Slavery on the Spanish Frontier: The Colombian Chocó, 1680-1810 [1 ed.]

Citation preview

Slavery on the Spanish Frontier

University of Oklahoma Press Norman

vv V V V V V V "V 'V V V "V V "V "V 'V

A.A •♦♦♦♦♦♦ ♦♦ ♦♦

►♦♦♦>

Slavery on the Spanish Frontier

►♦♦♦♦♦ ►M* ►>*> >♦ ►♦♦♦♦♦ >♦

♦>♦:♦ ♦♦ *❖ *❖ *❖ ♦♦ ♦♦

The Colombian Choco 1680 - 1810

»♦

♦♦ ♦♦ ♦♦ *♦> ♦♦

>♦ >♦ $►❖ $♦♦♦♦ K*►♦>

t^A

by William Frederick Sharp 'w$r'

^(p

ii^A

v^,"

▼0I"

"^v "0"

'^*r V4T

♦♦ *❖ *♦> ❖❖ *❖

♦♦ ♦♦ ❖❖ ww

A A A A^A ▼(^yA^A f^y

%T T«T

^+-

T|r W204

41>657

64,087

6,409

83,313

48,065

4,807

62,485

52,000

5,2°ot

77,200

* Figures are rounded oft to the nearest ten-thousandth in silver pesos, t Figure based on estimate that 520,000 a year was mined.

Another kind of contraband trade also occurred in the Choco. The illegal importation of goods, particularly merchandise from Spain, constituted big business. Crown restrictions on supply routes and trade designed to prevent the extraction of bullion created an environment in which certain products became both greatly desired and expensive. Merchants of legally introduced products paid cer¬ tain crown taxes, such as the alcabala (sales tax) and the almojarifazgo (import tax). Of more importance, however, was the fact that most products could not be introduced by way of the most

73

Slavery on the Spanish Frontier natural routes, the river highways. Merchants had to use overland trails from the interior provinces, and transportation costs, more than crown taxes, dictated high prices. If they were ferried along the Atrato or San Juan, the goods cost much less. Since it was illegal to do so, these who used these routes also avoided crown duties. Under the most profitable arrangements smugglers tried to smuggle out gold and return with merchandise. Convictions and accusatiosns for contraband trade entering the Choco greatly outnumber those related to illegal exportations. The actual number of persons engaged in the business may have been smaller but, because, of the products they carried, it was more difficult to escape detection. It might have been simple to slip articles past the vigias through the judicious application of bribes or avoidance, but the corregidors in the various towns and officials in Novita and Quibdo presented a greater problem. For an item to be sold it had to be displayed openly in stores, or at least individual buyers had to be approached. At any time an official could ask to see the import license (guia) and receipts for duties paid. Thus apprehension was much more likely. The profits from illicit commerce, however, were so great that many chose to engage in the trade despite the danger of detection. Methods were developed that minimized the risks of capture. Contraband goods were introduced by smugglers who also im¬ ported similar or other items for which they held legal guias and had paid some official duties. If the authority checking the itemized cargo list did not carefully search the cargo itself, merchants could slip in their extra products unnoticed. The fact that officials dis¬ covered persons attempting to do this on many occasions is evidence that this method was often employed.25 Once the shipment passed the official entrance inspection, merchants could show cargo fists and receipts for duties paid and claim that any questioned item had been legally imported. Depleted stocks on which merchants retained legitimate import licenses were doubtless replaced with contraband products. Although commercial restrictions designed to prevent contra-

