63.4newson

Diets, Food Supplies, and the African Slave Trade in Early Seventeenth-CenturySpanish America

Linda A. Newson, Susie Minchin

The Americas, Volume 63, Number 4, April 2007, pp. 517-550 (Article)

Published by The Academy of American Franciscan HistoryDOI: 10.1353/tam.2007.0080

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DIETS, FOOD SUPPLIES AND THEAFRICAN SLAVE TRADE IN EARLY

SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY SPANISH AMERICA*

Much has been written about the spread of Old World crops and live-stock in the Americas.1 However, very little is known, except invery general terms, about the availability of different foods, diets

and nutrition, particularly among the common people, in different regions ofSpanish America in the early colonial period. This derives in part from theshortage of evidence, but it also reflects the difficulties of researching thesecomplex issues, where environmental conditions, access to land and labor,income distribution, regulation of food supplies and prices, as well as foodtraditions, all interact.2

It is possible to build up a general picture of food supplies and consump-tion in different regions of Spanish America from a variety of contemporarysources, such as general descriptions by chroniclers and travelers, as well asofficial and institutional accounts, especially those compiled by town coun-cils that were responsible for regulating food supplies and addressing publichealth issues. However, due to differences in the nature of the evidenceavailable for different regions, comparative analyses are difficult. Even therelaciones geográficas and the compendia of Juan López de Velasco andAntonio Vázquez de Espinosa, while intended to be comprehensive surveys

The Americas63:4 April 2007, 517-550Copyright by the Academy of AmericanFranciscan History

517

* The authors would like to thank the Arts and Humanities Research Council for financial supportto undertake this research. This is part of a larger study of the Portuguese slave trade to Spanish Amer-ica in the early seventeenth century published as From Capture to Sale: The Portuguese Slave to Span-ish South America in the Early Seventeenth Century (Leiden: Brill, 2007).

1 See for example, Alfred Crosby, The Columbian Exchange: Biological and Cultural Consequencesof 1492 (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1972); Hermann J. Viola and Carolyn Margolis, eds., Seedsof Change: A Quincentennial Commemoration (Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution, 1991); SophieD. Coe, America’s First Cuisines (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1994); Janet Long, ed., Conquistay comida: Consecuencias del encuentro de dos mundos (Mexico: Universidad Nacional Autónoma deMéxico, 1996).

2 John C. Super, Food, Conquest, and Colonization in Sixteenth-Century Spanish America (Albu-querque: University of New Mexico Press, 1988), pp. 1-11; John C. Super and Thomas C. Wright, eds.,Food, Politics, and Society in Latin America (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1985), pp. ix-xi.

at a single point in time, in reality draw on evidence from a wide range ofindividuals and sources, often from an equally broad or unknown set ofdates.3 Some regional comparisons can be extracted from the observationsof travelers through Spanish America, for example in the early seventeenthcentury by Thomas Gage and Francesco Carletti.4 Such accounts can pro-vide valuable insights into the main foods consumed, cooking techniquesand dining habits for which evidence is hard to find in other sources. How-ever, they are necessarily based on a limited stay in a region and are oftenimpressionistic. ‘Hard’ or quantifiable evidence is difficult to come by.Much reliance has been placed on evidence for rations that were specifiedfor particular groups such as soldiers, sailors, forced laborers or the sick inhospitals, who lived in relatively closed environments where the amount offood and the numbers being supported can be calculated fairly precisely.5

Even then, however, there is often doubt as to whether the intended recipi-ents actually received or consumed the rations.

This study aims to provide a comparative and partially quantitative analy-sis of diets in several regions of Spanish America during the early colonialperiod through an examination of the foods fed to slaves by Portugueseslave traders during their transshipment from Cartagena through the Pana-manian Isthmus to Peru in the early seventeenth century. Between 1595 and1640 the Spanish Crown assigned the asiento (monopoly contract) for theintroduction of slaves to its American colonies to the Portuguese. EnriquetaVila Vilar has estimated that during the whole period of the Portugueseasientos 268,664 slaves entered Spanish America, with about 3,000 passingthrough Cartagena annually, about half of whom were subsequently trans-ported to Lima.6 At this time, the slave trade was not conducted by monop-

518 DIETS AND THE AFRICAN SLAVE TRADE

3 Juan López de Velasco, Geografía y descripción universal de las indias. Biblioteca de autoresespañoles 248 (Madrid: Ediciones Atlas, 1971); Antonio Vázquez de Espinosa, Compendio y descripciónde las indias occidentales. Biblioteca de autores españoles 231 (Madrid: Ediciones Atlas, 1969).

4 Thomas Gage, Travels in the New World, ed. J. Eric S. Thompson (Norman: University of Okla-homa Press, 1958); Francesco Carletti, My Voyage Around the World, trans. Herbert Weinstock (London:Methuen, 1965).

5 See the pioneering work by Earl J. Hamilton, “Wages and Subsistence on Spanish Treasure Ships,1503-1660,” The Journal of Political Economy 37 (1929), pp. 430-50. See also John C. Super, “SpanishDiet in the Atlantic Crossing, the 1570s,” Terrae Incognitae 16 (1984), pp. 57-70; Sherburne F. Cook andWoodrow Borah, Essays in Population History, vol. 3 (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of Cali-fornia Press, 1979), pp. 129-76; Harry E. Cross, “Living Standards in Rural Nineteenth-Century Mexico:Zacatecas 1820-1880,” Journal of Latin American Studies 10 (1978), pp. 1-19; Kenneth F. Kiple, TheCaribbean Slave: A Biological History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984), pp. 76-88.

6 Enriqueta Vila Vilar, Hispanoamérica y el comercio de esclavos: los asientos portugueses (Seville:Escuela de Estudios Hispanoamericanos, 1977), pp. 206, 209; Frederick F. Bowser, The African Slave inColonial Peru, 1524-1650 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1974), p. 78. These figures include anestimate of the volume of contraband trade.

oly trading companies, but was a small-scale complex business thatinvolved sub-contracting to competing merchants through a system oflicenses.7 Many of those involved in the trade were New Christians whobetween 1635 and 1639 were brought before the Inquisition in Lima oncharges of Judaizing. During this process their papers were seized and mostare now held in the Inquisition section of the Archivo General de la Naciónin Lima.8 The sources used in this study comprise a rare set of privateaccount books and papers kept by one of the main slave traders, ManuelBautista Pérez, and his agents. In the 1620s and early 1630s these traderswere shipping between 150 and 500 slaves a year from Cartagena to Peru.These papers contain details of all the commercial transactions conducted bythe slave traders for periods of four to six months from the time theyacquired the slaves in Cartagena to their arrival in Lima. Among otherthings, they include information on the purchase of slaves, on daily expen-ditures on individual foods and medicines, as well as on slave mortality frompurchase to sale. While Frederick Bowser’s monumental study of theAfrican slave in Peru provides an outline of the journey based on some ofthe same sources, it does not attempt an analysis of slave diets.9

Very little is known of the nature of slave diets in early colonial SpanishAmerica. Only fragments of information exist as part of wider studies ofslavery, and they generally relate to conditions on haciendas or miningareas.10 Much more is known about slave diets in North America, where thepublication of Time on the Cross by Robert Fogel and Stanley Engerman in1974 provoked considerable debate about their quality and variety.11 Based

LINDA A. NEWSON AND SUSIE MINCHIN 519

7 Vila Vilar, Hispanoamérica y el comercio de esclavos, pp. 23-58; Herbert S. Klein, “The AtlanticSlave Trade to 1650,” in Stuart B. Schwartz, Tropical Babylons: Sugar and the Making of the AtlanticWorld, 1450-1680 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2004), pp. 213, 227-28.

8 Some of the documents became detached during the War of the Pacific in 1881-1883 and are nowlocated in the Archivo Nacional Histórico in Santiago, Chile (hereafter cited as ANHS).

9 Bowser, African Slave. 10 For example, Ward Barrett, The Sugar Hacienda of the Marqueses del Valle (Minneapolis: Uni-

versity of Minnesota Press, 1970), pp. 93-97; Colin A. Palmer, Slaves of the White God: Blacks inMexico, 1570-1650 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1976), pp. 50-51; Nicolas P. Cushner,Lords of the Land: Sugar, Wine and the Jesuit Estates of Coastal Peru, 1600-1767 (Albany: SUNY Press,1980), pp. 95- 96; David L. Chandler, “Health and Slavery: A Study of Health Conditions Among NegroSlaves in the Viceroyalty of New Granada and its Associated Slave Trade, 1600-1810” (Ph.D. diss.,Tulane University, 1972), pp. 160-7; Bowser, African Slave, pp. 224-226.

11 Robert W. Fogel and Stanley L. Engerman, Time on the Cross: The Economics of American NegroSlavery (New York: W.W. Norton, 1989). For a critique of the proposed quality and variety of slave dietssee Richard Sutch, “The Treatment Received by American Slaves: A Critical Review of the EvidencePresented in Time on the Cross,” Explorations in Economic History 12 (1975), pp. 359-396, 426 and“The Care and Feeding of Slaves,” in Paul A. David, Herbert G. Gutman, Richard Sutch, Peter Teminand Gavin Wright, Reckoning With Slavery: Critical Essays in the Quantitative History of American

on the premise that it was in slave owners’ economic interest to provide ade-quate food, they contended that slaves in North America were well fed, argu-ing that the rations specified for slaves only referred to the core diets andthat they were supplemented by vegetables and fruits, as well as salt, sugarand molasses, and in some cases by game and fish. The volume as a wholehas drawn unrelenting criticism on methodological and moral grounds; inthe context of slave diets it was criticized for failing to take account of alter-native uses of provisions, wastage, nutritional losses during cooking, as wellas the calorie requirements of slaves.12 Although certain assumptions stillhave to be made in this study, the nature of the sources on which it is basedmean that one can be clear about the quantity and variety of the foods con-sumed and the numbers of slaves being supported. Nevertheless, it is recog-nized that the findings here are not strictly comparable to those based onslavery in North America in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, sincethey relate to a much earlier period when the slave trade was dominated bythe Portuguese, to different socio-economic and environmental contexts,and moreover only deal with slave diets during transshipment.

Although slave diets may not be wholly representative of those of thecommon people, the slave traders’ accounts throw considerable light on theavailability and prices of foods in the regions of transit. Because theaccounts include relatively minor items of purchase it is possible to con-struct a more complete view of the composition of diets than can normallybe gleaned from contemporary observations. As a result, some assessmentcan be made of the extent to which Old World foods had become items ofdaily consumption.

The study begins by establishing the composition of the basic diets ofslaves in each of the three regions of transit—Cartagena, Panama and thenorth coast of Peru—which it then seeks to explain in the context of localenvironmental, economic, political and cultural conditions. It then examinesthe extent to which Old World foods had been incorporated into diets in theseregions, before attempting to estimate the nutritional value of slave diets inCartagena and compare them with studies of slave nutrition elsewhere.


