INFORMATION TO USERS

This dissertation was produced fro m a m icrofilm copy of the original document.
While th e most advanced technological means to photograph and reproduce this
docum ent have been used, th e q uality is heavily dependent upon the quality of
the original submitted.

The

follow ing explanation o f techniques is provided to help you understand

markings or patterns which may appear on this reproduction.

1.

T he sign or "targ et" fo r pages apparently lacking from the document

photographed is "Missing Page(s)". If it was possible to obtain the
missing page(s) or section, they are spliced into the film along w ith
adjacent pages. This may have necessitated cutting thru an image and
duplicating adjacent pages to insure you complete continuity.

2.

When an image on th e film is obliterated w ith a large round black

mark, it is an indication th a t the photographer suspected th a t the
copy

may have moved during exposure and thus cause a blurred

image. Y o u w ill fin d a good image of the page in the adjacent frame.

3.

When a map, drawing or chart, etc., was part o f the material being
p h o to g ra p h e d

the

photographer

follow ed

definite

method

in

"sectioning" the material. It is customary to begin photoing at the

upper le ft hand corner of a large sheet and to continue photoing from
le ft to

right

in equal sections w ith a small overlap.

If necessary,

sectioning is continued again beginning below the firs t row and

continuing on until complete.

4.

T he m ajority o f users indicate th at the textual content is o f greatest

value,

however, a somewhat higher quality reproduction could be

made fro m
dissertation.

"photographs" if essential to the understanding o f the

Silver

prints

of

"photographs"

may

be

ordered

at

additional charge by w riting th e Order Departm ent, giving the catalog

number, title , author and specific pages you wish reproduced.

University Microfilms
300 North Zeeb Road
Ann Arbor, Michigan 48106
A Xerox Education Company

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

r
i
i

72-24,398
CHANDLER, David Lee, 1938HEALTH AND SLAVERY: A STUDY OF HEALTH
CONDITIONS AMONG NEGRO SLAVES IN THE VICEROYALTY
OF NEW GRANADA AND ITS ASSOCIATED SLAVE TRADE,
1600-1810.
Tulane University, Ph.D., 1972
History, general

University Microfilms, A XEROXCompany, Ann Arbor, Michigan

Copyright by David Lee Chandler 1972

L
THIS DISSERTATION HAS BEEN MICROFILMED EXACTLY AS RECEIVED.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

n
HEALTH AND SLAVERY:
A STUDY OF HEALTH CONDITIONS AMONG NEGRO SLAVES IN THE VICEROYALTY
OF NEW GRANADA AND ITS ASSOCIATED SLAVE TRADE, l600-l8l0

A DISSERTATION
SUBMITTED ON THE TWENTY-FIRST DAY OF FEBRUARY, 1972
TO THE DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY
OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL OF
TULANE UNIVERSITY
IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS
FOR THE DEGREE OF
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
BY

David L. Chandler

Approved
(hard E. Gjgenleaf, Chairma^

Robert F. Gray

L
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

PLEASE NOTE:

Some pages may have

indistinct print.
Filmed as received.

U niv ersity Microfilms, A Xero x Education Company

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

CONTENTS

Chapter

Page
1

INTRODUCTION ..............................................
I.

THE AFRICAN BACKGROUND...........................

II.

THE MIDDLE PASSAGE..............................

l8

III.

REFRESHMENT IN THE WEST INDIES....................

1+8

IV.

IN THE SPANISH SLAVE P O R T S .......................

6k

V.

CARTAGENA AND B E Y O N D ............................

96

VI.
VII.

THE DOMESTIC SLAVE TRADE AND THESPREAD OFDISEASE

...

SEASONING, LABOR, MAINTENANCE ANDRELATED HEALTH PROBLEMS.

120
137

VIII.

GENERAL DISEASE AND DISABILITY...................... 176

IX.

THE CHURCH, THE STATE AND THE HEALTH OFSLA V ES ..........231

X.

CONCLUSIONS....................................... 26l

APPENDICES

269

II.................................................... 277
III. .

..............................................

281

BIBLIOGRAPHY........................ .................... 287

ii

L
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

LIST OF TABLES

Table

Page

1.

Palmeo of 205 Negroes of tbe English Frigate La Palas (Palace) 87

2.

Number of Negroes Landed at Cartagena by Grillo Assiento

Company Having Various Diseases and Disabilities,
1663-167^ .......................................... 90

3.

Morbidity and Mortality as Indicated in Palmeo Records for

Ships of Various Assiento Companies, 175^-1789

if-. Causes of Redhibition Showing the Number of Slaves Involved

Under Each Cause

93

105

5.

Number of Negro Slaves (of a Sample of 7;98*0 Having Various

Diseases and Disabilities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0 .. 102

6.

Frequency of Various Medical Complaints among Negro Slaves

Petitioning to Buy Their Freedom on Medical Grounds . . . . 255

iii

L
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The author gratefully acknowledges that research for this study

was supported hy the Tulane University International Center for Medical
Research and Training Grant AI-10050 from the Nations1 Institute of
Allergy and Infectious Diseases, National Institutes of Health, U. S.
Public Health Service. He also wishes to express appreciation for the
friendship, courtesy and assistance extended by the directors and person
nel of the archives in which the research was conducted. Especially
helpful were Jorge Garces, Director of the Archivo Hist&rico Nacional
del Ecuador, Jos Rodriguez, Director of the Archivo Histdrico Depart
mental de Antioquia, Carlos Restrepo Canal, Director of the Archivo
Hist&rico Nacional de Colombia and the late Jose Maria Arboleda, the
Director of the Archivo Central del Cauca. The author is also deeply in
debted to Carlos Gil, Carl

.Carlos Hernan

Ruiz, Eladio Solarte, Jairo Padilla and Ernesto Lince, for help in trans
cribing many documents; to members of the dissertation committee for many
helpful suggestions, and to Joann Thomas for editorial suggestions and
proof reading. Finally, the author acknowledges his special appreciation for
the willing, patient assistance of his wife in typing the various drafts of
the manuscript and for her unfailing support through research and writing.

IV

L
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

"i

INTRODUCTION

It is estimated that ten million Negroes were "brought to the

Americas during the three and a half centuries of the Atlantic slave
trade.

Of these, 100,000 or more came to the Viceroyalty of New Granada."*"

Every stage of the slave trade to the Spanish colony as well as the in
stitution of slavery which developed there was marked by shocking health
conditions and staggering mortality, due to disease and adverse con
ditions.
Those slaves that arrived in New Granada were the survivors of
a rigorous process of natural selection which often began two years or
more before they set foot in the colony. The process of elimination
started in Africa at the hands of the black slave trader. The forced
marches from the interior of Africa to the sea and the miserable conditions
in the holding pens of agents and brokers on the African coast claimed the
lives of perhaps one-third of the blacks initially captured. These losses
were only the beginning of the morality, for one out of every five sur
vivors fell prey to the ravages of the infamous Middle Passage and another

The Viceroyalty proper was present-day Colombia to which the

Isthmus of Panama was attached with varying degrees of subordination in
the Colonial period. Although Ecuador (the Presidency of Quito) and Vene
zuela (The Captaincy-General of Caracas) were technically included in the
Viceroyalty, both were virtually independent and have been excluded from
consideration in this study. For estimates of the numbers of Negroes brought
to different parts of the Americas see Philip Curtin, The Atlantic Slave
Trade: A Census (Madison, 1969); PP* 30-35
1

L
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

i
2

five to ten percent died in the guinea yards of the West Indies, where
they failed to recuperate before the day of sale. Many of those Negroes
who did recuperate were shipped to the Spanish mainland, where more deaths
occurred in the yards and holding pens of the Spanish slave ports and dur
ing the dangerous trek to the interior. In most cases, less than half of
the slaves originally purchased or seized in Africa survived these ordeals
to reach the haciendas and mines in the interior. Typically, one-quarter
of these blacks was lost in the "seasoning" process which accustomed them
to their new environment and new way of life, and even seasoned Negroes
found themselves prey to a peculiar set of diseases and health hazards
distinctively characteristic of slavery.
The purpose of this dissertation is to investigate health con
ditions among the Negro slaves of New Granada during the period 1600-1810
and to investigate health conditions among the international slave trade
which brought these slaves to the shores of the Viceroyalty. By the be
ginning of that period, the slave trade to New Granada had reached appre
ciable proportions and Negro slaves had largely replaced Indian laborers
in the mines and haciendas of the area, and for the next two centuries
the demand for slaves steadily mounted. By the close of that period the
wars for independence and rising humanitarian sentiment had begun to under'
mine the institution of slavery and to foreshadow its abolition.

L
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

n
CHAPTER I
THE AFRICAN BACKGROUND

Africa was a roreboding and perilous continent to Europeans dur

ing the years of the Atlantic slave trade. It had acquired an unsavory
reputation as the graveyard of seamen and the scourge of Europeans, for
few white men visited the unhealthy continent without falling prey to
some malignant fever or the "bloody flux," as dysentery was called, and
seldom did white men survive an extended tour of duty there.^ Mortality
among British troops transferred from England to Africa, for example,
jumped from eleven per thousand before arrival to as high as 668 per
thousand annually after arrival.

Europeans also viewed the Negro with apprehension. As a result

of inhabiting that dreadful continent, he was, in their opinion, a "hive
of dangerous germs.

The slave trade was viewed with no less appre

hension. Aside from the disagreeable moral implication it held for many
Europeans, it was medically hazardous as well. At least one out of four
European seamen engaged in the slave trade died from diseases contracted
1)
.
while participating in the trade; moreover, the imported Negro slaves
1

P. M. Ashbum, The Ranks of Death: A Medical History of the Con

quest of America, ed., Frank D. Ashbum (New York, 19^-7)> PP. 38-39.
Philip Curtin, "Epidemcliogy and the Slave Trade," Political
Science Quarterly LXXXIII (June, lj.68), 202; See also Rudolph Hoeppli,
Parasitic Diseases in Africa and the Western Hemisphere: Early Documen
tation and Transmission'by the Slave Trade (Basel, 1969)> PP. 193-97.
% . Harold Scott, A History of Tropical Medicine Based on the FitzPatrick Lectures Delivered before the Royal College of Physicians of
London, 1937-38, 2 vols. (London, 1939)> II* 993*
Curtin, p. 20!+.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

n
k

dangerously infected the white European society in the New World.

In

spite of risks and misgivings, however, the universal demand was always
for more and more Negroes. There was money to he made and the slave trade
flourished.
Slaving companies established forts and trading "factories" or
stations along the African coast where they traded European goods for
slaves. There company factors, or agents, carefully selected blacks for
purchase from local slavers, watching closely to screen out the sick.
Negroes purchased by these agents were corralled in large enclosures cal
led barracoons to await shipment to the Americas. Sometimes the local
slavers and independent Negro brokers by-passed the company factors and
sold their slaves directly to slave ships not belonging to the companies.

Local slavers bought blacks in the inland markets where slaves from
many tribes were for sale.

Slavery had long existed in Africa and some of

the slaves sold in these up-country markets had been b o m into captivity.
Others were sold into slavery for debt or because of famine. Still others
were prisoners taken in wars or raids or were criminals who had been ban
ished and sold by their villages. The coastal trader bartered for all but
the dying and took them to the sea for resale to factors, brokers, or sea
captains. Many slave traders were little more than raiders who obtained
slaves through seizure rather than through barter.

In either case, the

new master had relatively little invested in the slaves. The trader got

^Averil Mackenzie-Grieve, The Last Years of the English Slave Trade,

1750-1807 (London, 19^1), p. 122; Theodore Conot, Adventures of an African
Slaver: Being1a True Account of the Life of Captain Theodore Conot, Trader
in Gold, Ivory, and Slaves on the Coast of Guinea, ed., Malcolm Cowley (New
York, 1928), p. 107.

L
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

i
5
them in exchange for a handful of cheap European goods such as heads,
cloth, hardware, spirits, or arms. The raider, of course, paid nothing.
This comparatively small investment may have contributed to the gross
disregard for life on the "path," the march from the interior to the
coast.^
The trip to the coast usually claimed a high toll of captives,
especially if 'they were taken overland. The confinement, privation and
generally deplorable conditions of the trip killed many of the blacks
and weakened those that survived. The slaves were chained together in
long coffles to prevent escape during the march.

It was not unusual to

form a double coffle with pairs of slaves chained together, each pair
yoked to the pair in front by twisted rawhide ropes and long heavy
forked poles fastened to the slaves' necks. Wight sometimes brought a
slight reprieve from such confinement when the yoke was replaced by neck
irons and chains which allowed a little more freedom of movement.?
Under such confinement, even slow travel would have been tortur
ous. Wevertheless, slave traders were usually anxious to leave the home
country of their captives, fearing the blacks might escape or rebel; con
sequently they usually resorted to forced marches. Since many of the
Negroes purchased in the inland markets were in poor health and, in some
cases, were probably sold for this reason, they could hardly have been
expected to survive such an ordeal. Even those in good health died from
g
hunger, thirst, cruelty or fatigue on the Path.
g
Mackenzie-Grieve, p. 121.
raza:

^Angel Valtierra, Pedro Claver, S. J., el santo que liberto una

Su vida y su epoca, 1st ed. (Bogota, 195^. PP. 12-13.
Ibid., pp. 13-1^; Mackenzie-Grieve, p. 121.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

-i
6

Contemporary travelers in Africa frequently encountered these

caravans and left descriptions of them and the conditions of their vic
tims.

One author describes them as composed of:

men, worn, extenuated and exhausted by the lack of nourishment,

brutalized by beatings and fainting under their load; of sick
women with swollen legs, covered with repugnant ulcers, obliged
to support themselves with long staffs in order to sustain them
selves in the march; of old men completely broken and bent with
fatigue. At each side of the caravan . . . marched the Dioulas
with a whip or a lance in their hands, cruely beating the captives.
If one of these miserable slaves was overcome and fell, the Dioula
not so much to end the suffering as to demonstrate to the rest that
nothing good should be hoped from causing delay in the march, cut
off his head with a long knife and abandoned the body to the hyenas
and the vultures.-^
Another witness often saw the slaves in these caravans arrive at the
coast:
Many were nothing but skeletons, victims of all the evils
occasioned by fatigue and hunger. On some of them the continual
rub of the handcuffs had consumed the flesh and the naked bone
could be seen. These ulcerous wounds were receptacles of myriads
of insects that laid their eggs in these gangrenous cavities.^
It is not surprising that mortality on these rapid marches was
seldom reported to be less than twenty percent, and often must have been
11
much higher.
Along the caravan routes numerous skeletons, slave forks
and clogs still attached to bleached bones bore mute witness to the many
lives that had been sacrificed on the Path. Major Dixon Denham, a
traveler in Africa during the last days of the slave trade, counted 107
skeletons along twenty-six miles of one of these slave routes. On an
other occasion he wrote, "During the last two days we passed on an average

^Valtierra, p. 12.
10Ibid., p. I k ,
1:LScott, II, 989 .

L
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

of sixty to ninety skeletons each day; but the number that lay about the
12
wells are countless."
David Livingston, a missionary in Africa in the

first half of the nineteenth century, calculated that at least ten slaves
were lost for each slave who reached the coast.^ Livingstons statement
may have been exaggerated; nevertheless, losses on the Path were probably
greater than in any other phase of the slave trade. It is not surprising
that the coastal trader preferred river transit whenever possible, since
it was faster and more economical in terras of the Negroes who survived
for later sale.
In the coastal pens of the factors or the independent broker, the
slaves were held until sold or consigned to the captain of a slave ship.
Conditions in these pens were only slightly better than on the Path. Dis
eases, especially dysentery, smallpox, and yaws, were rampant and often
converted the barracoons into places of "stench and purification" which
Europeans found difficult to tolerate even for a few minutes. Moreover,
the traumatic experiences of the Path had produced severe mental distur
bances and "nostalgia" in numbers of the victims which caused many to "pine
away" and die. Others committed suicide, fearing that they would be eaten
once they had been delivered to the boats and that the whites would "make
powder of their bones and shoes of their hides." Many factors encouraged
1?

Scott, II, 990, citing Dixon Denham, Narrative of Travels and

Discoveries in Northern and Central Africa, in the Years 1822, 1823, and
182^ by Major Denham, F.R.S., Captain Clapperton, and the Late Doctor Oudney,
Extending across the Great Desert to the Tenth Degree of Northern Latitude,
and from Kouka in Bomou to Sackatoo, the Capital of the Felatah Empire,
3rd ed. (London, 1828).
p. 20 citing David Livingston, Missionary Travels and
Researches in Africa (London, 1857)

L
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

-i
8

their slaves to sing and dance in a vain attempt to "avoid the effects
of nostalgia . . . which rapidly wastes them away." Some factors had the
slaves entertained daily with songs, stunts and dances which were perform
ed by talented slaves or by hired local troubadors. But such efforts did
little to stem the mortality.

lit-

When business was slow or when the sea was rough, slaves were some
times kept in the barracoons for weeks or even months while waiting for
the arrival of ships or for good weather to permit loading.1^ Company
ships stopped at the factory if there was one; if not, they anchored along
the coast as did non-company ships, paid the local customs duty and waited
for slaves to be brought in by local traders and kidnappers. Occasionally
their cargoes were supplied by African kings who sometimes plied a vigorous
export trade of their tribesmen whom they condemned for debt or crimes or
sold merely to fatten their treasuries. While a ship was "slaving," or
acquiring a cargo of slaves, there might be four or five brokers in daily
attendance. As demand and competition for slaves grew on the coast of
Africa, especially after the American War for Independence, as many as fif
teen English and French sail were often waiting to slave in the Bonny River
alone.

l6

In order to avoid restive crews and costly delays in obtaining

slaves, masters often resorted to "coast trading" and "boating." In coast

litJohn Barbot, A Description of the Coasts of North and South Guinea

and of Ethiopia Inferior, Vulgarly called Angola, Being a New and Accurate
Account of the Western Maritime Countries of Africa (1732). quoted in
Elizabeth Donnan, Documents Illustrative of the History of the Slave Trade
to America, i)- vols. (Washington, 1930-1935)>
289 . Valtierra, pp. lij 15 .
15
Barbot quoted in Donnan, I, 293*
16
Mackenzie-Grieve, p. 12it-.

L
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

n
9

trading a master dropped his ship down the coast from port to port pick
ing up whatever slaves he could, wherever he could and from whomever he
could. When a ship slaved by boating, the captain anchored his vessel in
some convenient road or harbor and then sent a yawl along the coast and
up the rivers in search of small groups of slaves for purchase from local
traders.^
It sometimes required months to slave a ship. The operation oc
casionally took a full year or more, although one to three months was more
common. This long process posed grave health hazards.

Illness and disease

among the crew were major concerns. Many ships anchored two to three miles
off shore in an effort to avoid contagion. This distance also helped to
avoid the danger of the crews being poisoned by irate natives for liber
ties taken with local women. As a precaution against disease, however,
the distance was seldom effective.

Supplies of food and water taken on

the coast were usually contaminated, and it was difficult to protect the
crew against insect-borne disease. Particularly serious inroads were made
by dysentery and fevers, especially yellow fever and malaria for which
Europeans had no immunity.

l8

Boating especially was dreaded for medical reasons. The boats were
out for days or even weeks at a time. Captain John Newton recounted having
been in one of these boats "five or six days together without . . . a dry
thread about me. . . .

19

The boats seldom returned without some of the

17Ibid., pp. 121, 12k - 26.

l8
Curtin, p. 87 ; Hoeppli, pp. 93-97; Donnan, II, 589; MackenzieGrieve, p. 110.
John Newton, The Journal of a Slave Trader (John Newton), 1750175^- With Newton^ Thoughts upon the African Slave Trade, ed. Bernard
[Martin and Mark Spurrell (London, 1962), p . 101.
_|

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

i
10

men dangerously ill of sun stroke, dysentery and fevers, especially raal20
aria, yellow fever, and typhoid which took a heavy toll in seamens lives.

Not surprisingly, boating was resorted to with great reluctance. Even

when boating could be avoided and slaving was quickly accomplished, crew
men were still exposed to many diseases which the slaves brought on board.
Captains attempted to protect their crews as well as the slaves
who represented their profits by screening out sick slaves. Consequently,
whether a vessel acquired slaves from factors, brokers, kings, or private
traders, before purchase, each slave was subjected to a scrutinizing ex
amination.

If the slave was acquired from a factor or a broker, the ex

amination took place in the barracoon where the captain and ships sur
geon examined limbs, teeth, feet, eyes and genitals and looked for good
general appearance.

21

John Barbot, agent-general of the French-slaving

company from 1678-1682, described the process at the factory of Fida:

As the slaves come down to Fida from the inland country, they
are put into a booth, or prison, built for that purpose, near the
beach, all of them together; and when the Europeans are to receive
them, they are brought out into a large plain, where the surgeons
examine every part of every one of them, to the smallest member,
men and women being all stark naked. Such as are allowed good and
sound are set on one side, and the others by themselves; which
slaves so rejected are there called Mackrons, being above thirtyfive years of age, or defective in their limbs, eyes or teeth; or
grown grey, or that have the venereal disease, or any other imper
fection.
20
Daniel P. Mannix, Black Cargoes; A History of the Atlantic
Slave Trade, 1518-1865 (New York, 1962), p. 89 ; Mackenzie-Grieve, p. 12k.
21Mackenzie-Grieve, p. 122; Scott, II, 997*

22Barbot as quoted in Donnan, I, 293*

L
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

11

If the ship slaved independent of factor or broker, the slaves were ex

amined either at the king's "plaaver house," where his business was con
ducted, or at some other point on shore or upon boarding the ship.

Blacks

selected for purchase were branded on the breast by the ship's surgeon.
If the cargo belonged to several merchants, each branded his slaves with
his own brand. A prosperous merchant often had his slaves branded with
23
his trade mark, his arms and his name.
Many of the slaves purchased failed to survive their imprisonment
in the heat and squalor of the ships hold. Consequently, it became
common to build a "house" on deck where confinement might be cooler and
less restrictive. The house extended from mast to mast. The roof of
thatch was supported by the booms and yards, and the walls were composed
of lattice work of bamboo shoots and mangrove branches.

Small openings

were made in the walls so that blunderbusses could be trained on the blacks
if necessary. Food and water were lowered through a trap door in the roof.
The house reduced mortality among the slaves, but the labor involved in
its construction caused much illness among the seamen. They were required
to cut the branches and reeds for the walls from mangrove swamps while
standing in muddy slime up to their waists, covered with clouds of mos2k

quitoes and exposed to the bites of poisonous snakes.

It is not surprising that transferral to the ship from the barracoons or from the hands of local traders brought little improvement in the

^Ibid., Conot, p. 107; Mackenzie-Grieve, p. 122.

2k

Mackenzie-Grieve, pp. 110-11; Mannix, p. 90.

L
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

"i
12

slaves' health. The illnesses which many had contracted before capture;
in the barracoons, or because of their traumatic experiences on the Path,
often revealed themselves after arrival on board. Before the ship com
pleted its cargo and left the coast, the death toll among the Negroes
often rose to appalling heights. Excerpts from the death ledger of the
James recorded in 1675/6 are revealing:
January 20,

1 man, Rec'd from Wyeraba thin and Consumed to Nothing

and soe dyed.

January 26,

1 woman, Rec'd from Wyemba very thin and wasted to

Nothing and soe dyed.

February 8, 1 man, Rec'd from Wyemba very thin and dropsicall and
soe departed this life.
February 23 , 1 woman, brought to windward and departed this life
of a consumption and worms.
February 2h, 1 boy, Rec'd from Wyemba with a dropsy and departed
with life with the same disease.
March 26 ,

1 woman, Rec'd from Wyemba thin and so continued Until

Death.

April 5,

1 woman Miscarryed and the Child dead within her and

Rotten and dyed 2 days after delivery.^5

Often too, slaves coming on board suffered from scurvy because of

deficient diet on the Path or in the pen.

Scurvy was especially prevalent

among slaves brought from the deep interior or among slaves who had been
held for an extended period on the coast. Portuguese captains took the
most effective steps to treat the diseases of Negroes brought on board,
and reportedly had the lowest death rate among slaves on the coast of any
nation involved in the trade.

Upon boarding a Portuguese vessel the blacks

^Donnan, l; 206-207.

L
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

i
13

were given lemon juice to cure scurvy and white lead to treat the worms
so prevalent among them. The latter treatment, however, was often as
sociated with an ailment called "dry bellyache," probably lead poisoning
resulting from the lead treatment.

26

Although captains of other nations

preferred to avoid the risk and expense of treatment and made every attempt
to reject sick slaves, sellers successfully used various methods to camou
flage defects and illnesses. Moreover, even the most practiced eye could
scarcely discover illnesses in their early stages or maladies which may
have been partly psychological. Despite the vigilance of ships' surgeons
27
and captains, sick slaves boarded the ships.
One ship, the Arthur, is
illustrative. Nineteen of its slaves died within a few days of purchase
and thirty-six more perished before the ship sailed for America.
stances such as this were common.

28

In

John Barbot of the French slaving com

pany, saw many cases of heavy losses during slaving. He believed that
slaving on the old Calabar River was particularly unhealthy, recalling an
English vessel that lost over 100 slaves, or one-third of its cargo, before
29
leaving the African coast.
Sometimes a vessel remained on the coast for several days after
completing its cargo, waiting for the seriously ill to die and be replaced
with healthy slaves.

30

More often, however, when a ship suffered heavy

26
Frederick P. Bowser, "Negro Slavery in Colonial Peru, 1528-1650,"
(unpublished Doctoral diss., Dept, of History, Univ. of Calif., Berkeley,
1967 ), P* 69 ; Ashbum, Ranks of Death, p. 36 .

^K. G. Davies, The Royal African Company (London, 1957); P 293*

^^Davies, p. 293*
^Barbot as quoted in Donnan, I, 300.
^Donnan, I, 229.

L
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

"i
ik

mortality on one part of the coast, it merely weighed anchor and headed
for another part of the coast. Occasionally disease was such a menace
that a ship was forced to leave the coast altogether even before taking
on a full cargo. The Ranger in 1750 slaved on the Leeward Coast where
many of the blacks taken on board had come in contact with an "epidemical
disease." After losing twenty-eight on the coast, and faced with the
prospect of losing even more, the Ranger was forced to sail without completing her cargo.

Sometimes if the entire coast was not "infected,"

ships stopped along the coast to "refresh" the Negroes. The captain of
the Arthur wrote in his log that "we finde that the negroes are greatly
32
refreshed by the stopping a Littell tyme."
Dysentery was probably the most frequent and serious disease dur
ing slaving. It was easy for infected blacks to slip through the exam
ination. When they did, the disease later broke out and swept through
the entire cargo with deadly results.

33

In 1659; "the Dutch vessel St.

John in six weeks lost sixty-five blacks from dysentery while slaving on
the coast. The ships surgeon himself died of the same disorder before
the ship left Africa.

31)-

Similar instances were common among vessels of

the trade. Even with relatively good sanitation, losses from dysentery
wer>_ still heavy. Captain John Newton commanded one of the cleaner vessels

^"Newton, Journal, p. 27*

32
Donnan, I, 231.
33
Mannix, p. 90 *
3^Edmund B. OCallaghan, Voyages of the Slavers St. John and Arms
of Amsterdam, 1659, 1663; Together with Additional Papers Illustrative of
the Slave Trade under the Dutch (Albany, N. Y ., 1867), pp. ^-12.

L
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

in the trade, yet on his first voyage his ship was racked by two epidemies of the flux, the common name for dysentery 35
In his log, kept on a voyage made in 1750 and 1751; Captain
Iiewton penned a revealing picture of the situation faced by many slavers
on the African coast.

"The season advancing fast and, I am afraid, sick'

ness too; for we have almost every day one or more taken with a flux, of
which a woman dyed tonight."

The logs daily notations revealed the

extent to which dysentery and other diseases preyed on both seamen and
blacks
Wednesday 9th January . . . This day buried a fine woman slave
(no. ll), having been ailing some time but never thought her in
danger till within these 2 days she was taken with a lethargick
disorder, which they seldom recover from.
Fryday 11th January . . . At 2 A.M. departed this life Andrew Carrigal, our carpenter having been 10 days ill of a nervous fever possibly typhoic , the 3rd in 3 weeks, and we have h very ill now.
Saturday 12th January . . . Put a boy on shoar (No. 27), being very
bad with a flux. This day had another of our people taken ill with
a violent bloody flux, have now 5 whites not able to help themselves.
Thursday 17th January . . .Mr. Bridson had a relapse of his fever
with a swelling and inflamation in his face. . . . The cook and two
small boys were likewise taken with fevers about the same time.
Sunday 20th January . . . Departed this life Birdson, my chief mate,
after sustaining the most violent fever I have ever seen for 3 days.
Saturday 23rd February. Buried a man slave (No. 33)> having been
a fortnight ill of a flux, which has baffled all our medicines.
Saturday 6th.April. Buryed a man boy (No. 110), the only one we
have lost the 2nd time the flux has been amongst us. We have had
about 12 ill but all I hope recovering.

Newton, p. M+.

L
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

-i
16

Wednesday 24th April . . . The yaul brought word that the girl I
sent on shoar yesterday very ill of a flux, dyed this morning. I
have had 5 slaves taken with the same disorder within these2 days,
but am unable either to account for it or to remedy it.
Fryday 3rd. . . . Buryed a boy slave (no. 132) of a flux.
Tuesday 7th May . . . Buryed a man slave (No. 105) of a flux.
Fryday 17th May. Buryed a man slave, (No. 34) of a flux and fever.
Monday 20th May . . . In the night 2 slaves that have been long ill
of flux died.
In many cases the maladies from which slaves died most were
psychological in origin. Suicide attempts were common and despondency
and "melancholy" were frequent on all ships.
Once the cargo of slaves was completed and supplies of water,
wood and food had been stored, the captain settled accounts and signaled
his intentions to sail by firing a cannon or hoisting the ensign.
fore weighing anchor, the slaves were treated to a large meal.

Be

In final

preparation for the voyage the head of every Negro was shaved, and each
slave was usually stripped so that "the women as the men go out of Africa
as they came into it--naked," a precaution thought to be essential for
maintaining cleanliness and health. 39
Finally, the ship fully slaved, debts liquidated, goods sold,

^Ibid., pp. 29-53 .

oO
Great Britain, House of Commons, Select Committee on the Slave
Trade, An Abstract of the Evidence Delivered before a Select Committee
of the House of Commons in the Years 1790 and 1791 on Part of the Petition
ers for the Abolition bf the Slave Trade (London, 179l)i P. ^9.
39canot, Adventures of a Slaver, pp. 107-108; Mackenzie-Grieve,
p. 126; Davies, p. 291.

L
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

n
17
food and water stored, the vessel cleared and made for sea. To clear
the African coast was a relief for the captain and crew. Behind lay
Africa and its dreaded diseases and on the high sea, the slaves, ignorant
of seamanship, were less likely to rebel. Yet ahead lay the medical and
moral outrage that was the Middle Passage.

L
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

CHAPTER II
THE MIDDLE PASSAGE

A witness before the British House of Commons in 1792 angrily

alleged that "in the passage of the Negroes from the coast of Africa there
is a greater proportion of human misery condensed within a smaller space
than has yet been found in any other place on the face of this globe."1
A later observer added that "the aggregate of lives lost in the Middle
Passage during the two centuries of the slave trade is unparalleled by
2

any other sea route in the world."

Even with the perspective and detach

ment afforded by nearly two centuries, the modem investigator would prob
ably agree with both statements.
The mortality rate of the Middle Passage varied greatly from ship
to ship and from voyage to voyage. Few slavers made the passage without
losing at least five percent of their cargo, and few had the shocking mis
fortune of the Francis, which in her voyage from Calabar to Nevis lost 199
3

of her 267 Negroes, or seventy-three percent.

Some researchers have cal

culated average losses at over thirty percent for the sixteenth, seventeeth
and eighteenth centuries.

Other research, however, indicates that mor

tality declined gradually during the course of the three centuries.

1Great Britain, Substance of the Debates on a Resolution for Ab
olishing the Slave Trade Which Was Moved in the House of Commons, on the
10th of June, 1806 , and in the House of Lords on the 2^-th of June, 1806
(London, 1806), p. 193 *
0
Averil Mackenzie-Grieve, The Last Years of the English Slave
Trade, 1750-1807 (London, 19^-1)> P* 3.^3*
%. G. Davies, The Royal African Company (London, 1957), P* 291.
A Medical History of the Con| quest of America, ed. Frank D. Ashburn (New York, I9V7), p. 32.
1
4P. M. Ashbum, The Ranks of Death;

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

In 1587, Thomas Mercado, a Spanish theologian in New Spain (Mexico)

knowledgeable in the affairs of the day, estimated losses on the Middle
Passage to be less than twenty percent; but then he gave the following
description of the passage which makes his estimate seem to be a gross
understatement.
They embark four to five hundred of them in a boat which sometimes
is not a cargo boat. The very stench is enough to kill most of them,
and indeed many of them die. The wonder is that twenty percent of them
are not lost. Of five-hundred taken from Cape Verde to New Spain in
one vessel one hundred twenty died in one night because they packed
them like pigs or worse, all below decks, where their very breath and
excretement (which are sufficient to pollute any atmosphere and des
troy them all) killed them. The crew also died. The sad affair does
not end there, for before they reached Mexico, almost three hundred
had died.
The assiento, or monopoly contract for supplying slaves to Spanish
colonies, granted to Pedro Reynal, a Portuguese subject, in 159& to intro
duce ^,250 slaves per year into Spanish America, was based on the assumption that 3,500, or eighty-two percent, would survive the Middle Passage.

That assumption was optimistic, for thirty years later a Jesuit who
attended the slaves of the incoming ships in Cartagena estimated that onethird of the cargo perished in the passage.^ Among ships of the British
Royal African Company ninety years later, the death rate was still nearly
as high, even on the shorter yoyage to the West Indies. Various studies
agree in placing the average death rate for the company at 23.5 percent
Fr. Thomas Mercado, Suma de tratos y contratos (Seville, 1587),
n.p., quoted in Eric E. Williams Documents of West Indian History, Vol.
I:1^92-1655> From the Spanish Discovery to the British Conquest of Jamaica,
(Port-of-Spain, Trinidad, 1963), pp. 158-160 .
c
0
<J. Veitia de Linaje, Norte de la contratacion de las indias occidentales (Seville, 1672), n.p. as quoted in English translation by John
Stevens, The Spanish Rule of Trade to the Indies (London, 1702), in Williams,
I, pp. l k 6 - 1^9 . See art. vii.
"^Alonzo de Sandoval, De Instauranda Aethiopum Salute: El mundo de
la esclavitud negra en America (Bogota, 195^') > pp. 105-108.

L
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

i
20

o
for the years 1660 to 1688 . A mortality rate of twenty percent must
have been a minimum average figure during the sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries, and it would he surprising if thirty percent did not more ac
curately reflect the actual losses. During the first quarter o.f the eight
eenth century, however, losses on the Middle Passage began to decline so
that by 173*f the Royal African Company, at least, expected an average loss
of only ten percent under usual circumstances.^ Mortality continued to
decline in the latter part of the century, and in the period from 1768 to
1777 it may have fallen to ten to twenty percent in the French trade and
as low as four percent in the English tradeNevertheless, even in
later years it was not uncommon for a ship to lose one-fourth, one-third
or even one-half or more of its cargo. Barely half a dozen ships record
no loss of slaves before arriving in the West Indies. When John Newton,
the master of one of these vessels docked without losing a single slave,
his accomplishment caused such amazement that he commented in a letter to
his wife that so fortunate a voyage "was much noticed and spoken of in the
town _/Liverpool7

and I believe it to be the first instance of its kind."

Most captains, in fact, viewed their passage as a good one if they lost
no more than one or two seamen and five, ten or fifteen slaves.IP
^Davies, p. 292 .
9lbid.
*%. Harold Scott, A History of Tropical Medicine Based on the
Fitzpatrick Lectures Delivered before the Royal College of Physicians of
London, 1937-38, 2 vols. (London, 1939). II, 993: Elizabeth Donnan,
Documents Illustrative of the History of the Slave Trade to America, *t
vols. (Washington, 1930-35)> II; P* xxv.
^John Newton, The Journal of a Slave Trader (John Newton), 1750175*t-\ With Newton's Thoughts upon the African Slave Trade, eds. Bernard
Martin and Mark Spurrell (London, 1962), p. 95*
-^Mackenzie-Grieve, p. l*+3*

L
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

i
21
The causes of the mortality were many. Overcrowding was probably

one of the most serious. Low prices for slaves in Africa before 1689 en
couraged overcrowding. After 1689 the price of slaves rose rapidly to 10
13
pounds sterling or more and slavers were more prone to take better care
of the more costly investment, a factor which undoubtedly influenced the
decline in the mortality rate in the eighteenth century. Still the tendency
to overcrowd persisted until after 1790; when the British began to enforce
legislation which limited the number of slaves that could be carried to
lk
three blacks per five tons of the ship's registry weight.
This legis
lation, however, came at the virtual end of the legal slave trade.
Dr. Alexander Falconbridge described accommodations for slaves in
the 235-ton vessel on which he served as ship's surgeon. The hold was
twenty-five feet in width, ninety-two feet in length and slightly more than
five feet in height. This space was divided into men's room forty-five
feet long, a women's room ten feet long, a children's room of twenty-two
feet and a store room.
600 and 700 slaves.

Into this space it was customary to load between

In order to utilize the available space most advantage

ously each of the slave rooms was divided horizontally by a platform con
structed of rough planks midway between the floor of the hold and the beams
of the upper deck."*"'*
It was standard procedure in the slave trade to construct these
second decks in the hold after the ship arrived in Africa and unloaded
its cargo of trading goods.

On these platforms the slaves were "stowed"

'"^Davies, p. 293*
ll*.
Daniel P. Mannix, Black Cargoes: A History of the Atlantic Slave
Trade, 1518-1865 (New York, 19&), p. 89 .
"^Mackenzie-Grieve, pp. 128-129.

L
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

~i

22

at night and in had weather.

Supporters of the trade such as Captain

Knox usually maintained that slaves generally had room to lie on these
platforms upon their hacks but conceded that they sometimes did not have.
In general practice, however, a slave was usually placed on the platforms
on his side wedged between two of his fellows.

l6

Overcrowding was some

times even more severe. In the lengthy Parliamentary investigations of

the slave trade in 1789, Falconhridge gave testimony before the House of
Commons which illustrated the extent to which overcrowding was sometimes
carried.

On one vessel in which he sailed the slaves were required to lie

on top of each other, since there was not even sufficient room to lie even
on their sides. Fifteen died before leaving the coast and 300 more died in
the Middle Passage.^ Unfortunately, similar cases were common, arising
from a desire by slave traders to make the most of the available space.
The slaves were stowed, chained in pairs by the ankles and wrists, placed
lying on their sides and wedged spoon-fashion in the lap of the slave who
lay behind him. Dr. Falconhridge testified that when stowing the slaves
he "always made the most of the room and wedged them in so that they had
not so much room as a man in his coffin either in length or breadth.
1fi

was impossible for them to turn or shift with any degree of ease."

It
Most

masters thought nothing of forcing their slaves to spend every night of

the passage and entire days in foul weather in these conditions. Foul
weather was common during the summer on the African coast, during the fall
^%bid., pp. 128-29; Great Britain, House of Commons, Select Committee on the Slave Trade, An Abstract of the Evidence Delivered before a
Select Committee of the House of Commons in the Years 1790 and 1791 on
Part of the Petitioners for the Abolition of the Slave Trade (London, 1791) >
pp. 23, 36-38 ; (hereafter cited as Abstract of Evidence).
l^Mackenzie-Grieve, p. 129
Great Britain, House of Commons, Abstract of Evidence, p. 35

L
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited w ithout permission.

i
23
and spring in the Indies.

Some captains were careful, however, to see

that the slaves lay on the right side, a position which was considered
"preferable for the action of the heart.
Under these circumstances, confinement was so injurious that
slaves who entered the hold apparently in good health at night often died
20
before morning.
Furthermore, slaves packed in this way became the prey
to a host of evils. At the end of the voyage, the slaves emerged from the
hold with the prominent parts of the bones of the shoulder, hips and knees
bare, the flesh having been completely worn away on the rough planks by the
21
motion of the ship in rough seas.
Aside from such tortuous discomfort,

scores of slaves died of suffocation.

Others died of diseases that under

such crowded and unsanitary conditions spread without check.

Lack of ventilation was a severe problem.

Slave ships were usually

equipped with only five or six air ports between decks, and these ports were
ordinarily small four inches in width by six inches in length.
One historian helps the modem reader to appreciate the slaves
situation:
Those who have voyaged in Tropic seas in first class cabins with
spinning fans and air pumped down from the deck with open ports and
19
Theodore Conot, Adventures of an African Slaver: Being a True
Account of the Life of Captain Theodore Conot, Trader, in Gold, Ivory
and Slaves on the Coast of Guinea, ed. Malcolm Cowley (New York, 1928),
p. 110 .
^Great Britain, House of Commons, Abstract of Evidence, pp. 35"36.
21
Great Britain, House of Commons, Minutes of the Evidence Taken
Before a Committee of the House of Commons, Being a Select Committee
Appointed on the 29th Day of January, 1790 for the Purpose of Taking
the Examination of Such Witnesses as Shall be Produced on the Part of
the Several Petitioners Who Have Petitioned the House of Commons against
the Abolition of the Slave Trade (London, 1790). p. 590 (hereafter cited
as Minutes against Abolition).

L
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

i
2k

curtained door, know the nights when heat seems almost intolerable.
To them the full horror of the slave ship is revealed. Six small
ports for 100 /to 60// human beings who had only a few inches above
their heads and none at all around them in which air could circulate
and lay in the reek of sweat and sewage buckets.^
Dr. Falconhridge1s description of conditions in the hold graphically re
veals the sources of foul air, contagion and contention:
In each of the apartments there are placed three or four
buckets of a conical form, nearly two feet in diameter at the
bottom and only one foot at the top and in depth about twentyeight inches, to which, when necessary, the negroes have recourse.
It often happens that those who are placed at a distance from the
buckets, in endeavoring to get to them, tumble over their compan
ions, in consequence of their being shackled. These accidents,
although unavoidable, are productive of continual quarrels in which
some of them are always bruised. In this situation, unable to pro
ceed and prevented from going to the tubs, they desist from the at
tempt; and as the necessities of nature are not to be resisted, they
ease themselves as they lie. ^
The slaves, often of hostile tribes,chained indiscriminately together,
refused to cooperate when one wanted to obey the call of nature and his
companion either from illness, lack of understanding or indifference
refused to go with him.

Such natural accidents in a crowded hold without

ventilation made the situation intolerable.

Poor ventilation remained a problem in the slave trade for nearly
three centuries for a variety of reasons. To the average slaver better
ventilation was impractical and unnecessary. In fair weather ventilation
was not needed, since the slaves were kept on deck. They were confined
below only at night or in bad weather. To the European mind during the
centuries of the slave trade, fresh night air was endowed with peculiarly

^Mackenzie-Grieve, p. 129
23
As quoted in Mannix, p. 116. See also Great Britain, House of
Commons, Abstract of Evidence, p. 39*

L
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

I
25
2k

noxious and injurious qualities.

In bad weather, numerous or large

air ports could be a serious detriment since they could ship much water,
being below deck level.

In foul weather it was necessary to close or cover

even the few, small air ports which already existed on the ship. In spite
of these practical and philosophical barriers to good ventilation, by the
last decade of the eighteenth century a few slavers, perhaps as many as one
in twenty were equipped with wind sails to scoop and funnel air in through
the air ports and the hatch in a wise attempt to improve ventilation.

In

fair weather these wind sails did much to improve ventilation among the
slaves. The sails, of course, were removed in inclement weather and the
ports closed. In bad weather, conditions were deplorable in all slave
ships.
When the ports were closed, the slave rooms became intolerably
hot and "the confined air, rendered noxious by the effluvia of their
bodies and by being repeatedly breathed, soon produced fevers and fluxes
which generally carried off great numbers of them."26 Dr. Thomas Trotter,
a ship's surgeon, testified that when tarpaulins were thrown over the
gratings to keep out water the slaves would cry out in their own language,
27
"we are dying, we are dying."
Seaman Henry Ellison testified that dur
ing heavy rains when the slaves were confined below for some time he had

pk
,
Great Britain, House of Commons, Abstract of Evidence, pp. 3k-3^>
Mackenzie-Grieve, p. 127.
25
S]

Mannix, pp. 116-17 .

26

Falconbridge's testimony as quoted in Mannix, p. 116.

27
Great Britain, House of Commons, Abstract of Evidence, pp. 3^-36.

L
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

n
26

frequently seen them faint because of the heat and had seen "steam com28
ing through the gratings like a furnace.
It is not surprising that
the slaves often fought and clawed to get near air vents.
Dr. Falconhridge left a graphic description of the deplorable
conditions among the slaves on these occasions:
Some wet and blowing weather having occasioned the port-holes
to be shut and the grating to be covered, fluxes and fevers among
the Negroes ensued. While they were in this situation, I frequently
went down among them till at length their rooms became so extremely
hot as to be only bearable for a very short time. But the exces
sive heat was not the only thing that rendered their situation in
tolerable. The deck, that is, the floor of their rooms, was so
covered with the blood and mucus which had proceeded from them in
consequence of the flux, that it resembled a slaughter-house. . . .
Numbers of the slaves having fainted they were carried upon deck
where several of them died and the rest with great difficulty were
restored. It had nearly proved fatal to me also. The climate was
too warm to admit the wearing of any clothing but a shirt and that
I had pulled off before I went down; notwithstanding which, by only
continuing among them for about a quarter of an hour, I was so
overcome with the heat, stench and foul air that I nearly fainted;
and it was only with assistance that I could get on deck. The
consequence was that I soon fell sick of the same disorder from
which I did not recover for several months.^9
Slave ships were not only crowded; they were filthy as well.
One captain with a view more to propaganda than information bragged of a
daily swabbing and holystoning, and boasted that, "no vessel, except a
man of war, can compare with a slaver in systematic order, purity and
30
neatness."
This boast however, should not conceal the fact that a
slaver "stank of excrement so that you could smell it five miles down
wind."

31

Problems of cleanliness and sanitation were monumental.

In

28Mannix, pp. 117e

29
Falconhridge1s testimony as quoted in Mannix, pp. 117; Great
Britain, House of Commons, Abstract of Evidence, pp. 35, 39*
30
Conot, p. 110.

31
Mannix, p. 113

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

27
the best guineaships'-there was an attempt to keep the slave quarters
reasonably clean, as the Europeans of the day understood cleanliness.
The Royal African Company, for example, instructed its captains to wash
the decks daily with vinegar to prevent mortality among the Negroes.
Captain Hugh Crow, the last of the legal English slavers, was
famous for his cleanliness.

"I always took great pains to promote the

health and comfort of all on board by proper diet, regularity, exercise

and cleanliness, for I considered that on the keeping of the ship clean
and orderly, which was always my hobby, the success of our voyage depended.

33

The Captain of the Albion Frigate, too, was proud of its

cleanliness. The crew fumigated the ship three times a week with "a
quantity of good vinegar in pails and red hot billets in them, to expell
the bad air, after the place had been well washed and scrubbed with
3I).
brooms.
Captain William Littleton took similar precautions. He required daily washing and bi-weekly fumigation with vinegar.35 Somewhat
less meticulous was Captain John Newton, who believed in regular washings
but who resorted to such thorough measures only in the case of threatened
epidemics. When the first slave died of the flux on his ship, in order
to avert the threatening epidemic, he ordered the rooms scraped, the ship
fumigated with tar, tobacco and. brimstone for two hours and then had the

32
,
Davies, p. 29k.
33
Mannix, p. 115*
^Ibid., p. 111*-.
S^Mackenzie-Grieve, p. 127.

L
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

28

decks and slave platforms washed with vinegar.3^ These men and their
ideas, however, were by no means typical. The Ranger, which reported
only a weekly washing of the womens quarters, probably more nearly ap
proached the Europeans concept of cleanliness, for most Europeans felt
that frequent bathing was decidedly dangerous to good health, and the
majority of slaver captains felt that frequent washing of the floors was
"pernicious."37
The slaves also were washed occasionally weather permitting--at
least on the best of slavers. Newton washed his slaves in fresh water at
least once on the Middle Passage.

38

Crow ordinarily gave his slaves water

and palm oil to groom themselves with after each morning meal.39 These
captains consistently lost fewer slaves on the Middle Passage than the
others, some of whom cleaned the filth out of the hold only once a week.
A few left their slaves to wallow in it for the whole of the Atlantic passage.
In view of the poor ventilation and filth, it is not surprising
that disease claimed many victims on the Middle Passage. Among the ill
who might have passed the surgeons inspection while slaving would have
been carriers or victims of chronic dysentery and slaves with leprosy and
and yaws in their early stages. Hepatitis and worms would have been

Newton. Journal, p. 29

Newton, p. 55
Mackenzie-Grieve, pp. 129-30.
Mannix, pp. 11^-115.

L
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

n
29

equally hard to detect, as would scores of other diseases in their early

stages.

14-1

Consequently, most guinearaen carried medicines and one or two

surgeons. In practice the surgeons tried to follow the simple and rudi
mentary medical procedure of separating the sick from the well. The sick
were cared for in a crude type of dispensary located in the forecastle.
If a large number of slaves became ill, they could be transferred to one
of the three slave rooms, the one chosen depending on the number of
k-2

slaves to be cared for.

But a slave ship was not prepared to handle

diseases which struck in epidemic proportions, a frequent occurrence in

the history of the slave trade,
The most serious diseases in the Middle Passage were the highly
contagious ones such as dysentery, smallpox and measles. Due to the crowd
ed conditions on a slaver and the absence of sanitation on board, epi
demics raged, sometimes claiming over fifty percent of the slaves. Dyslo
entery was the most fatal. J Dr. Ecroide Claxton testified before the
House of Commons that his ship lost 132 of 250 Negroes, or over half of
its cargo, from the flux, there being so many sick that they could not
separate the sick from the well.

The King Pepple, sailing from Bonny,

lost 170 and the Hannibal lost 320 blacks and 1*4- seamen due to epidemic
kl
Scott, History of Tropical Medicine, II, 997*
^2Scott II, 99l4j Conot, pp. 108-109.
lt-3
Ibid.; Great Britain, House of Commons, Minutes against Ab
olition, p. 590 .
^Great Britain, House of Commons, Minutes of the Evidence Taken
before a Committee of the House of Commons Being a Select Committee Ap
pointed to Take the Examination of Witnesses Respecting the African Slave
Trade (London. 1791). P 33 (hereafter cited as Minutes of Evidence]*!

L
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

flux. On another occasion, five ships carrying from 600 to 700 slaves
each lost nearly 800 blacks among them from dysenterySurgeons and
Captains universally agreed that dysentery was the most prevalent malady
of the Middle Passage; it must have been present on a majority of the
ships that made the Atlantic crossing, even though it did not always as
sume epidemic proportions.
While surgeons agreed as to the frequency of dysentery, they dis
agreed as to its cause. Dr. Alexander Lindo, surgeon on the King Pepple,
believed the disastrous epidemic on his ship to be due to the ships
taking on a large quantity of unripe yams, which it was forced to stock
by an untimely departure before the harvest season began.U6

Some ships

surgeons, such as Dr. Isaac Wilson, however, believed the flux to be the
result of melancholy. The melancholy slave, because of despondency, re
fused food which in turn only increased the "dysentery" symptoms, the
result of which was that "the stomach afterwards got weak. Hence the
belly ached, fluxes ensued, and they were carried off."^
Second to dysentery in severity was smallpox, which also ravished
the slave ships.

In ordinary circumstances other than on slavers

Scott, II, 997;

M. Ashbum, The Ranks of Death: A Medical
History of the Conquest of America, ed. Frank Ashbum (New York, 19^7),
k6

Jamaica, House of Assembly, Joint Committee on the Slave Trade,

Report on the Resolution and Remonstrance of the Honourable the Council
and Assembly of Jamaica at a Joint Committee on the Subject of the Slave
Trade in a Session Which Began the 20th of October, 1789 (for Presentation
to Parliament) (London, 1790)> P* 16 (hereafter cited as Resolution),
w
Great Britain, House of Commons, Abstract of Evidence, p. ^9 .

L
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

n
31

smallpox was not necessarily a very severe or fatal disease among Negroes,
Jlo
although it was very common.
Among Negroes in the Middle Passage, how
ever, it often proved hoth severe and fatal. The master of one slaver
alleged that "Negroes are so incident to the smallpox that few ships that
carry them escape it, and it sometimes makes vast havoc and destruction
among them."^

One medical man of twenty years experience on the African

coast believed that the disease was fatal to so many because of the ignor
ance of the ships surgeon; "because he knows not what they are afflicted
with, but supposing it to be a fever, bleeds and purges or vomits them in
to an incurable diarrhea, and in a very few days they become a feast for
50
some hungry shark."
Whether through ignorance or adverse conditions, an
epidemic of smallpox often claimed many victims. The fate of the Hero is
illustrative of the inroads the disease could make. On one voyage the
Hero lost 360 from smallpox and on another voyage it lost another 159 from
the same disease. On the latter voyage the surgeon expressed his horror
at seeing the slaves skin and blood left upon the decks when they were
moved from one place to another."^ Dr. Ellison on one of his voyages wit
nessed a smallpox epidemic in which the slave platform appeared to be "one
continual scab." As the dead were hauled up on the deck in the morning the
flesh and skin pulled from their wrists.

52

Ellison may have witnessed the

h-8
Charles Creighton, A History of Epidemics in Britain, 2nd ed.>2
vols. (New York, 1965), I, 627 .
h9
.
Ashbum, Ranks of Death, p. 3^.
"^Creighton, I, 627 .
^Great Britain, House of Commons, Abstract of Evidence, p. ^8 .
^2Ibid.. pp. ^7-^8 .

L
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

i
32

results of smallpox combined with those of scurvy.

Danger from smallpox was greatly reduced after inoculation came
into use in the 1760 s, as the logs of two vessels illustrate. In 1777
the Joshua took l81f slaves on the Windward Coast. A slave with symptoms
of smallpox was detected and put ashore immediately, but apparently not
before exposing others, for about two weeks later the disease broke out
on board. All the slaves were inoculated and only seven were lost in the
53
voyage.
Unfortunately, the surgeon of the Eliza did not demonstrate
similar competence or presence of mind. The Eliza sailed from New Calabar
with 283 slaves bound for Jamaica, some of the slaves infected with small
pox. The epidemic raged during the whole of the Middle Passage, and by
the time the Eliza reached Kingston, it had lost seventy-three Negroes.
After the ship docked, the rest of the cargo was inoculated, but inocula
tion came too late for thirty more blacks who died after arrival in port.
The total loss from smallpox was 103, nearly forty percent.
Epidemics of measles took a tragic toll as well. The mortality
from measles was illustrated on the Brothers, a Liverpool guineaman sail
ing from Bonny in 1789 under command of Captain William Sherwood. The
slaves seemed healthy, although emaciated upon arrival at the ship. The
captain attributed their emaciated condition to their having been brought
from a vast distance inland during the rainy season. Eight to ten days
after weighing anchor the measles broke out, killing nearly sixty of the
^55 slaves aboard in the course of the six-week passage.^ Captain Frazer,

^Jamaica, House of Assembly, Resolution, p. 19 .

^Tbid., p. 15.

55Ibid., p. 18 .

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

n
33

who consistently lost fewer slaves in the Middle Passage than most cap
tains, in 1777 on the Valient lost one-fifth of his slaves from measles
i
56
alone.
In addition to frequent epidemics, other diseases were common on
the slaving vessels as well.

Scurvy was extremely prevalent and danger

ous, especially during the first century of the trade. Even as late as
1593; after it was "believed that citrus fruit would prevent and cure it,

Richard Hawkins condemned it as the "plague of the sea" and estimated that
cn

in his twenty years at sea "10,000 men have "been consumed by it.
Throughout the remainder of the Atlantic slave trade, the danger of scurvy
was always present even though slavers tried to secure provisions in
Africa to prevent it. A Dutch slaver paid mute tribute to this pestilence
in 1668 by shipping 5;000 lemons, 900 oranges and a quantity of coconuts
rQ

and pineapples.

But not all slave ships were lucky enough to acquire

provisions which could prevent scurvy, for swollen, bleeding gums, loss of
teeth, hemorrhages into the muscles and other symptoms of the disease were
common and severe among the slaves in most vessels.59 In 1728 the French
vessel Venus lost nine slaves of scurvy and after arrival in port was
forced to hospitalize more than 200 others who also suffered from the dis
ease. The following year the Galatee lost 125 slaves from scurvy.

On a

later voyage the Venus lost eighty-seven at sea and forty-three in port
from scurvy, and those slaves that survived for sale were so seriously

^Maekenzie-Grieve, p. 13^.
^Creighton, I, 595*
58
Scott, II, 993.
Ibid., p. 998 .

L
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

-i
3^
attacked by the disease that two-thirds of them later died. On the
basis of information reported by the local governor, scurvy caused a mortality of eighty percent on this voyage.

60

To prevent such losses most

captains attempted to stop in the Lesser Antilles to take on a supply of

fresh vegetables and fruits, especially if the voyage had been delayed.
These provisions did much to restore health and prepare the slaves for market
during the eight-day passage to Jamaica.

61

Such a stop was not always pos

sible, however, and when it was, it sometimes was too late to help slaves
with advanced cases of scurvy. Dr. Trotter in 1792 reported the death of
several of his scurvy cases before the ship could take on a supply of fresh
62

vegetables in Antigua.
The deadly scourge of the guinea cargoes, however,was a psycho
somatic phenomena called "fixed melancholy." Its symptoms were a general
lowness of spirits and extreme despondency, giving rise to a desire and
sometimes a determination to die. Slaves varied in the determination with
which they resolved to die. Some merely lost their desire to live.

Others

were fiercely determined to die. Others simply went mad. Virtually every
captain or ships surgeon recorded incidences of all these categories of
emotional distress. Dr. Isaac Wilson, a ships surgeon, estimated that
two-thirds of all deaths on the slave ships could be attributed directly
or indirectly to fixed melancholy. He believed that melancholy severely

60

The Rudolph Matas History of Medicine in Louisiana, ed. John

Duffy, 2 vols. (Baton Rouge, 1958), I, 127-29.
6lScott, II, 998 .

^Ibid.

L
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

35
complicated all other diseases so that those slaves who had it could
never be cured of any other disease, while those without it could be
cured of almost any infirmity. ^ Falconhridge also believed fixed melancholy to be one of the greatest causes of mortality. During the Parlia
mentary investigation of the slave trade, he listed what he thought to be
the greatest causes of death:

a diseased mind, sudden transitions from

the heat to cold, a putrid atmosphere, wallowing in their own excrement,

6k

and being shackled together.

Dr. Town concurred that the major cause of disorders and mortal'
ity was psychological, owing "mostly to grief for being carried away
from their country and friends."

Dr. Trotter recalled that upon being

brought aboard, "the slaves show signs of extreme distress and despair
from a feeling of their situation and regret at being tom from their
friends and connections." They retained these impressions for a long
time. He often heard at night a howling noise from the hold.

The inter

preter sent to determine the cause reported that the slaves had dreamed
of being in their own country but awoke to bemoan their being in the hold
of the slave ship. On such occasions the doctor found many instances,
especially among the women, of their being in hysterical fits.

66

Most of

the surgeons who were asked to testify reported similar experiences.

Dr.

Falconhridge told of a woman who pined away, recovering only when placed
ashore.

Upon learning that she must go back aboard the ship, she hanged
67
herself.
The first indication that a slave was the victim of the dreaded
Great Britain, House of Commons, Abstract of Evidence, p. k$

L
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

i
36

fixed melancholy was his refusal to eat.

Such a symptom might well have

heen due to seasickness or other illnesses that were common on guineamen, or perhaps even due to a dislike for the food offered, since some
common European staples like horse beans were detested by many Negroes.
Nevertheless, a slave had to be kept fit for market and could not be per
mitted whims about his.food.

If he persisted in his refusal to eat it

was deemed a dangerous symptom of fixed melancholy. At the first sign of

not eating, a slave was subjected to the cat-of-nine-tails to change his
mind.

If that discipline failed, a variety of other persuasions were avail

able to a determined captain. Merchants of the great slave ports such as

Liverpool and Bristol advertised for sale a barbarous instrument called
a speculum oris or mouth opener. It looked somewhat like a pair of pointed
pliers with a screw between the handles. When the handles of the tool
were closed, the points could be hammered between the upper and lower
teeth. Tightening the screw forced the points of the instrument apart in
a kind of reverse-plier action, forcing open the slaves mouth. Food could
be then poured into the mouth through a funnel.

68

Thumb screws were also

used to coerce slaves.to eat. Of the two inducements, the latter was the
worse. One ships surgeon, a Mr. Dove, recounted that while slaves were
under the torture of the thumb screws, the sweat ran down their faces and
they trembled as under a violent ague fit.

69

Dr. Wilson, a surgeon of the Royal Navy who made at least one
trip on a slaver as surgeon, described some of the options available to

68
Ibid., pp. 39"4-1
69

,
Ibid., p. 43 note.

L
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

"i
37

a resourceful captain for forcing a reluctant slave to eat:

Among many cases where force was necessary to oblige the slaves
to take food _/wa_s/ that of a young man. He had not been long on
board before he preceived him get thin. On inquiry he found the
man had not taken his food, and refused taking any. Mild means
were then used to divert him from his resolution, as well as pro
mises that he should have anything he wished for: but still he
refused to eat. They then whipped him with the cat, but this was
also ineffectual. He always kept his teeth so fast that it was
impossible to get anything down. They then indeavoured to intro
duce a speculum oris between them; but the points were too obtruse
to enter, and next tried a bolus knife, but with the same effect.
In this state he was for four or five days, when he was brought up
as dead, to be thrown overboard; but Mr. Wilson, finding life still
existing, repeated his endeavours, though in vain, and two days
afterwards he was brought up again in the same state as before.
He then seemed to wish to get up. The crew assisted him, and
brought him aft to the fireplace, when in a feeble voice, in his
own tongue, he asked for water, which was given him. Upon this
they began to have hopes of dissuading him from his design, but he
again shut his teeth as fast as ever, and resolved to die, and on
the ninth day from his first refusal he died.'
If slaves were not mentally disturbed as a result of their capture
and sale, they often went mad once they were subjected to the conditions
of the Middle Passage. But whether madness occurred before leaving
Africa or during the voyage, it occurred on all slavers. During Faleonbridges first voyage to Bonny he saw a female slave, chained to the deck
of the Emilia, who the mate told him was mad. Later,

on his own vessel

in itssecond voyage there was a woman whom they were forced to chain at
times.

She was later sold to a Jamaican planter while in one of her lucid

intervals.71 Slave ships were customarily fitted with netting to prevent

slaves from leaping overboard to escape or to commit suicide. Captain
Wilson of the Enterprise on one voyage alone lost at least twenty in this
72
way in spite of these precautions.

^Ibid., pp. 40-lkL.

71Ibid., p. 39 -

72Ibid.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

Many slaves attempted suicide by other means than jumping over

board and refusing to eat. Many of the sick refused medicine, prefer
ring to die.

Some hanged themselves. Dr. Thomas Trotter records the

incredible, but apparently indisputable, case of a male slave who tore one
side of his throat open with his own fingernails. The wound was sewed up,
but the foilwing night he ripped out the sutures and tore open the other
side in a similar manner. The next day that, too, was sewed up and his
hands tied behind his back. He then resolved to starve, and died in eight
days.

73

All too often the ships company unwittingly aided the melan

choly slave in his attempt to die. Incidences of slaves being beaten to

death for refusing to eat were not uncommon. Sometimes they strangled on
the food forced into their mouths, or they died of gangrene which set in
where the thumb screws had been applied too harshly.

7>!

It is probably true also that many times the slaves attitude to

ward death was much more positive than would appear from the description
above. Many of the Negroes, especially the Ibo of eastern Nigeria, re
portedly had the belief that after death they would return to their home
land.

As a result, the suicide problem reached such proportions on a

vessel on which Dr. Claxton was surgeon that the captain finally resorted
to the expedient of beheading the dead.

In this way he hoped to convince

the other slaves that if they were determined to commit suicide in order
ry /T

to go home, they must return without their heads.

Many captains tried more subtle methods.

Slaves were permitted to

73Ibid., pp. 32-33, 39-W-.

7^Ibid., pp. ^3-j-.
7 ^Ibid., pp. k2- k 3 .