74

The Choco and the Cycle of Contraband band along the San Juan and Atrato rivers had been issued in 1696, 1717, and 1720, it became apparent in the late 1720’s that the illegal activites had continued. In 1730, Joseph Joachin Martinez Malo, a judge of the audiencia, traveled to the Choco to investigate new charges of illicit commerce. Martinez Malo concluded that fraud existed, and on September 5, 1730, he reiterated both the ban on travel below the vigia of the Atrato and Viceroy Villalonga’s 1720 decree regarding the San Juan. Ships from Panama, although excluded from the San Juan, could still land products in Buenaventura, and after shipment to Cali some goods were carried back into the Choco. The favorite CaliChoco route did not pass through Cartago but was the Calima River, which flows from east to west, emptying into the San Juan River. Merchants floated supplies down the Calima to Boca del Calima and then ferried them up the San Juan River to Novita and Noanama. Martinez Malo suppressed this route because of the difficulty in distinguishing products coming from Cali from those illegally introduced from Panama. He ordered merchants wishing to freight clothes, slaves, or products from Spain into the Choco to use overland trails from Cartago.26 Merchandise from Spain entered the Choco after 1730, but the legal supply lines were long and therefore expensive. Products were first shipped from Spain to Cartagena or Panama: those from Carta¬ gena went up the Magdalena River and then overland to Cartago and into the Choco; the supplies from Panama went through Buen¬ aventura, Cali, and Cartago before arriving in the Choco. Hence by 1730 commercial routes to the Choco had been carefully legis¬ lated. Only basic necessities could enter through the San Juan. Clothes, all luxuries, manufactured goods, and many staples had to come overland from the interior provinces. Commerce with Guayaquil supplied many of the Choco’s basic needs. Merchants in the Choco established companies to handle the trade and retained agents in Lima and Guayaquil. In 1744 one such merchant, Julian de Trespalacios Mier, sent a detailed list of instructions to his agents in Lima. The set of instructions is valuable

75

Slavery on the Spanish Frontier because of its detail and because of the implied ease with which officials in Guayaquil and No vita would grant permission to ship and land merchandise. Nowhere did he warn his agents that certain products were inadmissible.27 It would appear that, if the techni¬ calities of acquiring and presenting a license were followed cor¬ rectly, few difficulties arose. Fortunately for the people in the Choco, the strict proscriptions concerning shipments along the San Juan seem rarely to have been enforced. Perhaps changes in administartion in the Choco caused uncertainty about the commercial regulations. The lieutenant gov¬ ernors appointed to the Choco were almost always new to the region.* Although copies of the old orders were kept in the official archives in Novita, there was confusion about the exact laws and about who had the responsibilty of checking incoming vessels. New lieutenant governors and governors several times asked the audiencia to clarify trade regulations and specific duties with regard to enforcement of the rules.28 Legally the lieutenant governor of Novita was responsible for checking the cargoes of ships arriving at Calima. When a vessel docked at Calima, the lieutenant governor was supposed to travel to the vigia to inspect the merchandise. Occasionally he delegated someone else to go in his place, but it was his responsibility. If the lieutenant governor was zealous—most were not, since the trip downstream from Novita to Calima took four days and ten days to return upstream29—and discovered contraband articles, he then confiscated the illicit merchandise in the name of the crown.t It is clear from the instructions sent by Trespalacios Mier to his agent that many lieutenant governors simply accepted cargo lists pre¬ sented to them in Novita and did not bother with the legal formality of inspecting cargo at Calima. Doubtless, with the lieutenant gover¬ nors residing in Novita, it was not difficult to slip prohibited goods into the Choco along with legitimate products at Calima. * All the governors and many of the lieutenant governors in the Choco were peninsulares (whites born in Spain). t One confiscation included twelve vicuna hats from Peru, hardly a practical item for the Choco. See AHNC, Aguardientes del Cauca 4, fol. 273 (1747).

