Slaves of the White God: Blacks in Mexico, 1570-1650 [Reprint 2014 ed.] 9780674181823, 9780674182363

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SLAVES OF THE WHITE G O D Blacks in Mexico, 1570-1650

SLAVES OF THE WHITE GOD

Blacks in Mexico, 1570-1650

COLIN A. PALMER

Harvard University Press Cambridge, Massachusetts, and London, England

1976

Copyright © 1976 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Palmer, Colin A 1942Slaves of the white God. Bibliography: p. Includes index. 1. Slavery in Mexico—History. I. Title. II. Title: Blacks in Mexico, 1570-1650. HT1053.P35 301.44'93Ό972 ISBN 0-674-81085-6

75-34054

For Myrtle

PREFACE

The research for this book was begun in 1968 at a time when some black students and others were beginning to demand the inclusion of courses dealing with the black experience in the American university curriculum. As a graduate student I was not unaffected by the wisdom and urgency of these demands. However, I was somewhat disturbed by the disproportionate emphasis that was being placed on the study of the black condition in the twentieth century in contrast to the slight attention that was being given to exploring the historical roots of that condition. I also felt that we needed to pay more attention to the history of other peoples of African descent in the New World, particularly in Latin America. These concerns led me to undertake a study of the early black experience in one of the Spanish colonies. I chose Mexico because at the time it was a Spanish colony in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries it was reputed to have had a large black population. I also knew that most of my contemporaries were unfamiliar with the African dimension of Mexico's history. It came as no surprise to me when I arrived in Mexico to begin my research that a Mexican graduate student insisted that I had certainly made a mistake in coming to Mexico to study African slavery, since Africans had never been enslaved in his country! The truth of the matter, however, is that the Spaniards enslaved Indians as well as Africans. Ironically, many Indians, including Emperor Montezuma, had initially believed the Conquistador Fernando Cortes to be their returning God, Quetzalcoatl. The unseemly behavior of the "divine" visitor gradually led them to disabuse themselves of this notion. The main title of this book captures the irony and underscores the tragedy created by the long awaited "God" who with the assistance of his followers and of those who came after made slaves of many of the Indian believers and blacks from across the seas. I have incurred many debts of gratitude in the preparation of this

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Preface

work. First, I would like to thank Professor John Phelan of the University of Wisconsin, who supervised my graduate studies and who has given me great encouragement and support over the years. I would also like to thank the following scholars who read the manuscript in whole or in part and who kindly offered their valuable criticism and advice: Ward Barrett, Frederick Bowser, DeWitt S. Dykes, Charles Gibson, Mary Karasch, Joseph Klaits, Franklin Knight, and Asuncion Lavrin. I would also like to express my appreciation to the staffs of the following libraries and archives for their courtesy and assistance: Memorial Library of the University of Wisconsin, Oakland University Library, the Archivo General de la Nacion in Mexico City, and the Archivo de Indias in Seville. Part of my chapter 6 has appeared in Stanley L. Engerman and Eugene D. Genovese, eds., Race and Slavery in the Western Hemisphere: Quantitative Studies (copyright © 1975 by the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavorial Sciences, Stanford California), and is used here by permission of Princeton University Press. The frontispiece map is from Richard E. Greenleaf and Michael C. Meyer, eds., Research in Mexican History, Topics, Methodology, Sources, and a Practical Guide to Field Research (copyright © 1973 by the University of Nebraska Press), Lincoln, Nebraska, and is reproduced by permission of the University of Nebraska Press. The map of mining camps is from D. A. Brading, Miners and Merchants in Bourbon Mexico, 1763-1810 (Cambridge University Press, 1971), and is reproduced by permission of Cambridge University Press. My wife, Myrtle Thierry Palmer, followed my research with much interest, read the manuscript, and was an exacting critic at all times. Special thanks are due to Marian Wilson, who typed the manuscript, corrected many of my stylistic inelegancies, and provided important editorial advice and assistance. Of course I accept complete responsibility for the book and any errors it may contain. Unless otherwise noted, all translations are mine. The research for this volume was carried out with the support of the Ibero-American Ford grant of the University of Wisconsin, the government of Jamaica, and the Research Committee of Oakland University. I am grateful for their support. Colin Palmer September 1975

CONTENTS

Introduction

1

1

The Slave Trade

2

The Slave in Mexican Society

3

Slavery in the Ingeniös, the Obrajes, and the Mines

4

Church, State, and Slavery

5

Patterns of Social Control and Resistance

6

Religion and Magic in Mexican Slave Society

7

Toward Freedom Conclusion Appendix

6

167

187 193

Glossary

194

Bibliography Notes

211

Index

231

197

36

84 119 145

TABLES

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16

Licenses to Transport Slaves to Mexico, 1578-1579 11 Slave Ships to the Indies and Mexico, 1595-1622 15 Slaves to the Indies and Mexico, 1595-1622 16 Slaves to the Indies, 1631-1639 18 Size of Crew and Number of Slaves per Ship, 1637 18 Age and Position aboard a Slave Ship, 1637 19 Ethnic Origins of Afro-Mexicans, 1545-1556 21 Ethnic Origins of Afro-Mexicans during the Seventeenth Century 23 Estimate of Slaves to the Indies and Mexico, 1521-1639 28 Estimate of Number of Slaves in Various Parts of the Indies, ca. 1645 29 Spanish and Afro-Mexican Population, ca. 1570 40 Afro-Mexican and Spanish Urban Population, 1570 46 Composition of the Labor Force in the Mines, 1570 76 Composition of the Labor Force in the Mines, 1597 80 Manumissions, Mexico City, 1580-1650 177 Composition of Free Afro-Mexican Population, 1576-1577 179

SLAVES OF THE WHITE G O D Blacks in Mexico, 1570-1650

Introduction In marked contrast to our knowledge of slavery in the nineteenth century, little is known about the experiences of the blacks who were enslaved in the New World during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Consequently, serious students have often generalized about the nature of slavery in the Americas by relying principally on the records of the later centuries. But slavery, wherever it existed, was not a static institution. Slavery in eighteenth-century Mexico was not the same as it had been two hundred years earlier, nor was the institution in nineteenthcentury Cuba a carbon copy of its counterpart in the seventeenth century. The Spaniards were the first of the colonial masters to introduce African slavery into the New World. From its introduction in the early sixteenth century on the island of Hispaniola, the institution spread to Cuba, Mexico, Peru, Puerto Rico, Chile—to all of the colonies of that Iberian power. During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries Mexico and Peru became the two largest importers of slaves, but by the nineteenth century Cuba had begun to occupy first place. In fact, while slavery declined elsewhere in Spanish America during the nineteenth century, it underwent a great expansion in Cuba, particularly before 1850. During these years, sugar had become king in that island and slaves were needed in ever larger numbers to meet the labor demands that could not be met by an almost nonexistent indigenous population. On the mainland, Spain's empire had begun to disintegrate, and the newly independent nations began the gradual process of ending African slavery. Labor services would be performed primarily by the Indian and mestizo populations. The number of slaves that went to Spanish America from the sixteenth

2

Slaves of the White God

to the nineteenth century is still a matter of uncertainty. Philip Curtin has estimated that as many as 1,552,000 arrived during these three centuries.1 Yet even this estimate probably has a wide margin of error given the existence of a brisk traffic in contraband slaves throughout the period. Scattered and incomplete data compound the difficulty in making a reliable calculation. On the basis of my calculations derived from the shipping records in Seville, Mexico received the largest number of slaves sent to Spanish America up to 1640. The introduction of African slaves into Mexico, or New Spain as it was called, was in part a response to the labor shortage stemming from the decline of the indigenous population during the sixteenth century. Spanish mistreatment of the Indians and a number of disastrous epidemics contributed to this demographic catastrophe. The Indians had no natural immunity to such diseases as smallpox, measles, and a species of typhus called matlazähuatl which the conquering Spaniards brought in their entourage. As a consequence, a series of ferocious epidemics struck the land in 1520, 1548, 1576-1579, and 1595-1596. The combined impact of mistreatment and disease on the Indians is reflected in the demographic calculations of Sherburne Cook and Woodrow Borah. According to these scholars, the area of greatest concentration, Central Mexico (roughly an area bordered by the Isthmus of Tehuantepec and the Chichimec frontier), had an estimated population of 27,650,000 in 1519. By 1532 the number of Indians had fallen to about 16,800,000, in 1580 the population stood at 1,900,000, and in 1595 it amounted to 1,375,000. By 1605 a mere 1,075,000 Indians survived.2 Faced with this acute demographic crisis and concerned about the resultant labor shortage and a threatening famine in the last quarter of the sixteenth century, the colonial authorities and the settlers alike looked to black Africa for succor. Unfortunately for the Spaniards, as the Indian population declined, the colonial economy became more complex. Silver mines had been opened as early as 1534 and the cultivation of sugar cane had begun to occupy the energies of the colonists a few years before. Textile workshops would soon be established and cattle ranches and haciendas would begin to proliferate as the century wore on. All of these enterprises required an adequate and dependable labor force for their sustenance. For the Spanish proprietors involved, an unpaid servile labor force was the most desirable. Quite understandably then, as the colonists contemplated the consequences of the demographic debacle of the Indians,

Introduction

3

they convinced themselves that African slaves would have to be imported in large numbers if society as they knew it or wanted it to be were to survive. Thus the increasing labor requirements of colonial economy and society served further to reinforce the dependence on African slaves. The abolition of Indian slavery in 1542 also increased the demand for African slaves. Although colonial society would try, with some success, to circumvent the intent of this act in a variety of ways, no longer could Indians be legally regarded as chattel and hence alienable. The pervasive belief that black Africans were infidels, culturally inferior and probably racially inferior to the Spaniards, served simultaneously as an impetus and as a rationalization for enslaving them. Such beliefs also provided a convenient balm to the Christian conscience of those individuals troubled by doubts concerning the morality of enslaving other human beings who had been accepted into the faith. The introduction, growth, and development of slavery in Mexico may be divided into three main periods. The first began in 1519 when the first slave arrived in the service of the Conquistadores and ended in 1580 after the disastrous epidemic (probably typhus) of the preceding four years had worked terrible havoc on both the Indians and the blacks. The intervening years had seen a gradual increase in the slave population as a consequence of the decline in the Indian population and the growing needs of colonial economy. The second period, 1580-1650, saw a meteoric rise in the demand for slaves and in the actual numbers that arrived. By 1580 the decline of the Indian population had created demonstrably severe problems for the colonial elite, and the colonial authorities accelerated their campaign for more African slaves. The union of the Spanish and Portuguese crowns in 1580 led to a reorganization and an expansion of the slave trade, especially between the years 1595 and 1640. The colonists received a steady supply of slaves throughout this period, but the demand was never satisfied. The final period, 1650 to 1827, when formal emancipation came, was one of steady decline in the extent of the slave trade and in the slave population. During these years, the Indian population began to recover and, together with the ever-growing mixed (mestizo) group, they began to undertake a large proportion of the work which the Africans had been originally imported to do. By the time the institution was abolished, about 200,000 African-born slaves had toiled in the land. In addition,

4

Slaves of the White God

many of their children and their children's children had endured a similar fate. Today, however, few traces remain of the African presence in Mexico. Thus many Mexicans find it difficult to believe that their colonial homeland at one time contained the largest number of slaves in the New World. This study attempts to reconstruct the life of the slave in Mexico during the second period, roughly between 1570 and 1650, when slavery reached its highwater mark in that colony. Throughout the work, the primary focus is on the slave, his conditions of labor, his role in slave society and in the larger society, his interactions with his peers and with Indians, mestizos, and freedmen, his social organizations, and his belief systems. On occasion when I deem it to be significant, I shall make references to circumstances and conditions existing before 1570 and, to a lesser extent, to events after 1650. One obviously cannot discuss the period 1570-1650 in a vacuum. Much of the developments after 1570, for example, had their roots in the preceding fifty years. Although this book is based on a substantial collection of hitherto unused documents in Mexico and Seville, I make no claim for it as a definitive study of such a complex part of the black experience in this hemisphere. Many more questions than those asked in this study remain to be answered. Our experience regarding the continuing vibrant debate on the nature of slavery in the various parts of the New World should also make us wary of making any claims to interpretive infallibility. Nor should one be presumptuous enough to claim that all facets of the slaves' experience can be reconstructed in any one monograph. As historians continue to probe the nature of the slaves' story and ask different and sometimes more sophisticated questions, it is becoming increasingly evident that the life of these individuals, like that of others in society, was quite varied and complex and does not lend itself to easy and dogmatic generalizations. Essentially, then, I have included in this book a series of intensive studies of selected topics relating to the early black experience in Mexico. Readers will perforce find gaps in my narrative which only further research can fill. There are a number of problems confronting the historian who is researching the history of slavery in Mexico. The slaves left no written records which would illuminate their unique experiences. There are no narratives to demonstrate the slaves' reaction to and perception of their life situation, as there are in the United States. Only a few of the travelers to colonial Mexico bothered to make even superficial observances on the

Introduction

5

condition of the slave population. In addition, the further back in time one goes, the less accessible and readable the records become. Some of the documents written by the Spaniards are faded, damaged, or difficult to decipher. And, finally, the documentation is often fragmentary and incomplete. Our understanding of slavery in the Spanish colonies has been distorted by an overreliance on the view that the Spanish legal code, the Siete Partidas, which gave to slaves certain rights and privileges, mirrored the nature of slavery in the colonies. In general, too much credence has been given to the liberality of the measures relative to slavery contained in the Siete Partidas. Conversely, historians have not stressed the infinitely more repressive legislation enacted by the men on the spot, the colonists themselves. Such slave codes reveal more about the legal status of the slaves and the masters' perception of them than the measures of the Siete Partidas, which were designed for Spanish society where the social conditions were quite different. In Chapter 4 of this work I shall demonstrate the minimal impact which the Spanish code had on the operation of the Mexican slave system. One of the trends in recent scholarship has been the use of a comparative framework to analyze slavery in the New World. This study, however, makes few comparisons with the institution in other parts of Spanish America because I feel that too little is known about the operation of other slave systems to make such comparison meaningful. Except for Cuba and Peru, the empirical data to support such comparisons do not yet exist in any abundance. In any case, comparisons are hardly worthwhile in view of the scant attention that has so far been paid to the varieties of slavery within each colony and the changes that took place over time. The study of the black experience in this hemisphere is still in its formative stages. Nowhere is this observation more true than in the Spanish colonies and in Brazil. It is not even generally recognized that the number of Africans that served in these societies far exceeded that which came to the United States. This neglect of the history of the black man in Latin America should not be particularly surprising, however, since the African contribution to the United States had also been largely ignored until quite recently. The time has obviously now come to fill in this lacuna in our knowledge.

CHAPTER 1

The Slave Trade The Spaniards who defeated the Indians and colonized Mexico were not unfamiliar with the institution of slavery. Slavery had been a feature of Spanish life since the Roman occupation. Yet in essence it was not the kind of racial slavery which came to characterize the servitude of the African peoples in the Americas. Spanish slaves were generally captives taken in war and people enslaved for their religious beliefs. Accordingly, those slaves included such diverse groups as Jews, Turks, and Moors. As slaves, black Africans did not become a significant part of Spanish society until the late fifteenth century. They had, however, been brought to Spain in small numbers prior to that time. Most of them had accompanied merchants returning from trading expeditions in the Trans-Sahara. During the fifteenth century, Portuguese explorations and discoveries on the African coast initiated the slave trade between Africa and Europe on a wider scale. In 1479 the Spaniards, in tacit recognition of Portuguese supremacy in the trade, signed the Treaty of Alcatovas which granted Portugal the right to supply Spain with African slaves. By the turn of the sixteenth century, Lisbon and Seville had emerged as the two most important trading centers for African slaves in Europe. There are no comprehensive figures available regarding the number of slaves in Spain during the sixteenth century. In 1565 there were 6,327 slaves in Seville out of a total populaion of 85,538. Although the majority of these slaves were probably Africans, this number also included Moors and Moriscos. 1 Antonio Dominguez Ortiz speculates that there were about 100,000 human beings of slave status in Spain at this time. These slaves were concentrated chiefly in Seville, Cadiz, Malaga, Cartagena, and Granada. Areas of lesser concentration included

The Slave Trade

7

Valencia and Catalufia. There were even fewer slaves in Aragon, a situation which led one friar to observe that "in the coastal areas there are many slaves, but in this kingdom hardly any." In the central provinces of the north the number of slaves was negligible.2 African slaves played a prominent part in Spanish life and customs. For example, they were admitted to the sacraments of the Church and were eligible for burial in the parish cemeteries. In Seville, Africans formed cofradias (religious brotherhoods), which participated in the colorful religious processions that took place each year. In the absence of large-scale agricultural enterprises, slaves were used principally as household workers, garbage collectors, nursemaids, and porters. 3 Others were employed in the galleys and the mines, perhaps the most physically demanding of the tasks they had to perform. The consensus among historians is that slavery in Spain was not as physically demanding as it later became in the New World. In view of the existence of black slaves in Spain, it is not at all surprising that Spaniards in the New World looked to Africa as a source of labor once the need arose. It is generally believed that the first black man came to the Americas as a member of the second expedition of Christopher Columbus in 1493." He was apparently a free person. African slavery, however, was not introduced into the New World until 1501. In granting their approval in that year, the Catholic rulers, Ferdinand and Isabella, cautioned Nicolas de Ovando, the newly appointed governor of Hispaniola, not to "give permission to come there Moors, nor Jews, nor heretics, nor reconcilables, nor persons newly converted to our faith, except if they are negro slaves or other slaves born in the power of Christians, our subjects and natives." 5 As this order demonstrated, the crown wanted to supervise carefully the kinds of people who sailed for the Indies in a servile capacity. Ferdinand and Isabella especially wanted to protect the newly Christianized Indians from contaminating religious influences. In this regard, the Wolofs (Gelofes) from Guinea, who had embraced Islam, were the slaves to be most systematically excluded from the colonies. Once formal permission was granted for the introduction of African slaves in the Indies, it proved difficult to reverse the decision. On February 13, 1502, Ovando, acting in accordance with royal approval, sailed for Hispaniola in the company of a number of slaves. In September of that year, Juan Sanchez and Alonso Bravo received a license to transport slaves to that colony. 6 Yet the early introduction of slaves was not

8

Slaves of the White God

without its difficulties. Slaves soon developed the habit of fleeing from their masters to inaccessible areas from which they launched attacks on the Spaniards, often acting in concert with the Indians. Consequently, in 1503, in response to an appeal from Ovando, the crown decided to terminate the slave trade to the Indies. But this cessation of the slave trade was short-lived. The overwhelming desire of the Spaniards for material prosperity eventually dictated a return to African slave labor, the menace of runaway slaves notwithstanding. Thus in 1505 the crown informed Ovando that sixteen slaves had been dispatched for labor in the copper mines. Ovando himself seemed to have conquered his fears, for later that year he submitted a request for additional slaves, a request that King Ferdinand promised to honor. Because of the increasing demand, the number of slaves sent to the island multiplied. On February 14, 1510, the king empowered the Casa de Contratacion (House of Trade) in Seville to send 50 slaves immediately to Hispaniola, and up to 200 later, to alleviate the labor shortage. Later that year the king decreed that African slave labor be substituted for that of the Indians, since the latter were "weak and of little strength." From then onward, this dubious argument served as one of the principal rationalizations for importing more and more African slaves to replace the Indians. It is apparent, however, that the mortality rate was high; in 1511 the king was moved to admonish an official in Hispaniola that "I do not understand how so many negroes have died. Care well for them." 7 Despite this evidence of high mortality among the slave population, in time the institution of slavery spread to the islands of Cuba, Jamaica, and Puerto Rico. As the years passed, powerful and influential voices in the Indies added their weight to the growing clamor among the colonists for more slaves. In 1516 the famous Dominican friar, Bartolome de las Casas, blamed the decline of the Indian population on "too much work" and "bad treatment" by the Spaniards. He argued that the salvation of the Indian peoples depended on the substitution of "black and white" slave labor for Indian labor. As this recommendation suggests, Las Casas at that time made no distinction, at least theoretically, between the enslavement of blacks and whites. It should have been clear to the friar, however, that enslavement was becoming increasingly the lot of the blacks and that the burden would fall heaviest on that race were his sug-

The Slave Trade

9

gestion adopted. Las Casas' deep and abiding love, respect, and concern for the Indians probably blinded him to that eventuality. In 1517 the good friar explicitly asked the Spanish authorities to send twelve black slaves to Hispaniola to relieve the Indians. In that same year, nine other Dominicans recommended sending blacks to the Indies as slaves. The Hieronymite friars went a step further in 1517 and again in 1518 when they asked that unacculturated, non-Spanish-speaking blacks or negros bozales be transported directly from Africa to meet the demand for labor in Hispaniola and Puerto Rico.8 Since the inception of the slave trade to the Indies, slaves had been shipped to Spain first and then transshipped to their destination in the New World. The pressure on the crown for permission to import more slaves remained unabated in 1518. During the first few days of the new year, some Spaniards in Hispaniola dispatched a petition to the crown for more slaves. In presenting the petition, Friar Bernardino de Manzanedo stressed that negros bozales would be particularly welcome. On January 18, friars Luis de Figueroa and Alonso de Santo Domingo also supported the introduction of bozales in a letter to the crown. Lending his support to these petitions, Alonso Zuazo, a magistrate, argued with hyperbole that "this land is the best that there is in the world for negroes, for the women, for the old men, [and] it is a great marvel when one sees any of these people die." 9 Charles V responded to these petitions by awarding a large number of individual licenses for transporting slaves to Hispaniola and Cuba. The number of slaves varied in each license, but none seems to have exceeded ten. In all cases, the crown added its customary stipulation that the slaves be baptized before their arrival in the Indies. The year 1518 was crucial in two respects for the development of the slave trade to the Indies. It was in that year that the crown introduced the asiento or monopoly system for delivering slaves to its New World empire. Two royal favorites, Don Jorge de Portugal and Lorenzo de Gouvenot ο Gavorrod (a Flemish trader), received contracts to deliver 400 and 4,000 slaves, respectively. 10 Awarding a large asiento, it must be stressed, did not mean, in practice, that other traders were rigidly excluded. Over the years, the crown reserved and exercised the discretionary right to grant smaller individual licenses to other traders as the need arose. The second significant occurrence in 1518 was that the crown finally allowed the direct importation of slaves from Africa to the New World. This concession represented a major victory for those who

10

Slaves of the White God

wanted to expedite the process whereby slaves could be obtained. No longer would slaves have to go through Spain before arriving at the mines, plantations, and households of the Indies. When Fernando Cortes left Cuba to conquer Mexico in 1519, therefore, the basic machinery for importing slaves to the Indies had been established. Mexico, by virtue of its size and economic potential, would become one of the chief beneficiaries of the contracts issued to the traders. Such was the case in 1528 when the crown granted monopoly rights to two German traders, Heinrich Ehinger and Hieronymus Seiller, to deliver 4,000 slaves to the Indies over a four-year period. 11 It is not known how many of these slaves went to Mexico, although it was one of the colonies which manifested an increasing demand for slaves at this time and a corresponding unhappiness over the calibre of the slaves received. The vociferous complaints from the colonists over the poor quality of the incoming slaves and the high prices at which they were sold prompted the crown to cease temporarily its award of major asiento contracts. By 1531 it had returned to the earlier practice of awarding simultaneously a series of licenses to individuals to provide the colonists with a given number of slaves. 12 The Archivo de Indias in Seville is the principal repository of the records of these individual licenses. Some of them, usually duplicate copies, are located in the Archivo General de la Nacion in Mexico City. Unfortunately, no detailed and comprehensive analysis of them has been made. A partial examination reveals that there was significant variation in the number of slaves the traders were permitted to carry. Some traders received permission to deliver as many as 3,000 slaves, while others contracted to carry as few as 10 or 12. It is not always possible to determine from the records the ultimate destination of these slaves, for the licenses often indicate only that permission was granted to convey a given number of slaves "to the Indies." Thus in 1559 Manuel Caldera received a license to deliver 300 slaves "to the Indies," and in 1564 Luis Colon signed a similarly worded contract. Likewise, in 1583 Alvaro Menendez de Castro obtained a license to transport 3,000 slaves "to the Indies" over a five-year period. 13 Other licenses required the trader to deliver some of his slaves to a specific port; the remainder he could dispose of at will. In 1541 one trader received permission to carry 2,000 slaves to Santo Domingo and "other parts." Nine years later, in 1550, a second trader's license stipulated that he deliver 100 slaves to New Spain and "to the Indies." 14 Variation in

The Slave Trade

11

these contracts allowed some traders to sell their slaves in two specifically named ports. There was usually no mention of the number to be sold in each port. In 1579 one trader contracted to deliver 1,000 slaves to New Spain and Honduras. In that same year another trader was required to convey 221 slaves to Guatemala and Honduras.15 Sometimes the destination of the slaves was clearly stated in the licenses. In 1548 one trader assumed a contract to deliver 84 slaves to Cartagena, and in 1574 another trader contracted to transport 459 slaves to Hispaniola.16 During the years 1578 and 1579, at least seventeen traders received contracts to sell slaves in New Spain. In 1578 five licenses were issued to transport 417 slaves to that colony, and in 1579 twelve individuals contracted to deliver 1,004 slaves. (See Table 1.) In awarding licenses, the authorities were generally careful to stipulate that two-thirds of the slaves be male and the remaining third female. A preference for slaves between the ages of fifteen and twenty-six was often expressed. Slaves who fell within this category would obviously be enjoying their physically most productive years. In addition to those individuals who obtained contracts to trade in slaves, there were several men in New Spain who received licenses to import slaves specifically for their plantations or haciendas or mines. These men tended to be either prominent colonists or individuals occupying important bureaucratic positions. Thus in 1533, the adelantado (governor of a frontier province), Francisco de Montejo, obtained a license to take 100 slaves to the Yucatan to work in his mines. Two years later, in 1535, the royal accountant, Rodrigo de Albornoz, received a license to import 100 slaves to work on his sugar plantations and other farms. 17 In his turn, Fernando Cortes in 1542 signed a contract with Leonardo Lomelin, a Genoese trader, to supply his haciendas with 500 slaves between the ages of fifteen and twenty-six.18 And to cite a final Table 1. Licenses to Transport Slaves to Mexico, 1578-1579.

Year

No. of licenses

No. of slaves per license

1578 1579

5 12

100, 39, 43, 82, 153, 25, 50, 61, 50, 200, 264, 71, 4, 8 , 1 2 6 , 1 1 , 1 3 4

Source:

Archivo General de Indias, Indiferente General, 2766.

Total 417 1,004

12

Slaves of the White God

example, Francisco de Ayala, the chief constable of Vera Cruz, received approval to import 25 slaves in 1581.19 The union of the Spanish and Portuguese crowns in 1580 greatly facilitated expansion of the slave trade to the Indies. The Portuguese up to this time had monopolized the slave trade from Africa through their control of a network of forts on the African coast. Needless to say, the Spaniards found quite unpalatable their dependence on the Portuguese for the slaves they needed. Spanish officials disliked the fact that silver from their New World possessions eventually found its way into Portuguese coffers as payment for slaves. When Philip II of Spain inherited the Portuguese crown in 1580, therefore, Spain found herself for the first time in a position to exercise some direct influence and control over the conduct of the trade. Although the dynastic union did not lead to a merger of the two bureaucracies, the Spaniards began to wield, nevertheless, considerable influence over the shaping and formulation of Portugal's imperial policies. As far as the slave trade was concerned, Spain attempted to reorganize and improve its terms and conduct in her favor. In the initial phase of the reorganization, the Spanish authorities issued a series of new contracts to the traders, waiving the traditional license and, instead, collecting a proportion—one-fourth to one-third—of the selling price of each slave in the Indies. This experiment failed when colonists voiced protests about the tardiness in the arrival of the slave ships and the high prices asked for the slaves. 20 Partly in response to these protests, and partly in an attempt to exercise increasingly closer control over the trade, the crown ultimately reverted to the asiento system. During the period 1595-1640, the crown signed six major contracts with Portuguese slave traders. In 1595 Pedro Gomez Reynel signed a contract to deliver 4,250 slaves annually to the Indies until a maximum of 38,250 was reached. In order to receive this asiento, Reynel had to pay the crown a total of 900,000 ducats over a nine-year period. In the execution of his contract, the asentista could employ the services of a number of agents or factors in Africa as well as in the Indies. The contract only required that such factors be either Spaniards or Portuguese. It was left to Reynel to determine his source of supply, although such potential areas as Angola, Mina, Cape Verde, Säo Thome, and Guinea were mentioned in the contract. In the Americas the contract provided that slaves were to be delivered to all colonies with the exception of Tierra Firme and Buenos Aires. But since it did not trust traders to distribute the slaves

The Slave Trade

13

equitably, the crown reserved the right to determine the ultimate destination of 2,000 slaves annually. Reynel carried out his contractual obligations for a few years, but the contract was eventually terminated after allegations of smuggling and other irregularities had been leveled against him and his factors. 21 In 1601 the crown awarded a second asiento to Joio Rodrigues Coutinho for the delivery to the Indies of a similar number of slaves as in the Reynel contract. As in the previous contract, the crown reserved the right to determine the allocation of 2,000 slaves annually to certain areas, based on their needs. The figures are interesting for what they reveal about the projected annual demand for slave labor in each colony. Of the 2,000 slaves, 200 were to be distributed to Honduras, 600 to Hispaniola, Cuba, and Puerto Rico, 500 to the provinces of Santa Marta, Rio de la Hacha, isla Margarita, Cumanä, and Venezuela, and 700 to Mexico. 22 Coutinho died before his contract's termination, but his brother Gonzalo Väez Coutinho assumed the responsibility for its execution. Among the contracts signed in later years was one with Antonio Fernandes d'Elvas on September 26, 1615. This asiento required d'Elvas to deliver a maximum of 3,500 slaves annually to the Indies over a period of eight years. For this privilege, d'Elvas had to pay an annual fee of 115,000 ducats. In execution of his contract, d'Elvas delivered, before his death in 1622, 30,611 slaves between May 1615 and October 1622.23 In 1623 a new contract was signed with Manuel Rodriguez Lamego. The terms of this agreement were similar to those signed by d'Elvas, except that Lamego paid an annual fee of 120,000 ducats. The contract was to terminate on April 30, 1630.24 At the cessation of this contract, the crown, on September 25, 1631, signed a new asiento with Melchor Gomez Angel and Cristobal Mendoz de Sossa to deliver 2,500 slaves annually to the New World in return for an annual payment of 95,000 ducats. These asentistas had delivered a total of 19,000 slaves by the time their contract terminated in 1639. 25 This was the last asiento to be granted for a number of years, for in 1640 the union between the Spanish and Portuguese crowns was dissolved, and the later development of the trade is beyond the scope of this study. Some of the records of slave shipments to the Indies are preserved in the Archivo de Indias in Seville. They show the dates on which the ships departed from Spanish ports, the number of slaves that each ship was registered to carry, as well as the port of destination in the Indies. The cargoes were registered as piezas de Indias, not as individual slaves. A

14

Slaves of the White God

pieza was the proverbial ideal or standard slave, generally a young man in good physical condition. Other slaves, depending on age, sex, and physical condition, formed proportional parts of the pieza. Accordingly, the number of piezas listed on the records gave only a rough approximation of the number of individual slaves that would be carried to the Indies. Beginning in 1595 with the Reynel contract, most ships were dispatched to Cartagena, Havana, Rio de la Plata, and New Spain. The ports of Cartagena and Rio de la Plata served as important entrepots in the trade. Slaves destined for Cartagena were usually bound for such places as New Granada, Chile, Peru, the West Indies, and even Brazil. Shipments of slaves to Rio de la Plata eventually went to Uruguay, Paraguay, Argentina, and Bolivia. Table 2 gives a breakdown of the number and ports of destination of the registered slavers between 1595 and 1622. It reveals that during these years 689 ships sailed for the Indies and that of this total 322, or 46.7 percent, went to Mexico. Of the remaining ships, the majority docked at Cartagena, Havana, and Rio de la Plata. 26 The first two decades of the seventeenth century witnessed a significant increase in the number of slaves arriving in Mexico. This was a direct consequence of the great and sustained demand for additional labor resulting from the precipitous decline of the Indian population. For, by 1605, according to Cook and Borah, the Indian population of Central Mexico had fallen to less than 2,000,000, quite a change from the 27,000,000 it was estimated to be in 1519. Table 3 estimates the yearly shipment of slaves to the Indies in general and to Mexico in particular, compiled from the shipping records of the Casa de Contratacion in Seville for the years 1595-1622. It shows that of the estimated 104,205 slaves who sailed for the Indies, 50,525, or 48.48 percent, went to Mexico. As Figure 1 demonstrates, the peak years were 1606, 1608, 1609, 1610, and 1616-1621, years when the trade was probably more effectively organized. The years 1611-1615 represented the low point of the trade. There was no asiento contract signed during this time, since prospective traders balked at accepting some of the restrictive conditions which the Spaniards attempted to include in the contracts. The estimated 238 slaves who sailed for Mexico during this four-year period, therefore, went as the property of private individuals who had received royal approval to introduce them into the colony. 27 It is impossible to give a statistically reliable estimate of the number of

The Slave Trade Table 2.

Year 1595 1596 1597 1598 1599 1600 1601 1602 1603 1604 1605 1606 1607 1608 1609 1610 1611 1612 1613 1614 1615 1616 1617 1618 1619 1620 1621 1622 Total

15

Slave Ships to the Indies and Mexico, 1595-1622. Total ships to the Indies 33 39 36 42 31 39 27 36 6 20 8 40 3 52 57 21 3 0 0 0 1 32 15 19 48 28 36 17 689

Total ships to Mexico

Percent to Mexico

4 1 8 13 8 17 9 15 3 10 3 20 2 15 38 19 0 0 0 0 0 23 11 15 39 22 21 6 322

12.12 2.56 22.22 30.95 25.80 43.58 33.33 41.66 50.00 50.00 37.50 50.00 66.66 28.84 66.66 90.47 00.00 0 0 0 0 71.87 73.33 78.94 81.25 78.57 58.33 35.29 46.73

Source: Archivo General de Indias, Contratacion, 5758, 5766. slaves that went to New Spain between 1 6 2 3 and 1640. The surviving shipping records merely list Cartagena or New Spain as the slaves' destination, without indicating specifically which area was the ultimate shipping point. This policy was initiated in order to conduct a closer surveillance of the ships, thereby reducing the opportunities for trading in contraband slaves. O n the basis of the asiento awarded to Lamego,

16

Slaves of the White

Table 3.

Year 1595 1596 1597 1598 1599 1600 1601 1602 1603 1604 1605 1606 1607 1608 1609 1610 1611 1612 1613 1614 1615 1616 1617 1618 1619 1620 1621 1622 Total

God

Slaves to the Indies and Mexico, 1595-1622. Total slaves to the Indies 6,081 6,440 5,541 6,374 4,298 5,628 3,291 3,759 624 1,891 658 6,482 401 9,640 9,180 3,320 362 17 40 61 164 5,354 3,058 3,187 8,455 4,037 3,637 2,225 104,205

Total slaves to Mexico

Percent to Mexico

1,018 78 1,960 2,103 1,257 2,619 1,431 1,571 272 1,025 248 3,262 320 2,970 6,271 3,020 0 16 28 34 160 3,412 2,522 2,419 6,487 2,989 2,155 878 50,525

16.74 1.21 35.37 32.99 29.24 46.53 43.48 41.79 43.58 54.20 37.68 50.32 79.80 30.80 68.31 90.96 00.00 94.11 70.00 52.73 91.95 63.72 82.47 75.90 76.72 74.04 59.25 39.46 48.48

Source: Archivo General de Indias, Contratacion, 5758, 5766. however, it m a y be assumed that he delivered at least 2 8 , 0 0 0 slaves to the Indies during the period 1623-1630, an annual average of 3 , 5 0 0 slaves. 2 8 For the period covered by the Angel and Sossa contract, 1631-1639, data compiled from the shipping records reveal that 1 9 , 0 0 0 slaves were delivered during its duration. Table 4 gives a breakdown of the annual delivery. The ships that transported the slaves were quite small,

averaging

The Slave Trade

17

Year

SLAVES TO MEXICO, 1 5 9 5 - 1 6 2 2

around 118 tons, with each ton providing a capacity of approximately 2.8 cubic meters.29 Most of these ships were registered to carry between 120 and 200 slaves, but traders packed as many as 400 or 500 in them.30 Some of the larger ships were licensed to transport between 250 and 300 slaves, while smaller ships carried as few as 50 and 60. 31 Similarly, the size of the crew varied. An analysis of the registers of the ships departing between 1631 and 1639 reveals that the number of crewmen varied between fourteen and thirty-two. The size of the crew was obviously proportional to the size of the ship and the number of piezas it carried. Table 5, compiled from the registers for the year 1637, is typical. Prior to its departure, each ship was required to register the number of

18

Slaves of the White

Table 4.

God

Slaves to the Indies, 1631-1639.

Year

No. of slaves

1631 1632 1633 1634 1635 1636 1637 1638 1639 Total Source:

204 1,462 1,268 1,530 5,129 2,956 2,951 2,498 1,002 19,000 Archivo General de Indias, Contratacion, 5766.

its crew, their functions aboard ship, their ages, and a general description of each man. The ships were given a variety of names, such as San Francisco, Rosario, San Antonio, San Pedro, and La Esperanza. Most of the crew were between the ages of twenty and forty, although occasionally some were as old as sixty. In addition, boys in their teens, at times as young as fourteen, were used as pages and cabin boys. One ship departing in 1637 listed its crew as shown in Table 6. Table 5. Year

Source:

Size of Crew and Number of Slaves per Ship, 1637. Number of piezas

Size of crew

130 150 141 150 120 150 150 250 130 140 145 165

15 19 17 28 16 16 18 32 17 17 24 19

Archivo General de Indias, Contratacion, seccion segunda, 2894.

The Slave Trade Table 6.

19

Age and Position aboard a Slave Ship, 1637. Position

Number

Age

Captain Pilot Clerk Sailors

1 1 1

Apprentices Cabin boys Contramaestre (person in charge of military affairs)

3 2

25 40 24 25, 28, 30, 30, 32, 35, 60 19,19, 20 15,12 36

7

1

Source: Archivo General de Indias, Contratacion, seccion segunda, 2894.

Some ships carried a doctor; other took along such skilled individuals as carpenters and artillerymen. One ship listed two black slaves among its crew as sailors' apprentices. The individual descriptions of the crew make interesting reading: one man was described as "tall in body, white face, with a chestnut-colored beard"; another had "a good body and a blond beard"; a third had "a good body and a black beard"; while a fourth was noted for his "gapped teeth." 32 In addition to listing the crews and their functions, the ships were required to describe whatever equipment they carried and the amount of food on board. The authorities believed that this requirement would serve to eliminate, or at least reduce, the smuggling of trade goods into the Indies. One ship with a crew of thirty-two and a registration for 250 piezas de Indias listed the following items in its cargo: four anchors, several lanterns and lamps, 20 quintales of gunpowder, various types of artillery and other weapons, 100 quintales of "ordinary biscuits," 30 quintales of "white biscuits," 6 quintales of codfish, 2 quintales of rice, 24 botijas (jugs) of wine, 50 botijas of vinegar, and 600 botijas of water. 33 It is not clear from the record whether this food supply was designed to last the entire voyage from Spain to Africa and then to the Indies. Quite likely, extra supplies were obtained in Africa. Since African beans and maize formed a major part of the slaves' diet on the ships, it seems reasonable to conclude that these provisions were obtained in Africa. In the contractual relationship between the crown and the traders, the crown received a tax payment on every license. At the outset of the trade, the crown had extracted the payment of two ducats per head from

20

Slaves of the White God

the recipient of each license. By 1528 this tax had risen to five ducats; in 1552 it stood at eight; and in 1561 it was increased to thirty. 34 In addition to the license fee, beginning in 1563 traders were required to pay a convoy tax of twenty ducats for each slave. Traders also had to pay a sales tax, the almojarifazgo, on the total value of their merchandise. In 1522 this tax was put at 7.5 percent of the value of the goods, but in 1566 it was increased to 10 percent if paid in Mexico and reduced to 5 percent if paid in Seville. In 1595 the crown imposed a new tax, known as the aduanilla, which required traders to pay a fixed rate of twenty reales on each slave. 35 The unavoidable result of these various taxes was an inflation of the selling price of slaves in the Indies. The Africans who were transported to New Spain hailed from a variety of ethnic groups located principally in West Africa, Central Africa, and to a lesser extent in southern Africa. During the first decades of the trade in the sixteenth century, the slaves from West Africa came from an area roughly corresponding to contemporary Guinea-Bissau and Senegambia. This general area was called Guinea of Cape Verde by the Portuguese. Slaves coming from this region enjoyed a favorable reputation in the Indies for their alleged docility and trustworthiness. From Senegambia came such ethnic groups as the Tukulor, the Wolof, and the Malinke. Those from Guinea-Bissau included the Kassanga, the Bram, the Banyun, and the Biafada. The coast of Sierra Leone produced the Landuma, the Baga, and the Temne peoples, while Central and southern Africa contributed the Bakongo peoples to the trade. In a representative sample of 196 African-born Afro-Mexicans for the years 1545-1556, it was found that 80.1 percent originated in the regions of Senegambia and GuineaBissau, 0.5 percent in North Africa, and 12.3 percent in other parts of West Africa. The remaining 7.1 percent hailed from Central and southern Africa. Table 7 illustrates these findings. 36 The seventeenth century saw a significant shift in the ethnic composition of the Mexican slaves. In that century, the majority of slaves hailed from Central Africa, principally from Angola and the Congo. This shift was in part a consequence of English, Dutch, and French challenges to the Portuguese monopoly on the Guinea coast. The Portuguese responded to this development by moving southwards in quest of cheaper slaves, since the competition had resulted in an increase in the price of the available slaves in the Senegambia-Guinea-Bissau region. 37 In a more fundamental sense, however, the change in ethnic composition of the slaves was a direct consequence of the increasingly aggresive penetration

The Slave Trade Table 7.

21

Ethnic Origins of Afro-Mexicans, 1545-1556.

Sixteenth-century nomenclature

Number of slaves

North Africa Zafi Senegambia & Guinea-Bissau Gelofe Cazanga Tucuxuy Mandinga Berbesi Biafara Bran Bafiol Other West Africa Zape

1 1 157 27 4 1 14 15 41 42 13 24 15

Terra Nova

4

Gio Säo Thome

1 4

Central & southern Africa Manicongo Mozambique Total

14 12 2 196

Percent 0.5 80.1

12.2

7.2

100.0

Modern nomenclature and area

Safi, Morocco Wolof (Senegal) Kassanga (Casamance & Guinea-Bissau) Tukulor (Senegal Valley) Malinke (Gambia Valley) Serer (Senegal) Biafada (Guinea-Bissau) Bram (Guinea-Bissau) Banyun (Guinea-Bissau) Landuma, Baga, Temne (coastal Sierra Leone) Probably eastern Guinea Coast Gyo (Liberia) A shipping point for slaves from the Congo-Angola region and from Dahomey-southern Nigeria Bakongo (lower Congo Valley) Southeastern Africa

Source: Gonzalo Aguirre Beiträn, La poblacion negra de Mexico, 1519-1810, 2nd ed. (Mexico, 1972), p. 240. Peter Boyd-Bowman, "Negro Slaves in Early Colonial Mexico," The Americas, 26 (October 1969), 134-151. Philip Curtin, The Atlantic Slave Trade: A Census (Madison, 1969), p. 98. of Angola by the Portuguese and the resulting social chaos and political disintegration of the country. These circumstances produced greater opportunities for the capture of slaves for the market. Between 1615 and 1640 an average of three out of every four slavers listed Angola as their destination. 3 8 Slaves shipped from Angola originated in the hinterland of Luanda, while those from the Congo were drawn principally from the

22

Slaves of the White God

Bakongo peoples. Other ethnic groups represented included the Lala from Cameroon and Gabon and the Tio from Congo-Brazzaville. In a study of 402 African-born slaves in the seventeenth century, Aguirre Belträn found that 20.9 percent came from West Africa, comprising such peoples as the Wolof, the Bram, and the Biafada. Of the remainder, an incredibly high 75.4 percent originated in Central Africa, drawn principally from the Congo and Angola. A minuscule 3.7 percent came from Southeastern Africa,39 as Table 8 shows. It is possible to establish the ethnic origin of some of the Mexican slaves by consulting the bills of sale, which were required to carry information regarding the ethnic origin, age, and sex of the slaves sold. There were, however, some slaves for whom no such records existed; for example, slaves who entered New Spain illegally. To avoid paying the burdensome taxes, some traders resorted to smuggling. Others evaded the requirement of a royal license with its tax on slave shipments. Consequently, as early as 1530 Emperor Charles V forbade the carrying of slaves to the Indies without prior receipt of a license from the Casa de Contratacion.40 The appropriate authorities in Spain and the Indies were enjoined to see that this order was enforced. The substance of this order was reaffirmed in 1543, 1550, and again in 1604 and 1607. In 1557 the crown stipulated that royal officials in the Indies should inspect all incoming slavers as a guarantee that the laws were being upheld. In addition, all slavers were required to state on their registers the purposes of their voyage and to give a description of their cargo. Unlicensed cargo, including slaves, would be confiscated.41 The efforts of the crown to ensure obedience to the laws were not always successful. Traders resorted to ingenious methods to elude the authorities. For instance, a trader would register a small ship with the Casa and later transfer to a larger one, which would of course hold more slaves. This practice was prohibited by a royal order of 1601, but no doubt such evasions continued. Other traders falsified their records or pretended when they arrived in the Indies that their registers had been lost at sea.42 There is also evidence that some traders transferred slaves from one ship to anothier while awaiting inspection in the ports of the Indies, thereby escaping charges of carrying too many slaves.43 A ship bound for New Spain or Cartagena sometimes sold, with official connivance, its excess slaves in one of the island ports like Jamaica prior to the mandatory official inspection in its port of final call. Captains and other ship's officers would also take Africans on board under the pretext that they were members of the crew and then offer them for sale as slaves in the Indies.

The Slave Trade Table 8.

Ethnic Origins of Afro-Mexicans during the Seventeenth Century.

Seventeenth-century nomenclature West Africa Guinea (unspecified) Gelofe Caboverde Berbesi Bran Biafara Banol Xoxo Arara

Number of slaves 84 22 3 2

1 1 14 9 6 1 2

Central Africa Lunga

303 1

Anchico

1 271

Congo

24

Mozambique Zozo

1 1 2 15 7

Wolof (Senegal) Wolof (Senegal) Probably Lebu (probably Upper Guinea) Serer (Senegal) Bram (Guinea-Bissau) Biafada (Guinea-Bissau) Banyun (Guinea-Bissau) Susu (Guinea-Conakry) Fon, and related peoples (coastal Dahomey) Akan, (Gold Coast) Bissago (Guinea-Bissau) Entrepot station Ardra (coastal Dahomey) Kalahari (eastern Nigeria) Eastern Guinea coast Temne, Landuma & related peoples (Sierra Leone) 75.4 North of the Congo mouth, coastal peoples Tio or Teke, Congo-Brazzaville Sorongo, Bakongo subgroup Shipping point, hinterland of Luanda Bakongo and other groups from the lower Congo River basin Benguela, shipping point Upper Kwango Lala (Cameroon, Gabon) 3.7 Probably Nguni (Cape & Natal) Southeastern Africa Xhosa (Cape Province, South Africa)

7 1 402

Modern nomenclature and area

20.9

2

Longo Angola

Banguela Matamba Balala Southeastern Africa Cafre

Percent

1 8 5 2 1 6

Mina Bioho Säo Thome Arda Carabali Terra Nova Zape

Total

23

100.0

Source: Conzalo Aguirre Beiträn, La poblaciön negra de Mexico, 1519-1810, 2nd ed. (Mexico, 1972), p. 241. Philip Curtin, The Atlantic Slave Trade: A Census (Madison, 1969), p. 113.

24

Slaves of the White God

Successful evasion of the law not only cost the crown its revenue but affected the profits of the licensed traders. Indeed, the asentista, Antonio Fernandes d'Elvas, who kept up an active campaign against contraband traders, complained that dealers who paid no tax undersold legitimate traders in the markets of the Indies. 44 There are indications that fraudulent traders were occasionally caught. In 1594 two traders were accused of carrying to New Spain 31 slaves in excess of the 120 allowed by their register. 45 Inspection of other ships in 1598 revealed the existence of similar violations. Three ships, all belonging to the same trader, were examined in Vera Cruz. One, the Nuestra Senora de la Esperanza, registered for 150 slaves, was found to be carrying 54 more than its quota. A second ship, the Nuestra Senora de la Conception, carried 20 slaves above the 165 listed on her records. The third ship, the Nuestra Senora de Loreto, carried 166 slaves instead of the 150 that she was allowed. 46 It is a reasonable assumption that these ships left their African port of origin with far more slaves than these figures show, since it was normal for some slaves to die en route to the Indies. In 1621 the authorities in Vera Cruz reported the arrival of a slaver without a register which carried over 300 slaves, a large number of them being children aged seven and eight. 47 To make matters worse, the cargo was reported to be suffering from an outbreak of measles. It is not clear what punishment was meted out to traders convicted of these violations. Since only a few traders were actually accused of smuggling, royal orders notwithstanding, the local authorities must have closed their eyes to infractions of the law. Colonial bureaucrats were notorious for their venality. In one of its periodic pronouncements, the crown denounced official connivance with the traders. 48 It is quite apparent that some of the top bureaucrats were less than enthusiastic about a rigid application of the law. Such was the case of Viceroy Luis de Velasco, who complained to the crown in May 1591 that so far that year only one slaver had entered the port of Vera Cruz, while thirteen had docked in Tierra Firme. In his opinion, slavers bypassed Vera Cruz because of the careful inspection carried out there to uncover violations of the law. The viceroy recommended that instead of seizing the slaves being carried illegally the authorities should merely collect the additional taxes owed on such slaves. He felt that this was a necessary modification of procedure because of the acute shortage of slaves in New Spain and because of the necessity to relieve the Indians from burdensome toil. He reported that the precedent for his recommendation had already been set in Tierra

The Slave Trade

25

Firme.49 There is no record of any official response to the viceroy's proposal, although it appears that his plan was rejected. It is clear that the existence of a flourishing contraband trade to New Spain and elsewhere in the Indies did result in a substantial loss of revenue to the crown. It is also evident that smuggling could not have continued without the active connivance of the colonial bureaucrats and the colonists. For their part, the colonists purchased slaves regardless of the source; the illegality of the contraband trade was of no consequence. The important consideration was the availability of slaves. It is as difficult to estimate the extent of the contraband trade as it is to determine the number of slaves that perished during the voyage from Africa to the Indies. All traders expected some slaves to die in transit, and the asiento contracts made allowances for such deaths. The expectations of mortality varied anywhere between 20 to 40 percent of the cargo. In 1601 Rodrigues Coutinho received permission to transport 4,250 piezas de Indias annually with the stipulation that he could carry 1,750 more, or approximately 41.2 percent, to defray his losses caused by deaths in transit. When Fernandes d'Elvas received his asiento in 1615, he received an allowance of approximately 43 percent to cover the anticipated mortality during the middle passage. He was allowed 1,500 piezas in excess of the 3,500 that he was to deliver each year. Two years later, in 1617, Diego Pereyra contracted to deliver 1,000 piezas to Cartagena and New Spain and was permitted an additional 400, or 40 percent, for losses. Other asentistas received similar allowances in later years. In 1631 Melchor Gomez Angel received permission to carry 1,500 piezas in excess of the 2,500 he was contracted to deliver annually for the next eight years. The allowances for mortality given to asentistas represent broad estimates and obviously do not show the losses on individual ships. Although it never adhered to its findings, the Council of the Indies concluded in 1614 that a mortality rate of 20 percent was a realistic estimate. 50 Yet even this figure was no more than an educated estimate. Some ships, depending on a variety of circumstances, probably had a mortality rate well below the generally anticipated figure of 40 percent found in the contracts. Others no doubt exceeded that percentage. Much depended on luck, the disease environment from which the slaves came, the physical conditions aboard the slaver, and the availability of adequate supplies of food and water. Slaves who survived the voyage from Africa often arrived in poor physical condition in the New World.

26

Slaves of the White God

Colonial authorities were generally quite concerned about the introduction of new diseases from Africa. As early as 1571, Viceroy Martin Enriquez of Mexico ordered that slaves receive a medical examination before being admitted to the colony, to discover whether they were the bearers of any contagious diseases. 51 Subsequent viceroys repeated this order, although the traders considered such inspections a nuisance and doubtless avoided them whenever they could. Available evidence indicates that the royal officials were aware of the poor physical condition in which the slaves arrived both in Spain and in the New World. The Council of the Indies in 1614 commented on the poor condition of those slaves who were "thin, debilitated and weak" when they arrived in Seville. In 1617 Antonio Fernandes d'Elvas confessed that slavers were wont to arrive in the New World "lacking food and water and carrying sick negroes who die if there is delay in disembarking." 5 2 The surviving records, unfortunately, do not shed more light on the actual death rate aboard individual ships. One record does reveal that in 1604 a slaver traveling from Angola to New Spain suffered a mortality rate of 15 percent. 5 3 In view of the higher estimate reflected in the asiento contracts, this ship was by no means unfortunate. It may therefore be doubted whether the death rate on that ship was typical for the period. It is difficult to determine the precise number of slaves that arrived in the Indies in general and in New Spain in particular prior to 1650. In the most active period of the trade, that is, between 1595 and 1640, our analysis of the shipping records reveals that 104,205 slaves were dispatched in fulfillment of contractual obligations. There is no way of accurately knowing how many of these slaves reached their destination alive. Nor is it possible to determine statistically the extent of the contraband trade. Private citizens also received permission to take a few slaves with them to the Indies as servants. They took one or two or as many as five or eight slaves. All these unknown variables complicate the problem of calculating the number of slaves that arrived in the Indies. For purposes of calculation, the period 1521-1594 poses the greatest difficulties. There has not been, particularly for the period 1521-1550, a thorough and systematic quantitative analysis of the licenses awarded to transport slaves to the Indies. Philip Curtin, who bases his calculations primarily on the statistical work carried out by Huguette and Pierre Chaunu, and whose estimates are the most reliable, concludes that prior to 1550 about 15,000 slaves went to the Indies and that the number rose

The Slave Trade

27

to 36,300 between 1551 and 1595. 54 These estimates appear to be conservative for the period being discussed. It is generally recognized that the mortality rate of the slaves in Spanish America during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries was quite high. As a result, the colonies depended on the slave trade to replenish their supply of slaves, rather than upon internal reproduction. One ought to be able, therefore, to make a rough correlation between the number of slaves in a colony over a given period and the extent of the slave trade to that colony. Unfortunately, however, slave population estimates for colonial Spanish America are not numerous. In the case of New Spain, there are two official estimates of the black population for the second half of the sixteenth century.55 Year

Population

1553 1570

20,000 18,569

Aguirre Beiträn, a distinguished authority on the history of the AfroMexican, notes, however, that if an estimated cimarron or runaway population of 2,000 is added to the data for 1570, the total black population would then be around 20,569. 56 These population estimates raise an important question. If prior to 1553 only 15,000 slaves entered all of Spanish America, it seems unlikely that there would have been 20,000 blacks in New Spain alone in 1553 in view of their high mortality rate and the sexual imbalance of the slaves. A random sampling of the shipping records reveals that in some years prior to 1595 licenses to carry slaves in excess of 2,000 were awarded for the Indies in general. This was the case in such widely diverse years as 1541, 1564, and 1582. Furthermore, in 1563, 1577, 1586, and 1587 traders contracted to deliver more than 1,000 slaves to the Indies.57 In the case of Mexico, Aguirre Bel trän has found that the average annual entry in the 1550s was 721 slaves.58 The shipping records further indicate that licenses amounting to 1,004 slaves were awarded for Mexico alone in 1579 and 536 for 1580. 59 On the basis of these estimates and on that of the population figures, one can make a cautious and tentative proposal of an annual average of 1,000 slaves to the Indies between 1521 and 1594, with at least 500 of those slaves going to Mexico. 60 Thus the Indies would have received approximately 73,000 slaves during this period, and Mexico about 36,500 of that total.