Negro Slavery (New York: Oxford University Press, 1976), pp. 231-301. In 1989 Fogel and Engermanadded an Afterword to Time on the Cross and Robert Fogel produced a response in Without Consent orContract: The Rise and Fall of American Slavery (New York: W.W. Norton, 1989), pp. 132-38, whichwas accompanied by a technical volume with Ralph Galantine and Richard Manning entitled WithoutConsent or Contract: The Rise and Fall of American Slavery—Evidence and Methods. (New York: W.W.Norton, 1990), pp. 291-304. In these publications the authors made certain modifications to their meth-ods, but still contended that the diet was more varied than their critics argued.

12 Fogel and Engerman, Time on the Cross, pp. 109-15.

The Sources

The core of the evidence comprises six account books compiled for sixindividual years between 1626 and 1634.13 Different agents of ManuelBautista Pérez drew up the accounts, so they differ somewhat in style andthe degree of detail they contain. The accounts are fair copies of reports thatwere submitted to Manuel Bautista Pérez at the end of each journey. Thesewere based on receipts, little scraps of paper and notes taken by the agentsalong the route, some of which also survive in the Archivo General de laNación. Except for the 1628 accounts, which include the name of AmbrosioAntunes, who was a servant of Manuel Bautista Pérez, the authors of theother accounts are not indicated. However, comparisons of the handwritingin other documents suggest that the accounts for 1626, 1630 and 1633 wereprobably compiled by Sebastián Duarte, who was married to a sister ofManuel Bautista Pérez’s wife, while those for 1634 were probably drawn upby a brother-in-law, Simón Váez Enríquez. The accounts are particularlyvaluable because they are private papers and short of possible misdemeanorscommitted by the agents, there was no real reason for falsifying the figures;indeed, they even include bribes paid to royal officials!

For Cartagena and Panama, all six account books give the daily purchasesof food, but only two books contain entries for the coast of Peru. For thePanamanian and Peruvian stretches of the journey the entries are less regu-lar and often undated. In addition, the accounts for Panama include somelarge payments to individuals for goods and services, but include fewdetails. This is significant, because in cases where some of the detail can befilled in from other lists of expenditure; it would appear that they were oftenfor large quantities of provisions. A quantitative analysis of the expenditureon different food items is therefore only possible for three years in Panama(1626, 1628, and 1629) and for two years for the coast of Peru (1626 and1630). Another limitation that affects the account books to different degreesis that a proportion of the entries are compound entries, such as “bread, can-dles and eggs,” or else they refer only to “daily expenses.” This is a greaterproblem with the entries for Panama and Peru. In the analysis of compoundentries the expenditure has been assigned to the product first mentioned inthe list, while those referring to “daily expenses” have not been included.


13 Archivo General de la Nación, Lima (hereafter cited as AGNL) Santo Oficio (SO)—Concurso(CO) ca. 20 doc. 201 Memoria de los gastos menudos..Ambrosio Antunes 1628, Memoria de gastos delos negros…1630, Memoria de los gastos que se van haciendo…1633 and ‘1634’; ANHS Fondo VicuñaMackenna (hereafter cited as VM) vol. 77-II fols. 159-77 Memoria de lo qué se va gastando con lagente…1626 and fols. 252-265 ‘1629.’

This means that the expenditure on individual items will have a margin oferror.14 However, since the majority of compound entries were for items ofrelatively little value, it is not thought that assigning them to a single cate-gory significantly affects the basic pattern of expenditure identified here.For the calculation of prices, only single entries have been analyzed.

Accompanying the account books are papers providing details on the pur-chase of slaves in Cartagena, including the dates on which they were bought,while the account books themselves record the death of any slaves awaitingtransshipment. This means that it is possible to calculate precisely the numberof slaves being supported on each day and therefore make some estimationof the daily ration fed to slaves. Such calculations are not possible for laterstages of the journey, however, since the slaves were generally dispatchedfrom Panama to Peru in several batches, but the dates of their departure andthe numbers that each batch composed are not generally known. In additionsome slaves were sold locally and a few fled, but the dates of these events areoften not recorded. Despite these limitations, it is possible to delineate thebroad outlines of diets during these stretches of the journey.

THE CORE DIETS

An analysis of the expenditure on different food items reveals some sig-nificant differences in the diets of slaves as they passed through differentregions, both between and within broad food categories. Before proceeding,it is worth emphasizing that the analysis is based on levels of expenditureand that these may not necessarily reflect the significance of different foodsin the diet. Hence, for example, the lower percentage expenditure on meatin Panama reflects in part the higher costs of imported bizcocho (hardtack).However, for many foods no information exists on the amounts acquired byweight or quantity, so there is no alternative but to rely on a breakdown ofpurchases in terms of expenditure.

Cartagena

Slaves awaiting transshipment in Cartagena were fed maize or casabe(cassava bread), with some meat or fish. This diet was apparently the sameas that of common people in the city.15 Maize was purchased every few days,


14 For Cartagena, it has been estimated that about 20 percent of 1,700 entries that contained an itemof food were compound entries.

15 Pedro Simón, Noticias historiales de las conquistas de tierra firme en las indias occidentales, 5vols. (Bogotá: Casa Editorial de Medardo Rivas, 1882-92), vol. 5 not. 7 cap. 63 p. 365.

and the expenditure on maize exceeded casabe in a ratio of about four toone, with the latter being bought nearer the date of embarkation for Porto-bello. Casabe was preferred to maize bread for journeys because of itslonger lasting qualities and the difficulty of preparing the latter on boardship. In fact it was claimed that casabe could go “to Spain and back.”16 Beefwas the main meat consumed, though pork was also important. It is difficultto be precise about the relative importance of the two meats since they wereoften entered together in the account books or the meat was just referred toas carne. However, it will be estimated below that pork probably accountedfor less than one fifth. The beef produced on the Atlantic Coast of Colombiawas of poor quality because of the shortage of good pasture. Because pigswere raised on maize, pork was about five times more expensive than beef.In the early seventeenth century, Father Pedro Simón noted that pork sold inCartagena for about one real a pound, whereas an arroba of beef (25


FIGURE 1.PERCENTAGE EXPENDITURE ON DIFFERENT FOODS FOR SLAVES,

1626 TO 1634

Sources: 1628, 1630, 1633, 1634 AGNL SO-Co ca. 20 doc. 201. 1626 and 1629 ANHS VM 77-II.

16 Archivo General de Indias, Seville (hereafter cited as AGI) Santa Fe (hereafter cited as SF) 62 N16doc. 3 fols. 18v, 24v, 30v Cabildo of Cartagena to crown, no date [1577].


TABLE 1.PERCENTAGE EXPENDITURE ON FOODS FOR SLAVES

WITHIN MAJOR FOOD CATEGORIES, 1626 TO 1634

Cartagena Portobello Panama Paita

Cereals and breadMaize 67.8 100.0 46.9 83.4Casabe 16.5 0.0 0.0 0.0Barley 0.2 0.0 0.0 0.0Rice 0.6 0.0 3.9 0.0Bizcocho 2.8 0.0 43.2 0.0Unspecified bread 12.1 0.0 6.0 16.6Total expenditure in reals 33,698 984 43,327 1,340

Meat, fish and dairy productsMeat 54.2 18.5 44.2 7.2Chickens, other birds and eggs 17.1 0.0 36.2 40.7Processed meats and cheese 16.0 0.0 16.3 2.7Fish, salted fish and turtle 12.7 81.5 3.3 49.4Total expenditure in reals 40,162 1,728 15,506 2,927

Fresh meatBeef 29.8 100.0 56.5 0.0Beef and pork 32.8 0.0 0.0 0.0Pork 17.4 0.0 10.4 7.6Mutton 0.0 0.0 88.6Mixed or unspecified meats 20.0 0.0 33.1 3.8Total expenditure in reals 21,748 320 6852 211

Vegetables and fruitPlantains 41.6 100.0 21.3 0.0Amaranth 28.2 0.0 0.0 0.0Beans 5.5 0.0 52.8 10.9Squashes 14.9 0.0 24.5 60.8Sweet potatoes 0.0 0.0 0.0 7.2Chickpeas 0.0 0.0 0.0 4.8Onions and cabbages 2.4 0.0 0.0 3.6Guavas 2.9 0.0 0.0 0.0Oranges and lemons 4.7 0.0 1.3 5.9Melons 0.0 0.0 0.0 6.8Total expenditure in reals 4,067 80 1,662 883

Sources: 1628, 1630,1633, 1634 AGNL SO-Co ca. 20 doc. 201. 1626 and 1629 ANHS VM 77-II, fols.159-77, 252-65. The figures for Cartagena are taken from all six accounts, those for Panama for 1626,1628, 1629, and for Paita for 1626 and 1630.

pounds) could be bought for five to six reals.17 Live pigs were often loadedon to ships to provide fresh meat during the journey. In Cartagena fish andturtle were also important dietary supplements and they were purchased pri-marily on Fridays and Saturdays, with turtles also being loaded for the jour-ney. Less than 5 percent of the total expenditure on food was on vegetablesand fruits, but among them two items figured quite highly—amaranth(bledos) and plantains. In over three-quarters of the cases when amaranthwas purchased, it was acquired together with fish or turtle, which suggeststhat it was probably used as a vegetable in a fish or turtle stew rather than asa grain.18 Plantains were acquired on a more regular basis and they wereprobably a daily staple, though larger quantities were purchased prior to sail-ing. In the 1620s, it was said that twelve to fourteen large boats with morethan 30,000 to 40,000 plantains each left Tolú annually for Cartagena, wherethe resident slave population consumed a good proportion.19

Portobello and Panama

The journey from Cartagena to Portobello on the Caribbean coast ofPanama took nine to ten days.20 The slaves spent four to five days in Porto-bello before undertaking the journey across the isthmus. Here the predomi-nant protein purchased for slaves was turtle, though a few chickens andsome beef were bought, primarily for the journey. Thomas Gage claimedthat fish and “tortoises” were the cheapest forms of meat available in Porto-bello.21 The only other foods purchased in Portobello were small amounts ofmaize and plantains.

Slaves were transported across the isthmus either overland, a journey ofabout four to five days, or via the Chagres River, which might take consider-ably longer. The account books suggest that most slaves traveled over land,with the river route being used primarily for weak or sick slaves.22 After reach-


17 AGI SF 62 N16 doc. 3 fol. 41v Cabildo of Cartagena to crown, no date [1577]; Simón, Noticiashistoriales, vol. 5 not. 7 cap. 63 pp. 365-6.

18 Amaranth was commonly used in pre-Columbian times for this purpose (Eduardo Estrella, El pande América: Etnohistoria de los alimentos aborígines en el Ecuador (Madrid: Consejo Superior de Inves-tigaciones Científicas, 1986), p. 181).

