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Slaves and Religions in Graeco-Roman
Antiquity and Modern Brazil
Slaves and Religions in Graeco-Roman
Antiquity and Modern Brazil

Edited by

Stephen Hodkinson and Dick Geary

 Slaves and Religions in Graeco-Roman Antiquity and Modern Brazil,
Edited by Stephen Hodkinson and Dick Geary

This book first published 2012

Cambridge Scholars Publishing

12 Back Chapman Street, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE6 2XX, UK

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Copyright © 2012 by Stephen Hodkinson and Dick Geary and contributors

All rights for this book reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system,
or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or
otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner.

ISBN (10): 1-4438-3736-9, ISBN (13): 978-1-4438-3736-1

 In memory of the late Professor Thomas Wiedemann,

Founder of the International Centre for the History of Slavery,

University of Nottingham
 TABLE OF CONTENTS

List of Figures............................................................................................. ix

Introduction ................................................................................................. 1
Slaves and Religions: Historiographies, Ancient and Modern
Stephen Hodkinson and Dick Geary (University of Nottingham)

Part I. General Perspectives

Chapter One............................................................................................... 34
In the Eyes of the Beholders or in the Minds of the Believers?
Historicizing “Religion” and Enslavement
Joseph C. Miller (University of Virginia)

Chapter Two .............................................................................................. 67

The Ritual Activity of Roman Slaves
J.A. North (University College, London)

Part II. Participation and Inclusion

Chapter Three ............................................................................................ 96

Slaves and Role Reversal in Ancient Greek Cults
Rachel Zelnick-Abramovitz (Tel Aviv University)

Chapter Four............................................................................................ 133

Slaves Included? Sexual Regulations and Slave Participation in Two
Ancient Religious Groups
Karin Neutel (Rijksuniversiteit Groningen)

Chapter Five ............................................................................................ 149

The Journey Home: A Freed Mulatto Priest, Cipriano Pires Sardinha,
and his Religious Mission to Dahomey
Júnia Ferreira Furtado (Universidade Federal Minais Gerais)
viii Table of Contents

Part III. Status and Identities

Chapter Six .............................................................................................. 174

Manumission, Social Rebirth, and Healing Gods in Ancient Greece
Deborah Kamen (University of Washington)

Chapter Seven.......................................................................................... 195

The Apollo of Slaves and Freedmen
Bassir Amiri (Université de Franche-Comté)

Chapter Eight........................................................................................... 206

Infant Slave Baptisms, Legitimacy, Parental Origins, Godparenthood
and Naming Practices in the Parish of São José Do Rio Das Mortes,
Brazil (1750-1850)
Douglas Cole Libby (Universidade Federal Minais Gerais)

Part IV. Agency and Resistance

Chapter Nine............................................................................................ 244

“What will happen to me if I leave?” Ancient Greek Oracles, Slaves
and Slave Owners
Esther Eidinow (University of Nottingham)

Chapter Ten ............................................................................................. 279

Magic, Religion, and the Roman Slave: Resistance, Control
and Community
Niall McKeown (University of Birmingham)

Chapter Eleven ........................................................................................ 309

“The Rights of Man” or “Afro-American Call to Holy War”:
Religion, Ideology and Slave Revolt in Brazil, 1750-1880
Dick Geary (University of Nottingham)

Contributors............................................................................................. 335

Index........................................................................................................ 338
 LIST OF FIGURES

Fig. 5-1. Persons convicted of crimes of concubinage in the episcopal

inquisitions in Tejuco (1750 and 1753)

Fig. 7-1. Freedman and Slave Inscriptions in honour of Apollo

Fig. 8-1. Rates of Slave Legitimacy (selected regions and periods)

Fig. 8-2. Legitimacy among Slave Infants, Parish of São José, 1751- 1850

Fig. 8-3. Single Slave Mothers according to Origin, Parish of São José,
1751-1840

Fig. 8-4. Slave Couples appearing in Baptismal Registers, according to the

origin of spouses, Parish of São José, 1751-1830

Fig. 8-5. Godparents by legal condition (%), parish of São José, 1751-
1850

Fig. 8-6. Owners, Presumed Owners, Relatives of Owners, and Presumed

Relatives of Owners Serving as Godparents of Baptized Infant Slaves,
Parish of São José 1751-1850

Fig. 8-7. Selected Matching Names appearing in Infant Slave Baptismal

Registers, Parish of São José, 1751-1850

Fig. 8-8. Categories of Individual after whom Slave Infants were named,
Parish of São José, 1751-1850
 INTRODUCTION

SLAVES AND RELIGIONS:

HISTORIOGRAPHIES, ANCIENT AND MODERN

STEPHEN HODKINSON AND DICK GEARY

The essays in this volume are selected papers from the conference ‘Slaves,
Cults and Religions’, organised by the Institute for the Study of Slavery
(ISOS) at the University of Nottingham in September 2008. The Introduction
to ISOS’ previous conference publication on Slavery, Citizenship and the
State noted an increasing awareness among historians of all periods that
“slaves cannot simply be regarded as the objects, as merely the passive
victims, of the institution of slavery. Rather, against all the odds, slaves
succeeded in developing a wide repertoire of survival strategies and
displayed great ingenuity in preserving, restoring or creating families,
social networks and cultures.”1 That publication examined slave agency
and cultural strategies in terms of their recourse to legal systems. This
volume explores similar issues through their religious roles and ritual
activities.
This emphasis is reflected in the title “Slaves (rather than Slavery) and
Religions”, emphasising the religious lives and actions of slaves
themselves. Involvement in religion has been a ubiquitous part of the lives
of slaves throughout the history of slaving. As Joseph Miller argues in his
wide-ranging paper in Chapter One, slaves’ participation in religious
activities has frequently been a key response to their violent separation
from the human communities that had structured their lives when free.
Through engagement in divine worship—whether creating their own
religious practices, sharing in the worshipping practices of the free
population, or even simply assisting in the ritual activities of their masters’
households—slaves could potentially generate important elements of
community, social relationships and shared humanity within their lives.

1
Geary and Vlassopoulos, eds., Slavery, Citizenship and the State, 295.
2 Introduction

A distinctive feature of ISOS conferences is the participation of

historians from around the world, especially from Europe and Latin
America, examining slave histories across both the Ancient and the New
Worlds. In recent years the Institute has hosted a Research Interchange,
funded by the Leverhulme Trust, between British and Brazilian historians
of slave and “free” labour in the 18th and 19th centuries. The present
volume represents a development of that interchange, bringing into
juxtaposition issues of slaves and religions in Graeco-Roman antiquity and
modern Brazil. Such a juxtaposition is currently unusual in slavery studies.
Although the potential fruitfulness of comparison between Roman and
Brazilian slaveries has occasionally been suggested,2 historians of
antiquity have generally directed their comparisons towards slavery in
North America,3 whilst modernist comparative studies typically restrict
themselves to the modern world.4 Yet there are certain evident similarities.
In both Brazil and the Roman world (as also in many regions of ancient
Greece) slaves performed a wide range of economic functions: rural and
urban, manufacturing and agricultural, skilled and unskilled. Likewise, in
each society the relative frequency of manumission gave rise to a certain
degree of social mobility for some slaves.5 To what extent did these
similarities extend to the religious practices of Graeco-Roman and
Brazilian slaves?

Slaves and Religions in Graeco-Roman Antiquity:

A Missing Historiography
The volume’s juxtaposition of studies of Graeco-Roman antiquity and
modern Brazil highlights at least one significant difference: namely, in the
respective historiographies of the subject. In contrast to the considerable
body of modern literature on slave religions in the New World, the role of
religious activities in the lives of slaves in ancient Greece and Rome has
suffered a surprising degree of neglect. This is not to ignore the existence
of certain specialist studies, such as those produced by the two main

2
Bradley, Slavery and Society at Rome, 39, 54, 70, 87-8, 94, and especially pp. 67-
8: “The correspondence [of early-19th-century Rio de Janeiro] with Rome is
striking, despite the gulfs of time and distance.”
3
As, for example, in Volume 1 of the recent Cambridge World History of Slavery.
4
E.g. Degler, Neither Black nor White; Kolchin, Unfree Labor; Bergad, Comparative
Histories.
5
The frequency of manumission in Greece will be discussed by Kostas
Vlassopoulos in the forthcoming Oxford Handbook of Greek and Roman Slaveries,
ch. 16.
 Slaves and Religions: Historiographies, Ancient and Modern 3

Continental research organisations on ancient slavery. One of the earliest

studies produced within the long-standing research project Forschungen
zur antiken Sklaverei (FAS: founded in 1950 under the auspices of the
Mainz Akademie der Wissenschaften und der Literatur) was Franz
Bömer’s four-volume Untersuchungen über die Religion der Sklaven in
Griechenland und Rom,6 which surveys the roles of slaves in the major
cults and religions of ancient Greece, Rome and the Latin West More
recently, a volume in the Mainz project’s series “Corpus der römischen
Rechtsquellen zur Sklaverei” has been devoted to the position of slaves in
Roman sacred law.7 Similarly, the Besan˗on-based, multi-national Groupe
Internationale de Recherche sur l’Esclavage dans l’Antiquité (GIREA)
has, since the early 1990s, devoted three of its published colloquia to
various aspects of the interaction between ancient slavery and religion.8
These specialist publications, however, have had comparatively little
impact on broader academic accounts of Graeco-Roman slavery or
religion, which frequently devote minimal attention to the religious
activities of slaves.9 For example, the recent volume on The Ancient
Mediterranean World (2011) within the multi-volume Cambridge World
History of Slavery devotes an entire chapter to “Slavery and the rise of
Christianity”, but none to slaves in other Graeco-Roman religions. Its
index entry on “religion” references nothing directly on Greek religion and
a mere four pages on Roman domestic religion.10 Likewise, Elisabeth
Herrmann-Otto’s excellent survey, Sklaverei und Freilassung in der

6
First published in 1958-1963, and partially revised in 1981-1990. For the Mainz
project publications, see the document “Publikationen der Forschungen zur
Antiken Sklaverei”, available (in January 2012) on the FAS project website at
http://www.adwmainz.de/fileadmin/adwmainz/projekte/as/FAS_Publikationen_20
10.pdf.
7
Schumacher, ed., Stellung des Sklaven im Sakralrecht.
8
Annequin and Garrido-Hory, eds., Religion et anthropologie de l'esclavage;
Divinas dependencias; Hernández Guerra and Alvar Ezquerra, eds., Jerarquias
religiosas y control social.
9
A full survey of the (in)attention paid to slaves’ religious roles in the recent
historiographies of these two fields lies beyond the scope of this Introduction. I
purposely focus on recent summative studies, especially works of high
vulgarisation, which are particularly revealing about the topics and approaches
judged most significant for presentation to a wider audience.
10
Subsidiary (“see also”) entries on “sacrifice” and “sanctuary” reference only a
further seven pages on Greece and Rome—far outnumbered by the page coverage
referenced in other subsidiary entries on “Christianity”, “Islamic societies” and
“Judaism”: Bradley and Cartledge, eds., Cambridge World History of Slavery,
Volume I, p. 586, with 568, 576-7, 587.
4 Introduction

griechisch-römischen Welt (2009), has no index entries under “Religion”

or “Kulte”.
Even studies which provide some coverage of slaves’ religious roles
tend to give the topic only limited prominence. Hans Klees’ Sklavenleben
im klassischen Griechenland (1998), a Mainz project publication, splits
and subsumes his discussions of religious aspects of slave lives under two
separate chapters on “Education, upbringing and cultural participation”
and “The position and valuation of slaves in state and society”.11 Thomas
Wiedemann’s ground-breaking sourcebook, Greek and Roman Slavery
(first published in 1981), includes several passages on slaves and ancient
religious practice. However, the passages on slaves and civic religious
activities all focus on the negative: the exclusion of slaves or the master’s
limitation of their involvement.12 The only sources illustrating slave
agency are those concerning leaders of the Sicilian slave revolts, whose
charismatic appeal was enhanced by special religious capacities such as
powers of prophecy and divination, skill in astrology or divine visions.13
This comparative neglect in the recent historiography of ancient
slavery is also largely replicated in modern studies of Greek and Roman
religions. Simon Price’s Religions of the Ancient Greeks (1999) contains a
mere six references to slaves. Although these cite ancient evidence
implying that slaves regularly participated in or attended public and
private religious rituals, slave roles receive no concerted discussion, in
contrast to a full chapter on the religious roles of citizens of different ages
and sexes.14 In similar vein, Robert Parker’s Athenian Religion (1995)
defines his subject as “the religious outlook and practices of Athenian
citizens”.15 Acknowledging the relevance of the religious practices of non-
citizens, his discussion includes occasional passing references to slave
participation in particular cults and to collective dedications by slaves; but

11
Klees, Sklavenleben, 218-96, at pp. 262-72; 355-431, at pp. 379-87.
12
Wiedemann, Greek and Roman Slavery, nos. 64, 80, 149 (p. 142), 151 (p. 149).
13
Ibid. nos. 229 (pp. 201-2, 203), 230 (pp. 211, 212-13); cf. no. 231 (p. 216).
These religious capacities do not always receive sufficient attention from
historians, receiving only passing mention, for example, in Theresa Urbainczyk’s
Slave Revolts in Antiquity, 12-13, 54-5, 57. In contrast, see the comments of North
and especially those of McKeown in this volume (chs. 2 & 10).
14
Price, Religions, 34, 45, 98, 102, 112, 153; contrast the focus of his ch. 5 (pp.
89-107) “on the individual citizen from birth to death” (89).
15
Parker, Athenian Religion, 4: his “short definition” of the subject.
 Slaves and Religions: Historiographies, Ancient and Modern 5

specific consideration of their religious activities appears only near the end
of the volume’s final Appendix.16
This lack of attention to slaves is shared by works on Greek religion by
leading Continental and American scholars. Walter Burkert’s Griechische
Religion der archaischen und klassischen Epoche (1977) contains only
one modest paragraph on the religious roles of slaves in historical
Greece.17 Louise Bruit Zaidman and Pauline Schmitt Pantel’s La religion
grecque (1989) includes a number of fleeting references, but not a single
paragraph addressing the subject in its own right.18 Slave religious
participation is similarly neglected in the multi-national collection of
essays in the Blackwell’s Companion to Greek Religion (2007).19 Only in
exceptional cases, such as Jon Mikalson’s Ancient Greek Religion (2005),
have recent studies of Greek religion provided any more sustained explicit
discussion of slaves’ religious activities or shown consistent alertness to
their supporting roles in the ritual practices of the free population.20
If anything, the subject’s neglect is even more apparent within
scholarship on Roman religions. There is no index entry for “slavery” or
“slaves” in John Ferguson’s The Religions of the Roman Empire (1970),
Robert Turcan’s Les Cultes Orientaux dans le monde Romain (1989), or
Clifford Ando’s collected volume on Roman Religion (2003). The ground-
breaking, two-volume, history-cum-sourcebook, Religions of Rome,
includes only a handful of brief references and a mere five source-texts
regarding the religious behaviours of slaves or freedmen.21 With occasional
exceptions, this comparative neglect is again replicated in the Blackwell’s
Companion to Roman Religion.22 Certain recent studies have, admittedly,

