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The African Slave in Colonial Peru 1524-1650 PDF

456 Pages·1974·8.428 MB·English
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LAG Dap 2a pala Dehn The African Slave in Colonial Peru 1524-1650 “WTSI FREDERICK P. BOWSER STANFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS Stanford, California 1974 The African Slave in Colonial Peru 1524-1650 BOWSER, Frederick P. The African slave in colonial Peru, 1524-1650. Stanford, 1974. 439p il map _ tab bibl 73-80619. 16.50. ISBN 0-8047-0840-1 From a vast array of documentation, from both Iberian and Peruvian archives, Bowser has produced a monumentally detailed study of blacks in early colonial Peru. Methodically and convincingly he de- velops his narrative. The labor problems faced by the Spanish colonizers of Peru resulted in the growth and development of first the Atlantic and then the Peruvian slave trades. The life of the slave is chronicled: his employments, his absorption into Spanish society as well as his attempts to escape. Finally, the more clouded situation of the free person of color is illuminatingly presented. The excellence of this work may not be overstressed. A vast amount of archival re- search and convincing historical judgments are evident throughout. More than a quarter of the book ts needed for the presentation of the appendices and notes. Yet the text is readable; the material itself is fascinating and the author skillfully leads the reader through the im- mense amount of data he presents. With this work Bowser establishes himselfa s a major figure in colonial Latin American history. Students on any level of higher education should have access to this remarkable study. Stanford University Press Stanford, California © 1974 by the Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior University Printed in the United States of America ISBN 0-8047-0840-1 LC 73-80619 To France Vinton Scholes and Engel Sluiter | cS a Preface The past thirty-odd years have witnessed a steady growth of scholarly interest in the role of the African in the Americas. The majority of these studies deal with the black man in the United States, Brazil, and the Caribbean islands during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and with good reason. During this period African slavery both reached its apogee and met its end in those areas, leaving behind a legacy of racial bitterness and strife that, however subtle the form, continues to the present day. By comparison, the institution of slavery on the Spanish American mainland has received considerably less attention, and this is an unfor- tunate historiographical development. Along with Brazil, the colonies of Peru, Mexico, and New Granada (which in the period under study coincided roughly with the modern republic of Colombia) were the most important centers of African slavery in the Western Hemisphere during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. A study of the function and evolution of slavery in those areas can teach us much about the institution. If we turn to the broader issue of race relations, the im- portance of these colonies is greater still. During more than three hundred years of Spanish American slavery, only in Peru, Mexico, and parts of New Granada were relations between European and African influenced to a significant degree by a third racial element, the Indian. Economic, social, and sexual contact among these three groups pro- duced gradations of racial animosity and acceptance that had pro- found effects on the societies in question and that were without paral- lel in the hemisphere. It was with all of these considerations in mind that I decided in 1963 Vill Preface to begin an intensive investigation of the role of the African in colonial Peru. Of the three colonies, Peru was the most attractive subject for study, for several reasons. For one thing, only in Peru, and much to the distaste of the Spanish Crown, did forced Indian labor on a massive scale coexist with African slavery. For another, the important question of the colored population’s acceptance and assimilation was most easily studied there, since slavery in Peru was above all an urban institution. As a denizen of the cities, the Afro-Peruvian thus had unique oppor- tunities for advancement. Finally, a far greater quantity of historical documentation was available for Peru than for Mexico or New Gra- nada. When I began research a decade ago, only the useful monographs of Emilio Harth-terré and Alberto Marquez Abanto, who concerned them- selves with the skilled Afro-Peruvian and with Afro-Indian relations, were available to serve as a base. Since that time, I have been able to profit from the splendid researches of James Lockhart concerning the Afro-Peruvian during the early colonial period. Basically, however, the foundations of this book rest on extensive archival research conducted in Peru, Spain, and Portugal, as detailed in the Bibliography, pp. 419-22. In this regard I was fortunate in having a wealth of material to draw on. Coastal Peru was so dependent on black labor, and slavery became such a part of the fabric of life, that virtually every agency of civil and ecclesiastical government generated documents having to do with the Afro-Peruvian, from official correspondence, fiscal records, lawsuits, and censuses, to marriage licenses, bills of sale, contracts, bail bonds, wills, and letters of manumission. On the basis of this mound of docu- mentation, it