19 Simón, Noticias historiales, vol. 5 not. 7 cap. 63 p. 367; AGI SF 245 Juan de Tordesillas to crown,Cartagena, 30 Aug. 1630. Although it is not explicitly stated, it is assumed that these figures referred toan annual trade.

20 Bowser, African Slave, p. 63.21 Gage, Travels, p. 330.22 Roland D. Hussey, “Spanish Colonial Trails in Panama,” Revista de Indias 6 (1939), pp. 58-64;

Christopher Ward, Imperial Panama: Commerce and Conflict in Isthmian America, 1550-1800 (Albu-querque: University of New Mexico Press, 1993), pp. 56-60; María del Carmen Mena García, La ciudad


TABLE 2.PRICES FOR SELECTED FOODS ENTERED IN SLAVE TRADERS’

ACCOUNT BOOKS, 1626 TO 1634

Unit Cartagena Panama Paita Lima

Beef arroba 4.5-5 1 Not 4.5purchased

Pork piece 100 120 No price Notgiven purchased

Mutton piece Not Not No price 10purchased purchased given

Chicken piece 7-12 (8.5) 7-10 (9) 5-8 (6) 8(gallina)

Fresh fish arroba 16-20 (18) 18-48 (33) 11 [16]*

Salt fish arroba 18-24 (21) 15-20 (18) Not Not purchased purchased

Turtle piece 8-76 22-48 Not Notpurchased purchased

Maize fanega 8-24 (17) 13-64 (33) 18-32 (29) 16-22 (19)

Casabe adorote 24-40 (17) Not Not Notpurchased purchased purchased

Rice botija 24-30 ((27) 18-32 (24) Not Not purchased purchased

Bizcocho petaca 176

Bizcocho quintal 68-96 (83) Not Notpurchased purchased

Beans botija 8-28 (18) 14

Beans costal 12-32 (21)

Beans fanega [48]* 48 16-24

Average prices are given in parentheses.

Sources: 1628, 1630, 1633, 1634: AGNL SO-Co ca. 20 doc. 201. 1626 and 1629: ANHS VM 77-II fols.159-77, 252-265. For Lima see: ANHS VM 79 fols. 107, 108v. Expenses generated by slaves in Lima[1627]; AGNL SO-CO ca. 20 doc. 201 Lo que se va gastando con los negros 1633 and Gasto que se vahaciendo con los negros 1634.

*AGNL Cajas Reales, H-3, leg. 4, lib. 24a fols.31-33 Abecedario de la tasa 1617.

ing Panama City, they were lodged on a local estate, where their diet switchedto beef, though sometimes chicken, together with maize or bizcocho importedfrom Peru. The beef and veal available in Panama were regarded as verycheap,23 and the price of chicken was comparable to that in Cartagena.

Beef was generally preferred to pork because it was cheaper, but in itsabsence pork was purchased, perhaps suggesting that the slave traders con-sidered it important that the slaves receive a ration of meat of some kind.24

Fish were plentiful on both the Caribbean and Pacific coasts;25 indeed,Panama took its name from the indigenous word for “a place of abundantfish.”26 However, because of shortages of labor and the fact that, accordingto Francesco Carletti, “the Spaniards hold fishing to be a vile thing to do,”27

fish was in short supply, expensive and rarely purchased.

Bizcocho was acquired in large quantities one or two days before thedeparture for Peru, but it was also purchased in the absence of casabe andshortages of maize, which often had to be imported.28 The maize that wasgrown locally was said to be unsuitable for the sick, being of poor qualityand fit only for horses and mules.29 Indeed, much of the maize appears tohave been made into couscous.30 Vegetables and fruits accounted for lessthan 3 percent of the total expenditure on food. Those specified in theaccounts were plantains, guavas, oranges, lemons, beans and squashes (bothzapallos and auyamas). Vegetables appear to have been purchased mainlyfor the sick so they were bought in small amounts as the need required,


en un cruce de caminos (Panamá y sus orígenes urbanos) (Seville: Escuela de Estudios Hispanoameri-canos, 1992), pp. 206-209; Descripción del virreinato del Perú, ed. Boleslao Lewin (Rosario: Universi-dad Nacional del Litoral, 1958), pp. 117-120.

23 Descripción del virreinato del Perú, p. 117; Carletti, Voyage, 33; Serrano y Sanz, Manuel Rela-ciones históricas y geográficas de América Central. Colección de libros y documentos referentes a la his-toria de América, vol. 8 (Madrid: Librería General de V. Suárez, 1908), p. 198 Descripción de Panamá1607.

24 AGNL SO-CO ca. 20 Do 201 Memoria de los gastos que se hicieron con los negros 1631.25 Colección de documentos inéditos relativos al descubrimiento, conquista y organización de las

antiguas posesiones españolas de América y Oceanía. 42 vols. (Madrid: 1863-1884) (hereafter cited asCDI), vol. 9, pp. 102, 117 Descripción corográfica 1610 and 1607

26 Serrano y Sanz, Relaciones históricas, p. 68 Relación histórica…Don Juan Requejo Salcedo 1640.27 Carletti, Voyage, p. 41. Here he was referring to the Peruvian coast, but the comment has general

validity.28 AGI Audiencia de Panamá (hereafter cited as AP) 16 R1 N5 Don Francisco Valverde de Mercado

to crown, Panamá, 23 May 1609; AGI AP 17 R9 N159 doc.1 Don Rodrigo de Vivero y Velasco to crown,Panamá, 28 Aug. 1624.

29 AGI AP 30 N23 doc. 1 La ciudad de Panamá to crown 1583, AGI AP 14 Dr. de Villanueva Zapatato crown, Portobello, 12 May 1595.

30 It is clear from the number of bowls, mortars and baskets that were purchased that much of themaize was also made into couscous, as was specified in a number of entries.

rather than on a regular basis. The consumption of vegetables and fruits mayhave been higher than appears, because both may have been included underthe heading of “daily expenses.” That said, market gardening around the cityof Panama appears to have been limited in the early seventeenth centurywhen it was said that there were no chacras raising vegetables and fruits,only a few huertas.31

The journey from Perico, the port of Panama, to Paita, which was usuallythe first stop on the Pacific coast, regularly took about two weeks.32 Oneletter accompanying the 1633 accounts indicates that the provisions loadedon the Santiago to support 211 slaves consisted of 65 good sacks of cous-cous, 61 quintales of bizcocho, 7 arrobas of beef (carne) and large quantitiesof honey and lard.33 Other accounts indicate that live chickens and sucklingpigs were generally taken on board, sometimes with some fresh fish or meatfor the first few days. Apart from large quantities of couscous and bizcocho,another ship, the San Pablo, which carried slaves and merchandise to Peruin 1627, also had two chicken coups containing over 100 chickens and a penfor 17 suckling pigs.34 Other items included eggs, salt fish and some pre-serves, including quince preserve that was used for sick slaves. Beans, riceand sugar also figured occasionally.

Coastal Peru

The first stop for slave ships on the journey to Callao and Lima was nor-mally Paita. Due to the northward flowing Humboldt Current, ships depart-ing from Paita could be blown back up the coast, so the length of the jour-ney south to Callao was unpredictable. A good voyage from Paita to Callaowould last 40 to 50 days, but it could take more than two months.35 As aconsequence, slaves and cargoes were often unloaded in Paita and contin-ued their journey overland. Whether the slaves went by land or sea, slave


31 Serrano y Sanz Relaciones históricas, p. 170 Descripción de Panamá 1607. See also Carletti,Voyage, p. 33.

32 The length of journeys seems to have varied between 10 and 17 days. See also Relaciones geográ-ficas de indias 2, p. 33 Relación de la ciudad de Piura, no date.

33 ANHS VM vol. 79 fols. 189-190v Pedro Duarte to Sebastián Duarte, Panamá, 14 Mar. 1633.34 ANHS VM vol. 79 fols. 155-156 Memoria de lo que voi embarcando con…San Pablo, Manuel

Bautista Pérez, 1627. Similar items were loaded for the transhipment in 1618 (AGNL SO-CO ca. 18 doc.197 Accounts of Manuel Bautista Pérez for 1618-1619).

35 Guillermo Lohmann Villena, Historia marítima del Perú: Vol. IV Siglos XVII y XVIII (Lima: Insti-tuto de Estudios Histórico-Marítimos del Perú), p. 227; Pablo E. Pérez-Mallaína and Bibiano TorresRamírez, La armada del Mar del Sur (Seville: Escuela de Estudios Hispanoamericanos, 1987), p. 201;Peter T. Bradley, “Ships of the Armada of the Viceroyalty of Peru in the Seventeenth Century,” TheMariner’s Mirror 79 (1993), pp. 394-5.

traders acquired provisions on the northern Peruvian coast. Unfortunatelyonly two account books, those for 1626 and 1630, include details of theitems purchased, but they indicate clearly that the slave diet changed dra-matically to predominantly fish (dogfish, tuna and anchovy) and chicken,together with squashes, sweet potatoes and beans; some mutton was alsoacquired. In 1630, fish constituted the single most important item of expen-diture in Paita, followed by maize, chickens and mutton. Large quantitiesof vegetables were also purchased, especially squashes, which accountedfor over two-thirds of the expenditure on vegetables, but also sweet pota-toes and Lima (butter) beans. On an earlier journey in 1619, ManuelBautista Pérez himself purchased provisions in Paita that included dogfish,mutton, maize, pumpkins, plantains, bread and potatoes. This particularshipment of slaves continued the journey by sea and in Huaura, 20 leaguesnorth of Lima, it took on board 9 quintals of bizcocho, 34 fanegas of maize,honey, bread, beans and fish.36

The account books end either with the departure of the slaves fromPanama or with their arrival on the northern coast of Peru. However, otherpapers provide some information on the foods fed to the slaves while await-ing sale in Lima. However, these accounts do not indicate the numbers ofslaves being supported and there are many multiple and undated entries.37

Nevertheless, it is clear that the foods fed to slaves were maize, wheat breadand acemitas (bran cakes), probably for sick slaves, accompanied by beef ormutton. Anchovy, and occasionally shrimp, were the only fish purchased,but in relatively small quantities, probably for consumption on non-meatdays. The smaller contribution of fish in Lima could reflect a seasonal short-age, since the slaves generally arrived there in the late spring, but fish wereonly available between November and April, when the coast was free offog.38 That said, in the late sixteenth century slaves working in the hospitalof Santa Ana in Lima only received fish on non-meat days, mainly in theform of a stew, with the normal ration being one and a half pounds of meatfor male slaves and one pound of beef and mutton for female slaves.39


36 AGNL SO-CO ca. 18 doc. 197 Accounts of Manuel Bautista Pérez for 1618-1619.37 ANHS VM vol. 79 fols. 107, 108v Expenses generated by slaves in Lima [1627]; AGNL SO-CO

ca. 20 doc. 201 Lo que se va gastando con los negros 1633 and Gasto qué se va haciendo con los negros1634.

