Read on Twitter
A lot has been said about 1619, but not enough about 1520, the year of the first documented voyage of a ship disembarking enslaved Africans in the Americas. #twitterstorians #africanstudies
The Spanish Archives have made the original available to the public at http://pares.mcu.es/ParesBusquedas20/catalogo/show/124838
The corresponding entry on @slavevoyages is available below. https://slavevoyages.org/voyage/database#searchId=vJUKnx2Z
The ship was named Santa María de la Luz. It landed 44 Africans in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Thanks to Alex Borucki for the reminder! He notes: one has to know 16th century Spanish to read the document.
2020: 500th anniversary of the European trade in enslaved Africans across the Atlantic #500th #slaveryarchive
The original is a 70-page long document referring to duties paid over enslaved Africans disembarked in Puerto Rico. Sergio Manuel Rodríguez Lorenzo transcribed part of the sections related to the voyage in question. I provided the translations. @slavevoyages @NicholasRadburn
Ytem, que valieron los derechos de la nao nombrada Santa María de la Luz, de la cual viene por maestre Fernando de Rosa, que vino de Guinea y çurgió en el puerto de esta çibdad a 15 del dicho mes y año [noviembre, 1520]. Esclavos. 159 pesos, 5 tomines.
Idem, amount of the duties from the ship named Santa María de la Luz, of which is captain Fernando de Rosa, which came from Guinea and arrived at the port of this city on the 15th of the said month and year [November, 1520]. Slaves 159 pesos, 5 tomines.
De la carabela de Francisco Rosa, que surgió en el dicho puerto a 15 de noviembre, descargó Juan Sánchez, en nombre de Juan Hernández de Castro, quarenta e una pieça de negros y negras que se tasaron a cuarenta e cinco pesos cada uno, que son 1.845 pesos.
From the caravel of Francisco Rosa [sic], that arrived on the said port on November 15th, unloaded Juan Sánchez, on behalf of Juan Hérnandez de Castro, forty-one pieças of male and female blacks, taxed at forty-five pesos each, making 1,845 pesos.
Del dicho navío descargó tres esclavos negros que vendió en ciento e çinquenta pesos de oro.
From the said ship it was unloaded three black slaves sold at one hundred, fifty pesos of gold.
The #500th is complex in more than one way: "Puerto Rico is in the middle of a struggle to define itself beyond its status as the colony of the nation to the north." https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/07/31/puerto-rico-united-states-colonial-model-ricardo-rossello-wanda-vazquez-statehood-referendum/
