SLAVE COMMERCE BETWEEN GUAYAQUIL-PAITA IN THE LATE DECADES OF THE 18TH CENTURY

Abstract

This investigation study basis on the archive’s primary documentation, where a gross amount of enslaved people were detected from Guayaquil through the Paita port in the last two decades of the 18th Century when the introduction of enslaved people was common from Panama. It aims to analyze why this commerce has appeared more frequently in the last two decades. This situation leads to a panoramic view of what happens in Guayaquil and Perú in general. Also, an approximation is made to the slavery commercial dynamics by identifying the active subjects (the merchants) and the passive subjects (the enslaved people), as well as the role these had as the workforce. The method used reviews primary documentation from Peruvian archives (Archivo General de la Nación and Archivo Regional de Piura) analyzed by the triangulation method. This investigation continues the model established by Jean Pierre Tardieu about slavery developed in different geographical spaces but displayed almost always the same structure. The study concludes that the enslaved people from Guayaquil were primarily introduced by limeño merchants who exploited the turnaround of the Cacao trading. Likewise, the slave trade was in retail, and men and women were in equal proportion. These results suggest that the enslaved people traded would work either at the estates or domestic work.