38 Reginaldo de Lizárraga, Descripción breve de toda la tierra del Perú, Tucumán, Río de la Plata yChile. Biblioteca de autores españoles 216 (Madrid: Ediciones Atlas, 1968), cap. 57, p. 42.

39 Archivo de la Beneficencia Pública, Lima, 9086 fol.73 Ordenanzas para el hospital de Santa Ana,Lima, 4 Dec. 1590. These basic rations did not differ from the amount of meat provided for administra-tors, but the latter received two pounds of white bread and in addition two pozuelos of wine, and morevegetables and fruit.

REGIONAL VARIATIONS IN SLAVE DIETS DURING TRANSSHIPMENT

It might be expected that slave traders purchased the cheapest foods avail-able, with prices reflecting local environmental, economic, social and polit-ical conditions. Environmental conditions were important in defining thebroad areas within which certain crops and livestock could be raised. Hence,it is not surprising to find that maize predominated around Cartagena and innorthern Peru, but did not grow well in the wetter climate of Panama. Sim-ilarly, the sub-humid tropical lowlands were unsuited to cultivation of tem-perate crops such as wheat and barley, such that wheat flour and bizcochohad to be imported from the highlands or from other regions. Fewer con-straints governed the raising of livestock, but sheep did not fare well in thehumid tropics. As such mutton, probably imported from the Andes, only fea-tured in the account books for Peru.

Environmental influences were relative rather than absolute, and other fac-tors explaining differences in the availability of different foods in the threeregions were the availability of labor and the market demand for provisions.The native population in all three regions of transit—the Atlantic Coast ofColombia, Panama and the coast of Peru—declined significantly in the earlycolonial period.40 Lacking precious minerals and labor, few Spaniards settledin these regions and those that did made their livelihoods from trade and itsassociated activities rather than agriculture. Here there were only limitedlocal markets for food, but the galleon trade that passed through them gener-ated substantial demands for provisions. However, this demand was unpre-dictable because of the irregular arrival of the Spanish fleets. It was morestable in Cartagena where a substantial number of merchants settled andwhere a permanent military base and coastguard were established that neces-


40 An estimated contact population of 30,000 tributaries in the province of Cartagena had fallen toabout 1,500 in the early seventeenth century (Adolfo Meisel Roca, “Esclavitud, mestizaje y haciendas enla provincia de Cartagena: 1533-1851,” Desarrollo y Sociedad 4 (1980), p. 230; Julián Ruiz Rivera, Losindios de Cartagena bajo la administración española en el siglo XVII (Bogotá: Archivo General de laNación, 1996), pp. 24-41). According to Oviedo (Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo, Historia general y nat-ural de las indias (Madrid: Ediciones Atlas, 1959) vol. 2 lib. 29 cap. 10 p. 241), the Panamanian isthmuspossessed two million people when the Spanish arrived. However, it suffered a precipitous decline, sothat as early as the 1520s it was importing Indian slaves from Nicaragua to meet the labor shortage(Linda A. Newson, Indian Survival in Colonial Nicaragua (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press,1987), pp. 105, 119). By the 1570s there were only 300 to 400 tributary Indians in the whole Audienciaof Panama (López de Velasco, Geografía, p. 171) and by the early seventeenth century only three smallvillages remained in the jurisdiction of the city (Serrano y Sanz, Relaciones históricas, pp. 169, 216-17Descripción de Panamá 1607; CDI vol. 9, p. 115 Descripción corográfica 1607). As for the north coastof Peru, David Cook has estimated that the tributary population may have fallen from about 20,000 trib-utaries in 1570 to less than 6,000 in 1620 (N. David Cook, Demographic Collapse: Indian Peru, 1520-1620 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981), pp. 118, 120.

sitated regular supplies. In the 1630s Cartagena possessed more than 1,500vecinos and some 10,000 to 12,000 slaves who provided services for the city,as well as 400 to 500 soldiers in the garrison and some 200 who wereemployed in the coastguard.41 In fact, the demand for provisions outstrippedlocal food supplies and the city relied to a high degree on imports from theinterior and from the Caribbean islands and neighboring mainland.42 Themarket for provisions in Paita was probably also more stable than Panama.The irrigated valleys of northern Peru produced large quantities of provi-sions, particularly of wheat, maize, sugar cane and preserves. As well as sup-plying passing travelers, farmers in those regions found ready markets fortheir produce in Lima and Central America.43 Around Cartagena and in north-ern Peru, the demand for provisions was sufficiently large and profitable toencourage the expansion of agricultural production based on African slavelabor, despite the high capital investment involved.44 This meant that provi-sions were generally cheaper in both regions than they were in Panama.

The economy of Panama relied to a greater extent on passing trade.45 Atthe beginning of the seventeenth century, the population of the province ofPanama was only about 5,500, of whom 3,700 were African slaves.46 Laborshortages and the small market for provisions discouraged large-scale agri-cultural production, particularly since greater profits could be made in theisthmus trade. Not only was the local demand for provisions small, but thedemand generated by the passing traffic was highly variable, being stronglylinked to the arrival of the fleets and the fair at Portobello. When their arrival


41 AGI SF 228 N97 Fray Luis de Córdova Ronquillo to crown, Cartagena, 10 Aug. 1634; Simón,Noticias historiales, vol. 5 not.7 cap. 63 pp. 367-68; Vázquez de Espinosa, Compendio, pp. 219-20;Enrique Marco Dorta, Cartagena de Indias: La ciudad y sus monumentos (Seville: Escuela de EstudiosHispanoamericanos, 1951), p. 198; María del Carmen Borrego Plá, Cartagena de Indias en el siglo XVI(Seville: Escuela de Estudios Hispanoamericanos, 1983), pp. 70-77; Hugette Chaunu and Pierre Chaunu,Séville et l’Atlantique 1504-1650, vol. 8:1 (Paris, S.V.E.P.E.N, 1955), p. 1051.

42 Antonino Vidal Ortega, Cartagena de Indias y la región histórica del Caribe, 1580-1640 (Seville:Escuela de Estudios Hispanoamericanos, 2002), pp. 66-68, 167-208.

43 AGI Lima (hereafter AL) 111 Cabildo of Trujillo 24 Mar.1614; Descripción del virreinato del Perú,pp. 22-30; Lizárraga, Descripción breve, caps. 9-20 pp. 10-18; Vázquez de Espinosa, Compendio, pp. 275-78; Lohmann Villena, Historia marítima 4, pp. 215-16; Marie Hellmer, “Le Callao (1615-1618),”Jahrbuch für Geschichte von Staat, Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft Lateinamerikas 2 (1965), pp. 183-84.

44 For Cartagena see: Meisel Roca, “Esclavitud,” 242-44; Borrego Plá, Cartagena de Indias, pp.376-77 and for Peru: Bowser, African Slave, pp. 88-96; Susan E. Ramírez, Provincial Patriarchs: LandTenure and the Economics of Power in Colonial Peru (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press,1986), p. 110.

45 Serrano y Sanz, Relaciones históricas, p. 71 Relación histórica…Don Juan Requejo Salcedo 1640;Ward, Imperial Panama, pp. 63-65; Alfredo Castillero-Calvo, Economía terciaria y sociedad: Panamásiglos XVI y XVII (Panamá: Instituto Nacional de Cultura de Panamá, 1980), pp. 26-29.

46 Serrano y Sanz, Relaciones históricas, pp. 166-69 Descripción de Panamá 1607; CDI vol. 9, p. 91Descripción corográfica 1607.

became more irregular towards the end of the sixteenth century, agriculturalproducers began to shift their investment from crop production into ranch-ing, since it was more adaptable to the variable demand. They also sought toincrease profits by adopting monopolistic practices that restricted supplyand maintained high prices.47 The agricultural economy thus came to bedominated by livestock raising and to rely heavily on food imports.48 Thiswas particularly true in the case of cereals, since wheat and barley could notbe cultivated in the hot humid climate and the maize grown there was ofpoor quality.49 In these circumstances, the cheap price for beef and thereliance on imported bizcocho and wheat flour noted in the accounts are notsurprising.50 Unfortunately, the availability of imported foods was subject tosignificant fluctuations due to difficulties with the weather, pirate attacksand periodic bans on export from Cartagena or Peru.51 Hence, prices for pro-visions in Panama varied markedly, but were generally high.

OTHER FACTORS INFLUENCING THE PURCHASE OF FOODS FOR SLAVES

While the slave traders certainly wanted to maximize profits, this did notnecessarily mean that they always purchased the cheapest foods available.Inadequate diets would lead to poor health, increased mortality and reducedprofits. On the 1633 journey, the cost of maintenance for one slave, whichincluded food, clothing, lodging and medical treatment from the time of pur-chase in Cartagena to arrival in Lima, was calculated at 17 pesos 4 reals.52 Thiswas about one-third of the total cost of transshipment, which averaged between50 and 60 pesos per slave; transport and taxes accounted for the rest. At thistime, slaves were being purchased in Cartagena for about 270 to 310 pesos andcould be sold in Lima for between 570 to over 600 pesos.53 Since a good profitcould be made on the sale of each slave, it made little economic sense to reduce


47 Mena García, Sociedad de Panamá, p. 124.48 CDI vol. 9, p. 115 Descripción corográfica 1607; Descripción del virreinato del Perú, p. 117;

Mena García, Sociedad de Panamá, pp. 109, 112.49 AGI AP 30 N 23 doc. 1 La ciudad de Panamá to crown 1583.50 Alfredo Castillero-Calvo, “Niveles de vida y cambio de dieta en América,” Anuario de Estudios

Americanos, 44 (1987), pp. 432-36 notes the dominance of meat in Panamanian diets during the earlycolonial period.

51 AGI AP 30 N23 doc. 1 La ciudad de Panamá 1583, AP 17 R3 N39 Audiencia of Panamá 27 Jun.1619; AP 17 R9 N159 doc. 1 Don Rodrigo de Vivero y Velasco to crown, Panamá, 28 Aug. 1624; AGIAP 19 R 4 N 43 Don Henrique Henríquez to crown, Panamá, 15 Jun. 1637.

52 AGNL SO-CO ca. 20 doc. 201 Money owed by Juan de la Cueva for the purchase and upkeep ofslaves 1633; AGNL SO-CO ca. 20 doc. 201 Slaves purchased (Aug.-Dec. 1629). These figures includethe cost of transport across the Panamanian isthmus.

