In this pioneering study of slavery in colonial Ecuador and
southern Colombia--Spain's Kingdom of Quito--Sherwin Bryant argues
that the most fundamental dimension of slavery was governance and
the extension of imperial power. Bryant shows that enslaved black
captives were foundational to sixteenth-century royal claims on the
Americas and elemental to the process of Spanish colonization.
Following enslaved Africans from their arrival at the Caribbean
port of Cartagena through their journey to Quito, Bryant explores
how they lived during their captivity, formed kinships and communal
affinities, and pressed for justice within a slave-based Catholic
sovereign community.
In Cartagena, officials branded African captives with the royal
insignia and gave them a Catholic baptism, marking slaves as
projections of royal authority and majesty. By licensing and
governing Quito's slave trade, the crown claimed sovereignty over
slavery, new territories, natural resources, and markets. By
adjudicating slavery, royal authorities claimed to govern not only
slaves but other colonial subjects as well. Expanding the diaspora
paradigm beyond the Atlantic, Bryant's history of the Afro-Andes in
the early modern world suggests new answers to the question, what
is a slave?