28

Slaves of the White God The calculation for the seventeenth century, particularly for the period

1595 to 1622, is much easier. Writing during the mid-seventeenth century, the Spanish chronicler Andres de Rivas estimated that between 3,000 and 4,000 slaves were imported into New Spain annually through the port of Vera Cruz. 6 1 Given the statistics cited in Table 3, this contemporary estimate appeared not to have been overly exaggerated, at least for some of the years. As was demonstrated in Table 3, an estimated total of 104,205 slaves went to the Indies during the period 1595 to 1622, and 50,525 of that number went to Mexico. In these calculations we are assuming that the number of slaves dispatched was roughly equivalent to the number that arrived, since traders generally carried a number of slaves in excess of the figure given on their registers in order to cover deaths in transit. For the period 1623-1630, during which the asiento was held by Rodriguez Lamego, it has already been estimated that he delivered about 28,000 slaves to the Indies. For the final period 16311639, according to the shipping records, the asentistas Angel and Sossa dispatched a total of 19,000 slaves in fulfillment of their contract. O f the combined total of 47,000 slaves delivered for the period 1622-1639, it is not known what percentage went to Mexico. The shipping records do not indicate the port of destination of the slavers. Nevertheless, since approximately 50 percent of the slaves dispatched between 1595 and 1622 went to Mexico, one may hazard a guess that that percentage remained essentially unchanged for the remaining years of our period, owing to the continuing demand for slave labor in New Spain. It seems a reasonable conclusion

that

during

the entire

period

covered by

this

study

Mexico received one of every two slaves that came to the New World. Table 9 shows our estimate of the slave trade to the Indies between 1521 and 1639. Table 9. Period

Estimate of Slaves to the Indies and Mexico, 1521-1639. Total to the Indies

Total to Mexico

1521-1594 1595-1622 1623-1639

73,000 104,205 47,000

36,500 50,525 23,500

Total

224,205

110,525

Source: Estimate is based on Archivo General de Indias, Contratacion, 5758, 5766, section segunda, 2894; ibid., Indiferente General, 2766.

The Slave Trade

29

An unofficial estimate of the number of slaves in the Indies, circa 1645, appeared in a letter to the king from Fernando de Silva Solis, an aspiring slave trader. Silva Solis described the labor shortage in the N e w W o r l d and requested an asiento to meet the labor demand. He reported that he had spent twenty-five years in the Indies, mainly in Brazil, and consequently had first-hand knowledge of the existing conditions. He submitted a detailed breakdown of the number of slaves he claimed were in the Indies at that time. T h e total was 3 2 9 , 5 0 0 slaves. In addition, he found that the annual demand was 8 , 9 1 0 slaves. In his list, Silva Solis indicated that Mexico had a slave population of 8 0 , 0 0 0 and an annual demand of 1 , 3 0 0 (see Table 10). 6 2 If the estimates given in T a b l e 1 0 are in any way accurate, and one m a y harbor some reservations since Silva Soil's was not a disinterested party in the trade, then the number of slaves in the Spanish Indies in the midTable 10.

Estimate of Number of Slaves in Various Parts of the Indies, ca. 1645.

Area Tierra Firme and environs (Santa Marta, Caracas, Cumanä, Margarita, Guyana) PanamaCartagena and its partido Guatemala and Honduras Lima and its partido Caribbean islands (Cuba, Puerto Rico, Santo Domingo, Jamaica) Gobierno de Popoyan San Miguel de Piura and its partido Pisco Trujillo and its partido Arica and its partido Arequipa and its district Districts of the Audiencia of Quito Antioquia El rio grande de la Magdalena; Zaragoza and its partido Mexico

Number of slaves ca. 1645

Annual demand

12,000 17,000 12,000 10,000 60,000

350 500 350 350 1,000

16,000 5,000 2,500 20,000 7,000 3,000 9,000 6,500 2,500

600 200 40 700 300 70 250 60

12,000 80,000

400 1,300

Source: Text of Silva Solis' letter is in Archivo General de Indias, Indiferente General, 2796. The table gives a partial listing of the places and statistical information included in the letter.

30

Slaves of the White God

seventeenth century was substantially higher than historians have believed. Silva Solis' estimate of 80,000 for Mexico, however, does not appear to be extravagantly inflated in view of the large expansion of the slave population in that colony during the first forty years of the seventeenth century. Indeed, it represents only a fourfold increase over the black population in 1553. The estimate of an annual consumption of 1,300 is not too much at variance with the figure of 1,000 given by the viceroy in 1651.63 Further research in Mexico and in the other slaveowning areas will either substantiate or modify these estimates, but until such time they should be used with great caution. Suffice it to say that the estimate of 110,525 for the number of slaves entering New Spain prior to 1640 is probably the minimum figure. If the contemporary complaints about the extent of the contraband trade in slaves are to be believed, then the total number of slaves who went to New Spain may well have been in excess of 150,000. The international trade to the Indies profited the crown, the traders, and the colonists. To the crown it often meant a dependable source of revenue derived from license fees and taxes. For the trader it was a source of substantial profit, and also provided him with the opportunity to transport other types of merchandise for illicit trade in the Indies. In 1611 the Council of the Indies took note of the fact that such illegal trading in merchandise existed, with a resultant loss of revenue to the crown. It bemoaned the fact that such revenue went to foreigners. In an effort to eliminate the trade in contraband goods, the Spanish authorities had required the careful inspection of all outgoing slavers, but this measure failed to achieve its objective. The profits to be obtained from trading in slaves prompted the asentista Gonzalo Väez Coutinho to reveal in 1610 that the slave trade "is the best and the most profitable in Spain's overseas trade." He added that the goods that were exchanged for slaves on the African coast brought profits as high as 200 and 300 percent. 64 However, extensive statistical work has yet to be undertaken by historians to determine the range of profits that accrued to the trader during the early years of the trade. The third beneficiary of the slave trade, the colonist, received the workers he needed for his sugar plantations, mines, haciendas, obrajes (textile workshops), and households. But the colonists, especially in Mexico, were never satisfied with the number of slaves they received. Colonists and bureaucrats alike kept up a continuous stream of requests for slaves throughout the early colonial period. Some colonists also sought to remove some of the restrictions imposed by the crown on the importa-

The Slave Trade

31

tion of slaves. As early as 1542, the cabildo (town council) of Mexico City petitioned that "because in the service of Your Majesty there is in this land a large number of negro slaves, thus in order to sustain the mines and the other services we beg that Your Majesty be moved to give license and general permission to anyone, in order that they may bring slaves to this New Spain, paying in its ports the almojarifazgo [import tax], without having the necessity of getting any other license, because by slaves coming in the fashion that up to now they have come, they are the source of much vexation."65 The crown, obviously, would have lost revenue had it acceded to the requests of the colonists and required only the payment of an import tax. Consequently, the petition was denied and the complaints continued. So far, we have been concerned with the international slave trade, but the slave trade had two dimensions, the one international, the other domestic. The internal or domestic trade involved the sale of the slaves within the territory by individuals unconnected with the external trade and began after the slaves arrived from Africa and were sold to their first master. Any subsequent sale of these slaves could be considered part of the domestic traffic. Slaves who were born and sold in Mexico also formed part of this trade. There was apparently no formal structure to this aspect of the slave trade in the sense that there were no fixed periods of the year when slaves were put on the market. Robert L. Brady has quite accurately observed that "the most obvious characteristic of the trade were informality and irregularity."66 Its existence depended solely on the needs of the buyer and the seller. Bargaining was probably one of its features, although there is no information to that effect in the documents. In keeping with the practice elsewhere in Spanish America, slaves changed hands in Mexico at the public auctions or feria de los negros. At these auctions, the hapless blacks were exposed to the examining eyes and probing touch of the prospective buyer. A bill of sale discovered in Puebla for the year 1554 indicates that public auctions were being used to dispose of slaves from as early as the mid-sixteenth century. The document in question reads: I the widow of Catalina Velez Rascon do hereby promise to pay to you, Diego de Villanueva, alderman of this city of Los Angeles, 1,100 pesos of pure gold . . . for six slaves [piezas de esclavos], to wit: the Negro Lorenzo, ladino, born on the island of Tercera [in the Azores], his wife, Antonia, Negress, born in Biäfara, with a young mulatto

32

Slaves of the White God daughter of hers named Maria, plus a Negro called Manuel, born in Zapa, and a Negress Catalina, born in Portugal, and a young Negro daughter of hers named Paula, making six slaves in all, all of whom were disposed of in public auction as part of the estate of Francisco Munoz, deceased, in two lots, and were sold to my son-inlaw Don Juan de Zuniga, bidding on my behalf. 67

The bill of sale was the principal instrument of transfer for the slaves sold. This document was signed in the presence of a notary and witnesses. Simple in form, the bill of sale named the parties involved in the transaction, gave the slave's name, his nation of origin, his age, and the price paid for him. Slaves coming directly from Africa were listed as bozales and those born in New Spain were described as criollos (creoles). Slaves not born in New Spain but who were acculturated to Spanish life and customs were characterized as ladinos. One interesting feature of the bill of sale was that it noted any distinguishing physical attributes of the slave. One slave was described as being blind in one eye and lame in one leg. Another had one leg fatter than the other, a third was branded in the face, a fourth was branded on the shoulder blade, a fifth was of moderate build with a cut on the lip, and a sixth was noted for her "sores and infirmities."68 These distinctive physical characteristics would undoubtedly play significant roles in identifying the slave if the need arose. The statement, "captured in just war, subject to servitude, free from mortgage and other impediment," formed part of the bill of sale. In addition, most sellers certified that the slave was not a thief, a drunkard, or addicted to running away. Other sellers were remarkably frank in describing the unfavorable habits of their slaves. Rodrigo de Mendoza acknowledged that his slave Juan, a ladino, had "a wound on his hand" and was in addition "a thief, a runaway, a drunkard, a fornicator." Juan must have been an incorrigible slave, for his master felt it necessary to add that he also sold him "with any other faults he may prove to have." A second slave was described as "a drunkard, a thief, a runaway, lame, crippled and nearly blind, and . . . a cunning rogue." 69 Additional information on some bills of sale included the financial arrangements for payment and the purposes for which the slave would be used. Some bills of sale also mentioned that a certain slave was "born in my house." In this way the master could vouch more strongly for the personal habits and character of his slave. The bills of sale further indicate that the purchasers of slaves comprised a wide range of individuals and institutions: the Church, hospitals, schools, convents, obraje owners, homeowners, merchants and landowners. Most individuals or landowners bought only

The Slave Trade

33

a few slaves at a time, two or three or even four. This was owing as much to the scarcity of slaves as to the high prices asked for them. The documents do not reveal any particular pattern for the internal distribution of these slaves in early Mexico. It is quite clear, nevertheless, that relatively populous cities like Vera Cruz, Puebla, and Mexico City were centers of a vigorous domestic trade. Residents of the port city of Vera Cruz were the most strategically placed to get first chance at selecting slaves arriving from Africa. Under these circumstances, it is not surprising that Veracruzanos acted as agents for buyers in other parts of the colony. As early as 1537, for example, Gabriel de Valmaseda of Mexico City authorized Francisco de Rosales, a trader residing in Vera Cruz, to obtain slaves in his behalf. 70 Prospective buyers living in the more remote areas of the colony undoubtedly went to the larger urban centers where the auctions were held to procure the slaves they needed. Available data also do not indicate whether the breeding of slaves specifically for the market was a feature of colonial society. One may hazard a guess, however, that this practice was unlikely in view of the high mortality rate of slave children and indeed of all children during the period. At best, breeding slaves for sale would have been a financially risky operation, given the uncertainty of whether the children would survive to a saleable age. There was some variation in the ages of the slaves offered for sale. There are records of slaves being sold at the tender age of eight or nine; others were slightly older, sometimes ten or eleven. Most of the slaves sold, however, were in their teens or twenties. Such slaves were in their most physically productive years, and hence were in greater demand. In the case of infants, it was customary, perhaps for practical considerations, to sell mother and child together. In 1647 one woman was sold along with her ten-month-old son. In 1649 a twenty-five-year-old woman was sold with her two-year-old son, while a third mother changed masters along with her two-and-one-half-year-old son. 71 Sometimes, if they were lucky, a husband and wife or even an entire family would be sold together. One couple, for example, was sold with their five children—two boys and three girls: "I do sell you a Negro man and woman, married, called Francisco and Felipa, together with five children of theirs, namely two boys and three girls, and another slave girl called Maria, and I do sell you all (eight) head of slaves [piezas de esclavos] as my very own and subject to bondage." 72 It was not unusual, however, as will be demonstrated in Chapter 4, for one partner of a marriage to be sold. 73 In view of the sustained demand for slave labor during the period, the

34

Slaves of the White God

available slaves were at a premium. Although there was a steady increase in the price of slaves, individual market value was determined primarily by age, sex, physical condition, and the possession of special skills. Younger slaves (sixteen to twenty-six), with a potential for years of service, fetched a higher price than their older counterparts. A mother with a young child also brought a respectable price, as did a husband and wife sold together. Ethnic origin and degree of acculturation seemed never to have made any measurable difference in the price of a slave. Up to about 1570, the price of healthy slaves aged sixteen to twenty-six ranged between 150 and 300 pesos. It is difficult to be more specific on this point in view of the individual considerations which ultimately determined the value of the slave. Thus there were slaves who were sold for a sum in excess of 300 pesos, but these were unusual individuals, possessed of highly desirable skills. Likewise, elderly, sick, or maimed slaves could expect to be sold for under 150 pesos, sometimes for as little as 50 pesos.74 Slave prices increased in the late sixteenth and during the seventeenth century. Undoubtedly this increase was part of a more general increase in prices throughout the colony, but it also stemmed from increased competition for slaves consequent upon, the decline in the Indian population, f o r prime slaves in good physical condition, the price ranged from 300 to 500 pesos. As in the earlier period, there were examples of slaves sold on either side of the price range. Thus in 1617, a thirty-three-year-old man experienced in sugar-making fetched a price of 800 pesos; and in 1617 a married couple, both twenty-six, was sold for 900 pesos. Eleven years later, a thirty-one-year-old sugar boiler brought the handsome price of 600 pesos. In 1645 a forty-two-year-old man who had seen his best years was sold for 240 pesos; in 1650 an eleven-year-old boy, presumably with years of labor ahead of him, fetched the price of 270 pesos; and in 1646 a sixty-year-old woman changed hands for the paltry sum of 52 Vi pesos. 75 Taken together, these examples indicate that although there was a price range in which most slaves fell, in the final analysis the value of each slave depended on the individual factors of skill, age, and physical condition. An interesting and revealing comparison may be made between the market price of Indian slaves and black slaves during the early years of slavery in Mexico. The great variation in the prices of these two types of slaves indicates that Africans were much more highly valued than their Indian counterparts. While African slaves changed hands for as much as

The Slave Trade

35

200 or 300 pesos between 1525 and 1540, the price of an Indian seldom exceeded 30 pesos. In 1525 thirty Indian slaves changed hands for a combined price of 200 pesos, while one deformed African male fetched a similar price. In 1527 two Indian females were sold for 20 pesos and 31 pesos, respectively. In the same year, ten Indians were sold for a combined price of 50 pesos and another thirty-four Indians were sold at a unit price of only 100 pesos. Ten years later, in 1537, two Indians were sold for 40 pesos, while a sick black female commanded the price of 81 pesos. In the following year, a male African slave was sold for 200 pesos, while two Indians were sold together for 50 pesos. 76 In general, with few exceptions, most Indians changed hands for less than 20 pesos each. The low prices at which they were sold reflected the relative availability of such slaves as well as the pervasive uncertainty over whether Indian slavery would long endure. African slaves were much more scarce, much more highly cherished as workers and, furthermore, there was the expectation that they would be enslaved for life. Since African slaves were regarded as property, it was not unusual for them to be sold with other kinds of capital equipment held by a master. In 1527 a miner sold all his mining paraphernalia and his slaves as one unit. And in 1536 a Spaniard sold his horses, mules, and his slaves in one package. 77 Documents, particularly for the seventeenth century, indicate that slaves, as property, could also be used as security for a master's debts. In 1650 and 1651, for example, two female slaves were given as security to a creditor by a master who had become insolvent. 78 On other occasions, a young slave made an attractive gift or wedding present. 7 ' Such was the variety of reasons why African slaves changed hands in Mexico. The international trade and the domestic trade were two sides of the same coin. They were mutually interrelated, for the domestic trade was in large part dependent on the continuing arrival of slaves from Africa. Masters availed themselves of both aspects of the trade in accordance with the supply of slaves and in response to their needs. Many colonists, however, complained about the scarcity of slaves and the high prices they had to pay for them. On their part, the traders endeavored to avoid paying the taxes that a mercurial crown imposed upon them. The result was an active contraband trade which earned royal displeasure but which proved impossible to control. The African slave was indeed a prized item of trade, one upon whose shoulders the labor of society would in large measure come to depend.

CHAPTER 2

The Slave in Mexican Society Three principal groups, comprising different races, met in the formation of colonial society called New Spain. First there were the Indians, lords of the land before the Spanish Conquest, but reduced to a servile status in its aftermath. Second, there were the Spanish conquerors and those who came after them to seek their fortunes, to join relatives, and to Christianize the Indians. And, finally, there were the Africans, who came as slaves to fill labor demands not met by the Indian population. In the corporate society which the Spaniards created in Mexico, each individual was aware of his place in the social order. Although they formed the dominant sector in society, the Spaniards did not comprise a socially homogeneous group. There were at least three principal social sectors discernible within the ranks of the conquerors. These social gradations were based essentially upon wealth and occupational criteria. The upper ranks consisted of the owners of large haciendas, obrajes, businesses, and mines, as well as the upper echelons in the clergy and the bureaucracy. The middle group included the owners of smaller ranches and mines, professional men, shopkeepers, and retail merchants. The lower sector was an amorphous group of small traders, artisans, servants, and vagabonds. 1 The social cleavages within the Spanish group were reinforced by the divisions that existed by the late sixteenth century between Spaniards born in Mexico (criollos) and European-born Spaniards (peninsulares). The criollos, it is said, envied the newcomers, who were sometimes more educated and who generally held the best positions in the colonial bureaucracy. On the other hand, the peninsulares were often contemptuous of the criollos, whom they considered the products of a less culturally

The Slave in Mexican Society

37

sophisticated environment as well as their social inferiors. In spite of these cleavages, however, the Spaniards were united by their racial ancestry, culture, and by the sheer necessity to project a common front in their relationships with the two subordinate races. Possessed of an acute sense of superiority, many Spaniards disdained manual labor and formed an exploiting group which thrived on the sweat of the blacks and the Indians. Alexander von Humboldt's observations that "any white person, although he rides his horse barefoot, imagines himself to be of the nobility of the country," though made in the eighteenth century, had a profound applicability to the earlier years. 2 The Indians in Central Mexico, like the Spaniards, were socially stratified. There were two upper-class ranks of Indians, the tlatoque or caciques, and the pipiltin or principales. The caciques were the recognized leaders of the Indians and the principales were their relatives. Although the power of these classes was reduced under Spanish domination, nevertheless they received certain privileges and served as a bridge between the Spaniards and the lowly mass of Indians. The majority of the Indians formed a class of maceguales (commoners). The members of this class had traditionally served the upper classes and were required to pay them tribute. In addition, as Charles Gibson observes, there were "at least two degrees of sub-macegual status roughly equivalent to the European conditions of serfdom and slavery." Gibson found that in the long run, however, "the effect of Spanish colonialism on the class stratification of Indian society was to equalize and compress to move all classes toward a single level and condition." 3 The third major racial component of society, the African slaves, also possessed some degree of internal social differentiation. Taken as a group, the social divisions among the slaves were not as clearly marked as those existing within the other two groups. The realities of slavery were not conducive to the emergence, development, and maintenance of a well-defined social structure among the slave population. Slaves were not like free people; their status as human chattels defined and limited their individual potential and subjected them to the will and caprice of the master. It is apparent, nevertheless, that they did not all perceive themselves as belonging to a socially undifferentiated mass of people. There were at least two principal groups within the slave population: the elite and the nonelite. A number of factors determined the composition of each group. Those slaves who were culturally hispanicized and who worked as domestics or artisans belonged to the elite. Slaves gained

38

Slaves of the White God

admission to this group also by the possession of certain valuable skills, such as sugar processing (sugar master), and through their prior status in Africa. A member or descendant of an important African family preserved his elite status in the New World. Slaves owned by the most prominent or the wealthiest citizens in New Spain probably also occupied an elite position. 4 The majority of the slaves who comprised the nonelite sector were generally the bozales and the unskilled workers on the plantations and in the mines and obrajes. It is probable that each of these two social groupings possessed internal gradations, but there are no adequate data to substantiate this assertion. Race was the primary determinant of the social structure in Mexico's culturally and socially variegated society. The Spaniards were ranked at the top, followed by the castas or racially mixed groups; then came the Indians, and finally the African slaves. It must be emphasized that each group retained its own internal social divisions within the general ranking system. Thus, as has already been pointed out, not all Spaniards shared a common social status within the Spanish sector, but Spaniards as a group were ranked higher than everyone else in the society. Similarly, the castas, the Indians, and the black slaves maintained the social gradations within their own ranks as best they could. The slave who was a sugar master, for example, occupied a higher status within the slave community then did the field hand, but these two individuals belonged to a social group that a Spanish-dominated society ranked at the bottom. The crown recognized these social and racial divisions in New Spain throughout the period. Its orders and pronouncements took into account the interests of each group. Hence, measures emanating from Spain invariably referred to one group, whether Spaniard, casta, Indian, or black. The crown did not see the society as a homogenous unit but rather as a group of diverse peoples, each requiring special legislation. During the period 1570-1650 demographic calculations became increasingly complicated, since an ever larger number of racially mixed peoples found their way into Mexican society. The white-black relationship produced the mulatto, the white-Indian gave birth to the mestizo, and the Indian-black had the zambo as progeny. In turn, each of these subgroups intermingled to produce a further variety of hybrids. For example, the child of the mulatto and the Spaniard was called a morisco, and that of the mestizo and a Spaniard a castizo. 5 The result of these racial admixtures was that throughout the colonial period a tiny white minority ruled over a much larger number of people who in varying

The Slave in Mexican Society

39

degrees differed from them in color and culture. In an unofficial census conducted about 1570, the number of Spaniards and African slaves and their progeny was listed as shown in Table 11. The Afro-Mexican population never formed more than 2 percent of the total population at any time during the colonial period. All African slaves in Mexico were given a first name and were identified by that name. 6 The names most commonly used included Juan, Anton, Francisco, Diego, Sebastian, and Hernando for the males, and Maria, Isabel, Magdalena, Ana, and Catalina for the females. Some slaves had a last name as well (usually that of the master), as was the case with Juan de Perales, Francisco Granado, Manuel de Castro, Maria de Pineda, and Maria de la Cruz. Slaves who were given only a first name were often identified by the addition of their tribe or their national origin. This was the case with Manuel Bran, Francisco Congo, and Juan Angola. Other slaves, such as Juan Viejo (old man) and Juan Tuerto (one-eyed), had a nickname appended to the first name. 7 It was also customary to identify slaves by whether they were criollos, ladinos or bozales. A slave identified as Andres negro criollo was born in New Spain while Esperanza bozal had recently come from Africa. Juan ladino was an acculturated slave born either in Africa, Spain, or in one of the colonies. The characterization Anton entre ladino y bozal (between ladino and bozal) meant that the slave was in the process of being acculturated. Slaves were identified by whether they were black in color or were mulattoes. Thus Pedro negro esclavo meant that the individual was black in color and a "pure" African. On the other hand, Maria mulata esclava simply meant that the slave was of Spanish-African ancestry. Finally, a slave could be identified by the kind of work he did; for example, Juan Zapatero (shoemaker). The possession of a black skin was not considered an asset in early colonial Mexico. Writing in the seventeenth century, the famous Franciscan Juan de Torquemada opined that blacks, being descendants of Canaan, represented a divine curse. 8 To Spaniards who accepted this view it followed logically that if blacks were an accursed people it was permissible to keep them in bondage. It is of course impossible to determine the extent to which this view was held by the average Spaniard. Yet, if a man of Torquemada's education and position embraced such a belief, it is quite conceivable that he expressed an opinion shared by many of his contemporaries. It is undeniable, however, that the conscience of most Spaniards was

40

Slaves of the White

Table 11.

God

Spanish and Afro-Mexican Population, ca. 1570.

Archbishopric

Spaniards

Black slaves

Mestizos

Mulattoes

Mexico Michoacan Nueva Galicia Tlaxcala Yucatan Oaxaca Chiapas Total

9,495 1,035 1,270 1,531 420 560 400 14,711

10,593 1,765 2,375 2,958 265 481 130 18,567

2,000 200 150 a 100 10 50 0 2,510

1,050 200 0 100 20 30 0 1,400

Source: "Censos de la poblacion del Virreinato de Nueva Espana en el siglo XVI," Boletin del Centre de Estudios Americanistas de Sevilla de Indias, Ano VI, nos. 23 and 24 (February-March 1919), pp. 45-46. a For Nueva Galicia, the figure of 150 listed under "Mestizos" included mulattoes as well. less troubled by the condition of the African slave than by the exploitation of the native Indian. Most Spaniards, if they thought about it at all, saw nothing morally wrong with slavery nor with the various means developed to obtain, through coercion, the labor of the Indians. The prevailing ethos of colonial society not only condoned but actively encouraged the exploitation of the Indians and the blacks. The colonists were men on the make w h o spoke the language of silver and responded little, if at all, to moral imperatives. Indeed, Pope Paul III had to dispel the selfserving doubts of the colonists concerning the humanity of the Indian b y issuing the Bull Sublimis Deus in 1537, affirming that "the Indians are truly men." 9 There were, nevertheless, a few idealists w h o eloquently defended the Indians and denounced their mistreatment by the colonists. Such men included Bishop Bartolome de las Casas, whose untiring defense of and love and respect for the Indian peoples earned him the title of "Apostle of the Indians." 1 0 Then there was Bishop Vasco de Quiroga, w h o founded charitable institutions or pueblo hospitals at Santa Fe to care for needy Indians, to hispanicize them, and to convert them to Catholicism. 1 1 The eminent Franciscan Geronimo de Mendieta advocated more h u m a n e treatment for the Indians and wrote approvingly of what he called their simplicity, their purity, and their innocence. Considering the Indians as "children," Mendieta firmly believed that they had the potential to

The Slave in Mexican Society

41

achieve "terrestrial perfection" and that they were "soft wax," capable of being molded in any desired way. 12 One of the most remarkable debates regarding the nature of the Indian peoples took place in Valladolid, Spain, during 1550-1551. On that occasion Las Casas was pitted against Juan Gines de Sepulveda, a distinguished Aristotelian scholar and an articulate exponent of Spanish cultural superiority. In his presentation before the judges, Las Casas argued that the Indians were "prudent and rational beings, of as good ability and judgment as other men and more able, discreet, and of better understanding than the people of many other nations." 13 On the other hand, Sepülveda accepted Aristotle's concept of the natural inferiority of some individuals and extended it to include the entire Indian peoples. He denounced the hmnan sacrifice practiced by the Indians and characterized them as "so uncivilized, so barbaric, so contaminated with so many sins and obscenities," adding that they were as inferior to the Spaniards "as children are to adults and women are to men." 14 The great Valladolid debates, quite interestingly, made no mention of the African, although the issues discussed concerning the nature of the Indians and the Spanish obligations toward them were equally relevant to the black condition. It is a notable fact that throughout the period few Spaniards questioned the morality of black enslavement. Remarkably absent from colonial literature are treatises extolling the black character. Juan Suärez de Peralta, a Mexican colonist, was virtually alone in inquiring in his Noticias historicas de la Nueva Espana (1580) why no voices were raised in defense of the blacks. In Suärez' opinion, arguments advanced in defense of the Indian could be equally applied to the black condition. As he effectively expressed it, "There is no difference between them other than that one is darker in color." 15 The issue of the differing attitude toward the blacks and the Indians was one which Spaniards could not or would not confront throughout the period. Suärez may have wanted to force the issue, but his book created not even a ripple. In accordance with their penchant for classification, the Spaniards distinguished two types of black people, depending on different shades of black. The first type, of very dark color, was known as atezado or Negro retinto, meaning "double-dyed" or extremely black. The second category, somewhat lighter in skin color, was called amembrillados or "quince-like" or sometimes Negros amulatados (mulatto-like Negroes). Similarly, there were different categories of mulattoes, depending on the skin color. Such descriptive references as "white mulatto" or "fair mulat-

42

Slaves of the White God

to" and "black mulatto" are self-explanatory. Nor did the Indian-black progeny escape skin-color classification. The "dark mulatto" was the offspring of the black man and the Indian; the "wolf-mulatto" resulted from the mating of the Indian with the dark mulatto. The "wolf-like mulatto" was the child of the "wolf-mulatto" and the Indian. 16 The surviving manuscripts convey a general impression of the way the African was perceived by the Spaniard. He was considered "naturally evil," of "bad race" and "bad caste." Gonzalo Gomez de Cervantes, a Spanish traveler, observed that Afro-Mexicans were "people of little shame and trust." 17 An official attached to the Inquisition noted that a witness "being a slave was a vile person." 18 One viceroy was convinced that blacks constituted a "vicious people"; 1 ' another observed that "mulattoes were naturally arrogant, audacious and fond of change." 20 A member of the cabildo of Mexico City remarked in 1598 that black slaves were "bellicose, bestial and ferocious." 21 Many other racist characterizations of the African may be cited. By thinking of the Afro-Mexicans as inherently evil, and by ascribing to them all manner of negative characteristics, Spaniards could avoid thinking of them as men deserving of equal rights. Furthermore, by embracing such beliefs about the African, Spaniards had a ready-made rationalization for black enslavement, and one which simultaneously assuaged their consciences. What the Spaniards thought of black men who were slaves was reflected in both their treatment of and their attitudes toward them. As one indication of Spanish perception of the blacks, some masters never even bothered to bury their dead slaves. In 1547 an ordinance passed by the cabildo of Vera Cruz prohibited masters from throwing the cadavers of slaves in the river, since such a practice was a health hazard. 22 Some years later, the bodies of slaves who drowned while working in the pearl fisheries were left to the sharks. When the authorities became cognizant of the hazard posed by the presence of hungry sharks attracted by human cadavers, the following order was issued "Because the bodies of drowned Negroes have not been removed from the [waters of] oyster fisheries, many sharks are present and haunt the places with grave danger to life, which results in suspension of fishing operations. . . . To remedy this great danger, we ordain that canoemen in charge of Negroes, and all the others at the fisheries, shall search diligently for the dead bodies; they shall not allow them to remain in the water; on finding them they shall take them out so that operations can be resumed." 23 The chief purpose of

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43

this order was to clear the water of sharks, not to ensure the proper burial of the slaves. The Spaniards, particularly those in urban areas, enjoyed great social prestige from the possession of slaves. "The Spaniards not only use them for labor and necessary tasks," Viceroy Enriquez wrote in 1574, "but they honor themselves and have more pages and lackeys than there are negroes in Spain." 2 4 Some Spaniards, especially royal officials, employed slaves as bodyguards, armed with swords, to accompany them on the streets. This widespread custom led the fiscal (crown attorney) of Vera Cruz to remark quite accurately in 1646 that officials were escorted by armed slaves "more out of vanity than through necessity or convenience." 2 5 Thomas Gage, who visited New Spain in the seventeenth century, left a vivid description of the economically nonproductive uses to which slaves were often put: The gentlemen have their train of blackamoor slaves, some a dozen, some half a dozen, waiting on them in brave and gallant liveries, heavy with gold and silver lace, with silk stockings on their black legs, and roses on their feet, and swords by their sides. The ladies also carry their train by their coach's side of such jet like damsels as before have been mentioned for their light apparel who with their bravery and white mantles over them seem to be as the Spaniard saith, "mosca en leche," a fly in milk. 2 6 Slaves performed a variety of other functions in the society. Apart from being used on the sugar plantations and in the silver mines, slave labor was employed in the obrajes. In these enterprises, the slaves played a very significant role. A large number, particularly in the urban centers, were used as domestics and personal servants. Others were teamsters, gilders, meatcutters, dyers, blacksmith's helpers, and so on. During the seventeenth century, slaves were used in the armed forces in the city of Vera Cruz. In 1621 there were sixty-four slaves listed as being in their employ: thirty-one men, thirteen women, four boys, three girls, nine old men, and four old women. These slaves were used for various types of manual work, such as transporting wood and stones and for household duties, and as carpenters, blacksmiths, hospital workers, and slaughterhouse workers. Seven years later, in 1628, the number of slaves owned by the armed forces was fifty. 27

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In accordance with the economic needs of the owners, African slaves were distributed throughout most of the centers of Spanish population in the rural areas. The frontier parts of the north formed one of the few areas which did not receive these slaves in any appreciable numbers. The absence of enslaved blacks on the northern frontier was due largely to the unsettled nature of Indo-Spanish relations there in the post-Conquest years. Spanish attempts to subjugate the Indians in the north encountered strong resistance for a number of years. Many of the Indians who were captured in these frontier wars were enslaved under the pretext that they were taken in a "just" war. The continued enslavement of Indians in these areas, therefore, had the effect of reducing the demand for African slaves. In those rural areas where black slaves were more numerous, many of them were used in various agrarian activities. In such places as Colima, Huatulco, Acapulco, and Oaxaca, slaves could be found on the cacao plantations. Ranching was another occupation in which slaves met the demand for labor. Free blacks, however, seemed to have outnumbered slaves on the ranches. Work on the ranches was probably not sufficiently demanding to warrant the capital investment in slaves when free workers were available. The number of slaves on the estancias and the haciendas varied. Some of the larger haciendas owned anywhere from ten to twenty slaves. 28 Others possessed more. One wealthy Spaniard, Hernän Ruiz de Cordova, had 200 slaves on his estancias near Vera Cruz in 1570.29 In 1683 Don Jose Rincon de Gallardo owned 144 slaves, whom he used on his several estancias and six haciendas. 30 Competition for slaves by the estanceros (ranchers) and hacendados was as active as elsewhere. One ordinance denounced some estanceros who had "other people's negro slaves who serve them as if they were their own, keeping them on their own ranches for profit, which redounds to the injury of their owners." To eliminate this practice, the viceroy imposed severe penalties on offenders. 31 One feature of Mexican slavery, rural and urban, was the practice of jornal, or hiring out a slave for a daily wage. In an undated letter, probably written in 1571, a royal official observed that in Mexico City "there are many persons who hire their slaves out for business profit." 32 This custom was not unique to New Spain. In 1611 one Spaniard informed the king that there were many masters in the Indies who had "fifteen or twenty or more slaves who earn them jornal." 33

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Masters who hired out their slaves depended on them as a source of profit and livelihood. Dona Beatriz de la Loa y Alvarado of Mexico City revealed in 1615 that the slave she used to earn jornal was her only source of income. As she expressed it, "I am very poor and I have no other means of sustenance except that which the negro earns." Slaves used in this fashion were hired out for a specified period of time, a day, a week, a month, or longer. Usually a contract was signed stating the wage to be paid, the duties of the slave, the conditions of work, and the employer's obligations to him. One such contract signed in 1614 concerned a slave hired out as an apprentice in a milliner's shop. The employer was required to feed the slave, provide lodging, a bed, and medical care. The master was to receive four pesos a month as payment for the slave's services. The slave was contracted to serve faithfully and not to shirk his responsibilities. 34 This custom allowed employers to obtain the services of slaves without having to make the capital investment involved in their purchase. In some instances, slaves received a percentage of their wages; the amount the slave was allowed to keep undoubtedly depended on the master's benevolence. There were certain occupations which excluded the employment of Africans, both slave and free. City council members introduced from time to time ordinances excluding Afro-Mexicans from certain guilds and, ipso facto, from certain occupations. Slaves, for example, could not be employed as silk weavers, silk spinners, or glovemakers. 35 In other guilds, such as printers' and milliners', slaves could be used under certain conditions. The printers' guild permitted slaves to be used provided the work was done in their master's house. Milliners permitted slaves to work under the supervision of a Spanish maestro. 36 These restrictions were undoubtedly imposed to protect skilled Spaniards from the economic competition of slaves. The urban areas received a greater proportion of slaves than the rural areas. Slaves were not an uncommon sight in such cities as Vera Cruz, Puebla de los Angeles, Guadalajara, and Mexico City. In 1577 the viceroy remarked (probably with some exaggeration) in a letter to the king and the council that "in this land everything is done by slaves and there is no home that is not full of them, although it may belong to a poor man." 37 Twenty-one years later, in 1598, a member of the city council of Mexico City observed that in "each house belonging to each honorable citizen, there are eight and ten and twelve negro slaves." 38 An examination of some of the wills made by Spaniards in Mexico City reveals an

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extraordinarily widespread ownership of slaves during this period. Some masters owned as many as twelve; however, the majority of wills consulted indicated that most masters owned between two and six slaves. 39 The presence of a large number of African slaves in the urban areas was evident from as early as 1570. Table 12 gives an estimate of the Spanish and black population compiled for that year. Population estimates are more scarce, less detailed, and perhaps less reliable for the seventeenth century. Vazquez de Espinosa, who visited Mexico City in 1612, reported a population of 50,000 blacks and mulattoes, 15,000 Spaniards, and 80,000 Indians. 40 In his visit to New Spain in 1698, Gemelli Careri concluded that "Mexico City contains about 100,000 inhabitants, but the greatest part of them are Blacks and Mulattoes by reason of the vast number of slaves that has been carried thither." 4 1 Aguirre Beiträn estimates that the black population of the archbishopric of Mexico, which included Mexico City, amounted to 19,441 in 1646. 42 In addition, a seventeenth-century chronicler, Diez de la Calle, noted that Vera Cruz had a population of 5,000 blacks and mulattoes in 1646. 43 The paucity of data does not permit any definitive conclusions or population estimates for specific rural districts. Scattered data exist for certain mines, sugar estates, and estancias, but none for the rural population as a whole. Thus, contemporary observers noted the

Table 12.

Afro-Mexican and Spanish Urban Population, 1570. City

Spaniards3

Vera Cruz Guadalajara Merida Puebla de los Angeles Guayangare (Morelia) Antequera (Oaxaca) Mexico City

300 80 150 800 40 350 8,000

Black slaves 500 120 150 500 50 50 8,000

Mulattoes 0 50 10 100 0 0 1,000

Source: "Censos de la poblacion del Virreinato de Nueva Espana en el siglo XVI," Boletin del Centro de Estudios Americanistas de Sevilla de Indios, Afio VI, nos. 23 and 24 (February-March 1919), pp. 51-58. a For the Spaniards, the population estimates apparently included only males.

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presence of 118 black slaves in Ixmiquilpan in 1569, 250 in the mines of Guadalajara in the early 1570s, and 800 in Zacatecas in 1601.44 The institution of slavery in Mexico depended for its survival principally on the slave trade and not on internal reproduction. The sexual imbalance of the slave population—a general ratio of three men to every woman—and the high infant mortality made the natural increase of the black population quite difficult. One must be careful, however, about proposing any estimates regarding the rate of natural increase or decrease of the Afro-Mexicans. Such a ratio is hard to establish, given the general absence of relevant systematic data. It stands to reason, nevertheless, that slaveowners who were lucky enough to own a sexually balanced group of slaves thereby improved the prospects of black reproduction. Such slaveowners may even have encouraged their slaves to reproduce, but there is no documentation for this assertion. Scattered data reveal that slaves were able to reproduce normally, given an appropriate distribution of males and females. In 1549 Fernando Cortes owned seventysix black slaves in Morelos, aged twenty or older. He also owned twentyseven slaves who were under twenty. Of these twenty-seven youngsters, twenty-four were nine years old or younger. 45 It is not clear whether these children all belonged to the adult slaves in residence, but one may hazard a guess that most of them did, since it was not customary to purchase very young children, given their high mortality. One of the interesting features of these statistics is that the children included eleven males and sixteen females, a far better sexual ratio than that generated by the slave trade. Demographers have often pointed out that there tends to be a greater sexual balance in a population which changes through natural increase or decrease. According to the records of the Hospital de Jesus, the ingenio (sugar mill) at Tuxtla in 1566 had a slave population of 101. Of these slaves, sixty-five were adult males and seventeen were females, or a ratio of 4:1. The remainder consisted of seven boys, nine girls, and three infants (three months, three weeks, and eighf days old, respectively). 46 With the exception of the infants, the ages of the slaves were not given. We may assume, however, that the adults were at least twenty years old and that the boys and girls at the ingenio were their sons and daughters. It may be noted that despite the sexual imbalance between adult males and females the number of children (nineteen) exceeded the number of adult women

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God

(seventeen), indicating an average of at least one child per woman. In the case of Francisco de Castro, who lived in the northern mining town of San Pedro de Guanacevi, an inventory revealed that he owned eighteen slaves in 1642. Estimates are available for the ages of fifteen of them: eleven were twenty years or older (five men and six women); four were aged about eleven, eight, three, and eighteen months, respectively.47 Here again there is evidence of some degree of reproduction among the slave population, though it is impossible to estimate how many of the children survived to adulthood. The examples cited above indicate a pattern of reproduction when masters owned males and females of suitable ages. Unfortunately the data give few clues regarding the mortality rates. Only two slaves were listed as having died at the ingenio at Tuxtla in 1566, although the same ingenio lost thirty-two slaves in 1577, probably because of the epidemic of that year. There were, however, seven children born at Tuxtla in 1577, accounting for a net decrease of twenty-five in the slave population.48 Age breakdowns for the slaves at Morelos in 1549 reveal that some of them had lived to a reasonably old age, since eleven were fifty years old or older. Of the slaves belonging to Francisco de Castro in 1642, four were fifty years old or more. 49 Such instances of longevity may have been exceptional, however, in an age when the life expectancy of any resident in New Spain was probably no more than forty or forty-five years. In his brilliant study of the sugar hacienda of the Marqueses del Valle, Ward Barrett concluded that "for persons born in the first four decades of the sixteenth century, the average years of work were about 20. The average working life then declined, finally stabilizing between 10 and 15." These estimates do not include those slaves who came directly from Africa. Coming from a different disease environment, African-born slaves may have been more susceptible to local diseases. In analyzing the mortality rates of eighty-seven slaves imported by the sugar plantations at Tuxtla and Tlatenango in 1579, 1598, 1599, and 1600, Barrett found that for "eight persons there is no information, of the rest 8 died within 7 years, 60 after 10 years and 1 fled the plantation. The percentages of slaves lost within the first seven years for each shipment were 18, 5, 30 and 40 and the average of all four shipments was 25 per cent, if one assumes that the eight persons concerning whom there is no information died within a short time of arrival." 50 This is the only existing study of mortality rates among a group of Mexican slaves. There is no reason to

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believe that Barrett's findings are unique to these two plantations; hence the data may be taken as generally representative of the mortality rate of slaves employed on the sugar plantations in the colony. Occupational criteria, disease, and inhospitable climatic conditions all played a role in the life expectancy of the slave population. It is known that slaves working in the mines and the ingeniös suffered the highest death rate because of the rigorous nature of the work in these enterprises. Domestic slaves, who generally enjoyed an easier existence, probably had a longer life span. Afro-Mexicans suffered from a variety of diseases, including syphilis, tuberculosis, measles, and yellow fever. They also fell victim to dysentery and to the various epidemics that ravaged the land during the sixteenth century. Inadequate diet must have tended to reduce the slaves' resistance and have rendered them more susceptible to disease. The climate in certain areas of New Spain, most notably Vera Cruz, was very unhealthy, a factor that undoubtedly contributed to the mortality rate of all residents of the colony. Writing in 1572, the English traveler Henry Hawkes noted that Vera Cruz "is inclined to many kinde of diseases, by reason of the great heat, and a certeine gnat or flie which they call a mosquizo, which biteth both men and women in their sleep: and as soon as they are bitten, incontinently the flesh swelleth as though they had been bitten with some venimous worme. . . . Many there are that die of this annoyance." 51 A decade later, Alonso Ponce observed the impact of the unhealthy climate in Vera Cruz on the Afro-Mexicans. He pointed out that "even the negroes, although they comprise a great number . . . in that city, have few children, and these and the adults go about sick and discolored." 52 Undoubtedly, only a few contemporaries could express disagreement with the viceroy when he wrote in 1643 that "the mortality of the negroes in this New Spain is the greatest that may be seen." 53 The problem of the treatment of slaves, like that of the determining their mortality rate, is one of the most difficult to assess. Treatment involves more than the nature of their work and the application of physical punishment. It includes those things that relate to the individual's physical and emotional comfort. In other words, in trying to determine whether slaves were treated humanely, one must examine, among other things, diet and the opportunities to develop and maintain an autonomous life in relation to such matters as family life, religion, and recreation. A third dimension to the problem of treatment relates to the extent to which opportunities for manumission existed for the slave population. 54 The difficulty in determining what is "good" as opposed to what is

50

Slaves of the White God

"bad" treatment of slaves in a slave system is complicated by the fact that much depends on the personalities of the master and the overseer, which naturally results in a wide variation of treatment. Subject to this qualification, however, it is possible to make some broad generalizations regarding the nature of slave treatment in early colonial Mexico. Regarding the nature of the work, it is known that some of the African slaves performed the most burdensome tasks in New Spain, particularly in the ingeniös and the silver mines. There was a series of measures limiting the kind of work which Indians could perform. Black slaves also bore the brunt of the labor in the pearl fisheries, particularly the dangerous role of divers. In 1609 Indians were prohibited from working in the pearl fisheries because "it was contrary to their safety," 55 a restriction stemming from the high incidence of death by drowning. Physical punishment was a common feature of slave life in Mexico— for that matter, in the entire New World. Slaves in Mexico, as has been pointed out, were branded as a means of identification and as punishment for recalcitrance. Some slaves were branded with the master's name; for example, "Soy de dona Francisca Carrillo de Peralta" 56 or simply "Miguel Garcia Xaramillo." 57 Male slaves were castrated as a form of punishment, a barbaric practice that was applied chiefly to runaways. The administration of whippings was considered a legitimate part of the master's right to discipline and was extensively used. In meting out punishment to slaves convicted for various offenses, the authorities, civil and religious, used this form of punishment, at times allowing as many as 200 lashes. One of the most brutal and widespread forms of physical abuse was the practice known as pringar. This consisted of dropping hot pork fat or pitch melted over a large candle on the victim's skin. Occasionally the hot wax from the candle would suffice. Some of the official measures for social control permitted physical mutilation, such as cutting off an ear, a hand, or a leg. The extent to which these punishments were used is unknown, but they remained on the statute books throughout the period. Additional measures allowed slaves to be hanged, to wear iron fetters, or to remain in chains for a period of time. Masters were also known to possess such disciplinary items as leg irons, handcuffs, chains, collars, and stocks. There are some bits of information regarding the diet of slaves. Some scanty evidence comes from the Xochimancas hacienda belonging to the Society of Jesus and from the Atcomulco estate of the Marques del

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Valle. 58 There are no data to show whether slaves in Mexico during this period were provided with plots of ground on which to cultivate food to supplement the rations they received from their masters. The slaves' diet consisted principally of maize and a variety of legumes such as habas, garbanzos, and lentils. They also received rations of honey, sugar, chocolate, and tobacco. A diet of legumes, combined with grains and nuts if given in adequate quantities, would have met the slaves' daily protein requirement. Barrett has found that an adult slave on the Atcomulco estate during the sixteenth century could receive as much as ten pounds of beef per week. The author notes, however, that "the issue of beef to Negroes resulted in different annual totals: in 1584, for example, adult Negroes received a maximum of only 400 pounds in the entire year." 59 This conclusion indicates that the size of rations varied probably in accordance with the economic health of the estate and the attitude of whoever controlled the food rationing. Insufficient data restrain us from making any additional observations on the amount and quality of the food each slave received. The slaves' clothing was made from either a coarse woolen cloth called sayal or an equally coarse hemplike fibre called brin. Brin was used to make a kind of shirt or tunic worn by male slaves. Masters customarily distributed the annual cloth ration at Christmas. On the Atcomulco plantation each slave received five varas of sayal annually. In addition, female slaves received a mantilla and a frazada (blanket). 60 Some slaves had special clothes for festive occasions. On the Xochimancas hacienda the men wore their short pants and ropilla (an elegant smocklike jacket with huge sleeves), while the ladies were attired in smart mantillas and bodices. 61 Female slaves who had money purchased fine silks and jewelry to wear on special occasions. The Spaniards frowned upon this behavior, and in 1571 an ordinance prohibited all black women, slave or free, from wearing gold, pearls, or silk. The ordinance excluded black women or mulattoes married to Spaniards; they were allowed to "wear earrings of gold, and a pearl necklace, and on her skirt a trimming of velvet; and they shall not wear coats of crepe or of other fabric, except mantillas which they may wear over the waist, under penalty of losing them . . . together with their silk dresses, jewelry, and pearls." 62 These restrictions were designed to confirm the inferior status of black women vis-ä-vis Spanish women. Black women and mulattoes married to Spaniards thereby improved their social status, and the concessions made to them in dress reflected this elevation. On July 31, 1582, the

52

Slaves of the White God

Audiencia prohibited black and mulatto women from "dressing in the habit of Indian women," except in the case of those married to Indian men. 63 This ordinance was prompted partly by a desire to eliminate cultural contacts between Indians and Africans and partly from a desire to facilitate the identification of those mulattoes who disguised themselves as Indians after committing crimes. These kinds of sumptuary legislation were difficult to enforce, and from time to time the viceroy issued reminders to the local authorities to uphold the law in this regard. 64 The slaves in Mexico constantly fought to create an autonomous existence for themselves during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Their Spanish masters attempted to eliminate aspects of their life styles and culture thought to be contrary to Iberian customs and traditions. The Afro-Mexicans' observances of their folk beliefs led the Spaniards to ferret out what they defined as witchcraft, sorcery, and divination. Yet the Spaniards were never entirely successful in this effort and many African religious practices survived. Evidence for this assertion comes, for example, from the pen of one Spaniard who in describing the funeral ceremony for a slave in Mexico City in 1612 wrote that "many negroes gathered together with barbarous ceremonies and rites used in their nation of origin, and while singing, shouting and dancing, they smothered the corpse with oil and wine and did the same to the grave . . . and having also thrown dirt in it they raised one arm in a menacing manner as if they were about to take part in a war or a rebellion." 65 The slaves who escaped to the mountains were the ones most successful in recreating and maintaining vestiges of their African past. These slaves, called cimarrones, established settlements or palenques to preserve their freedom. In 1591 Viceroy Don Luis de Velasco reported the existence of a group of cimarrones who had resided for the previous thirty years on a mountain called Coyula and who "lived as if they were actually in Guinea." 66 There are scattered references to other cimarron communities. One report written in 1602 refers to an "island of negroes" located to the northwest of the port of Mazatlän. 67 Another settlement was later spotted in Cuaxinecuilapan, located near Puerto Maldonado. 68 Unfortunately, there is no evidence concerning the actual composition and organization of either of these communities. Of all the cimarron communities that existed, we know most about the one located in the Orizaba zone of Vera Cruz. This settlement was overrun by the Spaniards in 1609. At its peak it had about 500 residents who

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elected a king as head of their state. For subsistence, the cimarrones planted all kinds of crops, including bananas, maize, beans, squash, potatoes, and cotton and they also raised chickens. Division of labor according to sex operated in this kingdom as in their African homeland. The women performed the agricultural work, while the men shared the responsibility for the general upkeep of the society and for its defense. 69 Thus the cimarrones succeeded in creating on Mexican soil a replica of an African society. The vast majority of slaves did not escape but remained with their masters. They embraced aspects of Spanish life both voluntarily and involuntarily. The crown was anxious to have slaves exposed to Christianity. Charles V was convinced that "all negroes are by nature capable of becoming Christian," and in 1537 he ordered that at an appointed time each day all Afro-Mexicans, both slave and free, be instructed in Christian precepts. 70 All masters were required to release their slaves from their duties at that hour so that they could take advantage of the religious instruction. 71 In 1541 the emperor ordered all blacks to be relieved of work on Sundays and feast days in order to attend Mass like other Christians. Had his order been enforced, the slave would have had a great deal of leisure and masters would have lost innumerable hours of slave labor. But slaveowners never adhered to it. In a new order, dispatched about 1545, masters were required to see that their slaves attended chapel each morning and heard Mass and received religious instruction on Sundays. 72 The Church, acting on its own volition, attempted to fill the spiritual needs of the slaves. The first provincial council held in New Spain concluded that "we are obliged, as with new plants, to provide for their spiritual nourishment and sustenance as guardians of their souls." 73 Nevertheless, the Church did not manifest the same zeal in ministering to the blacks as it did to the Indians. The reasons for the differing approaches have been the subject of much scholarly speculation which is still unresolved. 74 As Spaniards, the Church officials quite likely perceived the Africans in an uncomplimentary manner similar to that shared by the other Spaniards. But as Christians, the priests recognized that Africans and their progeny had souls to be saved. The larger number of Indians, being like "soft wax," as Mendieta wrote, offered the Church a much greater challenge for winning new souls for Christ. Whatever the reasons, it is clear that the Indians captured the imagination of the Church in a way that the Africans never succeeded in doing.