76

The Choco and the Cycle of Contraband To make matters even more complex and contraband eminently more probable, Martinez Malo’s 1730 ban of the Cali-Calima route does not appear to have been enforced for over three decades. In 1761 the viceroy sent Governor Luis Ponce de Leon strict instruc¬ tions to permit only two ships a year to land at Calima from Guaya¬ quil and also ordered the Cali-Calima route closed.30 The reasons for the order and the complaints which swiftly followed were strikingly similar to the controversy in 1717, when the moratorium had been placed on shipping on the San Juan River. Again petitions from merchants and farmers in the Cauca Valley wanting to sell “surplus” products in the Choco and tales of contraband trade prompted the viceroy’s action.31 On September 6, 1763, mine owner Joseph Lopez Garcia, ser¬ geant major of the militia and designated representative for the miners’ guild, argued against the viceroy’s recent orders. Lopez first testified to the loyalty of all members of the miners’ guild, saying that to accuse them of contraband insulted their honor and dignity. He then dismissed the petitions from the Cauca Valley as nonsense, saying that the Cauca Valley merchants only sent prod¬ ucts to the Choco because of the large profits involved. Of more importance, however, was the apparent contradiction between the viceroy’s orders and the desires of the king. The Spanish mon¬ arch had recently requested the miners’ guild to seek methods for improving gold production, while the viceroy, perhaps unwittingly, prevented it by curtailing the supply lines. Eveiyone agreed that merchandise was desperately needed in the “sterile but wealthy” Choco, but the natural solution to this problem was to turn toward the south or north for supplies, not the east. What was needed, the sergeant major contended, was not a policy of restriction but one permitting the unlimited entry of vessels to Calima. Lopez was not overly concerned with limitations concerning the Cali-Calima route; his best arguments supported a “free-trade” program. He estimated a total population of 13,963 for the Choco, and taking only one product necessary to all, salt, he demonstrated that under the new commercial regulations this one item alone

77

Slavery on the Spanish Frontier could not be supplied. He reasoned that each individual needed a minimum of one ounce of salt daily. The total salt consumed, there¬ fore, was more than 3,185 quintales (318,500 pounds) a year. The average freight carried by a ship arriving at Chirambira or Calima amounted to only 1,500 quintales (150,000 pounds). Thus two ships a year could not bring enough salt to maintain the people in the Choco for one year. This, Lopez stressed, was only one neces¬ sary product—there were many more.32 The analysis made by Lopez, whatever its merit, * had no effect on the issue of free trade; however, the number of ships that could arrive at Calima was raised to three a year. Despite their predictions of impending disaster, the miners’ guild really had no cause to worry. Either they had little faith in the smuggling process or they simply hoped to improve the legitimate channels of commerce. There is no indication that the 1761 orders concerning contraband were any more effective than previous com¬ mands. In practice, the threat of punishment did no more to intimi¬ date those illegally importing goods than it prevented the extraction of bullion. Harsh penalties were rarely imposed. Fines constituted the usual penalty for contraband, and in many instances the levy assessed was simply double the regular duties (dobles derechos).33 On other occasions the contraband items were themselves confiscated and sold for the benefit of the royal treasury.34 Smugglers might suffer the indignity of being thrown in jail35 or of having their property impounded,36 but with the payment of a fine they were free to re¬ sume their personal business. There is no evidence that the death penalty was inflicted or even suggested. The stigma of having been convicted of fraud doubtless remained and may have harmed a person in official or even private circles, but the punishments them¬ selves were not a deterrent to others. Individual merchants could and did engage in contraband trade. But if they attempted to bring in too much merchandise (and 0 It should be noted that Lopez’ argument rested on the unlikely premise that each individual in the Choco consumed 23 pounds of salt a year.

78

The Choco and the Cycle of Contraband profits depended in part on volume), the officials in Novita and Quibdo should have detected the fraud—unless, that is, the officials in the Choco were themselves involved in illegal activities. As might be expected, this was exactly the case. Instead of halting illicit commerce, some of the lieutenant governors, governors, and other officials became the major violators. That the crown’s officials were corrupt had been established by 1691, and this pattern continued despite the removal in 1718 of all existing officials (because of their connection with contraband). In 1726, when the Spanish king declared the Choco a separate province and appointed Francisco de Ibero as the first governor, he specifically instructed Ibero to prevent contraband trade. Four years later Governor Ibero was formally charged with fraud against the king.37 Not only had the crown’s “loyal subject” not paid duties on clothes and other items he had introduced, but he had imported them by way of the strictly prohibited Atrato River route. To make the scandal complete, the governor had openly traded with one of the foremost enemies of Spain, the Dutch. Ibero had maintained a locked warehouse in Quibdo full of clothing and other items. By the time of his arrest he had sold an estimated 30,000 pesos’ worth of goods.38 Others in the Choco had been involved with Ibero. The large amount of contraband the governor introduced did not escape the notice of Choco merchants or the lieutenant governors. The gover¬ nor purchased their silence by permitting them to bring in contra¬ band products of their own.39 The judge presiding over the case ordered Ibero’s property impounded, reviewed lengthy testimony, found the governor guilty, and fined him 4,000 pesos (2,000 pesos de oro).40 The fine, though large, could scarcely be considered severe punishment, considering the crime and the one who had committed it. Ibero doubtless made much more profit from his illicit dealings than he was fined. The most famous instance of contraband occurred in 1786, during the administration of Governor Manuel Junguito Baquerizo, al¬ though he was not denounced until 1797. Governor Junguito and

