O Toole - War

"In a War against the Spanish": Andean Protection and African Resistance on the Northern Peruvian Coast Author(s):
Rachel Sarah O'Toole Reviewed work(s): Source: The Americas, Vol. 63, No. 1, The African Diaspora in the Colonial Andes (Jul., 2006), pp. 19-52 Published by: Academy of American Franciscan History Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4491177 . Accessed: 22/04/2012 13:27
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TheAmericas 63:1 July 2006, 19-52 Copyrightby the Academy of American FranciscanHistory
"IN A WARAGAINST THE SPANISH": ANDEAN PROTECTION AND AFRICAN RESISTANCE ON THE NORTHERNPERUVIAN COAST*
n 1641, the rural guard of colonial Trujillo on the northernPeruvian coast, accompanied by "many Indians,"attacked a cimarr6n (fugitive slave) encampmentled by two congos, Gabriel and Domingo.' Indigenous men wished to end the fugitives' raids on their fields and families. Towards this end, they guided the Spanish lieutenant magistrate and his company to the cimarr6n settlement hidden in the hills above the Santa Catalina valley.2 Indigenous leaders and commoners of the Mansiche reducci6n-or colonial indigenous village-who maintained lands in the Santa Catalinavalley, testified that "negroscimarrones"(fugitive "blacks") had been assaulting local inhabitantsand stealing from valley since 1633.3 Yet, Mansiche reducci6nhad not registereda previous complaintindicating that fugitive slaves and indigenous people in Santa Catalinahad not to this point been antagonistic. Rather, the cimarrones' leaders, Gabriel and Domingo, had a history of tradingwith the valley's indigenous farmerswho
* This articlehas benefited from the careful critiqueof four anonymousreviewers for TheAmericas. Additionally, I thank Kathryn Burns, Sarah Chambers, Anne Marie Choup, Leo Garofalo, Ann Kakaliouras,Danielle McClellan, and Ben Vinson III for their suggestions and criticismof variousversions. Researchfor this articlewas fundedby a Villanova UniversityFaculty SummerResearchFellowSemResearchFellowship from the International ship and ResearchSupportGrant(2004), a Short-Term inar on the History of the AtlanticWorldat HarvardUniversity (2003), an AlbertJ. Beveridge Grantfor Researchin the History of the WesternHemispherefrom the AmericanHistoricalAssociation (2003), a FulbrightFellowship to Peru (1999), and Andrew W. Mellon Fellowship at the VaticanFilm Library, Saint Louis University (1996). "Real Provisi6n compulsoria y citatoria para traer los autos seguidos contra unos cimarronesy sultedoresde caminos,"Archivo Departamental La Libertad(ADL). Corregimiento(Co.). Criminales de (Cr.). Legajo (Leg.) 245. Expediente (Exp.) 2500 (1639), f. 1; "Querella...sobreque le d6 y pague 400 pesos que le cost6 una esclava Felipa de TierraFirme que lo ahorc6 sin causa ninguna,"ADL. Co. Cr. Leg. 246. Exp. 2533 (1642), f. 1; "Expediente...contraunos negros de Francisco Benites llamados Gabriely Domingo; sobre salteamientosy hurtosde ganados mayoresy menores,de maiz y otraslegumbres,"ADL. Cabildo (Ca.). Cr. Leg. 79. Exp. 1350 (1641), f. 2. 2 ADL. Co. Cr. Leg. 245. Exp. 2500 (1639), f. 2-2v; ADL. Ca. Cr. Leg. 79. Exp. 1350 (1641), f. 23. 3 "Expediente...contra Juan Laizaronegro y Juan Esteban mulato sobre haber salteado y robado a unos indios pasajeros," ADL. Ca. Cr. Leg. 79. Exp. 1353 (1642), f. 23.
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"IN A WAR AGAINSTTHE SPANISH"
were members of the Mansiche reducci6n.4So why, after years of tolerating fugitive slave activity in the Santa Catalina valley, did the indigenous villagers and leaders of Mansiche join the Spanish assault? How did the resistance of congos cimarrones against the impositions of slavery clash with the struggles of indigenous villagers and laborersagainst the demands of Spanish landholders? of The participation indigenous villagers in the Spanishentrada (military venture) against cimarronesand indigenous accusations of fugitive attacks provide an entry into two interdependentpoints regarding indigenous"African"relations in rural environs, a critical yet understudiedissue in colonial SpanishAmerican history.5First, the northerncoastal case illuminates how African slaves complemented, but did not replace, indigenous laborersin commercialAndean ruraleconomies. Historianshave noted the decline of northernindigenous communitiesand the rise of African-descent populations, yet this article explore the interactions of these co-existent groups in the arid valleys of Peru's northerncoast.6 Second, when indigenous communities and enslaved or fugitive Africans clashed over scarce resources, they did so according to their distinct locations in colonial law and their places in the local economy. As membersof colonial reducciones, indigenous communities sought to defend their Crown-appointedrights against the expanding Spanish estates. As other scholars have noted, the to Republicof the Indiansoffered a legal location for "Indians" defend land and water resources and combat excessive colonial impositions.' As the Crown mandated,indigenous people who paid tribute,performedrequired labor, and converted to Catholicism were vassals to the King and thus
ADL. Ca. Cr. Leg. 79. Exp. 1353 (1642), f. 23. Significantly,researchis expandingwith the recentpublicationof Beyond Black and Red:AfricanNative Relations in Colonial Latin America, Matthew Restall, ed., (Albuquerque:University of New Mexico Press, 2005). I employ "African"to name people born in AtlanticAfrica, a region that included extensive linguistic and culturalcontexts, kingdoms, states, and networkedcommunities. Nonetheless, an the colonial term negro articulated enslaved or subordinate position while slave tradecasta categories such as angola and congo labeled Europeanperceptionsthat enslaved and free people would transform into Diasporaidentities. "African,"therefore,is an unsatisfactorygloss, but one that serves to underline the possibility of an auto-identityratherthan a colonial one as well as the distinctionbetween criollos born in the Americas and those from the greaterAtlantic world. 6 Noble David Cook, DemographicCollapse: IndianPeru, 1520-1620 (Cambridge: CambridgeUniversity Press, 1981), p. 120; Susan Ramirez,Provincial Patriarchs:Land Tenureand the Economics of Power in Colonial Peru (Albuquerque: Universityof New Mexico Press, 1986), pp. 82-83; IleanaVegas de Ciceres, EconomiaRuraly EstructuraSocial en las Haciendas de Limaduranteel Siglo XVIII(Lima: PUCP, 1996), p. 35. Stanford 7 KarenSpalding,Huarochiri:An AndeanSociety UnderInca and SpanishRule (Stanford: University Press, 1984), p. 158; Ann Wightman,IndigenousMigrationand Social Change: The Forasteros of Cuzco, 1570-1720 (Durham:Duke University Press, 1990), p. 12.
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RACHEL SARAH O'TOOLE
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deservedroyal protection.8 additionto theiruse of colonial courts and the In Catholic Church,this article suggests that northerncoastal indigenouscommunities survived the hacienda usurpationsof resources by trading with enslaved Africans and their descendants.Indigenousfarmersand communities also employed enslaved or fugitive Africans and criollos (born in the Americas)as itinerantlaborersas anotherstrategyfor enduringSpanishconfiscations of land and water.Likewise, enslaved Africans and free people of color supplementedtheir haciendafood rationsby tradingwith indigenous neighbors in an ongoing development of mutuallybeneficial relationships. Thus, this article suggests that regardless of the demographicdecline of indigenous populations or Spanish royal mandates to separate "Indians" from "negros,"ruralpeople developed local economic and labor practices that defied legal expectationsand colonial impositions.9 Yet, when the northerncoast experienced a series of environmentaldisasters, Spanish estate owners, indigenous communities, and enslaved Africans turnedto distinct survival strategies.After an earthquakein 1619, the northern coastal valleys experiencedsevere flooding in 1624. The earthquake had destroyed the earthen walls of the irrigation canals, a critical infrastructure the desertagriculture the coastal plain.10 of Withoutproper on the fields could flood with contaminatedwaters and could not be irrigation, cultivated.Compoundingthe resultinglabordeficiency in the coastal reducciones, indigenous men sought alternative employment on neighboring estates and distantcities. Simultaneously,some Spanish estate owners, suffering from a lack of income, choose to not feed their slaves. Subsequently, hacendadosallowed increasedmobility in orderfor slaves to forage and to tradefor food. By the late 1630s and 1640s, Trujillo'smunicipalcouncil and indigenous communities along the northerncoast reportedan agricultural crisis as foodstuffs in the city were in shortsupply." Enslavedlaborers,who
in 8 Brooke Larson, Cochabamba1550-1900: Colonialism and Agrarian Transformation Bolivia (Durham:Duke University Press, 1998), pp. 67-68. 9 By placing Indians in quotation marks, I underline the colonial constructionof this term that attemptedto reduce a wide range of indigenouscommunities into a singularcategory. Anales de Cabildo. Ciudadde Trujillo.Extractos Tomadosde los Libros 10 Alberto Larco Herrera, de Actas del ArchivoMunicipal (Lima: SanMartiy Ca., 1907-1920), cites ff. 366-366v, 33, 102v-103; 162-164v; 8-15v, 22-23; 184-185; "Obedecimiento pero no su cumplimientode los corregidoresde Safia y partidode Chiclayo...de la Real Provision despachadopor el virrey sobre la repartici6nde los indios yungas y serranosparala reedificaci6nde Trujillo-la misma que habia quedadoaveriadapor los efectos del terremotoque asol6 y destruj6la ciudad,"ADL. Co. Asuntos de Gobierno.Leg. 267. Exp. 3106 (1622), f. 8v; "Mandamiento...para se tome las cuentas a los receptoresde la alcabalasencabezonque adas de esta ciudad y villas de Santay Caxamarcay valle de Guadalupe," ADL. Co. Juez de Residencia. Leg. 275. Exp. 3441 (1637). " In 1632 the vecinos of Trujillo complain of the poverty, land sterility, and ruined city resulting from the 1619 earthquake. LarcoHerrera, See Anales, cites ff. 162-164v.Again in 1639, the Trujilloveci-
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"IN A WAR AGAINST THE SPANISH"
had been able to tradelaborfor food with indigenouscommunities,were no longer able to sustain themselves on the marginsof the haciendaeconomy. Indigenous communities, squeezed by the continuing demands for tribute and laboras well as the aggressive raidingof desperatefugitive slaves, allied with colonial officials to strike out against Gabriel, Domingo, and their congo "waragainst the Spanish."12 With close attentionto how indigenous andAfrican laborersexperienced these dramaticeconomic shifts, this article examines the northernPeruvian coast to challenge a colonial historiography that often separatesthe experiences of "Indians" from slaves. Historiansof coastalAndeansarguethatepidemics, El Nifio flooding, tributedemands,and rapidexpansion of Spanish estates pushed most indigenous communities to sell their irrigatedvalley lands and become wage laborers(peons or yanaconas) or retreatto remote, less desirable, environs.13 Yet, indigenous people simply did not disappear from the northern coast or abandontheircolonial settlements,but employed their legal associations with colonial reducciones to defend themselves in the mid-colonialperiod. Simultaneously, coastalAndeanssearchedfor alternative labor opportunities and market venues as indigenous people did throughout the Spanish Americas.14 On the northern coast, indigenous strategies also included relationshipswith enslaved and free Africans and their descendantswhose numbersincreased along with the Spanish landed estates. Indigenouspeople continued to rely on the protectionsaffordedto "Indians" undercolonial Spanish law. For example, as Spanishlandholders their holdings duringthe seventeenthcentury,indigenous leaders expanded demandedre-countsof theirtribute-paying members,insisted that hacendanos complainedof the resultingpoverty from the earthquake. LarcoHerrera, See Anales, cites ff. 8-15v. In 1643 the Trujillocabildo claimed that there was no public jail in the city since the 1619 earthquake. See LarcoHerrera, Anales, cites f. 100. Anne MarieHocquenghem,et al "EventosEl Nifio y lluvias anormales en la costa del Periu:siglos XVI-XIX," Bulletin de l'Institut Frangais d'Etudes Andines 21:1 (1992), p. 148. 12 "Visita por los del Consejo Real de las Indias la residencia ...," Archivo General de las Indias (AGI). Escribania.Leg. 1189 (1648). In 1642 the slaves on a Chicamahacienda revolted. See "Auto... para que vaya al Chicama valle ha hacer las diligencia necesarias sobre la muertede Salvador,mulato esclavo...hecho por Francisco de Cervantes, a causa de haberle dado muchos azotes y otros malADL. Co. Cr. Leg. 246. Exp. 2530 (1642), f. 24; Larco Herrera, Anales, cites f. 140v. tratamientos," 13 Manuel Burga,De la Encomiendaa la Hacienda Capitalista. El Vallede Jequetepequedel Siglo XVI al XX (Lima: IEP, 1976), pp. 52, 64, 67, 80, 93, 119; Nicolas Cushner,Lords of the Land: Sugar, Wine, and Jesuit Estates of Coastal Peru, 1600-1767 (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1980), pp. 15, 23, 82; Keith Davies, Landownersin Colonial Peru (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1984), pp. 25, 35, 50, 53, 62; Susan Ramirez, The WorldTurnedUpside Down: Cross-CulturalContact and Conflict in Sixteenth-Century Peru (Stanford:StanfordUniversity Press, 1996), pp. 10, 37, 43. 14 Larson, Cochabamba,ChapterTwo; Wightman,Indigenous, ChapterFive; Ann Zulawski, They Eatfrom TheirLabor: Work Social Change in Colonial Bolivia (Pittsburgh: and Universityof Pittsburgh Press, 1995), pp. 84, 146-147.
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dos providelaborto clean the sharedirrigationcanals, and defendedthe borders of their communal holdings.15 Likewise, indigenous Andeansdetachedfrom the colonial reducci6njoined otherlaborerson Spanishlandholdings as contractedyanaconas, which entitled them to land, water, and sometimes positions of authority.16Distanced from tributeand mita obligations of their original reducciones, hired indigenous laborersguardednew privileges of cash wages and land access on the haciendas that separated them from mitayos (indigenous men serving mita) as well as enslaved African laborers.17On the northerncoast, however, a significantpopulation of enslaved and free Africans offered additional market opportunitiesto indigenous communities while simultaneouslyproviding a judicial reason for indigenouspeople to demandlegal protectionsagainstpotentiallythreatening "negros." In contrast,the ruralenvirons offered enslavedAfricansand theirdescendants limited economic opportunitiesand few institutionalprotections as mandatedby colonial law. For example, in late sixteenth and early seventeenth-century Mexico City, Herman Bennett has argued that Africans claimed corporate inclusion into colonial society as Catholics.18Yet, in greater Trujillo, clerics avoided hacienda parishes composed of slaves because of the dispersednatureof the estates as well as the difficulty of colFurthermore,indigenous reduclecting their fee from the hacendados.19