16
Ibid. 338-40; cf. also 340-2, as part of a discussion of associations of non-
citizens. Passing references at 5, 136 n. 54, 167 n. 48, 171 n. 66, 174 n. 74, 193 n.
146, 194, 266.
17
I cite by the 1985 English translation, Greek Religion, 259. He also provides a
brief discussion of slaves of the gods in Mycenaean religion: ibid. 45.
18
I cite by the 1992 revised English edition, Religion in the Ancient Greek City,
Index s.v. “slaves”.
19
Ogden, ed., Companion to Greek Religion: only two pages are cited under the
Index entry on “slaves” (pp. 287-8, from Charles Hedrick’s article on religion and
society in classical Greece), though Hedrick’s also provides a brief further
discussion on pp. 291-2.
20
Mikalson, Ancient Greek Religion, 156-7, with 133-6, 140-1.
21
Beard, North and Price, Religions of Rome, vol. I, pp. 294-5, 333 fig. 7.3, 357;
vol. II, texts 7.3(a), 12.3a, 12.5c(i) & (ii), 12.7c(i).
22
Rüpke, ed., A Companion to Roman Religion. Other than a modest number of
passing references (e.g. pp. 182-3, 199, 220, 244, 245, 263, 311, 363, 396, 400),
the only pages which include a specific focus on slave roles are Karl Galinsky’s
6 Introduction

acknowledged the religious engagement of slaves. Discussing the limitations

of the term “polis-religion”, Jorg Rüpke notes of slaves, foreigners and
non-citizens, that “they too ‘have’ a religion”. James Rives has commented
on how religion “provided opportunities for marginalized groups to
advance their social status in ways that would otherwise be denied to
them”.23 As regards slaves, however, such general observations are rarely
developed in any systematic or detailed manner.24
The limited attention given to slaves, especially in wide-ranging
studies of ancient religion, may be partly attributable to the typical
organisation of these volumes according to key themes, which—owing to
the skewed production and survival of ancient source materials—are most
easily illustrated through evidence for the religious activities of the free
population. Hence explicit attention to slave religious roles tends to be
restricted to occasional discussions focused, not thematically, but on the
activities of different personnel, associations or social groups or on
widening participation consequent upon religious change.
Even in such discussions, however, the attention given to slaves is
typically far outweighed by that devoted to persons of free status.25 As
John North notes in Chapter Two, there are understandable reasons why
this has been the case. As already intimated, the bulk of ancient literary
texts bearing on Graeco-Roman religious activity were written by, for and
about the free, adult male citizen elite. The negative effects of this literary
bias on the study of subordinate members of the free citizen population
have been combated in recent scholarship by determined attempts to
recover the contributions of women and those outside the elite: attempts
grounded in contemporary feminist and populist movements and
spearheaded by female scholars and academics from non-elite social
backgrounds. In contrast, few scholars of Graeco-Roman antiquity hail
from a modern slave ancestry; and movements against contemporary

discussions of “increased participation for the non-elite” (78-9; cf. also 72-3) and
Marietta Horster’s account of cult servants (332-4).
23
Rüpke, Religions of the Romans, 20; Rives, Religion in the Roman Empire, 128.
24
Only in connection with voluntary, organised religious associations does the
active participation of slaves, briefly, receive more than passing recognition:
Rüpke, Religions, 205-6, 214; Rives, Religion 128-9.
25
For example, Part IV, “Actors and Actions”, in the Blackwell Companion to
Roman Religion devotes three entire chapters, respectively, to republican nobiles,
emperors, and urban elites in the Roman East; whilst slaves (and other groups,
including freed persons) have to share a single chapter focused on religious
professionals and personnel. Mikalson’s discussion of “Religion in the Greek
family and village” devotes thirteen pages to free members of the household, but
only slightly over a page the slaves: Ancient Greek Religion, 133-57.
 Slaves and Religions: Historiographies, Ancient and Modern 7

slavery, though widely applauded, generally lack a comparable immediacy

and political force in those Western countries in which classical
scholarship is most strongly rooted.
In partial contrast to the elitist perspectives of Graeco-Roman literary
compositions stands the epigraphic and papyrological evidence, comprising
diverse kinds of inscriptions and papyri texts produced by a much wider
range of individuals or groups (though by no means fully proportional in
relation to the social composition of ancient populations), including slaves
and freed persons, alongside those from other subordinate statuses. Almost
all the Greek and Roman papers in this volume draw heavily upon such
epigraphic or papyrological texts to gain access either to the religious
voices and actions of slaves themselves—through highly “personal” texts
such as their funerary inscriptions (ch. 2), their vows, dedications and
votive offerings (chs. 2 and 7), their consultations of oracles (chs. 9 and
10), and their magical spells and curses (ch. 10)—or to actions by third
parties which bore directly on slave religious experiences: texts such as the
regulations of cult groups which included slave members (ch. 4) or public
records of sacral manumissions (ch. 6).
As a number of papers in this volume show, however, interpretation of
these epigraphic and papyrological texts is rarely unproblematic. At the
most simple level, the typical lack of explanatory preamble in “personal”
texts often inhibits comprehension of their precise character: for example,
the exact statuses of the persons involved and the specific context of their
consultation, vow, spell or curse are frequently unspecified (see Esther
Eidinow’s discussion of the Dodona oracular consultation tablets in
Chapter Nine). At a more advanced level lies the challenge of assessing
the significance of religious phenomena revealed by instances of
individual slave behaviour revealed in such texts: as Niall McKeown asks
in Chapter Ten, how many individual examples are required to constitute a
noteworthy historical trend? Even where the number of instances is
deemed to pass such a critical threshold, there remains the more
fundamental problem, highlighted by John North, of the lack of wider
evidential context. How can one properly assess the implications of
apparent slave agency in religious behaviour evidenced in epigraphic or
papyrological texts, given not only the relative invisibility of slaves in the
literary sources, but (worse) the predominant emphasis in those sources on
slaves’ lack of capacity for independent action in other aspects of their
lives?
The relative neglect of slave religious behaviour in broader accounts of
Graeco-Roman slavery and religion probably owes a lot to the state of the
available evidence. However, it is also strongly rooted in the modern
8 Introduction

historiographies of these fields. Approaches to the subject over the last

fifty years have been dominated by the weighty conclusions of Franz
Bömer’s major four-volume study (1958-63) mentioned above. As North
and McKeown point out in their chapters, although Bömer collected
together a diverse range of evidence for the religious activities of ancient
slaves, his analysis focused mainly on the narrow question whether slave
worship ever took place in an autonomous sphere of activity or operated
solely in a mixed environment together with free and freed persons. Not
only did Bömer’s consistently negative answer, that there was no sign of a
slave religious life different or separate from that of the free or freed
populations, rapidly become the orthodoxy in subsequent scholarship.26 It
has probably also discouraged further in-depth enquiry, overshadowing the
possibility that a wider range of questions might have elicited more
positive conclusions regarding slave religious agency from the substantial
body of evidence collected in his study.
Perspectives on slave religious activity have also been conditioned by
assumptions of “religious centralisation” shared by diverse modern
scholarly models of ancient, and especially Roman, religion: from the
Staatsreligion model of nineteenth-century Germanic scholarship to the
so-called “civic model” of “polis religion” underpinning much late-
twentieth-century Western research.27 In emphasising the overwhelmingly
collective character of ancient religious activity centred around ritual
performance, the embeddedness of worship in civic politics and culture,
and the role of cities and their citizen elites in patterning the religious
horizons of the entire resident population, the “civic model” leaves little
scope for personal religiosity or for the possibility that subordinate
individuals or groups, especially slaves, might fashion their own religious
behaviours. On this model, the only occasions when slaves exercised
prominent religious roles were during specific public festivals when
normal social positions were purposely reversed.28 (See, however, Rachel
Zelnick-Abramovitz’s re-evaluation of the nature of these festivals in
Chapter Three, which argues that most of the ancient Greek festivals in
question did not involve a true reversal of roles)
The impact of Bömer’s work and the civic model on approaches to
slave religiosity in the Roman world are discussed below by North and

26
Already by 1977 Burkert’s curt conclusion, “Slaves have the same gods as their
masters” (Greek Religion, 259) was supported by an endnote referring to Bömer’s
work. Not long afterwards, Bömer’s view was endorsed within slavery studies by
Garlan, Slavery in Ancient Greece, 198-9.
27
Bendlin, “Looking beyond the civic compromise”; cf. North, this volume, ch. 2.
28
Bremmer, Greek Religion, 3; Mikalson, Ancient Greek Religion, 157.
 Slaves and Religions: Historiographies, Ancient and Modern 9

McKeown; but their combined influence is equally evident in research on

Greece. Jan Bremmer’s judgement—in his commissioned survey of recent
approaches to Greek religion—that, “as life in Greece was dominated by
free males, they could (and did) seriously restrict religious opportunities
for … slaves, whose religious position was modest” appears in a section
on religion’s “embeddedness” and public, communal character, and is
supported by a direct reference to Bömer’s publication.29
Despite the general dominance of these twin influences, there are signs
in recent research of the emergence of different perspectives. One critique
of the application of the civic model of Graeco-Roman religion to
Republican Rome has challenged the claimed homology of “religion” with
“society”, “politics” or “culture”, proposing an alternative model involving
a significant degree of religious pluralism and scope for individual
religious choices.30 Another critique of the model’s application to ancient
Greece has drawn attention to the rigidity of the concept of “polis religion”
for the description of ritual activity—given the sheer variety of cult
organisations and the different levels and types of involvement by the
polis—suggesting instead a more fluid construction of ancient Greek
religion with the capacity to take account of co-existing, sometimes
overlapping, networks of ritual activities.31
An even broader challenge to current orthodoxies has questioned
standard unitary conceptions of the polis as the basic, self-bounded unit for
analysing ancient Greek communities and as an exclusive male citizen
club, with their associated assumptions of an “isomorphism between
society, economy and the state”. This new perspective views a Greek polis
as a variegated agglomeration of diverse kinds of everyday private
voluntary associations, formal and informal, short- and long-term. Many
of these associations—whether organised around an extended family,
neighbourhood, trade or religious cult, or brought together for some more

29
Greek Religion 3 with 9 n. 9: Bremmer’s survey, part of the authoritative
“Greece & Rome, New Surveys in the Classics” series, was first published in 1994
and reprinted in 1999 and 2003. Likewise, Mikalson’s view that, “Slaves have left
no evidence of a religious life of their own, apart from the communities of
citizens” (Ancient Greek Religion, 157) is simultaneously both a classic inference
from the civic model and a (possibly indirect) reflection of Bömer’s conclusions:
his “Further Reading” cites Klees’ study, whose above-mentioned relegation of
slaves’ religious activities depends heavily on Bömer’s work, cited repeatedly in
Klees’ footnotes (Sklavenleben, 264-72; 379-87).
30
Bendlin, “Looking beyond the civic compromise”, 125-35, with the approving
comments of Bispham’s editorial “Introduction”, 14-17.
31
Eidinow, “Networks and narratives”.
10 Introduction

temporary purpose—embraced men and women of various ethnic origins

and statuses, including slaves, and frequently operated with connections
extending beyond the borders of the polis.32 Most such associations
included some religious activities, but associations specifically dedicated
to the worship of particular deities or heroes are attested in late Archaic
and Classical Greece and became even more common in the Hellenistic
and Roman periods.33
The greater potential for slave agency implied by these new, more “de-
centralised” understandings of civic and religious behaviour suggests that
the time is ripe for a re-examination of the religious activities of Graeco-
Roman slaves.34 To what extent do the ancient papers in this volume
support or contradict the orthodox views of slave religious roles outlined
above? The picture is somewhat mixed. As already indicated, not all the
forms of ancient evidence considered in this volume offer insights into the
slaves’ own religious behaviours. The large numbers of Greek manumission
inscriptions studied by Deborah Kamen (ch. 6) are highly informative
about different forms of sacral manumission and the identities of the gods
invoked, but they provide no indication about the liberated slaves’ input (if
any) into the choice of god or the form or conditions of manumission. In
the dedications from Tres Galliae and Germania studied by Bassir Amiri
(ch. 7), current slaves are almost entirely absent. Worship of Apollo by
these provinces’ non-free populations can be observed only through the
religious practices of former slaves, freedmen from important Romanised
cities eager to display their social integration, especially their social
advancement into the local elite, and above all their adoption of their
cities’ religious codes through worship of one of their leading divinities.
Other types of evidence positively imply the limitations upon slave
agency. Rachel Zelnick-Abramovitz’s examination of literary evidence for
a number of publicly-organised Greek festivals which involved the full
participation of slaves (ch. 3) concludes that their inclusion was a
collective decision of the masters granted only as a fleeting privilege.
Karen Neutel’s study (ch. 4) of two religious groups which positively

32
Vlassopoulos, Unthinking the Greek Polis, esp. 68-99, 143-240; quotation from
p. 87; id., “Beyond and below the polis”.
33
Kloppenborg and Ascough, Greco-Roman Associations, esp. 1-13; Kloppenborg
and Wilson, eds., Voluntary Associations, esp. 1-15; cf. the nine-volume series
New Documents illustrating Early Christianity (1981-2002), variously edited by
G.H.R. Horsley and S.R. Llewelyn, reviewing inscriptions and papyri on Greek
social and religious history published between 1976 and 1987.
34
Vlassopoulos, Unthinking the Greek Polis, 174-5; cf. id., “Free spaces”;
“Slavery, freedom and citizenship”; “Two images of ancient slavery”.
 Slaves and Religions: Historiographies, Ancient and Modern 11

welcomed slave members—the Philadelphia extended household cult and

the Pauline early Christian communities—shows how, nevertheless, their
stricter than normal regulations for sexual conduct presupposed a level of
control over one’s body that lay beyond the capacity of most slaves.
Where the evidence does offer direct evidence of slaves’ own religious
activities, the situation is complex. Esther Eidinow’s study of fifth- and
fourth-century BC question-tablets from the oracle site of Zeus at Dodona
in northern Greece (ch. 9) shows slaves using the same means of oracular
consultation as slave owners and other free consultants. The more limited
forms of question posed by some slaves may reflect constraints on their
ability to make autonomous decisions or plans about their future. Other
slave consultants, however, show higher levels of self-determination,
including plans to escape. Moreover, the openness of the oracle and its
patron god to enquiries from slaves reveals an unexpected (and perhaps
unusual) scope for slaves in the Classical period to take independent
initiatives of a kind hitherto thought possible only in the apparently more
diverse and cosmopolitan religious landscape of the succeeding Hellenistic
age.
John North’s examination of the epigraphic evidence of Roman slave
funerary monuments, vows and dedications (ch. 2) affirms Bömer’s
established view, inasmuch that their publicly displayed inscriptions
provide no indication of a slave religiosity separate from that of the slave-
owning elite. Indeed, in undertaking and publicly recording their religious
activities, slaves were creating their own legitimate space within Roman
society precisely by exploiting established civic conventions. Nevertheless,
the wide range of ritual actions undertaken by slaves on their own
initiative suggests that the civic religious model has paid insufficient
attention to the agency of slaves, as they proclaimed their family
relationships in funerary inscriptions and made individual choices in their
vows and dedications about which gods to approach and which cults to
support, in a manner consonant with more pluralistic interpretations of
Graeco-Roman religion.
Finally, Niall McKeown’s wide-ranging exploration of Roman slaves’
involvement in magic, the collegia and the Christian church (ch. 10)
argues that magic was used by some slaves as a means of resisting their
owners; but he confirms another of Bömer’s views: that other forms of
religious activity were not a focus of slave resistance. However, slaves
were sometimes able to act with considerable autonomy through the use of
magic and through participation in religious associations, such as the
collegia and the Christian Church, which embraced both slaves and free
and which operated separately from their masters’ households. Regardless
12 Introduction

of the Church’s legitimation of the institution of slavery, Christianity

offered possibilities for some slaves to escape from their servitude by
becoming priests or joining monastic communities.
On this last point, McKeown’s analysis highlights how several of the
papers presented here reinforce a salient conclusion of the ISOS volume
on Slavery, Citizenship and the State: namely, that the lives and activities
of slaves were rarely confined to their relationships with their particular
owners and masters. In ancient Greece and Rome household slaves were
formally part of the extended oikos or familia and played subordinate roles
in its religious rituals. However, the direct engagement of slaves with
religious practices and institutions beyond the household—commissioning
funerary monuments, making dedications in sanctuaries, consulting
oracles, participating in public festivals, and joining various types of
voluntaristic religious associations—broke the binary relationship between
master and slaves, thereby providing places and spaces for slaves to create
some measure of everyday lives of their own.

