2 Libros de los Cabildos de Quito, Tomo 1, Vol. 1, 1534-1538, pp. 3–5 Google Scholar. The same text documents the presence of Pedro Salinas color negro, and Pedro Moreno (brown) among the 204 people present at the [reļfounding of Quito. See also, Naboa, Fernando Jurado, “Algunas reflexiones sobre la tenencia de los esclavos en la colonia: 1536-1826,” Boletin del Archivo Nacional (Quito, 1992), p. 93 Google Scholar.

3 People of African descent had been coming to the Americas since Columbus’ fourth voyage in 1502. It is possible, however, that black servants and slaves came to the Caribbean with Columbus in the 1490s. Historians, for example, have speculated that the pilot of the Niña (1492)—Alonso Pietro (possibly Prieto meaning black in Portuguese) was indeed a ‘mulato’. While some came as equals and fought in the early conquest battles, many others served as “unarmed axillaries,” participating in and contributing to nearly every voyage and conquest campaign of the period. See for example. Thomas, Hugh, The Slave Trade: The History of the Atlantic Slave Trade 1440-1870 (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1997), pp. 87–91 Google Scholar. See also, Lockhart, James, Spanish Peru, 1532-1560: A Colonial Society (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1968), pp. 171–172 Google Scholar; Bowser, Frederick, The African Slave in Colonial Peru, 1524-1650 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1972), pp. 3–7 Google Scholar; and Restall, Matthew, “Black Conquistadors: Armed Africans in Early Spanish America,” The Americas, 57:2 (October 2000), pp. 174–176 Google Scholar.

4 See Lockhart, James, The Men of Cajamarca (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1972), pp. 36, 96-102, 380, 421-22, and 447CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also, Matthew Restall, “Black Conquistadors,” pp. 174 and 184.

5 These rewards often came in the form of important posts within a burgeoning municipality, freedom for the enslaved, or even the highly coveted encomienda (rights to indigenous labor) grant. For a more in-depth discussion about blacks’ prominence in conquest battles and the rewards they received See Restall, “Black Conquistadors,” pp. 174-196. Historian Frederick P. Bowser noted, moreover, that Africans were seen on both sides of the civil wars among the Pizzaros and Almagros. Some were also commissioned to supply the royal army with harquebuses, lances, and swords. And, at least one African woman was contracted to provide soldiers with rosaries. Bowser, The African Slave, pp. 8-10.

6 Eltis, David, The Rise of African Slavery in the Americas (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2000), pp. 1–29 Google Scholar.

7 The kingdom was also referred to as the Audiencia or Presidency of Quito after the crown installed a high court in the city of Quito in 1563 to head the imperial bureaucracy of a region that stretched from the provinces of Popayán modern-day Colombia southward through the country of Ecuador.

8 Eltis, The Rise of African Slavery, pp. 23-29.

9 Lane, Kris E., Quito 1599: City and Colony in Transition (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2002), pp. 131–133 Google Scholar.

10 Scholars, for example, have only recently turned their attention to the Eastern Andes. See Brockington, Lolita G., “The African Diaspora in the Eastern Andes: Adaptation, Agency, and Fugitive Action, 1573-1677,” The Americas 57:2 (October 2000), pp. 207–224 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