" These tactics are familiarto Andean historians:Steve Stern, Peru's Indian Peoples and the Challenge of Spanish Conquest:Huamangato 1640 (Madison:The University of Wisconsin Press, 1982), p. Charcas,"in Ethnic90; ThierrySaignes, "IndianMigrationand Social Change in Seventeenth-Century ity, Markets, and Migration in the Andes: At the Crossroads of History and Anthropology.Brooke editors (Durham:Duke UniversityPress, 1995), p. 169. As AleLarson,Olivia Harris,EnriqueTandeter, has jandroDiez Hurtado indicated,coastal indigenousleadersemployed secularcourtsand religious confraternitiesto protect and to define their transformedcolonial communities. Alejandro Diez Hurtado, Fiestas y Cofradias:Asociaciones Religiosas eIntegracidn en la Historia de la Comunidadde Sechura Siglos XVIIal XX (Piura:CIPCA, 1994), pp. 83, 182. 16 Foryanacona strategieson the coast, see Cushner,Lords,p. 82; Davies, Landowners,p. 35; Vegas de Ciceres, Economfa,p. 133. "7 For similar strategies of indigenous laborerssee Zulawski, They Eat, pp. 176-177, 195; Larson, Cochabamba,pp. 84. 86; Wightman,Indigenous,pp. 82-85. and Afro-CreoleCon18 HermanL. Bennett,Africans in Colonial Mexico: Absolutism,Christianity, sciousness, 1570-1640 (Bloomington: IndianaUniversity Press, 2003). For fugitive men and women seeking out theirspouses or lovers, see "Expedienteseguido por don Bartolom6de Billavicencio, Alcalde de la Santa Hermandad Trujillo,contraJuan, negro, esclavo de FranciscoGuerraYafiez;sobre estar de oculto y escondido en casa de Juan Rubio," ADL. Ca. Cr. Leg. 79. Exp. 1325 (1618); "Expediente de de seguido por don Pedro de Silva Campo Frio, Capitain Infanteriay Alcalde de la Santa Hermandad Trujillo,contraVentura,negroesclavo del doctordon Diego Garciade Paredes;sobre huidadel poderde su amo,"ADL. Ca. Cr. Leg. 79. Exp. 1339 (1624). '9 Archivo Arzobispalde Lima (AAL). Apelaciones de Trujillo.Leg. 14. Exp. 1 "Chicama/Trujillo. contrael fiel Autos seguidos por fray Diego de Salazar,mercedario,cura que fue del pueblo de Paijain, ejecutorFranciscoAntonio de Leca paraque le pague 360 pesos de le debe del tiempo en que como tal
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ciones may have maintainedcontrol over "Indian" cofradias in the valleys of the northern coast excluding Africansand theirdescendantsfrom another Anotherpossibility possibility of articulatinga colonial corporateidentity.20 was enlistmentin colonial militias thatmay have offered legal protectionsto free Africansand theirdescendants.On the northern coast, enslaved and free Africans, negros, and mulatos who served as assistants to the rural guard were awardedwith the uniformof a cape and sword or (Santa Hermandad) were paid for their work.21 Yet, the colonial militias with corporaterights describedby Ben Vinson III were not establishedin the northern coastal valuntil the later seventeenthcenturyand then only in the regional capital leys of Trujillo.22 Other scholars of the Andean African Diaspora and slavery societies have explored how Africans and their descendants(enslaved and free) seized on legal protectionsand ecclesiasticaljustifications to manumit themselves and their families.23 Again, without access to urbancourts, offiand patrons,rural slaves were less likely to gain these freedoms. As cials, such, this article builds on a historiographyof African Andean agency to expand the focus to enslaved and free Africans and their descendantswho were unable to access the corporate rights ensured by colonial law and
cura administr6los sacramentosy dijo misa en su hacienda de Licapa, en el valle de Chicama, como anexo de su curato,"(1670/1672); "Autos de demandasdel SargentoMayor don Valentindel Risco y Montejocontrafray LorenzoMontero,curadel pueblo de Santiagode Chicama."ArchivoArzobipsalde Trujillo (AAT). Causas Generales. Leg. 4 (1725). FrederickBowser, African Slave in Colonial Peru 1524-1650 (Stanford:StanfordUniversity Press, 1974), pp. 126, 299. 20 While there is documentationof cofradias for indigenous men and women in the reduccidn for parishes,I have found no recordof organizedconfraternities enslavedAfricansand theirdescendants in the rural valleys. Bowser has suggested that cofradias were primarilyurban institutions in sevenPeru as indicatedby the active membershipsin the city of Trujillo.Bowser, African, pp. teenth-century 248, 250. 21 Bowser, African, pp. 197, 199, 204. 22 Ben Vinson III, Bearing Armsfor His Majesty: The Free-Colored Militia in Colonial Mexico (Stanford:StanfordUniversity Press, 2001). Free men of color in Paitaand Piura,important ports on the far northern Peruviancoast, appearto have been membersof a local militia in the early seventeenthcentury as in Callao and Lima. See Bowser, African, pp. 309, 310. It would not be until the laterpartof the seventeenthcenturywhen free men of color enrolled in Trujllo'smilitia. See "Receptoriaen forma para hacerprobanzaante las justicias de la ciudad de Trujillo,...," ADL. Ca. Ordinarias (Ord.).Leg. 23. Exp. 490 (1670). 23 Carlos Aguirre,Agentes de su propia libertad: Los Esclavos de Lima y la desintegracion de la esclavitud 1821-1854 (Lima: PUCP, 1993); Peter Blanchard,Slavery & Abolition in Early Republican Peru (Wilmington:ScholarlyResources, Inc.; 1992); MariaEugenia Chaves, Honor y libertad:Discursos y Recursos en la Estrategia de Libertadde una MujerEsclava (Guayaquila fines del periodo colode de nial) (Sweden: Departamento Historiae InstitutoIberoamericano la Universidadde Gotemburgo, 2001); Christine Hiinefeldt, Paying the Price of Freedom: Family and Labor Among Lima's Slaves, 1800-1854 (Berkeley:University of CaliforniaPress, 1994); Jean-Pierre Tardieu,El Negro en el Cusco: Los caminosde la alienacidn en la segunda mitaddel siglo XVII(Lima:PUCP/BancoCentralde Reserva del Perti,1998);Los Negros y la iglesia en el Peri: siglos XVI - XVII. 2 tomos (Quito: Centro Cultural Afroecuatoriano,1997).
RACHELSARAH O'TOOLE
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Catholic practice. Excluded from the legal protections afford to "Indians" and the corporatepossibilities of the urbanenvirons, I argue that enslaved and free Africans (with their descendants) developed economic relations with indigenouspopulationsand Diasporaaffiliationsto survive the impositions of ruralslavery. By asking how indigenous laborersand enslaved Africans dealt with a sharedcrisis of agricultural fromdistinctlegal locationsin colonial production SpanishAmericansociety,this articleseeks to disruptan unresolvedhistoriobetween"Indians" blacks.Coloniallaws dictatedthe and graphicalseparation of "Indians" from non-indigenouspopulationswith the establishseparation ment andthe maintenance the "Republicof the Indians" the "Republic of and of the Spaniards" hypothetically that includedAfricansand theirdescendants. the Yet, this article demonstrates fiction of African inclusion in the Spanish and the ambiguousrelationof blacks to the "Indian" republic republic.This close analysisof the labordemands,economic practices,and survivaltactics of indigenousandenslavedpeople in the northern coastalvalleys suggeststhat coloniallaw did not uniformlydictatethe economicpracticesof the colonized. Yet, indigenous people strategicallyseized on their legal protections,especially when their economic livelihoods were threatened local agricultural by crises. "Indian" tactics,however,were not solely dictatedby theirlegal locations as indigenouscommunitiescalled on theirrightswithinthe "Republic of the Indians"when necessaryor useful. Thus, indigenous-African antagonism implicitlyassumedby previousscholarshipwas not naturalor inevitable,but a result of Spanish colonial structuresarticulatedas legal protectionsand demandsof local landholders the northern on Peruviancoast.
GREATER TRUJILLO AND THENORTHERN PERUVIANCOAST
Located between the viceregal capital of Lima and Pacific-Caribbean ports on the Panamanianisthmus, the northernPeruviancoast's geography informedits colonial economy. By the late sixteenth century,Spanish colonizers establishedcattle ranches, wheat farms, and sugar estates in the fertile, irrigated lands of the coast.24 Colonial indigenous communities attemptedto maintaina system of managedstreamsand earthencanals that crisscrossed the valleys, including Santa Catalina (inland from the corregimiento capital of Trujillo) and Chicama (directly to the north). During the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, members of Trujillo's
24 Fr.Reginaldode Lizairraga, Rio Descripci6n del Peru',Tucumdn, de la Plata y Chile (Madrid:Historia 16, 1986 [1609]), p. 73; Antonio de la Calancha,CrdnicaMoralizadadel ordende San Augustinen el Peru, (Lima:UniversidadNacional Mayor de San Marcos, 1974 [1638]), p. 1230.
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indigenous reducciones cultivated corn, potatoes, garbanzos, and other foodstuffs on private lands in the Santa Catalinavalley that adjoineda few Spanish estates.25Waterwas critical and coastal reducciones continued to maintainthe irrigationsystem, with erraticassistance of Spanish hacendados until the end of the colonial period.26 Spanish landholderspurchasedor usurped indigenous lands and water, private and communal, in the Chicama valley increasingly throughoutthe seventeenth century as local and migrant people joined African slaves as laborerson the ruralestates. In the smallerSantaCatalinavalley, indigenous reducciones maintainedcommunalland holdings and individualfarms that suppliedthe regionalcapital.In both cases, indigenouscommunitiesadapted to the colonial market economy even as tensions among Spanish estate owners and indigenous communities grew with hacienda expansion. The Spanish estates' success fluctuated. Throughoutthe seventeenth century, landholdersand merchantsloaded flour, wheat, soap, hides, preserves, and sugar onto vessels that returnedwith slaves, textiles, and wine from Panamanianand Pacific ports.27As the colonial estates grew (in stops and starts), so did the populationsof enslaved and free Africans and their descendants until the mid-seventeenthcenturydecline in the transatlantic slave tradeinto the Spanish empire.As the Portuguesewithdrewfrom supplying the Spanish empire with enslaved Africans in the 1640s, the northerncoast experienced a parallelagricultural crisis due, in part,to a lack of labor.28 Like othermixed economies, mixed economies of the northern coast fosteredmultiplelaborarrangements Spanishproperties.Susan Ramirezand on
25 Pedro de Cieza de Le6n, Travelsof Pedro de Cieza de Ledn (London: Hakluyt Society, [1553], 1864) p. 234; Modesto Rubifios y Andrade,"Noticia previa por el Liz. don Justo Modesto Rubifios y Andrade,cura de M6rrope,afio de 1782," Revista Histdrica [Lima] 10:3 (1936), p. 320. 26 "Autos seguido por don Nicolas MoranProtector de los naturalesde la provinciade San'a, contra don Marcos Vitores, presbitero,por agravios inferidos a los indios," AAT. Causas Generales. Leg. 6 (1737); "Expedienteseguido por el sargento mayor don Valentin del Risco y Montejo, duefio de la hacienda Chiquitoy, sobre que concurranlos demas hacendadosa los reparosdel rio Chicama, 1730" ADL. Co. Ord. Leg. 220. Exp. 1793 (1730). 27 An6mino, "Fragmentode una Historia de Trujillo,"Revista Histdrica 8:1 (1925), pp. 97, 98; BalthasarRamirez,"Descripci6ndel Reyno del Piru del sitio temple. Prouincias,obispados,y ciudades, de los Naturalesde sus lenguas y trage,"in Quellen zur Kulturgeschichte priikolumbischen Amerika des and Strekerand Schroder,[1597] 1936), p. 29; Antonio Vazquez de Espinosa, Compendium (Stuttgart: SmithsonianInstitution,[1621]1942), pp. 390, 393, 394; Fray Description the WestIndies (Washington: Diego de Ocafia, Un ViajeFascinantepor la AmericaHispana del Siglo XVI (Madrid:Stvdivm, [1605?] Historia maritimadel Peru. Siglo XVI-Historia Interna, t. 3 1969), p. 66; Jos6 A. del Busto Duthurburu, (Lima: EditorialAusonia, 1972), p. 543. For purchases of Castilian products in Panama see Susana Francesde Estudios Aldana,Empresascoloniales: Las Tinasde Jabon en Piura (Piura:CIPCA/Instituto Andinos, 1989), p. 59. 28 HerbertKlein, TheAtlantic Slave Trade(Cambridge: CambridgeUniversityPress, 1999), p. 28.
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Manuel Burga have demonstrated that small and medium-sized farms dependedon indigenous wage laborerswho worked alongside slaves.29 As the coastal economy, indigenouslaborSpanishestates transformed northern ers and communitymembersbenefitedfrom distinguishingthemselves from African slaves. Similarly,in ruralMorelos (Mexico), Spanishestate expansion absorbedindigenous lands, but the re-formedcommunities(congregaciones) employed their rights to defend and even to expand their landholdings during a crisis in the sugar economy in the first half of the eighteenth century.30Likewise, in ruralOaxacaindigenouspopulationsemployed colonial courts and royal protectionsto defend land titles that had been established in the sixteenthcenturybefore Spaniardsexpandedinto the valley.31 Althoughfree Africandescendants,slaves, and indigenousvillagers labored on estates,ranches,and farms,indigenousvillagers did not necessarilyadopt enslaved Africans and other non-locals into their communities.32 other In free instances,indigenouslaborersand farmerswould choose to incorporate of color into their communities or ally with fugitive slaves against people Spanish colonizers.33 Additionally,the emerging scholarshipon the sugarof C6rdobaand Veracruzsuggests mixed labor economies growing regions of indigenousandAfrican,free and enslaved, workers.34 To explain the mixed economies, indigenous and African populations appearto be proportional duringthe first half of the seventeenthcenturyon the northernPeruvian coast. In 1604, Spaniardsand mestizos constituted
29
Ramirez,Provincial, pp. 45, 83, 163; Burga,De la Encomienda,p. 115.
30 Cheryl English Martin, Rural Society in Colonial Morelos (Albuquerque:University of New
Mexico Press, 1985), pp. 27, 51, 88 31 William B. Taylor, Landlord and Peasant in Colonial Oaxaca (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1972), pp. 29, 66, 84, 107. 32 PatrickCarroll,Blacks in Colonial Veracruz: Race, Ethnicity,and Regional Development(Austin: University of Texas Press, 2001), pp. 35, 50, 62, 72-73, 78; WardBarrett,The Sugar Hacienda of the Marquesesdel Valle(Minneapolis:University of MinnesotaPress, 1970), pp. 74, 87-99. 33 Ann Zulawskihas suggested thatyanaconas associatedwith and were even absorbedinto free and enslaved communities of color in an agrarianfrontierregion of Alto Peru. Zulawski, They Eat, p. 192. JaneLanders,"Black-Indian Interaction SpanishFlorida,"Colonial LatinAmericanHistorical Review in 2:2 (Spring 1993), p. 158; Gwendolyn Midlo Hall, Africans in Colonial Louisiana: TheDevelopmentof Afro-Creole Culturein the EighteenthCentury(Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1992), p. 98; Daniel H. Usner Jr., Indians, Settlers, and Slaves in a Frontier Exchange Economy: The Lower Mississippi Valleybefore 1783 (Chapel Hill: Universityof North CarolinaPress, 1992), p. 93. 34 Martin,Rural, pp. 25-26, 51, 60-61; Ramirez, Provincial, pp. 83, 163. As such, revisiting questions posed for colonial Lima by Jesds Cosamal6nAguilar, Indios detrds de la muralla. Matrimonios indigenas y convivencia inter-racial en Santa Ana (Lima, 1795 - 1820) (Lima: PUCP, 1999); Emilio Negros e Indios: Un Estamento Social Ignorado del Peru Colonial (Lima: EditorialJuan Harth-terr6, Meja Baca, 1973); Luis Millones, "Poblaci6nNegra en el Peru.Analisis de la posicion social del Negro durantela dominacionespafiola,"in Minorias Etnicas en el Peru (Lima:PontificiaUniversidadCat6lica del Perui,1973). For C6rdobaand Veracruz,see AdrianaNaveda Chavez, Esclavos negros en las haciendas azucarerasde C6rdoba1690-1830 (Jalapa:UniversidadVeracruzana, 1987).
