Peru

Over the course of the slave trade, approximately 95,000 slaves were brought in Peru and the last group arriving 1850. Most transferred to Cuba & Hispaniola but continued to panama where they brought to the Viceroyalty of Peru and many other places to be sold at an auction. Slave owners in Peru preferred slaves who were from specific areas of Africa, so they could communicate with one another. Slave owners in Peru wanted slaves from the fallowing places; Guinea, From the Senegal River down to the slave coast because the Spanish considered them to be easy to manage also because they had marketable skills (Plant rice, train horses, herd cattle on horseback), Slaves form areas stretching from Nigeria to Eastern Ghana, Congo, Mantegna, Cambado, Misanga, Mozambique, Madagascar, Terranova, Mina and Angola.

In the 17th century began the process of manumission of people color. The possibility of a slave buying ones freedom boosted the population of free Afro-Peruvian social class. Slaves had to pay a high amount to buy their freedom; they were allowed to earn on the side, some raised loans and others received grants of freedom from their master. A class of independent blacks was not entirely equal to Spaniards. Freed people of color enjoyed equal privileges in certain aspects. There are several instances of free Africans buying and selling land as well. Freed Blacks engaged in various entrepreneurial activities, of which trade was a significant aspect. People of African descent with larger economic power were owners of private shops. The new status of a free citizen brought new challenges and conditions that a man of color had to face, such as; need of a job so the person of color could pay tribute, called to serve in the militia to defend the state and was under supervision of the Holy Office. The Crown raised revenues on the freed black population. A decree that compelled former slaves to hire themselves out to reside with Spaniard master was another way to limit freedom of emancipated blacks. Some stayed with the Spanish in order to save money; the large majority successfully defied the rule and began building “joint communities” to support each other. Discrimination policy with big and long-term impact was exclusion of blacks and mulattoes from education. Universities and schools largely run by the church forbade the non-white population to enroll under justification that they are “unworthy of being educated”. Wealthy, skilled, capable mulattoes however made their way through the political ladder and achieved occupation of minor official posts.

In the year 1856, President Ramon Castilla y Marquezado declared the freedom of the Afro-Peruvian ethnic groups and abolished slavery, beginning a new stage in history.

Manumission : the formal act of freeing from slavery.

Afro-Peruvians : are citizens of Peru descended from African and Malagasy slaves who were brought to the New World with the arrival of the conquistadors towards the end of the slave trade.

Entrepreneurial : Characterized by the taking of financial risks in the hope of profit.

Emancipated : freed, as from slavery or bondage.

Mulattoes : A person of mixed white and black ancestry, esp. a person with one white and one black parent.