76
Ibid.

L
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

~i
39
sing and dance on deck to keep up their spirits. Many guineamen hired
bagpipe or flute players to furnish music.77 In the absence of profession
al musicians, the Africans were encouraged to improvise with instruments
of their own invention. Even if the blacks did not want to dance they
were often forced to do so by the cat-of-nine-tales since it was believed
that exercise would not only heighten spirits, but that it was necessary
for the good health of the slaves. Each day the Negroes were required to
jump or "dance" to get their exercise and keep up their spirits. Male
slaves, who were almost always kept in irons during the whole of the Mid1-7

die Passage, and even the sick were not excused from such exercises.
Dr. Claxton recorded an example of the extent to which this practice was
carried:
The slaves, being so afflicted with the flux, accompanied with
the scurvy and oedematous swellings of the legs, that it was a pain
f or them to move at all, were made to exercise themselves with danc
ing and were beaten if they did not . . . . The slaves, by the vio
lent exercise they were obliged to take with their shackles on,
often excoriated the parts upon which they were fastened and of this
they often made grevious complaints to me.''
Other diseases were frequently present on the slave ships. Yaws
was very common. The disease was extremely prevalent in Africa. Though
not ordinarily fatal, yaws was very debilitating, and recovery took months
and sometimes years. (See pp. 187-89).After dysentery, scurvy and melancholy, it was probably the most common malady of the slave trade.

80

^Manning, Black Cargoes, p. ll*f.

ryQ
Great Britain, House of Commons, Abstract of Evidence, pp. 33"^
79Great Britain, House of Commons, Minutes of Evidence, p. 3A.
1
80

Edward Long, The History of Jamaica, Or a General Survey of the

Ancient and Modern State of That Island with Reflections on Its Situation,
Settlement, Inhabitants. Climate, Products, Commerce, Laws and Government,
3 vols. (London, 177*0; I; *+33*

L
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

r
Eye diseases frequently resulted in blindness on the slave ships.
Opthalmia was perhaps the most dreaded disaster that could befall a luck
less ship. Opthalmia was a term used to describe severe infections of the
eyes caused by gonoceocus, staphloccocus and other organisms as well as
trachoma or Egyptian opthalmia (sea p. 21^). The slightest hint of it ter
rified the crew. They realized that a sightless crew would be completely
at the mercy of their captives and that neither crew nor slaves would have
any hope of reaching the Indies. The French slaver Rodeur sailing between
the coast of Africa and the French West Indies in 1819 narrowly escaped
such a fate. An official memorandum detailed the incident as follows:
The crew and slaves enjoyed good health until they reached the
equator, when blepharoblenorrhoea contagiosa /perhaps gonorrhea/
broke out among the Negroes and spread rapidly until all on board
became infected. The sufferings of the people and the number of
the blind augmented every day, so that the crew was sieged with the
dread of not being able to make the West Indies, only one of them
having escaped the contagion, on whom their whole hope rested.
Thirty-nine of the Negroes had become perfectly blind, twelve had
lost one eye, and fourteen were afflicted with blemishes more or
less considerable. Of the crew, originally twenty-two, twelve lost
their sight entirely, among whom was the surgeon, five lost one eye
and four were partially injured.
When the Rodeur finally arrived at the Island of Guadeloupe, its only fully
sighted sailor reported having hailed a large Spanish slave ship drifting
helplessly in charge of a sightless crew.82
Another very common health problem in the slave ships was skin
ulcer.

Both yaws and scurvy often produced severe ulceration. Even more

serious was the damage caused by tropical or African ulcers. These ugly

8lScott, II, 998.

82-

..
Ibid.

L
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

i
ki

ulcers often spread both in extent and in depth to lay bare blood vesOn
sels, tendons and bones, sometimes entirely encircling a limb.
Apo
plexy and sleeping sickness while less common, also occurred in the MidSit
die Passage.
Aside from diseases, maltreatment no doubt contributed much to
the worsening ofillness andthe loss of life. The slave trade
regime of force.

was a

Cruelty was a built-in feature made worse by the fact

that the care of the slaves was a disagreeable task. Dr. Claxton des
cribed a dysentery epidemic on one of his voygages.

It was necessary for

the crewmen to clean the slaves and the decks where they lay.
The sailors who had the disagreeable task . . . grew angry with
the slaves . . . and beat them, either with their hands or with a
cat. The slaves in consequence grew fearful of commiting this in
voluntary action, and when they perceived they had done it, would
immediately creep to the tub, and there sit straining with such
violence, asto produce a prolapsus ani, which could not be cured. '
Few people wouldhave easily tolerated these custodial duties.

It was

understandable that seamen, reput.edly brusque, harsh and impatient, vent

ed their displeasure on their hapless wards.
In fair weather, slaves usually spent the hours between eight in
the morning and five in the afternoon on deck. They were fed twice a
day, just after coming on deck and just before going down. They ate in
groups of about ten from small wooden tubs. To prevent greed, a monitor
sometimes signaled when the blacks could dip and when they could swallow.
^3ibid., p. 997; Philip Manson-Bahr, Manson^ Tropical Diseases,
l6 th ed. (Baltimore, 1966), p. 598.____________ ...... -------------RIl

w Jamaica, House of Assembly, Resolution, p. 18; Rudolph Hoeppli,

Parasitic Diseases in Africa and the Western Hemisphere: Early Documen
tation and Transmition by the Slave Trade (Basel, 1969), PP. 38-39*
^5Great Britain, House of Commons, Abstract of Evidence, p.

L
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

i
k-2

In the years of the legal Spanish slave trade, it was customary for cap
tains

ceremoniously to require the gangs to say grace before eating

and to give thanks afterwards in keeping with the Spanish manners of the
day.

In later years, however, they dispensed with that ritual and con

tented themselves with a "viva la Habana. 11 At each meal a bucket of salt

water for washing was placed by each tub, and a half pint of water was
ladled out to each slave from a bucket. The slave drank his ration then
or went without.

86

The food given the Negroes, as indicated earlier, varied according

to season and to luck.

If the ship had a good measure of the latter, it

stocked sufficient provisions from the same coast where the slaves were
secured. The opportunity to provision the ship locally meant accustomed
diet for. the blacks and less likelihood of dysentery and other intestinal
disturbances. Usually, it was possible to obtain at least part of the
ships provisions where the slaves were bought.

If the slaves were from

the Windward Coast, the daily fare usually consisted of boiled rice, millet
or commeal, which might be cooked with a few lumps of salt beef. If they
were from the Bight or Biafara they were fed stewed yams, while Negroes
from the Gold Coast and Whydah were given Indian com primarily. Provisions
were hardest to secure in adequate quantities in the Congo and Angola, but
when possible slaver captains tried to feed slaves from these areas on
their accustomed manioc or plantains.

87

Traders stored water from the

CuiheaTcoast only when forced to do so by necessity, since water from that

^Mackenzie-Grieve, English Slave Trade, pp. 131-33; Conot, Adventurers, p. 108 .

^Mannix, Black Cargoes, pp. 113-lh; Frank Wesley Pitman, The
Development of the British West Indies, 1700-1763 (New Haven, 1917), pp.
68 -69 ; Great Britain, Minutes of Evidence, pp. 93; 237-38*

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

-|
^3
area was thought to produce diarrhea, dysentery and guinea worms.

It was

recognized that boiling the water lessened chances of disease; however,

boiling was usually not feasible.

In lieu of boiling, the common practice

88
was to add vinegar or a few drops of oil of vitriol.
Often ships trad

ing at Bonny or Calabar or at ports further south called at the Portuguese

islands in the Guinea Gulf for additional water and food.
Usually slave vessels also brought some slave provisions from
Europe. Most common among them were horse beans, the cheapest staple avail
able. These were boiled to a pulp and covered with "slabber sauce," a
mixture of palm oil, flour, water and red pepper, a concoction which appar
ently tasted better than might be assumed for the sauce was served as a
special treat to the Negroes. The horse beans, however, were another mat
ter. They were so much disliked by the Negroes that, in Falconhridge1s
words, the slaves "unless narrowly watched, will throw them overboard or
in each others face when they quarrel." Popular dishes among the slaves
were old beef or fish spiced with pepper and a soup made of dried shrimp.
On the best of slavers, such as Captain Crows, the Negroes were frequently
given lime juice to cleanse their mouths and to prevent scurvy, and after
meals they were given sticks with which to clean their teeth.

Some cap

tains, as a preventative against scurvy, gave a dram of brandy bitters each

day. On some slavers after breakfast the slaves were given water and palm
oil with which to wash and groom themselves. Pipes and tobacco were sometimes sparingly supplied to the men and beads to the women.

89

88Scott, II, 993 .

89
Mackenzie-Grieve, pp. 129-31J Mannix, pp. 113-11!-.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

n
kk

Aguineaman's crew kept a careful watch on the supply of provisions.

The vessel could rarely afford to carry emergency provisions. If contrary
weather prolonged the passage unduly, the delay could mean starvation for
the crew and the cargo. At the first sign of heavy seas the captain re
duced food and water rations for seamen as well as slaves and placed a
guard over food and water stores. Occasionally, even such precautions
were not sufficient. The disastrous history of the ill-starred Molly il~
lustrates the risk that all slavers continually faced. The ship was a
full year slaving on the coast. It sailed before the harvest season and
consequently with short provisions.

In the Atlantic crossing it was

beset with continual storms and arrived in the Indies only after a gruel
ing passage of seven long, disastrous months, during which one-half of
the crew and the slaves died of starvation.^
In 1796, a Liverpool slaver bound from the Camaroons to Granada
developed a leak, which so slowed its progress that the ship was over six
months in crossing. The slaves were fed a handful of Indian com daily,
but when the vessel finally reached Barbados, 123 of the 168 (78$) taken
had died.91 In a voyage on which Dr. Claxton served as ship's surgeon,
132 Negroes were likewise lost from shortage of provisions. He asserted
that if they had been ten more days at sea, they would have been forced to
eat the slaves that died, or to save the crew, they would have had to make
92
the living slaves walk the plank.
^Mackenzie-Grieve, pp. 129-31*
91Ibid., p. I k l .

92
Great Britain, House of Commons, Abstract of Evidence, p. 4o.

L
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

r
English law justified the throwing overboard of slaves as a last
resort in order to save the ship or its crew.

In the later years of the

trade, most slave vessels and cargo were insured against perils of the
sea. The terms of the marine insurance required the owner to bear the
cost of slaves dying a natural death. Underwriters paid only for slaves
sacrificed to prevent a greater loss, such as the crew or the vessel.

93

But some captains not only made slaves walk the plank in these emergen
cies, but at times were guilty of even great abuse. This abuse at its
worst is illustrated in the celebrated and infamous case of the Zong.
The first two months at sea brought serious losses and great disability
by fevers and dysentery among the Negroes as well as threat of water short
ages from lack of rain.

Captain Collingswood foresaw financial disaster,

for even if he arrived at Jamaica, many of the sick Negroes would never
recover.

Collingswood knew that if the slaves died on board, the owner

would lose, but that if he could prove that the blacks were thrown over
board to preserve the ship, the underwriters would bear the loss. Fiftyfour of the sick were thrown overboard even though the ship still had three
butts of water containing 1^0 gallons each. The next day forty-two more
slaves were thrown overboard despite the fact that a providential rain
supplied eleven additional butts of water.

Only thirty-six Negroes remained

of those taken on the coast. The following day these, too, were sent to
the bottom, apparently to convince the underwriters that his actions were
necessary to save the crew from starvation and thirst. The underwriters

^^Mackenzie-Grieve, pp. 137"1^1*

L
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

1*6

refused to pay claims, maintaining that the damage originated in the neg
ligence of the captain, rather than from perils of the sea. In a later
case of 1796, which was based in part on the precedents established in
the Zong case, it was ruled that death by starvation was death by natural
means and such loss was not to be borne by underwriters.^
Cases such as that of the Zong probably were rare. While the law
tended to encourage such abuse, mortality did not, and even in the case
of the Zong, the first mate was greatly opposed to the action, although he
was powerless to prevent it.
Even in the best of slave ships--a handful at most--the history of
the Middle Passage is a horror story.

In the worst of ships, or perhaps

even in the average ships, the experience of the crossing in its horror
is almost beyond the power of the imagination to reconstruct.

Wrested

from the security of tribes, families and homelands, the terrified and
dejected blacks were hauled on deck, stripped and shorn and packed into
the filth-reeking, contagion-ridden, suffocating confinement of a slave
ships hold. There they might spend seventy-five percent or more of
their existence for perhaps as long as seven months on the African coast
and another one to four months or more in a treacherous passage of 3>000
to If,000 nauseating, nautical miles.

During that desperate voyage they

were preyed upon mercilessly by a host of deadly infectious diseases and

lethal mental maladies. All of this occurred in an atmosphere created
and maintained at best by force and at worse by brutality, which not only

L
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

n
it-7

augmented the ravages of diseases, but often by itself caused maiming

and death. Those slaves that were among the seventy-five to eighty per
cent that survived this floating hell were destined for further suffer
ing. They were herded, carried or dragged off the stinking guineaman by
their captors only to face a new ordeal in the guinea yards and auction
blocks of the West Indies and the Spanish Mainland.

L
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

CHAPTER III
REFRESHMENT IN THE WEST INDIES

When the slave ships put into Kingston or some other West Indian
port, the factor usually met them at the dock. It was in the companys
interest for the factor to hoard the ships before any of the cargo could
be spirited off the vessel by the captain or crew. The factor checked
the ships accounts, especially the captains journal for the entries of
Negroes purchased in Africa and for those later lost on the passage. He
then mustered and lotted the presentable Negroes in preparation for the
sale which sometimes took place within two or three days after arrival in
port.^
In the hope of having the blacks ready for such prompt sales,
most ships bound for Jamaica or ports further west usually called at Barbados or the Lesser Antilles to take on fresh provisions.

Fresh fruits

and vegetables did much during the eight-day voyage to Jamaica to repair
inroads made by scurvy.

In spite of this precaution, though, a Jamaican

doctor still noted that

few new Negroes were entirely free from scurvy

on their landing, but he indicated the wisdom of the practice by adding

that the disease "seldom shows itself with a great degree of malignancy."^
''"K.G. Davies, The Royal African Company (London, 1957)> P* 296 .
?
H. Harold Scott, A History of Tropical Medicine Based on the Fitz
patrick Lectures Delivered before the Royal College of Physicians of London,
1937-38, 2 vols. (London, 1939), II. 998.
_/Dr. Collins7; Practical Rules for the Management and Medical
Treatment of Negro Slaves in the Sugar Colonies, by a Professional Planter
(London, 1803), p. 5^*
""
kQ

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

n
k9

Sometimes, however, even graver medical considerations prevented

quick sales.

Captains and factors alike found it in their interest not

to declare sale if there was a great number of sick among the cargo or
if the Negroes were in especially poor condition.

In that event ready

buyers who would pay a favorable price would be scarce, even though Negroes
were often sold by "scramble," a kind of grab-bag procedure. Moreover,
ships usually arrived with a host of minor contagious diseases present and,
sometimes, with serious epidemics raging on board. In such cases sale was
not only unlikely, but could be dangerous to the public welfare. Jamaica
was no stranger to such dangers. As late as 1725., the Duke of Portland,
Governor of Jamaica, complained that freshly landed Negroes infected the
inhabitants with their "malignant fevers, small pox and other dangerous
distempers."4
Where a menace to public health threatened, time of sale could
not be left solely to the good judgment or business acumen of slave mer
chants. The Dutch and Spanish had much earlier developed meticulous public
health precautions regulating the landing of slaves. The French also, by
that date, had enacted port regulations designed to protect the population.
The English rapidly became the foremost slaving nation, with Jamaica as
the heart of the slave commerce, and, as the tempo of the slave trade in
creased, the Island took steps to protect itself. In 1732, Governor Hunter^
asked for royal approval of "An Act to Prevent the Landing or Keeping of
Negroes Infected with Smallpox in any of the Three Towns of Spanish Town,
L
Frank Wesley Pittmen, The Development of the British West Indies,
1700-1763 (New Haven, 1917), p. 82.
^Maj. Gen. Robert Hunter, Governor, to Lords of Trade and Planta
tion c. July k, 1732. Box 1, Colonial Archive of Jamaica, Colonial DisI patches, Jamaica to England.
^

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

n
50

Port Royal or Montego Bay." This act seems to have expired in 1738, yet,
given the prevailing opinion of the day that the African was a "hive or
dangerous germs,

..6

it is inconceivable to think that the English would not

continue to keep such a dangerous branch of commerce under surveillance.

No doubt city ordinances, if not general laws, restricted the landing of
infected Negroes, at least in the towns. Probably for that reason prin
cipal merchants of Kingston located their guinea yards near the site of
the present Fort Nugent, about six miles from Kingston. In these yards
the guineamen were free to land their Negroes regardless of what diseases
they suffered.
Frequently, captains did not land the Negroes, but merely unshack
led them, brought them up on deck and lay at anchor until rest, fresh food
and medical arts had prepared the Negroes for sale. Sometimes a guineaman lay ominously at anchor for two or three weeks before declaring sale
or allowing anyone to board. Always the reason was that the crew was
getting the Negroes "in trim" for sale. This euphemism usually meant that
they were waiting for some "contagious distemper" to run its course or for
their medicines to conceal it.^
Whether slaves were kept on board or landed in a guinea yard, the
period from the day of arrival to the day of sale was a critical one in
which mortality was high. Many blacks died either from hardships endured
in the passage or from diseases which they had encountered in transit.

6Scott, I, 999*
7
Great Britain, House of Commons, Minutes of the Evidence Taken
before a Committee of the House of Commons Being a Select Committee Ap
pointed to Take the Examination of Witnesses Respecting the African Slave
Trade (London, 1791)> P 98. (hereafter cited as Minutes of Evidence).

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

n
51

Often mortality after docking was as high as that of the Middle Passage.
One Jamaican commercial house certified that for the three years, 1786 to
1788, over four and one-half percent of its Negroes died during the twelve
Q

to fourteen days between docking and sale.

Based on that report, the

House of Lords computed the loss of Negroes in Jamaica between docking

and sale from 1655 to 1787 at 31 ,l8l .9
Edward Long, a respectable planter, writing in the early 1770s,
about his experience of previous years with newly landed Negroes, noted
the great damage caused by smallpox, yaws and what he thought was venereal
disease.

Smallpox was the most fatal; often causing as high as seventy

percent mortality.

Long placed great hope in inoculation, introduced in

the 1760 *s, to stem this high mortality.^ That it usually did seems
apparent from reading the medical books published a few decades later.

Q
Collins, p. 55*
7Second Report of the Committee of the House of Assembly of the
Island of Jamaica, Nov. 12, 1788, printed in Great Britain, Privy Council,
Report of the Lords of the Committee of Council Appointed for the Consid
eration of All Matters Relating to Trade and Foreign Plantations: Sub
mitting to His Ma.iestvs Consideration the Evidence and Information They
Have Collected in Consequence of His Ma.iestys Order in Council, Dated the
11th of February, 1788, Concerning the Present State of the Trade to
Africa, and Particularly the Trade in Slaves; and Concerning the Effects
and Consequences of This Trade, as Well in Africa and the West Indies as
to the General Commerce of This Kingdom (London, 1789); 3rd pt., Appendix,
n.p., (hereafter cited as Report of Lords. This figure should be used only
as a guide, since it is based on the losses of only one of several com
mercial houses. It is probably low, rather than high, since it is also
based on years after smallpox vaccination had come into general practice.
10
Edward Long, The History of Jamaica, Or a General Survey of the
Ancient and Modern State of That Island with Reflections on its Situation,
Settlement, Inhabitants, Climate, Products, Commerce, Laws and Government,
3 vols. (London, 177^0j I; ^3^.

L
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

n
52

One written by Dr. Collins, a veteran practitioner of Jamaica, is typi

cal. Writing nearly fifty years later, he saw little danger from small
pox. Although the disease continued to break out often in the Middle
Passage, when it did, it also provided matter for inoculation of the other
blacks so that the disease rather harmlessly completed its progress before
11
the ship's arrival in the islands.
The disease, however, was capable
of making savage inroads whenever inoculation was neglected.

Captain

Bullock on the Eliza arrived in Kingston Harbor in the late 1790s, having
lost sixty-three from smallpox. His surgeon either did not know the pro
cedure for inoculation or did not apply it. After the ship docked, the
factor engaged an additional surgeon and ordered the inoculation of the
cargo; still thirty more Negroes were lost after arrival in port.

12

Dr. Collins, who also had much experience with newly arrived Negroes
during his years of practice in Jamaica, believed that with smallpox tamed
by inoculation, dysentery remained the most highly fatal disease to the
Negroes in the guinea yards.

13

This fatality was well illustrated in the

1]-Collins, p. 51*-.

12
Jamaica, House of Assembly, Joint Committee on the Slave Trade,
Report on the Resolution and Remonstrance of the Honourable the Council
and Assembly of Jamaica at a Joint Committee on the Subject of the Slave
Trade in a Session which Began the 20th of October, 1789. (for Presentation
to Parliament) (London, 1790). PP. 15-16; (hereafter cited as Resolution)."
Dr. Isaac Wilson in four voyages to the Rio de la Plata took 2,06^ Negroes,
of which 220 died of smallpox after delivery in port. See Great Britain,
House of Commons, Committee of the Slave Trade, An Abstract of the Evidence
Delivered before a Select Committee of the House of Commons in the Years
1790 and 1791 on Part of the Petitioners for the Abolition of the Slave
Trade (London, 1791). PP. M3-k9, (hereafter cited as Abstract of Evidence.)
13Collins, pp. 33-5b.

L
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

1
53
King People, under command of Alexander Lindo. The ship lost 150
Negroes to the flux on the Middle Passage and another twenty or "therea
bouts " after docking.^ Captain William Sherwood of the Brothers in 1789;
sailing from Bonny lost sixty-three slaves of a "contagious distemper" on
the voyage and lost another five in port probably from dysentery. He
identified the distemper as measles, which the slaves contracted on the
passage but he noted that they "died of fluxes in consequence thereof"
even though he had them landed on their arrival and "all possible care
15
taken of them."
Other diseases also helped boost the mortality. Dr. James
Chisholm during his twenty years of practice in Jamaica, say many new
Negroes die of diseases which they brought with them. He noted that "when
they are first landed they are much subject to putrid complaints arising
from the scorbutic habit contracted during the voyage, which frequently
manifests itself soon after they are landed in putrid dysenteries, or by
foul ulcers tending strongly to mortification."

Disorders of the mind

also caused their share of mortality among the new Negroes. Other less
fatal diseases such as fevers, inflammations of the eyes, venereal diseases,
itches and guinea worms also infected the Negroes of the guinea yards.^

lk
^
Jamaica, House of Assembly, Resolution, p. 16.
15
Ibid., pp. 17-18 .
16

Jamaica, House of Assembly, Committee on Allegations, Two Reports

from the Committee of the Hon. House of Assembly of Jamaica Appointed to
Examine into Petitions Which Have Been Presented to the British House of
Commons on the Subject of the Slave Trade and the Treatment of the Negroes
(London, 1789), pp. 27-28, (hereafter cited as Reports on Allegations).
^Collins, pp. Vj-5^-*

L
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

i
5^
After the ship's arrival in port, the surgeons redoubled their

efforts to heal the diseases and scars of the voyage. Slaves, even if
not landed in a guinea yard, were at least freed from the chains and
shackles, the overcrowding, the suffocation and the nauseating motion of
the ship at sea. To these advantages were added fresh and plentiful
food and water. These conditions alone probably did much to help the
slaves recover and to prepare them for sale. But what improved circum
stances and better food failed to accomplish, the surgeon tried to achieve
through the practice of his art. It was common knowledge that guinea
surgeons were well practiced in the art of camouflaging the ills of
Negroes and that they had little regard for the eventual consequence of
their actions for the health of their patients.

Edward Long observed

that many Negroes arrived with "that dreadful disorder the yaws lurking
in their blood" and ventured that "it is said (i know not with what truth)
that the surgeons on board the guinea ships use methods to repel it by
a mixture of iron rust, gun powder and lime juice in order to remove all
18
external symptoms of it before they are exposed to sale."
He believed
that such frauds were commonly practiced, since he had repeatedly seen
whole parcels of new Negroes break out at once with the yaws within a
few weeks of purchase.

19

^^Long, I, lt-33. Long probably confused some of his information

in recalling this prescription. It was customary to give lime juice to
cure scurvy rather than yaws, and the iron rust was probably a corruption
of "steel bitters," which were commonly given to fortify the general
muscle tone of the body as a remedy for "relaxation" and its consequences
such as dropsy and dysentery. Gun powder contained nitrate which was con
sidered an excellent general medicine.
19Ibid.

L
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

r
Professional medical men of experience with new Negroes were
more direct in their charges and more accurate, in their information.

Dr. Adam Anderson, who became well acquainted with ships* surgeons during
his twenty-eight years of practice in the Island, claimed that:
It was customary to suppress venereals with astringent injec
tions; to cause the yaws and ulcers to disappear by ischuretic
washes; and on the day of sale, or a few days before, to hide the
scars with blackening and palm oil: That the epedimic dysentery
is frequent on board ship; and though the surgeons have a method
of concealing it on the day of the sale, in some measure, by as
tringents, yet it frequently breaks out after the Negroes are
landed with double fury.
Most of the experienced estate doctors in the Island bore similar
testimony. Dr. Chrisholme complained that as the day of sale drew near,
the most virulent venereal diseases, yaws and ulcers were:
By the management of the ship's surgeon dried up, and the
morbid matter to be repelled into the system; so that the surface
of the skin shall appear clean and smooth for a time, but which
afterwards creates the most dreadful complaints, too frequently
baffling all attempts to cure.
Island doctors were the most concerned about the attempt to cover up yaws,
which was almost incurable after such treatments.

pp

Most diseases were

"tractable enough, the yaws excepted, which, when prematurely repelled, as

it frequently is, for the purpose of deception, proves incurable by any
23
medicine that can afterwards be administered."
Dr. Collins, who was a common visitor to the guinea yards, advised
prospective buyers to watch the yards carefully before buying. Lean Negroes
20

Jamaica, House of Assembly, Reports on Allegations, p. 30.

^Collins, pp. 5^-55

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

n
56

without symptoms of the flux were probably only the natural result of con
finement and the want of provisions.
easily be repaired.

The damage to their health could

On the other hand, if the Negroes were constantly

moving to the tubs provided in the yards, it was a sure sign that the
flux was among them. Danger was to be expected from the entire cargo,
"for you may be assured, that no art has been left untried, by opium and
astringents, to palliate the complaint and to preserve the credit of the
cargo, which would otherwise be injured by the discovery of the flux being
2k

among them."

Many ships* surgeons honestly attempted to cure the ills of their

charges rather than to conceal them.

Recovery was relatively simple in

cases of scurvy and sometimes in cases of other diseases as well. Dr.

Thomas Dancer praised one instance in which thirty Negroes were permanently
25
cured of yaws by a "gentle murcurial salavation."
Nevertheless, the
most common diseases on the slave ship yaws and dysentery--were more easily
"dired up" than cured.

Others, such as measles, eye irritations and itch,

were not readily visible on the black skin of the Negroes. Moreover, to
the crew of a slaver, every day of delay while waiting for sale which
would clear the decks and allow them to take on cargo and to begin the
return trip home was money lost. Most ships sought as rapid a sale as pos
sible.

Furthermore, slave merchants and their respective surgeons had

little stake in the welfare of the Negro beyond the day of the sale. A
combination of these factors usually led them to seek the appearance rather
2k.

Ibid., pp. 56-5T*

25
Thomas Dancer, The Medical Assistant to Jamaica Practice of
Physic: Designed Chiefly for the Use of Families and Plantations, c2nd
ea. (Kingston, l60$), p. 231*

L
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

"i
57
than the essence of cure. The result was that many sick and dying slaves

were sold.
Dr. Ecroyde Claxton, a ship's surgeon, testified during the Par
liamentary investigations of the slave trade that slaves were sold in the
Indies in an infectious state. Asked if he had any reason to believe that
they would not recover, he answered in the affirmative and added that in
these cases he had told the sellers agent that they would die. The
agent responded that the best policy was to dispose of them immediately.
In one case he recalled that only four slaves lived out of fourteen sold
26
to one planter.
Dr. Alexander Falconbridge of the Alexander saw sixteen
sick Negroes sold by auction. All of them died in the short interval be27
fore the ship left the West Indies.
Henry Coor was one of the buyers that fell victim to such sales.
He bought eight Gold Coast Negroes, and by means of an interpreter he in
quired if they had had the yaws. They indicated that they had.

Six to

eight weeks later they all broke out with it again. When Coor questioned
them again, they related that they had had the yaws during all of the Mid
dle Passage until they came within a few weeks of "Buccra land _/white mans
land/ when the Buccra on board the ship rubbed them with something that
made their skin clean,

,,

as they were when Coor purchased them.

28

If haste to sell their cargoes had not been a prime concern, slave
26
Great Britain, House of Commons, Minutes of Evidence, p. 39*
^Great Britain, House of Commons, Abstract of Evidence, p. ^8 .
28,

Great Britain, House of Commons, Minutes of Evidence, pp. 959*

They were probably rubbed with some mucurial preparation.

L
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

merchants might have sold Negroes cured of such diseases as the yaws and
smallpox at even a higher price. Many buyers preferred veterans of one
or both of these two scourges, since both diseases, if allowed to run
their course, were thought to confer lifetime immunity.^
With the formalities attended to and the sick having either died
or having been healed, or at least having obtained the semblance of health,
sale was declared.

Sale was either by scramble, by auction or by lot.

In the years before 1790? sale by scramble was most common. Alexander
Falcoribridge described a typical scramble sale aboard the Emilia in
Jamaica:
The ship was darkened with sails, and covered round. The men
slaves were placed on the main deck, and the women on the quarter
deck. The purchasers on shore were informed a gun would be fired
when they were ready to open the sale. A great number of people
came on board with tallies or cards in their hands, with their
own names upon them, and rushed through the barricado door with
the furocity of brutes. Some had three or four handkerchiefs
tied together to encircle as many as they thought fit for their
purpose.*'
If there were no epidemic disease aboard, these scramble sales
were usually held within three to four days of docking with all but the
very sick and the dying included in the scramble.

Since these sales were

held so soon after arrival, there was little time to get the slaves in
a presentable condition for sale. For this reason it was customary to
darken the ship. In the dim light and rush of the scramble, buyers were
denied the twin advantages of good sight and leisure with which to select
their purchases.

Such sales were possible only because the chronic short

age of slaves created such high demands for Negroes on the Island that
^Bryan Edwards, The History, Civil and Commercial of the British
West Indies, 5th ed., 5 vols.(London, 1819), II, 167 note; Great Britain
House of Lords, Committee on the Slave Trade, Evidence Taken at the Bar of
the House of Lords on the Slave Trade (London, 1792), p. 113*
30Great Britain, House of Commons, Abstract of Evidence, p. WvJ

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

n
59

buyers were willing to scramble for slaves of any age and condition.
Understandably scramble sales caused many complaints among planters.
Moreover, they were usually detrimental to the slaves as well.

In the

Island of Grenada when the Alexander sold by scramble, "the women were so
terrified, that several of them got out of the yard, and ran about St.
George*s town as if they were mad." Similarly in Jamaica when the Tyral
sold by scramble, "forty or fifty of the slaves leaped into the sea."
Yet scramble was a "very general mode of sale in America" until the last
decade of the eighteenth century
After 1790 Jamaican law forbade scramble sales, due as much to
humanitarian considerations as to the planters complaints. Thereafter,
it was customary to sell by auction or by lot. The captain, if he owned
the slaves, or the factor to whom they were consigned gave public notice
of the sale such as the following:
Sat. Jan 2, 1790
Now on Sale
At the store of the Subscribers,
133
Choice, young, Coromantee, Fantee and Ashatee Negroes
viz.
39 men
33 women
20 men boys
20 women girls
12 boys
9
^ girls
00
Rainford, Blundell, and Fainford.
Bryan Edwards, a Jamaican planter, a member of the Jamaican House of
Assembly and an apologist for slavery, describes what took place on the

^Daily Advertiser (Kingston), Jan. 1, 1790> in Averil MackenzieGrieve, The Last Years of the English Slave Trade, 1750-1807 (London, 19^-1);
P. 1^5-

L
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

ron the appointed day:

Although there is something extremely shocking to the humane
and cultivated mind in the idea of beholding a numerous body of
our unfortunate, fellcwcreatures, in captivity and exile exposed
naked to public view, and sold like a herd of cattle, yet I could
never preceive that the Negroes themselves were oppressed with many
of those painful sensations which a person unaccustomed to the
scene would naturally attribute to such apparent wetchedness.
They /the Negroe// commonly express great eagerness to be sold,
presenting themselves with cheerfulness and alacrity for selection
and appearing mortified and disappointed when refused. ^
Whether slaves were sold by scramble or by auction, there was
always a certain number that were not included in the sale. These were
the "refuse" Negroes.

The term was applied to those Negroes who arrived

in such poor condition that they stood little chance of surviving. These
slaves the company "refused" to include in determining the factor's com
mission.

In determining the refuse of a cargo as well as freight and

certain other charges, the companies were guided by the simple rule that
a slave was "alive" if he could "go over the side," that is, if he could
walk off the ship. Those that could not were refused.
The method of disposal of these Negroes varied.

Sometimes they

were given to a local doctor on the condition that he could have half of
35
those he saved.
More often they were sold at auction, often for as
,
36
little as $1.00 per head.

One island planter, Hercules Ross, saw these

poor blacks carried to the auction block sometimes in the throes of death,

^Edwards, as quoted in Mackenzie-Grieve, pp. lh-h--^+5

Davies, p. 296 .
35ibid., p. 313.
^ Great Britain, House of Commons, Abstract of Evidence, pp. kGk l.

L
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

at times even "expiring on the piassa of the vendue master."3^ Some

times not even that much concern was shown for this worthless part of
the cargo, and they were simply left in the yard to die, where, even

38

without food or water, they occasionally lingered for two or three days.

It is hard to say how many of these refuse Negroes survived, but

evidence from contemporary literature suggests that there must have been
few, probably less than half. Dr. Collins observed that "they are looked
upon as being consigned to the grave, whither they are with very few
39
exceptions transferred in a short time."
Few of these refuse Negroes
ever got to the Spanish mainland. If they could be sold, their only
buyers were Jews, poor whites or free people of color, who bought them
either because they could not afford better slaves or as a gamble which
might pay handsomely if they could save the Negroes. Even though it was
commonly acknowledged that most refuse Negroes would never make suitable
field hands, there was a chance they could recover sufficiently to serve
as tradesmen or domestics, and Kingston Jews made a business of buying
them in order to train the ones they could save as skilled tradesmen.^
Records show that 676,276 Negroes were imported into Jamaica
between l68d and 1787 .^

It is estimated that 31;l8l (^.5$) of them died

3?Ibid.
38Ibid.
3^Collins, p. 56 .
Ibid.
1^1

"Second Report of the Committee of the House of Assembly of the

Island of Jamaica, Nov. 12, 1788," in Great Britain, Privy Council, Report
of Lords, 3rd Pt., Appendix, n.p.' This figure does not include the number
landed for refreshment only.

L
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

in the guinea yards or on the guinea ships as they lay in the harbor
lip
between the day of arrival and the day of sale.
The remainder of the
annual imports of blacks was bought by local planters, townspeople and
Spaniards from the surrounding colonies who came to scramble or bid for
the Negroes they needed. Most buyers usually brought overseers or doctors
to serve as advisors in choosing hardy and healthy Negroes. When pos
sible, they tried to have a "sensible" Negro accompany them and act as
interpreter to inquire of shipmates if the Negroes which had been chosen
were subject to insanity or fits of any kind or if they had had smallpox
or yaws. These precautions represented a kind of insurance to the buyer in
a very risky undertaking.

It was never advisable to trust the slave himself

to give such information, for he bad been coached before the sale on all
acceptable answers and told that if he had been rejected at the sale, he
would have to return to the slave ship. The horror engendered by that
threat was sufficient to guarantee answers which the slave merchants

COn-

kQ
sidered proper, but in which most buyers placed little confidence. J
Extreme care in the selection of new Negroes was even more impor
tant to the Spaniards than to the English.

Spanish law prohibited the

sale of sick slaves, unless the buyer was aware of the defect and allowed
a period of six months to two years in which the unwitting buyer of a sick
slave could sue for his money back (see Chapter IX). Consequently, the
Spaniard bad to choose carefully. Sick Negroes might die enroute to the
mainland. If they did not, it was risky to try to cover defects, and if
the seller advised the buyer of the defect, the black, of course, would
bring a much lower price.
*% b i d .
^Collins, pp. 63 , U5 .

L
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

-1

1
63

In some cases, especially before 1713; Spanish buyers probably

bought Negroes from individual planters or merchants. Usually, however,
they preferred to purchase them from the guinea yard directly. New
Negroes were cheaper and had not been corrupted by Protestantism.

Often

contracts were arranged to furnish Negroes for the Spanish. These blacks
were landed in Jamaican guinea yards only to "refresh" them before trans
shipment to the mainland. In the absence of these formal contracts
Spaniards usually maintained representatives in Jamaica and Barbados who
had close relations with the slave merchants. Export records indicate
that 160,M +6 (23 .7$) of Jamaican imports between 1680 and 1787 were re
exported to the Spanish ports of Cuba, New Granada and New Spain either
by Jamaican commercial houses or by Spanish merchants themselves who came
to Jamaica to purchase the blacks.

kk

Refreshment came into general practice during the last two decades
of the seventeenth century.

It greatly improved the health and curbed

the mortality among the Negroes that landed on the mainland.

Nevertheless,

the handling of slaves in the slave ports of the Spanish Indies gives re
vealing insight into the health conditions associated with slavery in
New Granada.

^Second Report of the Committee of the House of Assembly of the

Island of Jamaica, Nov. 12, 1788,in Great Britain, Privy Council, Report
of Lords, 3rd. Pt. Appendix, n.p.

L
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

CHAPTER IV
IN THE SPANISH SLAVE PORTS

At the crossroads of the Empire, Cartagena, the main port of entry

of the Viceroyalty, was perhaps the best setting that could be chosen to
review the health conditions in the slave trade to the Spanish colonies.
Cartagena was, for more than two centuries, the most important slave mart
in the Americas, the queen city of the Spanish slave trade and the point
of first contact between the Spanish colonial world and the wretched human
cargoes which hundreds of slave ships disgorged on its w h a r f T h e trans
actions of this Spanish slave emporium and of Portobelo, its sister port
on the Isthmus of Panama, gave painful insights into the health conditions
of the slave trade to New Granada.
Slaves legally introduced into the Spanish Indies, as well as the
ships that brought them during most of the colonial period, were subject
to a number of formal inspections, or searches as they were called by con
temporary Englishmen. There were at least five standard searches:

the

health inspection (visita de sanidad), inventory inspection (visita de

reconocimiento e inventoria), anchorage inspection (visita de fondeo),
entry inspection (visita de entrada) and customs clearance (visita de palmeo)
2
or simply palmeo. Immediately after a slave ship anchored, the captain
1

Angel Valtierra, San Pedro Claver, al santo que liberto una raza,
2nd ed. (Cartagena, 196b)} pp. 315-l^J Alberto Miraraon, "Los negreros del
Caribe," Boletin de Historia y Antiguedades, XXXI, No. 351 (Feb., 19^0,
177> hereafter cited as BHA.
P

*
For two examples among many see Archivo Historico
Nacional de
Colombia (hereafter AHNC), Negros y esclavos de Panama II, foil. 5769b (1776), 620-58 (1778).

6b

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

i
65

or super-cargo called at the royal counting house to register the arrival

of his ship and to request that port officials begin the rather drawn-out
process of conducting these inspections. The first and last of the searches
were particularly helpful in revealing health conditions among the slaves.
The health inspection was most urgent, since it was essential to
prevent epidemics. Ships were not allowed to dock, but were required to
lie at anchor in the harbor until they had been inspected. This require
ment was often specifically stipulated in the contract or assiento which
granted the right to import Negroes. The British Assiento, for example,
required that:
Whenever the Ships of the said Assientists shall arrive in
the ports of the Indies with their Cargoes of Negroes, the Cap
tains thereof shall be obligd to Certifie that there is not any
Contagious Distemper amongst them, that the Governor and Royal
Officers may permit them to enter into said Port, without which
Certificates they shall not be admitted.3
Captains were eager to unload the cargo, as much for medical con
siderations as for commercial reasons, and registered their vessels
promptly. Delays only invited risks. When Negroes had to be kept on board
for long periods after arrival in port, deaths among them often mounted
k
so rapidly that importers faced financial ruin. To avoid this universal
danger, most captains urged port authorities to inspect their slaves as
soon as possible in order that the slaves could be put ashore. Even when
the legality of arriving Negroes was in question, they were usually landed
immediately. A good example occurred in 1806 when two Danish schooners

^The Assiento; or Contract for Allowing the Subjects of Great

Britain the Liberty of Importing Negroes into the Spanish America
"(London, 1713); art. XXI.
^AHNC, Negros y esclavos de Panama III, foil. 610-11 (17^8).

L
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

66

from Santo Tomas with 200 Negroes on board anchored off Cartagena. The
captains were forbidden to land the blacks until authorities could be
satisfied that the slaves were free of revolutionary ideas. Nevertheless,
the captains requested, and received, permission temporarily to land
their cargoes, pending the investigation, in order to avoid disease among
them.^ Since every slave ship was also a potential threat to public
health, port officials handled such requests with dispatch. The governor
ordered the protomedicato, the royal health officer, to board slave ships
soon after they anchored and inspect the crews and cargoes of Negroes
for evidence of epidemic, or "dangerous," diseases. Most likely ships
received this health inspection the day they entered port. If the proto
medicato were absent, the governor commonly appointed the surgeon of the
military forces stationed in the city or some local medical practitioner
to inspect the vessels.
These colonial medical officers conducted the health inspection
according to an established pattern, which was likely much the same in
all ports. The purpose evidently was not a thorough medical inspection,
but rather a hurried check to see if "pestilential" or "putrid" fevers
or other "distempers" such as smallpox, measles or yellow fever were aboard.
These medical men varied in the thoroughness of their inspections.
Francisco Lasuriaga, Protomedicato of Cartagena, was seemingly quite
thorough. He inspected ll6 Negroes introduced by the Malhorti Assiento

5lbidj Negros y esclavos de Bolivar VI, fol. 853 (1806).

g
James F. King, "Descriptive Data on Negro Slaves in Spanish Import
ation Records and Bills of Sale," Journal of Negro History, XXVIII, No. 2
(April, 19^3), 208-09).

L
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

n
67

in 17^2 and apparently examined each slave individually; for he informed

the governor that "according to their appearance and their pulses they are
7
completely healthy." Most colonial health officers, however, were not so
exacting. They probably tried to assure themselves that there was no danger
of epidemic disease and were content with only a cursory inspection.
Francisco Baltran, surgeon of the royal battalion of Fortobelo, the other
major port of entry in the Viceroyalty, was perhaps more typical. He in
spected 220 Negroes introduced by Aquirre and Company in 1778 from Jamaica
and French Hispaniola and reported to the governor that "they seem well,
without disease that might infect the citizenry, for which reason I conO
template no inconvenience in their disembarkation."
If the protomedicato *s inspection revealed the presence of dangerous
disease on board, the captain was required to land the Negroes several miles
outside the city. Father Alonso Sandoval, a Jesuit of Cartagena during the
years 1607 to l6l0, noted that a ship arrived from Cape Verde bringing
Negroes infected with smallpox, measles and typhoid, but that they were not
allowed to enter the city and "infect it."^ Nevertheless, it seems apparent
from the same author that this quarantine restriction, at least during the
first half of the seventeenth century, applied only to the Negroes with
actual symptoms of disease and not to the whole cargo. Captains accordingly
were accustomed to dividing their cargoes. The seemingly healthy slaves

^Eduardo Posada, "La esclavitud en Colombia," BHA, XVI, No. 189

(Sept., 1927), 526.
g
AHNC, Negros y esclavos de Panama II, foil. 629-30 (1778).
9Angel Valtiera, Pedro Claver S. J., el santo que liberto/ una raza;
Su vida y su epoca, 1st ed. (Bogotd, 195^0 >PP* 23^-35, citing Jesuit
Domestic Reports.

L
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

~i
68

were sent to slave pens in the city, while the dangerously ill were put
ashore well outside the city under quarantine regulations. A third group
was sometimes temporarily left on the ship. The latter group consisted
of those slaves who were not dangerously ill, but who were physically un
able to disembark--the invalids, the very weak, those with broken limbs.
They remained on board until they recuperated sufficiently to walk off the
ship or until a cart could be secured to move them to

the

pens or occasion

ally to private homes for better care. 10

Father Sandoval dedicated most of his time to the spiritual and
medical care of newly arrived Negroes. He never failed to be scandalized
by the stench and misery which he found in the hold of the slave ships,
the "floating coffins," as the Spaniards called them, and remarked in dis
gust that "there is no Spaniard who dare put his faceto the hatch with
out being nauseated, nor who can stay below deck one hour without risk of
grave illness." Knowing the horrors of the Middle Passage with its poor
food and bad treatment which he believed caused one-third of the cargo to
perish enroute, he was not surprised that some of the Negroes arrived al
ready dead, others dying, and that those who still lived were but mere
11
skeletons.
Sandovalrs disciple and successor, Pedro Claver, later canon
ized for his lifetime of work among the slave ships and slave pens of
Cartagena, believed that the terrible stench always present among these
Negroes was due to "the many contagious diseases with which they came to
these parts . . . ." The work among new Negroes was so distasteful that
10Ibid., p. 205 .

^Alonzo de Sandoval, De Instauranda Aethiopum Salute: El mundo

de la esclavitud negra en America (Bogota, 195^. PP. 105-108.

L
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

it was well suited to monks who stressed penitence and contrition.

12

In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries before Spaniards began

to buy slaves in large numbers from Jamaica and other West Indian refresh
ment centers, most of the slaves arriving in Spanish American ports came
directly from Africa. Wot surprisingly the health conditions among the
blacks and the diseases from which they suffered were much the same as
those among the slaves arriving in the West Indies. Besides the inevit
able assortment of physical defects, maimed and missing limbs, wounds,
abscesses and bruises, the ships, as discussed earlier always brought
dysentery, smallpox, scurvy and yaws. Less frequent was the importation
of measles, yellow fever, malaria, typhus and typhoid (see Chapter II).
The arrival of ships with epidemics on board was frequent in
Spanish slave ports during the seventeenth century.

In 163^, Viceroy

Chinch&i in Lima complained of the high incidence of smallpox and measles

among Wegroes arriving in the city from Panama. He ordered that they be
detained a leagues distance from the city until a physician could certify
that they were free from these two scourges which they "always" brought
with them.

13

In Cartagena arrival of ships with epidemics was so frequent that

every ship was suspect.

Sandoval urged priests routinely to meet every

slave ship and inquire for the sick and the quarantined. Moreover, to his
description of the terrible epidemic of 1651, Sandoval added cryptically,
12

Valtierra, 1st ed., p. 196 .

^Frederick Bowser, "Negro Slavery in Colonial Peru, 1528-1650,"

(unpublished doctoral diss., Dept. of History, Univ. of Calif., Berkeley,
1967)> P iiij Jose' Antonio Saco, Historia de la esclavitud de la raza
africana en el nuevo mundo y en especial en los paises hispano-americanos,
Ij-vols. (Barcelona, 1879)* II? 1^6J

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

n
70

"I could cite many of these cases, being so continual as they are in ship
ments of Negroes. Each day there arrive some that are sick and bring
contagious illnesses.
It is not surprising that under the incomplete quarantine restric
tions of the day the visita de sanidad, while well-meaning, was largely in
effective, and epidemics were often generated by the arrival of a cargo of
infected Negroes or by the arrival of the annual merchant fleet and convoy
from Spain, which often brought Negroes. The fleets arrival provided a
prime opportunity for the birth of an epidemic. It signaled the beginning
of the celebrated Cartagena fair, which attracted thousands of merchants
and buyers from inland provinces. The city was ill-equipped to accommo
date the hordes of visitors who in a crowded, medieval city like Cartagena
became easy prey for disease. When ships arrived with epidemic diseases
aboard, the contagion quickly spread to the city.^5
It was also true that in some cases slave ships arrived in port to
find the city already in the grip of an epidemic and the ships paid a heavy
toll in loss of lives as a result. Cartagena and other cities in the
tropics, even until modem times, were proverbially unhealthy. Portobelo
was considered one of the most unhealthy places on the mainland. Kingston,
was described as "the most expensive and undesirable place under the sun,"
and Cartagena was cursed as the "little hell of the Caribbean."

Repeated

epidemics of dysentery and tropical fevers, especially yellow fever and

malaria, made savage inroads particularly among the white population, some-

1S/'altierra, 1st ed., pp. 205, 23k.

^Ibid., pp. 7515^^Valtierra, 2nd ed., p. 165; Frank W. Pittman, The Development of
the British West Indies. 1700-1763 (New Haven, 1917)> P 388, see also
[pp. 3&-90.
J

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

i
71

17
times killing thousands within days.
In Jamaica it was estimated in
17^0 that every seven years a number equal to the entire population of
18

the island died from disease.

Spanish slave ports were equally afflict

ed at least by yellow fever according to the report of the royal scien

tific expedition written about the same year:
This fever attacks those recently arrived in America, especi
ally if they came from the temperate countries of Europe. . . .
It is epidemic in English America where every year it usually
makes considerable ravages and the same thing occurs in Veracruz
and Cartagena. It originates in the hot season and subsides when
the atmosphere freshens. . . . It is believed to be spread by con
tagion.19
While yellow fever and malaria were more fatal to whites than to
blacks, people of both races died in a general mortality that often passed
.

sixty percent (see pp.

, 20
133 ).

During the second quarter of the seventh

century Cartagena was harried by four serious, though unidentified, epi21

demies.

A complete .list of the epidemics which ravages the Spanish

slave ports would be long.

17Such disastrous mortality was graphically illustrated in the

siege of Cartagena in 1697* Baron Dupontis reported that in hardly six
days 800 of his men became sick with a "fatal and contagious dysentery."
The majority of them soon died. His attack force numbered 6,6^5 men and
his total losses were 3>200, or nearly half. The majority died from dis
ease. Roberto Arrazola, Historial de Cartagena de las Indies (Buenos
Aires, 19^3)> p. 9^*
'"^Pittman, p. 389*
-*-9valtierra, 1st ed., pp. 7535^; citing Antionio de Ulloa,
Relacidn hist&rica del viage de la America meridional, ^206 (Madrid, 17^8),
IV.
20
Ibid,, p. 752.
21Ibid., p. 233.

1633-3^:. 1636, 1639-^1 and 1651 .

L
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

72

In some cases it was not clear whether the Negroes infected the
town or whether contagion spread from the town to the Negroes. Such con
fusion was true of the devastating epidemic of 1651, which one contempor
ary thought was a lethal combination of smallpox, measles, typhoid and
22
dysentery.
In that year the fleet brought several thousand Negroes.
Overcrowding on the eve of the fair left no accommodations for the sick
or for the well.

Food became scarce. Even though sick Negroes were set

ashore far from the city, the epidemic struck. Father Andrade, a Jesuit,
described it:
There began a most furious plague, which beginning among the
visitors, spread to the citizenry to such an extent that there
was not a house nor a family that was not afflicted by the pesti
lential contagion. The hospitals contained 500 sick. All the
houses of the city and even the ships themselves were made into
hospitals. There was great need. The Negroes, as the people most
forgotten and neglected, suffered most. They were full of sores
and worms, with no beds nor shelter, and the pestilential odor
that emanated from them was so vehement that it affected the head and
paralyzed the senses of those that came near them. A monk tried to
enter a place where some of them were, but upon merely arriving at
the door, with its infected air, he lost consciousness and was so
faint and nauseated that he was not himself for the next two days.
Another priest went to administer the sacraments to a Negro, and
from only the bad odor that he smelled, he became so nauseated
that for two days he could not rid himself of headache, retain even
a mouthful of food, nor attend to his duty.^3
Father Sandoval confessed that upon hearing of the arrival of a
slave ship in the harbor he trembled in anticipation of his work among the
Negroes.

In the epidemic of 1651, Sandoval believed the source of the

contagion to be the Negroes themselves. He visited those who had been

quarantined far from the city. Only with great difficulty could he persuade

22Ibid., p. 23k.
23Ibid., pp. 233-23^.

L
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

n
73

the faithful slaves who usually accompanied him as interpreters to go

with him.

Sandoval found many of the sick "swollen from the impact of

the disease, and it would seem very dangerous /contagiou7" Three of

the slaves he catechized and baptized were ill with dysentery. Two died
2k

before morning and the other died in his presence later in the day.

Conditions of the slave trade to Spanish America slowly improved

with the passage of time. Knowledge of disease and of handling the sick
gradually increased. Experience in general slave management also caused
mortality to decline both at sea and in port. The most important reason
for the decline of mortality, however, was the use of way stations in the
passage from Africa. During the last two decades of the seventeeth cen
tury, slave merchants began supplying slaves to Spanish America from re
freshment centers in the Antilles such as Jamaica or Puerto Rico, where
Negroes recuperated from the Middle Passage and were generously fed with
fresh food. Their ills were treated and the very sick either died or were
left behind.

Quarantine regulations changed greatly by the middle of

the next century to require the whole cargo to be isolated if any were in
fected. This wholesome change also played a part in lessening the mor
tality.
Even with all these factors in play, however, available records
indicate that fully ten percent of the slave ships which arrived in Portobelo were quarantined with some dangerous epidemic raging on board.

The

case of the Kingston is illustrative. The ship sailed from Jamaica in

January, 1760, with 20k slaves aboard. Some of them had been exposed to
smallpox in Jamaica but had not yet broken out with the disease when they
were purchased for shipment to the mainland. During the ten-day voyage
2k

Ibid., p. 787 *

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

n
7k

the disease erupted. The ship anchored in Portobelo Harbor and was
quarantined to Buenavista, a quarantine station across the harbor.
Eighteen days later the general health of the blacks had improved, though
three had died and nineteen were still gravely ill. Even after two more
weeks had passed, three of the sick were still in serious condition.

25

The frigate la Feliz was a similar case. It arrived from Puerto Rico in
September of 1767 with 228 slaves and an unidentified epidemic on board.
The ship was quarantined immediately, but two weeks later ten percent of
the cargo was still desperately ill, and, before the legal formalities
were concluded in Buenavista, fourteen had died.
from Jamaica in July of 1765 with 200 Negroes.

Another vessel arrived

The only indication of

medical ills was the grim inventory, made two weeks after arrival in port,
listing four blacks as dead, thirteen still too sick to stand, and bear
ing the cryptic date line "Buenavista, August 6 , 1765 ."^
No health inspection records have been found for the seventeenth
century, before the general use of refreshment, but health conditions must
have been much worse for that period, according to the contemporary ac
counts of Sandoval, Claver and others. Conditions were bad enough in
either century. With good reason the city trembled when the fleet put in
to port or when a Negro ship anchored in the harbor.

It is easy to under

stand the eagerness of city officials to conduct the health inspection.

If the visita revealed no epidemic disease, the city breathed easier, and

^AHNC, Negros y esclavos del Cauca IV, foil. 9398 (1760).

of

AHNC, Negros y esclavos de Panama I, foil. 13^-^3 (1767)*

2 ?Ibid., IV, foil. 836-^3 (1765).

L
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

n
75

the normal processing of the slaves began. Port officials directed the
captain to disembark the Negroes on the wharf of the royal counting
house--during daylight hours to prevent fraud. Once the slaves were
landed, the governor and royal officials (an accountant and a treasurer)
took inventory to compare with the bill of lading issued at the port of
embarkation. The captain had to account for any discrepancies. Deaths
at sea, either of Negroes or crewmen, were sworn to under oath both by
captain and by crew. When the ship was free of its slaves, the royal
officials and the teniente de guardia conducted the anchorage inspection-a search of the ship for contraband--and then proceeded with the entry
inspection in which they required the captain to answer under oath a set
of standard questions regarding the composition of his cargo, the behavior
of his crew, the identity of his passengers and the itinerary of his ship.
When all of these preliminaries were concluded, the cargo of blacks was
released to the factor or owner, who made arrangements for their care
during a minimum two-week waiting period before customs clearance could
be effected.

28

Occasionally the slaves were taken to yards adjacent to the count

ing house, but usually they went to barracoons or casas negrerias within
the city itself. Sometimes these were compounds next to the city wall,
which used arch-like opening in the walls for shelter. More often the
owner corralled the blacks in the patio of his own home. These homes were
often palatial dwellings.

In Cartagena one belonging to Theadora de Rivera

28

In the l600s the importer and owner was usually the captain of
the vessel that introduced the Negroes. From 1700 to 1789 the importer
was usually a large slave company, whose factor or representative received
the Negroes and made arrangements for their quartering, clearance and sale.

L
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

76

was a high building located on Tezadello Street between the Church of

San Agustin and the sea. The large, walled back yard was evidently con
structed as a barracoon, or, at any irate, it served that purpose well.
Many of these barracoons accommodated two to three hundred Negroes.

29

To the modem mind it might seem unthinkable to have quartered

in a home the wretched, foul-smelling, diseased and surly lot which the
slave ships produced. Yet, in the seventeenth century the practice was
common.

Captain Francisco Caballero had one of these corrals in the rear

of his large house on the main street of Cartagena. There was another in
the house of Captain Granzo next to the convent of San Agustin.

Captain

Gundisalvo Arias had another in his home next to the Plaza de los Gaguyes.
Still another was situated on the main street not far from the Cathedral.
Other merchants of Cartagena whose houses or sentiments would not accom
modate Negroes so near, locked them in barracoons inside the city walls,
separated from, but usually nearby, their houses.
Cartagena had at least twenty-four of these slave houses in the
first half of the seventeenth century. Although a few were scattered
throughout the city, the center of the black commerce and its slave pens
were located in the citys Santo Domingo and Santa Clara districts just
inside the wall adjacent to the wharf.

The wretched processions of newly-

arrived Negroes making their way to the pens were undoubtedly pitiful
spectacles. Leaving the wharf, the gaunt, naked and sickly Negroes entered

2^Valtierra, 1st ed., p. 2k2.

^Ibid., pp. 2k0-k3} Valtierra, 2nd ed., pp. 13335^ 319*

L
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

i
77

the city through the main gates and hobbled through the streets to reach
the barracoons. The very sick and dying were piled into carts which
accompanied the grim column. 31
For nearly fifty years the Jesuits met these cargoes and accom
panied them to the barracoons, carrying with them fresh fruit and medicine
for the slaves. The Jesuits were probably also responsible for the sec
tion along the wall'known, as el Capitolio where a few provisional enclosures
served as a crude infirmary for newly arrived Negroes and local invalids.

32

The world of the seventeenth century, with its meager knowledge of

the nature and cause of disease, saw little harm in permitting new Negroes
intimate contact with the city. Consequently, the quartering of new
Negroes in Spanish towns was generally practiced in many parts of the
Americas at least until the eighteenth century. Not until 1735 did the
important slave port of Jamaica, the chief supplier of Negroes to the
Spanish mainland, propose its first quarantine act.33 In seventeenthcentury Cartagena even the most distant barracoons could not have been
more than ten to fifteen blocks from the center of the city.

Slave mer

chants of Lima, too, were accustomed to bringing fresh blacks into the
heart of town where, until 1630 , they were lodged in crowded quarters,
probably similar to those of Cartagena.

3!+

To the Spaniards, this practice

^Valtierra, 2nd ed., pp. 131-35> 320-21.

32
Ibid., p. 132; Valtierra, 1st ed., p. 2^2.
^Colonial Archive of Jamaica, Colonial Dispatches, Jamaica to
England, Box 1, Maj. Gen. Robert Hunter, Governor, to the Lords of Trade
and Plantation (1732).
3^Bcwser, p. 92 .

L
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

78

waa thought to be free of hazard because the health inspection was in

tended to prevent dangerously ill slaves from landing in town. Moreover,
after 1680, the very ill had been screened out in some refreshment center
such as Jamaica.
Because the health inspection did not really serve its purpose,
health conditions and mortality often became worse in the barracoons than
on the ships. Epidemics in the pens were common. Dysentery and smallpox
were the most frequent and took a heavy toll. The atmosphere of the bar
racoons during these epidemics was so fetid that even dedicated Jesuits
could, not stand to enter.Father Sandoval was astonished that any slaves
survived their stay in the pens. Besides dysentery and smallpox, pneu
monia, fever, typhoid and measles claimed many victims as well. A common
disease of the barracoons was what Sandoval called "incurable loanda,"
probably scurvy, which swelled the body, rotted the gums and caused sudden
death.^
Living conditions in the pens were little better than those of the
ship. Each barracoon had two great cabin-like structures that served as
sleeping quarters for the blacks, one for men and one for women. These
were damp, thick-walled structures, undoubtedly constructed of adobe, in
which crude tiers of sleeping platforms had been erected of rough planks.
The Negroes were herded into these for the night, after which the only
entrance, a small door, was bolted. A small, high window provided the
only ventilation, and sanitary facilities, if any, consisted simply of tubs.

^^Valtierra, 1 st ed., pp. 2k2, 2k0.

^Sandoval, pp. 108-09.

L
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

~i
79

Hopelessly incurable slaves spent their remaining hours in these fetid

cabins.

Owners thought it was useless to waste effort, time or medica

tion on them. The blacks were confined by their condition to the crude
sleeping platforms "amist that misery and ill fortune and there . . . eaten
by flies they finally die." Sandoval understandably believed neglect to
be a greater cause of death in the pens than illness.3?
Physicians of Lima complained that the crowding of Negroes into
cramped quarters under such conditions caused whatever diseases were present
among them to spread.

38

Such a charge was as true for Cartagena as it was

for Lima. Even when there was no epidemic, or even contagious disease, the
condition of the slaves in the pens was desperate.
Sores, wounds and ulcers were extremely common, and complications
caused by gangrene and flies were serious.

On one occasion, a fellow Jesuit

accompanied Sandoval to the door of a room where the sick were confined.
At first he could not bring himself to enter, for even from a distance he
could see "their bodies, the sustenance of flies and maggots, so ulcerated
and oozing pus and matter. e . ." Although Sandoval finally persuaded his
companion to help administer the sacraments, the mans experience in the
squalor, filth and stench was so traumatic that he never returned to the
slave pens. He contented himself from then on, as Sandoval regretfully
observed, "to preach the glories of those who were engaged in this work."

39

^Ibid., pp. 108-11; Valtierra, 2nd ed., p. 131; Carlos Betancur

Arias, "La esclavitud en Colombia," Universidad Pontificia Bolivariana,
XVL (Medellin, Mayo-Julio, 1959); 212.
^Bowser, p. 92.
^Sandoval, pp. 108-109; Valtierra, 1st ed., p. 236 .

L
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

80

Claver was accustomed, by years of experience to the most nause

ating scenes, yet one time in the patio of a rich slave merchant, in the
dim light of an obscure comer, when he saw the miserable object of his
visit, even Claver fainted. The slave apparently was nearly consumed by
gaping, infected and gangrenous ulcers. He had been separated from the
rest of the blacks and abandoned because no one could stand to see or to
smell him.^
If a slave survived the disease and squalor of the pens and if his
masters neglect did not kill him, ironically his owners good intentions
often did. Most importers hoped to fatten the slave for sale in the
pens, but often the very abundance of food after the privation and hard
ships of the voyage served only to sicken him, "as if it were a plague,"
so that in a few days the whole troop of Negroes became "inflamed." Neg
roes in barracoons owned by relatively poor men usually fared better than
those belonging to wealthy merchants, since the personal attention of the
poorer merchant, whose only concern was the Negroes, usually saved more of
them. The wealthy merchant, on the other hand, was so involved in his many
concerns that he left the blacks to the care of an employee, whose neglect
often cost many lives. Sandoval alleged that the problems caused by improper
feeding and improper food together with the general neglect of overseers,
"converts the house and its contents into a hospital of sick men from
which they people the cemetery."

1+1

The great mortality among the Negroes in these pens caused the
Jesuit Provincial to require all members of his order making these visits

^Valtierra, 1st ed., p. 2^+8 ; Sandoval, pp. 105-110, 307"309*

^Sandoval, pp. 108-109.

L
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

81

to carry with them at all times the holy oil and other essentials for
administering last rites.

k2

Except for this attention by the church,

however, dead and dying Negroes were of little worth or concern to most
people of the time.

