain, and the status of emancipated slaves was not the same as "that of a free born person." In Rome, between July 1649 and March 19th, 1650, Diego Velazquez painted Pareja, before he liberated his slave. Velazquez's depiction of his slave shows that he was in tune with the early modern Spanish belief that the physical appearance of blackness was a signifier of the specific social condition of slavery. Pareja also codified the collective identity of Africans and their struggle for freedom in the kingdoms of Castile and Aragon.
