The Order

Explore the world of ‘The Michaeleans’

The Michaeleans trace their origins to 1686 in colonial Brazil.

Born from the chaos of Quilombo dos Palmares, a haven for runaway slaves and native allies, a band of sympathetic Christian missionaries – Jesuit priests, a French Capuchin monk, and several Portuguese deserters from the Military Order of Christ – fled the quilombo’s impending destruction with a small group of faithful followers. With the help of a few Maraca natives, they found refuge in the rugged highlands of Bahia’s interior, where they forged a new community dedicated to Saint Michael the Archangel, patron of justice and protection.

Disillusioned by the temporal powers’ complicity in slavery and corruption, and unsatisfied with the Church’s inability to take stronger action against these slave-trading nations, they severed official ties with their Jesuit, Franciscan, and Military Order of Christ roots, forming the Ordo Servorum Michaelis (Order of the Servants of Michael). Sworn to free the enslaved, they operated clandestinely by raiding Brazilian plantations and intercepting slave shipments until receiving papal sanction in 1710, eventually evolving into a global force against human trafficking.