28
twenty-sevenpercentof the population,with free and enslaved "negros" and mulatos as thirty-fourpercent, and "Indians" thirty-ninepercent of Truas jillo's total population, including its surroundingfarms.35Populations for ruralenvironsare difficultto estimatebecause parishdatais not coterminous with estateinventories.For example,colonial inspectorsrecordedindigenous laborerson ruralhaciendasandparishpriestskept trackof indigenousparishioners, but neither documented enslaved Africans and their descendants. Landholders inventoriedtheirslaves but did not recordthe numberof indigenous workersor specify the identities of seasonal laborersor itinerantartisans. As Frederick Bowser noted, information that allows a correlation between the size of landholdingsand "the proportionof African to Indian labor"is "rarely available,"further revealingthe difficultyof analyzinginterrelations between these rural populations.36 Furthermore,parish records, ecclesiastical investigations(such as those conductedby Inquisitioncourts and idolatryextirpation of judges), and documentation religious confraternities are rare for the northernPeruviancoast. Ruralnotariesand indigenous scribes were active, but their records have been misplaced or lost. Estate accountsand overseercorrespondence, moreover,most likely exist in private archivesand are not readily accessible to the researcher. Thus, I rely mainly on criminal cases supplementedby urbannotary records and ecclesiastical documentation from local and nationalPeruvianarchives emphasizingeconomic and social strategiesratherthanculturalor religious practices.37 Documents of conflict are a challenging source for the researcherinterestedin affinities, yet judicial cases provide rich details of daily life understanding and examples of the ways in which ruralinhabitants defined theircommunities. Contextualizing indigenousandAfricanrelationsin an expandingsugar of revealsthatjust as strategiesand interactions rurallaborerswere economy not uniform,neitherwere the categoriesthatboundthem.
35 An6mino, "Fragmento," pp. 90-93; Miguel Feij6o de Sosa, Relacidn descriptiva de la ciudad y provincia de Truxillodel Peru'(Lima:Fondo del Libro.Banco Industrialdel Peru, [1763] 1984), pp. 2930.With the exception of scatteredcalculationsof indigenouscommunitiesto assess tributeobligations, there is no other census until 1763 when, again, Trujillo'smagistratecounted the inhabitantsof the city and its surrounding valley. Duringhis visita of inspectiontourbetween 1782 and 1785, Bishop Martinez estimatedthat the populationof the Trujilloand Safiaregions was nine percent Spanish, 56 Compafi6n percent indigenous, 14 percent mixed descent, and 21 percent African and African-descent people. el Obispo BaltasarMartinezCompafi6n,"Estadoque demuestra ntimerode Abitantesdel Obpdode Truxillo del Perui distinci6nde castas formadepr su actualObpo,"en Trujillodel Peru',v. 2 (Madrid:Bibcon lioteca de Palacio de Madrid, 1985-1991). 36 Bowser, African, p. 95. and fourteencriminalcases, seventeen civil 37 The researchbase of this articleincludes one hundred cases, and eleven otherjudicial investigationsfrom the courts of the corregidor and cabildo housed in the Archivo Departamental La Libertad.Notary entries were collected as partof a ten-yearsample of de extant records.Viceregalcorrespondenceas well as reportsand mandatesfrom Trujillo'smagistrateand the municipalcouncil provide regional and viceregal contexts.
RACHELSARAH O'TOOLE
29
AND ENSLAVEDLABORERS EXCHANGE AND CONFLICT: INDIGENOUS FARMERS
Peruviancoast encouragedcontact Spanishlabordemandson the northern between African slaves and indigenous villagers. In the early seventeenth had century,Spanishlandholders grownincreasinglydesperatefor laborers.38 On the one hand, indigenousreduccioneswere no longer able (or willing) to supply the assigned numberof mitayos to work as herdersand agriculturists on Spanish properties.39 Spanish estates appearto have suffered from this were not able to afford lack of labor.On the otherhand,Spanishlandholders a sufficientnumberof slaves for theirestates.40 One result was an increased mobility of indigenouslaborersmigratingto and from the coastal valleys as Africanslaves negotiateda certainlevel of autonomyamongthe ruralestates. In this context, Africans and their descendantstraded,celebrated,and interin mingled with indigenousinhabitants momentsthatmay have appearedto local authoritiesas activities of vagrantand unattached In people.41 particucolonial officials consideredcontact between people of African descent lar, and indigenous communitiesto be dangerousto the colonial order.42Illustratingthese colonial concerns, in 1603, Trujillo'scabildo recordeda royal
38 For coastal landholdersdemanding that highland men travel to the coast to perform mita see "Mandamiento de...Theniente de Corregidoren el valle de Chicama..." ADL. Co. Asuntosde Gobierno. Leg. 266. Exp. 3069 (1604); "Realprovisi6n..."ArchivoGeneralde la Naci6n (AGN). Derecho Indigena. Cuad. 69 (1621). 39 For indigenous communities and individuals protestingSpanish demands for mitayos see "Provisi6n confirmatoria la repartici6n mitayos del pueblo de Paijain Licapa..." ADL. Co. Asuntos de de de y de Gobierno.Leg. 266. Exp. 3072 (1606); "Expedienteseguido por Diego de Sequeira,protector los naturalespor lo que toca a la defensade los indios de Guafiape..."ADL. Co. Cr.Leg. 240. Exp. 2264 (1614); de de "Expediente seguido por el protector los naturales lo que toca a Ant6nCipen,natural Magdalena por de Cao..." ADL. Co. Cr. Leg. 241. Exp. 2298 (1617); AAT. Padrones.Leg. 1 (1619), ff. 17-18. 40 Ramirez,Provincial, pp. 142, 163. 41 The Crownand colonial authoritiesviewed independentactions of laborersunattached a to patron as a sign of disorder.In particular, royal officials objectedto the mixtureof people from distinct stations. For example, in 1599, the viceroy complainedthat "loose people" who migratedfrom Spain were creating disorderand abuse among indigenous populations.VaticanFilm Library(VFL). Colecci6n Pastells, Roll 13, Vol. 76. (Peru) v. 7 (1599), f. 224. In 1608, the Crown suggested to the Peruvianviceroy that colonial authoritieswould need to thinkof the governanceof negros, mulatos,andmestizos whose numbers were multiplying.Kontezke, Coleccidn, vol. 2, t. 1, pt. 1, p. 145. In 1610, the Trujillocabildo comor mandedthat all the free negrasand mulatasin the city attachthemselves to a "master" a patron.ADL. Protocolos.Morales. Leg. 181 (1610), f. 13. In 1632, Lima officials lamentedthat a large numberof free mulatos, negros, and zambahigosdid not have an occupation,roots, or fields to earn money to pay tribute. ErnestoGermanPeraltaRivera, "InformePreliminaral estudio de la Tributaci6nde Negros Libres Mulatos y Zambahigosen el Siglo XVII peruano,"in Atti del XL CongressoInternazionaledegli Americanisti (Genoa, 1975), p. 436 citing AGI. Audiencia de Lima, Leg. 158. 42 In Trujillo,local officials complained in 1606 that fugitive slaves created disorderon the public highways and, in particular,among indigenous and African-descenttravelers. Larco Herrera,Anales, cites ff. 105-107. In 1639, the Trujillocabildo complainedthatbecause of the continuinglack of a public jail, the bailiffs had to put indigenous andAfrican-descentmen togetherpresumablyin the same cell or holding area. Larco Herrera,Anales, ff. 22-23. The Crown continued its interest with separating
30
c6dulathatorderedthe removalof negros, negras, mulatos,and free mulatas from the countryside where they caused harm to the indigenous populations.43In 1627, the Trujillo cabildo declared that armed fugitive slaves threatened indigenousworkerson local haciendas.44 the Attemptsby Spanish landholdersandcolonial officials to controla mobile and diversepopulaceof potential laborers, however, underlines the extent to which Africans and indigenous people seized on opportunitiesafforded by local markets and In labor demands.45 the process, they commingled, exchanged goods, and associatedbeyond the boundsof colonial expectations. Local authoritiessought to keep order in the ruralareas by persecuting thieves and errantlaborers, but did not strictly control the movements of African slaves. For example, Anton Angola was responsible for his labor time. On the weekends he lived in the house of Felipe, a Spaniard,outside of Chocope, a crossroadssettlementin the Chicamavalley, and on Monday mornings, he was supposed to report to anotherhousehold for his weekly work assignment.46 While similar to the practicesof urbanslavery, the distances of the countrysidemay have producedmore independenceas rural slaves owned horses and traveled into the highlands to trade or along the coast to find work.47 The general mobility of coastal slaves easily melded into fugitive slave activity as enslaved Africans and their descendantsindependently sought new owners or patrons, sometimes without the permissions of their currentmasters.48 Fugitive slaves who had been capturedby colonial authoritiesconfessed to travelingon extensive circuits. In one case, this includedthe viceregal capitalof Lima, the highlandtown of Huamanga, and finally the northerncoastal valleys.49Africans and their descendants, therefore, seized opportunities of mobility afforded by the desperate demands for labor by Spanish landholders. Enslaved men (and some
Spaniards,mestizos, and mulatos from living in indigenous towns with an order in 1646. Konetzke, Coleccidn, v. 2, t. 1, pt. 2, p. 401. 43 Larco Herrera, Anales, cites ff. 238v-242. 44 Larco,Anales, ff. 59-60v. 45 In 1609, the Crown orderedthe Peruvianviceroy to reduce the loose numbersof mulatos, zambaigos, free negros, and mestizos living in Spanishtowns and make them pay tributeor tasa. Konetzke, Coleccidn, v. 2, t. 1, pt. 1, p. 143. 46 "Auto...del caso de un negro esclavo de Juan Baptista de Espinosa que mat6 dos indios por robarley quitarlelo que tenia en valle Chicama,"ADL. Co. Cr. Leg. 243. Exp. 2393 (1626), f. 16v. 47 Bowser, African,pp. 103-104; Hiinefeldt,Paying, pp. 74. 126; "Expedienteseguido por Diego de ADL. Co. Cr. Alarcon...sobre las cuchilladasque dierona Pedronegro esclavo del ingenio de Chicama," 243. Exp. 2407 (1627), f. 2. Leg. 48 ADL. Protocolos. Escobar.Leg. 143 (1640), f. 103. 49 "Expediente...contra varios negros zimarronesesclavos por haberhufdo del poder de sus amos y ADL. Ca. Cr. Leg. 78. Exp. 1284 haberse resistido cuando fueron aprehendidospor las autoridades," (1609).
31
women) escaped from their owners, who were often Spanish and moved aroundin a ruralenviron still inhabitedby indigenous people in the early seventeenthcentury. Rurallaborers,African and indigenous, also, lived next to each other and built affinities and relationships.Spanish colonial law may have prohibited African (as well as Spanish) habitation in indigenous villages or reducciones.50 Yet, technically, Crown mandates did not specify who could inhabitnon-reducci6nruralsettlements.Moreso, local authoritiesprobably could (or would) not have been motivated to discourage indigenous and Africanpeople who lived next to each otheras their labor and marketactivity fueled ruraleconomies. Ratherthan the separationsarticulated Spanby ish law, rural settlements brought together Africans and "Indians."Converging around crossroads settlements, indigenous farmers and herders serviced colonial inns and enslaved people gatheredfor marketsand work. Aroundthe inn on the northernedge of the Chicamavalley, indigenous and African-descentpeople lived next door to one another.One resident,Maria Angola, was a free African woman who workedin the fields and the household of dofiaMariade Valberde,but lived apartin her own rancho or rustic house."' Maria Angola's immediate neighbors included an indigenous woman from Ch6pen (a local indigenous reducci6n) and an indigenous ladino (or Spanish speaker) from the city of Trujillo. In settlements not defined by reducci6ndirectives, ruralAfricans and indigenouspeople lived in close proximity,suggesting the possibilities of interactivecommunitynetworks and daily life left undocumentedor lost to the record. Like free people, enslaved Africans were not confined to Spanishestates and often traveled to neighboringindigenous villages or crossroads settlements to trade.52 Suggestive of this contact, enslaved and free people of African-descent frequented the rancherfa de indios, or the indigenous neighborhood,near the Dominican monastery and the colonial inn on the road from the Chicamavalley to the city of Trujillo.There, and throughout the Chicama valley, slaves bartered small livestock for corn grown by
50 Ivlian de Paredes,Recopilacidnde leyes de los Reynos de las Indias (Madrid:Ediciones Cultura Hispainica,[1681]1973), Lib VI. Titulo III. Ley xxi "Que en Pueblos de Indios no vivan Espafioles, Negros, Mestizos, y Mulatos,"p. 200v. 51 "Expedienteseguido por el Protectorde los Naturalesde esta ciudad, por lo que toca la persona de MariaJuliana,india naturaldel pueblo de Chep6ny otras personas..." ADL. Co. Cr. Leg. 244. Exp. 2446 (1631), f. 2. 52 Slaves lived in rancherias, or clusters of small houses, and very rarely (if at all) in locked barracks. See "Mandamiento corregidorde Trujillopara que se haga averiguaci6nde la pendencia de del dos negros..." ADL. Co. Cr. Leg. 240. Exp. 2281 (1615).
32
indigenous farmers and other supplementalfoodstuffs as well as tobacco, clothing, and other necessities not providedby estate owners.53 Commonly, African and criollo slaves often purchasedchica (corn beer) from indigenous producers; was a productprobablynot supplied(or only irregularly this This tradingrelationshipwas not supplied) by Spanish hacienda owners.54 accidental;enslaved men and women may have needed to supplementtheir diet with foodstuffs that only indigenous producerscould provide. In fact, trade between indigenous farmers and African laborers was a necessary component of the rural economy. Some enslaved people kept their own small livestock, but it is unclear whether they were awarded provision grounds.'5It may have been that estate owners were reluctantto sharetheir water resources (a scarce commodity on the arid coast) or that administrators incorporated food productioninto the routineof haciendawork tasks. In case, most hacienda owners supplied slaves with rations purchased any locally or grown on the estates.56In contrast to slaves, indigenous people had official rights to land and water as membersof a reducci6n or as contractedyanaconason haciendasand grew foodstuffsnot only for themselves, but for sale.57 Thus, Spanishlandholdersmay have relied on the abilities of African slaves and indigenousinhabitants tradeas the exchanges of foodto stuffs allowed enslaved populationsto sustain themselves or to supplement their rations. Regardless, hacendados tolerated contact among enslaved laborers, indigenous workers, and coastal villagers that supporteda rural economy of small holders and expandingestates. Exchangesbetween enslaved laborersand indigenousfarmerswere a critical part of the informal economy. Because ruralnotaryrecords or inspections of countrymarketsare unavailablein this region, criminalcharges of theft reveal an informedarrangement tradeand exchange among indigeof nous and African laborers.One such case was filed by the widow of Juan a Cipirnin, memberof the Uchop parcialidad (an occupationaland administrative division) of Magdalenade Cao (an indigenousreducci6nin the Chi53 See "Autos de la visita hecha por don Bartolom6de Villavicencio, corregidorde Trujillo, a las estancias, ingenios, trapichesy pueblos de Chicama"ADL. Co. Asuntos de Gobierno. Leg. 266. Exp. 3074 (1607), f. 7. 54 "De la pendenciaentre HernandoCacho esclavo de Andres Careagay JuanBran,esclavo de Juan ADL. Co. Cr. Leg. 240. Exp. 2258 (1614) Hernandez," 55 "Expedienteseguido por el sen'or com. de la caballerfa,don Juan Joseph de HerreraGarcia de Zarzosa, alcalde provincial de la Santa Hermandadde esta ciudad, contra el negro Joseph Manuel de casta arara,su esclavo sobre habermatadoa pun'aladasa otro negro, su esclavo, Leandro,de casta carabelf."ADL. Ca. Cr. Leg. 83. Exp. 1481 (1720). de la cafia,"Nueva visidn del Pera, p. 215; Cushner, 56 Pablo Macera,"Los Jesuitasy la agricultura Lords,pp. 91-92. 57 ADL. Co. Asuntos de Gobierno.Leg. 266. Exp. 3074 (1607), ff. 6, 7, 8v, 12, 17, 18v, 23, 28v, 30v.
