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Negro Slaves in Early Colonial Mexico

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 December 2015

Peter Boyd-Bowman
Peter Boyd-Bowman*
Affiliation:
State University of New York, at Buffalo
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Extract

I the widow Catalina Vélez Rascón 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 Biáfara, with a young mulatto daughter of hers named María, plus a Negro called Manuel, born in Zapa, and a Negress Catalina, born in Portugal, with 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 Muñoz, deceased, in two lots, and were sold to my son-in-law Don Juan de Zúñiga, bidding on my behalf. … Given in this city of los Angeles on the 16th day of July in the year of the birth of Our Savior Jesus Christ 1554.

The notarial archive of the Mexican city of Puebla de los Angeles, virtually complete from 1540 on, is a treasure-house of information about social and economic life in the early colony. Many of its earliest documents are, however, in deplorable physical condition, unindexed and chronologically unorganized, which makes them extremely difficult and time-consuming to consult. In order to remedy this condition and make the archive more accessible to scholars both in Mexico and elsewhere, I have indexed and extracted from microfilm the substance of over 1,600 documents executed between 1540 and 1555. These will probably appear in a two-volume collection published by the Editorial Jus in Mexico City. The documents make fascinating reading. There are wills, dowries, contracts, law-suits, partnerships, promissory notes, rentals, powers of attorney, as well as bills of sale itemizing every imaginable kind of property from real estate to livestock to produce to general merchandise.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Americas , Volume 26 , Issue 2 , October 1969 , pp. 134 - 151
Copyright
Copyright © Academy of American Franciscan History 1969

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References

1 A translation of Doc. No. 546 in Vol. II of our forthcoming collection entitled Indice y extractos del Archivo de Protocolos de Puebla (1540-1556), henceforth to be referred to simply as the APP.

2 For further information about the archive and its contents, see Boyd-Bowman, , “Early Spanish Trade with Mexico: A Sixteenth Century Bill of Lading,” in Studies on Latín America: A Miscellany (Buffalo Studies, Vol. 4, Aug. 1968), pp. 45–56.Google Scholar

“I, Sebastián de Saavedra, a citizen of Los Angeles, empower you, Manuel Griego, citizen of Veracruz, absent, to reclaim from Antón Delgado, citizen of Veracruz, … a female Negro slave of mine called Catalina, whom they shipped to me from Santo Domingo, and to issue an appropriate receipt for her in my name, likewise to pay the freight charge and duties on the said Negress and to make any other payment that may be owing, and I further empower you to sell the said Negress to anybody you please, provided it be for cash and not for credit….

“Executed in this city of Los Angeles in New Spain on the 19th of April of the year of our Lord 1553.” (APP, II, Doc. No. 312.)

3 The peso de oro de minas, made of pure gold (oro de ley perfecta) was worth 450 maravedís, while the peso de oro común (common gold) often called oro de lo que corre or oro tipuzque, was reckoned at only 272 maravedís.

4 Examining the 34 male and 10 female Negro slaves sold in Mexico City between 1525 and 1551 for whom prices are quoted in Millares Carlo's index (see Note 6), we found a low of 50 pesos for both males and females in 1536, a high of 205 for a male in 1551 and 300 for a female in 1528, and in general somewhat higher prices for male Negro slaves in Mexico City than in Puebla (about 125 pesos vs. 105).

5 Avido de buena guerra y no de paz. This constantly recurring formula was more usually applied to Indians, the enslavement of whom was normally prohibited by the Nuevas Leyes.

6 Carlo, Agustín Millares, Indice y extractos de los Protocolos del Archivo de Notarías de México, D.F., Vol. 1 (1524-1528), Vol. II (1536-1538 and 1551-1553).Google Scholar

7 de Rojas, María Teresa, Indice y Extractos del Archivo de Protocolos de la Habana, 1578–1585 (La Habana, MCMXCVII sic for 1947?).Google Scholar

8 “Ysabel, half Angolan, half Congolese” (de nación entre angola y conga). (APH, 371, 1585.)

9 Though the Havana documents mention only one specific individual, the citation itself is clear evidence that Negroes from Terra Nova must have been an element of some significance in the city: “I, Francisco de Rojas, a Negro freedman and a native of Tierranova (sic), do … (here follow the terms of his will)…. Furthermore, I order … my body to be buried in the cathedral of this city … in the tomb of the Negroes of Terranova…. (Havana, 1579; APH, 129.)

10 Third Centenary edition (facsimile) in twelve volumes. Amsterdam, 1968.

11 “La rivière des Barbacins … se rend dans la mer à quelques 90 mils ou 20 lieus du Cap Verd … Le pays des Barbecins y Berbecins ou sont les Royaumes d'Alé et de Brocalo, dont le dernier aboutit au fleuve … nommé par les Portugais Rio de Gambia, … et d'un costé et d'autre de ce mesme fleuve l'on void le Royaume de Mandinga.” (Blaeu, X, 102.)

12 “Le nom de Gelofe comprend plusieurs peuples, dont les principaux qui sont du costé du Senega, sont les Barbacins que Iarric appelle Berbecins, Tucurons, Caragoles et Baganos: et les principaux du costé de la rivière de Gambea, son ceux de Ful … ceux de Mani Inga (sic for Mandinga, which appears correctly spelled on the map), …” (Blaeu, X, 109-110.)

