Migrations Real and Imagined: Indigenous Slaves of the Iberian Atlantic Tell Their Stories, 1530–60

            In the Iberian colonial world between 1492 and 1560 hundreds of thousands of indigenous peoples were enslaved and forced to re-locate to foreign lands. These indigenous “globetrotters” traveled throughout the intra-colonial world with merchants, conquerors, or their masters as commodities. They served as military auxiliaries on exploratory ventures, as domestic servants, and as the partners of the men who had raped, enslaved, branded and occasionally married them. Hundreds made the transatlantic journey to lead their humble lives in the Spanish kingdoms. Beginning in the 1530s dozens appeared before the House of Trade or the Council of the Indies to explain why they had been unjustly enslaved. The recorded testimonies of these “Iberian” slaves and their masters reveal how these litigants used geographic and legal knowledge to invent, re-create, or purposefully recalibrate the histories of forced migration—sometimes decades after the slaves’ deracination had occurred. In mediated courtroom contexts, where lawyers, interpreters, and witnesses were also actively involved, litigants traced the circuitous pathways leading to Spain from Santo Domingo, Nicaragua, Mexico, Peru and elsewhere. An analysis of the court records between 1530 and 1560 reveals how and why litigants strategically altered or emphatically emphasized geographic and cultural origins as changes in slave legislation occurred. It also reveals the tensions between local (read: villages in Spain and the Americas) and imperial (read: courtroom) practices and knowledge as indigenous slaves increasingly gained their freedom.