54

Slaves of the White God Shortly after their arrival in 1572, the Jesuits demonstrated interest in

the spiritual welfare of the slaves. They organized special sessions in populous centers for religious instruction. The Jesuits, however, were always short of personnel. In 1584 they asked for more priests to aid in the instruction of the children. Two years later it was reported that the slaves had their own cjhurch in Mexico City. It was also in that year that the Jesuits reported in their annual letter that, owing to religious training, the slaves "are more reformed in their customs than they have been up to now." 7 5 In addition to religious training in the churches or the public square, the larger sugar plantations and haciendas each had a resident priest who was responsible for the spiritual welfare of the people, both slave and free. Such priests received general maintenance and a stipend from the proprietor. Other haciendas had priests who visited on Sundays to say Mass, hear confessions, and administer the sacraments. Thus blacks became practicing members of the Catholic church. Yet this presented a strange dichotomy in Mexico; for, although the black man enjoyed the sacraments of the Church, he was barred from holding any ecclesiastical position whatsoever. Equality, even religious equality, was only for the afterlife. Several colleges established by religious bodies systematically excluded blacks; and the Jesuit College of St. Peter and St. Paul, founded in 1582, included in its constitution a clause expressly forbidding the admission of blacks and mulattoes. 7 6 Nevertheless, religion filled a void in the lives of the slaves. They found solace in the practice of Catholicism or in their traditional African religions. One particularly appealing institution of the Church was the cofradia. The cofradias were mutual aid societies that had originated in Spain in the Middle Ages and were eventually transplanted in the colonies. Essentially voluntary organizations, cofradias also possessed a religious aspect, being partly "motivated by the desire to worship or to pay homage to a particular saint." 7 7 Shortly after their establishment in New Spain, cofradias became centers of socialization for all the people. Slaves had cofradias separate from their masters or from the Indians, and as early as 1572 the slaves in Mexico City had their own cofradias. 7 8 Some were attached to churches, others to hospitals. Some of these hospitals catered only to blacks and mestizos. One such example was the Hospital Real de la Epifania, established in Mexico City in 1582. 7 9 The Hospital de Nuestra Senora in Vera Cruz also admitted only black slaves and freedmen. 8 0

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Cofradias fostered a spirit of camaraderie among the slaves, and on feast days the black cofradias took part in the street processions. These processions were one of the few occasions when slaves as a group could congregate. Accordingly, they performed a socially useful function for slaves, affording them a necessary outlet for their energies when they were not otherwise occupied with work. The relative freedom which the cofradias allowed the slaves for social communion eventually was their undoing. In time, the cofradias became the cloak under which their members plotted rebellion in Mexico City. In 1572 Viceroy Martin Enriquez feared that the existence of slave cofradias posed a threat to public order. He observed that "recently the negroes have had a cofradia and have assembled and held processions with their members as the others do, and these are always increasing . . . and it seems that they may create problems." 81 Consequently, the viceroy recommended that the crown prohibit the assembly of these cofradias. Separated by thousands of miles from Mexico City, the crown did not share the viceroy's concern about the potential threat to the security of the realm. In 1612, however, the viceroy's fears of forty years before were dramatically confirmed. In that year, the leaders of a black cofradia played prominent roles in an abortive rebellion. This indiscretion led to their temporary suppression, but they eventually reemerged. In 1623 Viceroy Marques de Gelves repeated the 1612 prohibition against black cofradias, forbidding them to participate in processions. Offenders were condemned to 200 lashes and three years in an obraje. 82 Such harsh penalties indicated that the authorities were serious about destroying those black organizations. It is doubtful, however, whether they disappeared entirely from the Mexican scene. Although black cofradias were uneasily tolerated, at least for a time, the authorities were reluctant to provide the slaves with other opportunities to socialize. Legislation existed from as early as 1542 forbidding slaves to congregate after sunset in numbers exceeding three. 83 There are some indications, however, that slaves participated in gambling and dancing whenever possible. In 1577 the Spaniards in Mexico City expressed alarm over the spectacle of slaves gambling and dancing in the public square on feast days. Drunkenness was a feature of such gatherings, and sometimes the festivities led to violence. The cabildo ordered an end to such activities. 84 The city of Puebla also inveighed against the use of the public plazas as centers of entertainment by the slaves. In 1618 the town council banned

56

Slaves of the White God

such festivities, an order subsequently approved by the viceroy. Four years later the viceroy issued a general ordinance forbidding card playing by slaves either publicly or secretly. He charged that slaves had been forced to steal the money for their gambling sessions. A penalty of 200 lashes was imposed for disobeying this ordinance, and all slaves and freedmen were forbidden to sell any article whatsoever, thus depriving them of money for gambling. 85 The authorities also tried to prohibit the consumption of alcoholic beverages by the slaves. As early as 1545 the crown forbade the sale of wine to blacks and Indians. A few years later attempts were made by the viceroy to outlaw the consumption of pulque by the slaves; nevertheless, it is unlikely that the authorities succeeded in making teetotalers of the Mexican slaves. 86 If the public life of a slave was precarious, what of his private life, his marriage, and the possibility of a family? It must be noted at the outset that the Church and the state encouraged the institution of marriage among slaves. As early as 1527 the crown ordered that blacks be encouraged to marry, but only among themselves. 87 In this way, the purity of the races would be maintained, an ideal of the Spanish crown. 88 The family played a fundamental role in Catholic dogma; stable conjugal unions, it was reasoned, contributed to the creation of an orderly society. But there were a number of factors impeding monogamous unions among the slaves. In the first place, the fact that male slaves outnumbered females about 3:1 forced the males to seek alliances outside of their own race; in this case, generally with Indian women. In other cases, the Spanish males established common-law unions with female slaves, a practice upon which the Church looked askance. One slaveowner remarked that it was no sin to live in concubinage with his slave, since she was his money—an observation which shows that to him the slave was only property. Such a master, then, allowed his own sexual desires to oppose slave marriages, while another offered an economic reason, declaring that unmarried slaves provided better service than their married counterparts. 89 Whenever possible, however, slaves chose partners and had their marriages solemnized. Not all masters opposed these marriages; indeed, some encouraged the practice and made festive occasions out of these events. Such was the custom on the Xochimancas hacienda owned by the Society of Jesus. On the occasion of a wedding, the couple received suitable gifts from their masters on that hacienda. 90 In his pioneering study of the marriage patterns of persons of African descent in the parish

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of Santa Vera Cruz in Mexico City between 1646 and 1746, Edgar Love found that the priests of that parish "married 1,662 couples, of whom one or both parties of the marriage were persons of African descent." Of the 3,324 individuals involved, 2,378 were of African descent. Love noted that 74.6 percent of these Afro-Mexicans were free and that only 21.2 percent (or 508 persons) were slaves. The author found that male mulatto slaves had a decided preference for free women as marriage partners, probably owing to the fact that free women bore free children. Thus these slaves chose their wives principally from among mestizo, Indian, and free mulatto women. Of the mulatto women who were slaves, only 38.5 percent found free spouses chosen from among free black men and other castas. Black slaves, both male and female, elected to marry free blacks, Indians, or castas. 91 Most of these slaves, however, married other slaves. The marriage pattern for this later period appears to have been quite representative of the earlier period. One indication comes from data derived from slaves working in the ingenio at Tuxtla in 1577. Of the twenty-seven black males who were married, thirteen chose black female slaves as their wives, and fourteen selected their spouses from among Indian and mulatto women. 92 If nothing else, the data cited here reveal that some masters allowed their slaves to marry and that the slaves chose their spouses from a variety of groups: Indian, black, and mulatto, both slave and free. Even when slave marriages were allowed, such unions were sometimes broken up by their masters. This led one man, Juan de la Pena, to complain to the crown in 1570 that "the vecinos [citizens] . . . sell some of the negroes, which creates great inconvenience for their wives and children because they remain in this land without recourse."" In 1585 the Third Provincial Council of the Mexican Church ordered that masters not sell their married slaves so far apart geographically that they could not have conjugal relations for long periods of time.' 4 This injunction must not have been obeyed in view of the continuing examples of married slaves being sold and of the efforts of some of them to have the authorities intercede on their behalf. 95 If some masters opposed the marriage of their slaves or broke up such unions, others forced slaves to marry against their will. One slave woman complained that she had been forced to marry after she became too old to work for her master. Another declared that she was coerced into marrying a man she considered too old. 96 The reasons behind these forced unions probably varied, but it must have suited the masters' interest to

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order such unions. The authorities must have been aware of these pressures. In July 1572 the Provisor of the archbishopric of Mexico, Dr. Esteban de Portillo, was petitioned by Juan de Yepe, vecino of Mexico City, who charged that a curate had refused to marry two of his slaves. When questioned, the curate gave as his reason an alleged statement by the groom that the marriage was to take place without his consent and because of pressure exerted by his master. The couple denied this allegation and testified that their decision to marry was voluntary. In the face of this testimony, the judge ordered the marriage to take place.97 One wonders, however, whether the master had pressured these slaves to perjure themselves and whether their decision to marry was as voluntary as they said. Under these circumstances, it is not surprising that both male and female slaves saw nothing wrong in establishing common-law unions. These relationships, hardly unique to the slave population, nevertheless mirror the slaves' need for human contact and possibly their realization of the tenuousness of a slave's marriage bond. Common-law unions occasionally reflected a lack of comprehension of or familiarity with the Church's teachings on marriage. One woman declared that concubinage was preferable to a bad marriage. A male slave protested that a commonlaw union rendered a greater service to God than remaining unmarried. Naturally, such views were unacceptable to the Church. Invariably, the religious authorities broke up these unions or forced the partners to marry. Yet it was impossible to eradicate common-law unions completely. To the slave or the Indian involved, he was breaking a canon of no particular relevance or significance. The deeper meaning of marriage as a Christian sacrament was neither appreciated nor understood. As one ex-slave aptly expressed it, "It is no sin to live in concubinage."98 Bigamous relationships among the slaves was another problem that plagued the authorities. Bigamy was more prevalent among free AfroMexicans, chiefly because the freedman enjoyed greater mobility than the slave. Before a marriage was solemnized, evidence had to be presented concerning the marital status of the parties involved. The freedman, with his peripatetic habits, found it easier to conceal his marital status than did the slave, whose record could easily be checked with his previous masters. Nevertheless, in several instances slaves were tried before the Holy Office for bigamy. It was usually revealed during testimony that such slaves

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had been separated from their spouses and sold to a master in a distant area. Because of the physical separation the slave could claim he was not married or, in some cases, that his spouse had died. One slave accused of bigamy had his first wife in Vera Cruz and his second in Tlaxcala. The defendant claimed that his first wife had died. Another slave married in Vera Cruz for the second time, although her first husband lived in Mexico City. She testified that she did not know whether her first husband was dead. A third slave married again in Puebla, although her first spouse was in Vera C r u z . " The Inquisition severely punished the guilty partner in a bigamous relationship. In addition to having the union dissolved, such slaves were whipped and publicly humiliated. One slave had to do public penance as well as receiving 200 lashes. His master was ordered to sell him outside of Mexico City, and the slave was forbidden to set foot in that city until the lapse of six years. Another slave was sentenced to the galleys for six years in addition to 200 lashes and public penance. 100 The most important conclusion to be drawn from the incidence of bigamy among the slaves is not that they misunderstood the nature of a monogamous family structure. On the contrary, bigamy may have represented a survival of the polygamous mating patterns practiced in many of the African societies from which they came. In a fundamental sense, bigamous relationships demonstrated the artificial instability of the slave's family life. In the cases examined, the slaves who committed bigamy did so only after their families had been broken up through the sale of one partner. By separating the family, the master openly contravened the injunctions against such a practice. There was little the slave could do except acquire a new spouse; but this, as has been seen, was fraught with great danger. Additional evidence on the social life of the slaves is scanty. Yet Mexican slaves must have had as active and vibrant a social life after sundown as did their counterparts in the American South in later years. The rude huts or jacales which the slaves occupied were likely the center of their private lives, the places where they functioned as autonomous human beings. Some masters, it is known, recognized the human needs of their slaves for recreation and permitted them to seek release in fiestas. Others gave them gifts on special festive occasions. On Christmas Eve the slaves on the Xochimancas hacienda received condiments, fruits, and other edibles. Whenever they visited the hacienda the Provincial Fathers distri-

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buted presents "in order to inspire the negroes in their work." 101 In these little ways, Spaniards recognized the humanity of those to whom they denied freedom. An important aspect of the life of the slave was the nature and degree of their interaction with the Indians. Throughout the seventeenth century the Spaniards attempted, but with the little success, to limit the association between Indians and blacks. For example, blacks were repeatedly forbidden under heavy penalties to reside in the Indian pueblos. These restrictions stemmed from the belief that the Africans imparted bad customs to the Indians, robbed them, and generally mistreated them physically. The Spaniards may also have feared an alliance between the two that might threaten Spanish domination. Although the documents on this point are not always very explicit, it is possible that the restrictive measures were directed principally at freedmen, who possessed greater freedom of movement than the slaves. 102 One of the earliest measures to control the relations between Indians and Afro-Mexicans was adopted in 1547. In that year the cabildo of Mexico City noted the complaints concerning the presence of blacks in the Indian neighborhoods and ordered them to stay away under pain of 100 lashes for the first offense. A second offense would mean two years' labor in the mines, and a third, exile.103 This measure failed to have the desired effect, for in 1563 a new measure ordered the expulsion of all blacks from the Indian pueblos except those married to Indians. 104 In 1578 the crown prohibited blacks, mestizos, and mulattoes from being in the company of Indians in the pueblos because of the unwholesome effect they had on the latter. 105 It is unlikely that this problem was ever solved, since successive viceroys reminded the local authorities to enforce these restrictions in 1607, 1626, 1632, and 1654.106 The colonial records are replete with evidence of hostile actions committed against Indians by Afro-Mexicans, slaves, and freedmen. In a letter to Charles V in 1538, Friar Francisco de Guzman complained that "from the negroes and servants who live on the haciendas, the natives have received and receive notable harm because they take by force what they have in their houses, and sometimes their daughters and their wives. It is not yet six months that a negro belonging to a judge forcibly took an Indian, tied him to the tail of his horse, mounted the horse and dragged the Indian along until he died." 107 In 1544 Viceroy Mendoza ordered Francisco, a slave, to be punished for attacking and beating a number of Indians. 108

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There were numerous complaints from Indian pueblos that gangs of Afro-Mexicans had attacked them, pilfered their food, and generally created havoc. These raids were often perpetrated by a combination of mestizos, Spaniards, and mulattoes. Only a few of these incidents need be cited. In 1560 it was charged that some Spaniards and "many mestizos, negroes and mulattoes" entered the homes and orchards of some Indian communities and stole their fruit. 109 In that same year a similar group robbed the Indians of the barrio of San Pablo of their fish. 110 In 1573 the Audiencia of Mexico complained that "mestizos, negroes and mulattoes and other persons of bad living" took the lands and houses and possessions of the Indians and mistreated them. 111 In 1598 it was reported that blacks stole the vegetables belonging to the Indians of several barrios. 112 Ten years later, in 1608, Viceroy Velasco lamented tht blacks, mulattoes, and mestizos entered the Indian pueblos, where they "possess more liberty and commit great excesses without punishment." 113 Those pueblos that were attacked generally requested the authorities to take steps to defend them and punish the troublemakers. In their turn, the authorities in Mexico City advised their local representatives to use all their power to correct the abuses. Afro-Mexicans shared the reputation of mistreating the Indians with whom they worked. In 1582 it was reported that the Indians in the mines at Nueva Vizcaya suffered mistreatment at the hands of the blacks, and in 1590 a similar charge was leveled at the slaves who worked in the mines of Santa Maria Tlalpuxagua. 114 Realizing the powers of intimidation which the Afro-Mexicans exercised over the Indians, Spaniards sometimes used them as supervisors for Indian laborers. The traveler Gomez de Cervantes observed in 1599 that "they put with the Indians a negro or servant who goes with them and hurries them in order to make them work, making them work more than they are able because of their weak nature and little strength, and in addition to this they beat them so that they are mistreated." 115 In 1624, during work on the cathedral in Mexico City, an interesting and revealing order came from Licenciado Pedro de Vergara Gaviria, oidor (judge) of the Audiencia and supervisor of the construction, forbidding the acceptance of blacks as workers "because of their greater skill in the work than the Spanish officials and the Indians, [and also] because of the bad treatment which the negroes mete out to the Indians." 116 This was one of the rare occasions on which slaves found their labor unwanted and, indeed, for the wrong reasons. Spanish officials also sought to prevent the Indians and the Afro-

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Mexicans from trading with each other. This attitude stemmed from the belief that Indians were at a disadvantage in such transactions and also that Afro-Mexicans provided the Indians with unfair competition in the sale of certain items. Thus in 1541 Charles V prohibited any "trade, commerce, or communication" between the two groups. 117 In subsequent years Afro-Mexicans were specifically prevented from trading in certain items such as fruits, vegetables, and chili, which were recognized to be the preserve of the Indian population. The viceroy, however, could and did issue special licenses to deserving freedmen to trade in these items. 118 Waiving these restrictions was not a frequent occurrence, and the repetition of these restrictive measures in 1555, 1569, 1590, and 1618 suggests the haphazard enforcement of the law and the viceroy's commitment to protect the rights and privileges of the Indians. Despite the undercurrent of hostility existing between the Indians and the Afro-Mexicans, members of the two groups often found each other attractive sexual partners. The authorities did their utmost to discourage sexual relations between the two races. As already noted, the crown wanted to preserve racial purity and, with this in mind, ordered that blacks should be encouraged to marry within their own race. Nevertheless, black men and Indian women continued to form sexual alliances both in and out of wedlock. For the male slave, a liaison with an Indian woman was particularly advantageous, since legally a child took the mother's status. By 1550 Indian women had been released from slavery; thus their children sired by male slaves were born free. Such alliances were unpalatable to the Spaniards, who saw a potential source of labor disappearing in this way. Some Afro-Mexicans and Indians celebrated marriages, while others established common-law unions. The Church vigorously attacked and ferreted out illicit common-law unions and dissolved them. 119 The religious authorities saw the institution of matrimony as eminently preferable to the state of concubinage in which such couples lived. Yet the Church never succeeded in eradicating these unions. Black women were scarce, and, with the compliance of Indian women, male slaves continued to establish amorous liaisons. When the incidence of Indian-black unions, licit or illicit, failed to diminish, Viceroy Martin Enriquez dispatched a letter to the crown in 1574. He claimed that Indian women were "very weak and very attracted to the negroes and so they prefer them rather than the Indians, while the

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negroes marry them rather than those of their own kind in order to make their children free." 120 To remedy this situation, he recommended that all such children be made slaves and that marriage between blacks and Indians be entirely prohibited. The children would take the father's status rather than the mother's, which would significantly increase the supply of slaves. The king, however, rejected this proposed break with custom, and children continued to take their mother's status. Consequently, the ever increasing number of zambos in colonial society was a lasting testimony to the authorities' failure to discourage Indian-black sexual unions. A further dimension to Afro-Mexican contacts was the extent to which African immigrants acquired some of the customs of the native Indians. In 1582 one slave was accused before the Inquisition of having "eaten the meal that the Indians offered in their idolatries to the gods." 121 A more widespread expression of cultural contact between the two peoples was the use of the hallucinatory drug commonly called peyote, which was extracted from the plant known botanically as "peyotl zacatequensi." The plant could be either chewed and swallowed or made into a brew and drunk. Grown in the north of Mexico, the Indians had used peyote long before the arrival of the Spaniards and the Africans. Not until 1620, however, did the Holy Office prohibit its use. In issuing its ban, the Inquisition observed that "inasmuch as the use of the weed or root called peyote has been introduced into these provinces, for the purpose of detecting thefts, of divining other happenings and foretellings, it is an act of superstition and is condemned as opposed to the purity and integrity of our Holy Catholic Faith. 122 Religious sanctions notwithstanding, the drug was used and its devotees claimed that it had medicinal qualities, that it served as an aphrodisiac, gave them physical strength, and allowed them to divine the future and discover wrongdoers. Afro-Mexicans brought before the Holy Office were accused of using peyote for three purposes: to cure illness, to obtain some desired information, and to avenge a wrong. Maria de Pineda was denounced for "having taken peyote to cure herself," while Juan Ramirez took the drug to discover who had stolen something from his master's room. Magdalena used it to determine whether she was pregnant, and Maria experimented with it "in order to know hidden things." Ursula gave an interesting reason for using the prohibited drug. She took it "in order to know what her husband and his friends were doing and to find out what was happening in the world." 123 The use of peyote by the blacks repre-

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sented one aspect of cultural diffusion in Mexico, for its narcotic propensities had been learned from the Indians. The Holy Office failed to eradicate its use and the practice probably spread rather than declined. Indians and Afro-Mexicans enjoyed an ambivalent relationship in early colonial Mexico. On the one hand, they established sexual unions; on the other, their relationship was often characterized by violent hostility. The crown and the local bureaucrats attempted, albeit unsuccessfully, to protect the Indians and to minimize Afro-Indian contacts. Blacks found Indians to be easy, convenient, and relatively defenseless targets on which to unleash their hostility to society, a hostility derived from their oppressed condition and their inferior place in the social milieu. Indians and blacks were never able to unite in a common rebellion against the Spaniards, a situation due as much to the success of the Spanish polity of divide and rule as to the perverse phenomenon of the oppressed directing their violence at each other rather than toward the oppressors. As a group the slaves occupied a precarious place in colonial society. Subjected to the will, authority, and discipline of their exploiters, they were confined to a life of ceaseless and unrewarding toil. Their high mortality rate was one inevitable consequence of these pressures. Attempts to hispanicize Afro-Mexicans were only partially successful. Their acceptance of Catholicism, for example, did not signify rejection of their own traditional beliefs. African customs and practices survived, though often in a diluted form. Slaves, as people, carved out as best they could an autonomous existence for themselves; they loved each other, played with each other, cooperated with each other in organizations such as the cofradia, and drew strength and psychic comfort from their peers. The dream of eventual liberty, if death did not intervene, served as a balm to daily toil. But the oppressive ingredients of Mexican slavery, the brutal tortures, the omnipresent whip, and the painful uprooting of families— to name but a few—served as rude and inescapable reminders of their unfortunate existence.

CHAPTER 3

Slavery in the Ingeniös, the Obrajes, and the Mines When Bernal Diaz, one of the Spanish conquistadores, wrote his memoirs, he admitted that the Spaniards had come to the New World to "serve God and the king and also to get rich." 1 This candid admission of economic motivation for the conquest must not have come as a surprise to any of his contemporaries. For however much the conquistadores may have insisted otherwise, the unceasing demands for precious metals which they imposed upon the Indians demonstrated that their concerns were not wholly or even significantly altruistic. In the Caribbean islands as well as on the mainland, the behavior of the colonists confirmed their preoccupation with self-aggrandizement. In every colony, Spaniards proceeded with alacrity to exploit the labor of the Indian peoples whom they found there. These Iberian conquerors could not or would not conceive of any other type of relationship with the Indians save that of master and servant. During the sixteenth century, the Spaniards devised various methods of obtaining the labor services of the Indian peoples. Some of the indigenous peoples were enslaved and remained in that capacity until the crown formally abolished Indian slavery in 1542. Colonists evaded the strict enforcement of this law, however, and many years would elapse before the institution ended. Other Indians were entrusted to a colonist to whom they paid tribute and worked in return for being Christianized. This system was known as the encomienda, and the Indians who worked under its aegis were not slaves because the colonist (the encomendero) did not own the person of the Indian but was merely entitled to his labor services. The declining Indian population eventually made it impossible to continue an equitable distribution of these encomienda Indians among

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deserving Spaniards. This factor, together with the abuses which crept into the operation of the system, whereby some Indians were treated as slaves, led to its abolition and replacement after 1550 by a system of labor rationing known as the repartimiento. Under the repartimiento system Indians were apportioned to Spaniards on a rotation basis. The colonist had to establish his need for such workers and was required to treat them humanely and to pay them a fixed wage. As in the case of the encomienda system, the Indians' participation in the repartimiento was not voluntary; the element of coercion was never absent. As the system developed, masters continually evaded their responsibilities to their workers, violated the terms of the work agreements, and generally mistreated them. Needless to say, Indians disliked being impressed to work for the Spaniards under these conditions. As Gibson describes it, "The repartimiento system of the late sixteenth century was everywhere one of compulsion and abuse." 2 Eventually, in 1632, the crown abolished the repartimiento system for all economic enterprises, with the exception of mining. Henceforth, the colonists would be expected to rely on the free wage labor of the Indians and the mestizos and the slave labor of the Afro-Mexicans. The search for an adequate and dependable labor force, then, was a central preoccupation of the colonists throughout the period. With the Indians falling victim to disease and with the crown's known opposition to their wholesale enslavement, colonists began to look to the African as the mainstay of their labor force in certain crucial economic ventures. As early as November 1525, a number of colonists petitioned the crown for African slaves, arguing that "there is a great need for negro slaves to perform the labor that we vecinos require." 3 Of these enterprises, which in time would depend partly or wholly on African slave labor for survival, the sugar industry, the obrajes, and the silver mines were the most important. To the proprietors of these enterprises, Africa possessed not merely an inexhaustible supply of manpower but its peoples existed to provide them with a labor force on demand. This attitude, together with the rigorous nature of the work, helps to explain why slaves employed in these three industries comprised the most systematically oppressed sector of the Afro-Mexican population. Like its New World counterparts which possessed tropical climates and an agreeable soil, Mexico used African slave labor extensively in the cultivation of sugarcane. The climate and soil in areas like the Cuernavaca basin, Vera Cruz and its environs, southern Nueva Galicia, the warm

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valleys of Michoacän, Huatusco, Oaxaca, and Cordoba proved ideal for its growth. Sugarcane, then and now, is a crop which requires careful attention and much effort before the sugar is finally extracted. The soil has to be prepared, furrows made, the shoots planted, the cane cut, transported to the mill, and finally ground and made into sugar. The entire process requires a substantial labor force, particularly at harvest time, since the cane has to be cut and processed at the right time or else the sucrose content is reduced. Sugarcane cultivation was introduced into New Spain shortly after the conquest. In a report to the crown in 1524, Cortes revealed the existence of two ingeniös in the colony, 4 but it is not clear whether these ingeniös were actually in operation at that time. In a recent study of the sugar hacienda of the Marques del Valle, Ward Barrett seems to reject 1524 as the date when the sugar industry was first introduced. He concludes that the industry "was begun in New Spain by Cortes at Tuxtla about 1528 or 1529, or by Antonio Serrano de Cardona near Cuernavaca about 1530." 5 Similarly, it is not known when African slaves first began to work on the plantations. It is certain, nevertheless, that they began to play a significant role in this enterprise at a relatively early date. By 1534 they held clearly defined roles in the refining process, 6 and at least by 1535 Africans were imported specifically to work on the sugar plantations. In that year, Rodrigo de Albornoz, a royal accountant (contador) bought one hundred and fifty slaves for "a sugar plantation and other farms." 7 Seven years later, in 1542, Cortes contracted for the delivery of 500 slaves to work on his sugar plantations. 8 As sugarcane cultivation became an attractive economic venture, it spread rapidly from Cuernavaca where it was first established, to different parts of New Spain. To further this expansion, the crown gave incentive to private enterprise by making land grants to prospective growers in 1550 and again in 1568.9 The sugar plantations in New Spain varied in size and in the number of slaves utilized. In 1550 the plantation belonging to the Marques del Valle at Tlaltenango had 225 slaves, both African and Indian, while Axomulco had 28 slaves—21 blacks and 7 Indians. 10 In 1556 the plantation belonging to the same family at Tuxtla had 60 slaves, both male and female. 11 In 1580 one plantation at Orizaba reported 123 African slaves, consisting of seventy-two men, forty-four women, and seven children. During the seventeenth century, the average number of slaves on the plantations rested somewhere between 20 and 40. There were, of course, exceptions to this general pattern. The Santisima Trinidad plantation near Jalapa

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had a population of 200 slaves in 1606. 12 The Xochimancas hacienda in the state of Morelos had 246 slaves in 1653, 216 in 1660, 217 in 1664, and 223 in 1666. 13 The slaves who worked on the sugar plantations comprised both native Africans and those born in New Spain. In his study of the Atlacomulco plantation, Ward Barrett found that at least 50 percent of those slaves for whom he had information were born on that plantation. Barrett's study revealed, in addition, that approximately one-third of the 889 slaves had come from Africa. This finding attested to the importance of the slave trade in replenishing the supply of slaves. Based on his data, Barrett concluded that in view of the incidence of infant mortality the purchase of slaves was more important than local reproduction in maintaining the work force on the Atlacomulco plantation. 14 These findings appear to have general applicability to the other sugar plantations in colonial Mexico. The work routine on a sugar plantation was often long and arduous. According to the records of the Xochimancas hacienda, which belonged to the Society of Jesus, slaves were generally awakened at four in the morning and worked until ten or eleven o'clock at night. Upon arising, the slaves went to the sugar mill where they ground eight, nine, or ten caldrons of sugar "depending on the cane and the season." At daybreak the sound of a bell summoned the slaves to take the sugar from the boiling house (casa de calderas) to the refinery (casa de purgar) and to put the "white sugar" in the sun to be dried. When there was no sugar to be sunned, the slaves occupied themselves with other tasks. When this work was completed, they returned to their homes for breakfast and to ready themselves to leave for the fields. The slaves who worked in the canefields were divided into four groups. The first two comprised those who cut the canes and the ratoons. The third group consisted of the weeders, the fourth, of the boys and girls who planted the shoots. The slaves were closely supervised to ensure that each individual performed his share of the work and to see that "what should have been done by one is not done by two." Each group had a slave driver, "a man of courage who knows how to give orders and to inspire respect and fear." The slave driver had to be capable of absorbing and remaining unaffected by the jeers of those slaves who wanted their work lessened and who delighted in taunting him with shouts of "today for me, tomorrow for you." 15 This was also a timely reminder to the driver that his place in the estate hierarchy was

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precarious and that he would rejoin the mass of slaves as a common laborer if he lost the master's confidence. In addition to planting, weeding, and cutting canes, there were a number of ancillary chores to be performed on the sugar estate. These included gathering and transporting the cane to the mills, irrigating the fields, cutting and carrying firewood, and repairing machinery. Although Sunday was generally a day of rest and worship, slaves were still required to perform a few minor tasks in the fields for the purpose of keeping them occupied. On Sunday afternoons, they worked for about forty-five minutes, since it was believed that if the Afro-Mexicans enjoyed too much leisure "they will commit many offenses . . . some get drunk, others rob the Indians on the highways, some escape to other ingeniös carrying what they have stolen never to return for many months; so to avoid these problems they must be kept busy." 16 African slaves performed a large number of specialized tasks on the sugar plantations. A few skilled slaves filled the position of maestro de azucar (sugar master), which was the most important job in the ingenio. The maestro de azücar was the principal sugar maker and the supervisor of the operations of the ingenio. Other slaves became cartwrights, blacksmiths, press operators, woodcutters, carpenters, sugar refiners, and sugar boilers. Skilled slaves were undoubtedly the ones most highly respected by the slave population. As a group, African slaves performed the most strenuous tasks on the plantation. The belief that, as workers, Africans were superior to Indians was shared by the Spaniards in New Spain and in the other colonies. The often expressed belief was that one African was the equivalent of as many as four Indians where productivity was concerned. As late as 1657 some Spaniards in Mexico held this view in reference to the workers on the estate of the Marques del Valle. According to Barrett, "The ratio of value of Negro labor to that of Indians was stated at 2:1, 3:1 and 4:1, with even higher relative value placed on the value of skilled Negro workers." 17 On that occasion, one of the Spaniards, Manuel de Arizaga, stated unequivocally that "it is clear and obvious that the labor of a slave in one day is worth more than that of two Indians." Such an assessment of the value of black labor misses one central point, however. While most Indians had a ten-hour work day (from eight to six), black slaves often worked from three o'clock in the morning until eleven o'clock at night, a total of twenty hours. Manuel de Lima, one of the Spaniards who expressed an opinion on this subject in 1657, observed that the In-

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dian "works only from eight or nine in the morning until six in the evening . . . [but the slave] begins at three in the morning and works until eleven at night." 18 Statements such as this underscore the point (putting aside the unresolvable issue of whether blacks were physically stronger than Indians) that the length of the slaves' work day would have contributed to, if not completely accounted for, their greater productivity when compared to that of the Indians. Spaniards could hardly have been blind to this crucial difference in the length of the work day for the two peoples and of its relationship to output. Yet they may have had very compelling reasons for extolling the virtues of African slave labor, especially to the colonial authorities. An expressed belief in the natural superiority of black workers served as a rationalization for getting the authorities to import more Africans to work in the colonies, which were almost always short of labor. Such a belief also provided a convenient justification for the continued enslavement of the blacks on grounds of economic necessity and for the imposition of the most rigorous work on their shoulders. During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the crown introduced a series of measures regulating labor on the sugar plantations. As early as 1544 the crown forbade the encomenderos to use Indian labor in the ingeniös "because one plantation is sufficient to kill two thousand of them each year." 1 ' In 1551 the crown emphasized that Indians could be used only in the canefields, not for the more rigorous work in the ingeniös. This restriction was violated, for in 1586 Viceroy Manrique de Zuniga felt it necessary to observe that Indians who worked in the ingenio at Orizaba "experience notable pressures and problems" because they "are used in the boiling house and at difficult and intolerable tasks that are more suited to negro slaves accustomed to performing such difficult jobs and [who are] not weak and frail Indians with little strength and stamina." 20 In the viceroy's opinion, African slaves were to be used in the ingeniös where the hours were longer and the labor more dangerous and physically demanding. It was not unusual, for instance, for slaves to have their arms caught and severed in the sugar mill. Spaniards never adhered faithfully to the restrictions on the use of Indian labor. Since there was never an adequate supply of African slaves in Mexico, there was always the temptation to use Indian labor to supplement that of the slaves. Indications that infractions of the restrictions occurred are derived from the fact that in 1596, 1598, and 1599 the king returned to the subject of Indian labor in the ingeniös and the canefields. In

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1596 and 1598 the crown again prohibited the use of Indians in the ingeniös. 21 Further concern over Indian labor prompted the viceroy to issue an order on April 2, 1599, prohibiting the use of repartimiento labor on the sugar plantations. Indian labor offered voluntarily, however, could be used, provided that such Indians were well treated and received adequate remuneration. 22 On April 27, 1599, the king redirected his attention to the problem of the labor supply on the sugar plantations. On this occasion, he prohibited the creation of additional sugar plantations in the territory without special license.23 Taken together, these measures provoked opposition from the colonists. The members of the cabildo in Mexico City protested against their implementation, on the grounds that such measures meant a serious blow to the expanding sugar industry and were unpalatable to those who had invested in it. 24 The colonists affected by these measures began to organize collective resistance to them. On June 14 they petitioned the viceroy to allow the return of Indian labor to the plantations. 25 The viceroy rejected the petition, but in succeeding days several other petitions followed, asking for Indian workers to relieve the acute labor shortage. The problem was urgent, since harvest time was approaching and more workers would be needed. In response to the sustained pressure from the planters and the clear need for additional labor, the viceroy eventually compromised. He introduced a new measure designed to fill the demand for labor temporarily. A number of Indians, aptly called "Indios de socorro" (relief Indians), would be allocated on request to each planter for a specified period of time. This was essentially a temporary expedient to tide the planters over until they could acquire an adequate number of slaves. To ensure that the Indians would not be abused, the viceroy appointed veedores or inspectors charged with the responsibility of providing protection for the Indian workers. Among other restrictions, Indians could not be used for work in the ingeniös and were to receive adequate remuneration and good treament. 26 The planters welcomed this compromise from the viceroy, who for his part received and granted requests for such workers in the ensuing months. The crown was determined, however, to limit the expansion of the sugar industry in New Spain in order to protect the Indians from the rigors of canefield labor and work in the ingeniös. Had African slaves been available in adequate numbers, it is unlikely that the industry would have been restricted. But since the cultivation of sugarcane pro-

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duced an insatiable demand for labor, and since Indians would have had to be used to meet the demand, the crown sought to contain the sugar industry. The crown probably reasoned that the Caribbean islands would produce enough sugar to meet the demands of the mother country. Hence the Spaniards in New Spain could concentrate on silver mining with the aid of the available workers, both Indian and African. There were further attacks on the sugar industry in 1600. Acting either under royal pressure or solely on his own initiative, the viceroy terminated the use of Indios de socorro on the sugar plantations on December 30, 1600. On November 24, 1601, Philip III prohibited the use of Indian labor in any capacity whatsoever on the plantations.27 The planters were once again required to rely entirely on the labor of black slaves, since even the use of voluntary Indian labor was outlawed. This kind of regulation was more easily written than enforced; indeed, in the years after 1601 Indians could still be found working in the sugar industry. Not only did the demand for African slaves exceed the supply but plantation owners were often unable to pay the prices asked for them. The viceroy's observation in 1599 that slaves employed in the sugar industry had a higher mortality rate "than in any other kind of work" was undoubtedly true, a fact which further exacerbated the labor problem.28 Royal disfavor did not destroy the sugar industry in New Spain. Although restrictions were placed on the export of sugar, there was sufficient expansion in domestic demand to keep it workable and profitable. Nor was there a cessation of the licenses granted to establish new plantations. Legally or illegally, Spaniards continued to cultivate sugarcane because it filled a domestic need. The size and equipment of some of the sugar estates indicated the extent of the investment made by their owners. One plantation in the Valle de Orizaba in 1560 was described as possessing "good equipment," a hydraulic wheel, and aqueducts for irrigation. In 1580 this plantation had "a press house or mill, a refining house, a shop, livestock, carts, and many slaves." In that year it was valued at 4,628 pesos. 2 ' The plantation known as La Santisima Trinidad was very large and represented a considerable financial investment. Owned by Hernandez de la Higuera, it was located in Jalapa. In the early seventeenth century this plantation had "a dwelling house of two floors, a chapel, a mill with its presses, a boiling house with seven boilers and three metal pans, two refineries, a stove, a barn . . . two hundred slaves . . . everything valued by the owners at more than 700,000 pesos."30

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Other sugar plantations in early colonial Mexico reflected a sizable outlay of capital. In 1599 Juan de Castillo of the pueblo of Chiltoyac spent 20,000 pesos to establish his plantation. 31 The Society of Jesus reported in 1645 that it "possessed in the archbishopric of Puebla two plantations whose value exceeded 170,000 pesos, which produced 1,500,000 pounds of sugar each year . . . with a sale price of 240,000 pesos. The total number of slaves on the six plantations they owned was 1,200, each with a value of three hundred pesos." 32 Seven years later, in 1652, the plantation known as Nuestra Senora de la Concepcion, in the state of Michoacän, was valued at more than 100,000 pesos. 33 Many other examples of large capital investments in the sugar industry could be cited. It was clearly an expression of agrarian capitalism, with its partial dependence on wage labor, its large capital outlay, and its need for a market. In spite of their small numbers, black slaves provided the foundation on which the entire structure of the labor force rested. It is no exaggeration to conclude that the industry could hardly have survived without their efforts. The obrajes were another area in which slaves helped satisfy the demand for labor. These were textile workshops producing cloth for local consumption. First established in Mexico in 1537, obrajes came to perform a useful function in the economy. When Spain in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries increasingly failed to satisfy the demand for textiles in New Spain, the local obrajes filled the lacuna. In response to local needs, their numbers continually increased, with Mexico City, Puebla, Oaxaca, and Valladolid becoming the principal centers of the textile industry. By 1578 Puebla had as many as forty obrajes. In the seventeenth century a short-lived export trade even developed between Mexico and Peru. 34 As in the case of the ingeniös, obraje labor was notoriously hard. Greenleaf points out that "sweatshop working conditions prevailed —Indian slavery, debt peonage, harsh treatment, child labor, bad food and shelter." 35 Since cloth manufacture involved a high degree of skill for some tasks, a permanent and dependable labor force was a necessity. Only slaves could fill the demand for stable, specialized labor. In fact, some obrajes were operated wholly by slaves. 36 Generally speaking, Indians provided the dominant manpower for the obrajes, of which there were two kinds in New Spain. First, there were the "obrajes cerrados," which relied entirely on all forms of compulsory labor, Indian or black. Freedom of movement was restricted, and

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workers could not leave the confines of the workshops. The second type were the "obrajes abiertos/' where contracted voluntary labor formed the core of the labor force. It was not uncommon, however, for this type of obraje to have slave labor within its walls. 37 The obrajes competed with the other economic enterprises for the available workers, whether free or slave. The civil authorities, it seemed, appreciated the usefulness of their services. As a result, between 1549 and 1621, obrajes received labor through the repartimiento system. In addition, blacks and Indians found guilty of religious or criminal offenses could be sentenced to a term of forced labor in these workshops. There was some variation in the size of the labor force in the obrajes. Although a few of them had some 500 to 700 workers, the majority employed between 50 and 150 hands. The available statistics sometimes make no distinction between Indians and blacks. For example, the obraje of Tomas de Contreras in Coyoacän reported a total of 101 slaves in 1660. Since Indian slavery had been abolished over a hundred years earlier, it is safe to assume that this figure referred to black slaves. Similarly, in 1660 the obraje belonging to Antonio de Ansaldo, also of Coyoacän, had 92 slaves of all ages.38 Humanitarian concern for the welfare of the Indian workers led the crown to establish protective legislation governing work in the obrajes. The owners were generally encouraged to replace their Indian workers with black slaves. In 1601 the crown prohibited the employment of Indians in the obrajes and gave the owners four months in which to replace them with African slaves. This cέdula (decree) was virtually unenforceable in view of the scarcity of slaves and the competition that existed for those that were available. The cedula met with such violent opposition in Mexico that the viceroy had to suspend it. In a subsequent cedula issued in 1609, the crown reiterated that black slaves must replace Indians in the obrajes. 39 But this kind of decree was again far removed from the realities of the labor situation. There were not nearly enough slaves to fill the demand, even taking into account the vigorous slave trade then in progress. Consequently, Indians continued to be the dominant element in the textile workshops. Silver mining was also one of the major economic activities undertaken by the Spaniards in New Spain. The desire for wealth had been the raison d'etre of the conquest of Mexico. But after the initial excitement of the conquest had worn off, the Spaniards discovered that gold, the primary object of their quest, was not to be found in abundance. The

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Slaves of the White God

eventual discovery of silver deposits, however, gave a new dimension to the search for wealth and provided a new focus for exploitation and greed. Silver mines were found in Michoacän, Tasco, and Zimpango as early as 1534. In subsequent years the explorers struck veins in Nueva Galicia, Zacatecas, Zimapan, Temascaltepec, and Guanajuato. The first half-century of the conquest, accordingly, was a period of vigorous mining activity. By 1570 a pattern had been established with regard to the labor force in the mines. As in the other economic ventures, mining was not the preserve of any one race. There were only a few mines in which black slaves predominated. Indians and Spaniards formed significant parts of the laboring population in almost all of the mines. Table 13 shows the labor composition of some of the mines in 1570. The importance of the role played by the slaves in the mines is demonstrated by the persistent efforts of the colonial authorities to obtain them throughout the period covered by this study. The disastrous epidemics of the sixteenth century affected the Indian and, to a lesser extent, the

Table 13.

Composition of the Labor Force in the Mines, 1570.

Mines

Number of Slaves

Number of Spaniards

Number of Indians

Temascaltepec Zultepec Zacualpa Tasco Izmiquilpa Tlalpuxagua Guanajuato

130 300 150 600 40 120 800

50 40 30 400 10 40 400

300 200 350 900

Guachinango Xocotlän Cuitalpilco Zacatecas San Miguel Pachuca

100 80 50 500 20 800

25 20 20 300 15 500

— — — — — — — —

2,700

Source: "Censos de la poblacion del Virreinato de Nueva Espana en el siglo XVI," Boletin del Centro de Estudios Americanistas de Sevilla de Indias, Ano VI, nos. 23 and 24 (February-March 1919), pp. 51-54. Henry R. Wagner, "Early Silver Mining in New Spain," Revista de Historia de America, no. 14 (June 1942), p. 68.

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Afro-Mexican population. As early as April 1537, Viceroy Mendoza urged that African slaves be sent to work in the mines because "the silver mines are increasing, as each day more are discovered, while the [Indian] slaves continue to decrease." 40 The clamor for African slaves continued throughout the 1540s and 1550s, especially since Indian slavery was abolished in 1542 and another epidemic had struck the land in 1545, further reducing the numbers of the indigenous population. In an obvious reference to the emancipation of the Indian slaves, members of the cabildo of Mexico City pleaded with the crown in a petition dated April 29,1562, that "since the personal services of the Indians have been taken away suddenly . . . there is a great need for labor in the haciendas, mines, sugar refineries, ranches and other businesses in the land, and the remedy cannot justly be other than to bring large numbers of negroes to this land." 41 Two years later the Spanish traveler Jeronimo Valderrama echoed similar sentiments when he pleaded simply yet effectively, "It is necessary that slaves come." 42 The continued decline of the Indian population and the high mortality rate in the slave population led some colonial bureaucrats to report to the crown in January 1574 that there was a shortage of slave labor for the mines and to request that more Africans be sent to relieve the situation. In July of the same year the Audiencia of Mexico seconded the request. One month later, some officials in Mexico City complained to the king that they had written to him on many occasions about the labor problem in the mines "caused by the continual dying of the negroes and of the mines not being able to find others to replace those who die." Consequently, they requested permission to use Indians in the mines. 43 Although the crown was generally sympathetic to the request for more slaves, the demand for them far exceeded the supply. On December 6, 1576, the viceroy reported that the pestilence (probably typhus) had once again "attacked the negroes, the mulattoes, and some mestizos." Four months later, on March 30, 1577, he said that the epidemic had created "much harm" in Zacatecas and the other mines, and that many Indians, blacks, and mulattoes had died. 44 On May 13 the viceroy recommended that the king send 3,000 slaves, two-thirds male and one-third female, to alleviate the labor problem. He suggested that these slaves be distributed to the mines at a moderate price and that they be given time to pay for them. He reminded the crown that immediately after the epidemic of 1545 permission had been granted to import slaves specifically for the mines. The viceroy continued his pleas for more slaves when he informed

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the king in October that some mines had lost as many as 100 slaves. Other Spaniards in Mexico City and Puebla de los Angeles lost "seventy and more, and many lost twelve, fifteen and twenty." The high mortality of slaves in the mines and elsewhere led Don Ortega Mendiota, fiscal of the Audiencia to conclude sadly that "this land is short of money and silver as a result of the death of the Indians and the negroes." 45 In reporting the labor shortage in the mines once more on March 20, 1580, the viceroy lamented that the "previous pestilence which attacked the Indians and negroes has placed this land in great travail." 46 One of the central and recurrent features of the letters from the various viceroys to the crown throughout the period 1576 to 1600 was the request for African slaves to work in the mines. On October 30, 1580, Viceroy Martin Enriquez reported that the epidemic had not hit the laboring population with its customary severity that year although some slaves had died. In assessing the general labor picture in December 1580, Viceroy Enriquez observed, however, that the epidemics of previous years "had ruined the mines" and that the widespread decimation of the slaves had obliged the Spaniards to purchase others. He reported that the death of the Indians and the slaves had caused the closing of many mines in Zacatecas. The viceroy concluded by requesting that 2,000 or 3,000 slaves be dispatched for the mines. 47 It is not known how many slaves were sent to New Spain in response to these requests. It is clear, however, that after 1576 a number of traders received licenses to deliver slaves to that colony. But these slaves never arrived in numbers adequate to solve the acute labor problem. The continued scarcity of workers prompted Viceroy Lorenzo Suärez de Mendoza to renew the request on April 9, 1582, for "as many slaves as possible," and to add on October 28 that "a good quantity of negro slaves" be sent to the mines. 48 Later that year, the cabildo of Zacatecas informed the viceroy that war and epidemics had "consumed the greatest portion of the slaves and people." 49 In April 1583 and again in November 1584, the Audiencia of Mexico continued to beg for slaves to work in the mines. 50 The colonial authorities who requested that more slaves be sent to New Spain acted in part to spare the Indians from the rigor and hardship associated with working in the mines. The viceroy, the Marques de Villamanrique, complained on May 10,1586, about the "dangerous" and "excessive" work to which the Indians were exposed in the mines. To remedy the situation, he asked the king to send 3,000 or 4,000 slaves so

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that "the Indians may be relieved of the excessive work." These slaves, the viceroy added, should be subsidized by the crown. 51 The request for a royal subsidy was repeated in letters written in December 1590 and in May and June 1591.52 The labor crisis in the mines encouraged the viceroy to make a new proposal for its solution in 1590. In addition to recommending the shipment of 3,000 slaves, he suggested that the 8,000 free blacks and mulattoes in New Spain be forced to work in the mines. The viceroy saw a number of advantages in his proposal. Such persons would provide much needed labor, and their gainful employment would make it more difficult for them to create disorder in the society. Furthermore, the labor of free blacks and mulattoes would relieve the physical burden on those Indians who worked in the mines. Finally, the viceroy believed that the free blacks and mulattoes stood to benefit from this measure because they would earn wages and "their children growing up in that life would become fond of it." 53 The viceroy apparently envisioned a population of free blacks working in perpetuity in the mines for the Spaniards. The crown, however, rejected this proposal, and the labor problem remained to plague his successor, Don Luis de Velasco II. On January 5, 1593, an impatient Don Luis commented on the labor shortage, complaining that on several occasions previously he had requested 2,000 or 3,000 slaves for the mines because "the Indians are decreasing and the miners find it impossible to sustain themselves and to work the mines without people." 54 The viceroy repeated his request for the same number of slaves on January 14, 1594. In April of that year he renewed his request for "a quantity of slaves" to be sent and subsidized by the crown. By May 1596 Don Luis feared that if slaves were not forthcoming there would be "great ruin and loss in all the kingdom." 55 Table 14 shows the composition of the labor force in ten of the largest mining areas in 1597. These statistics suggest that black slaves at that time formed only 16 percent of a total work force comprising Indians and Africans. But in view of the repeated requests by the viceroys for additional slaves, it is obvious that they were indispensable to the mine operations in New Spain. As noted earlier, the colonial authorities believed the Indians should be replaced by blacks. As early as 1535 the crown had ordered the viceroy to encourage the employment of black slaves in the mines because Indians were felt to be physically unsuited to that kind of labor. 56 In 1584 the Council of the Indies recommended that work in the

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Table 14.

Compositon of the Labor Force in the Mines, 1597.

Mines Zultepec Temascaltepec Guanajuato Tlalpuxagua Zacualpa Pachuca Ocumatlan Cuautla Tasco Zacatecas Total

Miners 36 18 29 19 23 52 10 14 61 34 296

Slaves 130 46 42 4 117 109 0 178 266 130 1,022

Repartimiento Indians Free Indians 222 172 419 137 364 1,168 26 244 834 1,014 4,610

66 133 166 113 126 394 15 200 406 0 1,619

Additional Indians requested 300 150 100 100 0 302 104 171 551 776 2,554

Source: Archivo General de Indias, Mexico 24, ramo 1. Note: Not included in this table were 26 slaves belonging to other mines, as well as 1,701 free Indians and 305 repartimiento Indians.

mines be done by blacks, mulattoes, and mestizos, since the Indians were "a weak people." 57 But black slaves were scarce and the Spaniards continued to use Indians in the mines. The continuing shortage of labor for the mines forced the operators of Nueva Galicia and Nueva Vizcaya to petition the king in July 1601 to send 3,000 or 4,000 slaves over a period of two or three years. In addition, the crown was urged to send "Chinese, Japanese, and Javanese who come from the isles of the Philippines, who are a people more domesticated than the negroes and very suitable for any kind of work." 58 As a temporary palliative, the king ordered in December 1602 that free mulattoes and blacks convicted of criminal offenses be condemned to work in the mines. 5 ' The first three decades of the seventeenth century saw an alleviation of the labor crisis in the mines of New Spain. Those were the years when the slave trade to the colony greatly increased. By the mid-1630s, however, there was a decline in the volume of the trade, and the acute labor shortage recurred. On April 30, 1636, the scarcity of workers brought forth a petition from the mines of Zacatecas for "five or six hundred negroes each year." The mine owners suggested that these slaves should

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be between the ages of seventeen and twenty-five and should be "people of good disposition." In accepting the petition from the mineros, the local authorities stipulated that the slaves imported for them would be branded on the right shoulder for easy recognition and to make it impossible for them to be employed in other occupations. Their children would also be compelled to serve in the mines. Slaves in this category who received freedom from their masters would be required to continue working in the mines but would be paid for their labor. It was hoped that these measures would provide an adequate labor supply for the mineros of Zacatecas, since the purpose of this special asiento was "to populate the mines." 60 The mine operators of Zacatecas did not receive the slaves they requested because their appeal came at a time when the influx of slaves to Mexico was beginning to decline. Nor did the active support of the viceroy alleviate the problem. On May 22, 1636, Viceroy Lope Diaz de Armendariz asked that five hundred slaves be sent each year to Zacatecas. When there was no positive response to this request, the viceroy repeated his plea on July 22, 1637.61 On this occasion he asked for slaves to be sent to Nueva Vizcaya also. In subsequent years, the request was repeated, but to no avail. In 1644 and again in 1645 the corregidor (royal officer) of Zacatecas added his voice to those clamoring for slaves to save the mines.62 The scarcity of slaves gave some prominent Spaniards an opportunity in 1638 to express their opinions on the entire labor situation. Don Juan de Cervantes Casaus, a royal accountant, believed, for example, that the labor shortage stemmed from the high mortality rate of the Indians. He expressed the view that a new distribution of Indians to the mines was not the answer, since "it would serve to destroy the few Indians that have survived." In Don Juan's opinion, the answer rested in the provision of more African slaves for San Luis, Zacatecas, Nueva Vizcaya, and Guadalajara. To ensure that the mineros got the slaves they needed, he suggested that the imperial authorities specifically order that such slaves be sent and that severe penalties be imposed on traders who took them to other colonies. Don Juan advised, in addition, that the justicias compel mestizos, free blacks, and mulattoes, as well as "vagabond Indians," to work in the mines. 63 In his turn, Don Luis de Camargo suggested that Indians from neighboring communities should be required under the repartimiento system to work in the mines for a limited time. Although he favored importing

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slaves for some mines, he cautioned that Indians and Africans should not be allowed to work together because the Africans mistreated the Indians. Nicolas Romero de Mella felt that slaves should be imported to work in the mines, since "the Indians are more resistant to work [and] the negroes are more resistant to disease." A contrary view was expressed by Don Juan Altamirano. He opposed the use of slaves because "the bozales are so delicate for the work in the minas de agua that they die with alacrity." In the absence of an adequate supply of Indians, however, Don Juan would support the importation of slaves. Capitän Juan de Arieta Espinaredo was emphatic in his support for slave labor in the mines. He suggested that "it would be very useful to bring from Guinea or from the other provinces of Ethiopia, in order to distribute among the mines, six thousand negroes of all sexes and ages: three thousand men aged twenty years more or less . . . two thousand children . . . and one thousand women to serve and cook for the five thousand workers, and this is a small number in relation to the large number of mines that exist, and for the maintenance of this number of slaves two thousand of the same ages and sexes must be brought each year." 64 These observations, taken together, dramatized a clear need for workers, particularly a permanent, controlled, and servile labor force. But from the mid-1630s on, the demand for the increasingly scarce black African slaves was largely unfulfilled. This shortage of labor was made worse by the high mortality rates of mine workers and their susceptibility to severe diseases. Mercury poisoning was one of the more dreaded afflictions of the workers, as was silicosis, for "dust laden with sharp silica particles was breathed by mill workers, whose lungs soon developed scar tissue or fibrosis, which eventually led to hemorrhage." 65 Robert West's observations on the occupational hazards of mining in colonial New Spain merit quoting in full: "Disease and accidents were frequent in colonial times. Workers were often crushed by collapsing roofs of drifts, and the usual twelve hour shifts (sol a sol) in the mines led to fatigue and decrease in resistance to contagion. Mine laborers contracted lung ailments (including carbon monoxide poisoning) by breathing foul air and fumes from candles and smoke from fire setting. In Pachuca a complaint was made in 1585 that tenateros, poorly clothed, would catch cold and pneumonia by coming out from warm, humid shafts into the cold air on the surface. 'Many died in this way.' " 66 The rigors of the ingenio, the sweatshop conditions of the obraje, and the physical hell of the silver mines represented the worst aspects of Mex-

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83

ican slavery. These activities made the greatest physical demands on the slaves, as reflected in the high mortality rate, particularly of those employed in the mines and the ingeniös. These sectors of the Mexican economy were essentially capitalist enterprises. Each of these industries required a significant outlay of capital and labor. In addition, each needed a market for its survival and each was guided by the profit motive. Finally, each industry depended partially on free wage laborers, often in numbers greater than those of the slaves. It was the capitalist nature of these enterprises which accounted, in part, for their deleterious effects on the slaves. Industrial slavery, with its emphasis on maximizing production, ensured that blacks, as productive machines, worked at a sustained pace for long hours at very physically demanding tasks. Those slaves who were overworked, and quite possibly underfed, became less resistant to disease, and a high mortality rate was the inevitable outcome. The partial dependence on wage labor significantly modified the nature of the social and economic relationships in these industries and was responsible for their distinctiveness in the Mexican milieu, for the proprietor had a different kind of relationship with the two sectors that comprised his labor force. With the free worker, it was essentially a wage relationship, that of management and labor. On the other hand, with the African it was a relationship of master and slave, a relationship conditioned by the fact that the slave, as property, formed a crucial part of the means of production. The two labor systems coexisted uneasily and often awkwardly within these capitalist enterprises. In turn, these pockets of capitalism operated and existed within the framework of a larger society that in some respects was precapitalist in its stage of economic development. Studies on the profitability of slavery in Mexico do not exist. In the long run, it may not even be possible to make any meaningful generalizations on this issue, owing to the apparent paucity of relevant data. Yet it must be emphasized that the ventures just described were no different from those which existed in the American South or in the British and French Caribbean. African slaves were used in all of these areas to provide wealth for their masters. In Mexico, slaves had an impact far greater than their numbers would suggest. They performed tasks which were forbidden to the Indians and which the Spaniards were not prepared to undertake. Black slaves were the unwilling participants in an economic system in which they had no stake.