11 The historiography on African slavery and blacks in colonial Quito is so underdeveloped that it is difficult to point to well developed arguments or sustained debates about this aspect of the African Diaspora. Nevertheless, some important works remain. Pioneering were the works of anthropologist, Norman Whitten, historian Manuel L. Salmoral, and Rafael Savioa. See Whitten, Norman E., Black Frontiersmen: Afro-Hispanic Culture of Ecuador and Colombia (Prospect Heights, Ill.: Waveland Press [2nd edition] 1986)Google Scholar; Slamoral, Manuel Lucena, Sangre sobre piel negra: La esclavitud quiteña en el contexto del refomismo borbónico (Quito: Abya-Yala, 1991)Google Scholar; and Savoia, Rafael, ed., Actas del primer congreso de historia del negro en el Ecuador y sur de Colombia (Quito: Centro Cultural Afro-Ecuatoriano, 1988)Google Scholar. Both Michael Hammerly and María Luisa Laviana-Cuetos blazed important trails for scholars interested in the social history of the city and province of Guayaquil, highlighting the presence of African descended people. See Hammerly, Michael, Historia social y económica de la Antigua provincia de Guayaquil, 1763-1842 (Guayaquil, 1973)Google Scholar; Hammerly, , El comercio de cacao de Guayaquil durante el período colonial: un estudio cuantitativo (Guayaquil, 1976)Google Scholar; Cuetos, María Luisa Laviana, Guayaquil en el siglo XVIII: recursos naturals y desarrollo económico (Seville, 1987)Google Scholar. More recently, in the wake of greater interest in the history of the North Andes and the African Diaspora to Spanish America, several scholars have begun to explore the history of blacks in the region. Charles Beatty’s work on Esmeraldas promises to deepen our understanding of a familiar, yet complex and grossly understudied aspect of colonial history—what he refers to as the colonizing and, at times, anti-colonizing efforts of the so-called Afro-Esmeraldeños. Beatty-Medina, Charles, “Rebels and Conquerors: African Slaves, Spanish Authority, and the Domination of Esmeraldas, 1563-1621 (Ecuador)” (Ph.D. diss., Brown University, 2002)Google Scholar. Still others like, María Eugenia Chaves and Camilla Townsend, have gone far to enlighten our minds regarding the lives of enslaved black women at the end of the colonial era. See Chaves, María Eugenía, María Chiquinquirá Díaz un esclava del siglo VIII: Acerca de las identidades de amo y esclavo en el Puerto colonial de Guayaquil (Guayaquil: Archivo Histórico del Guayas, 1998)Google Scholar; idem, “Slave Women’s Strategies for Freedom and the late Spanish Colonial State,” in Hidden Histories of Gender and the State in Latin America, edited by Elizabeth Dore and Maxine Molyneux (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2000); and Honor y libertad: Discursos y recursos en la estrategia de libertad de una mujer esclava (Guayaquil afines del período colonial) (Departamento de Historia e Instituto Iberoamericano de la Universidad de Gotemburgo, 2001); Townsend, Camilla, ‘“Half My Body Free, The Other Half Enslaved’: The Politics of the Slaves in Guayaquil at the end of the Colonial Era,” Colonial Latin American Review 7:1 (June 1998), pp. 105–128 CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also Lavallé, Bernard, “Logica esclavista y resistencia negra en los andes ecuatorianos a finales del siglo XVIII. Revista de Indias 53 (1993), pp. 699–722 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

12 Historian Kris Lane’s recent social history of the kingdom at the turn of the seventeenth century along with his interrogation of gold mining and the corresponding labor demands throughout the region has done much to place blacks at the center of the region’s history. His scholarship underscores the need to look comprehensively at the experiences of blacks in colonial Quito. See, Lane, Kris E., “Taming the Master: Brujeria, Slavery, and the Encomienda in Barbacoas at the Turn of the Eighteenth Century,” Ethnohistory 45:3 (Summer, 1998), pp. 477–507 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; idem, “The Transition from Encomienda to Slavery in Seventeenth-Century Barbacoas (Colombia),” Slavery & Abolition 21:1 (April 2000), pp. 73-95; idem, “Captivity and Redemption: Aspects of Slave Life in Early Colonial Quito and Popayán, The Americas 57:2 (2000), pp. 225–46; and idem, Quito 1599; Germán Colmenares, Historia económica y social de Colombia II: Popayán un sociedad esclavista (SantaFé de Bogotá: Tecer Mundo S.A., 1997 2^nd edition [1979]).

13 Berlin, Ira, Many Thousands Gone: Two Centuries of American Slavery (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Belknap Press, 1997), p. 8 Google Scholar. Historian Eugene D. Genovese has argued that mainland Spanish America did not develop slave societies, insisting that it was a region home to “pockets of slaves and masters.” Genovese, Eugene D., The World the Slaveholders Made: Two Essays in Interpretation (New York: Vintage Books, 1971), p. 63 Google Scholar.