53 AGNL SO-CO ca. 20 doc. 201. Differences in the prices reflect differences between Angolanslaves and those from Upper Guinea, which were known as Ríos. The latter were more expensive to pur-chase but sold in Lima at higher prices.

the expenditure on food to the extent that poor nutrition became life-threaten-ing; rather, healthy slaves with a good physical appearance commanded signif-icantly higher prices. The economic benefits from feeding slaves a substantialand varied diet were probably more obvious and immediate to the slave tradersthan to their future employers. Nevertheless, slave traders wished to keep foodcosts as low as possible and generally budgeted on about one real per slave perday.54 This figure is supported by the analysis of the accounts below, whichindicates that in 1633 expenditure on food in Cartagena totaled 24,482 reals,while 21,517 daily rations were needed, an expenditure of about 1.1 reals perslave per day. According to Bowser, food costs for slaves in Peru were aboutone real a day, with urban slaves receiving slightly more than those employedin agricultural enterprises.55

Although the slave traders would have had no scientific knowledge ofdietetics, they were aware that certain foods were better for the weak andsick, and they often purchased them even though they were more expensive.The most notable were pork and chickens, which were often specified in theaccount books as being purchased for the sick; pork was often given toslaves who were being purged.56 Pork was not thought to be as good aschicken for the sick, but it was generally cheaper;57 in Panama veal substi-tuted for pork. There is no suggestion that the slave traders took account ofthe fact that some of the slaves might have been Muslims to whom the porkwould have been unacceptable. The account books indicate that eggs andchickens were both used to treat diarrhea, eggs were also used to makepurgatives and enemas, and sometimes to treat wounds, while chicken wasmade into chicken soup. Other items specified for the sick were acemitas,plantains and wine. These foods were similar to the “bananas, cakes andother sweet things” that the Jesuit, Pedro Claver, is said to have taken tonewly arrived slaves in Cartagena.58 Other less common items purchased for


54 AGNL SO-CO ca. 18 doc. 197 Accounts regarding 1381/2 piezas taken to the Indies (1614-15).Those caring for confiscated slaves were paid between 1 real and 1.75 reals per slave a day for food,lodging and medical care (AGI Escribanía de Cámara 632A pieza 6 fols. 17-65 Procedido desclavosnegros que se condenaron por descaminados…Cartagena, June 1617 to 15 Nov. 1619, Pieza 9 fols. 37r-41v, 52r-55v Testimonios sobre descaminos…Cartagena 1625).

55 Bowser, African Slave, pp. 224-26.56 Juan de Castellanos, Elegías y elogios de varones ilustres de indias, Biblioteca de autores

españoles 4 (Madrid: Imprenta de los sucesores de Hernando, 1904), p. 368; López de Velasco,Geografía, p. 195; Hermes Tovar Pinzón, Relaciones y visitas a los Andes SXVI. Tomo II Región delCaribe (Bogotá: Instituto Colombiano de Cultura Hispánica, 1994), p. 430 Descripción de la gober-nación de Cartagena [1571].

57 Simón, Noticias historiales, vol. 5 not. 7 cap. 63 p. 366.58 Ángel Valtierra, Peter Claver: Saint of the Slaves, trans. Janet H. Perry and L.J. Woodward (West-

minster, Maryland: The Newman Press, 1960), p. 124.

the sick were raisins and quince preserve, the latter being used to treat diar-rhea. Wine, which was imported from Spain, was expensive at between fourand five pesos a botija, but on each journey a small number of bottles werepurchased, most likely for medicinal purposes. Wine was used to make poul-tices, eye lotion and to bathe the skin, probably to treat sores and act as asuppurative, while bizcocho was often dipped in wine and fed to sick slaves,who were also given small amounts to drink.59

Apart from using foods as medicines, the slave traders seem to have madesome attempt to provide the slaves with foods with which they were famil-iar. This was recognized as providing some comfort to them and as havingbeneficial effects on their health.60 This practice was most evident in the pro-cessing of maize to make couscous rather than bread. The predominantsources of slaves at this time were the Upper Guinea Coast and Angola,where millet and sorghum were often made into couscous or gruel respec-tively.61 Perhaps for medicinal purposes or to give the slaves some pleasureand thereby reduce their propensity to rebel or flee, the slave traders, likeFather Claver,62 also provided them with tobacco, which was probablychewed rather than smoked.63

These particular slave traders were concerned not only with the slaves’material needs, but also with their spiritual welfare as they saw it. As suchthey stuck strictly to the Catholic practice of feeding the slaves alternativefoods, particularly fish, on Fridays and Saturdays, when Christians wererequired to abstain from eating flesh meat.64 This did not pose a problem inCartagena, but in Panama little fish was available, and in Peru there wereseasonal shortages of fish.65 In Panama the local people consumed iguana asa substitute for fish.66 The lengths to which the slave traders would go toadhere to Christian practices is evident in their purchase of indulgences to


59 Archivo General de la Nación, Bogotá (hereafter cited as AGNB) Negros y esclavos, Bolívar XVfol. 360v Memoria de los gastos, Antônio Fernandes Delvas contra Juan de Santiago, Santa Marta, 1620;ANHS VM vol. 77-III fol. 15 Memoria de lo qué ha de llevar el agua para los ojos 1628; Josef Fernán-dez, Apostólica y penitente vida de el V.P. Pedro Claver (Zaragoza: Diego Dormer, 1666), p. 214.

60 Valtierra, Pedro Claver, p. 124; Fernández, Apostólica y penitente vida, p. 175. 61 Linda A. Newson and Susie Minchin, “Slave Mortality and African Origins: A View from Carta-

gena, Colombia, in the Early Seventeenth Century,” Slavery and Abolition 25:3 (2004), p. 26.62 Valtierra, Pedro Claver, p. 124; Fernández, Apostólica y penitente vida, p. 231.63 Bowser (African Slave, p. 225) notes that slaves in Lima were given tobacco to chew. Indigenous

people on the Atlantic Coast of Colombia used tobacco as a stimulant, and it was often smoked in cere-monies; see (Simón, Noticias historiales, vol. 3 not. 1 cap. 9 p. 369).

64 L. J. Lekau, “Fast and Abstinence,” in New Catholic Encyclopedia, vol. 5 (New York: McGrawHill, 1967), pp. 847-48.

65 Carletti, Travels, p. 33.66 CDI vol. 9 p. 100 Descripción corográfica 1610.

allow the slaves to eat meat on these days. For example, while in Panama in1633 a significant payment of fifteen pesos was made for this purpose. InPeru the slaves were fed beans as a substitute for meat.67

SLAVE DIETS AND THE COLOMBIAN EXCHANGE

Slave diets reflected the influence of Iberian food traditions, whichfavored the cultivation of wheat, wine, and oil, accompanied by meat orfish,68 but they also took into account the local availability of foods, whichwere often better suited to local environmental conditions and had been wellestablished since pre-Columbian times.

Few domesticated animals existed in the New World to compete with thecattle, pigs and chickens that were introduced from Spain. Poor pasturemeant that the beef produced was often of poor quality, but maize becamean important fodder for both pigs and chickens, which could be easily raisedin household gardens. By the end of the sixteenth century, meat had becomea feature of the daily diet in many regions of Spanish America.69 Wheat andbarley faced greater competition. Neither could be grown in the regions oftransit, so reliance was placed on maize and casabe, while only smallamounts of cereals were imported from the highlands of Colombia or Peruin the form of wheat flour or bizcocho. One crop that made some headwayagainst native staples was rice, which was purchased in small quantities inboth Cartagena and Panama. In Cartagena small quantities may have beenacquired from Atlantic traders who possessed surpluses at the end of slavetrading journeys from Africa, but it was also produced on the Atlantic Coast,notably around Tolú, from which it was imported. In the 1620s it wasregarded as one of the main foods eaten by commoners along with maize,casabe and plantains.70 At that time, rice was being given to sick slaves withsome salt,71 and the small quantities that were purchased may have beenspecifically for this purpose. Africans in Upper Guinea commonly con-


67 AGNL SO CO Siglo XVII 13 Memoria del gasto que tiene en la chacra de Manuel Bautista Pérez1635.

68 See the provisions fed to Iberian ship crews in the early colonial period (AGI Contratación 2878to 2894 Registros de esclavos 1616-1640); Pablo E. Pérez-Mallaína, Spain’s Men of the Sea: Daily Lifeon the Indies Fleets in the Sixteenth Century (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998), p. 67;Super, “Spanish Diet,” pp. 61-63; Arnold J. Bauer, Goods, Power, History: Latin America’s Material Cul-ture (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), p. 63.

69 Super, Food, Conquest and Colonization, pp. 28-31. 70 Simón, Noticias historiales, vol. 5 not. 7 cap. 63 p. 365; María del Carmen Borrego Plá, Palen-

ques de negros en Cartagena de Indias a fines del siglo XVII (Sevilla: Escuela de Estudios Hispano-americanos, 1973), pp. 23-24.

71 Valtierra, Pedro Claver, p. 141; Fernández, Apostólica y penitente vida, p. 252.

sumed rice, and its medicinal use may have been recognition of the healthbenefits to be gained from feeding slaves foods with which they were famil-iar. In Panama, rice was grown more widely on the banks of swamps and itwas produced in sufficient quantities to enable some to be exported toPeru.72 Its availability and good storage qualities meant that it was pur-chased in larger amounts than in Cartagena, though even there it probablyaccounted for less than 10 percent of the total expenditure on cereals andbread on any one journey.73

Many Old World vegetables and fruits were being cultivated in all threeregions of transit in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. Theseincluded onions, cabbages, lettuces, aubergines, radishes, artichokes,endives and the citrus fruits—oranges, limes, lemons—as well as pome-granates, quinces, melons, figs and grapes.74 Nevertheless, the only OldWorld crops to be purchased in any significant quantities by the slave traderswere the citrus fruits, which were used for medicinal purposes rather than asregular foods. Onions appear in the account books only occasionally wherethey are often described as being bought “to give away,” thereby suggestingthat they may have been gifts, or more likely bribes. This function suggeststhat they were not widely available and were highly prized. Certainly theywere expensive; in Cartagena in 1588 two onions cost one real.75

While Old World foods, with the exception of meat, do not appear to havepenetrated basic diets, their influence was more apparent in the items usedin cooking and to flavor and sweeten food, many of which offered some-thing that was not readily available in indigenous food complexes.

An essential ingredient of the Mediterranean diet was olive oil. There wasno counterpart to olive oil in indigenous cuisines, such that frying appears


72 CDI vol. 9 pp. 96-97 Descripción corográfica 1610; Serrano y Sanz, Relaciones históricas, p. 142Descripción de Panamá 1607; Descripción del virreinato del Perú, 117. Castillero-Calvo, “Niveles devida,” p. 28.

73 It is very difficult to calculate the precise percentage, because although the quantities of rice aregenerally recorded separately, the same is not true for bread, where the entries often include other items.As such it is not easy to calculate the total expenditure on cereals and bread, and therefore the propor-tion spent on different types.

