In Breve historia de la esclavitud en el Perú, Carlos Aguirre surveys three hundred years of African slavery, from the Spanish Conquest to abolition in 1854. The volume is an important addition to the literature on slavery in Peru and the Americas, as well as the social history of colonial Peru. Aguirre tackles an important subject with ease and produces a very accessible analysis.
The author focuses on the social and human aspects of slavery, rather than its economic and political effects. Aguirre aims at illuminating Peru’s present-day culture, influenced in innumerable ways by the traditions brought from Africa and the emergence of autochthonous Peruvian-African traditions. He shows how slavery shaped the cultural traditions of Afro-Peruvians and their descendents; some of these traditions have lasted until the present day.
Breve historia highlights how the colonial state and its laws and courts, in conjunction with the church (as a legitimizing...
