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Diets, Food Supplies and the African Slave Trade in Early Seventeenth-Century Spanish America*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 December 2015

Linda A. Newson
Affiliation:
Kings College London, United Kingdom
Susie Minchin
Affiliation:
Kings College London, United Kingdom

Extract

Much has been written about the spread of Old World crops and livestock in the Americas. However, very little is known, except in very general terms, about the availability of different foods, diets and nutrition, particularly among the common people, in different regions of Spanish America in the early colonial period. This derives in part from the shortage of evidence, but it also reflects the difficulties of researching these complex issues, where environmental conditions, access to land and labor, income distribution, regulation of food supplies and prices, as well as food traditions, all interact.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Academy of American Franciscan History 2007

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Footnotes

*

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

References

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

9 Bowser, African Slave.

10 For example, Barrett, Ward, The Sugar Hacienda of the Marqueses del Valle (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1970), pp. 9397;Google Scholar Palmer, Colin A., Slaves of the White God: Blacks in Mexico, 1570–1650 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1976), pp. 5051;CrossRefGoogle Scholar Cushner, Nicolas P., Lords of the Land: Sugar, Wine and the Jesuit Estates of Coastal Peru, 1600–1767 (Albany: SUNY Press, 1980), pp. 9596;Google Scholar Chandler, David L., “Health and Slavery: A Study of Health Conditions Among Negro Slaves in the Viceroyalty of New Granada and its Associated Slave Trade, 1600–1810” (Ph.D. diss., Tulane University, 1972), pp. 160–7;Google Scholar Bowser, , African Slave, pp. 224226.Google Scholar

11 Fogel, Robert W. and Engerman, Stanley L., Time on the Cross: The Economics of American Negro Slavery (New York: WW. Norton, 1989).Google Scholar For a critique of the proposed quality and variety of slave diets see Sutch, Richard, “The Treatment Received by American Slaves: A Critical Review of the Evidence Presented in Time on the Cross,Explorations in Economic History 12 (1975), pp. 359396, 426CrossRefGoogle Scholar and “The Care and Feeding of Slaves,” in David, Paul A., Gutman, Herbert G., Sutch, Richard, Temin, Peter and Wright, Gavin, Reckoning With Slavery: Critical Essays in the Quantitative History of American Negro Slavery (New York: Oxford University Press, 1976), pp. 231301.Google Scholar In 1989 Fogel and Engerman added an Afterword to Time on the Cross and Fogel, Robert produced a response in Without Consent or Contract: The Rise and Fall of American Slavery (New York: W.W. Norton, 1989), pp. 132–38Google Scholar, which was accompanied by a technical volume with Ralph Galantine and Manning, Richard entitled Without Consent or Contract: The Rise and Fall of American Slavery—Evidence and Methods. (New York: W.W. Norton, 1990), pp. 291304.Google Scholar In these publications the authors made certain modifications to their methods, but still contended that the diet was more varied than their critics argued.

12 Fogel, and Engerman, , Time on the Cross, pp. 109–15.Google Scholar

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 de los negros… 1630, Memoria de los gastos que se van haciendo… 1633 and ‘1634’; ANHS Fondo Vicuña Mackenna (hereafter cited as VM) vol. 77–II fols. 159–77 Memoria de lo qué se va gastando con la gente… 1626 and fols. 252–265 ‘1629.’

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

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

16 Archivo General de Indias, Seville (hereafter cited as AGI) Santa Fe (hereafter cited as SF) 62 N16 doc. 3 fols. 18v, 24v, 30v Cabildo of Cartagena to crown, no date [1577].

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

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

19 Simón, , Noticias historiales, vol. 5 not. 7 cap. 63 p. 367;Google Scholar 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 to an annual trade.