33
cama valley), against Mateo, a congo slave.58According to the plaintiff, Mateo congo incorrectlybelieved thatJuanCipirin, an indigenousman, had taken a horse from him (though witnesses strategicallyhinted that the slave himself had stolen the horse in Trujillo).Angry thatJuanCipirin would not admit to pilfering the mare-or, if the enslaved congo had indeed stolen the horse, perhaps worried that the animal would be recognized in TrujilloMateo killed JuanCipirin on the road out of the valley towardsthe regional capital. While this conflict might be interpretedto suggest that Africans attackedindigenouspeople, thus bolsteringthe argumentthatthe separation of the "Republics"was necessary for an orderly society, the murderin fact hints at a more complex relationshipbetween the victim and the assailant.59 JuanCipirnin's wife and other indigenouscommunitymemberstestified that recognized the congo slave when he rode up to the settlement and they demandedto see Juan. The slave's familiaritywith the Uchop parcialidad indicates that JuanCipirin and Mateo congo had sufficient contact to trade, or thatthey at least knew abouteach other's livestock, for the Crowndid not forbid commercial exchanges between indigenous and African inhabitants. Ratherthan the murderdefining these relations, Juan Cipiranand Mateo's conflict (combined with the witnesses' testimonies) suggests a transaction that had gone sour ratherthan an outrighttheft or predatoryattack. Judicialcases concerningbotchedtradeagreementsalso reveal more substantial connections than mere commerce between itinerant indigenous laborersandAfrican slaves. In 1611, MartinCatacaos,an indigenousmuleteer, accused Sancho, a slave, of stealing one of his mules.60However, the resulting testimony does not suggest a case of mere theft. From the sugar mill of Facala in the upper Chicamavalley, MartinCatacaos accompanied Sancho's ailing father to Trujillo,where the older man died shortly thereafter. Sancho kept one of MartinCatacaos'pack animals while the indigenous muleteertook the slave's sick parentto Trujillofor treatment.61 While
58 "Expedienteseguido por Juana Quispe, india mujer lex. de Juan Cipirin, difunto, indio natural Cao con Matheo negro esclavo de Juan Gutierrezde Farias,residenteen valle Chicama,"ADL. Co. Cr. Leg. 242. Exp. 2375 (1625). because Africans and their descendantswere 59 For justification of the separationof the repdiblicas aggressive and abusive to indigenouspeople, see Bowser, African, pp. 151, 265. 60 "Mandamiento del corregidorde Trujillopara que MartinCatacaos, indio arrieroy moradorde Trujillo, haga informaci6nsobre el hurtoy muertede una mula hecho por el negro Sancho, esclavo de Franciscode Guzmin," ADL. Co. Cr. Leg. 239. Exp. 2230 (1611). 61 For non-Indiansin ruralareas, medical attentionconsisted of food donationsfrom the local priest. See "Informaciones oficio y parte:JuanL6pez de Saavedra,cura propietario,vicario y juez eclesiisde tico y comisario de la SantaCruzadadel pueblo de Mochumif, AGI. Audienciade obispado de Trujillo," Lima. Leg. 245. No. 12 (1652), f. 3 and "Autos de la visita pastoralefectuadaa la doctrinade Mochumi desde el 25 abril 1646. Curade la doctrina," AAT.Visitas. Leg. 1 (1646), f. 17.
34
the accusationswere contentious,the indigenous man did not counterwith a charge that Sancho attemptedto take advantage of his goodwill or his nature as suggested by colonial laws protecting innocent "Indians"from blacks"would suggest. As a migrantfrom a coastal village fur"dangerous ther north, Martin Catacaos did not have the immediate support of his indigenous leader and reducci6n who may have testified or assisted him with judicial procedures. Instead, Martin Catacaos was a muleteer who, though identified with his reducci6n by his last name, relied on other connections and affinities that he had made as an independentlaborer,including his relationshipwith Sancho, the hacienda slave. Neither party articulated why they had entrustedeach other with valuable property(a mule) or ailing kin, as Sancho had entrustedhis dying parent to Martin Catacaos' care. Yet, their initial exchange and resultingjudicial case suggest an affinity thatemergedfrom theirsharedworkingrelationson the coastal hacienda. In additionto coming togetherto trade,rurallaborersalso mingled during and afterSundayMass andpublic fiestas such as CorpusChristi.Slaves traveled to rural crossroads settlements as well as indigenous towns where parishioners sponsoredreligious events that were not celebratedin hacienda Estateowners tolerated,and perhapsencouraged,baptizedAfrican chapels.62 slaves and indigenous inhabitantsto join together during activities that proved their shared Catholic identities. Religious events like market exchanges reveal momentswhen enslavedAfricansand colonized "Indians" intermingled.Rurallaborersregardlessof their status as enslaved Africans, colonized "Indians," more commonly anothercategory,traveledthroughor out the northern valleys to work, to trade,or to carryout errandsfor acquaintances. Local colonial officials read this level of mobility as evidence of criminal conduct and resistance to colonial rule. Yet, conflicts between on Africans,free and enslaved, and "Indians," or off the reducci6n,provide evidence of their mutuallybeneficial contact. More so, indigenous laborers and enslavedAfricansrespondedto the currentlabor marketin the northern coastal valleys. Spanishlandholdersrequiredlaborersand thus were willing to toleratea certainlevel of mobility of their slaves who sought to support of themselvesindependent theirowners. Still, colonial authoritiesarticulated an expectationthatmixturesof indigenousandAfricanpeoples indicateddis62 "Expedienteseguido por Manuel, mulato esclavo...contra Miguel y Antonio, negros esclavos de JuanRubio,"ADL. Co. Cr. Leg. 240. Exp. 2282 (1615); "Expedienteseguido por BartolomdGonzales, labradordel valle de Chicama, con Juan Pizarro,mestizo y otros; sobre pufialadasa un esclavo suyo ADL. Co. Cr.Leg. 241. Exp. 2304 (1617); "Expedienteseguido por don Luis Roldain Davila, Francisco," vecino y Alguacil Mayorde Trujillo,contraun negro esclavo,"ADL. Ca. Cr.Leg. 79. Exp. 1321 (1618); ADL. Co. Cr. Leg. 243. Exp. 2407 (1627).
35
order(as discussedabove), and elites imaginedthatchaos ensued from laborers who appeared be withouta patron.Thus, "Indian"-African to associations surfacedas conflictualin the judicial arenaor within colonial law, but these contactswere most likely regular,reliable,and mutuallyuseful.
DIVIDED COMRADAS: YANACONAS,MITAYOS, AND SLAVES ON RURAL ESTATES
The Spanish demand for laborers,enslaved or "Indian," blurredofficial colonial boundariesbetween the indigenous reducci6n and the rest of the dynamic ruralmarketsand coastal environs. By the first decade of the seventeenth century, Spanish landholdersurged the Crown to force highland mitayos into travelingto the coast as local reduccionescould not or would not fulfill their assigned quotas.63 the valleys, colonial indigenousleaders In complained that widespreadand repeatedepidemics had severely reduced their populations.64 More suggestive are their complaints that indigenous men had migratedto surrounding haciendaswhere they seized on the opportunities of the coastal economy to contracttheir labor as yanaconasor skill laborers in flour and sugar mills, independent managers of farms and ranches, or simply agriculturallaborers.65 Thus, some indigenous laborers transformed their labor arrangements the colonial economy by removing in themselves from the onerousdemandsof the reducci6nto become domestic workers, miners, muleteers, and artisans.66 Yet, as yanaconas met Spanish labor demandsand complicatedruralhierarchies,they did not build affinities with African slaves or indigenous mitayos. In this new context of the colonial hacienda,yanaconasassumed leadership positions of estate workers who included independentlaborers and reducci6nmembersas well as enslavedAfricanlaborers.As indigenousand
63 ADL. Co. Asuntos de Gobierno.Leg. 266. Exp. 3069 (1604); "Pedimientode JuanArias Tinoco, paraque se la otorguetestimoniode los indios mitayos y ganaderosde haciendaFacala,"ADL. Co. Pedimientos. Leg. 285. Exp. 3695 (1613); Archivo Generalde la Naci6n (AGN). Derecho Indigena.Cuad. 69 (1621), f.1. de las diligencias de la visita de los indios de Repartimiento Callancade la jurisde 64 "Testimonio dicci6n de la ciudad de Trujillo,"AGN. Derecho Indigena.Cuad. 687 (1606); "Expedienteseguido por don Antonio Chayguac, Cacique principaldel pueblo de Mansiche... se suspendadar indios...," ADL. Co. Asuntos de Gobierno.Leg. 266. Exp. 3073 (1607); "Autoseguido...contra el maestrode campo don Cristobalde Ar6stegui,corregidorque fue de Safia,sobre ciertas diferenciasen las cobranzasde los tributos de Jayancay AGN. Derecho Indigena.Cuad. 72 (1622). Ttlcume," 65 ADL. Co. Asuntos de Gobierno.Leg. 266. Exp. 3074 (1607), ff. 2v, 6, 11, 18, 21v, 27. 66 For highlandyanacona strategies see Wightman,Indigenous,p. 6; KarenPowers, Andean Journeys: Migration, Ethnogenesis, and the State in Colonial Quito (Albuquerque:University of New Mexico Press, 1995), p. 51. For indigenous laborersseeking work outside of their assigned reducciones see Larson, Cochabamba,pp. 82 - 83; Zulawski, TheyEat, pp. 125, 148.
36
Africanlaborers-free, forced, and enslaved-sought to build new strategies for survival, and in some cases advancement,they acted in concert bonded or by their attachment sharedexperienceson a Spanishestate. For example, the perceived disorder of Carnival celebrations in 1626, witnesses during reportedthat a yanaconaoverseerdirectedindigenousand enslaved laborers underhis chargeagainstindigenousmen who workedon an adjoiningfarm. The victims testified that the yanaconaoverseer, Fabian,had led his group "like soldiers"indicatingnot only the threatening natureof the "Indiansand blacks"who descendedto steal chickens and guinea pigs, but theircohesive In assault.67 this case, witnesses perceived indigenous laborersand African slaves as a collective. Indeed, like slaves, yanaconas were often migrant laborers(albeit under distinct circumstances)separatedfrom their original communitiesand without local allegiances. Furthermore, contractedindigenous laborersand African slaves may have sharedsimilar subsistenceneeds as both workedon the haciendasthat were not fully provisioned.These, and other circumstances,may have encouragedallegiances between yanaconas and their subordinates, indigenousor African. Shared workplaces allowed sustained contact between African and indigenous laborers, and perhaps even possibilities of long-term, formal relationships.Throughparishrecordsfor the ruralsettlementsstartingin the late seventeenth century it is only possible to document a single Africanindigenous marriage,a 1685 union between an unidentifiedenslaved man and an indigenouswoman who had migratedto the Chicamavalley from the Nonetheless, the combined parishrecordsfor highland town of Cajamarca. Ascope, an indigenous town, and the Facala haciendaindicate an increased number of people identified as "zambo,"a person of African-indigenous descent, suggesting the probabilityof previous African-indigenousunions before the later seventeenthcentury.68 Additionally,other factors may have deterred rural inhabitantsfrom formalizing their unions, such as lack of clergy, high marriage fees, and difficulties in obtaining permission from slave owners.69Nonetheless, the absence of documentationdoes not pre67 "Expedienteseguido por Ant6n, indio contraFabiin, indio yanaconaen la chacrade Franciscode Candia;sobre hurtode mis de 50 gallinas, cuyes, en companiade otros negros,"ADL. Co. Cr.Leg. 243. Exp. 2390 (1626), f. 2. rurales.Ascope & Facala. 68 AAT. Parroqufas 69 The magistrateand other colonial officials also accused Gregoriode Paz and Pedro de Biamonte, both mulatos,of stealing not only clothing and horses from an indigenouswoman, Lucia de las Angeles, of the Guadalupeasiento. One of the men testified that he had intendedto marrythe indigenous laborer in Trujillo."Mandamiento de...Teniente de Corregidor JusticiaMayordel partidode Chiclayo,paraque y SalvadorDiaz, con la Varade Real Justicia,prendaa Gregoriode Paz, mulato, Pedrode Bracamontey a la india Lucia y los ponga en la carcel pdblicade Guadalupe," ADL. Co. Cr.Leg. 243. Exp. 2421 (1628).
37
clude the possibilities of African and indigenous marriagesand godparentage in the coastal valleys. Rural indigenous laborersand Africans slaves (as well as their descendants) may have had to seek legitimizationof their unions in Trujillowhere they were more likely to be able to register and to sanctify their relationships.70 In 1625, Juan Bautista,a slave, and MarianaAngel, a mestiza who was reported dressas an "Indian," to Trujillowherethey hopedto pass to fled as a married Mariana couple. In additionto the crime of "stealing" Angel, her employer denouncedJuan Bautista as a fugitive slave who had committed many robberiesand assaultsagainstindigenouspeople in the countrysideand roadsin the Jequetepeque valley northof TrujilloandChicama.71Yet, witness MariaSuarez,an indigenousladina woman, testified that JuanBautistaand MarianaAngel had peaceably sought accommodationsin her house as husband and wife. She did not suspect the travelers were criminals as they explained that they had come to Trujilloso that JuanBautistacould ask the Franciscansto purchasehim, a common strategygiven the fluidity between enslavement,independence,and freedom in the northerncoastal valleys.72 The innkeeper's testimony indicates that MarianaAngel was most likely choosing to accompanyJuan Bautista.As for MarianaAngel's identity,she may have been taken for a mestiza because of her familiaritywith Spanish and otherurbanculturalpracticesthat did not matchher "Indiandress."73A fugitive from her patron,MarianaAngel may have also been attemptingto disguise herself. Still, JuanBautistaandMariana Angel presentedthemselves as a marriedcouple and thus suggest the possibility of consensual unions between African and indigenous descendantsthat the lack of rural parish recordsfor the first half of the seventeenthcenturyleaves open to question. Despite the existence of long-term relationshipsand contact on haciendas, indigenous laborersand enslaved Africans also maintainedcertaindistinctions. During another instance of raucous pre-Lenten celebration, a group of "negros" (as described in the criminal case) came looking for