CHAPTER 4

Church, State, and Slavery In every society of the Americas where slavery existed, the state introduced measures for the social control of the slave population. The reasons for this were perfectly understandable. The state wanted to define the legal status of the slave and to keep him so circumscribed as to reduce the physical threat which he constantly posed to the slaveowner and to the society at large. An extensive body of restrictive legislation generally emerged for that purpose. In general, the slave codes said little regarding the obligation of the master to his slave, for the slave was the personal property of the master. But by possessing a will and the ability to reason, unlike the horse and the cow, the slave was recognized as a special kind of property. The slaveowning colonies in the New World did not all enjoy autonomous legislative powers. Some metropolitan countries attempted to control the domestic affairs of their colonies through legislation. Thus in the English West Indies, legislation emanating from the mother country had to be accepted by the crown colonies. The self-governing islands, however, had legislative control over their internal affairs. In the French islands, like the English crown colonies, the crown retained powers of legislation.1 To be sure, there was usually bitter and prolonged opposition to those measures which the colonists found unpalatable. In such an eventuality, the colonists could resort to two expedients. First, they could request the repeal of such acts; and second, they could acquiesce to the royal decisions but simply refuse to enforce them. If the second expedient were followed, such statutes remained on the statute books, but in practice they became dead letters. The Spaniards who were the earliest colonizers of the New World

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created a series of bureaucratic institutions for the regulation and control of colonial activities. The Council of the Indies in Madrid became the administrative and judicial head of the empire, and the Casa de Contratacion in Seville rigidly controlled all commercial relations with the colonies. But since no colonial power could adequately control the behavior of the colonists from such a distance, some institutions with a degree of local authority were established in the colonies. One such institution was the Audiencia, which served as a court of appeals, as the arbiter of disputes between colonists, and as the general supervisor of all royal personnel under its area of jurisdiction. In addition, the Audiencia interpreted and enforced cedulas. To facilitate greater efficiency in administration, the crown created two large administrative divisions or viceroyalties. The first was established in New Spain in 1535, the second in Peru in 1544. At the head of each unit was a viceroy who was, in effect, the chief representative of the crown. Although ultimate authority was vested in the king and council, the administrative system had sufficient flexibility to allow the viceroy to correct local abuses on his own initiative and also to circumvent what he considered injudicious royal policies by resorting to the principle of "I obey but do not enforce." 2 The geographical separation of the colonies from the mother country meant that royal orders were frequently modified, passively accepted, or directly ignored. In any event, colonists tended to believe that they were more capable of solving their own problems than a royal bureaucracy separated by thousands of miles from the scene. In the area of masterslave relationships, the slaveowner habitually argued that he alone was qualified to determine the nature of the relationship that ought to exist between himself and his slave. But even when this principle was sometimes denied by the metropolitan powers, custom became a much more effective determinant of master-slave relationships than any legal code. Prior to the establishment of black slavery in the Indies, Spain, or more accurately the kingdom of Castile, possessed a legal code which defined the nature of the relationship between masters and their slaves. This body of laws, known as the Siete Partidas (for the seven parts into which it was divided), formed the juridical foundation of the monarchy. It drew its inspiration largely from the ancient Roman code of Justinian and from canon law. In an attempt to make the laws of the Spanish principalities of Castile and Leon uniform, Alfonso X (1221-1284) undertook the task of their codification in 1263. This project, wheri completed in

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1265, served well into the nineteenth century as a reliable body of Spanish jurisprudence.3 The Siete Partidas became the theoretical foundation of the slave laws as applied in Spain's overseas possessions. In it, the status of the slave and his master's obligations to him were clearly delineated. This body of laws defined servitude as "an agreement and regulation which people established in ancient times, by which men who were originally free became slaves and were subjected to the authority of others contrary to natural reason." The institution of slavery was seen as "the most evil and the most despicable thing which can be found among men." Recognizing that "all creatures in the world love and desire liberty," the Siete Partidas held that "all of the laws of the world should lead towards freedom." 4 For the slave, the Siete Partidas included a number of regulations governing such areas as marriage, maltreatment, property rights, and manumission. The code granted the slave the right to marry even against the will of the master. Once married, families could not be separated. If marriage were solemnized between slaves belonging to different masters, then efforts would have to be made to place them under one master. If either balked at purchasing the other spouse, the Church was required to buy them both. Under no circumstances should husband and wife live apart. Children would take the status of the mother; thus the child of a free woman would be born free. The code also permitted marriage between a free person and a slave, with the proviso that the free person should be made aware of the slave's condition. 5 The Siete Partidas also provided for the protection of the slave against maltreatment by his master. It was illegal for a master to kill or mutilate a slave except when authorized by a judge. A master who killed his slave would be tried for murder and, if convicted, would receive the penalty imposed by the law. The code required the master to provide an adequate diet for the slave and outlawed castration as a form of punishment. In addition, the master was restrained from violating his slave's wife or daughter.6 If any of these provisions were contravened, the slave could appeal to a judge, who, upon verification of the complaint, could order him sold. The right of the slave to own property was upheld by the Siete Partidas within certain limits. It was not an absolute right and was largely dependent on his master's attitude. Since the slave himself was the property of someone, an absolute right to property ownership posed certain legal difficulties; for what the slave called his own indirectly belonged to

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the master. Nevertheless, the principle that the slave could inherit property was firmly established.7 Regarding the question of manumission, the Siete Partidas was definitely sympathetic to the slave. The code saw freedom as the essential right of every human being. No undue impediments were to be placed in the way of the slave's inexorable progress toward that state. Accordingly, a slave could be freed either by the state or by his master. His master could manumit him before a judge, in his testament, or inside a church. The slave on his own volition could appeal to the courts for his liberty if he had been denied freedom after having been granted it in a will and testament, or if he had been denied it through proven fraud on the part of his master or any other individual. A slave could also obtain his freedom by performing some meritorious deed, such as denouncing someone for treason, reporting the rape of a virgin, identifying counterfeiters or his master's murderer. Freedom could also be granted to any slave who received holy orders or who became his master's heir or the guardian of his master's children.8 The Siete Partidas gave to the Spanish colonies a series of laws which, if enforced, would have made the institution of slavery unquestionably the most humane in the New World. But the Siete Partidas had an even greater significance for the colonists. It provided a model for the construction of slave laws by the colonists themselves, the ideal against which their own laws could be measured. As a practical matter, however, it is quite likely that some colonists were unfamiliar with the detailed provisions of the Siete Partidas. Others may even have questioned and denied their applicability to Spanish America. Yet however fledgling their knowledge of the Siete Partidas, or however much they opposed the practical application of its principles, both groups of colonists (particularly if they were Spanish-born) were conversant with the ideological tradition that nurtured and shaped those laws. Slave masters could ignore that tradition, but they could not completely escape from it. It is precisely because there is some doubt that colonists always acted consciously within the framework of the Siete Partidas that one has to make a careful distinction between laws favorable to the slave and the application of those laws. For one thing, slavery was an institution resting on coercion, and the realities of that state were not always conducive to expressions of liberality on the masters' part. For another, masters realized that their slaves had to be carefully controlled if the institution

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were to continue to exist. Along these lines, it must also be noted that the social conditions in Spain which nurtured the Siete Partidas were significantly different from those that existed in New Spain. The overwhelming majority of the people in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Spain were free men, but in Mexico the Spaniards formed a minority in a servile population consisting of Indians, mestizos, mulattoes, and blacks. The demands of self-preservation meant that the men on the spot had to introduce strict measures to control the behavior and circumscribe the movement of their slaves, the ideals of the Siete Partidas notwithstanding. The increasing number of regulatory measures which emanated from the viceroy and from the other local authorities gave practical expression to this concern. Thus, the realities of slavery in the colonies and the numerical inferiority of the Spaniards, coupled with a constant fear of rebellion, produced a situation unfavorable to liberalism in the slave system.9 It was, therefore, one thing for Spanish jurisprudence to recognize the moral and legal personality of the slave but quite another to ensure that his rights existed in fact. Some kind of bureaucratic agency would be required in each colony to act as mediator between master and slave. To be really effective, such an agency or institution would have to acquaint both master and slave with his rights, duties, and obligations toward the other. Furthermore, in order to offer protection to the slave, such an institution would either have to resort to frequent inspection of all places where slave labor was used or, failing that, have permanent representatives stationed at such places. Steps would also have to be taken to ensure that the slave, being the unequal partner in the relationship, would be free of reprisals from his master if and when he filed a complaint against him. Finally, scrupulous impartiality would be required of those entrusted with imparting justice. Such ideal conditions did not exist in the sixteenth or the seventeenth century in New Spain. There were three institutions which performed judicial functions in the colony. The Holy Office of the Inquisition, which was formally established in Mexico in 1571, performed some of the kinds of police and judicial functions which today would normally be done by the state. It was the duty of all citizens to report all "unchristian" and illegal behavior to the Holy Office. If the members of the tribunal thought that the denunciation possessed any substance, they would initiate trial proceedings against the accused person. The second institution responsible for the administration of justice was the state, as represented

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by the Audiencia and the local judges. The ecclesiastical or episcopal courts, with the provisor general as chief judge, formed the third instrument for the execution of justice. The slave who was aware of his rights could appeal to any of these institutions for justice. He could appeal for redress of grievances resulting from an infraction of any of the laws, particularly those in relation to marriage, maltreatment, property, and manumission. These were all matters directly related to the personal life of the slave, but indirectly they concerned the very nature of the slave system. For if an independent body could intervene in the relationship between the master and his slave, this meant that the master did not possess absolute authority over his slave. Ultimately this would have a moderating effect on the nature of the slave system. Judicial protection, then, if it were effective, would serve to weaken the master's control over his slave. But judicial protection never made a fundamental impact on the slave system as it existed in early colonial Mexico. There is, of course, a difficult methodological problem involved in demonstrating the differences between enacted law and its application. Since the slaves were usually illiterate, they did not leave firsthand accounts of life under slavery. Consequently, one has to rely on the accounts of missionaries, travelers, and slaveowners to get some insights into the operation of the slave system. Some of these accounts, however, tend to be distorted, either because they were written with some polemical aim in view or because the writers had little familiarity with or understanding of the actual operation of the system of slavery. Early colonial Mexico suffers from a sparsity of contemporary accounts relating to slavery. There is, however, documentation preserved by the Holy Office of the Inquisition dealing with the various denunciations and procesos concerning slaves who were brought before that body. Since the Inquisition heard a majority of the protection cases, an examination of them reveals not only the nature of such cases but the decisions made in each one. These cases demonstrate the extent to which the protective clauses of the Siete Partidas became a reality in Mexico. It might be useful, at the outset, to discuss briefly one contemporary account of slavery purportedly written by a slave. The letter, quoted by Torquemada in his classic chronicle of the Franciscan order, described Mexico as veritable paradise for slaves in the seventeenth century. According to Torquemada, the slave wrote to his friend—a fellow slave

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in Hispaniola—that "this is a good land for slaves, here the negro has a good meal, here the negro has a slave who serves him." Advising his friend to leave Hispaniola, the slave urged him to "come to this land, which is the best in the world for negroes." He mentioned approvingly the numerous masters who treated their slaves "as if they were their sons" and added that it had become commonplace for Spaniards, both male and female, to marry their black slaves. The writer discussed the efforts made by slaves to earn money to rescue their masters from indebtedness and also the extraordinary facility with which slaves could obtain their freedom. Finally, he described in some detail the kinds of punishments meted out to slaves, but only to those slaves who were "rude, lazy, fugitive and vicious." 10 The picture that emerges from this account is that of an exceedingly humane slave system with many opportunities for manumission, amicable relations between master and slave, and punishment for recalcitrant slaves also. With the possible exception of references to manumission, the assertions made in the slave's letter are not generally supported by evidence from other sources. This letter lends itself to several criticisms. In the first place, it is unlikely that the slave himself wrote the letter, since almost all slaves were illiterate, especially those coming directly from Africa. Second, granted that the letter expressed the sentiments of the slave in question, it is quite likely that he dictated it to a Spaniard, obviously tempering his views with what he thought his recorder wanted to hear. Third, since slaves were separated in Africa and given new names in the New World, it is highly improbable that the Mexican slave would know the whereabouts of his friend or even his name. Of course, there is no means of establishing the authenticity of this letter; suffice it to say that as a commentary on slavery in seventeenth-century Mexico it is at best misleading. During the colonial period in Mexico, there were two principal methods of offering judicial protection to the slave. The first method was the preventive type. This consisted of an inspector's unannounced visit, generally to an obraje, to observe whether the established regulations were being honored. The second method of protection was punitive: an accused person would be tried and, if convicted, punished for having perpetrated an injustice against the slave. Of the two kinds of protection, the latter was the more common. The former type meant that the initiative came from the constituted authorities and perforce involved an expenditure of time, money, and personnel. In the latter, the initiative

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came from the slave or from a sympathetic neighbor. In this analysis we will deal first with the preventive kind of protection, with special reference to the obrajes. 11 Although it is difficult to determine the number of slaves involved at any one time, it is undeniable that they formed a significant part of the labor force employed in the obrajes. Cedulas of 1601 and 1609 had urged the substitution of African slave labor for that of the Indians in these factories. But the continued scarcity of slaves made it impossible to enforce these orders effectively. Since work in the obrajes led to unquestioned abuses of the labor force, the civil and ecclesiastical authorities occasionally inspected them to discover the nature of the abuses. In general, the regulations governing obraje labor referred to the Indians and not to the black slaves. Presumably the fact that Indians were free men while the blacks were slaves accounted for this apparent double standard. Nevertheless, the inspectors generally gathered evidence from black slaves whenever they undertook their tours. There was no established pattern to these inspections. Some resulted from the authorities acting on their own volition; others were in response to complaints received by the religious or secular authorities. Although the secular authorities were more concerned with the actual working conditions, the Church kept a vigilant eye open for religious aberrations. In 1572, for instance, an obraje in Tepozotlän was the object of a visit from the Office of Ecclesiastical Justice. This obraje was owned by one Juan de Penas. The inspection was made in response to a complaint that "a large number of mulattoes and Indians were living together in a state of concubinage" in that obraje. After questioning numerous witnesses, the inspectors found that the allegations were correct, and in the process they discovered additional offenses such as workers being forced to work on Sundays and holy days. The owner was duly fined twenty-five pesos and ordered to correct the abuses under pain of further fines. 12 In succeeding years the state inspected other obrajes, particularly in Puebla (one of the chief areas for textile manufacture), but found nothing wrong with the treatment received by the Indians who comprised the labor force. 13 In 1609 an obraje owned by Joanes de Olascuaga in Texcoco became the target of an inspection. The team of judges was headed by Don Carlos de Sämano y Quimones, the alcalde mayor and judge of the obrajes. His purpose was to "investigate and understand the treatment administered to the Indians." 14 Since in the course of his inspection testimony was received from a mulatto woman, the case is pertinent to

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our study. The judges asked each worker a series of questions to ascertain the conditions that existed. These questions sought to elicit information regarding the length of time each worker had spent in the obraje, his birthplace, the number of hours he worked each day, whether he worked on Sundays, or if he were being held in th obraje against his will. Additional questions pertained to religious offenses, such as whether single and married people slept together or whether there were workers living together in concubinage. The inspectors also asked whether the workers received sufficient food and if they had adequate lighting facilities at night. Finally, they were required to tell whether they had been maltreated in the obraje. The record of the inquiry does not contain the responses received from the workers except in the case of Elena, described as a "mulata ladina." She testified that she had been sent to that obraje by the Inquisition after being convicted for blasphemy. She claimed that she had received numerous beatings with a leather whip and that ordinarily her day's work ended at ten or eleven at night. She begged to be transferred to another obraje, since life in that one was intolerable. Elena further testified that she had not been allowed to go to confession during Holy Week. Elena's testimony is significant because it described conditions existing in the obraje. These were typical conditions of factory life: long hours, hard work, and physical abuse. But the document also illustrates the potential effectiveness of the machinery that had been created to correct abuses. Unfortunately, there is no information indicating whether Elena's request for a transfer was granted. If the judge acceded to her request, then the efficacy of this mediating machinery would have been amply demonstrated in this case. The most dramatic series of obraje inspections took place in 1660. The judge in this case was Dr. Andres Sanchez de Ocampo who was attached to the Audiencia. Commencing in November 1660, Dr. Sanchez de Ocampo visited a total of six obrajes in Coyoacän. 15 One of these obrajes belonged to Melchor Diaz de Posadas. It had a labor force consisting of Indians, mestizos, zambos, and Africans, both slave and free. Some slaves had worked for the obraje for a longer period than others. Lorenzo de la Concepcion, a mulatto slave who was sent to the obraje for an offense he had committed, had been there four years. It was, at the time, not unusual for slaves to be required to work in obrajes as a means of punishment. A second slave had worked there for fifteen months, and a third for six months.

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The inspectors heard a series of testimonies which detailed the abuses committed in the obraje. Jeronimo de Vergara, a mulatto slave, complained that he had been separated from his wife. Another slave, Ignacio de los Reyes, commented on the poor quality of the food he received and testified that he had been cruelly beaten. The inspectors also received testimony concerning the death of a fourteen-year-old boy, allegedly from beatings. Although this incident had taken place in 1658, this was apparently the first occasion on which the authorities had been made aware of it. Still another slave, Nicolas Bazän, complained that in a period of four months he had been given more than "fourteen thousand lashes."16 The abuses in this obraje were as shocking as they were widespread. The inspectors in some instances ordered an immediate correction of the grievances. Pedro de la Cruz, who appeared to be "crippled in one leg and one arm" so that he could hardly walk, begged that his tasks be lessened. His request was granted. Josephe de Aguilar, a freedman, was ordered released from his chains and sent away from the obraje. Two other slaves who complained about excessive punishment were transferred to other obrajes. After warning Melchor Diaz de Posadas to correct the existing abuses, the inspectors left to inspect other obrajes in the area. It is not known whether criminal charges were ever brought against the erring owner. 17 In the other obrajes visited, the inspectors continued their appeal to the workers to submit their grievances. These obrajes were apparently upholding the regulations, since in none of the five did the slaves or free workers express any dissatisfaction. It is probable that the absence of complaints reflected quite accurately the fact that good working conditions existed, but since some bureaucrats were often guilty of forewarning obrajeros about an inspection, acceptance of the workers' expressions of contentment must not be uncritical. 18 If an obrajero had prior warning about the inspection, he could threaten likely complainants with reprisals or even keep such workers out of sight. The apparent effectiveness of these visitas must not allow too broad a generalization about their efficacy as instruments of protection. It must be emphasized that the protection offered to the slave was only incidental to that offered the Indian. The primary objective of the inspection teams was to protect Indian workers from abuse, and only secondarily black slaves. But the fundamental criticism that must be leveled at this machinery is the infrequency with which such inspections were under-

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taken. There is, furthermore, no evidence to indicate that silver mines or sugar plantations ever became the objects of an inspection. There is no reason to believe that they were less worthy of surveillance. The reverse might well have been true. The visits to the obrajes in Coyoacän form the only cases on record up to 1660 of a thorough series of inspections in any one area. To be really effective, inspection had to be consistent and vigilant. This was not the case in early colonial Mexico. The Holy Office of the Inquisition heard a majority of the cases relating to the punitive method by which judicial protection was offered to the slave. Cases involving maltreatment, for example, were generally heard by that body, but similar cases could be heard in the civil courts. There were two principal ways in which such cases came to the attention of the two tribunals. First, they arose from the Christian consciences of those persons who denounced a slave master for mistreating his slave. The second came from the victim who on his own volition filed a complaint against his master. The cases may be divided into three categories: those denunciations that appear never to have formed procesos; the decisions that became procesos but which lacked judicial decisions; and the procesos that were concluded and a decision rendered. Actually, between 1570 and 1650 there were only three maltreatment cases which were concluded. A close examination of the maltreatment cases reveals both the extent and the limitation of protection. It might be useful to discuss first those denunciations that apparently never became procesos. These generally came from a third party who brought allegations against a master for mistreating his slave. In June 1601 Agustin del Hierro, a resident of the Villa de Zamora, denounced Duarte Fernandez out of "charity and devotion that we owe to our Lord" for mistreating a slave boy. He accused Fernandez of having tied the boy "between sticks with his arms tied and extended, and without any cause, beat him cruelly." He was further accused of dragging the naked boy through the streets and even of taking him to Mass in that condition, without "having respect for the Church or the divine acts that were being celebrated, so that there was a great murmuring from the natives as well as the Spaniards." 1 ' Unfortunately, there is no record that this case was ever brought to trial. A similar situation occurred in 1611 when Dona Ana de Roma of Mexico City was denounced for "chastising her slaves with great cruelty." She was accused specifically of placing a nude slave girl in a "sack of coarse cloth like a lunatic, with an iron around her neck, drag-

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ging her with a chain," 20 and in that fashion took her to church. Another denunciation which never became a proceso occurred in August 1617. The complainant was a twenty-eight-year-old woman, Ana de Ortega, who charged that Andrea de la Cruz "one day whipped one of her female slaves most rigorously." 21 There is no further information on the nature of the beatings, but the Inquisition seemed to have ignored the charge and the case was dropped. There were two cases involving the murder of slaves that were brought to the attention of the civil and religious authorities, but apparently never formed procesos. Both occurred in Vera Cruz. 22 The first took place in 1586, when a slave was reported to the local civil authorities as having died as a result of "bad treatment." The second denunciation took place in 1615, when a slave was reported killed at a convent. Death followed a beating, but, as in the previous case, there is no record that the authorities acted. 23 The second category of maltreatment cases involved those that formed procesos, but for which the documents do not indicate whether a verdict was ever arrived at. Of these cases, one of the first was submitted to the Holy Office in 1572. The case originated in the Guaymaca mines in the provinces of Honduras. These provinces, although not technically part of New Spain, fell under the inquisitorial jurisdiction. The complaint was initiated by Juan Gomez Altamirano, vicar of the Villa de San Jorge in the valley of Olancho, and by Geronimo de Corella, bishop of Trujillo and of the provinces of Higueras and Honduras. In submitting the case to the Holy Office it was their hope that "such ugly offenses be punished." 24 An examination of the case reveals that the vicar and the bishop carried out a preliminary investigation of the charges before bringing them to the attention of the Holy Office. The facts concerning the case emerged during this initial investigation. The defendant was Pedro de Torres, a resident of Comayagua, who was accused of severely mistreating one of his female slaves. The first witness, Lucas, a slave, testified that he saw the accused "beat very cruelly" a female slave called Polonia. He added that, after having beaten her, "he placed her on her back and with her hands and feet bound to four poles he ordered Polonia's son to take a stick and play with his mother's genitals." When the boy refused, Pedro de Torres had him beaten and ordered other boys to do what the youngster had refused to do, while Polonia begged, "Sir, for God's sake, leave me alone." To this Pedro replied, "God commands that you be chastised." A second slave, Juana Jalofa, testified that Polonia

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had been cruelly beaten and tied up for three days. In addition, hot pork fat had been poured on her wounds. The witness recalled hearing Polonia's son mocking her under his master's instructions. The young boy had been forced to sing the words "Poloniaoo, Poloniaoo Congooo." A third slave, Isabel, substantiated these allegations. When Polonia testified, she revealed that she was about sixty years old. She said she had known Pedro de Torres for thirteen years and that she had originally been his father's slave. She related how her master had poured the hot fat on her and how she had been beaten and tied up from Wednesday to Sunday. She explained that each morning she was whipped and then placed in the sun. She described how her "shameful parts" had been exposed to the derision of the male onlookers. While this was being done, her master "was jumping with pleasure and dancing." In an attempt to get some evidence relating to the character of the accused, the tribunal received the testimony of a Spaniard, Hernando Ortes de Velasco. He charged that Pedro de Torres had worked his slaves during Easter. A second Spaniard, Pedro Ortiz, testified that he had once heard Pedro de Torres characterize the Inquisition as "evil." He added that he had heard that the accused had caused the death of a young slave boy through his harsh treatment of him. He admitted that he did not have a high regard for the accused. A former slave of Pedro de Torres, Ana by name, was the next witness. She revealed that she had been mistreated while she was his slave. Ana related how on one particular day she was whipped ten times, generally in front of a statue of the Virgin Mary. On several occasions she was whipped while nude. She was even forced to serve a dinner in a state of nudity. Once when Pedro was entertaining a guest at dinner he was displeased with the way Ana had prepared the meal; he ordered her to undress, threw the hot food over her body, burning her, and then ordered her to use her mouth to pick up the food that had fallen on the floor. When the guest objected to this treatment and pointedly reminded Pedro that he was a Christian, Pedro responded, "Let the bitch pick it up, and be quiet. I give orders in my house." Continuing her testimony, Ana described how she had been whipped during pregnancy. She told the tribunal that Pedro had mercilessly beaten a two-year-old boy with a horse's bridle. The boy's mother tried to rescue her son, but she too was attacked. Ana testified that eventually an angered Pedro de Torres hit the child in the chest with a chicken with

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such force that the child fell, bleeding profusely. Not long after that the baby died; his gall bladder had burst. When the accused took the stand he admitted the veracity of the charges leveled against him. He conceded that the punishment meted to Polonia was "excessive." After hearing his confession, the tribunal thought him "worthy of punishment" and forwarded the case to the Holy Office. 25 There is no record that the accused was ever punished, however. Nevertheless, the trial brought to light the kinds of indignities to which slaves could be subjected by masters. Pedro de Torres may have been mentally unbalanced, but one can only speculate on this point. The institution of slavery was capable of dehumanizing masters as well as slaves. In 1611 an equally significant case was brought to the attention of the Holy Office by Juan de Vioate, a priest from San Andres de Torre. The accused was Geronimo Lobo, of Portuguese ancestry, and a resident of the Villa de Camina. The priest accused the defendant of mistreating a slave boy and of threatening to "crucify him like Christ." Several witnesses attested to the prolonged beatings administered to the young boy. But by far the most revealing testimony in this case related not to the charges of mistreatment but to the informal mechanisms that operated against the slave. One mulatto woman, Ana de Guzman, who witnessed the beatings, threatened to report the incident to the Holy Office. In order to intimidate and silence her, Geronimo Lobo persuaded his friend the alcalde mayor to arrest and jail her summarily. In a related development, one witness, Juana Teodora, accused another slave, Beatricilla, of feigning ignorance about everything that happened because of intimidation and threats from her master. As a result of this charge, Juana had to be removed temporarily from her master's house because she feared for her life. Juana also spoke of the close relations that existed between her master and the alcalde mayor, a fact which led her to conclude that "there was no justice." She described how "every day presents and gifts go back and forth from my master's house to the house of the alcalde mayor and they are good friends." 26 In retrospect, these disclosures need not appear startling. It was natural for people with similar backgrounds in an alien society to establish social relationships. But when such close alliances existed between a man of the law and a slaveowner, the impartiality of the judicial machinery that existed for the protection of the slave could be called into ques-

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tion. Ana de Guzman had been jailed without charges pending against her. Juana believed there was no point in trusting an alcalde mayor who was her master's close friend. In this way, informal human relationships could serve to modify the intent of any protective legislation. Fourteen years later, in 1625, Don Gaspar de Rivadeniera of Mexico City was accused of having punished a slave so severely that the slave either died or hanged himself in desperation. Pedro de Leyva testified before the Holy Office that Don Gaspar had ordered his slaves "to tie his brother Juan de Leyva to a ladder, and being so tied he gave him many lashes and extinguished two lighted torches on his body, then placed an iron ring around his neck and a garrote on his feet with a chain, handcuffed him, and then placed him in a bag nude . . . and locked him up in a very small and humid cell in the basement." Pedro de Leyva related how his brother had been branded on the cheeks the following day and that the mistreatment worsened with each passing day. Eventually, one morning Juan de Leyva was discovered dead in his cell. The witness stated that he noticed a bruise on the deceased's neck because "Don Gaspar wanted to create the impression that he had hanged himself." In his opinion, his brother had died from the lashes and the general mistreatment he received. He added that this conclusion was shared by other slaves. Finally, he related that prior to his brother's death, in response to his complaints, the Holy Office had sent a message to Don Gaspar asking him to ameliorate his treatment of Juan de Leyva. Don Gaspar ignored the request. In answer to a question posed by the tribunal, Pedro swore that he had told the truth and that he had not given evidence "out of malice" although the victim was his brother. The next witness to appear before the Inquisitor, Don Francisco Bazän de Albornoz, was a Spaniard, Martin Alcorris, and a resident of Mexico City. He testified that he, together with two slaves, had forced open the door to the cell in which the deceased was imprisoned. Upon entering, he discovered the body and immediately concluded that the prisoner had hanged himself, since "he had a rope made of hemp around his throat under an iron ring which he wore; the rope being tied in a manner indicating that he had used it to hang himself." When the witness was asked whether there was a nail or beam or any other object from which the rope could be suspended to effect the hanging, he replied in the negative. He said the rope had been attached only to the deceased's neck. He recalled seeing the dead man's tongue "out of his mouth" in a manner characteristic of death by hanging. Martin Alcorris confirmed that he had

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been present when the slave was branded on the face and that Don Gaspar had said on that occasion that "bad slaves must be treated in this manner." Under further questioning, the witness said that in his judgment the lashes had been insufficient to cause the slave's death. He added that two doctors and a surgeon had come to a similar conclusion. The third witness, Juan Zapatero, told of entering the cell in the company of others and finding the corpse. Because of lack of any substantial evidence except the "weak and slender" rope, he was unable to conclude that Juan de Leyva had committed suicide. He added that no one had observed the bruises on Juan's neck until noon of the day he died. Juan Zapatero spoke of the whippings the slave had received prior to his death, of the fear Don Gaspar had inspired in him, of his being in a constant state of fatigue, of the painful branding, of the threats his mother received when she pleaded for her son, of his loss of appetite, and finally of his imprisonment in a wet cell "which was not large enough for a man to stand in." The Holy Office received supporting evidence from a number of other people. Anton Bran, a slave belonging to Pedro Serrano del Arco, described the events of the morning when the dead man was discovered. He remained unconvinced that hanging had been the cause of death. Andr£s de Torres, a priest, testified that earlier in the week he had accompanied Juan to the Holy Office to ask for mercy for renouncing God while being whipped. On that occasion the Holy Office sent a message admonishing Don Gaspar to be more lenient in his treatment of the slave and to remove his chains. Don Gaspar had ignored the message.27 The transcript of the trial does not indicate whether Don Gaspar ever testified or what was the nature of the judges' verdict, if any. The evidence pointing toward foul play, however, seemed extraordinarily convincing. From the testimony given in court it seemed impossible that the slave could have committed suicide. Despite impressive evidence to the contrary, some physicians allegedly concluded that the beatings and the general mistreatment could never have produced the slave's death. It was therefore extraordinarily difficult to convict a master for ill-treating his slaves. This case also illustrated the alliances that could be built up between prominent and influential men to protect each other whenever one of them got into trouble with the law. The third class of maltreatment cases consisted of those where the Holy Office took effective steps to redress the slave's grievances. In the eighty-year period covered by this study, only three such instances were

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found. Two involved the same master, Martin de Ortega of Mexico City. In the first case, which began on May 28, 1642, the defendant was accused of mistreating Agustin, one of his male slaves. 28 A local constable, Juan ΡέΓεζ de Escobar, charged that Martin de Ortega caught Agustin, "tied him to a pillar at his house and gave him lashes on his buttocks with a rope and then applied hot pitch and copal to his wounds." According to Josephe de Alvear, an official of the Audiencia, the victim's buttocks had burns and wounds that appeared "to have been caused by a hot substance." Two other persons, Maria Magdalena and Domingo de la Cruz, both slaves of Martin de Ortega, substantiated these allegations and described the nature of the punishment Agustin received. The response from the authorities was surprisingly swift. The alcalde ordered the master arrested and Agustin placed in the care of a "satisfactory person" to recuperate. He would be fed at his master's expense. But Martin de Ortega would have none of this. He petitioned the alcalde for release from jail and for the return of his slave. The alcalde submitted the petition to the judges of the Holy Office for their adjudication. In what was perhaps the first recorded statement made on the problem of protection in Mexico, one Inquisitor, Dr. Juan Säenz de Mafiozca, observed that Martin de Ortega "exceeded the moderate punishment that the law permits masters to give to their slaves, therefore he ought to be punished with loss of the slave." He recommended bringing Agustin to the Holy Office for examination. This was done, and the lacerations on the slave's body were observed by Inquisitors Licenciado Domingo Velles de Assas y Argos and Dr. Francisco de Estrada y Escobeda. From his prison cell Ortega venomously attacked his slaves in a petition to the Holy Office, accusing them of the theft of many articles from "my store and house." Since he had pressing business matters to deal with, he asked to be released from confinement. The petition expedited the trial: four days later he appeared before the court. In his testimony, Ortega declared that the punishment he gave his slaves "had been done with moderation." He admitted the charges of mistreating and torturing Agustin but added that he did it because the slave was "a drunkard and a fugitive." When asked if he knew that masters who mistreated their slaves could lose their authority over such slaves, Ortega answered in the negative. To the related question of whether such slaves could be ordered sold and the master punished, he answered affirmatively. Martin de Ortega then threw himself upon the mercy of the court. After weighing the evidence the court convicted Martin de Ortega and

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imposed a fine of 100 Castilian ducats. He was warned that should the offense recur he would be punished "with all the rigor of the law." This was the first occasion, according to the available records, on which a mistreatment case reached a conclusion and a master was fined. Obviously displeased, Ortega reacted by submitting a lengthy and violent petition to the Holy Office asking for an annulment of the case. He charged that evidence had been heard from his slaves who, by virtue of their status, would be biased against him. Ortega's petition argued that canon law and civil law characterized domestic slaves as "enemies of their master." 29 In his opinion, Maria Magdalena, one of the domestics who testified, was an individual "who being a negro and a slave is therefore a person who is naturally vile and accustomed to intrigue." In general, he believed the witnesses possessed "little faith and credibility." He claimed that Agustin's scars were not from beatings but from a disease. Accordingly, he asked that his penalty be removed and that he be ordered to sell the slave instead. In considering the petition, Dr. Juan Säenz de Manozca reviewed the evidence given at the trial, taking into account Ortega's history as a master who habitually mistreated his slaves. Such horrendous evidence led the judge to observe that "the laws have always granted and still grant to the slave the right of complaining against their masters when they treat them so inhumanly as Martin de Ortega was accustomed to do, because in any other way slavery would be intolerable . . . and the slaves seeing themselves helpless against the excessive cruelties of their masters would despair, and this would create another great problem which is that of plotting against the lives of their masters." This statement, in its substance, had reaffirmed the traditions of the Siete Partidas. Yet this was apparently the first case to have reached this point since 1572. There was indeed still a great difference between the theory of the law and its practical application. In summing up the case, Säenz de Manozca recommended to the full court that the first penalty be sustained and additional ones imposed. Accepting this advice, the full tribunal accused Martin de Ortega of having perjured himself and changed his fine from 100 ducats to 100 pesos. In addition, he was ordered to pay 12 pesos to cover procedural costs and to sell the slave. 30 The fine was duly paid, but there is no indication in the records that the slave was ever sold. In any event, the erring master had been punished. The second case to be discussed also has Martin de Ortega in the role

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of defendant. In July 1643, approximately nine months after the termination of the first case, Magdalena de la Cruz, one of his slaves, submitted a petition to the Holy Office. 31 She reminded the Holy Office that on two previous occasions it had ordered her master to moderate his punishment of her and his other slaves or to sell her. Martin de Ortega had not complied with this order; instead he had responded with "extraordinary kinds of punishments." The petitioner revealed that her master was irritated and angry because she had complained to the Holy Office about his treatment of her. She also pointed out that she had not been permitted to see her husband, who resided elsewhere in the city. Although Ortega had expressed willingness to sell her, he had always demanded such an exorbitant price that prospective buyers declined. Magdalena begged that the Holy Office appoint two evaluators who would establish a fair price for her. She claimed that Juan del Pino, a resident of Mexico City, was willing to purchase her. In any event, she had no desire to remain with her current master. The first witness to testify in support of the petition was Lucas Ruiz, a forty-year-old Spaniard residing in Mexico City. He said he had known Martin de Ortega for more than thirty years and Magdalena for fourteen or fifteen years. Lucas Ruiz told the court that he was aware of the cruel treatment that Magdalena received at her master's hands and that he had seen Ortega "beat her severely and then allow melted hot sugar and hot pork fat to fall on her wounds from a lighted stick and that this was very often and he felt pity for this slave and for the other slaves that he had." In his opinion, Magdalena was a slave who "served well" and was undeserving of such punishments. The next witness, Juan de Zumere, a twenty-six-year-old Flemish man, testified that Martin de Ortega mistreated all of his slaves. He added that Magdalena has been denied the right to see her husband on Saturdays as "was the use and custom." There is no additional information regarding the trial proceedings.lt is apparent from subsequent events, however, that the Holy Office ordered the sale of the slave; for on January 22, 1644, the Inquisition acted to annul Magdalena's sale to Josephe Guti£rrez de Valasco, who had an obraje four leagues outside of Mexico City where she would be employed. This would have meant that she would be unable to continue a conjugal relationship with her husband. In nullifying the sale, the tribunal accused Ortega of continuing "the hatred and moral enmity that he has against the slave by depriving her of the legitimate use of holy matrimony." After the end of the trial proceedings, Magdalena had apparently

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been placed in the protective care of Miguel de Almonacir, a notary attached to the Holy Office, until such time as a satisfactory sale could be worked out. On May 18, 1644, Almonacir petitioned to be relieved of this responsibility, and the following day the Holy Office ordered Magdalena returned to her master's custody. In returning Magdalena to Ortega, the Holy Office told him not to "punish, nor molest nor sell her outside of this city." If he contravened these orders he would be excommunicated and fined 500 pesos. An angry Martin de Ortega responded to these restrictions on May 23, asking for their removal since "it would be as if I were subject to the slave and not she to me." His request was denied. A satisfactory settlement, however, was never worked out in this case; for Magdalena died on January 16, 1647, almost four years after she had initiated her case. For her the wheels of justice had never turned. A comparable case of intervention by the Holy Office occurred in 1650.32 As related during the trial, the facts formed an intensely human story, indicating quite graphically the trials, the frustrations, and the indignities of being human property. The case began quite uneventfully in June of that year with Juan de Morga, a mulatto slave of Diego de Arratia Corral, a mestizo and miner from Zacatecas, as defendant. The slave was accused of "having initiated against himself serious testimony in matters relating to our Holy Catholic faith, denouncing himself for having committed acts in desperation, invoking the devil's aid in order to escape from the power and bad treatment that his master was giving him." Specifically, Juan de Morga denounced himself for allegedly having committed four religious offenses. First, he had made a pact with the devil; second, he had committed bigamy; third, he had never believed in God; and fourth, he had missed Mass for a long period of time because he served "a cruel man in Zacatecas." This pathetic self-flagellation before the court was, it turned out, the only way in which the slave could denounce his master and get the authorities to listen. In his testimony, Juan de Morga claimed to be twentythree years old. He had on prior occasions fled from his master's power, but each time had been captured and returned. The witness described in detail the cruel whippings he often received from his master, remembered particularly the cruel branding he received "from ear to ear." When the mending patch was removed after fifteen days, the master found fault with the size of the letters and the barbarous process was repeated while the victim was bound to a chair. The slave appealed for aid to the corregi-

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dor and later to the alcalde, but to no avail. It was at this point that Juan de Morga decided there was no merit in justice nor in prayers, and he questioned his belief in God and the saints. In this mental condition he made a pact with the devil, offering his soul in return for rescue from his master. On one occasion he attempted to hang himself; on another he drank a mixture of wine and salt, believing it to be poisonous. Continuing his testimony, Juan described how his master broke one of his teeth with a hammer. He confessed that he had obtained a special kind of herb from an Indian, which was supposed to make his master love him. Shortly after, however, he began to fear God's wrath and promised himself that at the earliest opportunity he would denounce himself to the Holy Office, throwing himself upon its mercy. His principal request was not that he should be freed but rather that he should be removed from his master and sold elsewhere, even sent to the galleys, in order that he "may save his soul." He admitted that the religious offenses for which he had denounced himself were concocted, 33 a pretext to initiate a case against his master. Apart from being an interesting commentary on the slave system, this act attested to the slave's guile. Having heard Juan's testimony, the Inquisition admonished him for the method he used to bring the matter to its attention, but decided nonetheless to investigate his allegations against his master. A curate attached to the Holy Office, Don Domingo de Onate y Rivadeneyra, was empowered to conduct the investigation in Zacatecas. The first witness heard by the curate, a Spaniard named Andres de Niebla, said he had known Diego de Arratia for ten years. He added that he had learned that Arratia "beat and chained his slaves and made them work in the mills, and those were the kind of punishments ordinarily given in the real de minas to slaves who misbehave." According to the witness, it was known fact that Arratia was "hot-tempered." A second Spaniard, Diego Nieto, described Arratia as a man who chastised his slaves "with too much severity, beating and chaining them." He revealed that Diego de Arratia made his slaves work every day of the year, without recognizing even the holidays. In general he was a man who was "rigid with his slaves." The witness described in particular the harsh treatment that Arratia had administered to an otherwise reliable slave whom he found loitering. In desperation, the slave injected his hand into the mill, which promptly broke it. Lucas Benitez, a Spaniard, was another witness. He declared that he was quite familiar with the defendant and accused. In his opinion, Arratia was a man who worked his slaves excessively, even on Sundays

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and other holidays, and who punished them severely, hitting them with sticks and stones. He had on a number of occasions seen the accused beat his slaves while they were suspended from a wheel in the mill. He would have them chained afterwards. The witness had often seen Juan de Morga in chains. Finally, he felt that mistreatment had been the factor which produced Juan's flights. In making his report to the Holy Office, Domingo de Ofiate y Rivadeneyra commended the witnesses, who were "honorable men . . . particularly Lucas Benitez." He had, he pointed out, been unable to receive the deposition of Diego de Arratia and that of his domestic slaves. The court, consisting of Dr. Juan Säenz de Manozca, Licenciado Don Β ε π ^ έ de la Higuera y Amarilla, and Dr. Don Francisco de Estrada y Escobedo, was impressed with the report and ordered that the slave be sold and the master fined 2,000 ducats. On July 12, 1651, Juan de Morga was sold to Captain Mateo Diaz de la Madrid for 400 pesos. 34 This was the final chapter in a case that first began on June 17, 1650. The case just described merits some further analysis. Its eventual outcome must be viewed against the background of the slave's futile appeal to the local judges for protection. Indeed, he had had to conjure up some religious offenses in order to get his complaint considered by the Holy Office. In addition, those eminent Spaniards who supported Juan de Morga's testimony had hitherto remained silent about Arratia's mistreatment of his slaves. In the end, the slave was protected, but Juan was an unusual slave, a remarkably persevering individual. There is no way of knowing about the other slaves who silently endured the indignities of their lot. A further dimension to the problem of maltreatment occurred when one person's slave was attacked and wounded by a third party. Here it was essentially a question of damage to property. A few such incidents were reported in Mexico during the early colonial period. One case took place in 1616 when a master reported that his slave had been attacked and stabbed, as a result of which he died. In filing his complaint, the owner declared that "the said slave was mine, bought by my money and valued at 800 pesos or more." 35 His meaning was clear; to him it was not the loss of life that mattered; rather it was the violation of his property rights. None of these cases appeared to have been completed in court. It is quite possible that a financial settlement between the parties concerned was made out of court. A related situation developed when a master brought suit against an

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employer of his slave for having caused that slave's death through overwork and mistreatment. As noted earlier, it was customary for some masters to hire out their slaves to others in return for a daily or monthly wage. In 1615, for example, Beatriz de la Loa y Alvarado filed suit against Gaspar de Oviedo, a hat manufacturer, demanding that he pay one thousand pesos, the value of one of her male slaves who had died allegedly from excessive work and harsh treatment at the hands of the defendant. Although Dona Beatriz lost the suit, the case is significant in the sense that she had not asked that Don Gaspar be punished for mistreating the slave. The complainant merely demanded reimbursement for damage done to her property and payment of wages which the employer allegedly owed.36 So far, we have considered judicial protection in the area of physical mistreatment; let us now examine the second area in which protection was possible, that of the family and family life. Both the Church and the state saw marriage among the slaves as desirable. The family was considered inviolate. If families were separated, the slave could appeal to the constituted authorities for redress. Yet family life among the slaves faced many extraordinary pressures. The slave could not and did not have an independent family in the same way that his master could and did, for the simple reason that the slave had no control over his life and destiny. The inescapable fact is that both husband and wife were the property of another human being. Likewise, children born to a slave mother followed her into slavery. Legal sanctions against separation of the slave family never commanded the allegiance of the slaveowners. There are many recorded instances of families being divided by the sale of either the husband, the wife, or the children. Children as young as eleven or twelve were summarily seized from their families and sold. On other occasions, husband and wife could be sold together. In cases such as these, the family unit remained intact, but the violent uprooting of its members must have created insufferable difficulties. The cardinal point that must be made is that religious and legal considerations were of little import when the sale of a slave was contemplated. For the master, questions of economics and convenience were paramount. The economics of the situation demanded that the owner strike the best bargain possible. In a society where the demand for slavery continually exceeded the supply, a seller had no difficulty in finding purchasers. He sold only when it became convenient to sell and when his

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price was met. The question of whether a family should or should not be separated was irrelevant. There were isolated petitions to the Holy Office and to the Episcopal Court by slaves who charged that their rights to a family were being violated. There were two kinds of petitions. The first category consisted of slaves who asked for a reuniting of their family after one partner had been removed; the second related to those slaves who asked permission to marry over a master's objection. Such petitions were extremely rare. If the authorities had been vigilant in ferreting out violators of the Siete Partidas in this regard, or had they encourged slaves to file suits, the annals would be filled with such cases in view of the numerous recorded instances of slaves being uprooted from their families and sold. As in other instances, it was the courageous and persistent slave who attempted to defend his rights if he were aware of them. The mere existence of such petitions, however few in number, indicates that slaves, as human beings, tried to preserve their familial bonds in spite of the difficulties. One of the first cases involving the separation of a slave family was heard in 1579 by Juan Sanchez Adrian and Sancho Sanchez de Munone of the Episcopal Court. The suit began when Anton, a slave belonging to Alonso de Estrada of Mexico City, complained to the court that he had been separated from his wife through sale. They had previously resided in Los Angeles, but he had been sold to his present master in Mexico City. He reported that although his current master was prepared to purchase his wife, her master in Los Angeles, Antonio de Reinoso, had refused to sell her. Anton observed that the separation made it impossible for his wife and himself to have a "marriage life" and added that such division of the family contradicted the ideals of matrimony. Accordingly, the slave requested that Antonio de Reinoso be ordered to bring his wife to Mexico City so that they could continue their conjugal relationship. 37 In order to verify his allegations, the court requested that Anton produce supporting evidence. The first person to testify in support of the petition was Lucas, a slave belonging to Luis de Sosa of Mexico City. He informed the court that a marriage had indeed been solemnized between the two slaves and that he had been present at the ceremony. He revealed that the ceremony had been performed by a priest named Maldonado, whom he recalled as "elderly, short and fat." After the wedding Anton and Ines lived together as husband and wife.

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Additional evidence was received from Juan Alonso de Sosa, a former master of the complainant and his wife. He testified that he had known the couple for many years and that they were legally married. The witness was also aware that they had been separated through sale. After hearing this testimony, the court was convinced of the validity of Anton's charges. The judges ordered Antonio de Reinoso to bring the slave Ιηέβ to Mexico City so that "she may freely live in a state of matrimony with her husband." He was prohibited from ever removing her from Mexico City, and if the court's orders were not obeyed within six days, he would be excommunicated and fined 200 ducats. 38 It is not known whether Alonso de Estrada bought Ιηέβ, but such was probably the outcome, since he had originally expressed a willingness to purchase her. The court had acted extraordinarily quickly on this case. Anton initiated his suit on April 2, and by April 8 a decision had been rendered. In this instance, the court had indeed played its protective role. In the year 1618 a slave appealed to the Holy Office for intervention in a similar case. The facts in the case are relatively scant. The petition came from Juan Matso who lived in Vera Cruz but who had a wife in Mexico City. It is apparent from the petition that both of them had lived together in Mexico City at one time, but that the husband had been sold. It is not clear whether the Inquisition ever acted on this petition. In a similar vein, Gracia de San Nicolas, a slave and the wife of Manuel de la Cruz, complained in an undated petition that her husband had been separated from her and sold. She argued that this was contrary to the law and demanded that justice be done. 39 There is no record of any action having been taken on her request. One of the most decisive actions ever taken by a court in Mexico regarding the question of marriage and the family occurred in 1663. It was heard not by the Inquisition but by the Episcopal Court with the provisor as judge. Anton Manuel, a freedman, had proposed marriage to Maria de la Cruz, a slave in the Convento de la Encarnacion in Mexico City. Although the lady in question had accepted the offer, the Mother Superior of the convent had threatened her and stoutly refused to grant permission to tie the nuptial bonds. Faced with such determined opposition from her Christian mistress, the slave resigned herself to her fate. But the ardent suitor refused to have his desires thwarted and appealed to the Episcopal Court to intervene. 40 The court acted reasonably quickly in meeting Anton's request. After

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some investigation and hearing numerous claims and counterclaims from the suitor and from the convent, the court found that the allegations were correct. The judge even granted the prospective bridegroom's request that the slave girl be removed from the convent and placed elsewhere so that she would be free from threats and intimidation while the trial lasted. In the end, the court decided that the marriage should take place. The entire hearing had lasted for a period of four months. This suit was significant for a number of reasons. First, it reflected the type of opposition which could be made by owners who objected to certain activities of their slaves, even activities expressly sanctioned and encouraged by the Church and the state. In this case, opposition had come from what normally should have been an unlikely source—the convent. It would therefore not be surprising if less pious people behaved in a similar fashion. Had it not been for the suitor's persistence, the incident would never have come to trial, for, although the girl had consented to the marriage in private, she denied it in public while under pressure from her mistress. On her own, she had been unable to oppose her mistress. This case also calls into question the overall effectiveness of the mediating institutions when the obstacles faced by the slave were so great and pervasive. For the slave a major problem existed in actually filing a complaint with the authorities. This was an arduous and difficult task which stemmed not only from the slave's ignorance concerning his rights and from his illiteracy but also from fear of possible reprisals from his master. Few slaves were capable of overcoming these obstacles. In addition to the slaves who filed suit to obtain their rights, there were some masters who perceived it to be in their interest to preserve the marital bond of some of their slaves. On August 12, 1615, Antonio Martin, a resident of Mexico City, brought a curious petition to the provisor and vicar general of Mexico, Pedro Rodriguez de Castro. Martin stated that his female slave, Gracia, whom he had had for sixteen years, had for some time been married to Lorenzo, a slave belonging to Catalina Ortiz of the same city. After Catalina's death Lorenzo had been sold without the complainant's knowledge to Pedro Coquete. As Martin planned to move to the province of Oaxaca, he wanted to purchase Lorenzo so that both slaves could go with him and live together as man and wife. Martin argued that since he had been the owner of one of the parties to the marriage union for sixteen years, he felt that this gave him certain privileges and that Pedro Coquete should be forced to sell Loren-

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zo, whom he had owned for less than one year. Martin's repeated offers to purchase Lorenzo, however, had encountered flat refusals. Consequently, he was appealing for the court's intervention. 41 The court was favorably impressed by the substance of the petition and ordered Pedro Coquete to sell Lorenzo to Antonio Martin under pain of excommunication. But the problem could not be resolved so easily and quickly. On August 18 Pedro Coquete decided to contest the case and appointed Pedro Gomez as his legal representative. Three days later Gomez presented the arguments on behalf of his client. He denied that there was any "legitimate reason" for his client to sell Lorenzo. On the contrary, Martin should be forced to sell Gracia to Pedro Coquete because according to "the rules of law, the wife should follow the husband and not vice versa." In addition, Lorenzo was an industrious slave who performed valuable services in his master's bread shop. The loss of such a slave could not be expressed in monetary terms. It would be a better solution if Martin were to sell Gracia to his client. On August 29 Antonio Martin responded to this petition through his legal representative, Juan de C£spedes. He repeated his earlier reasons for wanting to purchase Lorenzo. In addition, he charged that Coquete had exaggerated Lorenzo's role in the shop "as a subterfuge to excuse himself from carrying out his obligations." He said that any other slave "even though he may be a bozal," could be trained to perform such functions. Antonio Martin's subsequent actions indicated that he doubted whether he could win his suit, because he immediately took Gracia with him to Oaxaca although no decision had been rendered by the court. As a result, on September 3 Lorenzo petitioned the court to order his wife's return to Mexico City. Whether he did this on his own volition or under the pressure of his master is not known. On September 5 the judge requested the courts in Oaxaca to compel Antonio Martin to return Gracia to Mexico City. On that date also, acting on behalf of Martin, Juan de Cespedes petitioned the court to suspend the order until the original suit was settled. Unfortunately, there is no information on the final outcome of the case, since the transcript appears to be incomplete. Nevertheless, the case demonstrated that masters recognized that the maintenance of the slaves' family life sometimes suited their interests. It is clear from the nature of the legal wrangling in this case that both masters were thinking primarily of the advantages of owning both slaves and used the marriage issue to conceal their real motivations. A case similar in substance to the one above occurred in 1648. On

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September 3 of that year, Don Juan de Suaznabar y Aguirre, alguacil mayor of the Holy Office, requested the intervention of the Inquisition in a dispute which he had with Hernando de Utrera of Mexico City. He revealed that he owned a male slave, Josephe, who was married to Margarita, a slave belonging to Utrera. Don Juan reported that Josephe had run away on many occasions, being absent on one occasion for eleven months. In addition, Josephe was a thief and generally behaved in an unsatisfactory manner. In Don Juan's opinion, Margarita was her husband's accomplice in all of his activities. As a result of Josephe's bad conduct, he had decided to sell him, but for the "security of my person" it would be necessary to get rid of his wife as well. For this purpose, he had initiated futile negotiations with Margarita's master to purchase her so that he could resell them as a family unit. He now requested the intervention of the Holy Office to name someone to appraise Margarita's worth and then order her sold to him. Don Juan concluded his petition by suggesting that the couple's sale outside the city would constitute "a service to God." 42 Having read the petition, on September 23 the Inquisitors ordered that Margarita be removed from her master and placed in the care of Francisco Ruiz Maranon, alcalde of the secret prisons of the Holy Office. It ordered Utrera to appoint an evaluator within four days to determine Margarita's price. Quite understandably the defendant was displeased by these events. On September 24 he dispatched a petition to the court pointing out that he was an old man suffering from failing eyesight and that Margarita's services were indispensable, since she handled a housewares stall for him in the public square. Utrera denied that Margarita was in any way responsible for Josephe's behavior. He added that the complainant had previously threatened to take Margarita away from him, and on one occasion had kidnapped her for a period of more than nine months. Since Utrera was a poor man and an invalid, he had been unable to seek redress. He begged the Holy Office not to force him to sell his slave and asked that she be returned to him. On the basis of his arguments, the tribunal ordered the release of the slave. On October 10 Utrera cast aspersions on Don Juan's character by accusing him of keeping Josephe in chains on his sugar plantation. He requested again that the case be dismissed. In answer to this charge, Don Juan stated that the law required Utrera to sell Margarita so that she could go with her husband. He repeated his charges of Margarita's complicity in her husband's misconduct and asked that the sale be effected. It

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is not known how the matter was finally settled, but it was, to say the least, a very strange case. It may be doubted whether the reasons Don Juan advanced for purchasing the slave were in fact the real ones. His having kidnapped and concealed Margarita for nine months certainly suggested that he harbored ulterior motives in his desire to purchase her. Don Juan may have wanted to render a service to God, but he was probably thinking first of himself. The cases discussed here indicate that the Holy Office and the Episcopal Courts responded sympathetically to suits brought by and on behalf of slaves who had their families separated or who wanted to marry over the objections of their masters. This stance was in complete accord with the Church's position and with that of the Siete Partidas, which held the family to be inviolate. Although in practice such intervention tended to limit the authority of the master, the courts were acting primarily out of a sense of religious obligation. If in protecting the slave family the master was inconvenienced, then so be it. In its pursuit of blasphemers and witches, the Holy Office was similarly exercising its religious mission. It is clear, nevertheless, that the authorities did not actively seek out violators of the law. The bills of sale indicate that masters broke up slave families with great frequency. One can only speculate on the reasons for this lack of active concern. Perhaps the tribunals wanted the initiative to come from the victim or from a sympathetic neighbor, as was the custom with the mistreatment and the manumission cases. Whatever the explanation, the courts did not substantially alleviate the pressures for survival that the slave family encountered. Although a few slaves had their grievances redressed, such instances were insufficient to affect the overall nature of the system. If in practice the slave family in Mexico was not inviolate, it must be conceded, on the other hand, that opportunities for manumission became the most important lubricant of the slave system in that colony. The Siete Partidas had laid down a number of ideal conditions under which a slave could be manumitted. Yet it must not be construed that the achievement of freedom was a matter of course for slaves in New Spain, although technically there were no legal barriers impeding it. Most Africans lived and died as slaves, although it is undeniable that a significant number of free people existed in early colonial Mexico. The majority of the freedmen had either purchased their freedom, received it at birth, or obtained it in the last will and testament of the master.