74 Castellanos, Elegías, p. 367; López de Velasco, Geografía, pp. 195, 336; Tovar Pinzón, Rela-ciones, pp. 418, 426-27 Descripción de la gobernación de Cartagena [1571]; Bernabé Cobo, Obras, vol.2 Biblioteca de autores españoles 92 (Madrid: Ediciones Atlas, 1956), p. 317; CDI vol. 9 pp. 96-97, 114-15 Descripción corográfica 1610 and 1607; Serrano y Sanz, Relaciones históricas, p. 147 Descripción dePanamá 1607; Descripción del virreinato del Perú, pp. 44-48, 117; Vázquez de Espinosa, Compendio,pp. 221-22, 295; Serrano y Sanz, Relaciones históricas, pp. 73-75 Relación histórica…Don Juan RequejoSalcedo 1640; Carletti, Voyage Around the World, pp. 42-43.

75 José P. Urueta, Documentos para la historia de Cartagena vol. 1 (Cartagena: Tip. Antonio Araújo,1887), p. 226.

to have been a post-conquest form of cooking. Olives were not widely cul-tivated in Spanish America, so most were imported. In fact animal fat ormanteca was generally used for frying because it was more readily avail-able. In Peru, most pigs were raised for fat rather than meat,76 while oliveswere grown for consumption rather than made into oil.77

The herbs used in cooking were generally not specified, though mint andcapers were noted. Capers were used extensively in the Mediterranean cook-ing to add a salty taste to foods and sauces. It is not clear whether they were


TABLE 3.TOTAL EXPENDITURE ON NON-STAPLE FOODS, 1626 TO 1634

Cartagena Portobello Panama Paita

Honey 4,032 0 2,076 88Sugar 2,160 0 727 96Sweets 0 0 120 0Preserves 636 0 980 48Nuts 472 88 32 0Lard 1,888 0 2,652 24Oil 1,754 0 128 0Vinegar 148 0 20 0Salt 257 0 132 2Pepper 64 0 4 0Garlic 8 0 9 0Capers 1,960 0 0 0Saffron 583 0 12 0Cinnamon 55 0 0 0Sesame seeds 0 0 40 0Herbs and spices (unspecified) 3 0 18 0Tobacco 1,129 0 1,000 0Wine 758 360 256 48Aguardiente 352 0 40 0Cacao 240 0 0 0Compound entries 518 96 518 0Water 0 0 0 222Total expenditure in reals 17,017 544 8,764 528

Sources: 1628, 1630, 1633, 1634 AGNL SO-Co ca. 20 doc. 201. 1626 and 1629 ANHS VM 77-II, fols.159-77, 252-65..

76 Descripción del virreinato del Perú, 52; Cobo, Obras, vol. 2, p. 316.77 Rosario Olivas Weston, La cocina en el virreinato del Perú (Lima: Universidad de San Martín de

Porras, 1998), p. 87.

used for this purpose in Cartagena, where they were purchased in largequantities despite their high cost.78 It may be that they were acquired for salein Lima rather than for consumption by slaves, though some may have beenused for medicinal purposes, mainly as a diuretic.79 The accounts also con-tain entries for saffron, a common ingredient in Mediterranean cooking, cin-namon, cloves, cumin, pepper and mustard. Often the spices were used formedicinal rather than culinary purposes. For example, in colonial times saf-fron was used as a stimulant, antispasmodic and sometimes to promote men-struation, as well as to encourage the eruption of smallpox and measles.80

An important introduction from the Old World was sugar, which gradu-ally replaced honey as a sweetener. Sugar was purchased consistentlythroughout the journey, though with the exception of Peru, where it wasgrown in the irrigated valleys of the north coast,81 expenditure on honey stillexceeded that of sugar. Some sugar was grown on haciendas around Carta-gena, but probably most was imported from the Caribbean Islands andVenezuela.82 Similarly, Panama relied mainly on imported sugar, but fromPeru, whose sugar was regarded as being superior in quality to that producedlocally.83 The account books indicate that sugar and honey were used tomake purgatives, medicinal syrups and creams, and to revive sick slaves,while good quality sugar was given away as a gift.

SLAVE RATIONS IN CARTAGENA

The accounts not only enable the reconstruction of the types of foods fedto slaves, but also the quantities of food they were fed and its nutritionalvalue. As noted above, such an analysis is only really possible for the Carta-gena stretch of the journey. The discussion below is based on the shipmentof slaves in 1633, for which the dates of the purchase of slaves, when anyslaves died or were dispatched, are particularly complete. This means that acalculation can be made of the numbers of slaves being supported on each


78 In 1630 3 barrels of capers cost 85 pesos.79 Enrique Laval, Botica de los Jesuitas de Santiago (Santiago: Asociación Chilena de Asistencia

Social, 1953), p. 47; J. Worth Estes, “Food as Medicine,” in The Cambridge World History of Food, ed.Kenneth Kiple and Kriemhild C. Ornelas, vol. 2 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), p.1540.

80 Laval, Botica, p. 57.81 AGI AL 111 Cabildo of Trujillo 24 Mar. 1614; Vázquez de Espinosa, Compendio, pp. 275-78;

Descripción del virreinato del Perú, pp. 22-30; Lizárraga, Descripción breve, cap. 12, p.11; LohmannVillena, Historia marítima vol. 4, pp. 215-16; Hellmer, “Le Callao,” pp. 183-84.

82 Simón, Noticias historiales, vol. 5 not. 7 cap. 63 pp. 366-67; Vidal Ortega, Cartagena de Indias,pp. 88-93.

83 Serrano y Sanz, Relaciones históricas, pp. 170, 199-200; Descripción de Panamá 1607.

day.84 Between August 1 and November 2 the total number of rations neededto support about 400 slaves in Cartagena can be calculated at 21,517.

Meat and Fish Rations

It is clear from the journal that the main items fed to slaves were meat orfish, together with maize or casabe. Meat was purchased nearly every day.Until the end of August beef and pork were listed separately, but thereafterthey were often listed together. Given that during the period that they werelisted separately, pork accounted for about 16 percent of the total expendi-ture on meat, it is reasonable to assume that pork accounted for approxi-mately the same proportion during the rest of the period. On this assump-tion, the total expenditure on beef may be estimated at 5,568 reals (698pesos 2 reals). Although the price of beef was not registered in the accountsfor Cartagena for 1633, the accounts for other years suggest that its priceremained fairly constant at about 5 reals for an arroba of 25 pounds. Thismeans that the total amount of meat purchased can be calculated at 27,840pounds. The account books indicate that slaves were not fed meat on Fri-days or Saturdays. While the slaves were in Cartagena, there were 26 non-meat days, which accounted for 5,886 rations. Subtracting these rationsfrom the total number required gives an average of about one pound twelveounces (808 grams) of beef per slave per day. This is a considerable amountof meat, but two things need to be taken into account. First, it is not knownhow many other people were supported by the provisions. It seems likelythat the provisions would have supported those supervising the slaves,though they were probably few. More significantly, the meat purchasedwould probably have been bought on the bone. Today about 40 percent ofthe carcass weight of an animal is bone,85 and it is likely to have beenhigher in past because scientific breeding has improved the quality of meat.In the seventeenth century the cattle raised around Cartagena were of par-ticularly poor quality due to the shortage of pasture. A 40 percent reductionin the total amount of meat purchased would give a daily ration of aboutone pound one ounce or 485 grams. This still represents a considerableintake of animal protein, and it does not take into account of the possible


84 AGNL SO-CO ca. 20 doc. 201 Memoria de los gastos…1633. In 1633 Sebastián Duarte purchased377 slaves for Manuel Bautista Pérez, while he bought a further 46 slaves for other clients, of which twolarge lots were of 16 and 11 slaves; the remaining 19 were purchased in ones and twos. The dates of thepurchase of the 19 slaves are not known, so they have not been included in the calculations. One batchof 205 slaves was shipped to Portobello on September 15 and the other on November 2. During thisperiod 18 slaves died.

85 FAO World Agricultural Information Center at http://www.fao.org/WAICENT/FAOINFO/AGRICULT/AGP/AGPC/doc/PUBLICAT/FAOBUL3/B3021.htm [Accessed 21 Feb. 2007].

consumption of other meats, such as pork and chickens, though these wereoften fed to the sick.

This ration of meat provided for slaves is even higher than the average percapita meat consumption in Europe at the time, where it reached a peak inthe sixteenth century; it also exceeds the rations for soldiers and seaman thatoften specified a half a pound of meat.86 It is also worth noting that it washigh compared to the six to eight ounces that it has been estimated was pro-vided for slaves in nineteenth-century North America.87 However, it is com-parable with the ration of one pound (454 grams) of meat specified for thesick in the hospital of Cartagena in the late sixteenth century, and also withthe average 410 grams of meat consumed in neighboring Venezuela in theeighteenth century.88 This figure should be regarded as a general guide toconsumption rather a precise amount, but the importance of meat in the dietin Cartagena is not unexpected, given its low cost compared to other foods.

Fish was generally purchased on Fridays and Saturdays. During thewhole period, about 100 pesos were spent on salt fish and 55 pesos on freshfish.89 In 1633, salt fish was slightly more expensive at three pesos anarroba, while fresh fish generally sold for eighteen reals.90 This outlay wouldhave enabled the slave traders to acquire about 833 pounds of salt fish and611 pounds of fresh fish. Assuming that fish was consumed on non-meatdays only, this would give an average daily ration of about 3.9 ounces or 111grams of fish. However, on four non-meat days the slaves were fed turtlerather than fish.91 Excluding these days, the daily ration on non-meat dayswould rise to 4.8 ounces or 135 grams of fish. While this amount is signifi-


86 AGI SF 40 R3 N61 doc. 3 Oficiales reales 30 Jul. 1639; Hamilton, “Wages and Subsistence,” p.434; Bartolomé Bennassar and Joseph Goy, “Contribution à l’histoire de la consummation alimentairedu XIVe au XIX e,” Annales ESC 30:2-3 (1975), pp. 421-23, 425; Cook and Borah, Essays, vol. 3, p. 176.

87 Fogel and Engerman, Time on the Cross, p. 113; Sutch, “Treatment of Slaves,” p. 380.88 AGI Contaduría (hereafter cited as CO) 496 Las raciones que se deben de hospital de Cartagena

de los enfermos 1575. The ration of one pound of meat appears to have been fairly consistent throughthe colonial period (See also AGNB Colonia Hospitales 6 fols. 544-552 Administrador del hospital, DonNicolás García, Cartagena, 29 Oct. 1760). For the consumption of meat in Venezuela in the late eigh-teenth century, see: José R. Lovera, Historia de la alimentación en Venezuela (Caracas: Monte Ávila Edi-tores, 1988), p. 67.

89 Apart from the 80 pesos that were spent on salt fish, fourteen of the entries were multiple entries,in which the main other item was amaranth. Since amaranth is likely to have accounted for only a smallproportion of the expenditure, it is estimated that 75 of the other 79 pesos were spent on fish, of which20 were on salt fish and 55 on fresh fish. Expenditure on salt fish for the journey has been excluded.