Sandoval recalled having been called to administer

last rites to a slave, and upon his arrival he found the slave already
dead, lying in the middle of a patio, where many people weremilling about.
"He was naked, lying face down, swarming with flies. People took no more
notice of him than if he had been a dog." Sandoval on another occasion
came upon two dead blacks lying stark naked on the ground, "as if they
were beasts." Nevertheless, by Sandovals time, the care of the dead had
improved considerably. In former years merchants left bodies of Negroes
in patios or corrals where they happened to fall, not even piling the dead
in one place.

By Sandoval's day it had become common among most slave

merchants to wrap the bodies in reusable reed matting and throw them into
a comer until they could be carted away for burial.^
The quartering of slaves in towns, with all its attendant problems,
was probably more common in the seventeenth century than the eighteenth.
In Lima, even before 1630, the city fathers recommended building a lodging
for newly arrived Negroes out of town across the Rimac River near the
slaughter house, a site well situated for the wind to carry the "corrupted
1)4
air" away from the town.
Cartagena, at least as late as 163b, had not
taken similar steps, although by the beginning of the next century the
practice of quartering slaves in Spanish American cities was probably

'Valtierra, 1st ed., p. 237

'Sandoval, pp. 108-110

"Bowser, p. 92

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

r
82

modified if not discontinued. The assiento treaty of 1713 (see note 3),
which granted the slave trade to England until nearly raid-century, autho
rized the rental of land in the environs of port cities:
For the refreshing and preserving in Health the Negro Slaves
which they shall import into the West Indies after so long and
painful Voyage, and to prevent any Contagious Illness or Distemper
amongst them, the Factors of this Assiento shall be allowed to
hire such Parcels of Land as they shall think fit in the neighbor
hood of the Places where the Factories shall be Established in order
to Cultivate the said Lands, and make Plantations, in which they
may raise fresh Provisions for their Relief and Subsistence . . . .
(Art. XXXV)
The British introduced Negroes into Cartagena in unprecedented
numbers, and in order to obtain more ample facilities, as well as to pre
vent disease, they likely kept them on these outlying farms. Regardless
of where the barracoons were located, however, slaves were retained in
them for the two-week period stipulated by law before they were to be
evaluated for the payment of customs duties. The waiting period was de
signed primarily to protect the slave merchant, since he was exempt from
paying duty on any slave who died during that time.

(Art. XXIV) Perhaps

the interim was also intended to protect the buyer and general public as
well, for it was expected that any latent disease would manifest itself
by the end of two weeks.

Such an interval also allowed an opportunity

for the slaves to recover from the voyage, for their sores to heal and
for the sick to be nursed back to health so that buyers could better judge
the value of the blacks.

It provided time to put on flesh and to gain

strength for the inland trek which many of the slaves would make soon
after purchase. This waiting period proved to be advantageous even for
the King, since customs duties on a healthy slave could be several times
as great as those on an unhealthy slave.

L
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

-i
83
After two weeks had passed, the factor or owner notified the

governor in writing and requested that he conduct the curious customs

clearance called the palmeo which meant to measure in palmos, a Spanish
unit of length equivalent to eight and one-half inches or a quarter of a

vara.

The palmeo was an exacting medical examination upon which custom

duties for slaves were hased. The governor notified the royal officials
and the surgeon and fixed a date for the proceedings.

On the appointed

day the governor, the surgeon, the royal officials and the factor or owner
met in the royal counting house.

In the presence of a scribe, who recorded

the entire proceedings, they took the royal brand (coronilla) from the
strong box where it was securely locked, customarily under three locks
with the keys being in possession of different officials. The royal mark
was a capital R surmounted by a crown, both of which were fashioned from
a single piece of heavy silver wire. The officials also took from its
place in the counting house the official standard (liston) to be used in
measuring the slaves.

It was a wooden measuring stick slightly over six

feet in length divided by graduations into palmos.

Sometimes Negroes were brought to the counting house for the palmeo,
as was common in Portobelo.

Other times officials met in the counting

house only to assure the presence of necessary officials and to obtain

il-5

The vara was a unit of measure equivalent to 1 yard. See Real

Academia Espanola, Diccionairo de la lengua. castellana, 3rd ed. (Madrid,
1791) Local practices, however, gave it varying equivalents ranging
from 30.2 inches to 35-9 inches (.7 6 8 meters to .912 meters). See Inter
national Critical Tables of Numerical Data, Physics, Chemistry and Tech
nology, ed. Edward . Washburn and others (New York, International Research
Council, 1926), p. 12. In the measurement of slaves a vara of 3^ inches
was used and was divided into palmos or fourths of 8g- inches each. See
fold-out, schematic reproduction in AHNC, Negros y esclavos de Panamd II,
fol. 352 (1751).

L
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

i
814.

the hrand and the standard. From the counting house they went to the
barracoons to conduct the palmeo. When the slaves had been quarantined,
the palmeo was conducted in the place of quarantine.
The palmeo was usually conducted in the following manner.

Slaves

who were well enough to stand on their feet and to withstand being branded
were divided into four groups according to size and approximate age:
piezas de indias, adults of seven palmos (5 ,0 ") or more; mulecones, ado
lescents of about six palmos ( V 3 ") or more; muleq.ues, older children of
about five palmos (3 !6 ") or more:
b6

four palmos (210").

and mulequitos, young children of about

The slaves were then subdivided into male and

female groups in each of these four categories.

Children under four palmos

were considered as babes in arms and apparently were not measured in the
palmeo nor considered as dutiable imports.
There was considerable flexibility in these groupings. A slave
measuring less than seven palmos in height but obviously an adult was, of
course, still grouped with the adults.

Classification of children was

especially flexible. Teen-aged slaves from thirteen to sixteen years of

age, averaging in height from six palmos ( V 3 1' to the height of an adult)
were classed as mulecones. Boys and girls from eight to twelve years
of age and from five to six palmos in height (3 '6 " to 4*2") were classed
as muleques or mulecas, while children under eight years of age but tall
enough to measure from four and five palmos (2 *10 " to 3 '5 ") were considered
mulequitos. Physical development, of course, influenced the classification.

k6

If these heights seem excessively low, it might be pointed out

that the average European of the same day measured only 5'6 ". See C. D.
Haagensen and E. B. Lloyd, A Hundred Years of Medicine (New York, 19^3);
p. 171.

L
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

i
85

If a "boy measured four and one-half palmos but was frail and underdeveloped,
he was classed as a mulequito, while a husky, well-developed hoy of the
same height and age was generally classed as a muleque.
Once this rough classification had been completed, the surgeon
went to each group with the standard and measured each of the Negroes in
it, adding up the total number of palmos in each lot as he went. Thus, a
group of twenty girls (mulecas) might have as few as ninety-one or as many
as one hundred ten palmos. The surgeon went from group to group until
the entire cargo had been measured.

Once he determined the total measure

ment in palmos for each group, he revisited each group and thoroughly ex
amined each Negro for illnesses and defects. Each Negro was then figur
atively docked or reduced in stature according to the degree of damage
caused by his illness or defect. Most surgeons, however, probably with
an eye to increasing the Kings revenues, did not dock heavily even for
serious and incurable ailments which almost totally disabled the slaves.
For diseases such as advanced leprosy or mental illness, surgeons usually
docked only one to two palmos. For serious but curable diseases such as
dysentery they usually deducted one palrno. Docking was correspondingly
less severe for less serious defects. For a very bad hernia slaves were
docked as much as one-half palmo or more, while for minor hernias they
were docked only one-fourth palmo or less. For skin diseases surgeons
usually took off a quarter to a half palmo, and for minor defects, such
as the loss of a finger, they figuratively reduced the stature only onelt-7
eighth of a palmo. When the medical evaluation was finished, the surgeon
^Private microfilm collection filmed in the Archivo General de
Indias in Seville, Spain, property of Dr. Jose Rafael Arboleda, Dept, of
Anthropology, Universidad Pontificia Javeriana, Botota, Colombia. See
Rolls 3 , 4, 5 . Used by permission.

L
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

n
86

calculated the total palmos docked for each group and subtracted them
from each groups total measurement in palmos to leave the "effective
stature" in palmos. After the total number of "effective palmos" had
been determined for the whole cargo, it was divided by seven to find
the number of "pieces" (piezas de indias) or head of prime slaves. That
figure was multiplied by the duty chargeable per "piece" to find the
amount of duty the importer would pay.

For example, in a shipment of

206 slaves introduced by the Ruiz Assiento, duty was paid on only 1^5
and 3/7 head (l^5 piezas and three palmos), the number of "effective
head" the cargo was reduced to after the palmeo had taken into account
the children and the illnesses and defects of the cargo.

18

Slaves too

sick to stand at the time of palmeo were reserved for a second palmeo
and even a third if necessary.

Subsequent palmeos were arranged by the

factor as soon as the remaining group of slaves or a portion of it was

well enough to undergo the procedure.
Two series of palmeo records have been found.

One consisted of

palmeo records for seven ships of the Grillo Assiento at Cartagena

between the years of 1663 and 167k }

The other consisted of palmeo

records randomly preserved for thirty vessels licensed under successive

assientoes held from 175^- to 1789 .^

Both series were incomplete. The

first series provided detailed medical data, bub other information such
as total number of cargo was lacking. The second series recorded over

I4.8
AHNC, Regros y esclavos de Panama IV, foil. I480-83 (1755).
^Arboleda Collection, rolls 2 and 3*
^Ruiz, Frier, Arechederreta, Valdehoyos and Aguirre Assientoes.
See AHNC, Regros y esclavos del Cauca IV, foil. Ilv-l6v (1765), 25-31v
(1757), 35-^Ov (1757), ^8-56v (1758), 59-65 (1760), 68-85 (1757), 93-11^

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

a century later gave numerical data but was lacking in medical detail.
In the latter series scribes simply noted that an entire group of slaves,
or an entire cargo, was reduced for "defects and disease," or for "hernias,
leprosy, and defects," so that even when specific complaints were known,
it was impossible to determine how many slaves had those complaints.

In

the first series each slave was listed with his particular defect or ailment.

In this series 650 Negroes were docked for 737 complaints.

51

TABLE 1
a
PALMEO OF 205 NEGROES OF THE ENGLISH FRIGATE LA PALAS (PALACE?)

Head

Class

52
15

Negroes
Negras
Mulecones
Mulecas
Muleques
Mulequitas
Mulequitos

20
8
28

38
1+0

201b

Total
Palmos
361+
105
123
50
173

Docked
1+1+
9 1/2
12 1/2

172

18 1 /1+
15 1/2

191

19

1178

123 3/1+

Effective Piezas de Indias

Palmos
Piezas, Palmos
320

95 1/2
110 1/2

1+5
151+ 3/1+
156 1 /2
172

105I+ 1 /1+

1+5
13
15
6
22
22
21+

150

5
1+ 1 /2
5 1 /2

3
3/1*
2 1 /1+
1+

1+ 1 /1+

aTaken from AHNC, Negros of esclavos del Cauca IV, foil. 101-111+.
b
Two died before palmeo and two were measured later.

(1758-1760); Negros y esclavos del Magdalena IV, foil. i+lO- 31 (1769); Negros
y esclavos de Panam I, foil. 13I+-I+3 (1767), II, foil. 576-91* (1776), 599602 (1776), 620-58 (1778), 915-1+5 (1751); III, foil. 153-59 (1769) 181-91+v
(1760-1761), 20b 09 (1758-1760), 500-18 (1752-1753), 526-27v (1751), 55861+v (1769), 652-57v (1771); IV, foil. I+7I+-83 (175^-1755), 1*92-97 (1756),
510-H+v (1786), 539-1+7 (1769), 816-19 (1768-1771), 827-30 (176^), 836-39v
(1765), 81+5-1*8 (175!*); Miscelanea CXLVI, 1+27-31 (1761+-).
53T?he total number of Negroes involved in these seven palmeos is
not known. The maximum number must have been less than 5,600 since very
few ships of the day carried more than 800 Negroes. A more likely cargo

L
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

-+

~1

86
Palmeo records from the first series revealed a wide variety of
complaints among incoming Negroes. While a large number of slaves was
vaguely classified by medical officers as being "sick," "old," "weak,"
or "dying," surgeons were usually more specific in their diagnosis. The
most frequent complaint was hernia.

It was registered nearly five times

as often as other ailments. Dysentery and fevers ranked second in fre

quency. Complaints of permanent disability--such as paralysis, lameness,
amputations--were very common too, as were temporary injuries. Impaired
vision was surprisingly common among the slaves and was due almost en
tirely to cloudy lenses (nubes) and to a medical condition known as
pterygium (unas en los o.jos) in which a patch of opaque tissue gradually
extended over the clear cornea. Skin diseases, taken as a group, were
among the most common complaints for which slaves were docked by port
officials. Nearly one-third of these skin ailments was identified simply
as "spots" (manchas) or "spots of ugly humor" (manchas de humor feo). In
some cases colonial medical men identified these spots as symptoms of
frush or as a disease called "salty phlegm" (flema salada). Probably,
however, the symptoms were the purplish spots caused by scurvy which
apparently were visible even on black and brown skins. Negroes having
these spots were introduced directly from Africa without being refreshed

was 300-^-00 per vessel, which could reduce the estimated total to 21002800. The first ship carried a cargo of 3IH of which 17$ was docked
in the palmeo. If the same percentage were docked in all seven ships
(perhaps an unreliable assumption but better than none), it would indi
cate that a total of 3,365 slaves was brought in the seven ships, or ^80
per ship, a not unreasonable figure; perhaps the best estimate is about
3,000.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

-1

89

in the Antilles, and scurvy would certainly have "been among them. Such
spots were never mentioned among Negroes introduced hy later assientoes
after refreshment became the general practice.
Some common European diseases were absent among the slaves. The
virtual absence of venereal and respiratory diseases could be expected,
since both were relatively infrequent in Africa.

52

Cases of mental

illness, however, were noted with surprising rarity in view of the fact
that despondency and madness were major health problems during the Middle
Passage and in the guinea yards of the English slave trade a few decades
later.

53

Little mention of intestinal worms is also surprising, for this

ailment was very common in Africa.

The documents do not tell what proportion of the cargo was male
or female, but over seventy-one percent of the slaves that were docked were
male.

Several diseases were distributed disproportionately between males

and females. For instance, ninety-three percent of all hernias occurred

in men. Eye complaints and dropsy were also proportionally more frequent
among men than women, while skin disease, dysentery and fevers were pro
portionally more common among women.

Rudolph Hoeppli, Parasitic Diseases in Africa and the Western

Hemisphere: Early Documentation and Transmission by the Slave Trade
(Basel, 19^9 ), pp. 98-IO9 ; Phillip Manson-Bahr, Manson*s Tropical Dis
eases, l6th ed. (Baltimore, 1966), p. 531; Philip Curtin, "Epidemiology
and the Slave Trade," Political Science Quarterly, LXXXIII (June, 1968),
210.
53
Great Britain, House of Commons, An Abstract of the Evidence
Delivered before a Select Committee of the House of Commons in the Years
1790 and 1791 on Part of the Petitioners for the Abolition of the Slave
Trade (London, 1 7 9 l), p. ^9

L
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

TABLE 2

NUMBER OF NEGROES LANDED AT CARTAGENA BY GRILLO ASSIENTO COMPANY

HAVING VARIOUS DISEASES AND DISABILITIES, 1663-167!+
Men

Gastrointestinal Diseases:

Eye Diseases:

Genitourinary Diseases:

Mouth and Throat Diseases:

Neurophysiciatric Diseases:

Heart Disease:
Endocrine Disease:
Respiratory Disease:
Miscellaneous Diseases:

Scrofula
Tuberculosis
"Sick," "Weak," and
"Dying"
"Old"
"Fever"
TOTAL...........

121

5*+
30

28

82

13

^3
19
27I+

11

1I
O
J

Skin Diseases:

Hernia
Permanent Disability
Temporary Injury
Deformity
TOTAL ............
Pinta
Ulcers
Yaws
Leprosy
Growths
Smallpox
Rashes & Irritations
Warts
Frush
Fleghm (Flema)
Unas en Las Manos
Hober'o de Las Manos
Ugly Humor
Spots
TOTAL...........
Dysentery
Liver Trouble
TOTAL
Total Blindness
Impaired Vision
TOTAL ............
Venereal Disease
Dropsy
TOTAL............
Swollen Mouth
Missing Teeth
TOTAL............
Mentally Defective
Mentally 111
TOTAL............

5B

130

2
21
2
2
8

13
1
1
1+

3
31

3
15

3
13
1
6

36

12
6
1+6
1

16

3
15

l
9
51
25
207

li+8
1+0

23
2

1+0

3^3
3

1+

03

Musculoskeletal Diseases:

Woman Total

63
2

25
1

ll+
15
1

22
22
1
1
2

I
6

3
3

1
60
1

27
28
1
1+
P
1
2

1
2
2

1
2

2
1
1

1
1

15
5
1?
31
?

13
7
30
^0

28
12

1+5
8?

L
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

91

Comparisons between ships indicate that over half of the eye com
plaints occurred among Negroes from a single vessel and ninety percent
of the dysentery was distributed among the cargoes of three of the seven
ships. More than half of the physical defects were found among Negroes
of only two vessels, and one-third of the ulcers, wounds and injuries
occurred among the blacks in one vessel only. Perhaps these statistics
indicate that a series of seven palmeos is too few on which to base
generalities worthy of confidence. On the other hand, these ailments
might prove to be more or less equally represented in each ship, if the
number of the respective cargoes were known.
It is true, however, that conditions varied from ship to ship and
were reflected in the palmeo. The palmeos of some ships, for instance,
indicate unusual cruelty; one ship listed no less than forty blacks with
injuries and disabilities apparently caused by ill treatment, while only
f ourteen slaves had diseases or disabilities not associated with mistreat
ment.

In most cases these injuries probably occurred during the voyage,

since every attempt was made not to buy defective slaves in Africa.
The second series of palmeo records tells very little about speci
fic diseases that came with the Negroes but it does tell much about the
morbidity and mortality rate among them.

Only occasionally did ships

bring their cargoes in such good shape that all the blacks were measured
5!).
in the first palmeo (Dios Mercurio).
Even after two weeks some vessels
like La Fortuna still had over a quarter or more of their cargoes too ill
to submit to the first palmeo.^

On the average, though, at the end of

AHNC, Negros y esclavos de Panama III, fol. 500 (1751)*

55Ibid., IV, foil. 1^-77 (1755).

L
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

n
92

the two-week waiting period, before the palmeo only four percent of the
Negroes was still too sick to he measured.. In this small group a second.
palmeo was held, two to three weeks later^ though for some vessels it was
\

necessary to wait as long as two months or more before the second palmeo
to sufficiently overcome the ravages of epidemics. Often a handful of
slaves (.856) was too ill even to be included in the second palmeo. In
such cases a third palmeo was arranged usually about two weeks later.
Palmeo records after 1750 reflect the improved conditions of the
slave trade and the wisdom of the policy of refreshment. The seventeenth
century accounts of Sandoval and others testified of a frightening mor
tality among slaves in the Cartagena guinea pens, which probably was not
less than ten percent.

Palmeo records a century and a half later, however,

indicate that deaths at sea enroute to the mainland from refreshment

centers were negligible (.^) and that only one slave in a hundred died in
the pens before palmeo. Under the improved conditions of the late eight
eenth century the international slave trade showed a corresponding drop in
slave mortality. Declining mortality was most conspicuous in the English
trade which accounted for about one-half of the world slave trade. Within
a century mortality at sea on English slavers fell from about twenty-four
percent where it had climbed by 1680 to perhaps as little as five percent
in 1789 . Although another five percent still died in West Indian guinea
yards.

56

Thus, by 1750, due to improving conditions, mortality had almost

vanished in the ten-day voyage from refreshment centers to the Spanish

mainland and in its guinea pens and had been sharply curtailed in the

^K. G. Davies, The Royal African Company (London, 1957); P* 292;

H. Harold Scott, A History of Tropical Medicine Based on the Fitzpatrick
Lectures Delivered Before the Royal College of Physicians of London,. 1937"
[38 (2 vols., London, 1939);
; 993*
_]

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

r
TABLE 3

MORBIDITY AND MORTALITY AS INDICATED IN PAIMEO RECORDS

FOR SHIPS OF VARIOUS ASSIENTO COMPANIES, 175l*-1789

Ship

No. in No. in No. in No. in Deaths Deaths

Cargo First
Second Third
in
in
Palmeo Palmeo Palmeo Voyage Yard

RUIZ ASSIENTO
Joven Eduardo
Southern Hero
Dios Mercurio
Raplay
Isabel y Maria
FRIER ASSIENTO
Murcury
La Esperanza
Murcury
Paquete de Cork
Kingston
Kingston
Pitt

1*30
lf-27
*H5
11*8
20**

150
2.21
1**2

1U9
186

33?a

20l*
100

ARECHEDERRETA ASSIENTO
La Vivora
225
La Palas
205
100
La Vivora
11
Las Angustias
San Fernando
78.
VALDCHOYOS ASSIENTO
Sampson
Sampson
Pheonix
AGUIRRE & AUISTIGUE
El Carmen
La Industria
La Feliz
San Marcos
La Fenix
El Galgo
San Juan
El Cdrraen
Santa Barbara
GRAND TOTAL

!97b
200
198

k lk
1*12

15

365
ll*8

1*3

19k
ll*0

8
10

219
138
120

175
321*
179
95.. .
218
203

97

12

3
6

1
2'

2
2

2
20
10

9
1
1

13
8
2

11

3
n
0

1*

3
2
2

76

170
187
182

23

1*

12
12

i*

ASSIENTO

251

188
11*6
202
228

116

98

70
21+9

62
21*1
212
86

200

150
228

220

115
59?7

5.527

,7

10

12

3
3

1
1

7
7
I*

1*

3
5

3
3
..50

19

1
2
2

26

79

7
1*

21*1

11

aIncludes three slaves donated to the royal service who were not
measured and who do not appear in any of the categories.
b
Includes one slave not measured because she was mad.

L
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

n
9^
international slave trade as well.
Much of the mortality in either century was caused hy conditions
of the long Middle Passage from Africa to America. The voyage to
seventeenth-century Cartagena of Clavers day before refreshment came
into practice had been even longer and more disastrous for the slaves
than was the voyage to the West Indies. The policy of refreshment after
1680 shortened the voyage by cutting off the last two or three weeks,

the portion of the voyage in which illness and death were proportionally
the highest. After 1680 the much shorter voyage to the mainland was
usually made after the slaves had overcome the worst effects of the
Atlantic crossing.

57

Of course, the trade to the mainland after 1680

became increasingly an extension of the English slave trade and shared

its mortality.

Consequently, slaves which had formerly died in Cartagena

and Portobelo now died in Jamaica, though in greatly reduced numbers.

Nevertheless, the net result of improving conditions and the practice of
refreshment was a gradual but significant decline in mortality after
1680 that within a century had drastically reduced the number of deaths.

Better conditions and refreshment also benefited slave buyers in the

Spanish colonies who as a result bought generally healthier slaves and
consequently faced considerably fewer risks to personal health and fortune.
The transactions involved in landing and processing new slaves in
Spanish ports reveal the deplorable health conditions among arriving
blacks.

Until the l680s, the ships arriving in Spanish ports lost nearly

57
'There was a marked increase in mortality at sea and in the yards
under the Aguirre Assiento, which used Puerto Rico instead of Jamaica as
a refreshment center. It lay twice as far from the Main as did Jamaica.
See Table 3, p. 93 .

L
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

95

one-third of their Negroes in the Middle Passage from adverse conditions

and from diseases such as scurvy, dysentery, measles, smallpox, typhus
and others. Probably another one-tenth of the blacks died in the slave
pens of the mainland from similar causes. These transactions also in
dicate the suffering caused by less fatal diseases such as yaws, ulcers,
eye infections as well as physical disabilities and injuries. Aside from
the death and misery of the slaves themselves, the white inhabitants of
the port cities were repeatedly subjected to devastating epidemics by the
disease-ridden blacks who disembarked on their wharfs. While gradually
improving conditions in the slave trade curbed the mortality and allevi
ated some of the suffering for some of the blacks, ahead of each of them
was the day of sale and for most an exhausting and hazardous trek into
the interior.

L
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

CHAPTER V
CARTAGENA AND BEYOND

After the palmeo, customs duties were calculated. The royal brand
was heated in a spirit flame and touched to the right breast of each Negro
to mark him indelibly as legally entered. The slaves were turned over to
the owner or factor, who was then free to sell them. The crown usually
did not allow representatives of assiento companies to reside in the in
terior, so the marketing and distribution of slaves were left to another
group of slavers--Spaniards and creoles who bought slaves in the Cartagena
slave mart and distributed them throughout the Yiceroyalty and throughout
the Indies. This royal policy became less rigid after 1713, and the
British assiento company (1713-1739) made sporadic attempts to maintain
factors in principal cities of the Indies. They attempted to supply these
men from Cartagena either by shipping slaves to them by water or by having
blacks driven inland from the port for their factors to sell. This practice,
however, was the exception rather than the rule, for most companies pre
ferred to sell their cargoes wholesale soon after landing to avoid the
bother and expense of maintenance as well as the risk of death before sale.
Importers usually disposed of their slaves in a few large lots, ranging
in size from twenty to two or three hundred blacks.^ These sales, in fact,

^Rolando Mellafe, La esclavitud en Hispanoamerica (Buenos Aires,

196M, PP* 60-66; Alonzo de Sandoval, De Instauranda Aethiopum Salute:
El mundo de la esclavitud negra en America (Botot, 1956), p. *t23.
96

L
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

~i
97

often took place even before the palmeo, in which case the buyer was
2

responsible for the palmeo and paid the customs duty.

These buyers

usually sold smaller groups of slaves to lesser merchants as well as to

the public so that it was not uncommon for a newly imported slave in
Cartagena to change hands three or four times in rapid succession.
Sometimes ranchers and miners bought slaves and took them inland
either for resale or to work on their own haciendas or mines.

Other times

the buyers were merchants who took the blacks to their own slave pens for
resale in Cartagena. These pens, usually the patios of their own homes,
were similar to those described earlier. Sometimes slaves were corralled
in the casements of the San Lucas and Santa Catalina sections of Cartagenas
wall.

In any case, they probably waited only a few days at most before

they were sold.

It is probable that the same cramped conditions prevailed

in these retail pens, for even though slaves were often sold in smaller
lots, the buyers were lesser merchants with smaller houses. Despite over
crowding, the general aspect of the blacks was no doubt improved after the
palmeo. The two weeks had allowed rest and recuperation, the very ill had
died and, consequently a source of contagion and misery had been removed.
The slaves were now in smaller lots and usually under the more judicial
and attentive personal care of the owner rather than an overseer.
Before the palmeo an importer found little incentive to clean, clothe
and care for his blacks, since good appearance would only result in higher

Archivo Historico Nacional de Colombia (hereafter AHNC), Negros

y esclavos del Magdalena IV, foil. 385-86 (1750).
^Sandoval, pp. 108-09; James F. King, "Slavery in New Granada,"
Greater America: Essays in Honor of Herbert Eugene Bolton (Berkeley, 19^5),
p. 308; Gustavo Arboleda,Historia de Cali desde los ongenes de la cuidad
hasta la expiracion del periodo colonial, 3 vols. (CaliT 1956), II, 22.

L
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

n
98
customs appraisal. After the palmeo, however, the situation changed

radically. Every device was employed to trim and groom the slaves so they
would bring high prices. The barracoon became a hive of activity. A
contemporary observer described some of the preparations:
They fill them with drugs in order to make the skin lucid.
They coat them with gun powder; they rub them with oil and lemon
juice. To conceal the slaves age they shave his beard, for they
know that the ideal slave is a boy of fifteen.
These preparations completed, the day of sale was advertised either
by printed notices posted throughout the city or simply by word of mouth.
The slave market in Cartagena opened at daybreak. Business was conducted
in the open air at the foot of the city wall in a space surrounded by
temporary barraeoons, and caldrons of boiling water were always kept on
the fire to be used in case of an uprising.^ Each barracoon was divided
by stockades into one or more pens in which slaves were corralled:
Upon the arrival of buyers, the overseers cracked their whips-at those who were called fouet or musinga /Interpreter?/in slave
trade jargon--and they made the shaven, naked Negroes, annointed
with oil, trot, dance, sing, speak, and laugh. From a platform
of planks, the overseer of the factories sounded a trumpet and cried
the excellence of each piece of ebony which came near the prospec
tive buyer. Among the buyers were monks, priests, and officials of
uniform. At times there were ladies of rank and quality who had no
scruples about scrutinizing the most private parts of those unhappy
slaves as if they were examining cattle or horses. They parted
with their pride and began to examine the Negroes minutely, feeling
their muscles, touching to their tongue a finger moistened with
sweat (for in^the flavor of the sweat is known the health of the
Negro). . . .

Valtierra, 1st ed., p. 6 , citing Fernando Ortiz, Los negros

esclavos (Havana, 1916).
^Alberto Miramdn, ,:Los negrero del Caribe," Boletin de Historia y
Antigugdades (hereafter BHA),> XXXI, No. 351 (Feb., 19^)> 180-82.
6Ibid.

L
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

Experienced "buyers knew they could not he too careful in making

their purchases. They were at least vaguely aware of the terrible con
dition of the ships and the pens. They knew that if blackswere not in
good health, strenuous

efforts had been made to cover uptheirillness

and defects. Before purchasing any slave they carefully inspected eyes,
ears, teeth, fingers, skin, breasts and genitals and tried to assure them
selves of the absence of chronic diseases and impediments to normal movement.
Most buyers made the slaves cough in order to check for hernias, and even
devised ways to test for mental alertness. Veteran buyers, not to be de
ceived about the age of supposedly young Negroes, looked for cuts and felt
the face for recently shaven whiskers.
passed the tongue over

In suspicious cases they even

7
the slaves chin to be certain.

When the buyer had selected his purchases he:

Brought them to the center of the market for branding where a
man stood before hot coals. At his side attached to a table stand
ing vertically in the earth was an alphabet of iron. Upon the ar
rival of the Negro, he took with some long pincers, the letter
that the buyer selected and heated it. Meanwhile, he rubbed the
Negroes left breast, just above the nipple, with tallow, covered
the spot with an oiled paper and gently applied the red iron. . . .
The slave wag marched away by the overseer, and another took his
place. . . .
Whether the sale was transacted by slave companies at the port or
by itinerant slave merchants in the interior, slaves were usually sold
"with all their qualities bad and good, soul in mouth, and bag of bones,
excepting only gota coral, otherwise called heart trouble.This legal
^Valtierra, 1st ed., p. 6 .
^Miramon, EH&, XXXI, No. 351, l8l-82.
9See any "venta de esclavo" in any colonial notary. A particularly
good example is found in the Archivo Historico del Departmento de Antioquia
(hereafter AHDA), Colonia. CXV (Temporalidades), doc. 32^0, (1733)* Printed
bills of sale can be found in Miramdn, BHA, XXXI, No. 351, 1^3, and Arboleda, Historia de Cali, II, 22-23.

L
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

100

jargon was used in most sales, especially of bozal slaves or recently

arrived, unseasoned Negroes, though sometimes bills of sale for creole
slaves of long residence in the Indies were more specific concerning de
fects or expressly guaranteed their absence. The phrase was intended to
mean that slaves were bought at the buyer's risk.

Spanish law, however,

did not honor such clauses and provided for redhibition (redhibitoria),
the annulment of sale and the return of the "defective" slave in cases of
fraud or bad faith.

Simply stated, the law provided that "when the seller

hides an evil which he knows about and the buyer, if he knew of it would
not buy that which is sold, the contract is null and void. . . , " 10
This law was not intended to protect a buyer who knowingly acquired
a sick slave; but it did allow redress if he bought a sick slave who had
been intentionally misrepresented as being in good health.^ It was pos
sible that a seller might not know of a slaves defects, and in the absence
of malicious intent there were no grounds for redhibition. Thus, a man
who bought a slave, later found to be mad, lost his case for redhibition,
since the seller knew nothing of the condition at time of sale and had

.
12
acted m good faith.
Occasionally suits arose over trivial defects. One buyer sued
when he found his new slave to have the defect of wetting the bed; sur13
prisingly enough he won the case.
Generally, however, the law usually
Archivo Historico Nacional del Ecuador (hereafter AKNE), Real
Audiencia, Gobernaci&i de Popayan, Esclavos, legajo 3; exped. 38, "Autos
de Da. Maria Isidora Sotomayor con Dn. Xavier Arce sobre la venta de un
negro," fol. 1 (1755)
^AHNC, Negros y esclavos de Bolivar IV, fol. 980 (1759)
^AHNE, Esclavos de Gran Colombia, only unnumbered legajo, exped.
2, "Autos de Da. Eusebia Bordero con Luis Franco sobre la venta de un
negro," fol. 6lv (1828).
^AHDA, Colonia XXXI (Esclavos), doc. 992 (1777)

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

n
101

allowed redhibition only for incurable illness, such as heart trouble,

leprosy, elephantiasis or serious defects which impaired the use for
which the slave had been purchased, unless the defects were self-evident
or publicly known at the time of sale.

Ik

Legal action ordinarily was limited to a six-month period follow

ing sale, but it was sometimes interpreted by local judges to mean six
months after the defect became known to the new owner.

15

Consequently,

some redhibition cases were begun as late as eleven years after sale.^
Those who sold slaves, whether slave companies or private indivi
duals, tried to protect themselves from such legal action in a variety of
ways.

Bills of sale almost invariably included the standard phrase:

"sold

with all their infirmities hidden and manifest." The seller thereby ad
vised the buyer that the slave had infirmities and consequently hoped
he would be protected from redhibition on medical grounds except for
epilepsy or heart disease, which the law specifically stated as sufficient
cause.

Slave merchants, especially factors of larger assiento companies,

sometimes tried to protect themselves by stating clearly in the bill of sale

that claims even for epilepsy or heart trouble would be allowed for only

Ik

AHNE, Real Audiencia, Gobemacion de Popayan, Caja 7k, "Autos

entre Francisco Cayetana Nieto Polo y Manuel Vicente Martinez sobre la
resindici<5n del contrato de un negro," (1757)
15Ibid.

^AHNE, Real Audiencia, Gobemacidn de Popayan, Escalvos, Legajo

3, exped. i+3; "Expediente seguido entre Dn. Dr. Francisco Xavier de la
Fita con Dn. Francisco Gomez de la Torre sobre redhibitoria de un esclavo,"
(l80l).

L
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

i
102

17
two months (instead of six) from date of sale.
Since the hill of sale
was signed both by buyer and seller, slave merchants looked upon it as a
binding contract. Many buyers probably believed such clauses were bind
ing on them too.

Consequently, if after purchase, slaves were found to

have some chronic disease, the naive buyer could hardly complain, for he
plainly had bought the slave with all his "infirmities hidden and mani
fest." More sophisticated buyers, however, knew that none of these at
tempts on the part of sellers was respected in Spanish courts. The ju
diciary recognized that such phrases had become the "style" and "blind
custom" in slave sales and therefore did not really serve to alert the
18
buyers to defects.
Regardless of what the bill of sale said or did
not say, any slave sale was subject to redhibitory action for six months
and even longer for virtually any serious defect which had been inten
tionally hidden from the buyer.

If a slave were sick or defective, the

law expected the seller to inform the buyer and lower the price accord
ingly.
If deception was often the rule in the retail slave market, it was
not in the wholesale market. The slave merchants of Cartagena quickly
developed a mutually agreeable understanding in such matters. Merchants
who bought in large lots were usually given a trial period of thirty days
during which slaves could be returned for medical treatment at the expense

17AHDA, Colonia CXV (Temporalidades), doc. 32^-0 (1733) > Miramon,

BHA, XXXI, No. 351, 183.

^AHNE, Real Audiencia, Gobemaci<4n de Popayan, Esclavos, legajo

3, exped. 39; "Autos de Dn. Francisco Ventura Garaycoa con Da. Juana Polid
sobre la redhibitoria de una negra," fol. 3 (1789)

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

103

of the seller or perhaps for credit against future purchases.

This

agreement served both parties well. It saved the buyer the trouble and
expense of a court battle when he bought a defective slave but it also
served the seller by limiting his liability to thirty days. As early as
19
1632 in Cartagena it had become the "custom of the land," and may even

have been used in the retail slave trade. Even among merchants, however,
it was not always respected.

One merchant, for example, Juan Rodriguez

de Mesa, bought thirty head of slaves, four of whom suffered from a col
lective assortment of ills including headaches, fevers, kidney pains,
crippled leg and a condition called bicho.

20

He returned the four sick

slaves but the seller refused to take them back or to cure them, until
ordered to do so by the court.

21

Despite the fraudulent marketing practices of the slave trade and

the seeming utility of redhibitory law, redhibition cases were quite in
frequent. Law suits were costly and slow. Sometimes both litigants died
before the decision was reached, and many buyers, even though they knew

^AHNC, Negros y esclavos de Bolivar III, foil. 63^-35 (1632).

20The term bicho was used to describe an inflammation of the rec'
turn which caused the relaxation of the sphincter followed by prolapse
and the onset of gangrene. The disease usually ended in death. There
seems to have been different aetiological factors such as amoebiasis,
schistomomiasis and enterobious infections, although, during the seven
teenth and eighteenth centuries it was widely believed to be caused by
some kind of insect (bicho del culo). It was conditioned by overcrowd
ing, insufficient, bad food and unhygienic conditions. When the slave
trade was abolished it gradually disappeared. See Rudolph Hoeppli,
Parasitic Diseases in Africa and the Western Hemisphere: Early Documen
tation and Transmission by the Slave Trade (Basel, 1969)1 PP. 187-88 .
21AHNC, Negros y esclavos de Bolivar III, foil. 63^39 (1^32)

L
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

1
lCA
pp

of the right of redhibition, perhaps chose not to bother with it.

The

legal suits that were filed, however, always included medical testimony
and diagnosis to establish grounds for redhibition and consequently
reveal another dimension of the health condition in the slave trade of
New Granada. Diseases of the genitourinary tract were the most frequent
cause for legal action.

Venereal disease, though virtually absent among

freshly imported slaves, was apparently soon acquired after theirar

rival in the New World, at least, venereal disease, especially syphilis,
was recorded as the single most common complaint. Many of these cases of
syphilis may have been yaws, leprosy or tropical ulcer (see pp. 192 , 202).
"Female trouble," especially prolapse of the uterus, was the next most
common complaint.

Slave owners were interested in expanding their

slave gangs through natural increase. Females of "breeding age" brought

top prices. Pregnant females in good health usually sold for even more
money, for it was customary to add fifty pesos to her price for the
23
child she was carrying.
Consequently, buyers were quick to sue for
their money back when they bought female slaves and later found them to
be barren or to have diseases of the female organs or venereal disease,
all of which they thought robbed them of potential for natural increase
of the slave gang. Diseases of the skin, especially ulcers, yaws and

^AEiNE, Real Audiencia Gobemacicfn de Popayan, Caja 150, "Causa

seguida entre Francisco Doneis y Juan Meteron sobre la redhibitoria de
una negra," fol. 62v (1787).
^Tbid., Esclavos, legajo 3> exped. 30, "Autos de Dn. Domingo
Gonzales con Da. Mariana Dias del Pedregal, sobre la venta de una negra,"
fol. 1 (1775).

L
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

i
105

TABLE k
CAUSES OF REDHIBITION SHOWING THE NUMBER OF
SLAVES INVOLVED UNDER EACH CAUSE3
Men
Venereal Disease
2
Dropsy
Female Trouble
Sterility
Urinary Trouble
TOTAL . . . . . ........
Skin Diseases:
Pinta
Ulcers
3
Yaws
2
1
Leprosy
Tumors
1
Smallpox
TOTAL................. . 7
Gastrointestinal Diseases: Stomach Pains
Dysentery
3
Worms
2
Dirt Eating
Hemorrhoids
Liver Trouble
TOTAL ................. . 5
Respiratory Diseases:
Asthma
Spitting Blood
2
Tuberculosis
Consumptive Fever
Misc. Infections
2
TOTAL.................
Hernia
Musculoskeletal Disease: Permanent Disability
3
TOTAL.................
1
Cardiovascular Disease:
Heart Disease
1
Neuropsychiatric Disease: Mental Illness
Endocrine Disease:
Goiter
Miscellaneous Diseases:
Headache
Fever
Bed Wetting
TOTAL.................

Genitourinary Diseases:

GRAND TOTAL

...............

. 23

Women

Total

7
3

9
3

8
1
1
20
1

8
1
1
22
1
6
6
1
2
1
18
2

3
k
2
1
11
2
2

3
1
1
2
11
2
2
1
1
2
8

3
3
6
1
1

l
3

5
5
l
l
2
16
2

If
1
1

If
12

3
6

9
2
2
1

2
1
6

2
1
6

65

88

a
For sources see Appendix III*

L
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

-|
106

leprosy* were also common causes for redhibition, as were dysentery,

worms and respiratory ailments, especially tuberculosis.

Oh

After sale, most of the slaves were taken inland, for the greatest
demand for slaves was in the mines and haciendas deep in the interior.
Distribution of slaves to the interior, however, posed serious health
problems.

Slave owners in the West Indies found that Negroes died in

large numbers while being taken from guinea yards at the port to inland
estates, especially if the latter were located in the mountainous inter
ior. One Jamaican doctor cautioned slave handlers to send new Negroes
inland by short and easy stages:

"if they are conveyed to the plantation

in a vehicle, either by land or water so much the better." He particularly cautioned against forcing the sick to walk.25 Health hazards to
new Negroes on the short inland treks in Jamaica were far less than in
the much more mountainous and sprawling terrain of New Granada.
The high and rugged Andes range extending northward from the
southern tip of South America splits into three branches near the south
ern boundary of New Granada. These spur ranges continue northward for
the full length of the Viceroyalty, creating an incredibly rough terrain
of high mountains and deep valleys.

Between the Eastern and Central

Ranges flowed the Magdalena River, navigable for 600 miles inland.

2l)Eor sources see Appendix III.

Collins/j Practical Rules for the Management and Medical
Treatment of Negro slaves in the Sugar Colonies, by a Professional
Planter (London, l80^), p. 62.

L
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

i
107

Between the Central and Western Ranges flowed the Cauca River. Travel
over such terrain was extremely arduous.

In order to transverse the

colony from Santa Fe (modem Botota).in the east to the Pacific coast,
for example, a traveler descended 7;000 feet from the Botota plateau to
Honda on the Magdalena. He crossed the valley floor to Ibagu^, where
he climbed abruptly to cross the 11,000-foot Quindio pass of the Central
Range and descended again 8,000 feet to the Cauca Valley on the other
side. He then proceeded west to cross the 9>000-foot Western Range in
order to descend to the Pacific coastal lowlands. This rough terrain
gave New Granada the reputation of having the worst roads in the Spanish
Indies.

Despite the inadvisability of forcing slaves to walk on the

inland trek, there was no alternative.

Consequently, the majority of

the slaves sold in Cartagena faced a long, arduous journey of several

hundred miles by foot over one, perhaps two, mountain ranges.
Geographical problems were bad enough, but commercial policy made
matters even worse.

To maintain tighter commercial control, the crown

prohibited the entry of slaves and other commerce to all but a few
routes.

Ironically, the forbidden routes were the ones that might have

imposed the fewest hardships on the blacks.

It was usually forbidden,

for example, to supply the Pacific coast by shipment around Cape Horn
or to supply the remote and inaccessible province of the Chocd via the
Atrato River, which flowed to the Atlantic not far from Cartagena. More
over, major commercial centers such as Popayan and Santa Fe, which served

^Robert C. West, Colonial Placer Mining in Colombia (Baton Rouge,

1952), p. 126.

L
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

n
108
as interior slave markets, were located deep in the interior. The
result was that slaves were often taken from Cartagena 900 miles south
to Popayan where mine owners from the Choco' bought them and marched
them 300 miles north again to the Chocrf. Although the Choct4 lay not

more than 350 miles from Cartagena by water, most of the slaves taken
there had to make a 1 ,200-mile eliptical trek through the interior to
arrive there. The same back-tracking was true in the Pamplona region.
Many slaves were taken from Cartagena 600 miles south to Santa Fe and
then marched 250 miles north again to Pamplona, which lay only 400 miles
from Cartagena.
Slaves were supplied to the interior by two principal routes.
Many were shipped from Cartagena to Portobelo on the Atlantic side of
the Isthmus of Panama, where they crossed the fifty miles to Panama City
on the Pacific coast by foot or were transported part way on the Chagres
River. At the coast they were loaded on ships which traded along the
Pacific coast as far south as Chile. The majority of these slaves were
landed in Lima and then trekked inland to supply the Viceroyalty of Peru.
Until the last few years of the eighteenth century, this was practically
the only legal route of entry for slaves for the interior of the contin
ent as well as for slaves destined even for the distant port of Buenos
Aires, lying 2,000 miles overland from Lima on the Atlantic coast.

Some

of the slaves shipped from Panama were disembarked in the Ecuadorian port
of Guayaquil and driven inland to supply the surrounding coastal plain and
the highlands near Quito. From Quito there was some movement of slaves
northward into the mining areas of southern New Granada, especially to
Pasto and Popayan (125-275 miles to the north).

These towns in turn

I largely supplied the Pacific lowland mines around Barbacoas. A few

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

-|

109

Negroes were landed in Buenaventure, Isquand^, Timbiqu^ and Tumaco; the

four settlements on the Pacific coast of New Granada. From these points
they were transported inland to supply nearby mines.
The other main route of entry for slaves lay through the heart
of New Granada.

Slave caravans trekked seventy-five miles overland from

Cartagena to the Magdalena, which they ascended to the confluence with

the Cauca to the port of Espirftu Santo. Here a trail led south to
Antioquia City and Medellfn and connected with the western branch of
the Camino Real (the principal road of Colony) leading south through
the Cauca Valley to the cities of Cali and Popayan then on to Quito
and Lima.

The town of Zaragoza on the Nechi River, a tributary of the

Cauca, also served as a port of entry for Antioquia. From Zaragoza a

road led south to the settlement of Remedios, Santa Rosa and Medellin,
where it joined the Camino Real.

Both of these ports fell into disuse

after the end of the seventeenth century, and the Nare Road further to
the south became the main supply line of Antioquia.

Slave drivers

ascended the Magdalena for about i+75 miles to the port of Nare. The
Nare road headed west from the port and climbed the steep eastern escarp
ment of the Central

Cordillers to intersect the Zaragoza Road and

con

tinue on to Medillin. The 125-mile trip from Nare to Zaragoza normally

took sixteen days.

From Nare to Antioquia City via Medellin (150 miles)

usually took twentydays.

Slave caravans, however,

traveled much slower

than commercial caravans and took twice the normal time.

A number of transverse trails crossed the Western Range from
Antioquia and the Cauca drainage to supply the gold fields of the Choco^.
The northernmost trail struck west from Medellin to the village of Urroa
and on to the Atrato River to supply northern mines.

Seventy miles to

L
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

no"!

fcA

'Bogota

NULVA

GBANADA

TRANSPORTATION
17,h and (6,h CErCTUBltS

D rv tr o r

p o rt

Mom trails
'"St M o d trn

international boundaries

76*
Source:

Robert C. West, Colonial Placer Mining in Colombia

(Baton Rouge, 1952), p. 129. Courtesy of Louisiana
State University Press.

L
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

r
the south a parallel trail led west from the city of Anserma to the Atrato,.
which could he descended to reach Citar^f, the administrative center for
the northern ChoccJ. An alternate branch of this trail headed slightly
south to reach the San Juan River, which flowed south to the Padific
past the town of Novita, the heart of the southern Choco. A third trail,
fifty miles further south, crossed the Western Range directly west of
the city of Cartago to reach W6vita. Most of the slaves of the Choct?
were brought there from Cartagena along one of these three trails via
MedillCartago or Popayan--the majority probably came from Popayan,
the most distant of the three. Shorter and less arduous water transporta
tion might have been used but seldom was. The A t m to flowed north to
the Atlantic and provided an easy water route for the entry of slaves,
but despite repeated petitions by concerned residents to open it to legal
traffic it remained closed until the 1780*s, after which few slaves
27
entered the Choco.
The San Juan flowed south from the heart of the
Choco to the Pacific and was open for the entry of slaves transshipped
from Panama, but few entered that way due to the difficulties of navi
gation and maintenance.
Slave caravans heading for Popayan and Cali in the upper Cauca
Valley, as well as those proceeding to the capital of Santa Fe, ascended
the Magdalena to the village of Honda. Honda was an important center.
It was the terminus for Magdalena River traffic and was a junction on

^"Proyecto de hurtado sobre minas, 1783," BHA, XIII, No. 1^7

(May, 1920), 182-83 ; Relaciones de mando: Memorias presentadas por los
gobernantes del Nuevo Reino de Granada, ed., Eduardo Posada and Pedro
Marfa Ibdfiez (Bogota, 1910), p. 3^0.

L
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

112
the Camino Real. From Honda a transverse branch of the Camino Real led

eastward up the Eastern Range to Santa Fe and westward to Ibague/. From

Ibague the road continued over the Quindio Pass of the Central Range to
Cartago and on to the Cauca River, where it intersected with the Cauca
Valley spur of the Camino Real. Slaves traveling west from Honda to
Cartago were distributed northward to Anserma and southern Antioquia,
southward to the towns of Buga, Cali and Popayan and westward to the
Choco.

Caravans traveling east from Honda arrived in Santa Fe to supply

the capital.

From there they were distributed northward to the high

lands around the city of Tunja and even further north to the mines of
Pamplona Province. Many slaves for Pamplona, however, were brought
overland due east from the lower Magdalena River ports of Rio del Oro
(Ocana) and Carare. A few slaves also entered at the northern coastal
port of Rio Hacha and were driven southward through Valley Dupar into
Pamplona.
Slave caravans destined directly for Popayan continued south from
Honda, following a trail along the Magdalena to a point a little south
of the village of Tocaima, where the trail joined the Camino Real coming
southwest from Caracas, Cucuta, Pamplona, Tunja and Santa Fe and continu
ing on to Popayan.

The coffles followed along the Magdalena to the town

of Neiva, then headed southwest to the village of La Plata where the

road climbed directly west to cross the Central Range via the Paramo
de Guanacas and descended to Popayan just beyond the upper end of the
Cauca Valley.

Popayan was the administrative, commercial and cultural

center for all the western New Granada.

In actual importance it probably

exceeded Santa Fe, the viceregal capital. It was the major supply center
for slaves for the mines of the Almaguer District and northern Ecuador

L
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

to the south, as well as for most of the slaves for Cali, Buga and the
rest of the Cauca Valley to the north. Popayafa was even considered the
gateway to the ChoccS, 3 miles to the north.

It was, in fact, the

gateway to the entire Pacific lowlands where the majority of mine owners
were residents of Popayan.'^
Arduous conditions of the inland trek were made even worse hy
security precautions.

It was necessary to send dangerous blacks in

29
'chains and handcuffs."
Most of the men at least probably made the
inland journey chained by the neck or hand'.to one another in single file.
Many of the women, too, may have been similarly chained, for overseers
constantly had to watch their own step. The rough terrain covered with
underbrush or jungle afforded countless opportunities for slaves to slip
away and chances of recapture were slim. Food for the slaves consisted
of hardtack, corn, meat and salt and perhaps plantains or other fruits
purchased on the road. But food was often scarce in many areas, es
pecially Antioquia and the lowlands, so caravans had to carry sufficient
food or face hunger and starvation. When road conditions permitted, a
long pack train of mules accompanied the caravan to carry food, blank
ets, medicine, chains and other supplies, and peons were employed to help
handle slaves and mules.

If mules were plentiful, a slave carried few

provisions except a blanket and some yardage of water-repellent cloth

2For the best discussion of roads, commerce and supply see West,
p. 126-30; Pedro Fermin de Vargas, Pensamientos politicos y memoria
sobre la poblacion del Nuevo Reino de Granada (Bototd,1953); PP* 27~35
See also James F. King, "Negro Slavery in the Viceroyalty of New Granada"
(unpublished doctoral diss., Dept, of History, Univ. of Calif., Berkeley,
1939); PP* 213-1^; AHNC, Negros y esclavos de Panam^ III, fol. 380 (17^9)*
The discussion of the movement of slaves is also based on an analysis of
hundreds of bills of sale in the colonial notaries of Bogota, Neiva,
Ibague', Cartago, Cali, Popayan, Pasto, and Quito.
^AHNC, Negros y esclavos del Cauca TV, fol. 636 (177$).

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

llV

as protection against rain. In rougher terrain Indian porters sometimes

replaced the mules.

In the absence of mules and porters, the slaves

themselves had to carry the provisions, a requirement which must have

boosted the mortality among them.

30

The internal slave trade, even under the best of conditions, caused
considerable suffering and loss of life.

If slaves were shipped to Panama

they experienced the horrors of another voyage. The passage to Portobelo

lasted only about a week. The voyage to Lima lasted another two to three
weeks.

Shortages of provisions and shipwrecks were not uncommon.31 Dis

ease likely claimed some lives as well, for slaves seldom arrived in Lima
32
free of contagious disease.
Peruvian commercial houses maintained agents in Cartagena and
Panama to buy slaves to be transshipped to Panama and from there to Lima
for distribution. The records left by one of these men, Sebastian Duarte,
give many insights into the trade via Panama. On one trip (1626-29 ),
Duarte rented a house in Panama City and bought and shipped there 258
slaves in lots ranging from two to more than one hundred. During the
trek across the Isthmus he fed the slaves with singular generosity on
beef, pork, maize, plantains, barley, bread, salt fish and eggs prepared
with lard and vinegar.

Special provisions were made for the sick. They

3AHKE, Real Audiencia, Gobemacion de Popayan, legajo 1, exped.

3, "Autos sobre los quarenta y ocho escalvos enviados por Dn. Ramon de
la Berrera las haciendas de Xapio y Llanogrande," (1769).
^Sandoval, pp. 569-70 .
32
Bowser, p. 93*

L
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

115
were given special foods, such as fowls, molasses, oranges, sugar, red
wine, quinces, squashes and cassava bread. Medical provisions for the
trip included sugar for gargles, old shirts for bandages, syringes,
bezoar stone and yellow wax. Other medical expenses were incurred by
the purchase of mustard and honey to make anti-tetanus compresses and
by hiring a barber to administer various bleedings and emetics. In spite
of relatively good food and relatively elaborate medical precautions,
however, thirteen of the blacks (5$) died while crossing the Isthmus.

33

Other expenses incurred in the trip are interesting and informa

tive. Duarte paid five pesos to a free Negro interpreter who probably
also helped in handling the slaves on the trip, three pesos to have the
slaves carted to the docks in Panama City and a peso each to four sol
diers who stood guard during the action. The freight charge per slave
was thirteen pesos, and food and medicine for the voyage and clothes to
dress the slaves for sale in Lima cost thirty pesos.

Official charges

were more expensive. Registry and miscellaneous official papers for the
Peruvian ship cost forty pesos, and brokerage and messenger fees for the
complete transaction amounted to one hundred fifty pesos. A twenty-peso
tip to the treasury officials to insure prompt dispatch of the ship and
sixteen pesos given to a priest to say masses for its safe voyage left
everything in readiness.^
On the second trip to Cartagena Duarte purchased some Negroes in

L
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

n
n6

Cartagena and others in Portobelo, where the entire gang was corralled
in readiness to cross the Isthmus. The caravan was ferried across the
Chagres at Periqui and spent the first night at the Inn of Moquerdn.
Most of the slaves made the journey on foot, although pack mules accom
panied the coffle to carry provisions and clothing and a few of the sick.
Duarte took a considerable stock of medical supplies, powders and oils
with him, perhaps hoping to reduce deaths on the road. He took the added
precaution of sending the very sick as well as mothers with very small
children, twenty-one in all, down the Cagres by boat. The blacks were
held on the coast for about three weeks, a period spent in recuperation
and in securing and fitting out a boat for the voyage to Lima.

35

The num

ber of deaths on this latter trip is not known, but few treks were made
across the Isthmus without the loss of at least a few Negroes.

36

Great as the misfortunes of the slaves in the Cartagena-Peru trade

sometimes were, the slaves who ascended the Magdalena were even more un
fortunate. Between Cartagena and the interior lay only "danger, trouble
and delays." The Magdalena lay nearly seventy-five miles overland from
Cartagena.

In later years a merchant could make the trip by boat on the

Dique Canal. But water transportation was only of slight advantage, for
whether on canal or river, the "abominable" character and conduct of the
boatmen of this "fatal navigation" made travel intolerable and losses
certain. 37 A traveler in 1810 colorfully described the woes of river
35Ibid.
3^AHNC, Negros y esclavos de Panama III, foil. 351-79 (17^9), and
II, fol. 933 (1752).

^Redactor Americano del Nuevo Reino de Granada (Bogota), June

19, 1807, pp. 108-10 and July k, 1807, pp. 115-16.

L
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

~i
117

coinmerce:
The unhappy merchant embarks under the discrestion of a
pilot, without character, who obeys and fears the most depreciable
of his crew; consequently the boat is left to the barbarous caprice
of twenty-five or thirty men whose manners and feelings alienate
them from human society. He is obliged to spend two or three
months in a boat whose construction and the brush of the river put
him in grave danger, where no superior is recognized, where all
command and none obey, where never has discipline nor urbanity
been seen, where libertinage is enthroned and insolence, theft,
rapine, and as many iniquities as the relaxation of customs can
suggest are so familiar among them and form a character so undis
ciplined that it sets them apart from the rest of the human species
. . . . The merchant has to secure a boat in Cartagena, settling the
price with the owner before leaving. He leaves when it is conven
ient to the boatmen. That same night perhaps he will be abandoned
and will have to return by land. If that does not happen, he arrives
near San Estanislao where disorders, drunkenness and desolation be
gin. Some crewmen flee the site, others hide in the mountains, liv
ing off what they have robbed from the merchant or the countryside
until they can return to Cartagena and repeat the process again.
In Barranca the same thing happens. They flee, if they feel
like it, but only after having been paid, and usually after having
robbed some of the cargo. The voyage continues with the crewmen
who remain, but with scandal and drunkenness in all of the towns
through which they pass. If they take sixteen men in Cartagena
and are due to arrive in Mompox in ten days /l75 mile_s/ they finally
get there in a month and a half with four men left . . . .
From Mompox to Honda vices only multiply. Usually within
four leagues of Mompox they will put ashore on the pretext of
needing food or sleep and the majority will desert to return to
Mompox, often forcing the merchant to return to pick up another
crew, losing eight to ten days. If he succeeds, he will eventually
arrive at PentSn, where he will be detained at the pleasure of the
crew and be forced to wait the end of the drunkenness and other
disorders. Some will desert, but in ten to twelve days they will
leave for Morales, Badillo, the mouth of the San Bartolcm^ de
Nare and Buena Vista whore the same and still worse scenes are
repeated.
Once the slaves left the river they were faced with another kind of danger
posed by rough terrain and poor roads. The roads of New Granada were
always in dire condition. Many of them did not even admit mules, and

38.
Ibid

L
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

-i

118

goods had to he carried by human porters. One sixteenth century traveler

believed that there were no worse roads in the entire world than there
, 39
were in the province of Popayan.
On the royal road between La Plata
and Popayan, over which probably more slaves passed than any other,
there were so many bad places that there was danger to both the life and
kO

property of those who traveled it.

Even the best roads were deplorable.

The most traveled road in the colony leading from Honda to Santa Fe was
described as "a road the very sight of which will horrify your excellency
especially an the wet season. . . .
The number of slaves lost on the road was considerable. Bartolome' Guisir, a merchant of Cartagena in 1700, bought three slaves and
headed inland for Santa Fe. When he arrived, two of the slaves were so
near death that they expired before he could sell them. The third was
sold below market price because of a "lesion" in her arm, which appark2

ently was tne result of an accident on the road.

A slave trader in

Antioquia had slightly better luck, perhaps because he did not have
so far to go. He bought twenty-seven head of slaves in Cartagena. Four
slaves died on the Magdalena and two more died along the road from the
river to the city of Antioquia. He lost only twenty-two percent of the

39West, p. 126.

It-O
/
Fermin de Vargas, Pensamientos, p. 31 .
^Viceroy Caballero y G^ngora, "Relacidn," Relaciones de Mando
(Addenda), p. 7^*
^%otarla Primera de Botota, year 1700, foil. 396v-398.

L
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited w ithout permission.

i
119

slaves enroute.^ 3
The causes of death on these inland treks is seldom recorded,
hut dysentery probably headed the list. Epidemic disease and even natural
disasters were blamed for many deaths by contemporaries.
exposure and exhaustion must have claimed many as well.

kk

Accidents,

Ulceration

and damage caused by chains on these treks must have been extreme.
Many owners and merchants were especially reluctant to send children
on the road since they apparently suffered more than adults.

Yet, this

hesitation sometimes resulted in the separation of families and brought

on hardships of another kind.
It is not surprising that mortality among slaves on the inland
trek was high. The perils and privations of travel by sea and river and
by rough overland trails were real. Accidents, exhaustion and exposure
were commonplace. Disease also claimed many, a fact which is not sur
prising considering the adverse conditions of the slave pens and the
measures taken by merchants and surgeons to achieve hasty cures or to
conceal illnesses. Unfortunately, many of the diseases which the slaves
had were spread widely as the slaves trekked inland.

Consequently, the

slave trade became an effective agent in the spread of disease.

1l3
AHDA, Colonia XXVIII (Esclavos), doc. 898 (1685).
Ij.li,
.
Juan de Velasco, Historia moderna del Reino de Quito y cronica
de la Compania de Jesiis del mlsmo reino, 2 vols., Biblioteca Amazonas,
VIII (Quito, 19kl), II, k57.
lj.5

AME, Real Audiencia, Gobemacion de Popayan, Esclavos, Legajo

3, exped. 7} "Autos de Dn. Francisco Sanches de la Flor con Dn. Victor
de Losa sobre la entrega de una negrita," fol. I (1793)

L
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

CHAPTER V I

THE SLAVE TRADE AND THE SPREAD OF DISEASE

The internal slave trade contributed notable to the spread of

epidemic diseases. Conditions of the slave trade lowered the slaves'
resistance to these diseases while increasing both their exposure and
their susceptibility to them; consequently, blacks repeatedly spread
epidemics throughout the Viceroyalty as they trekked inland. The
epidemics that spread out in the wake of the slave caravans, were devas
tating to people of all races in the Viceroyalty. The Indian labor
ers whom the Negroes came to replace died by the millions. The whites
whom the Negroes came to serve also died. Their fellow slaves already
in the mines and on the haciendas of New Granada died also in great
numbers. The conditions of slavery under which they lived also made
them more susceptible to most diseases that came along, slower to recover
and less likely to receive medical care than the whites for whom they
labored.

Consequently, the internal slave trade often proved to be the

bane of both its victims and its beneficiaries.

In most slave areas smallpox epidemics were frequent.

In the

West Indies it was reported that smallpox in every case was introduced
from the coast of Africa in slave ships."*- In the trade to Spanish America

^H. Harold Scott, A History of Tropical Medicine Based on the

Fitzpatrick Lectures Delivered before the Royal College of Physicians
of London, 1937-38, 2 vols. (London, 1939); 1; 5*
120

L
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

n
121

too, smallpox was "always" present among shipments of new Negroes and
it became the scourge of New Granada.

The first epidemic struck in

1546. The arrival of some infected Negroes from Santo Domingo loosed
this ruthless epidemic which lasted for three years.

In 1558 an even

more serious outbreak swept western south America, including part of

New Granada, where it reportedly destroyed more than one-third of the
population. Four years later smallpox struck again, especially around
Tunja, where it claimed an estimated ninety to ninety-five percent of
the Indian population.

While these sixteenth century epidemics were

usually introduced by Negroes, there were relatively few Negroes in the

colony to suffer from them. It was due to the devastation of the Indian
population from such epidemics that Negro slaves began to be imported in
larger numbers after the year 1600.^ Only two smallpox epidemics were
recorded during the seventeenth century, though others may have occurred.
One of these epidemics occurred in 1627 in Anserma, where between five
2
Frederick Bowser, "Negro Slavery in Colonial Peru, 1540-1640,"
(Unpublished doctoral diss., Dept, of History, Univ. of California,
Berkeley, 1968), p. iii; Relaciones de mando: Memorias presentades
por les gobernantes del Nuevo Reino de Granada, eds. Eduardo Posada and
Pedro Maria Ibanez (Bogota, 1910), (Caballero y Gongora), p. 244.
3

Robert C. West, Colonial Placer Mining in Colombia (Baton Rouge,

1952), p. 91* note 10; Andres Soriano Lleras, La medieina en el Nuevo
Reino de Granada durante la eonquista y la colonia (Bogota, 1966), p. 46,
48, 51, Gustavo Arboleda, Historia de Cali, desde los origenes de la
cuidad hasta la experacidn del periodo colonial, 3 vols. (Cali, 195^).
(I, 104; Gerardo Pas Otero, La medieina en la eonquista y colonia (beneficencia y aecion social en Popaydn), Popay^n, 1964).
k

P. M. Ashburn, The Ranks of Death; A Medical History of the Con

quest of America, ed. Frank D. Ashburn (New York, 1947) 3 P- 40.

