The Empire of Necessity (46 page)

13
. Slavers, however, who made up a distinct constituency within the guild, complained about this corsair contribution, arguing that it in effect restored a tax on the slave trade that had been earlier abolished by the Crown (José María Mariluz Urquijo,
El virreinato del Río de la Plata en la época del Marqués de Avilés (1799–1801)
, Buenos Aires: Academia Nacional de la Historia, 1964, pp. 78–88).

14
. Agustín Beraza,
Los corsarios de Montevideo
, Montevideo: Centro de Estudios Históricos, Navales, y Maritimos, 1978, p. 43; Falcao Espalter, “Hipolito Mordeille”; Arturo Ariel Bentancur,
El puerto colonial de Montevideo (I). Guerras y apertura comercial: Tres lustros de crecimiento económico (1791–1806)
, Montevideo: Universidad de la Republica, 1997, pp. 322–41.

3. A LION WITHOUT A CROWN

  
1
. See throughout, Marcus Rediker,
The Slave Ship: A Human History
, New York: Penguin, 2008.

  
2
. Andrews,
Afro-Argentines
, p. 31; Johnson,
Workshop,
38; Susan Migden Socolow,
The Women of Colonial Latin America
, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000, pp. 84, 132. The
Nymph of the Sea
, a Portuguese bark, had recently delivered 276 Africans from Kilwa, Tanzania. The
Susan
, registered in the United States, came with 90 Gambians. The Spanish
El Retiro de Buenos Aires
had just gotten back with 130 captives from an unnamed place on the “coast of Africa.” The
San Ignacio
, a brig from Rio de Janeiro, carried honey, rum, coffee, cotton, and slaves.
Semanario de Agricultura, Industria y Comercio
, vols. 1–2 (facsímile), Buenos Aires: Junta de Historia y Numismátic, 1928, p. 151; AGN (Buenos Aires) Sala IX Comercio y padrones de Esclavos; Escribano de la Marina, 49.3.2; Registro de Navios 10.4.7; The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database,
http://www.slavevoyages.org/tast/index.faces
; Elena F. S. de Studer,
La trata de negros en el Río de la Plata durante el siglo XVIII
, vol. 2, Montevideo: Libros de Hispanoamérica, 1984.

  
3
. María Díaz de Guerra,
Documentación relativa a esclavos en el Departamento de Maldonado, Siglos XVIII y XIX
, Montevideo: Imprenta Cooperativa, 1983, pp. 30–32; AGN (Montevideo), Fondo Archivo General Administrativo, libro 15 A, “Libro de acuerdos que dio principio en abril de 1800,” Acta del Cabildo, March 28, 1803, f. 87. See also Gesualdo, “Los negros,” for a rise in master patricides.

  
4
. Johnson,
Workshop of Revolution
, pp. 177–78.

  
5
.
Revista de la Biblioteca Pública de Buenos Aires
, vol. 3, Buenos Aires: Librería de Mayo, 1881, p. 475; AGN (Montevideo), Fondo Archivo General Administrativo, libro 15 A, “Libro de acuerdos que dio principio en abril de 1800,” Acta del Cabildo, March 28, 1803, ff. 87–89; Carlos Rama,
Historia social del pueblo Uruguayo
, Montevideo: Editorial Comunidad del Sur, 1972, p. 22; Lincoln R. Maiztegui Casas,
Orientales: Una historia política del Uruguay
, vol. 1, Montevideo: Planeta, 2005, p. 28; Oscar D. Montaño,
Umkhonto: Historia del aporte negro-africano en la formación del Uruguay
, Montevideo: Rosebud Ediciones, 1997, p. 151; Agustín Beraza,
Amos y esclavos
,
Enciclopedia Uruguaya
, vol. 1, Montevideo: Editores Reunidos y Arca, 1968, p. 165–66.