13 “ L'on trouve les Biafares en la Province de Biafar par laquelle la grand rivière, appellé Rio Grande [= Rio Corubal in Portuguese Guinea] à l'Espagnole (sic), se va mettre dans la mer, a 66 lieuës du Cap Verd (approx. 300 mi. south of C. Verde), en tirant au Su (sic). Plus avant l'on voit la rivière de Donaliu, qui passe par le pays des Maluces, … et l'on va delà à la rivière de Tabito, ou des Vagas on trouve le pays de Capé, arrosé de deux grandes rivières de Caluz et des Caceres [today corrupted tp the Great and Little Scarcies Rivers]….”

14 “ Plus avant on voit la rivière de Marive, et la Montagne, ou Serre-Lyonne [ = Sierra Leone]; puis la rivière de Suero, qui est entre le Cap des Palmes et les Trois Pointes, prés d'Axim, ou les Portugais ont leurs facteurs pour l'achet de l'or. Au reste les Portugais qui trafiquoient autrefois par la rivière de Calamanse, vont à present négocier avec les Casangas par un bras de la rivière de S. Dominique, qui est un peu plus bas du costé du Sud, et va se rendre en ce Royaume; et c'est sur ce bras que les Portugais ont basty leur fort de Sainct Philippe. Les Pays de ces Casangas est arrosé de plusieurs rivières… . Les Portugais trafiquent fort avec cette nation, principalement en esclaves qu ils achètent d'eux bien souvent mal à propos, pource que la pluspart sont injustement réduits a cette servitude par le Roy, qui fait pour ce sujet des lois fort blâmables.”

“Les Buramos habitant au long de la rivière de S. Dominique confinent avec les Casangas et s'épandent jusqu’à l'emboucheure de la grande rivière, qui est plus avant vers le sud, et passent encor au delà. Le premier bourg de ces Buramos est à huit lieuës loin du port de S. Dominique, ou Iarin, et c'est en ce lieu que fait sa demeure le principal Roy de ces peuples.” (Blaeu, X, 112.)

Blaeu’s knowledge of African geography becomes increasingly fragmentary and faulty as he rounds the bulge of West Africa and proceeds eastward along the coast towards the mouths of the Niger. Indeed, on his maps he shows the Niger flowing into the Senegal and the Congo connected with the Nile! In view of this it is possible that in the paragraph just cited Blaeu’s ‘grande rivière’ may mean the Volta rather than the Niger itself.

15 In fact one slave girl, already cited, is described as having passed through there: “from Santo Tomé and the land of Gio.”

16 Here are some examples translated from my long-range computer-assisted research project, now in its third year, entitled LASCODOCS (A Linguistic Analysis of Spanish Colonial Documents):

“… Negro slaves … María, the freed one, a creole …” (Havana 1579; APH, 69). “… the Negro slave called Francisco, a cowherd, a creole of this island” (Havana, 1579; APH, 145). “The Negro slave Francisca, a creole from Cape Verde … aged 24 …” (Havana, 1579; APH, 202). “A slave … aged 13 … a creole” (Havana 1579; APH, 299). “A Negro slave, a creole of Santo Domingo …” (Havana, 1589; APH, 315). “A Negro, Pedro, by birth a creole, who said he was the slave of a certain Rodríguez” (Monterrey, 1637; Israel Cavazos Garza, Catálogo y sintesis de los Protocolos del Archivo Municipal de Monterrey (1599-1700). Monterrey, 1966 (=Cat. Mont.), 17. “A Negro slave of his called Luisa, a creole aged 17 whom they call the Mulata” (Monterrey, 1647; Cat. Mont., 46). “A Negro slave of his called Pascual, aged 25, a Creole, branded on the face” (Monterrey, 1655; Cat. Mont., 59). “A Creole Negro slave of his called Ana, of about 44 years of age…” (Monterrey, 1699; Cat. Mont., 181).

[For further information about LASCODOCS, see Computers and the Humanities, Vol. 3 (Jan., 1969), pp. 179–180].

17 Cf. Boyd-Bowman's forthcoming study of changing fashions in names entitled “ Los nombres de pila en México desde 1540 hasta 1950,” due to appear in the next issue of the Nueva Revista de Filología Hispánica (NRFH).

18 The latter explanation is perhaps the more likely in view of the difficulty Negroes had, according to contemporary sources, in pronouncing the palatal sound represented by ll in Spanish and by lh in Portuguese. See Alonso, Amado “La Ll y sus alteraciones en España y América,” Estudios dedicados a Menéndez Pidal, Vol. 2, pp. 46–47.Google Scholar

19 In the Mexico City archives mentioned earlier, information on the occupations of Negro slaves is extremely rare. I could find only 14 cases in all the documents ex-tracted. Of these 9 were teamsters, 4 were miners and 1 an assistant to a confectioner.

20 Document No. 241 of our forthcoming collection.

21 Doc. No. 39 of our forthcoming Indice y extractos del archivo de protocolos de Puebla (1540-1555).

22 For previously known facts (and some unfounded speculation) concerning Juan Valiente, see especially Ojeda, Tomás Thayer, Formación de la Sociedad Chilena (Santiago de Chile, 1941), Vol. 3, pp. 320–322.Google Scholar