L
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

122

hundred and one thousand Negroes were working vein deposits.^ The other
epidemic befell Bogota in 1693 . The next century saw five devastating
epidemics ravish the Viceroyalty. The epidemic of 1700-1702 claimed
7,000 lives. Two years later smallpox erupted again with particular
virulence in Pasto, where it killed 100 whites and 5,000 Indians.

Seven

thousand more of all races died in the epidemic of 1782-1783, and five
years later an even more disastrous outbreak killed it-,000 persons in the
capital alone. Another epidemic at the beginning of the next century
(1801-1802) was less severe, no doubt, because previous epidemics had
left many persons immune to the disease and official measures to combat
the contagion were more effective.
Viceroy Cabellero y Gongora classed smallpox as the "first and
most terrible" of epidemic diseases in the colony and damned it for deci
mating and deforming the population despite government programs of quar7

antine, variolation and instruction for proper care of the sick.

Not only

did the disease take its toll in deaths; but its victims frequently suf
fered effects of the disease for the rest of their days. Disfiguring
pockmarks were the kindest of its scars and until the nineteenth century
it was the major cause of all blindness.

Moreover, according to the

^West, p. 91 > note 9 *

^Soriano, pp. 79> 83-84; Relaciones de mando (Caballero y Gongora,
1789), P 2^3, (Mendinueta, 1803), pp. 461-69; Emilio Robledo, "La expedici8n botanica y la medieina en Colombia," Conferencias sobre la expedicion
botanica (Bogota, 1958), pp. 182-84.
Relaciones de mando (Caballero y Gongora), 1789, pp. 243-44;
Archivo Hist<5rico Nacional de Colombia (hereafter AHNC), Archivo Anexo,
Historia III, foil. 228-29 (1783).
8
Erwin Ackerknecht, History and Geography of the Most Important
Diseases (New York, 1965), p. 62.

L
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

123

Viceroy, the disease also left some of its victims crippled,9 although
crippling has seldom been associated with smallpox.
In the last decades of the eighteenth century there was growing
concern over the spread of smallpox by slaves. Viceroy Mendinueta
ordered the establishment of quarantine hospitals in all slave ports
to control the spread of the disease by the slave trade.^ His policies
were continued by his successors.
In these epidemics, Indians who lacked natural immunity to small
pox, suffered severely. Negroes- suffered less than Indians but probably
more than whites.

Smallpox was endemic in Africa and many adult Negroes

had a degree of immunity to the disease. Nevertheless, Edward Long, a

Jamaican planter, believed smallpox to be much more dangerous to Negroes
than to Englishmen. He observed that seventy percent mortality was not
uncommon among the weakened, malnourished, newly arrived Negroes, while
only ten to fourteen percent mortality was common among whites in England!
Losses from smallpox would probably have been less among seasoned Negroes,
but even seasoned Negroes often suffered from poor nutrition and dis
advantaged living conditions, which may have offset any natural immunity.
Seasoned Negroes certainly contracted the disease, for active cases of
smallpox were noted by evaluators even among the settled, static slave

^Relaciones de mando, pp. 2^3-Mr.

10Ibid., pp. ^61-69 .

^Edward Long, The History of Jamaica, Or a General Survey of the

Ancient and Modem State of That Island with Reflections on Its Situations,
Settlement, Inhabitants, Climate. Products, Commerce, Laws and Government,
3 vols. (London, 177*0; 1; ^ 3 ^ * Other estimates of the mortality rate for
smallpox for Europeans ranged from 7$ to 25$. See John Duffy, Epidemics
in Colonial America (Baton Rouge, 1953); PP 20-22.

L
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

12l+
population of the Jesuit haciendas.
Bacillary dysentery, or the bloody flux (flu.jo de sangre), was
another disease frequently spread by the slaves. Dysentery was common
in the tropics, where continual warm weather allowed perpetuation of
the causative organism. It spread rapidly in filthy and crowded living
conditions, being transmitted usually by flies or by food and water

contaminated by human waste, and was especially mortal among young chil
li
dren.
A high incidence of dysentery among slaves was not surprising.
A colonial doctor described the symptoms of this devastating dis
ease:
. . . a Fever with griping Pain in the Bowels, and frequent
griping Stools. The Sickness at the Stomach increases, and is often
attended with a Reaching to vomit, or with Vomiting: The Fever
increases. . . the Stools become more frequent, the griping Pain
increases, the Excrement discharged is mixed with much Mucus of
the Guts, and considerable Quantities of Blood; and sometimes
nothing but Blood and Mucus is discharged by Stool; at other
times a bloody Sanies, or Ichor, like Bloody Beef-brine, and a
Tenesmus comes on with a continual painful Neediness or Desire
to of going to Stool. All these Symptoms continue and increase
if not timely relieved by proper Remedies: . . . Now the Patients
Strength sinks, he grows delirious, his extreme Parts cold, ac
companied by cold clammy Sweats; his Pulse becomes irregular
unequal and often intermits; the Stools sometimes run from the
Patient insensibly; the Coolness of the Extremities and cold
Sweats increase and all the other Symptoms are worse the Patient
grows very faint, and a Mortification siezes the Bowels, which
soon ends in Death.

12AHNC, Temporalidades VIII, foil. 520-21+ (1767); Archivo Central

del Cauca (hereafter ACC), Colonia, sig. 5^01+, foil. 10-11 (1775)*

"^Ackerknecht, p. 1+7; Duffy, p. 2ll+; Encyclopedia Britanica

(1968), vii, 828-29 .
-William Hillary, Observations on the Changes of the Air and the
Concomitant Epidemical Diseases in the Island of Barbadoes to Which is
Added a Treatise on the Putrid Bilious Fever Commonly Called the Yellow
Fever and Such Other Diseases as are Indigenous or Endemial in the West
India Islands, or in the Torrid Zone (London, 1766), pp. 207-208.

L
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

n
125
Dysentery was extremely debilitating.

In the more severe forms

there was a rapid and extensive loss of strength:

In fourteen hours the stoutest Negro is scarcely able to help
himself; Anxiety is great, nothing but pure blood is passed, some
times to the extent of one or two quarts; the tormina are incessant;
by obeying every inclination to be backwards the parts become ex
coriated, and a prolapsus of the rectum increases the miserable
suffering of the patient, one fainting succeeds another, and death
unexpectedly happens on the third or fourth day; when protracted,
every evacuation is putrid in the extreme and he cannot be approached
without the greatest disgust. ^
Dysentery proved fatal to great numbers of slaves. Brian Edwards
believed that epidemic dysentery was more deadly among slaves on shore
than it was even on the Middle Passage,

so that as with the slaves at

sea, it often seemed that what the smallpox spar'd the flux swept
off. . . . "

17

*"*"
West Indian doctors universally agreed that of all the

epidemic diseases which afflicted slaves, dysentery was the most frequent
as well as the most fatal.

l8

Some estimates blamed dysentery for half of

'^Samuel?/ Thomson, A Treatise on the Diseases of Negroes

(Kingston, Jamaica, 1821 (?)), p. 3^.
Brian Edwards, The History, Civil and Commercial of the British
West Indies, 5th ed., 5 vols. (London, 1819), II, IV7 .
^Elizabeth Donnan, Documents Illustrative of the History of the
Slave Trade to America, vols. (Washington, 1930-1935)? I? ^09 .
l8
Ibid., p.. 3^-i Hillary, pp. 202-03; Thomas Dancer, The Medical
Assistant or Jamaica Practice of Physic Designed Chiefly for the Use of
Families and Plantations (Kingston, 1801), 9^j Great Britain, House of
Commons, Minutes of Evidence Taken before a Committee of the House of
Commons Being a Select Committee Appointed on the 29th Day of January,
1790 for the Purpose of Taking the Examination of Such Witnesses as Shall
be Produced on the Part of the Several Petitioners Who Have Petitioned
the House of Commons against the Abolition of the Slave Trade (London,
1790), pp. 110, 156-57, 227, 251, 262, 273, 303, 322, 3^, 350, 363;
(hereafter cited as Minutes against Abolition); Great Britain, Privy
Council, Report of the Lords of the Committee of Council Appointed for
the Consideration of All Matters Relating to Trade and Foreign Plantations:

L
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

126

all deaths among slaves.

19

One doctor claimed that dysentery epidemics

20
killed more slaves than all other disorders combined.
Dysentery epi

demics were reported with great frequency from the West Indies, often
following in the wake of hurricanes.

In a thirteen-year period at least

nine dysentery epidemics were reported.

Seldom did they claim less than

21
twenty percent of the slaves in the area.
Dysentery made similar in

roads in New Granada.

Ulloa. observed that it was so common that very

22
few people escaped it.
It was so prevalent in some mining areas such
as the Valley of Aburra in Antioquia that it has been blamed for retarding

Submitting to His Majesty^ Consideration the Evidence and Information They .

Have Collected in Consequence of His Majesty's Order in Council, Dated the
11th of February, 1788, Concerning the Present State of the Trade to Africa.
and Particularly the Trade in Slaves; and Concerning the Effects and Con
sequences of This Trade, as Well in Africa and the West Indies as to the
General Commerce of This Kingdom (London, 1789), 3rd pt., Jamaica, Appen
dix 6 , n.p.; (hereafter cited, as Report of Lords); Hillary, p. 202.
19
Ashburn, p. 32.
^/5r. Collins/; Practical Rules for the Management and Medical
Treatment of Negro Slaves in the Sugar Colonies, by a Professional
Planter (London, 1803), p. 287 .
211778, 1779, 1880, 1882, 1883, 1881+, 1886, 1891. See Great
Britain, House of Commons, Minutes against Abolition, pp. 110, 156-57;
227, 251, 262, 273; 303; 322, 314, 350, 363; Great Britain, Privy Council,
Report of Lords, 3rd pt., Jamaica, Appendices 6 and 7; Great Britain,
House of Lor
Ss, Minutes of Evidence Taken at the Bar of the House of
Lords upon the Order Made for Taking into Consideration the Present State
of the Trade to Africa, and Particularly the Trade in Slaves; and Also for
Taking into Consideration the Nature, Extent and Importance of the Sugar,
Coffee and Cotton Trade] and the General State and Condition of the West
India Islands, and the Means of Improving the Same; and for the Lords to be
Summoned; and for the Agents of the West India Colonies to be Heard for
Their Counsel at the Bar of the House, in Support of Their Petition
against the Abolition of the Slave Trade (London, 1792), pp. 139-^0]
Edwards, II, lU6 ; hereafter cited as Evidence on Slave Trade.
22

Antonio de Ulloa, Relaci&i histdrica del viage a la America

meridional, !+ vols. (Madrid, 17^8), I, p. 13^ (Lib. II, cap. iv).

L
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

1
127

the economic progress during the first centuries after the conquest.

23

No doubt dysentery was among the "grave epidemics" which devastated the
slave gangs of the Choc<4 causing many miners to petition the crown to
import at least two eastellanos * (k pesos) worth of medicine for each
slave in the province. The devastation forced other miners simply to
2k

ahandon the area.

Negroes also introduced other epidemic diseases. Measles epi

demics were frequent and often serious. Historically the disease has
varied in virulence.

Sometimes it took a rather mild form, hut other

times it caused as much or more death and suffering than smallpox. Meas
les and smallpox, in fact, were often confused until 1670 .^

Measles were

more frequent in the chilly areas of the Viceroyalty around Santa Fe

(Bogota), Popayan and Antioquia. The disease probably rarely visited
mining areas of the steaming Pacific lowlands or even the warm Cauca and
Magdalena Valleys. Although, an epidemic of what was probably measles
(sarampicfa) and typhoid (tabardete) occurred in subtropical Cartagena
around l6l0 , kindled by the arrival of a boatload of infected blacks.

26

The twin plagues appeared to be subsiding by l6l6 . Apparently this was

the first time either disease had been seen in that city.

^Alvaro Restrepo Euse, Historia de Antioquia (Departamento de

Colombia) des de la eonquista hasta el ano 1900 (Medellin, 1903)* P. 76.
Pit

AHNC, Minas del Cauca II, foil,

(1777)

^Ackerknecht, p. 67 ; Collins, p. 329*

26

Angel Valtierra, S. J., Pedro Claver, S. J., el santo que liberto una raza; Su vida y su e'poea, 1st ed. (Bogot^, 195*0 > PP* 23*1-35
Valtierra identified this disease as dyptheria.

L
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

n
128

Measles was particularly virulent and widespread in the province

of Antioquia at the "beginning of the seventeenth century, where, as in
Cartagena, the disease appeared with a companion malady or complication,
perhaps typhoid (tabardete) or diphtheria (garrotezo),2^ The two dis
eases probably spread there from Cartagena. Antioquia was one of the
principal mining centers in New Granada. Labor in the mines was per
formed by Indians and Negro slaves, and measles devastated the slave
gangs. Throughout the province mortality among the Indians was extremely
28
high.
It was also higher among Negroes than among whites due to the
29
poorer health and inferior living conditions of the blacks. ' In eastern
Antioquia near the mining settlement of Reraedios, 2,000 slaves had been
introduced in 159^ in one of New Granada's largest gold rushes. The
measles epidemic of l6l6 caused such heavy mortality among them that the
mines were abandoned for lack of labor. The same devastation caused the
abandonment of the rich mines of Zargoza fifty miles to the north.

30

The

epidemic was general throughout northwestern South America and no doubt

caused similar ravages among slaves throughout the entire area.
In 1692 a milder epidemic-of measles paralyzed the city of Santa
Fe, causing much illness but little death. The high, chilly plateau

^TroII 6 , dispatch 7> Arboleda Microfilm Collection from the

Archivo General de Indias, Seville, Spain, by permission of Dr. Jose*
Rafael Arboleda, Departmento de Antropologia, Universidad Pontifica Javeriana, Bogota, Colombia; West, p. 91; n0"te 9
2^West, p. 80.
29Collins, pp. 329-30.

^West, pp. 32 , 99 , note 58*

L
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

i
129

around Santa Fe was struck again by a more virulent form of measles

in 1775 * The exact mortality is unknown, hut the disease claimed a
heavy toll of Indians in surrounding villages.

31

Deaths from measles were usually greatest among children, but

much of the damage produced by measles among all ages and races came from
the seq.ualae of the disease, such as pneumonia, intestinal infections,
blindness and deafness.

32

Such ailments were common among slaves; how

often they originated as complications of measles, if at all, is impos

sible to determine.
Two other epidemic diseases, typhoid and typhus, sometimes occur
red in New Granada. The two diseases are quite distinct but their symp
toms were similar enough that they were often confused in the seventeenth
and eighteenth centuries, and seldom in the historic descriptions of the
disease are enough symptoms given to determine which disease was being
described.

Spaniards, in fact, used the same name for both diseases:

tabardillo and tabardete, are used interchangeably for both diseases.^

Antonio Ulloa, a prominent member of the royal Spanish scientific
31
Soriano, p. 79; AHNC, Archivo, I, foil. 98-102, 599-600, 797"
883 (1775).
32Duffy, pp. 166-69 , 179.

^^Typhoid is transmitted by impure water and food and is character

ized by abdominal pain, diarrhea, mild skin eruptions and a constant high
fever lasting from two to three weeks. Typhus, which occurs both in en
demic and epidemic form, is transmitted by fleas and lice and is character
ized by a high fever of much shorter duration than typhoid, intense head
aches, extreme prostration and a peculiar skin rash (petechiae) resembling
flea bites. Typhus is usually associated with poverty, overcrowding and
filth. Of the two diseases it was probably the lesser* evil even though
the more serious disease. It was widespread and lethal in Europe but
less common in America, where free land helped to disperse the population
and society was largely rural, yet the squalor and overcrowding of the
slave huts provided ideal circumstances for its spread among that dis
advantaged segment of the population.
I

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

130

expedition to the New World, in the 17^0*s reported that typhus or

3I
).
typhoid was very common in New Granada.
However, records of only a
few epidemics which were apparently either disease have survived.
Andres Soriano, a modem Colombian physician and historian, believes
that most of these epidemics were typhus.

35

Whether typhus or typhoid,

however, the records show that these epidemics probably caused more
spectacular, though less frequent, suffering among Negroes than other
epidemics.
Typhus was rare in the tropics and when it did appear in New
Granada, it usually made greatest inroads in the cool highlands, where
abundant clothing encouraged lice infestation. At least four typhus
epidemics harried the Viceroyalty, causing such great mortality that
inhabitants held the disease in terror.

A disease thought to be typhus

appeared first in Cartagena in 1629, introduced by the arrival of the annual

royal fleet and the consignment of Negro slaves it brought to the colonies.

37

The disease was extremely contagious and within a year it had

spread to the chilly Bogota pla.eau, where it became known as the "Plague
of Santos Gil," after the notary before whom the wills of its victims were
registered. The only contemporary description of the pestilence was
from Santa Fe. A priest, Father Hazanero, described the symptoms:
At first chills and fevers were common and within two days the
disease had overcome the head, completely depriving the persons

^Ulloa, I, 385 (Lib. V, cap. vi).

^Soriano, pp. 66-69 , 73; 79*
^Ibid., Ackerknecht, pp. 32-^0.
07

Soriano, p. 67 .

L
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

r
131
of their senses. It left the victims in such a state that they
became incapable of helping themselves, with a loss of appetite,
uneasiness, anxiety, vomiting, the body paralized, the head
aching, the patient powerless even to turn in bed, the heartbeat
feeble, the bones aching, the throat ulcerated and the teeth
chattering, the patient delirious and the whole body burning
up with fever.-'
Mortality in the epidemic was extremely high. Hardly a family escaped
without death. Half or more of most households perished and those of
the family who survived were "good-for-nothing except to weep--some fallen,
others convalescing and all unable to help one another."39 Entire fami
lies sometimes perished. The number of dead mounted so fast that there
was no room to bury them nor able-bodied persons enough to perform the
task. Families placed their shrouded dead in the streets at night or
carried them to the doors of churches or monasteries, trusting to the
pious to bury them.
For more than two years this terrible epidemic spread throughout
the Viceroyalty "into cities, towns, villages; to farms, valleys,
mountains, and among all classes of people. No one escaped its rigor
MO

. but the lower classes had to suffer the most."

Authorities

estimated that eighty percent of the Indians of the Bogota plateau died
it-i

in the epidemic.

Not surprisingly, mortality among the slaves was

similarly high.

38lbid., pp. 68-70 .

39Ibid.

Soriano, p. 69 .

L
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

n
132

Moreover, survivors often tore the marks of this terrible dis

ease for life. According to reports, some of those who recovered never
regained their normal senses; others remained crippled or deformed
and many were left deaf. The epidemic left the majority of the men
so debilitated that few were able to plant crops.

Scarcity and famine

resulted and served to aggravate the epidemic. J It is not certain that

this disease was typhus,

Typhus is not characterized by throat ulcer

ation nor does it cause permanent damage to survivors. If the epidemic

was typhus, it must have been in combination with some other disease.
In 1639; barely six years later, there was an epidemic of a "grave con
tagious fever" which Soriano believes was another typhus epidemic.

Still

another epidemic occurred in 1688. Little is known about it except that

kk

it was "serious and long."

Typhoid epidemics were noted less frequently, perhaps because they

were mistaken for typhus or possible bacillary dysentery. Typhoid
(tabardillo, tabardete) may have been the disease which caused great suf
fering in Antioquia in the early years of the seventeenth century (see
pp. 128 ). The disease may also have been typhus. Possibly another
typhoid epidemic occurred in 1770. At least two of the one hundred eighty
slaves died of tabardillo on the Santa Cruz hacienda in the subtropical
Dupar Valley.

k5

In Europe typhus so often followed in the wake of famine

that it has been called the disease of famines, see Ackerkneckt, p. 32.
^ Tbid., p. 73^5ah.NC, Miscelanea, XLI, fol. 62k, "Libro de data de la administracion desta hacienda de Santa Cruz de Estanque," (1770). The same
Spanish word is used here as is used for typhus. Lacking all other in
formation about the disease, one is led to believe it was typhoid by the
fact that the disease occurred in a subtropical climate where epidemic
| typhus would not likely have occurred.
j

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

n
133

There is less information about other epidemics, though there

were many. An unidentified epidemic caused great mortality in the Mompox
mining district shortly before l 6k6 .

The epidemic probably spread

throughout the Viceroyalty, for in that same year an unidentified "pest"

/

claimed many lives in and around Popayan.

Another unidentified epidemic

struck in 1759* It was said to have spread to New Granada from Japan
by way of Lima. Probably the contagion came from the Philippines with
the Manila, Gilleon rather than from Japan. Earlier writers suggested
that this disease might have been bubonic plague, but modern authorities
1+7
discredit that opinion while offering none to replace it.
Epidemics of diphtheria (garrotezo), mainly a disease of children
seems to have been rare, although the disease may have appeared in Carta1+8

gena and Antioquia and the surrounding areas around l6 l6 .

Yellow fever

epidemics, on the other hand, were very frequent though confined to the
lowlands. Contemporary records, even though incomplete, show that
there were particularly serious epidemics in 1650, 1651, 17^1 > and
I4.9

I80I+.

Yet, ravages from yellow fever and other tropical fevers, especi

ally malaria, must have been much more frequent. The royal scientific
expedition reported to the king that yellow fever made great inroads every
year.

In these epidemics, the mortality rate often soared above sixty

percent.

50

1+6

Ulloa claimed that one-third to one-half of the Europeans who

Soriano, p. 7^.

1+7
'ibid.. p. 101 .
1+8

Arboleda Film Collection, roll 6 , dispatch 7

^Soriano, pp. 7*+> 77> 171; Scott, A History of Tropical Medicine.

I, 290.
^Valtierra, 1st ed., pp. 751~5^+

L
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

13^

came to Cartagena with the "annual" fleet were buried there as victims
of this pestilence.51 Yellow fever, however, was not a major killer
52
among slaves. Blacks had much more immunity to the disease than whites.
Nevertheless, slaves were not totally immune to yellow fever and many
blacks may also have died in these severe epidemics.53 Perhaps it was
among the "fevers" which were quite troublesome on some estates.

In 1797

the administrator of one of the large Mosquera mines in the Choctf reported
five slaves sick with some unidentified "pest" and many more down with
"fevers."
Malaria, too, was introduced by the slave trade and was prevalent
in tropical areas of New Granada though many Negroes possessed a high
degree of immunity to it. Malaria had a lower mortality rate than most
epidemic diseases but it was more widely spread and affected more of
the population.

55

Consequently, even though the number dying in pro

portion to the number sick might have been small, the total dead could
have been very great. Malaria was especially fatal to whites. Historical
studies conclude that Europeans in the tropics died chiefly from these

^Ulloa, Relacidn del Via.je, I, 129-130 (Lib. II, cap iv).

52Collins, pp. 233. 235-36; Philip Curtin,. "Epidemiology and the
Slave Trade," Political Science Quarterly, LXXXIII (June, 1968), 191-216.
CO
Curtin, op. cit., pp. 191-216; Valtierra, 1st ed., p. 752.
^Archivo Central del Cauca (hereafter ACC), Archivo Familiar
de Jose Maria Mosquera, Barbara Trujillo y Campo to Francisco Xavier
Bauptista, July 8 , 1797*
55
Malaria is today probably the most widespread of all diseases,
that is, more people suffer from malaria than any other disease. See
Ackerknecht, History of Disease, p. 87 .

L
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

135

two fevers, yellow fever and malaria, probably in about the ratio of
sixty percent from yellow fever and forty percent from malaria..
Malaria was a very debilitating disease and caused much damage among its
victims by weakening their bodies and leaving them helpless prey to other
infections.

57

Malaria must have been a debilitating disease among Negroes.

Even today malaria is the most common disease among Negroes of the Pacific
lowlands.

In some areas fully half of the population is incapacitated

periodically from it.

58

Hosts of less fatal infections were also introduced from Africa

and disseminated by the slaves. Amoebic dysentery, yaws, leprosy and
hookworm were the most debilitating and caused the most suffering.
Elephantaisis, Trachoma (Egyptian opthalmia) onchoceraisis, roundworms,
guinea worms, blood fluxes and itch were also introduced by the slaves. 59
Whether or not endemic and venereal syphilis was also introduced from
Africa by slaves is uncertain.

If these two diseases were not introduced

from Africa, slaves may still have acquired them after arrival in the
New World and helped to spread them throughout New Granada. Similarly,
slaves must have been the agent for the spread of many non-African dis
eases which they contracted in the New World. While dysentery, yellow
fever and malaria were brought from Africa, some of the epidemic diseases
such as measles, typhoid, typhus and diphtheria were of European origin.
They were contracted from Europeans either in the course of the voyage
^Curtin, pp. 208-09
57Duffy, p. 21k.
^^Robert C. West, Pacific Lowlands of Colombia: A Negroid Area
of the American Tropics (Baton Rouge, 1957); P* 83 .
59Rudolph Hoeppli, Parasitic Diseases in Africa and the Western
Hemisphere: Early Documentation and Transmission by the Slave Trade
(Basel, 1969). p p . 215-17; Ashburn. Ranks of Death, pp. 33. ^0.

L
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

n
136

or after arrival in port and then spread inland as the slaves were
taken to the interior.

Smallpox existed both in Europe and Africa.

Usually it was brought from Africa with the slaves, but occasionally the
slaves were exposed to it by Europeans.
If the historical record were complete, the list of epidemics and
chronic infections that preyed on the population of the Viceroyalty would,
no doubt, be much longer. That record wc i.d, likely, also show the
severe suffering these diseases inflict., a. on the black portion of the
population, due to poor nutrition, wretched living conditions, brutal
izing labor demands and their disadvantaged social position. These
factors created a state of chronic poor health among the slave population,
which made even the seasoned Negro especially vulnerable to disease.
For the new Negro, which the slave trader delivered to the mines and
plantations of the Viceroyalty, the prospects were even dimmer.

In

addition to the hostile human environment in which he had found himself

since his capture and .a.le in Africa, his situation was complicated and
worsened by a hostile natural environment and a harsh new way of life.
Ahead of trie newly arrived Negro was the risky process of seasoning, which
only three in four would survive.

L
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

CHAPTER V I I

SEASONING, LABOR AND MAINTENANCE AND THEIR RELATED HEALTH PROBLEMS

Blacks who survived the trek to the interior were sold to local
mines and haciendas. Before they would be fit for the hard labor to
which they would be subjected, however, they had to be "seasoned."
Seasoning was a term used to describe the slow, natural process of re
cuperation, acclimatization and adjustment.

It sometimes took months

to recover from the diseases and adverse conditions of the voyage from
Africa and the trek inland.

It took much longer to adjust to the climate,

the food and the conditions of a strange new world and a harsh new way
of life. Moreover, new Negroes found themselves in.a new "disease envi
ronment" with little Immunity against the diseases produced by its pec
uliar set of viruses and bacteria.^ The Negroes, like other immigrants,
were not considered seasoned until they had survived their first attacks
2
of dysentery and common New World diseases.
A Jamaican doctor outlined the objectives of seasoning by des
cribing a seasoned Negro:
He is free from dangerous and latent disease; he is accustomed
to the climate, acquainted with the advantages and inconveniences
of his situation, he is in possession of a comfortable habitation,

'Philip Curtin, "Epidemology and the Slave Trade," Political

Science Quarterly, LXXHII (June, 1968), 195*
2
John Duffy, Epidemics in Colonial America (Baton Rouge, 1953)>

p. 21k.

137

L
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

1
138

plenty of provisions of his own culture and plenty of stock of

his own raising, and as he has wherewithal to procure comforts
and experience to avoid evil, he is at all times fully enabled
to execute any tasks he has to perform with ease to himself and
satisfaction to his superior.^
Seasoning usually required about four years, and large numbers of
Negroes brought from Africa to the Americas never survived the process.
The risks which attended seasoning were universally recognized. Another
Jamaican doctor observed that it was not uncommon for "whole lots of
ten or twenty J t o j have very few survivors at the end of that time,"
although he calculated the average loss among new Negroes at one-fourth
1*

or more.

Most contemporaries agreed, though some medical men estimated

even greater losses in seasoning. Dr. Claxton wrote that "on an average
at least one-third of the Negroes imported into the island die within
the first three years . . . and from the observation Ive made three
men die to one woman.
The Spaniards of New Granada had similar, if not worse, luck in
seasoning their slaves. Repeated petitions begged for an increase in
the importation of Negroes.

In the telling words of one, there was a

serious lack of slaves "because of the great number of them that die due
to the climate (constelaeion) of the country." In 1730; the Cabildo

^Hector M Neill, Observations on the Treatment of Negroes in the

Island of Jamaica Including Some Account of Their Temper and Character with
Remarks on the Importation of Slaves from the Coast of Africa in a Letter
to a Physician in England (London, 1788), p. 33
^_/Dr. Collins/, Practical Rules for the Management and Medical
Treatment of Negro Slaves in the Sugar Colonies, by a Professional
Planter (London/ 1803), p. 51.
5

See also Lowell Joseph Ragatz, The Fall of the Planter Class in
the British Caribbean, 1763-1833' A study in Social and Economic History
(New York, 1963), p. 87 .
g
Archivo Historico Nacional de Colombia, (Hereafter AHNC), Negros
, y esclavos de Panama III, fol. 23k (17^0

L
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

139
of Santa Fe (Bogota) estimated that fifteen to twenty percent of new
7

Negroes died within two years.

In the mining areas harder conditions

claimed even more, or so it would seem from the report of the adminis
trator of the Royal Emerald Mine at Muzo, near Santa Fe. In 1778 he re
quested permission from the viceroy to replace free peasant laborers with
bozal, or newly imported, Negro slaves for work in the mines. He argued
that even though many would die and some would flee, yet probably one-half
o
of the Negroes would still be alive at the end of four years.
Medical men of the day attributed this high mortality primarily
to three causes:

diseases contracted during the Middle Passage; change

of climate, food and surroundings; and improper care during seasoning.^

Dysentery, whether contracted on board ship or in the New World, was
the major killer among unseasoned slaves. It was often thought to be
caused by the change in climate.

One plantation doctor trying to account

for the prevalence of the disease concocted the theory that the coolness
and moisture of the mountainous interior "conspired to close the pores of
the skin and check perspiration . . . in consequence they are thrown into

^Cabildo of Santa Fe to the king, Apr. 22, 1732; in the private

microfilm collection of Dr. Jose' Rafael Arboleda, Dept, of Anthropology,
Universidad Pontifica Javeriana, Bogota, Colombia, roll. 15, Exped. 2,
Used by permission. Tne originals of Dr. Arboleda*s films are in the
Archivo General de Indias, Seville, Spain.
AHNC, Minas de Boyaca II, fol. 115 (1765)*
^Collins, p. 52; M Neill, p. 33*

L
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

n
114-0

fluxes and dropsies."1*1 The disease was, in fact, often aggravated by

changes in climate and foods. Climatic changes did, no doubt, cause much
illness in most slave areas. Edward Long, a Jamaican planter, condemned
the practice in that island of moving Negroes from dry to damp climates
and of taking new Negroes into the mountains immediately after importa
tion. Such changes in climate he thought caused "colds, pleurises, fluxes,
and other distempers, which proved the bane of the Negroes."11' About
half of the slaves introduced into New Granada were destined for the
temperate highlands around Antioquia and Popayan or the chilly Bogota
plateau, where snow was not unknown. They faced an extended period of
acclimitization not only to accustom them to cold but also to altitude.
Many Negroes accustomed to tropical heat never fully made the adjustment
and runaways almost always fled to the "hot country." Escaped slaves from
Popayan sought the infernal Patla Valley. Runaways from Santa Fe fled
westward to the sweltering Magdalena Valley or eastward to the warm plains
or llanos. Some slaves fortunate enough to live in the hot country even
sought court injunctions, under lenient Spanish law, to prevent their
masters from taking them to colder country. Most of the slaves who did
not go to temperate regions went to work in the mines of the hot, humid
Pacific coast, where the annual rainfall is reportedly the greatest in
the world. For them the problem of acclimatization was less severe. Yet,
not all Africans came from tropical rain forests, and some blacks may

10Collins, p. 58.
11

Edward Long, The History of Jamaica, Or a General Survey of the

Ancient and Modem State of That Island with Reflections on Its Situation,
Settlement, Inhabitants, Climate, Products, Commerce, Laws and Government,
3 vols. (London, 177*0;
^35*

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

i
]Al
have faced acclimatization to heavy rainfall.

12

Even the normal process of acclimatization became a burden when

combined with the multitude of other woes the new Negro faced. Not
only the climate of the New World but the physical environment was
strange to him. He found himself in a hostile natural environment
fraught with countless real and imagined dangers. In the many areas of
the Viceroyalty the jaguar and the crocodile were attributed prodigous
and terrible powers, and at times did pose serious danger to human life.
Even though such instances seem to have been rather rare, these and
other animals became the basis of folklore and legends that terrified
the blacks. The governor of the large mining province of Antioquia
complained of more than five.poisonous varieties in his province (mapara,
> 13
rabo, equiz, azatoradora and cascabel).
So frequently were slaves
bitten that most large slave gangs had a slave versed in the art of cur
ing snake bites. These curanderos were in high demand and brought as much
as one hundred pesos over the price of a prime field hand.^
Slaves were also plagued by an "infinity" of poisonous caterpil
lars, the bite of which might cause symptoms ranging from local inflam
mation to high generalized fever lasting for as long as two days. Hosts

IP

Robert C. West, The Pacific Lowlands of Colombia: A Negroid

Area of the American Tropics (Baton Rouge, 1937). P. 25. 22.
13
/
Archivo Historico Departamental de Antioquia (hereafter AHDA),
Colonia CXLIII (Censos), doc. 6538, "Expediente forraado por orden del Exc.
Senor Virrey del Reino sobre las producciones del Canton de Antioquia y
su jurisdiccidn," 1808, pp. 70; 82, 95 (hereafter cited as "Estado de
Antioquia"). Pagination here and in the future will follow a typed trans
cription of this document available in the Archive rather than the original
document.
-^AHNC, Testamentarias del Cauca XIII, foil. 918-28 ; (1799);
Archivo Central del Cauca (hereafter ACC), Colonia, Sig. 10,362 (1768).

L
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

lit-2

of ticks, lice, fleas, mosquitoes, flies, gnats and other insects annoyed
both Europeans and blacks.

Some insects caused even more serious prob

lems. The bite of scorpions (alcaranes) brought temporary paralysis.

The bite of others such as the Congo fly produced open, leprous sores.
Others caused rashes, itches and other skin irritations, and the bite of
one variety of mosquito reportedly produced a "medium sized worm" which
had to be excised.

15

Slave owners could do little about the diseases their slaves had
contracted during the Middle Passage.

Nor could they do much to avoid

the problems of acclimatization or the dangerous environment, but many

people believed that the greatest losses during the first four years were
due to improper care during seasoning and that much could be done to re
duce those losses.

Several planters and medical men wrote manuals of

instructions for the proper seasoning of slaves. A typical example was

a manual entitled Practical Rules for the Management and Medical Treat
ment of Slaves, written by a Dr. Collins of Jamaica.

Collins manual

was a compendium of the best theory and practice of the day. Collins
believed that many deaths during seasoning were caused by overwork, harsh
treatment and suicide. New Negroes who did not die of disease, he believed,
were often worked to death.

It was disastrous to require too much work

from a Negro during the first four years:

"to press for sudden and un

remitting exertion is to kill them," he cautioned. Severity also killed

many by "exciting melancholy" and causing them to commit suicide or to

^AHDA, "Estado de Antioquia," pp. 22, U-9, 67 , Colonia CXLIII

(Censos), doc. 6538 (1808).

L
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

i
iA-3

flee where they hid in unhealthy places and succumbed to' disease. Liberal
food rations and improper provisions for the feeding of the new Negroes
made their adjustment harder, "if it does not actually kill them outright
. . . ./although/ many, in fact, die from improper food."1^ Some new
world foods bananas, oranges, plantains and yucca--were familiar, but
corn, the basic staple of New Granada, was unfamiliar to the new Negroes
unless they had been given a few handsful during the Atlantic crossing.
Equally unfamiliar were beans and wheat.

Strange food was not only dis

comforting but it probably aggravated dysentery and caused many of the

other "bowel complaints" so frequent among them. These illnesses, in
turn, made food of any kind unappealing.
There were other problems concerning the feeding of the new Negro.
He was often expected to gather and prepare his own food, or he was
boarded out to the care of veteran slaves for a few months or a year until
he could adapt to his new circumstances. Either arrangement often boded
ill for the newcomer. The new slave was sometimes despondent, often sick
and always physically weak. He had little interest in seeking, gather
ing or preparing food. Even when able, he often lacked knowledge of local
foods or how to prepare them. Consequently, if left to his own devices,
the new slave usually went hungry.

If he was boarded out, his situation

was sometimes worse. The other slaves gave him to eat only what they
could spare or did not want--very little in either case.
forced him to work for them in return for his keep.

Often they

17

l6Collins, pp. 58-85 .

^Long, I, k-35} Averil Mackenzie-Grieve, The Last Years of the
English Slave Trade, 1750-l80T (London, 19^1), pp. 1^+6-h-7

L
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

lli4

Perhaps in an effort to avoid at least some of these evils, local

governments, especially in mining areas, assigned this task of raising
l8
and supplying food for the slave gangs to surrounding Indians.
For a
time this policy relieved some new Negroes of the necessity of gathering
their own food but did little to alleviate other food-related problems.
Indians, however, were not available in all areas of New Granada, and
where they were available their numbers declined rapidly from disease.
Medical men as well as local governments constantly urged the
adoption of practices to remedy the abuses involved in housing and feed
ing new slaves and continually called for better health care during
seasoning. The advice of one Jamaican doctor was typical. He urged
slave owners to dress the new Negro warmly and to furnish temporary, but
private, quarters for him for a few months until his own could be built.
Provision grounds where the slave might raise his own food should not be
assigned for at least a month, since it would take that long for him to
get rid of the effects of the Middle Passage, and during that period
plenty of nourishing food should be furnished entirely by the plantation.
To protect the health of the new Negro, the doctor recommended immediate
inoculation against smallpox and close attention to all ailments and
complaints. Kindness and affection toward the slave would help recon
cile him to his new situation, but a "sensible" Negro should be assigned
to be with him to prevent suicide during this difficult period of adjust-

l8
AHNC, Minas del Cauca I, fol. 106 (1737)> Negros y Esclavos
del Cauca II, fol. V 76; (1738). William Frederick Sharp, "The Negro in
Colombia, 1528-1860," (unpublished masters thesis, Dept, of History,
Univ. of N. Carolina, Chapel Hill, 1966), p. 82.

L
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

ib5

ment. For the first few .weeks the new Negro should be assigned no labor
at all and for the first year he should be given only light tasks.

19

The first year after arrival was the most risky, but the years that fol
lowed were not without danger:
For where proper care has been taken of them fewer Negroes
miscarry in the first year than in any one of the three or four
succeeding ones, where the attention of the master has been dis
continued under the idea that it was no longer necessary for the
result of continued and hard labor is most felt after a long in
terval and your eye must be deligently directed to them for some
years.
In most mining regions of New Granada, a new Negro was considered
21
inserviceable for the first year after arrival.
But many mine owners,

eager to cancel the indebtedness incurred in buying the new Negroes, un

doubtedly pressed them into labor a few months after arrival. Such
action seemed necessary, for in some areas, if a slave were not paid for
in two years he could be repossessed.

22

A petition for slaves from the

CaHldo of Santa Fe to the King in 1732 probably accurately accessed the

time allowed for seasoning in much of the Viceroyalty:

"although some

Negroes will be able to enter into service in the mines in four months,
most of them should wait a year or a year and a half and others two years
23
that they might be able to assume such labor."

^Collins, pp. 58-85*

20Ibid., p. 81 .
21

AHNC, Archivo Anexo, Medicos y Abogados IV, fol. 5 (1761)

Archivo Anexo, Minas I, ser. 2, fol. 85 (1759) Minas del Tolima IV,
fol. 153 (1638).
22

AHNC, Miscelanea CXL, fol. 1106 (1761).

23
Cabildo of Santa Fe to the King, April 22, 1732, in Arboleda
Collection, Roll 15, Exped. 2.

L
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

146
Age greatly influenced survival in seasoning. A Negro under
twenty-five usually survived, whereas hardly one-half of those older than
211-

middle age did.

too:

There were other advantages in buying young Negroes,

they were able to serve longer, were easier to teach and were usually

healthier as well. In the early years of the British slave trade, the
Royal African Company had ordered its agents to buy blacks between the
ages of fifteen and forty, "8 or 10 boyes & girles in the ship's comple
ment you may take tho* they be under the age of 15 & that you have them
cheap & find your advantage in getting others with them, but children &
25
old people you must by no means buy."
These age limits soon proved
to be too high and new instructions had been issued as early as 1677 * The
Captain of the Arthur was mindful of such instructions when he made the
following notation in his log:
3 men:

"Wednesday 6

, This day we Bought

1 women (sic.) . . . not forgetting your hon'rs orders that none

exceed the age of fourteen neither under the age of twenty years as heather26
to had been minded and accordingly bo't."

In 1701, the company reiterated to its new agent-general at Cape

Coast to buy boys and girls of twelve to fifteen years in preference to
adults over thirty. This change in policy was probably influenced
largely by the demand among planters for more easily seasoned Negroes.

2b

27

Collins, pp. 46-67, 82.

^K. G. Davies, The Royal African Company (London, 1957) s P* 300.

26

Elizabeth Donnan, Documents Illustrative of the History of the

Slave Trade to America, k vols. (Washington, 1930-35)> I; 228.
^Davies, p. 300. Nevertheless, as demand rose in the West Indies
and competition increased bn the Coast, guineamen began to take- older slaves,
and In 1801 a Jamaican doctor demonstrated against the "great number

L
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

The miners of New Granada, no doubt, had this fact in mind in their
repeated petitions to the crown to import Negroes for sale on long term
credit to stimulate the mining industry. They specifically urged that
all new blacks be between the ages of fifteen and twenty years
The time allowed for seasoning was not entirely wasted from the
slave owner's point of view.

It was a period of apprenticeship during

which the slave learned to perform the labor he would later be given.

29

New Negroes, whether fully and properly seasoned or not, were put to
a variety of labors. Around Santa Marta, Panama City and Guayaquil, large
numbers were used as pearl divers. Even more were used in cutting wood,
in manufacturing wooden products and in ship building, especially in
the seventeenth century. By 1625, Negro slaves had replaced many Indians
as boatmen on the Magdalena and Cauca Rivers. Free Negroes, however, soon
came to replace slaves in this work.

By 1630 slaves had become an in

creasingly important source of labor on the tobacco plantations on the

north coast.

30

of more advanced adults, some of whom are superannuated and hoary with
age, that are now imported into the islands _/of whom/ not one half survive
the fourth year of their transportation. . . . The consumption of slaves
of this description, is so great, as to account for a large part of the
immense drafts made annually from the coast of Africa." See Collins, pp.
1+6-U-T.
28

AHNC, Minas del Cauca II, foil. k5k-5kv (1777).

2 ^AHNC, Archivo Anexo, Minas I, ser. 2, fol. 85 (1759); Archivo

Anexo, Medicos y abogados IV, foil, k-6 (1761).

30
Jaime Jaramillo, "Escalvos y seffores en la sociedad colombiana
del siglo XVII," Anuario Colombiano de Historia Social y Cultural. I, No. I
(Bogota, 1963), 1^-17; Antonio de Ulloa, Relacidn hist&rica del viage a
la America meridional. If vols. (Madrid, 17^-8), I, 172-75 (Lib. I, cap. v),
2k0 (Lib. IV, cap. vii); Jose Rafael Arboleda, "The Ethnohistory of the
Colombian Negro," (unpublished master's thesis, Dept, of Anthropology,
Northwestern Univ., Evanston, 111., 1950), pp. ^3-^, b9; Jose7 Antonio
Saco, Historia de la esclavitud de la raza africana en el nuevo inundo v
en esuecial en los naises hisnano-americanos. L vols. (Barcelona, 1879),

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

n
U8

Royal officials often bought slaves in the name of the king for
the construction of roads and public works. The massive walls and forti
fications of Cartagena were constructed and maintained largely by slave
labor. Royal slaves were also used to produce items on which the crown
had a monopoly, such as saltpeter and brandy (aguardiente) and were
also used in the royal silver and emerald mines.31
Hospitals, town councils, religious orders and other colonial
institutions also owned and employed slaves. Consulados and gremios
involved in maritime or inland transport bought them to construct ware
houses, port facilities and roads. In the cities master craftsmen pur
chased slaves as helpers, many of which became artisans and later pur
chased their freedom. Many more slaves were employed in the cities as
domestics, others became vendors and laborers for their masters.

32

Most of the slaves of the viceroyalty, however, were destined for

the mines or for the haciendas devoted either to sugar or cattle produc
tion, or both. Labor in the mines was notoriously hard. Negroes and
even free blacks guilty of serious offenses were often sentenced by
33
Spanish courts to work in the mines.Capital
punishment was sometimes

II, ll+l; Robert C. West, Colonial Placer Mining in Colombia (Baton Rouge,
1952), p. 125; Rolando Mellafe, La esclavitud en Hispanoamerica (Buenos
Aires, 196^;, PP* 7576.
3^AHNC, Negros y esclavos de Panama III, fol. 7*t*t- (Saltpeter mine,
1779)> Virreyes X, foil. 660-63 (aguardente factory, 177*0; Minas de Boycca*
II, fol. ^67 (blacksmith for royal mines, 177*+)* Negros y esclavos del
Cauca IV, foil. 521-22 (armed forces, 1772) Minas del Tolima, IV, fol.
558 (royal mines, 1796); Miscalenea CXIV. fol. 275 , 1753; Estadistica VI
fol. 572, (1788) Real Hacienda Cartas XXIII, fol. 858, (1753) fortifi
cations and public works).
32Mellaffe, p. 76 .

Aquiles Escalantes, El negro en Colombia (Bogota, 196*+), p. 139;

citing royal cedula of Nov. 29, 1602; AHNC, Negros y esclavos de Gundinamarca VIII, foil. 853-63 (l7*f*0

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

ll+ 9

even commuted to mine service.

311-

Not surprisingly, in non-mining areas,

the threat of being sent to the mines often proved sufficient to bring
recalitrant Negroes into line.
Negro miners worked from sun to sun. A Jesuit priest well ac
quainted with slavery wrote at the beginning of the seventeenth century
that slaves were forced to rise at 3:00 in the morning to prepare breakfast before dawn in order to be at work at the suns first light.

35

In

later years, when slaves were more expensive, mine owners may have re
duced hours slightly to protect their investment,at least a slave from
the mines of Barbacoas testified that work began at 5:00 in the morning
and ended with sundown at 6:00 in the evening with a little time off for
lunch. Even though slaves were released from work in the mines after
sundown, some masters still assigned them chores that could be done after
sunset.

This exhausting schedule was mitigated somewhat by the cus

tomary practice of giving the slaves Sundays off for rest and allowing
them another day of the week in which they could work for themselves (see
Chap. IX).
Usually less than half of the Negroes in a mine actually engaged
in mining; the others were used in the house, blacksmith shop, infirmary

3I4.

Archivo Histdrica Nacional del Ecuador (hereafter AHNE), Real

Audiencia, Gobemacion de Popaydn, Caja 93; "Causa criminal seguida contra
Agustin, mulato esclavo de Da. Catarina Nieto . . . ," fol. 53; (1803).
35
Alonzo de Sandoval, De Instauranda Aethiopum Salute:
de la esclavitud negra en America (Bogota, 195^). P. 195.

El mundo

3^AHNC, Real Audiencia, Gobemacidn de Popayan, Caja 1 5 2 ^

"Causa entre Marcos Corte's y su esclavo Estanislao Cortes," fol. 3
(1789); AHDA, Colonia XXXIV (Esclavos), doc. 1120 (1803).

L
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

i
150

or farming, and others were either too old or too young or too sick for
labor. The prime slaves who worked the mine were organized into gangs
ranging in size from five or six to more than one hundred, depending on
the size of the workings.

Usually in larger mines there were several

gangs. The men formed one gang which did the heavy digging and excavation
work, while a gang of women did the lighter work of scraping and panning.
In areas where Indians were not available to produce food for the labor
gangs, still another gang was often formed to cultivate and haul plantains
and corn. For example, in a large mine in Remedios (Antioquia) in 1632,
fifty slaves were used to mine and wash the gold, twenty-two were used
in farming and another twenty-two were old people and children who per
formed household duties. At the head of each gang was a captain, a trusted
slave, whose duties included the supervision and discipline of his gang,
distribution of food and collection of the weekly take of gold for the
owner.

Often female captains had charge of the female labor

g a n g . 37

Slave gangs were large in the lowlands. In 1759 there were fiftyseven mines in the ChoccS and a total of 2,602 slaves (60$ men and 4-0$
women), or an average of 7^ slaves per mine. The largest mine had 567
blacks and thirteen more had one hundred or more. The smallest had only
five.

As a rule, slave gangs were much smaller in Antioquia, where

the majority of mine owners held a handful of slaves and lived on their
mines.

3?West, pp. 86-87 , 98 , note 1+9*

oQ
AHNC, Negros y esclavos del Cauca IV, foil. 558-91 (1759)*

L
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

15?
Mining was not only heavy, hard work but exposed the slaves to

injury from sharp or falling rocks or misguided tools.

It is not sur

prising that hernias and physical disabilities and injuries were the
most common complaints among mine slaves (see pp. 179-182 )*
Most of the slaves of the Viceroyalty worked in gold placers
where they employed a variety of techniques. The most common was ground
sluicing.

In this type of placer, slaves dug a ditch or sluice channel

(canel&i) along the base of the gold-bearing gravel bench or terrace to

the depth of the hardpan where the richest pay dirt was usually located.
Then using heavy iron bars (barros) and iron tipped poles (barritones),
the men dug into the terrace, dumping into the ground sluice a one to
two-foot wide "slice" or "cut" from the terrace face.

Slaves then ran

water through the sluice to wash out the fine material. The large rocks
that remained were thrown out of the sluice by hand or by a pair of
concave wooden plates (conchos), and the remaining gravel was gradually
washed off while the gold settled to the bottom of the sluice channel.
Once the cut had been dug from the terrace face and washed in the sluice,
it left exposed the highly rich clay layer on which it had rested im
mediately above the hardpan. The women then scraped this clay layer from
the hardpan with a type of short-handled hoe (almocafre) and piled it
in the sluice with the gold-rich residue from the initial sluicings.
The women then panned the gold out by use of a round, shallow, wooden
bowl called a batea. The entire process of working a cut, excavating
the gravel, washing it, panning the gold and cleaning the sluice took
a gang of ten to fifteen blacks about two weeks to complete. When it
was finished, the slave gang was ready to make another cut. As the terrace
face was excavated in repeated cuts, the sluice was gradually worked into

L
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

r
152

the terrace face until the gravel deposit was depleted. Negro miners
sometimes used a variation of this technique.

Instead of digging the

gravel from the face of the terrace, they cascaded a stream of water
over the terrace to erode auriferous sand and gravel from its face and
wash it into the sluice, after which they performed the typical ground
sluicing process.
Stream placering was also common. In its simplest form slaves
merely panned gold from dry stream beds.

In most areas these operations,

often called summer mines (minas del verano), were limited to the dry
season when water was low. Even streams with heavy flow in the dry
season, however, could still be worked; slaves waded into them and
scooped up gold-rich sand deposited in pockets or under boulders. Pan
ning while standing, sometimes waist deep in the middle of a swift
stream, was probably the most physically exhausting type of placering,
for the miners continually had to fight the current.
In another kind of stream placering, slaves constructed a series
of rock dams jutting from the banks into the centers of the stream.
These jetties, spaced five to six feet apart, slowed the current and
caused the gold to settle out. In the quiet spaces between jetties,
slaves scooped up and panned the rich auriferous sands. In deeper water
larger dams were constructed and it was necessary to dive to reach
the river bottom.

On the downstream side of these larger dams slaves

with heavy stones tied to their waists sank to the bottom to scoop up
gravel. When the batea was filled with gravel the slaves untied the
stone and swam to the surface with the load. If the load was too heavy,
they climbed to the surface on an inclined, notched log.

L
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

i
153
Diving was extremely exhausting work.

So many deaths occurred

among Indian and Negro pearl divers that the crown finally prohibited it
altogether. The prohibition was never extended to stream placering, but
the health hazards were just as serious. Much of the mortality among
colonial slave divers may have been due to tuberculosis, for modem
Colombian Negroes engaged in the same work easily contract that disease.
Moreover, miners were often attacked by a flesh-eating fish (dentin),
especially in the lowland swamps and lakes of Antioquia. ^9
Pit placering was another very arduous form of mining. It was
most common on flood plains, river bars and low terraces close to streams.
Using the iron bar for digging and the batea for excavating, slaves dug
large pits, twelve to fourteen feet square, to reach gold-bearing sands
lying sometimes ten to fifteen feet deep. When they reached pay dirt they
carried it to the surface in the batea, where it was washed in sluices.
When none of the foregoing methods could be feasibly employed,
slaves were sometimes required to divert streams from their course. This
technique was used occasionally in Antioquia in colonial times.

It

required large-scale excavations and many grueling hours of labor.

In some areas of New Granada slaves were used mainly in vein
mining.

Important vein deposits were located in Almagjier to the south

of Popayi,n and in Pomplona northwest of Santa Fe. Vein deposits were

also worked in Anserma and Buritica in the Cauca drainage and in
Mariquita, Ibague and Remedios in the Magdalena drainage. Vein deposits

39
West, pp. 58-59*

L
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

n
15^

were worked by both vertical and inclined tunnels. Using only crowbars,
wedges and sledge hammers, slaves dug shafts as deep as one hundred to
one hundred fifty feet below the surface. No provisions were made for
drainage or ventilation and manati oil or allegator oil lamps furnished
the only lighting.
Most ore taken from the mines was weathered and slaves could
easily crush it by hand on stone querns. To crush harder, unweathered
ore, they used a water-powered stamp mill or a stone mortar with a leveroperated pestle. The gold was usually extracted from crushed ore by
panning, so it was necessary either to haul crushed ore to a stream or
to build aqueducts to conduct water to the mine itself.

Sometimes,

however, almagamation was used.

Slaves were also used in much hard work closely associated with
mining. The most arduous task was to maintain an adequate water supply
for sluicing. It was especially hard to provide water for high benches
far above streams. Water was sometimes conducted for miles in canals
(acequias) from high headwaters of streams to these high-level terraces.
Some of these canals had to be constructed of stone and mortar. More
often, however, less water was needed and slaves built simple, elevated
water races, made of split bamboo or thick bark. In areas of heavy
rainfall they constructed reservoirs (pilas) above the mines to impound
rain water, which was conducted to the mines through canals. The pila
system was most common in the Pacific lowlands, where heavy showers fell
nightly except during the drier months of January and February. Rain
was trapped in these reservoirs during the night and used the following
day for sluicing.
Pit placering also required additional heavy work of the slaves.

L
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

..--

155

To prevent the water-soaked gravel walls from caving in, they had to
timber the sides with logs, interlaced with wild cane and palm leaf
mats. The need for drainage of these pits was constant and each morning
slaves had to bail out several feet of seepage water by use of the batea
before placer operations began.1+0
If life was hardest in the mines, it was closely rivaled in dif
ficulty by life on the hacienda. Many, perhaps most, of the haciendas
produced sugar as well as cattle.

Slaves were mustered before dawn and

worked until nine when they were given breakfast and then worked until
noon. Work resumed again at two in the afternoon and continued until
sunset, about six in the evening. Much of the year, however, there was
work to be done at night as well. When the cane was ready for harvest,
it had to be cut promptly and the juice pressed out and made into sugar
and molasses. During crop time slaves often worked in shifts to cut
and haul the cane, feed the mill rollers, burn the cane trash and tend
the vats.

Cutting, hauling, grinding, clarification, filtration, evapo

ration and crystallization had to be carried out successively and rapidly

or the juice yield would shrink or ferment and the crop would be lost.
Each estate had only a limited number of laborers to handle the greatly
increased volume of work at crop time, so excessive hours, including
Sunday and night labor, were unavoidable. Data from various sugar col
onies in the Americas indicated that an average workday during the crop
season was eighteen to twenty hours. Thus, most able-bodied blacks worked

^The foregoing discussion of mining techniques has been taken

largely from West, pp. 5^-56. See also AHNC, Minas del Cauca IV, foil.
369-70 (l80l), and Ulloa, Relaciori de viage, II, 60^-06 (Lib. VI, Cap. x).

L
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

15*P
a customary day of fifteen hours (5 a.m. to 8 p.m.) plus a four to five
hour night shift every other night.

in

In Cuba, another Spanish colony, during crop season, "Negroes were

allowed, but five hours sleep." Some estates, even though otherwise
humanely managed., allowed as few as three hours sleep each night.

Con

stant use of the whip was necessary merely to keep the slaves awake. At
the end of the grinding season even the oxen were reduced to "mere skelei+2
tons," and many of them died from "over-labor."
Most planters probably recognized the danger to health posed by
such excessive labor. As early as the mid-1550's, Bartolome' de las Casas
noted that:
Before there were sugar mills in Hispaniola, it was the con
sensus of opinion that, if a Negro was not hanged, he would never
die. . . we had never seen a Negro die of disease. For it is a
fact that the Negroes, like oranges, found this land more natural
to them than their native Guinea; but once they were sent to the
mill they died like flies from the hard labor they were made to
endure and the beverages they drink made from the sugar cane.
Thus, large numbers of them die daily.
Two centuries later, Edward Long, a Jamaican planter, observed
that the birth and survival rate of slave children was in proportion
to the amount of sugar produced on the estate, which in turn was an index
to the amount of work required of the slave gangs. He recommended a

^-Gwendolyn Midlo Hall, "Social Control in Slave Plantation

Societies: A Comparison of St. Domingue and Cuba" (unpublished master's
thesis, Univ. of Mich., Ann Arbor, 1970)> P 21.
^Ibid., p. 22 .
^Eric E. Williams, Documents of West Indian History. Vol. I,
llj-92-1655. From the Spanish Discovery to the British Conquest of Jamaica
(Port-of-Spain, Trinidad, 1963), p. 158 .

L
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

r
157
ratio of two hogsheads to every three slaves as a ratio that would
produce the maximum amount of sugar and still protect the slave popui +
^
lation.

A Cuban planter acknowledged that "without a doubt" slaves*

kq
lives were shortened by lack of sleep during crop time. ' The problem
however, was in the nature of the crop:
What is unique about sugar production, however, is that even
with the hest of intentions, and the most humane management, the
nature of the crop itself and the process involved in producing
raw sugar in the absence of an elastic labor supply made intense
utilization^gf the work force inevitable during the extended grind
ing season.
Climatic conditions governed the maturation of the cane and made
it impossible to ameliorate the labor regime in the West Indies.

Crop

time usually corresponded to the dry season from December to February

and from June to July. In some areas of New Granada, however, where
the rainy and. dry seasons were not sharply distinguished, planters
planned the planting of cane so that fields would ripen successively
rather than simultaneously and thus permit the cane mill to operate the
year around at a less hectic pace. This procedure was recommended
around Popayan. Under this method Negroes did not work day and night
shifts but rather stood their turn in the boiling house and mill by
rotation. Thus, those that worked one day in these hardest jobs would
for several days following be given easier tasks until all the able-bodied
had served their turns in the mill or boiling house. The result was

^Long, History of Jamaica. I, 1+37

^Hall, p. 22 .
46Ibid., p. 2 3 .

L
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

H
158

somewhat a less demanding and strenuous existence for the slaves.

In these mills slaves were rousted out at 3 a.m.

Oxen turned out

to graze for the night had to be located and yoked and teams had to
be harnessed and hitched up, all of which was done
ness in order to be ready to

in the pre-dawn dark

begin full productionat

the first grey

light of dawn, which was an hour or more before actual sunup. If work
began at dawn the fourth vat of juice would be ground by four in the
afternoon, the horses could be turned out to pasture and the slaves
feeding the cane press could then be assigned lighter chores or perhaps
even be permitted to go to their huts for rest, after fourteen to fifteen
hours of labor with a short rest at lunch. No more cane would be ground
that day, for there would not be time to cook it that night. Several
more loads of cane were cut,however, and ready to be ground immediately
the following morning.

It would take three hours to cook the juice of

the last batch of cane so the sugar makers would work until seven at
night.

Where climatic conditions permitted year-around harvesting,

slaves were allowed Sundays and an additional day off per week.

(See

Chap. IX)
Usually less than half of the Negroes on sugar haciendas engaged
in field work; the others were craftsmen, herders, domestics, watchmen
and nurses, or were either too old or too young for work. It was common
in the West Indies to divide the agriculture laborers into three groups,
the big gang, the second gang, and the small gang. The first included
the most able-bodied men and women. In crop time the big gang cut and

^ACC, Colonia, Sig. 5^05, foil, k-5, 10-11 (1775).

L
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

n
159

ground the cane and toiled the juice.

In other seasons, this gang did

the heavy work of clearing land and planting and hoeing cane. The sec
ond gang was made up of hoys and girls, convalescents and pregnant fe
males; they weeded the cane and performed other light tasks. Very small
children made up the third gang; they were employed in hoeing the garden
and cutting grass for the livestock so as to be kept out of mischief.
Each gang had its own Negro driver or captain.

The gang system was

also used in New Granada where the cane harvest was seasonal.
Most of the sugar haciendas of New Granada were of moderate size
with one horse-powered cane mill and about fifty serviceable Negroes.
A sugar plantation of this kind usually required fifty horses used in
rotation to turn the mill and twenty mules to haul cane and slave pro
visions from the fields. About forty oxen were needed for the heavier
I4.9
work of hauling fire wood to stoke the fires for boiling cane juice.
The life of the slave on a hacienda devoted solely to cattle
raising was probably easier than that of the slave in the mine or on
a sugar estate. But according to one contemporary even this occupation
was certainly unenviable. He worked all day on rough range in the hot
sun, exposed to mosquitoes, horse flies and ticks. Seldom was he allowed
more than time enough to gulp down a hasty lunch and was relieved from
work only by sundown. But even then necessity required him to work until
10:00 at night or later gathering and preparing yucca and cazaba flour

I4.8
Ragatz, Fall of the Planter Class, pp. 25-26.
1|'AC0, Colctlia, Sig. 5Wl, fol. It (1775).

L
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

"i
160

for his own food. Moreover, slaves were required to take turns standm g night watch, to protect the cattle from wild animals.

50

If seasoning and working conditions posed serious health problems

for the slave, so did his diet. Food rations for slaves in New Granada
varied from region to region, but basically consisted of plantains, maize,
salt and meat. The feeding of slaves in the lowland mines presented
special problems. Food production was severely limited in the lowland
rain forests. Most vegetables could not be grown and livestock virtually
did not exist. Plantains, bananas, coconuts and sometimes corn were
practically the only food produced in the region. Other food had to
be packed in by human porters over terrain too rough even for pack mules.
Meat was always scarce and could be given only to the sick. Com, too,
was often so limited that it was reserved for those too sick to eat plan
tains. Most miners relied heavily and sometimes solely on plantains to
51
ration their slaves.
In the province of Quibd<5 (Choco), for example,
it was customary to give eight hands (bunches) of plantains or one almud
(twenty-five pounds) of com to each slave weekly.
too old to work received a half ration.

52

Slaves too young or

/
In other provinces of the Choco

the ration was virtually the same. Slave owners gave each Negro six
plantains a day plus a weekly portion of com and salt.

Some adminis

trators gave a supplementary ration of two pounds of salt pork or salt

beef per week as a bonus when it was available, but the basic ration of
plantains, salt and com, when the latter was available, was more or less
-30Sandoval, pp. 195-96 *
51West, Placer Mining, p. 87 ; AHNC, Minas del Cauca I, foil. 153v,
227, 239v (1737)
52AHNC, Minas del Cauca III, fol. 725 (1793)

L
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

l6 l

standard throughout the Pacific lowlands. ^

Less isolated mines lying

just within the borders of the lowlands were able to acquire slave pro
visions from surrounding haciendas which sometimes had surplus.

