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The African Diaspora in the Eastern Andes: Adaptation, Agency, and Fugitive Action, 1573-1677

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 December 2015

Lolita Gutiérrez Brockington
Lolita Gutiérrez Brockington*
Affiliation:
North Carolina Central University, Durham, North Carolina
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Extract

In 1545, miners struck silver in what would become one of the richest veins in the entire New World, the near legendary Cerro Rico of Potosí, in the Andean highlands of Peru. This strike prompted swift action on the part of royal authorities. They sought to rearrange existing land and labor systems and to establish new ones to meet the spiraling economic demands. Simultaneously they had to cope with a dramatic, unprecedented drop in the indigenous population which hitherto had supplied needed labor. The crown turned elsewhere, and authorized the exploitation of another, far more distant group of people. Slaves from Africa became an additional, ongoing source of much needed labor in the Andes.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Americas , Volume 57 , Issue 2: The African Experience in Early Spanish America , October 2000 , pp. 207 - 224
Copyright
Copyright © Academy of American Franciscan History 2000

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References

1 Lockhart, James, Spanish Peru, 1531–1560: A Colonial Society (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1968);Google Scholar and Bowser, Frederick P., The African Slave in Colonial Peru, 1524–1650 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1974).Google Scholar

2 Brockington, Lolita Gutiérrez, “La dinámica de la historia regional: Mizque y ‘la’ puente de 1630,” in Historia y Cultura, vol. 22 (Lima: Museo Nacional de Arqueología, Antropología, e Historia del Peru, Instituto Nacional de Cultura, 1994).Google Scholar

3 For a timely, critical appraisal of the five major African diasporas, see Palmer, Colin, “Defining and Studying the Modern African Diaspora” in the American Historical Association Newsletter, “Perspectives,” vol. 36, no. 6 (September, 1998) 1, pp. 22–25.Google Scholar

4 For an excellent recent ethnohistorical analysis and reassessment of territoriality and territorial concepts, please see Von Schramm, Raimund, “Fronteras y territorialidad. Repartición étnica y política colonizadora en los Charcas (valles de Ayopaya y Mizque)” in Jahrbuch Für Geschichte. Von Staat, Wirtsahaft und Gesellschaft. Latein Amerikas. Band 30, 1993.Google Scholar

5 Archivo Nacional de Bolivia, Catálogo Ruck, 1604.111.32, nos. 890, 893, 898; 1604.111.15, nos. 887, 888; 1606, no. 971; and Barnadas, Josep M., Charcas: Orígenes históricos de una sociedad colonial, 1535-1565 (La Paz: Centro de Investigación y Promoción del Camposinado, 1973) pp. 470–472.Google Scholar

6 Archivo Municipal de Cochabamba, Mizque Collection (hereinafter AMCBA-M), vols. 1591–1598, 1599–1629, 1630–1676.

7 AMCBA-M, vol. 1561–1590, exp. 2.

8 AMCBA-M, vols. 1591–1598, 1599–1629, 1602, 1629–1676.

9 Sánchez-Albornoz, Nicolás, Indios y tributos en el Alto Perú (Lima: Instituto de Estudios Peruanos, 1978) p. 30.Google Scholar

10 Cole, Jeffrey A., The Potosí Mita, 1573-1700: Compulsory Indian labor in the Andes (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1985) 125;Google Scholar Wightman, Ann M., Indigenous Migration and Social Change: The Forasteros of Cuzco, 1520–1720 (Durham and London: Duke University Press, 1990) pp. 9, 24, 25;CrossRefGoogle Scholar also see Pereira Herrera, David M. and Brockington, Donald L., eds, Investigaciones arqueológicas en las tierras tropicales del Departamento de Cochabamba, Bolivia. Cuadernos de Investigación, Serie Arqueología, no. 9. Instituto de Estudios Antropológicos y Museo Arqueológico. Universidad Mayor de San Simón. Cochabamba. In press.Google Scholar

11 See Larson, Brooke, Colonialism and Agrarian Transformation in Bolivia: Cochabamba, 1550–1900 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1988) pp. 83–84;Google Scholar Ramírez Valverde, María, transcriber, “Visita a Pocona” in Historia y Cultura (Lima, 1970);Google Scholar and AMCBA-M, vol. 1606, f. 2267-2267V and vol. 1561-1590, exp. 13.

12 AMCBA-M, vol. 1597–1607, exp. 18.

13 AMCBA-M, vol. 1597–1607, exp. 18; and vol. 1605-1607.

14 These demographic patterns are most clearly represented in the padrones de chácara mentioned earlier. While doing archival research in Cochabamba and Sucre, I was generously allowed to photocopy (apart from the many I copied by hand—no laptops then ! ) a substantial number of these serial documents, dating from the late 1500s into the mid-1700s. They yield a wealth of information including age, gender, familial status, place of origins, legal status and ethnicity of each yanacona attached to the chácara. This data will be an entire chapter in my monograph now in progress.