Slaves and Religions in Brazil:

Historiographies and Histories
Whereas work on the religious identities of slaves in the ancient world has
been relatively limited until recently, the same cannot be said of the
historiography of slavery in the New World. Exactly what constituted
slave religion in the New World, and in Brazil in particular, however, is
far from simple to define, not least because we are presented with
sometimes competing, sometimes overlapping and sometimes synthesised
religions and cultures of different African, Amerindian and European
peoples. Indeed, if any one concept helps us to understand religious
identities in Brazil, it is that of religious pluralism. In the words of João
José Reis, writing about the North Eastern state of Bahia in the 1830s,
there was a “cultural free-for-all”.35
We will try to examine the complex contribution of African traditions
in the New World first. These traditions probably meant least in the case
of the USA, where the importation of African slaves largely ceased after
1808 (in the wake of British abolition of the slave trade the previous year)
and where the slave population was subsequently replenished by natural
reproduction. Here, therefore, linkages to the African past were
considerably more fractured than those in slave societies, such as Brazil
and Cuba, which continued to import vast numbers of Africans until the

35
Reis, “Slave Rebellion,” 218.
 Slaves and Religions: Historiographies, Ancient and Modern 13

mid-nineteenth century. Moreover, North American slaves found some

degree of spiritual succour in evangelical Protestantism. The Protestant
religious revivalism of the mid-eighteenth century in the shape of Baptist
and Methodist identities came to be embraced by massive numbers of
slaves in the Southern USA, who usually—at least initially—adopted the
same Church as their masters. The message of salvation and a relatively
egalitarian stance in evangelical Protestantism proved attractive to some
black slaves, as did the openings provided for black priests. In fact, by the
late eighteenth century 25% of the members of the Methodist Church in
the United States were of African descent. In some cases these were
integrated into single congregations with their white co-religionists; but in
other cases separate, specifically black churches developed. As is well
known, these churches subsequently played a major role in the
development of the abolitionist movement. In North America, therefore,
African influences diminished over time, although this does not mean that
the reception of Christianity by these slaves was not influenced by some
non-Christian traditions and rituals of African origin in the first place.36
In Brazil, on the other hand, where slavery was not abolished until
1888, where evangelical Protestantism was absent, and where the official
religious world was dominated by the Catholic Church, things looked very
different. Here Africa was far more obviously present, not least because
Brazil imported almost ten times as many African slaves as did the USA.
In fact almost 40% of all slaves exported from Africa to the New World
between 1550 and 1850 arrived in Brazil; and that trade in human cargoes
was never more intense than in the first half of the nineteenth century,
when around two million Africans were imported into the country.37 In
consequence “African” culture was constantly rejuvenated. A not dissimilar
pattern characterised Cuba. So what, in cultural terms, did African slaves
bring with them from the continent of their birth?
At first sight this question is preposterous. Firstly, the regions of Africa
from which slaves were transported to the New World covered vast areas,
many diverse political entities, and different ethnic and tribal groups.
Secondly, in some of these areas many of those to be enslaved had already
encountered Islam or Christianity, or both; and about these we will write
more below. However, the “great majority of Africans” adhered to what
Sylvia R Frey calls “traditional religious forms”, though these had already
undergone significant change even before their exposure to Christian and

36
Raboteau, Slave Religion; Bergad, Comparative Histories, 178-80; Frey,
“Cultural Migrations”; Frey and Wood, Come Shouting; Davis, Inhuman Bondage,
203-5; Drescher, Abolition, 252-4; Frey, “Remembered Pasts,” 163.
37
For literature on the slave trade, see n. 5 to Geary’s article (this volume, ch. 11).
14 Introduction

Muslim influences and were in a state of “continuous creation”. In West

Central Africa, in particular, these “traditional religious forms” shared
certain common, unifying themes across tribal and political divisions.
These included, in Frey’s words,

a developing concept of a supreme being or ultimate power who controlled

the universe; and a pantheon of subordinate deities, many of whom had a
dual nature that recognized female participation in the divine, and each of
whom had a cult with its own priests and priestesses, societies and
religious activities. Ancestral spirits occupied a special place in the
spiritual hierarchy. Endowed with a power to do good or harm, ancestral
anger was appeased and their mercy implored through ritual objects and
ceremonies....38

These shared perceptions, consequently, make some sense of the

question as to what cultural baggage enslaved “Africans” brought with
them to Brazil, whilst recognising that the term “African” is anachronistic
and that the tribal conflicts that took place in Africa could also be
translated to the New World. However, there is a second objection to the
view that African culture(s) were translated to the other side of the
Atlantic, at least in an unmediated form, by transported slaves. Those who
were enslaved were treated with great brutality. They were often deprived
of their own names, as well as their family. Cut off from their homelands
and kinship ties, slaves experienced, in the famous words of Orlando
Patterson, “social death”. Subject to a wide variety degrading treatments,
slaves were ripped from communities, in which they belonged, and
forcibly translated to societies in which they were stripped of kinship and
native affiliation. They became marginalized and degraded Others,
outsiders with no rights. So, at least, claims Patterson.39
In such circumstances, it was once believed, slaves had their African
cultures and identities knocked out of them in the dual trauma of
enslavement and transportation to the New World. The atomisation of
slave existence was further exacerbated by the policies of some slave
traders and owners to disperse slaves of the same origin in order to reduce
the risk of collective resistance.40 As a result, historians have doubted the
survival of “African” culture in the New World. The seminal work of
Sydney Mintz and Richard Price, for example, stresses the novelty of

38
Frey, “Remembered Pasts,” 153. Thornton makes a similar point about shared
cosmologies across large parts of Africa: Thornton, Africa and Africans, 261-78.
See also Assunção and Zeuske, “Ethnicity and Social Structure,” 418-19.
39
Patterson, Social Death.
40
See Geary (ch. 11) below, note 25.
 Slaves and Religions: Historiographies, Ancient and Modern 15

Afro-American culture and is sceptical of any idea of an unmediated

transfer of African traditions and practices to the Americas.41 Price further
criticises the views of Roger Bastide and R.K. Kent, who argue that the
ubiquitous quilombos (maroon societies: that is, communities of fugitive
slaves) of Brazil constituted “African” resistance to acculturation in the
New World. He writes,

However “African” in character, no maroon social, political, religious or

aesthetic system can be reliably traced back to a particular tribal
provenience; they reveal, rather, their syncretistic composition, forged in
the early meetings of peoples bearing diverse African, European and
Amerindian cultures in the dynamic setting of the New World.42

Though few historians would deny the fundamental syncretism of

various cultural and religious practices in Brazil, there has been a
significant change of emphasis in the assessment of Brazilian indebtedness
to African culture in recent years. Though some slave traders and
plantation owners tried to separate Africans of the same ethnic group from
one another in order to undermine the possibility of collective action and
understanding amongst their slaves, they were often not able to do so. The
economics of shipment from slave trading ports with relatively well-
defined recruitment hinterlands to destinations in the New World often
linked to specific African ports in a long-term trade nexus, as well as the
desire to deploy expensive slave labour as quickly as possible, given the
infrequent arrival of ships, militated against the systematic implementation
of any such policy.43 In fact, the creation of large-scale, computer-aided
statistical databases of slave voyages has enabled historians to establish
the origin of Africans exported to the Americas and their groupings, often
in clusters, in their Brazilian and other locations across the Atlantic: a
discovery reinforced by collaborative work on both sides of the ocean in
“diaspora studies”. As a result, Sylvia R. Frey goes so far as to claim that
“statistical quantification of the slave trade makes it possible to link
specific ritual practices to particular regions and in some cases specific
ethnic groups”, and that “core beliefs and ritual practices persisted in
relatively pure forms”.44 The work of Robert Slenes on various

41
Mintz and Price, Anthropological Approach, 1-11.
42
Price, ed., Maroon Societies, 26.
43
Hall, Slavery and African Ethnicities, 49-66.
44
Frey, “Remembered Pasts,” 156-7; Eltis, Richardson et al., eds., The Transatlantic
Slave Trade; Gilroy, Black Atlantic; Heywood, ed., Central Africans; Heywood
and Thornton, Central Africans; Curto and Lovejoy, eds., Enslaving Connections;
16 Introduction

conspiracies and risings in states of São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro in the
1830s and 1840s seems to be one demonstration of this point, as he
identifies a Pan-Bantu culture, with its rituals, languages and artefacts, at
work on both sides of the Atlantic.45
Frey also takes issue with Ira Berlin, who has claimed that some West
Africans who lived in close proximity to Europeans had already been
“creolised”—i.e. had imbibed European religious and cultural influences—
before the onset of slavery and that these “Atlantic creoles” played a
critical role in shaping Afro-American cultures. Recent African studies
have claimed that Berlin exaggerated the role, the influence and the
number of such figures; and that their impact was regionally very variable
within Africa. Moreover, the depth of Christian conversion in West Africa
is open to question, with critics arguing that African Christianity existed in
parallel with traditional African religions, giving rise to the concept that
African “Christians” were “bi-religious”. What is certainly true is that only
a limited number of Africans were Christians; that they were often
converted in mass baptisms without any form of religious instruction; and
that selective elements of the Christian faith were “incorporated into local
beliefs and practices in such a way as to mutually enrich and inform both
religious traditions”.46
The idea that the slaves who arrived in Brazil from Africa were
rootless, atomised individuals is open to further question, whatever beliefs
they did or did not bring with them; and not only because we now know
much more about the statistical grouping of the various African ethnicities
in particular parts of Brazil. In the first place, many Africans of differing
ethnic origin often spoke related languages or were adept at learning new
ones on the lengthy Atlantic crossing, and their cosmologies often shared a
common core of foundation myths and beliefs.47 Moreover, even where
traditional collectivities had been destroyed, slaves showed great ingenuity
in building substitute solidarities, in creating what have been described as
“fictive” kinship communities. Thus African slaves in Bahia in the 1830s
extended the concept of “relative” (parente) to include all those of the
same ethnic group.48 So, as in the case of an overarching Yoruba identity,
new ethnic communities emerged in the Diaspora, where, unlike in Africa

Lovejoy, Transformations in Slavery; Lovejoy, Identity in the Shadow; Childs,

Slave Culture, 172.
45
Slenes, “Malungo, Negomo vem”; id., “A Avoré de Nsanda transplantada.”
46
Berlin, “From Creole to African,” 251-88; Frey, “Remembered Pasts,” 154-6.
47
Thornton, Africa, 261-78; Assunção and Zeuske, “Ethnicity and Social
Structure,” 418-19.
48
Reis, A morte, 55, 160, 198.
 Slaves and Religions: Historiographies, Ancient and Modern 17

itself, rigid distinctions of kinship and kingship were overcome and

commonalities of language and culture were stressed. This constituted the
background to the emergence of African “nations” (nações) in Brazil.
These did not correspond to precise historical groupings in Africa: they
replicated no single African tribe and their identities seem to have changed
over time. At the start of the nineteenth century they largely denoted an
approximate region of origin in Africa, whereas by the end of the century
they seem to have collated most closely with religious identity.49
This adaptability and creativity, already evident in religious identities
on the African continent, were translated to Brazil, as also to Saint-
Domingue (Haiti) and Cuba, by the huge numbers of imported slaves; and
produced, in their collision in these places with Catholic Christianity, a
range of “neo-African religions”: candomblé in Brazil, vodun (voodoo) in
Haiti, and santária in Cuba.50 According to Laird Bergad, there were three
different forms of Brazilian candomblé: candomblé ketu, practised by
Yoruba slaves in the North Eastern states of Pernambuco and Bahia;
candomblé bantu, which shared deities with the Yoruba variant; and the
candomblé jeje of the Fon and Ewe, which, though deploying a different
vocabulary, still shared similar gods and myths. The Afro-Brazilian
religion of macumba, which developed more specifically in Rio de
Janeiro, was, according to Bergad, distinct from the above and more
“superstitious”.51 Another historian claims that the manner in which
candomblé constituted a syncretistic religion varied, though it was always
dynamic and changing. The mix of religious cultures was not so much a
“fusion” in which no original elements of the other existed, as a hybridity
in which African, Portuguese and Indian elements could co-exist and even
be interchanged. Other commentators have identified various different
patterns of variation. In the first, the European (Catholic) religion
functioned as a disguise for what were essentially African images and
beliefs, in order to avoid the attention and persecution of the colonial (later
Imperial) administrators of Brazil, as in the candomblés in Cachoeira and
San Félix in Bahia. In the second, both religions existed side by side (the
“bi-religious” phenomenon already encountered in Africa) and were used
at different points in time by the same devotees. Thus some slaves might
attend a candomblé ceremony on Saturday night and a Catholic Mass on

49
See nn. 28-9 to Geary’s article in this volume (ch. 11); also Childs, “Slave
Culture,” 178-80.
50
Frey, “Remembered Pasts,” 164.
51
Bergad, Comparative Histories, 186-7.
18 Introduction

