{"id":3450,"date":"2025-10-26T17:30:35","date_gmt":"2025-10-26T17:30:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/firstblacks.org\/?page_id=3450"},"modified":"2025-10-26T17:32:26","modified_gmt":"2025-10-26T17:32:26","slug":"fb-primary-044-manuscript","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/firstblacks.org\/en\/manuscripts\/fb-primary-044-manuscript","title":{"rendered":"Manuscript No. 044"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t<div data-elementor-type=\"wp-page\" data-elementor-id=\"3450\" class=\"elementor elementor-3450\" data-elementor-post-type=\"page\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-element elementor-element-d1e5d6b e-flex e-con-boxed e-con e-parent\" data-id=\"d1e5d6b\" data-element_type=\"container\" data-settings=\"{&quot;background_background&quot;:&quot;classic&quot;}\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"e-con-inner\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-element elementor-element-368a8fa e-n-tabs-mobile elementor-widget elementor-widget-n-tabs\" data-id=\"368a8fa\" data-element_type=\"widget\" data-settings=\"{&quot;horizontal_scroll&quot;:&quot;disable&quot;}\" data-widget_type=\"nested-tabs.default\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-widget-container\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"e-n-tabs\" data-widget-number=\"57190650\" aria-label=\"Tabs. Open items with Enter or Space, close with Escape and navigate using the Arrow keys.\">\n\t\t\t<div class=\"e-n-tabs-heading\" role=\"tablist\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<button id=\"e-n-tab-title-571906501\" class=\"e-n-tab-title\" aria-selected=\"true\" data-tab-index=\"1\" role=\"tab\" tabindex=\"0\" aria-controls=\"e-n-tab-content-571906501\" style=\"--n-tabs-title-order: 1;\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<span class=\"e-n-tab-title-text\">\n\t\t\t\tTranscription \t\t\t<\/span>\n\t\t<\/button>\n\t\t\t\t<button id=\"e-n-tab-title-571906502\" class=\"e-n-tab-title\" aria-selected=\"false\" data-tab-index=\"2\" role=\"tab\" tabindex=\"-1\" aria-controls=\"e-n-tab-content-571906502\" style=\"--n-tabs-title-order: 2;\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<span class=\"e-n-tab-title-text\">\n\t\t\t\tTranslation \t\t\t<\/span>\n\t\t<\/button>\n\t\t\t\t<button id=\"e-n-tab-title-571906503\" class=\"e-n-tab-title\" aria-selected=\"false\" data-tab-index=\"3\" role=\"tab\" tabindex=\"-1\" aria-controls=\"e-n-tab-content-571906503\" style=\"--n-tabs-title-order: 3;\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<span class=\"e-n-tab-title-text\">\n\t\t\t\tCommentary \t\t\t<\/span>\n\t\t<\/button>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t<div class=\"e-n-tabs-content\">\n\t\t\t\t<div id=\"e-n-tab-content-571906501\" role=\"tabpanel\" aria-labelledby=\"e-n-tab-title-571906501\" data-tab-index=\"1\" style=\"--n-tabs-title-order: 1;\" class=\"e-active elementor-element elementor-element-c7cf1e3 e-con-full e-flex e-con e-child\" data-id=\"c7cf1e3\" data-element_type=\"container\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-element elementor-element-8cefa51 elementor-widget elementor-widget-html\" data-id=\"8cefa51\" data-element_type=\"widget\" data-widget_type=\"html.default\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-widget-container\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<iframe src=\"http:\/\/firstblacks.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/fb-primary-044-transcription.pdf\" width=\"100%\" height=\"600px\" style=\"border: none;\">\n    This browser does not support PDFs. Please download the PDF to view it: <a href=\"http:\/\/firstblacks.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/fb-primary-044-transcription.pdf\">Download PDF<\/a>.\n<\/iframe>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<div id=\"e-n-tab-content-571906502\" role=\"tabpanel\" aria-labelledby=\"e-n-tab-title-571906502\" data-tab-index=\"2\" style=\"--n-tabs-title-order: 2;\" class=\" elementor-element elementor-element-dcd9a52 e-con-full e-flex e-con e-child\" data-id=\"dcd9a52\" data-element_type=\"container\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-element elementor-element-5ad08bf elementor-widget elementor-widget-html\" data-id=\"5ad08bf\" data-element_type=\"widget\" data-widget_type=\"html.default\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-widget-container\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<iframe src=\"http:\/\/firstblacks.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/fb-primary-044-translation.pdf\" width=\"100%\" height=\"600px\" style=\"border: none;\">\n    This browser does not support PDFs. Please download the PDF to view it: <a href=\"http:\/\/firstblacks.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/fb-primary-044-translation.pdf\">Download PDF<\/a>.\n<\/iframe>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<div id=\"e-n-tab-content-571906503\" role=\"tabpanel\" aria-labelledby=\"e-n-tab-title-571906503\" data-tab-index=\"3\" style=\"--n-tabs-title-order: 3;\" class=\" elementor-element elementor-element-1bca671 e-flex e-con-boxed e-con e-child\" data-id=\"1bca671\" data-element_type=\"container\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"e-con-inner\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-element elementor-element-6a0afe7 elementor-widget elementor-widget-text-editor\" data-id=\"6a0afe7\" data-element_type=\"widget\" data-widget_type=\"text-editor.default\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-widget-container\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<p><strong><span class=\"Normal__Char\">Date:\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 1555<\/span><span class=\"Normal__Char\">\u00a0August 13 \u2013 1556, May 30.\u00a0 City of Santo Domingo.<br \/><\/span><span class=\"Normal__Char\">Theme: A Portuguese ship that arrived in the port of Santo Domingo, La Espa\u00f1ola, with a cargo of<\/span><span class=\"Normal__Char\">\u00a0enslaved Black Africans and without a Spanish shipping license; they were seized by the local<\/span><span class=\"Normal__Char\">\u00a0colonial authorities and sold at an auction of Santo Domingo, and different social types from the\u00a0<\/span><span class=\"Normal__Char\">city went to buy them.