The Other Slavery (54 page)

10. For excellent discussions of slavery and gender in the Mediterranean, see Sally McKee, “Slavery,” in Judith M. Bennett and Ruth Mazo Karras, eds.,
The Oxford Handbook of Women and Gender in Medieval Europe
(New York: Oxford University Press, 2013), 281–294; Sally McKee, “Domestic Slavery in Renaissance Italy,”
Slavery and Abolition
29:3 (September 2008), 305–326; Aurelia Martín Casares,
La esclavitud en la Granada del siglo XVI: Género, raza y religión
(Granada: Universidad de Granada y Diputación Provincial de Granada, 2000); and António de Almeida Mendes, “Child Slaves in the Early North Atlantic Trade in the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries,” in Gwyn Campbell, Suzanne Miers, and Joseph C. Miller, eds.,
Children in Slavery Through the Ages
(Athens: Ohio University Press, 2009), 19–34.

11. Price information for the Caribbean comes from Mira Caballos,
El indio antillano,
288–289. For Central America, see Sherman,
Forced Native Labor,
70; for Chile, see Jara,
Guerra y sociedad en Chile,
143, 147; and for New Mexico, see
The Official Correspondence of James S. Calhoun,
162.

12. See, for example, “Pleito fiscal: Catalina de Olvera,” Santa Olalla, December 9, 1551, to May 4, 1552, AGI, Justicia, 1179, N. 1, R. 2. An Indian from Pánuco named Luis was taken when he was only eleven and transported to Spain, where he remained for about twenty-five years before he mustered enough courage to sue his master, Nuño de Guzmán, the notorious slaver and former governor of Pánuco. See
real cédula
(royal order or decree), Valladolid, June 30, 1549, “Ejecutoria del pleito de Nuño de Guzmán,” AGI, Patronato, 281, N. 1, R. 3.

13. See Gaspar’s testimony in the trial against his master, Bartolomé Vallejo, Seville, December 12, 1561, “Pleito fiscal: Bartolomé Vallejo,” AGI, Justicia, 856, N. 2.

14. Aurelia Martín Casares’s excellent discussion about the scholarly stereotypes of enslavement being passed from one generation to the next applies no less to Indians than to Africans. Martín Casares,
La esclavitud en la Granada del siglo XVI,
26–32.

15. Several documents survive about this story. The most important are those from the trial resulting from Pedro’s later lawsuit to regain his own freedom and that of María’s children, Ciudad Rodrigo, 1544, “Autos Fiscales, Mexico,” AGI, Justicia, 199; and real cédula, n.p., August 7, 1544, “Libertad de ciertos indios residentes en España,” AGI, Patronato, 231, N. 1, R. 6. See also real cédula, Valladolid, July 18, 1544, “Hijos y testamento de Juan Marques,” AGI, Indiferente, 423, L. 20, F. 775v–776r; and real cédula, Valladolid, April 7, 1544, “Averiguación sobre los descendientes de Juan Márquez,” AGI, Indiferente, 423, L. 20, F. 747v–748v.

16. On masters and concubines/slaves in the wider Mediterranean world, see McKee, “Slavery”; Sally McKee, “Inherited Status and Slavery in Late Medieval Italy and Venetian Crete,”
Past and Present
182:1 (February 2004), 31–53; and Yaron Ben-Naeh,
“Blond, Tall, with Honey-Colored Eyes: Jewish Ownership of Slaves in the Ottoman Empire,”
Jewish History
20:3/4 (2006), 315–332.

17. The lengthy trial lasted for the better part of 1544 and required the intervention of two
fiscales,
one member of the Council of the Indies, and four royal decrees bearing the king’s signature to establish beyond a shadow of a doubt that Pedro and the children were “free and not subject to any servitude.” See “Real cédula a las justicias de estos reinos y de Indias declarando libre a un indio, Juan, hijo de Juan Marques y de María, india de Nueva España,” Valladolid, August 29, 1544, AGI, Indiferente, 423, L. 20, F. 789r–789v; “Real cédula a las justicias de estos reinos y de Indias declarando libre a una india, Luisa, hija de Juan Marques y de María, india de Nueva España,” Valladolid, August 29, 1544, AGI, Indiferente, 423, L. 20, F. 787r–788r; “Real cédula a las justicias de estos reinos y de Indias declarando libre a una india, Catalina, hija de Juan Marques y de María, india de Nueva España,” Valladolid, August 29, 1544, AGI, Indiferente, 423, L. 20, F. 788r–788v; and “Real cédula a los alcaldes mayores y ordinarios de la villa de Dueñas para que quiten a Isabel de Herrera, viuda de Juan Marques, un indio, Juan hijo de este, a quien después de dado por libre, quiere vender como esclavo,” Valladolid, October 13, 1544, AGI, Indiferente, 423, L. 20, F. 802r–802v.