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According to the Siete Partidas, a slave could appeal to the courts for protection if he felt that his freedom which he had acquired in some way had been fraudulently denied him. On some occasions, such a petition originated from a friendly neighbor or from a freed relative. In September 1604, for example, Gaspar de Contreras petitioned the Episcopal Courts that Andrea de Velasco, a female slave held by the convent of San Geronimo in Mexico City, be declared free. He argued that Andrea's former masters had donated her to the convent on condition that she would be freed after paying 100 pesos. Contreras submitted that the convent be compelled to accept the 100 pesos and declare the slave free. 43 In response to the petition, the nuns declared that they were unaware of any such clause in the will which granted them the slave. They indicated that Andrea had been in their possession for the past thirteen years. Quite frustratingly, one does not know how the case was decided. The document yields no clue. Furthermore, it is not known whether the 100 pesos had come from the slave or from her benefactor. Nor does one know the reasons that prompted Contreras to file his petition. A second case involving manumission was heard in 1635.44 The case was brought by a slave, Maria, against the convent and nuns of Santa Ines in Mexico City. Maria petitioned that her sixteen-year-old daughter, Andrea, had been donated by her previous master to the convent for a period of seven years, at the end of which she should be declared free. The petition claimed that the girl had served more than the specified time and hence was deserving of her freedom. Maria asked that her master's will which outlined the conditions of the donation be produced, since it would support her allegations. The nuns did not share Maria's view. Indeed, they very haughtily refused to consider replying to her claim, since "by being a slave, she is not a person capable of appearing in a suit." This opinion was not shared by the Episcopal judge, who ordered the convent to prepare a formal reply to Maria's petition. In their reply, the nuns argued that Andrea had been donated to the convent with no limitations on the length of her servitude. They bolstered their argument by presenting what they claimed was a letter of donation from Andrea's original master. The letter made no reference to a time limit. The crucial document, however, was the will, which could not be found. The suit either remained in limbo for some time or was dismissed, for there is no mention of a verdict in the transcript. In one sense, the case revealed that in spite of religious ardor

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questions of legality and economics transcended basic humanitarianism. In this respect, a religious institution acting as a slaveowner was no better than the average Spaniard. In the same year, 1635, the Episcopal Court in Mexico City heard a petition from Domingo de Avalos, a free mulatto, requesting that his two slave brothers be declared free. 45 His contention was that their master had made a will leaving them to his sister and her heirs with the stipulation that they be freed at the end of twenty years' service. He argued that since that clause had not been kept he was seeking the adjudication of the court. The court thought the petition sufficiently serious to warrant a hearing and ordered the present owners of the slaves to produce the will. When the will was submitted, it declared that the slaves should be freed after forty years' service, not twenty. One section of the will stated that the slaves should be informed of their eventual manumission "in order that, understanding that they will come to be free, they may perform good service and live with some contentment." At best, this was a cruel hoax, an expression of empty formalism. To free an elderly slave after forty years of toil was not a gesture of Christian charity. In short, it was like discarding a piece of used clothing after its purpose had been served. The fourth case to be considered here was unusual both for its nature and its eventual outcome. Heard by the Holy Office in Mexico City, it was brought by Manuel Munoz, then a slave of Tomas de Contreras, against his former master, Pedro de Soto Lopez. The slave complained that Pedro de Soto Lopez had on many different occasions, because of his good record of service, promised him his freedom but had not issued "a letter of manumission." He had been subsequently sold to Tomas de Contreras, but he still felt his former master bound to keep his promise. He requested the Holy Office to intervene in the matter. Munoz also suggested that the tribunal appoint a representative to make an estimate of his value so that his present master would be recompensed if he were declared free. In effect, Manuel Munoz had brought a breach of promise suit against his former master. The arguments he used to support his suit were both persuasive and enlightened. He contended that his suit was just because "natural law favored liberty; that liberty once promised or given could not be revoked because all peoples were born free and human law introduced captivity against nature." In spite of this reference to natural law

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and freedom, if Soto Lopez had not been a man of some integrity the case would not have amounted to much, for he had not given Munoz any written document stating his intention to grant him freedom. It was merely an oral statement of intent. When Soto Lopez testified, he verified the claims made by the slave and said it was always his intention to keep his word, although he had subsequently sold Munoz "out of anger." The lengthy suit that eventually developed revolved around the questions of whether the slave should be granted his freedom and, if so, how much money should be paid to his owner. Contreras rejected the basic premise on which Munoz built his case, that liberty once promised could not be revoked. He denied that he could be forced to part with a slave on the basis of a promise made by a previous master. It appeared from his arguments, however, that he would free the slave if a satisfactory financial arrangement could be worked out. But that proved to be an interminable problem. The men appointed by the Holy Office to value the slave described him as a "very old negro with a deformity of the feet." He was said to be worth not more than 250 pesos. Tomas de Contreras, who had paid 375 pesos for Mufioz and was now faced with the prospect of losing 125 pesos, challenged the valuation. He described the slave as one who was very skilled in the cloth trade and whom he would value at 1,000 pesos. Soto Lopez, for his part, was pleased at the prospect of indemnifying Contreras in the amount of only 250 pesos. He now sought to establish, quite unconvincingly, that his promise of freedom was made not before he had sold the slave but long afterwards and that accordingly 250 pesos was a just price since Mufioz was now an old man. After a seemingly interminable legal wrangle, the two men eventually compromised at 300 pesos as the price for the slave. Nine months after he had first appealed, Manuel Munoz received his freedom. 46 Ten years after the resolution of this case, another one was brought before the civil courts and heard by Don Manuel de Sotomayor, the local alcalde del crimen. Leonor, a free woman, petitioned in September 1660 that her twelve-year-old son, Juan, be declared free. She declared that she had been the slave of Pedro de Soto of Mexico City and that in 1639 he had given her to his daughter, Ines, who was then a nun at the convent of Nuestra Senora de Balvanera in Mexico City. According to the terms of the donation, Leonor was to be paid one real in daily wage. In addition, she could not be sold and would receive a letter of manumission after the nun's death. During the course of her long wait, Leonor

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gave birth to a son, Juan de la Cruz, in 1648. Since Ines had recently died and Leonor had become free, she asked that her son be declared a free person as well. Such an apparently simple case took six years to be resolved. In its response to the petition, the convent held that it had inherited the slave boy because Ines had failed to make a will. In any event, the convent argued, since the child was born while the mother was still a slave, the child took her status. This argument convinced the judge and the case was dismissed. But this was not to be the end of the matter. Four years later, on February 21, 1664, Leonor appealed to the Episcopal courts for intervention in the dispute. The petition was heard by Dr. Don Nicolas del Puerto, provisor and vicar general of the archbishopric. In her new petition, Leonor said that in the original letter of donation her master meant, technically, that she would be freed at his death, but with the proviso that she work at a fixed pay for his daughter until she died. The fact that she could not be sold, Leonor argued, meant that Ines had a right to her labor but not to the ownership of her person. Consequently, the petitioner concluded, she was technically not a slave when her son was born and thus he was not legally a slave. Leonor further charged that Juan was being mistreated by Gonzalo Vazquez Osores, mayordomo (custodian) of the convent. Leonor's latest arguments produced another of those long legal battles. The convent denied the basis of the suit and held that the boy was legally a slave. This denial led to a number of arguments and counterarguments, with both sides essentially reiterating and defending their original points. On March 29, 1667, the court finally reached its verdict. It found that Juan de la Cruz had been born free and should be released from the convent. This brought to a conclusion a case that was first initiated on September 28,1660. 47 Justice had been dispensed, but for all parties involved the process was agonizingly slow. The five manumission cases discussed here are the only ones that were found in the records. It appears, then, that manumission never became a major source of litigation in early colonial Mexico. As property, the slave could not demand outright freedom unless he could prove conclusively that it had been denied him through fraudulent means. This rested on the assumption that slaves were conversant with their rights and with their master's obligations toward them. It must be stressed that in a case involving maltreatment the slave had the right to ask to be sold to anoth-

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er master, but he had no legal right to demand his freedom. A man could not be legitimately deprived of his property. The fourth area in which protection might have been expected from the civil and religious authorities was that of property ownership. There are no records of litigation to indicate that slaves attempted to recover property stolen, confiscated, or damaged. The Siete Partidas, it must be recalled, had not given slaves an absolute right to own property. Yet there is evidence to suggest that some slaves did own jewelry and fine silks and even acquired the money to purchase their freedom. Thus, custom acknowledged the ownership of property by slaves. There is little evidence, however, to suggest that slaves were given land on which to grow their own provisions, as became the practice in the larger islands of the British West Indies. If this never became customary in Mexico, the slaves' dependence on the masters for daily necessities was total. The fact that Spanish laws and customs allowed the slave some judicial protection demonstrated the sharp contradiction that existed in a society that enslaved others: the contradiction of thinking of the slave simultaneously as man and as property. As property, the Siete Partidas recognized the master's control over his slave by conceding that "a master has complete authority over his slave to dispose of him as he pleases." 48 As man, the law protected the slave from mistreatment, allowed him to marry and have a family, and provided him with opportunities to receive his freedom. The Church, in its turn, admitted the slave to the sacraments, thereby conferring on him a moral personality. Although the possession by the Mexican slaves of a moral and legal personality did not measurably alter the burdens of their physical situation, it meant, nevertheless, that practicing Catholics had guilty consciences when they mistreated their slaves and violated their rights. Thus the admitted frequency of manumission, particularly on deathbeds, was as much an expression of atonement for wrongs committed against the slave as it was a belated recognition of the humanity of the African. The Spaniards and their descendants in Mexico, although they may have thought of their slaves as decidedly inferior beings, never quite believed that Africans were subhumans to be mistreated and exploited and denied any avenue of protection. But neither did the society accept the proposition that the enslavement of Africans was morally indefensible. It was this ambivalence to the African in their midst that explains the simultaneous existence of the idealism of the Siete Partidas and the easy access to

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manumission on the one hand and the promulgation of the most draconian measures for slave control on the other. The small number of documents relating to protection cases in comparison to the scores dealing with religious offenses such as blasphemy must provoke some comment. The Church, which handled the majority of cases, was in the business of saving souls and hence directed its energies primarily to the suppression of religious offenses. The authorities, both civil and religious, accepted the proposition that a master had complete authority over his slave. In the area of physical punishment, for instance, the master had considerable latitude. The Inquisition would normally intervene if a slave blasphemed as a consequence of punishment he received. In such an event, the slave, if found guilty, would be punished, while the occasion which prompted the blasphemy would be ignored. The master would be held answerable to the authorities only if he exceeded certain limits when inflicting punishment on his slave. What constituted these limits could of course vary from individual to individual. The trend of active concern shown by the Church and the state for the Indian was never duplicated for the black slave. Under careful religious tutelage the slave would receive his paradise in heaven but not on earth. The records indicate that only flagrant abuses came to the attention of the religious and secular institutions for correction. Mediation worked only when the authorities could not close their eyes in the face of obvious contravention of the law. It had little impact on the operation of the slave system as a whole and did not serve to change measurably the relationship between masters and slaves. Few slaves could or did avail themselves of the ministrations of the law. Masters, in the main, could mistreat their slaves and violate their rights with impunity. Atonement for this could be sought in the confessional or ultimately on the deathbed. Too much depended on the slave to initiate his own legal battles, and a complaining slave could be subjected to the reprisals of an angry master. Often unaware of his rights, possessing limited access to the authorities, and probably unable to articulate his complaints, the slave remained essentially at his master's mercy.

CHAPTER 5

Patterns of Social Control and Resistance New World societies based on the utilization of slave labor were notoriously insecure. Slaveowners were continually faced with the problem of protecting their physical safety. The oppression of the slave which the system engendered carried within it the seeds of violent resistance. Since slaves outnumbered their masters in some societies, numerical inferiority produced a new dimension to the problem of fear. These circumstances made it imperative that rigorous measures be taken to control the servile population, to coerce the slave into subjection. It was hoped that such measures would act as a deterrent to rebellions. Should they occur, the state would have the legal ammunition to crush them swiftly and decisively. The record of the Spaniards in Mexico in the area of legislation for the control of the slaves was starkly impressive. The legislation became increasingly more stringent as the slave population grew. These repressive measures, when enforced, had an effect opposite to that intended; the slave became so restricted, so circumscribed in his movements and actions, that physical resistance became, if not attractive, certainly essential. Legislation for the control of slaves in Mexico fell into two categories. First, there was the restrictive legislation, the kinds of measures designed at once to intimidate the slaves and to prevent social interaction and revolutionary plotting among them. The second type of social control legislation involved efforts to discourage and combat the problem of the escaped slaves (cimarrones). In neither category was any attempt made to be systematic. Rather, such legislation responded to the particular needs of the moment, and the authorities promulgated measures to cor-

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rect individual situations. But viewed as an overall pattern, these measures constituted an attempt by an insecure master class to control a restless body of slaves. The problem of preserving the social order from the assaults of the slaves was present from the introduction of slavery. As early as 1523 the authorities, mindful of the dangers stemming from the presence of too many slaves, fixed the ratio of Spaniards to slaves at three Spaniards to one slave. 1 Although this restriction was ignored in later years in the face of economic pressures, the spirit which initially produced it never disappeared. As the Spanish traveler Gomez de Cervantes complained in 1599, "We are surrounded by enemies who outnumber us; the danger is great because Indians, negroes, mulattoes, mestizos are present in much greater numbers than we who have to serve Your Majesty and defend the realm." 2 While the colonists worried over the number of slaves, the crown had taken steps as early as 1543 to prohibit the introduction of Moorish slaves, who were generally considered to be intractable and rebellious. In addition, it was felt that these slaves would be the agents of Islam and, as such, would have a contaminating effect on the new Christians, both Indian and African. The cedula required that all Moorish slaves then in Mexico be expelled. 3 The number of such slaves is not known. It is unlikely that the figure exceeded a few score, since careful attempts were usually made at the ports of departure to prevent their transportation to the colonies. The 1543 cedula, whether or not it was stringently enforced, was only the first in a series designed to expel the Moors from New Spain. As late as 1577 the crown renewed the prohibition against the transportation of such slaves to the Indies, a tacit admission that the earlier prohibition had been violated. In 1578 the local authorities in Mexico reported to the crown that they had expelled two Moorish slaves earlier that year and that they would shortly be expelling more. By 1597 the number of Moorish slaves in New Spain was negligible. In that year, the viceroy informed the king that he had concluded a survey on them and had found that there "are very few here." 4 While the crown actively prohibited the importation of Moorish slaves to Mexico, it also sought to provide guidelines for the proper treatment and control of the slave population. These guidelines were contained in a cedula issued in 1545. It ordered that all masters should take special care in the "good treatment" of their slaves, bearing in mind that they were Christians. In addition, all slaves should be adequately clothed and fed

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and not be cruelly punished. No organ of the slave should be cut off as a form of punishment, since such an act contravened both divine and human law. If such an offense were committed, the guilty master would lose his slave and the person who reported the incident would receive a reward of twenty pesos. In order to prevent violent acts by the slaves, the emperor forbade them to bear arms, with the sole exception of a knife without a point. Slaves would not be allowed to travel from one area to another unless they carried a note from their masters indicating the purpose of the trip. The cedula ordered the manager of each hacienda to check the huts of the slaves each night to ascertain whether they harbored any slaves who did not belong to that hacienda. Slaves were forbidden to go from one hacienda to another after dark. Should this restriction be contravened, the slave was liable to receive twenty lashes from the owner of the hacienda he visited, in addition to being arrested. 5 Through these measures the crown attempted to restrict social intercourse between slaves as a safeguard against rebellions. It was clearly in the self-interest of the masters to see that such measures were enforced. In essence such legislation sought to protect the Spaniards from the black slaves. But the crown attempted to protect the Indians from them as well. As early as 1536 it was ordered that any African who maltreated an Indian would receive 100 lashes as punishment. The slave's owner would be held responsible for any injuries suffered by the Indian. 6 In 1551 Charles V issued a law prohibiting Indians from working for Africans, since it was claimed that the Africans mistreated the Indians, particularly the women. There were several penalties for infringement of this regulation. For the first offense a black slave would receive 100 lashes; for the second, his ears would be cut off. The fact that the latter punishment constituted a crime against natural and divine law, as the emperor himself pointed out in 1545, did not seem to alter the situation. In the event that such offenses were committed by free blacks, the first offense would incur 100 lashes, the second, banishment from the colony. 7 In 1552 the crown repeated its restrictions on the bearing of arms by the slave population. Charles V ordered that no black person, whether free or slave, be allowed to carry any kind of arms. For contravening these orders a first offender would lose the arms he carried. For a second offense the penalty would be loss of the weapons and ten days in prison; and for a third, 100 lashes. If the slave took up arms against a Spaniard, and even if the Spaniard were unhurt, he would receive 100 lashes in

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addition to having a nail driven through his hand. A second offense would cost the slave the offending hand. As an interesting commentary on Spanish racism, a similar offense committed against an Indian was punished by loss of the ears; but when a Spaniard was the victim it meant loss of a hand. 8 There are no records to indicate the extent to which these measures were enforced, but they do indicate the barbarism of these Spanish laws. The problem of slaves carrying and using weapons was perennial for the crown and even more for the civil authorities in Mexico. On October 10, 1537, Viceroy Mendoza prohibited all persons of "whatever status and quality" from giving Africans, whether free or slave, any arms whatsoever. Any infringement of this order without the viceroy's dispensation would incur the death penalty. All slaves, in turn, were forbidden to bear arms. A similar ordinance was approved by the cabildo in Vera Cruz in 1547. 9 In 1572 the viceroy once more prohibited Africans from carrying arms, a prohibition which was repeated in 1574, 1583, 1584, 1589, 1595, and at various other times. 1 0 The repetition of this order suggests that the local authorities were either inept, understaffed, or less than diligent in enforcing these measures. Administrative concern with the bearing of arms by the slaves grew as the slave population increased. The flood of restrictive legislation by the Audiencia in the last decades of the sixteenth century resulted directly from the increase in the slave population after the epidemics of 1576-1579 and the consequent rise in the incidence of runaway slaves. Fear of a slave rebellion also prompted the passage of these measures. The atmosphere of increasing control of the slave by the men on the spot, coupled with the great demands made on his labor after the abolition of Indian slavery, helped to produce an increase in the cimarron population. Runaway slaves had always posed a great problem for the authorities. The cimarron threat had existed as early as 1523. As Herrera reported, "Also at this time, many negro slaves fled to the Zapotecs and they went about rebelling throughout the country, erecting many crosses, making it understood that they were Christians, but they themselves, tired of living outside of subjection, were gradually pacified and the majority returned to their masters." 1 1 The reason Herrera advanced for the defeat of the cimarrones might have seemed acceptable to him, but in view of the long and sustained quest for freedom that took place in later years, his conclusion was misleading. Realizing the threat which the cimarrones posed to Spanish life and

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property and to the institution of slavery, the colonists responded with unrestrained severity against offenders. As early as 1525 the cabildo of Mexico City fixed one peso and costs as the price a master was required to pay the captor of his runaway slave. Masters who failed to claim their slaves and pay the costs within three days ran the risk of having their slaves sold. In 1527 the cabildo appointed a special constable (alguacil del campo), whose responsibilities included rounding up and returning escaped slaves to their masters. 12 It appeared that such slaves usually had some part of their bodies mutilated, either by their captors or their masters. In 1540 the emperor was moved to prohibit castration as a punishment for cimarrones. 13 All efforts to destroy the cimarron population failed. These runaway slaves stood as living symbols to their counterparts as to what was achievable in terms of escape from bondage. The fact that they had escaped and had preserved their freedom undoubtedly encouraged other slaves to follow their example. Hence the cimarron population had to be destroyed, and destroyed so ruthlessly as to serve as a deterrent to potential runaways. Furthermore, since the cimarrones made no distinction between slaveowners and nonslaveowners, it was a matter of self-preservation to the individual Spaniard to see that the menace was removed. Cimarrones delighted in staging hit-and-run assaults on Spaniards on the highways and on their own property. These clandestine attacks were sometimes made in association with Indians, chiefly the Chichimecs. This presented a greater danger to the Spaniards because a well-organized series of raids by the blacks and the Indians would be extremely difficult to suppress. The first official report of such collaborative raids came from Nueva Galicia as early as 1549.14 There were raids in later years. One in 1579 occurred in Guadalajara and was the subject of a report to the king from the dean and cabildo of the Guadalajara cathedral. They reported that a train had been attacked, the Spaniards defeated, all of them killed, and their property looted. As they expressed it, "The highways are so dangerous that they cannot be travelled except with a large guard of soldiers, and even then the fear is great. The danger is made even greater because the mulattoes, mestizos and vagabonds, as well as hitherto peaceful Indians, are joining with the Chichimeca raiders." 15 The most sustained guerrilla attacks came from small groups of cimarrones who combined daring with the essential ingredient of surprise to launch swiftly executed assaults in outlying areas. In 1560, for example,

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in response to highway raids on Spaniards in Guanajuato, Penjamo, and San Miguel, Viceroy Luis de Velasco ordered a full-scale assault on this band, which numbered some fifteen to twenty slaves. The viceroy directed the local magistrate, Bartolome Palomino, to exterminate the cimarrones with a combined force of Spaniards and Indians, who were instructed to use whatever means were necessary to achieve the desired goal. 16 One of the principal organizational features used by the cimarrones was the establishment of an enclave which served simultaneously as a base of operations and as a sanctuary. The enclave was usually a secluded and inaccessible area carefully hidden from the colonists. A cave was sometimes an ideal location. In 1560 some slaves whose base was a cave in Pachuca conducted raids against the Spaniards. The viceroy ordered their arrest and imprisonment. 17 In Orizaba, Velasco initiated efforts to suppress "the disobedient rebels" who were making life miserable for travelers and the residents of haciendas and sugar plantations. 18 There was a report in 1576 of a group of cimarrones who had established themselves in an area called Canada de los Negros. 19 From this sanctuary they launched attacks on the Spaniards who had founded the settlement of Leon. Their ravages led the authorities to undertake a relentless campaign to crush them. To preserve their freedom, the cimarrones fled to the neighboring regions of Neuva Galicia, Yuriyia, Pätzcuaro, and Celaya. The cimarrones were never crushed, despite the efforts of the civil authorities. Such attempts usually took one of two forms. The first method, a series of search and destroy missions, were notoriously unsuccessful. The desire to survive had perfected in the cimarrones the art of guerrilla warfare, which was further aided by the mountainous Mexican terrain. The second strategy used by the authorities in their war against the runaways was repressive legislation. These laws were designed both to deter and to punish offenders. In 1571, for instance, the viceroy decreed that any slave who was absent for four days would receive 50 lashes while tied to a log, in which position he would remain until sunset. If a slave were absent more than eight days, the penalty was 100 lashes and iron fetters fastened to his feet for two months. If the slave removed the irons, for the first offense he would receive 200 lashes, and for the second, 200 lashes in addition to wearing the fetters for four months. The master would be fined fifty pesos if he removed the fetters. 20 The severity of punishment depended upon the duration of the slave's

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absence and also on whether he associated with other cimarrones during that period. If he were absent for four months but had not associated with cimarrones, a first offense was 200 strokes, a second, banishment from the colony. Absence for more than six months and associating with cimarrones incurred the death penalty. 21 As the tempo of flights increased, the viceroy adopted a policy based on coercion but containing elements of subtle persuasion. He sought, in effect, to make every free resident, whether white or black, a law enforcement officer. He decreed in 1574 that any free person who arrested a cimarron would become his owner if the cimarron's master did not claim him. If the cimarron were originally a freedman, he would become the captor's slave, and if the cimarron were sentenced to death the captor would receive fifty pesos from the authorities. Conversely, if the captor did not want the cimarron as a slave, he would be given fifty pesos and the cimarron would become the property of the state. 22 The viceroy also held out new options to the cimarrones. A cimarron who brought in one of his partners would receive his freedom as a reward. If he brought in several, he would receive twenty pesos for each one. Thus, by promising freedom and financial reward, the viceroy hoped to break the back of the movement to the hills. As a safeguard against fraud, the viceroy stipulated that if a free mulatto or a freed black hid a slave for four months and then brought him forward as an apprehended cimarron in order to claim the reward, both would be sentenced to death. If an African or a mulatto, whether slave or free, knowingly gave assistance to a cimarron, he would incur the same penalties imposed on the cimarron. A Spaniard accused and convicted of the same offense would be banished. 23 None of these measures had the desired effect. In 1579 the viceroy ordered the suppression of cimarrones around the city of Vera Cruz, between the city of Oaxaca and the port of Guatulco. Other groups of cimarrones were located in the province of Pänuco and on the ranches and large haciendas of Chichimecas, Almeria, and Tlalcotalpa. The viceroy commanded that they be arrested and castrated. 24 The continued presence of these cimarrones led Viceroy Don Luis de Velasco to introduce still more severe and barbaric measures for their suppression. On June 8, 1590, the viceroy ordered that as of that date runaway slaves who were absent more than one night would receive 30 lashes. A second offense brought 200 lashes and the loss of both ears. A third offense carried a penalty of 200 lashes and the loss of a leg. For a fourth offense the slave would be hanged. Don Luis suggested keeping a register to

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inform the authorities of the number of times a slave had run away. 25 The viceroy's appointment of Don Carlos de Sämano in 1591 to crush cimarrones in the zones of Papaloapan and Coatzacoalcos attested to the failure of these measures and the survival of the cimarron population. Don Carlos was no more successful than his predecessors, and he was later replaced by other men who suffered similar defeats. The most important military confrontations between the cimarrones and the Spaniards occurred in the Orizaba zone around the port of Vera Cruz during the first two decades of the seventeenth century. This zone had for a number of years provided sanctuary for a group of runaways who persistently attacked the Spaniards. In appointing a mission to destroy them in 1606, the viceroy observed: I have understood that the number of negros cimarrones that are gathered in the jurisdiction of old and new Vera Cruz, Rio Blanco and Punto de Anton is very large and their liberty and daring great, that they have come to enter the pueblo of Tlalixcoyan to rob and loot the houses of their masters and seizing domestic Negroes, taking them from the houses of their masters and threatening the Spaniards and setting fire to their houses. 26 The implications of the viceroy's observations were clear. The cimarrones had been doing intolerable damage to Spanish property. Equally important, they had been serving as liberators of slaves, whom they took with them into their sanctuaries. To the Spaniards, accordingly, another military confrontation between the two groups had become essential. The ensuing military activities were no more successful than the previous ones. The failure of this mission led the viceroy once again to direct the alcalde mayor in New Vera Cruz in 1607 to stamp out "the large number of cimarrones" in that area within fifteen days. The viceroy charged that "each day their members keep increasing because of the many that flee from their masters . . . and they are assaulting and killing the Indians and the Spaniards along the highways." 27 It is not known whether this order was ever executed. But on March 9, 1608, a thoroughly frustrated Luis de Velasco expressed his doubts to the king regarding the eventual suppression of the runaway slaves. He pointed out that the rugged Mexican terrain posed great difficulties in that direction and that the military exercises against the cimarrones involved great risks for the Spaniards. The viceroy felt, in addition, that a

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continuation of the struggle against the cimarrones would require too great an expenditure of money. With this background of frustration, weariness, and doubt, the viceroy revealed that he had ordered certain "confidential persons" to speak to the cimarrones regarding the question of peace and that he had dispatched some priests to give them religious instruction. 28 In effect, the viceroy hoped that gentle persuasion would be successful where military might had failed. The cimarrones never paid too much attention to the viceroy's efforts to make peace with them. On June 23, 1608, an obviously frustrated viceroy informed the king that the pacification of the cimarrones was taking a long time, but that it was "a difficult business." He indicated that there was a difference of opinion among the Spaniards regarding the appropriate means for suppressing the Africans. According to the viceroy, one group of Spaniards favored granting the cimarrones their freedom with certain limitations. This apparent magnanimity was a tacit recognition that "the war would be costly," that the outcome was doubtful, and that many people would be killed in the battles. The proponents of this view argued, in addition, that the Spaniards lacked the money to pay the cost of suppression and that it would be expedient to make peace. However, if the cimarrones failed to adhere to the conditions, then there would have to be a renewed effort at suppression. 29 To explore the possibility of peace, the viceroy reported that he had sent an emissary to the runaways. Don Luis de Velasco made it clear, however, that the emissary would combine peacemaking efforts with espionage. The emissary was commissioned to "examine the location of the terrain and to find out the number of residents." In addition, the viceroy had sent a Franciscan to baptize the children and to minister to the people. The friar had spent thirty days with the cimarrones but was unable to discover their number because they were divided into several groups. The Franciscan had informed him, however, that the leader was "un hombre de razon." 30 No incidents of confrontations between the cimarrones and the Spaniards were reported during the period June to December 1608. In fact, on December 17 the viceroy informed the king that the runaways had asked to have the friar sent to them and that this had resulted in a period of quiet and the cessation of hostilities. As in the case of his previous visit, the friar carried instructions to familiarize himself with the abode of the Africans, ascertain their numbers, and discover the extent of their arms and defenses. This, as the viceroy put it, was to enable the Spaniards to

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"understand better the means that are appropriate to suppressing them." Once again the friar had been instructed to combine his priestly duties with espionage. On February 13, 1609, the viceroy reported to the king that the friar was still with the cimarrones and that all was quiet. 31 In view of the events that ensued, it was clear that the viceroy badly misjudged the astuteness of the cimarrones. On May 24, 1609, for instance, he admitted that the cimarrones were once more on the rampage and had expelled the friars, charging them with espionage. 32 It was probably the discovery of the friars' duplicity that triggered the renewed attacks on the Spaniards. The cimarrones once again began kidnapping black and Indian women. According to the viceroy, in addition to the cimarrones in and around Vera Cruz there were now about 300 in Acapulco who were engaged in similar activities. Faced with this disorder, the viceroy requested advice as to his course of action. 33 It was quite clear what the response would be. These incursions by the cimarrones provoked a systematic and wellorganized attack by the Spaniards. The plan was twofold: the cimarron settlements would be destroyed, and the captives would be reenslaved. For the task of suppression in the Orizaba region of Vera Cruz, the viceroy chose one Pedro Gonzalez de Herrera, who would head an amorphous group of Spaniards, Indians, and mestizos. Two priests, Juan Laurencio and Juan Perez, would accompany the mission. It is unclear when the attack actually began, but it was probably in the latter part of 1609.34 To ensure absolute secrecy, all persons of African descent were quarantined in the city of Vera Cruz, since it was feared that they would warn the cimarrones of the impending attack. On the morning when the mission was due to begin, the cimarrones made a daring raid on a farm, looting and burning it. They captured six Indian women, murdered a Spaniard, and took another as prisoner to their camp. The Spaniards were infuriated. The cimarrones had no intention of killing their Spanish captive; he was intended to convey a message to the other Spaniards. The king of the cimarrones, Yanga, was a remarkable man who had preserved his freedom for some thirty years. He had come from Africa, from the nation of Bram, and was reputed to have been a member of the royal family in the land of his birth. A relatively old man in 1609, he delegated his military responsibilities to Francisco, an Angolan, while he handled the administrative affairs of his kingdom. In his letter to Pedro Gonzalez de Herrera, Yanga made an impaS-

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sioned defense of his kingdom, saying that his people had retired to that area to escape from the "cruelty and treachery of the Spaniards who, without any right, had become owners of their freedom." He argued that God favored their cause, as had already been manifested in the numerous defeats of the Spaniards. He defended the assaults on Spanish property as one way of recovering what the Spaniards had unjustly denied the slaves. Nevertheless, he added, he did not fear the Spaniards and was prepared to fight in order to maintain his freedom. 35 Yanga's letter further incensed the Spaniards. Their armed force of about 450 men prepared to attack. Locating the cimarron settlement was not difficult, since the Spaniard who had brought the letter served as a guide. As the raiding party approached the camp, they could hear the shouts of the cimarrones warning one another of the advancing invaders. Deciding not to attack that day, the invaders camped by a river and mapped their plans for the next day. After receiving the ministrations of the priests the following morning, the invading forces divided into three groups and prepared for the assault. An encounter was soon made with the cimarrones and a bloody battle ensued. While the struggle raged, Yanga remained in a church with the women, offering fervent prayers for the success of his men. But the armed might of the Spanish party triumphed. As they advanced on the camp, the occupants fled, leaving behind all their possessions. The Spaniards immediately began to destroy the camp, setting fire to some seventy houses. Having occupied the camp and put the occupants to flight, Pedro Gonzalez de Herrera hoisted the white flag. When it was ignored by the cimarrones, the Spaniards took up the pursuit. Both sides suffered more casualties. Herrera once more hoisted the white flag and announced a general pardon for the cimarrones. This offer, however, did not immediately end the hostilities; the Spaniards continued in hot pursuit and the cimarrones continued to fade away into the mountains. Fortifying themselves with frequent Masses and devotions, the Spaniards prayed for God's guidance in their endeavors. As the chronicler of these events expressed it, "Such Christian conduct could not but attract upon those pious soldiers all the blessings of Heaven." 36 Although the fighting continued, it was futile and inconclusive for both sides. Yanga eventually decided to accept the Spanish offer of peace and dispatched a list of conditions to the viceroy. The cimarrones demanded that all slaves who had escaped before September 1608 remain

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free; those who had escaped after that date would be returned to their masters. No Spaniards were to be allowed to live in the pueblo that was to be built for the cimarrones. The cimarrones were to be allowed to have their own cabildo and councilmen. Also, Yanga was to be made governor of the pueblo and, after him, his children and descendants. The cimarrones offered to pay tribute to the state, "like all the other negroes and mulattoes of the Indies," and promised to defend the realm with their arms should it become necessary. The cimarrones also offered to return all future runaway slaves to their masters; and finally, they asked to have friars appointed to serve their religious needs. They added that if these conditions were not met in one year, they would revert to hostility. 37 These demands indicated that the primary interest of the cimarrones remained what it had always been, namely the achievement and preservation of their freedom. They realized the limits of their strength and sought not to overthrow the system of slavery but rather to withdraw from it into their own sanctuaries. Their offer to return future runaways was an empty gesture, impossible to enforce, and was doubtless designed to placate the Spaniards. It was essentially an effort to win concessions. The other demands, taken singly or together, reflected somewhat the extent of the cimarrones' acculturation to the Spanish way of life. In external forms, at least, these runaways had adopted Spanish religious and governmental institutions. The viceroy was suitably impressed and agreed to their demands. The pueblo of San Lorenzo de Negros was created but only came into existence belatedly in 1618. This was the final recognition of the freedom of that particular group of cimarrones. They had become free not as a result of Spanish benevolence but through their own daring and persistence. The establishment of a settlement for some cimarrones did not end the threat which others posed to the survival of the slave system in Mexico. On March 3, 1618, the viceroy reported that some cimarrones had attacked the Spaniards again, killing one and kidnapping twelve Indian women, eight of whom were married. On May 23, 1618, the Audiencia of Mexico observed that there were cimarrones present in the Rio Blanco and Orizaba zone of Vera Cruz. 38 It is unclear whether these were the same people with whom the Spaniards had made peace earlier or whether they comprised a different group. In any case, there is no reason to believe that all cimarrones had a common leadership or belonged to the same group. The reverse was probably true. The interests of all these

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people were similar, but there is no evidence to suggest that they resided in the same localities or coordinated their attacks on the Spaniards. In October 1618 the viceroy once more returned to the subject of the cimarrones. He said that they numbered more than 300 in the Rio Blanco area and that they possessed about 100 houses. On January 31,1619, the viceroy was able to report that the leader of the cimarrones, a fifty-yearold man, had been captured along with some of "the most bellicose" runaways. A total of thirty-six persons had been arrested and incarcerated. 3 ' There is no evidence to suggest that the cimarrones were ever contained in Mexico. In retrospect, it is quite clear that as long as the institution of slavery existed, and as long as the topography of the country facilitated easy escape, the cimarrones would remain a phenomenon to be reckoned with in Mexican society. While cimarrones resisted the slave system by running away and attacking it from the outside, other slaves dramatized their discontent by attempted rebellions. The Spaniards in Mexico, like slaveowners everywhere, lived in morbid fear of a slave rebellion. In 1516 the famous Cardinal Cisneros had observed that slaves "are good for war, men without honor and without faith and so are capable of treasons and disturbances, and when they grow in numbers will undoubtedly rebel hoping to put on the Spaniards the same chains which they bear." 40 In view of the date, Cardinal Cisneros was obviously not referring to the Mexican slaves and Mexican conditions when he made that observation, but his remarks would have a profound applicability to Mexico in the period covered by this study. The reports from the viceroys and other colonial bureaucrats are consistent in their expressions of fear of the black, mulatto, mestizo, and to a lesser degree the Indian population. One bureaucrat, writing anonymously to the king about the year 1574, expressed concern over the fact that the Spaniards were not well armed and were "so careless as if they had been assured by God that nothing would happen to them." He felt that it was necessary to remedy the situation by preventing all mestizos and Indians from owning or riding horses. In addition, mestizos and blacks should be forbidden to bear arms, nor should they be allowed to possess them in their homes. Very grave penalties, he suggested, should be imposed on those who broke this restriction. Finally, he recommended that all Spaniards be required to own arms and swords and to be in a state of readiness against any assaults on them. 41

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Similar views were echoed in a letter from Viceroy Martin Enriquez, dated October 18, 1579. He believed that the Spaniards had to be very apprehensive about the presence of blacks in the colony. Although there had been restrictions against the possession of knives by the blacks, he felt that this statute was not always observed, since knives could be carried secretly. The result was, according to the viceroy, many homicides involving attacks by blacks on blacks, blacks on Indians, and blacks on Spaniards, and he promised to correct the situation. 42 An analysis of subsequent statements by colonial authorities makes it clear that Enriquez failed to create an atmosphere of security for the Spaniards. On April 20, 1582, Don Sanchez de Munon, a member of the Audiencia, expressed alarm over the presence of so many mulattoes, mestizos, freedmen, and slaves in the society. In addition, he wondered whether the cimarrones did not harbor evil intentions against the Spaniards. In April 1600 the members of the Audiencia fearfully took note of "the great number of negroes and mulattoes, slaves and freedmen that are in this kingdom." 43 The introduction of an increasing number of slaves in Mexico in the first two decades of the seventeenth century exacerbated the problem of fear. On June 22, 1608, Licenciado Don Francisco de Leoz, a member of the Audiencia, declared in a letter to the king that "the number of negroes in this kingdom is increasing so that for each Spaniard there are ten or more of them and they are more feared than the Indians." He believed that the blacks were fully aware of their numerical advantage and that the remedy for this situation rested in reducing the number of new arrivals from Africa. Francisco de Leoz was convinced that there was already in Mexico an adequate supply of slaves for the sugar estates and the obrajes. He also wanted the king to note the "more than four hundred cimarrones" who resided in inaccessible areas and were attacking Spanish travelers. 44 The dilemma produced by this situation was that although the Spaniards feared the Africans they simply could not do without their services. Francisco de Leoz was undoubtedly accurate when he stated that the Africans were more feared than the Indians. After all, the Spaniards had conquered the Indians and had developed a sense of superiority toward them. Although the Indians were viewed as "gente miserable" or as a "weak people," the African was not perceived in quite the same way and, on the contrary, engendered fear rather than pity or paternalism. This explains the repressive measures directed toward the African population

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as well as the efforts to curtail the number of slaves allowed to enter Mexico. As late as 1613, for example, the Audiencia of Mexico City noted the restlessness of the slaves and implored the king to prevent the importation of slaves "for some time" and exclude those "from the kingdom of Angola forever because they are a rebellious people."45 The Spaniards had good reason to fear the violent resistance of the slaves. In fact, the first slave rebellion occurred in Mexico as early as 1537. It is not known how many slaves were in the colony at that time; the number was probably about 10,000. The conquest of Mexico was only in its second decade, but the demand for slave labor continually increased, owing in part to the discovery of silver mines and the introduction of sugar cultivation. Mexico City, the locus of the rebellion, had the largest concentration of slaves, a fact which facilitated subversive activities. It is difficult to establish what groups of slaves comprised the leadership of the rebellion. In view of the early date of the uprising it is nevertheless clear that they were not born in Mexico. Probably they came either from one of the islands like Hispaniola where slavery was already established, from Spain, or directly from Africa. The year 1537 was apparently propitious for an uprising; for, as the viceroy reported, "it is certain that what gave impetus to these negroes to create this rebellion was first the wars and the problems which Your Majesty has, because everyone writes of them and the news reaches the negroes and the Indians without hiding anything; and second, the delay in the arrival of the ships."46 The slaves had as their first organizational problem the election of a king. His name, unfortunately, has not survived in the records. Having elected a leader, the slaves, allegedly acting in conjunction with the Indians of Mexico City and Tlaltelolco, decided to murder all the Spaniards. The rebellion was to begin at midnight on September 24,1537. The slaves probably expected the outcome to be swift and violent. But the plans of the slaves were destined to fail. A few hours before the uprising was due to begin, one of the conspirators revealed the plot to the viceroy. Using some slaves as spies, Viceroy Mendoza hastily conducted an investigation of the allegations. The results convinced him that a rebellion had indeed been contemplated. He had to act swiftly to protect the territory, and he immediately ordered the arrest of the king as well as the other ringleaders. In order to acquaint the Spaniards and their communities with the

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news of imminent danger, Mendoza dispatched messengers. Meanwhile, the Spaniards in Mexico City readied themselves to battle the slaves. There was, however, no physical confrontation; the revolt was stillborn. Those slaves who were captured admitted their guilt and were eventually hanged. It is not known how many slaves lost their lives in this abortive rebellion. The viceroy further enlisted the aid of some Indians in recapturing those slaves who fled while the bloodbath was in progress. One group of Indians captured five slaves, four males and a female, whom they slaughtered and salted to preserve the bodies, which they humbly presented to the viceroy. Such was the success of the Spanish policy of using one racial group against another. The panic created by this unsuccessful rebellion generated a series of suggestions to improve the defenses of the city and to prevent other uprisings. Mendoza, for example, advised the crown to terminate the slave trade, since the colony stood in mortal danger from the Africans. On his part, the commander of the military fortress charged with defending the city felt that it would be judicious to move the fort to a more defensible position. And, on October 5,1537, the cabildo of Mexico City suggested that a protective wall be built around the city and that the citizens have preparatory "siege drills" at appointed times. The cabildo also proposed that a granary be established in the city so that there would be food in the event that rebellious slaves succeeded in cutting off supply lines.47 As these suggestions indicate, the fearful local authorities were prepared to adopt any measure to prevent a repetition of the events of 1537, even measures as extreme as terminating the slave trade. Although the viceroy had requested an end to the importation of slaves, his proposal was impossible to implement. In fact, the demand for slave labor increased after 1537. Though not immediately enforced, the crown issued the New Laws of 1542, which prohibited the use of Indians as slaves. The onslaught of the epidemic of 1545 had greatly reduced the Indian population, thus necessitating an increased emphasis on Africa to provide an alternative labor force. In addition, the discovery of more silver mines and the expansion of the sugar industry produced additional demands for slave labor. The presence of these slaves increased the problem of preserving internal security in Mexico. Viceroy Luis de Velasco in 1551 railed against the difficulties created by slaves who carried weapons. According to him, such slaves accounted for "many scandals and disturbances, because while their masters are at Mass or attending to their business, the said

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negroes go through the pueblos and with their arms molest many people in such a way that they have killed some Spaniards and wounded some Indians." 48 To eliminate this danger, in 1553 the viceroy created the Santa Hermanadad, a civil militia patterned after the one established in Spain by Ferdinand and Isabella. The viceroy was also deeply concerned about the ever-increasing number of Africans in New Spain. In 1553 he complained to the emperor that "this land is so full of negroes and mestizos that they outnumber the Spaniards greatly. Your Majesty should order that they do not give so many licenses to send negroes because there are in New Spain more than twenty thousand and they are increasing." 49 The viceroy's recommendation was not accepted because of the important role of the slaves in Mexico's economy. But the problem of security remained. Indeed, a few years after his initial recommendation, the viceroy suggested that the crown "order that each ship carry to New Spain fifteen or twenty soldiers" to strengthen the defenses of the colony. 50 The threat of rebellion in New Spain continued as long as slavery remained an institution and the number of slaves kept on increasing. The viceroys persisted in warning against the dangers the Spaniards faced, but such prophets of doom carried little weight when African slaves clearly filled an economic need. The tension in the atmosphere was evident even to travelers. In 1573 one Englishman observed that "the Indians and the Negroes daily wait, hoping to put in practice their freedom from the domination and the servitude in which the Spaniards keep them. Indians and Negroes hate and abhor the Spaniards with all their hearts." 51 The last quarter of the sixteenth century saw a series of military confrontations between the Spaniards and the slaves, particularly the runaways, which occurred in such places as Huascaltepec, Rio Blanco, Alvarado, Zongolica, and Cuernavaca. 52 There is not much documentary evidence regarding the nature and outcome of these confrontations. Much more is known about the abortive rebellion of 1608. In that year some Afro-Mexicans, both free and slave, met clandestinely on Christmas Eve in the home of a free mulatto allegedly to organize an uprising. There were about thirty-one conspirators present, twenty-four males and seven females. The election of a king and a queen was the first procedural business for the gathering. The king's crown went to Martin, a slave born in Africa who belonged to Baltasar Reyes, reputed to be the wealthiest man in Mexico City. The queen was Melchora, a free black woman.

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After their election, the coronation ceremony was performed by one Francisco de Loya, a free mulatto employed by Viceroy Don Luis de Velasco. Amid pomp and splendor, the king was seated upon a chair under a canopy, and, as Francisco solemnly placed the crown on his head and shouted "Long live the king," the rest of the company echoed his words. The only dissenter was a man who preferred to shout "Long live King Philip the Third," arousing the wrath of the others, who mauled him and stabbed him in the face. The ceremony concluded with Francisco on his knees saying, "May you have a long reign." This chant was repeated by the audience. After the coronation the plotters proceeded to elect dukes, counts, marquises, princes and princesses, a captain of the guard, a secretary to the king, servants, and other officers in the royal palace. The Africans then celebrated the occasion with food and drink. The king was appropriately served by lesser beings on their knees. The evening ended with a dance. But after the festivities, Francisco de Loya, who had played such a prominent role in the affair, related the incident to his employer, the viceroy. As a result, the Sala del crimen rounded up and arrested the alleged conspirators. An analysis of the slaves who participated in the gathering reveals that of the twenty-four males present, sixteen were slaves and eight were freedmen. Of the eight freedmen, six were mulattoes. Of the seven women present, two were slaves. Of the freedwomen, Melchora had been elected queen. The freedmen in the group performed a variety of jobs in their daily lives: shoemaker, servant, butler, and textile worker. It is noteworthy that these Afro-Mexicans were either slaves of or were employed by some of the most important people in Mexico City, including the viceroy, the archbishop, and the alguacil mayor. The abortive conspiracy was important for a number of reasons. First, it was a coalition of free blacks and mulattoes as well as slaves. It demonstrated that both groups, slave and free, identified with each other and shared similar interests. With the exception of Martin, the king, all of the individuals involved were criollos. The participation of the criollo slaves is significant because it shows that even though they were enslaved at birth and had never known freedom they could still join forces with the bozales to oppose the slave system. It is possible that Martin was chosen king because, like Yanga before him, he may have been of royal lineage in Africa. The fiscal, however, believed he was selected because he was the slave of the richest man in the city.

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By the time the investigation ended, the authorities had compiled a list of nineteen other persons who were considered accomplices. Of the seven women and twelve men on the list, two of the men were identified as Spaniards. It is not known what prompted these Spaniards to become involved. It is likely they were individuals who opposed the institution of slavery and wanted to aid the slaves in liberating themselves. Most of the accomplices were given titles and offices, although they were not present at the original meeting. There is, however, no explanation for their absence. Faced with the prospect of losing their slaves, if convicted, some masters began to make light of the incident. Some pointed out that the participants had been drunk and were therefore not responsible for their behavior; others revealed that the Afro-Mexicans had named a king on previous occasions but had not actually performed a coronation ceremony. The alcalde del crimen, Dr. Luis Lopez de Azoca, was unimpressed by these arguments and felt that an example must be made, since the Africans in Mexico "live in great freedom, possess great daring, and each day they commit many offenses." He pointed out that the preparations must have been extensive in view of the various ceremonial items used. To bolster his argument that the meeting was premeditated and had revolutionary intentions, the alcalde cited the case of one participant, a mulatto female, who had been seen mistreating an Indian woman. When a Spaniard asked why she treated the Indian so badly "as if she were her slave," the woman replied that "it was only a matter of time until the Spaniards and everyone else would be their [the blacks'] slaves." 53 Although the evidence is inconclusive, there are some indications that these Afro-Mexicans planned a revolt against the Spaniards. If the event had been planned as a harmless affair, Francisco de Loya would probably not have thought it necessary to report the proceedings to the viceroy. Similarly, in view of the number of people present and those listed as accomplices, it appears that this was a broadly based movement involving the participation of an even larger number of people. Evidence for this assertion stems from the fact that the slaves present belonged to many different masters and probably went to the Christmas Eve meeting as the representatives of others. The list of absent accomplices also supports this conclusion that others were involved. As in the past, the authorities took no chances and promulgated a series of measures designed to prevent a recurrence of such events. Some of the measures were already in existence and were merely repeated.

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Taken together, they prevented the Afro-Mexicans from congregating in numbers exceeding four. A contravention of this order carried a penalty of 200 lashes. Blacks and mulattoes found with knives would also be given 200 lashes. In addition, these measures prohibited cofradias organized by Afro-Mexicans, presumably because they could serve as meeting places conducive to plotting revolutionary activities. A fourth order prevented all free blacks and mulattoes from living alone. The intention was to keep them under Spanish surveillance. No Spaniard was to be accompanied on the street by more than three slaves at a time. If this order was ignored, the Spaniard would forfeit one slave. Finally, women of African descent were forbidden to wear silk garments and to adorn themselves with pearls or gold. Such regalia were the prerogative of Spanish women. 54 Although some of these ordenanzas were not new, their repetition at this point reflected the state of mind of the Spaniards immediately after the Christmas Eve affair. One cannot state, however, that these measures were ever stringently enforced. It is more likely that once the memory of the ill-fated gathering faded they were enforced sporadically or not at all. Although the rebellion of 1608 had been nipped in the bud, the specter of a slave rebellion in Mexico City once more appeared in 1611. The occasion was the death of a female slave belonging to one Luis Moreno de Monroy, a resident of Mexico City. The blacks in the city angrily charged that maltreatment had caused her death. On the day of the burial, 1500 Afro-Mexicans belonging to the Cofradia de Nuestra Senora seized the corpse and marched defiantly through the streets. 55 They carried the body past the royal palace, the Holy Office of the Inquisition, and other public places. Finally, returning to the home of Luis Moreno de Monroy, they issued threats and hurled stones at the building. The distraught master was obliged to close his door and defend his property with an armed guard of Spaniards. This mass demonstration of black solidarity, anger, and indignation could not fail to arouse fear and panic among the Spaniards in Mexico City. The authorities therefore speedily responded to this latest threat to the survival of the slave system. The alcaldes swooped down on the leaders, arrested them, whipped them, and ordered their masters to sell them outside the colony. The leader of the blacks was identified as a ladino slave named Diego, an officer in the aforementioned cofradia. The treatment meted out to these Afro-Mexicans incited rather than intimi-

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dated their peers, who decided to kill the Spaniards and loot their houses. Accordingly, they elected two Angolan slaves, Pablo and his wife Maria, as their king and queen. The rebellion was set for Christmas, 1611. But fate intervened. At that time, four companies of infantry bound for the Philippines arrived in Mexico City. Appraising the military situation quite realistically, the conspirators decided to postpone the rebellion to a more propitious date. Another problem arose shortly, however, for their king soon took ill and died. 56 The arrival of the infantry and the king's death placed a temporary brake on the slaves' plotting, but the plan was never abandoned. They eventually decided to stage the rebellion during Holy Week of 1612, when, as at Christmas, their masters would be engrossed in religious observances. 57 Toward this end, each individual was required to arm himself with appropriate weapons, including swords, machetes, and knives. In addition, funds from the cofradias were to be used to purchase weapons for those who were unable to procure them otherwise. In subsequent meetings called to organize the rebellion, the conspirators elected a free mulatto as their king and his wife, a mulatto slave, as queen. Thus, freedmen as well as slaves made common cause for rebellion. Events were to begin in earnest on Holy Thursday. All Spanish males were to be killed, but the women would be spared to serve their former slaves. But once more the rebellion proved abortive, this time a direct result of the conspirators' carelessness. T w o Portuguese slave traders in Mexico City "who knew the Angolan language" heard a black woman complain about the bad treatment meted out to a black man by a Spaniard. She declared that all Spaniards would be killed during Holy Week and that the city would then be under the control of the blacks. Aware of the gravity of the situation, the two men threw an anonymous account of their eavesdropping into the house of Dr. Antonio de Morga, senior alcalde of the Audiencia. The letter was quickly relayed to the Sala del crimen. Further confirmation came from Fray Juan de Tobar of the Convento de la Merced. Quite likely betraying the secrets of the confessional, the friar took his information to Don Pedro de Otalora, the senior oidor of the Audiencia. Acting in response to the information, the Audiencia introduced a series of protective measures. First, the members suspended all religious processions that traditionally took place during Holy Week. Second, they closed all churches in Mexico City and the adjacent towns on Holy Thursday. Third, the leaders of the black cofradias were taken

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into protective custody, since they were suspected of being the leaders of the incipient rebellion. These leaders were not told that the Spaniards were aware of the plots. While the leaders languished in jail, the authorities endeavored to learn more about the rebellion. They placed spies in the prisons to report the conversations of the detainees, while outside the investigation continued unabated. It was not long before the Spaniards uncovered the details. An old slave woman sent word to the alcalde denouncing an old male slave, Sebastian, who by the use of witchcraft had threatened to kill all Spaniards and to poison their water and food. On April 12 Beatriz Davia, a Spanish woman, gave the alcalde an important piece of information. Her daughter, Isabel Davia, had overheard a conversation between two slaves in which one questioned the wisdom of the leaders' speaking about "scepter and crown" before, rather than after, the rebellion. The slave in question believed that tactically it would have been better to kill the Spaniards first, and only after a successful rebellion would it be appropriate to discuss administrative and organizational questions. Possessed of this information, the alcalde immediately ordered the arrest of the two slaves and forced them to reveal the details of the plot and the names of the leaders. This disclosure generated an intensive search for the accused and led to a large number of arrests. Some of the accused had already been in custody. The alcaldes ordered that the conspirators be tortured to reveal all information relating to the rebellion. After several caches of arms were discovered, the accused were condemned to either death or banishment. Accordingly, on May 2, 1612, thirty-five individuals were hanged and quartered in the central square of Mexico City. Seven women were included in the total. Some of the cadavers remained on display until doctors advised that a health hazard would be created unless they were buried. 58 The executions and banishments did not end the state of uneasiness in Mexico City. The viceroy immediately promulgated measures to restrict the freedom of movement of Afro-Mexicans. He ordered that for "the security of this realm" no slave, free black, or mulatto should be found on the streets between eight o'clock at night and five in the morning. The penalty for disobeying this regulation was 100 lashes.59 In addition, he once again ordered the suppression of all cofradias organized by slaves and freedmen. Each slave who participated in such an organization would be given 200 lashes. No funeral of a slave or freedman could be

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attended by more than eight mourners—four men and four women— under penalty of 200 lashes for each offender. 60 In 1613 the viceroy repeated the ordinance that all free blacks and mulattoes should not live alone but should find—within thirty days—a Spaniard as master who would keep them under surveillance. Failure to obey this measure would mean 100 lashes and five years of forced labor in the Spanish colony of the Philippines. If a woman were the offender, she would be required to serve without pay in a hospital, convent, or obraje for a period of two years. 61 For its part, the Audiencia introduced measures to prevent the sale of "offensive and defensive" weapons to a slave or freedman. Any person who violated this ordinance would lose his life, such was the seriousness of the offense. No Spaniard, regardless of rank, could be accompanied on the street by more than two black or mulatto slaves. If this number were exceeded, the slaves would be confiscated. 62 To strengthen the colony's military defenses, the Audiencia created two companies of soldiers, whose responsibility was to guard such strategic spots as the arsenals, the prisons, and the powder depots. 63 It must be stated again that it is impossible to determine how rigidly these postrebellion measures were enforced. There is, on the other hand, no evidence indicating if and when they were ever abrogated. Yet they were restrictions imposed in a hysterical atmosphere and could have been allowed to fall into desuetude once the situation returned to normal. In any case, such statutes probably remained on the books to be applied whenever necessity arose. The records indicate that there were other instances in which slaves created social disturbances after 1612. An uprising occurred in Durango in 1616, but nothing is known about its nature and eventual outcome. It is also known that, along with others, Afro-Mexicans participated in the Mexico City riots of 1624. David Davidson notes that "countless minor revolts and escapes occurred in the sheep ranching regions of the north in the 1620s and 1630s."64 The problem of the social control of and the resistance of the slaves reemerged in 1646. On September 30 of that year, the fiscal in Vera Cruz reported that "a great disorder has arisen in this city and the pueblos of these provinces," namely, the use of arms, swords and knives by the blacks, both slave and free. He observed that these developments, coupled with the great number of Africans and their "mala inclination," had created serious problems which had led to a state of uneasiness among

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the Spaniards. The fiscal confessed that although the bearing of arms by such people had been prohibited by numerous statutes, the enforcement had been very lax, resulting in the frequent wounding and murder of their masters and other Spaniards. 65 According to the fiscal, the most serious disturbance had only recently occurred. From his letter, it is apparent that there were two companies of infantry in Vera Cruz which allowed Africans to enlist. There was, however, some friction between the Africans and the Spaniards. One day, about twenty blacks and mulattoes attacked with swords all the Spaniards they encountered, shouting "Death to these Spaniards," as they did so. When the melee ended, two soldiers had lost their lives and an unspecified number were wounded. The attackers were immediately arrested. The fiscal remarked that the viceroy had responded to this latest outburst of black violence by ordering all the insurgents disarmed and abolishing the two infantry companies. The penalties for violating the ordinance against the possession of weapons were to be increased. In addition, Spaniards who had permission to be accompanied by slaves carrying swords should have that permission withdrawn and should employ the services of Spaniards instead. The only exceptions were to be the high officials of the Audiencia and the Inquisition. 66 It is apparent, then, that the slaves dramatized their opposition to the institution of slavery in two principal ways. Withdrawal to the mountains and resorting to violence, whether individual or collective, were the most overt expressions of this opposition. It must be borne in mind that the primary reason for the degree and extent of slave resistance in Mexico was the brutality of the institution of slavery in that colony. This fact alone must have justified in the eyes of the slaves a rejection of their oppression. By resorting to physical resistance, the slaves not only reaffirmed their humanity but demonstrated the fact that although their bodies were enslaved their inner being remained free. In analyzing resistance among the slaves, one must not forget that the majority of them were bozales, not criollos. Slaves coming to the various New World societies from Africa showed a greater tendency to resist than did Creole slaves, who had been socialized into the slave systems and had known no other type of existence. The Christmas Eve affair of 1608 had shown, however, that criollos were not always quiescent. It must also be noted that some masters believed that slaves of certain ethnic groups were less tractable than others, particularly those who hailed from the kingdom of

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Angola. Mexico received a good proportion of these slaves in the early colonial period. The mountainous topography of Mexico facilitated easy escape from slavery and lent itself to the creation of enclaves where the runaways could maintain and defend their freedom. Running away was the most widely used and demonstrably the most effective means of opposition to Mexican slavery. The act of running away was an individual one and did not depend on collective effort for its success, as was the case with a rebellion. One significant factor that contributed to the resistance of the slaves was undoubtedly the feeling of confidence which their numerical superiority over the Spaniards gave them. The black population outnumbered the whites from about as early as 1550. In 1608, as already noted, Francisco de Leoz had complained that there were ten or more slaves to every Spaniard in the colony. This may have been an exaggeration, but it was the product of acute concern over the safety of the Spaniards. Spaniards were an even smaller minority in a total population consisting of Indians, mestizos, and Africans. The endless stream of letters to the authorities in Spain expressing alarm over such a state of affairs and forecasting doom reflected deep and pervasive Spanish fears. The Spanish fear of slave rebellions did not lead to a systematic and vigilant enforcement of the extensive body of restrictive legislation that the authorities had at their disposal. This stemmed partly from inertia and partly from a shortage of manpower necessary to supervise not only slaves but a large population of Indians and mestizos as well. The colonial government lacked the large, salaried, bureaucratic apparatus that would ensure regular enforcement of these measures. Masters controlled their slaves through the exercise, sometimes excessive, of their private power of discipline; but the public agencies were far less effective in enforcing such ordinances as those prohibiting slaves from carrying knives or assembling in numbers exceeding those permitted by law. Under these conditions, the authorities tended to respond better to crises and were never in a position to enforce the laws regularly and consistently. The slaves in early Mexico were never able to produce a successful rebellion. The authorities always discovered the plans and quickly reacted to crush the conspirators. The Spaniards were always able to close ranks whenever a rebellion threatened. It is highly doubtful whether slaves could have emerged victorious in any military confrontation with

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the Spaniards. They stood little chance of defeating a well-armed and united master class that could and did call upon the assistance of Indians and mestizos. It was probably this realization that prompted slaves to use the avenue of escape as their most dramatic and effective means of resistance. It must not be concluded that slaves resorted only to violence or the threat of violence to make known their opposition to the system. These were the activities which survived in the records and were the most dramatic, by far. Yet the slaves must have resorted to more subtle forms of resistance, such as malingering, careless treatment of tools, cruelty to animals, and theft. The slaves in the British West Indies and in the American South used these covert forms of resistance with some effectiveness, and there is no reason to believe that Mexican slaves did not do likewise. From the evidence, it is certain that black slaves in Mexico were never a quiescent group. But physical resistance formed only one part of the story. It is to the slaves' fight for spiritual survival that we now turn.