90 Unfortunately, there is only one entry that gives the price of salt fish by quantity, which was 3pesos an arroba. That salt fish was more expensive is suggested by the arancel for Cartagena in 1588,where one real could buy only one and a half pounds of salt fish, compared to two pounds of barbecuedfish (Urueta, Documentos, p. 226).

91 On days when turtles were purchased, a total of 1,027 rations were needed.

cantly lower than the ration of meat provided, it is important to note thatmost fish purchased was salt fish. Salt fish is nutritionally superior to freshfish, to the extent that, in the sixteenth century, the ration specified forsailors equated about one-third of a pound of salt fish to one pound of freshmeat.92 The protein intake of slaves might not therefore have been signifi-cantly different on meat and non-meat days.

Bread Rations

In 1633, 93 percent of the expenditure on bread and cereals was on maizeand casabe. About 402 fanegas of maize were purchased in Cartagena, ofwhich 121 fanegas were specified for the journey.93 It is more difficult tocalculate the amount of casabe purchased, since it was bought in adorotes orbasket loads of an unspecified size and the price per pound was notrecorded. The only indication is that in 1588 a torta of casabe weighing oneand a half pounds cost half a real.94 In 1633 209 pesos were spent on casabe,of which 9 pesos were specified for the journey. At the 1588 price, 200 pesoscould have bought about 4,800 pounds of casabe. In 1639, the daily rationfor soldiers stationed in Cartagena was 26 ounces a day, so that this amountcould have provided 2,954 rations.95 Deducting this number of rations fromthe 21,517 required would suggest that the 281 fanegas or 28,100 pounds ofmaize purchased for consumption in Cartagena would have provided dailyrations of about one and a half pounds or 680 grams.96 Most of the maizewas probably consumed as bollos or bread, though the account books indi-cate that some was used to make couscous. The amounts consumed arelikely to have been somewhat less than 680 grams because wastage wouldhave occurred during processing.97 In the previous year, Manuel BautistaPérez reported that he was feeding slaves awaiting sale in Lima about oneand a quarter pounds of bread a day, of which 40 percent was wheat bread.98


92 Super, “ Spanish Diet,” pp. 61-62 93 The total has been calculated from the number of fanegas specified (272) plus about 130 calcu-

lated from the prices paid for the remaining maize on the basis of the average price paid in that year. Afanega was equivalent to four arrobas of 25 pounds each.

94 Urueta, Documentos, p. 226.95 AGI SF 40 R 3 N 61 doc. 3 Oficiales reales, Cartagena, 30 Jul. 1639.96 Bread consumption in Europe at the time generally exceeded 500 grams a day (Massimo Livi-

Bacci, Population and Nutrition: An Essay on European Demographic History (Cambridge: CambridgeUniversity Press, 1990), pp. 87-91; Fernand Braudel, Civilization and Capitalism 15th to 18th Century,Vol. 1: The Structures of Everyday Life (New York: Harper and Row, 1979), p. 132.

97 Super, Food, Conquest, and Colonization, pp. 35-37 gives some contemporary figures for lossesin the conversion of wheat flour into bread.

98 ANHS VM vol. 79-II fol. 12 Manuel Bautista Pérez to Sebastián Duarte, Lima, 1 Jul. 1633.Manuel Bautista Pérez claimed that for 200 Ríos slaves he normally provided one fanega of pan amasado

These rations of maize and casabe are consistent with the amounts of breadspecified for soldiers, sailors and the sick in Cartagena in the late sixteenthcentury.99 In the eighteenth century, the rations specified for the sick in thehospital of San Lázaro in Cartagena included between one and a half andtwo pounds of maize in the form of bollos.100

THE NUTRITIONAL VALUE OF THE SLAVE DIET

The above analysis suggests that slaves were fed about one pound of beefa day or five ounces of fish, together with about one and a half pounds ofmaize bread or casabe. In reality, due to wastage, the amounts were proba-bly somewhat less, but the provisions are likely to have been consumed bythe slaves, because there was no possibility of hoarding them for sale, as wascommon practice among sailors and soldiers.101

Even though the composition of the basic diet can be estimated withina margin of error, assessing its nutritional value poses further difficul-ties.102 Although nutritional composition tables will be used here to assessthe nutrient value of diets, they have a number of limitations. First, theyare necessarily based on present-day foodstuffs that have often undergonechanges through scientific breeding. Second, the selection of an appropri-ate table for a particular food item is a hazardous task. For example, manytables exist for beef that are based on different cuts of meat with differentamounts of fat, but only very basic information exists on the quality ofmeat purchased in Cartagena in the seventeenth century. The same prob-lem applies to processed foods, which, although they may have the samename, for example bizcocho, may have quite different nutritive values.The nutritional composition tables used here have been selected to corre-spond as closely as possible to the form in which the slaves would haveconsumed the foods. Hence, with the exception of salt fish, they all takeaccount of the manner of preparation. The nutritional compositions ofbollos de maíz and casabe are drawn from analyses of these foods in


(probably wheat bread) in the morning and 1.5 fanegas of maize in the afternoon. This would suggest adaily ration of bread of 1.25 pounds.

99 AGI CO 496 Las raciones que se deben del hospital de Cartagena de los enfermos 1575 andRelación de las raciones …de los dichos galeones en esta ciudad de Cartagena 1575.

100 AGNB Colonia Hospitales 6 fols. 533r-536v Razón de la ración diaria…Cartagena, 1755 andfols. 544r-552r Administrador del hospital, Don Nicolás García, Cartagena, 29 Oct. 1760.

101 Super, “Spanish Diet,” pp. 63-64.102 See Super, “Spanish Diet,” pp. 63-67 and John C. Super, “Sources and Methods for the Study of

Historical Nutrition in Latin America,” Historical Methods 14 (1981), pp. 25-27, for a discussion of theseissues.


Colombia.103 Despite efforts to use the most appropriate nutritional com-position tables, it is recognized that the estimates here necessarily have amargin of error.

Once the nutritional composition of the foods has been established, fur-ther difficulties arise in assessing the adequacy of the diet. Historical stud-ies of nutrition tend to rely on Recommended Dietary Allowances (RDAs)that are based on food consumption and activity patterns in western indus-trial societies today. While these provide some guide to human nutritionalneeds, they may not be applicable to societies in the past or in different con-texts. The calorie requirements of slaves while barracooned in Cartagena arelikely to have been less, due to their lower stature,104 the warm climate andbecause they were confined to slave-pens.105 It is estimated here that maleslaves required between 1,700 to 2,000 calories and female slaves between1,350 and 1,700 calories. These figures are about two-thirds of present-dayneeds. Fernand Braudel has estimated that prior to the eighteenth centurycommoners in Europe required about 2,000 calories.106

Table 4 suggests that the daily calories provided by the different diets weregenerally above their estimated needs; only where fish was combined withbollos of maize would the calorie intake appear to have been less than thelower limit for female slaves. The protein content of all core diets, however,would appear to have been relatively good, generally exceeding today’s rec-ommended daily allowances. The greatest deficiency in macronutrients wasin the fat available, particularly in those diets that were based on fish. Theestablished world minimum for fat is between 80 and 125 grams a day107 and

103 These are compiled by the Instituto Colombiano de Bienestar, Bogotá, and are available at: FAOLatin Foods http://www.rlc.fao.org/bases/alimento/default.htm [Accessed 27 Feb. 2007].

104 This is based on the heights of Senegambian and Central African slaves on Caribbean plantationsin the nineteenth century taken from Barry W. Higman, Slave Populations of the British Caribbean,1807-1834 (Kingston: The Press University of the West Indies, 1995), p. 281. For the origins of slaves,see pp. 126-27.

105 For the equivalence of stature and body weight and the calculation of calorie needs, see: FrancesSizer and Eleanor Whitney, Nutrition: Concepts and Controversies 8th edn. (Belmont, CA: Wadworth,2000), pp. 316-17, 320. The calculation involves estimating the energy needs for basic metabolism at onecalorie per kilogram per hour for a man and 0.9 for a woman. This is then added to the amount neededto support physical activity. Here it is assumed that there was little physical activity, so estimates arebased on those for a sedentary person, which is between 25 to 40 percent of the basal metabolic rate fora man and between 25 to 35 percent for a woman. This gives an estimated calorie need of between 1,796and 2,012 calories for males from Senegambia and of 1,688 to 1,890 for those from Central Africa. Cor-responding figures for females may be calculated at 1,468 and 1,586 for Senegambian women and 1,371to 1,481 to those from Central Africa.

106 Braudel, Structures, pp. 130, 132.107 Kiple, Caribbean Slave, pp. 81-82.


TABLE 4.COMPOSITION OF BASIC SLAVE DIETS IN CARTAGENA

Daily Calories Protein Fatintake g kcal g g Source

Meat daysBeef 485 1411 128 96 USDA 13796Maize (bollos) 680 1013.2 32.64 6.12 FAO Latin

Foods S020Total 2425 161 102

Beef 485 1411 128 96 USDA 13796Casabe 737 2513 12 1 FAO Latin

Foods S217Total 3925 140 97

Non-meat daysSalt fish 135 392 85 3 USDA 15018Maize (bollos) 680 1013.2 32.64 6.12 FAO Latin


Salt fish 135 392 85 3 USDA 15018Casabe 737 2513 12 1 FAO Latin


Fish (mullet) 135 203 33 7 USDA 15056Maize (bollos) 680 1013.2 32.64 6.12 FAO Latin


Fish (mullet) 135 203 33 7 USDA 15056Casabe 737 2513 12 1 FAO Latin


RDA adult males (current) 2,900 58RDA adult females (current) 2,200 46.0

Estimated RDA for 1,700-2,000 See discussionmale slaves in text

Estimated RDA for 1,350-1,700 See discussionfemale slaves in text

Sources: USDA US Department of Agriculture National Nutrient Database http://www.nal.usda.gov/fnic/foodcomp/search/; FAO Latin Foods http://www.rlc.fao.org/bases/alimento/default.htm; RDA Rec-ommended Daily Allowance http://www.nal.usda.gov/fnic/dga/rda.pdf.

in only two of the six core diets was this minimum exceeded. The diets prob-ably contained more fat than these figures suggest, since large amounts ofmanteca were purchased, which suggests that the food was often fried.Indeed, occasional entries in the account books note that foods were pur-chased “for frying.” The significance of the low fat in the diet is that fat actsas a carrier for a number of vitamins, notably vitamin A and D, and is impor-tant in the transformation of carotene to vitamin A.