was possible to study in some detail the pattern of slavery in Peru, including the slave trade, both in the Atlantic and in the Pa- cific; the contribution of the Africans to the Peruvian economy; the devices that were developed to control slaves of such radically differ- ent language and culture; the simultaneous efforts that were made, con- sciously and otherwise, to assimilate the Afro-Peruvians and to encour- age them to identify with the society and values of the Spaniards; the phenomenon of racial mixture; the processes of liberation; and, finally, the emerging role of the free colored population. In short, to the great- est extent possible this book attempts to trace the complex interaction between Spaniard, African, and Indian within the socioeconomic struc- ture of colonial Peru. Preface ix However, this vast and rich fund of documentation has one serious flaw: the African slave, and even the free person of color, was rarely viewed as a person, as a thinking being with feelings and needs unre- lated to the body. This was an age with a profound indifference to the lower classes so long as those unfortunates performed their work and routinely commended their souls to God. Spaniards duly noted the need for numbers of blacks and browns in Peru, and occasionally their vices and unruliness were deplored—but usually in the mass, not as individuals. Therefore, and despite the close personal ties that pre- vailed between many Spanish masters and their African servants, it is extraordinarily difficult to make the black man come alive, to know anything of his world view, of his spiritual life and perceptions, or of his most deeply felt aspirations and frustrations. An occasional glimpse of life is to be had from a few sources—for the slave, from legal actions seeking manumission or marriage, for the free person of color from a somewhat broader range of notarial records—and I have used docu- mentation of this sort to the fullest in an effort to make those of Afri- can descent something more than cardboard figures. For several reasons (aside from the sheer mass of the documentation), I found the year 1650 an appropriate terminal date for this study. First, the Treaty of Westphalia (1648) signaled the end of Iberian claims to monopoly of the colonial world, including the Atlantic slave trade; thereafter, the flow of slaves to Peru became a much more complex and international affair requiring separate monographic treatment. Second, within Peru, the slave who had been merely a luxury a hun- dred years earlier had become a necessity by 1650; by that date the institution of slavery had acquired a firm grip on the coastal economy, a situation that was to endure into the nineteenth century. Finally, by the middle of the seventeenth century the status of the black man, both slave and free, and the attitudes that would make for the near-disap- pearance of those of African descent were fixed in law and popular opinion. A study of Peruvian slavery after 1650 would no doubt yield many interesting variations in detail but few changes in the basic pat- tern. A final word concerning the scope of this book. The Peru of this volume corresponds roughly with the boundaries of the modern re- public, though official consideration of the use of African labor in silver mining makes a few references to Upper Peru (Bolivia) necessary. x Preface This study has received very generous financial support from various sources, and I am grateful to them all. In chronological order, they are the Foreign Area Fellowship Program; the University of California (Berkeley) and its Bancroft Library; the Center for Research in Inter- national Studies at Stanford University; the Mabelle McLeod Lewis Memorial Fund; and the National Endowment for the Humanities. The staffs of the various archives and libraries in Spain, Peru, and Portugal were uniformly courteous and helpful. My special thanks go to Diego Bermudez Camacho and Macario Valpuesta Cortés of the Archivo General de Indias (Seville) and to Felipe Marquez Abanto of the Archivo Nacional del Peru (Lima). I must also single out for praise Mrs. Vivian C. Fisher of the Bancroft Library for her unfailing cheer- fulness in processing microfilm shipments that were often very tangled indeed. The path of research is greatly smoothed with the comfort of friends, and several deserve my warmest gratitude. Among them are David Brading, from whom I have received the joys of companionship and learned many of the intangibles of scholarship over the years; and Mar- garet Crahan, Rolando Mellafe, Arturo Flores Vera, and Paul Ganster, who have provided valuable assistance at various stages of research. I acknowledge a debt more personal than academic when I thank Senora Nora Bryson de Andrade for the benefit of her wisdom and knowledge of things limefia. This book would never have been com- pleted without the assistance of my wife, Barbara, an unfailing source of patience, cheerfulness, and support during the long period of re- search, writing, and revision. Finally, my appreciation goes to my teachers. I want to thank Professor John H. Rowe for much of what I have learned about colonial Peru, and to express my gratitude to James F. King for wise advice and help at critical moments. I have dedicated this book to the two professors who have most influenced my interests. Its flaws are mine, its virtues those they endeavored to instill. F.P.B. Stanford, California March 1973

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