Peru as It Is, Volume 1 (of 2): A Residence in Lima, and Other Parts of the Peruvian Republic, Comprising an Account of the Social and Physical Features of That CountrySmith, Archibald
History
Peru as It Is, Volume 1 (of 2): A Residence in Lima, and Other Parts of the Peruvian Republic, Comprising an Account of the Social and Physical Features of That Country
Smith, Archibald
Peru -- Description and travel
Such is the influence which slave domestics exercise over the feelings
and comfort of private families, and, we would even add, over the moral
and physical features of the community, that it would be impossible to
give a correct picture of the state of society in Lima without first
cursorily viewing the condition of the slave population in Peru.
In article 152 of the Political Constitution of the Republic of Peru, it
is declared that no one is born a slave in the republic, neither does
any one enter from other countries who is not left free when he treads
on Peruvian soil. Should any Peruvian be found guilty of importing
slaves into the republic for the purposes of traffic, the constitution
declares that he shall be deprived of his rights of citizenship. But the
internal traffic of slaves still continues, though it is confined to
buying and selling such slaves as existed in the country before the war
of independence began, or to such of their offspring as were born before
the year 1820, when Peru was no longer the acknowledged patrimony of
Spaniards. With respect to the mere exterior appearance of negroes born
in Peru of African parents, it is observed that they are influenced by
the bleaching effects which the climate of the Peruvian coast is known
to produce on the ruddy sons of our northern climes who reside for any
length of time in Lima. The native negro therefore is lighter in colour,
and possessed of finer, more expressive, and much more regular features
than the jet-black and lacerated “Bozals” or African-born blacks, on
whose countenance and breast are commonly seen deep and hideous scars
that bespeak at once their more barbarous origin and their foreign
importation.
The orderly discipline of the “Galpon,” or slave-barracks, appears,
from the acknowledgments of the natives themselves, to have been very
creditable to the humanity of the slave-holders in the days of Spanish
sway over them,—a time when slaves are said to have shared in the
felicity of their masters. Leniently dealt with, and in the abundant
fruition of animal gratifications, they felt themselves happy, and forgot
that they were not free.
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