70 Archivo Sagrario.Libro de casimientos de mixtos (1619-1753). 71 "Denunciade Alonso Siguenza Villarroel, contra el negro Juan Bautista esclavo del Cap. Juan Garcia de Aguilar, vecino y residente en asiento de Guadalupe;sobre hurto de una mestiza del dho ADL. Co. Cr. Leg. 242. Exp. 2371 (1625). asiento, Mariana," 72 For more discussion of fugitive slaves seeking new owners see Bowser, African, pp. 192-195. 73 David Cahill, "Colourby Numbers:Racial and EthnicCategoriesin the Viceroyaltyof Peru, 15321821,"Journalof LatinAmericanStudies26:2 (May 1994), p. 335; Rachel SarahO'Toole, "Castasy representaci6n en Trujillo colonial," in Mds alld de la dominacidn v la resistencia: Estudios de historia peruana, siglos XVI-XX,Paulo Drinot and Leo Garofalo,editors (Lima: Institutode Estudios Peruanos, 2005), pp. 48-76.
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chicha in the inn of FranciscoCajamarca, migrantfrom a highlandtown. a to indigenous witnesses, the inn outside of Trujillo was already According full of celebrating self-identified "indios criollos," acculturated,Spanishspeakingindigenousmen, who claimed that the "negros"appearedin a military formationwith sticks, asking to fight ratherthan to drink.74Francisco Cajamarca denied entrance to the newcomers and, in response, some "negros"grabbedhim by the hair and shoutedthreats,a strong attackon his public honor.The indigenous revelers, accordingto their testimony,rushed to the defense of the tavernkeeper, while one "negro,"Jorge tried to deter his fellows from entering the drinking establishment. According to one informant,Jorgetold his associatesthatthe indigenousmen were comradas, or "fellows" and therefore should be left in peace.75Lending credence to Jorge's claim, Juan Cristobal,an "Indiancriollo" from Trujillotestified to the magistrate that he knew Jorge, as well as another African and their owner.76 Jorge's choice of the word "comrada" and JuanCristobal'sknowledge of the slave's owner suggest that the two men knew each other from a shared workplace. Also, their mutual pursuit of chicha, a laborers' drink, indicates a common status.77 Nonetheless, Jorge and Juan Cristobal were obviously choosing distinct company during the fiesta and a sharedworkplace did not deter violence among indigenous and African men. The distinctionsof colonial law and rurallaborpracticesprovidedindigenous laborersthe means to maintaina separatestatus,even as they worked alongside African and African-descentslaves. Crown regulationsprotected yanaconas as agriculturalworkersby regulatingtheir yearly wages, ensurand ing a "letterof contract," prohibitingtheirpatronsfrom employing them in the sugar mill.78Colonial authorities,at least according to Crown mandates, were to monitor hacienda managersto ensure that indigenous laborers were promptlypaid and to punish slaves for stealing from yanaconas.79 In contrast,local authoritiesdid not inspect the work and the living conditions of rural enslaved laborers who were not legally afforded provision while yanagroundsor otherterms of a writtenlabor contract.Furthermore,
74 "Mandamiento...paraque se haga informaci6n del hecho ocurrido en el rancho de Francisco Caxamarcapor unos negros donde salio herido un negro,"ADL. Co. Cr. Leg. 242. Exp. 2348 (1623), ff. 3-3v. 75 ADL. Co. Cr. Leg. 242. Exp. 2348 (1623), f. 3v. 76 ADL. Co. Cr. Leg. 242. Exp. 2348 (1623), f. lv. 77 Indigenous,African, and other laborers drankchicha, a locally producedbeverage, ratherthan wine, an exported drink. For African laborers drinking chicha, see "Expediente...contraPasqual de Mora, mulato;por haberherido a Joan Bran, su esclavo con una tacana,"ADL. Co. Cr. Leg. 241. Exp. 2342 (1622), f. 5. 78 ADL. Co. Asuntos de Gobierno.Leg. 266. Exp. 3074 (1607), ff. 2, 2v. 79 ADL. Co. Asuntos de Gobierno.Leg. 266. Exp. 3074 (1607), ff. 2v, 3v, 5.
SARAH RACHEL O'TOOLE
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conas may not have chosen to leave their communities, and landholders were known to avoid paying requisitewages, indigenous laborershypothetically could choose anotherpatronat the end of theircontractas Crownofficials declared that the Spanish pay indigenous laborers fairly for their work.80In contrast, the Crown only protected enslaved men and women from extreme physical abuse and mandatedthat owners provide food and for clothing, and treatment illnesses, but did not interferewith laborarrangements between slave and master.81 fact, in the northerncoastal valleys In there is little indicationthat colonial authoritiesenforced these Crown protections of enslaved Africans and their descendants.Yanaconas,therefore, had reasons to distinguish themselves from slaves (African, criollo, or mulato) who did not enjoy the intervention,however sporadic, of colonial officials or the recognized authority, however ignored, of the colonial cacique (indigenous leader) or the assigned protector de naturales (a local lawyer of indigenous people). Crown-appointed The colonial rights affordedto indigenous laborershelp to explain why yanaconaLorenqoPayco, who workedon a Chicamavalley ranch,called on of and official protection while invokingSpanishcultural legal preconceptions the "predatory The indigenous laborercomplainedthat a "black" slave."82 slave had stolen clothingandchickensfromhis house while he was at Mass.83 the Fulfillinga Crown-recognized duty to protectindigenousinhabitants, profiled an official criminalcomplaintin Trujillo'scabildo tectorde los naturales court. Either he or the indigenous laborer carefully noted the presumed victim's activityas practicingCatholicismin the momentof his victimization. of The ruralguard,often the sole representatives colonial law in the countryalso defendedindigenouslaborerswhile persecutingAfrican slaves. In side, the Trujillovalley, deputieshelped to catch another"black"thief when two indigenouslaborerscomplainedthat he had stolen clothing and silver from theirhouses.84 Furthermore, yanaconasand mitayos on a Chicamasugarmill were quick to reportto Spanishneighborsthat a slave had killed the Spanish overseerin a disagreementabout a work task. Otherslaves on the hacienda were not asked to testify while numerousindigenouswitnesses detailed the
Anales, cites ff. 153-154. 8o For 1601, see Cushner,Lords,pp. 14, 81. For 1607, see Larco Herrera, 81 Konetzke, Coleccidn, tomo I, pp. 237-240. 82 Bowser, African, p. 147. 83 "Expedienteseguido por don Ger6nimode Villegas, protectorde los naturalesde esta ciudad, por la persona de don Lorenzo Reyes, indio naturaldel Valle de Chicama, contra Pedro negro esclavo de Antonio Francoy de otro negro, esclavo de Manuel Gudifio,"ADL. Ca. Cr. Leg. 79. Exp. 1344 (1636), f. 1. 84 "Expedienteseguido por don Antonio Solano de Suazo, Alcalde de la Santa Hermandad,contra don Francisconegro criollo esclavo," ADL. Ca. Cr. Leg. 79. Exp. 1336 (1626).
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attackto the investigatingmagistrate.85 Colonialsanctioned rights,thus, separated "Indians" from "Africans" the coastal estates. Indigenousidentity, on therefore,providedadvantagesfor indigenouslaborers(as well as reducci6n moreoften as agentsin judicialcases becauseof their members)who appeared rightsas protectedsubjects.EnslavedAfricansand theirenslaveddescendants who were not affordedthe same colonial privileges. What, then, were the elements of contact or points of fissure between rurallaborerson coastal estates? In the early seventeenthcentury,Spanish the landholderstransformed labor economy of the northernvalleys by prescommunitiesto relinquishtheir land and water resources suring indigenous so that reducci6n "Indians"became indigenous yanaconas. Some estate owners developed sugar mills, but most continued to sell flour, wheat, and Landlivestock from their ranchesand farms to Pacific regional markets.86 a large holders of these mixed estates could not yet afford to purchase numberof adult slaves, valued at five hundredpesos on the northerncoast, so coastal haciendasrelied on a mix of laborpracticesas well as laborers.87 Enslaved men (and some women) inhabited,therefore,an indigenous society where mitayos were still part of the rural labor force, but contracted indigenous laborers assumed supervisory positions and even managed ranches and farms on their own. Also, yanaconas though separatedfrom their colonial reducciones,continuedto submit obligatorytributepayments and to call on colonial protective mandatesin colonial courts. Thus, hired indigenouslaborerson ruralestates had significant(and suggestive) contact with African slaves and theirdescendants,but did not form a sharedidentity with these newcomers who did not constitute a protected collectivity in practiceor in law on the northerncoast.
"IN A WAR AGAINST THE SPANISH": INDIGENOUS DEFENSE AND AFRICAN RESISTANCE
to Indigenouslaborerswere not the only native coastal inhabitants defend and to define theirprotectedstatusas "Indians." Faced with the demandsof Spanishestates that increasinglyincludedthe presence of enslaved Africans and theirdescendants,indigenouscommunitiesemployed colonial mandates
to defend the rights of their reducciones, and in doing so underscored their
del gobernadorFadriqueCancer, corregidorde Trujillo para que se averigue la 85 "Mandamiento muertede Cristobalde Olmedo, mayordomodel trapichede Diego Gomez de Alvaradopor sus negros esclavos," ADL. Co. Cr. Leg. 239. Exp. 2254 (1613). 86 Ramirez,Provincial, p. 71. 87 Ramirez,Provincial, p. 163.
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colonial position as "Indians."Indigenous communities appealed to royal protection such as in the case of the reducci6n of Paijan, whose members petitioned the viceroy to stop the regional magistrate from taking more laborers from their already reduced numbers. The reducci6n, with some notarial assistance, declared that the magistrate took indigenous laborers "withouthaving an orderor a provision"of the viceroy that was necessary for the allocation of mitayos.88Even in declaring that they were unable to supply the required number of mitayos, coastal indigenous communities acknowledged their obligation as "Indian"communities to send forced laborers, albeit in reduced numbers.89 Indigenous communities also employed the protectorde los naturalesto defend mitayos against Spanish abuse and to force landholders to pay appropriatewages.90In 1609, the indigenous leader of Chicamaand the indigenous colonial official of Magdalena de Cao employed royal mandates to defend community members from laborexploitationby a local haciendaowner.91In doing so, indigenous communities seized opportunitiesaffordedby colonial courts that, in turn, defined them as "naturales" "Indians" or deservingprotection.In the context of encroaching Spanish estates, indigenous leaders asserted their rights as colonial subjects within the Republic of the Indians. Indigenousleadersand communitiesalso employedtheircolonial statusto themselvesfrom enslavedAfricansas well as free people of color.In separate Chicamaindigenousleadersaskedthe viceroy to enforcethe separation 1621, between non-"Indians" indigenouspeople in order to avoid abuse.92 and In doing so, the heads of the indigenousreduccionescalled on Crownorders,as reiterated Trujillo's town council,to remove"negros, by negras,mulatos,[and] free mulatas" towns"(pueblosde indios)and otherruralenviliving in "Indian ronswherethey caused"notable to harm" indigenousandSpanishpeople.93 By on colonial authorities enforce these mandates,indigenousleaders to calling to or contributed discursive,if not actual,separation indigenousreducciones of
88 The cacique of Paijanreportedthat memberswere "absent"so the reduccidncould not fulfill its mita requirement. ADL. Co. Asuntos de Gobierno.Leg. 266. Exp. 3072 (1606). 89 An epidemic in Mansiche and Huanchaco inhibited the reduccidn from supplying required mitayos.ADL. Co. Asuntos de Gobierno.Leg. 266. Exp. 3073 (1607). 90 ADL. Co. Cr. Leg. 241. Exp. 2298 (1617); ADL. Co. Cr. Leg. 240. Exp. 2264 (1614). 91 "Expedienteseguido por don Pedro de Mora, cacique principal de Chicama y don Antonio de Jalcaguaman,alcalde ord. del Magdalenade Cao contra Pedro de Santiago, espafiol residente en dho valle sobre maltratosrecibidos,"ADL. Co. Cr. Leg. 238. Exp. 2214 (1609). 92 "Petici6n de Don Diego Mache, cacique del pueblo de Santiago y segunda personadel valle de Chicama,paraque se cumplan las provisiones y autos obedecidos de la prohibici6na los Espafiolesde hacer campafiasy arrendar tierrasque los caciques, principalese indios, tienen,"ADL. Co. Asuntos las de Gobierno.Leg. 267. Exp. 3103 (1621), f. 3. 93 Larco,Anales, cites ff. 238v-242.
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pueblosde indiosfromthe restof the colonialpopulation.94In doing so, indigenouspopulations definedthemselvesas dependents Spanishcolonialauthorof ities by evoking the dangerrepresented enslaved and free people of color. by As part of this protective strategy,indigenous leaders pursuedcourt cases to againstfugitive slaves and securedcommissionsfrom Trujillo'smagistrate the as or captureescapedslaves who threatened, were constructed threatening, Crownprotections the colonialreducci6n.95 of Again, indigenouscommunities were paid for capturing fugitive slaves who also presenteda problemto Spanish landholders otherregionalelites.96 In this way, indigenouscommuniand ties may have been constructing separation a from free and enslavedpeople of color while associatingthemselves with powerfulpatrons:the owners or the beneficiaries the expandingruralestates.97 of That indigenous communities constructedconflicts involving enslaved Africansaccordingto particular strategiesof protectionstill reveals continucontact among slaves and indigenous laborers.During a weekend boring racherain the Chicamavalley, membersof the reducci6nof Santiagode Cao assaultedFranciscoMandinga,a slave who had joined their gathering.98 At the assembledmembersof the Santiagode Cao communityurgedFranfirst, cisco Mandingato accepttheirinvitationto drink.Santiagode Cao reducci6n membersknew FranciscoMandingaenough to ask him to join their gathering. Yet,they did not instructor protecthim once he hadenteredtheircharged were still a means for indigenouspeople socio-politicalspace, as borracheras to conduct communitybusiness. Apparently,he provokedtheir ire when he chose the wrong seat inside the gathering.In additionto FranciscoMandinga andprobablyotherslike him, membersof the Santiagode Cao reducci6nstill considered other indigenous men as outsiders. A forastero (indigenous migrant) who was drinking with the group testified that he did not get involved or attemptto stop the Santiagode Cao membersfrom beatingFrancisco Mandinga.99 Similarly,othermigrantsand yanaconaswho were present
94 See the 1604 declarationthat Indianswere not to live outside of their reduccionesand the 1618 ruling thatIndiansshould not leave their reduccidnto move to another.Paredes,Recopilacidn,LibroVI. Titulo III, f. 200. Konetzke, Coleccion, vol. 2, tomo 1, pt. 1, pp. 63, 64. 95 "Expedienteseguido por don Andr6sPay Pay Chumbi,principaldel Cao, contraAlonso Sinchez que llama cuchara,mulato esclavo de Jean de GarciaCalder6n,sobre haberlequitado la mujer,"ADL. Co. Cr. Leg. 241. Exp. 2329 (1621), ff. 50, 84v. 96 "Autodel maestrode campo don Pedrode Salazary Figueroa,corregidorparaque se recibainformaci6n de los delitos cometidos por dos negros cimarronesque salteabanen el camino real que va a Simbal y que fueron cogidos por una quadrillade indios dirigidos por Tomas principaly alcalde de los naturalesdel Mansiche,"ADL. Co. Cr. Leg. 247. Exp. 2583 (1657). 97 Thanksto Ben Vinson III for the reminderof what indigenous communitieshad to gain by capturingfugitive slaves. 98 ADL. Co. Cr. Leg. 241. Exp. 2304 (1617). 99 ADL. Co. Cr. Leg. 241. Exp. 2304 (1617), f. 3v.