20 Bowser, , African Slave, p. 63.Google Scholar

21 Gage, , Travels, p. 330.Google Scholar

22 Hussey, Roland D., “Spanish Colonial Trails in Panama,” Revista de Indias 6 (1939), pp. 5864;Google Scholar Ward, Christopher, Imperial Panama: Commerce and Conflict in Isthmian America, 1550–1800 (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1993), pp. 5660;Google Scholar Mena García, María del Carmen, La ciudaden un cruce de caminos (Panamá y sus orígenes urbanos) (Seville: Escuela de Estudios Hispanoamericanos, 1992), pp. 206209;Google Scholar Descripción del virreinato del Perú, ed. Lewin, Boleslao (Rosario: Universidad Nacional del Litoral, 1958), pp. 117120.Google Scholar

23 Descripción del virreinato del Perú, p. 117; Carletti, , Voyage, 33;Google Scholar Serrano, y Sanz, , Manuel, Relaciones históricas y geográficas de América Central. Colección de libros y documentos referentes a la historia de América, vol. 8 (Madrid: Librería General de V. Suárez, 1908), p. 198 Google Scholar Descripción de Panamá 1607.

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 as CDI), vol. 9, pp. 102, 117 Descripción corográfica 1610 and 1607

26 Sanz, Serrano y, Relaciones históricas, p. 68 Google Scholar Relación histórica…Don Juan Requejo Salcedo 1640.

27 Carletti, , Voyage, p. 41 Google Scholar. Here he was referring to the Peruvian coast, but the comment has general validity.

28 AGI Audiencia de Panamá (hereafter cited as AP) 16 RI N5 Don Francisco Valverde de Mercado to crown, Panamá, 23 May 1609; AGI AP 17 R9 NI59 doc.l 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 Zapata to crown, Portobello, 12 May 1595.

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

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

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

33 ANHS VM voi. 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. 18doc. 197 Accounts of Manuel Bautista Pérez for 1618–1619).

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

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 negros 1634.

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

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 administrators, but the latter received two pounds of white bread and in addition two pozuelos of wine, and more vegetables and fruit.

40 An estimated contact population of 30,000 tributaries in the province of Cartagena had fallen to about 1,500 in the early seventeenth century ( Roca, Adolfo Meisel, “Esclavitud, mestizaje y haciendas en la provincia de Cartagena: 1533–1851,Desarrollo y Sociedad 4 (1980), p. 230;Google Scholar Rivera, Julián Ruiz, Los indios de Cartagena bajo la administración española en el siglo XVII (Bogotá: Archivo General de la Nación, 1996), pp. 2441).Google Scholar According to Oviedo ( Fernández de Oviedo, Gonzalo, Historia general y natural de las indias (Madrid: Ediciones Atlas, 1959) vol. 2 lib. 29 cap. 10 p. 241 Google Scholar), the Panamanian isthmus possessed two million people when the Spanish arrived. However, it suffered a precipitous decline, so that as early as the 1520s it was importing Indian slaves from Nicaragua to meet the labor shortage ( Newson, Linda A., Indian Survival in Colonial Nicaragua (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1987), pp. 105, 119).Google Scholar By the 1570s there were only 300 to 400 tributary Indians in the whole Audiencia of Panama ( Velasco, López de, Geografía, p. 171 Google Scholar) and by the early seventeenth century only three small villages remained in the jurisdiction of the city ( Sanz, Serrano y, Relaciones históricas, pp. 169, 216–17 Descripción de Panamá 1607;Google Scholar CDI vol. 9, p. 115 Descripción corográfica 1607). As for the north coast of Peru, David Cook has estimated that the tributary population may have fallen from about 20,000 tributaries in 1570 to less than 6,000 in 1620 ( David Cook, N., Demographic Collapse: Indian Peru, 1520–1620 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981), pp. 118, 120.Google Scholar

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;Google Scholar Espinosa, Vázquez de, Compendìo, pp. 219–20;Google Scholar Dotta, Enrique Marco, Cartagena de Indias: La ciudad y sus monumentos (Seville: Escuela de Estudios Hispanoamericanos, 1951), p. 198;Google Scholar Borrego Plá, María del Carmen, Cartagena de Indias en el siglo XVI (Seville: Escuela de Estudios Hispanoamericanos, 1983), pp. 7077;Google Scholar Chaunu, Hugette and Chaunu, Pierre, Séville et l’Atlantique 1504–1650, vol. 8:1 (Paris, S.V.E.P.E.N, 1955), p. 1051.Google Scholar