  
6
. W. L. Schurz,
This New World: The Civilization of Latin America
, New York: Dutton, 1954, pp. 180–81; Leslie Rout,
The African Experience in Spanish America: 1502 to the Present Day
, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1976, p. 149; Mariselle Meléndez, “Visualizing Difference: The Rhetoric of Clothing in Colonial Spanish America,” in
Latin American Fashion Reader
, ed. Regina Root, New York: Berg, 2006, p. 25. The following sources are related to the Albany fire discussed in the footnote: For the fire and the subsequent hanging of accused arsonists, see
Albany Register
, November 25, 1793;
New-York Daily Gazette
, November 25, 1793;
Albany Register
, March 17, 1794;
Albany Register
, January 27, 1894;
Albany Chronicles: A History of the City Arranged Chronologically, from the Earliest Settlement to the Present Time; Illustrated with Many Historical Pictures of Rarity and Reproductions of the Robert C. Pruyn Collection of the Mayors of Albany
, Albany: J. B. Lyon, 1906, p. 384; George Rogers Howell,
Bi-centennial History of Albany: History of the County of Albany, N.Y., from 1609 to 1886
, vol. 1, Albany: W. Munsell, 1886, p. 302; “Examination of Bet Negro Female Slave of Philip S. Van Rensselaer, Esquire,” New York State Library, Manuscripts and Special Collections; Alice Kenney,
The Gansevoorts of Albany: Dutch Patricians in the Upper Hudson Valley
, Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1969, pp. 80–107. See also
Oscar Williams,
“Slavery in Albany, New York, 1624–1827,”
Afro-Americans in New York Life and History
, vol. 34, 2010 (accessed online July 6, 2012). For the fear that the arsonists were inspired by Haiti, see Henriette Lucie Dillon La Tour du Pin Gouvernet,
Journal d’une femme de cinquante ans
, vol. 2, Paris: Chapelot, 1912, p. 18. For Pomp, see
Collections on the History of Albany
, vol. 2, Albany: J. Munsell, 1867, p. 383. The
Evening Journal
is the undated source given for the description of Pomp, probably the
Albany Evening Journal
.

4. BODY AND SOUL

  
1
. For the king’s “pious mind,” see Ildefonso Pereda Valdés,
El negro en el Uruguay, pasado y presente
, Montevideo Instituto Histórico y Geográfico del Uruguay, 1965, p. 230; Archivo General de la Nación,
Acuerdos del extinguido cabildo de Montevideo
, vol. 17, annex, Montevideo, 1942, pp. 230–31. For descriptions of the “village,” see Isidoro De-María,
Tradiciones y recuerdos: Montevideo antiguo
, Elzeviriana, 1887; Archivo General de la Nación,
Revista del Archivo General Administrativo
, vol. 6, book 11, Montevideo: El Siglo Lustrado, 1917, p. 78; Karla Chagas, Natalia Stalla, and Alex Borucki, “Uruguay,” in UNESCO, ed.
Sitios de memoria y culturas vivas de los afrodescendientes en Argentina, Paraguay y Uruguay
, Montevideo: UNESCO, 2011, pp. 112–53. For the treatment of slaves as a problem of the state, see Salmoral,
Regulación,
part 1, pp. 183–207.

  
2
. AGI (Seville), Gobierno, Indiferente 2826, ff. 286–395. Urquijo, in
El virreinato del Río de la Plata
, p. 361, describes the high mortality of the Portuguese slaves. See also Joseph Calder Miller,
Way of Death: Merchant Capitalism and the Angolan Slave Trade, 1730–1830
, Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1996.

  
3
. Falconbridge,
Account
, pp. 24–25.