explainedthatthey were afraidof the indigenousmen from Santiagode Cao who may have been targetedduringthe fray." In this context, the bystander status of hired laborerssuggests they were "indigenous" enough to be present at the Santiagode Cao borrachera. indigenousyanaconaswere assoYet, ciatedwith the surrounding haciendaswherethey workedandwere not members of the local reducci6n. Likewise, Francisco Mandinga was not a reducci6nmemberand his owner was engaged in a protracted strugglewith local indigenousreducciones.(He had arguedover the paymentfor the capture of an escaped slave with the principalof Magdalenade Cao; a nearby In reducci6nwith kinshipties to Santiagode Cao.101) addition,the landholder was actively pressuring the reducci6n to provide more laborers to his hacienda.102Thus, reducci6n members associated both indigenous laborers and an enslaved African with an encroachinghacendado, but constructed FranciscoMandingaas a more accessible andlikely targetof theirdiscontent. Still, indigenouscommunitieshad tenuous,yet occasionally constructive, relations with fugitive slaves who had more clearly distanced themselves from theirowners.In 1611, an indigenousfarmerin the SantaCatalinavalley contractedFranciscoBallano to work in his fields. The enslaved man later claimed thathe had been looking for work as an "independent" slave whose would benefit his owner.103As such, FranciscoBallano was among an wages undetermined numberof individualenslavedmen and women who soughtto with a new owneror a patron,includingindigenegotiatebetterarrangements nous people who still had land yet needed more labor. 104Suchwas the case in the SantaCatalinavalley where a fugitive slave groupled by Gabrieland Domingo (whose attemptedcapturebegan this article)intensifiedtheirraiding in the late 1630s and early 1640s, and indigenouspeople still maintained communalandprivatelands.Whenthe magistrate accusedFranciscoBallano of being a runaway, his Ballanoclaimedto have legally contracted laborwith the indigenousfarmer.Yet, illustratingthe ambiguityof FranciscoBallano's
00 ADL. Co. Cr. Leg. 241. Exp. 2304 (1617), f. 5.
Magdalena de Cao contra Bartolom6 de Miranda,vecino Trujillo labradorvalle Chicama sobre que ocupe dos personas para la guarde de sus ganados,"ADL. Co. Ord. Leg. 179. Exp. 890 (1630). 103 "Expedienteseguido por Juan de Paz, cl6rigo de menores ordenes, sacristanmayor de la Santa Iglesia por la persona de su procuradorcontra Pedro Suarez indio sillero; sobre haber tenido oculto y escondido a un negro suya en una chacara," ADL. Co. Cr. Leg. 239. Exp. 2227 (1611). 104For captureof fugitive slaves working without permissionof their owner see ADL. Protocolos. Escobar.Leg. 143 (1640), f. 103 in which an owner contracteda merchantto find his fugitive slave in Lima. See "Mandamiento...para se averigue el tiempo que andahuido el negro Juan Bran, esclavo que de JuanHernandez,moradoren Cajamarca," ADL. Ca. Ord.Leg. 16. Exp. 343 (1616) thatdescribeshow JuanBran went in search of anotherowner and was declareda cimarr6n.
101 ADL. Co. Cr. Leg. 241. Exp. 2329 (1621), f. 84v. 102 See "Expediente seguido por...indios naturales del
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status,indigenous witnesses did not declare whetherhe was a slave legally selling his laboror an escaped slave. The dissemblanceof local agriculturists and agrarianlaborers suggests that they accepted Francisco Ballano since they had not reportedthe fugitive as orderedby colonial law or invoked the Crownprotectionsof indigenous communities.105 Pedro Though temporary, Suarezandotherindigenousfarmersincorporated fugitive slave into their the ruraleconomy in a mutuallybeneficial relationship. Indigenous communities and fugitive slaves had many points of contact in ruralareas. Fugitive slaves sought out arid hillsides and remote ravines that provided refuge and safety for their rustic houses where they would meet indigenous herdersand firewood collectors.106 Indigenous communities knew the locations of fugitive slave settlementsand were aware of the routes escaped slaves routinely traveled to indigenous fields, Spanish haciendas, and even local towns.'o7In the ruralenvirons, contact between rural indigenous people and fugitive slaves developed partly from routine trade as in the instance of the group led by two congo men describedin the introductionof this article.The escaped slaves had established a settlement in the hills above the Santa Catalina valley where men and a few women recognized the authority of "Captain Gabriel" and his "Lieutenant" Domingo. The fugitive community may have cultivated small plots with hoes they purchasedfrom indigenous farmersor laborers.'18 But, they probrelied on tradefor their subsistence.Fugitive slave women groundcorn ably for cornmeal and chicha probably for the consumptionof the community, but they may have sold a portion of the alcoholic drink to surrounding indigenous communities and rurallaborers.109With these funds (and other monies), Domingo regularlypurchasedgoods thatthe communitycould not
105 In 1560, the Crown issued ordersto the Viceroyaltyof Peru thatprohibitedSpaniards, Indians,or negros from hiding cimarrones.Konetzke, Coleccidn, I, pp. 384 - 388. del '06 ADL. Ca. Cr. Leg. 79. Exp. 1350 (1641), f. Iv; "Mandamiento AlmiranteMartinZamalvide, a Corregidory Justicia Mayor de Trujillo,para que los cuadrillerosaprehendan muchos negros cimarrones que andansueltos cometiendo dafios y agravios a los indios naturalesen los caminos de la sierra," ADL. Co. Asuntos de Gobierno.Leg. 267. Exp. 3147 (1646), f. 2. 107 For indigenousknowledge of cimarrdnsettlementssee ADL. Co. Cr.Leg. 245. Exp. 2500 (1639), f. 2. For fugitive slaves traveling into the fields and settlementsin the cultivated valleys see ADL. Ca. Cr. Leg. 79. Exp. 1350 (1641), ff. 17v, 21v, 23v, 28v. Fugitive slaves sometimes learnedto travel in isolated areas from indigenous people. For example, originally from southwesternAfrica, Cristinaangola first escaped from her owner's ranch with an indio mitayo who most likely showed her the way in the dry wastelandbetween the Pascamayoand the Chicamavalleys. ADL. Ca. Cr.Leg. 78. Exp. 1284 (1609). 108ADL. Ca. Cr. Leg. 79. Exp. 1350 (1641), f. 23. 109 ADL. Ca. Cr. Leg. 79. Exp. 1350 (1641), ff. 18v, 21v, 28v. One of the leaders of the settlement, Domingo congo, encounteredGeronima,a negra criolla from Cajamarcaand a fugitive, by the main water resevoir in Trujillo. He was on horsebackwith two containersof chicha. ADL. Ca. Cr. Leg. 79. Exp. 1350 (1641), f. 17v.
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make including tobacco, soap, and bread from indigenous men as well as urban slaves.110 confessed by Isabel, a ladina from angola land (southAs west Africa), Gabrielhad his "dealings"or "business"with the indigenous people of the Santa Catalinavalley for years."1As in the case of Francisco Ballano (the fugitive slave who sought work from indigenousfarmersin the Santa Catalina valley), indigenous communities constructed when and where they would accept and even encouragecontact with fugitive slaves. Africanresistanceto Spanishslavery,however,did not alwayscoincidewith indigenousstrategies. Fugitiveslaves were relianton indigenouscommunities in a mannernot always welcomed by local inhabitants. additionto trading In andfarming,the fugitiveslaves led by GabrielandDomingo survivedby stealand In ing fromindigenousinhabitants travelers. the SantaCatalinavalley,the stole corn, yams, and beans from fields, robbedcattle from corralsas group well as chickens,turkeys,pigs, and clothingfromrural,predominately indigenous, households.112 In the adjacent Chicama valley, solitary fugitives, or groups of two or three survived, it appears,by stealing from valley fields includingthose of Spanishhaciendasthatmay have been cultivated indigeby nous laborers theirown sustenance.113 for theremayhavebeen reasons Initially, for indigenouscommunitiesto toleratean occasionaltheft of corn or goats as labor.114 fugitiveslaves like FranciscoBallanomay also have supplieditinerant Gabriel and Domingo's fugitive slave group initially robbed Furthermore, indigenoustradersfrom the highlandswho were not necessarilyconsidered membersof local communities."115 Nonetheless,indigenouspeople who tolerated theft in favor of beneficialtradejoined Spanishattacksagainstfugitive slave encampments when cimarrones beganto moreaggressivelyraidthe communitiesthathad at least tacitlysupported them. Gabriel and Domingo's fugitive encampmentmay have been forced or may have chosen to shift from trading to raiding. By 1641, Gabriel and
10 ADL. Ca. Cr. Leg. 79. Exp. 1350 (1641), ff. 18v, 26, 30; ADL. Co. Cr. Leg. 245. Exp. 2500 (1639), ff. 10-11v. I" ADL. Ca. Cr. Leg. 79. Exp. 1350 (1641), f. 23. 112 ADL. Asuntos de Gobierno.Leg. 267. Exp. 3147 (1646), f. 2; ADL. Ca. Cr. Leg. 79. Exp. 1350 (1641), ff. 18v, 22, 22v, 26, 29, 30. 113 ADL. Ca. Cr. Leg. 79. Exp. 1350 (1641), ff. 15, 31, 31v, 32v, 34v. 114 For another case of fugitive slaves hiring themselves out for wages, see Carlos Lazo Garcia,Del Negro seiiorial al negro bandolero, cimarronajey palenques en Lima, siglo XVIII (Lima: Biblioteca Peruanade Historia,Economia y Sociedad, 1977), p. 51. ADL. Ca. Cr. Leg. 79. Exp. 1350 (1641), ff. 1,4; ADL. Ca. Cr.Leg. 79. Exp. 1353 (1642), ff. Iv, "115 2. An indigenousartisanin the SantaCatalinavalley testified thathe met an "indioof the highlandswho was brotherof the foreman of Yagon whose name he does not remember." ADL. Ca. Cr. Leg. 79. Exp. 1353 (1642), f. 4.
46
Domingo's communitywas no longer eating well and had resortedto a diet of snails, a mainstayfor indigenouscommunitiesduringfamine.116Also, the male cimarr6ngrouphad not been able to defend themselves predominately from the colonial rural guard who succeeded in capturinga few fugitive women. The captivesexplainedthatincreasedSpanishattackshad forced the settlement'sleadersto focus on defensive warfareratherthanobtainingfood, Thus, the grouphad begun to raid more often causing membersto defect.11"7 because of increasinglylimitedoptionsas witnesses testifiedthatGabrieland Domingo sent a partyevery four days from theirhillside settlementto appropriatefoodstuffs."8As Spanishhaciendasexpandedinto areas that had prefor viously been habitations fugitive slaves or indigenousherders,cimarrones may no longerhave been able to cultivatelandsthatwere capableof marginal production."9Spanish encroachmentmay have also pressuredindigenous agriculturiststo develop lands that borderedand perhapsoverlappedwith fields, pastures,and woods that fugitive slaves may have depended on for cultivationand had, perhaps,previouslyforagedwithoutconsequence.120 Most likely, an agricultural coastal valleys explained crisis in the northern the cimarr6n shift in tactics. Gabriel and Domingo's encampment had almost doubled its members (and therefore its needs) between 1639 and 1641, perhaps because Spanish estate owners were unable to feed their slaves. After the 1619 earthquake then severe flooding in 1624, the Truand coast council andindigenouscommunitiesalong the northern jillo municipal well into the late 1630s and 1640s, that laborerswere repeatedlyreported, scarce as were foodstuffs.'21 Trujillo'sslaveholdersmay have been suffering
ADL. Ca. Cr. Leg. 79. Exp. 1350 (1641), ff. 27, 30. C6sar A. Galvez Mora, Juan Castafieda en Murga,and Rosario M. BecerraOrtega,"Caracolesterrestes:11,000 Amos de traditionalimentaria la costa norte del Peril,"Cultura,Identidady Cocina en el Peru (Lima: Escuela Profesionalde Turismoy Hoteleria.Facultadde Ciencias de la Comunicaci6n,Turismoy Sicologifa.UniversidadSan Martinde Porres, 1993). 117 ADL. Ca. Cr. Leg. 79. Exp. 1350 (1641), f. 30. "8 ADL. Ca. Cr. Leg. 79. Exp. 1350 (1641), f. 2. 119 In the fugitive settlements surroundingLima, cimarrones cultivated fields. Lazo Garcia, Del Negro, pp. 18, 19. 120 Fugitive slaves near Lima planted crops, fished, hunted,and sold firewood as well as reed baskets and mats to subsist.When local haciendas began to recover from an economic crisis in the laterpart of the eighteenthcentury,fugitive slaves lost marginallands thathad been the basis of theirsurvival.Victoria Espinosa Descalzo, Cartografiade Lima (1654-1893) (Lima:UniversidadNacional Mayor de San Marcos. Seminariode HistoriaRuralAndina, 1999), pp. xx; VictoriaEspinosa Descalzo, "Cimarronaje y palenques en la costa central del Peril: 1700-1815," in Primer seminario sobre poblaciones inmigrantes. Actas. Lima, 9 7 10 de mayo de 1986. Tomo 2 (Lima:Consejo Nactional de Ciencia y Tecnologia, 1988), p. 31. 121 In 1632 the vecinos of Trujillocomplain of the poverty, land sterility, and ruined city resulting from the 1619 earthquake. LarcoHerrera, See Anales, who cites ff. 162-164v.Again in 1639, the Trujillo
116
47
from a lack of income because the earthquakehad ruinedcoastal irrigation canals usually maintainedby indigenous reducciones, which now faced a severe lack of members.122Withoutproperirrigation,the land became sterile and the fields flooded with contaminatedwaters. It was within this context that Trujillo's municipal council reported that armed fugitive slaves robbed and assaulted indigenous and African laborerson the surrounding haciendas.123It is probablethat this local crisis pushed slaves to escape into the uncultivatedwildernessand indigenouscommunitiesin marginalvalleys such as SantaCatalina.124To returnto the tactics of Gabrieland Domingo's encampment, the decline in local agriculturalproduction may have also adversely affected marginaleconomies thus provoking fugitive slaves into more antagonisticraidingof indigenouscommunitiesthathad once been tolerantof their presence. coastaleconomy were accompanied a shift The changesin the northern by on a transatlantic scale. The originsandthe experiencesof Africanswho were forcibly tradedfromAtlanticAfrica to the Pacific were undergoinga radical that transformation may also explain the increase in robberiesand assaults Peruviancoast. Fromthe sixassociatedwith fugitive slaves on the northern teenth into the seventeenthcenturies, enslaved Africans in Peru had originated primarilyin the Senegambianregion with significant numbers also Peruviancoast, Africa.125Yet, on the northern from Southwestern Central and the sales of men and women from the Kingdomof Kongo and other principalities in Southwestern and Central Africa, as recorded by Trujillo's
