1520 to 1810 · Datasetspan
Cartagena and Portobelo receive the Spanish mainland's captives
›Read the full entryClose
The Spanish possessions on the American mainland, from New Granada down through Peru, drew their enslaved labour overwhelmingly from West Central Africa between 1520 and 1810. The ships landed at two ports. Cartagena, on the Caribbean coast of what is now Colombia, and Portobelo, on the isthmus of Panama, were the licensed points of entry, and from there people were marched or shipped inland to the gold workings of the Choco, to the silver districts, to the ranches and the mills. Portuguese and Spanish vessels carried the traffic at first, since the asiento contracts were held in Lisbon and Seville. Dutch and later British merchants came in as the volumes rose. The consequence is visible now. The African-descended populations of the Colombian Pacific coast and of coastal Peru trace back mainly to Kongo and Angola, and their drumming and burial practices preserve elements that scholars can match to particular West Central African traditions.
A code like HT-WIB-000044 is a bates number. It marks one page of our stamped scan of the book, so the same page can be found again by anyone working from the same copy. Open one to see every entry drawn from that page.