In one

such arrangement the R^o de Palo Mine every week obtained from a nearby
hacienda four "loads" of plantains and thirty fanegas (l fanega = 1 .6
bushels) of corn to feed its twenty-five slaves. The round trip required
the labor of one Negro driver and five mules.

5b

Administrators of more remote mines tried to ease the burden and

cost of importing food by planting and maintaining plantain groves and,
where possible, com fields to provide slave rations. Instructions for
the overseer of the huge Certequi mine in the Choco*were typical:

"You

will take particular care in preserving and increasing the plantain groves
for on this depends the nutrition of the slave gangs and the salvation
55
of the mine, and you will cultivate com fields when feasible."
The
mine, Nuestra Senora del Rosario, on the Micay River in Barbacoas Province,
had four plantain groves and one coconut grove located on nearby rivers.
The largest was about "two blocks" square.^

-^West, p. 87; University of North Carolina, Southern History Col

lection, Popayan Papers, Box 9> "Instrucciones para el raanejo de las Minas
de Nuestra Senora de las Mercedes, San Jose y Santiago (l8l0).
5l|.

AHNE, Real Audiencia, Gobemacion de Popayan, Caja 70;

deresidencia del Gobemador de Popayan" (Espejo), fol. 1, 1755*

..

Autos

55AHNC, Minas del Cauca V, foil. 3l+7-*t8 (180*0.

AHNE, Real Audiencia, Gobemacion de Popayan, Caja 28, "Autos

obrados por las justicias de la Cuidad de Santa Maria del Puerto, Provincia de Barbacoas sobre asegurar los bienes de Bartholome Estupinan,
foil. l6v-l8v (1718).

L
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

162

In spite of such measures, however, most miners of the Pacific

coast, whether in the Choc< or Baracoas, had to import much of the food
for their slaves. Long distance freight cost made food notoriously
expensive.

57

The high cost of staples forced many miners of the Choco to

move to other areas such as Antioquia or the Cauca Valley.

58

Others

went south to the Raposo and Barbacoas districts of the lowlands only
to find similar food problems. The southern lowland areas were easier
to supply from the outside and could also raise more of their own food.
Some mines in Barbacoas were even able to maintain a limited number of
livestock. A mine on the Sayja River in the northern part of the province
had farm land valued at two hundred pesos and thirty-two head of cattle
to help provision its forty-three slaves.

59

A short distance to the

north on the Naya River the mine Nuestra Senora de la Concepcion had
fifty-five head of cattle.

60

Yet, these two mines were the exception

rather than the rule and the southern lowlands in general seem to have
faced much the same food problem as Choco. Many miners in Barbacoas also
left that region, complaining of high cost "because all the necessities
of life are brought here from other parts.

6l

S7

/
/
''Pedro Fermm
de Vargas, Pensamientos politicos
y memoria sobre
la poblaciOn del Nuevo Reino de Granada (Bogota, 1953); P* 53; ACC,
Colonia, Sig. 817^ (1717)*
[O
ACC, Colonia, sig. 817^, fol. 1 (1717); AHNC, Negros y esclavos
del Cauca III, fol. 568 (17^-6).

59
/
AHNE, Real Audiencia, Gobemacion de Popayan, Caja 159? "Autos
de apalacit^n de Manuel Herrera, Vecino de Cali, como albasea de Thomas
Ruis sobre remate de unas rainas, fol. 7v (1791)
60
y
Ibid., Caja 156, "Autos de Maria Rosalia de Ante" viuda de
Francisco Balio Angulo con el albasea sobre el remate de la Mina de
Niaya," fol. 20 v (1790).
^

ACC, Colonia, sig. ko62, foil. lf-5v (17^).

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

163
The feeding of slaves in other areas of the Viceroyalty was
easier. Outside the lowlands the basic ration was either com or meat
or a combination of the two, both of which were usually grown on lands
of the hacienda or mine itself. In Antioquia the basic ration was corn
and plantains. Slaves usually received bimonthly one and one-half
fanegas of corn, a "load and a half" of plantains and half an arroba of
62

salt.
Around Popayan the basic ration was com and meat. An almud
of shelled com (25 lbs.) and "some" meat was given weekly with a "pan"
of salt. Once a month a similar ration was given to the slaves in the
vein mines of Supia near Anserma. In parts of the Cauca Valley the
basic ration was a combination of com, plantains and meat. In the mines
of Caloto in the central Cauca Valley, for example, it was customary
to give fresh meat and salt every two weeks, an arroba of com weekly
and plantains daily or whenever they could be obtained during the week.

63

In ranching areas such as the upper Magdalena and Cauca Valleys

and the eastern llanos, the basic ration consisted only of meat. The
meat was often salted before the slaves received it and in such cases
the separate ration of salt was much reduced or eliminated.

The large

hacienda of Japio in the upper Cauca Valley during a four-year period in

62

AHNC, Minas del Cauca II, foil. ^3^_35v (1679); AHDA, Colonia
CX (Temporalidades), doc. 31^+1, foil. 50-51 (1778)
^AHNC, Minas del Cauca II, foil. 1+3^-35v (1679)j ACC, Colonia,
sig. 8175 (1739).
AHNC, Temporalidades I, foil. 393v-9^ (Hacienda "Matima," 1770);
XIII, foil. 57-72 (Hacienda "Caribari," 1770); XIV, foil. ^52-65v (Haci
enda Charaicera," 1773-7^); XXV, foil. 33^4io (Hacidnda "Buenavista,"
177*0

L
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

in the 1770 's, for example, slaughtered an average of two hundred four
head of cattle a year to feed its sixty-eight slaves. The meat evidently
was salted at each butchering hut an additional half-pound ration of
salt was distributed once a year. More often, the ration was distri
buted fresh, usually about fifteen pounds to each working slave over
twelve, with proportionally smaller amounts for those under twelve.

The

very young received only one and one-half pounds. When fresh meat was
distributed, a ration of salt usually accompanied it and the slave was
expected to salt the meat to preserve it.

Sometimes the ration was

given in live cattle which the slave could keep as personal property
66
until he needed it for food.
Rations distributed on the hoof were
probably more often the case on haciendas with very few slaves, perhaps
one or two families, and many have been given because of the danger of
the meat's spoiling before it could be eaten. In some cases these ani
mals were never slaughtered, but became the basis of the slave's personal
property.

Occasionally, on Jesuit haciendas slaves were given a ration

of the products of the hacienda.

One Jesuit hacienda in Antioquia gave

6V
a ration of lard and three eggs per month to each slave.

Often slaves were allowed to use certain portions of the hacienda

as provision grounds or garden plots in which to raise fruit, vegetables,
herbs and livestock in their spare time. Most slaves outside the Pacific

^5a C0, Colonia, sig. 5529 (177^-77); AHNC, Temporalidades VI, fol.
61+8 ff. (Hacienda "Espinal," 1771)
^AHNC, Temporalidades XXVI, fol. 71 (Hacienda "Tocaira," 1783).

67aEQA., Colonia CX (Temporalidades), doc. 3llL, fol. 50 (1778).

L
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

165

lowlands probably had these provision grounds and frequently were able
to accumulate considerable personal property as a result.

(See p. 2^0)

The ability of the slaves to provide a supplementary diet for themselves

from these provision grounds may have been the reason why meat or com
was the sole ration. Also in areas where the meat ration was customary,
pineapple, mangoes, pears, bananas, guavas, oranges and other fruits are
easily accessible today and may have been available to the Negroes at that
time as well.

In the Pacific lowland, however, neither fruits nor sup

plementary food from provision grounds was available.

In view of the cost and scarcity of food, it would be surprising
if Negro miners were either well fed or well nourished.

In the words

of one slave owner in the Chocd, both slave and master were "lucky even

68

to eat poorly."

Outright starvation occasionally caused the death of

many slaves. In 1715 in one section of the Chocd alone more than three
hundred slaves died of starvation and four hundred more were taken out
of the area to prevent their starving due to an attempt by the town of
Cartago to monopolize the sale of foodstuffs to the Chocd.^ Moreover,
crop failures and famine often caused starvation and suspension of min
ing activities.

In 1733 there was a famine throughout the Chocd so

severe that most slave gangs were forced to suspend labor in the mines
70
"because there was nothing for the Negroes to eat."
Famines outside the lowlands also occurred but usually with less
catastrophe results. In l6 l6 and again in 1631, plagues of locust

AHNC, Negros y esclavos del Cauca III, fol. 568 (17*1-6).

69ACC, Colonia, sig. 817^, foil. 13v, 9 (1717).

70
AHNC, Miscelanea LXXV, fol. 1^8 (173*0

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

n
166

destroyed the com crops around Remedios in Antioquia.

Slave rations

were drastically reduced to four yucca roots and two maize cakes per
week.

71

In Pamplona insects destroyed the pineapple crop which supplied

much food for slaves of the Royal Baja silver mines.

72

The most serious

famine to occur outside the lowlands began in Zaragoza (Antioquia) in

the 1660 *s and lasted four years causing many slaves to die of starvation.73
The crown attempted to assure the proper feeding of slaves and
the matter was usually checked into during the periodic royal inspec
tions (visitas). These inspection records are revealing.

In 1787 a

visita of the eight mines in the jurisdiction of the city of Anserma

discovered the three mine owners gave their slaves no food rations at
all but instead permitted them to work on Sundays and holy days (in
violation of the law) and allowed them every Saturday free to work for
themselves (in the mines) to earn the money to buy food and clothes
from their masters. The royal inspector forbade work on Sunday and
holy days and ordered the remiss mine owners either to provide food
and clothes or to allow their slaves still another free day per week to
earn the money for food and clothing. His orders were to be obeyed
on pain of fifty pesos fine, a sum which would have fed the slaves for
711several months.
^West, Placer Mining, p. 99 , note 55*
^AHNC, Minas de Santander I, fol. 813 (1766).
^-^VTest, p. 27 .
^AHNE, Real Audiencia, Gobemacion de Popayan Caja 1 ^ 5 ^
"Expedients de la visita de la Cuidad de Anserma obrada por el Gobemador
de la Cuidad de Popayan, Dn. Pedro Vecaria, foil. 7V10 (17&7)

L
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

167

In the same tour of inspection the inspector visited the nineteen

mines around Caloto. He found the rations to he deficient in thirteen
of the mines.

Six mines gave no rations at all, a practice which forced

their slaves to work Sundays to obtain their food. One mine provided
only a meager ration of twenty plantains per week, four gave only an almud
of shelled corn per week,and one added a ration of meat to that of the
com but only when the administration of the mine made a visit.

One

mine gave a partial ration and "some" days of the week free so that the
slaves could grow their own food or work the mines to buy whatthey needed.
These deficiencies were sometimes due more to scarcity than avarice.
One Negro captain reported that "they give them one almud of shelled corn
when there is any and when not, they give them Saturdays" to work for
themselves. Nevertheless, the inspector was not convinced of the scarcity
and blamed the continual theft of cattle that plagued the district as one
of the consequences of such inadequate provisions.

On pain of fifty pesos

fine he ordered mine owners to give their slaves proper food and clothing
"as the other miners of this jurisdiction do who treat their slaves with
more humanity and Christian charity, for as slaves justly owe to their
master their personal labor the master owes to the slaves the necessary
nourishment to maintain life and natural forces." To him "proper" food
meant "at least the short ration" of half an arroba of meat and a half
pound of salt each month plus the standard ration of an almud of corn and
plantains per week.

"The said ration is understood for serviceable Negroes,

Negresses and old slaves, and for the young, the half of it.

75

Ibid., Caja 143, Expediente de la visita de la Cuidad de Caloto

obrada por el Gobemador de la Cuidad de Popay&n, Dn. Pedro de Vecaria,
foil. 3-14 (1786).

L
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

168

Conditions on haciendas were much better.

Slaves on only two

of the eighty-two haciendas in the jurisdiction of Cali, Cartago,

Anserma and Caloto complained of insufficient food and clothing rations.
The inspector fined the delinquent ranchers and ordered these breeches
closed.^
If such scarcity was so prevalent in the opulent and fertile
Cauca Valley, the most fertile area of the Viceroyalty comparable to
the Argentina Pampa or the Russian Ukraine, it is not surprising that the
lot of the slaves was so deplorable in the inaccessible lowlands with
their sterile soil, exorbitant food costs, and perennial scarcity.
Malnutrition must have posed a serious problem in all areas of
New Granada, not just for slaves but for all people. Dietary diseases
like scurvy, beriberi and pellagra were common in all areas of colonial
America.771 Proper nutrition was an even more severe problem for the
slave population.

Ignorance of proper diet and nutrition alone would

probably have caused such suffering, but agricultural limitations of the

Viceroyalty and the social factors involved in slavery compounded the
problem.
Given the poor diet available to the slave population, most Negroes
probably suffered from various degrees of vitamin deficiency.

In most

cases deficiency was probably not sufficiently acute to be immediately

apparent and probably served only to debilitate the black and make him
more susceptible to other maladies.

^Ibid., foil. 39v-51v.

77
1'Duffy, Epidemics in America, p. 11.

L
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

169

Vitamin A, used by the body especially to maintain good vision

and general resistance to disease and infection, would have been largely
lacking in the diet of the large slave gangs of the Pacific lowlands,
where the diet consisted chiefly of plantains and maize. Deficiency
of riboflavin (vitamin B2) associated with inadequate intake of milk
and animal protein was probably common, too, in the lowlands. Even in
Antioquia where ranching and farming in some areas made the food supply
much better, "the scarcity of cattle was such that the very poor were
never able to eat meat.

Riboflavin deficiency causes inflammation

and cracking of the skin, and it may have been partly responsible for a
high prevalence of skin complaints among slaves (see Table 5; P 182).
Of all deficiency diseases, scurvy, an extreme deficiency of
vitamin C, was usually the most likely to occur even in natural surround79
ings.
Even in tropical Africa, it often occurred among Negroes once
they had been enslaved (see p. 12 ). Scurvy was frequent in northern
climates where little vitamin-rich food was available during the long
winters.

It was a constant menace in the English colonies in North

America, where it was thought to be caused by the diet of salt beef or

pork, beans and Indian corn, with perhaps a little cider or milk in addi
80
tion.
The diet of slaves in New Granada was similarly deficient.
Nevertheless, winter was unknown in New Granada, and fresh fruits and
vegetables could be attained the year around.

Spaniards introduced citrus

Manuel Uribe A., Compendio historico del Departamento de

Antioquia en la Republica de Colombia (Medellin, 1887). p. 133.
79
^Erwin Ackerknecht, History and Geography of the Most Important
Diseases (New York, 1965 );
^Duffy, p. 11.
J

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

i
170

fruit, which seemed to have been grown in most areas except the Pacific
lowlands and the Bogota plateau. Even in the lowlands, however, fresh
plantains were available, and vegetables could be grown on the Bogota
plateau during much of the year.' In contemporary documents there is
barely one reference to scurvy by name.

In Antioquia in 1751; several

persons were examined by Dr. Pedro Euse, who believed that two of the
slaves in the group had scurvy.

81

Pellagra (deficiency of niacin) was undoubtedly more common.

It

is endemic in areas of the world where com forms the main part of the
diet.

It would have been most likely to occur in Antioquia, and perhaps

the Pacific lowlands, but corn formed a substantial part of the diet
throughout the Viceroyalty. The syndrome of advanced niacin deficiency
consists of inflammation of the mouth and tongue, sometimes accompanied
by ulceration; a dermatitis which may be followed by crusting, cracking
and ulceration; abdominal discomforts, often with bloody diarrhea and
vomiting; and finally dementia.

82

Of course, neither the cause nor the relationship of this syndrome

of symptoms would have been recognized by colonial slave owners who
would have thought these symptoms to be distinct diseases. All of these
symptoms, however, were common among slaves (see Table 5, P.* 182).
To vhat extent they were produced by niacin deficiency, if at all, is
impossible to establish. Nevertheless, pellagra was probably endemic

^Ecuario Palacio Palacio, and others, eds., Crdnica municipal

(Medellin, 1967), pp. 199-200.
Do

ut:The Merck Manual of Diagnosis and Therapy, eds., Charles E.

Lyght and others (10th ed.; Rathway, N.J., 1961), pp. 26!+-65 ; Ackerknecht,
p. ll+8 .

L
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

r
171

in many areas and may have been the most serious deficiency disease among
slaves in New Granada.
Other matters, such as clothing and housing, in the maintenance
of slaves also affected health almost as directly as food and nutrition.
In tropical areas slaves were usually given a clothing ration. Even
though clothing was not essential in many parts of New Granada, modesty
required it. In temperate areas it was good protection against colds
and other respiratory diseases. In the steaming lowlands slave owners
provided the cotton cloth necessary to make the customary breech cloth
for men and dresses for women.

In higher, cooler areas such as Remedios,

every six months the master usually gave each slave a piece of woolen or
Qo
cotton cloth large enough to cover the body.
In the Cauca Valley
around Cali slaves wore only linen knee breeches and a straw hat. They
wore no shirts but were sometimes given a woolen poncho to be used when
the temperature dipped. Women slaves wore a wrap-around flannel skirt
and a blouse contrived by draping a piece of flannel diagonally from one
shoulder across the chest and back and securing it at the waist. They
used a cap which they fashioned from scraps of different colored flannel
cloth.
Jesuit slaves were the best clothed in the Viceroyalty.

On the

hacienda of San Juan de la Vega in the Magdalena Valley each adult re

ceived annually a blanket, a hat, a poncho, underwear and nine and a half

Qk

Angel Maria Camacho, Resefla histdrica de la Hacienda de Canasgordas (Cali, 1958), pp. 1^-15

L
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

n
172

varas of linen (l vara = 2 .7 8 feet) and two varas of cotton to "be made
Qq
into trousers, shirts or dresses.
On some Jesuit haciendas slaves were
even given a ration of laundry soap and candles. Even in the lowlands
slaves were sometimes given a candle a day for lighting.

86

In 1792, in the very twilight of slavery, the Cabildo of the city

of Tbague, also in the Magdalena Valley, presented a minimum standard
clothing ration to he followed by the mine owners in its jurisdiction.
It was perhaps modeled after the Jesuit practice but fell somewhat short
of the Jesuits* standard.

It required slave owners to provide to each

slave annually two linen coats, two pair of coarse cotton stockings, one
Q ry

undershirt, one blanket and one or two straw hats. '

On many haciendas and mines it was also customary to give a gift
of cloth to a slave woman after childbirth besides some yardage to be
used for the baby, a practice which was intended to serve both as an in88
centive and a reward for motherhood.
Special gifts of clothing were
commonly given for good behavior or outstanding achievement in other slave
areas of the Americas. Whether that was also true in New Granada the
records do not indicate.

85AHNC, Temporalidades II, fol. 271 (1777).

311 (1770).

See also VIII, fol.

86Ibid., m i fol. 195 (1767); XII, fol. 770 (1770); Univ. of

North Carolina, Southern History Collection, Popayan Papers, Box 9>
"Instrucciones para el nanejo de las Minas de Nuestra Senora de las
Mercedes, San Jose y Santiago (l8l0).
q7
Archivo Municipal de Ibague, Auaquel lf-7, Paquete k22} Legajo 8 ,
Cuademo 2, 1790-179^; "Disposiciones sobre la racioh, comida y vestuario
que deben dar los amos a sus esclavos," (1791)
88AHDA, Colonia CXVI (Temporalidades), doc. 32^5; foil. 13-15 (17&9)

L
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

r
In practice many slave owners failed to give even the minimum
clothing ration. A royal inspector of the mines of Anserma in 1787
showed that three out of eight gave no clothing ration at all.

Instead

they allowed their slaves free time on Saturdays, Sundays and holy days
to work for themselves and buy both food and clothing from their master.
They were ordered to give one more free day per week or to furnish food
89 .
and clothing.
Of the nineteen mines in the area of Caloto, one gave
clothes only to him "who had absolutely nothing to wear," five gave no
clothing ration at all but allowed free time on Sunday and sometimes week
days so the slave could earn money to buy his own food and clothes.
Conditions were better on haciendas in the surrounding area.

90

Only three

out of the eighty-two haciendas visited were negligent in their clothing

ration. Those owners were fined for their neglect.^ The relatively
benign climate may have made slave owners more lax in attending to their
slaves clothing needs than they might otherwise have been. Their negli
gence in this matter may also have contributed to the not uncommon oc
currence of respiratory diseases (see pp. 222-25 ).
Housing was a simple matter among the slaves. Whether at the
mines or on the haciendas slaves were usually divided into families and
each family had its separate living quarters. The hut was simple, usually

^AHNE, Real Audiencia, Gobemacidh de Popaydn, Caja li+5^ "Visita

de la Cuidad de Anserma. . . ." foil. 7v-10 (1787).
90
Ibid., Caja 1^3> "Visita de la Cuidad de Caloto . . . ." foil.
3v-12 (1786).
91

Ibid., Foil. 39"59v; Caja lk5, "Visita de la Cuidad de Cartago

. .. ," foil. 17-23 (1878); Caja 1^5' ' "Visita de la Cuidad de Anserma
. ..," foil. Ilv-l6 (1787); "Visita de la Cuidad de Cali. .. ," foil.
7v-2lj- (1787).The fine is recorded as 1,000 patacones, a sum
two to three

L
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

17^

consisting of a frail, dirt-floored structure made of bamboo or wild

cane, sometimes without walls, and thatched with palm leaves or straw.
During much of the seventeenth century when Indian laborers were available,
slave huts were constructed by Indians assigned for public service
(repartimiento). During the eighteenth century they were usually built
by the slaves themselves and probably resembled the African huts of their
ancestors.

In the rain forests of the Pacific lowlands, huts were built

on stilts ten to fifteen feet above the ground, much like those commonly
seen today. The stilts helped put them out of reach of rain water and
many insects.

In colder areas huts were made of adobe with thatched

roofs and dirt floors.

Bedding too was simple; slaves slept on reed mats

thrown on dirt or bamboo floors.

Since slaves were required to prepare

most of their food after dark or before sunup, several masters furnished
their slaves with a candle a day for lighting.

In most cases, however,

a fire furnished the only light after dark.92 A modem author has
sketched an idyllic picture of the slave quarters.

"Under palm roof, at

times without walls, they were for that reason more hygienic and well
ventilated than those of the city and in them the slaves of the haciendas
maintained themselves in health and were excessively prolific.

93

An

observer of the seventeenth century was much closer to the truth when

times the value of a prime slave. This high figure is evidently an error
on the part of the scribe, who must have inadvertently added one or two
extra zeros. The fine was probably 10 pesos, since the highest fine the
visitador imposed was fifty pesos and that for the more serious offense
of permitting unmarried slaves to have children.
9?Angel Valtierra, Pedro Claver, S.J., el santo q.ue libertd una
raza: Su vida y su epoca, 1st ed. (Bogotd, 195^0 > P- 686; Comancho
p. 1^; AHNC, Temporalidades XVIII, fol. J+72 (1768).
93valtierra, 1st ed., p. 686 .

L
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

n
175

he complained that the bams for animals were much better than the livgk
ing quarters for slaves.
There can he little doubt that the slaves of New Granada lived
amid squalor and filth in dark, musky, unsanitary huts infested with
vermin and insects of ever description. The majority of these slaves
probably suffered from varying degrees of malnutrition and under-nutri
tion, while being subjected to long hours of hard labor. If they sur
vived the process of seasoning, their poor diet and unfortunate housing
and living conditions served to make them much subject to disease for
the remainder of their lives of servitude.

Sandoval, De Instauranda, p. 196.

L
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

CHAPTER V I II
GENERAL DISEASE AND D ISABILITY

"We are never without the sick," wrote a mine owner from the
Choco.

"I have Marcelino very ill with his injury. . . many others _/ill7

with this plague . . . and many ./with/ fever. I find myself exceedingly
busy with this ./care of the sick/."''' Similar experiences were common
among other slave owners of New Granada, for even though a slave sur
vived seasoning, malnutrition and epidemic disease, he was prey to hosts
of other diseases and disabilities throughout the rest of his life of
servitude.
Illness was so prevalent among slaves that many estates employed
2

one or more slaves fulltime to care for the sick and larger mining
settlements usually were required by the crown to maintain a hospital.

Individual mine and hacienda owners often went to considerable expense

to keep special foods and medicines on hand to treat illness among their

^Archivo Central de Cauca (hereafter ACC), Archivo Familiar de

Jos^ Maria Mosquera, Letter from Barbara Trujillo y Campo to Francisco
Xavier Bauptista, July 8 , 1797
n

Archivo Municipal de Ibague, Anaquel i+7, Paquete b-22, Legajo 8 ,

(1790-9^); Cuademo 1 "Relaci<5n jurada de los que posean esclavos en las
parroquias del Chaparral y Guamo," (1787); Archivo Histdrico Nacional de
Colombia (hereafter AHNC), Temporalidades V I, foil. 957-59 (1770).
3AHNC, Minas del Tolima V , foil. 739-878 ( l 6k l) "Proyecto de
ordananzas para el laboreo de las minas de oro, plata y otros metales,
existentes en el reyno." See especially Art. 7

176

L
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

,J

177
slaves.

Chickens were raised or imported to supply eggs and broth for

ailing slaves. Ham was used only for convalescents and for women bedridden after childbirth,

and where fresh meat was scarce, it was used

only for the sick. Most estates purchased many special foods such as
honey, refined sugar, syrup, wine, brandy, vinegar, tallow, mustard and
salt, to be used for medicinal purposes, and almost always kept an ample
supply of chinchona or peruvian bark on hand. More adequately stocked
medicine chests included senna, manna and jalop for purges and mastic
for making astringent concoctions. Licorice, cumin and other herbs were
often stocked as well as an assortment of less palatable remedies such
as verdigris, cinnibar, sulfur, corrosive sublimate, and copper sulphate.
In addition, there were usually a few special preparations, oils, and
ointments kept on hand for good measure.

Some slave owners even hired

itinerant barbers and surgeons to bleed sick slaves and pull ailing teeth.^
Inventories drawn up to evaluate slave stock in probate cases,
property suits, seizure for debts or taxes and for other reasons show that
6
disease was prevalent among the slaves. Appraisers representing each of

^Robert C. West, Colonial Placer Mining in Colombia (Baton Rouge,

1952), p. 88 .

^Ibid.; AHNC, Temporalidades II, foil. 27^-325v (1777); XXV, fol.

333 (1789); Minas del Cauca I, foil. 153v-155 (1737).
g
Archivo Histcfrico Nacional del Ecuador (hereafter AHNE). Real
Audiencia, Gobemacio'n de Popay^n, Caja 110, "Autos de acreditores formado
a los bienes de Cristobal Covo de Figueroa, Cali, 1776; Esclavos, Legajo
1, Exped. 12, "Inventario de la Mina, Nuestra Senora de Atocha, Barbacoas, 1721;" Archivo Historico Departmental de Antioquia (hereafter
AHDA), Colonia CCLXXVII (Mortuarios), doc. 5720 (1716).

L
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

178

the interested parties plus a knowledgeable, disinterested person, often

the alcalde (mayor), jointly listed the slaves by name, sex and age and
market value, upon which they mutually agreed.

Since value was always

influenced by a slaves state of health, illness and disability were

usually noted. Entries from a typical list illustrate the procedure:
We evaluate: the Negro Luis de Llanos, ruptured in the groin,
at 200 patacones
Likewise Inez, Creole, Age 1+0, with suffocation of the chest
at 300 patacones
Likewise Juan Antonio, Age 7; with the lesion of heart trouble,
at 100 patacones
Likewise Isabel, Conga, widow, Age 50, with various complaints
at 200 patacones
Likewise Jose, Caraball, Age 60 , continually sick at 100 pata
cones
Likewise Paula, Creole, widow, Age 35; with female trouble,
at 1+00 patacones.
About 200 of these lists appraising nearly 8,000 slaves have been
analyzed. They provide a broad sampling both in time and place. Most
of the inventories came from the Pacific lowlands, Antioquia and the
Cauca and Magdalena Valleys, the main slave areas of the Viceroyalty.
The only slave areas not well represented are Pamplona and the Atlantic
coast. The lists date from l66l to 1807, though most of them are from
the eighteenth century. They may not give a representative sampling of
the slave population, but they do give insight into the diseases to which
slaves were subject.
Evaluators listed several hundred different "ailments or medical
complaints among the slaves, which have been categorized in the table

^AHNC, Testamentarias del Cauca VI, foil. 5919*+ (1766). Top

price for a prime slave in this list is 500 patacones.

L
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

i
179

and discussion which follow, not according to their causative organisms

or to their infectious or chronic natures, as a modem medical man might
arrange them, hut rather according to the symptoms which they produced
in various systems of the body, as a colonial medical man would have
arranged them. That arrangement not only preserves the historical flavor,
but is the only feasible arrangement since slave evaluators lacked the
knowledge of cause and nature of disease that modem science has afforded.
They simply recorded symptoms or effects of disease rather than attempt
ing to identify the disease.

Consequently yaws, pinta, leprosy and small

pox, which are not, strictly speaking, "skin diseases," are discussed
under that category, for to colonials they were diseases which affected
the skin.
Diseases of the Musculoskeletal System
Diseases and defects of the musculoskeletal system were very
frequent among slaves, accounting for nearly one-third of the disease
recorded on the slave lists (for percentage comparisons see Appendix
I). Four out of ten complaints in this category were hernias which
were observed four times more often in men than in women, and half again
as frequently among mine slaves as among hacienda slaves. The more
strenuous labor of the mines probably caused more hernias among miners.
Another forty percent of musculoskeletal complaints were permanent
disabilities--the crippled, the paralyzed, the maimed, the lame and the
amputees, while temporary injuries such as broken bones, sprains, and
dislocations accounted for the bulk of the remaining complaints of the
musculoskeletal system.

L
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

n
180
As was common with hernias, many of these other disabilities

and injuries were due to accidents. Even the free population of the
Viceroyalty suffered greatly from accidents. Viceroy Espeleta deplored
not only the high accident rate among the general population, but also
the lack of surgeons to treat the injured.

"Cases are frequent," he

wrote, "of persons who remain injured and defective from falls and other

accidents without recourse to any remedy."

Accidents and their injurious

consequences among the more exposed and isolated servile population were
both more common and more serious than among the general population.

Not

surprisingly, injuries and disabilities were reported most frequently in

mines and on sugar estates. On the Jesuit haciendas, where life was easier,
such complaints were noted only half as often. There was also a large
number of disabilities reported among domestic slaves, no doubt because
slaves were employed as domestics if disabled for heavier work in the
fields and mines.
In the mines, slaves wore no shoes nor other protective clothing
to shield them from cuts by sharp rocks or from bruises or fractures caused
by falling or foiling boulders, nor from the accidental thrust of a crow
bar.

Slaves were sometimes injured or killed -when they lost their foot

ing and fell while making the "cut" in sluicing operations.^ More often
the "cut" fell upon them.

Slaves were maimed so frequently by falling

gravel or by cave-ins that royal inspectors were regularly required to

Relaeiones de mando: Memorias presentades por los gobemantes

del Nuevo Reino de Granada, eds., Eduardo Posada and Pedro Maria, IbAffez
...........
(Bogotd, 1910), p. 337 (179^ ... ............
9AHNC, Minas del Cauca II, fol. 753 (X781); IV, fol. 370 (l80l).

L
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

181
check for unsafe mining methods which might endanger the lives or health
of the slaves. In a mine in Anserma, for example, a royal inspector
in 1781 ordered mine owners not to jeopardize the lives of Negro and
Indian miners hy forcing them to dig the veins so deep. The royal agent
reminded the mine owners that slaves, too, had been redeemed by the
blood of Christ and, moreover, as vassals of the king, merited His
Majesty's protection. Unfortunately, royal inspectors were usually more
effective in pointing out dangers to life and health than in removing
them.^

Mine administrators similarly tried to prevent accidental

11
cripplings and death, though seldom with more success.
The greatest
danger on sugar estates was from serious cuts or even amputations ac
cidentally inflicted in the process of cutting the cane, but slaves also
occasionally got an arm or a hand caught in the cane mill.
While accidents caused most disabilities a portion at least re
sulted from other causes. Disabilities may have resulted in rare cases
from such diseases as yaws, syphilis, leprosy or even smallpox, all of
which could have crippling effects. Accidents may have even resulted in
infancy from improper childbirth. Severe punishment, too, often resulted
in crippling injuries. Even though slaves in Spanish America generally
seem to have been treated better than those in North America,

IP

cases of

AHNE, Real Audiencia, Gobemacion de Popay&i, Caja 1^5

"Visita de la Cuidad de Cali . . . ," fol. 25 (1786); and "Visita de la
duidad de Anserma . . . ," fol. 15 (1787).
1:LAHNC, Minas del Cauca IV, foil. 368-89 (l8oi).
12

Eor a comparative study of the treatment of slaves in different

parts of the Americas see Frank Tannenbaum, Slave and Citizen: The Negro
in the Americas (New York, 19^6 ).

L
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

n
182
TABLE 5

NUMBER OF NEGRO SLAVES (OF A SAMPLE OF 7 .98^)

HAVING VARIOUS DISEASES AND DISABILITIES

Hacienda
Slaves
Musculoskeletal Diseases:
Hernia
Permanent Disability
Rheumatism
Temporary Injury
"Sick" Member or Limb
Deformity
Totals...............
Skin Diseases:
Pinta
Ulcers (Llagas)
Yaws (Bubas)
Leprosy
Growths (Lobanillos)
Smallpox
Rashes and Irritations
Totals...............
Genitourinary Diseases:
Venereal Disease
Dropsy
"Female Trouble"
"Urinary Trouble"
Totals...............
Endocrine Diseases: (Goiter)

19
to
2
6

Mine Domestic
Slaves Slaves

52

53
9

Jesuit
Slaves

2
k

71
5^
7
25

11

1
68

L26

8
1
166

5
10

36

12

2
1

2
lk
2

15
5
2

It
2

1
23

30

It

76

7
2
3
12

28
6
2
k
to

27
9

lto
151
18
to
10

3
368

k3
3k
21
21

5
it
5
133
56

12

It
52

22
17
11
106

73

77

it

19
It
It
5

25

Neuropsychiatric Diseases:
Mental Deficiency
2
Mental Illness
1
Spasms (Pasmo)
5
Epilepsy
2
Miscellaneous Neurological
Totals...............
10

1
12
k

Eye Diseases:
Total Blindness
Impaired Vision
Totals ...............

18
10
28

2
6
8

Total
Slaves

21

1
1
2

6
21
11
2

3^

65

26

21
26

38
6 it

L
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

TABLE 5-Continued

Hacienda Mine
Domestic Jesuit
Slaves ..Slaves Slaves Slaves
Gastrointestinal Diseases:
Stomach Pains
Dysentery (Flu.io de Sangre)
Worms
Dirt Eating
Hemorrhoids
"Liver Trouble"
Totals............... . .
Respiratory Diseases:
Asthma
Tuberculosis (Etica)
Spitting Blood
Spitting Pus
Diseased Hose
Nose Bleed
Reuma de la Cabeza
Totals .................
Diseases of Mouth and Throat:
Muteness
Ulcerated Throat
Toothless
Oral Hemorrhage
Total .................
Ear Diseases:
Deafness
Impaired Hearing
Diseased Ear
Totals .................

3
l

If
l
9
10

l
i

3
1
1
1
2
16
6

1
1

19

6
1+
1
8

2
16

5
^3

23

l
1+

1
2

15

38

13
3

17

3
1
1
6

16

10

1+

l
8

1
11

3
6i

*V5

62
8

ll+9
17

12

1+2
1

29
1
1
1
2

92

8
2
1
11

6
2
1
26

11

Lymphatic Diseases (Scrofula)

l+o
3
3

7
l
3

2
12

Cardiovascular Diseases (Heart) 2

Miscellaneous Diseases:
"Sick"
"Pains"
"Complaints"
"Addicted to Alcohol"
"Useless"
"Fever"
"Weak"
"Dying"
Unidentified
Totals ...............

7
1

Total
Slaves

1+

3
83
2
1

2
1

119

276

The total 7>981+ includes 1,61+1 from haciendas, 3jS^+8 from mines, 125
from domestic service and 2,370 from Jesuit property. For categorization
see Appendix II and for sources Appendix III-.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

n
1811-

slaves 1 being permanently disabled or even killed as a result of severe

13
punishment were not lacking.

Diseases of the Skin

Skin ailments, too, were common among the slaves. In general they
accounted for more than one-tenth of all ailments noted by evaluators.
The most frequent specific skin complaint was pinta (carate), a distinc
tive and easily recognizable disease, endemic in Mexico, Central America
and Colombia. The Spanish, who found it when they arrived in America,
called it by the Indian name--carate. Pinta is caused by an organism
Treponema carateum morphically identical to the causative agent of
syphilis and yaws, although the disease is not venereal.

It is charac

terized by the appearance on the skin of bizarre spots, which are usually
white in Negroes, and in time may be affected with a type of herpes, or
blisters, which in rare cases ulcerate.

Ik

Ulceration, however, was not

associated with the disease in colonial times.

Juan de Velasco, a Jesuit

who traveled widely in New Granada, saw the disease often and observed
that it "never makes pustules, nor crust, nor emits any humor.

It causes

no itching nor burning, nor discomfort, it does not debilitate the energy
nor impede reproduction.

,.15

The only adverse effect of the disease

seemed to be the pitiful appearance of its victim. Pinta was very common

^AHDA, Colonia XXIX (Esclavos), doc. 930 (l7*t*0 j AHNC, Minas del
Cauca I, fol. 189 (1737)* See also Chap. IX.
Cardenal, Diecionario terminoldgico de ciencias me'dicas, 5th
ed. (Barcelona, 195*0 > Encyclopedia Britanica (1968) XXII, 9*1-6; Joaquin
Garcia Borrero, Neiva en el siglo XVI (Bogota, 1939); P* xvj Philip MansonBahr; Mansonfs Tropical Diseases, l^th ed. (Baltimore, 1966), pp. 535"38*
*-5juan de Velasco, Historia moderaa del Reino de Quito y cronica
de la Compaflla de Jesus del mismo reino, 2 vols. Biblioteca Amazonas, VIII
[_(Quito, 19*H), II, ^38J

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

18^

in the hot, dry area of New Granada.

In the arid Patit Valley between

Popaydn and Pasto it was so common that "hardly anyone could be found
that did not have it.

l6

Slave evaluators observed the disease twelve

times more often among hacienda slaves than among mine slaves, perhaps
because haciendas tended to be located in a hot, dry climate, while the
mines did not.
Ulcers, too, were a common skin ailment among slaves in all areas
of the Viceroyalty. A similar frequency was reported by slave handlers
in the West Indies, where a Jamaican doctor claimed that as much labor
was lost from disabling ulcers as from all other complaints combined.^
In New Granada, reported cases of ulcers were not so common, yet ulcers
(excluding syphilitic ulcers, called gomas) still accounted for four
percent of all complaints. In any case, ulcers were so common that colonials believed the Negro race was especially susceptible to ulceration.

l8

Several medical men, however, blamed poor diet, constant labor and lack
of cleanliness for the frequency of ulcers among slaves.19
' Some of the

16Ibid.

^T/Ur. Collins/; Practical Rules for the Management and Medical

Treatment of Negro Slaves in the Sugar Colonies, by a Professional
Planter (London, 1803*), p. ^36; Modem studies indicate the disabling
nature of tropical ulcers; average length of stay in the hospital for
young patient is 1^1 days, for older patient 323 days. See Philip MansonBahr, Manson1s Tropical Diseases, l6th ed. (Baltimore, 1966), p. 59^.
18

Thomas Dancer, The Medical Assistant or Jamaica Practice of

Physics: Designed Chiefly for the Use of Families and Plantation
(Kingston, 1801), pp. 301-02; _/Samuel7 Thomson, A Treatise on the Diseases
of Negroes (Kingston, Jamaica, 1821), p. 103.
^Dancer, pp. 301-302; Thomson, p. 103.

L
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

n
186

ulcers may have been caused by scurvy, a frequent source of chronic ulcer
(see p. 1 6 9 ), but many of these cases were, no doubt, virus-borne ulcers,
a malady still prevalent and intractable in tropical areas.

20

Probably most ulcers were due to cuts, wounds or other injuries

which became infected by staphylococcus or other organisms due to neglect
or to improper care. Filthy living conditions and improper treatment
often caused insignificant cuts to become horrible ulcers which spread
to lay bare blood vessels, tendons and bones, often entirely encircling
21
the limb.
A Jamaican doctor complained that among slaves "even the

smallest scratch rankles and festers, and becomes a formidable ulcer . .

. , " 22 Roughly, one out of four ulcers in New Granada was "cancerous"
(espundia), that is, continually growing or consumptive. This type of
ulcer may have been some kind of leishmaniasis, such as oriental sore.

23

There was a higher incidence of ulcers among hacienda slaves than

among other groups in New Granada, due no doubt to the fact that tasks
involved in sugar production, such as clearing virgin land and hoeing
and cutting cane, resulted in more cuts and wounds, which ulcerated.
Jamaicans, also noted much more ulceration among Negroes engaged in clearing
2k
land than among Negroes engaged in any other activity.

Even today

^Manson-Bahr, p. 598*
^*Dancer, p. 302; H. Harold Scott, A History of Tropical Medicine
Based on the Fitzpatrick Lectures Delivered Before the Royal College of
Physicians of London, 1937-38, 2 vols. (London, 1939) II 997
22

Collins, p. k^Q.

2%he Merck Manual of Diagnosis and Therapy, ed. Charles E.

Lyght and others, 10th ed. (New York, 1961), pp. 910-12.
^Collins, pp. i+J+2-

L
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

187

tropical ulcer "is apt to attack the half starved, pioneer in jungle
25
lands, overdriven labor gangs and soldiers campaigning in the tropics."
Another less frequent cause of ulceration in the West Indies, as
well as in most parts of South America, was the chegoe flea, which bur
rowed under the skin of the toes and soon produced an infestation which
26

could cause ulceration leading to lameness for life.

Ulcers were

also caused by guinea worm (culebrilla), a parasite endemic in Africa

and tropical America. The worm formed a small swelling and blister under
the skin, containing the coiled female and numerous larvae. If the
worm were broken or killed while being extracted, serious ulceration
resulted. Ulceration, in fact, often occurred as part of the normal
process of freeing the larvae from the blister.271
Yaws, another malady classed as a skin disease, made great inoQ
roads among the slaves.
It was endemic in Africa and was one of the
most common illnesses present among newly landed slaves, who usually

25
Manson-Bahr, p. 598.
26

W. J. Gardiner, History of Jamaica from Its Discovery by Chris

topher Colombus to the Year 1872 Including an Account of Its Trade and
Agriculture, Sketches of the Manners, Habits, and Customs of All Classes
of Its Inhabitants and a Narrative of the Progress of Religion and Edu
cation in the Island (Hew York, 1909), P. 391; Dancer, p. 302.
^William Hillary, Observations on the Changes of the Air and
the Concomitant Epidemical Diseases in the Island of Barbadoes to Which
is Added a Treatise on the Putrid Bilious Fever Commonly Galled the
Yellow Fever, and Such Other Diseases as Are Indigenous or Endemial in
the West India Islands, or in the Torrid Zone (London, 1776), pp. 318-22.
Encyclopedia Britanica (1968), X, 1022; Merck Manual, pp. 909910> Antonio
Ulloa, Relaci6n del Viage a la America Meridional, ^ vols. (Madrid, 1788),
I, 63-65 (Lib. I, cap. v).
28

Dancer, p. 227.

L
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

r
infected other susceptible blacks with whom they came in contact after
leaving the port of disembarkation. Consequently; yaws was endemic in
all areas of the Viceroyalty.
easily recognized by

v.

It was a distinctive disease probably quite

-st slave handlers. A West Indian doctor described

the characteristics of the disease for slave owners as follows:

This disease generally makes its first appearance without any
previous Sickness or Pain, and when the Patient thinks himself
perfectly well, in very small Pimples no bigger than the head of
a small Pin and are smooth and level with the Skin; these daily
increase and become protuberant Pustules; soon after, the Cuticle
turns whitish, cracks, and rubs off, and a very small Quantity of
Serum or clear Ichor exudes out and dries, and becomes white,
but neither Pus nor any Quantity of Ichor is found in the Tumor,
but a pretty thick, white slugh appears, and under that a red
fungous Flesh thrusts itself out of the Skin, which gradually
increases to different Magnitudes, some not so large as the
smallest Wood-straberry, some larger; others exceeding the Size
of the largest Mulberry which last they very much resemble,
being red and composed of little round knobs as they are. They
appear indifferently on all the Parts of the Body, but most fre
quently and generally are the largest about the Groin, private
Parts, Anus, and under the arms, and in the Face . . . the black
Hairs which grow out of the places where the Yaws are, gradually
turn to be perfectly white, like the Hair of an old man; and the
Ichor which ouzes out of the Yaws drying upon the skin, makes it
appear of a whitish Colour, and renders the Patient a disagree
able, loathsome Sight.
Slave owners held the disease in particular dread because of the
long time required to recover from it. The duration and seriousness of
the disease depended on the patients state of general health. When
contracted in good health, the disease might run its course in one month,
but when contracted in poor health, its progress was much slower and
convalescence took longer. A plantation doctor in Jamaica, well acquainted

^Hillary, pp.

L
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

i
189

with yaws among slaves observed that "some will get rid of it in six
months, especially children, others not until twelve months. When sev
eral crops /of eruptions/ came out, it has been known to continue four
years."

30

Indeed, Bryan Edwards, a Jamaican planter complained that

once adult slaves contracted yaws, "It was seldom ever gotten rid of." ^ 1
Nevertheless, on the average, an owner could expect to lose the labor
of "yawy" slaves for about ten months.

32

Fearful consequences were thought to stem from improper treatment

of the disease or from impelling the Negro to work before he was fully
recovered.

"If improperly treated, the disease leaves behind it the

worst effects--frequent relapses. . . pains in the joints. 1

Even more

serious were the crippling deformations sometimes produced by yaws that

3li-

"got into the bone."

Even more frequently, yaw sores, either through

degeneration or secondary infection turned into ugly ulcers which stubbornly refused to heal.

35

Common also were crab yaws (clavos en los pies)

30
Thomson, p. 83 .
3^-Bryan Edwards, The History, Civil and Commercial of the British
West Indies, 5th ed., 5 vols. (London, 1819), II, 166 note.
^Thomson, p. 83 .
33
JJCollins, Rules for Management of Negroes, pp. ^12-13.
Thomson p. 137. Today, modern studies indicate that in 15-20%
of.cases of yaws infection, measurable changes take place in the bones
and joints. See Thomas B. Turner, George M. Sanders and H. M. Johnston,
Report of the Jamaica Yaws Commission for 1932 (Kingston, 1933); P* 5*
^Ibid., p. 8M-. Today, in about 8% of cases the yaws pustules
are not absorbed, but ulcerate. In areas where yaws and tropical ulcers
are coendemic, the lesions of the former may become infected by virus
of the latter and result in serious ulceration. See Manson-Bahr, pp.

52^-598.

L
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

- i

190
which resulted when yaws developed beneath the calloused skin on the
palm or on the sole of the foot.

Since the yaws could not penetrate

the hardened skin it produced a painful and tender swelling which was
usually treated by cutting through the leathery sole and excising the
underlying yaw. These crab yaws were frequent among slaves of New Granada
and often incapacitated a slave for labor for several months.^
These manifestations of advanced yaws were not only dreadful,
but frequent. They were, however, thought to be much more likely to
occur in adults than in children. Many Africans, recognizing the danger
of catching yaws in adult life and believing that all people would con
tract the disease sometime in their lives, preferred to acquire the dis
ease in infancy. Parents in some parts of Africa practiced a form of
inoculation called "buying the yaws." A Jamaican plantation doctor
described the practice among Guinea Negroes:
A subject, who has it in a mild state, being selected, and at
a particular time of the year, all those of a certain age, whose
parents wish them to have the disease are infected, each giving
a gratuity to the person from whom the matter is taken; various
ceremonies are performed which they imagine will produce a safe
and speedy cure.37
Inoculation for yaws in Jamaica was common among Negroes from
the Gold Coast and the Guinea Coast. A mother made an incision in her

3 Collins, p. 1*25. Eduardo Posada "La esclavitud en Colombia,"

Boletln de Historia y Antigiiedades, XVI, No. 187 (July, 1927), *4-02 ;
AHNE, Real Audiencia, GobemacidSn de Popay^n, Caja 93, "Manuel Camacho
con Mateo Valles de Mferida sobre remate de bienes, Cali," (1769)^Thomson, Treatise on Diseases, p. 89 .

L
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

~i
191
oO

childs thigh and inserted some infected matter.

Slave handlers

noted the practice but often attributed it to a mother's desire to infeet her child in order tostay with him andavoid labor.

39

Inoculation

was no doubt also practiced in New Granada, for many of the Negroes who
went there were taken from areas in Africa where inoculation was common.
Nevertheless, in the Americas as well as in Africa, inoculation
was not widespread, or at least it was not very effective, for yaws was
very common among slaves in the Middle Passage and guinea yards and on
the West Indian plantations. Next to dysentery, yaws was one of the
most frequent disorders ofJamaican slaves.

kO

Less precise information

is available for New Granada, but yaws was probably equally as prevalent
there.

New Granada received blacks from the same infected stock as

Jamaica, and yaws still ranks as the second greatest cause of morbidity
in the Colombian lowlands, where over forty percent of the inhabitants
are infected.^

Edwards, II, 8l note.

39
Gardiner, pp. 390-91*
l+O
Great Britain, Privy Council, Committee on Trade and Foreign
Plantations, Report of the Lords of the Committee of Council for Consid
eration of the Evidence and Information They Have Collected in Consequence
of His Majesty's Order in Council. Dated the 11th of February, 1788.
Concerning the Present State of the Trade to Africa, and Particularly the
Trade in Slaves: and Concerning the Effects and Consequences of This
Trade, as Well in Africa and the West Indies as to the General Commerce
of This Kingdom (London, 1789), 3rd Pt., Appendices 7 and 11, n.p. (here
after cited as Report).
^^Robert C. West, Pacific Lowlands of Colombia; A Negroid Area
of the American Tropics (Baton Rouge, 1957); P* 85 .

L
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

i
192

Curiously, yaws represented less than two percent of all dis

orders identified "by slave evaluators. Their observations of the disease
noted on the slave lists, however, are unreliable in determining the
prevalence of yaws among the slave population, due to the imprecise
terminology. The modem Spanish terms for yaws, pian or frambesia, never
appear in colonial literature.

Instead, the generic term bubas is used,

which referred to any kind of pustule, tumor or bubo. Today Colombians

generally use the terra bubas to refer to yaws, but occasionally they
also apply the word to syphilitic ulcers.

k2

Colonials, too, seem to

^3
ki,
have used bubas to refer to both yaws and syphilis.
In most cases, no
details are given and it is uncertain whether the evaluators were refer
ring to yaws or syphilis or to still some other disease.

In the initial

stages, yaws could be easily recognized by its distinctive raspberry

appearance. However, if the yaws pustules ulcerated, as they often did,
they might be mistaken for syphilitic ulcers (gomas). Since yaws was

ho

Cardenal, Diccionairo, see Bubas and Pian.

^"En los pies padecla de unos clavos de bubas." See AHDA, Colonia
XXXIII (Esclavos), doc. 1102 (l80l), and AHNE, Real Audiencia, Gobernacidn
de Popaydn, Caja 93 "Manuel Camacho con Mateo Valles de Mdrida sobre re
mate de bienes," fol. 55 (1769)* See also ACC, Archivo Familiar de Josd
Marla Mosquera, Letter from Bdrbara Trujillo y Campo to Leandro Trujillo
y Campo, July 8, 1797; in which bubas is spoken of as a contagious, though
not a venereal disease. For a discussion of the historical terminology
and usage see Rudolph Hoeppli, Parasitic Diseases in Africa and the
Western Hemisphere: Early Documentation and Transmission by the Slave
Trade (Basel, 1969); PP 85-91 .
M. Ashbum, The Ranks of Death: The Medical History of
the Conquest of America, ed. Frank D. Ashburn (New York, 19^7); PP* l8l
89 , 238-1(0.

L
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

-i
193

very prevalent among slaves and conferred a relative immunity to

syphilis,^ most of the "syphilitic ulcers" reported by colonial evalu
ators (if.51o of all complaints) were probably ulcerated yaws. Moreover,
the term llagas (sores or ulcers) frequently appeared in slave lists and
also may have been ulcerated yaws.

In compiling Table 5 (pages 182-83)

on which this discussion is based, the only solution to the problem of

imprecise terminology was to use the terns of the colonials and then
try to explain in the text the probability of the accuracy of those terms.
Thus, it was most appropriate to translate bubas as yaws. Ulcerated
yaws, which evaluators probably mistakenly identified as syphilitic
ulcers, were listed under venereal disease, and ulcers of unidentified
origin, which may have been produced by yaws or syphilis, could be
listed only as ulcers.
The different characteristics of yaws and syphilis are helpful
in making diagnosis. Generally speaking, both historically and at
present, yaws has flourished in conditions of isolation and social stag
nation with inadequate facilities for body cleanliness.

It has been

most frequent in rural areas with primitive sanitation.

In areas where

both yaws and syphilis have existed simultaneously, usually yaws has
k6

been predominant in the country and syphilis in the city.

k5

Manson-Bahr, Tropical Diseases, p. 531*

^^Manson-Bahr, pp. 512-16; Turner, Saunders, Johnston, Jamaica

Yaws Commission, p. 3; C. Justin Scott, "Yaws," Transvaal Mine Medical
Officers Association, Proceeding! (Johannesburg), XII, No. 139 (Feb.
1933), 1+5-

L
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

-i
19*+

Protably most cases thought by colonial slave evaluators to be syphilis

were actually yaws, as were many of the

"ulcers."^

pn

any

case, yaws

was much more prevalent among slaves of New Granada than slave lists
indicate.
Even though yaws had a very low mortality rate, historically it
posed a more serious threat to health. The Jamaican House of Assembly
reported that it destroyed great numbers of Negroes annually, an obseiU8
vation that was confirmed by many other colonials.
Only a few believed
that it was "seldom fatal," as it is t o d a y W h e t h e r the disease was
more virulent during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries or whether
the disadvantaged circumstances associated with slavery combined adversely
to make the disease more lethal is uncertain. However, even more serious
than the deaths caused by yaws were the illness and disability it pro
duced.
Leprosy was considered another skin disease and was also endemic
among the slave population. Many of its symptoms were thought to be

^Hoeppli, p. 88 .
Ip8
Jamaica, House of Assembly, Further Proceedings Relative to
Bill Introduced into the House of Commons for Effectually Preventing
the Unlawful Importation of Slaves and Holding Free Persons in Slavery
in the British Colonies . . . (London, l8l6 ), p. 31* See also Great
Britain, Privy Council, Committee on Trade and Foreign Plantations;
Report, 3rd Pt., Appendix 7 and Great Britain, House of Commons, Min
utes of the Evidence Taken before a Committee of the House of Commons,
Being a Select Committee Appointed on the 29th day of January, 1790,
for the Purpose of Taking of Such Witnesses as Shall be Produced on the
Part of the Several Petitioners Who Have Petitioned the House of Com
mons against the Abolition of the Slave Trade (London, 1790); PP* 92;
110 (hereafter cited as Evidence for Abolition.)
1+9

Robert Renny, An Historical Account of Jamaica with Obser

vation . . . (London, 1807); p. 205.

L
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

i
195

similar to those of syphilis and the two diseases were often confused. At
the time of the conquest, it was common to mistake syphilitic ulcerations
for leprosy.^ Nor was the confusion cleared during the three centuries
of colonial rule. A Jamaican doctor noted in 1810 that "before the
introduction of venereal disease, leprosy was referred to as the source
of every cutaneous affection . . . syphilis has now entirely usurped its
place. Every symptom that seems to result of a disordered constitution
is referred to that origin . . .

Of the two diseases, leprosy was

the more serious and more frequent among slaves. It seldom attacked
Europeans,

52

but "raged" among Negroes in tropical climates.

53

There

it reportedly held the deadly primacy that consumption (tuberculosis)

held in the temperate zone.

3b

If that observation were accurate, leprosy

was very frequent, indeed, for until the turn of the twentieth century,
tuberculosis was the primary cause of death in the West. 55 For centuries
leprosy had been endemic in Africa and the rate of infection was probably
56
the highest in the world.
The disease was ordinarily contracted in
^J. B. Montoya y Florez, Contribucidn al estudio de la lepra en
Colombia (Medellin, 1910), p.
....
'^Thomson, Treatise on Disease, pp.130-31.
52
Collins, Rules for Management of Negroes, p. 385 .
53Thomson, p. 130. See also Hillary, Observations on Epidemical
Disease, p. 32l+, and Ulloa, I, 62 (Lib. I, cap. v).
3b

Thomson, p. 130.

^Erwin H. Ackerknecht, History and Geography of the Most Import

ant Diseases (New York, 1965), p. 100.
^^Modern studies show that in some areas of Africa perhaps 10%
of the population is infected. See Encyclopedia Britanica (1968), XIII,
p. 980 .

L
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

196

childhood when susceptibility is greatest, but symptoms usually appeared

only in adults due to a long incubation period of five to twenty years.
Colonial doctors recognized two clinical types of the disease:

leprosy

of the skin (cutaneous or lepromatous) and leprosy of the joints (neural

or tuberculoid). Historically, the cutaneous form was more common.

Its

progress was slow and the victim might linger for fifteen to twenty years or
more after the onset of initial symptoms.

Its first symptom was the ap

pearance of painless, copper-colored spots on the skin, especially on the

face, a discoloration visible even on the black skin of Negroes. Gradually
the discolored skin turned numb, rough and scaly, hair of the head and
body thinned and fell out, respiration grew difficult, the voice became
harsh and hollow sounding and the breath turned offensive and fetid.
Facial features and ear lobes became enlarged and covered with warts or
tuberous knots, causing horrible disfiguration.

Gradually the ears wasted

away as did the cartilage of the nose. The body became lean and deformed,
the limbs senseless and torpid. The toes and fingers swelled and cracked
with dry fissures. All of these symptoms grew progressively worse over
a period of years until death finally relieved the victim. 57
The neural form of the disease was even more repulsive.

It, too,

began with the appearance of copper-colored spots which grew by slow

degrees and covered most of the body. The fingers grew numb and began
to be "eaten away" by a type of atrophying, "dry ulcer" which consumed
ligaments, tendons, nerves, blood vessels and bone so that the joint
soon "dropped off easily." The disease crept from joint to joint until

"^Hillary, pp. 325-27; Thomson, pp. 97-98.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

i960.
the victim was left without fingers or toes. The ulcers spread to cover
the entire body and discharged a thin ichor which dried into white,
scaly scabs.

58

Leprosy was reported much more frequently in New Granada than in

Jamaica, especially in the tropical lowlands. Even in more temperate
areas around Popaydn, Cali, and Socorro, it sometimes took on epidemic
proportions.

It was treated like other epidemic diseases--by quarantine

reminiscent of medieval Europe. Lepers were isolated outside the town

and only rarely allowed to leave their confinement, and when they did,
they were required to dress in black with a pair of white hands sewn
across the chest and to wear a white hat and white belt.

The leper avoid

ed contact with others by sounding castinets to warn of his approach.

If

he should buy something, he paid for and received his purchase by use of
a long stick to avoid infecting the merchant.

59

Leprosy was especially prevalent in Cartagena and on the tropical

Atlantic coast. By the beginning of the seventeenth century there were
so many cases that the Royal Hospital of San Lazaro was established in
Cargagena in l6l0 to which both slaves and freemen were committed.

60

This "hospital" was designed to protect society rather than to treat

the leper. His illness was considered incurable and hereditary and
little concern was wasted on him. He was confined for the rest of his

Hillary, pp. 336-37 ^Gerardo Paz Otero, La medieina en la conquista (Popaydn, Col
ombia, 196*0 , P- 9960

Andres Soriano Lleras, Historia de la medieina en el Neuvo

Reino de Granada (Bogota, 1966), pp. *1-0, 52; Ulloa, I, 62-63 (Lib. I,
cap. v).

L
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

i
197

days, allowed to leave only to beg alms. He was, however, permitted

to build his own hut inside the hospital compound and have his family
share his exile. Priests looked after the physical and spiritual comfort
of the lepers until death claimed them.
By 172^ the Hospital of San Lazaro had become a kind of central
leper colony where lepers were often brought from all over the Vice
royalty. Large cities throughout the Viceroyalty maintained "leper
houses" in their environs where lepers were confined until arrangements
62

could be made to send them to Cartagena.

A census of 1777 listed

forty-one huts inside the hospital compound and a population of one hundred
twenty-seven people, one hundred of whom were lepers. Facilities in
Cartagena soon proved inadequate for the number of lepers in Hew Granada.
In 1791 the hospital was moved to the nearby Island of Tierra Bomba and
facilities expanded to accommodate all lepers in the Viceroyalty. Funds
were not available, however, for transporting the lepers. There were
more than three hundred lepers in the province of Socorro alone, so in
1799 the crown authorized the building of a leprosarium in each province.

This project failed also, due to lack of funds.^

Lepers of Socorro, at least the able-bodied, found employment
in manufacturing a coarse linen cloth, widely used throughout the Vice
royalty in making clothes, especially for slaves. At least one public
z''-,

DJ-Relaciones de mando, (Viceroy Caballero y Gdngora, 1789), pp.

246-^7 .
^T?az Otero, pp. 99-101; Gustavo Arboleda, Historia de Cali, desde
los origines de la cuidad hasta la expiracidh del periodo colonial. 3
vols. (Cali, 1956), I, k05', Soriano, p. 88 ; Tulio Enrique Tascon,
Historia de Buga en la colonia (Bogota, 1939); P* 1^6.
63AHHC, Lazeretos, tomo tinico, fol. 922 (1777); Soriano, pp. 136,
1^7; Montoya y Fldrez, pp. 5-^3*

L
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

1
198

official urged that measures he taken to bar lepers from this industry
in order to prevent the spread of leprosy through infected cloth.
Leprosy represented less than two percent of all complaints noted
on the slave lists, certainly less than might be expected of a disease
so common. Perhaps the reason was that lepers were considered a loss
to the estate and were usually quarantined and therefore would not have
been presented for evaluation.

Perhaps also inaccurate diagnosis simply

failed to identify the disease.

Cases of leprosy might have been mis

takenly diagnosed as other kinds of skin infection or venereal disease,

which together accounted for sixteen percent of all complaints.
Leprosy may have also been confused with elephantiasis. The
original Greek name for the disease was elephantiasis, which Latin authors
translated as leprosy; later Arab authors used the term elephantiasis
to refer to an entirely different disease--the swelling of the legs caused
by a parasitic worm (Filaria medinesis and Wuchereria bancrofti). Gradu
ally there came to be a distinction between Greek elephantiasis or leprosy and Arabian elephantiasis or filariasis.

65

However, this distinc

tion was not even made by medical men until nearly the end of the
eighteenth century. In New Granada the terras leprosy and elephantiasis
were used interchangeably.

66

Of the two diseases leprosy was by far the

Pedro Fermin de Vargas, Pensamientos polfticos y memorias sobre

la poblaeion del Neuvo Reino de Granada (Bogotd, 1953); P* 79*
^Ackerknecht, pp. 110-112; Dancer, Medical Assistant, p. 236 .
de mando, (Viceroy Caballero y Gongora, 1789), p.
2Mf.

L
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

-i

199
most common and is probably the disease referred to by most colonials
when either term is used. A few diagnoses which are available seem to
bear out this assumption.
In 1751 the Cabildo of Medellin was alarmed by the presence of
suspected lepers. The Cabildo ordered these people to be examined.
Maria de Bastamonte was confirmed to be leprous due to the "transparency
67

of the skin" of the face and hands.

The slave may, in fact, have suf-

68

fered from pellagra, but certainly not from elephantiasis.

Antonio

Mejia and Francisco Gdmez were also confirmed to be lepers. Mejia had
lost all feeling in his hands and had one toe consumed by the disease.
G<5mez suffered from swellings of the body and face, and severe hoarseness.
Several slaves were also diagnosed as lepers due to characteristic spots
on the legs and thickening of the ear. A third slave had most of the
classic symptoms:

spots, swellings of the feet, hands, and face, es

pecially the ears, nose, and lips, loss of feelings, impeded speech, fetid
breath, falling hair and deformed face. In time, however, the symptoms
subsided, although the slave remained "paralytic." The swellings dis
appeared, the speech became normal, and the foul breath vanished.