See vecinos complainedof the resultingpoverty from the earthquake. Larco Herrera, Anales, cites ff. 815v. In 1643 the Trujillocabildo claimed that there was no public jail in the city since the 1619 earthAnales, cites f. 100. Anne Marie Hocquenghem,et al "EventosEl Nifio y lluquake. See Larco Herrera, vias anormalesen la costa del Peni: siglos XVI-XIX," Bulletin de l'InstitutFrangais d'EtudesAndines 21:1 (1992), p. 148. 122 Larco Herrera, Anales, cites 366-366v, 33, 102v-103; 162-164v; 8-15v, 22-23; 184-185; "Obedecimientopero no su cumplimientode los corregidoresde Safiay partidode Chiclayo...de la Real Prode vision despachadopor el virrey sobre la repartici6n los indios yungas y serranosparala reedificaci6n de Trujillo--la misma que habia quedado averiadapor los efects del terremotoque asol6 y destruj6la que ciudad,"ADL. Co. Asuntos de Gobierno.Leg. 267. Exp. 3106 (1622), f. 8v; "Mandamiento...para se tome las cuentas a los receptoresde la alcabalas encabezonadasde esta ciudad y villas de Santa y ADL. Co. Juez de Residencia. Leg. 275. Exp. 3441 (1637). Caxamarcay valle de Guadalupe," 123 "Visita por los del Consejo Real de las Indias la residencia ...," AGI. Escribania.Leg. 1189 (1648). In 1642 the slaves on a Chicamahacienda revolted. See "Auto... paraque vaya al Chicamavalle ha hacer las diligencia necesariassobre la muertede Salvador,mulato esclavo...hecho por Franciscode ADL. Co. Cr.Leg. 246. Exp. Cervantes,a causa de haberledado muchos azotes y otros maltratamientos," 2530 (1642), f. 24; Larco Herrera, Anales, cites f. 140v. 124 Espinosa, Cartografia,pp. xiii, xiv, xxxvii, lxiv; David BarryGaspar, "Runawaysin SeventeenthcenturyAntigua,West Indies,"Boletin de estudios latinoamericanosy del Caribe 26 (1979), p. 9. 125 Bowser, African, pp. 40-43.
48
notaries, markedlyincreased in the 1630s and 1640s.126 This period coincided with the conquest of Matambaby a rebel chiefdom previously under control of the Kingdom of Kongo, one of the main suppliers of enslaved congos and angolas sold to Portugueseslave tradersat the portof Luandaon the southwesternAtlantic African coast.127The defecting leader (and other communitiesseeking protection)employed forms of the Imbangalakilombo, an initiation society or warriorfraternitythat included substantialmilitary assistance, and the tactic of sending out training, charms of supernatural small squadrons who attackedwithoutwarning.128In the Americas,Africans from these regions, congos and angolas, adaptedwar camps or hideouts to become quilombos, palenques, and other fugitive slave settlements and encampments.129 On the northerncoast, these strategiesemerged as indigenous and Spanishobserversdescribedhow men fromGabrieland Domingo's groupattackedin militaryformationswhile playing drums,throwinglances, and shooting firearms.130Previously, fugitive slaves on the northerncoast from CentralAfrica and Senegambiahad traveledin small bandsto forage in indigenousfields and coastal haciendas.The changingtactics of the encampment, therefore,could have reflected the large majority of members who originatedfrom the southwesterninteriors of Kongo and other kingdoms Africa. duringthis periodof militaryconflict in southwestern Indigenouswitnessesalso claimedthata groupof threeor morecimarrones from southwestern Africa attackedruralindigenoussettlementsincludingthe of Paijanin the Chicamavalley. In additionto stealingclothingand reducci6n textiles, the fugitive slaves raped indigenous women in front of their hus126 Rachel of and Sarah Difference: O'Toole, Indians, theAntecedents 'Race' "Inventing Africans, at Carolina Chapel of North in Colonial Ph.DDissertation. Peru(1580s-1720s)" Hill,2001; University B Appendices andC. C. 127 AnneHilton, Clarendon TheKingdom Kongo(Oxford: Press,1985),pp. 110-111; Joseph of and in c. "Central Africa the 1850s," Central Miller, Africans CulDuring Eraof theSlaveTrade, 1490sUnieditor Linda turalTransformationstheAmerican in Cambridge (Cambridge: Heywood, Diaspora, Press,2002),pp.26, 36-37 versity Clarendon 128 Joseph Miller, StatesinAngola and Mbundu Press, C. (Oxford: Kings Kinsmen: Early 1976),pp.232, 237, 240-241. 129 Stuart in in Palmares: SlaveResistance Colonial Brazil," Slaves,PeasSchwartz, "Rethinking of Brazilian ants,andRebels: (Urbana: University IllinoisPress,1992),p. 125; Slavery Reconsidering Statein Sevenof A of Robert NelsonAnderson, "TheQuilombo Palmares: New Overview a Marron 28:3(1996),pp.555, 557, 565;JohnThornJournal Latin American Studies Brazil," of teenth-Century UniWorld edition(Cambridge: 2nd in ton,AfricaandAfricans theMaking theAtlantic Cambridge of Press,1992),pp. 100-102. versity de 130 ADL.Ca.Cr.Leg.79. Exp.1350(1641),ff. Iv, 23, 27v;"Expediente por seguido donAndr6s de Noifiez contra Francisco don ciudad de Provincial alcalde la Santa de Hermandad Trujillo y Careaga ADL. sobreocultaci6n negros de eslavosy no entregarlos," Ca.Cr.Leg.79. Exp. Balsera Juan y Quespo 1351(1641),f. 1.
49
bands.'31Fugitives who confessed and indigenous witnesses identified the assailantsas JuanMosanga,Manuelangola,Mateo angola, Pasqualof congo Africanidentitieswere much more comland, and a "negrocalled Xinga."132 thanthe labels attached Spanishslaveholders, colonialjudicial and plicated by investigationsoften identify the accused,not necessarilythe guilty.Nonetheless, it is possible thatthe fugitives from the Chicamavalley shareda certain model of the quilomboor militarybase based on standards secretivemale of warriorsociety with strictgenderdivisions.133As an offensive militaryinstitution,armedattackby the all-malefugitive slave groupsmay have included the sexual assault against indigenousvillage women. However, in this case, indigenous people did not accuse Gabriel and Domingo's group, perhaps between indigenousvillagers in reflectinga more long-standingrelationship the SantaCatalinavalley and the neighboringfugitive settlements.Additionand "lieually, membersrespectedGabrieland Domingo as their "captain" of tenant,"and thus may have followed distinct interpretations the adapted formation.134Regardless,the attacksin the Chicamavalley by the quilombo smaller fugitive group strongly suggest a markedturn in relationsbetween fugitive slaves and indigenouscommunitiesand laborers. in By the late 1630s andearly 1640s, indigenouscommunities boththe Chicama and the SantaCatalinavalleys repeatedlycomplainedof fugitive slaves who robbed and assaultedin fields and on highways. Yet, Spanish officials were relativelyineffectiveuntil 1641 when "manyIndians" joined the Spanish attackagainstthe group led by Gabrieland Domingo in the Santa Catalina the valley.'35 Accordingto colonialauthorities, ruralguardwas unableto locate Gabriel and Domingo's encampmentuntil local indigenousfarmersoffered assistance.Until 1641, indigenousagriculturalists the SantaCatalinavalley in claimedto not know the exact locationof the fugitive slave's settlement.136 In contrast,the indigenouslaborersin the Chicamavalley were able to lead the ruralguardto the refuges of fugitive slaves who attacked reduccionesas well as haciendas.'37 Again, the varyinglevel of indigenousassistancemay reflect
'31 ADL. Ca. Cr. Leg. 79. Exp. 1350 (1641), f. 8. 132 ADL. Ca. Cr. Leg. 79. Exp. 1350 (1641), ff. 32, 32v, 34, 34v. 133 Miller, Kings, p. 232; ADL. Ca. Cr. Leg. 79. Exp. 1350 (1640), ff. 18v, 22, 23v, 30. 134 For a fascinatingdiscussion of internaldisagreements,hierarchies,and choices to employ more aggressivetactics within a Cartagena palenque thatexperienceda similarinflux of malembasfrom southwestern centralAfrica see KathrynJoy McKnight,"Confronted Rituals:SpanishColonial and Angolan 'Maroon'Executionsin Cartagena Indias1634,"Journalof Colonialism ColonialHistory5:3 (2004). and de 135 ADL. Ca. Cr. Leg. 79. Exp. 1350 (1641), f. lv. 136 ADL. Co. Asuntos de Gobierno.Leg. 267. Exp. 3147 (1646), f. 2. 137 contraJuanGomez "Expedienteseguido porAndr6sde Careaga,Alcalde de la SantaHermandad, de Cabrera, sobre haberherido...," ADL. Co. Cr.Leg. 245. mayordomoque fue de la haciendade Facalai; Exp. 2513 (1640), f. 34.
50
the distinctrelationships between indigenouscommunitiesand fugitive slave The captain of the ruralguard positioned his men in the Gasfiape groups. ravines in the Chicamavalley to successfully capturea numberof fugitive slaves.138The ruralguardchose the Gasfiapelocation with the assistanceof indigenous laborersand others from the nearbyFacala hacienda,one of the largestsugarestatesin the Chicamavalley. Facala'syanaconas,Alonso Loxa and others,were so familiarwith one of the notoriousfugitives, Pasqual"of congo land," that they could track his footprints.139 Indigenous laborers rememberedPasqualboth as a formerslave on the Facalahaciendaand as a leaderof the attacksduringwhich he had insultedthem and otherindigenous men.140 More pointedly,the indigenouslaboreractedin defense of his reducci6n, Paijan;he and others identified Pasqual as one of the fugitives who raped three indigenous women in front of other indigenous men, who were perhaps their partners,husbands,or fathers.141Like other indigenous men who would join Spanish officials to capture fugitive slaves, Alonso Loxa acted in his best interest to defend his person and his community against Africanantagonistswho had been pushedto the marginsof a slavery society. The reductionof indigenous landholdingsincreasedthe stakes for reducciones as well as indigenous laborers who attempted to defend limited resources and to assert personal security against any outsiders including indigenous yanaconas,Spanishhaciendaowners, andAfrican slaves. At the same time, enslaved African men and women (including some born in the Americas) resisted the impositions of slavery by seeking out independent work relations and by removing themselves from the control of owners. Negotiating the desert terrain as solitary individuals or organized settlements, cimarronesestablishedalternativecommunitiesthat,in some regions of the Americas, would last for decades if not centuries.142For ruralslaves with little access to the courts, patronage,and wage labor offered by urban environs, cimarronajewas a common strategyespecially duringperiods of famine or crisis when hacienda owners abandoned their obligations to enslaved laborers.By 1641, two capturedwomen testified that their leader Gabriel congo, was engaged in a "war against the Spanish." Similarly, Kathryn McKnight identified how malembas (also from southwestern Africa) led a communityof fugitive slaves against an indigenous village in
ADL. Ca. Cr. Leg. 79. Exp. 1350 (1641), f. 2. ADL. Ca. Cr. Leg. 79. Exp. 1350 (1641), f. 7v. 140 ADL. Ca. Cr. Leg. 79. Exp. 1351 (1641), ff. 1, 5. 141 ADL. Ca. Cr. Leg. 79. Exp. 1350 (1641), f. 8. 142 For example, see Kris Lane's discussion of the fugitive slave community of Esmeraldason the Pacific littoral.Kris Lane, Quito 1599: City and Colony in Transition(Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2002), p. 23.
139
138
51
retaliationfor theirbetrayalof the groupto Spanishauthorities.143Likewise, Gabriel'swar had little to do with the survivalof indigenouscommunitiesor the indigenous laborers'defense of their honor. Indigenous communities, however, still strategicallyemployed their protective Crown status while indigenous laborers called on Spanish patrons or their representativesto defend themselves. Furthermore,indigenous agriculturistsalso captured fugitives aroundtheirfields to underlinea division of strategicchoices rooted in colonial locations of "Indians" versus those of enslavedAfricans.44
CONCLUSIONS
Indigenouscommunitiesdid not disappearfrom the northerncoastal valleys as Spanishhaciendasexpandedand enslavedAfricanpopulationsgrew. In contrastto the Chicamavalley, the Mansiche communityexpandedtheir holdings in the SantaCatalinavalley and survivedadditionalSpanishestate development with renewed fugitive slave activity.145 Yet, as reducciones increasingly came under attack, indigenous people defended their communities against fugitive slaves pushed to raid for survival. In addition, divisions betweenAfricans and indigenouspeople widened on the estates where contractedindigenous laborersaccessed new patronagenetworksnot available to Africans and their descendants or even indigenous workers still attachedto their reducciones. Such colonial protectionswere not available to enslaved or free Africans.Yet, these legal distinctionswere not the source of conflict. Instead, conflicts among Africans and indigenous people were contingent on how they accessed scarce resources in an expanding sugar economy throughexchanges of labor and attemptsof theft. Indigenous and African laborersfaced distinct challenges and therefore developed alternative,and sometimes clashing strategies.Africans and their descendants of challengedthe pressures slavery.Indigenouspeople negotiated the demandsof tributeandmita."Indian" communitiesandlaborers employed the protections least nominallyofferedby the SpanishCrownanderratically at enforced by local colonial officials. Africans and their descendantsadapted southwestern Africanmilitarystrategiesto an ongoing siege againstSpanish slaveholders.In the process, indigenous people separatedthemselves from Africanlaborers,enslavedand fugitive, who employedstrategiesof offensive war camps and itinerant colonial adaptations. "Indian" tradingthatthreatened
McKnight,"Confronted," paragraph127. 44 ADL. Co. Cr. Leg. 245. Exp. 2500 (1639), ff. 3, 3v. 145 ADL. Protocolos. Viera Gutierrez,Pedro. Leg. 258 #472 (1655), ff. 704-705v; "Compulsade las cuentas de las retasasde indios de Trujillo...," ADL. Hacienda.Compulsas.Leg. 131. Exp. 161 (1688), ff. llv-19.
143
52
"INA WAR THE AGAINST SPANISH"
ConflictsamongAfricansandindigenouspeople, therefore, occurredin the context of increasingcolonial pressureson reducciones.Unlike the explanations of Spanish colonizers, there was not a naturalantagonismbetween have historicalinterpretations indigenousand Africanpeople. Contemporary also drawnattentionto the intermediary status of enslaved or free Africans who served their owners by intimating,assaulting,or punishingindigenous Yet, such interpretapeople as soldiers, overseers, or personal assistants.'46 tions recreatestaticor fixed identitiesfor dynamiccommunitiesof indigenous or Africanpeople whose situationschangedas haciendasexpanded.Instead, Peruviancoast fosteredmutuSpanishslaveholdingpracticeson the northern beneficial contact between Africans and neighboring "Indians"who ally traded,exchanged,and lived in close proximityto each other.Yet, when environmentaldisastersproducedlocal crises in irrigationand agricultural prothe informaland contingentrelationships between slaves and indigeduction, nous laborersgave way to legaljustificationsof differencesandnew alliances. Indigenouspeoples, regardlessof their location in colonial reducciones or in colonial estates,could call on theirprotectedstatusas "Indians" ways that was not yet replicated enslavedAfricansandtheirdescendants. for Sidingwith but colonial authorities removeAfricanfugitives was a temporary effective to solution.Yet,by analyzingthe contextof economic anddemographic changes in the northern ruralpeoplecoastalvalleys, this articlearguesthatsubaltern indigenous and African--employed changing strategiesto survive distinct impositionsof colonialismand slavery.Divided by multiplegeographic,ecoboundaries greater of nomic, andcultural Trujillo,indigenouspeople defended of themselvesnot because they saw Africansas intermediaries Spanishcolonizers, but because of a prudentcolonial strategywithin a particular regional context. Likewise, enslaved, fugitive, and free Africans conducted "a war that affinitieswith indigenouscommunitiesbut againstthe Spanish" disrupted provideda Diasporasolutionto the exploitationof Andeanslavery. Universityof California Irvine, California
RACHELSARAH O'TOOLE
146 Bowser, African, pp. 7, 147, 150, 151-153. LauraLewis' critical study of the genderedconstructions of difference reiteratesthe status of Africans as intermediariesbetween Spanish colonizers and indigenous people. Laura Lewis, Hall of Mirrors: Power Witchcraft,and Caste in Colonial Mexico (Durham:Duke University Press, 2003), pp. 69, 72, 101.