  
4
. In 1798, for example, the Rhode Island slaver,
Ascensión
, purchased 283 slaves in Mozambique, 33 of whom fell ill with smallpox and were quickly unloaded before leaving Africa. Thirty-three died on board. Once in Montevideo, four more died and the remaining healthy ones sold for, on average, over 200 pesos each. Eight “sickly” ones, though, were disposed of for 90 pesos, a risky investment with a potentially high payoff for the buyer: there was a good chance they wouldn’t survive, but if they did, their immunity would make them that much more valuable. See the unsigned, undated account record of trade, Slavery Collection, [1798?], series I: Samuel and William Vernon, New-York Historical Society. That the ship was the
Ascensión
is indicated by other documents in the collection. Regarding the use of slaves to disseminate the smallpox vaccine, see the following documents in the AGI (Seville), Cuba, legajo 1691, December 4, 1806; Indiferente General, legajo 1558-A, June 14, 1804 (for Balmis buying and selling Cuban slaves); Chile, 205 (“Correspondencia de Presidente Luis Muñoz de Guzmán”), November 9, 1805, for transporting the vaccine, “arm to arm of the blacks.” For the African women who carried the vaccine to Buenos Aires, see Congreso de la Nación,
Diario de sesiones de la Cámara de Diputados
, vol. 1, 1903, p. 398; see also Guillermo Fúrlong Cárdiff,
Historia social y cultural del Río de la Plata, 1536–1810
, vol. 2, Buenos Aires: Tipográfica Editora Argentina, 1969, p. 346; Diego Barros Arana,
Historia general de Chile,
vol. 7, Santiago: Rafael Jover: 1886, pp. 265–71; Gonzalo Vial Correa,
El Africano en el Reino de Chile
, Santiago: Instituto de Investigaciones Históricas, 1957; José G. Rigau-Pérez, “The Introduction of Smallpox Vaccine in 1803 and the Adoption of Immunization as a Government Function in Puerto Rico,
Hispanic American Historical Review
69 (August 1989): 393–423. For Humboldt’s observations, see Alexander von Humboldt,
Political Essay on the Kingdom of New Spain
, vol. 1, New York: Riley, 1811, p. 87.

  
5
. For an extensive examination of this in the United States, see Harriet Washington,
Medical Apartheid: The Dark History of Medical Experimentation on Black Americans from Colonial Times to the Present
, New York: Doubleday, 2007; see also Richard Sheridan,
Doctors and Slaves: A Medical and Demographic History of Slavery in the British West Indies, 1680–1834
, London: Cambridge University Press, 2009.

  
6
. For the
Rôdeur,
see Ritchie,
Travelling Sketches on the Sea-Coasts of France
, pp. 76–82, which contains a translation of a firsthand account, and “Le cri des Africains contre les Européens, leurs oppresseurs; ou Coup-d’oeil sur le commerce homicide appelé Traite des Noirs,”
Journal des voyages, découvertes et navigations modernes; ou Archives géographiques et statistiques du XIX siècle
36 (October–December 1821): 323–24. Sébastien Guillié’s study of the case, “Observation sur une blépharoblénorrhée contagieuse,”
Bibliothèque ophtalmologique; ou Recueil d’observations sur les maladies des yeux faites à la clinique de l’Institution royale des jeunes aveugles
1 (1820), was published before these two sources. For Guillié, see Zina Weygand,
The Blind in French Society: From the Middle Ages to the Century of Louis Braille
, Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2009. The case of the
Rôdeur
was cited by abolitionists in France and Great Britain, including Benjamin Constant and William Wilberforce.

  
7
. AGN (Buenos Aires), División Colonial, Sección Gobierno, Tribunales, legajo 94, 26.2.3; also Studer,
La trata
, pp. 311–14.

  
8
. For Alzaga’s fear of egalitarianism, see Johnson,
Workshop of Revolution
, pp. 157–78; the quotation is on p. 164.

  
9
. Miguel de la Sierra y Lozano,
Elogios de Cristo y María: Aplicados a quarenta sermones de sus fiestas
, Zaragoza: Pedro Verges, 1646, p. 61; Real Academia Española,
Diccionario de la lengua castellana
, Madrid, 1783; “On Hypochondriasis,”
Journal of Psychological Medicine and Mental Pathology
, January 1, 1850, p. 3; G. E. Berrios, “Melancholia and Depression during the 19th Century: A Conceptual History,”
British Journal of Psychiatry
153 (September 1988): 298–304. Protestants, and at least three of the five surgeons on the
Joaquín
commission were Protestant, might identify Catholics, grimacing and groveling before their icons, as prone to the condition, betraying the “low thoughts they had of the divine nature”; see Anthony Ashley Cooper,
Characteristics of Men, Manners, Opinions, Times
, J. J. Tourneisen and J. L. Legrand, 1790, p. 103.