The

doctor diagnosed the case as "scorbutc rheumatism" rather than leprosy.^

Another slave in Buga, whose toes had fallen off and whose fingers had

67

'Ecuario Palacio Palacio, and others, Crdhica municipal,

(Medellin, Colombia, 1967), pp. 19^> 199*
^^This symptom was often characteristic of pellagra, a disease
endemic among people whose diet was composed principally of com. It
causes leprous-like lesions of the skin. It was, no doubt, endemic in
Antioquia. Pellagra in Rumania during the nineteenth century went by
the name of "epidemic leprosy." See Scott, History of Tropical Medicine,
J> 5T2 to

'Palacio Palacio, pp. 19^-200.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

n
200

shrunk and contracted to form a claw, was immediately diagnosed as

70
leper.
This characteristic symptom of claw hand (gafo) was commonly
used as a name for leprosy throughout the colonial period and is still
understood today to designate a leper.

Diseases of the Genitourinary System

"Venereal disease is so common;" wrote Antonio Ulloa during his
visit to the Viceroyalty; "that rare is the person who escapes it."^1
In the past venereal disease was common among all classes, and much
72
more virulant than today,' but it was thought to be especially wide
spread among slaves whose "night ramblings" and promiscuous habits were
universally condemned by slave handlers.^ As a rule, all venereal dis
eases and sometimes other diseases resembling them were collectively
grouped under the generic term syphilis. Gonorrhea, for example, was

7ACC, Colonia, sig. 68ll (1777).

^Antonio de Ulloa, Relaci&i del Viage a la America meridonal,
7 vols. (Madrid, 1778), I, 38^ (Lib. V, cap. vi).
72
Ackerknecht, History of Disease, p. 63 .
^Collins, Rules for Management of Negroes, p. 1555 Thomson,
Treatise on Disease, p. 3.11; Jamaica, House of Assembly, Committee on
Allegations, Two Reports from the Committee of the Hon. House of Assembly
of Jamaica Appointed to Examine into the Report to the House, the Alle
gations and Charges Contained in the Several Petitions Which Have Been
Presented to the British House of Commons on the Sub.iect of the Slave
Trade and the Treatment of Negroes (London, 1789), p. 32 (hereafter cited
as Report on Allegations; Edward Long, The History of Jamaica, or a
General Survey of the Ancient and Modem State of that Island with Reflec
tions on Its Situation, Settlement, Inhabitants, Climate, Products, Com
merce, Laws and Government, 3 vols. (London, 1777), I, 7 3 6 . In New
Granada inspections often revealed the extent to which promiscuity ex
isted. See, for example, AHNE, Real Audiencia, Gobemacion de Popayetn,
Caja 175
"Visita de la Cuidad de Anserrna. . . , (1787), and "Visita
de la Cuidad de Cali . . . , (1787); and in Caja 173, "Visita de la
Cuidad de Caloto . . . , (1786).

L
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

-i

201
not recognized as a distinct disease until the end of the colonial
period (1790) and not proven to he so until 1831 . Chancroid was not
7^
recognized as a distinct disease until even later.
Syphilis was rarely reported to he deadly, hut could produce a
host of chronic conditions, all of which were considered incurable in
the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.75
disease could attack any organ or tissue

In secondary stages the

of the body; the raucous membrane

of the genitals, mouth or throat, the hones, the liver, the kidneys or
the nervous system. Even further development into third stage infection
usually produced distinctive non-healing, painless syphilitic ulcers
which became the characteristic symptoms
Syphilitic ulcers were repulsive

76
of syphilis.
to the sightand often caused

extensive disfiguration, hut did not endanger life and, in fact, they
represented the most benign form of advanced syphilis. What were thought
to b_e syphilitic ulcers- (gomas) were commonly noted among slaves of
New Granada and accounted for nearly five percent of all complaints.

'^Encyclopedia Britanica, 11th ed. (1911), XXVII, 983 .

^Ackerknecht, p. 117.
76

Modem studies of untreated syphilis indicate that, unless re

infection occurred, roughly half of the cases of syphilitic infection do
not progress beyond the first stage, but remain latent and harmless for
the remainder of the patients life. Twenty-eight out of a hundred cases
of syphilis infection, or about half of the cases of second stage syphi
lis, continue to the third and most serious stage. Of those twenty-eight
cases about fifteen primarily affect the heart, eyes or nervous system
and end in death or incapacitation. Thirteen result in the formation
of syphilitic ulcers with no danger to health. Encyclopedia Britanica
(1968), XXIII, 9^6 .

L
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

-i
202

Symptoms which evaluators diagnosed as yaws (bubas) and ulcers (llagas)

may also have been syphilitic ulcers. They accounted for another five
percent of complaints. According to the slave list, then, syphilitic
ulcers may have accounted for five to ten percent of all complaints.
If these were syphilitic ulcers, they probably represented only a small
percent of all cases of syphilis infection (see note 76) .
Such a high incidence of syphilis among the slave population so
vulnerable to yaws was questionable, however, for "saturation of a community with yaws produces a relative immunity to syphilis."77 Probably
many of the cases thought to be syphilis were actually ulcerated yaws,
78

leprosy or skin ulcers.

Nevertheless, virtually every contemporary

medical man as well as casual observers thought syphilis was widespread

among the slaves.

It may have been, though certainly to a much lesser

degree than customarily believed.

79

It may indeed have been responsible

for some of the heart disease, insanity, blindness, deafness and crip
pling which modem medical knowledge has shown to be associated with it
and which were encountered among the slaves. Three Jesuit slaves, for

^Manson-Ba.hr, Mansonfs Tropical Diseases, p. 531*

^ h e difficulty of differentiation is well illustrated by a pi
oneering study of yaws and. syphilis in Jamaica in 1932. In nearly 8/0
of the cases it could not be determined whether the skin lesions were
due to yaws or to syphilis. See Turner, Sanders and Johnston, Jamaica
Yaws Commission, p. 3*
7%odem studies of yaws in Jamaica from a random sampling of an
isolated rural population indicated 6l$ were infected with yaws and only
1$ infected with syphilis. Turner, Sanders and Johnston, p. 3*

L
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

example; were curiously listed with "chest hernias" (quebrado del

. 80
pecho).
The evaluators may have been describing severe cases of aortic
aneurisms; often characteristic of cardiovascular syphilis; in which the
81
weakened aortic wall bulged to protrude from the chest.
Jamaican doctors often blamed the low birth rate among slaves on
82
what they believed to be a high rate of syphilis infection among females.

Sterility may, in fact; have been due to venereal disease; but gonorrhea
rather than syphilis was more responsible.

Syphilis may have been wide

spread among the white and Indian population; however; the prevalence of
yaws among Negroes, no doubt, prevented any widespread syphilis infection
among them, although many diseases were wrongly diagnosed as syphilis.
Gonorrhea and chancroid were more common forms of venereal diseases,
though as previously observed, were not distinguished from syphilis, a factor which may explain why syphilis was thought to be common among slaves.

83

80
AHNC, Temporalidades XIX, foil. 390v-398v (1770) and XIII, foil.
299-300v (179^) That the word quebrado referred to a hernia rather than
a fracture is suggested by a similar use of the terra throat hernia (que
brado de la garganta) to refer to goiter. If the term had referred to a
fracture, it would have mentioned the specific bone, e.g. broken rib
rather than broken chest.
81
Merck Manual, p. 1509; Encyclopedia Britanica (1968), XXII, 9^6 .
82
Great Britain, Bouse of Lords, Minutes of Evidence Taken at the
Bar of the House of Lords upon the Order Made for Taking into Consideration
the Present State of the Trade to Africa, and Particularly the Trade in
Slaves; and also for Taking into Consideration the Nature, Extent, and
Importance of the Sugar, Coffee, and Cotton Trade; and the General State
and Condition of the West India Islands, and the Means of Improving the
Same; and for the Lords to be Summoned; and for the Agents of the West
India Colonies to be Heard for Their Counsel at the Bar of the House, in
Support of Their Petition Against the Abolition of the Slave Trade (London,
1792). See particularly the testimonies of John Grant, p. 19, and Lewis
Cuthbert, p . 71 (hereafter cited as Evidence on Slave Trade).

Collins, pp. 406-07; Thomson, p. k"].

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

A common complication, especially of chancroid, was the formation of

buboes, painful inflammations of the inguenal lymph glands which oc8^
casionally ulcerated.
Buboes (potros. bubones), however, were noted
Or

only infrequently among slaves of New Granada.

A complication of

gonorrhea was the formation of strictures in the urethra which made

urination painful and impeded the flow of urine. Gonorrhea may have
been responsible for some of the urinary trouble noted among slaves;
although the most common result of gonorrhea was sterility, especially

,
among slave
women.86
Also, frequently noted among slaves was dropsy (hidropepsxa) or
edema, a term used to describe swelling of the body caused by accumu
lation of serous fluid in the tissues.

It is not a disease but rather

a symptom of diseases which effect the physiological mechanisms that

maintain water balance in the body cells. Usually dropsy is associated
with diseases of the kidneys and heart, although it may occur with
other diseases.

87

Most dropsy reported by colonial observers affected

the feet and legs and was probably an indication of kidney or heart
ailments among slaves.
Slaves sometimes suffered from what colonial evaluators described
as "urine evil" (mal de orina). Urinary trouble was a general terra for

8Verck Manual, p. 152k ,

85AHNC, Temporalidades XIX, 525"532v (1771)

86

Thomson, p. 51; Encyclopedia Britanica (1968), XXII, 9^9J

Great Britain, House of Lords, Evidence on Slave Trade, pp. 19, 71*
^Encyclopedia Britanica (1968), VII, 9^3i Merck Manual, p. 32^-.

L
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

205

any irregularity such as stoppage, excess or pain associated with

urination. Most often it was probably caused by bladder stones or
urinary calculi. Urinary ailments were noted four times more frequently
among men than women. Female slaves, on the other hand, were subject
to a host of complaints which a layman today would describe as "female
trouble." The specific female trouble noted most often by slave appraisors
was descent of the womb or prolapse of the uterus (madre sale), an ex
treme displacement of the uterus which allowed it to protrude from the
vagina. Prolapse could result from violent straining, frequent preg
nancies, incompetent midwifery, old age or many other causes. This com
plaint was probably more prevalent than records show. Minor cases of
prolapse escaped detection, since only in the most severe cases would
the uterus have protruded far enough to become visible. As with most
other complaints of female trouble, most slave owners would not volun
tarily confess them, since to do so would bring into doubt the breeding
qualities of the slave and lower her price.
Slave women also suffered from other kinds of female trouble,
such as menstrual irregularity, menstrual sickness and cessation of
menstruation, but perhaps no more so than did free females.

Some female

slaves were devaluated by colonial appraisors "for having had many chil
dren (por sus muchos partos). By custom and later by law, a mother of
seven living children was excused from labor and in some cases given her
freedom.

88

Whether the devaluation resulted from this consideration or

^^Gwendolyn Midlo Hall, "Social Control in Slave Plantation

Societies: A Comparison of St. Domingue and Cuba," (unpublished masters
thesis, Dept, of History, Univ. of Mich., Ann Arbor, 1970), p. 153*

L
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

n
206

from the mothers poor physical condition, or hoth, is not clear.

Slave lists probably do not give an accurate picture of the
prevalence of female trouble among slave women. These complaints must
have been much more frequent than slave lists indicate among a female
population subject to brutalizing labor, adverse living conditions and
ignorant raidwives. Moreover, the lists themselves cast doubt on their
accuracy. Contrary to what might be expected, female trouble on the
Jesuit haciendas was nearly twice as great as in the mines and non-Jesuit
haciendas; yet, as a rule, Jesuit slaves were treated better, fed better
and worked less. Perhaps the greater incidence of female trouble amid
relatively easy circumstances reflected the fact that Jesuit slaves
lived in less isolated areas and their evaluators and overseers tended
to be more knowledgeable, more observant and perhaps more honest.

Nor

do slave lists give any information about other female troubles, such as
miscarriage, abortion and other illnesses of pregnancy and childbirth,
nor do the sources reveal any evidence of complaints, such as inflammation
of the uterus and breast, of mammary abcess, hemorrhage and associated
fevers, which were so common among Jamaican slave women.

89

Diseases of the Endocrine System

Endemic goiter (coto bosio) was frequent in some parts of New
Granada due to the absence of iodine in the local water supply. Goiters
were rarely fatal, but often caused a good deal of discomfort and dis
ability, sometimes growing large enough to cause great difficulty in

89
Dancer, Medical Assistant, p. 271; Thomson, Treatise on Disease,
pp. 11^-117; Collins, Rules for Management of Negroes, pp. k5b-56 .

L
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

n
207

"breathing and swallowing.

Occasionally, the growth assumed such

frightful proportions as to incapacitate the victim.

Pedro Juan, for

example, a slave on the Jesuit hacienda of Espinal, had a goiter "so

90
large that he cannot even walk."
Many travelers in New Granada commented on the prevalence of
goiter and the disfiguration it caused, a prevalence which inspired both
official and unofficial investigation into the cause and cure.

Studies

noted the high incidence in the Magdalena Valley and pointed to its
virtual absence elsewhere in the Viceroyalty.
these findings.

91

Slave lists confirmed

Goiter was negligible among mine and non-Jesuit haci

enda slaves since the mines and non-Jesuit haciendas, for the most part,
were located outside the Magdalena drainage. Goiter, however, accounted
for over twelve percent of all complaints among Jesuit slaves, and ninetythree percent of those cases came from haciendas located in the Magdalena
Valley. Indeed, goiter was the single most common complaint among Jesuit
slaves. Nevertheless, there is no evidence that goiter affected Negro
slaves more than whites, either because of race or because of the con92
dition of slavery.
Studies of goiter in the Magdalena Valley also revealed the prevalence of endemic cretinism in that region.93 Cretinism usually occurs
9AHNC, Temporalidades VIII, foil. Il^-l8v (1770).

^^Tapel Periddico (Bogota), April 11, 179^j G. Mollien, Via.ie nor

la Republica de Colombia en 1823 (Bogota, 182I+), pp. 3^1-^3 See also
Emilio Robledo, Geografia m^dica y nosolo*giea del Departamento de Caldas
(Manizales, Colombia, 1916), pp. 221-25.
92
As early as 1797 ne investigator, Vincente Gil de Tejada, sug
gested supplying the population with iodized salt as a means of eradicat
ing goiter. Soriano, Historia de la medieina, p. 1^1.
^Robledo, p. 222.

L
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

208

in areas of endemic goiter, especially in children of mothers suffering

from goiter. The disease is caused by failure of the thyroid gland to
secrete hormones during fetal life or early infancy, a condition which
retards physical and mental development so that normal activities such
as hearing, talking and walking are usually retarded or impaired.
Colonial slave evaluators never used the terra cretin but there can be
little doubt that they encountered the condition. One twelve-year-old
boy, for instance, whose mother suffered from goiter was listed as a
95
"deaf-mute, idiot."

Diseases of the Neuropsychiatric System

Mental deficiency was also noted (2$ of all complaints) by slave
evaluators.

Cretinism must have been responsible for much of it. Nearly

two out of three cases of mental deficiencies occurred in slaves under

twenty-four, an age beyond which cretins seldom lived. A third of all
deafness as well as a third of all dumbness noted occurred in association
with idiocy among children or adolescents and was, no doubt, caused by
cretinism. Muteness and deafness noted among Jesuit slaves were directly
proportional to the incidence of goiter.
Mental illness was noted less frequently among slaves. This in
frequency is surprising, for mental illness was so prevalent among Negroes
in the Atlantic crossing that it was considered by several ship's surgeons

^Encyclopedia Britanica (1968), VI,

95AHNC, Temporalidades XIII, foil. 299-3OOV (179*0

L
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

n
209

to "be the prime cause of death (see pp.

34-39).

It was also common

among Negroes during seasoning and suicide was constantly guarded

96

against.

Yet, among settled, seasoned slaves, mental disturbances did

"not much prevail.Evidently those slaves who survived seasoning

were able to make a satisfactory mental adjustment, for most medical manu
als did not even discuss mental illness. This conclusion seems to be
borne out by colonial slave lists which, only rarely note insanity.

Only

extreme mental cases, however, would have attracted attention and the
number shown in Table 5 probably represents only a fraction of the actual
cases of mental disturbances.
A complaint known as pasmo was sometimes noted among slaves
(l.71<> of all complaints). This word is today used to mean tetanus.

It

may have had the same meaning in colonial days, for the word literally
means spasm. Colonial evaluators probably used the term to refer to
convulsions or to any severe or chronic muscle spasm or cramps. Pasmo
may have resulted from an inadequate salt and calcium intake.

Over

exertion in hot climates often causes a rapid loss of body salt, which
results in severe cramping, especially in the lower extremities.

Slave

owners no doubt recognized this danger, for salt was always included in
slave rations. Nevertheless, exhorbitant costs and frequent shortage
probably conspired from time to time in many areas to drive the salt
intake of slaves below the required minimum. Moreover, most mine slaves

^Collins, pp. 66-67 .

^Dancer, p. 202 j Thomson, p. 130.

L
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

210
lived in the leached tropical rain forest of the Pacific coast where
the soil was virtually lacking in calcium, a mineral necessary in the
hody fluids to prevent cramping. Possibly these factors explain why
pasmo was four times as frequent among mine slaves as among hacienda
slaves.

Some cases of pasmo may actually have been mild cases of tetanus
(ttano). Tetanus occurs frequently in rural areas where spores of the
tetanus bacillus are widely distributed.

Spores may be introduced into

the body through deep cuts or wounds or even trivial wounds in which the
absence of oxygen allows them to develop into bacilli. The bacilli pro
duce a lethal poison which causes localized or generalized muscle spasms.
Spasms may occur in varying degrees of severity, from mild contractions
to excrutiating convulsions which may reportedly even fracture the spinal
98
cord.
A West Indian plantation doctor described the agony of tetanus:
The patient usually first complains of an uneasy Sensation,
and small Tenseness about the Paracordia, and Stiffness in his
Jaws, which gradually increases and brings on a Difficulty in
Swallowing . . . and a Pain along the Spine of the Back, with a
Contracting and Stiffness of the dorsal Muscles and those of the
Neck soon follow, gradually increasing for a Day or two; and the
Head, Neck and Back-bone, are gradually and strongly bended back
wards, and the Body is fixed and retained in that retrocurved
Posture, and the Jaws are now closed and immoveably fixed, . . .
now frequently strong convulsive Spasms come on, first under the
Sternum and on the Diaphram and quickly extend themselves to the
Jaws, Neck and the Whole Spine of the Back, with such Violence and
Force as well as dreadful Pain, as often raise the Body with a
sudden Jerk quite up from the Bed, or Place on which it lays, to a
considerable Height; at other times only so that his Occiput and
Heels only touch them, the Body forming Part of the Arch, if the
Patient lays on his Back, which is the easier Posture of the two

Encyclopedia Britanica (1968), XXI, 88U-85 .

L
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

~i
211
or almost a Circle, by his Head and Heals being brought so near
together if he lays on his Belly . . . . As the Disease progresses,
these strong convulsive Spasms become more frequent, and also more
violent, and now return every ten, fifteen, or twenty Minutes; which
reduces the poor Patient to the most distressed Condition, both
from the Violence of the Pain which he continually feels, and the
Dread of the frequent Returns of those violent convulsive Spasms
. . . . In the Intervals between those Spasms, he lays in a rigid
immovable State . . . . Thus, the convulsive Spasms continue to
return more frequently and with greater Violence, till at last a
general strong Convulsion puts an end to their Misery. . . .99
These symptoms might last for two to three weeks.

In less severe

cases there was good hope for recovery, but reportedly, mild symptoms
might last for months or even years. Moreover, an attack of tetanus
did not confer immunity; as a result every slave was always in jeopardy.
The mortality rate was high, however, and it killed great numbers of
slaves.

Colonials believed tetanus to be fatal and identified as tetanus

only the very severe cases which ended in d e a t h . M i l d e r cases of

tetanus were probably overlooked. While tetanus was endemic among Negroes
of the West Indies and neighboring warm countries,

101

it appears infre

quently in the slave list, accounting for less than one percent of all
complaints. Without question, however, the disease was much more frequent.
This frequency would be apparent if records had been kept listing the
causes of death.

Colonial doctors and slave handlers agreed that roughly

99Hillary, Observations on Epidemical Diseases, pp. 22-25.

-^Collins, Rules for Management of Negroes, p. 359> Dancer, Medl
cal Assistant, p. 197^^Hillary, p. 219-

L
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

212

fifty percent of new t o m infants in the West Indies died of tetanus

within two weeks of birth.

102

Infection probably stemmed from improper

treatment of the umbilical chord after birth.

In New Granada it was

called the seventh-day sickness (mal de los seite dlas) and it may have
caused even higher mortality there than in Jamaica judging from the
remarks of one slave handler:
There is no teacher like experience. It has taught me that
the hacienda can be left entirely without slaves . . . it is the
total ruin of the gangs not to replace in them those who die
with those that are bo m and I have observed that there can
be placed in them not one child from those which the Negresses
in the gangs produce because, although the women are fecund,
the children that this method produces die immediately . . .
my predecessors suffered the same loss repeatedly and I tell
you that just in the short months that I have managed the
103
hacienda three infants have died within a few days of birth. . . .
Epilepsy (gota coral), or "falling sickness," occurred among
slaves but it was not common in New Granada nor in the West Indies.
It accounted for less than one percent of all complaints noted by slave
evaluators.
dicated.

It may, however, have been more common than the lists in

Only grand mal was recognized as epilepsy, which accounts

for the popular name of falling sickness. Minor seizures or petit mal
would probably have been overlooked.

The incidence of epilepsy was more

or less the same among slaves of all occupations, but it was reported
more often among adults and two-thirds of the cases occurred among males.

Diseases of the Eye

Antonio Ulloa observed in 17^-5 that the population of New Granada
1OP

Great Britain, House of Lords, Evidence on Slave Trade, pp. 12k i

Great Britain, House of Commons, Evidence for
Abolition, p.110; Jamaica,
House of Assembly, Re-port on Allegations, pp.26-32.
^ACC, Colonia, sig. 7109; foil. 1-2(177^0 See also Soriano,
P. 139.

-*-ol4)ancer, p. 192 .

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

_J

n
213

suffered greatly from "cataracts and other diseases of the eyes" which
thickened the lens, clouded the pupil and usually left the victim com
pletely b l i n d . W h e t h e r or not Ulloa meant to include Negroes in his
generalization is not clear. Nevertheless, diseases of the eye were
common among slaves.

Jamaican doctors observed the frequency of eye

complaints among Negroes of the Island,

106

and while the slave lists of

New Granada seldom noted eye diseases as such, they did show that blind
ness and impaired vision were common and accounted for more than five
percent of all complaints. Total blindness represented forty percent
of all complaints while impaired vision, including blindness in one eye,
caused the remaining vision complaints noted on slave lists. The inci
dence of blindness and impaired vision was highest on the Jesuit haci
endas in Cartagena and the upper Magdalena Valley, where slightly over
two percent of all slaves were affected. The incidence of defective
vision was relatively high in the mines, especially in the Choco and
Barbacoas. Less than one percent of all slaves was affected, but blind
ness and impaired vision accounted for nearly seven percent of all com-
plaints.

Cases of blindness and defective vision were twice as frequent

in men as in women. Not surprisingly, blindness occurred almost twice

as often in slaves over forty years of age.
In spite of the frequency of cataracts and cloudy lenses mentioned
by Ulloa, there is only occasional reference to either condition among

^UUoa, Relacion del Viage, I, 23^ (Lib. IV, cap. vi).

10^Dancer, p. 2k$', Thomson, p. 33} Collins, p. 333 .

L
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

n
2 lh

slaves and then only among Negroes in their teens. This omission, how
ever, may have been merely an oversight on the part of evaluators, who
simply noted that a slave was blind or had lost the use of one eye with
out noting the condition which caused the loss of vision.
Slave lists gave few hints as to the causes of blindness and
impaired vision among slaves. Old age and accidents doubtless played
a major role. Nutritional deficiencies still rank high as causes of
blindness among children in South America and likely caused even more
damage two centuries ago among malnourished slaves.10^ Disease also
caused blindness.

Smallpox was the major cause of blindness throughout

the world during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

Syphilis,

too, was historically a major cause of blindness. Leprosy almost always

affects the eyes and is still a major cause of blindness in areas of
109
the world where the disease is endemic.
The prevalence of blindness
around Cartagena may have been due to the great prevalence of leprosy
in that area.
Jamaican doctors noted the prevalence of ophthalmia or "sore
eyes" among Negroes of all ages. Today ophthalmia refers to a severe
infection of the eyes, especially of infants, by the gonoccocus, staphyloceocus and other organisms.

Ophthalmia is a major cause of blindness

where dirt and crowding exist and in the past was a major cause of
blindness among children.

It may have been responsible for much of the

^Encyclopedia Britanica (1968), III, 785*

1

Ackerknecht, History of Disease, p. 62.

^Encyclopedia Britanica (1968), III, 785*

L
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

n
215

blindness among slaves and would have caused even more blindness had
infant mortality not been so high. Yet, a symptomatic description of
the common eye inflammation which colonial doctors observed makes it
clear that the disease was not ophthalmia but rather trachoma or
110
Egyptian ophthalmia,
a virus disease which attacks both the conjunc
tive, lining of the eye, and the cornea, scarring the latter so that
severely impaired vision or blindness results. Trachoma causes greatest
damage among people having low standards of living and hygiene, and even
today remains the single most important cause of blindness in under1H
developed countries.
It too, no doubt, made great inroads among slaves.
Perhaps as serious and as prevalent as trachoma was onchocer
ciasis, a parasitic worm infestation which often resulted in blindness.
The disease is transmitted by the bite of insects (simulae) and is char
acterized by formation of subcutaneous nodules in which adult worms de
velop. Hundreds of microscopic offspring are produced and travel beneath
the skin to all parts of the body. If they enter the eye, blindness
eventually results.

In the Americas, only about ten percent of the in-

112
dividuals infected became blind.
In Africa, the incidence of blindness
is much greater, since the insect vector bites the upper part of the

^Dancer, p. 2k9; Thomson, p. 53; Collins, p. 333j Merck

Manual, p. lt-8 l.
'^'''Encyclopedia Britanica (1968), III, 785*
^Oncocercosis (Enfermidad de Hobles) Uhiversidad de San Carlos,
Pacultad de Ci&icias, Homena.ie al Tercer Congreso Pan-Americano de
Oftalmologia (Guatemala, 19^7)> P* 90; Jean Hissette, "Occular Onchocer
ciasis," in Richard P. Strong, ed., Onchocerciasis in Africa and Central
America (by author, n.d.), p. 6l.

L
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

216

body nearer the eyes. The rate of infection in some parts of Africa
still remains high today. Kenyas Valley of the Blind owes its name to
the final results of onchocerciasis. As much as ninety-five percent
of the population of the Congo may be infected, and in the Red Volta
113
district of Ghana, probably all adults over twenty are infected.
The
latter two regions were major sources of supply for the American slave
trade during the eighteenth century.
Onchocerciasis can exist only where altitude, annual rain fall
and lay of the land combine to allow the breeding of the insect vector.
It has only recently been found in Central America and Northern South
America. Yet, a disease characterized by nodules on the head and trunk
which produced blindness was observed in colonial Mexico and was probably
lilt
onchocerciasis.
''"The disease may have existed in New Granada also
in colonial times.

Colonial evaluators occasionally noted the presence

/
\
115
of nodules (lobanillos) on slaves.
In no case, however, did the
slaves affected also suffer from blindness, yet these nodules may have
been symptoms of onchorcerciasis. Nodules, too, may have been more fre
quent than indicated on the slave lists. Since the nodules were painless

^Strong, p. 10; Manson-Bahr, "Onchocerciasis," Mansbnils Tropical

Diseases.
llUHerbert T. Dalmat, Black Flies of Guatemala and Their Role
As Vectors of Onchocerciasis (Washington, D. C., 1955); P 7* The auth
enticity of this reference has been questioned, but other students have
uncovered evidence of possible onchocerciasis in colonial America. See
Hoeppli, Parasitic Diseases, pp. llj-0-^2.
^AHNC, Temporalidades XIX, fol. 390 (1770), Hacienda de Tena
(Cundinamarca), "Petronila, edad de ^0 anos, con un lobanillo sobre al
ojo derecho;" also fol. 526 (177^) See also AHDA, Colonia CCLXII
(Mortuarios), doc. 5606 (1710), Trapiche del Caballo (near San Jeronimo
de los Cedros, Antioquia), "Estefanla, Negra, edad de 30 anos, enferma

L
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

217

and apparently harmless, less conscientious evaluators would likely

have ignored them.

Diseases of the Gastrointestinal System

One of the most frequent complaints noted on the slave lists
was that of stomach pains. Jamaican doctors and planters also agreed
that no complaint was more common among slaves than that of stomach or
116
bowel pains. Such vague complaints could have had many causes. One
Jamaican doctor estimated that two-thirds of such bowel complaints was
simply colic or bellyache due to indigestion or gas caused by eating
unripe fruit or improper foods. The remaining third of the bowel com
plaints were attributed to worms, liver ailments, diarrheas and fluxes
+ 117
or dysenteries.

Two types of dysentery were common among slaves. Bacillary

dysentery, or bloody flux (flu,to de sangre), is discussed earlier (see

de los lomos y de un nudo del espinazo;" AHWE, Real Audiencia, Gobernacidn de Popayan, Caja 137; "Inventario de la Mina y quadrilla del
Rio de Magul," foil. 33 (178^) (near Magui, Narino), "Joaquina, negra,
de edad ^0 anos con lesion de lobanillos en ambas rodillas sin impedimiento de su trabajo; Candida, su hija, criolla de edad 12 ahos, con
lesi6n de lobanillos en ambas munecas, pero no por esto deja de trabajar."
For similar symptoms among slaves in the guinea yards of Cartagena see
private microfilm collection filmed in the Archivo General de Indias
in Seville, Spain, property of Dr. Jose Rafael Arboleda, Dept, of An
thropology, Universidad Pontifica Javeriana, Bogota, Colombia. See
rolls 2 and 3* Used by permission and tabulated in David L. Chandler,
"Negro Slavery in Colombia," in Tulane University/Universidad del Valle,
International Center for Medical Research and Training, Annual Progress
Report (New Orleans, 1970).
ll6rphomson, Treatise on Disease, pp. ^2-^3; Collins, Rules for
Management of Negroes, p. 266.
117Collins, pp. 267-299.

L
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

~i

218

p. 12l+). It was seldom noted on slave lists, a fact which fails to

reflect the prevalence of the disease, since evaluators would likely
have postponed the evaluation if an epidemic were present among the slaves.
Amoehic dysentery was probably more widespread but less serious. This
form of dysentery, caused by the infestation of the large intestine by
parasitic amoebas, could be trivial or severe, lasting a few days or
several years. Acute cases might cause severe abdominal pain and bloody
stools, but more often cases were more mild and tended to become chronic,
recurring with vague abdominal pain. Though seldom fatal in itself,
amoebic dysentery could lead to fatal liver abcesses. Even more often
it drained vitality and lessened resistance to other diseases so that
victims often lingered for years before finally falling prey to it or to
some other infection.

118

Amoebic dysentery flourished in the tropics,

especially in unsanitary conditions such as those characteristic of

119
slavery.
Today perhaps as much as seventy percent of the rural popu120
lation of Colombia suffers from amoebic infestation.
Probably many
of the stomach pains noted among slaves were due to this form of dysen
tery. In fact, amoebic dysentery was probably even more common than
121
slave lists indicate.
Many of the slaves described vaguely as being

*11P>

John Duffy, Epidemics in Colonial America (Baton Rouge, 1953);

pp. 218-222 .
^Encyclopedia Britanica (1968), VII, 828-30.
120

Personal information from Peace Corps medical volunteers,

February, 1969* Medellin, Colombia,
^'lloeppli, pp. 62- 6k .

L
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

n
219

"sick," "dying," and "weak" or as having "pains" or "complaints" were

perhaps suffering from amoebic dysentery.
Common complications of amoebic dysentery are amoebic hepatitis
(inflammation of the liver) and liver abcess. Some of the complaints
of liver trouble (mal de higado) noted by colonial evaluators among
slaves may have been due to this cause.
122
Many bowel complaints were also caused by worms.
Worms are

very frequent in warm climates and at least three types commonly infested
slaves. A variety of short, white, sharp-headed worms (pinworms) fre
quently infected Negro children. Large roundworms were also frequent
among children, but at least one doctor had "reason to think few Negroes
123

were free from them regardless of their age."

Roundworms caused

diarrhea and abdominal gas and pain. Pinworms often produced convul
sions in children, a symptom which might have been taken for tetanus.
Both varieties caused great mortality. The legislature of the British
Island of Granada estimated that more Negro children between the ages of
1211-

three and ten died from worms than from any other cause.

Government

reports from other British islands noted that fifty percent of Negro
children died from convulsions brought on either by tetanus or worms.

125

122Thomson, p. 1+3.
123Collins, p. 391.
1211-

Great Britain, Privy Council, Committee on Trade and Foreign

Plantations, Report, 3rd Pt., Appendix II (Granada and St. Christopher),
n.p.
125

Ibid. See also Appendices l6 and 17 and Great Britain,

House of Lords, Evidence on the Slave Trade, pp. 71, 12^*

L
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

~i

220

There is no comparable testimony for child mortality from worms in

New Granada; in fact, the majority of cases would have gone undetected
by slave evaluators, yet the conditions must have been much the same
there as in the West Indies. All cases of worms observed by slave evaluators occurred among children between the ages of three and seven.126
That these cases in New Granada often ended in death was indicated by the
cryptic notation "dying of worms" (murriendose de lombrices),. which some127

times followed the childs name.

In modern Colombia, roundworm in

festation ranks third (after malaria and yaws) as the most widespread
disease in the Pacific lowlands.
worm recognized among slaves.

128

Tapeworm was the third variety of

It occurred more frequently in adults

and was dreaded due to the difficulty of ridding the body of it.
Although unrecognized as such, another worm infestation which was
very common among the slaves was hookworm, a dangerous tropical disease
129
endemic in all areas of poor sanitation.
Next to malaria and tuberculosis, hookworm disease is today the most widespread disease of man.

130

A distinctive symptom often associated with the disease was the propen
sity to eat earthy materials, a symptom so common among West Indian
slaves that a reputable planter claimed that the greatest mortality among

126

AHNC, Temporalidades XIX, fol. 390 (1770)", Testamentarias del

Cauca V, foil. 281-90 (1803).
127

AHNC, Testamentarias del Cauca V, foil. 281-90 (1803).

128

West, Pacific Lowlands, pp. 185-86 .

^A modem study of Puerto Rico showed that no less than fifty

percent of the population was infected and that one-third of all deaths
could be attributed to hookworm. Ackerknecht, History of Disease, pp.
130-32.
130
Ibid.

L
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

r
131

adult Negroes was caused by this disease,

which Jamaicans called by

its French name, mal dfestomac.. A Jamaican doctor described the sec
ondary symptoms of the disease which he attributed to dirt eating:
. . . the colour, from a deep black, approaches a dirty light
brown, or lemon yellow; the skin feels rough, is dry, and cold
to the touch; the white of the eye of a dusky yellow; the eye
lids puffed, face bloated and dejected; the gums lose their red
color, are pale and flaccid; inside the lips and tongue nearly
white; the hair loses much of its colour, and acquires a lighter
shade; there is a constant uneasy pain at the stomach attended
with nausea and vomiting; the pulse grows weak, small and con
tracted; the heart beats in a troublesome manner on the least
exertion, and the pulsation is felt over the upper part of the
abdomen; the large vessels of the neck throb violently and visibly;
the mesenteric glands get enlarged, and causes the belly to swell;
the feet are bloated, and finally water is effused either r'nto
the chest oj_^bdomen, which terminated the life of the wretched
individual.
Negroes preferred to eat a type of dirt called "aboo earth" or
clammy marl, "a smooth, greasy, and somewhat cohesive" substance that
dissolved easily in the mouth. Earth cakes or aboo cakes were sold
in Sunday markets by slaves in Jamaica. Parents often rewarded their
children with these earth cakes or used them as an antidote for stomach
pains so common among Negroes of all ages.133 A Jamaican naturalist
described the pernicious effects of dirt eating:
The Negroes who make frequent use of this substance may get
a habit of eating to such excess that it often proves fatal to
them. It is the most certain poison I have known, when used
for any length of time; and often enters so abundantly into
the course of the circulation as to obstruct all the minute
capillaries of the body. Nay, has been often found concreted
in the glands and smaller vessels of the lungs, so far as to

132Thomson, p.
133
Great Britain, House of Lords, Committee on Trade and Foreign
Plantations, Report, 3rd Pt., unnumbered "Jamaica appendix," item No. 2,
"Dirt Eating, 11 n.p.

L
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

222
become sensibly preceptible to the touch. It breaks the
texture of the blood internally, and for many months before
they die, a general langour affects the machine, and all the
internal parts, lips, gums and tongue, are quite pale in so
much that the whole mass of their juices, seem to be no better
than a whitish lymph. It is probable they are first induced to
use the substance (which is generally well known among them)
to allay some sharp cravings of the stomachj either from hunger,
worms, or an unnatural habit of the body.3

The symptoms of dirt eating was noted only rarely by slave evalu
ators in New Granada probably because Negroes tried to hide the habit, but
mal d'estomac, or hookworm disease, was certainly common in New Granada,
also.

It was so common among Negroes in all areas of tropical America that

one authority has suggested that the "prevalence of hookworm disease in

tropical and sub-tropical America no doubt helps to account for the proverbial lethargy of the Negro."135

Diseases of the Respiratory System

Diseases of the respiratory system, according to one Jamaican
doctor, were less common in the tropics than in northern climates.
A condition called reuma de la cabeza was sometimes noticed among slaves
of New Granada and probably referred to a sinus condition or perhaps
137
a severe case of the common cold. Pleurisy and pneumonia were common
in the West Indies, especially during the colder rainy months.

138

There

-^Patrick Browne, The Civil and Natural History of Jamaica

(London, 1756), Pt. II, Bk. 6k, sect. vii.
135
Ackerknecht, p. 132.
136
Dancer, Medical Assistant, p. 139*
137The word reuma could refer either to rheumatism or to a watery
discharge from the mucous membranes. From context, it is clear that
the term usually referred to rheumatism, but in the case of rheuma of
the head, the second meaning is obvious.
^^Pleurisy strictly speaking, is an inflammation of the membrane

L
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

223
are occasional references to pneumonia (dolor del costado) also in
New Granada. Antonio Ulloa observed during his travels in the Vice
royalty that "pleuresies and pneumonias (pleurisias y costados) were
139
very common."
While Ulloa was referring to Quito and its surrounding
area high in the Andes, slaves in the cold highlands all over the Vice
royalty probably suffered from such diseases, although no specific men
tion of these appears in the slave lists. Slave evaluators did note
symptoms of spitting blood or pus which may or may not have been symp
tomatic of pneumonia, but aside from this uncertain clue, there is nothing.
Most slaves lived in the warmer areas such as the Pacific Coast or
Antioquia where climate and seasonal changes in weather were minimal and
where the slaves seemed less subject to these maladies, even if not en
tirely free from them. Yet, even in warm Cauca Valley, a royal visitor
in the l620 s mentioned the prevalence of romadizo, a form of bronchitis
or perhaps simply a bad cold.

llf-O

Asthma was the most common respiratory ailment noted among slaves.
It accounted for nearly two percent of all complaints, and its prevalence
may in fact confirm the prevalence of other respiratory ailments. At
least colonial doctors saw asthma as an index to the frequency of other
respiratory infections:

"chronic catarah and other pulmonary complaints

which lines the inside of the chest cavity and the outside of the lungs.
Pneumonia is an infection of the air cells of the lung itself. It was
difficult for colonial medical men to distinguish between the two dis
eases. Dr. Thomson of Jamaica spoke for most of his colleagues when
he wrote, "It will sufficiently answer all practical purposes, if we
consider both of these modifications as one disease, and under the name
of pleurisy." Thomson, Treatise on Disease, p. 20.
^Ulloa, Relacidn del Viage, I, 385 (Lib. V, cap. vi).
^Robert C. West, Colonial Placer Mining, p. S I, note 9

L
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

~i

22k

of Negroes are very apt to degenerate into permanent asthmatic dis

orders for which I know of no remedy . . . . The attack continues for
two or three days and gradually subsides, leaving the subject much
debilitated."', l k l
Barely one reference to tuberculosis or consumption (etica) was
noted among slaves evaluated in New Granada. The same relative absence
of tuberculosis among slaves was also noted by Jamaican medical men.

One

doctor for instance, wrote that "Consumption, madness, gout, and scrophula, and its numerous consequences . . . are almost strangers to the
inhabitants of tropical climates. " 1^2 Other doctors, writing about ail
ments of slaves, omitted it altogether or discussed it very lightly.
Yet, only fifty years ago, "tuberculosis was the primary cause of death
in the West and the most dreaded chronic communicable disease.""^ Modem
evidence indicates that tuberculosis was probably as common in the tropics
as elsewhere and further shows that tuberculosis is more severe among
non-white races, especially Negroes, Moreover, the incidence is much
greater in situations of poor diet, unhygienic living conditions and dislVi-

advantaged social position.

Nevertheless, even taking into account

^Thomson, p. 7^
^ 2Ibid., p. 130. See also Dancer, p. l k $
^Ackerknecht, p. 100.
^ Encyclopedia Britanica (1968), XXII, 298-300.

L
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

.n
225

all symptoms which might have been tubercular in origin (spitting blood
and pus), tuberculosis would still account for roughly only one percent
of all complaints, a status hardly comparable to that of the disease in
114.5

Europe where it accounted for about one-third of all deaths.

It must

have been a major cause of death among slaves and more prevalent than
slave lists indicate. Perhaps some of the "sick," "weak," and "dying"
were victims of tuberculosis.

Diseases of the Mouth and Throat

The complaints of diseased and ulcerated throat noted among
slaves might have been symptoms of epidemic diseases such as diphtheria,
typhoid or scarlet fever. But in light of the high incidence among
slaves of yaws, espundia (leishmaniasis), syphilis, all of which commonly
attacked the mucous membrance of the mouth, nose and throat, probably
one of these diseases was responsible for these complaints.

ibS

Muteness was also classified as a disease of the throat, or at

least as a consequence of throat disease. Some mute slaves were born
deaf. They never heard and, consequently, never learned to speak.

Others

were lepers, and loss of speech was probably due to leprosy. Muteness

1^5
Dancer, p. I49 note.
lk 6

Gangosa, a form of tertiary yaws, is not uncommon. It des

troys the hard and soft palates and other soft parts of the mouth and
nose by progressive ulceration. Manson-Bahr, p. 526 . Leishmaniasis
(espundia) often causes extensive damage to the mucoasa of the mouth,
pharynx and nose. The American form (L. brasiliensis) is usually more
severe and more destructive than the variety endemic in Africa
(L. tropica). See Hoeppli, Parasitic Diseases, pp. ^3-^6.

L
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

i
226

in many cases may also have been due to mental damage or deficiency.
About one-third of the cases occurred in epileptics or in the mentally
retarded, and over eighty percent of all muteness occurred on the Jesuit
haciendas, especially in the upper Magdalena Valley where there was
high incidence of goiter and cretinism.

Diseases of the Ears

Slave evaluators made rather infrequent notation of deafness
among slaves. Impaired hearing was also noted, although even less often.
Old age did not seem to play an important role in hearing loss, for most
cases of deafness occurred in slaves under forty years of age. Deaf
ness was never reported among mine slaves. However, on the non-Jesuit
haciendas it was relatively common in comparison with other complaints,
accounting for almost one and one-half percent of all complaints.
Among Jesuit slaves, deafness did not constitute so high a percentage
of all complaints even though it was more common, perhaps due to the
high incidence of cretinism.

Diseases of the Cardiovascular System

Heart disease (mal de coraz&i) was noted among slaves but was
not common. There was a similar infrequence of heart disease in the
West Indies. In both areas it was probably kept to a minimum by the
short life expectancy.

It appears to have attacked young adults most

frequently. Over ninety percent of the cases was noted in blacks under
twenty-six years of age. Degenerative heart disease, then, would not

L
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

227

1^7
seem to have heen a major cause of heart trouble among slaves.
Heart disease was noted most often among mine slaves,, where it accounted
for nearly two and one-half percent of all complaints. It was observed
twice as often among men as among women. It was not noted at all among
Jesuit slaves.

Miscellaneous Complaints
Often slave evaluators noted no specific symptoms. They simply
wrote "sick," "in pain" or "useless" after a slave's name. What dis
eases these slaves suffered from is not known. In the case of "useless"
slaves there is a little more information. The term "useless" seemed
to imply a permanent uselessness for service.

Often old age was the

cause of uselessness, or perhaps old age complicated by disease or

-^7

'Chagas disease (South American trypanosomiasis), the American

form of African sleeping sickness, may have been a cause. It causes
heart disease rather than sleepiness and is widespread throughout Cen
tral and South America, where disease organisms customarily infest pov
erty-stricken huts. It is thought to be responsible for the high inci
dence of heart disease in modem Latin America. Ackerknecht, History
of Disease, pp. 128-130; Merck Manual, pp. 91^"l6 .
lif8The term "useless" occurred much more frequently in the slave
lists than Table 5 indicates. The rule followed in the compilation of
the table was to count uselessness as a complaint only if it occurred
alone, or if it seemed to be independent of other complaints. Thus,
if a slave were "paralized and useless," he appears in the table only
under the heading of "disabled," since he was "useless" because of the
accompanying complaint. To place him under "useless" and under "dis
abled" would seem redundant and misleading. If, on the other hand, he
suffered from a seemingly temporary illness such as a sprained ankle,
but was also useless, he is listed under both categories, since his
uselessness was not a result of the accompanying complaint. Such a
slave really suffered from two complaints and therefore appears in the
table under both headings.

L
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

r
228

disability.

Sometimes, however, especially in the mines, young slaves

were listed far below the market price. The only explanation was the
single word "useless" behind their name.

In the mines thirty-five

percent of the useless slaves were under the age of forty-five and
nearly half of these were children or teenaged Negroes. Physical dis
ability caused by disease or accident must have been the cause of much
of this uselessness, even though such disability was not specified.
Uselessness, even though vague, was common, representing nearly seven
percent of all complaints.

One percent of all of the slaves appraised

by colonial evaluators were listed as useless.

The slave lists made by colonial evaluators give valuable in'
sights into the diseases which afflicted the slaves of New Granada.
Diseases of the musculoskeletal system were by far the most commonly
noted ailments.

Skin diseases ranked notably lower, followed closely

by diseases of the genitourinary tract and endocrine diseases. Mental

and nervous disorders and eye diseases were the next most frequently
noted ailments and were about equal in number. Gastrointestinal and
respiratory ailments were reported considerably less often, while diseases
of the mouth and throat, were infrequent and ailments of the ears, heart,
and lymphatic system were rarely observed.
Information from other slave areas, such as the West Indies and
Brazil generally seem to confirm these findings with two exceptions.
In other areas slave handlers would probably have ranked gastrointestinal
disorders second or perhaps even first in frequency. This category of
ailments ranked low in New Granada probably due to the exclusion of
epidemic dysentery, for reasons already mentioned (see p. 218 ).

L
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

i
229

Goiter, too, was not present in most other areas, but its frequency in
New Granada was accounted for by the fact that it was due to a mineral
deficiency peculiar to Northern South America.
It is perhaps more meaningful, however, to discuss specific dis
eases among the slaves rather, than diseases of body systems. Permanent
disability in one form or another was the single most frequent complaint
noted among slaves of New Granada. Hernia was almost as frequent.
Goiter was the next most common specific complaint, and venereal disease
closely followed it in order of frequency, though most of these cases
of venereal disease were probably mistaken cases of yaws.

Blindness,

pinta and temporary injuries ranked next in frequency and caused about
equal damage. They were followed by mental illness, skin ulcers,
stomach pains, asthma, dropsy, pasmo, leprosy and yaws, all of which
were observed about equally as often. Many other diseases were also
noted though much less frequently (see Appendix I, Table 1-1)-).
While the slave lists are invaluable as sources of information
on disease and health conditions among the slaves, there is much in
formation which they do not give. Data from other sources both from New
Granada and from other slave areas indicate that the lists do not
accurately reflect the prevalence of dysentery (both amoebic and bacillary) as well as yaws, hookworm, leprosy and tuberculosis among the
general slave population. Nor do they reveal the extent to which female
slaves suffered from health problems related to menstruation, lactation,
pregnancy and childbirth. Moreover, the lists only hint at the devas
tating inroads made by tetanus and worms among the slave children.

L
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

The slave lists as well as other sources indicate that while

the slaves of the Viceroyalty were subject to scores of diseases, there
were about a dozen that caused the vast majority of suffering and deaths.
These diseases can be listed in probable order of frequency as follows:
injuries and permanent disability, bacillary dysentery, amoebic dysen
tery, tetanus, yaws, hookworm and other intestinal parasites, tuberculo
sis, goiter, blindness, pinta, skin ulcers, leprosy and mental and nervous
disorders. In most cases the incidence of disease was closely associ
ated with the hard labor required of the slaves or with the unhygienic
conditions under which they were forced to live. Though disease caused
enormous suffering and death among the slaves, it might have caused even
more if it had not been for the intercession of the Church and state and
the humanitarian philosophy that guided both.

L
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

CHAPTER IX

THE CHURCH, THE STATE AND THE HEALTH OF SLAVES

The hard circumstances of slavery and the poor health conditions

which existed among the slaves were mitigated both by the Church and by
the state. Neither institution opposed slavery as such. The Church
received slaves as security for its loans and as payment for burial ex
penses and masses for the dead. The Jesuit order held more slaves than
any other individual or group in the Kingdom and used its slaves as the
basis of what many regarded as an economic empire. Similarly, the crown
held numerous slaves which it used to build fortifications and work the
royal mines and other enterprises. Nevertheless, the attitude of both
institutions toward slavery helped to mitigate some of the worst evils of
the institution.

Indirectly the Church helped to improve health conditions

among the slaves by its endless insistence that the black man was first
of all a human being with rights to be defended and with emotional and
spiritual needs to be satisfied. Moreover, its demands that slave owners
not permit their slaves to work on. Sundays secured for many blacks much
needed rest from the grueling labor demanded of them. The state not only
supported the Church in these actions, but worked directly and actively
to safeguard the health of slaves and to improve the conditions under which
they worked and lived. Moreover, in countless other ways Spanish law
protected and favored the slaves in their bondage, while at the same time
encouraging their emancipation from it.
231

J
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

i
232
From the beginning the Catholic Church took the position that
slavery was a contractual arrangement whereby the slave placed his time

and the result of his labor at the disposal of his master, but that he
remained a human being with certain innate rights. The theologian
Cardinal John de Lugo (1538-1660) in the sixteenth century listed among
these rights:

the right to life, limb, body and reputation. Consequently,

the Church held that a master could not keep his slaves from marrying,
for example, for to do so deprived him of the rights of the body. For
a violation of any of these rights the master must make restitution to
the slave, as if he were a free nan.

In the eighteenth century even clearer limits were defined by

Cardinal Gerdil (1718-1802):
Slavery is not to be understood as conferring on one man the
same power over another that men have over cattle. Wherefore,
they erred who in former times refused to include slaves among
persons and believed that, however barbarously the master treated
his slave, he did not violate any right of the slave. For
Slavery does not abolish the natural equality of men: hence by
slavery one man is understood to become subject to the dominion
of another to the extent that the master has perpetual right to
all those services which one man can justly perform for another,
and subject to the condition that the master take due care of his
slave and treat him humanely.
In Catholic theology the soul of the black man was equally as
important as the soul of any human being.

Consequently, the Church

made a determined effort to care for the spiritual and emotional needs

^Cited in Arnold Lunn and Henry Moore, A Saint in the Slave

Trade: Peter Claver, 1581-165^ (London, 1937)> P 62.
2Ibid., p. 63 .

L
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

i
233

of the slave. During the first half of the seventeenth century the
Jesuits of Cartagena systematically attempted not only to catechize and
baptize the slaves as they landed in Cartagena, but to care for their
medical needs as well.

Unfortunately, however, this work was often at

tended to only sporadically. The Church also attempted to catechize .

buzales, or new Negroes, among the slave gangs of the interior. It en
couraged owners of large mines and haciendas to construct private chapels
and retain a priest to care for the needs of their families and their
slaves.

Priests were assigned to mining and ranching districts to care

for the slaves of less wealthy men. These priests served all the various
gangs in the parish, instructing the slaves in Christian doctrine and
administering the sacraments.

In theory, parishes were to be small enough that the slaves could

walk to Sunday mass, or, failing that, no larger than would allow a dedi
cated priest to travel occasionally to the more remote gangs to give
instruction, baptize the newborn and attend the dying. The priest was
supported by a fee for each baptism, marriage or burial performed--usually
about three pesos each per slave.
3

Alonzo de Sandovals De Instauranda Aethiopum Salute (Seville,

1627) was written as a manual of instructions for the Jesuits in this work.
Vrchivo Histdrico Nacional de Colombia (hereafter AHNC), Miscelanea LXHV, fol. 22 (171^); Negros y esclavos de Santander V, foil. 93^37 (1809).
5

AHNC, Impuestos Varies Cartas m

il, fol. 801 (1770); Minas
del Tolima II, foil. 31*0-1*1 (1790); Negros y esclavos de Panami II,
foil. 312-1*8 (1803).
6
Archivo Historico Nacional del Ecuador (hereafter AHNE), Real
Audiencia, Gobemacidn de Popaydn, Caja 198, "Joaquin Aguiar y Venegas
en nombre del Cabildo, de la Cuidad de Barbacoas contra el Sr. Obispo,
Dn. Luis Ldpez de Solis," fol. 16 (1805).

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

i
23^

In practice, however, parishes were not small, nor were priests

generally noted for their dedication.

Some mines and haciendas were

visited only once a year, others even less often, if at all.^ In some
areas priests simply would not make the long trip to isolated areas,
g

even to administer last rites.

Part of the problem stemmed from a

shortage of priests and there were repeated petitions for more priests,
9
especially from the more remote areas with less desirable living conditions.
In spite of these shortcomings, the Church still had much influ
ence. The religious conviction it inspired caused many slave owners to
take a personal interest in the spiritual welfare of their slaves. The
administrators of several mines in Barbacoas were instructed to see that
slave children went to church every day to be taught Christian doctrine.
Adult slaves were to go to morning mass on Sundays and holidays and to
attend church to pray after work four nights a week.^ On the large
Certegui mine in the Chocc5, slaves were required to recite the rosary
before and after work, and the owner urged the administrator to give "due
example of Christianity and religion in order that the rest might follow
the same path.

11

Some masters, however, were not this conscientious

TaKNC, Minas del Cauca IV, fol. 371 (l80l).

g

AHNE, Real Audiencia, Gobemacidn de Popaydtn, Caja 1^3, "Visita

de la Cuidad de Caloto obrada por el Governor de la Cuidad de Popayan,
Dn. Pedro Vecaria," fol. *l3 (1786).
9

AHNC, Impuestos Varios--Cartas XXIII, fol. 801 (l770)j Minas

del Tolima II, foil. 833-35 (1790).
^University of North Carolina, Southern History Collection,
Popayeta. Papers, Box 9> "Instructiones para el manejo de las Minas de
Nuestra Senora de las Mercedes, San Josl y Santiago" (l8l0). Courtesy
of William F. Sharp.
1:LAKNC, Minas del Cauca V, foil. 3lf7-lf8 (180I+).

L
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

i
235

and deliberately kept their slaves from receiving the rites of the
Church either to avoid the expenses involved or because they thought them
incapable or unworthy to receive the sacraments.

1P

That the Church did

not do more to protect and minister to the needs of the slaves was due
in part to insufficient manpower and to the weaknesses of human nature.
That the Church sometimes failed in its enterprise, though, is perhaps
less significant than the fact that it undertook it at all.
In one positive, if indirect way, the Church aided the slave by
insisting that he not be allowed to work on Sundays and on Church feast
days. These days were to be used for rest, religious ceremonies and
instruction. The exact number of feasts varied according to locality,
but the number was unusually high, probably at least one per week.

One

authority placed the number throughout Spanish America at eighty-two,

so that, including Sundays, slaves were forbidden to work on a total
TO

of 13^ days per year.

Within New Granada, however, a colonial official

observed that it was customary to give slaves about ninety days per year
including Sundays.

Ill-

Royal inspectors, even though they came infrequently,

12

Alonzo de Sandoval, De Instauranda Aethiopum Salute; El mundo

de la esclavitud negra en Amdrica (Bogotd, 1956), pp. 197-201. 251.
*%. Harold Scott, A History of Tropical Medicine Based on the
Fitzpatrick Lectures Delivered before the Royal College of Physicians
of London, 1837-38, 2 vols. (London, 1939). II, 999.
^Pedro Fermin de Vargas, Pensamientos politicos y memoria sobre
la poblaciAi del Nuevo Reino de Granada (Bogota, 1953). P. 53.

L
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

n
236

always checked with slaves as to whether masters allowed their slaves

free time on Church holy days and Sundays and fined those masters who
did not. 15
It was challenging to slave owners of New Granada to meet the
Churchs demands for Sunday and holiday rest and yet make slavery pay
economically. They met the challenge in a variety of ways. Probably
very few observed the law completely, and for all who did observe it
completely, many more must have ignored it completely and forced their
slaves to work all the time, including Sundays and holidays.

l6

It did

not require much imagination to realize that while royal inspectors

were supposed to conduct tours of inspection every one to five years,
they seldom did and long periods of thirty or even fifty years or more
often passed between visits.

Even if an inspector did make a visit, the

fine he imposed was usually only fifty pesos, a sum which could easily
be reimbursed by a gang of slaves working on a few holidays. Many
owners, however, chose to solve the problem another way. They allowed
their slaves Sundays and one other free day each week but compensated
for it by reducing or eliminating the food and clothing ration, assuming

15
ARNE, Real Audiencia, Gobemaci6n de Popay^n, Caja 1^3, "Visita
de la Cuidad de Caloto . . . , foil. 50-51v (1786); Caja l^U), "Visita
de la Cuidad de Anserma obrada por el Govemador de la Cuidad de Popay^n,
Dn. Pedro Vecaria," fol. 15v (1787); "Visita de la Cuidad de Cali obrada
por el Gobemador de la Cuidad de Popay^n, Dn. Pedro Vecaria," fol. 23v
(1787).
^Ibid., Caja 1 5 2 ^ "Causa seguida entre Dn. Marcos Cortes y
su esclavo Estanislao Cortes," fol. 3 (1789); Archivo Historico Departamental de Antioquia (hereafter AHDA), Colonia XXXIV (Esclavos), doc. 1120
(1803).

L
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

n
237

that the slaves should spend this free time in producing their cwn food
and clothing or working to earn the money to huy these necessities.
A royal inspection of the mines of the Cauca Valley in 1788 revealed
17

that nearly half of the miners were using this system.

Similarly,

in the provinces of the Choct? and Barbacoas, many owners gave their
slaves Sunday for rest and one other day in the week to work for themselves in the mines with their masters* tools.

l8

Sometimes royal inspectors tried to alter this practice of substi

tuting free days for food and clothing rations.

In the inspection of

the Cauca Valley mines in 1788, the inspector ordered miners to give their
slaves one more free day per week, or a total of two free work days per
week in addition to Sunday, if they expected slaves to furnish all their
own food and clothes.^ His orders, though, did not permanently alter
the practice. Moreover, the crown itself virtually approved the practice
of the miners in a legal decision handed down in 1796 which required
slaves to be given one day in each week (in addition to the Sunday day of

17
AHNE, Real Audiencia, Gobernacio'n de.Popay^n, Caja 1^-3, "Visita
de la Cuidad de Caloto. . . , (1786); Caja l ^ *"' 'Visita de la Cuidad
de Anserma . . . , (1878); "Visita de la Cuidad de Cali . . . , (1787).
^Ibid., Caja 1 5 2 ^ "Causa seguida entre Dn. Marcos Cortes y su
esclavo Estanislao Cortes," fol. 2 (1789); Fermin de Vargas, p. 53j AHNC,
Negros y esclavos de Cundinamarca IX, foil. 895-902 (1793).
^AHNE, Real Audiencia, Gobemacidn de Popay^n, Caja 1^5 ^
'Visita de la Cuidad de Anserma . . . ," fol. 15v (1787).

L
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

i
238
20

rest) to work for themselves.

On a majority of haciendas and mines slaves did not complain of
Sunday and holiday work. The lack of complaints, however, probably
did not mean that the numerous Church holidays were honored as intended.
Some masters gave the slaves the feast day as their free day, even though
masters and slave captains were forbidden on pain of fine or whipping
21
to allow slaves to work on feast days and Sunday.
In other cases
slaves probably had little knowledge of the complex Church calendar, and
especially when there was little contact with a priest, most holidays
must have gone unobserved. Probably even in main population centers
only the major feasts such as Good Friday, Easter, Corpus Christi, Christ
mas, and perhaps a few others were observed as rest days, while less
important ones were marked only with a religious service after which the
slaves returned to work either for their masters or for themselves, de
pending on the proportion of their food ration the masters expected them
to furnish.
For many blacks in the Viceroyalty, the Churchs insistence on
Sunday and holiday rest must have resulted in a welcome reprieve from
harsh labor, which lightened the yoke of slavery and prolonged their lives.

20
AHNC, Negros y esclavos de Cundinamarca IX, foil. 895-902

(1793).
^AHNE, Real Audiencia, Gobernacidn de Popay^fn, Caja i k y ^
"Visita de la Cuidad de Anserma. . . ," fol. 15v (1787).

L
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

-i

239

Moreover, since they often worked for themselves on Sundays and holi
days, they acquired freedom money that often paved the way to emanci
pation.
On free days, slaves in mining areas were permitted to work the
mines on their own account. The gold they obtained belonged to them to
spend as they wished.

Some of the money was used to buy tobacco, cloth

or food--especially meat.
price of freedom.

Often the money was saved to accumulate the

So many slaves bought their freedom with gold mined

in their free time that mine owners in both the Choco and Barbacoas areas
feared that the entire slave labor force would be emancipated. Owners
petitioned the crown to require slaves to prove that they had acquired
their money by honest means, charging that slaves clandestinely concealed
gold which they had previously mined for their masters in the grounds
where they would work on their free days. The crown refused the petition
on the grounds that it was unnecessary "since it had to be assumed that
the money acquired was lawfully gained, and furthermore, the request
was inadmissible "because it would make the gaining of liberty impos22

sible."

In non-mining areas, too, slaves used their free time profitably.

On their provision grounds they produced fruits, vegetables, chickens
and hogs either for sale or for their own tables.

Slave women near Buga

22

Ibid., Caja 125 "Autos de recurso del Dr. Dn. Juan de la Cruz
Diaz del Castillo sobre que ponga la regia conveniente para precaver
el perjuicio con que se libertan algunos esclavos de las rainas," (1782).

L
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

21+0
23

devoted free time to making cookies and sweets for sale.

Many slaves accumulated considerable property.

It was not in

frequent for slaves to own mines, coconut groves, corn fields and other
2k

property appraised at more than their own value.

'
While they might have

sold the property and bought their freedom outright, in some cases they
preferred to retain the property and use the annual produce from it to
purchase their freedom over a period of a year, thus retaining their
property on which to build their future once freedom was attained. Fre
quently slaves gave their masters a hog, a cow or a horse or perhaps a
crop of com each year until the price on their heads had been satisfied.
This practice, however, occasionally led to legal battles.

Slaves claimed,

probably with much justification, that their masters were not properly
giving them credit for their payments or that once full payment had been made,
25
the master refused to grant freedom.
Masters less often, but probably
with much justification also, accused slaves of stealing produce from the
hacienda to secure the price of their freedom.

26

Although the Church attempted to help the slave directly by

meeting his spiritual and emotional needs, perhaps its greatest service

23jbid., Caja 36 "Autos seguidos por Dn. Pedro Joseph Delgado sobre
que en Buga se vendan dulces, pan y otros efectos por las esclavas de aquel
lugar," (1730).
2k

AHNC, Temporalidades VIII, foil. 905-959 (l?68 ); Aquiles Escal

antes, El Negro en Colombia (Bogota, 196^), P= 127; Roberto Rojas Grfmez,
"La Esclavitud en Colombia," Boletin de Historia y Antiguedades, XIV (May,
1922), 102 .
2 ^AHDA, Colonia XXXIII (Esclavos), doc. 1059 (i-799) '> XXIX (Esclavos),
doc. 955 (1759); XXXV (Esclavos), doc. 1188 (1809); XXXII (Esclavos), doc.
1039 (1790).
26AHNC, Negros y esclavos de Cundinamarca IX, foil. 3^1~*+3 (1759)
566-67 (1758).

