Commentary No. 011
Date: 1505, November 20. Segovia, Spain.
Theme: License from the Crown to La Española’s colonial treasurer Juan de Joara, authorizing him to take a female Black slave from Spain to La Española
Source: PARES, Portal de Archivos Españoles, Archivo General de Indias,INDIFERENTE,418,L.1 – Imagen Núm: 369 / 378, Folio 187v.
In the early decades of the colonization of La Española, a great deal of the enslaved Black men and women that were transported to the new colony were individuals or small numbers of slaves shipped by private settlers or colonial Crown officials in their way to colony –like the one in this document--under a royal license or licencia. The licenses were for the Crown both a means to control the kind of individuals that were traveling, in terms of the establish ethnic-religious prohibition for non-Christians, as well as a source of income via the payment due per license. The payments for the slave licenses went straight to the Crown’s coffers and they were paid separate from the shipping fare charged per traveler by the vessels’ owners.
In this royal license of late 1505 the Christian condition of the female slave in case is mentioned. The Crown’s effort to prevent non-Christians from crossing the Atlantic to the colonies in the Indies appears reflected in a number of royal orders and communications of the time, but its mentioning seems to have diminished considerably in the wording of this type of licenses in subsequent decades. On the other hand, the socially subaltern status of this female slave is highlighted in the text of the license when she is mentioned as part of the belongings of the passenger, right after a horse and a mare.