First Blacks In The Americas

CUNY DOMINICAN STUDIES INSTITUTE PRESENTS “FIRST BLACKS IN THE AMERICAS” WEBSITE   THE CUNY DOMINICAN STUDIES INSTITUTE (CUNY DSI), a research unit of the City University of New York housed at The City College of New York, has announced the publication of their online educational platform “First Blacks in the Americas,” the first digital platform […]

A black majority in La Española by the end of 16th century By 1606, after the forced and traumatic relocation of the colony’s western area’s population to eastern areas of La Española ordered by the Spanish Crown, a major transformation of the colony’s social life after an entire century, more than 9,600 Blacks were counted as living […]

Official slave trade diminished in La Española after the 1560s We know of no published information about the arrival of Blacks in La Española during the fifteen years that followed after 1560. By 1583 a gathering of members of the City Council of Santo Domingo and a Crown’s envoy, when assessing the exports and imports of the […]

The sugar business accelerated the arrival of blacks By 1520 a gold mining crisis was beginning in the colony of La Española, with a severe drop in production resulting from the rapid dwindling of the Indian population, intervention by the Crown that reduced the direct control of the surviving Indian laborers by the encomenderos, and a decrease in the currency-capital available to finance it. […]

“Legal” and “illegal” slave trade As the early importing of enslaved Blacks into La Española continued during the second decade of Spanish colonization, the year 1506 marked the first recorded indication of what would become one of the characteristic features of Black slavery in the colony throughout the century: the smuggling of slaves into the island.[1] There is […]

Ladinos and bozales The Christianized Blacks mentioned in the sixteenth-century documents issued in Spain, La Española and the rest of the Spanish empire were known as ladinos, and the term referred in general to the Blacks who were familiar in general with the religion, cultures, and languages of Castile or Portugal (either because of having been […]

Links In this sub-section, a list of active links will be found connecting to other online resources addressing the issues of Blackness and/or slavery in the Americas. UNIVERSITY-BASED DEPARTMENTS, CENTERS AND INSTITUTES African-American Resource Center–University of Pennsylvania – This is a resource center dedicated to enhancing the quality of life of faculty, staff, and students at the […]

Spanish Paleography Digital Teaching and Learning Tool The Spanish Paleography Digital Teaching and Learning Tool is a unique interactive online platform developed by the CUNY Dominican Studies Institute with the support of the National Endowment for the Humanities to promote the independent learning of the deciphering and reading of the main writing styles or caligraphy forms used […]

Bibliography This section includes a list of books, book chapters, articles and other sources related directly and indirectly to La Española’s Black population in the sixteehth century. Some items listed open up to their full text when available in an open source environment. FOUNDATIONAL SCHOLARSHIP ON DOMINICAN BLACKNESS___________________ SOURCES RELATED TO LA ESPAÑOLABOOKSBOOK CHAPTERSARTICLES____________________GENERAL SOURCESBOOKSBOOK […]

Articles – General Sources Andújar Castillo, Francisco. “Sobre las condiciones de vida de los esclavos en la España Moderna. Una revisión crítica.” Chronica Nova 26 (1999): 7-36. Armas de, Antonio Rumeu. “Los problemas derivados del contacto de razas en los albores del renacimiento.” Cuadernos de Historia. Anexos de la Revista Hispania 1 (1967): 61-103. Arriaga Mesa, Marcos D. “Un […]