L
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

i
2bi

to him came indirectly.

Insistence on Sunday rest eased the burden of

bondage and reduced mortality. Moreover, the Churchs attitude and basic
assumption regarding the Negro permeated Spanish colonial society and
government to guarantee the Negro acceptance as a human being with in
herent rights, among which were the right of freedom and the right to own
property. Thus both socially and materially the Church

helped to

pave the way for the thousands of slaves, who during the centuries of col
onial rule were able to escape slavery and take their places as freemen.
Admittedly, a free person of color was at the bottom of the social pyramid,
but he was free, and few would dispute that his circumstances were better
than those of the slaves.
Even more helpful to the slave than the Church was the state.
The crown, in fact, often seemed more concerned with the spiritual wel
fare of the black man than the Church. Perhaps this condition was so only
because the civil government had the force necessary to require obedience
to policies probably drafted jointly by Church and state or at least in
spired by religious sentiment.

It was the civil government that investi

gated the fined masters for allowing their slaves to break the Sabbath
or to live in adultery.

It was the civil government that investigated

priests negligence in their duties among the slaves.

It was the civil

authorities, too, who investigated treatment, feeding, clothing, working

conditions and medical care among the slaves and tried to correct abuses
in these areas.
Paternalistic Spanish law required officials at all levels of
government--city, province and viceroyalty to conduct periodic general
inspections (visitas) of their respective jurisdictions. It was intended

L
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

n
2k2

that these inspections he made every one to five years (at least once
during the term of an incumbent officer). Officials were expected to in
quire into a wide range of matters including collection and spending of
royal revenue, defense, economic productivity, accuracy of weight and
measures, as well as public health, welfare and morality. A royal inspec
tion was required by law to be well publicized far in advance by the town
crier and parish priests as well as by printed public notices. The inspec
tor might ask any question of anyone and was usually authorized to take
any disciplinary or regulatory actions he deemed necessary, subject, of
course, to disavowal by the crown. The instructions to the royal inspec
tor for the Cauca Valley in 1690, were typical. He was ordered to "visit
the populated mining towns as well as those rivers, beaches, creeks and
any other places where Indians and Negroes might be working and inform
yourself if the latter are well treated, well fed, well clothed, attended
27
in illness, and instructed in doctrine." In practice, however, inspec
tions were rarely conducted so thoroughly or so frequently as the crown
intended and, in fact, were often concerned solely with the handling of
royal revenues, and many royal inspectors probably inquired into the well
being of slaves as much to boost economic productivity as for humanitarian
reasons.
In one typical tour of inspection of the mines of the Cauca Valley
the inspector asked the captains of each slave gang in the area a set of
questions relating to their masters* efforts to maintain the health and
well-being of the slaves in the gang. The scribe who recorded the visita

^Gustavo Arboleda, Historia de Cali desde los origines de la

cuidad hasta la expiraci<3n del periodo colonial, 3 vols.(Cali, 195^);
I, 333-

L
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

recorded that each captain was asked:

(1) If their masters attend them in illness, giving them
medicine and seeing that the priest came to hear confession
and to administer the holy sacraments to them when in danger
of death.
(2) If their masters or overseers punish them with exces
sive rigor and if from this cause any have died.
(3) If their masters have placed them in danger in their
work and if from this cause any have "been crippled or killed.
(if) If their masters give them customary and sufficient
clothing and food rations. 20
Such questioning revealed that some masters did little in the way of
medical care for their slaves--and they were fined for their neglect.

29

In most cases the crown preferred to leave the protection of

slaves to local officials acting through such periodic inspections or
local ordinances.

30

Only rarely did it intervene directly in such matters.

The cddula of 1683 was a good example of such royal intervention.

It

deplored the fact that many slaves were being given inadequate food and
clothing and were dying from excessive punishments and it ordered the forced
sale of slaves in instances of continued mistreatment. However, no specific
restriction was placed on the amount or type of punishment that could be
31
given to slaves. Aside from such isolated cases, however, during most
of the colonial period there was no systematic attempt to protect slaves
through formal legislation. For that reason Spanish slave law in America

2AHNE, Real Audiencia, Gobemacidn de Popaydn, Caja 1 ^ 5 ^

"Visita de la Cuidad de Cali . . . ," fol. 7 (1787)*

29
Ibid. "Visita de la Cuidad de Anserma . . .
fol. 10 (1787 ).
30
A good example was the viceregal bando, or ordinance, issued
in 1720 which required masters to treat their slaves as men, giving
them proper housing, clothes, food, medicine, tools, and spiritual care.
See AHNC, Minas del Cauca I, foil. ^06-l+07v (1720).
8^Gwendolyn Midlo Hall, "Social Control in Slave Plantation
Societies: A Comparison of St. Domingue and Cuba" (unpublished masters
thesis, Univ. of Mich., Ann Arbor, 1970), pp. 110-111.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

i
2kk

developed rather haphazardly until nearly the end of the eighteenth

century and was concerned mainly with security measures

32

In the mid-1780s humanitarian motives and desires to promote

the economic production and the wealth of the empire through more efficient
utilization of slaves prompted the crown to abandon its former policy
of non-intervention and adopt a dynamic new, though abortive policy.
Two systematic slave codes were drawnup. The first one, the Cddigo
Negro Caroline , was designed for theIsland of Santo Domingo and was com
pleted in 1785 . In 1789 a similar code, the Codigo Negro Espanol , was
drafted for the entire empire. Both were modeled after the French slave
a 33
code.
The new law codes were designed to protect the slave from inade
quate care and excessive labor and punishment in order to reduce mortal
ity and prolong his working life. Masters were required to maintain
necessary food crops for abundant nourishment of the work force and not to
substitute provision grounds and freedays for food rations. A minimum
yearly clothing allotment was specified and masters were required to es
tablish a clean, well-ventilated infirmary furnished with cots, linens
and blankets.

Sick slaves were not to be allowed to sleep on the floor.

The number of lashes given at one

time was limited to twenty-fiveand they

could be administered only with a

soft instrument which could not cause

grave contusions or bring blood.

Only masters or overseers could impose

33Ibid., pp. 12^-26 .

L
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

~i
2h5

these penalties.
confiscated.

Slaves injured in violation of these laws could be

Compensation was due the masters only if the slave recover

ed in condition to work. If they did not, they were to be pensioned for

life by the masters.

3^

The new laws were particularly concerned with promoting natural

reproduction among the slave population. The laws encouraged slaves
to marry and protected the slave couple from separation even when the
marriage had been contracted against the masters wishes. The laws hoped
also to discourage illicit relations, which were believed to reduce fer
tility of the female. They placed restrictions on the number of working
hours for female slaves, especially pregnant and nursing females. They
were also concerned with improving the nutrition of expectant mothers and
the care of newborn infants. Reputable persons were to visit the estates
three times a year to verify compliance with the laws and officials were
to be held strictly accountable for their roles as protectors of the
slaves.

35

The code of 1789 was promulgated in New Granada and inspired the
formulation of some local ordinances such as the ordinances of the city
of Ibague, which regulated in even more detail the treatment, feeding
and clothing of slaves (see p. 172). Rising opposition among slave owners
to the costs and restrictions of the new laws, however, soon stopped
further implementation of the code in major slave-holding areas, includ36
.
ing New Granada.
In 1794 because of the opposition, the crown decided

Ibid., pp. 121-27.

35Ibid.

3%rancois R. J. Depons, Travels in South America During the

Years 1801, l802. l803 and l80^, 2 vols. (London, l807)> I, 165 .

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

n
2k6

to suspend the code but nevertheless to charge officials and tribunals

of America secretly to act in conformity with the spirit of its provisions.

37

Further action on the code was delayed until l8o4; when it

was abandoned, and a royal c^dula simply admonished masters to treat

38
their slaves humanely.
That well-meant injunction often had little
effect.

In the same year Baron Von Humboldt observed:

But such is the state of the negroes, dispersed in places

scarcely begun to be cultivated, that justice, far from effi
caciously protecting them during their lives, cannot even punish
acts of barbarity, that have caused their deaths. If an inquiry
be attempted, the death of the slave is attributed to the bad
state of his health, to the influence of a warm and humid climate,
to the wounds which he has received, but which, it is asserted,
were neither deep nor dangerous, the civil authority is power
less with respect to whatever constitutes domestic slavery; and
nothing is more illusory than the effect so much vaunted of
those laws, which prescribe the form of the whip and the number
of lashes which it is permitted to give at a time.39
Despite the failure to achieve a general systematic slave code
to protect the slave, other Spanish laws and the officials who implemented
them protected the slave in many other ways.

It had long been accepted

as a basic premise of Spanish law that slavery was contrary both to

40
reason and to nature.
The state acquiesed to slavery in theory but
did not favor it. Each municipal government appointed a Protector of
the Poor to serve as guardian and legal council for slaves and other dis
advantaged persons whose poverty or lack of sophistication denied them

37Hall, p. 129.
38Ibid.. p. 120 .

^Alexander Von Humboldt, Personal Narrative of Travels to the

Equinoctial Regions of America During the Years 1799-l80^, ^ vols.
(London, 181^-1829), III, 179-80.
^AHNE, Real Audiencia, Gobemacicfo de Popayan, Esclavos, Legajo
If, exped. 1, "Autos seguidos por Ram<5n Chacrfn de Mendoza con Dn. Francisco
I Paula Villavisencio sobre su libertad," fol. 3 (1809}
]

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

n
2kj

legal advice and protection.

Slaves seeking to buy their freedom, peti

tioning for a change of master or seeking redress for cruelty, neglect,

overwork, loss of property, or other damages, sought and received legal
aid through this office. Consequently, the slave found that the law
protected him while a slave and encouraged him to gain his freedom.
The law did much to encourage a slave to free himself by buying
his freedom.

It assumed his "right to redeem himself from hateful servi

tude, " and he could "free himself with no more reason nor motive than to
claim liberty."^'*' It excused him from the sales tax (alcabala) on the
price of his freedom and guaranteed his right to earn money and own
property, a condition which enabled him to accumulate the price of his
freedom. The spirit of Spanish law derived from the thirteenth century
law code of King Alfonso the Wise.

It was well expressed in the suit

for liberty of the slave Roraon Chac<5n in 1809. In agreement with Alfonsos
laws, the court granted freedom because slavery was:
A violent and hateful condition and instead of being ex
panded and favored it should be restricted and narrowed. In
consequence no master can reasonably deny liberty to the slave
that offers the fair price for that natural liberty to which
all men are at first b o m and which we should desire to be en
joyed by all men. Considering that all are by nature equal we
feel inclined naturally that it be the equal lot of all.
Many slaves purchased their freedom without recourse to the
courts, but when a master refused to give freedom in exchange for a fair

^Ibid., Legajo 3, exped. 33> "Autos de Francisca Gantes, esclava

de Da. Francisco Zaramillo sobre el avaluo de su persona," fol. 1 (1795)
b2

Ibid., Lejago
exped. 1, "Autos seguidos por Ram6n Chacon
de Mendoza con Dn. Francisco Paula Villavisencio sobre su libertad,"
fol. 3 (1809).

L
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

i
21+8

price, or when there was disagreement on the price, the slave could
petition the protector of the poor to have the court set a fair price
and compel the owner to accept it. In these freedom cases the master
and the slave, or the protector as his agent, named appraisors who
tried to reach agreement on the fair value of the slave.

In cases in

which agreement could not he reached, the court decided the price.

In

the rich mining province of Barbacoas, miners complained that the judges
always favored liberty and so accepted the lowest price for the slaves.
Owners charged that slaves were quick to take advantage of this leniency
and chose persons to evaluate them who underpriced them because of ig
norance or sympathy or in return for monetary compensation from the slave
once he was free. The response of the Audiencia (high court) to such
allegations was that judges frankly should favor liberty, although they
should not permit fraud.

In unusual practice the court split the dif-

ference between the two prices in cases of disagreement.

kk

Other factors,

too, sometimes influenced the court. Seldom did the court require a slave
to pay more for his freedom than his master had originally paid for him.
Indeed, many slaves hoping to buy their freedom in the near future,
requested and usually obtained a court order preventing their masters
from selling them at higher prices than they had paid for the Negroes.

J+3
Ibid., Caja 125, "Autos de recurso del Dr. Dn. Juan de La Cruz
D:fas del Castillo sobre que ponga la regia conveniente para precaver el prejudicio con que se libertan algunos esclavos de las minas," foil. 1-9
(3-702).
^tA good example is found in AHDA, XXXIV (Esclavos), doc. 113^
18010
1|C
AHNE, Real Audiencia, Gobemacidn de Popayan, Esclavos, Legajo
exped. 2, "Antonia Delgado, esclava de Dn. Manuel Marraol, pide protecci6n en virtud de la real cdula que raanda que los senores procuradores

L
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

i
2k9

In other ways Spanish law favored the slave and his freedom. As
early as 1563 a law ordered that when slave children were sold the par
ents were to have the first opportunity to "buy them and free them.

Since

infants and children were of relatively little value, purchase by parents

was not prohibitive and therefore was quite frequent.

k6

The courts were especially favorable to slaves in suits for

freedom for medical or health reasons.

Spanish law assumed that a type

of natural contract existed between a slave and his master.

It obligated

the slave to give his time, labor and obedience to his master, but it
also obligated the master to care for the slave, to give him food and
li-7

clothing and to take care of him in sickness and old age.

The protector

had the responsibility to see that the master met his obligation to his
slave. A sick slave who had been abandoned by his master was placed in

sean defensores de los esclavos," fol. 1 (1806); Legajo 3 , exped. 29 ,

"Autos formados por Bonafacia Godoy, negra esclava de Dn. Felipe RamOn de
Algeria, contra Dn. JosO Mariano Godoy sobre que devuelva el exceso de
la cantidad en que la vendio/." (1785); exped. ^5, "Autos de Dortea Rubio,
negra de los bienes del Dr. Dn. Manuel Rubio, con Dn. Pedro Buendia sobre
la nulidad de la venta hecha por Da. Josepha Rubio," (1779)j exped. 28,
"Autos de Juan Fernandes y Bemanda Onate, mulatos, con Dr. Juan Ruis
sobre el valor de sus personas," (1782).
k6

AHNE, Real Audiencia, Gobemacion de Popayan, Esclavos,

Legajo If, exped. 3, "Noberta Quiroga sobre que Dn. Thomas Villanos venda
a su hijancmbrada Martina," (l80l); Legajo 5, exped. 1, "Josefa Velasco
sobre que Dn. Juan Paz venda a su hijo," (n.d.); AHDA, XXXIV (Esclavos),
doc. 122k (1803).
^TaHRE, Real Audiencia, Gobemacion de Popayan, Caja 11+3, "Visita
de la Cuidad de Coloto. . .
foil. 12-llf (1788).

L
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

n
250

the hospital or with one of 'the local residents to he nursed back to

health. The cost of this medical treatment was charged to the owner and
lj-8

collected by force if necessary.

In some cases the

bhe protector of the

poor, himself, lodged and cared for the sick slave. ^9

More often, however, an old or a sick slave was not abandoned
but neither was he cared for properly by his master. When a slave found
himself in this situation, there were several means of redress. If he
had sufficient property, he could buy his freedom.

If the master refused

to sell or if he asked too high a price, the slave could petition the
court to evaluate him and compel the master to accept a fair price.

If

he could not buy his freedom, even at a fair price, he could petition
the court for a change of master, hoping to find a new owner who would
give him adequate care. All three methods were commonly used by the
slaves of New Granada.

One sick slave solved his problem in still another

way. He married a free woman so that she could care for him in his illness.

50
How many old or sick slaves quietly bought their freedom is un

known. There must have been many, for evidence indicates that both the
slave and the master were usually willing to end servitude when the slave
was chronically and incurably ill and future service seemed doubtful.

itfi

AHDA, Colonia XXXVI (Esclavos), doc. 1228 (l8l2); AHNC, Negros

y esclavos de Antioquia V, foil.
(1789).
i|.Q

AHDA, Colonia XXXIII (Esclavos), doc. 1066, fol. 5 (179*0.

^AHNE, Real Audiencia, Gobernacidn de Popaydn, Esclavos, legajo
3, exped. 5} "Autos de Augustin de la Cruz, esclavo y Da. Estefania Guzman
con Da. Thoraasa Surita sobre libertad del dicho pardo," (178^).

L
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

251

Such an arrangement served both parties. The master was free from the
expense and trouble of medical care and daily support as well as from
the danger of economic loss if the slave died. The sick slave was free
from burdensome labor demands and free to seek better medical attention
than was usually afforded to a slave; moreover he found that illness
lowered his value and brought the price of freedom within easier reach.
When being evaluated; a slave was careful to point out all his infirmi
ties to the medical and civil authorities.^
A typical case was that of the slave Francisca Gantes whose: mis
treatment at the hands of her master resulted in "ulcers and contusions"
from which she had suffered for seven years.
so that she could purchase her freedom.

She asked to be evaluated

She was unable; she claimed;

"to continue in servitude" and wanted to be free so she could "begin the
52
long and costly cure which her master would not provide."
Even more
typical was the case of Lorenza, who was of "advanced age and continually
sick" and wanted to be free of the heavy burden of slavery.

She was

evaluated at thirty castellanos (60 pesos) and bought her freedom.

53

Another slave, Vicente Trespalacios,in the city of Mompox asked royal

intervention to force his evaluation so he could buy his freedom and

Ibid., Caja 180, "Miguel de la Cruz y Rafael Rodriguez, negros

esclavos, sobre alcanzar su libertad," (1798); Esclavos, legajo 3, exped.
33> "Autos de Francisca Gantes, esclava de Da. Francisca Zaramillo, sobre
el aValuo de su persona," (1795) AHDA, Colonia XXXII (Esclavos), doc.
10^5 (1792); XXXIV (Esclavos). doc. 113^ (180^); XXXV (Esclavos), doc.
1190 (1808).
52
/
|
AHNE, Real Audiencia, Gobemacion de Popayan, Esclavos, Legajo
3, exped. 33, "Autos de Francisca Gantes, esclava de Da. Francisca Zara
millo, sobre el alvaluo de su persona," (1795)
53
AHDA, Colonia XXXIV (Esclavos), doc. 1125 (l80^).

L
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

n
252

and secure medical attention necessary to save his life. To prove the
seriousness and urgency of his request, he presented a doctors certi
ficate showing that he suffered from a "fistula between the two ways
/ the anus and the urethrea/, schirrus inflamations and two tumors in
the lateral part of the perinium," all of which the doctor diagnosed as
chronic and incurable.

514-

Often in these freedom suits the owner asked double or triple

the fair price and the slave usually found it to his advantage to force
an evaluation which sometimes reduced an inflated price by two hundred
to three hundred pesos or more.

55

Andres Holquin, an old slave suffering

from "syphilis and other illnesses," petitioned to be evaluated so he

could buy his freedom and secure proper rest and medical attention. The
owner agreed to sell but asked too much money. Andres petitioned the
court to decide a fair amount. The price was lowered by fifty eastellanos
(100 pesos) I n

some instances the evaluators even refused to place a

value on the slaves.57 Ordinarily, however, a token value of at least

ten pesos was given even in cases of extreme illness, old age or dis58
ability, in order to expedite freedom.
A master compelled by the court

^AHWC, Negros y esclavos de Bolivar IX, foil. 855-93 (1788).

55
AHNE, Real Audiencia, Gobemacion de Popayan, Esclavos, Legajo
if, exped. 2, "Antonia Delgado, Esclavo de Dn. Manuel Marmol pide proteccidn en virtud de la real c^dula que raanda que los senores procuradores
sean los defensores de los esclavos," (1806).
56
AHDA, Colonia XXXIV (Esclavos), doc. 1122 (1803).
^Ibid., XXXV (Esclavos), doc. II90 (1808).
58Ibid., XXXIV (Esclavos), doc. l l l b

(l802).

L
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

n
253

to sell his slave against his will and then told that his slave was of
no value would likely appeal the decision, a process which might take
years during which the slave would remain in bondage. Most evaluators
believed that it was better to place some value on the slave and allow
the master to receive at least some compensation in order to prevent ap
peal. Typically, in one case the evaluators agreed that a sick old slave
had reached the age at which her master should be expected to keep her
without expectation of further service and that consequently she really
deserved no price. Nevertheless, knowing that her owner believed her
to be curable and therefore of future service, in order to expedite her
freedom they evaluated her at fifty pesos, "which should compensate for
59
any hopes of future service."
Slave owners often accused slaves of
taking unfair advantage of the lenient attitude of the courts in freedom
cases by feigning illness in order to influence a lower evaluation.

60

If the courts were too lenient in such cases, however, evaluators

sometimes were not. A good example was the case of Miguel and Rafael,
slaves from Barbacoas, who fled to Quito to buy their freedom. They
were evaluated at 325 and U-25 pesos respectively. They protested that the
prices were excessive in view of the fact that one suffered from tuber
culosis and the other suffered from dysentery, hernia and a sprained back.
The protomedicato of Quito re-examined them and ordered a. re-evaluation.

^AHNE, Real Audiencia, Gobernacidn de Popayan, Esclavos, Legajo

3, exped. 33, "Autos de Francisca Gantes, esclava de Da. Francisca
Zararaillo, sobre el Qvaluo de su persona," foil. 5; 11; (1795)
60

Ibid., exped. 32, "Nicolas Cortes, esclavo de la Marquesa de

Solanda, sobre la tasacion de su persona," (1792); AHDA, XXXIV (Esclavos)
doc. 113^ (l8o7); AHNC, Negros y esclavos de Bolivar IX, fol. 856 (1788).

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

n
25*f

The evaluators, however, dismissed the medical complaints, claiming

that the complaints could not he true or the slaves could not have worked
as hard as they claimed they did to earn their freedom money. The slaves
bought their freedom in the amount of the original assessment.

61

It is revealing to tabulate the ailments from which slaves suf

fered which prompted them to buy their freedom. Among the fifty-two cases
which were found, skin diseases were the most common complaint, followed
closely by genitourinary ailments, almost all of which were diagnosed
as venereal disease. Miscellaneous complaints, such as old age, "sick
ness," or bad treatment, were next in frequency, followed by gastro
intestinal and respiratory ailments. These "freedom-medical cases" reveal
a rather grisly picture of oppression, indifference, neglect and cruelty
on the part of slave owners which was tempered by lenient Spanish law.
Moreover, these cases must show only a small part of the total picture,
for the slaves represented in them almost always fled from their masters
in order to secure the evaluation. To force their sale, when the master
was unwilling, even for medical reasons must not have been an option
easily available to most slaves, and for the few who used it, there must
have been many more who did not, either because they did not know of it
or because they could not freely exercise it.
Perhaps in some cases an owner could not be blamed for inadequate
care of sick slaves.

In most slave areas of New Granada professional

AHNE, Real Audiencia, Gobemacion de Popayan, Caja 180,

"Miguel de la Cruz y Rafael Rodrjfguez, negros esclavos, sobre alcanzar
su libertad," (179^).

L
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

255
TABLE 6

FREQUENCY OF VARIOUS MEDICAL COMPLAINTS AMONG NEGRO SLAVES PETITIONING

TO BUY THEIR FREEDOM ON MEDICAL GROUNDS3,
Disease

Description

Pinta
Ulcers
Herpes
Leprosy
Yaws
Tumors
Inflammations

Skin Diseases:

Number
1
k
1
2
2
2
1

TOTAL . .
Venereal Disease
"Female Trouble"

11
1

"Complaints"
"Sick"
Headache
Fever and Chills
Bad Treatment
Habitual Illness

2
k
1
1
2
1

Hernia
Dislocated Knee
Rheumatism
Pains in the Bones
Sprained Back

1
1
1
1

Stomach Pains
Dysentery

2
2

Tuberculosis
^
Reuma de la Cabeza

1
1

Endocrine Diseases:

Goiter

Cardiovascular Diseases:

Heart Trouble

Genitourinary Diseases:
TOTAL . .
Miscellaneous Diseases:

TOTAL . .
Musculoskeletal Diseases:

TOTAL . .
Gastrointestinal Diseases:
TOTAL . .
Respiratory Diseases:
TOTAL . .

GRAND TOTAL
a
For sources see Appendix III.
^For explanation see p. 222 .

L
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

256
medical attention was simply not available, even though medicines, herbs
and local healers usually were, and as observed earlier, many masters
made use of them. Nevertheless, a few masters showed no concern for the
medical treatment of their blacks during illness.

Others refused to buy

medicine until they could see some economic advantage in doing so. The
mster of the one slave who suffered from "chronic fistulas, schirrus inflama^
tions and chest tumors" hired him out for a quintal per day for years,
refusing to buy him medicines or to allow him free time to earn money to
buy his own medicine. When the slave petitioned to be evaluated and sold
to another master, his owner refused, claiming that the slave was feign
ing illness in order to get a lower price. The master finally agreed to
the sale but requested permission to cure his servant first in order to get
62
a better price.
Sometimes suits for liberty prompted a master to furnish
his slave with medical care, hoping that he could prolong the suit
until a cheap cure would restore health and raise the price he would receive
6>3

for the slave.

Suits for change of master constituted a great part of the work

of the protector of the poor. The law required compulsory change of
master through forced sale to another owner in cases of excessive cruelty
6k

or neglect.

In fact, since the "laws oblige no slave to serve against

his will, if there are masters who will buy them whom they will willingly

^AHNC, Negros y esclavos de Bolivar IX, foil. 860-63 (1788).

^MNE, Real Audiencia, Gobernaci6n de Popaystn, Esclavos, Legato
3, exped. 33; "Autos de Francisco Gantes, esclava de Da. Francisca
Zaramillo, sobre el avaluo de su persona," fol. 5 (1795)*
6k

AHDA., Colonia XXXIV (Esclavos), doc. 113^ (180*1-).

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

-i

257
65
serve" change of master was allowed for almost any good reason--overwork, cruelty, insufficient food, or had conditions.

Slaves were allowed

to seek new masters also to reunite members of families and even to prevent their being sold against their will.

66

The usual procedure involved in change of master was simple.

The master gave the slave license to seek a new master and a period of
time usually from one to four weeks--to travel within a prescribed area
in search of a buyer. The license briefly stated the masters willing
ness to sell the slave and the price he was asking

Many slaves prob

ably quietly obtained such licenses and sold themselves into more hope
ful circumstances. Consequently, they never came to the attention of the
courts. If slaves desired a license, however, and could not get it, they
could resort to the court.

If the court deemed there were sufficient

grounds for change of master, it ordered the master to issue a license.

If the owner issued the license, but asked too high a price, the court
could force him to accept a fair price decided upon by arbitration.

68

6 5lbid., XXX (Esclavos), doc. 985 (1775).

^AHNE, Real Audiencia, Gobernaci6n de Popayan, Caja 1 5 2 ^

"Causa seguida entre Dn. Marcos Cortes y su eselavo.Estanislao Cortes,"
(1789) (for overwork and cruelty); Caja 197, "Julian Cruz, esclavo
de Dn. Joseph Zarmiento sobre sevicia." (1809) (for cruelty and separa
tion of family); AHDA, Colonia XXXIV (Esclavos), docs. 1138 (l80*+),
1130 (180*0 ; XXIX (Esclavos), doc. 930 (17MO; XXXIII (Esclavos), doc.
1068 (1797) (for cruelty); XXXIV (Esclavos), doc. 1166 (1806) (for hunger),
67

,
For an actual license see AHDA, Colonia XXXIII (Esclavos), doc.
1076 (1799). See also XXXIV (Esclavos), doc. 1138 (180*0.
^AHNE, Real Audiencia, Gobernacidn de Popayan, Caja 125 "Autos
de recurso del Dr. Dn. Juan de la Cruz Dias del Castillo sobre que ponga
la regia conveniente para precaver el perjuicio con que se libertan algunos esclavos de las rainas," (1782).

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

n
258

In one case an owner refused to comply with a court order to have his
slave evaluated and was bluntly ordered to do so within twenty-four hours
or the court would accept without question the price the slave quoted
69

as his fair price.

If a slave was ill, he was usually examined by a

doctor to certify his illness, and evaluators took his medical condition
into account.
The courts were especially sympathetic with slaves seeking change
of master for medical or health reasons. There were sometimes spectacular
cases of slaves forced to seek new masters after excessive punishment
had caused broken bones, paralysis or ulcerations. Their petitions were
never denied; in fact, in many instances of this kind, the court required
change of masters even if the slaves did not initiate the suit. More
often slaves sought changes of masters or changes of climate for less
dramatic reasons and usually also found the court sympathetic. A good
example was the case of a slave and his wife in Santa Fe (Bogota) who
petitioned to be sold to a master in "hot country" in order to alleviate
their arthritis.

70

Another slave from the same area claimed to suffer

from "syphilis, pains in the bones and an obstructed liver." She likewise
requested to be sold to a master in hot country, hoping the climate would
help to cure her maladies.71 Both requests were granted. Even in less

69
Ibid., Esclavos, Legajo 3> exped. 31> Autos seguidos por
Ignacia Rojas, esclava de Dn. Carlos Araujo, sobre que a ella y a sus
hijos se entregue a un solo arao." fol. 2 (l80l).
70
AHNC, Negros y esclavos de Cundinamarca IX, foil. 373-75 (1768).
71
Ibid., Negros y esclavos de Santander IV, foil. 253-57 (1777)*

L
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

n
259

serious cases based on medical grounds the courts were surprisingly

favorable to the slave. A good example was the case of the slave Ana
Maria Osario.

She had been sold in Santa Fe in 1779 to a buyer who

planned to take her to the Dupar Valley on the northern coast. Fearing
to go to the notoriously unhealthy valley and leave her family and fami
liar surroundings, she appealed to the protector of the poor for change of
master. He petitioned the courts to grant her request on the grounds
that "it had the object of thus alleviating in some way the miseries and
insurmountable penalties of servitude." The court granted her request,
believing that allowing her to stay would prevent her running away in
the future; but, aside from that, simply to attain the comfort and wellbeing of the slave herself was "sufficient reason" to allow her to stay.

72

In a similar case a female slave successfully stopped her sale to a sugar

estate, fearing the "rigors of life on a sugar plantation." The decision
in her favor, however, was no doubt conditioned by the fact that she had
paid a part of her freedom price and soon hoped to have it completely
paid.

73

Sometimes sick slaves were fortunate enough to have free

5e i
relatives

who could buy them, free them and attend to their medical needs.7^
In countless ways the Church and the state helped to lighten the
burden of slavery and to improve health conditions among the slaves. The
insistence of these two institutions on rest days for the slave lessened

^ Tbid., Negros y esclavos de Cundinamarca IV, foil. 631-3*+ (1779)

73
AHNE, Real Audiencia, GobemaciAi de Popayan, Esclavos Legajo *+,
exped. *+, "Autos seguidos por el Mayorazgo Dn. Francisco de Villacis y
Recalde contra Da. Francisca Echeverria sobre que le estregue una negra
esclava nombrada Ana," (1783).
^AHDA, Colonia XXXIII (Esclavos), docs. 106*+ (1797) and 1110
(1801); XXXIV (Esclavos), doc. 1121 (l80^).

L
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

260

mortality and allowed him to accumulate property with which to buy his
freedom. The acceptance by the Church and state of the black man as a
human being with emotional and spiritual needs and with inherent human
rights served to protect him in bondage from many of the abuses associ
ated with the chattel slavery that developed in other areas of the Ameri
cas, as well as indirectly to encourage his emancipation from servitude and
his acceptance as a free person. While the state acquiesced to the in
stitution of slavery in the abstract as, perhaps, a necessary evil, and
even encouraged the importation of slaves, the law openly favored eman
cipation of the individual slave. Since emancipation was not within
reach of all slaves, the state, through the vigilance of local officials,
through an abortive, though well-meaning and enlightened slave code and
through guaranteed legal counsel and redress of grievances to all slaves,
tried to ensure proper nutrition, clothing and medical care for slaves
as well as to guard against hazardous working conditions and excessive
punishment. While slaves in New Granada were not free from the abuses,
neglect and indifference often associated with slavery throughout the
world, these abuses were tempered by the attitudes and actions of both
the Church and the state as well as by the application of lenient Spanish
law, the humanitarian premises of which served as a forerunner of the
enlightened ideas which extinguished slavery throughout the Western world
in the nineteenth century.

L
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

CHAPTER X

CONCLUSIONS

Every stage of the New Granada slave trade, from capture in Africa
to sale in Cartagena, Portobelo or the interior, was marked by disease,
appalling health conditions, and monstrous mortality. The same deplorable
conditions characterized the institution of Negro slavery that developed
in the Viceroyalty.

In Africa, the capture and the long, forced marches

to the sea killed so many Negroes that their skeletons strewn along the
way and piled around water holes, marked the trails for contemporary
travelers.

On the coast, close confinement in slave corrals encouraged

the spread of disease, especially dysentery, which became the major killer.
Probably twenty-five percent or more of the initial "catch" of slaves
died in the processes of being captured, marched to the sea, and corralled
in the coastal barracoons.
During the Atlantic crossing, the slaves* lot hardly improved.
With luck the Middle Passage took less than two months, but it sometimes
lasted as long as seven. The average mortality rate, at least for the
first two centuries of the slave trade, was twenty-five to thirty percent.
In the eighteenth century it declined gradually until by 1790 it may have
fallen to as low as five percent.

Slave trade surgeons claimed that two-

thirds of the deaths were caused by mental despondency produced by the

trauma of capture and Middle Passage; however, some form of dysentery was
probably the most cc mon cause of death in the Middle Passage just as it
261

L
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

262

was in the "barracoons. The "blacks were wedged sideways, spoon-fashion,

into the hold of the ship, where suffocation alone killed many. Deficient
diet enroute caused scurvy, while overcrowding and lack of sanitation
spread contagious disease. Epidemics of dysentery, smallpox and measles
were particularly rampant, sometimes vaulting the mortality rate to more
than seventy-five percent, and yaws, tropical fevers, intestinal worms,
skin ulcers, eye infections, leprosy, itch and ringworm plagued slave
cargoes. Even the Negroes who lived through the passage arrived in such
debilitated condition that many failed to survive their first year in
the New World.
Around 1680, slave traders began using way-stations to "refresh"
their cargoes before reshipment to the Spanish colonies. Jamaica was
the most important of these refreshment centers. One-half to one-third
of the Negroes that landed there between 1689 and 1750 was reshipped with
in a few days or weeks to the Spanish mainland colonies for sale, although
in later years only ten percent went to the mainland. Dysentery, small
pox, scurvy, yaws and mental depression haunted the guinea yards in
Jamaica where one Negro in twenty died during the five-to- ten-day inter
val before sale.
Spanish port records reveal similar conditions in the slave pens
of Cartagena and Portobelo.

In these pens, a ten percent mortality rate

would be a conservative estimate for the years before 1700. After that
date, the rate began to decline rapidly until by 1750, it had dropped to
as low as two percent.
In spite of meticulous official precautions, the slave trade
ushered in countless epidemics which killed both blacks and whites.
pox,

Small

dysentery, measles, typhus, typhoid and yellow fever, or some

L
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

n
263

combination of these perils were common. Although epidemic danger de

clined in the eighteenth century as more effective quarantine practices
and improved management techniques came into use, even in the latter
part of the century, ten percent of the slave ships arrived in port with
epidemics on board.
After their sale on the mainland, the hapless slaves still faced
a grueling, sometimes fatal trek inland which sometimes claimed as many
as twenty percent of them. Like the Europeans in the slave ports, the
Europeans in the interior paid dearly to enslave the black man, for as
the slaves trekked inland, they spread both European and African diseases
throughout the Viceroyalty. Not only did the epidemics introduced in
the ports spread inland in the wake of the slave caravans, but so did a
grisly array of less fatal infections originating in Africa amoebic
dysentery, yaws, leprosy, hookworm, elephantaisis, trachoma, onchocercaisis,
roundworms, guinea worms, pinworms and blood flukes.
In the interior, slaves worked mainly in gold mining, sugar
production and ranching. Life was hard and health conditions deplorable
in all these occupations. It was considered fortunate if fifty percent
was still alive four years later. Deaths during the seasoning period
were attributed to improper management which generally neglected the
slaves, overworking them and provided insufficient food, poor shelter
and meager clothing. These problems were, however, probably only contri
buting factors rather than primary causes of death, serving to lessen
the slaves resistance to more direct causes, especially dysentery and
hookworm. Nevertheless, exhausting labor demands, poor nutrition and
wretched living conditions caused chronic poor health among the slaves,

L
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

n
26k

making them especially vulnerable to disease even if they lived to be

come seasoned. Tetanus reportedly destroyed half the infant crop annually
and nearly half of those that tetanus did not claim died of worms before
they reached the age of ten.

Slaves who survived childhood and seasoning

to continue in servitude were particularly subject to deficiency diseases,

dysenteries, yaws, hookworm, eye infections, skin ulcers, leprosy and a
legion of lesser maladies which thrived in the commonly unhygienic and
unwholesome living conditions of slavery. Moreover, the blacks work
exposed them to maiming and fatal accidents and other health hazards.
Considering the suffering and loss of human life involved, the
institution of Negro slavery and the slave trade it spawned were two of
the most costly ventures ever undertaken in human history. Conservative
calculations estimate that ten million Africans were brought to the
Americas by the slave trade.1 From the mortality rates of varying stages
of the trade, it can be assumed that at least ten million more were cap
tured in Africa and died before reaching the Americas. Average mortality
rates of twenty-five percent in Africa, twenty percent during the Middle
Passage, and five percent in the guinea yards make a cumulative mortality
rate of at least fifty percent. Thus, twenty million Negroes must have
been captured and enslaved in Africa; ten million died and ten million
arrived in the New World, although of these, two and a half million soon
died "aseasoning."
Mortality might have been curbed had a single individual or a

Curtin, The Atlantic Slave Trade, A Census (Madison, 1969)

PP. 30-35.

L
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

i
265

single company handled all phases of the slave trade, for such heavy
losses would have threatened economic ruin. But the African trader
easily absorbed twenty-five percent mortality, the captain of a slave
ship or his company accepted the losses at sea and in the yard, and the
New World planter or miner withstood only a twenty-five percent loss
from seasoning and subsequent deaths.
The study of health conditions among Negro slaves may be to some
simply a narrative of the suffering and death of the captive black man,
justifiably arousing moral indignation. The blacks health conditions
during slave trade and after were an outrage on humanity that cannot be
rationalized. It is necessary, however, to see these conditions in his
torical perspective. Health conditions during the seventeenth and eighteenth
centuries were poor for people of any race. Living conditions were back
ward, and privation and hardship were common to white American colonials
as well as blacks. These facts do not excuse the vastly more deplorable
conditions that existed among slaves. Yet it is true that primitive con
ditions and ignorance of the causes, cure and prevention of disease were
as much responsible for the conditions as inhumanity, indifference and
greed.

It was also true that life expectancy during the colonial period

was short for all groups, white or black, and that mortality was even
higher among Europeans in the tropics than among Negroes. Furthermore,
deaths among European seamen engaged in the slave trade were proportionally
greater than among the slaves in which they trafficked.

In fact,

^Philip Curtin, "Epidemiology and Slave Trade," Political Science

Quarterly. L X m i l (June, 1968), 20k.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

n
266

Negroes proved more hardy and disease-resistant than any other racial
stock in Colonial America. Perhaps ninety percent of the American Indians
died before 1600, largely from disease.

Europeans fared better than the

Indians, but it was widely recognized that imported European workers, as

well as Indians, died in the tropics in much greater numbers than did
3
llegroes.

Negroes possessed some resistance to many European diseases as

well as malaria and yellow fever, which they, themselves, had brought to the
American tropics. Malaria, though of African origin, was widespread in
Europe during the centuries of the slave trade, and Europeans may even
have helped import it to the New World, but "to a much higher degree it
was spread by Negroes and the slave trade." Most Negroes were probably
k

infected, but it seldom proved fatal to them.

Europeans, on the other

hand, never developed a resistance to either malaria or yellow fever which

5

proved to be major causes of death among them, while Indians had no

resistance to either African or European diseases and died by the mil
lions from both.^ While Europeans did not understand why the Negroes
were more suitable for work in the tropics, they saw Negro slaves as the
only solution to their need for a labor supply in tropical America.
Slavery was often less harsh in Spanish America than in other slave
areas. The Church, the state, and an age-old body of law all accepted

3
Ibid., p. 19^.
Rudolph Hoeppli, Parasitic Diseases in Africa and the Western
Hemisphere: Early Documentation and Transmission by the Slave Trade
(Basel, 1969), p. 52.
^Curtin, Political Science Quarterly, LXXHII, 208-209.

Ibid., p. 200.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

n
267
the slave as a man, and tried to fulfill his needs, defend his rights,
and promote his temporal and spiritual well-"being. They attempted to
protect him from ahuse while in bondage and guaranteed his right to escape
it once his price was satisfied. Legal and moral attitudes of the Church
and state toward the Negro permeated society such that Negro slaves in
Spanish America not only lived under better health conditions in slavery
but often made the transition from slaves to freemen with less difficulty
than in other slave areas.
A study of health conditions in the slave trade is also a narrative
of improvement and changing attitudes.

Indeed, one of the most notable

facts in the eighteenth century is the remarkable decline of mortality in

the slave trade. During most of the seventeenth century, one African
out of three died in the passage from Africa to Cartagena. Within a
hundred years, the number of deaths fell to less than one per hundred.
In the slave pens, a conservative mortality rate would be ten percent for
the years before 1700. After that date, the rate began to decline rapidly,
and fifty years later it had dropped to less than two percent. Even if
mortality in the trade to New Granada is adjusted to include deaths in
the English slave trade which supplied most of the slaves to Cartagena
during the eighteenth century, there is still a remarkable decline in
mortality. Losses at sea between Africa and Cartagena via Jamaica prob
ably fell to around six to ten percent and the combined losses in the
guinea yards of Jamaica and Cartagena did not exceed six percent.
The decline in mortality in all phases of the trade was due to
improved technology, growing medical knowledge, more enlightened policies
regarding the treatment and handling of slaves, and a growing worldwide

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

acceptance of the black man as a human being. The humanitarian ideas of

the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries which eventually brought an end
to slavery in the Western Hemisphere found fertile soil in the Spanish
colonies. By the last quarter of the eighteenth century, slavery was
becoming an anachronism there and within the next fifty years, was gradu
ally abolished. Prepared over the centuries of colonial rule by the
humanitarianism of Spanish law, the independent nations which sprung from
Spains empire led the world in abolishing human bondage. These nations,
however, have only begun to eradicate the enormous legacy of disease which
slavery introduced and spread within their borders. Malaria, yaws, hook
worm infection and amoebic dysentery and other diseases introduced by
slaves, are still today major causes of death and disability barring the
road to progress and modernization.

Unfortunately, the medical conse

quences as well as the moral consequences of slavery will long be felt.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

-i
APPENDIX I

TABLE A
DISEASES AND DISABILITIES AMONG SLAVES:
COMPARING THE PERCENT EACH DISEASE IS OF ALL MEDICAL COMPLAINTS AMONG SLAVES
FROM HACIENDAS, MINES, DOMESTIC SERVICE AND JESUIT PROPERTY RESPECTIVELY

Hacienda
Slaves
Musculoskeletal Diseases:
Hernia
Permanent Disability
Temporary Injury
Rheumatism
"Sick" Member or Limb
Deformity

Skin Diseases:
Pinta
Ulcers (Llagas, Espundia)
Yaws
Leprosy
Growths (Lobanillos, Kudos)
Smallpox
Rashes and Irritations

Genitourinary Diseases:
Venereal Disease
Dropsy
"Female Trouble"
"Urinary Trouble"

8.88
18.69
2.80

Mine Domestic
Slaves Slaves

Jesuit
Slaves

13.68

8.70

11.77

13.95

17.39

8.96

2.90

it.15

3.1*1*

9**

1.16

1 .1*8
.82

.1*7
31.78

.26

8.70

2.3**
it. 67

33.16

3^-79

.26

**.35

2.37
.53

13 .Oit

1.33
.17
27-5**

91*
.**7

3.68

.53

5.97
1.99
2A 9
.83
=33

.if7
IO.76

53
7.90

17.39

.33
i2 .;6o

7-37

if.35

1.87

.66

.25
30.17

3.53
2.79
1.72
1.72
.1*1
.33
.1*1
10.91

14-.59

**35

it.l+8
1.1*9
1.99

8.70

.66
8.62

.90
8.68

53

12.11

6.31

9**
A7
2 .3^
91*

1.05

3.15

2.05

.26

.66
.66

it. 69

5.52

.9**

lt.7it

1.58

.52
1.05
10.52

(Goiter)

9**

Neuropsychiatric Diseases:
Mental Deficiency
Mental Illness
Spasms (Pasmo)
Epilepsy
Miscellaneous Neurological

Eye Diseases:
Total Blindness
Impaired Vision

11.80
12.38

2.37

3.27
91*
l.itO
5 .6l

Endocrine Diseases:

Total
Slaves

2.80

3.7^

3.16
1.05

.83
33..
5.63

2.63

**35
*+35

7.37

8.70

.83
3.1*8
4.31

1.80

1.39

A9
1.72
.90
.16

5.32

2.13

3.12
5.25

269

L
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

1
270

TABLE A Continued

Hacienda Mine
Domestic Jesuit
Slaves Slaves Slaves Slaves
Gastrointestinal Diseases:
Stomach Pains
1.1+0
Dvsenterv (Flu.io de Sangre) .1+7
Worms
Dirt Eating
"Liver Trouble"
.1+7
Hemorrhoids
1.87
1+.21

Respiratory Diseases:
Asthma
1+.67
Tuberculosis (Etica)
Spitting Blood
.1+7
Spitting Pus
.1+7
Diseased Nose
Nose Bleed
Sinus (Reuma de la Cabeza)
5.&L
Diseases of Mouth and Throat:
Muteness
1.1+0
Ulcerated Throat
Toothlessness
.1+7
Oral Hemorrhage
I .67
Ear Diseases:
Deafness
Impaired Hearing
Diseased Ear

2.11

.79

1+.35
1+.35

.26
.26

.53

1.16

1.56

.17
.50

.1+9
33

50
,33

.08
.66
.1+1

.26
1+.21

8.70

2.66

3-53

1.58

1+.35

1.00

.17

1.89
.08

66

.57

.53

.08

.53
2 .61+

.17
.17
33 ..

.25
.08
.16

2.50

3.11

.26

2.16

.79

.50

1.39
.1+9

2.66

.16
.08
2.12

1+.35

.26
.26

1.57

1.1+0

.83

1 .1+0

.33
.17
1.33

(Heart)
.91+
Lymphatic Diseases (Scrofula)

Total
Slaves

.66
.16
.08
.90

Cardiovascular Diseases:

Miscellaneous Diseases:
"Sick"
"Pains"
"Complaints"
"Addicted to Alcohol"
"Useless"
"Fever"
"Weak"
"Dying"
Unidentified

18 .6 9 - 11.81+
1.1+0
1.58

1.1+0
.1+7
51*+

.90

2.37

1.32
.53
7.63

8.70

1+.35

.53
21+.21

10.28

12.21

1.33
.50

1.39

6.97
17

6.80
.16

.98

.08

.26
.26

1.1+0

.16

.25
1+.35

.26

28.50

.33

17.1+0

.33
.25
17 _ ...1+9
22.61
19.75

The total slaves in this sample is 7 .98!+ which includes 1,61+1 from
haciendas, 3,81+8 from mines, 125 from domestic service and 2,370 from Jesuit
property. For categorization see Appendix II and for sources Appendix III.

L
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

27ii
TABLE B
FREQUENCY OF MEDICAL COMPLAINTS AMONG l,61tl HACIENDA SLAVES

Number of Times Percent this ComOccurring

plaint is of all
Complaint
Hacienda Complaints
"Sick"
)+o
Permanent Disability ho
Hernia
19
Useless
11
Ulcers(Llagas,Espundia)
10
10

5-1

2 .It3
2 .U3

1.15
.67
.61
.61

6
6

2 .8
2.8

5
5
k

2.3
1.9
1.9
1.9
1.9
l.lt
l.lt

.2k
.2k
.2k
.2k
.18
.18

.13

k
k

3
3

3
3

3
3
2
2
2
2
2
2
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1

-T-a-----

1
I

It.7
It.7
3.3

^r

Asthma
Dropsy
Temporary Injury
Impaired Vision
Spasms (Pasmo}
Pinta
Yaws
Stomach Pains
Hemorrhoids
Urinary Trouble
Muteness
Deafness
"Complaints"
"Pains"
Mental Illness
Unidentified
C-oiter
Leprosy
Blindness
Female Trouble
Rheumatism
Heart Trouble
Epilepsy
Liver Trouble
Growths (Lobanillos)
Spitting Blood
Spitting Pus
Toothlessness
Skin Irritations
Deformities
Alcoholic Addiction

13.7
18.7
8.7

Percent~o? all-------
Hacienda Slaves vith
This Complaint

.^3
37
37
31

i.u

.18

l.k
l.k
l.k

.13

9
9
9
9
*0s
n
>
9
5
5
5
5
.
B

5
5
S

.18
.18
.12
.12
.12
.12
.12
.12
.12
.06
.06
.06
.06
.06
.06
.06
.06

^These complaints wore Lome by 191 slaves. In addition to them IQ

more were listed below half price though no medical reasons were specif
ied and k others were valueless for their extreme old age. The total
number suffering from noticeably impaired health, then, was 2 l k , or IB-O'p
of the slaves in this sample.

L
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

2721

r
TABLE C

Number of Times Percent this Com

Occurring
plaint is of all
Mine Complaints
Complaint
Permanent Disability
il+.o
53
Hernia
52
13-7
"Sick"
2k
11.8
Useless
7.6
29
28
Venereal Disease
7 .It
18
Blindness
lt.5
Leprosy
l*t
3.7
12
Spasms (Pasmo)
3.2
Stomach Pains
11
2.9
Temporary Injury
11
2.9
Impaired Vision
2 .6
10
2 .k
Ulcers (Llarras .Esoundia} 9
Rheumatism
2 .It
9
Heart Trouble
2 .It
9
Asthma
6
1.6
"Pains"
6
1.6
Dropsy
1.6
6
Mental Illness
1.3
5
"Complaints"
5
1.3
it
Urinary Trouble
l.l
Epilepsy
it
l.l
Ulcerated Throat
.8
s
2
Yaws
5
Goiter
2
5
Female Trouble
2
5
Liver Trouble
2
5
Spitting Blood
2
5
2
Diseased Nose
5
Growths (Lobanillos)
2
5
Alcoholic Addiction
2
5
2
Skin Irritations
5
Unidentified

5
O
1
Worms
J
]_
Dirt Eating
J
1
Pinta
*3
1
Muteness
3
Toothlessness
1
3
Hemorrhoids
1
3
0
Fever
1
j
n
"Weak"
1
O
"Dying"
1
.3
0
1
Deformities
J
1
Oral Hemorrhage
3
1'
8l

Percent of all
Mine Slaves with
This Complaint
1.38
1.35
1.17
75
73
.it8
36
31
.29
.29
.26

.23
.23
23
.16
.16
.16

.13
.13
.10
.10
.08
.05
.05
.05
.05
.05
.05
.05
.05
.05
.05
.03
.03
.03
.03
.03
.03
.03
.03
.03
.03
.03
9 .86a

"
\
v
i/Ti H r
v
v
^
y
i
Hi
Ioi'w+p ti/
J ) r* 1mror
1v
*
> nHHi ti nn
!
0 4
*U/avn 11
more were listed "below half price though no medical reasons"were
specified and 62 others were valueless for their extreme old age. The
total number suffering from noticeably impaired health, then was If12 or
10 .7$ of the slaves in this sample

L
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

r
TABLE D
FREQUENCY OF MEDICAL COMPLAINTS AMONG 2,370 JESUIT SLAVES

Complaint

Number of Times Percent this Com

Occurring
plaint is of all
Jesuit Complaints

Goiter
T3
Hernia
71
62
"Sick"
Permanent Disability 5 k
k2
Useless
Pinta
36
Venereal Disease
27
Temporary Injury
?-5
Mental Illness
23
21
Impaired Vision
Yaws
15
Muteness
13
12
Ulcers
12
Female Trouble
o
Dropsy
Stomach Pains
8
8
"Pains"
8
Sick Member or Limb
Rheumatism.
7
6
Asthma
Leprosy
5
Blindness
5
Deafness
5
Enilensy
5
Smallpox
1
Spasms (Pasmo)
k
Spitting Blood
k
Urinary Trouble
n
Worms
J
O
Ulcerated Throat
J
O
Hemorrhoids
J
n
"Complaints"
2
Liver Trouble
o
Growths (Lobanillos)
C2
Impaired Hearing
2
"Dying"
2
Scrofula
2
Skin Irritations
Miscellaneous Neurol2
ical
Sinus(Reuna de la
2
Cabesa
1
Tuberculosis (Etica)

12.1
11.8

10.3
9.0
7-0

Percent of all
Jesuit Slaves with
This Complaint

3.08
3.00
2.62
2.28

6.0

1.77
1.52

1*5

l.ll

1.2

1.05

3.8
3.6
2.5

.97

2.2
2 .0
2 .0

55
51
51
.38
31
31
31
30
.25

1.5
1.3
1

1.3
1.2
1.0
.8
,p,

'.8

.8
,7

.7

.89
.63

.21
.21
.21
.21

.17
17
.17
.17
.13

5
5
5
.3

.r 3

>

.03
.03

o
.3

.13
.13
.08

.08
.08
.08

o
J

.03

J
9
?

.2

.08
.01

L
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

27*1
TABLE D--Continuvd

Complaint

Diseased Ear
Fever
Ulcerated Nose
Nose Bleed
Deformities
Unidentified

Number of Times
Occurring

1
1
1
1
1
1
603a

Percent This Com

plaint is of all
Jesuit Complaints
.2
.2
.2
.2
.2
.2

Percent of all
Jesuit Slaves with
This Cornnlaint
.OU
.0^

.tik
.ok
.ok
.ok

aIn addition to the ^63 slaves -who bore the above complaints, 6
who were listed below half the average price for their ages though no
medical reasons were specified and 23 others were valueless for their
old age. The total number suffering from noticeably impaired health
then was k ^ 2 or 2 0 .8^ of the slaves in this sample.

L
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

275I
TABLE E

FREQUENCY OF MEDICAL COMPLAINTS AMONG 7;98If SLAVES FROM HACIENDAS,

MINES, DOMESTIC SERVICE AND JESUIT PROPERTY
Number of Times
Occurring
Complaint

Permanent Disability 151

lb 9
"Sick"
llflf
Hernia
Useless
83
C-oiter
77
Venereal Disease
56
If3
Pinta
If2
Temporary Injury
Impaired Vision
38
Ulcers
3^
Mental Illness
32
26
Blindness
Asthma
23
22
Dropsy
21
Spasms (Pasmo)
21
Leprosy
21
Yaws
Stomach Pains
19
18
Eheumatism
Female Trouble
17
Muteness
17
"Pains'*
17
"Complaints"
1?
11
Urinary Trouble.
Heart Trouble
11
11
Epilepsy
10
Sick Member or Limb
8
Deafness
8
Hemorrhoids
Spitting Blood
7
*17
Ulcerated Throat
Unidentified
7
6
Dysentery
Liver Trouble
5
Growths (Lobanillos)
5
Skin Irritations
5
It
Norms
It
Smallpox
"Dying"
3
Deformities
3
Alcoholic Addiction
3

Percent this Complaint is of all

Complaints

Percent of Total
Slaves with This
Complaint

12 .It
12.2
11.8

1.89
I.87
1.80

6J3

l. o lt

6.3
It. 6

3.5
3.^
3.1
2 .8

2.5
2 .1

1.9

.96
.70
.5^

53
.1+8
.if3
39
33
29

1.8

.26

1-7
1.7
1-7

.So

1 .6

.26
.26
.2b

1.5
l.It
l.lt
l.It

23

1.0

.15

9
9
.8

7
7
.6
.6
.6

5
.k
.b

.It
3
O
J
.3
3
3

.21
.21
.21
.ill-

.lit
.lit
.13
.10
.10
.09
.09
.09
.08
.06
.06
.06
.05
.05
.Olf
Olf
.Olf

L
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

2761
TABLE E--Continued

Complaint

Number of Times
Occurring

Percent this Com

plaint is of all
Complaints

Percent of Total
Slaves with This
Complaint

Impaired Hearing
2
2
Toothlessness
2
Diseased Nose
Sinus(Heuma de la Cabeza)

.2
.2
.2

03
03
.03

2
2

.2
.2

03
.03

2
2
1
1
1
1

.2
.2
.1
.1
.1
.1
.1
.1

.03
.03

Scrofula
Miscellaneous Neurological
Fever
Tuberculosis
Spitting Pus
Dirt Eating
Diseased Ear
Oral Hemorrhage
"Weak"

1
1
122 la

aThese complaints were borne by 1,013 slaves.

.02
.02
.02
.02
.02
.02

In addition to them

89 more were listed below half price though no medical reasons were
specified and 37 others were valueless for their extreme old age.

The total number suffering from noticeably impaired health, then was,
139 or 1^.3$ of the slaves in this sample.

L
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

2771
APPENDIX II

A LISTING OF SLAVE AILMENTS CATEGORIZED UNDER THE VARIOUS HEADINGS USED

IN TABLE 5
I. Musculoskeletal Diseases
A.

Hernia hernia, quebrado de ingle, testiculo, ombiligo,

B. Permanent Disability
1. Amputations r.ianco de dedo, mano, pie, pierna, brazo.
2.

Paralized tullido.

3.

Crippled -- a'storpeado, piernas tuertas, baldado or

impedido de brazo, pierna, mano, pie, medio
querpo.
Lame bojo, renco.

5.

Chronic Injuries falso de rodilla, poorly knit arm,

kinee swells periodically, l.iciado,
liciado de manos, orazos, pierna,
caderas, rodilla, etc.

C. Rheumatism reuma, reuma habitual, enfermo do reuma,

inflamacion reumatica, reuma de los pies.
D.

Temporary Injury
1. Lastiraado (del pecho, cspinazo, pie, brazo, pierna, mano,
lorr.os, cintura, etc.)
2. Maltratado
3. Broken bones - 4uebraduras de pierna, brazo, lomos
espinazo, etc.
If. sprains
5 . wounds
6. cuerpo en estado malo

E.

Sick member or limb -- enfermo de cintura, caderas, pie,

brazo, pierna, etc.

F. Deformity pies voltiados, faita de nariz.

II.

Skin Diseases
A.
B.

Pinta carate
Ulcers llagas, fleraa salada, espundia, fistula,abierto
del pecho
mal cle llagas
Po sterna
enfermo de posteraa
inflamacion

L
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

r
C.
D.
E.
F.
G.

Yaws bubas, clavos

Leprosy -- lepra, Mai de San Ant6n, C-afo, Mai de San Ldzaro,
nanchas en la cara.
Growths lobanillo, nudo en el espinazo.
Smallpox -- viruelas
Rashes and Irritations -- sarna, erispela, caspa, dispela.

III. Genitourinary Diseases

IV.

A.

Venereal Disease

B.

Dropsy

C.

Female Trouble

D.

Urinary trouble

gomas, glico, bubos, purgacidn, reuma

gdlica, dolor gdlico, galiquinto, enfermo
de los genitales, llagas en los genitales,
liciado de los genitales, llagas ahajo.

hydropesia, hinchazones, pies o piernas hinchados.

mal de madre, mal del dtero, enferma de
madre, enferma del dtero, liciada del
vientre, madre sale, enfermedad de salirse
la madre, danada del lStero, madre abocada,
enferma de la matrlz, padece de nestro,
enferma por las lunaciones, suspencidn de
mensus, muchos partos, flujo de sangre
intermitente.
dolor de orina, mal de orina, enfermo de
la orina, roto la veiga.

Endocrine Diseases (Goiter only)

coto, quebrado de la garganta.

V . Iieuropsychlatric Diseases

VI.

A.

Mental Deficiency -- bobo, insensato, fatuo, simple, tonto,

insulso, sonsa, metecato, "ni habla ni
anda", "por su naturalesa".

B.

Mental Illness

C.

Fasmo

D.

El'ipesy

E.

Miscelaenous neurological disorders -- numbness of wrist or limb.

Loco, demente.

gota coral, accidentes, accidentes habituales.

Eye Diseases
A.

Blindness

ciego, falta de vista

B.

Irnpared Vision -- tuerto, cegato, cegatoVi, corto de vista,

ciego en un ojo, impcdido de mi ojo, defectuoso de un ojo, nubes en los ojos, echa
materia de un ojo, cataratas, bisco.

L
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

~i

279
VII.

Gastrointestinal Diseases

A.

Stomach Pains

dolor del est6mago; dolor de la

t)arriga; enfermo del est(5raogo, enfermo de la

barriga, liciado del barriga, achaques habituales
de la barriga.
B.

Dysentary

flujo de sangre.

C.

Worms

D.

Dirt Eating

liciado de comer tierra.

E.

Hemorrhoids

almarranas.

F.

Liver Trouble Mal del higado., liciado del higado.

lombrices.

VIII. Respiratory Diseases

A. Asthma asma,ahogo, liciado

B.

Tuberculosis

C.

Spits blood

D.

Spits Pus

etica.
echa sangre por la boca.

echa post etna por la boca, arroja postema.

E. Diseased Hose

enfermo de las narices.

F. Ulcerated Hose

IX.

X.

del aire, asm^tico.

cancro en la narfz.

G.

Nose Bleed

echa sangre por la nariz.

H.

Reuma de la cabeza.

Diseases of Mouth and Throat

A.

Muteness -- mudo, no habla.

B.

Ulcerated Throat -- llagas en la garganta.

C.

Toothless

D.

Oral Hemhorrhage -- flujo de sangre por la boca.

desdentada, sin dientes.

Ear Diseases
A. .Deafness --- ocrdo
B.

Impaired Hearing -- medio sordo, tarda en el oxdo.

C.

Diseased Ear -- enfermo de un oldo.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

2801
XI.
XII.

Cardie Vascular Diseases

mal de corazrfn, enfermo de corazdn.

Lymphatic Diseases (scrophula only) -- lamparones, liciado de

las gldhdulas en el pesquezo y brazo.

XIII. General and Miscellaneous Diseases

A.

"Sick" enfermo, enfermo habitual, enfernedades, mal

habitual, mal incurable, medio enfermo, enfermo
continuo, enfermedades ocultas, llena de
enfermedad, muchas enfermedades, vive enfermo,
esta siempre en carna, otras epidemias, otros
nulidades.

B.

"Pains" dolencias habituales, dolor de cabeza,

cuerpo, pecho, huesos.

C.

"Complaints"

achaques, (varies, habituales, incurables,

etc.
D.

Addicted to Alcohol -- viciado, viciado al aguardiente,

aruinado.

E.

"Useless"

F.

"Weak"

G.

"Dying"

H.

Unidentified -- enfermedad de Juan Juan, Chandi,

currachino, cascorva, pie hinchado de
nacer y aue por tiempos le revienta.

imposibilitado, invdlido, inutil,

inhabil, sin servicio, inservible, imposibilidad total, inutilidad, no sirve para nada.

-- floja.

graviada, muriendo, en los ultimos dias de

la vida.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

r
APPENDIX I I I

A.

SOURCES USED IN COMPILING TABLE %

I. Archivo HisttJrico Nacional de Colonibia (AHNC), Colonia:
Negros y esclavos de Antioquia

I, foil. 381*-1*1*1 (1750); II,

foil. 9^0-1021 (1799); IV,
foil. 901-^1 (1808 ).

