Marriage as Slave Emancipation in Seventeenth-Century Rural Guatemala

Abstract

On the 17th of August 1671, Manuel de Morales, a 49-year-old Angolan slave employed on a Dominican-owned sugar plantation in the Pacific coastal hotlands of what is now the republic of Guatemala, came before a priest and declared his intention to marry. Accompanying Morales was his proposed spouse, Inés Hernández, an Indian widow from the nearby town of Escuintla, capital of the colonial Guatemalancorregimientoof Escuintepeque in which the Dominicaningeniolay. Four male witnesses testified to the soundness of the proposed marriage between Morales and Hernández, two on behalf of eachcontrayente, or prospective spouse. Three of the witnesses were slaves: Silvestre Ramírez, defined as mulatto, and Jacinto Pereira and Miguel de la Cruz, both identified as black. The fourth was Diego de Arriasa, mulatto and free.

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