The Empire of Necessity (55 page)

23. CONVICTION

  
1
. Delano,
Narrative
, p. 328.

  
2
. Darwin,
Journal of Researches
, vol. 2, pp. 46–47.

  
3
. Guillermo I. Castillo-Feliú,
Culture and Customs of Chile
, Westport: Greenwood, 2000, p. 27; Sergio Villalobos,
Tradición y reforma en 1810
, Santiago: RIL Editores, 2006, p. 199; Diego Barros Arana,
Historia general de Chile,
Santiago: Editorial Universitaria, 2002, vol. 8, p. 15; “Observaciones sobre los serviles anarquistas de Córdova de la Plata,”
Década Araucana
, July 12, 1825, p. 5.

  
4
. AGP (Mendoza), Censo parroquial mes de setiembre de 1777, folder 28, document 2.

  
5
. Moulton,
Concise Extract
, p. 83. Rozas would later befriend another American, Procopio Pollock, a freemason from Philadelphia and ship surgeon on the
Warren
who spread republicanism through his clandestine
Gazeta de Procopio
, which translated revolutionary news and propaganda into Spanish.

  
6
. Here, “war” is translated from “
hiceron armas contra los Americanos
.”

  
7
. The most common crimes that would get a convict sent to Valdivia were desertion, theft, murder, and vagrancy, with the prison population split roughly between Spaniards and mestizos, with a few Indians. In early 1804, there were no Africans or African descendants among the population. See ANC (Santiago), Real Audiencia, vol. 2470 (“Relación que manifiesta los desterrados que se hallan en las obras de plaza, y presidio de Valdivia”).

  
8
. AGC (Santiago), Capitanía General, vol. 873 (“Expediente formado ante la Intendencia de Concepción relativo a la construcción de un tabladillo en el Cuartel de Dragones de Concepción”).

  
9
. Hernán San Martín,
Nosotros los Chilenos
, Santiago: Editora Austral, 1970, p. 251.

10
. Barros Arana,
Historia general
, vol. 8, p. 78, for
Bostonés.

11
. ANC (Santiago), Contaduría Mayor, 1st ser., vol. 1634, ff. 334–335.

INTERLUDE: THE MACHINERY OF CIVILIZATION

1
. Newton Arvin,
Melville
, New York: Sloane, 1950, p. 180, for “wild egoism.”

2
. Jeremy Harding, “Call Me Ahab,”
London Review of Books
, October 31, 2002.

24. LIMA, OR THE LAW OF GENERAL AVERAGE

  
1
. For the descriptions of Callao, see George Peck,
Melbourne, and the Chincha Islands, with Sketches of Lima, and a Voyage Round the World
, New York: Scribner, 1854, pp. 142–145; Gilbert Farquhar Mathison,
Narrative of a Visit to Brazil, Chile, Peru, and the Sandwich Islands
, London: Bentley, 1825; Proctor,
Narrative of a Journey
, William Bennet Stevenson,
Historical and Descriptive Narrative of Twenty Years’ Residence in South America
, London: Longman, 1829.

  
2
. Charles Walker,
Shaky Colonialism: The 1746 Earthquake-Tsunami in Lima, Peru, and Its Long Aftermath
, Durham: Duke University Press, 2008, p. 10.

  
3
. Hugh Salvin,
Journal Written on Board of His Majesty’s Ship Cambridge, from January, 1824, to May, 1827
, Newcastle: Walker, 1829, p. 30. Salvin here perhaps mistakenly attributes the skeletons as belonging to recent victims of royalist forces during the war for independence, since what he describes is nearly identical to what Delano witnessed years before that war.

  
4
. Delano,
Narrative
, pp. 487–88.

  
5
. Peck,
Melbourne
, p. 150.

  
6
. Delano,
Narrative
, p. 494.

  
7
. Bernabé Cobo,
Historia de la fundación de Lima
, Lima: Imprenta Liberal, 1882, p. 56.

  
8
. Delano,
Narrative
, p. 494.

  
9
. AGN (Lima), Real Hacienda Caja Real, legajo 1931, cuaderno 1630, for the dress of
los negros del rey.

10
. For months, Cerreño had been presumed dead and his ship lost; his creditors had filed papers to recover their investment through a sort of royal insurance policy. See AGN (Lima), signatura GO-BI 2, legajo 91, expediente 775.