<br \/><\/span><span class=\"Normal__Char\">Source: Archivo General de Indias, Justicia 103-A, CUNY DSI Dominican Colonial Documents\u00a0<\/span><\/strong><span class=\"Normal__Char\"><strong>Collection.<\/strong><\/span><\/p><p><span class=\"Normal__Char\">Smuggling European manufactured goods and enslaved Africans into La Espa\u00f1ola became an increasingly frequent\u00a0 practice throughout the second half of the sixteenth century, nurtured and justified by the local scarcity of metropolitan<\/span><span class=\"Normal__Char\">\u00a0items and commodities needed by the settlers, a scarcity resulting from the dwindling numbers of merchant ships from Spain or carrying Spanish shipping licenses that visited or stopped at La Espa\u00f1ola in their journey across the Atlantic to and from the richer, and militarily safer, mainland colonies of Spain.<\/span><\/p><p><span class=\"Normal__Char\">The arrival of non-Spanish merchant ships willing to do contraband with La Espa\u00f1ola\u2019s residents, especially with those living in the coastal areas of the northwest, west and southwest of the island\u00a0<\/span><span class=\"Normal__Char\">furthest from Santo Domingo City, went rather non-interfered by the Spanish colonial authorities during this period because the colony\u2019s relatively small government personnel based at the capital port-city did not have the military means to scout and control effectively the relatively extensive coasts of the entire colony.<\/span><\/p><p><span class=\"Normal__Char\">As a result of th<\/span><span class=\"Normal__Char\">e scarcity of consumables and widespread and widely-known contraband by visiting foreign vessels, when a non-Spanish ship arrived in the colony and was captured by the authorities of Santo Domingo City, the visiting crew had to face a town\u2019s population hungry for European commodities and authorities eager to enforce the colonial monopoly laws and to punish suspected smugglers with confiscation.<\/span><\/p><p><span class=\"Normal__Char\">That is what happened to t<\/span><span class=\"Normal__Char\">his Portuguese ship that in 1555 showed up in the port of Santo Domingo alleging to have been diverted off its route from Cabo Verde to Portugal by serious damages in its hull that reportedly forced them to reach for the nearest port to have fundamental repairs done that could, in turn, allow the ship to continue travel to Portugal.\u00a0 Santo Domingo\u2019s colonial authorities did not buy the argument and seized the cargo of the ship, including several dozens of enslaved male and female Black Africans of different ages who were then sold away to the local residents, eager to acquire new slaves.<\/span><\/p><p><span class=\"Normal__Char\">If we are to judge from the evidence about this particular ship confiscated in Santo Domingo and its occupants, f<\/span><span class=\"Normal__Char\">or those thrown into the vessels as commodities of the Transatlantic slave trade, the journey was not only physically destructive but probably charged with constant uncertainty as to where and how it would end.<\/span><\/p><p><span class=\"No_0020Spacing__Char\">In a Spanish colony like\u00a0<\/span><span class=\"No_0020Spacing__Char\">La Espa\u00f1ola<\/span><span class=\"No_0020Spacing__Char\">\u00a0where, increasingly throughout the sixteenth century, colonial authorities complained of not receiving enough merchant ships bringing needed manufactured commodities from Spain, one of the items that seem to have been in constant demand were Black slaves with which to sustain the way of life, based on servile labor, the settlers and their descendants had established in the island-colony.<\/span><\/p><p><span class=\"No_0020Spacing__Char\">The record of a 1555 local auction in Santo Domingo City of slaves confiscated shortly before from a Portuguese slave ship arrived in La Espa\u00f1ola without the required license, gives us t<\/span><span class=\"No_0020Spacing__Char\">he opportunity to watch the types of Black Africans that at the time were being swallowed by the slave trade, the physical conditions in which they arrived after the crossing of the Atlantic, and the kinds of social types that bought them in the capital of this colony, as well as the price each of them was sold for.<\/span><\/p><p><span class=\"No_0020Spacing__Char\">A \u201ccreole\u201d female slave of light-brown, \u201ccooked quince-like color,\u201d of unspecified age and without branding marks on her body, was sold for 203\u00a0<\/span><span class=\"No_0020Spacing__Char\">pesos<\/span><span class=\"No_0020Spacing__Char\">\u00a0to a well known resident of Santo Domingo. An elder enslaved woman described as of the same color and with an \u201cf \u201d mark on the left arm sold for 250\u00a0pesos.\u00a0 A Black small girl described as having visible scabs and manges and also with the \u201cf \u201c mark was bought for 200\u00a0pesos\u00a0by a local tailor.\u00a0 The auction lasted several days, some of the slaves being paid for at once in full and many sold on credit.<\/span><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Transcription Translation Commentary This browser does not support PDFs. Please download the PDF to view it: Download PDF. This browser does not support PDFs. Please download the PDF to view it: Download PDF. Date:\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 1555\u00a0August 13 \u2013 1556, May 30.\u00a0 City of Santo Domingo.Theme: A Portuguese ship that arrived in the port of Santo Domingo, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":2721,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-3450","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.2 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Manuscript No. 044 - First Blacks in The Americas<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/firstblacks.org\/en\/manuscripts\/fb-primary-044-manuscript\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Manuscript No. 044 - First Blacks in The Americas\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Transcription Translation Commentary This browser does not support PDFs. 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