14 See also Finely, Moses I., Ancient Slavery and Modern Ideology (New York: 1980), p. 86 Google Scholar.

15 Bennett, Herman L., Africans in Colonial Mexico: Absolutism, Christianity, and Afro-Creole Consciousness, 1570-1640 (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2003), pp. 14–32 Google Scholar; Lane, Kris E., “Slaves, Rebels, Apprentices: The Captivity Gradient in Early Colonial Quito,” Paper presented at the American Historical Association and Conference on Latin American History Annual Meetings, Chicago, IL. 2003 Google Scholar. See also, Bryant, Sherwin K., “Enslaved Rebels, Fugutives, and Litigants: The Resistance Continuum in Colonial Quito,” Colonial Latin American Review 13:1 (June 2004), pp. 13, 36 and 37, note 11CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

16 For discussions of population figures, see Kenneth J. Andrien, The Kingdom of Quito, pp. 37-44.

17 For demographic histories of the region, see the works of historians Alchon, Suzanne, Native Society and Disease (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991)Google Scholar; and Minchom, Martin. The People of Quito (Boulder: Westview Press, 1988)Google Scholar.

18 Lane, Kris E., “The Transition from Encomienda to Slavery in Seventeenth-Century Barbacoas (Colombia),” Slavery and Abolition, 21:1 (April 2000), pp. 73–95 CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also. Calero, Luis F., Chiefdoms Under Siege: Spain’s Rule and Native Adaptation in the Southern Colombian Andes, 1535-1700 (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1997)Google Scholar; Colmenares, Germán, Historia Economíca y Social de Colombia, 3 vols. (Bogóta: Instituto Colombiano de Cultura Hispánica, 1995)Google Scholar; and West, Robert C., Colonial Placer Mining in Colombia (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1952)Google Scholar. See also Ferry, Robert J., “Encomienda, African Slavery and Agriculture in 17th Century Caracas,” Hispanic American Historical Review 61:4 (November 1981), 609–635 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Yeager, Timothy J., “Encomienda or Slavery? The Spanish Crown’s Choice of Labor Organization in Sixteenth-Century Spanish America,” Journal of Economic History 55:4 (December 1995), pp. 842–859 CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For a discussion of the origins of the encomienda and how it formed the basis for elite Quiteño society see Ducasse, Los Encomenderos.

19 RHGQ, 1:550, 567, 518-526; see also Lane, “Captivity and Redemption.”

20 Archivo Central del Cauca (Popayán) {hereafter ACC}. Protocolos, Primera Notaría, Tomos I & II. I thank historian Kris E. Lane for generously sharing this data with me while at the ACC in August of 2000.

21 ACC. Protocolos, PN, Tomo II, f. 867. Illustrative of the ethno-regional diversity that characterized the city of Quito at this time, they were comprised of: five Brans, three Biafarans, one Guinea, one Jolofo (Geolofo), eight Angolans, two Congos, one Terranova, one Cazanga, and twenty-nine described as “mulatos or criollos.” Enterprising miners and merchants had gone to great lengths to address the region’s growing labor shortage, bringing at least one of these slaves—Francisco Catacamango (30 years-of-age nación Congo) from as far away as the town of Cuenca, situated in the south-central highlands of the kingdom.

22 Marzahl, Peter, Town in the Empire: Government, Politics, and Society in Seventeenth-Century Popayán (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1978), p. 75 Google Scholar.

23 This number promised to solidify the basis of a self-sustaining slave population, which needed, for the moment, a steady infusion of 250 bozales (African-born captives) per annum just to offset the ongoing decline in available Amerindian charges, or so the argument went.

24 Royal officials operated under the assumption that the companionship of presumably more docile females would serve to placate the restive spirits of male captives, thereby preventing violent outbursts of flight and rebellion. Royal and ecclesiastical dogma had already defined male and female sexuality, setting forth required codes of conduct. Marriage was not only an expected, gendered behavior it became the “grand remedy” needed to quell the potential for violent revolts and mass desertions. Gender balanced cargoes, therefore, became a normative element in all petitions to import African captives to the Indies. For a discussion of this phenomenon, see Bennett, Africans in Colonial Mexico, pp. 33-50.

25 Marzahl, Town in the Empire, pp. 75-76.

26 María Elena Diaz finds the crown employed ‘royal slaves’ consistently in state-sponsored public works projects, most notably in fortification efforts throughout the Spanish Caribbean. For a thorough explication of the peculiarities of royal slavery in the context of copper mines in the Spanish Caribbean see Díaz, , The Virgin, the King, and the Royal Slaves of El Cobre: Negotiating Freedom in Colonial Cuba, 1670-1780 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2000)Google Scholar.