Negros y esclavos de Bolivar II, foil. 787-81*8 (1785 ); III,

foil. 633-763 (1632 ), 8^7-965
(l303); IV, foil. 822-1000 (1759);
IX, foil. 63^-712 (1706), 765 S5U (1753); xiv, foil. 517- h i k
(1791 ); XV, foil. 1*8-230 (1653 ).
Negros y esclavos de Cundinamarca I, foil. 1*02-501* (1580),
819-86 (1553); V, foil.
1*06-76 (]621*), 832-910
(1793); n, fol. 61*8 (1806).
Negros y esclavos de Panand II, foil. 659-777 (1676).
Negros y esclavos de Santander III, foil. 1*27-532 (1796), IV,
foil. 306-312 (1802 ).
Negros y esclavos del Toliir.a IV, foil. 236-83 (171*6 ), 353-85
(176I*),. 711*-81* (159A).
II. Archivo Histdrico Departasiental de Antioquia (AHDA), Colonia:
(Escalvos) vol. 28 , docs. 88l (1651); 907 (1705); vol. 29,
docs. 92M1799), 9^1 (1753),
(1755); vol. 30 , doc.
965 (1761*); vol. 31, docs. 990 (1777), 992 (1777); vol.
33, doc. 1092 (1802); vol. 31*, doc. U 58 (1805), vol. 35,
doc. 1191 (1808); vol. 37 , doc. 121*3 (1813)
III.

Archivo Histdrico Nacional del Ecuador (AHHE)

Colonia, Real Audiencia, Gobernacidn de Popaydn:
Caja 1*1, "Autos entre Dn. Francisco Castro y Dn. Miguel Pardo
sobre la redhibitoria de una negra" (1735); Caja 63 , hoja
suelta, "Fr. Joseph del Rosario certifica que el eoclavo,
Francisco, de Dn. Jacinto de Torres y Barcia tiene disenteria,
dolores y rr.orbo galico" (1735); Caja 7h, "Autos entre Dn.
Francisco Cayetano Nieto Polo y Dn. Manuel Vicente Martinez
sobre la reciniicidn del contrato de un negro " (1757); Caja
150, Cuasa seguic'a entre Dn. Francisco Doneis y Dn. Juan q
Materdn sobre la redhibitoria de una negra" (1787);.Caja 159 ,
"Autos seguidos por Dr. Josef Micolta con Dn. Geror.irso
Llanos sobre la redhibitoria de una esclava" (1792); C^ja 171,
Autos seguidos por Dn. Manuel Cobo Rincdn con Dn. Pedro
Arasellas y Franco sobre la venta de una esclava" (1796 ).

281

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

28n
Esclavos, Legajo 3; espediente 1, "Autos del Capitn Bn*
Martin de Santiestev^n con Dn. Htcolas Gasitua sobre la
venta de una negra "(173^); exped. k "Dn. Gregorio Bodero
con Dn. Nicolas Lamilla sobre la redhititoria de la venta
de una negra" (l7**5) exped. 29 "Autos redhititoria de una
Dn. Francisco Ventura Garaycoa con Da. Juana Polid sobre
la redhibitoria de una negra" (1789) exned. 30 "Autos de
Dn. Domingo Gonsales con Da..Mariana Dias del Pedregal
sobre la venta de una negra" (1775); Exped. 38 "Autos de
Da. Maria Isidore Sotonayor con Dn. Xavier Arsu.sobre la
venta de un negro" (1755); exped. b2, "Autos de redhibitoria
entre Dn. Joseph de Echanique y Dn. Vicente de Castillo
sobre la venta de una esclava" (1772); exped. i*3,"Autos
entre Dn. Dr. Francisco Xavier de la Fita y Dn. Fran
cisco Gomez de la Torre sobre redhibitoria de un es-clavo"
(l80l); exped. bk, "Expediente que sigue Da Rosalia de
Orozco,viu3a de Dn. Juan Antonio Azilona, con Da. Leonora
Freyre de Aidrade sobrela redhibitoria de una esclava"
(1793).
Esclavos, Legajo b, exped 5; "Autos entre Manuel de
Lastra y Juan Thenorio sobre la venta de un negro"
(17^6), exped 6 , "Autos entre Da. Maria Onteneda y
Larram y Dn. Francisco Xavier Escudero sobre la
redhibitoria de un negro" (1817), exped. 7 "Causa seguida
entre Diegc Jose Granados y Agustin Lopez sobre la
redhibitoria de dos esclavos" (1807 ); exped. 8 . "Autos
seguidos entre Dn. Casirniro Moreira y Da. Maria Aina
Dias del Pedregal para la redhibitoria de una samba"
(1775).
Reptfblica de Gran Colombia, Esclavos, legajo, unico,
exped. 2, "Autos entre Ensebia Bodero y Luis Franco
sobre la redhibitoria de un esclavo" (1828); exped. 3 ,
"Autos seguidos por Juan Pablo Velasco contra Felipe
Viteri sobre la redhibitoria de un esclavo" (1828 ).

B.

SOURCES USED IN COMPILING TABLE .5

I. Archivo Historico Nacional de Colombia (AHNC), Colonia:
Minas del Cauca I, fell. 318-20 (1730); V, foil. 20-27
(1779); 113-1^ (17^3); VI, foil. 118-21,
169-72, (1725).
Miscelanea X, foil. 893-97 (1770 ).
Negros y esclavos del Tolima III, foil. 1017v-l8v (177-3)
Temporalidades I, foil. 52-53, 73-76 (1790), 537-38, 576-77,
539 , 601-01+, (1767); 558-62 (1768 ). II, foil. 970 (1770).
III, foil. 60U 37 , 665-77 (1770); 852 (1772); 926 (1770)/
IV, foil. lUl-ltf, 209-11 (179*0. VIII, foil. 11^-18 (1770);
23l!-36 (1798); ^97-503 (1779); 520-21*, 562-66 (1767) X,

L
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

foil. 5 1 2 - 6 5 (1 7 7 1 ); 81+1, 7^7-^9, 8 6 7 -7 IV (1 7 7 0 ). X I, foil. 7 2 0 2lv (1 7 7 1 ). X I I I , foil. 55; 2 5 9 - 3 0 0 (1 7 9 1 +); 9*+l (1 7 7 2 ). X IV ,

foil. 1+9 7 - 9 6 (1776); 959-63 v (1770). X V I, foil. 7-8v (1 7 7 0 );
8 5 0 - 5 1 (1 7 6 9 ). X V II, foil. 5 0 0 -0 2 , 690v (1770); 8 7 5 - 7 8 (1 7 6 7 ).
X V I I I , foil. 1+7 8 - 8 1 (1 7 6 7 ). X IX , foil. 390-93, 1+35-33, W+- 1+7 ,
1+52-51+v (1 7 7 0 ); 5o2-32v (1 7 7 !+). X X II, foil. 75-76v (1771). XXV,
foil. 179-81 (1770); 212-15 (1772). X X V II, foil. 299-305 (1770).
Testaraentarias del Cauca V, foil. 273-88, 260 (l803); VI, foil. 5919b (1766 ); VII, foil. l+86 -s6v (1771); 833-39
(1767); VIII, foil. 518-28 (1799); XII, foil.
81+0-1+2 (1767 ); XIII, foil. 396-1+01 (177!+);
XIV, foil. 185 -51 , 198-5 ? (1731+); XV, foil.
183-50 (1760 ).
Testamentariae del I&sdelena II, fell. 6711-76 (iSol-).
II.

A r c h i v e

KLctorico Departmental de Antioquia (AIDA), Colonia:

Vol.
doc.
Vol.
Vol.

113 (Ter.noralidades). dec. 3293 , fell. 6v-9 (1767 );

3301, fol. 363 (1766).
127 (Civilec), doc. 3I18I, n. fol. (1733).
357 (Hinas), doc. 6701, n. fol. (1666).

(Mortuaries) Vol. 208, doc. 5011, fell. 15-16 (17I+6 );

Vol. 213, doc. 5066, foil. 50v-59 (1726); Vol. 2ll+, doc.
50S1+, foil. 12-13 (176?): Vol. 215 , doc. 5097, foil. 26 -27 ,
b7v-%> (r..cl.); Vol. 213, doe. 513?, fol. 23 (1738): Vol.
221. dc-'. 5115, foil. 17-15 (1675 ): Vol. 221+, doc. 5218,
fell. 2, 123-125v, 301-08 (l66?): Vol. 229, dec. 5266, foil.
12. (1757); Vol. 210. doc. 5275 /foil. 17v-1?7 (i860): doc.
5278; fell'. 27-23 (r/.d.); doc. 5281, foil. 53v-5':- (n.c/.);
Vol. 231/ doc. 5293, foil. 5v-6 (n.d.); Vol. 232. doc.
5297, foil. 25-2? (1727); Vol. 23!+, doc. 5325, foil. 22-28
(n.d.); Vol. 237 , doc. 5360, foil. 67v-68v (1733); vol. 238 ;
doc. 5378, foil. 26-/-20V (l6?2); Vol. 239, doc. 538I+, f0n.
13v-lJ! (1730): Vol. 252, doc. 5507 , foil. 15-16 (1673); doc.
550?. foil. J+l-1+6 (n.d.); Vol. 256 , doc. 55^8, n.fol. (1717);
Vol. 258, doc. 5569 . foil. U7v-51v'(l668); Vol. 262, doc.
5606 , foil. ?v-10 (1710); Vol. 27l+, doc. 5703, foil. 3L,rV39v (1667); doc. 5707, foil. 1+7y-51v (1677); Vol. 275; doc
5715; foil. 129-30 (176I1); Vol. 276 , doc. 571?. foil. 2W -25
(1737 ); Vol. 277 , doc. 5712, foil. 22v-23>v (1752); doc.
5720. foil. 17V-20 (1716 ): Vol. 278 , doc. 572I+, foil. 2l+-37v
(1736); Vol. 279, doc. 5725, foil. 3'8-3?v (1733); Vol. 23!+,
doc. 5787, foil. 6l-6lv (1790); Vol. 2o7, doc. 5822, n.fol.
(1723); Vol. 28 ?, doc. 58H2, foil. 36v-93 (1670); Vol. 25'1 ,
doc. 5853, foil. 55-62 (l6?3); doc. 5855; foil. 38-1+0 (1681+);
Vol. 202, doc. 587O, foil. 23, 30, 117 (171*+); doc. 5871,
fell. 2 5 v-2 6 v (1707); doc. 5871+, foil. 3-!+, 57v-59 (1661);

L
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

2sn
Vol. 302, doc. 5900, foil. 10-11 (1702); Vol. 30*f, doc.
6000, foil. 25-26 (1771); doc. 6001, foil. 9-10 (1703);
doc. 6020, foil. 26-37v (sic.) (1709); Vol. 310, doc.
6057, n. foil. (167I); Vol. 312, doc. 6070, doll. 29
(n.d.); doc. 6079, foil. 16v-l7v (l6o8), doc. 6o8l. foil.
17-19 (17^ 3 ); doc. 6032, foil. 2 I4--25 ' (1775); Vol. 316 , doc.
6107, foil. 20-22 (1760); Vol. 317, doc. 6113, foil. 22,
13, 2 k l v - 5 Y (1752); Vol. 319, doc. 6119, n. foil. (1697);
Vol. 322, doc. 6l68 , foil. 2 (1732); Vol. 3 2 k } doc. 6l95,
n. fol. (n.d.).
hi

. Archivo Central del Cauca (ACC), Colonia:

Sic. 2 8 3 I, foil. 2 0 - 2 1 (1 7 1 7 ); Sis- 5 1 0 5 , foil. 8 v-1 0 v, ll-l6 ,
35-3'6v (1 7 6 7 -7 6 ); Sis. 5 k i 5 , n. fol. (1775),- Sig. 7757, foil.
17-23V (1 7 1 1 ); Sis. 9 3 3 6 , fol. 1 (n.d.); Sig. 97k 6 , foil. 139-^7
(n.d.); Sis. 9 7 I7 , foil. 6 - 1 5 (1 7 1 S); Sig. 975*!, fol. 13 (l71l)j
Sig. 3 8 2 9 , foil. 7 I-7 6 V (1 7 0 2 ); Sig. 9 9 8 2 , foil. 20v-21v (1 7 II);
Sig. 9983, foil. 11-12 (1711); Sig. 10,063, fol. 27v (1718); Sig.
10,061, fol. 16v (1 7 I0 ); Sig. 10,077, foil. 23v-2lv (1736); Sig.
10,206, foil. 18-5^.(1751); Sig. 10,262, foil. 100-103v (1751);
Sig. 10,273, foil. 23-27v, 371-371 (1758); Sig. 10,288, foil.
I0 v-i6 v (1757); Sig. 10,339, foil. 23v-2l (176I); Sig. 10 ,318 ,
foil. 29-30 (1765 ); Sig. 10 ,362, foil. 37-50V (1768 ); Sig.
1 0 .3 7 2 , foil. 5 - 9 (1763);
Sig. 10,112, fol. 8 (1 7 7 2 ); Sig.
10,130, foil. 35v-87v (1775); Sig. 10,539, foil. 73-31 (1.773);
Sig. 10,552, n. fol. (1 7 7 9 ); Sig. 10,576, foil. 1-5V-19V (1731);
Sig. 1 0 ,6 5 2 , foil. 202-21 (1 7 3 3 ); Sig. 10,733, foil. 31
- (179*0;
Sig. IO.83I, fol. 8 (1795); Sic. 10,811, foil. 1-5; I05v-107v
(1795);' Sig. 10,312, fell. 57 -o2v (1795); Sig. 10,355, foil.
7v-21 (1797); Sig. 10,382, foil. ?vll, 27-37v (1800); Sig.
10,399, fol. 9 (1802 );' Sig. 11250, fell. 1-7 (17I 6 ); Sig. 11,269,
foil. 6y -13, 25v -26 (1771); Sig. 11,251, foil. 12v-13 (1795):
Sig. 11,238, fol. 15-16y (1797); Sig. 11,301, fol. U (n.d.);
Sig. 11,512, fol. 25 (1792); Sig. 11,891, foil. 7v-20, 2l, ll-l9v
(1766 ); Sig. 11,977, foil- 23v-2lv (I7ll); Sig. 12,053, foil.
73 _K.lv (1790); Sig. 12,072, foil. 6lv-6*!-v, 191-9^, 208-09, ?399v (1739); Sig. 1 2 , 1 7 k , fol. 122v (1731); 12.177, fell. 2-3v ,
103-Cl, 158-59 . 200-03, 25l. (17^0 ).

IV.

Archivo Histrfrico TJacional del Ecuador (AHNE), Colonia, Real

Aufiiencia, Gobernacidn de Popay^n:
Caja 23, "Autos obrados por las jurticias de la Cuidad de Santa
Birbara del Puerto, Provincial de Barbaeoas, sobre nsegurar los
biones de Bartolo...^ Estupindn" (1718); Caja 29, "Esclavos de
Geronira Velasco," fol. 62 (1720); Caja k ? . . "Bienes de Teodora
Arocleda, foil. 10-12, 90 (l75l); "Bienes de Antonio Beltran," fol.
62 (1736 ); Ca.ja 68 , "Bienes de Josef Carbajal," foil. 66v-73v
(1755); Caja 72, "Bienes de C-uillerao Callasos," foil. 137-33
(1756 ); Caja 8t, "Bienes de Nicolas Ineotrosa" foil. 52-5*' (1759),
"Bienes de la Hacienda de Vigeo," foil. 73-32 (1759), "Bienes de
Rolando Cazac," foil. 36-37 (17^3); Caja 36, "Bienes de la Hacienda
de Ll-anogrande," foil. 32v-3*' (176*0; Caja 93*1 ] "Bienes de
Mateo Valles," foil. 56-60 (1730); Caja 107, "Bienes de Ana Maria

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

-i

285

(1 )
Sales," foil. 19-20 (1756); Caja 110 , "Bienes de Cristobal Covo,"
foil. 21-37 (lT76)jCaja 122, "Bienes de la Hacienda de Supulturas,"
foil. 3v-7v (1781);Caja 137; "Inventario y avaldo de la mina y
quadrilla del Rio de Magui," foil. 31-37 (178*+); Caja 138, Bienes
de la Mina de Pimbi," foil. 6-22v (1785); "Avaldo de la Mina de Pirabi,"
foil. 10-12 (1785);Caja 139; "Bienes de la Mina de Pimbi," foil. 59;
62 , 70 (1785); Caja 156,"Autos de Maria Rosalia de Ante, viuda de
Francisco Balio Angulo, con el albasea sobre el remate de la Mina de
Naya," foil. 12, 21 (1790); Caja l6*+, "Bienes de Cristobal Covo," foil.
77-88v (1798); Caja 159, "Autos de Apelacidh de Manuel Herrera, corao
albasea de Thomas Ruis sobre remate de unas minas," (l79l)i Caja 200,
"Inventario y avaluo de la Mina de Bogotd del finado Dn. Carlos Araujo"
(1807).
Esclavos: Legajo 1, exped. 3; "Autos sobre los quarenta y ocho
esclavos enviados por Dn. Ramon de la Berrera a las haciendas de
Xapio y Llanogrande," foil. 2-1+ (1769) ; exped. 6 , "Bienes de Tomds
Andrada," foil. 80 (n.d.)j exped. 7; "Bienes de Gaspar Venaude,"
(1700); exped. 10, "Bienes de Miguel Durdn," foil, llv-15 (1776);
exped. 12, "Bienes de Josef Cortez," foil. 10v-17 (1721); exped.
13, "Bienes de Bentura Dias del Castillo," foil. 11-12 (1765).
C.

SOURCES USED IN COMPILING TABLE 6

I. Archivo Histdrico Nacional de Colombia (AHNC), Colonia:
Negros y esclavos de Antioquia V, foil. *+*+*+-680 (1789); VI,
foil. 98I+-993 (1773).
Negros y esclavos de Bolivar IX, foil. 855-93 (1788).

Archivo Anexo, Esclavos II, foil. *+93 (l8l*+).

II. Archivo Histdrico Departmental de Antioquia (AHDA), Colonia:
(Esclavos) vol. 31, doc. 1013 (1785); vol. 32 , doc, 10*4-5 (1792);
vol". 33 ; docs. 105*4 (1793); 1056 (1799); 106!+ (1797); 1066 (179*+);
1078 (1799); 1110(1801) ; vol. 3*+, docs. 111*+ (1802), 1115 (180*+),

1120 (1803); 1121(180*+), 1122 (l803); 1125 (180*+) 1132 (1803);

1131+ (l80*+), 1136(l80*+); vol. 35 , docs. 1186 (1807), 1190 (1808)j
vol. 36 , doc. 1228 (1812).

III. Archivo Central del Cauca (ACC), Colonia:

signatura:

*+8*+5 (1760)
7502 (1790)

IV. Archivo Histcirico Nacional del Ecuador (AHNE), Colonia, Real

Audiencia, Gobernacidn de Popaydn:
Caja 180, "Miguel de la Cruz y Rafael Rodriguez, negros esclavos,
sobre alcanzar su libertad" (1798).

L
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

-I

r
Esclavos, legajo 3; exped. 5, "Autos de Agustin de la Cruz,
esclavo, y Da. Estefania Guzman con Da. Thomasa Surita sobre
libertad" (178^); exped. 26, "Autos de Manuela A/eldeveas,
esclava de Maria Jacinta Maxima, en que solicita nuevo amo"
(1783 ); exped 32, "Expediente de Nicolas Corte's, esclavo de la
Marquesa de Solanda, sobre la tasascidn de su persona? (179?)
exped. 33 "Autos de Francisca Gantes, esclava de Da. Francisca Zaramillo, sobre el avaluo de su persona" (1795); exped.
37, "Autos de Manuela Orozco, esclava del Dr. Thadeo de
Orozco, sobre la tasascidn de su persona" (1795)*

Esclavos, legajo k, exped. 2, "Antonia Delgado, esclava de

Dn. Manuel Marmol, pide proteccion en virtud de la real
cddula que manda que los senores procuradores sean defensores
de los esclavos" (1806).

L
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Reference Works

General:

Cardenal, L. Diccionario terminoldgico de las cieneias medicas.

5th ed~ Barcelona, 195^
'
Encyclopedia Britanlca, 1511
Encyclopedia Britanica, 1968 .
Florez, Luiz.
1969 .

Lexico del cuerpo humano en Colombia.

Bogota,

Real Academia Espanola. Diccionario de la lengua castellana.

3rd ed. Madrid, 1791*
Tascon, Leonardo. Diccionario de provincialismos y barbgrismos
del Valle del Cauca y Quechuismos usados en Colombia.
Cali, 1961 .
Washburn, Edward W. and others. International Critical Tables of
Kumerical Data, Physics, Chemistry and Technology.
Hew York, 1926.

Early Medical Books:

./"Collins, Dr J Practical Rules for the Management and Medical
Treatment of Hegro Slaves in the Sugar Colonies, by a
Professional Planter. London, 1603.
Dancer, Thomas. The Medical Assistant, or Jamaica Practice of
Physic: Designed Chiefly for the Use of Families and
Plantations. 2nd ed. Kingston, Jamaica, I0O9 .
Hillary,
William. Observations on the Changes of the Air and the
Concomitant Epidemical Diseases in the Island of Barbadoes
to Which is Added a Treatise on the Putrid Bilious Fever,
Commonly Called the Yellow Fever and Such Other Diseases as
are Indigenous or Epidemial in the West India Islands, or in
the Torrid Zone. London, 1766.
Thomson,Samuel( i j j A Treatise on the Diseases of Hegroes.
Kingston, Jamaica, 1621.
287

L
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

2881
Modern Medical Books and Studies:
Dalmat, Herbert T. Black Flies of Guatemala and Their Role as
Vectors of Onchocerciasis. Washington; D.C., 1955
Manson-Bahr. Philip. Manson^s Tropical Diseases
Baltimore; 1966 .

l6th ed.

The Merk Manual of Diagnosis and Therapy, ed. Charles E. Lyght

and others. 10th ed. Rathway; Hew Jersey; 1961.
Oncocercosis (Enfermidad de Robles); Universidad de San Carlos,
Facultad de Cieneias; Homonaje al Tercer Congreso PanAaericano de OftaLmologja! Guatemala, lS^f.
Robledo, Emilio. Geograffa m^dica y nosologlca del Department0
de Caldas. Manizales; Colomhia; 1916.
Strong; Richard P. (ed.).. Onchocerciasis in Africa and
Central America. Published by Author; n.p.; n.d.
Turner, Thomas B., George M. Sanders and H.M. Johnston.
of the Jamaica Yaws Commission for 1932.
Kingston, Jamaica, 1933*

Report

L
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

2891
Contemporary Sources
Unpublished Archival Documents
Archivo Historico Nacional de Colombia (AHNC), Bogota, Colombia
Archivo I, foil. 93-102, 599-600, (1775), 797-883 (1775).
Estadistica VI, foil. 572-73 (1788).
Impuestos Varios--Cartas XXIII, foil. 800-801 (1770).
Lazaretos, only volume, foil. 920-31 (1777).
Minas de Boyaca II, foll-i-77l (1765); 767-517 (1777).
Minas del Cauca I, foil. 27-291 (1737), 318-20 (1730).
II, foil.369-70 (l80l), 7o6-23 (1720),
729-79 (1679), ^53-5-3 (1777),
712-880 (1781), 967-91 (1755 ).
Ill, foil. 712-997 (1793).
IV, foil. 368-89 (1801).
V, foil.1-107 (1779), 112-53 (17^3).
VI, foil. 1-205 (1725).
Minas de Santander I, foil. 3l3-l7 (178S).
Minas del Tolima

II, foil. 830-903 (1790).

IV, foil-152-82 (1633), 558-625 (1796).
V, foil. 739-878 (l67l).

Miscelanea X, foil. 867-989 (1770).

XLI, foil. 622-71 (1770).
IXXIV, foil. 22 (1717).
LXXV, foil. 177-55 (1737).
cxrv, foil. 275-78 (1753).
CXL,
foil. 1106
(1761).
CXLVI, foil. 727-31 (1767).
Negros y esclavos de Antioquia I, foil. 387-771 (1750).
II, foil. 970-1021 (1799).
IV, foil. 901-71 (1808 ).
V, foil. 777-680 (1789 ).
VI, foil. 937-9^3 (1773).
Negros y esclavos de Bolivar II, foil. 787-373 (1785 ).
III, foil. 633-763 (1632),877965 (1803).
IV, foil. 322-1000 (1759).
VI, foil. 352-380 (1806).
IX, foil.637-712 (1706), 765-857
(1753), 855-93 (1738).

L
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

290
XIV, foil. 317-lHt (1791).
XV, foil. 1+8-230 (1653).
Negros y

esclavos deBoyac^ II, foil. 55-63 (1781).

Negros y

esclavos del Cauca II, foil. I+69-77

(1738).
III, foil. 567-7^ (1746).
IV, foil. 7-20 (1765), 25-100
(1757-1760), 101-111+ (17581760), 153-59 (1758), 369-70
(1801), 521-22 (1772), 558-91
(1759), 635-1+3 (1778).

Negros y esclavos de Cundinamarca I, foil. 1+-2-501+ (1580),

819-886 (1553).
IV, foil. 63I-3I+ (1779).
V, foil. 1+06-76 (1621+), 832910 (1793)
VIII, foil. 853-77 (17^)
IX, foil. 3^+1-i+3 (1759), 373-75
(1768), 566-67 (1758), 61+8 (1806),
895-902 (1793).
Negros y esclavos del Magdalena IV, foil. 371-1+07 (1750),

1+08-35 (1769).
Negros y esclavos de Panam^ I, foil. 15-129 (1795), 13I+-I+5

(1776), 836-1+3 (1765).

II, foil. 312-1+8 (1803), 352 (1751),
576-602 (1776), 620-58 (1778),
659-777 (1676), 915-81 (1751).
Ill, foil. 11+8-67 (1769), 180-88
(1760), 190-99 (1760-1761),
201+-09 (1758-1760), 223-55
(171+1+), 310-12 (1751), 351-79
(171+9), 380-92 (179*0, 1+91-556
(1751-1753), 557-71 (1769),
610-22 (17^8 ), 652-61 (1771),
7l+!+-i+6 (1779)
IV, foil. I+7I+-501 (175|!-1756),
?10-30 (1756), 537-1+8 (1762-1769),
816-67 (175I+-1765), 1009-1011
(1787).
Negros y esclavos de Santander III, foil. 1+27-532 (1796).
IV, foil. 253-57 (1777),
306-312 (l802).
V, foil. 93I+-37 (1809).

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

Negros y esclavos del Toliina III, foil. 1017-19 (1773).

IV, foil, 236-83 (17^6), 353-85
(176^), 528-31 (1792), 71^-8^
(159^).

Real Hacienda Cartas

XXIII, 801 (1770), 858-76 (1753).

I, foil. 2U-106 (1790), 393-506 (1770),535-610 (1767).

II, foil. 267 -1*92 (1767-1777), 963-971:- (1770).
Ill, foil. 598-770 (1770), 838-70 (1772), 923-26
(1770).
IV, foil, 1-238 (1791:).
VI, foil. & 8 (1771), 917-61 (1770).
VIII, foil. 72-21*1* (1770-1798), 310-18 (1770),
1*97-503 (1779), 50I+-69 (1767), 905-59 (1768).
X, foil. 1*92 -71*2 (1771), 7^3-51 (1770), 838-1*5
(1770), 859-91* (1770).
XI, foil. 681;Si*l* (1771)*
XII, foil. 758-91* (1770).
XIII, foil. 51-55 (1772), 152-79 (1770), 130-217
(1767), 296 -351* (1791*), 767-329 (1770)
935-1*2 (1772).
XIV, foil. 1*88-525 (1767), 922-91 (1770).
XVI, foil. 1-11*2 (1770), 81*5 -5!* (1769).
XVII, foil. 1*96 -501* (1770), 661*-736 (1770 ),
737-915 (1767), 916-1006 (1782).
XVIII, foil. 1*53-51*8 (1767).
XIX, foil. 390-98 (1770), 1*35-51* (1770),
526-32v (177!*).
XX, foil. 369-35 (1736), 526-652 (1788 ).
XXII, foil. 55-11*1* (1771 ).
XT/, foil. 178-307 (1770-1772), 331-65 (1777-1739).
XXVI, foil. 70-101 (1733).
XXVII, foil. 292-323 (1770).

Teraporalidades

Testamentarias del Cauca V,

VI,
VII,
VIII,
XII,
XIII,
XIV,
XV,

foil. 260-90v (l803).

foil. 591-9W (1766).
foil. 1*-56-96v (1771), 833-39 (1767).
foil. 913-28 (1799).
foil. 31*0-1*2 (1767 ).
foil. 396-1*01 (177:), 913-28 (1799 ).
foil. 189-99 (1731*).
foil. 183-90 (1760 ).

Testanentarias del Magdalena II, foil. 67l*-76 (lSol*).

Virreyes X, foil.

660-63 (n. d.).

Visitas del Cauca V "Visita de la Provinela del Choc<5 por el

Sr. Gobernador Dn. Carlos Ciaurria,"
n. fol. (l30l*).

J
permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

292

Archivo Anexo, Historia, III, foil.. 228-29 (1783).

Archivo Anexo, Medicos y ahogalos IV, foil. 2-10 (1761).
Archivo Anexo, Minas I, series 2, foil. 81: -87 (1739).
Archivo Anexo, Esclavos II, foil. ^93 (1783).
Archivo Histdrico Departmental de Antioquia (AEKA), Medellin, Colonbia
Colonia: Vol.
vol.
vol..
vol.
vol.
vol.

28
23
30
31
32
33

(Esclavos),
(Esclavos).
(Esclavos);
(Esclavos),
(Esclavos),
(Esclavos),

docs
docs
docs
docs
docs
docs

vol. 3^ (Esclavos), docs

381, 898 , 907 .

92^, 930, 9k6, 955.

963,985.

990, 992, 1013.

1039, 1C&5.
105k, 1056, 1059, 106U, 1066,
1068, 1076, 1078, 1098, 1092,
1102, 1107, 1110 .
llll:-, 1115, 1120 1121, 1122,
112^, 1125, 1130 1132, 1131:-,
1136, 1136, 1158 1166 .

vol. 35 (Esclavos), docc. 1186, 115

vol. 38 Cesclavod), doc. 1228 .
vol. 37 (Esclavo.,), doc. 12l j
vol. 110 Tenporalidades), dcc Jltl
V*0 -L 115 Temporalidades), dcc.32k-0
vol. 116 Terspcralidades), dc c.32^1-5
vol. 118
es), docs. 32
vol. 127 Civileo), doc.3^81 .
vol. 208 Mortuaries), doc. 5011 .
vol. 211 Mortuaries), doc. 5066 .
vol. 2 it Mortuaries), dCC . 508k.
vol. 215 Mortuarios), dOC . 5037 .
vol. 213 Mortuarios), dOC . 5138.
vol. 221 Mortuaries'), dOC . 5119 .
vol. 22ll- Mortuaries), doc. 52 lit.
vol. 229 Mortuarios), doc. 5266 .
vol. 230 Mortuarioc), dcc.s . 5275;
vol. 231 Mortuarios), doc. 5293.
vol. 232 Mortuarioc), doc. 5297.
vol. 23t Mortuarios), dOC. 5325.
vol. 237 Mortuarios), dn'' , 5360.
vol. 238 Mortuarios), doc. - 5378.
vol. 21C)

J-' Mortuarioc), doc. 538k.

252
Mortuarios), docs. 5507;
vol.
vol. 256 Mortuarios), doc
35^8.
vol. 258 Mortuarios), doc. 5569.
vol. 262 Mortuarios), doc. 5606.
vol. 27b- Mortuarios), docs. 5703;
Mortuarioc), doc. 5715.
V ol. 275

3301

L
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

293I
vol.
vol.
vol.
vol.
vol.
vol.
vol.
vol.
vol.
vol.
vol.
vol.
vol.
vol.
vol.
vol.
vol.
vol.

276

277
278

279
287
287
289
291
2 "2
302

307
310
316
317
318
322

327
3*+3

(Mortuarios)
(Mortuarios)
(Mortuarios)
(Mortuarios)
(Mortuaries.)
(Mortuaries)
(Mortuarios)
(Mortuarios)
(Mortuarios)
(Mortuarios)
(Mortuarios)
(Mortuarios)
(Mortuarios)
(Mortuarios)
(Mortuarios)
(Mortuarios)
(Mortuarios)
(Censos),

doc. 5719.
docs. 5720, 5721doc. 5721*.
doc. 5725doc. 5787.
doc. 5 8 2 2 .
doc. 531t-2.
docs. 5853, 5855.
docs. 5 8 7 0 , 5 8 7 1 ,
doc. 5980.
docs. 6 0 0 0 , 6 0 0 1 ,
docs. 6057, 6 0 7 0 ,
doc. 6 1 0 7 .
doc. 6 1 1 3 .
doc. 6 1 1 9 .
doc. 6 1 6 8 .
doc. 6 1 9 5 .
doc. 6538.

Archivo Central del Cauca (ACC), Popayan, Colombia

Colonia, Signatura:
2837

(1717)
I0 6 2 (171*7)
7875 (1 7 6 0 )
5 7 o7 (1775)
51*05 (1 7 6 7 -1 7 7 6 )
51*18 (1775)
5529 (1777)
6 8 1 1 (1777)
7109 (1777)
7 1 9 0 (1771*)
7520 (1790)
7757 (1 7 1 1 )
8 1 7 U (171*7)
8175 (1739)
9336 (n.d.)
971*6 (n.d.)
97 )1 7 (1716)
9751+ (1711)
9 8 2 9 (1703)
9 9 8 2 (171*7)

9,983 (1777)
10,063 (1778)
10,067 (1778)
1 0 , 0 7 7 (1736)
1 0 , 2 0 6 (1757)
1 0 , 2 6 2 (1757)
1 0 , 2 7 3 (1758)
1 0 , 2 8 8 (1757)
10,339 (1?67)
10,378 (1765)
1 0 , 3 6 2 (1 7 6 8 )
10,372 (1 7 6 8 )
10,712 (1772)
10>30 (1775)
10,539 (1778)
10,552 (1779)
10,576 (1737)
1 0 , 6 5 2 (1738)
10,738 (1797)
10,837 (1795)

10,871
10,872
10,855
1 0 ,8 8 2

10,399
1 1 ,2 5 0
1 1 ,2 6 9

11,287
1 1 ,2 8 8
1 1 ,3 0 1
1 1 ,5 1 2
1 1 ,8 9 1

11;977
1 2 ,0 5 8
1 2 ,0 7 2
1 2 ,1 7 7

12,177

1795)
1795)
1797)
1800)
1802)
1776)
1771)
1795)
1797)
n.d.)
1792)
1766)
1717)
1790)
1739)
1781)
1770)

Archivo familiar de Josef Maria Mosquera, Letters, 1T9T

Archivo Histdrico Nacional del Ecuador (ARNE), Quito, Ecuador
Real Audiencia, Gobernacion de Popayan:
Caja 28 "Autos obrados por las justicias de la Cuidad de
Santa Maria del Puerto, Provincia de Barbacoas, sobrc
asegurar los bienes de Bartolomd Estupindn." 1718.

L
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

71

2$\

Caja 29
Caja 36
Caja
Caja
Caja

Caja
Caja
Caja
Caja

Caja

Caja
Caja

Caja
Caja
Caja
Caja
Caja
Caja
Caja

Caja
Caja
Caja
Caja

Caja

Caja

Caja

"Esclavos de Ger<5nima Velasco." 1720.

"Autos seguidos por Dn. Pedro Joseph Delgado sobre
que en Buga se vendan dulees, pan y otros efectos por
las esclavas de aquel lugar." 1730.
kl
"Autos entre Dn. Francisco Castro y Dn. Miguel Pardo
sobre la redhibitoria de una negra." 1735
k2
"Bienes de Teodora Arboleda." 1751 "Bienes de
Antonio Beltran." 1736.
63 Hoja suelta. "Fr. Joseph del Rosario certifica que
el esclavo, Francisco, de Dn. Jacinto de Torres y
Barcia tiene disenterfa, dolores y morbo gdlico." 1735.
68
"Bienes de Joseph Carbajal." 1755*
"Autos de residencia del Gobernador de Popayan." 1755.
70
72
"Bienes de Guillermo Callosos." 1756.
"Autos entre Francisco Cayetano Nieto Polo and Manuel
7^
Vicente Martfnez sobre la recindieidn del contrato de
un negro." 1757 *
&
"Bienes de Nicolas Inestrosa" 1759* "Bienes de la
Hacienda de Viges." 1759* "Bienes de Rolando Cazas."
1763.
86
"Bienes de la Hacienda de Llanogrande." YfSk.
"Causa criminal seguida contra Agustin, mulato esclavo
93
de Da. Catarina Nieto." 1803.
"Manuel Comacho con Mateo Valles de Merida sobre
remate de bienes en Cali." 1769
93
"Bienes de Mateo Valles." 1730.
107 "Bienes de Ana Maria Sales." 1756.
110 "Autos de acreditores formado a los bienes de Cristobal
C Covo de Figueroa en Cali." 1776.
110' '"Bienes de Cristobal Covo." 1776.
111 "Cuaderno acerca del volor de las Haciendas de Xapio
y Mataredonda." 1777*
122 "Bienes de la Hacienda de Sepulturas." 1781 .
125 "Autos de recurso del Dir. Dn. Juan de la Cruz Diaz
del Castillo sobre que ponga la regia conveniente
para precaver el perjuicio con que se Libertan algunos
esclavos de las minas." 1782.
137 "Inventario de la Mina y quadrilla del Rio de Magul."
178^.
138 "Bienes de la Mina de Pimbi." 1785 .
139 "Bienes de la Mina de Pimbi." 1785 .
1^3 "Expediente de la visita de la Cuidad de Caloto
obrada por el Gobernador de la Cuidad de Popayan, Dn.
Pedro de Vecaria." 1786 .
lk-5 "Expediente de la visita de la Cuidad de Cartago obrada por
el Gobernador de la Cuidad de Popayan, Dn. Pedro de Vecaria."
(1^87.
1^5 'Expediente de la visita de la Cuidad de Anserma obrada por
el Gobernador de la Cuidad de Popayan, Dn. Pedro de Vecaria."
1787.
"Expediente de la visita de la Cuidad de Cali obrada por el
Gobernador de la Cuidad de Popaydn, Dn. Pedro de Vecaria." 1787 .
1TO "Causa seguida entre Francisco Doneis y Juan Materein sobre
la redhibitoria de una negra." 1787 .

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

2951
Caja 152
Caja
Caja
Caja
Caja
Caja

Caja
Caja
Caja

Caja

(i)

"Causa entre Dn. Marcos Cortes y su esclavo, Estanislao

Corte's." 1789.
156
"Autos de Maria Rosalia de Ante, vuida de Francisco
Balio Angulo con el albasea sobre el remate de la
Mina de Haya." 1750.
159
"Autos de apelacidn de Manuel Herrera, como albasea
.de Thonis Rufs sobre remate de unas minas." 1791.
159'
159 'L'"Autos seguidos por Dr. Josef Micolta con Dn.
Geronimo Llanos sobre la redhibitoria de una esclava."
1792.
16H
"Bienes de Cristobal Covo" 1796.
171
"Autos seguidos por Dn. Manuel Cobo Eincdn don Cn.
Pedro Arasellas y Franco sobre la venta de una
esclava." 1796.
180
"Miguel de la Cruz y Rafael Rodriguez, negros esclavos,
sobre alcanzar su libertad." 1793.
197
"Julidn Cruz, esclavo de Dn Joseph Zarmiento sobre
sevicia." 1809.
198
"Joaquin Aguiar y Venegas, R,-ocurador en nombre del
Cabildo de la Cuidad de Barbacoas contra el Sr.
Obispo, Dn. Luis Lt5pez de So'lis." 1805.
200
"Inventario y avaluo de la Mina de Bogotd del finado
Dn. Carlos Araujo." 1807.

Read Audiencia, Gobernaci6n de Popayin, Esclavos:

The documents from this branch of the Archive are among several
hundred contained in nine large bundles, which in 1968 were
scheduled to be bound and indexed. Since that- process'would take
years to complete, the author received permission to number the
bundles (legajos) and the litigations (expedientes) tentatively
for his and othersr onenience. Once the documents are proc
essed by the Archive, they can only be located through indices
to dates and names.
Legajo 1
exped.

exped.
expe4*
exped.
exped.
exped.
Legajo 3
exped.
exped.
exped.

,3 "Autos sobre los quarenta y ocho esclavos enviados por

7
10
12
13

Dn. Randn de la Berera a las haciendas de Xapio y

Llanogrande." 1769 .
"Bienes de Themis Andrada." n.d.
'!'Bienes de Gaspar Venaude." 1700.
Bienes de Miguel Duran." 1776.
"Bienes deJosef Cortez." 1721.
"Bienes de Bentura Dias del Castillo" 17^5

1 "Autos del Capitdn Dn. Martin de Santiestevan con Dn.

Nicolds Gasitua sobre la venta de una negra." 173^
l|- "Dn. Gregorio Bodero con Dn. Nicolds Lamilla sobre la
redhibitoria de la venta de una negra." 17^5
5 "Autos de Agustln de la Cruz, esclavo, y Da. Estefan'a
Guzmin con Da. Thonasa Surita sobre libertad." 178^.

L
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

2951
exped. 7
exped. 26
exped. 28
exped. 29

exped. 30
exped. 31
exped. 32
exped. 33

"Autos de Dn. Francisco Sfnches de la Flor con Da.

Victorina de Losa sobre la entrega de una negrita." 1793.
"Autos de Manuela Av.eldeveas, esclava de Marfa Jacinta
Maxima, en que solicita nuevo amo." 1783 .
"Autos de Juan Fernsfndes y Bernanda Onate, Mulatos, con
Dn. Juan Rufz sobre el valor de sus personas." 1782.
"Autos formados por Bonafacio Godoy, negra esclava de Dn.
Felipe Ramfn de Algerfa, contra Dn. Josef Mariano C-odoy
sobre que deveuelva el exceso de la Cantidad en que la
vendid." 1785.
"An';os de Dn. Domingo Gonzales con Da. Mariana Dias del
Pedregal sobre la venta de una negra." 1775.
"Autos seguidos por Ignacia Rojas, esclava de Dn. Carlos
Araujo, sobre que a ella y a sus hijos se entregue a un
solo amo," It01 .
"Ilicolds Cortds, esclavo de la Marquesa de Solanda,
sobre la tasascidn de su persona." 1792 *
"Autos de Francisca Gantes, esclava de Da. Francisca
Zaramillo, sobre el avaHfo de su persona." 1795

exped. 37

"Autos de Manuela Orozco, esclava del Dr. Thadeo de

Orozco, sobre la tasascio'n de su persona." 1795*

exped. 38

"Autos entra Da. Marfa Isidora Sotomayor y Dn. Xavier

Aree sobre la venta de un negro." 1755*
"Autos de Dn. Francisco Ventura C-araycoa con Da. Juana
Polid sobre la redhibitoria de una negra." 1789 *
"Autos de redhibitoria entre Dn. Joseph de Echamque
y Dn. Vicente del Castillo sobre la venta de una esclava. 1
1772.
"Autos entre Dn. Dr. Francisco Xavier de la Fita y Dn.
Francisco Gtfcez de la Torre sobre redhibitoria de un
esclavo." 1801.
"Expediente que sigue Da. Rosalia de Orozco, viuda
de Dn. Juan Antonio Azilona, con Da. Leonora Freyre de
Andrade sobre la redhibitoria de una esclava." 1793"Autos de Dorotea Ruble, negra de'los bienes de Dr. Dn.
Manuel Rubio, con Dn. Pedro Buendia sobre la nulidad
de la venta hecha por Da. Josepha Rubio." 1779-

exped. 39
2-oed !!?

exped.

43

exped. kk

exped. ^5

Legajo h
exped. 1

"Autos seguidos por Ramon Chacon de Mendoza con Dn.

Francisco Paul'- Villavisencio sobre su libertad." 1809 .
exped. 2 "Antonia Delgado, esclava de Dn. Manuel Marmol, pide
proteccifn en virtud de la real cfdula que manda que
los senores prociu.adores sean defensores de los esclavos,
1772-.
"Roberta Quiroga sobre que Dn. Tomds Villanos venda a
exned.
h'ija, Martina," 1801.
"Aucos seguidos por el Mayorazgo Dn. Francisco de Villr/.pea.
aefs y Recalde contra Da. Francisca Escheverrfa sobre
que le entregue una negra esclava nobrada Ana." 1783 .
exped. 5 "Autos entre Manuel de Lustra y Juan Thenorio sobre la
venta de un negro." 17^6 .

L
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

297

exped. 6

"Autos entre Du. Maria Onteneda y Larrain y D 11.

Francisco Xavier Escudero sobre la redhibitoria de un

negro." 1817 .
exped. 7
exped. 8

Legajo 5
exped. 1

"Causa seguida entre Diego Jos^ Granados y Agustin

L6pez sobre la redhibitoria de dos esclavos." 1807 .
"Autos seguidos entre Dn. Casimiro Moreira y Da. Maria
Anna Dias del Pedregal para la redhibitoria de una
santa." 1775 .

"Josefa Velasco sobre cue Dn. Juan Paz venda a su

hijo." n.d.

Republics, C-ran Colombia, esclavos:

Legajo unico
exped. 2 "Autos entre Eusebia Bodero y Luis Franco sobre la
redhibitoria de un esclavo." 1828 .
exped. 3 "Autos seguidos por Juan Pablo Velasco contra Felipe
Viteri sobre la redhibitoria
un esclavo." 1328.
Colonial Archive of Jamaica, Spanish Town, Jamaica.
Colonial Dispatches, Box 1
University of Itorth Carolina Southern History Collection, Chapel
Hill, IT.C.
Popaydn Papers, Box 9 "Insturccioer.es para el nanejo de
las Minas de Nuestra Sonora de las
Mercedes, San Josi y Santiago."
l8lO. Courtesy of Miliar: F. Sharp.

Archive Municipal de Ibagud, Ibagu^, Colombia

Ar.aquel h f , Paquete U22, Legajo 8:
cuafierno 1 "Relacirfn jurada do los que posean esclavos
en las earroauias del Chaparral y Guar.o."
1787.
cuaderno 2 "Disposiciones sobre la racio'n, comida y
vestuario quo deben dar los arnos a sus
esclavos."* 1791 .

fafael. Arboleda Mi crcfilm Collection, Univo:

Colombia
'averiana, Bopo'
(continued on rolls 7 and
Roll 3, exped.
GXpsd 7
Hell
Roll 15 exped. 2

L
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

298]

Unpublished ITotorial Documents

iSotaria Priuera de Bogota
Libros de Registro

anos

1620

1700

1800
1810

1660

. 1721
17^1

1680

1760

16*4-1

1820

1 7 S0

Hotaria Segunda de Cali

Libros de Prolrfcolo

Anos

1716

1782

1792

1 7 1 7 -1 7 ^ 6

17814 -

1 7 7 2 -1773

1785

1775

1786

1793
179^
1795

1777
1773

1787
1788

1796
1707

1779

1 7 8 8 -1 7 8 9

1798

1789

1802

Rotaria Prirnera de Cartavo

17001710

1737--1738

Rotarla Primera de Buenaventura

17^3-- 1 7 9 8
]8 W - - 1 8 5 2

Botar?.a Primera de Buga

Libros de Proi6colo

Anos: 179^

Uotarla Primera de Ibagud

Libros de Rrottfcolo

Anos: l807-l8ll

ilotar'a Primera de ITeiva

Libros de P/ottfcolo:
Cuadernos: l
6
8

15
23
2k

(1 6 1 5 -1 6 2 9 )
(1 6 U0 )
(l6Uo-l6l43)
(1 6 5 c, 1 6 6 1 ;-)
(1 7 1 8 -1 7 2 0 ) (si
(1679, 1 6 9 1 173

L
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

2991
o01.10

1
2
11

It
15
16
18
22

00
27

Vnos dc

Archivo Anexo

(1 7 0 0 -1 7 0 8 )
(1 7 0 8 -1 7 1 3 )
(I73t-I7tl)
(I7t8-1750)
(1750-1752)
(1751-1752)
(1755)
(1 7 6 0 )
(1 7 6 1 )
(1765)

1770

1785

1000

1775
1780

17?0

1810

179^-1795

1820

t, 5, 7, 8 , 11, it, 17 , 21, 26, 33, 37, tl,

vols.

k2,

51, 60, 62

Notarna Segunda de Pasto

Lihros de Prot6colo:

1700

1731

1701
1 7 0 9 -1 7 1 0

17t3
i7 t 6

1720

1811

1730

1812

Notaria Primera de Popayan

Lihros de Prot5colo: 1801
1010
l8ll

Uotaria Primera de Quito

Lihros de Protdcolo: 1600

1720

1620

1 7 tO

l6 t0

1760

1680

1780

1800

Published Government Documents:

The Assianto; or Contract for Allowing the Subjects Of Great
Britain the Liberty of Importing Negroes into the Spanish America.
London, 1713

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

300
Great Britain. House of Commons. An Abstract of the Evidence
Delivered before a Select Committee of the House of Commons
in the Years 1790 and 1791 on Part of the Petitioners for
the Abolition of the Slave Trade. London, 1791*
Great Britain. House of Commons. Minutes of the Evidence Taken
before a Committee of the House of Commons, Being a Select
Committee Appointed to Take the Examination of Witnesses
Respecting the African Slave Trade. London, 1791*
Great Britain. House of Commons. Minutes of the Evidence Taken
before a Committee of the House of Commons, Being a Select
Committee Appointed on the 29th day of January, 1790. for
the Purpose of Taking the Examination of Such Witnesses
as Shall be Produced on the Part of the Several Petitioners
Who Have Petitioned the House of Commons against the
Abolition of the Slave Trade. London, 1790*
Great Britain. House of Lords. Committee on the Slave Trade.
Evidence Taken at the Bar of the House of Lords on the Slave
Trade. London, 1792.
Great Britain. House of Lords. Minutes of the Evidence Taken at
the Bar of the House of Lords upon the Order Made for
Taking into Consideration the Present State of the Trade to
Africa, and Particularly the Trade in Slaves; and Also for
Taking into Consideration the Nature. Extent and Importance
of the Sugar. Coffee and Cotton Trade: and the General
State and Condition of the West India Islands, and the Means
of Improving the Same; and for the Lords to be Summoned; and
for the Agents of the West India Colonies to be Heard for
Their Counsel at the Bar of the House, in Support of Their
Petition against the Abolition of the Slave Trade. London,
1792.
Great Britain. Privy Council. Report of the Lords of the Committee
of Council Appointed for the Consideration of all Matters
Relating to Trade and Foreign Plantations; Submitting to his
Majesty*s Consideration the Evidence and Information They
Have Collected in Consequence of His Majesty^ Order in
Council, Dated the 11th of February, 1785, Concerning the
Present State of the Trade to Africa, and Particularly the
Trade in Slaves; and Concerning the Effects and Consequences
of This Trade, as Well in Africa and the West Indies as the
General Commerce of This Kingdom. London, 1789.
Great Britain. Sustance of the Debates on a Resolution for Abol
ishing the Slave Trade Which Was Moved in the House of
Commons, on the 10th of June, I806), and in the House of
Lords on the 2kth of June, I806 . London, 180(d.

L
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

r
Jamaica. House of Assembly. Committee on Allegations. Two
Reports from the Committee of the Hon. House of Assembly of
of Jamaica, Appointed to Examine into ana Report to the
House the Allegations and Charges Contained in Several
Petitions Which Have Been Presented to the British House
of Commons on the Subject of the Slave Trade and The Treat
ment of the Negroes. London. 17S9 .
Jamaica. House of Assembly. Joint Committee on the Slave Trade.
Report on the Resolution and Remonstrance of the Honourable
the Council and Assembly of Jamaica at a Joint Committee on
on the Subject of the Slave Trade in a Session Which Began
the 20th of October, 17^9, (for Presentation to Parliament).
London, 1790.
Jamaica. House of Assembly. Further Proceedings Relative to a
Bill Introduced into the House of Commons for Effectually
Preventing the Unlawful Importation of Slaves and Holding
Free Persons in Slavery in the British Colonies. London,

-------------------ibis:

Jamaica. House of Assembly. "Second Report of the Committee of

the House of Assembly of the Island of Jamaica, ilovember 12,
1788," printed in Great Britain. Privy Council. Report of
the Lords of the Committee of Council Appointed for the
Consideration of All fetters Relating to Trade and Foreign
Plantations; Submitting to His Majesty's Consideration
the Evidence and Information They Have Collected in Con
sequence of His Majesty's Order in Council Dated the 11th of
February, 1788, Concerning the Present State of the Trade to
Africa, and Particularly the Trade in Slavesj and Concerning
the Effects and Consequences of This Trade, as Well in Africa
and the West Indies as to the General Commerce of This King
dom . London, 1789.

Other Published Documents;

Arrazola, Roberto (ed). Historial de Cartagena de las Indias.
Buenos Aires, 1J^3Donnan, Elizabeth, (ed). Documents Illustrative of the History 0+
the Slave Trade to America, b vol. Washington, D.C., 19301935.

Palacio Palacio, Ecuario, and others.

Colombia, 1967 .

Crdnica municipal. Medellin,

Posada, Eduardo and Pedro Marfa Ibanez (eds). Relaciones de

rnando: Memorias presentadas por los gobernantes del Kuevo
Reino de C-ranada. Bogotd, 1910.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

3021
Williams, Eric E. (ed.). Documents of West Indian History, Vol.I;
1^92-1665. From the Spanish Discovery to the British Con
quest of JamaicaT Port-of-Spain, Trinidad, 1963 .

Journals, Travel Accounts and Contemporary Histories:

Barbot, John. A Description of the Coasts of Month and South
Guinea and of Ethiopia Inferior, Vulgarly called Angola,
Being a Hew and Accurate Account of the Western Maritime
Countries of Africa. London, 1732.
Browne, Patrick. The Civil and Natural History of Jamaica.
London, 175^*
Conot, Theodore. Adventures of an African Slaver: Being a True
Account of the Life cf Captain Theodore Conot, Trader in
Gold, Ivory, and Slaves on the Coast of Guinea, ed.
Malcolm Cowley. New' York, 1928 .
Denham, Dixon. Narrative of Travels and Discoveries in Northern
and Central Africa, in the Years 1822, 1823, and 182*4- by
Major Denham, F.R.S., Captain Clapperton, and the Late
Doctor Oudney, Extending across the Great Desert to the
Tenth Degree of Northern Latitude, and fro^ Kouka in
Bornou to Sackatoo. the Capital of the Felatah Empire.
3rd ed'. London, 1828.
Depons, Francois R.J. Travels in South America during the Years
1801, l602; 1803"and ito. 2 vols. London, 1807.
Edwards, Bryan. The History, Civil and Commercial of the British
West Indies. J th ed. 3 vols. London, l8l9Fermln do Vargas, Pedro- Pensq.::ier:tos politicos y memoria sobre
la poblaclfe del Nuevo P.eino de Granada. Bogc-ti, 1353
Hvdbol&t, Alexander von. Personal Narrative of Travels to the
Eq.uincct.ial Regions of America during the years I799~l8b*+
& vols. London,' l3lL-l325.
Livingston, David. Missionary Travels and Researches in Africa.
London, 1857*
Long, Edward. The History of Jamaica, Or a General Survey of the
Ancient and Modern State of That Island with Reflections
on Its Situation, Settlement, Inhabitants, Climate, Prod
ucts, Commerce, Laws and Government. 3 vols. London, 177*+
Mercado, Thomas..

Suna de tratados y conts atos. Seville, 1587 .

L
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

r
M'Neill, Hector. Observations on the Treatment of Negroes in the
Island of Jamaica, Including Some Account of Their Temper
and Character with Remarks on the Importation of Slaves
from the Coast of Africa in a Letter to a Physician inEngland.' London, 1788 .
Mollien, G-. Viaje por la Ret>ublica de Colombia en 1823.

Bogota,

Hea'ton, John. The Journal of A Slave Trader (John Newton),1750175^-: With Newtor/'s Thoughts upon the African Slave Trade.
ed. Bernard Martin.and Mark Spurrell. London, 1962.
0'Callaghan, Edmund B. (ed.) Voyages of the Slavers St. John and
Arms of Amsterdam, 1659 and I663 : Together'with Additional
Papers Illustrative of Slave Trade under the Dutch. Albany,
New York, 18^7 .
Renny, Robert. An Historical Account of Jamaica with Observations . . .
London, 1307.
Sandoval, Alonzo de. De Instauranda Aethiopua Salute: 51 mundo
de la esclavitud negra en America^ Bogota, (l95^*

Stevens, John.
1702.

The Spanish Rule of Trade to the Indies.

London,

Ulloa, Antonio de. Relaci6n histdrica del viaje a la America

meridional. V vols. Madrid, 17^8.
Veitia de Linaje. Norte de la contratacidn de las indias occidentales. Seville, l>72.~
Velasco, Juan de. Historia moderna del Reino de Quito y cronica
de la Compahia de Jesus del misiao reino. 2 vols.
Biblioteca Amazonas, VIII. Quito, 19^1.'
Newspapers:
Daily Advertizer (Kingston), 1790*
Papel Periodico (Bogota), 1799*
Redactor Americano del Nuevo Reino de C-ranada (Bogota), I807 .

Secondary Sources

Monographs and Articles:

Betancur Arias, Carlos. "La esclavitud en Colombia." Universidad
Pontifica Bolivariana, XVL (Medellin, Colombia, May-July,
1959

L
Reproduced with permission o f the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

Camacho, Angel Marfa. Resena histdriea de la Hacienda de Canasgordas. Cali, Colombia, 1958.
Chandler, David L. "Negro Slavery in Colombia," Annual Progress
Report of the Tulane University / Universidad del Valle
International Center for Medical Research and Training.

New Orleans, 1970*

Curtin; Philip. "Epidemiology and the Slave Trade," Political
Science Quarterly, IXXXIII (June, 1969).
Jaramillc, Jaime. "Esclavos y senores en la sociedad colombiana
del siglo XVII," Anuario Colombiano de Historia Social
y Cultural, I, (Bogota, 1963).
ICLng, James F. 'Descriptive Data on Negro Slaves in Spanish
Importation Records and Bills of Sale," Journal of Negro
History. XXVIIT. No. 2 (April, 1^3).
_"Slaver
.a Honor "
.mt5n, A t

Posad

:.r Granada," Greater America:

' 1. m Eugene Bolton.

Essays

Berkeley, 19^5*

os negreros del Caribe," Boletin de

iy.'edades, XXXI, No. 351 (Feb., 19^ ) .

esclavitud en Colombia," Boletin de

: - .-iguedades, XVI, No. 139 (Feb., 1933);
ana No. . .. ^Sept., 1927)-

"Proyecto de hurtado sobre minas, 1783," Boletin de Historia

y Antiguedades, XIII, No. 1U7 (May, 1920).
Robledo, Emilio. "La er.pedicion botdnica y la medicina en
Colombia," Conferencia sobre la expedicion botcfnica.
Bogota, 1953.

Rojas C-<5nez, Roberto. "La esclavitud en Colombia," Boletfn de

Historia y Antiguedades, XIV (May, 1022).
Scott, Justin C. "Yaws," Proceedings of the Transvaal Mine
Medical Officer's Association (Johannesburg), XII, No.139
(Feb. 1933).

Unpublished Theses and Dissertations:

Arboleda, Jose' Rafael. "The Ethnohistory of the Colombian Negro.
Unpublished Master's Thesis, Department of Anthropology,
Northwestern University, Evanston, 1950*

L
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

Bowser, Frederick P. "Negro Slavery in Colonial Peru, 15381650, Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Department of
History, University of California, Berkeley, 1967 .
Hall, Gwendolyn Midlo. "Social Control in Slave Plantation
Societies: A Comparison of St. Domingue and Cuba,"
Unpublished Master's thesis, University of Michigan,
Ann Arbor, 1970 .
King, James F. "Negro Slavery in the Viceroyalty of New Gradada."
Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Department of History,
University of California, Berkeley, I939 .
Sharp, William Frederick. "The Negro in Colombia, 1528-1860,"
Unpublished Master's thesis, Department of History,
University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, 1966.
Bocks :
Ackerknecht, Erwin. History and Geography of the Most Important
Diseases, New York, 1965 .

r.rboleda, Gustavo. Historia de Cali desde los origtnes de la

cuidad hasta la expiracidn del period0 colonial. 3 vols.
Cali, 1956 .
Ashburn, P.M. The Hanks of Death: A Medical History of the
Conquest of America, ed. Frank D. Ashburn New York, 19^7 .
Creighton, Charles.
History of Epidemics in Britain.
2 vols. New York, 1965 .
Curtin, Philip.
Davies, K. C-.

Duffy, John.

The Atlantic Slave Trade, a Census.

The Royal African Company.

2nd ed.

Madison, 196

London, 1357-

Epidemics in Colonial A-ierica. Baton Rouge, 1953

_______ , (ed). The Rudolph Matas History of Medicine in

Louisiana.

2 vols.

Baton Rouge, l95u

Escalantes, Acqiviles. El Negro en Colombia.

Garcia Borroro, Joaquin.

Bogota', 196k.

Neiva en el siglo XVI.

Bogota', 1939-

Gardiner, W. J. History of Jamaica from Its Discovery by

Christopher Colombus to the Year 1872, Including an
Account of Its Trade and Agriculture, Sketches of the
Manners, Habits, and Curboms of All Classes of Its Inhab
itants and a Narrative of the Progress of Religion and Ed
ucation in the Island. New York, 1909*

L
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

r
Haagensen, C. D. and E. B. Lloyd. A Hundred Years ofMedicine.
New York, 19^3
~~
Hoeppli, Rudolph. Parasitic Diseases in Africa and the Western
Hemisphere: Early Documentation and Transmission hy the
Slave Trade. Basel, 1969.
"
Lunn, Arnold, and Henry Moore. A Saint in the Slave Trade: Peter
Claver, 1581-165^. London, 1937'

Mackenzie-C-rieve, Averil. The Last Years of the English Slave

Trade, 1750-1307 London, 19^1.
~
Mannir, Daniel P. Black Cargoesj A History of the Atlantic Slave
Trade, l^lS-lB^T New York, 1962.'
Mellafe, Rolando. La esclavitud en Hispanoaralrlca.
Aires, 196!+.

Buenos

Montoya y Flrfrez, J. B. Contrlbucifoi al estudio de la lepra en

Colombia. Medellin,' Colombia, 1910.
Ortiz, Fernando.

Los negros esclavos.

Havana, 1916.

Paz Otero, Gerardo. La medicina en la conquista y colonia (beneficencia y accion social en Popaydn. Popaydn, Colombia, 19W.
Pitman, Frank Wesley. The Development of the British West Indies,
1700-1763. New Haven, 1917.
Ragatz, Lovell Joseph. The Fall of the Planter Class in the
British Caribbean, 17^3-d8'33 * A Study in Social and
Economic"'History i Ne^7Tcrk7~19^3^
Restrepo Euse, Alvaro. Historia de Antloquia (Departamento de
Colombia) desde la conquista hasta el ano 1900. Medellin,
Colombia, 1903Saco, -Jose Antonio. Historia de la esclavitud de la raza
africana en el nuevo rnundo y en especial en los paises
hlspano-amerlcanos.
vols. Barcelona, 1879*
1-r

--------

~ -I-

<S

Scott, H. Harold. A History of Tropical Medicine Based on the

Fitzpatrick Lectures delivered before the Royal College of
Physicians of London, 1937"3'3. 2 vols. London, 1939*
Soriano Lleras, Andres. La medicina en el Nuevo Reino de Granada
durante la conq,uista y la colonia. Bogota, 1966 .
Tannenbaum, Frank. Slave and Citizen: The Negro in the Americas.
New York, 19^.

L
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

307~i

Tasccin, Tulio Enriaue.

1939.

Historia de Buga en la colonia.

Bogotcf,

Uribe A. Manuel. Compendio histdrico del Departamento de Antioquia

en la Repflblica de Colombia." Medellin, Colombia,'1887.
Valtierra, Angel. Pedro Clayer, S. J., el santo que liberto una
raze: Su vida y su eVoca. 1st ed. Bogotcf, 195^
____, San Pedro Claver, el santo que libertd una raza. 2nd
ed. Cartagena, Colombia, 19*^-.
West, Robert C. Colonial Placer Mining in Colombia.
1952.

Baton Rouge,

________ , The Pacific Lowlands of Colombia: A Negroid Area of

the American Tropics. Baton Rouge, 1957*

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

BIOGRAPHY

The writer was b o m in Hew Plymouth, Idaho, in 1938 . He attended

the local schools and after graduation in
University for one year.

From

1959

1957; attended

Brigham Young

to 1961 he served as a missionary for

the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and then returned to

Brigham Young University where he received a Bachelor of Science degree
in 1963 . Two years la.ter he received a Master of Arts degree from Tulane
University where he is currently a candidate for the doctoral degree.

He

completed the research for this dissertation in Colombia from 1967 to 1969
where he worked as a Research Associate of the Tulane University International
Center for Medical Research and Training.

|_

308

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.