Sunday morning. A third form of syncretism involved a more fundamental

fusion of the two religious heritages into a new and unique creation.52
In the words of Rachel E. Harding, one of the leading authorities on
candomblé, it was a “poetic complex of ritual action, cosmology, and
meaning with deep and obvious roots in several religious traditions of
West Central Africa—especially Yoruba, Aja-Fon, and Bantu”. Though it
was initially able to develop through the interstices of the official Catholic
Church (of which more later), it “recreated” those African traditions and
thus provided a space in which Afro-Brazilians could express identities at
odds with those allocated to them by their masters. Candomblé, as the
product of this encounter, was extremely “plastic”; and its well-known
identification of various orishas (spirits) with Catholic Saints was but one
expression of the Catholic/African fusion or dualism. However, Harding
stresses that this Afro-Brazilian religion was much more than a meeting of
European and African traditions. It was—and increasingly became—a
fusion of different African traditions; it was above all “Pan-African”. As it
developed, therefore, it became less ethnically determined.53 Moreover, its
central ritual activities of healing and divination through drumming, dance
and trance were not immune to Amerindian influences, especially in terms
of magico-pharmacopoeic knowledge.54 Having said this, candomblé,
though practised by many slaves, was not exclusively a “slave religion”;
and the houses of free men seem to have been especially important for its
development. Nor was it exclusively black.55
As already noted, Catholic institutions were used by the practitioners
of candomblé, and it is to these institutions and the Christian legacy that
we now turn. As already mentioned, there was a long history of Catholic
conversion in Africa, which, for example, saw the King of Congo
embracing this religion in the 1570s.56 However, the extent and meaning
of conversion in Africa were unclear;57 and in any case most of the
Africans arriving in Brazil were not already converted. So the Portuguese
authorities in Brazil had to import Catholic institutions from Europe to
incorporate, instruct and convert the slave newcomers. Of course, these

52
Heuman and Walvin, 359; Hall, 46; Price, Maroon Societies, 29; Guimarães,
“Mineração, quilombos e Palmares”; Volpato, “Quilombos em Mato Grosso”;
Thornton, Africa, 2 and 213-18; Omara-Tunkara, Manipulating the Sacred, 3;
Wimberley, “Afro-Brazilian religious practice,” 81.
53
Harding, Refuge in Thunder, xiii; 39-40.
54
Ibid., 50.
55
See Geary’s article in this volume (ch. 11), 315.
56
Frey, “Remembered Pasts,” 153-64.
57
See above, p. 16.
 Slaves and Religions: Historiographies, Ancient and Modern 19

institutions were seen by masters and rulers as mechanisms of social

control; for in the minds of the authorities African drumming, dances and
other rituals constituted a threat to public order, to the economic
productivity of slaves; and possibly carried within them a message of
revolt.58 The principal institution of Catholic incorporation was the
irmandade (Brotherhood), which certainly existed in Portugal in the
fifteenth century and subsequently became associated there with blacks
and slavery. However, African irmandades had also come into existence in
various parts of the Portuguese Empire: in West Africa, namely Angola,
the Kingdom of Congo and the island of São Tomé. As a result, Sylvia
Frey speculates that such brotherhoods may have been brought to Brazil
from Portugal by African creoles, or by Africans who had been converted
in Africa but then enslaved and transported to Brazil.59 The brotherhoods
were dedicated to particular saints and, in the case of those dedicated to
Our Lady of the Rosary, unusually admitted women. Their principal roles
were the celebration of saints’ festivals and the physical and spiritual care
of the dead. In some cases they also functioned as friendly and
manumission societies. The precise social and ethnic basis of such
brotherhoods is far from clear. We know from work on Rio de Janeiro that
they often replicated ethnic solidarities and divisions, to which they gave a
religious dimension; and conflicts between the social worlds of creoles
(slaves born in Brazil) and Africans are well documented in the case of
Bahia, where brotherhoods were also organised along ethnic lines.
However, this was far less true in the state of Minas Gerais, where
divisions more usually ran along the lines of colour. Lines of division also
seem to have broken down in some urban areas.60 Whatever their social
composition, however, the relative absence in Brazil of anything
resembling the close control of the Inquisition in Mexico61 meant that the
brotherhoods became spaces, in which those of African origin could
construct new collective identities, find self-worth and constantly recreate
in new and various forms aspects of their African cultural past. The
precise nature of belief might be “bi-religious” or some kind of
syncretistic fusion, in which Catholic saints and African spirits became
interchangeable; but it would be wrong to draw hard and fast lines of
separation between different groups and different practices, especially as

58
Graden, From Slavery to Freedom, 103-6.
59
Frey, “Remembered Pasts,” 164-5; Kiddy, “‘Who is King of the Congo?’”
60
Childs, “Slave Culture,” 181; Soares, Devotos; Kiddy, Black of the Rosary, 118;
Bergad, Comparative Histories, 184; Libby in this volume (ch. 8), 216-18.
61
Frey, “Remembered Pasts,” 159-61.
20 Introduction

African identities were often extremely fluid and interchangeable.62 It is

also important to recognise that brotherhoods and their various identities
were not restricted to slaves but often included free and freed men, and, in
some cases, women.
Certain aspects of Catholic ritual, in particular baptism and burial,
were of great importance to the members of brotherhoods and to both
slaves and freed persons more generally. As Douglas Cole Libby reminds
us in Chapter Eight, “the sacrament of baptism was of fundamental
importance because it represented the admission of the baptized into the
Catholic Church and, in many ways, into the local community”.63 Baptism
also played a crucial role in the lives of Brazilian slaves in a further,
related way. Slaves often chose as godparents free or manumitted persons
who might help purchase a child’s future freedom. Though Libby shows
significant regional and chronological variations in this choice as far as the
Brazilian data is concerned, the links between the parents and godparents,
and between children and godparents, became “a major building block of
social organization in emerging black Catholic communities everywhere in
the Atlantic world” (Frey), as in parts of Bahia and in the city of Rio de
Janeiro.64 The extent to which participation in rituals of conversion or
incorporation into Catholicism indicated a real acceptance of Christian
beliefs, or was another building block of “bi-religious” or “syncretistic”
faith, or was, for that matter, simply pragmatic, is of course impossible to
know in most cases; and it is certainly true that ostensibly Catholic
funerals were often accompanied by African rituals of dance and
drumming.65 However, some Brazilians of African ancestry became much
more clearly committed to the Christian faith and rejected syncretism and
their African past, as Júnia Ferreira Furtado’s fascinating study reminds us
in Chapter Five. She demonstrates the social ascension of a mulatto, born
of an African mother and a white father, through the ranks of the Catholic
Church, his involvement in an attempt to convert the ruler of Dahomey to
Christianity, and his rejection of African practices as “demonizing”.66
A final thread in the complex religious map of slave Brazil is provided
by Islam. Islam not only had a long history in North Africa, but by the

62
Kiddy, Blacks, 58-77, 81-141; Bergad, Comparative Histories, 184. On the
fluidity and voluntaristic nature of African identities see Geary’s chapter in this
volume (ch. 11), 321-2.
63
On funerals, see Reis, A morte. For the Libby quotation, this volume (ch. 8),
220.
64
Libby (ch. 8), 220-29; Frey, “Remembered Pasts,” 163-4.
65
See Reis’ wonderful study, A morte.
66
Furtado, this volume (ch. 5), 167.
 Slaves and Religions: Historiographies, Ancient and Modern 21

fourteenth century many of the literate and commercial classes of West

Africa had been converted. However, pre-Islamic beliefs survived amongst
the rural populations until the jihads of the eighteenth and nineteen
century imposed a greater orthodoxy. Significantly, it was at this time that
there was a marked increase in the importation of slaves from the interior
of present-day Nigeria and Benin, especially into Bahia and its capital
Salvador. Many of these slaves had been involved in or were the victims
of jihads (holy wars) in the hinterland of the Slave Coast; and, as the
insatiable demand for slaves became ever greater, from the 1790s the slave
trade penetrated ever deeper into Africa and on to the Muslim fringes of
the Sahara, where the local populations were rallied by Islamic clerics. It
was these slaves who formed the backbone of the numerous uprisings in
Bahia between 1800 and 1835, when the famous Mâle revolt took place.
Again, however, the solidarities that underlay such risings involved free
and freed men, as well as slaves; and some of those involved were
adherents of the Yoruba orisha cult and Aja-Fon voodoo, as well as
Muslims.67
Of course the participation of Africans rather than Brazilian-born
slaves in the many “slave revolts” in Brazil was not just a function of
cultural difference and African religion. Africans were far less likely to be
manumitted than creoles, less likely to get skilled jobs, less likely to
participate in the limited and complex reality of social mobility that
characterised Brazilian society. Creoles, on the other hand, were more
likely to be manumitted, more likely to exploit the social interconnections
of Catholic brotherhoods. Moreover, attempts to link candomblé with
revolt are highly problematical; for, however African in origin, its
practitioners became increasingly diverse and its practice less exclusive. It
did signal a process in which some Brazilians sought to distance
themselves from Western science and medicine through African-derived
divination, healing, witchcraft and counter-witchcraft, but which was itself
increasingly creolised.68
It should be clear that it is virtually impossible to draw hard and fast
lines between social and ethnic groups and their often syncretistic religious
beliefs in the cultural melting pot that was Brazil. What can be said is that
over the long term Islam did not survive, though other religions made
substantial borrowings from it.69 This least syncretistic of the religions did
not have sufficient numbers of practitioners in Brazil over the long term to

67
Reis, “Slave Rebellion”; Geary (ch. 11), 315.
68
On manumission and mobility, Geary (ch. 11), 319-20. On candomblé, Reis,
“Candomblé”.
69
Frey, “Remembered Pasts,” 166.
22 Introduction

sustain the necessary infrastructure of mosques and religious schools—a

problem compounded by the deportation of many after the Mâle rising to
other parts of the Americas, and even Africa; and by a sex ratio, in which
males hugely outnumbered females. Candomblé and related beliefs, of
course, survive to this day; whilst the Catholic Church, strengthened by
the definitive end of African slave imports in 1851 and the subsequent
process of creolisation, remains extremely powerful, despite a rapid
growth in the number of poor Brazilians seeking succour in evangelical
Protestant churches in the early twenty-first century.

Towards a comparison
At the start of this Introduction we raised the question whether the
similarities evident between certain aspects of the lives of Graeco-Roman
and Brazilian slaves extended to their religious practices. A full answer to
that question lies beyond the scope of this Introduction, but a few outline
conclusions can be suggested.
Clearly, the huge differences of religious context forbid simplistic
comparisons. The ancient Mediterranean was mainly a world of polytheism:
a world without Islam and, for many centuries, without Christianity. In
contrast to the Catholic Church’s dominant position in colonial Latin
America, even after its creation early Christianity remained largely an
upstart and often persecuted sect until its incorporation within the power
structures of the Roman Empire during the 4th century AD. To these
religious differences we should add important differences in the context of
slaving. Both the Graeco-Roman world and modern Brazil were
characterised by significant imports of slaves from outside their societies;
but the circumstances were very different. The length and distance of the
Atlantic crossing stand in stark contrast to the high levels of inter-
connectedness and shorter geographical distances between the ancient
Mediterranean and its adjacent slave-supplying regions. The grand scale,
regular routes and infrequent arrival of ships of the Atlantic slave trade
differed sharply from the fragmented but “omnipresent and routine series
of small-scale exchanges, made everywhere, by all manner of individuals”
which characterised slave trading for most of Graeco-Roman antiquity.
Even the huge numbers of persons directly enslaved by Roman armies
during their imperial expansion were only occasionally transferred en bloc
for auction in Italy; more often they were dispersed among the general
Mediterranean supply chain through sale to accompanying itinerant
 Slaves and Religions: Historiographies, Ancient and Modern 23

merchants, auctioning in local markets, or distribution among the army’s

soldiers.70
The more fragmented character of Graeco-Roman slave sources and
supply, in combination with the different religious context, meant that
among ancient Mediterranean slave populations there was no equivalent to
the constant rejuvenation of “African” culture evident among Brazilian
slaves, to the emergence of African “nations” (nações) collated with
religious identity, or to the emergence of “neo-African religions” such as
candomblé. Foreign cults certainly entered the Graeco-Roman world from
adjacent slave-supplying regions, but they were imported and sustained as
much by free foreign immigrants from those regions as by captive slaves.
Such imported foreign cults consequently rarely had revolutionary
potential.71 The appeal of slave rebel leaders may have been enhanced by
special religious capacities, but religious cults or adherence per se never
formed the unifying basis for ancient slave uprisings.
Nevertheless, despite these significant historical differences, there
emerge certain common elements, as Niall McKeown intimates in the
Conclusion to his paper. At the most basic—but still important—level, in
both societies involvement in religion provided a source of succour and
escape from the harsh realities of slave existence; or, more positively
phrased, a vehicle for slaves to develop purposeful communal activities
and foster meaningful human relationships. Moreover, as has already been
emphasised, in both societies religious activity constituted one means for
slaves to act beyond the confines of their obligations to their owners or
masters, to engage with the wider society.
Of particular importance here were two phenomena common to both
Graeco-Roman antiquity and modern Brazil. First, despite the presence of
religious mechanisms of social control, the sacred landscape of both
societies was marked by significant degrees of religious pluralism. Slaves
were often able to exercise levels of agency and choice over their religious
activities that were unavailable to them in many other aspects of their
lives. The second common phenomenon is the frequency of religious
interaction and shared activity between slave and free, including freedmen:
whether in antiquity through various types of voluntaristic religious
associations, including the collegia and the Christian church; or in Brazil
within candomblé, Islam or the Catholic brotherhoods (irmandade), or
through relationships of godparenthood.

70
Braund, “Slave supply”: quotation from p. 113; Scheidel, “Roman slave supply”;
Volkmann, Massenversklavungen, 106-9.
71
We should distinguish here the Roman authorities’ fears about Bacchic cults of
south-Italian Greek origin which included slave members: see below, pp. 69-70.
24 Introduction

Slave religious agency and interaction with free and freed persons
played an important role in one of the broad similarities between Brazilian
and Graeco-Roman slaveries mentioned earlier: the relative frequency of
manumission compared with many slave societies. As already noted, slave
parents in Brazil frequently chose free or freed persons as godparents with
any eye to their potential future assistance in purchasing their children’s
freedom; and the irmandade sometimes also functioned as manumission
societies. Likewise, in the Graeco-Roman world voluntaristic associations
often provided donations or interest-free loans to secure the freedom of
their slave members and subsequently offered some measure of protection
against the possibility of their unlawful re-enslavement.
Both these phenomena were doubtless aided by the other similarity
noted earlier between Graeco-Roman and Brazilian slaveries: the wide
range of slave economic functions, including a diverse range of skilled
roles in urban settings, which placed many slaves in positions of initiative
and quasi-independence living and working in daily contact with persons
of free or freed status. In this respect, the similarities between slave
religious practice in these very different societies reflected fundamental
parallels in the practice of slaving itself.72

72
It remains to express our thanks to Jack Lennon and Peter Davies for their
assistance with proofreading and indexing the volume.
 Slaves and Religions: Historiographies, Ancient and Modern 25

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 PART I.