27 Lane, Quito 1599, p. 166.

28 Slaves had long been employed in this region, and by the 1580s a second generation was growing up in the region. In 1592 one finds sales of slaves like: Pedro “criollo de Anzerma,” a twelve-year-old boy, who, obviously was born in Anzerma in 1580; In addition to Pedro, there was a young boy named Adán who, apparently, was sold twice; the second time for twice the price of the first; and a young man, named Anton “criollo de Anzerma” would Have been born in Anzerma in the year 1577, if his reported age of 26 years was accurate. See ACC. PN. Tomo I, folios 337, 373, and 283; ACC. PN. Tomo II, folio 855.

29 Robert C. West, Colonial Placer Mining in Colombia, pp.10, 36-37.

30 Ibid. There were also three agricultural villages that fed and otherwise supplied these mining operations. These included Supia la Baja, La Montaña, and Pirsá, worked by 30, 30, and 50 Amerindian charges respectively. Five cattle ranches (hatos de Ganado vacuno) were also located in village of Vega de Supia. See West, p. 37, note 19.

31 See Leiva, Pilar Ponce, ed., Relaciones histórico-geográficas de la Audienica de Qutio, 2 vols. (1991-1994), 1 Google Scholar: pp. 16-56, 445-457; 2: pp. 203-206; and Marzahl, Town in the Empire, p. 7.

32 Mercado was concerned primarily with the presence of the church in this region. For his part, the spiritual conquest had not succeeded in this region, as evidenced by enslaved Africans, Afro-Creoles and Indians who knew not of his Jesus or the law of his god. Mercado insisted, however, that evangelizing the enslaved was a feat that could be accomplished easily with a church presence in the region. Although these individuals were ignorant of the mandates of his god and church, they were apt to learn. Over the course of two nights, blacks from an area mining camp (ranchería) who knew nothing of the Faith were taught, and after that received the communion. Success was had in Anserma when Father Juan de Rivera noted that he was received properly. Rivera had also entered the mining camps to evangelize the slaves. Not only was he well-received, enslaved couples who had been living in sin “mala amistad’ came to be properly married. de Mercado S.J., P. Pedro, Historia de la provincia del Nuevo Reino y Quito de la Compañía de Jesús, Tomo IV (Biblioteca de la Presidencia de Colombia), pp. 22, 28-30Google Scholar.

33 See the power of attorney to take legal action against a man in the town of Toro for the slaying of “Chrisóbal criollo” ACC. PN. Tomo I, folio 326v and 378v.

34 Marzahl, Town in the Empire, p. 36.

35 See, for example, ACC. PN Tomo 9; 14 septiembre 1633, folio 329v; and Marzahl, Town in the Empire, p. 45.

36 West, Colonial Placer Mining; and Lane, Quito 1599, pp. 131-132.

37 West, Colonial Placer Mining, p. 13; Lane, Quito 1599, p. 131; and Barona, Guido, “Estructura de la producción de oro en las minas de la Real Corona: Chisquío (Cauca) en el Siglo XVII,” Anuario Colombiano de Historia Social y de la Cultura (ACHSC) 11 (1983), pp. 5–42 Google Scholar.

38 Lane, Quito 1599, pp. 131-132; and West, Colonial Placer Mining, pp. 13-14.

39 See Kris E. Lane, “Captivity and Redemption,” pp. 243-245; and See Peter Marzahl's work for a discussion of the audit (prompted by scandals of sexual and fiscal improprieties) that revealed these findings. See Marzahl, Town in the Empire, pp. 143-146.

40 Arboleda married Diego’s daughter—doña Theodora de Salazar, and the two men started a longterm business relationship in 1633, purchasing the canal and water rights of Usenda, which Diego then developed. Connecting the canal with other water sources, Diego then contracted with other mine owners to supply them with water from the Victoria/Arboleda canal. This was a process that was sure to demand an increase in labor hands, thereby further precipitating an importation of bozales or the transferal of captives from other mining camps and haciendas in the region. By his death, in 1671, Arboleda owned 145 slaves, including sixty-one women and children (boys <15 and girls <12).

41 Marzahl, Town in the Empire, p. 7.

42 Piezas de esclavos (pieces of slaves), used interchangeably at times with piezas de indias, was used in slave trading parlance to signify the equivalent of a mature, male or female captive, who was thought to be in good physical condition. Not to be confused with cabeza de esclavos or literally heads of slaves, which signified the actual number of captives, pieaza de indias was an attempt to account for and appraise accurately the value of all captives in a given sale, including those who lived “como alma en boca” (with their very souls in their mouths, or on the brink of death). See also, Enriqueta Vila Vilar’s discussion of these term and their import in quantifying slave imports in Vilar, Enriqueta Vila, Hispanoamérica y el comercio de esclavos (Sevilla: Escuela de Estudios Hispano-Americanos, 1977)Google Scholar.