CHAPTER 6

Religion and Magic in Mexican Slave Society The contention that slaves in the New World were unable to develop and maintain their social customs and institutions is now being questioned by some scholars. It is becoming increasingly clear that slaves were able to create a life style for themselves which was quite unlike that of their masters. Slavery, wherever it existed in the New World, may have been an institution of total control, but there were some crucial areas of the slaves' life that managed to resist complete obliteration. The experiences of the slaves in early colonial Mexico demonstrate the resilience of some of their customs and beliefs in spite of persecution and in the face of efforts to eradicate them. As has been noted earlier in this work, the slave population in Mexico in the early years was essentially an immigrant population. Most of them had come from West and Central Africa. According to the estimates that exist, the average working life of a slave rested somewhere between ten and twenty years. The slaves that were imported were predominantly males, outnumbering females by a margin of approximately three to one. In addition, the reproductive rate of such slaves, at least that of African with African, was not high. The sexual imbalance of the slaves, their low reproductive rate, and their high mortality rate meant that masters had to rely on fresh importations from Africa to replenish the labor supply. These slaves brought with them to Mexico a variety of beliefs, ranging from the religious to the magical. On arriving in Mexico, the slaves were quite naturally exposed to the influences of the Indians and the Spaniards. In time, the Africans acquired some of the cultural traits of these two peoples, and from this intermixture a new culture emerged. 1 The slaves manifested a great

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capacity to extract from their new environment those cultural ingredients that were of value to them. It would be a very rewarding study if it were possible to identify precisely those features of the slaves' folk culture that were African or Indian or Spanish in origin. This appears impossible, since none of the component parts apparently survived in a pure form. This difficulty notwithstanding, it is possible to gain some understanding of the life style of the slaves by examining some of their religious beliefs and folk practices. Those Africans brought to Mexico as slaves hailed from an intensely religious people. Traditional religion pervaded every facet of the African's existence. According to John S. Mbiti, "because traditional religions permeate all the departments of life, there is no formal distinction between the sacred and the secular, between the religious and the nonreligious, between the spiritual and the material areas of life." With this kind of spiritual heritage, it would therefore prove to be no easy task for the Spaniards to eliminate the slaves' traditional beliefs and convert them to Catholicism. For conversion would mean not only a change in the nature of the African's outward religious practices but also in his cultural assumptions and the way in which he perceived the world around him. As Mbiti expresses it, "Conversion to new religions like Christianity and Islam must embrace his [the African's] language, thought patterns, fears, social relationships, attitudes and philosophical disposition, if that conversion is to make a lasting impact upon the individual and his community." 2 However difficult the task, the Spanish crown from the outset insisted on the conversion of the African slaves to Catholicism. Charles V, for example, actively supported measures for their Christianization. On its part, there is no evidence to suggest that the Church avoided its responsibilities in this regard, although the Indians received far more spiritual attention from the Church than did the Africans. In spite of the interest of both church and state in making Catholics of the slaves, it would be erroneous to conclude that the slaves rejected their own traditional religious beliefs in favor of the Spanish variant of Catholicism. The evidence is impressive that it was precisely the nonmaterial aspect of their culture, chiefly their religious beliefs and their folk practices, that survived in Mexico. Thus, despite the determination of the Church, the state, and the Holy Office of the Inquisition to ensure religious conformity, the slaves from time to time resorted to some of their traditional religious practices and beliefs or combined them with their practice of Catholicism. This

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conclusion can be supported by data derived from an examination of cases involving slaves who appeared before the Inquisition in the seventeenth century. The tribunal of the Holy Office of the Inquisition was established in Mexico in 1571. Prior to that time, inquisitorial functions had been performed first by friar inquisitors and later by specially delegated bishops. The first bishop and archbishop of Mexico, Juan de Zumärraga, served as an apostolic inquisitor between 1536 and 1543. Francisco Tello de Sandoval, visitor general, discharged similar functions during the years 1544 to 1547. The second archbishop of Mexico, Alonso de Montufar, was not formally appointed apostolic inquisitor but nevertheless exercised inquisitorial functions as the ecclesiastical judge ordinary until 1571. These episcopal inquisitors moved actively against a variety of religious offenders, including idolators, sorcerers, blasphemers, and heretics. During the decade of the 1560s, however, charges of abuse of power were leveled by angry colonists at the Episcopal Inquisition. These allegations, coupled with "the growing civil invasion of religious functions in the Inquisition, the need for centralization of authority, the necessity for an adequately trained Inquisition personnel; the wide infiltration of heresies debilitating to religious unity; and finally the increased trade in books condemned by the Holy Office caused the king and inquisitor general to consider seriously the establishment of a separate tribunal in New Spain." 3 Accordingly, on January 25, 1570, Philip II ordered the formation of two new tribunals of the Holy Office, one in Mexico and the other in Peru. Don Pedro Moya de Contreras was appointed inquisitor general for Mexico, and the tribunal began its operation in November 1571. The primary function of the Holy Office "was to preserve the supremacy of the Roman Catholic faith and dogma against individuals who held heretical views or were guilty of actions showing lack of respect for religious principles."4 Its establishment in Mexico coincided with the era of the Counter-Reformation in Europe. Under the aegis of the Counter-Reformation, the Church became more intolerant of religious deviance and undertook a vigorous effort to revitalize itself. This spiritual renewal in Catholic Europe could not fail to affect the operation of the Holy Office in Mexico. As a consequence, the inquisitors actively persecuted all perpetrators of religious deviance—white, black and, in some instances, Indian.5 It must be noted also that the Church in Mexico was then engaged in the arduous task of Christianizing the Indian peoples and

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sought to shield these new Christians from what it perceived as competitive and contaminating religious influences. In the exercise of its judicial functions, the Inquisition followed a standard procedure. The trial proceedings were initiated by a denunciation or the leveling of charges against an individual. If after some investigation the charges were deemed to have any foundation, the court attorney would request the tribunal to issue an order for the arrest of the accused. Once this order was executed, the accused appeared before the tribunal. As a rule, he had to relate his life history to the inquisitors, but he was not told the nature of the charges against him nor the names of his accusers. On the contrary, the inquisitors would ask the accused whether he knew the reason for his appearance before the court. If the answer was affirmative, he was allowed to relate his version of the story. In the event that he was unaware of the reasons for his presence, the inquisitors' leading questions would soon enlighten him. Accused persons who balked at confessing could be tortured into making an admission of guilt. In some instances, particularly in the case of individuals under age twenty-five or persons accused of grave offenses, a defense attorney was appointed. After a generally very lengthy and exhaustive trial, the court rendered its verdict. The most common offenses for which slaves were denounced to the Holy Office were blasphemy, sorcery, and witchcraft. A study of these offenses is important for understanding the nature of the slaves' religious beliefs in Mexico and their struggle for spiritual survival. For, as the evidence will demonstrate, the Holy Office misunderstood the nature of the slaves' traditional beliefs and practices. In its efforts to foster religious orthodoxy, the Inquisition relentlessly pursued blasphemers among the Mexican populace, slave and free. A noted scholar of the institution, Henry C. Lea, defines blasphemy as "an imprecation derogatory or insulting to the Divinity." 6 In practice, for punitive purposes, the Holy Office made a distinction between simple blasphemy and heresy. In this regard, the Mexican Inquisition seemed to have been guided in its deliberations by the distinction made between the two by Inquisitor Nicolas Eymeric during the fifteenth century in Spain. T o Eymeric, simple blasphemy involved the renunciation of God and the Virgin, as well as an expression of ingratitude to them. On the other hand, he maintained that the rejection of Catholic dogma constituted the essence of heresy. 7 Throughout the period, African slaves in Mexico were accused of simple blasphemy but apparently never of heresy. The Inqui-

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sition must have recognized that, as new Christians, the Africans' acceptance of Catholicism was at best superficial and incomplete and consequently accusations of heresy would have been palpably unfair. In other words, slaves could not be rightfully accused of rejecting a religion whose precepts they had incompletely understood and assimilated. The inquisitors, however, required that these individuals show respect to the Christian God even if they had not fully embraced the substance of Catholicism. An oral expression of disrespect to the Christian deity, accordingly, invited charges of blasphemy. In most instances, such blasphemous words were uttered during moments of stress. This circumstance also helped to explain why slaves were charged with blasphemy and not heresy, for, according to Greenleaf, "words uttered in anger while emotionally distraught, were generally considered to be blasphemy and not heresy." 8 There were three channels by which such cases came to the attention of the Holy Office. Slaves sometimes voluntarily denounced themselves; on other occasions a master was the informant; but often it was just an ordinary citizen who reported the refraction. To sustain a charge of blasphemy, the Inquisition had first to establish whether the slave was a Christian, for obviously the individual had to be a Christian before he could be accused of renouncing the Christian God. The tribunal, accordingly, had to ascertain whether the slave had been baptized and confirmed. The judges also determined whether the accused went to confession and received the Eucharist at the times appointed by the Church. Those who testified against the slave were required to give their opinion of him as a Christian, to comment on his character, and to say what they thought of him as a person after he had blasphemed. In addition, the witnesses could be asked whether the slave was healthy and sober when he committed the act. The inference to be drawn from this latter question is that the inquisitors believed that an ill or inebriated individual was not totally responsible for his behavior. The Inquisition imposed stringent punishments on persons convicted for blasphemy. Such slaves invariably received between 100 and 200 lashes, publicly administered. Convicted individuals were required to abjure or disavow their offense. During this process, the abjuracion de levi, the individual affirmed his acceptance of Catholicism and promised to do penance for his offense. Blasphemers were also exposed to public humiliation and their offense was announced to the general populace. A typical punishment read, "We order that in the chapel of ihis Holy Office

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he hears Mass, praying without a ribbon or hat, with a wax candle in his hands and a rope tied to his neck and a gag in his mouth . . . that he be taken through the public streets of this city upon a beast of burden, naked to the waist, with the rope and the gag and with the voice of the crier making his offense known." 9 In some cases, the Inquisition would order, in addition, that the slave be kept in chains for a period up to one year. For habitual blasphemers the penalty was exile. Most slaves uttered blasphemous words while being the victim of some act of violence. A few examples well indicate this pattern. One slave blasphemed when his head was cut in three places while he was being beaten. Another renounced God when she was about to be branded. A third slave renounced God when her master tied her while she was nude and began to beat her and squeeze her flesh with pincers. A fourth slave blasphemed after he had been tortured by his master for an entire night. 10 The chronicle of similar reasons for blasphemous acts is endless; yet the Inquisition was not overly concerned at the violence which directly contributed to the act. To the Holy Office blasphemy was serious because it placed the individual outside of the state of grace and could lead him to commit other religious offenses. Hence, for individuals neither drunk nor ill, the overriding consideration was the commission of the act and not the circumstances that produced it. 11 A closer examination of some of the procesos will illustrate the reasons that led slaves to blaspheme. In 1603, for example, Geronimo Ambrosio, a mulatto slave of Luis de Duenas of Mexico City, was denounced for blasphemy. It transpired that one night his master punished him by putting him in a pit in the obraje. Finding the torment unbearable, the slave renounced God, the Virgin Mary, and the Saints. Denounced to the Holy Office by his master and several witnesses, he at first denied his guilt but later admitted it. The witnesses testified that the slave was sober at the time he blasphemed. In his turn, Ambrosio said he was a Christian, baptized and confirmed, and that he received Holy Communion on those occasions ordered by the Church. Under the observation of the tribunal he made the sign of the cross, repeated the Pater Noster, Ave Maria, Credo, Salve Regina, and the Ten Commandments—all "well said," according to the records. His sentence was severe: 200 lashes, public humiliation and penance, and the wearing of chains for a year. 12 Another case of blasphemy concerned a slave, Juan, who renounced God after being beaten and locked in a room late at night by his master. His accusers declared that he was sober at the time but that he was a "bad

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negro who was a thief and drunkard." They felt he was "a bad Christian" for having renounced God. In his own defense, Juan said he was a Christian, baptized and confirmed. He recited correctly the various prayers that the inquisitors asked for. Pleading that the offense occurred while he was under the influence of alcohol, Juan begged the tribunal for mercy. The court found him guilty, sentenced him to public humiliation and penance in addition to 100 lashes and being kept in chains for six months. 1 3 In 1610 Juan, a slave of Luis de Villanueva Zapata of Mexico City, appeared as the defendant in a blasphemy case. He had renounced God after having received between thirty and forty lashes from his master. The slave was sixteen years old and had been born in New Spain. Juan also testified that he was a Christian, baptized and confirmed. He repeated the usual prayers and said he was still learning the Ten Commandments. He stoutly denied having blasphemed while being punished; but after several audiences with the tribunal, the boy eventually broke down and confessed that he blasphemed, but only because he thought this would free him from punishment. Repenting his offense, he threw himself upon the mercy of the court. The Holy Office found him guilty and pronounced sentence. He was required to do penance and undergo public humiliation in the usual way. Furthermore, he would receive 100 lashes. According to the record, the punishment was duly administered. 14 A fourth and final case of blasphemy may be cited. In August 1618 Juan, a twenty-two-year-old mulatto slave, was denounced in Zacatecas for having renounced God on two occasions. According to the testimony given in court, Juan uttered the words "I renounce God, O u r Lord" while he was being whipped. As a result, the whipping ceased and the slave was gagged to keep him quiet. Juan subsequently escaped but was recaptured within fifteen days. For this offense he was whipped again and once again he blasphemed. He was gagged, put in chains, and reported to the Holy Office. When the accused testified, he admitted that he had renounced God on two occasions. He confessed that he committed the offense because he was being cruelly whipped and that he had been in chains. He revealed to the court that he had unsuccessfully asked the saints to intercede in his behalf and to prevent his being chastised. Juan testified that this had been his first offense and that he regretted his actions. He asked for mercy and promised to adhere to the precepts of the Church in the future. Compara-

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tively speaking, his punishment was rather lenient. He was given fifty lashes, publicly administered, and warned that a repetition of his offense would bring a more severe penalty. 15 It would be tedious to enumerate any more of these cases. The pattern is familiar: blasphemy usually under stress, denunciation, trial, and punishment. The Holy Office, despite its ardor, was never able to eradicate the high incidence of blasphemy among the slaves; for blasphemy was but one manifestation not only of the nature of slave religion but also of the nature of slavery in Mexico. Three general conclusions can be drawn from blasphemous acts by the slaves. In the first place, and on a superficial level, blasphemy appeared to be the instinctive reaction by a slave to an unbearable situation. In this sense he was no different from the ordinary Spaniard, who used blasphemous words as a matter of course. According to Lea, the Spaniard employed a number of expressions "which seem to have been in the month of everyone, ineradicable by the most severe legislation, such as 'Mai grado aya Dios' ('May it spite God'), 'Pese a Dios ('May God regret'), 'Reniego a Dios' (Ί renounce God'), 'Descreo de Dios' (Ί disbelieve in God')." 16 Since the slave in Mexico acquired his basic vocabulary from the Spaniard, he could hardly avoid learning the profane as well. The blasphemous acts of the slaves also indicated the nature of the slave system in Mexico. Slaves blasphemed while they were being beaten or tortured, and the frequency of blasphemy cases reflected the high incidence of such punishments. The slave girl who cried, "I renounce God and his saints, I only need a knife to kill myself," while she was being beaten, was probably articulating the mood of her peers. 17 By severely punishing offenders, the Holy Office often ignored the conditions which produced the offenses. If the Inquisition had actively pursued those masters whose violence provoked the slaves to blaspheme, it might have rendered the slaves a humane service. In a deeper sense, the incidence of blasphemy probably reflected the existence of a type of folk Catholicism among the slave population. There is, for example, some resemblance between the blasphemy of the slaves and one form of the Ashanti oath. In this instance, according to Busia, "a man might swear an oath to prevent another from doing him bodily harm." It is likely that the slave's renunciation of God was intended to have a similar restraining effect on the person who was doing the whipping. If this was the intent, it invariably had the desired effect,

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since the beating would cease and the slave denounced to the Holy Office. By blaspheming, the slave was probably appealing to the Inquisition to adjudicate between himself and his master, as was the case with the Ashanti where "the oath was used to secure the backing of the central authority in the settlement of the issue involved." 18 It is also conceivable that the slave may have established with the Christian God the same dependent relationship which characterized his association with his master. The findings of Emanuel DeKadt for contemporary Brazil, "that the key concepts of folk Catholicism [promise, protection, request, miracle, and the showing of respect] are very nearly identical to the key concepts operating in the socio-political sphere," may have some applicability to the master-slave relationship and to slave religion in colonial Mexico. 19 In other words, the slave may have conferred on the Christian God the same qualities that he gave to his master. Thus, the God who failed to offer "protection" or to work "a miracle" when the situation demanded it was not playing the role ascribed to him and so could be renounced. It could have been this thinking which prompted Juan to blaspheme when the saints failed to protect him from a beating and which allowed one slave girl to lament while she was being whipped that "God is worth nothing to me; I renounce God." 20 It may also have caused a thoroughly frustrated blind man, Jeronimo Baltazar, to renounce God and the Virgin because "they were not helping him." 21 These conclusions are of course speculative; it is tempting, however, to dismiss these blasphemous acts of the slaves as simple irrational behavior. Such may well have been the case, but this does not appear to be a sufficiently adequate explanation for so widespread a phenomenon. In addition to blasphemy, the slaves' practice of certain folk beliefs engaged the vigorous attention of the Holy Office. It is obvious, from an examination of the records, however, that the Holy Office misunderstood the nature of some of these beliefs and practices. In its desire to foster religious orthodoxy, the Inquisition sought to destroy those practices which it felt violated the precepts of the Church. This did not mean that all accusations of religious deviance leveled at slaves were automatically pursued and formed procesos. Such was never the case. Had it been so, the inquisitors would have been overwhelmed by sheer numbers and would hardly have found time to devote to other matters. Rather, the tribunal moved actively against those practices which it believed were inspired by the devil and which placed the practitioner

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outside the state of grace. Folk practices and superstitions which were deemed not to conflict with the teachings of the Church or which could coexist harmlessly with the Catholic rituals were tolerated. In attempting to understand the practices of the African slaves, terminology is of paramount importance. There has always been some controversy over whether such practices should be classified as religious or magical. In modern scholarship, magic is generally defined as "ritual acts involving the manipulation of material substances and the use of verbal spells or addresses—all directed towards the influencing of forces—conceived of as impersonal and subject to direct human control if correctly handled—that are believed to govern the course of events." Practitioners of magic may employ their powers for malevolent or destructive purposes, in which case it is referred to as "black magic." Conversely, magic employed for "productive, protective, and curative" purposes is known as "white magic." 22 Many modern scholars reject the notion of clear-cut differences between magic and religion. Jeffrey Russell maintains that "no religions lack magical elements and both magic and religion view the Universe as essentially alive, responding to man in an I-Thou relationship"; 23 and Geoffrey Parrinder concludes that "the efficacy of magical practices does not merely reside in things done or said, but in the employment of a supernatural agency, a psychic power." 24 In the light of these findings, it is evident that one cannot postulate a simple dichotomy of religion and magic. But this view is relatively recent. For one thing, the Catholic Church of medieval and Renaissance Europe was convinced that there were essential differences between the two. Russell observes that "the attitude of medieval Christianity was that all magic, benevolent or not, is evil, because it relies upon evil spirits and sets itself against God by trying to compel the powers of the Universe." 25 The practice of magic, then, involved a clear and unmistakable breach with Christianity. Under these circumstances, magicians were perceived to be in competition with the Church and so had to be prosecuted and their practices proscribed. The Church's stance on what constituted magic presented the AfroMexican with grave problems. Spaniards, who were by and large unfamiliar with African traditional practices, were wont to conclude that the practitioners were in league with the devil or with other evil forces, when such was not necessarily the case. Thus the Inquisition viewed African folk practices through Spanish eyes and found them questionable. This is not to suggest that African practices were fundamentally different from

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the popular magic of Renaissance Europe. In many respects the principle was the same and similar rites were performed. 26 Likewise, Aztec society possessed magic similar in many respects to the European and African varieties. There was one basic and crucial difference, however, in the way magic was perceived in European societies on the one hand and in African and Indian societies on the other. In Christian Europe the practice of magic constituted a religious offense because the Church held that "all magic drew upon the help of demons." 27 The situation was quite different in Aztec society, for, according to C. A. Burland, "magic was not thought of as anything particularly evil, but as something powerful and dangerous which should be practiced only by the specialists. It was a respectable form of the control of nature. The magician and the priest were usually one, and the powers which were wielded, though often terrible, were essentially divine powers from the world of nature beyond man." 28 In a similar vein, there were no sanctions, religious or otherwise, imposed on the practitioners of "white" or beneficial magic in African societies. Whereas the Christian church opposed the use of all forms of magic in Europe, in Africa only "black" or destructive magic used illegitimately invited societal taboos. 29 The differences between sorcery and witchcraft are also very difficult to determine. Both practices were confused in Renaissance Europe, and in Mexico the Inquisition never established a clear distinction between the two. Witches and sorcerers were thought to abound in Europe at the time. Witchcraft in particular was considered a most nefarious practice because the witch was said to have made a pact with the devil. As Russell points out, "European witchcraft is best viewed as a religious cult of the Devil." 30 Although men were sometimes accused of witchcraft, Lea notes that the Spanish Inquisition generally perceived a witch as a female who "has abandoned Christianity, has renounced her baptism, has worshipped Satan as her God, has surrendered her self to him body and soul, and exists only to be his instrument in working the evil to her fellow creatures which he cannot accomplish without a human agent." 31 The definition of witchcraft has of course changed over the years. M. G. Marwick says that a witch today is "one who is believed to harm others mystically and illegitimately by means of psychic emanations from an inherent physiological condition that is transmitted biologically." Sorcery, on the other hand, appears to have been generally perceived then, as now, as a special kind of magic used deliberately and solely for malevolent purposes. He also points out that today "the differences between sorcery and

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witchcraft are largely ones of technique—or, rather, believed technique. . . . The sorcerer is believed to bring harm to his fellow men by the antisocial, illegitimate use of destructive magic. The witch, on the other hand, is believed to harm others—again antisocially or illegitimately— through his possessing a personality of a particular type." 32 African societies, like the European and the Indian, possessed their witches and sorcerers. But in the cases of the Africans and the Indians, unlike the Europeans, there was no concept that the witch had made a pact with a demon. Parrinder observes quite flatly that "the idea of the devil is foreign to many African peoples." 33 In all these societies, witches and sorcerers performed recognizably antisocial acts that were thought to harm others and consequently were ostracized, but only in Christian Europe did their practices constitute religious aberration. During the colonial period in Mexico, Indian, African, and European concepts and techniques of witchcraft and sorcery met, and an interpenetration, syncretization, and reinterpretation of these beliefs and practices occurred. As a result of this dynamic acculturative process in Mexico, there could never have developed a fixed and rigid definition of witchcraft and sorcery. In a very real sense, what constituted witchcraft or sorcery depended on the subjective perceptions of the inquisitors at any particular time. Thus Africans and Indians could find themselves accused as witches or sorcerers even when they were engaged in practices not so defined by their peers. Our concern is not with whether the Holy Office interpreted African practices "correctly," but rather with the information that the procesos reveal about the folk beliefs and practices of the AfroMexicans. For these beliefs and practices were to survive in spite of inquisitorial persecution. There is extensive documentary evidence regarding the use of folk practices by the slaves for a variety of reasons. Where physical attraction proved insufficient to win the affections of a certain individual, for example, the slave resorted to other means to expedite the process. The belief was widespread that carrying certain articles on one's person would achieve a desired end. John Mbiti observes that among Africans "charms, amulets, medicines drunk or rubbed into the body, articles on the roofs or in the fields . . . and many other visible and invisible, secret and open precautions" are employed for numerous objectives. 34 Aguirre Beiträn notes that Indians and Spaniards behaved in a similar fashion in colonial Mexico. 35 Accordingly, among the Mexican slaves, Agustin carried "an idol," while Mateo carried "a stick." Lucia kept "a bag with

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hairs/' while another woman had "a dead bird and red silk, some fragrant things and herbs." 36 Certain objects were more popular than others. Various kinds of herbs, for example, were thought to possess the most extraordinary qualities. If used by the supplicant, they could be expected to calm his anxieties and help him achieve his objective. As an aid to her practices, one Maria possessed an herb "that is called doradilla (scale fern)," Antonio Pardo received from a friend a certain kind of herb "to give to any woman to make her love him," while Juan Bautista carried herbs in order "to make others love him." In order for the herbs to be efficacious, certain functions would have to be performed by the supplicant. In most instances, absolute purity of body was essential. The individual must abstain from food for a specified period of time if he desired a positive response. Thus, one woman was advised that if she wanted to win the favors of a certain man she would have to fast for three Sundays. Antonio was told to fast on the day he gave the revered herb to the woman of his choice, and Francisco fasted "one day without eating salt" in order to receive a favorable answer.37 Several different methods could be used to take advantage of these mystical potions. The victim would sometimes have the powerful charm applied to his body or thrown over his clothing. Such charms were usually ground to a fine powder. For example, Isabel gave to "this informer some powder tied up in a bag and told her it was effective, for by carrying it and rubbing her hands with it the men would love her." Another slave, Luisa, received a similar powder, which would be potent if she applied it to the collar of her husband's shirt. A third slave, Maria, had some herbs concealed in her bosom so that "the men would love her well." A prospective victim who walked on such herbs would also fall prey to their powers. For instance, Maria, a slave from Cuencame, revealed that she knew an herb "which if it is chewed and spat out on the clothes of any man, or if he walks on the floor where it is . . . although he may not want the woman he will fall in love with her." If taken orally, the herb would be equally effective. Thus one slave advised another that "she should put a little bark from a tree in her chocolate in order that a man might love her much." It was also believed that fingernails ground to a fine powder and consumed by a victim would produce a desired objective. Luisa Hernandez and Juana, for example, were both accused of "giving men ground fingernails in their drinks in order to make the men love them." 38

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There were other objects which were thought to possess supernatural powers. The bones of humans and certain animals, the eyes, feathers, or heads of special birds, if held in one's possession, would help one attain certain ends, amorous or otherwise. Thus Lucas received the bones of a dead person, which were "effective in getting women." Maria had a crow's head and feathers in a box, which "was good for making people sleep." Another woman used a swallow's eyes for a similar purpose. A nail driven into a shoe would also be efficacious in inducing sleep in others. Thus, one slave woman testified that "in order that a person may go out at night, it is good to use a knife to nail a shoe [and place it] under her masters' bed so that they may sleep." 39 In this regard, a special kind of earth also possessed revered qualities. Earth taken from cemeteries and mountains seemed to have played a significant role in the practices of these individuals. It is quite possible that, in the case of earth from the cemetery, the practice was African in origin, for, generally speaking, most Africans shared the custom of ancestor worship. Perhaps the efficacy of earth from the cemetery derived from association with the dead ancestors. For example, Mariana confided to a friend that the earth in her bag was from a grave and that she used it to give to men "in order that they may love me." Martin claimed that "earth from the cemeteries was good to make one sleep, whomever had it under his bed" and Juan de la Cruz told a woman that "she should take a little stone from a sepulchre and place it under the pillow of her masters' bed for the purpose of going out at night without their knowing it." And finally, it was believed that throwing earth from the cemetery on an individual's patio would make that person fall asleep.40 The preoccupation with inducing sleep in their masters reflected the slaves' desire for freedom of movement, especially at night. It also indicated the isolated and cloistered existence which some masters forced their slaves to lead. By means of these practices, slaves attempted to defeat a system which had them confined and which sought to deny them interaction with their peers. Fear of inquisitorial persecution apparently did not deter these practices; such was the strength of the slaves' beliefs regarding their effectiveness. Earth from the mountains could also be used, especially to induce love in another person. Francisco, for example, "gave to this informer some earth which he had dug at the foot of a little tree on the mountain . . . and said that it was good for attracting women." Earth containing the footprints or the urine of a prospective victim could be collected and used

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against that person. Thus Antonio advised a woman that by "taking earth from that part of the soil where the man whom this witness desired placed his foot . . . [then] that man would love her and desire her although he might be at the other end of the world." Another slave was told that by "taking the earth where a woman urinated and mixing it together and then placing it on his plate, he will be assured of getting her." 41 With this kind of guarantee it is no wonder that slaves experimented with such practices. One constant preoccupation of the slave was how best to get his master to ameliorate his punishment. A resort to folk practices was held to be an effective means to this end. Juan Sebastian received from a friend "a little rue, onion and garlic and, drawing a little blood from his arm, he should mix these things together and he should do this in order that his master should treat him well." An eighteen-year-old slave, Francisco, became ill after chewing some roots he received from an elderly black man. Complaining that his master mistreated him, Francisco received from his benefactor "a root which he should chew and, having mixed it with saliva, he should apply it to his face, and that would be enough to make his master hate him and sell him." In this case, the slave did not obtain his objective but became so violently ill that he "almost died" and a confessor had to be called. In the end, he appeared before the Holy Office to answer for his crime. 42 There were certain individuals whose practices excited more fear, and perhaps respect, than others. These persons often had various marks put on their bodies, probably for identification, to add to their appeal or to dramatize the pact with the devil which some of them had made. Juan Andr6s, for example, had a picture of the devil painted on two parts of his body, and several mulattoes were accused of "painting the figure of the devil on the bottom of their feet." And, to cite a third example, Pablo Gomez had "certain figures carved on his stomach and on his shoulder in order to make him brave." 43 In Christian Europe, witches were believed to have made a pact with the devil and of having unusual qualities, such as the ability to fly. In Mexico there were slaves who were brought before the Holy Office for having allegedly made a pact with Satan and for their reputed ability to fly. Thus, Leonora, a slave, was denounced for having the power of "flying whenever she wished," and Bartolo had made a pact with the devil "offering his soul . . . and drew blood from his nostrils and offered it to the demons and wrote with his blood offering himself." A third individ-

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ual was accused of having sold his soul to the devil, and a fourth was charged simply with having made a pact with Lucifer. Finally, Beatriz de Alberto was charged with suggesting to her peers at an Easter Mass that it was better to venerate the devil in preference to the Cross. Beatriz, who had the reputation of "a bad tongue," was arrested and charged with witchcraft. She was accused of bewitching her former master, Padre Angulo, into freeing her and her children. It was alleged that the padre would eat nothing that she cooked unless she first tasted it because he feared she would kill him through the use of witchcraft. It was also charged that Beatriz had won her husband's affection by bewitching him and that she roamed the streets at night casting spells in the company of her friend Catalina de Buenrostro. Beatriz also used words "offensive to God," calling Him a prostitute (puto)." Beatriz may have been speaking literally when she suggested that her listeners venerate the devil, for there were instances when the devil appeared to the faithful, usually in the form of an animal. On one occasion the faithful "assembled in a field where the devil appeared in the form of a goat, and while they were singing and dancing they were also kissing it under the tail. . . and the devil was marking them with a very faint mark on one eye or on one cheek." It was not unusual for the devil to give specific instruction to his followers, as was reflected in the charge that Sebastian advised his friend to "go to a certain cave and do what the devil ordered." Judging by the items they used, some of these practitioners must have generated great awe within the Afro-Mexican community. The use of human bones or flesh and of snakes in the ceremonies seems to have been widespread. Although the evidence is lacking, the individuals who used these items must have been the ones most often consulted for malevolent purposes. The individual who used various powders in his rituals must have been perceived quite differently by the populace from the one who used human flesh or bones as his tools. A few examples of the latter category may be cited. One woman was reputed to have two snakes, "one she carried when she was out casting her spells, and the other remained at home guarding her possessions. A second female "had a snake under her bed." Marta "had a piece of fresh human flesh . . . that appeared to belong to someone . . . recently hanged." For her part, Magdalena possessed "the bones of a holy friar who died," as well as "a bone like the half of a hand, with dried flesh attached, wrapped in a rag." Beatriz de

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Alberto, finally, used "some candles surrounding a jar full of water and containing some parts of a donkey's brain." 45 One of the most notorious and feared practitioners of witchcraft, as identified by the Holy Office, was a free mulatto woman, Leonor de Isla. In a lengthy trial before the Holy Office in 1622, several witnesses accused her of using witchcraft to "help a woman regain the lost affections of a man." They testified that on many occasions Leonor would go to the intersection of a certain street at midnight and there "she would go around in circles . . . and call and invoke the devil." It was also alleged that she had a paper statue of Saint Martha in her house and that at nightfall she would pray to it asking for assistance in her various endeavors. Witnesses deponed that Leonor reported that she knew "the prayer of the spirits that live in the sea." On one occasion she had prayed while looking towards the sea and "a young man appeared between the waves, dressed in a colored ropilla with a handkerchief tied around his head, and then suddenly disappeared." Many of the allegations leveled against Leonor and the powers she reputedly possessed baffle the contemporary imagination. She was accused, for example, of making an apparition of a dead young man appear after she offered prayers to the spirits. It was said that she prayed to the spirits in order to learn the whereabouts of the deceased. In return for their assistance she promised them "the soul of a girl" who had recently delivered a baby. After Leonor finished praying, according to the testimony, "a huge duck with a broken and bleeding wing appeared, jumped onto the bed and said in a voice similar to that of the deceased, 'woman, let me rest.' " This may have been the dead man's spirit, for shortly afterward a young girl who had just given birth died, and Leonor announced that the spirits had come for her. This strange but interesting woman was also charged with "praying and mumbling between her teeth" during her ceremonies. Witnesses testified that her magical repertoire included an herb called junquillo, salt, glass, a magnet, and a piece of a church altar. In addition, she was accused of speaking to three live salamanders, after which she killed them, toasted them, crushed them into small pieces which she put in a potential victim's chocolate drink. She would also enclose a lizard in a piece of bread and then put the bread in the street. If it were eaten by a dog it signified that a woman's lover would return to her. If the dog refused the bread and the lizard it signified that the man had found

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another woman. Finally, it was charged that Leonor knew all the devils in hell "and calls them by their own names/' invoking their assistance in her prayers. The case of Leonor de Isla demonstrates the degree of religious syncretism prevalent in Afro-Mexican society. Many of her prayers, of which an example is given below, began with the words "Jesus Christ, Son of God, Savior of the world," or some variation of Christian terminology. My Lord Jesus Christ you who were wounded, have pity on my great burdens, you who were beaten and crucified have pity on my trials and tribulations. You died and the earth opened and a great clamor was heard and the sun darkened. Cleanse the thoughts of all women and men that they may love me and desire me and dispell the evil intentions they may have against me and let them be subject to me. And may God lead them to see the light and may they cast out the ill will that they may have against me. By your holy will. Amen. Our Lord, Jesus Christ, by the holy cross on which you were hanged and crucified on Mount Calvary, and you who fixed your eyes on the thief at your right hand, you who may subject all men and women to do my will and make them walk where I desire and aid me, and in my heart, men as well as women, let them see me and praise me as much as I may desire or command, so that whatever I choose to do they may come to my aid and defense against my enemies. May Our Heavenly Father and the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary and the courts of the angels and patrons, dominions and all the court of Heaven be with me. Saint Raphael be with me, Saint Paul and all the saints and all the heavenly court, and the priests who say Mass in vestments, and all the saints and ministers who commune with the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary. May they wish to aid me wherever I may go, in the name of the Father and God, the Son and the Holy Spirit. May they never love God more then your servant Leonor [and] may they approve all that I may desire to order in the name of God and the Holy Spirit. Amen. 46 In the event of illness, the slaves resorted to traditional means to effect

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a cure. In some instances they would offer prayers to a natural phenomenon for assistance. Tomas, for example, was caught "praying to the moon, asking it to cure his illness." Certain herbs and foods were also thought to possess medicinal qualities. Cristobal advised his patient that his depression could be cured by consuming "some vulture [zopilote] eggs." Sick slaves could also be induced to drink certain beverages, while on other occasions the treatment was administered externally in the form of an ointment applied to the skin. These rites were often accompanied by the recitation of certain prayers. The following description of one such ceremony is instructive, for not only does it reveal the nature of the ritual involved but it also demonstrates an interesting admixture of traditional beliefs and Christianity. The accused, Ana de Pinto, was denounced by the patient, who declared that "she said to this witness, I will make you well in eight days, and saying this, she took a little bag in which she carried some powder and asked that they bring her a lighted stove and a bowl with a little water to which she added the powder and then she applied it on my right side and on the stomach of this witness, and after having anointed it and bandaged it, she uttered some words naming the Most Holy Trinity, Our Lady and Saint Juana, but in detail I do not remember the words owing to the pain that afflicted me; only that on applying the ointment she made the sign of the cross above the pain, on the chest, on the forehead and on the ears, and blowing in my mouth she said some words which I was not able to understand, and on the following day she asked whether I would take a certain beverage that she would prescribe, and, replying that there was nothing I would not take in order to regain my health, and the said Mulatto went outside and in the presence of Maria Palaez, my wife, she ground something in a cup of water and . . . having drunk the water I was intoxicated the entire day and had a severe pain in the stomach . . . and the following day Ana de Pinto came, asked for a needle and silk, and with her hands sewed upon my shirt above the heart a small bag she brought, and on it was a cross which appeared to be made of yellow silk, and afterwards she applied the same ointment about six or eight times, always making the sign of the cross, and blowing, and crossing herself, and saying the aforementioned words, and at this time she sent me from her house a jar of water, saying I have to keep it in the sun and in the night air, and that I was to drink it with the left hand." 47 While some slaves were occupied in making love potions or curing the sick, others were busily predicting the future. These practitioners of

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divination, which is the "art of practice of foreseeing future events or discovering hidden knowledge through supernatural means," were respected by their peers.48 Diviners were quite prevalent in African societies and, indeed, there was much divination in Christian European tradition. 49 In Mexico many black diviners claimed to have derived their powers from the saints. One man reported that he knew the future from "a saint who is so friendly that he is almost always at his side." Another slave said he was in constant communication with his ancestors "in order to know hidden things and what is going to happen." 50 A fairly common practice in divination was that of "speaking through the chest." In essence, this was a form of ventriloquism where the diviner supposedly conversed with a spirit. In describing one such ceremony, Luisa testified that "many times this negro, Domingo, spoke with some objects and dolls, one dressed as a man, the other as a woman, and the objects spoke with him in everyone's hearing . . . and we heard them speak in Spanish and in a Congolese language, and they danced the dances of the two nations and sang in the two languages clearly and distinctly, and everyone heard and understood, and later they both asked for food." 5 1 Some individuals utilized the art of divination while treating their patients. A patient of one Francisco de Puntilla described his experience thus: Being sick of an ailment in the face, they told me to seek aid from a negro belonging to Cristobal Martinez called Francisco de Puntilla, and the treatment that he carried out was to wash my face with water, saying it was from certain herbs which he carried in two jars of clay, one red and the other dark. And there were some ugly figures of faces engraved on them; and while he washed my face, he was saying: Wait! I will ask if you will get better. And he asked in Spanish and turned my face toward his armpit, saying: You have to get better; and one heard in that place a shriek, like that of a rabbit, which appeared to answer the question. And he stopped and said that I would be cured. 52 Through the use of divination, the Afro-Mexicans attempted to discover the identity of wrongdoers, especially thieves. By this method, the location of lost items would also be discovered. Some of these rites are very instructive from the perspective of the tools that were used, the ventriloquism that they involved, and the Christian features that they

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included. One report of a witness' testimony before the Holy Office reads: While making enquiries to determine the location of a load of grain, he heard and understood from other mulattoes and negroes . . . that there was a black woman named Andrea with the reputation of a witch and that she would say where the grain was. . . . And the said woman was speaking through her side and she spoke in the manner of a puppet with a harsh voice, mispronouncing her words in such a way that one could not understand them unless she interpreted what she said, and she continued to speak through the left side. And this informant wanted to see if it was the devil who was doing these things, and so he exclaimed: Jesus, Holy Mary! one or two times; but in spite of this, the voice continued to reply to the woman.53

An example of religious syncretism is seen in the following procedure for identifying a thief: I saw that Dona Ruez Gomez de Anzures and Diego Martin, mulatto slave of Diego Sanchez de Cocoa, chose a small statue of Christ and a sieve, which they placed upon the finger of Dona Ruez de Anzures and they had a pair of large scissors arranged in the form of a cross and attached to the sieve, and the said mulatto asked questions in the following manner: Sieve, tell me for God's sake, and [swear] by your faith, do not move from side to side nor tell anybody else, but tell us the truth about who committed the crime, if it was Cota de Monzon. But the sieve did not move, and he continued to interrogate it by calling the names of all those who were in the house, until he came to the name of Juan de Vera, and then the sieve shook. 54 The method of divination varied; each diviner had his own ritual, but many possessed a statue of Christ or the Virgin. Perhaps this gave a stamp of authenticity or legitimacy to their practices. On the other hand, it was a clear manifestation of religious syncretism. Leonora de Sosa described the ritual performed by a slave in Guadalajara for the purpose of discovering the whereabouts of his mules: I spoke with the said negro, whose name I do not know, about the missing mules, to which he said I need not worry; and the negro

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placed two lighted candles in front of an image of Our Lady and a jar of water, and with a wand stirring the water, he said: Now your mules have appeared; go to your home, send an Indian and in a clearing he will find them. And I sent the Indian and he found them tied. 55 Whether contrived or not, the diviner administered to the needs of a grateful population. He calmed their fears in times of stress by providing answers to their problems. In addition, he served a useful function by identifying, whether accurately or not, such wrongdoers as thieves who had incurred the wrath of the group. By isolating offenders, and perhaps making them available for social sanctions, the diviner played a role in maintaining social cohesion. The slaves' practice of a form of folk Catholicism, as well as the continued vitality of their own folk beliefs and customs, demonstrated their success in preserving a way of life somewhat different from that of their masters. Slaves maintained these practices because they were crucial to the Afro-Mexicans' unceasing struggle for spiritual survival and expression. Their physical bodies were enslaved, but their cultural traditions would survive, even if only clandestinely. By retaining their old beliefs, and by borrowing and reinterpreting others taken from the Indians and the Spaniards themselves, Afro-Mexicans were ensuring, however unconsciously, their survival as spiritually autonomous human beings in spite of the pressures and confines of the slave system. In addition, the slaves' resort to their folk practices represented, in part, an attempt to cope with their life situation. The observance of such beliefs, especially in times of stress and crisis, brought solace and security. The Holy Office's attempt to enforce religious orthodoxy and eradicate manifestations of religious deviance was doomed to fail. As long as the belief in the efficacy of their own practices prevailed, the slaves would continue their observance, persecution notwithstanding.

CHAPTER 7

Toward Freedom The morality of the slave trade and the enslavement of Africans was not an issue of paramount concern to the Spaniards in early Mexico. Slavery was sanctioned by the Church and the state and condoned by a grateful colonial population. African slavery had long been a feature of Spanish society, and few were the individuals who questioned its expansion overseas to the colonies. On the contrary, since African slaves performed economically useful functions in colonial society, a premium was placed on their acquisition. Uncomfortable questions concerning the morality of slavery, if raised, ran afoul of the prevailing notion that slaves were indispensable to the economic health of the colony. Economic considerations dwarfed and smothered moral concerns in an age of inequality and widespread exploitation. Even the leading Christian moralists of the era fell victim to this imperative and largely ignored the Africans' plight. 1 There were, nonetheless, isolated voices that denounced the slave trade and slavery. They came from the consciences of men who were outraged by the genuine injustices of the traffic in human merchandise and the utilization of slave labor. Yet those who raised their voices in protest were never in any position to influence the policies of the crown. They focused their attention on the moral and legal issues, but their audience was negligible and unresponsive. Quite ironically, Bartolome de las Casas was one of the first to express doubts about the enslavement of the African peoples. In 1517 it was Las Casas who had recommended the substitution of African and white slave labor for Indian labor. With the passage of time, Las Casas eventually came to reconsider his position and recognized the contradiction inherent in an ideological stance which gave the Indians their freedom but denied

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a similar status to the blacks. Las Casas, however, did not issue a public indictment of slavery: rather, he confined his doubts to a work which was published posthumously. In that book, the Dominican friar acknowledged his error in recommending the enslavement of Africans because "the same reasoning applies to them as well as to the Indians." 2 It may be doubted whether Las Casas' contemporaries were ever aware of his change of heart in view of the delayed publication of his book. Under the circumstances, Las Casas cannot be seriously ranked as one who in his day advocated the end of African slavery in the New World. Although Las Casas did not publicly condemn slavery, there were others who were not so restrained. In the mid-sixteenth century, Friar Bernardino de Vique questioned the morality of enslaving fellow human beings. In reply to this implied criticism, the famous Dominican jurist, Francisco de Vitoria, pointed out that there were two principal methods by which human beings were procured for enslavement: through purchase and through capture in war. Vitoria found enslavement through purchase to be morally repugnant, but he had no such reservations about the fate of captives taken in war, since the causes of the wars among the "barbarians" were of no concern to the trader, as it "is sufficient that he is a slave in fact and in law and I buy him fully." Vitoria conceded, however, that masters had the obligation to treat their slaves well. 3 The Dominican jurist's reply to the friar's doubts seemingly constituted a defense of the slave trade and slavery. He was not concerned with the moral issue but preferred to emphasize the legal aspects of the trade. Both questions, the legal and the moral, were of course interrelated and inseparable. In 1560 Alonso de Montufar, archbishop of Mexico, raised his spiritually influential voice against the slave trade and slavery. In an outspoken letter to the crown, the archbishop complained that "we do not know what reason exists that the negroes should be enslaved more than the Indians . . . because they receive the holy faith and do not make war against the Christians." In the same letter, the archbishop argued that the demand for slaves had increased the incidence of wars among the African peoples for the purpose of capturing victims for the slave trade. He pointed out that the breaking up of indigenous families was an injustice sufficient to offset any advantages they received "by being the slaves of Christians." To remedy this situation, the archbishop wanted to define the conditions under which Africans could be enslaved. It was his conviction, however, that the slave trade should be terminated and that

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efforts should be made to Christianize the Africans in their own lands where they were "free in body and spirit." 4 The archbishop's plea was both eloquent and timely. His courageous letter focused simultaneously on the moral and the legal problems raised by slavery. It very clearly questioned the authority on which the Spaniards enslaved the Africans. In uncompromising terms the archbishop called attention to the inconsistency created by enslaving Africans but liberating Indians. But in an age when black slavery was increasingly more important to the colonists, such views were unpalatable and unwelcome. The archbishop's strictures fell on deaf ears at the Spanish court. The next recorded protest against the slave trade and, indirectly, against slavery occurred in 1569. It came from the pen of Friar Tomas de Mercado, who had made a study of the slave trade from Cape Verde. Mercado's attack was far less radical than the archbishop's. The friar did not question the legality of slavery or the slave trade. He accepted the claim that the trade was legal; accordingly, in his judgment, slavery was legitimate if, during the trade, three basic principles were upheld. To Mercado, Africans could be legitimately enslaved if they were captives taken in war, if they were people convicted for public offenses which carried the loss of liberty as the penalty, and if fathers sold their children into slavery as a consequence of economic distress. Mercado found, however, that in practice several abuses had crept into the process by which slaves were obtained. He revealed that the Africans instigated intertribal wars solely for the purpose of acquiring captives for the trade. In addition, public officials tended to condemn people to servitude without sufficiently valid reasons. Likewise, fathers were in the habit of selling their children into slavery without proven necessity. The abuses inherent in the traffic led Mercado to advise his fellow Spaniards not to participate in it. He argued that in order for the trade to be legal the purchaser had to know whether the slave was obtained legitimately by the trader. Since the trade produced unquestioned abuses, he continued, it was impossible in good conscience to participate in it. These considerations led Mercado to conclude that it would be impractical to try to correct the abuses in the trade and that its termination was the only desirable end. Finally, the friar was mindful of the fact that the Africans' loss of freedom constituted a grave and irreparable injustice to them. To bolster his criticisms and conclusions, Mercado painted a vivid picture of the horrors arising from the trade. He cited the bad treatment the hapless slaves received and the frequent deaths from hunger and

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thirst prior to their departure on the slave ships. He charged that the slave ships were veritable chambers of horrors. Mercado related that on one ship from Cape Verde to New Spain carrying a total of 500 slaves, 150 had died during a single night. In fact, he pointed out, almost 300 slaves succumbed during the voyage. 5 Like those of the archbishop, Mercado's protests were destined to be pigeonholed by the authorities. They had no recognizable impact on the conduct of the slave trade. Yet historically, such views represented one man's revulsion against a practice which was to assume massive proportions in later years. If Mercado's attack was penetrating, a more blistering assault on the principle of human servitude occurred in 1573. In that year, Bartolome de Albornoz, who had lived in New Spain for some years and was a professor at the university, wrote his treatise Arte de Contratos. Because of his residence in the colony, Albornoz could speak quite authoritatively on the evils of slavery. He began his treatise by questioning the moral and legal bases on which slavery rested, and he disagreed with Mercado on the subject of the different ways by which Africans could be legitimately enslaved. After pointing out that Aristotle had not sanctioned the enslavement of prisoners of war, he added that the law of Christ had also not approved of that practice. Albornoz maintained that natural law favored liberty and that consequently it was the duty of all men to work toward achieving the freedom of the enslaved. Continuing his criticisms, Albornoz challenged the assumption that Africans in the New World enjoyed a better life than those in Africa. He argued that even if such an assumption were correct, it would not be sufficient to compensate for the injustices meted out to the slaves. In his opinion, the African could be Christianized without being enslaved, for "liberty of the soul must not be paid for by servitude of the body." 6 Although Albornoz did not demand categorically that slavery be ended, it was clear from his arguments that such an end would not be unpleasing to him. The views of Bartolome de Albornoz apparently created great consternation when they appeared, for his treatise was placed on the Index. Perhaps the most radical attack on slavery during the period was one which came from a prison cell in Mexico City in 1655. It was written by Don Guillen de Lampart, an Irishman who was born in 1615 and first went to Mexico in 1640. In 1642 he was denounced to the Holy Office of the Inquisition for treason. The ensuing trial lasted eight years. In 1650 Don Guillen escaped from prison but was recaptured only to begin a

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second trial which spread over a period of nine years. It was during his second period of confinement that he wrote his most compelling indictment of slavery and the slave trade, using the sheets in his prison cell for paper. It is doubtful whether his observations ever reached an audience other than the Inquisitors, but his comments are invaluable nevertheless, since they are the opinions of one man who opposed the slave system. When Don Guillen was arrested in 1642, he was charged with plotting to overthrow the colonial regime. In the extraordinary proclamation he had issued to the Mexican people at that time, he denounced the institution of slavery, stating that by enslaving the Africans "the law of nature is usurped by the Spaniards with little fear of God." He railed against the mistreatment of slaves, who "are capable of the same glory as we, and who, being similarly Christians and members of the Church, are deprived of what is more esteemed than life itself, that is, liberty."7 As a result of his moralistic objections to slavery, Don Guillen proposed to free all the slaves once he assumed political power. These freedmen, he promised, would enjoy all the privileges which the Spanish citizens then possessed. This kind of revolutionary rhetoric was not destined to endear the Irish mystic to the local authorities. His years of confinement, however, did not dim his sympathy for the slave population. From his prison cell in 1655 he wrote a series of verses, or salmos, in which he castigated the Spaniards for their enslavement of the Africans. He appealed to their consciences with moral strictures such as: "Tell me, my faithful Americans . . . why do you buy and sell men like beasts? Why do you enslave those who confess the name of Christ? Why do you buy Ethiopians against the law of God, while you do not wish to be bought by them? . . . They were born as free as you, and you as they; it is not legal for them to make us captives; likewise, it is not legal for us to reduce them to cruel servitude."8 Such words, so dramatic in their impact, made Don Guillen the individual who was most unequivocal in his condemnation of slavery in the early years. His language was remarkably radical for the seventeenth century and could rank favorably with the vehemence of the antislavery protests voiced in the nineteenth century in the United States and England. In his moving concern for the slaves, Don Guillen must surely merit consideration as one of the foremost humanitarians of seventeenthcentury Mexico. The men who raised their voices against slavery or posed certain moral

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questions about the institution in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries were unusual human beings. It took enormous courage to express doubts about the legality and morality of an institution sanctioned by the Church and the state in an age when dissent was neither fashionable nor encouraged. The opinions of these men had no visible impact on the operation of the slave system they questioned. Yet the fact of their moral concern was important. Not all men were participants in the slave trade and slavery. Despite the opposition by some individuals to the slave trade and to slavery during the period, those slaves who actually won their freedom did so independently of such opposition. The Siete Partidas, it may be recalled, held that all creatures loved and desired liberty and that no impediments were to bar the path of the slaves' progress toward freedom. Consequently, a master was allowed to manumit a slave it he wished. Slaves were permitted the privilege of self-purchase and, in addition, could be liberated through purchase by a third party. The code also granted freedom to slaves if they performed certain meritorious deeds for the state. It must not be concluded, however, that this predisposition toward manumission meant that Mexican slaves obtained their freedom as a matter of course during the period. As early as 1526, the Spanish crown negated the provision in the Siete Partidas which freed a slave who married a free person.9 In the following year, 1527, the local authorities in Mexico promulgated a similar ordinance, a measure they repeated in 1541. The restrictions placed on freedom through marriage to a free person, however, did not mean abandoning the basic principles of the Siete Partidas. In a royal decree issued in 1540, for example, it was ordered that in the event that slaves should "publicly demand their liberty, they should be heard and justice administered to them, and care be taken that they should not on that basis . . . be mistreated by their masters." Twenty-three years later, in 1563, the crown ordered that Spanish masters who had children by slave women belonging to other masters should be given preference in purchasing those children, provided that the object was to free the children.10 There were three principal methods by which a slave could legally be freed: he could be manumitted by his master or the state; he could purchase his own freedom; or his liberty could be bought by a third party. The occurrence of such transactions—with the exception of freedom conferred by the state—depended upon the disposition of the master, since normally he could not be forced to manumit or sell his property.