GENERAL PERSPECTIVES
 CHAPTER ONE

IN THE EYES OF THE BEHOLDERS

OR IN THE MINDS OF THE BELIEVERS?
HISTORICIZING “RELIGION”
AND ENSLAVEMENT

JOSEPH C. MILLER

In the service of full disclosure, I should allude here at the beginning of

these remarks to my personal appreciation of the conferences of the
Institute for the Study of Slavery, which have repeatedly provoked, and
enabled, me to extend some rather broad thinking that I have been doing
on slaving as a historical strategy ubiquitous throughout the human
experience. A few years ago I opened my comments on the none-too-
modestly conceived ISOS gathering (in 2002) to discuss the modest span
of “5000 Years of Slavery” with a remark that the organizers had
identified “just my period”; thoughts that they and others present provoked
then have since informed the “world history of slaving” that continues to
thrive in its lengthy gestation in my head.1 That ISOS meeting, on
“Women and Slavery”, fed directly into another conference on the subject
elsewhere and framed my contributions to the two published volumes of
papers that eventuated from it.2 Another ISOS gathering on “Resistance
and Accommodation” (2003), to me, suggested doubts about the
seemingly axiomatic centrality of these tropes in studies of slavery and led

1
Preliminary versions of these thoughts have appeared in Miller, “Strategies de
marginalité”; id., “The Historical Contexts of Slavery in Europe”; id., “A Theme in
Variations”; id., “Slaving as Historical Process.” The epistemological issues are
taken up in Miller, The Problem of Slavery as History.
2
Campbell, Miers and Miller, eds., Women and Slavery, including “Preface,”
I.xvii-xxix; “Introduction: Women as Slaves and Owners of Slaves,” I.1-38;
“Preface,” II.xiii-xx; “Introduction: Strategies of Women and Constraints of
Enslavement,” II.1-24; “Displaced, Disoriented, Dispersed, and Domiciled,”
II.284-312.
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1670, the raiders having come on both occasions by
the San Juan River and the lake; and a third time
destroyed by fire in 1685, the work of pirates who
landed at Escalante on the Pacific. In 1844 it was
greatly damaged by earthquakes. In 1856 it was
burned by William Walker, the filibuster. But it has
risen from its ashes, and become prosperous. The
city is irregular in its construction, the streets not
being straight or rectangular. They are mostly
unpaved, and generally in a bad condition. The city
obtains water for consumption from the lake, distant
about a mile, brought by men on their shoulders; and
its food supplies, not from the surrounding fields, but
from numerous Indian pueblos on the S. E. Masaya
was an Indian town, but raised to the rank of a city
in 1839. Rocha, Cód. Nic., i. 148. It is supplied with
water from the deep lagoon south of and near the
city. There were women who for 80 cents monthly
supplied two large jars of water every day. A steam-
pump was put up in 1872 to raise the water of the
lake to the plaza. There is no building worthy of
mention in the place. Other notable towns in the
department of Granada are Nandaimé, Jinotepe, San
Rafael de la Costa, Diriomo, Tipitapa, Nindirí, and
Zapatera Island. The towns of San Cárlos and El
Castillo, on the San Juan, belong to the same
department, though governed in a special manner.
San Juan del Norte, alias Greytown, has little
importance now; its houses are of wood and palm-
thatched. Rivas bore the name of Nicaragua till the
early part of the present century. The city has
suffered greatly from earthquakes, particularly in
1844. It was partially destroyed during the Walker
war. A real curiosity in the department of Rivas is the
island of Ometepe in the lake, having two towns, the
Pueblo Grande, or villa de Altagracia, and the
Moyogalpa, united by a good wagon road.
Chinandega is one of the most beautiful spots in Nic.
It is a perfect garden. In the wild or uncivilized
portion of the territory lies the Mosquito region,
whose chief town is Blewfields, having two wooden
buildings; the rest being mere huts. Lévy, Nic., 373-
90; Laferrière, De Paris á Guatém., 73-6; Saravia,
Bosq. Polít. Estadist., 10-11; Marure, Bosq. Hist.
Cent. Am., 153-4; Froebel's Cent. Am., 19, 29-47, 62-
75, 92-104; Froebel, Aus Amerika, i. 250-80, 311-17,
350-4; Squier's Trav., i. 138-40, 146-50, 211-15, 258-
67, 339, 353-6, 365; Squier's Cent. Am., 346-7, 356-
9, 366-76; Squier's Nic., 646; Belly, Nic., i. 196-9,
212, 225-9, 249; Stillman's Golden Fleece, 206-8;
Dunlop's Cent. Am., 6-8; Stout's Nic., 27-9, 41-5, 98-
100, 156-64; Baily's Cent. Am., 117-18; Bates' Cent.
Am., 131-2; Marr, Cent. Am., i. 158-9, 165-71, 228-
30; Boyle's Ride, i. 13, 83-91; ii. 8; Reichardt, Nic., 6-
18, 20-7, 59, 62-3, 71-2, 81-9, 105-6, 129-31, 134,
155-9, 165-9, 231; Wells' Hond., 39, 42, 72-4.

[XXVII-30] Hond. is therefore betw. 13° 10' and

16° lat. N., and within 83° 20' and 89° 30' long. W.
Squier's Cent. Am., 68; Encyclop. Brit., xii. 133.
Between 13° 10' and 16° 5' N. lat., and within 83°
12' and 89° 47' W. long. Am. Cyclop., viii. 787.

[XXVII-31] The towns have their municipal

corporations, whose members are required by law to
be able to read and write.

[XXVII-32] Before 1827 it was a prosperous city;

but the serviles burnt it that year. Since then it has
suffered several times, especially in 1872 and 1873.

[XXVII-33] Squier's Cent. Am., 129-30; this

authority also gives a cut of the cathedral on p. 261;
Wappäus, Mex. und Cent. Am., 310-11; Huston's
Journey, 24-7.

[XXVII-34] The town stands on the right bank of

the Choluteca River in an amphitheatre among the
hills. It has a fine stone bridge of ten arches
spanning the river. Wells' Hond., 186-8; Laferrière,
De Paris á Guatém., 95-6; Squier's Cent. Am., 155.

[XXVII-35] Omoa is situated about a quarter of a

mile from the beach on level ground, but the back
country rises rapidly into a chain of high mountains,
beginning abruptly at Puerto Caballos, now called
Puerto Cortés. Owing to its position, Omoa is
generally cool and healthy, has seldom been visited
by epidemics. The place is defended by the San
Fernando castle. Trujillo lies close by the sea at the
foot of a lofty mountain covered with vegetation, and
reaching to the very edge of the water. The town was
at one time of considerable importance, both in a
commercial and military point of view; but now it has
an antique, dilapidated, and abandoned appearance.
Amapala, on the island of Tigre, was in old times a
favorite resort of pirates; it was here that Drake had
his depot during his operations in the Pacific. Owing
to the visits of those marauders, the Indian
population of Tigre and Zacate Grande retired to the
mainland, and the islands remained almost entirely
deserted till 1838, when Amapala was made a free
port, since which time it has become a very
important place. It has a salubrious climate. Further
details on the towns of Honduras may be found in
Montgomery's Narr. of a Journey to Guat., etc., in
1838, 31; Squier's Cent. Am., 98-129, 142-161;
Squier's Hond. R. R., 74-84, 99-102; Squier's Trav., ii.
164-8; Young's Resid. Mosq. Shore, 138-40; Wells'
Hond., 324-5, 574-9; Reichardt, Cent. Am., 89-90,
93-5; Wappäus, Mex. und Cent. Am., 311-19;
Froebel's Cent. Am., 177-83; Pim's Gate of the Pac.,
28-9.

[XXVII-36] It is comprised within lat. 13° and 14°

30' N., and long. 87° 30' and 90° 20' W. Am. Cyclop.,
xiv. 610. Between 13° and 14° 10' N. lat., and
between 87° and 90° W. long. Squier's Cent. Am.,
279; Laferrière, De Paris á Guatém., 111.
 [XXVII-37] By decree of President Gonzalez, July
14, 1875, the department of San Miguel was cut up,
and that of Gotera created with the districts of
Gotera and Osicala. San Miguel was compensated
with Chinameca, detached from Usulutan. Salv.,
Diario Ofic., July 20, 1875.

[XXVII-38] It is made a part of the governor's

duty to keep the gen. govt apprised of every
important occurrence within his department or its
vicinity; in addition to which he must furnish annually
a gen. report on every branch of the public service,
with suggestions for the further improvement and
progress of the communities under his charge. His
subordinates in districts and towns report to him. A
number of governors' reports may be seen in Salv.,
Gaceta, Sept. 3 to Dec. 24, 1876; Jan. 2 to Dec. 18,
1877; Id., Diario Ofic., May 17 to Dec. 3, 1879; Jan.
15, 1880, etc.

[XXVII-39] Towns of from 200 to 2,000

inhabitants two regidores, of upwards of 2,000 to
10,000 four, and those exceeding the latter number
six. Each corporation elects a competent clerk to
authenticate its acts and those of the alcalde.

[XXVII-40] Id., May 1-16, 1875; March 5-22,

1879.

[XXVII-41] Like other Spanish towns, it covers a

large area in proportion to the population. The
houses are built low, of a single story, and adapted to
resist the constant shakes of the earth. Each house
has an inner court, frequently containing a fountain
and garden. The dwellers run out to the court on
feeling a temblor of some force. When the shocks are
heavy and continuous, they seek safety in the plazas
and open fields, where they erect tents.

[XXVII-42] It is situated between N. lat. 13° 50'

and 18° 15', and within W. long. 88° 14' and 93° 12'.
Am. Cyclop., viii. 288. Between 13° 42' and 18° lat.
N., and between 88° and 93° 5' W. long. Encyclop.
Brit., xi. 211.

[XXVII-43] The chief towns have the same

names as the departments to which they belong,
excepting those of Sacatepéquez, Quiché, Peten,
Baja Verapaz, Alta Verapaz, and Santa Rosa, whose
respective names are Antigua, Santa Cruz del Quiché,
Flores, Salamá, Coban, and Cuajiniquilapa. Salv.,
Gaceta Ofic., June 6, 1877; Guat., Mem. Sec.
Gobern. y Just., 1884, 4-5, annex 4; El
Guatemalteco, May 10, 1884.

[XXVII-44] Under the old system the department

was under a corregidor who was not only civil
governor, but also military chief, judge, revenue
collector, and postmaster. Berendt, in Smithsonian
Rept, 1867, 424.

[XXVII-45] Under art. 34 of this organic law the

jefes were required to send the supreme gov. for
approbation police regulations, under the instructions
furnished them for the sake of uniformity. They did
not fail to comply. Guat., Mem. Sec. Gobern. y Just.,
1880, 1-2.

[XXVII-46] The law determined with precision the

manner of organizing the municipalities, and the
functions of the councilmen, increasing at the same
time the number of committees; at that time they
had committees of finance, supplies, water, police,
health, ornamentation, schools, vaccination, roads,
and statistics. Further information on internal
administration, police, and gen. condition of the
departments may be found in Guat., Recop. Ley., i.
492-512, 527-75; Barrios, Mensaje, 1876; Salv. Diario
Ofic., May 13 to 16, 1875; Guat., Mem. Sec. Gobern.,
1880, 1881, 1882, 1884; Batres' Sketch Guat., 23;
Conkling's Guide, 341.
 [XXVII-47] With only three exceptions every
department had a surplus. The three excepted had
deficits amounting together to $3,578.

[XXVII-48] I will name a few of the authorities:

Dillon, Beautés de l'hist., 218-38; Thompson's Guat.,
465-9; Stephens' Trav. Cent. Am., i. 192-4; Nuevo
Viajero Univ., iii. 602-7; Baily's Cent. Am., 49-54;
Valois, Mexique, 291-6; Reichardt, Cent. Am., 54;
Crosby's Statem., MS., 86-90; Belly, Nic., i. 114-16;
Laferrière, De Paris à Guatém., 259-60; Dicc. Univ.
Hist. Geog., iii. 724-7; Dunlop's Cent. Am., 76-86;
Squier's Cent. Am., 497-50; U. S. Gov. Doc., H. Ex.
Doc. Cong. 43, Sess. 1, i. 444-5; Astaburuaga, Cent.
Am., 78-9; Am. Cyclop., viii. 290-2; Encyclop. Brit.,
xi. 214.

[XXVII-49] There are two fortresses, the

Matamoros and San José. Among the open places are
the plaza mayor, and the recently laid out plaza de la
Concordia, now the favorite resort of the inhabitants.
There is another plaza containing a fine theatre.

[XXVII-50] San Francisco, La Recoleccion, La

Merced, and Santo Domingo are among the notable
ones.

[XXVII-51] The govt in late years has provided

for an increase of the water supply to meet the
future requirements of a town whose population is
rapidly growing. Guat., Mem. Sec. Fomento, 1884,
43-4; 1885, 49-51, 56-8.

[XXVII-52] With government aid, a jockey club

was also established in 1882. Guat., Mem. Sec.
Fomento, 47-50, 75.

[XXVII-53] Antigua, or Old Guat., presents its

majestic ruins, much the same as they were left by
the earthquakes of 1773. Many of the buildings
appear like fortresses. Among the best preserved are
the old government palace and the university. The
place was much damaged by an earthquake in 1874.
Thompson in his Cent. Am. has a description of the
ruins as they were in 1825, 245-9; others have
described them at later dates. Stephens' Trav., i. 266-
71, 278-80; ii. 204; Reichardt, Cent. Am., 53-5;
Macgregor's Prog. of Am., i. 791-2; Valois, Mexique,
376-8, 390; Squier's Cent. Am., 456, 504-10; Batres'
Sketch, 27-9, 40. Quezaltenango is 8,130 feet above
the sea. It is every day growing in importance and
wealth. Living is cheap there; the climate is cool and
healthy. Most of the streets are narrow, but they are
well paved and have flagstone sidewalks. The houses
are of good appearance, some of them of two
stories. Among the public buildings are the
penitentiary, on the plan of that in Philadelphia, the
Indian cabildo of two stories, the hospital, national
institute, and other educational establishments, some
fine churches, etc. Boddam Whetham's Across Cent.
Am., 66-7; Conkling's Guide, 334, 337, 343. The city
of Flores, head town of the department of Peten, is
worthy of mention for its picturesque position on one
of the islands of Lake Itzal, and its charming view
from a distance. The place is hot, however, and
uncleanly.

[XXVII-54] Occupying the Isthmus which

connects North and South America, between lat. N.
6° 45´ and 9° 40´, and within long. W. 77° and 83°.
The area is of about 31,921 square miles. In its
general form it is an arc curving from east to west,
with the convex side toward the north. In the widest
part from sea, to sea it is about 120 miles, in the
narrowest from the gulf of San Blas to the mouth of
the Bayano River about 30, and along the line of the
railway 47½ miles. Am. Cyclop., xiii. 31.

