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