Over the years scholars from three continents have toiled to give us a deeper understanding of the black experience in Hispanic America. Frank Tannenbaum, Gonzalo Aguirre Beltrán, Herbert Klein, Rolando Mellafe, Luis Díaz Solar, James F. King, Gilberto Freyre, Philip Curtin, Gwendolyn Hall, Vicenta Cortés, Charles Verlinden, Magnus Mörner, Harry Hoetink, Stanley Stein, Carl Degler, Carlos Blanco Larrazabal, José Antonio Saco, Florestan Fernandes, and a host of others have greatly increased our sensitivity to the place of the black in Spanish and Luso-America. Frederick Bowser now joins this distinguished company with a significant new book on the slave and free person of color in colonial Peru.
Despite their relatively small numbers, slaves played a major role in early colonial Peru. Initially, the Spaniards had little need for blacks and relied exclusively on Indians for their labor, but as the Indian population declined, slaves were imported to alleviate the labor short-age. From 1555 to 1588, for example, between 250 and 300 entered annually, while from 1600 to 1650 the yearly average was between 1,000 and 1,500. The Portuguese dominated the slave trade, particularly after the union with Spain in 1580-1581. Many of these traders prospered mightily. One, Manuel Bautista Pérez, amassed a fortune of over half-a-million pesos from traffic in slaves. Imported into Peru from West Africa by way of Cartagena, Puertobelo, Panama, and Callao, the most desirable slaves, at least for buyers in Peru, came directly from Guinea and Angola (bozales). They were much preferred over the American-born, Hispanicized slaves (ladinos), whom one observer labeled murderers, thieves, drunks, liars, nincompoops, and a host of other uncomplimentary epithets. Slaves in colonial Peru toiled primarily in urban areas and performed a variety of tasks as tanners, leather workers, bricklayers, carpenters, street vendors, joiners and caulkers in shipyards, muleteers, sailors, and dock hands. Most slaves, however, were servants, whose presence in the household gave their white or Indian owners prestige and status. Was Peruvian slavery profitable? Yes, it could be. A healthy, skilled slave could be hired out by his master and return his owner’s investment within 17 months.
Life was not easy for black slaves in sixteenth- and seventeenthcentury Peru. Stern laws governed their conduct. They could not bear arms or gather in free assembly. If they violated the curfew that forced them off the streets two hours after sunset, they received 100 lashes for the first offense, castration for the second, and exile from Lima for the third. Any white could seize a slave and take him to jail. Although there were slave rebellions, for whites these were more a fear than a reality. Running away was the most common crime committed by slaves with theft, assault, murder, drunkenness, and rape farther down the line in frequency. Punishments were severe. Blacks were whipped, sent to the galleys, exiled to Chile, or hanged, depending upon the offense. On the other side, however, they enjoyed at least some protection from abuse by their owners and other whites. Except for the music, dancing, and drinking that accompanied religious festivals, slaves had few diversions. A select number belonged to cofradías or sodalities, normally formed along tribal lines. In emergencies they were sometimes incorporated into the militia, but otherwise they led a monotonous existence. A low percentage (less than ten percent) married legally, but this did not insure their being kept together. Some slaves received religious education, and for a time the Jesuits in the Colegio de San Pablo in Lima even proposed a course in the “language of Angola.” Slave owners, however, opposed any sort of instruction, believing it made their blacks lazy, argumentative, and intractable. Overall, Bowser views the life of the slave in colonial Peru as drab and dull, not grindingly hard or miserable. Black slaves, he observes, were “indifferently fed, clothed, housed, and looked after,” with “as little to be thankful for as to rage against” (p. 271).
Some slaves bought freedom or achieved it through the largesse of their owners. By 1650, in fact, free persons of color made up ten percent of the black population of Peru. Their existence was not much better than that of slaves. Free persons of color had to abide by the curfew, could not bear arms, and had to pay tribute. Free black or mulatto women had to adhere to the goading sumptuary laws applied to slaves. Although loosely enforced, one law called for freed persons of color to live with whites and to hire out only to whites. Some skilled artisans managed to acquire a bit of wealth and status, but most did not; and in Bowser’s view “free persons of color were as low in the economic scale as they were in the social scale” (p. 319).
This is a distinguished book, marked by thoroughness and breadth of research, sensitive analysis, and clear, forceful style. Bowser deftly blends what might be termed micro evidence, gleaned from notarial records in Peru, with macro evidence from Sevilla—viceregal reports and letters, clerical correspondence, and the like. A devotee of the method developed by James Lockhart, Bowser has used case studies taken from notarial records as the basis for his generalizations and interpretations. Sometimes this leaves the reader a bit uncomfortable, chafing to know whether a case was typical or atypical. Yet, because of the depth of his research and his painstaking, measured interpretations, Bowser, even more than Lockhart, has demonstrated the value of research in notarial archives. He also uses quantitative materials to good advantage. Among other things, he has provided a price series for slaves of different sex, age, and origin; a remarkable table on the ethnic origins of Afro-Peruvians; and an analysis of the growth of the black population of Lima, 1554-1650. In dealing with a sensitive topic like slavery, Bowser has preserved an amazingly fine balance between scholarly detachment and human compassion; obviously sympathetic to the plight of the slave, he has, to his credit, rejected the melodramatic and maudlin in the narrative. In sum, this is a vitally important book, a distinguished addition to the literature on slavery in Hispanic America.