[XXVII-55] In addition to these are Taboguilla,

Urabá, Naos, Perico, Culebra, San José, Tórtola,
Tortolita, Iguana, Washington, Napoleon, Stanley,
and many smaller ones. Tavares, Gulf and Isthmus of
Darien, March 31, 1761, MS., 52-65; Imray's Sail.
Directions, 6-12; Humboldt, Tableau, 710.

[XXVII-56] The largest being the Tuira, 160 miles

long, navigable about 102 for barges, empties into
the gulf of San Miguel; the Chagres, navigable for
bungos about 30 miles, runs into the Caribbean Sea;
the Chepo flows into the bay of Panamá.

[XXVII-57] The principal town of Coclé is

Penonomé; of Chiriquí, David; and of Veragua,
Santiago. The rest bear the same names as their
respective departments.

[XXVII-58] The governor and prefectos report

yearly to the chief of the Isthmus the state of their
respective departments. Pan., Mem. Soc. Jeneral,
1877, etc.

[XXVII-59] Just prior to the influx of the foreign

element, upon the discovery of the gold placers in
California, the town had a gloomy and ruinous
aspect. There was nothing to be seen all around but
ruin and poverty; whole blocks and streets of old,
dilapidated buildings, propped-up houses with people
living in them, and luxuriant vegetation in the plazas,
walls, etc. With the coming of foreigners a great
change took place within the short space of three or
four years. Nearly all the old dwellings underwent
repairs, and new ones were built. In lieu of the old
sad appearance and silence, all was now bustle and
movement. Maldonado, Asuntos Polít. Pan., MS., 7.

[XXVII-60] The cathedral has nothing to

recommend it except its two fine towers. It is in a
ruinous condition, and though repaired a few years
ago and reduced to a single nave, further repairs are
loudly called for. This building as well as the cabildo
face the main plaza.
 [XXVII-61] Efforts have been made in late years
by the state government for the construction of an
aqueduct; but without success. Pan., Gaceta, May 16,
1874; Apr. 9, 30, 1876; Pan. Star and Herald, May
19, 1874; Feb. 14, Apr. 13, 1876.

[XXVII-62] The following are among the

authorities giving more or less detailed descriptions
of the city of Panamá: Cash's Sketch, 54-61, 29-71;
Bidwell's Pan., 1-9, 75-7, 119-35, 341-8; Beechy's
Voy., i. 11-17, 23-4; Scarlett's South Am., ii. 189-211,
221-9, 254-69; Seemann's Narr., 84-8, 275-95, 289-
94; Wilson's Trav. in Cal., 9-10, 17-19; Wortley's
Trav., 320-2; Scherzer, Narr., ii. 424-5; Pim's Gate,
209-20.

[XXVII-63] Gisborne's Darien, 160-70, 205-9;

Otis' Isth. Pan., 70-127; Harper's Mag., xvii. 19-28,
32-9; Tomes' Pan., 40-66. The following contain
descriptions of other places as well as of the transit
between the two seas: London Geog. Soc. Jour., i.
69-101; xxiii., 184; Niles' Reg., xxxviii. 141;
Reichardt, Cent. Am., 201-2; Willey's Person. Mem.,
37-8; Masset's Exper. of a '49er, MS., 1; Lachapelle's
Raousset-Boulbon, 43-7; Champagnac, Voyageur,
175-6; Froebel, Aus Amerika, 211-31; Nic., Cor. Ist.,
May 30, 1850; Marryatt's Mountains, 1-17; Holinski,
La Californie, 45-61; Rouhaud, Reg. Nouvelles, 167;
Nouv. Annales des Voy., cxxiii. 220-2, 226-7; cxlv. 17-
22; cxlvii. 15-17; Polynesian, v. 29; vi. 121;
Thornton's Or. and Cal., ii. 348-54; Oswald Cal. und
Seine, 87-92; Kelley's Canal Mantimera, 27-8; Auger,
Voy. en Cal., 35-92; Saint-Amant, 25-62, 80-97;
Griswold's Pan., 41-7; Rossi, Souvenirs, 47-50;
Esguerra, Dicc. Geog. Colombia, 2-275; Pan., Gaceta,
Jan. 23, 1881.

[XXVII-64] Department of Pan., including 18,378

in the city, 43,462; Coclé, 33,134; Colon, including
4,000 in that port, 1,057 in Chagres, and 1,319 in
Portobello, 8,276; Los Santos, 37,670; Veragua,
36,210; Bocas del Toro, 5,250; Darien, 1,036. Pan.,
Mem. Sec. Fomento, 1882, 43-6. The population at
the time the Isthmus seceded from Spain was
variously estimated at from 80,000 to 111,550; 1843,
129,697; the census of 1863 yielded 180,000; but it
is believed the population was made to appear larger
than it really was, so as to gain one more
representative in the national congress. The best
informed citizens computed it at only 150,000. In
1868, 220,542, authorities keeping the same figures
till 1879, excepting one estimate for 1874 reducing it
to 174,000. Humboldt, Pers. Narr., vi., pt i. 142;
Seemann's Voy., i. 296; Imray's Sail. Dir., 14;
Bidwell's Isth. Pan., 178-80; Pan. Star and Herald,
Feb. 18, 1868; Mex. Soc. Geog. Boletin, 3d ép. i.
728; Colombia, Diario Ofic., Sept. 6, 1872; Aug. 4,
1874; March 1, 1876; Esguerra, Dicc. Geog. Colomb.,
171.

[XXVII-65] Veraguas, Decr. de la Cám.; Id., Notas

Ofic.; Id., Ordenanzas, 1853; Chiriquí, Corresp. Gob.
Nac., 1851; Id., Ofic. del Gob.; Id., Comp. de
Fomento, 1855; all in Pinart, Pan. Coll. Doc., MSS.,
nos. 63, 65, 69, p. 25-7, no. 39, 4-9, no. 88, p. 22,
no. 40, 1-4; besides other doc. in the same Coll., no.
31, p. 40-1, nos. 49, 50, 52, 103; U. S. Gov. Doc., H.
Ex. Doc. 41, Cong. 36, Sess. 2, vi. 55; El Noticioso
del Istmo Am., in the Californian, S. F., ii., June 12,
1847.

[XXVII-66] For their dwelling-places I refer to

Native Races of the Pac. States, i. 795-7, this series.

[XXVII-67] In 1835. Veraguas, Dec. de la Cám.,

in Pin., Pan. Col. Doc., MS., no. 57, 17-22; Id.,
Informe, in Id., MS., no. 78.

[XXVII-68] Their chief at times visited the British

consul at Panamá, but never agreed to his returning
the visit at their homes. Seemann's Voy., i. 321.
Neither would they accept presents from any white
person. One of their chiefs who accepted a present
was degraded by his tribe, and the present was sent
back. Bidwell's Isth. Pan., 36.

[XXVII-69] Many persons were killed by the

Bayanos in Oct. 1870; and their hostilities were
repeated in 1874. Pan., Gaceta, Nov. 10, 1870; Dec.
23, 1873; Apr. 14, 1874; Id., Star and Herald, Feb.
17, March 12, 1874; Id., Informe Sec. Est., 1874, 18-
19.

[XXVII-70] The lower classes are improvident and

fond of dress and finery.

[XXVII-71] Low dresses without sleeves, and with

lace trimmings on the bust.

[XXVII-72] There are many of them given to

gossiping and propagating scandalous reports even
about their friends. Politics and the bottle have in late
years debauched many a fine young man, the vice of
drunkenness of late gaining ground.

[XXVII-73] There are associations of various

kinds, including secret ones, like the masonic, of
which there are several lodges, with many native
Panamanians among their members. The natives still
observe the custom of long mournings as of old. In a
community where families are more or less
connected by ties of blood or marriage, the result is
that mourning often seems to be the common dress.

[XXVII-74] Details in Constitucional del Istmo,

Nov. 21, 1832; Colegio de Pan., Decreto, 1-2; El
Movimiento, Dec. 1, 1844; N. Granada, Gaceta, Feb.
22, 1846; Bogotá, Gac. Ofic., Feb. 6, 1848; Chiriquí,
Decretos, MS., 1849; Pan., Crón. Ofic., Nov. 9, 1849,
to March 1, 1854, passim; Chiriquí, Inf. del Gob.,
MSS., 1851-2; Pan., Gaceta Extraord., Dec. 23, 1857;
March 30, 1858.

[XXVII-75] In 1869 there were no public primary

schools in the state. Parents with means had
teachers at home, or sent their children to the few
private schools then existing, to Bogotá, the national
capital, or abroad. Children of poor parents had to
grow in utter ignorance.

[XXVII-76] In 1874 there were in the state 17

primary schools with 1,065 pupils. The numbers
steadily increased till 1882, when the schools were
59 and the pupils 2,167. There were appropriated for
supporting the schools in 1873 $14,191, and every
year after there was an increase; the amount allowed
in 1882 being $33,310, and in 1883 $63,962, the
govt now becoming alive to the fact that the funds
formerly supplied were insufficient, as appeared in
the report of the educational bureau on Nov. 15,
1881. Pan., El Elector, May 1, 1883; Pan., Inf. Sec.
Est., 1866; Id., Mensaje, 1872; Id., Mem. Sec. Est.,
1876; Id., Informe Direct. Gen. Instruc. Púb., 1877-
80; Id., Leyes, 1876-7, 26-32; Id., Mem. Sec. Gob.,
1877; Id., Min. Sec. Gob., 1879; Pan., Boletin Ofic.,
May 28, 1863, to Sept. 8, 1869, passim; Id., Gaceta,
July 28, 1870, to Feb. 20, 1881, passim; Colombia,
Diario Ofic., Feb. 18, Aug. 14, 1874; Jan. 27, March
2, 1876.

[XXVII-77] It began its existence as the Panamá

Star, a very small sheet, in 1849; now it has eight
large pages. S. F. Times, March 13, 1869; S. F. Alta,
March 13, 1869; Pan. Star and Herald, Jan. 11, 1886.

[XXVII-78] I have had occasion to quote both

publications repeatedly on narrating events on the
Isthmus and in Central America.

[XXVII-79] The bull is led by a rope into the most

public streets. A number of men challenge the brute,
which occasionally rushes at its tormentors; but as
the rope holds it, only by a rare chance is any one
hurt. The bull is thus worried by the men-brutes till it
is ready to drop.

[XXVII-80] Games of chance and night orgies

having become prevalent, in 1878 a heavy tax was
levied on gambling-houses, and a severe decree
issued to check orgies and brawls. Pan., Gaceta, Jan.
31, Aug. 15, 1878.

[XXVII-81] The following authorities have spoken

of the manners and customs of the Isthmus, and
character of its people at different periods from 1845
to late years: Macgregor's Progress of Am., i. 820-34;
Seemann's Narr., i. 140-1, 299-310, passim; Oliveira,
in Nouv. Ann. Voy., cxxiii., 216-27; McCollum's Cal.,
16-26; Worthy's Trav., 335-6; Johnson's Sights, 11-
87; Foote's Recoll., 135-47; Merrill's Statem., MS., i.;
Fremont's Am. Trav., 57-65, 166-7; Griswold's Isth.,
130-68, 179-80; Gisborne's Darien, 170-216, pass.;
Delano's Chips, 80-92; Helper's Land of Gold, 209-
23; Mollhausen's Diary, ii. 374-9; Harper's Mag., xix.
433, 437-54; Trollope's W. Ind., 240, 248-50; Pim's
Gate of the Pac., 210-14; Gazlay's Pac. Monthly, i.
17-30; Baxley's What I Saw, 30-45; China Route,
Sketch of New, 54-74; Gordon's Guide, 14-15;
Eardley-Wilmot's Our Jour., 66-71; Pan. Star and
Herald, Feb. 7, 1875.

[XXVII-82] In 1840 small-pox prevailed in

Chagres among the natives; foreigners, being mostly
vaccinated, escaped unscathed. It visited the Isthmus
again as an epidemic in 1863, 1880, and 1881, with
great ravages each time, owing to neglect of the
common rules of hygiene, or aversion of the lower
classes to vaccination. Niles' Reg., lix. 17; Bidwell's
Isth. Pan., 222-3; Cash's Sketch, 62-3; Pan., Gaceta,
March 14, Aug. 1, Oct. 17, 1880; Sept. 22, 1881; El
Coclesano, Aug. 5, 20, 1881; S. F. Bulletin, July 16,
1881.

[XXVII-83] The Isthmus seems to have been

spared on its first visit to Am. in 1832-4. Pan., Doc.
Ofic., in Pinart, Col. Doc., MS., no. 31, 41-4.

[XXVII-84] The havoc, however, was greater

among transient foreigners and the native colored
population. Maldonado, Asuntos Polít. Pan., MS., 7-8.
It was most virulent from Jan. to July 1849. There
were cases nearly to the end of 1850. Williams'
Statem., MS., 2; Willey's Pers. Mem., MS., 48-53;
Roach's Statem., MS., 1; Cannon's Statem., MS., 1; S.
F. News, Nov. 8, 1850. Chiriquí escaped the infliction
by the timely establishment of a rigorous quarantine
against Pan. Chiriquí, Dec. Gobern., in Pinart, Pan.
Col. Doc., MS., 89, 2-5, 25; Veraguas, Dec., in Id.,
MS., nos. 70-2.

[XXVII-85] If we except Colon, Chagres, and

Portobello, the climate is healthy. Men abstaining
from the abuse of alcoholic drinks, and observing the
common rules of hygiene, need not be apprehensive
of the climate.

[XXVII-86] The symptoms were cramps, severe

pain in the spine, vomiting, and fever, followed by
loss of consciousness. The attack generally lasted
several days.

[XXVII-87] Pan., Gaceta, Oct. 11, 1877; Apr. 29,

1880.

[XXVII-88] There was, however, a private

hospital, mainly supported by the French and
Italians, where sick foreigners found good
attendance. Many a life has been saved in it.

[XXVII-89] Four disastrous conflagrations visited

the present city of Panamá prior to 1825; namely, in
1737, 1756, 1781, and 1821, the first being the work
of incendiaries from Guat. Seemann's Voy., 288.
Chagres was nearly all burned down Dec. 9, 1847.
Polynesian, in S. F. Californian, iii. no. 4, Aug. 14,
1848. Gorgona was ruined in 1851. Panamá had
property destroyed in 1856 valued at half a million
dollars. Colon was afflicted in 1863 and 1868, and
finally ruined by the incendiaries Prestan and others
in 1885. Panamá had three great conflagrations; viz.,
June 5, 1870, Feb. 19, 1874, and March 6, 1878. The
loss of property in the three probably exceeded four
million dollars. Pan., Merc. Chronicle, March 29,
1868; Nic., Gaceta, Feb. 7, 1863; Apr. 25, 1868;
June, 1870; Id., Boletin Ofic., June 18, Dec. 25,
1870; Jülfs, Die Seehäfen, 3; S. F. Chronicle, June 21,
30, 1870; March 10, 1878; S. F. Alta, July 1, 1870;
Feb. 28, March 9, 1874; S. F. Call, June 9, 1870;
March 9, 1874; Apr. 2, 1878; Pan. Star and Herald,
Feb. 21, 24, 1874; Pan., Gaceta, July 10, 1874;
March 17 to July 1, Dec. 15, 1878; Colombia, Diario
Ofic., May 30, 1874, p. 1749; S. F. Post, Feb. 28,
1874; March 8, 1878.