79

Slavery on the Spanish Frontier

six leading merchants and mine owners were implicated in a com¬ mon suit.41 The governor and his associates were prosecuted for introducing 64,623 pesos’ worth of products from Cartagena with¬ out a proper license, paying incorrect duties on the goods, importing slaves and merchandise (rifles and gunpowder) from Jamaica, and shipping gold dust out of the Choco.*42 The case dragged on for over a decade, and by 1808, Junguito and his cohorts had been found guilty, fined, and those who remained alive (several had died natural deaths), had all taken the indulto43 (a crown pardon excusing guilty parties from future punishment for admitted transgressions). Other governors, lieutenant governors, corregidors, and priests were accused of fraudulent negotiations during the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries;44 and, even though legally governors had to reside in Novita, most lived in Quibdo, where it was said they engaged more easily in contraband activities along the Atrato River.45 Doubtless many of the Choco’s leading officials entered the commerce, and if they did not become excessively greedy or offend someone who might report them to higher authorities, they ran little risk. After all, who was in a better position to practice com¬ merce than the officials who supposedly regulated it? Ironically, several of the crown’s attempts to control fraud in the colonial period actually helped increase it. The normal laws of supply and demand did not apply in the region since trade restric¬ tions, and the inhabitants’ obvious need for many products, made demands much greater than the possibilties of supply. Scarcity dictated high prices and provided temptations too powerful to ignore. Individual merchants and mine owners engaged in illicit commerce, as did the officials who were assigned to prevent it. The 0 By the time Governor Junguito was using the Atrato River to ship his products into the Choco from Cartagena, it was officially reopened to maritime commerce. However, one of the original reasons for closing the Atrato had been to impede unauthorized trade. Governor Junguito and his associates had swiftly taken ad¬ vantage of the newly improved trade possibilities. The shipment of gold dust out of the region was strictly prohibited because by then the smeltery in Novita was in operation.

80

4C

The Las Juntas-lro-Tado trail crosses the Iro River at this point. The Cordillera Occidental is visible in the background. (All the photographs in the book were taken by the author.)

The Atrato River winds through the rain forest of the central Choco.

81

me.ri dcs This 1597 map drawn hy Melchor de Salazar predates the final paci¬ fication of the Choco by almost one hundred years. Although very few places located in the Choco are shown on this map, the San

Schtntuon Juan and Atrato rivers are clearly delineated. Importantly, near the site of what later became Novita there is the notation minas de oro (gold mines). AG1, Mapas y Pianos, Panama, 329 (1597).

j

ij,

M

A

JL

This map shows considerable detail of the San Juan region. Al¬ though the San Juan River is called the Choco River, names such as Novita and Tamana are noted. The general location of the Indian

xi/hom tribes in the region is given in addition to the label minas de oro along the entire upper San Juan region. AGI, Mapas y Pianos, Pana¬ ma, 2g (1610).

m uwo (juc aciiwtjira ta tmmcataaon IndiM HV

.5?5^

**v>. 0».i

& f *3r>< /t.

\X •*y*\ v-vts '*'iA:>

k*& *K

*&s ,

XI Vn

OK*

»>£ t 4vv?Nv?1AS'r^vv

)». 4V-* •*. *- I *>J

m

v» ^ V'K-‘.^ f “*> s*. *: «j*iN^. * « M.,1* »«*,