As shown in Table 5, all the core diets combining beef, fish, salt fish,maize and casabe would have fallen short of providing the recommendeddaily intake of calcium, which is necessary for bone and teeth development.Calcium is found mainly in dairy products, and in small amounts in vegeta-bles and cereals, but most tropical foods are fairly low in calcium. Also, cal-cium needs to be in relative balance with phosphorous, such that an excessof phosphorous can reduce the ability to absorb calcium.108 This appears tohave been the case with those diets that were heavily dependent on beef orsalt fish. Hence, even though amaranths would have been a rich source ofcalcium, the slaves probably suffered from calcium deficiency. On the otherhand, the basic diet of beef would have provided an adequate supply of ironand made up for deficiencies in the fish-based diets that were supplied onnon-meat days. However, Kenneth Kiple has noted that the iron require-ments in the tropics tend to be higher, since a significant amount is lostthrough sweat and feces.109

The analysis also suggests that the core diets were deficient in vitamins Aand C. They may also have suffered from shortages of some B vitamins,including thiamin (vitamin B1), riboflavin (vitamin B2), and niacin (nicotinicacid). Although maize contains these B vitamins, nutrients would have beenlost during milling and, since they are water soluble, in cooking. On theother hand, B vitamins would have been available in the beef consumed.However, the slaves’ requirements may have been high because the low fatcontent of the diet meant that calories would have had to be obtained fromcarbohydrates, whose metabolism is dependent on B vitamins.110 As such,although the B vitamin intake was not so low as to induce deficiency dis-eases, it may have impaired the ability of slaves to benefit from the foodsthey were fed.111 In the colonial period, shortages of vitamin B appear to


108 Kiple, Caribbean Slave, pp. 85-86.109 Kiple, Caribbean Slave, p. 85. 110 P.M. Gaman and K. B. Sherrington, The Science of Food, 4th edn. (Oxford: Pergamon, 1996), pp.

107-13; Daphne A. Roe, “Vitamin B Complex,” in Kiple and Ornelas, Cambridge World History of Food,1, pp. 750-52.

111 Kiple, Caribbean Slave, p. 84.


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have characterized slave diets in some parts of Colombia, such as Antioquia,and perhaps the Pacific lowlands, where maize formed a substantial part ofthe slave diet. In these regions pellagra, which is associated with a shortageof niacin, appears to have been endemic.112 Finally, because vitamin D isfound only in a few foods, notably oily fish, eggs and dairy products, theslaves’ intake of vitamin D was probably minimal. However, it may beformed under the skin under the stimulus of sunlight.113 While the dark skinof the slaves would have inhibited vitamin D production through sunlightstimulation,114 it would have been facilitated by the accommodation ofslaves in compounds and patios that were open to the elements. As such,vitamin D deficiency is unlikely.

Some deficiencies in the basic diets would have been made good by sup-plements of fruit and vegetables. Those diets based on fish probably con-tained greater amounts of vitamins A and C than indicated, since they wereoften consumed with amaranth or squash (auyama). Both vegetables are richin carotene, and amaranths are also a good source of vitamin C. Plantains,which were consumed on a regular basis, would also have been a good sourceof carotene and would have provided some additional calories. As for vita-min C, the slave traders purchased both oranges and lemons. Even thoughthey appear to have been used primarily for medicinal purposes rather thanas regular foods, it did mean that deficiencies of vitamin C probably did notreach such low levels as to become life-threatening. Other foods, such aschicken, beans, guavas, acemitas, ham and jerky, which were occasionallyfed to the slaves, would have provided additional vitamins and minerals.

In examining the nutrient composition of basic slave diets in theCaribbean, Kenneth Kiple suggests that they were barely adequate in termsof protein and very low in fat, while they were deficient in vitamins A andC, low in B vitamins and calcium, but high in phosphorous.115 The basic ele-ments of his core diets are similar to those discussed here, but the diets ofslaves in Cartagena contained over double the amount of beef and maize.What those in Cartagena probably lacked compared to those on Caribbeanplantations was the variety of vegetables and fruits that might have providedsome essential vitamins and minerals, though amaranth and plantains wouldhave been particularly nutritious.


112 Chandler, “Health and Slavery,” pp. 170-71; Pablo Rodríguez, En busca de lo cotidiano: Honor,sexo, fiesta y sociedad s.XVII-XIX (Bogotá: Universidad Nacional de Colombia, 2002), pp. 220-22,225-26.

113 Gaman and Sherrington, The Science of Food, pp. 99-101.114 Kiple, Caribbean Slave, pp. 39-42.115 Kiple, Caribbean Slave, p. 88.

Although the rations fed to slaves may have been more or less adequatein terms of calories and protein, though perhaps slightly deficient in some ofthe vitamins, the slaves may have reacted adversely to the large quantities offood they were fed and in particular the large amount of meat. In the late six-teenth and early seventeenth centuries, diets in Upper Guinea and Angola,which were the regions from which slaves entering Cartagena came at thistime, comprised largely carbohydrate foods, mainly sorghum and millet, butsometimes yams, supplemented by small amounts of meat, fish or other veg-etables.116 Manioc and maize cultivation were only just spreading intoAngola, while in Upper Guinea both crops were uncommon. Evidence forthe health of slaves when they arrived in Cartagena suggests that many hadbeen poorly nourished in Africa,117 especially those from Angola, which suf-fered from periodic droughts and up to the 1630s was largely dependent onprovisions imported from Portugal, São Tomé or Brazil.118 Any inadequaciesin African diets would have been exacerbated during the Middle Passage,where according to Alonso de Sandoval, they were fed only a medium spoonof maize or sorghum flour. The result, as Sandoval observed, was that onarrival in Cartagena the slaves often suffered from diarrhea and dysentery inreaction to the more new and more abundant food they received,119 circum-stances that would have weakened them even further and reduced theirimmunity to infections in what was for them a new disease environment.


116 For foods consumed in Upper Guinea see Valentin Fernandes, Description de la côte occidentaled’Afrique: (Sénégal du Cap de Monte Archipels), ed. Th. Monod, A. Teixeira da Mota and R. Mauny.(Bissau: Publicações do Centro de Estudos da Guiné Portuguesa, 1951), pp. 46-49, 54-57; André Álvaresd’Almada, Tratado breve dos rios de Guiné do Cabo Verde, ed. António Brásio. (Lisbon: L.I.A.M, 1964),pp. 19, 30, 44, 73, 76, 79, 90, 105, 116, 126; Richard Jobson, The Discovery of the River Gambra (1623),eds. David P. Gamble and P.E.H.Hair (London: Hakluyt Society, 1999), pp. 104-105, 162-63; AndréDonelha, Descrição da Serra Leoa e dos rios de Guiné do Cabo Verde (1625), ed. Avelino Texeira daMota (Lisbon: Junta de Investigações Científicas do Ultramar, 1977), p. 81; Francisco de Lemos Coelho,Duas descrições seiscentistas da Guiné (Lisbon: Academia portuguesa da história, 1953), pp. 120, 141,143, 145, 153, 206, 216. For Angola, see: António Brásio, ed., Monumenta Missionaria Africana. Ser. 1(Lisbon: Agência Geral do Ultramar, 1952-), vol. 3, pp. 135-36; Garcia Simões 20 Oct. 1575, vol. 3, p.249; Baltasar Afonso 3 Oct. 1583, vol. 3, pp. 317, 320; Diogo da Costa 20 Jul..1585, vol. 6, p. 336; Bal-tasar Rebelo de Aragão 1618, vol. 6, p. 460; Garcia Mendes Castelo Branco 1620.

117 Newson and Minchin, “Slave Mortality,” pp. 18-43.118 Mario José Maestri Filho, A agricultura africana nos séculos XVI e XVII no litoral angolano

(Porto Alegre: Instituto de Filosofia e Ciências Humanas, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul,1978), pp. 45-46, 63; Joseph C. Miller, “The Significance of Drought, Disease and Famine in the Agri-culturally Marginal Zones of West-Central Africa,” Journal of African History 23 (1982), pp. 22-43;Alonso de Sandoval, Un tratado sobre la esclavitud, ed. Enriqueta Vila Vilar (Madrid: Alianza Editorial,1987), p. 134.

119 Sandoval, Tratado sobre la esclavitud, pp. 152-53.

CONCLUSION

The evidence suggests that the foods purchased for the slaves in the regionsof transit largely reflected their availability, which was significantly influ-enced by environmental conditions, the structure of local economies and thenature of the demand for provisions. The most significant impact of theColumbian Exchange was in the increased availability of meat, though thiswas more apparent in Cartagena and Panama than Peru. The high consump-tion of meat by the slaves may not have been mirrored in the diets of the localpeople, who by tradition may have preferred other foods. However, nativefood traditions in the regions of transit may have been weakened by demo-graphic decline. Moreover, in the early seventeenth century meat was verycheap, a situation that was to change as the colonial period progressed.120 Onthe other hand, largely for environmental reasons, maize and casabe continuedto dominate cereal production and, despite frequent comments by contempo-rary observers that Old World vegetables were being cultivated, the evidencehere suggests that they had scarcely penetrated the diets of most people.

The Iberian view that meals were incomplete without bread and meat orfish, was evident in their dominance in the slave diet, but the provisions theyacquired also reflected compliance with Christian practices and prevailingviews on the healthiness of particular foods. In a captive environment, Span-ish food traditions prevailed over any preferences that the slaves may havehad. The study suggests that during transshipment slaves were fed a sub-stantial diet that in Cartagena comprised about one pound of beef or fiveounces of fish a day, together with about one and a half pounds of maizebread or casabe, supplemented by a few vegetables and some fruit. Althoughthe bulk of expenditure was on bread, cereals or meat, over thirty other itemswere provided, including vegetables, fruits, herbs, condiments, honey,sugar, tobacco and wine. These accounted for between 15 and 25 percent oftotal expenditure in different regions. Only a small proportion of these itemswould have been used for medicinal purposes or, in the case of oil or lard,for cooking. Since all these items were purchased specifically for the slaves,it suggests that the slave traders provided them with a varied diet. Whilst thisfinding is similar to that concluded for North American slave diets by Fogeland Engerman, it cannot be extrapolated to other slave contexts, includingother slave merchants. These particular slave traders operated at the top endof the market, providing slaves mainly for elite households in Lima, wheretheir good physical appearance and health were of paramount importance.


120 Castillero-Calvo, “Niveles de vida,” pp. 442-46; Super, Food, Conquest, and Colonization, p. 32.

Although the basic diet would have more or less supplied the slaves withsufficient calories, it may have been deficient in fat, calcium and some vita-mins. However, it compared favorably with the diets of slaves who wereemployed in Colombia during the colonial period, particularly in the miningareas, where diets were less varied and were often lacking in essential vita-mins.121 The diet was comparable to the rations specified for the sick in hos-pitals and for soldiers and seamen in the sixteenth century, whose energyneeds would have been greater. There seems little doubt therefore that, asFather Sandoval asserted, the slave traders were ‘fattening up’ their slaves inorder to maximize profits.122

Kings College London LINDA A. NEWSON

United Kingdom SUSIE MINCHIN


121 Chandler, “Health and Slavery,” pp. 170-71; Rodríguez, En busca de lo cotidiano, pp. 220-22.122 Sandoval, Tratado sobre la esclavitud, p. 152.

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