15 AMCBA-M, vol. 1561–1590, exp. 3, and exp. 17.

16 AMCBA-M, vol. 1597–1607, exp. 18.

17 Ibid.

18 AMCBA-M, vol. 1597–1607, exp. 9.

19 AMCBA-M, vol. 1610, exp. 30.

20 AMCBA-M, vol. 38, 1629–1676, exp. 8.

21 AMCBA-M, vol. 1597–1607, exp. 18.

22 Archivo Nacional de Bolivia, Colección de Mizque/Jesuitas, fs. 195-280. See Crespo R., Alberto, Esclavos negros in Bolivia (La Paz: Litografías e Imprentas Unidas, S.A., 1977) pp. 65–68.Google Scholar My own findings for the Mizque region support Crespo’s figures.

23 Archivo General de Indias, Charcas, 135, 6 fs. Father Mauricio Valcanover, of the Franciscan order in Cochabamba who has conducted ongoing research on the history of the Franciscans in South America, very generously shared with me this and other data he obtained while doing research in Spain.

24 This decree is cited in Ortíz, Max Portugal, La esclavitud negra in las épocas colonial y nacional de Bolivia (La Paz: Instituto Boliviano de Cultura, 1977) p. 22.Google Scholar

25 For earlier works which focus on the Lima and coastal regions, see Lockhart, , Spanish Peru, pp. 171–198 Google Scholar, Bowser, The African Slave in Colonial Peru, and Cushner, Nicholas P., Lords of the Land: Sugar, Wine, and Jesuit Estates of Coastal Peru, 1600–1767 (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1980) pp. 81–112.Google Scholar Investigations which look beyond the coast and into the Andean highlands include Portgual Ortíz, La esclavitud negra; Crespo, Esclavos; and Bridikhina, Eugenia, La mujer negra en Bolivia (La Paz: Ministro del Desarrallo Humano, 1995).Google Scholar

26 See Blanchard, Peter, Slavery and Abolition in Early Republican Peru (Wilmington, DE: Scholarly Resources, Inc., 1992) 48–50.Google Scholar Here, Blanchard discusses the fear experienced by both government officials and slavocrats when faced with a rebellious, independence-minded and (emphasis mine) armed slaves.

27 Ortíz, Portugal, La esclavitud negra, p. 45.Google Scholar

28 Crespo, , Esclavos negros, p. 117.Google Scholar

29 Ortíz, Portugal , La esclavitud negra, pp. 59, 60–61, 70–73.Google Scholar

30 Crespo, , Esclavos negros, p. 97.Google Scholar

31 Ibid.

32 Ibid.

33 Ibid.

34 Bridikhina, , La mujer negra, pp. 40–42.Google Scholar

35 AMCBA-M, vol. 1605–1607, exp. 22.

36 Archivo Nacional de Bolivia, Audiencia de Charcas: Correspondencia, Lima 1633/ix/l (hereinafter cited as ANB-CHARCAS, CORR).

37 Archivo Nacional de Bolivia, Archivo de Mizque, 1651, no. 1; 1613, no. 16; 1619, no,. 3, 1619, no. 5; 1674, no. 4 (hereinafter cited as ANB-M). These cases are a sampling of what is in the Mizque Collection housed in the National Archives. The ANB is also the repository for most audiencia business including court litigations. I also examined dozens of other cases originating in the regions mentioned earlier in the text: La Paz, La Plata, Potosí, Oruro, Tarija, etc., some of which are also cited in Portugal Ortíz, Crespo, and Bridikhina. All cases adhere to the same standard in terms of form, content, language, and procedure.

38 ANB-M, 1651, no. 1, fs. 3–28. This case, actually covering some 50 detailed pages is relatively brief. Other court cases involving runaways and other forms of slave resistance can run much longer. The documents relating to a specific case are numerous and often chronologically scrambled, making it something of an organizational challenge for the researcher.

39 Ibid.

40 Ibid.

41 Ibid.

42 Ibid.

43 ANB-M, 1674, #4, 5fs.

44 Ibid., 1619, #5, 10 fs. For a detailed explanation of Mizque trade and transport routes, see my own article cited above, Brockington, “La dinámica de la historia regional.”

45 Ibid.

46 Black’s Law Dictionary, 5th Edition.

47 Blanchard, , Slavery and Abolition, p. 97.Google Scholar

48 Archivo Nacional de Bolivia, Expedientes de la Audiencia de Charcas, 1584, exp. 1 ; 1592, exp. 4; 1678, exp. 39; 1680, exp. 30; 1682,- exp. 1 ; 1697, exp. 3197; and 1707, exp. 43 to cite a few.

49 Blanchard, , Slavery and Abolition, pp. 96, 103.Google Scholar

50 The padrones de chácara, cited above, reveal in quantifiable terms the severity of the labor shortage.