Editing Pope Pius II (section)

===Slavery===
Pius condemned the enslavement of newly baptized Christians as a "great crime". In a letter of 7 October 1462, addressed to the Bishop of Rubico in the [[Canary Islands]], Pius instructed bishops to impose ecclesiastical penalties on transgressors.<ref>Pastor III, pp. 281-282. Cesare Baronio, ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=d1dAAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA342 Annales ecclesiastici]: A. D. 1-1571 denuo excusi et ad nostra usque tempora perducti ab Augustino Theiner,'' {{in lang|la}}, Volume 29 (Bar-le-Duc: Typis et sumptibus Ludovici Guerin, 1876), pp. 341-342. Earle and Lowe, ''Black Africans in Renaissance Europe'' (2005), p. 281.</ref> Pius did not condemn the concept of trading in slaves, only the enslavement of Christians, who represented a very small minority of those captured and taken to Portugal.<ref>Hugh Thomas, ''The Slave Trade: The History of the Atlantic Slave Trade 1440–1870'', p. 72, Picador, 1997, {{ISBN|0-330-35437-X}}, see also John Francis Maxwell, ''Slavery and the Catholic Church"'', (Barry Rose Publishers, 1975), p. 52.</ref>