"No Life As Infernal or Desperate": Enslaved Pearl Diving in the Caribbean in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries

This paper explores the life and labor conditions of enslaved pearl divers in the pearl fisheries in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. I discuss early Indian slavery and the importation of Africans into the pearl fishing settlements on the islands of Cubagua and Margarita, paying particular attention to the possibility that slave importers sought slaves from the riverine regions of, due to their perceived experience with water-based activities.  Contemporary accounts of pearl diving in the fisheries as well as royal legislation attempting to regulate life there provide distinct glimpses of the experiences of enslaved divers. Bartolomé de las Casas, who spent time in the pearl fisheries in the early sixteenth century and decried the working conditions of the divers, explained that there was “no life as infernal or desperate” than that of the pearl divers.  Although enslaved pearl divers performed exceedingly dangerous work and endured difficult living conditions, surviving evidence suggests that they nonetheless managed to exert considerable control over their own mobility as well as a degree of control over the resource they were forced to harvest. Royal legislation aimed at curbing the practice suggests that enslaved divers frequently kept pearls for themselves, either hoarding them or trading them for food and other necessities. Enslaved Africans and former slaves occasionally became skilled drillers of pearls; they also used pearls as jewelry and as components of religious decoration.  Using an array of archival sources addressing life, labor, and the economy in the pearl fisheries, the paper will explore the experiences of enslaved divers, examining the nature of their bondage, the constraints and opportunities that characterized their lives and their influence on the production and circulation of the highly valuable and widely desired jewel.