The Sugar Road/el Camino de Azúcar

Travel to Mexico and Peru with Professor Gates as he explores the almost unknown history of the numbers of black people brought to these countries as early as the 16th and 17th centuries.

The sugar industry in Peru

La producción de azúcar ha constituido un importante sector en la economía exportadora del Perú desde el período colonial temprano. Este artículo analiza su evolución, sobre todo tras el inicio de su fase moderna, fechada a partir de mediados del siglo XIX, cuando se modernizó, se consolidó en la región costera septentrional y se concentró en fábricas que operaban con economías de escala. Su prosperidad, contribuyó, además, a la formación de una oligarquía que gobernó el país hasta 1968 y del partido populista, APRA, y su base electoral (el llamado «sólido Norte aprista»). La revolución militar de Velasco Alvarado nacionalizó la industria en la década de 1960 y los cambios estructurales que sufrió posteriormente le condujeron a una grave crisis en los años ochenta que aún no ha superado.

'He outfitted his family in notable decency': Slavery, Honour and Dress in Eighteenth-Century Lima, Peru.

For elite Spaniards in eighteenth-century Lima, elegant clothing provided a language for expressing their wealth, status and honour. They frequently made their way around town in the company of elegantly dressed slave attendants, whose presence underscored their owners' privilege. Yet many slaves found opportunities to function as more than mere canvasses for the expression of their owners' identities. Indeed, for a surprising number of slaves, elegant clothing was a key tool with which they negotiated their status and laid claim to their own definitions of honour. By mapping the study of material culture onto the study of slavery, this paper brings into relief the social meanings that clothing contained for slaves, and highlights the possibilities that urban life contained for the creation of social identities that fell outside the social and colour lines drawn by the colonial state.

Nicomedes Santa Cruz: la formación de un intelectual público afroperuano.

Este artículo reconstruye la trayectoria de Nicomedes Santa Cruz, uno de los más notables intelectuales afroperuanos de todos los tiempos, cuya presencia en la escena pública trascendió el ámbito puramente artístico y se proyectó hacia el terreno de la crítica social y política. Nicomedes Santa Cruz fue un intelectual público que abordó en su multifacético trabajo los temas más candentes de su tiempo: fue un crítico del racismo, el imperialismo y la desigualdad social; apoyó la Revolución Cubana; se comprometió con las reformas del régimen de Juan Velasco Alvarado; y promovió la solidaridad internacional. Asimismo, intentó combinar la apuesta por el socialismo con la reivindicación de la cultura y los derechos de los afrodescendientes.

Afro Colombian Traditions

"The specific ethnic origins of Colombian music are often blurred and complex because the process of mestizaje (the racial intermixing of European, Amerindian, and African peoples) began hybridizing cultural forms early on. As a result, few or no extant musical forms in Colombia are purely African; conversely, only a small portion of Colombian music has not been affected by African culture. Though miscegenation created a triethnic population, mestizaje did not occur uniformly throughout Colombia, and the regional patterns of ethnic distribution established during the colonial period persist, with the highest concentration of African s occurring on the two coasts and along the Cauca and Magdalena river valleys. 

During the colonial period, Spanish influences were strongest in shaping the national character, including the arts. European musical forms including the copla, the contradanza, and the fandango and European musical instruments were brought to Colombia and blended with African and indigenous elements. Concurrently, as a result of social, economic, and religious factors, African culture developed in other regions with varying degrees of independence. For the slaves, Roman Catholic missionaries established cabildos, modeled after the cofradías in Spain but organized ostensibly by tribal origins, as places for religious conversion. In several areas, slaves rebelled and fled into the jungle, establishing independent communities. Havens for people of West African tribal origins, these communities often became microcosmic reconstructions of pan-African society and cultural practices."