11
. For claims made on Aranda’s cargo by his father-in-law, Isidro Maza, and his wife, Carmen Maza, see AGP (Mendoza), notary records, José de Porto y Mariño, no. 152, ff. 46–47 (“Transcripción del poder de don Isidro Sainz de la Maza”), and ff. 91v–92v (“Transcripción del poder del 27 de julio de 1805 de doña María del Carmen Maza”). For Nonell, see AGN (Buenos Aires), notary records, Inocencio Agrelo, no. 6, ff. 387–88 (“Poder de Don Juan de Nonell a favor de Don Antonio de Estapar”); AGN (Lima), notary records, José Escudero de Sicilia, no. 214, ff. 660–63, 715v–719, 1177v, 1182. For Cerreño’s debt, see AGN (Lima), notary records, José Escudero de Sicilia, no. 214, ff. 660–63, 715v–719, 1048r–1949r, 1177v; AGN (Lima) TC-GO 2, legajo 13, expediente 612 (“José Escudero de Sicilia, escribano mayor del Real Tribunal del Consulado de Lima solicita la cancelación de cantidad de pesos por las costas obradas en los autos de la avería gruesa que sufrió la fragata Trial, por la sublevación de una partida de negros”); and AGN (Lima), TC-JU, legajo 182, expediente 519 (“Ante el Real Tribunal del Consulado de Lima”).

12
. Michael Lobban, “Slavery, Insurance, and the Law,”
Journal of Legal History
28 (December 2007): 320–22; Tim Armstrong, “Slavery, Insurance, and Sacrifice in the Black Atlantic,” in
Sea Changes: Historicizing the Ocean
, ed. Bernhard Klein and Gesa Mackenthun, New York: Routledge, 2004.

13
. AGN (Lima), Real Hacienda, legajo 1033, cuarderno 1632 1805.

14
. Orlando Patterson,
Slavery and Social Death: A Comparative Study
, Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1982, pp. 5, 331. Many of these sales are in AGN (Lima), notary records, Manuel Malarin, no. 390. See especially ff. 555, 571, 574, 620, 667, 673. See also AGN (Lima), Cabildo-Causas Civiles (CA-JO 1), legajo 158, expediente 2994; legajo 153, expediente 280; and legajo 154, expediente 2848.

25. THE LUCKY ONE

  
1
. AGN (Lima), TC-JU 1, legajo 182, expediente 519 (“Autos seguidos por Miguel de Monrreal, capitán y ex maestre de la fragata ‘Trial’”) September 25, 1806; AGN (Lima), Real Hacienda, legajo 1036, expediente 1635.

  
2
. AGN (Lima), Real Audiencia, Tierras y Haciendas, legajo 21, cuaderno 133, f. 44 (“Testimonio del Inventario de la Hacienda de Humaya”), and AGN (Lima), signatura C-13, legajo 25, expediente 31 (“La Administración e Intendencia de Temporalidades con Benito Cerreño”). See also AA (Lima), Parroquia del Sagrario (Catedral): Libros de Matrimonios, no. 11 (1785–1846) f. 125; AA (Lima), Parroquia del Sagrario, Indice de Pliegos Matrimoniales, no. 4 (1791–1814), April 21, 1805, f. 1v.

  
3
. In 1823, the Senate of an independent Chile voted unanimously to immediately abolish slavery, with no apprenticeship period or compensation paid to slaveholders. The move, writes Robin Blackburn, was “more radical” than the gradual, court-brokered abolition that had by then taken place in the states north of the Mason-Dixon Line in the United States (Blackburn,
The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery, 1776–1848
, London: Verso, 1988, p. 358). Chattel slavery in Chile was not as deeply rooted an institution as it was in Peru, Brazil, or even Argentina, where it took longer to abolish. There were between ten and twelve thousand Africans or people of African descent in Chile around this time, about half of whom were slaves; most lived in and around Santiago or farther north. In a southern city like Concepción, it was Indians who tended to be enslaved. See Simon Collier and William F. Slater,
A History of Chile, 1808–2002
, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004, p. 42. For Rozas’s importance as a jurist, see Fernando Campos Harriet, “Don Juan Martínez de Rozas, jurista de los finales del periodo indiano,”
VII Congreso del Instituto Internacional de Historia del Derecho Indiano, Buenos Aires, 1 al 6 de agosto de 1983
, Buenos Aires: Pontifica Universidad Católica, 1984.

