IDENTIDADES 1 ENGLISH IDENTIDADES 8 ENGLISH | Page 48

H

istory and Afro-Peruvian
women
The reflection on the place
of the Afro-Peruvian women in their
country and their invisible participation
in the nation building requires the analysis of three main variables: gender,
sexuality, and ethnicity. The history of
Peru does not show all the historical
scenes of the African population, much
less with regard to women. The history
of the black population is summarized
in the chapter "Slavery in Peru," which
has a maximum of two sessions (two
hours each) in schools. The first researches on Afro-Peruvian population
addressed issues such as agriculture and

slavery, functions and everyday life of
the slaves in the plantations of the coast,
and interethnic relations, marriages,
violence between masters and slaves,
and the social conditions. The major
research work was done by Carlos
Alberto Romero (1904), Arturo Jiménez
Borja (1939), Roberto Mac-Lean and
Estenós (1947, 1948) and especially
Fernando Romero (1935 to 1994). In
the 1980s, the pioneer Christine Hünefeldt started researching the African
slave women. Since 1528 Africans
slaves began to arrive in Perú. One third
were women. The bulk came from the
West Coast of Africa, around the rivers
of Guinea.

"After the establishment of the Viceroyalty and due to the significant demographic
decline of the indigenous population, the Spaniards resorted to massive importation of
slaves, especially for agricultural work at the coast; however, a significant number of
them were used for domestic work. Thus, about half of the blacks brought to Peru lived
in Lima around 1550."1
The coexistence between Indian, Spanish and African populations affected the
rapid development and growth of cultural and racial miscegenation throughout the colonial period. The society was
structured on the basis of ethnicity. For
Hünefeldt2, the everyday life of slave
women in the colony takes place in
three dimensions: as domestic servants,
as day laborer on the street with residence in the house of their masters, and
as salaried woman living outside. In the
late eighteenth century, slave women
could be found working outside and
being monitored by their masters, who
subjected them to contribute with fixed
amount of their wages. Slave women
could have access to handicrafts mainly
developed by “subjects of caste”,
whether free or slaves. The salaried
slave woman was frequent, but with
lesser wage than in the case of men. The
former usually did housework. These
efforts led to the situation that mulattoes, black, zambas and others, whether
free or slaves, were seen closely related

to everyday life with their owners and
often made it possible to have halfbreed descendants. Domestically it also
led to conflict situations, especially in
the relationships with sexual component
derived from the very presence of
young slaves under the same roof of the
master. According to the colonial discourse, the "caste" women had no
qualms about committing shameful
actions. This contributed to spread the
imaginary that assigned to color women
some kind of unrestrictive sexuality,
associated even to immorality. Such
actions should be seen as mechanisms
that the women of "caste" used to gain
the benefits of freedom granted by their
masters. The Spanish Crown was again
the local custom of interethnic marriages. The Catholic Church respected the
freedom of choice of the couple at least
until the Pragmatic Sanction of 1776.
However, it never saw with good eyes
the connection between Indians and
Blacks. The fear of such a mix was
latent even in the "Spanish Republic".

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