43 ACC. Sig. 931 (Col.—CI—12nt) folio, 20v.

44 ACC. PN. Tomo 13; 9 julio 1661 folios 53, and 56. See also. Marzahl, Town in the Empire, p. 26.

45 ACC. PN. Tomo II, 735v (19-vi-1603).

46 ACC. PN. Tomo I, folio 257v.

47 ACC. PN. Tomo II, f. 142v. In a similar transaction, the buyer of Magdalena Criolla de Quiebralomo was held responsible for the seller’s debts. See ACC. PN. Tomo II, f. 268v.

48 ACC. Sig. 671 (Col—CI—8h), 1621, folios 1-2. See also, the cancellation of a mortgage on four slaves in 1633—ACC. PN Tomo 9 (1633), folios 132v-133. While most elites tended to employ their black slaves in the gold mining industry, others like don Joseph Hurtado charged them with duties on agricultural estates, enterprises that were normally dedicated to supplying the mines with food, clothing, and liquor. In 1633, Hurtado had 12 slaves working in his ingenio (sugar mill). ACC. Primera Notaria, 1633, fol. 55v; See also Marzahl, Town in the Empire.

49 See ACC. Sig. 1805 (Col.—JI—Cv) 1643; 3 folios.

50 The case of don Gaspar González Lauro, Presbitero, is illustrative of this fact. In 1658, he solicited the local notary for a copy of the writ in order to verify that don Alonso de Godoy was a “deudor” of his father’s (Francisco González). Lauro was most concerned about the value four “piezas de esclavos” that his father had purchased and owned at the time of the testament, notarized on May 13, 1658.

51 West, Colonial Placer Mining, pp. 117-121.

52 Ibid., p. 123; See RHGQ, Vol. 1, pp. 1-15, 332-334.

53 West, Colonial Placer Mining, p. 125.

54 West, p. 87.

55 West notes that, “in 1616 and 1631 .. . plagues of locusts destroyed the maize crop around [the region of] Remedios. Rations per slave were reduced to four yuccas (sweet manioc roots) and two maize cakes per week.” He related, moreover, that, “again, in 1715, a severe crop failure in the Chocó caused the starvation of more than three hundred slaves.” See West, p. 86, and note 55 on p. 99, respectively.

56 Citing an early seventeenth-century visita to the mines of Antioquia, Robert West noted that on occasion, women served as capitanas of female gangs. This appears to have been a rare, though not a prohibited method of labor organization. We must remain open, however, to the notion that enslaved Africans may have influenced the organizational hierarchy of cuadrillas and the division of labor within the camps. Although men seem to have occupied positions of authority, women remained the most likely to acquire their freedom. According to historian Kathleen Higgins, in the gold mining camps of early eighteenth-century Sabará, Brazil, women tended to have greater access to “unregulated income, unsupervised free time, masters’ and mistresses’ personal patronage, and manumission.” Enslaved women, she argues, were perceived as less of a threat than their black male counterparts. There were fewer women, and they did not compete with white men for gold-bearing land. See West Colonial Placer Mining, p. 87 and p. 99, note 52. Higgins, Kathleen J., “Licentious Liberty” in a Brazilian Gold-Mining Region, p. 5 Google Scholar.

57 Bryant, “Enslaved Rebels, Fugitives, and Litigants,” pp. 7-19.

58 ACC. Sig. 1391 (Col.—J I—lev). 28 Marzo de 1611, folios 1-12.

59 Early sales reveal several slaves who were known runaways, including: Martin de Trejo, thirty years-of-age and married to an indigenous woman named Lucía, noted to have “walked as a fugitive on one occasion”; Augustín, described to be twenty-six years old, and married; Juan Criollo (20 years-of-age), sold by the Dominican friars in an attempt to purchase slave woman (“una negra”) to wash clothes and prepare food for the monastery in the town of Popayán; and the sale of one referred to as a “grando cimarrón.” See ACC. Protocolos, PN, Tomo I, folios 3, 249, 321, and Tomo II, f. 829.