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"In a War against the Spanish": Andean Protection and African Resistance on the Northern Peruvian Coast Author(s):

"IN A WAR AGAINSTTHE SPANISH"

RACHEL SARAH O'TOOLE

"IN A WAR AGAINST THE SPANISH"

RACHEL SARAH O'TOOLE

"IN A WAR AGAINST THE SPANISH"

"IN A WAR AGAINST THE SPANISH"

Ramirez,Provincial, pp. 45, 83, 163; Burga,De la Encomienda,p. 115.

30 Cheryl English Martin, Rural Society in Colonial Morelos (Albuquerque:University of New

"IN A WAR AGAINST THE SPANISH"

AND ENSLAVEDLABORERS EXCHANGE AND CONFLICT: INDIGENOUS FARMERS

"IN A WAR AGAINSTTHE SPANISH"

RACHEL SARAH O'TOOLE

"IN A WAR AGAINST THE SPANISH"

RACHEL SARAH O'TOOLE

"IN A WAR AGAINST THE SPANISH"

RACHEL SARAH O'TOOLE

"IN A WAR AGAINST THE SPANISH"

RACHEL SARAH O'TOOLE

"IN A WAR AGAINST THE SPANISH"

SARAH RACHEL O'TOOLE

"IN A WAR AGAINST THE SPANISH"

RACHEL SARAH O'TOOLE

"IN A WAR AGAINST THE SPANISH"

"IN A WAR AGAINST THE SPANISH"

RACHEL SARAH O'TOOLE

"IN A WAR AGAINST THE SPANISH"

RACHEL SARAH O'TOOLE

"IN A WAR AGAINSTTHE SPANISH"

RACHEL SARAH O'TOOLE

"IN A WAR AGAINST THE SPANISH"

RACHEL SARAH O'TOOLE

"INA WAR THE AGAINST SPANISH"

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