18. Francisco Sarmiento on behalf of Catalina Hernández and her sisters, all children of Beatriz Hernández Seville, 1573–1574, “Pleito fiscal: Juan Cansino,” AGI, Justicia, 908, N. 1; available online at PARES,
http://pares.mcu.es/
. Nancy van Deusen addresses this case in
Global Indios,
chap. 1.

19. Nancy van Deusen has shown very well how sixteenth-century litigants developed strategies to create identities, and this case was no exception. See van Deusen, “Seeing
Indios
in Sixteenth-Century Castile,” 205–234.

20. Real cédula, Valladolid, August 8, 1544, AGI, Indiferente, 423, L. 20, F. 781r–781v; real cédula, Madrid, February 23, 1552, AGI, Justicia, 831, N. 6, and Patronato, 281, N. 2, R. 95; and real cédula, Madrid, December 9, 1551, AGI, Justicia, 1179, N. 1, R. 2, respectively. Nancy van Deusen notes that an astounding ninety-five percent of indigenous litigants whose cases reached completion were freed. She also notes that such a high percentage may be deceiving, as there were hundreds of Indians who did not pursue their freedom through court proceedings. Van Deusen,
Global Indios,
23.

21. See Guzmán’s request, Valladolid, March 23, 1550, “Receptoría pedida por Nuño de Guzmán,” AGI, Patronato, 280, N. 2, R. 137; royal order, Valladolid, January 21, 1551, AGI, Indiferente, 424, L. 22, F. 261v; and royal order, Valladolid, January 21, 1551, “Ejecutoria del pleito de Nuño de Guzmán,” AGI, Patronato, 281, N. 1, R. 3. Guzmán was not the only owner to argue that slaves deserved no wages. In a very similar case, Catalina de Olvera, owner of an Indian slave named Ynés, claimed that she did not profit from Ynés, but rather Ynés profited from her. Olvera’s attorney noted that she had to spend a great deal of money on Ynés “because after Ynés gave birth many illnesses afflicted her, and her legs became swollen each year, and Olvera had to seek medical help [for her].” “Pleito fiscal: Catalina de Olvera.”

22. Esteban Mira Caballos, “De esclavos a siervos: Amerindios en España tras las Leyes Nuevas de 1542,”
Revista de Historia de América
140 (January–June 2009), 95–110.

23. Silvio Zavala has more than enough sources to document the scope of Indian slavery in central Mexico during the first half of the sixteenth century. See Zavala,
Los es-clavos indios en Nueva España
(Mexico City: El Colegio Nacional, 1968). Virtually all early chronicles also contain relevant passages. The quotes are from ibid., 1.

24. The quote is from Fray Diego Durán,
History of the Indies of New Spain
(Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1994), 561. The earliest encomienda in Mexico often involved “personal services” furnished to the encomendero in addition to products. The crown had some success in limiting this practice in central Mexico but not in other parts, as we will see in
chapter 3
. Two classic works on the functioning of encomiendas in early Mexico are Lesley Simpson,
The Encomienda in New Spain: The Beginning of Spanish Mexico
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1966); and Charles Gibson,
The Aztecs Under the Spanish: A History
of the Indians of the Valley of Mexico
(Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1976).

25. The quote is from Bernal Díaz,
Historia verdadera,
cited in Zavala,
Los esclavos indios en Nueva España,
78.

26. Toribio de Benavente,
Historia de los indios de la Nueva España
(Mexico City: Porrúa, 1973), 92. For Indian slave estimates based on royal accounts, see the excellent work by Jean-Pierre Berthe, “Aspectos de la esclavitud de los indios en la Nueva España durante la primera mitad del siglo XVI,” in
Estudios de Historia de la Nueva España de Sevilla a Manila
(Guadalajara: Universidad de Guadalajara, 1994), 67.

27. On pre-contact slavery, see Toribio de Motolinía,
Memoriales de Fray Toribio de Motolinía
(Mexico City: Casa del Editor, 1903), especially part 2, chap. 20, “Que trata el modo y manera que estos naturales tenían de hacer esclavos, y de la servidumbre a que los esclavos eran obligados,” and chap. 21, “En el cual acaba la materia de los esclavos y se declara las condiciones de su servidumbre y cúales se podían vender y cuáles no”; Bernardino de Sahagún,
Historia general de las cosas de Nueva España
(Mexico City: Porrúa, 1956), passim; and Rushforth,
Bonds of Alliance,
passim. For an excellent discussion of why captivity practices among early Native American societies were tantamount to slavery, see Santos-Granero,
Vital Enemies,
conclusion. On the practice of Indian slavery and slave prices after contact, see Zavala,
Los esclavos indios en Nueva España,
chaps. 1 and 2.

28. These two diverging estimates are well known to scholars, including Berthe, “Aspectos de la esclavitud de los indios,” 66–67, and Livi Bacci,
Conquest,
chap. 2. One can get a sense of the number of Indian slaves by the fact that the town of Tlaxcala alone manumitted some twenty thousand Indian slaves just in 1537. See Charles Gibson,
Tlaxcala in the Sixteenth Century
(Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1952), 144.