60 Between 1650 and 1670 only six received their cartas de libertad, a finding that suggests, among other things that it was difficult to earn enough gold to purchase their freedom or that of a loved one. This is not to say, however, that the enslaved were not engaged in this process. While some received their freedom due to the benevolence (or religious strategy) of a dying master, others like Catalina de los Arcos, who purchased her freedom for 150 pesos de ocho reales, acquired their freedom after having struggled to earn what was by any standard, and especially for a slave, a large sum of money.

61 West, Colonial Placer Mining.

62 I have examined all extant bills of sales for the years cited. Thus, when I refer to “random sampling” it is to point to the examination of sales registries for every five years over the course of the two decades between 1650 and 1670. See ACC. PN. Tomos 11, 12, 13, and 14.

63 See, for example, the sales of: Leonardo (25yrs) who was sold for 320 patacones; Domingo (12yrs) who sold for 270 patacones; Juan (7yrs) 200 patacones; Francisco (2yrs) 100 patacones {all Afro-criollos); Francisca criolla de Popayán who sold for 400 patacones; Augustín de nación Angola (Збугѕ) purchased by the local Jesuit colegio for 410 patacones; Paula nación Angola (26 yrs), who was married to “Negro Agustín” (also purchased by Jesuits) for 410 patacones; Luis criollo (25 yrs) 300 patacones; Antonio criollo (7 yrs) 230 patacones; Francisca (no age given, but probably between 16 and 35 given that she sold for 410 patacones); Leonardo (criollo) 400 patacones; and Joana criolla de Cartagena (24 yrs) who was sold with her son Juan (un niño mulatto 1 yr) for 450 pesos. ACC. PN Tomo 12 año 1650; folios, 14, 50v, 53v, 60v-63, 75, 76v, 82, 83, 86, 102. Folios 132v-133 contain, moreover, the previously cited canceled mortgage of four slaves.

64 RHGQ, Vol. 2, pp. 203-207.

65 Kris E. Lane, “Mining the Margins,” p. 104.

66 Another Babacoan elite purchased an entire mining operation in 1676, an enterprise that included 28 slaves, water rights, plantations groves, and other items. See Lane, “From Encomienda,” 84. Drawing from the work of John Thornton and Hernán Colmenares, Lane correctly asserts that Juan Philupo de los Rios was likely to have come from the Fulupo Kingdom situated along the Casamance River in West Africa. See also, Colmenares, Hernán, Popayán: una sociedad esclavista, pp. 48–54 Google Scholar; and Thornton, John, African and Africans in the Making of the Atlantic world, 1400-1800, pp. 184–205 Google Scholar. While Colmenares argues that “most” of Popayán’s slaves (after 1680) embarked from the coasts of West Africa that surround the mouth of the Niger and the Congo River in the south, as will be illustrated in coming pages Popayán’s slave market was characterized by ethno-regional heterogeneity from beginning to end. Lane, “From Encomienda,” p. 85.

67 Williams, Caroline A., “Resistance and Rebellion on the Spanish Frontier: Native Responses to Colonization in the Colombian Chocó, 1670-1690,” Hispanic American Historical Review 79:3, pp. 397–424 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

68 Ibid.

69 Just twelve years later, in 1682, this same minero, Gaspar Estacio Armal y Villada held an even larger cuadrilla (slave gang) consisting of 77 enslaved Africans and Afro-criollos. See Lane, “The Transition From Encomienda to Slavery,” p. 85.

70 Recall that during the middle years of the century, sales figures averaged approximately 11.5 annually, dropping at times to five sales per year.

71 ACC. PN. Tomo 14 (Años 1674-1679). For the mining inventory of the 46 slaves See ACC PN. Tomo 14, 1676, folios 9-10v. See also folios 56v-57v and 95v-97 for the importation of 20 and 17 bozales respectively. Among these one finds the Monjas de la Encarnación contracting with Captain Joseph de Morales Fanega to sell 30 “piezas de esclavos” for 2,900 patacones. Fanega accomplished this on May 22, 1674, a move that is reflective of the previously cited troubles that the convent continued to experience during this era. See Ibid, folios 46v-49.

