Review: Afro-Latino Voices : Narratives from the Early Modern Ibero-Atlantic World, 1550-1812

Enslaved Black women were strong voices as they sought to improve their position in the Iberian colonial world.  In their compilation McKnight and Garofalo have translated texts that were written by or for Blacks mostly for a European audience . What strikes me is the degree in which their arguments and messages fit into the European sense of values.  And while these women saw themselves differently from Europeans and European descendants, they did not see themselves as less human.

In Part 1 an independent African Queen who had previously both quarreled with and cooperated with the Portuguese Crown wrote to suggest a cessation of hostilities.  While referring to soldiers that her army captured she writes “And if some of the lords who have settled here have incurred heavy debts and have put in the mind of Your Honor and the governor that you should wage war in order to get out of debt, they are welcome to do so, but I do not want to make war with the captain.” [43] (emphasis mine).  This Crown-to-Crown note shows no hint of deference or insecurity by African women who converted to the European religion.

Also in Part 1, and at the other end of the spectrum, a “swarthy black” woman who lived in Spain and whose husband was stationed in the Caribbean serving the crown wrote a straightforward, unambiguous, letter to her sovereign requesting that she be allowed to travel and live with him.  There was no sense that her color would be an issue with the request once she made it clear that she was married and her entire family was free.  

An illustrative example of both these women’s perception of self-worth is in Part 4 where a free black Woman petitions the Crown for relief from her abusive husband.  It appears that her husband is a slave, and her husband had purchased her freedom sometime earlier.  The woman states in her petition that “… I have, of course, been nominally his wife, but in reality I have only been treated as a slave …” This indignation shows that her idea of slavery is a factor of money and power, not the color of her skin.   Later in the petition she implicitly condones the idea of slavery by stating “ … his actions have been of the kind that a bad servant [slave?] deserves.”[293]

All of the above were women, one in Africa, one in Spain, and one in the new world.  Their perceptions and attitudes can be summed using the example of a woman enslaved in Spanish South America who asked to remain with her husband and not be sold to a distant master.  Using the arguments of doctrine to remain with her enslaved husband she argued that she is “…commanded by divine and human law…”[297] to remain with her husband; that she is obligated to “… fulfill our union as our state requires [297]; and that she accepts her and her husband’s condition of slavery “Each will serve his own master, as Providence has destined for us, with which I am in agreement”[297].     These are powerful, clever, and convincing arguments.  All four examples are instances of confident woman who define their value not by the color of their skin, or even the circumstance of their freedom, but by their self-perceived worth.

McKnight, Kathryn Joy, and Leo Garofalo. Afro-Latino Voices : Narratives from the Early Modern Ibero-Atlantic World, 1550-1812. Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Pub., 2009.