  
4
. Peter Blanchard,
Under the Flag of Freedom: Slave Soldiers and the Wars of Independence in Spanish South America
, Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2008, pp. 92–97, 103.

  
5
. Diego Barros Arana,
Historia general de Chile
, vol. 9, Santiago: Editorial Universitaria, 2002, pp. 85–88;
Memorias, Diarios y Crónicas
, vol. 2, ed. Felix Denegri Luna, Lima: Comisión nacional del sesquicentenario de la Independencia del Peru, 1975, p. 589. “James Paroissien, anotaciones para un diario” (August 18, 1820–March 19, 1821),
Colección de obras y documentos para la historia argentina: Guerra de la independencia
, vol. 17, part 1, Buenos Aires: Senado de la Nación, 1963, p. 32.

  
6
. Basil Hall,
Extracts from a Journal Written on the Coasts of Chili, Peru, and Mexico, in the Years 1820, 1821, 1822,
vol. 1, London: Constable and Co., 1824, p. 90.

  
7
. Hall,
Extracts
, pp. 219–20.

  
8
. Centro de Estudios Militares del Perú, Sección Archivos y Catálogos, tomo 1: 1821–23, legajo 2, document 6; legajo 17, document 274;
Gaceta de Gobierno de Lima
, January 22, 1817.

  
9
. Robert Maclean y Estenós,
Sociologia Peruana
, Lima: Librería Gil, 1942, p. 154; AGN (Lima), notary records, Pedro Seminario, no. 776, f. 181 (April 17, 1852).

10
. William Edward Gardner,
The Coffin Saga: Nantucket’s Story, from Settlement to Summer Visitors
, Cambridge: Riverside Press, 1949, p. 168.

26. UNDISTRIBUTED

  
1
. Houghton Library, Harvard University, “Perseverance (Ship). Logbook, 27 Jan–24 Jul 1807” (MS Am 465.5).

  
2
. Notice of the commendation was reprinted in newspapers throughout the Northeast. See, for example, the
Portsmouth Oracle
, August 22, 1807, and the
United States Gazette
, August 21, 1807.

  
3
. Records in the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court in MA (Boston) show that Delano began defaulting on his debt in 1797. He owed at least $500 to three men. See Turner V. Delano, Supreme Judicial Court for Plymouth Counter, May term 1799, Record Book Summary. See also DRHS, Delano Papers, series 3, box 2, folder 2, “Summons for Amasa Delano to appear in Plymouth Court of Common Pleas,” February 9, 1799; “Summons for Amasa Delano to appear in Plymouth Court of Common Pleas,” July 7, 1799; “Martin Bicker and Others Recover Damages from Amasa Delano, April 3, 1798; “Bond of Arbitration between Amasa Delano and Timothy Parsons to Settle Dispute,” February 25, 1798. One debt suit involved Sally Rutter, a woman whom he had never met who claimed to be the rightful executrix of a will of James Blake, who had sailed on the
Perseverance
’s second voyage. Blake died before returning to the United States but Rutter said she had in her possession a receipt Delano had given him in Canton for the amount of $1,608. Blake and his bosom mate, Phineas Trowbridge, had been exceptionally troublesome to the Delano brothers. They were “ever plotting,” according to testimony given by Delano’s first mate. Left on Más Afuera to hunt seals, they lived “only them two together” and conspired to rob Delano out of thousands of dollars’ worth of skins. Rutter also alleged that, before sailing, Delano had borrowed from Blake $1,400 as seed money for the voyage, promising a return of $28,000 upon completion of the trip. The Court of Common Pleas ordered Delano to pay Rutter $2,198.05, plus court fees of $32.60, and the decision was upheld by the Supreme Court on appeal. There is no evidence that Delano satisfied the judgment; that he failed to appear at the final hearing meant he was likely arrested. See MA (Boston), Judicial Archives, “Supreme Judicial Court for Suffolk County, Amaso Delano, in Review v. John & Sally Rutter, Executors of the Estate of James Blake,” file papers, docket no. 348. For debt in Boston, see Port Society of Boston and Its Vicinity,
Report of the Managers of the Port Society of the City of Boston and Its Vicinity
, Boston: H. Eastburn, 1836, p. 13; Charles Sellers,
The Market Revolution
, New York: Oxford University Press, 1992, p. 87.