72 Forty six piezas de negros esclavos, of them the following names, nations ‘naziones,’ and ages: Sebastian moreno criollo (37yrs); Salvador (27yrs); Vitovio (25yrs); Francisco Angola (53 yrs); Luis Angola (53 yrs ‘de los mismos’); Joseph Angola ‘criollo’ (27 yrs); Nicolas criollo (19 yrs); Bernardo (19 yrs); Manuel (17yrs) son of criolla Elena de la Cruz (43 yrs); Aneta (41 yrs); Catalina (47 yrs); Victor (53 yrs) Leonor (27 yrs); Agustin (4 yrs); Manuela (16 yrs); Joseph (13 yrs); Another Joseph (8 yrs); Julian (5 yrs); Sebastian Angola (53 yrs); Christobal (63 yrs); Maria Angola (58 yrs); Manuel Conde criollo (30 yrs); Joseph criollo (18 yrs); Juan criollo (19 yrs); Gregorio his [Juan’s] brother (21 yrs); Francisco criollo (19 yrs); Bernardo (15yrs); Marta (20yrs); María (40yrs); Juaneta (28 yrs); María {daughter of Juaneta} (5 yrs); Joseph {son of Juaneta} (2 yrs); Fausta {also nursing daugheter hija de pechos} (2 months); Domingo Angola (27 yrs); Domingo Bran (23 yrs); Bisente (7 yrs); Marz (land 1/2 year); Pasqual (5 yrs); Francisco {nursing son of Leonor); Diego Concha (60 yrs). See ACC. PN. Tomo 14, 1676, folios, 9-9v.

73 ACC. PN. Tomo 14, 1677, folios 56v-57v. Ibid, folio 59.

74 Ibid.

75 Examining another, and perhaps similar, frontier region, Paul Lokken has argued that enslaved men employed marriage as a strategy, entering into unions with Amerindian women in an effort to secure free status for their children, while Amerindian women sought to evade tribute obligations. Lokken sees marriages between enslaved black men and free black women within this vein as well, a finding that might help to explain the presence of a significant number of free black women in the mining camps of Popayán. See Lokken, Paul, “Marriage as Slave Emancipation in Seventeenth-Century Rural Guatemala,” The Americas 58:2 (October 2001), pp. 175–200 CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed. For further discussions regarding race and colonial Spanish American tribute policy see Milton, Cynthia and Vinson, Ben III, “Counting Heads: Race and Non-native Tribute Policy in Colonial Spanish America,” Journal of Colonialism and Colonial History 3:3 (2002), pp. 1–21 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

76 The creation of chaplainries also included payments for masses and prayers for the soul of the deceased. Churches might also sell donated slaves and rendered prayers and misas for their deceased masters. Some masters expected, moreover, that their god would have mercy upon them for committing merciful deeds in their death. This ideology is particularly compelling when one considers the fact that the concept of enslaving fellow Christians had never been completely resolved within Christian theology (i.e. inherent contradictions between the enslavement of people who were assumed ‘free’ in the blood of Christ)—canon law notwithstanding. Deathbed manumissions may have reflected some since of guilt and desire for absolution on the part of many slaveholders. The other side of the same coin, however, is a self-serving desire for immortality. For a discussion of baroque redemption ideology, see Lane, “Captivity and Redemption,” pp. 53-54. See also Deusen, van, “The ‘Alienated Body:’ Slaves and Castas in the Hospital de San Bartolomé in Lima, 1680-1700,” The Americas 56:1 (July 1999), pp. 1–30 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

77 ACC. NP. Tomo 17, 1690-1, folios, 1-4, 64-66, 78v-80, and 85-86.

78 See for example the sale of Isabel nación de Mina (30 yrs) along with her one and a half month-old-daughter who was born after the, initiation of the sale, both for 620 patacones. ACC. NP. Tomo 17, 9 junio 1691, folios 136v-138. See also the following sales: una negra bozal, Catalina de nación Popo (16 yrs) and María criolla de Cartagena (42 yrs). Ibid.

79 See Colmenares, Germán, Historia económica y social II (Santafé de Bogotá: Tercer Mundo, SA, 1997 [1979])Google Scholar.

80 Ibid, folios 251 v-252. Both María and her daughter—Juana María—were valued at 600 patacones, giving doña Antonia de Arboleda a dowry valued at a minimum of 3,600 patacones.

81 Ibid, folios 254v-256.

82 Ibid. Colmenares points to the fact that masters went to great lengths to maintain the constitution of mining gangs, leaving their progeny with strict instructions concerning their management, along with details concerning important resources like water rights. In most instances these patriarchs appointed one heir to the mines and associated resources, distributing the remainder of their estates to remaining heirs.