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The process of manumission was relatively simple. In order for the individual to be recognized as legally free, a carta de libertad, or letter of manumission, had to be drawn up. This document, prepared by a notary, had to be signed by the master and appropriate witnesses. The carta de libertad included the names of the master and the slave and the conditions under which manumission was effected, whether as a gift or through the exchange of money. Generally, the document concluded by declaring that the freedman was entitled to all the privileges of citizenship enjoyed by other free members of Mexican society, a clause which expressed great idealism but was far removed from reality. It seems likely, although it cannot be explicitly stated here, that the freedman was expected to carry a copy of the document on his person in order to indicate his legal status. In a country plagued by the incidence of runaway slaves, this would have been a necessary precautionary measure against false arrests. Of the slaves who were manumitted, a significant number were so favored in their master's last will and testament. To mention two prominent examples, Juan de Zumärraga, the first archbishop of Mexico, freed two of his slaves in 1548, a fact recorded in his will. 11 Similarly, Vasco de Quiroga, bishop of Michoacän and a great friend of the Indians, freed all his slaves in his will, dated January 24, 1565.12 It is not clear whether slaves freed in this manner required a letter of manumission or whether the relevant clauses in the will sufficed. It appears, in addition, that children who received their freedom at birth did not have a letter of manumission. Spaniards who sired children by slave women sometimes liberated those children rather than have them become slaves. The case of Pedro Gonzalez, a Spanish swordmaker who in 1618 purchased and freed his two mulatto daughters, was not unusual. 13 Nor was that of Joaquin de Calera who in 1647 purchased for 100 pesos his three-monthold son Antonio (born of a mulatto slave, Maria) and freed him. 14 By these acts, some Spaniards openly recognized the paternity of their children, and as a consequence the free mulatto population constantly increased. Some slaves were freed unconditionally by their masters, while others had conditions attached to their liberty. In 1644 Luisa Morisca was freed unconditionally by her master. 15 In 1646 Juana de San Nicolas enjoyed similar good fortune, 16 as did Gracia de la Cruz in 1656.17 Other slaves who were not so fortunate had to pay a reduced sum to obtain their freedom. In 1642 three slaves were freed on condition that they each pay 50

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pesos. 18 Conceivably their market value was considerably in excess of that amount. Elena de la Cruz received her freedom in 1648 in return for the payment of 115 pesos, 19 and in 1650 Maria de Jesus was required to pay 200 pesos for her liberty. 20 As an interesting variant, one master freed a slave in 1639 on condition that the slave hear Mass each week. 21 In return for their freedom, other slaves were often required to continue serving their masters or some other individual for a specified period of time. Such was the case of Juan de San Diego, who was given to a convent in 1645 and required to serve for five years, after which he would be freed. 22 In 1648 one master gave three slaves to his brother with the stipulation that they receive letters of manumission after the brother's death. A fourth slave belonging to this master was promised his freedom after he served an additional six years. 23 Undoubtedly, these promises of eventual liberation were intended to provide the slaves with a greater incentive to work, while at the same time acting as an effective means of social control. Elderly and crippled slaves were often freed when they could no longer work. In this way the master relieved himself of an economic burden, but these elderly or maimed slaves must have found it difficult to survive as free men in the society. Bias Garcia was manumitted in 1553 "for having served for twenty years and being old." 24 In 1643 freedom came to Diego de Aranda, a crippled slave. 25 Fortunately, he had a free mulatto wife who was his means of support. To cite another example, a "good and faithful" seventy-year-old slave was finally rewarded with freedom in 1645.26 A fairly widespread practice which invites speculation concerned those masters who possessed a number of slaves but who freed only some of the slaves in their wills. Such choices clearly reflected the master's personal preference. Freedom came to those slaves who most likely had given loyal and outstanding service or, in the case of women, those who had been the master's concubine. Francisco de Jesus was an example of a master who selectively freed his slaves. He owned five slaves in 1656 and in that year he freed two, gave a third to a convent, and sold the remaining two. 27 In another instance, a master who owned four slaves in 1650 gave one to a friend, a second to a convent, freed the third, and sold the fourth. 28 In a number of instances, masters freed slaves who not only had worked long and faithfully but who had performed a single act which in itself was deserving of the ultimate expression of gratitude: the award of

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freedom. One dramatic example in this category occurred in 1651. In that year, three young male slaves belonging to Hernando de Mendiola of Monterrey successfully repelled an Indian attack on their master's house at great risk to their lives. While the master lay wounded, these slaves took control and fought valiantly until the enemy withdrew. Such a demonstration of bravery and loyalty convinced the grateful master that the young men should be freed and, shortly after, he drew up the appropriate cartas de libertad.29 Although the aforementioned bestowals of freedom rested primarily on the initiative of the master, sometimes the impetus came from a third party acting on behalf of the slave. Such was the case when the slave's freedom was purchased. Slaves were sometimes purchased and freed by a sympathetic neighbor who wanted to make a charitable gesture, or by a spouse or a relative who had deeper personal reasons for so acting. This type of transaction involved bargaining, since a price acceptable to the master had to be agreed upon. Bargaining would be futile, of course, if the master changed his mind and refused to sell. Legally he could not be forced to sell his slave unless he had committed an offense against the slave that was sufficiently serious to warrant such a course of action. Instances of a third party purchasing a slave and then liberating him are not numerous. In 1618 a freedwoman, Maria Andrada, bequeathed the proceeds of her estate to her godchild so that he could purchase his freedom. 30 A few years later, one freedwoman worked as a vendor of chickens until she had saved enough money to purchase the freedom of her two children.31 And, to cite a third example, in 1646 some friars who observed a female slave who "by her many infirmities and aches is not able to serve" decided to purchase her freedom. The master released her after her benefactors had paid 400 pesos, a sum which, owing to her infirmities, was probably more than her market value.32 The third method of achieving freedom—that of self-purchase—posed the greatest problem for the slave. It meant that on his own he would have to find the purchase price. Custom dictated that slaves who were hired out by their masters were allowed to retain a portion of their earnings. The amount retained would, of course, depend on the benevolence of the master. It is unclear whether slaves, particularly rural slaves, were given plots of ground on which they could grow marketable produce. If this practice were common, then slaves would have had an independent source of income, thus modifying their dependence on the master. Whatever their source of income, however, it is known that some slaves were

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able to purchase freedom, if not outright, at least via the installment plan. The master's willingness to sell was obviously a crucial factor in the transaction. Much would depend on the amount the master required the slave to pay for his liberty. A master who inflated the price of his slave was demonstrating a reluctance to sell. In addition, such an action reflected an attempt at further exploitation of the slave by making him pay more for freedom than the price he commanded on the open market. On the other hand, as has been noted earlier, masters who were willing to sell slaves their freedom sometimes allowed their favorites to pay a token sum for their carta de libertad. This was generally the case of those slaves in their prime who paid between 100 and 200 pesos for their liberty. 33 A number of slaves who were unable to find the full purchase price were allowed by agreeable masters to pay in installments. It is impossible to say how widespread this practice was in early colonial Mexico. Suffice it to say that as early as 1544 one female slave contracted to purchase her liberty and that of her daughter in installments. She was to make an initial payment of 60 pesos and to pay the remaining 160 pesos in installments. Full freedom came with the final payment. 34 To take an example from the seventeenth century, in 1636 Domingo, a criollo slave, used the installment plan to purchase his freedom. 35 In at least one recorded instance, a mistress in 1585 permitted a slave who was unable to find all the money for her freedom to give certain personal possessions equivalent in value to the remainder of the purchase price. Dona Ines de Leon, a resident of Mexico City, freed her slave Juana in return for the payment of 200 pesos de oro de minas. Juana did not have all the money in hand so she gave her mistress "two hundred and thirty pesos de oro comun . . . a box of gold alloy with a slender chain of seven strands, another box of gold alloy, and two gold medals weighing eight ounces, these articles being valued at a hundred pesos [de oro comun]." 36 Frederick Bowser, in his study of manumission patterns in Mexico, sets forth the terms of manumission among Afro-Mexicans for the period 1580-1650 in Table 15. Bowser's data reveal that women and children stood a much better chance than males of being manumitted. Of the manumission cases he studied, 72 percent comprised women and children and only 8 percent consisted of adult males between the ages of sixteen and thirty-five. As noted earlier, women who were the mistresses of Spaniards (or in rare cases their wives) and the progeny of such unions formed a significant proportion of the free population. The low represen-

Toward Freedom Table 15.

Manumissions, Mexico City, 1580-1650.

Age of slave

Sex

Males Over 45

177

Terms of liberation

Uncondi- Future Females tional 3 service* 3

Other obligations c 1

For future By p a y m e n t " payment e 1

36-45 26-35 16-25 8-15 Under 8 Unknown

3 4 6 2 2 11 12

5 2 4 4 6 16 27

6 3 4 1 3 12 13

3 5 13

—

1

3 5 4 3 8 10

Totals

40

64

42

22

4

34

—

—

1 —

1 1 —

— — — —

3 2 5

Source: Frederick P. Bowser, " T h e Free Person of Color in Mexico City and Lima: Manumission and Opportunity, 1 5 8 0 - 1 6 5 0 , " in Stanley L. Engerman and

Eugene D. Genovese, eds., Race and Slavery in the Western Hemisphere:

Quart-

tative Studies (copyright © 1975 by the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, Stanford, California), p. 350. Reprinted by permission of Princeton University Press. Freedom to the slaves without restrictions or payment of money. requirement to work for an additional but stipulated period of time before full freedom came. C A variety of conditions, such as hearing Mass at certain times or continuing to work in the master's service as a free person after liberation. ere the slave or his benefactor had to pay a certain sum of money for his freedom. e Usually payment in installments. [Notes a-e added.] a

tation of males in the sample reflected the obvious fact that men, particularly those in their prime (sixteen - thirty-five), were highly prized in a society where the supply of slaves was always insufficient to meet the demand for them. The true measure of a society's attitude toward manumission lies in the type of slaves that were freed. A society that freed its elderly, crippled, and less valuable slaves could not normally be said to manifest an overly positive attitude on that question. In such cases it was in the master's interest to liberate those slaves or to encourage their purchase for that end. The distinctiveness of colonial Mexico, and perhaps that of other

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Spanish colonies, rests not on the ease and frequency of manumission but rather on the absence of an environment which frowned upon freedom for black slaves. The Spaniards in Mexico never quite rejected the idea that slavery was contrary to natural law and reason and never quite embraced the view that Africans were created to be slaves in perpetuity. Thus, the laws and conscience dictated that Africans, like everyone else, should have the opportunity to exist as free men; but economics dictated that the least valued individuals were the most likely to attain that state. Colonial society struck an uneasy compromise between its ideals and reality; it placed no legal obstacles in the path of freedom, but it showed a decided reluctance to free those individuals whose liberation would seriously endanger the survival and profitability of the institution of slavery. There is little data on the size of the freedman population in early Mexico. All the available information points to the conclusion, however, that their numbers, particularly the mulatto component of that group, continually increased throughout the period. It is known, in addition, that most freedmen resided in the urban areas, with Mexico City, Puebla, and Vera Cruz having the largest concentration. Other freedmen were scattered throughout the rural areas and the principal mining communities. The cities afforded the Afro-Mexicans greater opportunities for employment and formed, in general, a more congenial environment. One viceroy estimated the total freedman population at 8,000 in 1592, a figure which indicates that they formed a significant proportion of the overall Afro-Mexican population. 37 Indeed, the slave population was probably no more than two or three times that figure in that year. By 1650 freedmen may well have numbered between 15,000 and 20,000 as a result of natural increase and the continued tendency of some masters to free their mulatto children and their mistresses. It must not be forgotten, also, that the slave trade expanded after 160Ö. Since there were more slaves in the colony, it stands to reason that the freedman population would have undergone a corresponding increase, given the continuation of an atmosphere that was not opposed to manumission. Table 16 provides an instructive sample of the composition of the freedman population in Mexico City during the years 1576-1577. This sample of 435 men and women supports the conclusion noted earlier that the freedman population was overwhelmingly mulatto and female. Of the total number of freedmen, 70 percent consisted of females and only 30 percent were males. Further, 86 percent were mulattoes,

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while only 14 percent were of "pure" African ancestry. If nothing else, these statistics indicate that masters freed or permitted to be freed their mulatto mistresses and children. The widespread tendency to free people of mixed ancestry stemmed also from the fact that a race-conscious, white-dominated society considered the mulatto to be genetically superior to his brother of pure African descent. Consequently, Spaniards looked more favorably upon the attainment of freedom by the mulatto. Black females and black males found that their skin color was a badge of inferiority in the society, and hence the achievement of freedom was infinitely more difficult for them. The reality of their blackness therefore served to reinforce their slave status. Thus, in the sample, black females comprised 13 percent of the females and black males formed 15 percent of the males. Although the Spaniards placed no legal barriers in the path of freedom for the slave, the society was reluctant to embrace such individuals and to confer on them the rights of full citizenship. No welcome home party followed the award of a carta de libertad. Not only did the society fail to create a secure place for the freedmen but they faced a body of restrictive legislation which limited their upward mobility, doomed them to an inferior status, and permitted them only a limited participation in the Spanish-dominated society on that society's own terms. Spaniards shared the view that as people, both freedmen and slaves were objects to be feared; hence their lives and activities had to be carefully circumscribed. There was no distinction made between freedmen and slaves in many of the restrictive measures that were promulgated, an indication that the authorities viewed both groups as equally and potentially volatile. Thus

Table 16.

Composition of Free Afro-Mexican Population, 1576-1577. Ethnic Composition

Sex Male Female Total Source:

Number 128 307 435

Black 19 40 59

Mulatto

Percentage Black

109 267 376

Archivo General de Indias, Contaduria, 677.

15 13 14

Mulatto 85 87 86

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there were measures forbidding all Afro-Mexicans, slave or free, to bear arms or to be on the streets after dark. Additional measures passed in 1612 made it illegal for Afro-Mexicans to attend funerals in numbers exceeding eight, four men and four women. Still other measures required freedmen to live with and put themselves under the supervision of Spaniards. Spanish society thought and expected the worst of these freedmen, and these expectations were reflected in both law and custom. In 1656 Bartolome de Gongora expressed very well the contemporary Spanish attitude toward the freedman in the following anecdote: One day, Don Juan Pareja, well known in Mexico for his great qualities, canon of the Holy Church there, and famous for his sayings and actions, was going through the streets of the city. Then he met an old, well-dressed and white-haired Mulatto. Having brought the coach to a halt, he asked the Pardo [mulatto] to approach and asked him: "What is your name?" The Pardo told him, whereupon the canon exclaimed: "In all my readings I have never come across a Mulatto saint and Mulattoes cannot become Saints. God bless you, I am going to canonize you because a Mulatto who seems to be honorable and who has grown as much white hair without being hanged or stabbed to death must be a Saint!" 38 If free Afro-Mexicans did not enjoy the same rights and privileges of the Spaniards, what kinds of job opportunities were open to them? To answer this question, it is necessary to point out that the Spanish authorities provided no educational opportunities for them. Thus the evil of race prejudice, coupled with their illiteracy, combined to create severe problems for them insofar as access to jobs was concerned. Nevertheless, some freedmen were able to find employment in a few of the craft guilds in Mexico, but other guilds expressly forbade membership to people of African descent. The guilds of the silkworkers, gilders, painters, and schoolteachers all excluded Afro-Mexicans and mestizos. A few guilds admitted freedmen as apprentices and even allowed them to advance to the status of journeymen, but forbade their becoming masters. These guilds included the glovemakers, press operators, hatmakers, and needlemakers. Only two guilds allowed Afro-Mexicans to attain the status of master: the candlemakers and the leatherdressers. 39 It must be stressed, however, that it is impossible to determine the extent to which freedmen became members of those guilds which did not preclude their member-

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ship. Some of them undoubtedly lacked the requisite skills to take advantage of these opportunities. Freedmen who found gainful employment, particularly in the cities, were invariably domestic workers, common laborers, porters, shoemakers, and clogmakers. A significant number of free people were also self-employed as itinerant traders and vendors. In general, freedmen, especially the unskilled, earned very meager wages. Most domestic workers in Mexico City earned less than three pesos per month, although a few fortunate ones were paid as much as five pesos. In comparison to Lima, Peru, Mexican freedmen were considerably less well off. Unskilled freed people in Lima could earn between eight and twelve pesos per month and, if they were wet nurses, as much as thirteen to fifteen pesos.40 There is no evidence to indicate that their Mexican counterparts earned such high wages during the same period. Available data indicate that a number of freedmen found employment on the cattle ranches, where they performed a variety of tasks, ranging from common labor to supervisory positions. The number of freedmen employed on ranches varied with the size of the ranch and the financial status of the owner. One wealthy Spaniard in Vera Cruz in the 1570s, for example, employed 200 freedmen on his twenty cattle ranches.41 Ranchers viewed their free Afro-Mexican employees with a kind of ambivalence, for although they performed useful services they apparently created some problems as well. One Spaniard expressed the prevailing attitude when he observed that "it was bad to have them, but much worse not to have them." It was alleged that some freedmen had a tendency to steal the cattle and horses of the Spaniards. As one irate Spaniard complained, freedmen "know the haunts of such animals and are cunning at stealing horses, [and] they kill livestock and commit other crimes, thefts and damages." And to cite a second example, in 1629 one Spanish citizen reported that "some strange negroes, mulattoes and mestizos stake out ranches in wooded lands of the hot country and plant maize on them, which serve mainly as meeting places for wicked people and wild negroes who injure and starve cattle."42 A certain mystique developed around the personality of the freedman in the rural areas. Although Spaniards complained about the problems they created, they seemed to have commanded a kind of guarded respect and admiration from the ranchers. "They strike terror in the heart of the population," observed one Spaniard, "calling themselves vaqueros'; they ride about armed with desjarretaderas or scythes; they collect in

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bands and no one dares withstand them." One magistrate in Nueva Galicia noted in 1607 that freedmen and mestizos were called "saddle tree lads [de fuste] because their sole possessions are a wretched old saddle, a lightly stepping mare (stolen) and their harbequs or short lance." 43 Freedmen in Mexico were essentially marginal men who existed in a hostile environment. The pressures of an unfriendly society, pressures seemingly most keenly felt by the males, produced a certain restlessness in them, a compulsive urge to be on the move, to escape from the reality of a meager existence and to discover whether life was more congenial or opportunities for advancement were greater in the next village or town. Forming a community of outcasts, these freedmen manifested their alienation from society by deviant behavior. These dispossessed elements of society, often acting in association with mestizos, pillaged and looted the property of Spaniards and sometimes that of Indians. Attacking travelers, wrecking and robbing houses, they proved impossible to control. 44 As early as 1555, Viceroy Luis de Velasco ordered the arrest of those free blacks, mulattoes and mestizos "who were causing so much trouble" for the Indians. 45 In 1578 and again in 1580, the crown ordered that free persons and mestizos be forbidden to reside in Indian pueblos because of their mistreatment of the Indians, and also because "they teach them bad customs and vices."46 In 1587 Viceroy the Marques de Villamanrique denounced the freedmen and the mestizos for their "many offenses against God our Lord and the citizens of the Republics where they live."47 Three years later, in 1590, the exasperated viceroy observed that "in this land there is a large number of free negroes and mulattoes who are so dangerous and pernicious, as is known, because they do nothing but gamble, loiter and steal."48 Observations such as these failed to underscore the obvious point that the freedmen's deviant behavior stemmed in part from society's failure to confer on them the dignity and rights of full citizenship. Excluded from many occupations, denied access to education and to full participation in the society, many free persons became part of a rootless and troublesome urban proletariat. Deviant behavior by the freedmen convinced the Spanish authorities that such people were inherently incorrigible, and, inevitably, Spaniards sought a racial explanation for their actions. AfroMexicans, it was reasoned, were members of a mala raza (bad race). Even the king failed to understand the societal roots of the freedman's behavior. In 1578, for example, he observed that blacks, mulattoes and mestizos "were universally inclined to be bad," and in 1595 he ordered

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that they "choose a form of existence [other than] living freely and licentiously." 49 In effect, the monarch ignored the restrictive legislation imposed on the freedmen and placed on their shoulders the entire burden of responsibility for their precarious and marginal status in society. A few years later, Viceroy Gaspar de Zufiiga y Acevedo complained that blacks, mulattoes, and zambos were "restless men, of bad living, thieves, gamblers, vicious and lost people." 50 Antisocial behavior by some freedmen served to reinforce Spanish fears that they posed a threat to public order. In capturing the spirit of this fear, the traveler Thomas Gage noted that in seventeenth-century Mexico City "there are so many of this kind [freedmen], both men and women, grown to a height of pride and vanity, that many times the Spaniards have feared they would rise up and mutiny against them." 51 Accordingly, the Spaniards wanted to keep them under constant surveillance, fearing that mobile freedmen could and would incite the more numerous slaves to rebel. As early as the 1570s, therefore, it was ordered that freedmen should reside with Spaniards and should not change residence without a license.52 It was hoped that such a measure would have the dual effect of compelling freedmen to work for their Spanish supervisors and would serve to keep their activities carefully monitored. The desire to coerce the freedmen into establishing permanent domiciles was coupled with the practical problem of collecting tribute from them. In 1574 the king took note of the increasing free black population and decided to impose upon them the obligation to pay tribute. In the cedula that he issued, the king observed that since freedmen were living in "peace and justice" in the Indies, they should be required to pay tribute. Married couples were to pay two pesos annually and single persons one peso. The poor, the elderly, and women without steady means of support would be excused from payment. 53 If payment of tribute were demanded of freedmen, it followed that they would be required to have known and permanent residences to facilitate collection. It was not until 1577, however, that the viceroy first ordered all freedmen to be registered for the purpose of tribute collection. 54 This ordinance proved difficult to enforce, owing to the chronic mobility of the freedmen. In 1587 the viceroy repeated the earlier ordinance and added certain penalties for ignoring it. Offenders would receive 100 lashes and would be sentenced to one year's service in an obraje. 55 Eleven years later the authorities again ordered compulsory registration for the freedmen within twenty days or face the penalty of 200

184

Slaves of the White God

lashes and the confiscation of their property. 56 In 1612 all freedmen were required to undertake gainful employment with a Spaniard. 57 The periodical repetition of these ordinances demonstrated that freedmen, with some success, evaded their observance. In spite of the restrictive legislation imposed upon the free AfroMexican, the Spaniards were amenable to granting certain privileges to those individuals whom they deemed worthy of trust. One special concession involved the right to bear arms. To obtain this concession, the applicant had to procure formal permission from the viceroy. Since fear was ever present in colonial society, the authorities had to establish the social reliability of the applicant before such a concession was granted. In order to receive a permit to carry weapons, a freedman had to be sponsored by a prominent Spaniard who would declare that the applicant deserved such a privilege. For his part, the applicant was required to demonstrate a clear and compelling necessity for the arms. Most applicants cited the need for protecting themselves and their property against robbers and thieves. An application would be strengthened if the applicant were married, an act which was taken as a mark of responsibility and stability. Similarly, an applicant's chance of getting a favorable response improved if he had rendered some service to the state, such as participating in raids against rebellious Indians. 58 The number of persons who qualified for such a license was small, but the existence of the concession demonstrated that the colonial authorities were not completely inflexible in their attitude toward some freedmen. In other areas of the freedman's life the state was also inclined to grant privileges to certain individuals. There were instances of free people who received special permission to purchase goods on credit, run a guesthouse, and bring suit in court. 59 In addition, free Afro-Mexicans could sign contracts and make a last will and testament. Spaniards in Mexico's racially conscious society were quick to think the worst of Afro-Mexicans as a group, but, ironically, male members of that society possessed an undisguised attraction to the nonwhite females. Evidence from the Caribbean islands, Brazil, and the other Spanish possessions indicate that white males everywhere found the charms of women of African descent, particularly mulattoes, quite irresistible. 60 In Mexico, as noted earlier, the composition of the free population was predominantly female, lending credence to the view that Spanish males tended to liberate their mistresses and daughters born of slave women. Despite this relatively high incidence of interracial sexual contacts, marriage between white males and black or mulatto females was a rare phe-

Toward Freedom

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nomenon. Such relationships, which were clearly sexually exploitative of the Afro-Mexican women, evoked no public censure. White public opinion tolerated and condoned these alliances. Yet white opinion was unwilling to go so far as to accept marriage between the races as a matter of course. There are few surviving descriptions of the manners and habits of the Afro-Mexican women during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The Englishman, Thomas Gage, who visited Mexico City in 1625, has left us the most vivid description of these ladies: Nay, a blackamoor or tawny young maid and slave will make hard shift, but she will be in fashion with her neck-chain and bracelet of pearls, and her ear-bobs of some considerable jewels. The attire of this baser sort of people of blackamoors and mulattos (which are of mixed nature, of Spaniards and blackamoors) is so light, and their carriage so enticing, that many Spaniards even of the better sort (which are too prone to venery) disdain their wives for them. Their clothing is a petticoat of silk or cloth, with many silver or golden laces, with a very broad double ribbon of some light color with long silver or golden tags hanging down before, the whole length of their petticoat to the ground, and the like behind. Their waistcoats are made like bodices, with skirts, laced likewise with gold or silver, without sleeves, and a girdle about their body of great price stuck with pearls and knots of gold (if they be any ways well esteemed of). Their sleeves are broad and open at the end, of holland or fine China linen, wrought some with colored silks, some with silk and gold, some with silk and silver, hanging down almost unto the ground. The locks of their heads are covered with some wrought coif, and over it another of network of silk bound with a fair silk, or silver, or golden ribbon which crosseth the upper part of their forehead, and hath commonly worked out in letters some light and foolish love posy. Their bare, black, and tawny breasts are covered with bobs hanging from their chains of pearls. When they go abroad, they use a white mantle or cambric rounded with a broad lace, which some put over their heads, the breadth reaching only to their middle behind, that their girdle and ribbons may be seen, and the two ends before reaching to the ground almost. Others cast their mantles only upon their shoulders, and swaggers-like, cast the one end over the left shoulder that they may the better jog the right arm, and shew their broad sleeve as they walk along. Others instead of this mantle use some rich silk petticoat to hang upon their left shoulder, while with their right arm they sup-

186

Slaves of the White God

port the lower part of it, more like roaring boys than honest civil maids. Their shoes are high and of many soles, the outside whereof of the profaner sort are plated with a list of silver, which is fastened with small nails of broad silver heads. Most of these are or have been slaves, though love have set them loose, at liberty to enslave souls to sin and Satan. 61 As has been shown, freedmen almost always appear in the colonial records as objects of restrictive legislation, as individuals to be feared, or simply as troublemakers. But underlying this unfavorable stereotype, free Afro-Mexicans, together with the slaves, formed a community cemented by common blood ties and a common past. In general they lived with or married other freedmen or slaves. Freedmen and slaves traded with each other, associated with each other on social occasions, and shared common folk beliefs and customs. Both groups resisted their oppression in colonial society and participated in the abortive conspiracies in 1608 and 1612. The pervasive unfriendliness of the whitedominated society toward people of African descent helped further to solidify the Afro-Mexican community. For both the freedman and the slave realized that their destinies were inextricably intertwined. It was quite clear to them that white society did not measurably change its attitude toward and its perception of the Afro-Mexican when he achieved his freedom. On the other hand, however, Spanish racism created a situation where certain free people, particularly mulattoes, sought to ensure their upward social mobility and white societal acceptance by identifying more with their Spanish ancestry and rejecting that part of their being which was African. 62 The most pernicious aspect of racism in Mexico and the New World in general was that its purveyors tried to destroy the sense of self of the peoples of African descent. Whether slave or free, the Afro-Mexican endured a precarious existence in colonial society. The black slave, without a doubt, belonged to the most oppressed sector of the population. His freedman brother, though legally free, occupied in reality an intermediate status between slavery and freedom. The Spaniards placed great and insurmountable obstacles to block the path to his full integration in society. In time, the free Afro-Mexican recognized that the achievement of freedom did not automatically include the promise of a better life. His person was no longer owned, but Spanish society would develop other ways for his continued subordination and exploitation.

Conclusion The history of the slaves in early colonial Mexico is a history of the formative years of the black experience in this hemisphere. Yet in comparison to many other areas of the New World, the Mexican slave population, even at its peak, was quite small. In 1817 the Jamaican slave population numbered 345,000; in 1853 there were 375,000 slaves in Cuba; in 1860 slaves in the American South totaled 3,953,760; and the Brazilian slave population stood at 1,510,806 in 1872. On the other hand, during the eighty years covered by this study, 1570-1650, the Mexican slave population fell far short of 100,000. The most realistic estimate of the slave population during that period is an annual average resting somewhere between 20,000 and 45,000 slaves. Despite the small number of slaves, however, the black experience in Mexico takes on added significance when viewed within the context of the genesis and evolution of the slave societies in the Americas. Africans accompanied the Spaniards during the conquest, pacification, and settlement of New Spain. Although their number was negligible in the first postconquest years, colonial society increasingly came to depend on slave labor for its survival as the years wore on. As the Indian population succumbed to diseases and declined, the number of African slaves steadily increased throughout the sixteenth century, reaching its peak during the first four decades of the seventeenth century. Thereafter, the slave population underwent a marked decline. The energies of the blacks had largely sustained the colony when the indigenous population fell on hard times, but once the Indian population began to recover and a mestizo group of some significance emerged, the services of the Africans became expendable. Labor needs would now be met primarily by the

188

Slaves of the White God

Indians and the mestizos, and expensive Africans would no longer be imported in large numbers. Neither Brazil nor Cuba, to name two slave societies that reached their peak during the nineteenth century, possessed an indigenous population comparable in size to that of New Spain. Consequently, there was a longer period of dependence on slave labor in these societies than was ever the case in New Spain. In strong contrast to a number of other New World societies then, Mexico's dependence on slave labor was of shorter duration. The crucial role played by black slaves during its period of greatest labor shortage accounted in large measure for the rigorous nature of their physical treatment. The most burdensome toil had been placed on their shoulders because they had been imported for the specific purpose of contributing their sweat to the making of New Spain. It was this fact—their indispensability—which explains, at least in part, the apparent contradiction between the scarcity of slaves and the brutality of their treatment, particularly in the industrial enterprises. Slaves were scarce but indispensable, and these two variables served to reinforce each other, ultimately to the Africans' detriment. The fewer the slaves, the greater the physical demands imposed on them by the masters. This unhappy combination of circumstances was reflected in the long working hours and the high mortality rate of the slave population. It would be a mistake to view the experiences of these slaves as completely unique in New Spain. Although legally Indians were no longer slaves after 1542, many of them fared little better at the hands of the colonists. Spanish residents of the colony were shaped in their attitudes and outlook by the prevailing ethos of the age, an age that condoned the exploitation of all workers, slave or free. The Indian, unlike the African, however, had several defenders in colonial society—individuals who denounced their mistreatment and attempted to protect them from the harsh rule of the colonists. In addition, a benevolent crown enacted various measures designed to reduce some of the burdens imposed on the native peoples. In practice the crown did not achieve much in shielding the Indians from colonial exploitation. The monarchs could rage, admonish the colonists to good behavior and to an enforcement of the laws, but this had little impact on the man on the spot, who felt that obedience to these laws would run counter to his interests. A distant crown often could do little to impose its will in New Spain. Similarly, the protective measures of the Siete Partidas counted little when they conflicted with the interests of the colonists. There was no

Conclusion

189

pattern of regular and systematic enforcement of these laws for the protection of slaves, and there was apparently widespead ignorance of their existence. Most masters were left to exercise their private power of discipline, whether excessively or not, with impunity. Local measures for the social control of the slaves abounded, measures attesting to the extent to which the master class feared the slaves and endeavored to regulate and control their behavior. Some slaves manifested their opposition to their status and condition by fomenting rebellion or by running away. Others adopted more passive means to dramatize their rejection of their lot. Escape was the single most effective avenue of protest in early Mexico, and the rugged Mexican terrain enabled many of these cimarrones to preserve their freedom. Slave rebellions proved abortive and were quickly repressed by the colonial authorities. An intense period of vigilant enforcement of the laws normally followed each of these threats on colonial peace made by the slaves. Indians and blacks were never able to unite in a major challenge to Spanish domination. There was, it appears, no common consciousness among these groups that they were equally the victims of exploitation by a minority. On the contrary, the relationship between the Indians and the blacks was quite often characterized by violent hostility as many blacks unleashed their alienation from society in general by making assaults on the Indians. The Spanish policy of dividing and ruling the two subordinate races was quite successful to the extent that colonial leaders occasionally used the services of Indians in quelling black uprisings. In spite of the high degree of social control imposed upon them, many slaves succeeded in preserving a sense of self and in creating a human environment for their emotional sustenance and psychic comfort. When circumstances permitted, slaves, like other folk, contracted marriages, celebrated various social occasions with each other, and formed mutual aid organizations. In order to affirm their survival as spiritually autonomous beings, slaves resorted to their own folk practices, sometimes at great risk to themselves. By so doing, Afro-Mexicans demonstrated that they were able to preserve a sense of their own history and culture. Their added success in preserving their individual dignity attests to a remarkable human resiliency under oppression. White society used derogatory racial epithets to characterize their slaves, but there is no evidence that Africans internalized these stereotypes of themselves. Slaves, at least in the main, were not psychically truncated by white oppression, and it was

190

Slaves of the White God

the alternate life they created for themselves which allowed them to survive a continuous onslaught on their personalities and their personal dignity. The freedman population fared little better than its slave counterpart. Colonial society did not bar the slave's access to freedom, but neither did the society openly embrace the free Afro-Mexican. His job opportunities were limited and numerous laws defined him as an inferior member of free society. The burden of his oppression may have eased somewhat by the late eighteenth century, but during the early years of the colony he existed as a marginal man in a hostile and repressive environment. Africans were present at the birth of colonial New Spain, not as proud and happy parents but as reluctant and exploited midwives.

APPENDIX GLOSSARY BIBLIOGRAPHY NOTES INDEX

APPENDIX

Currency Except where otherwise noted, the monetary unit "peso" when used in the text should be presumed to mean "peso de oro comun" as opposed to "peso de oro de minas." The following table should help to clarify the relative value of each unit of Spanish currency in the early colonial period. maravedi real ducado (ducat) peso de oro comun peso de oro de minas

= = = =

smallest unit of account 34 maravedis 374 maravedis; 400 after 1566 300 maravedis 450 maravedis; the equivalent of 1.2 ducats.

Archival Abbreviations AGI AGN AN exp. leg.

= = = = =

Archivo General de Indias, Seville Archivo General de la Nacion, Mexico City Archivo de Notarias, Mexico City expediente (file, case) legajo (a bundle of documents)

GLOSSARY

adelantado = leader of a military or exploring expedition; governor of a frontier province alcalde = judge and member of a cabildo (town council) alcalde del crimen = junior judge of the Audiencia alcalde mayor = a district magistrate alguacil = constable asiento = license to supply slaves asentista = recipient of a license to supply slaves Audiencia = highest court of justice in the colonies botija = clay jar bozal = newly imported African cabildo = town council castas = people of mixed ancestry cedula = royal decree cimarron = a runaway slave cofradia = sodality; religious brotherhood contador = a royal accountant corregidor = a royal officer in charge of a district criollo = a white or a slave born in New Spain encomienda = a system of entrusting an Indian to a Spaniard encomendero = recipient of an encomienda estancia = grant of land for raising cattle or sheep and goats fiscal = crown attorney frijol = bean hacienda = a large estate ingenio = sugar mill ladino = acculturated African legajo = a bundle of documents

Glossary

195

mestizo = person of white-Indian ancestry mulatto = person of white-black ancestry obraje = textile workshop ordenanzas = ordinances oidor = a judge of the Audiencia pardo = a mulatto partido = parochial jurisdiction proceso = trial pueblo = a town pulque = alcoholic drink made from the juice of the maguey plant quintal = the equivalent of 100 pounds real de minas = mining community repartimiento = allotment of Indian labor Sala del crimen = lower court of the Audiencia empowered to hear criminal cases tenatero = mine laborer vara = a Castillian yard, the equivalent of 33 inches vecino = citizen, inhabitant of a pueblo, a city, etc. veedor = royal inspector or overseer visita = tour of inspection by a government official zambo = person of Indian and African ancestry

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Manuscript Sources A considerable proportion of the research for this study was conducted in the archives of Mexico and Spain. In Mexico, the principal archives I consulted were the Archivo General de la Nacion, the Archivo de Notarias, and the Centro de Documentacion del Museo Nacional, all located in the capital city. Several sections (or ramos) of the Archivo General proved indispensable for documentation on the operation of the slave system in the colony and on the folk and religious beliefs and practices of the slaves. I found the following ramos the most useful: Inquisition: The Inquisition records provide the most important sources for ethnographic studies of the colonial population. This ramo contained the bulk of the information on the folk beliefs and customs of the slaves. Included therein are detailed descriptions of slave practices, variously defined as sorcery and witchcraft. The ramo also contains data on the incidence of blasphemy among the slave population and the disposition of such cases. Also found here are the principal cases relating to charges of mistreatment leveled against masters, as well as various other suits concerning manumission and separation of the family. General de Parte and Ordenanzas: These two ramos were of crucial importance for information on the various measures promulgated for the social control of the Afro-Mexican population, both slave and free. Included here are the orders emanating from the viceroy and the Audiencia. Hospital de Jesus: This ramo contains the records of the several estates owned by the Marques del Valle. Here the researcher finds information on the economic importance of the slaves, data relating to age, mortality rates, diet, and so on, of slaves belonging to that famous colonial family.

198

Bibliography

Historia: For this study, Historia was valuable as a source for the African origins of the slaves and for the domestic slave trade. Bienes Nationales: Among the information derived from this ramo were the wills of masters indicating the wide distribution of the slave population and the manumission suits brought by slaves. Civil: Contained in this ramo are records of litigation involving masters and slaves heard by the civil courts. Archivo de Notarias: Although this archive is quite disorganized and the documents are uncatalogued, it yielded essential information on manumission patterns and the sale prices of the slaves. Centro de Documentation del Museo National: This archive was of only peripheral importance for this study. There were only occasional documents dealing with the early colonial period. The bulk of the collection, which is drawn from various provincial archives, deals with the eighteenth century and later. An examination of several sections in the Archivo de Indias in Seville, as was to be expected, proved quite rewarding for this study. Contratacion provided a substantial proportion of the data on the organization and scope of the slave trade, the asentistas, and the African origins of the slave population. El Audiencia de Μέχ^ο was also quite valuable for data on slave resistance and on the role of the slaves in colonial economy, principally in the mines. The reports from the viceroys and other colonial bureaucrats helped provide an understanding of the increasing dependence on the black population as the Indians declined in numbers. Contaduria contained statistical information on the free black population and Indiferente General produced data of a general nature relating to the slave trade and to slave life in the colony.

Works Cited and Selected Books and Articles Adas de Cabildo de la ciudad de Mexico, ed. Ignacio Bejarano, 54 vols. Mexico, 1889-1919. Acosta Saignes, Miguel. Vida de los esclavos negros en Venezuela. Caracas: Hesperides, 1967. Aguirre Beiträn, Gonzalo. Cuijla: Esbozo etnogräfico de un pueblo negro. Mexico: Fondo de Cultura Economica, 1958. "La etnohistoria y el estudio de negro en Mexico," in Acculturation in the Americas, ed. Sol Tax. Chicago, 1952.

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Medicina y magia: el proceso de aculturacion en la estructura colonial. Mexico: Instituto Nacional Indigenista, 1963. La poblacion negra de Mexico, 1519-1810, 2nd ed. Mexico: Fondo de Cultura Economica, 1972. "Races in 17th Century Mexico," Phylon, 6:3 (1945), 212-218. "The Slave Trade in Mexico," Hispanic American Historical Review, 24 (August 1944), 412-431. "El trabajo del Indio comparado con el del negro en Nueva Espafia," Mexico Agrario, 4 (Mexico, D.F., 1942), 203-207. "The Tribal Origins of Slaves in Mexico," Journal of Negro History, 31 (July 1956), 269-351. Aimes, Hubert H.S. "Coartacion: A Spanish Institution for the Advancement of Slaves into Freedom," Yale Review, 17 (February 1909), 412-431. Aiton, Arthur Scott. Antonio de Mendoza, First Viceroy of New Spain. Durham, N.C: Duke Univ. Press, 1927. Albornoz, Bartolome de. "De la esclavitud," in Biblioteca de autores espafioles, desde la formacion del lenguaje hasta nuestros dias, vol. 65. Madrid, 1873. Alegre, Francisco Javier. Historia de la Provincia de la Compafiia de Jesus en la Nueva Espafia, ed. Ernest J. Burrus and Felix Zubillaga, ä vols. Rome: Institutum Historicum S.J., 1956-1960. Altamira, Rafael. A History of Spain, trans. Muna Lee. New York: Van Nostrand Co., 1949. Arregui, Domingo Läzaro de. Descripcion de la Nueva Galicia, ed. Frangois Chevalier. Seville, 1946. Ashburn, P.M., ed. The Ranks of Death: A Medical History of the Conquest of America. New York: Coward-McCann, 1947. Atkinson, William C. A History of Spain and Portugal. Baltimore: Penguin Books, 1960. Bagü, Sergio. Economia de la sociedad colonial: Ensayo de historia comparada de America Latina. Buenos Aires: El Ateneo, 1949. Bakewell, P.J. Silver Mining and Society in Colonial Mexico: Zacatecas, 15461700. London: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1971. Bargallo Modesto. La mineria y la metalurgia en la Amirica espanola durante la epoca colonial. Mexico: Fondo de Cultura Economica, 1955. Barrett, Ward. The Sugar Hacienda of the Marqueses del Valle. Minneapolis: Univ. of Minnesota Press, 1970. Barrio Lorenzot, Juan Francisco del. El trabajo en Mexico durante la epoca colonial: Ordenanzas de gremios de la Nueva Espafia. Mexico: Secretaria de Gobernacion, 1920. Belena, Eusebio Bentura. Recopilacion sumaria de todos los autos acordados de la real audiencia y sala del crimen de esta Nueva Espana y providencias de su superior gobiemo, 2 vols. Mexico, 1787. Berthe, Jean-Pierre. "Xochimancas: les travaux et les jours dans une hacienda sucriere de Nouvelle-Espagne au XVIIe siecle," in Jahrbuch für Geschichte von Staat, Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft Lateinamerikas, III (Cologne, 1966), 88117. Borah, Woodrow. Early Colonial Trade and Navigation Between Mexico and

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NOTES

Introduction 1. Philip Curtin, The Atlantic Slave Trade: A Census (Madison, 1969), p. 46. 2. Woodrow Borah and Sherburne Cook, The Aboriginal Population of Central Mexico on the Eve of the Spanish Conquest, Ibero-Americana, No. 45 (Berkeley & Los Angeles, 1963), p. 4. See also their Essays in Population History (Berkeley & Los Angeles, 1971), p. 115. I . The Slave Trade 1. Ruth Pike, Aristocrats and Traders: Sevillian Society in the Sixteenth Century (Ithaca, 1972), p. 172. 2. See Antonio Dominguez Ortiz, "La esclavitud en Castilla durante la edad moderna," in Estudios de historia social de EspaHa, 2 vols. (Madrid, 1949-1952), II, 377-428. 3. Pike, Aristocrats and Traders, pp. 177-179. 4. There is an increasing body of literature suggesting that there were preColumbian contacts between Africa and the Americas. See Leo Wiener, Africa and the Discovery of America, 3 vols. (Philadelphia, 1920-1922); Ronald W. Davis, "Negro Contributions to the Explorations of the Globe," in Joseph S. Roucek and Thomas Kiernan, eds., The Negro Impact on Western Civilization (New York, 1970), pp. 33-49; and John G. Jackson, Introduction to African Civilizations (New York, 1970). 5. Antonio Herrera y Tordesillas, Historia general de los hechos de los castellanos en las islas y tierra firme del Mar Oceano (Madrid, 1726-1740), dec. 1, bk. 4, chap. 12. 6. One of the best accounts of the early slave trade to the Indies is found in Fernando Ortiz, "La leyenda negra contra Fray Bartolome," Cuadernos Americanos, Ano XI (September-December 1952), pp. 146-183. 7. Jose Antonio Saco, Historia de la esclavitud de la raza africana en el Nuevo Mundo, 4 vols. (Havana, 1938), I, 105. 8. For a discussion of these matters, see Ortiz, "La leyenda negra," pp. 154169. 9. Ibid., p. 167.

212

Notes to Pages

9-20

10. Ibid., p. 168. 11. Saco, Historia, I, 234. 12. Gonzalo Aguirre Beiträn, La poblaciön negra de Mexico, 2nd ed. (Mexico, 1972), pp. 20-21. 13. Archivo General de Indias, Contaduria, 257; hereafter AGI, Contaduria. 14. Ibid., 5757. 15. Archivo General de Indias, Indiferente General, 2766; hereafter AGI, Indiferente General. 16. AGI, Contaduria, 257, 5757. 17. Aguirre Beiträn, La poblaciön negra, p. 22. 18. Archivo General de la Nacion, Ramo de Hospital de Jesüs, leg. 270, exp. 4; hereafter AGN, Hospital de Jesus. 19. Aguirre Beiträn, La poblaciön negra, p. 25. 20. For a more extended discussion of the trade during this period, see Frederick P. Bowser, The African Slave in Colonial Peru, 1524-1650 (Stanford, 1974), pp. 28-31. 21. AGI, Indiferente General, 2795. See also Aguirre Beiträn, La poblaciön negra, pp. 37-42. 22. Ibid. 23. Archivo General de Indias, Contratacion, 5766; hereafter AGI, Contratacion. 24. AGI, Indiferente General, 2795. 25. AGI, Contratacion, 5766. 26. Ibid., 5758, 5766. 27. Ibid. 28. I base this estimate on the premise that he delivered the minimum number of slaves that the contract stipulated for each year. 29. See Curtin, Atlantic Slave Trade, p. 105. 30. AGI, Contratacion, secciön segunda, 2894. 31. Ibid., 5758, 5766. 32. Ibid. 33. Ibid. A quintal was the equivalent of 100 pounds. The vinegar was used for cooking purposes as well as for washing the decks. Some of the wine was used for medicinal purposes. 34. Aguirre Beiträn, La poblaciön negra, p. 27. 35. Recopilaciön de leyes de los reynos de Indias, 4 vols. (Madrid, 1943), bk. 9, title 9, law 8; bk. 9, title 13, law 1; bk. 9, title 42, law 8. 36. This is a combined sample reflecting the researches of Peter Boyd-Bowman and Aguirre Beiträn. Aguirre Belträn's sample consists of 83 African-born slaves which he examined for the year 1549. Boyd-Bowman's sample is somewhat larger, consisting of 113 slaves covering the period 1545-1556 for the city of Puebla. I have deleted 4 slaves from Boyd-Bowman's original sample because of difficulties in identifying their ethnic origin. For contemporary nomenclature of ethnic groups and their location, I have relied on Curtin. See Aguirre Beiträn, La poblaciön negra, p. 240; Curtin, Atlantic Slave Trade, pp. 98-99; and Peter

No tes to Pages 20-31

213

Boyd-Bowman, "Negro Slaves in Early Colonial Mexico," The Americas, 26 (October 1969), 134-151. 37. Bowser, African Slave, p. 37. 38. Huguette and Pierre Chaunu, Seville et l'Atlantique (1504-1650), 8 vols. (Paris, 1955-1960), VI, 398-403. 39. Aguirre Beltran, La poblacion negra, p. 241. See also Curtin, Atlantic Slave Trade, pp. 112-113. 40. Recopilacion, bk. 9, title 26, law 17. 41. Ibid., bk. 8, title 18, law 2. See also ibid., law 11. 42. AGI, Indiferente General, 2795. 43. Archivo General de Indias, Mexico, 351; Hereafter AGI, Mexico. 44. AGI, Indiferente General, 2796 ; 2795. 45. AGI, Contratacion, 5735. 46. Manuel B. Trens, Historia de Vera Cruz, 2 vols. (Jalapa, 1947), I, 172173. 47. AGI, Contratacion, 5735. 48. Recopilacion, bk. 8, title 18, law 1. 49. AGI, Mexico, 22, ramo 3. 50. AGI, Indiferente General, 2795. 51. See Aguirre Beltran, La poblacion negra, p. 30. 52. AGI, Indiferente General, 2795. 53. AGI, Contratacion, 5754. 54. See Chaunu, Seville, VI, 402-403; and Curtin, Atlantic Slave Trade, pp. 24-25. 55. See Cartas de Indias (Madrid, 1877), p. 263; and "Censos de la poblacion del Virreinato de Nueva Espana en el siglo XVI," Boletin del Centro de Estudios Americanistas de Sevilla de Indias, Ano VI, nos. 23 and 24 (February-March 1919), 49-62. 56. Aguirre Beltran, La poblacion negra, pp. 206-207. 57. See AGI, Contaduria, 257, and AGI, Contratacion, 5757. 58. Aguirre Beltran, La poblacion negra, p. 206. 59. AGI, Indiferente General, 2766. 60. Using the Chaunu data, Curtin estimated that the annual average to the Indies between 1551 and 1594 amounted to 810 slaves. See Atlantic Slave Trade, pp. 24-25. 61. See David M. Davidson, "Negroes in Colonial Mexico, 1519-1650," unpub. Master's thesis, University of Wisconsin, 1965, p. 17. 62. Text of letter is in AGI, Indiferente General, 2796. 63. AGI, Mexico, 36, ramo 4. The Audiencia of Charcas reported an annual demand of 1,000 slaves. Lima requested 1,500. See AGI, Indiferente General, 2796. Silva Solis' estimates were therefore basically accurate in the case of Lima and Mexico. 64. AGI, Indiferente General, 2795. 65. Mariano Cuevas, Documentos ineditos del siglo XVI para la historia de Mexico (Mexico, 1914), p. 115.

214

Notes to Pages 31-38

66. Robert L. Brady, "The Domestic Slave Trade in Sixteenth Century Mexico," The Americas, 24 (January 1968), 283. 67. Translated and reproduced by Peter Boyd-Bowman, "Negro Slaves," p. 134. 68. See A. Miliares Carlo and J. I. Mantecon, eds., lndice y extractos de los protocolos del Archivo de Notarias de Mexico, 2 vols. (Mexico, 1945-1946), I, 62, 299; II, 54. Also see Archivo General de la Nacion, ramo de Historia, vol. 407, fols. 147, 225, 350; hereafter AGN, Historia. 69. Descriptions in Boyd-Bowman, "Negro Slaves," p. 138. 70. Miliares Carlo and Mantecon, lndice y extractos, II, 101. 71. AGN, Historia, vol. 406, fol. 255; vol. 407, fol. 382. Also see Archivo de Notarias, Notary Diego de los Rios, Ano 1647, fol. 112; hereafter AN. 72. Boyd-Bowman, "Negro Slaves," p. 138. 73. The documentation on separation is extensive. See AGN, Hospital de Jesus, leg. 273, fols. 12, 17, 38. Also AN, Notary Diego de los Rios, Anos 16451646, fols. 105, 119. 74. For examples for the earlier period, see Miliares Carlo and Mantecon, lndice y extractos, I, 62, 153, 214; II, 56, 88, 110, 113, 218. Consult also, BoydBowman, "Negro Slaves," pp. 137-138. 75. See, for example, Silvio Zavala, Los esclavos indios de Nueva Espana (Mexico, 1967), p. 237; and Brady, "Domestic Slave Trade," pp. 287-288. Additional information is in AGN, Historia, vol. 407, fols. 294, 366; and AN, Notary Diego de los Rios, Afio 1646, fol. 53, and Ano 1650, fol. 12. 76. For relevant documentation, see Miliares Carlo and Mantecön, lndice y extractos, I, 45, 62, 116, 135, 193, 206; II, 111, 126, 168. 77. Ibid., I, 129; II, 94. 78. See AN, Notary Diego de los Rios, Ano 1650, fols. 9, 44-49. 79. Ibid., Afio 1645, fol. 107; and Miliares Carlo and Mantecön, lndice y extractos, II, 119. 2. The Slave in Mexican Society 1. For a discussion of social stratification among the Spaniards, see L. N. McAlister, "Social Structure and Social Change in New Spain," Hispanic American Historical Review, 43 (1963), 349-370. 2. Quoted ibid., p. 357. 3. Charles Gibson, The Aztecs under Spanish Rule: A History of the Indians of the Valley of Mexico, 1519-1810 (Stanford, 1964), p. 153. 4. The cases of two slave leaders, Yanga and Martin, support the assertion that slaves may have derived prestige from their association with a wealthy master or as a result of their prior status in Africa. Yanga came from the royal family of the tribe of Bram and probably because of this was elected king of a runaway community in Vera Cruz. Martin was elected leader of an abortive conspiracy in 1609, probably because his master was reputed to be the wealthiest man in Mexico City.