[XXVIII-1] Being an estimated increase since

1877 of 245,847. Salv., Gaceta Ofic., Dec. 4, 1877.
The population was computed in 1810 at different
figures, none reliable. The one deemed most
accurate was as follows: 646,666 Indians, 313,334
mulattoes and some negroes, 40,000 whites, making
a total of 1,000,000, probably including 100,000 for
Chiapas. Guat., Apuntam., 105, 110; Salv., Diario
Ofic., July 2, 1879; Lastarría, in La América, 445;
Baily's Cent. Am., 28, 32; Nouv. Annales des Voy., iv.
1820, 36; Ocios de Esp. Emig., v. 2. In 1823 the
whole was set down at 1,600,000. Humboldt's Pers.
Narr., vi. pt 1, 127, 131. Marure computed it in 1824,
giving Costa R. 70,000, Nic. 207,269, Salv. 212,573,
Hond. 137,069, and Guat. 660,580; total, 1,287,491.
Bosq. Hist. Cent. Am., 148, and app. no. 6. G. A.
Thompson, Brit. commissioner to Cent. Am., in 1823
estimated 2,000,000 in the following proportions:
one fifth of whites, two fifths of mixed classes, and
two fifths of Indians. Narr. Official Visit, 451. Galindo,
an intelligent officer of the Cent. Am. govt, about
1837 set the population at 685,000 Ind., 740,000
ladinos or mestizos, and 475,000 whites; total,
1,900,000. He evidently overestimated the number of
whites. Crowe, Gospel, 40, referring specifically to
Guat., estimated the number of pure whites at not
over 5,000, which seems to be short of the truth.
The proportions he gave were: Indians, three fifths;
ladinos or mestizos, one fourth; whites, one fortieth;
mulattoes, one eighty-third; negroes, one fiftieth;
zambos, one hundredth. It is unnecessary to burden
this note with figures for each year after 1837. I will
merely append those for 1866, given by a writer who
must have got his data from reliable sources: Costa
R., 150,000, mostly white, and including from 5,000
to 10,000 Talamanca Indians. According to a Costa
Rica census, there were in the republic in 1864 112
persons of 90 years and upwards; of whom 14 were
of 100, 4 of 102, one of 103, one of 104, one of 111,
one of 117, one of 118, and one of 122. The majority
of cases of great longevity were of women. Costa R.,
Censo, 100-3. Nic., 380,000, of whom 80,000 pure
Indians, 30,000 whites, 30,000 negroes, and the rest
of mixed breeds, the mestizos of white and Indian
predominating on the Pac. coast, and the zambos, or
mixture of negro and Indian, on the Atlantic; there
were probably 30,000 in Mosquitia; Salv., 750,000;
Hond., 300,000; Guat., 1,219,500. Laferrière, De
Paris á Guatém., 47, 71, 93, 189, 251; Pim's Gate of
the Pac., 37, 75. Other publications treating of the
subject from time to time: Costa R., Boletin Ofic.,
Feb. 9, March 30, 1854; Id., Gaceta, July 15, 1854;
Id., Mem. Sec. Interior, 1860 and 1861; Id., Informe
Gobern., 1868 and 1874; Id., Censo, 1864; Id., Col.
Ley., xxxii. 250-2; Squier's Cent. Am., 21, 45-57, 279,
348, 449, 465, 648-9; Id., Travels, i. 32-3; Molina,
Bosq. Costa R., 28-9; Belly, Nic., i. 138-42, 249-54;
Rocha, Cód. Nic., i. 185-6; Nic., Registro Ofic., 270,
312, 316, 382; Id., Boletin Ofic., March to Aug. 1862,
pass.; Id., Gaceta, Jan. 1863 to Apr. 11, 1874, pass.;
Lévy, Nic., 234 et seq.; Salv., Gaceta, Jan. 26 to Nov.
18, 1850; Feb. 3, March 3, 1854; Apr. 1, 1876; May
28 to Nov. 28, 1878; May 18 to Nov. 29, 1879;
Crosby's Statem., MS., 93; Wells' Hond., 554-7;
Guat., Recop. Ley., i. 473; Guat., Mem. Sec.
Fomento, 1880-5, with tables; and numerous others.

[XXVIII-2] The departments of Guat. having the

largest numbers were Totomicapam, 144,312; Guat.,
130,581; Huehuetenango, 121,123; Alta Verapaz,
93,407. The rest range from 76,103 in Lalolá and
75,553 in Quiché, to 31,637 in Jalapa. Peten is put
down with 8,297, Izabal with 3,761, and Livingston
with 1,471. Costa R., Gaceta, July 11, Aug. 13, 1885;
Guat., Mem. Sec. Fomento, 1884, 40, annex 6; 1885,
43-4, annex 12; El Guatemalteco, Jan. 1 to Dec. 5,
1884, pass.; Pan. Star and Herald, Feb. 9, 1884;
Sept. 30, 1885.

[XXVIII-3] The proportions in 1880 were, white

and mixed, men, 183,536, females, 196,292; pure
Indians, men, 421,518, females, 423,256. Grand
total, 1,224,602. Guat., Mem. Sec. Fomento, 1885,
annex 12, table 16.

[XXVIII-4] The first law to promote colonization

was issued Jan. 22, 1824, by the national constituent
assembly of Cent. Am. Marure, Bosq. Hist. Cent. Am.,
133, app. xviii.-xxvii.; Guat., Recop. Ley., i. 815-20;
Id., Boletin Ofic., June 22, 1835; Nic., Corr. Ist., Aug.
8, 1850; Hond., Gaceta Ofic., March 20, 1854;
Rocha, Cód. Nic., i. 42-3, 53; Baily's Cent. Am., 43-5.

[XXVIII-5] Containing upwards of 14,000,000

acres of virgin soil, and affording every climate. Brief
Statem. of the Important Grants Conceded to ... by
the State of Guat., Lond., 1839; Guat. Charte de
Concession du territ. de Vera Paz, Bruxelles, 1840,
8vo, 1-34; Guat., Mem. Concession, 17-130; Marure,
Efem., 38; Squier's Travels, i. 422-4; Id., Compend.
Hist. Cent. Am., 77-9.

[XXVIII-6] It was first formed out of, or at least

originated from, the débris of the Poyais bubble, of
which I spoke elsewhere in connection with
Mosquitia.

[XXVIII-7] They talked of their ability to spread

Brit. influence in the country. They even threatened
to sell their charter to some other government.

[XXVIII-8] Details on the subject will be found in

Dunlop's Cent. Am., 160, 190-1; Niles' Reg., li. 36;
Reichardt, Cent. Am., 39, 238; Guat., Memoria, 1837,
17-19; Id., Comm. and Agric. Co., 1-132; Anderson's
Cent. Am., 5-93, 97-138.

[XXVIII-9] It stipulated a conditional sale of the

lands lying between the left bank of the river
Motagua and the right bank of the river Cahabon to
where it runs into the Polochic, including all the coast
and neighboring islands within these limits; and
inland as far as Gualan, and the interior limits of the
province of Santo Tomás. The company was to pay
for the computed 8,000 caballerías at the rate of $20
for each caballería, in ten yearly instalments of
$16,000. It was also to present the Guat. govt 2,000
muskets, similar to those used by the Belgian army,
and four large guns; likewise pay one fifth the
expense of erecting a city at Santo Tomás, make a
cart road to the river Motagua, and introduce
steamers for navigating the river. Guat., Recop. Ley.,
i. 824-38; Reichardt, Cent. Am., 239-43; Belly, Nic.,
ii. 36-7; Dunlop's Cent. Am., 303-6; Crowe's Gospel,
169-70; Amerique Cent. Cie. Belge, pt i. 5-64, pt ii.
110-13; Valois, Mexique, 438-42; Claquet, Rapport S.
Tomás, 7-9; Cuelebrouk, Blondeel van, Colonie de
Santo Tomas, 1-240 pp., with maps and plans;
Laferrière, De Paris á Guatém., 250-1; Brouez,
Colonie Belge, 103-29.

[XXVIII-10] With a few exceptions, however, they

were to be governed by their own laws, and were,
besides, to enjoy a number of exemptions. The
custom-house of Izabal was to be removed to Santo
Tomás.

[XXVIII-11] The grants were repealed in April

1854. Guat., Recop. Ley., i. 838-9; Belize, Packet
Intelligencer, June 17, 1854; Squier's Cent. Am., 512-
13; Payne's Hist. Europ. Colonies, 327; Crosby's
Statem., MS., 98.

[XXVIII-12] See laws and decrees of Feb. 29,

1868, Oct. 2, 1873, Aug. 19, 1878, June 27, 1884,
and a decree of Presid. Barillas in 1885; also official
correspond with the U. S. govt. Guat., Recop. Ley., i.
841-5; Id., Id., Gob. Democ., i. 197-8; Nic., Gaceta,
Apr. 18, 1868; S. F. Times, May 9, 1868; Mex., Diario
Ofic., Sept. 18, 1878; Manero, Doc. Interes., 105-6;
U. S. Govt Doc., Cong. 42, Sess. 2, H. Ex. Doc. 1
(For. Rel.), 542-3; El Guatemalteco, June 30, 1884; S.
F. Bulletin, June 15, 1885.

[XXVIII-13] Cultivating one half, and becoming a

citizen, provided he had not been imprisoned
meanwhile for crime. The concession involved several
other facilities, and privileges. Guat., Mem. Sec.
Fomento, 1884, 7-8; Pan. Star and Herald, July 23,
1883.

[XXVIII-14] On the ground that a large number

of English-speaking negroes thus introduced could
never become assimilated with their already mixed
population, and would soon create a balance of
power in their hands, as against the remainder of the
population. The rulers saw in the plan danger to their
institutions and customs. U. S. Govt Docs., Cong. 35,
Sess. 2, Sen. Miscel. Doc., 26; Foreign Affairs, 1862,
881-4, 897-910; Crosby's Statem. of Events in Cal.,
MS., 95-100; Pim's Gate of the Pac., 138-46.

[XXVIII-15] Squier's Cent. Am., 275-6; Squier's

Hond., 267-78; Nic., Gaceta, Sept. 21, 1867; Jan. 4,
25, Nov. 14, 1868; Pan. Star and Herald, Sept. 17,
Dec. 4, 1885.

[XXVIII-16] The government granting 500,000

square varas of land to each family, and specifying
the number of families to be settled. It was to guard
against improper persons being introduced, that is to
say, only those of good moral character and
industrious habits, professing the catholic religion,
and willing to sever their connection with and throw
off the protection of their former nationalities, were
to be received. Upon complying with the required
conditions, they would be granted the rights of
citizenship. Rocha, Cód. Nic., i. 167-8. A number of
Prussians, among whom were several families,
arrived in September 1846 on the brig Frisch at San
Juan del Norte, desiring to settle in the country. The
government tendered them facilities to settle in the
interior, provided they would first relinquish their
allegiance to Prussia. Only six men remained; the
rest went away. Nic., Boletin Ofic., 345-6, 367. In
1851 it was contemplated to establish, under liberal
grants, a French colony in Nic.; but it was not carried
out. Dupuy, Nic., 8-27.

[XXVIII-17] Congress on Feb. 13, 1862, declared

the former null and void, and refused to sanction the
latter. Rocha, Cód. Nic., i. 187; Nic., Boletin Ofic.,
March 1, 1862.

[XXVIII-18] The deed of full ownership was to be

executed six months after the immigrant's arrival. He
was also exempted from import dues on everything
he brought to enable him to settle. Fabens, Walker's
friend, was named director of colonization. Perez,
Mem., 7; El Nicaragüense, Jan. 5, 1856; Wells'
Walker's Exped., 106-11; Nic., Boletin Ofic., Apr. 16,
1856.

[XXVIII-19] The govt declared it null in 1866. La

Union de Nic., May 18, 1861; Nic., Decretos, 1865-6,
74-5.

[XXVIII-20] The govt has not ceased to promote

immigration. In 1873 concessions were made to the
colony in Gottel Valley, and in 1878 efforts were
made to bring colonists from Alsace-Loraine. Nic.,
Gaceta, Feb. 11, 1865; Apr. 6, Aug. 24, 1867; El
Porvenir de Nic., Apr. 13, Aug. 3, 1873; Salv., Diario
Ofic., Dec. 12, 1878.

[XXVIII-21] It has refrained from introducing the

African element, though men of that race can alone
be advantageously employed in her low-lying hot
region. The immigration of Chinese has been
prohibited as injurious. Bates' Cent. Am., 140; Costa
R., Informe Sec. Hac., 1875, 7-8.

[XXVIII-22] With the same civil and political

rights enjoyed by natives. Those desiring to retain
their nationality are equally protected, and are
exempted from military service and extraordinary
taxation. They may freely dispose of their property,
which at their death goes to their legal heir, whether
by will or ab intestato. Costa R., Col. Ley., v. 114-16;
Molina, Bosq. Costa R., 44.

[XXVIII-23] They were exempted from imposts

for 15 years.

[XXVIII-24] The settlement was effected where

there were no ready means to procure supplies, or to
dispose of products without great trouble and
expense. Besides, the settlers were unfamiliar with
tropical agriculture.

[XXVIII-25] Nineteen died at San José. One was

killed by a tiger on the way there, and his remains,
with those of his wife and child, were buried under
the evergreens of San Miguel; the rest went up the
Sesapiqui River, where 9 were soon after put under
the sod; 9 died at Miravalles, and 4 at Alajuela.

[XXVIII-26] Concession to Sir Henry Bulwer.

Costa R., Boletin Ofic., July 20, 1854.

[XXVIII-27] The grant covered 54 square miles in

the Reventazon Valley, between Cartago and the
Atlantic Ocean; the company were to settle 7,000
adult colonists within 20 years. An additional absolute
concession of 32 acres for each colonist was also
made. But the principal grant was to be forfeited if
the main condition was not fulfilled. Bülow, Nic., 124-
39; Costa R., Boletin Ofic., March 9, 1854; Calvo,
Memoria, 8; Costa R., Mem. Sec. Rel., 1851, 7-8;
1854, 8; Id., Informe Gobern. y Rel., 1853, 13-14;
Id., Doc. Soc. Itin., 1-102; Wagner, Costa R., 181-3,
332-5; Marr, Cent. Am., ii. 172-3, 179-81, 218-19,
228-9.