42 Ortega, Antonino Vidal, Cartagena de Indias y la región histórica del Caribe, 1580–1640 (Seville: Escuela de Estudios Hispanoamericanos, 2002), pp. 6668, 167–208.Google Scholar

43 AGI Lima (hereafter AL) 111 Cabildo of Trujillo 24 Mar.l6l4, Descripción del virreinato del Perú, pp. 22–30; Lizárraga, , Descripción breve, caps. 9–20 pp. 1018;Google Scholar Espinosa, Vazquez de, Compendio, pp. 275–78;Google Scholar Villena, Lohmann, Historia marítima 4, pp. 215–16;Google Scholar Hellmer, Marie, “Le Callao (1615–1618),” Jahrbuch für Geschichte von Staat, Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft Lateinamerikas 2 (1965), pp. 183–84.Google Scholar

44 For Cartagena see: Roca, Meisel, “Esclavitud,” 242–44;Google Scholar Plá, Borrego, Cartagena de Indias, pp. 376–77 and for Peru:Google Scholar Bowser, , African Slave, pp. 8896;Google Scholar Ramírez, Susan E., Provincial Patriarchs: Land Tenure and the Economics of Power in Colonial Peru (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1986), p. 110.Google Scholar

45 Serrano, y Sanz, , Relaciones históricas, p. 71 Google Scholar Relación histórica…Don Juan Requejo Salcedo 1640; Ward, , Imperial Panama, pp. 6365;Google Scholar Castillero-Calvo, Alfredo, Economía terciaria y sociedad: Panamá siglos XVI y XVII (Panamá: Instituto Nacional de Cultura de Panamá, 1980), pp. 2629.Google Scholar

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

47 García, Mena, Sociedad de Panamá, p. 124.Google Scholar

48 CDI vol. 9, p. 115 Descripción corográfica 1607; Descripción del virreinato del Perú, p. 117; García, Mena, Sociedad de Panamá, pp. 109, 112.Google Scholar

49 AGI AP 30 N 23 doc. 1 La ciudad de Panamá to crown 1583.

50 Castillero-Calvo, Alfredo, “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 early colonial period.Google Scholar

51 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; AGI AP 19 R 4 N 43 Don Henrique Henríquez to crown, Panamá, 15 Jun. 1637.

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

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

54 AGNL SO-CO ca. 18 doc. 197 Accounts regarding 138 ½ 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 desclavos negros que se condenaron por descaminados…Cartagena, June 1617 to 15 Nov. 1619, Pieza 9 fols. 37r–41 v, 52r–55v Testimonios sobre descaminos…Cartagena 1625).

55 Bowser, , African Slave, pp. 224–26.Google Scholar

56 Castellanos, Juan de, Elegías y elogios de varones ilustres de indias, Biblioteca de autores españoles 4 (Madrid: Imprenta de los sucesores de Hernando, 1904), p. 368;Google Scholar Velasco, López de, Geografía, p. 195;Google Scholar Pinzón, Hermes Tovar, Relaciones y visitas a los Andes SXVI. Tomo II Región del Caribe (Bogotá: Instituto Colombiano de Cultura Hispánica, 1994), p. 430 Descripción de la gobernación de Cartagena [1571].Google Scholar

57 Simón, , Noticias historiales, vol. 5 not. 7 cap. 63 p. 366.Google Scholar

58 Valtierra, Ángel, Peter Claver: Saint of the Slaves, trans. Perry, Janet H. and Woodward, L.J. (Westminster, Maryland: The Newman Press, 1960), p. 124.Google Scholar

59 Archivo General de la Nación, Bogotá (hereafter cited as AGNB) Negros y esclavos, Bolívar XV fol. 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; Fernández, Josef, Apostólica y penitente vida de el V.P. Pedro Claver (Zaragoza: Diego Dormer, 1666), p. 214.Google Scholar