Notes to Pages 38-43

215

5. For a more detailed discussion of these categories, see Nicolas Leon, Las castas de Mexico colonial ο Nueva Espafia (Mexico, 1924), p. 9. 6. Throughout this study, the term "African" will be used to describe slaves of African descent, regardless of whether they were born on the African continent or in the New World. The term is synonymous with black and Afro-Mexican. 7. Boyd-Bowman, "Negro Slaves," p. 145. 8. It was held that blacks were the descendants of Ham, the son of Noah, whose father cursed him for looking upon "the nakedness of his father." According to Genesis 9 : 2 5 , Noah said, " . . . a servant of servants shall he be unto his brethren." See Juan de Torquemada, Monarquia indiana, 3 vols. (Mexico, 1969), II, 569. 9. For a discussion of the papal bull, see Lewis Hanke, The Spanish Struggle for Justice in the Conquest of America (Boston, 1965), pp. 72-73. 10. See Juan Friede and Benjamin Keen, eds., Bartolome de las Cosas: Toward an Understanding of the Man and His Work (De Kalb, 1971). 11. Those hospitals, according to Fintan B. Warren, were "what we might call asylums, refuges, or 'homes,' caring not only for the sick but also for orphans, widows and all types of unfortunates." See his Vasco de Quiroga and His Pueblo-Höspitals of Santa Fe (Washington, 1963), p. 7. 12. The best discussion of Gerönimo de Mendieta's writings is in John Leddy Phelan, The Millennial Kingdom of the Franciscans in the New World, 2nd ed. rev. (Berkeley & Los Angeles, 1970). 13. Hanke, Spanish Struggle for Justice, p. 121. 14. Lewis Hanke, Aristotle and the American Indians: A Study in Race Prejudice in the Modern World (Chicago, 1959), p. 47. 15. Juan Suärez de Peralta, Noticias histöricas de la Nueva Espafia (Madrid, 1878), p. 50. 16. Gonzalo Aguirre Beiträn, "Races in 17th Century Mexico," Phylon, 6 : 3 (1945), 213-215. 17. Gonzalo Gomez de Cervantes, La vida econömica y social de Nueva Espanä al finalizar el siglo XVI, ed. Alberto Maria Carreno (Mexico, 1944), p. 99. 18. AGN, Inquisicion, vol. 396, fols. 488-548. 19. AGN, Ordenanzas, vol. 2, fols. 3 6 v - 3 7 v . 20. Instrucciones que los virreyes de Nueva Espafia dejaron a sus sucesores, 2 vols. (Mexico, 1869-1873), I, 259. 21. Adas de Cabildo de la ciudad de Mexico, 54 vols. (Mexico, 1889-1919), 13, bk. 13, p. 115. 22. AGI, Mexico, 350 (no ramo no.). 23. Quoted and translated by William H. Dusenberry, "Discriminatory Aspects of Legislation in Colonial Mexico," Journal of Negro History, 33 (July 1948), 296. 24. Cartas de Indias, p. 299. 25. AGI, Mexico, 76, ramo 1. 26. Thomas Gage's Travels in the New World, edited and with an introduc-

216

Notes to Pages 43-48

tion by J. Eric S. Thompson. New edition copyright 1958 by the University of Oklahoma Press, Norman, Okla., p. 13. 27. AGI, Mexico, 74, ramo 2; Mexico, 351 (no ramo no.). 28. Francois Chevalier, Land and Society in Colonial Mexico: The Great Hacienda, trans. Alvin Eustis, ed. Lesley Byrd Simpson, 3rd ed. (Berkeley & Los Angeles, 1970), p. 293. 29. AGI, Indiferente General, 1571. 30. Chevalier, Land and Society, p. 293. 31. Quoted in William Dusenberry, The Mexican Mesta (Urbana, 1963), p. 149. 32. AGI, Mexico, 70 (no ramo no.). 33. AGI, Indiferente General, 2795. 34. AGN, Ramo de Civil, vol. 308, fols. 1-33. 35. Francisco del Barrio Lorenzot, El trabajo en Mexico durante la epoca colonial: Ordenanzas de gremios de Nueva Espana (Mexico, 1920), pp. 30, 31, 39, 46, 124. 36. Manuel Carrera Stampa, Los gremios mexicanos, 1521-1861 (Mexico, 1954), p. 242. 37. AGI, Mexico, 69, ramo 3. 38. Actos de Cabildo, 13, bk. 13, p. 115. 39. See, e.g., AGN, BienesNacionales, leg. 131, no. 18; leg. 268, exp. 2; leg. 883, exp. 2; leg. 1175, exps. 13, 15, 16. 40. Antonio Vazquez de Espinosa, Compendio y descripcidn de las Indias Occidentales, ed. Charles Clarke (Washington, 1948), p. 146. 41. John Francis Gemelli Careri, A Voyage Round the World, in A Collection of Voyages and Travels, ed. A. Churchill, 6 vols. (London, 1745), IV, 508. 42. Aguirre Beiträn, La poblacion negra, p. 220. 43. Juan Diez de la Calle, Noticias sacras y reales de los imperios de las Indias Occidentales, 2nd ed. (Mexico, 1932), p. 152. 44. See "Censos de la poblaciön," pp. 51-58; Alonso de la Mota y Escobar, Descripcion geogräfica de los reinos de Nueva Galicia, Nueva Vizcaya y Nueva Leon (Guadalajara, 1966), pp. 66: Francisco del Paso y Troncoso, ed., Papeles de Nueva Espana, segunda serie, 9 vols. (Madrid, 1905-1948), III, 100; Juan Lopez de Velasco, Geografia y descripcion universal de las Indias, recopilada por el cosmögrafocronista . . . desde el aflo de 1571 al de 1574 (Madrid, 1894), p. 267. 45. These statistics are derived from G. Micheal Riley, Fernando Cortes and the Marquesado in Morelos, 1522-1547 (Albuquerque, 1973), pp. 54, 148. 46. AGN, Hospital de Jesus, leg. 280, exp. 10. 47. These statistics are included in Peter Boyd-Bowman, "A Spanish Soldier's Estate in Northern Mexico (1642)," Hispanic American Historical Review, 53 (1973), 99-101. 48. AGN, Hospital de Jesüs, leg. 280, exp. 12. 49. Boyd-Bowman, "A Spanish Soldier's Estate," pp. 99-101; Riley, Fernando Cortes, p. 148. 50. Ward Barrett, The Sugar Hacienda of the Marqueses del Valle (Minneapolis, 1970), pp. 84, 81.

Notes to Pages 49-53

217

51. Richard Hakluyt, The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques & Discoveries of the English Nation, 16 vols. (Edinburgh, 1885-1890), XIV, 171. This observer was probably referring to the Anopheles quadrimaculatus, the carrier of the malaria parasite. Malaria was not diagnosed as such in those days and physicians often confused it with yellow fever. Slaves may have been less susceptible than Spaniards to malaria because of an inherited resistance derived from prior contact with the dreaded mosquito in West Africa. See Philip D. Curtin, "Epidemiology and the Slave Trade," Political Science Quarterly, 83:2 (June 1968), 190-216. 52. Colecciön de documentos ineditos para la historia de Espana, ed. Martin Fernandez Navarrete et al., 112 vols. (Madrid, 1842-1895), 57, 188. 53. AGI, Mexico, 35 (no ramo no.). 54. For a discussion of these problems in a comparative focus, see Eugene D. Genovese, "The Treatment of Slaves in Different Countries: Problems in the Applications of the Comparative Method," in Slavery in the New World: A Reader in Comparative History, ed. Laura Foner and Eugene D. Genovese (Englewood Cliffs, N.J., 1969), pp. 202-210. 55. The law, as quoted in Dusenberry, "Discriminatory Aspects," p. 295. 56. "I belong to dofia Francisca Carrillo de Peralta." AGN, Inquisicion, vol. 353, fols. 22-32. 57. Boyd-Bowman, "Negro Slaves," p. 139. 58. The information on the Xochimancas estate is in a document reprinted by Jean-Pierre Berthe in "Xochimancas: les travaux et les jours dans une hacienda sucriere de Nouvelle-Espagne au XVIIesiecle," in Jahrbuch für Geschichte von Staat, Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft Lateinamerikas (Cologne, 1966), III, 88-117. 59. This plantation probably had between 60 and 100 slaves at this time; Barrett, Sugar Hacienda, p. 94. 60. Ibid., pp. 96-97. 61. Berthe, "Xochimancas," p. 115. 62. Dusenberry, "Discriminatory Aspects," p. 299. 63. AGN, Ordenanzas, vol. 1, fol. 75. 64. See, e.g., ibid., vol. 2, fols. 158V, 169; and AGN, Reales Adulas duplicados, vol. 3, exp. 181. 65. Luis Querol y Roso, "Negros y mulatos de Nueva Espafta, historia de su alzamiento de 1612," Anales de la Universidad de Valencia, Ano XII, cuaderno 90 (1935), p. 146. 66. AGN, General de Parte, vol. 4, fol. 94 v . 67. AGN, Historia, vol. 2, fols. 139-142. 68. Robert L. Brady, "The Emergence of a Negro Class in Mexico, 15241640," unpub. diss., University of Iowa, 1965, p. 110. 69. Francisco Javier Alegre, Historia de la Provincia de la Companta de Jesus en la Nueva Espana, 4 vols. ed. Ernest J. Burrus and Felix Zubillaga (Rome, 19561960), II, 180-181. 70. Richard Konetzke, ed., Colecciön de documentos para la historia de la formation social de Hispanoamerica, 1493-1810, 3 vols. (Madrid, 1953-1962), I, 238.

218

Notes to Pages 53-60

71. Recopilaciön, bk. 1, title 1, law 12. 72. Konetzke, Colecciön de documentos, I, 231, 237-240. 73. Francisco Antonio Lorenzana, ed., Concilios provinciates, primero y segundo (Mexico, 1769), p. 138. 74. See the observations of David Brion Davis, The Problem of Slavery in Western Culture (Ithaca, 1966), pp. 165-186. 75. Monumenta Mexicana, ed. Felix Zubillaga, S.J., 4 vols. (Rome, 19591972), III, 79, 189; also II, 412, 415, 568, 576. 76. Mariano Cuevas, Historia de la iglesia en Mexico, 5 vols. (Mexico, 19211928), I, 43. 77. George M. Foster, "Cofradia and Compadrazgo in Spain and Spanish America," Southwestern Journal of Anthropology, 9 (Spring 1953), 11. 78. AGI, Mexico, 19, ramo 3. 79. Josefina Muriel de la Torre, Hospitales de Nueva Espana, 2 vols. (Mexico, 1956-1960), I, 253. 80. AGI, Indiferente General, 1571. 81. AGI, Mexico, 19, ramo 3. 82. AGN, Ordenanzas, vol. 1, fol. 149. 83. Recopilaciön, bk. 7, title. 5, law 12. 84. Actos de Cabildo, VI, bk. 9. p. 26. 85. AGN, Ordenanzas, vol. 3, fol. 77; vol. 4, fol. 40 v . 86. A good discussion of these restrictions is in Brady, "Emergence of a Negro Class," pp. 138-139. 87. Recopilaciön, bk. 7, title 5, law 5. 88. For a discussion of the family in colonial society, see Elda R. Gonzalez and Rolando Mellafe, "La funciön de la familia en la historia social hispanoamericana colonial," in America colonial, poblaciön y economia, Anuario de Instituto de Investigaciones Historicas (Rosario, Argentina, 1965), pp. 57-71. 89. AGN, Inquisicion, vol. 249, fols. 212-214; vol. 39, no. 4. 90. Berthe, "Xochimancas," p. 116. 91. Edgar F. Love, "Marriage Patterns of Persons of African Descent in a Colonial Mexico City Parish," Hispanic American Historical Review, 51:4 (February 1971), 79-91. 92. AGN, Hospital de Jesus, leg. 280, exp. 12. 93. Konetzke, Colecciön de documentos, I, 450. 94. See Aguirre Beiträn, La poblacion negra, p. 253. 95. Some of these cases will be discussed in Chap. 4. 96. AGN, Inquisicion, vol. 150. no. 7; vol. 633, fol. 308. 97. AGN, Bienes Nacionales, leg. 1212, exp. 36. 98. AGN, Inquisicion, vol. 116, no. 6; vol. 176, no. 12; vol. 175, no. 6. 99. Ibid., vol. 399. no. 2; vol. 328, fol. 370; vol. 419, fols. 611-614. 100. Ibid., vol. 291, no. 9; vol. 399, no. 2. 101. Berthe, "Xochimancas," p. 116. 102. Good general discussions of Afro-Indian relations are in Brady, "Emergence of a Negro Class," pp. 131-138; and Edgar F. Love, "Legal Restrictions on

Notes to Pages 60-67

219

Afro-Indian Relations in Colonial Mexico," Journal of Negro History, 55:2 (April 1970), 131-139. 103. Act as de Cabildo, 2, bk. 5, p. 175. 104. Recopilacion, bk. 6, title 3, law 21. 105. Ibid., bk. 1, title 3, laws 21-23; AGN, Reales cedulas duplicados, vol. 6, exp. 277; Konetzke, Colecciön de documentos, I, 513. 106. See AGN, Ordenanzas, vol. 2, fol. 53 v , no. 5; AGN, Reales cedulas duplicados, vol. 5, exp. 751; vol. 23, exp. 58, fol. 175; AGN, General de Parte, vol. 7, exp. 305, fol. 201. 107. Cuevas, Historia de la iglesia, I, 42. 108. AGN, Mercedes, vol. 2, exp. 728. 109. Ibid., vol. 5, fol. 76. 110. AGN, General de Parte, vol. 2, fol. 222. 111. AGI, Mexico, 69, ramo 1. 112. AGN, Civil, vol. 75, exp. 9. fol. 6. 113. AGI, Mexico, 27, ramo 2. 114. Charles Wilson Hackett, Historical Documents Relating to New Mexico, Nueva Vizcaya, and Approaches Thereto to 1773 (Washington, D.C., 1923), p. 111. Also, AGN, Indios, vol. 4, fol. 180. 115. Gomez de Cervantes, La vida economica, p. 107. 116. AGN, Historia, vol. 94, in ibid., p. 20. 117. Recopilacion, bk. 6, title 9, law 15. 118. See, e.g., AGN, General de Parte, vol. 4, fols. 127 v -128 v . 119. For examples of these relationships, see AGN, Bienes Nacionales, vol. 442, exp. 417; vol. 1072, exp. 34; vol. 1087, exp. 12. 120. Cartas de Indias, p. 36. 121. AGN, Inquisicion, vol. 125, exp. 69, in Gonzalo Aguirre Beiträn, "La etnohistoria y el estudio del Negro en Mexico," in Acculturation in the Americas, ed. Sol Tax (Chicago, 1952), p. 163. 122. Quoted in Irving Leonard, Baroque Times in Old Mexico (Ann Arbor, 1959), p. 102. 123. AGN, Inquisicion, vol. 339, fols. 275-276; vol. 342, no. 10; vol. 302, no. 8; vol. 435, fol. 335; vol. 363, fol. 30. 3. Slavery in the Ingeniös, the Obrajes, and the Mines 1. Bernal Diaz del Castillo, Historia verdadera de la conquista de la Nueva Espafla, ed. Ramon Iglesia, 2 vols. (Mexico, 1943), II, 394. 2. Gibson, The Aztecs, p. 233. For a larger discussion of the labor systems under the Spaniards, see ibid., pp. 220-256. 3. Francisco del Paso y Troncoso, ed., Epistolario de la Nueva Espana, 16 vols. (Mexico, 1939-1942), I, 87. 4. See Fernando B. Sandoval, La industria del aziicar en Nueva Espana (Mexico, 1951), p. 24. 5. Barrett, Sugar Hacienda, p. 11.

220

Notes to Pages

67-73

6. AGN, Hospital de Jesüs, leg. 280, exp. 1. 7. Aguirre Beiträn, La poblaciön tiegra, p. 22. 8. AGN, Hospital de Jesus, leg. 270, exp. 4. 9. Sandoval, La industria, pp. 49-50. 10. AGN, Hospital de Jesus, leg. 267, exp. 26; and Documentos ineditos relatives α Heman Cortes y su familia, Publicaciones del Archivo General de la Nacion (Mexico, 1935), vol. XXVII, p. 250. 11. AGN, Hospital de Jesus, leg. 267, exp. 26. 12. Chevalier, Land and Society, p. 79. 13. See Berthe, "Xochimancas," pp. 109-113. 14. Barrett, Sugar Hacienda, p. 78. 15. Berthe, "Xochimancas," pp. 109-113. 16. Ibid., p. 114. 17. Barrett, Sugar Hacienda, p. 99. See also Herrera de Tordesillas, Historia general, dec. 2, bk. ii, chap. xx. 18. AGN, Hospital de Jesüs, leg. 295, exp. 136, in Gonzalo Aguirre Beltran, "El trabajo del Indio comparado con el del negro en Nueva Espafia," Mexico Agrario, 4 (1942), 207, 206. 19. J. Joaquin Pardo, Prontuario de Reales Cedulas, 1529-1599 (Guatemala, 1941), quoted in Sandoval, La industria, p. 46. 20. AGN, Tierras, vol. 2769, exp. 10. 21. AGI, Mexico, 24, ramo 2. 22. Silvio Zavala and Maria Castelo, eds., Fuentes para la historia del trabajo en Nueva Espafia, 8 vols. (Mexico, 1940), IV, 261. 23. AGN, General de Parte, vol. 5, fol. 96. 24. Actos de Cabildo, 14, bk. 15, p. 114. 25. AGN, General de Parte, vol. 5. fol. 96v. 2 6 . Ibid., fols. 5 6 - 5 6 V . 27. Zavala and Castelo, Fuentes, IV, 483; V, vi-xi. 28. AGI, Mexico, 24, ramo 2.' 29. Sandoval, La industria, pp. 125-126. 30. Alejandro Villasenor y Villasenor, Los condes de Santiago (Mexico, 1901), p. 366. 31. Zavala and Castelo, Fuentes, IV, 322. 32. Jose Mariano Dävila y Arrillaga, Continuaciön de la historia de la Comραήία de Jesus en la Nueva Espafia del P. Francisco Javier Alegre, 2 vols. (Puebla, 1888-1889), II, 329. 33. Sandoval, La industria, p. 128. 34. See Francis Pratt, "The Obraje in New Spain: A Case Study in the Failure of Royal Authority to Impose Its Will," unpub. Master's thesis, University of the Americas, 1965, p. 25. 35. Richard Greenleaf, "Viceregal Power and the Obrajes of the Cortes Estate, 1595-1708," Hispanic American Historical Review, 48 (August 1968), 365. 36. Pratt, "Obraje," p. 38. Charles Gibson has found that the labor force in an average-size obraje in the seventeenth century represented an expenditure of about 15,000 to 20,000 pesos. See The Aztecs, p. 294.

Notes to Pages 74-86

221

37. Pratt, "Obraje/' p. 6. 38. AGN, Historia, vol. 117. 39. For a discussion of these cedulas and their effect, see Richard E. Greenleaf, "The Obraje in the Late Mexican Colony," The Americas, 23 (January 1967), 239-250. 40. Quoted in C. Perez Bustamante, Don Antonio de Mendoza, primer virrey de la Nueva Espana, 1535-1550 (Santiago, 1928), pp. 37-38. 41. Actos de Cabildo, 7, bk. 1, 36-37. 42. Cartas del licenciado Jerönimo Valderrama y otros documentos sobre su visita al gobiemo de Nueva Espana, 1563-1565, in Documentos para la historia de Mexico colonial (Mexico, 1961), p. 132. 43. AGI, Mexico, 69, ramo 1. 44. Ibid., ramo 4. 45. Ibid., ramo 3. 46. AGI, Mexico, 20, ramo 1. 47. Ibid. 48. Ibid., ramo 2. 49. AGI, Mexico, 258 (no ramo no.). 50. AGI, Mexico, 20, ramos 3 and 4. 51. AGI, Mexico, 21, ramcf 3. 52. AGI, Mexico, 22, ramo 2. 53. Ibid., ramo 3. 54. AGI, Mexico, 71, ramo 3. 55. AGI, Mexico, 22, ramo 4. 56. See Davidson, "Negroes in Colonial Mexico," pp. 8-10. 57. Leon, Las castas, p. 7. 58. AGI, Mexico, 258 (no ramo no.). 59. AGI, Mexico, 72, ramo 4. 60. AGI, Indiferente General, 2796. 61. AGI, Mexico, 23 (no ramo no.). 62. AGI, Indiferente General, 2796. 63. AGI, Mexico, 75, ramo 4. 67. Ibid. 65. Mercury was the principal reagent used in the amalgamation process. For a description of the process, see Robert C. West, The Mining Community in Northern New Spain: ·The Parral Mining District, Ibero-Americana, No. 30 (Berkeley & Los Angeles, 1949), pp. 31-39. 66. Ibid. 4. Church, State, and Slavery 1. See, for example, Elsa V. Goveia, "The West Indian Slave Laws of the Eighteenth Century," Revista de Ciencias Sociales, 4 (1960), 92-94. 2. For a general discussion of Spanish bureaucratic administration, see Clarence Henry Haring, The Spanish Empire in America (New York, 1947). 3. See Introduction to Contemporary Civilization in the West, 2 vols., 3rd

222

Notes to Pages

86-100

ed. (New York, 1960), I, 400; and Gaines Post, Studies in Medieval Political Thought (Princeton, 1964). For other good discussion of the Siete Partidas, consult Frank Tannenbaum, Slave and Citizen, the Negro in the Americas (New York, 1947); and Herbert S. Klein, Slavery in the Americas: A Comparative Study of Virginia and Cuba (Chicago, 1967), pp. 57-66. 4. Las Siete Partidas del rey Alfonso el sabio, cotejadas con varios codices antiguos, por la Real Academia de la Historia, 3 vols. (Madrid, 1807), III, pt. 4, title 21, law 1; pt. 4, title 5, introduction; II, pt. 3, title 5, law 4. 5. Ibid., III, pt. 4, title 5, law 1. 6. Ibid., III, pt. 4, title 22, law 3 ; pt. 7, title 8, law 2 ; pt. 7, title 8, law 13; pt. 4, title 22, law 4. 7. Ibid., III, pt. 6, title 3, law 3. 8. Ibid., III, pt. 4, title 22, law 1; II, pt. 3, title 2, law 8 ; III, pt. 4, title 22, law 3 ; pt. 4, title 22, law 6; and III, pt. 4, title 16, law 7. 9. The archives contain an elaborate record of the kinds of restrictions placed on the slaves by local authorities in Mexico. These legislative measures were introduced to correct specific situations, and they became more stringent as the slave population increased. 10. Torquemada, Monarquia, II, 566. Torquemada was concerned about the decline of the Indian population and was anxious to protect the remaining Indians from the Spaniards. Hence he had a vested interest in encouraging the enslavement of Africans as a means of relieving pressure on the Indians. 11. These two methods were not mutually exclusive, for in the process of the inspection tours, punishment could be administered to offenders. 12. AGN, Bienes Nacionales, leg. 565, exp. 1. 13. For supporting documentation, see, e.g., El Archivo de Tlaxcala, microfilm copy, roll 1, in Centro de Documentacion del Museo Nacional, Mexico City. 14. AGN, Inquisicion, vol. 322, fol. 178. 15. AGN, Historia, vol. 117, fols. 15-59. The record of these inspections is reproduced in Edmundo O'Gorman, ed., "El trabajo industrial en la Nueva Espana a mediados del siglo XVII: visita a los obrajes de panos en la jurisdicion de Coyoacän, 1660," Boletin del Archivo General de la Nacion, II (1940), 33-116. 16. Ibid. 17. Ibid. 18. Bias Brazil, "A History of the Obrajes in New Spain, 1535-1630," unpub. M.A. thesis, University of New Mexico, 1962, p. 37. 19. AGN, Inquisicion, vol. 368, fol. 168. 20. Ibid., vol. 292, fols. 172-173. 21. Ibid., vol. 314, fol. 369. 22. AGI, Mexico, 70, ramo 5. 23. AGN, Inquisicion, vol. 308, fol. 466. 24. Ibid., vol. 75, fols. 218-231. 25. Ibid. 26. Ibid., vol. 292, fols. 12-18. 27. Ibid., vol. 353, fols. 22-32. 28. Ibid., vol. 418, fols. 320-364.

Notes to Pages 101-123

223

29. The Siete Partidas had cast some doubt on the credibility of slaves as witnesses in certain cases by holding that "slaves are similar to other desperate men because of the slavery that they are in." Except in cases of treason or adultery, the Siete Partidas did not require slaves to testify against their masters. See Siete Partidas, II, pt. 3, title 16, law 13. 30. AGN, Inquisicion, vol. 318, fols. 320-364. 31. Ibid. 32. Ibid., vol. 454, fols. 253-292. 33. It is clear from the thrust of the testimony, however, that the slave had indeed made a pact with the devil, so he had only concocted three of the offenses. 34. AGN, Inquisiciön, vol. 454, fols. 253-292. 35. Ibid., vol. 491, fols. 255-278. 36. AGN, Civil, vol. 308, fols. 1-33. 37. AGN, Bienes Nacionales, leg. 131, exp. 1. 38. Ibid. 39. AGN, Inquisicion, vol. 317. 40. See Edmundo O'Gorman, ed., "Un matrimonio de esclavos," Boletin del Archivo General de la Nation, 6 (September-December 1935), 541-556. 41. AGN, Bienes Nacionales, leg. 131, exp. 3. 42. AGN, Inquisicion, vol. 431, fols. 466-473. 43. AGN, Bienes Nacionales, leg. 1158, exp. 16. 44. Ibid., leg. 326. 45. Ibid. 46. AGN, Inquisicion, vol. 503, fols. 17-44. Manuel Munoz received legal assistance in the preparation of his case. This probably accounts for the sophistication of some of his arguments. 47. AGN, Bienes Nacionales, leg. 79, exp. 14. 48. Siete Partidas, III, pt. 4, title 22, law 4. 5. Patterns of Social Control and Resistance 1. Arthur Scott Aiton, Antonio de Mendoza: First Viceroy of New Spain (Durham, 1927), p. 88. 2. Gomez de Cervantes, La vida economica, p. 98. 3. Recopilacion, bk. 7, title 5, law 39. 4. AGI, Mexico, 69, ramo 3; 70, ramo 1; 23, ramo 3. 5. Konetzke, Colecciön de documentos, I, 237-241. 6. Recopilacion, bk. 6, title 10, law 19. 7. Ibid., bk. 8, title 5, law 7. 8. Ibid. 9. AGI, Mexico, 350 (no ramo no.). 10. See AGN, Ordenanzas, vol. 1, fols. 79 and 8 6 v . Also see AGN Reales cedulas duplicados, III, exps. 82, 99, 116. 11. Herrera, Historia general, dec. 3, bk. 5, chap. 8. 12. The fee paid to the captor increased as the years went on and depended on whether the capture was effected in the city or in the country. In 1565, for

224

Notes to Pages

123-130

example, the fee stood at 2 pesos if the capture were made in the city and 5 pesos if made in the country. In 1574 the fee was summarily increased to 50 pesos, but this was probably rescinded over the protests of the owners. At least there is no evidence that it was ever enforced. The 2 to 5 pesos fee seems to have continued well into the seventeenth century. It must be added that from as early as 1540 the cabildo of Mexico City required citizens to aid the authorities in the recapture of runaways or pay a fine of 100 pesos. See Adas de Cabildo, vol. i, bk. 1, pp. 29, 114, 134; Recopilacion, bk. 7, title 5, law 22. 13. Recopilacion, bk. 7, title 5, law 23. 14. Philip Wayne Powell, Soldiers, Indians and Silver (Berkeley & Los Angeles, 1952), p. 62. 15. Ibid., p. 172. 16. AGN, Mercedes, vol. 5, fol. 158. 17. For a discussion of these incidents, see Norman F. Martin, Los vagabundos en la Nueva Espana (Mexico, 1957), pp. 120-124. 18. AGN, Mercedes, vol. 5, fols. 459-460. 19. Ibid., fols. 69-70. 20. Nicolas Le0n, Las castas, p. 10. 21. Ibid. 22. Ibid. 23. Ibid. 24. AGN, Ordenanzas, vol. 1, fols. 34-34 v . This ordinance violated the earlier sanctions against castration as a form of punishment imposed by Emperor Charles V. 25. AGN, Reales cedulas duplicados, III, exp. 130. 26. See Manuel Trens, Historia de Vera Cruz, II, 313; and Octaviano Corro, Los cimarrones en Vera Cruz y la fundacion de Amapa (Mexico, 1951), p. 17. 27. AGN, Reales cedulas duplicados. V, exp. 643. 28. AGI, Mexico, 27, ramo 2. 29. Ibid. 30. Ibid. 31. Ibid., ramos 2, 3. 32. In this report the viceroy used the plural "friars," indicating that more than one friar had been sent to the cimarrones. It is not known when the additional friars were sent or whether they had been requested by the cimarrones or sent on the viceroy's own volition. 33. AGI, Mexico, 27, ramo 3. 34. Our information on the details of the military confrontation comes from an account written by Padre Laurencio. The text is in Francisco Javier Alegre, Historia de la Provincia, II, 175-183. There is some confusion as to when the mission actually began. Padre Laurencio gives the date as January 26, 1609, while the reports from the viceroy indicate that it took place sometime in the fall of that year. 35. Javier Alegre, Historia de la Provincia, p. 176. 36. Ibid., p. 182. 37. AGN, Inquisicion, vol. 283, fols. 186-187.

Notes to Pages 130-141

225

38. AGI, Mexico, 29, ramo 2. 39. Ibid. 40. See Carlos Federico Guillot, Negros rebeldes y negros cimarrones: Perfil afroamericano en la historia del Nuevo Mundo durante el siglo XVI (Buenos Aires, 1961), p. 16. 41. AGI, Mexico, 69, ramo 1. 42. AGI, Mexico, 20, ramo 1. 43. AGI, Mexico, 70, ramo 2. 44. Ibid., 72, ramo 2. 45. Ibid., 1647. 46. Viceroy Mendoza to the emperor, December 10, 1537, in Colecciön de documentos ineditos relativos al descubrimiento, conquista y organization de las antiguas posesiones espafiolas en America y Oceania, sacados de los archives del reino, y muy especialmente del de Indias, 42 vols. (Madrid, 1864-1884), II, 198. 47. Ibid., pp. 198-199; Actos de Cabildo, vol. iv, bk. 1, pp. 98-99. 48. See Guillot, Negros rebeldes, p. 119. 49. Velasco to the emperor, May 4, 1553, in Cartas de Indias, p. 263. 50. Velasco to the emperor, February 1554, in Guillot, Negros rebeldes, p. 119. 51. Joaquin Garcia Icazbalceta, Relaciones de varios viajeros ingleses en la cuidad de Mexico (Madrid, 1963), p. 128. 52. See Aguirre Beiträn, La poblacion negra, p. 207; and David M. Davidson's excellent article, "Negro Slave Control, and Resistance in Colonial Mexico, 1519-1650," Hispanic American Historical Review, 46 (August 1966), 244-246. 53. An account of the event is in a letter dated February 8, 1609, from the alcalde, Dr. Löpez de Azoca, to the king. AGI, Mexico, 73, ramo 1. In his report to the king on February 13,1609, Viceroy Velasco described what had happened, charging that the blacks had congregated despite the prohibitive ordinances. Although he claimed they had behaved with "too much liberty and insolence," he did not suggest that the gathering was for the purpose of planning a rebellion. It is not known whether the viceroy had been in touch with the alcalde, who, as has been noted, was convinced that the slaves had gathered for an ulterior purpose. For the viceroy's observations, see AGI, Mexico, 27, ramo 3. 54. AGI, Mexico, 73, ramo 1. 55. The existence of this cofradia suggested that the ordinance of 1609 which abolished cofradias was not enforced. For an account of the events of 1611, see Querol y Roso, "Negros y mulatos," pp. 127-128. 56. Ibid., p. 129. 57. The information regarding the 1612 abortive revolt is from an anonymous account written after the event and sent to Don Luis de Velasco, viceroy of New Spain from 1590 to 1595, and again from 1607 to 1611. This document is reprinted ibid., pp. 129-137. 58. Ibid., pp. 130-135. 59. AGN, Ordenanzas, vol. 1, fol. 149V, no. 172. 60. Ibid., fo. 147, no. 167. 61. Ibid., vol. 2, fol. 36V, no. 38.

226

Notes to Pages 62. 63. 64. 65. 66.

141-150

Ibid., fol. 147, no. 167. Querol y Roso, "Negros y mulatos," p. 136. Davidson, Negro Slave Control, p. 251. AGI, Mexico, 76, ramo 1. Ibid.

6. Religion and Magic in Mexican Slave Society 1. For a study of the beliefs and practices of the Indians, see the classic work by Fray Bernardino Sahagün, Historia general de las cosas de Nueva Espana, 5 vols. (Mexico, 1938). For the Spaniards, see Gonzalo Aguirre Beltran, Medicina y magia: el proceso de aculturaciön en la estructura colonial (Mexico, 1963). 2. John S. Mbiti, African Religions and Philosophies (New York, 1970), pp. 2, 4. 3. Richard E. Greenleaf, Zumärraga and the Mexican Inquisition, 1536-1543 (Washington, 1961), p. 18. 4. Ibid., p. 3. Greenleaf is the acknowledged authority on the operation of the Holy Office in colonial Mexico. See also his The Mexican Inquisition of the Sixteenth Century (Albuquerque, 1969). 5. Until 1571 the Indians were under the jurisdiction of the Episcopal Inquisition and were tried and convicted for various religious offenses. When the tribunal of the Holy Office was created in 1571, Indians were removed from its jurisdiction and put under the Provisor or Vicar General of the diocese. But, as Greenleaf found, there was "still fusion and confusion of authority and responsibility of the inquisitorial and the ordinary functions" over the next several decades. See Richard E. Greenleaf, "The Inquisition and the Indians of New Spain: A Study in Jurisdictional Confusion," The Americas, 2 2 : 2 (October 1965), 138-166. 6. Henry C. Lea, A History of the Inquisition of Spain (New York, 1966), IV, 328. 7. Ibid. See also Greenleaf, Zumärraga, pp. 100-101. 8. Zumärraga, p. 100. 9. See, e.g., AGN, Inquisiciön, vol. 288, fols. 224-226; also vols. 145, 148, 275. 10. For documentation, consult AGN, Inquisicion, vol. 256, no. 15; vol. 271, no. 6; vol. 148, no. 4; and vol. 142, no. 7. 11. Robert Brady has found at least two instances where the Holy Office took note of the circumstances that led to blasphemous acts by slaves. In one, the slave claimed that he blasphemed because he was ill at the time of the beating. He was acquitted after "witnesses supported the argument that it was the sickness and not the lashes which led him to an irresponsible denunciation." In the second case, a young girl who blasphemed when she "was struck while carrying a jar of hot oil and was burned when it spilled on her" was acquitted. See "Emergence of a Negro Class," pp. 152-153. 12. AGN, Inquisicion, vol. 172, fols. 1-22.

Notes to Pages 151-157

227

13. Ibid., vol. 139, fols. 139-162. 14. Ibid., vol. 288, fols. 224-247. 15. Ibid., vol. 320, fols. 314-318. 16. Lea, History of the Inquisition, IV, 331. Greenleaf has observed, however, that "while Lea's translation of 'Pese a Dios' as 'May God Regret' or 'May God Repent,' may have been academically correct, colloquially it has a stronger meaning, such as 'To Hell with God' or 'God Damn' or 'God gives me a pain.' " See Zumdrraga, p. 101. 17. AGN, Inquisicion, vol. 291, no. 1. 18. I am indebted to Philip Curtin for suggesting a possible similarity between the two phenomena. See K. A. Busia, The Position of the Chief in the Modern Political System of Ashanti (London, 1958), p. 78. 19. Emanuel De Kadt, "Religion, the Church and Social Change in Brazil," in Claudio Veliz, ed., The Politics of Conformity in Latin America (London, 1969), p. 196. 20. AGN, Inquisicion, vol. 274, no. 3. 21. Ibid., vol. 334, fols. 74-77. 22. M. G. Marwick, "Witchcraft and Sorcery," in M. Fortes and G. Dieterlen, eds., African Systems of Thought (London, 1966), p. 21. Marwick adds, however, that "both categories may overlap in that, for instance, protective magic may be destructive in its implication, as when a taboo or a medicine for protecting one's property or ensuring the fidelity of one's wife is intended to bring illness or even death to the thief or adulterer." 23. Jeffrey Burton Russell, Witchcraft in the Middle Ages (Ithaca, 1972), p. 10. 24. Geoffrey Parrinder, African Traditional Religion (London, 1962), p. 26. 25. Russell, Witchcraft, p. 6. 26. See Geoffrey Parrinder, Witchcraft: European and African (London, 1963). 27. Russell, Witchcraft, p. 13. 28. C. A. Burland, The Gods of Mexico (New York, 1967), p. 121. 29. Black magic may be used for a socially justified purpose, in which case its use is considered legitimate. Its use is considered illegitimate when employed for an antisocial purpose. See Fortes and Dieterlen, African Systems of Thought, pp. 21-27. 30. Russell, Witchcraft, p. 17. 31. Lea, History of the Inquisition, IV, 206. 32. Marwick, "Witchcraft and Sorcery," pp. 21, 22. 33. Parrinder, Witchcraft, p. 131. 34. Mbiti, African Religions, pp. 262-263. 35. Aguirre Beiträn, Medicina y magia, pp. 17-54. For a discussion of these practices in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century England, see the brilliant work by Keith Thomas, Religion and the Decline of Magic (New York, 1971). 36. For documentation, see AGN, Inquisicion, vol. 372, no. 14; vol. 435, no. 51; vol. 513, no. 34; and vol. 380, fol. 302.

228

Notes to Pages

157-170

37. Ibid., vol. 536, no. 17; vol. 380, fol. 302; vol. 363, no. 13; vol. 685, fol. 27; vol. 360, fol. 453; vol. 356, fol. 37. 38. Ibid., vol. 339, fol. 563; vol. 380, fol. 356; vol. 292, no. 28; vol. 356, II, fol. 332; vol. 380, fols. 302-304; vol. 363, no. 16. 39. Ibid., vol. 953, no. 14; vol. 498, no. 8; vol. 561, no. 1; vol. 360, fol. 21. 40. Ibid., vol. 561, no. 1; vol. 360, fol. 171; vol. 360, fol. 21; vol. 526, fol. 500. 41. Ibid., vol. 363, no. 18; vol. 480, fol. 359; vol. 360, fol. 176. 42. Ibid., vol. 380, fol. 302; vol. 376, fol. 87. 43. Ibid., vol. 636, no. 4; vol. 356, II, fol. 334, vol. 312, no. 17. 44. Ibid., vol. 316, fols. 514-521; vol. 366, fol. 43; vol. 429, no. 9; vol. 360, fol. 453; vol. 131, no. 1. 45. Ibid., vol. 342,' no. 12; vol. 435, fol. 430; vol. 486, fol. 254; vol. 376, fol. 15: vol. 486, fol. 565; vol. 486, fol. 45; vol. 131, no. 1. 46. AGN, Inquisicion, vol. 341, no. 1. This prayer was translated with the assistance of Professor Kathryn McArdle, Department of Modern Languages, Oakland University. 47. AGN, Inquisicion, vol. 368, fol. 496; vol. 356, II, fol. 74; vol. 302, no. 9; vol. 318, fols. 468-471. 48. See William A. Lessa and Evon Z. Vogt, eds., Reader in Comparative Religion: An Anthropological Approach (New York, 1972), p. 414; and Parrinder, African Traditional Religion, pp. 119-122. 49. Thomas, Religion and the Decline of Magic, pp. 212-222. 50. AGN, Inquisicion, vol. 471, fol. 148; vol. 828, no. 1. 51. Ibid., vol. 486, fol. 254. 52. Ibid., vol. 278, fol. 243. 53. Ibid., vol. 316, fol. 26. 54. Ibid., vol. 435, fol. 293. 55. Ibid., vol. 486, fol. 555. 7. Toward Freedom 1. Historians have always been puzzled by the evident lack of concern for the African's plight by the leading humanitarians of the day. Even more curious has been the double standard involved in the espousal of the cause of freedom for the Indians and slavery for the Africans. For a discussion of this, see Davis, The Problem of Slavery, pp. 165-180. 2. Bartolome de las Casas, Historia de las Indios, 5 vols. (Madrid, 18751876), bk. 3, chap. I l l , p. 380. 3. Anuario de la Asociacion Francisco de Vitoria, 5 vols. (Madrid, 1929), III, 38-40, in Silvio Zavala, Los esclavos indios en Nueva Espana (Mexico, 1967), p. 157. 4. Zavala, Los esclavos, p. 158. 5. Tomas de Mercado, Summa de tratos y contratos de mercaderes y tratantes decididos y determinados por el Padre presentado . . . de la Orden de los Predicadores (Salamanca, 1569), cap. 44.

Notes to Pages 170-176

229

6. Bartolome de Albornoz, "De la esclavitud," in Biblioteca de autores espanoles, desde la formation del lenguaje hasta nuestros dias, 65 (Madrid, 1873), 232-233. 7. Gabriel Mendez Plancarte, Don Guillermo de Lampart y su regio salterio, manuscrito latino inedito de 1655 (Mexico, 1948), pp. 21-23. 8. Ibid. 9. Konetzke, Colecciön de documentos, I, 185. 10. Recopilaciön, bk. 7, title 5, laws 5, 8, 6. 11. Joaquin Garcia Icazbalceta, Don Fray Juan de Zumarraga, primer obispo y arzobispo de Mexico (Mexico, 1881), p. 176. 12. Nicolas Leon, El Illmo. Sr. D. Vasco de Quiroga (Mexico, 1904), p. 99. 13. Frederick P. Bowser, "The Free Person of Color in Mexico City and Lima: Manumission and Opportunity, 1580-1650," in Race and Slavery in the Western Hemisphere: Quantitative Studies, ed. Stanley L. Engerman and Eugene D. Genovese (copyright © 1975 by the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, Stanford, California), p. 350. 14. Israel Cavazos Garza, Catälogo y sintesis de los protocolos del Archivo Municipal de Monterrey, 1599-1700 (Monterrey, 1966), p. 44. 15. AN, Notary, Diego de los Rios, Afio 1644, fol. 47. 16. Ibid., Ano 1646, fol. 557. 17. AGN, Bienes Nacionales, vol. 131, no. 18. 18. Ibid., vol. 1175, exp. 15. 19. AN, Notary, Diego de los Rios, Ano 1648, fol. 5. See also AGN, Historia, vol. 408, fol. 51. 20. AN, Notary, Francisco Flores, Ano 1650, n.p. 21. AGN, Bienes Nacionales, vol. 1175, exp. 13. 22. Ibid., vol. 420, exp. 35. 23. Ibid., vol. 1175, exp. 16. 24. Miliares Carlo and Mantecon, lndice y extractos, II, 225. 25. Cited in Bowser, "The Free Person," p. 341. 26. AN, Notary, Francisco Flores, Afio 1647, n.p. 27. AGN, Bienes Nacionales, vol. 131, exp. 18. 28. Ibid., vol. 1175, exp. 16. 29. Cavazos Garza, Catälogo, pp. 55-56. 30. Cited in Bowser, "The Free Person," p. 345. 31. AGN, Inquisicion, vol. 504, no. 2. 32. AN, Notary, Diego de los Rios, Afio 1646, fol. 3 V . 33. See, e.g., AGN, Bienes Nacionales, vol. 1175, exp. 15. There were other instances of masters who gave their faithful slaves money along with the letter of manumission. (Ibid.) 34. Cited in Brady, "Emergence of a Negro Class," p. 169. See the discussion of this practice in Cuba by Hubert H. S. Aimes, "Coartacion: A Spanish Institution for the Advancement of Slaves into Freedom," Yale Review, 17 (February 1909), 412-431. 35. Cited in Bowser, "The Free Person," p. 346. 36. Stellas Risley Clemence, "Deed of Emancipation of a Negro Woman Slave, Dated Mexico, September 14, 1585," Hispanic American Historical

230

Notes to Pages

178-186

Review, 11 (February 1930), 51-57. The peso de oro de minas had a value of 450 maravedis; the peso de oro comun was valued at 300 maravedis. 37. AGI, Mexico, 22, ramo 3. 38. Bartolome de Gongora, El corregidor sagaz (Madrid, 1960), p. 235. See also Magnus Morner, Race Mixture in the History of Latin America (Boston, 1967), pp. 56-57. 39. See Barrio Lorenzot, Ordenanzas de gremios, pp. 30-39. Also see Carrera Stampa, Los gremios mexicanos, pp. 223-224, 239-241. 40. Bowser, "The Free Person," p. 358. 41. AGI, Indiferente General, 1571; Dusenberry, Mexican Mesta, p. 146. 42. Dusenberry, Mexican Mesta, pp. 146, 86, 121. 43. Quoted in Chevalier, Land and Society, pp. 113, 112. 44. For examples of this, see AGN, Civil, vol. 75, exp. 9, fol. 6. Also see AGN, General de Parte, IV, fols. 127 v -128v. In addition, see AGN, Mercedes, V, fols. 1 0 3 v - 1 0 4 v ; V, fol. 76. 46. AGN, Reales cedulas duplicados, VI, fol. 277. For a discussion of these measures, see Martin, Los vagabundos, pp. 112-113. 47. AGN, Reales cedulas duplicados, III, fols, 4 v -5, ibid., p. 114. 48. AGI, Mexico, 26 (no ramo no.). One of the most celebrated cases involving a freedman was that of Fernando Rodriguez de Castro, a mulatto. In 1605 he was accused of impersonating a priest and saying Mass in various rural areas. The spectacle of a mulatto saying Mass was enough to arouse suspicion, and he was arrested. After a lengthy trial, he was convicted and burned at the stake. (AGN, Inquisition, vol. 275.) 49. AGN, Reales cedulas duplicados, VI, fol. 277; Recopilacion, bk. 7, title 4, law 2. See also Martin, Los vagabundos, pp. 113-119. 50. AGN, Historia, vol. 413, fol. 16; AGI, Mexico, 22, ramo 3. 51. Thomas Gage's Travels in the New World, p. 70. 52. AGN, Ordenanzas, vol. 1, fol. 12. 53. AGI, Contaduria, 875. 54. AGN, Ordenanzas, vol. 1, fol. 12. 55. AGN, Reales cedulas duplicados, vol. 3, fol. 8. 56. Ibid., fols. 156-157. 57. AGN, Ordenanzas, vol. 4, fol. 35. 58. For examples of freedmen who received such licenses, see AGN, General de Parte, vol. 7, fols. 338, 409, 516; vol. 8, fols. 69, 70, 71. For a general discussion of concessions to free Afro-Mexicans, consult Brady, "Emergence of a Negro Class," pp. 168-177. 59. For examples, consult Miliares Carlo and Mantecon, Indice y extractos, I, 182, 347; AGN, Mercedes, vol. 5, fol. 426; AGN, Civil, vol. 546, fol. 5. 60. For further information, see Gilberto Freyre, The Masters and the Slaves: A Study in the Development of Brazilian Civilization, trans. Samuel Putnam, 2nd ed. (New York, 1956); H. Orlando Patterson, The Sociology of Slavery (London, 1967); and Bowser, The African Slave. 61. Thomas Gage's Travels in the New World, pp. 69-70. 62. The phenomenon of passing during the colonial period is briefly treated by Aguirre Beiträn, La poblacion negra, pp. 271-275.

INDEX

Aduanilla, 20 Akan, 23 Albornoz, Bartolome de, 170 Albornoz, Rodrigo de, 11 Alca?ovas, Treaty of, 6 Alfonso Χ, 85 Almojarifazgo, 20, 31 American South: mentioned, 83; number of slaves in, 187 Angola, 12, 21, 22, 23 Antioquia, 29 Aragon, 7 Ardra, 23 Arequipa, 29 Arica, 29 Arieta Espinaredo, Juan de, 82 Arte de Contratos, 170 Asiento: definition of, 9; contracts, 1013 Atcomulco plantation: slaves at, 50-51 Audiencia: functions, 85, 89 Ayala, Francisco de, 12 Bakongo, 20, 21, 23 Banyun, 20, 21, 23 Benguela, 23 Biafada, 20, 21, 22, 23 Bills of sale, 31-32 Bioho, 23 Blasphemy: definition of, 148; denunciations for, 149-152 Bozales: definition of, 9, 32, 39 Bram, 20, 21, 22, 23 Bravo, Alonso, 7 Brazil, 5, 29; number of slaves in, 187

Buenos Aires, 12 Cabildo, 31, 60, 71, 77,123 Caciques, 37 Cadiz, 6 Cafre, 23 Caldera, Manuel, 10 Calle, Diez de la, 46 Cameroon, 22, 23 Cape Verde, 12,169 Carabali, 23 Caracas, 29 Careri, Gemelli, 46 Cartagena, 6,11, 22, 25, 29 Carta de libertad, 173,175,176, 179 Casa de Contratacion, 8, 22, 85 Castas, 38-39, 41-42 Castile, 85 Cataluiia, 7 Cazanga, 21 Cedulas, 74, 85,120-121, 183 Cervantes Casaus, Juan de, 81 Charles V, 9, 22, 62, 121,146 Chichimecas, 123 Chichimec frontier, 2 Chile, 1,14 Cimarrones, 52-53; efforts to control them, 122-131 Cisneros, Cardinal, 131 Cofradias, 7, 54-55, 138,139; suppression of, 140 Colon, Luis, 10 Columbus, Christopher, 7 Congo, 20, 21, 22, 23, Contraband trade, 22, 24-25

232

Index

Cortes, Fernando, 1 0 , 1 1 , 47 Council of the Indies, 25, 26, 30, 79; functions, 85 Counter-Reformation, 147 Coutinho, Gonzalo Väez, 13, 30 Coutinho, Rodrigues, 13, 25 Creole. See Criollo Criollo, 32, 36, 39, 142* Cuautla, 80 Cuba, 1, 5, 8, 9, 29; number of slaves in, 187 Cuitalpilco, 76 Cumana, 13, 29

Gongora, Bartolome de, 180 Gonzalez de Herrera, 128, 129 Gouvenot ο Gavorrod, Lorenzo de, 9 Granada, 6 Guachinango, 76 Guanajuato, 76, 80 Guatemala, 11, 29 Guilds, 45, 180-181 Guinea, 12 Guinea-Bissau, 20, 21, 23 Guinea of Cape Verde, 20 Guzman, Francisco de, 60 Gyo, 21

Diaz, Bernal, 65 Diaz de Armendariz, Lope, 81 Diet, 19, 50-51 Diseases, 49, 82 Divination: definition of, 164; practice of, 164-166 Drinking, 55-56

Hawkes, Henry, 49 Health conditions. See Diseases Hiding of runaways, 125 Hieronymite friars, 9 Hiring-out of slaves, 44-45 Hispaniola, 7, 8, 9, 11, 13 Honduras, 11, 29 Humboldt, Alexander von, 37

Economy: contribution of Africans to, 82-83 Ehinger, Heinrich, 10 Encomienda system, 65-66 Enriquez, Martin, 26, 55, 62, 78, 132 Epidemics, 2, 78-79 Espinosa, Vaquez de, 46 Ethiopia, 82 Exile of slaves, 59, 60 Feast days, 53 Ferdinand, King, 7, 8, 135 Feria de los negros, 31 Fernandes d'Elvas, Antonio, 13, 24, 25, 26 Figueroa, Luis de, 9 Fon, 23 Freedmen, 4, 57, 58,125, 178-186 Gabon, 22, 23 Gage, Thomas, 4 3 , 1 8 3 , 1 8 5 Gambling, 55-56 Gelofe, 7, 21, 23 Gelves, Marques de, 55 Gomez Angel, Melchor, 13, 25 Gomez Altamirano, Juan, 95 Gomez de Cervantes, Gonzalo, 42, 61, 120

Indians: abolition of slavery of, 3, 65; prices of, 34; social stratification, 37; debate over the nature of, 40-41; relations with Afro-Mexicans, 60-63; as workers, 65-66, 69; inobrajes, 73-74 Indios de socorro, 71-72 Inquisition: establishment and functions, 8, 147-148; trial of bigamists, 59; prohibition of peyote, 63; judicial functions, 88-89; adjudication of maltreatment cases, 94-105; adjudication of separation of the family cases, 106112; adjudication of manumission disputes, 113-117; trial of blasphemers, 149-153 Isabella, Queen, 7, 135 Izmiquilpa, 76 Jamaica, 8, 22, 29; number of slaves in, 187 Jesuits, 54 Jews, 6; exclusion from Indies, 7 Kassanga, 20, 21 Ladino, 32, 39 Lala, 22, 23

Index Lamego, Manuel Rodriguez, 13, 28 Lampart, Guillen de, 170-171 Landuma, 20, 21, 23 Las Casas, Bartolome de, 8-9; on nature of the Indians, 41-42; opposition to slavery, 167-168 Lebu, 23 Leon, 85 Lima, 29,181 Lomelin, Leonardo, 11 Luanda, 21, 23 Magic: definition of, 154; difference between European and African variants of, 155 Malaga, 6 Malinke, 20, 21 Manicongo, 21 Manumission: process of, 172-178 Manzanedo, Bernardino de, 9 Margarita, isla, 13, 29 Marriages, 56-59 Matamba, 23 Matlazähuatl, 2 Mendieta, Geronimo de, 40-41, 53 Mendoz de Sossa, Cristobal, 13 Menendez de Castro, Alvaro, 10 Mercado, Tomas de, 169-170 Mercury: poisoning in the mines, 82 Mestizos, 3, 4, 38, 40, 57, 77, 92,180, 182 Mexico City, 33, 44, 45, 46, 52, 54-55, 61, 73,133,138-139,178,183,185 Middle passage: mortality rate during, 25-27 Mina, 12 Mines: slave labor in, 74-82 Montejo, Francisco de, 11 Montüfar, Alonso de, 168-169 Moorish slaves, 120 Moors, 6, 7 Morelos: slaves at, 47 Moriscos, 6 Moya de Contreras, Pedro, 147 Mozambique, 21, 23 Mulattoes, 38, 39, 40, 41-42, 51-52, 57, 77,178-179,182,183 New Laws, 134 Negros bozales. See Bozales

233

Nguni, 23 Nuestra Senora de la Conception, 24 Nuestra Senora de la Esperanza, 24 Nuestra Senora de Loreto, 24 Obraje, 30, 32, 36; slaves in, 73-74; abuses in, 91-94 Ocumatlan, 80 Ovando, Nicolas de, 7, 8 Pachuca, 76, 80,124 Panama, 29 Paul III, Pope, 40 Peninsulares, 36 Peru, 1,14, 73, 85,181 Peyote: slaves' use of, 63 Philip II, 12,147 Philip III, 72 Piezas de Indias, 17,18,19; definition of, 13-14 Pisco, 29 Ponce, Alonso, 49 Popoyan, 29 Population: slave, 27-30, 45-47 Portugal, Don Jorge de, 9 Portuguese crown, 3,12 Prices: slave, 34-35 Provincial Fathers, 59 Puerto Rico, 1, 8, 9,13, 29 Punishment of slaves, 49-50 Quintal, 19 Quiroga, Vasco de, 40,173 Quito, 29 Racial mixture. See Castas Rebellions, 133-144 Repartimiento system, 66, 73 Reynel, Pedro Gomez, 12,13 Rio de la Hacha, 13 Rivas, Andres de, 28 Roman Catholic Church: ministrations to slaves, 53-54 Romero de Mella, Nicolas, 82 Runaway slaves. See Cimarrones Rural slaves, 44 Sämano, Carlos de, 126 Sämano y Quimones, Carlos, 91 San Lorenzo de Negros, 130

234

Index

San Miguel, 76 San Miguel de Piura, 29 Sanchez, Juan, 7 Sanchez de Ocampo, Andres, 92 Santa Hermanadad, 135 Santa Marta, 13, 29 Santo Domingo, Alonso de, 9 Santo Domingo, 10, 29 Säo Thome, 12 Seiller, Hieronymus, 10 Senegambia, 20, 21 Separation of slave families, 106-112 Sepulveda, Juan Gines de, 41 Serer, 21, 23 Sierra Leone, 20, 21 Siete Partidas, 5,172,188; measures of, 85-87 Silva Solis, Fernando, 29-30 Slave catchers, 123, 125 Slave prices. See Prices Slave trade: to Hispaniola, 7-8; reorganization, 12; extent of, 14-28; profitability of, 30; domestic, 31-35 Society of Jesus, 51. See also Jesuits Sorcery: definition of, 155 Sorongo, 23 Spain: slaves in, 6-7, 85 Spanish crown, 3, 8,12, 85 Suärez de Mendoza, Lorenzo, 78 Suarez de Peralta, Juan, 41 Sublimis Deus, 40 Sugarcane: cultivation of, 67-73 Sumptuary legislation, 51-52 Susu, 23 Tasco, 76, 80 Tehuantepec, Isthmus of, 2 Tello de Sandoval, Francisco, 147 Temascaltepec, 76, 80 Temne, 20, 21, 23 Terra Nova, 21, 23 Third Provincial Council of the Mexican Church, 57 Tierra Firrne, 12, 24-25, 29 Tio, 22, 23 Tlalpuxagua, 76, 80 Tlatenango: slaves at, 48, 67 Torquemada, Juan de, 39; on treatment of slaves, 89-90 Tucuxuy, 21 Tukulor, 20, 21 Turks, 6

Tuxtla: slave population at, 47-48; marriage of slaves at, 57 Upper Kwango, 23 Urban slaves, 45-46 Valderrama, Jeronimo, 77 Valencia, 6-7 Valladolid, 73 Valladolid (Spain): debates, 41 Veedor, 71 Velasco, Luis de, 24, 52,182 Velasco, Luis de II, 79 Venezuela, 13 Vera Cruz, 24, 33, 43, 45, 46, 49, 52, 59, 66,125,126, 128,130,142,178 Vergara Gaviria, Pedro de, 61 Villamanrique, Marques de, 78,182 Vioate, Juan de, 97 Vique, Bernardino de, 168 Vitoria, Francisco de, 168 Wages: of slaves, 44-45; offreedmen, 181 Weapons: prohibitions against, 121-122 Witchcraft: definition of, 155; slaves accused of, 159-162 Wolofs, 7, 20, 22, 23 Women: Indian, 62-63; black, 51-52, 185-186 Xhosa, 23 Xochimancas: slaves at, 50-51 Xocotlän, 76 Xoxo, 23 Yanga, 128-130 Yucatan, 11 Zacatecas, 76, 78, 80, 81 Zacualpa, 76, 80 Zafi, 21 Zambos, 38, 63, 92,183 Zape, 21, 23 Zimapan, 76 Zozo, 23 Zuazo, Alonso, 9 Zultepec, 76, 80 Zumärraga, Juan de, 147,173 Züniga, Manrique de, 70 Zuniga y Acevedo, Gaspar de, 183