[XXVIII-28] Each family was to have 10 acres, a

temporary dwelling, provisions for six months, the
use of a cow and ox for one year, all for $80,
reimbursable in equal annual instalments during 10
years. Wagner, Costa R., 250-6, 473-93.

[XXVIII-29] Further details on the subject may be

found in Squier's Cent. Am., 462, 473-80; Belly, Nic.,
i. 355-6; Reichardt, Nic., 245-8, 290-6, ix.-xiv.;
Molina, Bosq. Costa R., 126; Id., Coup d'œil Costa R.,
30-3; Id., Der Freistaat Costa R., 67-83.

[XXVIII-30] That same year the colonization of

Golfo Dulce was contemplated. El Nicaragüense, July
19, 1856; Lafond, Golfo Dulce.

[XXVIII-31] Costa R., Col. Ley., xv. 176-9.

[XXVIII-32] In 1878 with Barreto to introduce

Canary Islanders, and in 1881 with Perera. Voz de
Méj., Aug. 30, 1878; Mex., Diario Ofic., Sept. 2,
1878; Costa R., Col. Ley., 1881, 94-8.

[XXVIII-33] Mestizo is the offspring of white and

Indian; mulatto of white and black; quadroon of
white and mulatto; octoroon of white and quadroon;
zambo is an offspring of Indian and negro, more
extended intermixtures are given elsewhere.

[XXVIII-34] For examples, in Nic., Gen. Corral,

Walker's victim, Gregorio Juarez and Rosalío Cortez,
ministers of state, were mulattoes. Anselmo Rivas,
also a minister, resembled an Abyssinian; Fruto
Chamorro, the conservative president, showed
evidences of many mixtures. Belly, Nic., i. 255.

[XXVIII-35] The whites in their social intercourse

maintain a certain exclusion, but in other respects
equality prevails. Knowing their numerical inferiority,
they have followed the policy of concession. Squier's
Travels, i. 268.

[XXVIII-36] According to Trollope, pure Spanish

blood is an exception. He thinks there must be a
great admixture of Indian blood with it. The gen.
color is that of a white man, but of a very swarthy
one. W. Ind. and the Sp. Main., 275.

[XXVIII-37] Belly, Nic., ii. 132. Trollope, West

Ind., 275-6, speaks disparagingly of Costa Rican
women's personal appearance. Another Englishman
treats them with more gallantry: 'Blonde hair, gray
eyes, and red cheeks are rare in no class; and many
a pretty face may be seen on market-day, scarcely
darker or more Spanish-looking than a west-country
girl's. Boyle's Ride Across a Continent, 225.
 [XXVIII-38] Being a compact population, and
constantly thrown into the company of one another
through family or business relations, a certain
fraternity became established, and the practice
obtained of calling each other hermano and
hermanitico at every meeting. Astaburuaga, Cent.
Am., 52-3. Owing to that practice, the Costa Ricans
have been nicknamed hermaniticos.

[XXVIII-39] That is to say, they are not given to

stealing or barefaced cheating; but at a bargain they
will take all the advantage they can; and if a lie will
help, their conscience is elastic enough to use it. In
this they are neither better nor worse than other
nations claiming a high standard of honesty. Their
sense of morality, in sex relations, is not what it
should be. Divorces and separations are common,
and concubinage quite prevalent. The superintendent
of the census for 1864 recorded '1,200 separados de
hecho, quienes sin equivocarme puedo decir que
viven en concubinato, sin contar la frecuencia de este
entre solteros y solteras.' Costa R., Censo, 1864, xxv.

[XXVIII-40] They dislike wasting their resources

in wars or war material, preferring the arts of peace,
and to welcome those bringing them wealth from
other countries. Laferrière, De Paris à Guatémala, 45-
6, 57.

[XXVIII-41] A large number of houses in Cent.

Am. are made with tapial, which is common earth put
moist into boxes of the dimensions of the walls, and
beaten with mallets. Another sort of building is made
by driving a number of poles into the ground at a
yard or two from each other, to which long canes are
tied, the space between the canes being filled up
with mud, or with mud and stones. When dry, the
outside is plastered over with mortar. The houses are
protected by projecting roofs. There are likewise
many houses built with thick adobe walls, covered
with concave tiles.

[XXVIII-42] Dirty and slovenly. Trollope's W. Ind.,

260, 268. The only articles of furniture in them are a
hammock, a table, a bedstead without mattress, and
two or three of the commonest wooden chairs.

[XXVIII-43] Belly, Nic., i. 367-8.

[XXVIII-44] Hence the constant use of emetics,

castor oil, soda purgante or refrescante, rhubarb,
quinine, sarsaparilla, and florida water, which are
looked upon as universal panaceas. Laferrière, De
Paris à Guatém., 57. The large revenue derived by
the government from the monopoly of the sale of
spirituous liquors shows how great must be the
consumption. Boyle's Ride Across a Continent, ii. 225.

[XXVIII-45] The Indians are never found in the

cities. Laferrière, De Paris à Guatém., 42-4.

[XXVIII-46] Belly speaks of the great variety and

abundance of commodities exhibited in the market
on such days. Cacao nibs were used as small change.
The sales of one Saturday that he visited the market
exceeded $100,000. Nic., i. 392.

[XXVIII-47] Some of these rebozos are of silk,

made in San Salvador, and sold in Costa Rica at $18
or $20 apiece.

[XXVIII-48] All classes seem to be given to the

vice. At the club a minister of state or some other
high functionary presides over the faro-bank. Boyle's
Ride, 226.
 [XXVIII-49] There is a good deal of heresy and
infidelity exhibited by the higher class; but the poor
people are very devout.

[XXVIII-50] A favorite amusement of all Cent.

Am. Laferrière, De Paris à Guatém., 56-7; Reichardt,
Nic., 123-5. In connection with the manners and
customs of Costa Ricans, see also Frisch, Staaten von
Mex., 88; Wagner, Costa R., 170-8, 189-92, 194.

[XXVIII-51] The native women when carrying a

jar of water on their heads present the sculptural
profiles of caryatides. Belly, Nic., i. 198. Beautifully
moulded and unobtrusive in their manners; kind and
hospitable to strangers. Squier's Travels, i. 284, 294.

[XXVIII-52] The women are not well educated;

but they are simple and unaffected, quick of
apprehension, and ready at good-natured repartee.
Id., 269.

[XXVIII-53] Cemeteries being generally in bad

condition. Squier has it that the priests have
perpetuated the practice, because they derive a
considerable fee from each burial. Travels, i. 383-4.

[XXVIII-54] 'The aristocracy keeps the shops,

and there it dozes;... the lower orders keep the
plaza, and there they doze.' Boyle's Ride Across a
Continent, 102.

[XXVIII-55] Belly, Nic., 217, speaking of those of

mixed blood, says they are the victims of traditional
indolence, and of the absence of moral light rather
than of actual depravity. The nearer to the pure
Indian type, the more reliable and faithful they are.
Stout, Nic., 118, says that the Nicaraguans are
possessed of many virtues.

[XXVIII-56] Such offences which in other

countries would be indelible blots, throwing their
authors out of the company of honorable people, are
after a while overlooked, and the perpetrators
reinstated in society. Lévy, Nic., 275.

[XXVIII-57] The waistcoat and cravat are often

dispensed with. Gloves are rarely worn. Loud colors,
with large chains and trinkets are too often displayed.

[XXVIII-58] The ordinary saddle or albarda is a

cheap affair and uncomfortable. There are horses of
an easy amble, which are quite rapid and yet gentle.
Squier's Travels, i. 157; ii. 91.

[XXVIII-59] Lévy, Nic., 272; Belly, Nic., i. 198;

Wells' Explor., 74-5. The people generally are clean in
their persons except when travelling, or when ill, and
in the latter case the touch of water is prohibited.
Squier's Travels, 59, 153-4, 269, 271, 289.

[XXVIII-60] For a hot climate the adobe, warm in

winter and cool in summer, is not to be surpassed as
a dwelling. In the courts are shade trees, making the
corridors upon which all the rooms open exceedingly
pleasant. Id., i. 33-4; Id., Cent. Am., 365; Id., Nic.,
649; Stout's Nic., 38, 62-4, 66. Doors and windows
are wide. The windows have no glass, being enclosed
on the outside with an iron railing constructed
sometimes like a balcony. The floors are of soft brick.
The roof, sloping considerably, is of concave tiles.
The yard often has a flower garden, or is used for
raising poultry, or maybe pigs.

[XXVIII-61] Kitchen, laundry, stables, etc., are at

the end of the yard, or when possible, in a separate
yard.

[XXVIII-62] In late years some foreign furniture

has been imported. Most parlors are furnished as
follows: Chairs with leather seats, easy chairs of the
same, mostly rockers. In houses of the wealthy is a
round or oval centre-table, and other tables fitting
into the corners, and possibly a piano, a hanging
lamp, and small mirrors, together with framed
lithographs or paintings hanging on the walls. The
bedrooms have similar chairs, a hammock, and a bed
of rawhide extended and nailed to a wooden frame,
supported by four legs. At each end rises a pillar to
sustain a sort of awning which covers the whole bed,
and answers also for a mosquito net. The
appurtenances of the bed are a mat, sheets, and
pillows. No mattresses are ever used. Some persons
prefer a common cot. Levy, Nic., 262-7; Belly, Nic.,
197.

[XXVIII-63] In some places coyol oil or lard in tin

lamps are used, with or without a glass chimney. In
Segovia the people often have no other light than
that emitted by a burning piece of resinous pine.

[XXVIII-64] Quite simple. Squier's Travels, 120,

272-5. Breakfast invariably comprises eggs, roast
meat, beans, and cheese, to which other dishes may
be added or not; finishing with chocolate or coffee,
the former mixed with roasted corn, and the latter
with milk. The dinner consists of soup, boiled meat
and greens, followed by a stew of beef, pork, fish, or
fowl, with some vegetables, and dessert in the form
of a variety of dulces. Rice is as necessary at dinner
as beans at breakfast. Between breakfast and dinner,
fruits or some cooling beverage are partaken of.
Supper is a frugal meal, accompanied with chocolate,
or tiste, which is the national beverage of Nic.—a
mixture of cacao, and ground roasted corn, beaten in
cold water with sugar. Wheaten bread is made of
imported flour; but it is too expensive for general
use, and is generally sweetened. The tortilla of Nic. is
larger, thicker, and of coarser dough than in other
parts. In many places it is considered 'artículo de
lujo,' and instead of it, boiled or roasted green
plantains are used. Wine is rarely brought into
requisition. The only fermented liquor in common use
is the aguardiente distilled from molasses, which only
the lower classes drink, and not to excess. The
poorer classes are very irregular in their eating, for
they eat at all hours; living mostly on plantains,
beans, cheese, and chicharrones and other fat
portions of pork. Fruit in superabundance is eaten.
Lévy, Nic., 267-72; Stout's Nic., 130-2; Squier's
Travels, i. 271.

[XXVIII-65] The govt has at the capital a fine

military band, which gives public concerts in the open
air twice a week. The marimba and old Spanish
guitar are much used. Occasionally a Spanish
dramatic or zarzuela company, or a troupe of
acrobats or other artists, visit the country.

[XXVIII-66] In Leon some of the élite do not

frequent the place, but they, not excepting the
priests, practise it in their corridors. Little parties are
got up of afternoons to have chicken-fights, and at
times large sums change hands.

[XXVIII-67] Govt has from time to time passed

laws to prohibit gaming. Rocha, Cód. Nic., ii. 81-3; La
Union de Nic., March 9, 1861; Nic., Gaceta, Jan. 15,
1870; Pan. Star and Herald, March 20, 1886.

[XXVIII-68] Occasionally those who take part in

the dangerous amusement receive fatal injuries.
Lévy, Nic., 288-94; Squier's Travels, i. 331-3. The
following authorities also treat of the character, and
manners, and customs of the Nicaraguans. Reichardt,
Nic., 80-1, 88-90, 102-25; Heine, Wanderbilder, 96-
107, 187-204, passim; De Bow's Rev., xiii. 236-58;
Wells' Walker's Exped., 44-79, 84-5, 106-7, 241-2,
422.

[XXVIII-69] 'Whatever may be the future history

of Cent. Am., its most important part, in all that
requires intelligence, activity, concentration, and
force, will be performed by San Salvador.' Squier's
Cent. Am., 315.

[XXVIII-70] Aboriginal names of places have

been generally preserved; and there are a few towns,
exclusively inhabited by Indians, who use their own
language among themselves. Squier's Cent. Am.,
318-23.

[XXVIII-71] About 50 miles in length, and 20 to

25 miles in breadth, lying between La Libertad and
Acajutla.

[XXVIII-72] Nevertheless, in business

transactions he is indisposed to trust others.

[XXVIII-73] This garment is elaborately but

rudely embroidered about the neck and shoulders
with colored thread. It is often laid aside in the
country towns. Montgomery's Narr., 98-9; Squier's
Cent. Am., 321.

[XXVIII-74] Laferrière, De Paris à Guatém., 211-

21.

[XXVIII-75] Upon the death of an infant, all

rejoice, dance, and carouse, the parents also taking
part, presumably on the belief that it has joined the
choir of angels in heaven. If the child is a male one,
they paint whiskers and a mustache on its face to
make it resemble that of Jesus, and call it a jesusito.

[XXIX-1] A large number of the priests are

blacks, and they regard with ill-concealed jealousy
the advance of Americans in Cent. Am. Every
measure of the liberals to promote foreign
immigration meets with opposition on the part of the
black priests.

[XXIX-2] Lying between the Rio Roman and Cape

or Segovia River, an area of some 15,000 square
miles.

[XXIX-3] Their ancestors had favored the French

in the squabbles with England, and in 1796 were, by
order of the British government, transported en
masse, to the number of about 5,000, and at heavy
expense, to the then deserted island of Roatan, in
the bay of Honduras. They were subsequently invited
by the Spanish authorities to the mainland; and aided
to found settlements near the port of Trujillo. Since
then they have rapidly increased, extending
themselves both to the eastward and westward of
that port. Squier's Cent. Am., 232.

[XXIX-4] The black Caribs are represented as tall

and stout, and more mercurial and vehement than
the pure Caribs; the latter are shorter, but powerfully
built.

[XXIX-5] Leaving out the dignified and courteous

members of the old and wealthy families, the people
show a strange mixture of politeness, simplicity,
shrewdness, and effrontery, and above all, an
indescribably passive indifference of countenance.
Wells' Hond., 202-3.

[XXIX-6] It has been said of the Cent. Am.

woman, 'she nursed, made tortillas, and died.' Id.,
215.

[XXIX-7] The women of this class lead a

degraded life. If the man has large means, his
mistress has menials under her; if not, she is maid of
all work. Bates' Cent. Am., 115.

[XXIX-8] Notwithstanding this lack of education,

Cent. Am. women never fail to interest the traveller
by the peculiar gentleness and dignity of their
demeanor. Wells' Hond., 227-8.
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