Perlas y piel de azabache. El negro en las pesquerías de las Indias Occidentales

Abstract

Not very long after the Discovery, the pearls from the West Indies competed with those from the Orient for the full regalia of the ladies of the gentry, or that of the most revered virgins, while raising the curiosity of the best known chroniclers and creating an excruciating tax system. Considering the legislation passed for the benefit of Indians, those were to a large extent replaced in the “pearl fisheries” by black slaves submitted by the covetousness of their masters and the interests of the Crown to horrendous living and working conditions which most of the time relentlessly led them to death.