29. Agreement to form a company between Fernando Alonso and Nicolás López de Palacios Rubio, Mexico City, February 27, 1528, Acervo Histórico del Archivo General de Notarias del Distrito Federal (hereafter cited as AHAGNDF), Notary No. 1, escribano público Juan Fernández del Castillo, vol. 54, file 372, fols. 297–298; sale by Pedro González Nájera in favor of Antón de Carmona, Mexico City, June 3, 1528, AHAGNDF, Notary No. 1, escribano público Juan Fernández del Castillo, vol. 54, file 494, fols. 383v–384; contract between Pedro de Villalobos and Álvaro Maldonado, Mexico City, August 27, 1525, AHAGNDF, Notary No. 1, escribano público Juan
Fernández del Castillo, vol. 52, file 17, fols. 33v–35; special power of attorney given by Juan Domínguez to Alonso Martín de Jerez to sell sixty Indian slaves sent to the mines of Zacatula, Mexico City, February 19, 1528, AHAGNDF, Notary No. 1, escribano público Juan Fernández del Castillo, vol. 54, file 212, fols. 346–347; sale by Martín Vázquez in favor of Alonso García, Mexico City, September 30, 1528, AHAGNDF, Notary No. 1, escribano público Juan Fernández del Castillo, vol. 54, file 715, fols. 554v–555.

30. Contract to create a company between Pedro de Sepúlveda and Martín Sánchez, Mexico City, October 19, 1528, AHAGNDF, Notary No. 1, escribano público Juan Fernández del Castillo, vol. 54, file 816, fols. 633r–633v; other notarial records cited in previous note.

31. Sale by Melchor Vázquez to Hernán Cortés, Mexico City, November 20, 1536, AHAGNDF, Notary No. 1, escribano real Martín de Castro, vol. 33, file 212, fols. 420–423; Hernán Cortés recognizes a debt owed to Juan de Cuevas, Mexico City, November 20, 1536, AHAGNDF, Notary No. 1, escribano real Martín de Castro, vol. 33, file 214, fols. 426–428. Four days later, Cortés formed a partnership with the royal treasurer Alonso de Sosa to work yet another mine in the area, and each partner agreed to provide “all Indian and black slaves that were needed.” Contract between Hernán Cortés and Alonso de Sosa, Mexico City, November 24, 1536, AHAGNDF, Notary No. 1, escribano real Martín de Castro, vol. 33, file 225, fols. 449–451. Cortés was also the principal mine owner in Taxco. See Robert S. Haskett, “‘Our Suffering with the Taxco Tribute’: Involuntary Mine Labor and Indigenous Society in Central New Spain,”
Hispanic American Historical Review
71:3 (August 1991), 447–475; Jean-Pierre Berthe, “Las minas de oro del Marqués del Valle en Tehuantepec, 1540–1547,” in
Estudios de Historia de la Nueva España de Sevilla a Manila
(Guadalajara: Universidad de Guadalajara, 1994)
,
15–24; and Zavala,
Los esclavos indios en Nueva España,
passim. For a fascinating look at how encomienda Indians were forced to support the mining enterprise from the Indian point of view, see Thomas Calvo, Eustaquio Celestino, Magdalena Gómez, Jean Meyer, and Ricardo Xochitemol,
Xalisco: La voz de un pueblo en el siglo XVI
(Mexico City: CIESAS, 1993), 49–108; and Ida Altman,
The War for Mexico’s West: Indians and Spaniards in New Galicia, 1524–1550
(Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2010), chap. 3.

32. “Información hecha en la ciudad de México sobre la libertad de los indios,” Mexico City, September 6, 1539, AGI, Justicia, 1029. This struggle over Indian slavery took shape in the 1530s as two diffuse and loosely organized groups for and against it coalesced around the Spanish court. Their intense lobbying efforts and conflicting agendas resulted in contradictory royal decrees first forbidding Indian slavery (1528 and 1530), then reinstituting it with some qualifications (1531), and finally allowing it more broadly (1534). “We cannot comprehend what may have moved your royal Council [of the Indies] into such a cruel decision,” complained a group of Mexican Franciscans to the Spanish emperor, “nor do we understand what reasons may have confounded the sage men who make up your illustrious Council.” Franciscan friars of Mexico to the emperor, Mexico City, July 31, 1533, in Mariano Cuevas, ed.,
Documentos inéditos del siglo XVI para la historia de México
(Mexico City: Porrúa, 1975), 14–15.

33. For the Peruvian case, see James Lockhart,
Spanish Peru, 1532–1560
(Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1994), 17, 23, 187; and Lewis Hanke,
The Struggle for Justice in the Conquest of America
(Dallas: Southern Methodist University Press, 2002), 96. For Mexico, see Zavala,
Los esclavos indios en Nueva España,
chap. 2; A. S. Aiton,
Antonio de Mendoza: First Viceroy of New Spain
(Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1927), 96–98; and Simpson,
The Encomienda in New Spain,
130–135.