Афроперуанцы: История и вклад в перуанское общество

Peruvian of African descent

Black Peruvians or Afro Peruvians are Peruvians of mostly or partially African descent. They mostly descend from enslaved Africans brought to Peru after the arrival of the conquistadors.

The first Africans arrived, as enslaved people, with the conquerors in 1521, and some, taken by force, with colonists to work, for no payment, in 1525. Between 1529 and 1537, when Francisco Pizarro was granted permits to import 363 Africans to colonial Peru, a large group of Africans were captured in order to provide, by force, labor for public construction, building bridges and road systems. They also fought alongside the conquistadors as soldiers and worked as personal servants and bodyguards. In 1533, enslaved Afro Peruvians accompanied Spaniards in the conquest of Cuzco. Two types of African people were forced to Peru. Those born in Africa were commonly referred to as negros bozales ("untamed blacks"), which was also used in a derogatory sense. These slaves could have been directly captured and shipped from west or southwest Africa or transported from the Spanish Indies or other Spanish colonies. Afro Peruvians previously forced to acculturated to Spanish culture and who spoke Spanish were called negros ladinos ("hispanicized blacks"). Some were mulattos, descendants of Spanish men and African women. People of color performed skilled and unskilled functions that contributed to Hispanic colonization. In urban areas Afro Peruvians were cooks, laundresses, maids, handymen, and gardeners. In some cases, they worked in the navy, hospitals, churches and charitable institutions. In 1587, 377 people of African descent worked in the shipyards. The industry included a significant number of blacks working in quarries, kilns and construction projects. There were not enough Spanish workers to build the colony, so blacks essentially kept the economy running. Gradually, Afro Peruvians were concentrated in specialized fields that drew upon their extensive knowledge and training in skilled artisan work and in agriculture. In the social hierarchy of the slave stratum, the black artisans had the highest rank due to their skills. They worked as carpenters, tailors, blacksmiths, swordsmiths and silversmiths. This group enjoyed more freedom than their fellows who worked at large haciendas or in private households. Spanish small business keepers would dispatch a whole team of servant artisans to do a job independently and then return to their owner. As the prices for artisans rose, black artisans gained better treatment and sometimes took a role of a low ranking employee. Skilled trades were a major avenue of social progress for the colored population. Due to their high skills, Afro Peruvians gained prestige among Spanish noblemen. They occupied a relatively low social stratum but had some status related to the natives, and were considered above the emerging class of mestizos (descendants of indigenous people and Spanish colonists). As the mestizo population grew, the role of Afro Peruvians as intermediaries between the indigenous residents and the Spaniards lessened. The mestizo population increased through liaisons between Spanish and indigenous Peruvians. The elite Spanish developed a caste system based on racial descent and color, to protect their privileges and their Spanish and mestizo children. In this system, Spaniards were at the top, mestizos in the middle, and Africans and the indigenous populations at the bottom. Mestizos inherited the privilege of helping the Spanish administer the country. As additional immigrants arrived from Spain and settled Peru, the mestizos tried to keep the most lucrative jobs for themselves. In the early colonial period, Afro Spaniards and Afro Peruvians frequently worked in the gold mines because of their familiarity with the techniques. Gold mining and smithing were common in parts of western Africa from at least the fourth century. But, after the early colonial period, few Afro Peruvians would become goldsmiths or silversmiths. In the end Afro Peruvians were relegated to heavy labor on sugarcane and rice plantations of the northern coast, or the vineyards and cotton fields of the southern coast. In the countryside they were represented in wet nursing, housekeeping, domestics, cowboys, animal herding, etc. After Indians became scarce as labor force on haciendas, the people of color gained a title of yanakuna, hitherto assigned only to indigenous servants with full right to own a piece of land and a day to work on it. Afro Peruvians often exercised agency by using huido (translated as escape, flight) from haciendas and changing masters on their own initiative or joining the cimarrones (armed gangs of runaway slaves that formed small communities in the wilderness and raided travel merchants). The indigenous population were used to work in the silver mines, where they had more expert knowledge than West Africans or Spanish, even in the pre Columbian eras.

Afro Peruvian music has its roots in the communities of black slaves brought to work in the mines along the Peruvian coast. As such, it's a fair way from the Andes, culturally and geographically. However, as it developed, particularly in the 20th century, it drew on Andean, Spanish, and African traditions, while its modern exponents also have affinities with Andean nueva canción. As a result, the hotbed for Afro Peruvian music are the small coastal towns of Chincha and Cañete, not too far south of Peru's capital, Lima. The music was little known even in Peru until the 1950s, when it was popularized by José Durand, Porfirio Vásquez, Nicomedes Santa Cruz, and Victoria Santa Cruz, whose body of work was taken a step further in the 1970s by the group Perú Negro. At an international level, this form of music has had recent publicity through David Byrne's Luaka Bop music label, with the edition of the compilation by the group Perú Negro and the albums by Susana Baca. There are demonstrations that are still valid, such as the "Danza de Negritos y Las Pallitas" developed at Christmas time in the towns of the central coast of Peru.

The Afro Peruvian population is found mainly in two sectors: north coast (between Lambayeque and Piura); and on the south central coast (especially in Lima, Callao, and in the provinces of Cañete, Chincha, Pisco, and Nazca). The highest concentration of Afro Peruvians in the country is found in Yapatera in Morropón (Piura); composed of about 7000 farmers, most of whom are descendants of former African slaves, where a large number of people of "Malagasy" or "Mangache" origin (from Madagascar) stand out. The Province of Morropón is known for its black communities in cities such as the capital city of Morropón, around Chulucanas, in addition to Yapatera, there are Chapica del Carmelo, Salitral, Buenos Aires, La Mantaza, (Hacienda Pabur), San Juan de Mustache and Canchaque. Between the provinces of Ayabaca and Sullana you can also find black communities such as Las Lomas, La Tina (near the border) or Pacaipampa. When it says "northern valleys" it refers to valleys that are in the yunga. Cities such as the famous colonial city of Zaña in Lambayeque stand out for being the second most important Afro Peruvian city in northern Peru. Other cities such as: Tumán, Batán Grande, Cayaltí and Capote in the department of Lambayeque are known for hosting a good number of Afro Peruvian populations. In the city of Lima, the districts of Cercado, Breña, Surquillo, San Martín de Porres, Barranco, Surco, Chorrillos, Rímac and La Victoria are known for having regular numbers of Afro Peruvian populations, as well as Callao. The town of Aucallama in the province of Huaral is also known. The coastal cities of the central and southern regions known for their black populations are Cañete, Chincha, Pisco, Ica and Nazca. Formerly the communities to the south of Lima were known as the peoples with the highest intensity of Afro Peru, but due to excessive miscegenation between African descendants and Andean migrants, the Afro Peruvian roots have been lost. Another reason is that many of them also migrated to Lima for better opportunities. However, there are still important settlements known for their traditional presence of Afro Peruvians: El Carmen and El Guayabo, in the province of Chincha, where Julio "Chocolate" Algendones and the traditional Ballumbrosio family come from; in addition to San Luis, in the province of Cañete, land of Caitro Soto, Coco Linares and Ronaldo Campos. Further south there are Afro Peruvian communities in the district of El Ingenio, in the province of Nazca; and the town of Acarí, in the province of Caravelí, in the coastal north of the department of Arequipa. An interesting fact is that former African slaves came to small valleys of the central high jungle located in Cerro de Pasco and Huánuco. There are still small populations with distant but evidently African features.