60 Valtierra, , Pedro Claver, p. 124;Google Scholar Fernández, , Apostólica y penitente vida, p. 175.Google Scholar

61 Newson, Linda A. and Minchin, Susie, “Slave Mortality and African Origins: A View from Cartagena, Colombia, in the Early Seventeenth Century,” Slavery and Abolition 25:3 (2004), p. 26.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

62 Valtierra, , Pedro Claver, p. 124;Google Scholar Fernández, , Apostólica y penitente vida, p. 231.Google Scholar

63 Bowser, (African Slave, p. 225)Google Scholar 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 ceremonies; see ( Simón, , Noticias historiales, vol. 3 not. 1 cap. 9 p. 369).Google Scholar

64 Lekau, L.J., “Fast and Abstinence,” in New Catholic Encyclopedia, vol. 5 (New York: McGraw Hill, 1967), pp. 847–48.Google Scholar

65 Carletti, , Travels, p. 33.Google Scholar

66 CDI vol. 9 p. 100 Descripción corográfica 1610.

67 AGNL SO CO Siglo XVII 13 Memoria del gasto que tiene en la chacra de Manuel Bautista Pérez 1635.

68 See the provisions fed to Iberian ship crews in the early colonial period (AGI Contratación 2878 to 2894 Registros de esclavos 1616–1640); Pérez-Mallaína, Pablo E., Spain’s Men of the Sea: Daily Life on the Indies Fleets in the Sixteenth Century (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998), p. 67;Google Scholar Super, , “Spanish Diet,” pp. 6163;Google Scholar Bauer, Arnold J., Goods, Power, History: Latin America's Material Culture (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), p. 63.Google Scholar

69 Super, , Food, Conquest and Colonization, pp. 2831.Google Scholar

70 Simón, , Noticias historiales, vol. 5 not. 7 cap. 63 p. 365;Google Scholar Borrego Plá, María del Carmen, Palenques de negros en Cartagena de Indias a fines del siglo XVII (Sevilla: Escuela de Estudios Hispanoamericanos, 1973), pp. 2324.Google Scholar

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

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

73 It is very difficult to calculate the precise percentage, because although the quantities of rice are generally 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 proportion spent on different types.

74 Castellanos, , Elegías, p. 367 Google Scholar; Velasco, López de, Geografía, pp. 195, 336;Google Scholar Pinzón, Tovar, Relaciones, pp. 418, 426–27 Descripción de la gobernación de Cartagena [1571];Google Scholar Bernabé, Cobo, Obras, vol. 2 Biblioteca de autores españoles 92 (Madrid: Ediciones Atlas, 1956), p. 317;Google Scholar CDI vol. 9 pp. 96–97, 114–15 Descripción corográfica 1610 and 1607; Serrano, y Sanz, , Relaciones históricas, p. 147 Descripción de Panamá 1607; Descripción del virreinato del Perú, pp. 44–48, 117;Google Scholar Serrano, y Sanz, , Compendio, pp. 221–22, 295;Google Scholar Sanz, Serrano y, Relaciones históricas, pp. 7375 Google Scholar Relación histórica…Don Juan Requejo Salcedo 1640; Carletti, , Voyage Around the World, pp. 4243.Google Scholar

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

76 Descripción del virreinato del Perú;, 52; Cobo, , Obras, vol. 2, p. 316.Google Scholar

77 Weston, Rosario Olivas, La cocina en el virreinato del Perú (Lima: Universidad de San Martín de Porras, 1998), p. 87.Google Scholar

78 In 1630 3 barrels of capers cost 85 pesos.

79 Laval, Enrique, Botica de los Jesuitas de Santiago (Santiago: Asociación Chilena de Asistencia Social, 1953), p. 47;Google Scholar Worth Estes, J., “Food as Medicine,” in The Cambridge World History of Food, ed. Kiple, Kenneth and Ornelas, Kriemhild C., vol. 2 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), p. 1540.Google Scholar

