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| © Jesuit Museum - Cartagena, Colombia |
One of the salient features of American history is the existence of a black African population on the continent. In the Viceroyalty of the New Kingdom of Granada, the role played by this racial group in the productive process was a major one, especially in the mining sector.
As early as the beginning of the sixteenth century, the contribution made by the black slaves to the economy of New Granada made itself felt as the aboriginal peoples were wiped out and the frontiers of exploration were pushed farther back.
In order to exercise its control, the Spanish Crown took measures aimed at levying taxes on the slave trade and at avoiding the arrival of slaves belonging to tribes regarded as dangerous for the process of what nowadays would be known as the acculturation of the aborigines. Efforts were likewise made to prevent the excessive concentration of black slaves, which, it was feared, would jeopardize the safety of the ports and colonies. The Casa de Contratación (the Catholic Monarchs’ Chamber of Commerce in Seville) laid down procedures regulating the amount and type of slave trade, the permits and licences granted and the trading posts themselves. The product of any activity involving black labour had to be accounted for to the Casa de Contratación itself, along with the Cabildos, Real Hacienda, Real Audiencia and all the other colonial authorities.
There is no doubt about the importance of this documentary collection for the historical reconstruction of so many aspects of the way of life and living conditions of the large contingents of Africans who arrived on these American shores and whose part in the lives of those peoples who came under the Spanish sway in this area of the continent has been so noteworthy. If it could be microfilmed, systemized and digitized, the historiography of Colombia, and Latin America in general, would be given a considerable boost.
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In order to exercise its control, the Spanish Crown took measures aimed at levying taxes on the slave trade and at avoiding the arrival of slaves belonging to tribes regarded as dangerous for the process of what nowadays would be known as the acculturation of the aborigines. Efforts were likewise made to prevent the excessive concentration of black slaves, which, it was feared, would jeopardize the safety of the ports and colonies. The Casa de Contratación (the Catholic Monarchs’ Chamber of Commerce in Seville) laid down procedures regulating the amount and type of slave trade, the permits and licences granted and the trading posts themselves. The product of any activity involving black labour had to be accounted for to the Casa de Contratación itself, along with the Cabildos, Real Hacienda, Real Audiencia and all the other colonial authorities.
There is no doubt about the importance of this documentary collection for the historical reconstruction of so many aspects of the way of life and living conditions of the large contingents of Africans who arrived on these American shores and whose part in the lives of those peoples who came under the Spanish sway in this area of the continent has been so noteworthy. If it could be microfilmed, systemized and digitized, the historiography of Colombia, and Latin America in general, would be given a considerable boost.
>> Multimedia
