Spain also had slaves. And some had their faces branded with iron.

Indians are taken aboard ships to be traded as slaves in Seville. Engraving by Theodor de Bry from 1590. DeAgostini (Getty Images)DEA/M. SEEMULLER (GETTY IMAGES)

There were two large markets where indigenous people were sold, Seville and Lisbon, which had its logic since, since the late fifteenth century, they were the two great peninsular slave centers. Seville had absolute primacy because it held for more than two centuries the monopoly of colonial trade, becoming "port and gateway to the Indies". Therefore, it was natural, as the port of arrival of ships from the New World, that most of them should arrive there. In fact, in the forties there must have been around two hundred indigenous people in this capital, most of them captives. In addition, Portuguese merchants arrived in the capital of Seville, by sea or land, through Portugal, to sell slaves of color, but also a significant number of indigenous people from Brazil and the East Indies. In the sixteenth century is documented in Seville the sale of 67 slaves from the Portuguese colonies, of which at least seven were originally from Brazil.

More information

Slaves who bought their own freedom

Years later, and more precisely from the thirties, the legislation against their trafficking became so severe that the indigenous slave market moved to the capital of the neighboring Portuguese kingdom, specifically to Lisbon. (...) The sending of Brazilians to Portugal was maintained at least until 1690, when the Crown was consulted about the fate of five natives from Pernambuco who had been sent. However, the first Brazilian slave sold in Seville was in 1509 and the last documented in 1570, so it is likely that their traffic was considerably reduced, although they continued to arrive, especially from the East Indies. (...)

There were even small traffickers in many Spanish towns who were dedicated to buying them in the Portuguese capital and then selling them in different Spanish cities. This was the case of Alonso Sánchez Carretero, a resident of the city of Baeza, who went to Lisbon to acquire fifteen indigenous people, because his job was "to buy and sell slaves". Thus, even in the market of Valencia it was sold, already in 1509, to a Brazilian, while at the end of 1516 another 85 arrived for sale, all of them from the Portuguese colony.

Some arrived already shoeed, as was the case of Juan de Oliveros and Beatriz, owned by María Ochoa, who, in addition, alleged it as evident proof of their servile situation. And those who arrived without a mark, tried to shoe them in the Peninsula itself for the same reason: because it was the best way to give legality to their situation. In fact, in almost every trial the mark with the real iron was alleged as irrefutable proof of his status as a captive. Thus, in the process for the freedom of a native, owned by a certain Cosme de Mandujana, the witnesses alleged that just the fact of being marked with the iron of his majesty "suffices by title, because that was how it had been used and accustomed after those parts were discovered".

There are countless cases that we know of aborigines who arrived in Spain without a mark of slavery and who were shoeed later. This happened to Catalina Hernández, daughter of Beatriz, whose owner, Juan Cansino, was alderman of the town of Carmona and belonged to one of the families that arrived at the place after its occupation by the Christians and, therefore, of the most influential in the town. Catalina declared that she had been shoeed in the face, "so that they could sell it, because nobody wanted to buy it." And given the influence of Juan Cansino, he simply ordered "one who lives next to the butcher's shop" to mark her as a slave. After several years of lawsuits in the courts and two sentences against it, in 1574, the Council of the Indies released Catherine, her brothers and her ten-year-old daughter. Of course, it was too late for his mother, Beatrice, who had died without enjoying the harvest of freedom.

Likewise, Captain Martín de Prado shoeed Pedro in the face with a C because he knew that he intended to request his savings. We even know the incident of another Indian who tried to escape the unjust servitude that his owner, Doña Inés Carrillo, wanted to impose on him. When she knew that she wanted to claim her freedom, she marked it in the face and, not content with that, she placed "an iron ring to the neck sculpted in it some letters that say slave of Inés Carrillo, neighbor of Seville, to the Basketry". This characteristic ring, which was relatively frequent among slaves of color, was also carried by another aborigine, named Francisco, because it was ordered by Juan de Ontiveros when he acquired it. Even so, this option was not the most dramatic: we know that an aboriginal that Gerónimo Delcia sold in Seville to Diego Hernández Farfán had a mark on his face that could be read: slave of Juan Romero, December 7, 1554. It seems plausible the hypothesis that has been raised recently around a higher incidence of ironwork among male slaves originating in the Indies and Berbers for a greater probability of escape, since the color of the skin did not betray its servile origin. We know of some cases of escape of indigenous people in the Iberian Peninsula. To give just one example, on December 22, 1530, Francisco de Cazalla, canon of the church of the city of Santo Domingo, shelf in Seville gave power to Francisco Hernández to search for and find his escaped Indian, in Lebrija or elsewhere.

For a more effective location, he gave him the detailed description of it: "His name was Francisco, he was fifteen years old, he wore a black suit and he was shoeed on his face with an iron of the king in his cheek and under the beço some letters that say of Canon Cazalla". These marks on the face, sealed by fire, were quite frequently applied to slaves in Spain at the time. Since indigenous slavery was limited from an early age, the owners, who in many cases had legally purchased their slaves, sought to secure their investment by shoeing them. Faced with this situation, the Crown prohibited such a practice by a provision of January 13, 1532, under the penalty that "whoever does it, loses it". Two years later, faced with the repeated violation of this provision, the emperor expressed his discomfort in a letter addressed to the officers of the Casa de la Contratación of Seville, in which he said verbatim: "On the part of Juan de Cárdenas I have been related in this Council that, in Seville, there are many native Indians of New Spain and other parts of the Indies, who, being free, hold them as captives and servants. Let them not be sold or wounded because we know that those who bring them wound them in the face or throw iron rings at their throats, with letters of their own names, in which they claim to be their slaves."

Once again we see the profound distance between theory and praxis, not only in America, where it was said that the law was obeyed, but not complied with, but also in Spain itself. It is true that in the long run this measure was another step in the process of ending trafficking in indigenous people.

Esteban Mira Caballos (Carmona, Seville, 1966) is a historian, expert in the discovery of America. This excerpt is a preview of his new book, The Discovery of Europa. Indigenous and mestizos in the old world, published by Crítica, which will be published on June 14.

Sign up for the weekly Ideas newsletter here.

Subscribe to continue reading

Read without limits

Read more

I'm already a subscriber