80 Lavai, , Botica, p. 57.Google Scholar

81 AGI AL 111 Cabildo of Trujillo 24 Mar. 1614; Espinosa, Vázquez de, Compendio, pp. 275–78;Google Scholar Descripción del virreinato del Perú, pp. 22–30; Lizárraga, , Descripción breve, cap. 12, p.ll;Google Scholar Villena, Lohmann, Historia marítima vol. 4, pp. 215–16;Google Scholar Hellmer, , “Le Callao,” pp. 183–84.Google Scholar

82 Simón, , Noticias historiales, vol. 5 not. 7 cap. 63 pp. 366–67;Google Scholar Ortega, Vidal, Cartagena de Indias, pp. 8893.Google Scholar

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

84 AGNL SO-CO ca. 20 doc. 201 Memoria de los gastos… 1633. In 1633 Sebastián Duarte purchased 377 slaves for Manuel Bautista Pérez, while he bought a further 46 slaves for other clients, of which two large lots were of 16 and 11 slaves; the remaining 19 were purchased in ones and twos. The dates of the purchase of the 19 slaves are not known, so they have not been included in the calculations. One batch of 205 slaves was shipped to Portobello on September 15 and the other on November 2. During this period 18 slaves died.

85 FAO World Agricultural Information Center at [Accessed 21 Feb. 2007].

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

87 Fogel, and Engerman, , Time on the Cross, p. 113;Google Scholar Sutch, , “Treatment of Slaves,” p. 380.Google Scholar

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 through the colonial period (See also AGNB Colonia Hospitales 6 fols. 544–552 Administrador del hospital, Don Nicolás García, Cartagena, 29 Oct. 1760). For the consumption of meat in Venezuela in the late eighteenth century, see: Lovera, José R., Historia de la alimentación en Venezuela (Caracas: Monte Àvila Editores, 1988), p. 67.Google Scholar

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 small proportion of the expenditure, it is estimated that 75 of the other 79 pesos were spent on fish, of which 20 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 3 pesos 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 barbecued fish ( Urueta, , Documentos, p. 226 Google Scholar).

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

92 Super, , “Spanish Diet,” pp. 6162 Google Scholar

93 93 The total has been calculated from the number of fanegas specified (272) plus about 130 calculated from the prices paid for the remaining maize on the basis of the average price paid in that year. A fanega was equivalent to four arrobas of 25 pounds each.Google Scholar

94 Urueta, , Documentos, p. 226.Google Scholar

95 AGI SF 40 R 3 N 61 doc. 3 Oficiales reales, Cartagena, 30 Jul. 1639.

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

99 AGI CO 496 Las raciones que se deben del hospital de Cartagena de los enfermos 1575 and Relación 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 and fols. 544r–552r Administrador del hospital, Don Nicolás García, Cartagena, 29 Oct. 1760.

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104 This is based on the heights of Senegambian and Central African slaves on Caribbean plantations in the nineteenth century taken from Higman, Barry W., Slave Populations of the British Caribbean, 1807–1834 (Kingston: The Press University of the West Indies, 1995), p. 281.Google Scholar 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: Sizer, Frances and Whitney, Eleanor, Nutrition: Concepts and Controversies 8th edn. (Belmont, CA: Wadworth, 2000), pp. 316–17, 320.Google Scholar The calculation involves estimating the energy needs for basic metabolism at one calorie per kilogram per hour for a man and 0.9 for a woman. This is then added to the amount needed to support physical activity. Here it is assumed that there was little physical activity, so estimates are based on those for a sedentary person, which is between 25 to 40 percent of the basal metabolic rate for a man and between 25 to 35 percent for a woman. This gives an estimated calorie need of between 1,796 and 2,012 calories for males from Senegambia and of 1,688 to 1,890 for those from Central Africa. Corresponding figures for females may be calculated at 1,468 and 1,586 for Senegambian women and 1,371 to 1,481 to those from Central Africa.

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