Urban Slavery In Latin America

Decoding the Experience of Rural vs Urban Slaves in Latin America In Latin America, during the time of the Atlantic slave trade from the 16th century to the 19th century, Juan Francisco Manzano, born 1797-1854, was an urban slave who was born in Cuba as a slave at the height of sugar growth and trade in Cuba. The Cuban economy profited from the production of sugar during this time, its primary source of income. The Cuban authorities would ignore the appeals by the Spanish government in Spain to stop the importation of slaves, as Cuba heavily relied on slave labor. Slavery in Latin America was in stark contrast to slavery in the United States. Latin America was known for having manumission, which was a system of where slaves

Manzano’s account is one of an urban house slave. In Cuba, there were rural and urban slaves, each group would perform different types of work. Rural slaves in Cuba would perform manual labor, work on sugar and coffee plantations, growing and harvesting sugar, often under harsh conditions. Urban slave’s conditions varied differently from rural slaves. While life was still difficult for urban slaves, urban areas were characterized by a higher number of slaves than urban areas. Urban slaves would work and live in their master’s residence. They were made to cook, clean, shopped in the market for their masters, and even produced goods to sell personally. Urban slaves held more personal freedom than rural slaves had in Latin America, they were trusted with shopping for their master alone. Both urban and

Urban slaves could still suffer physical punishment like rural slaves, again depending on the master, but performed different duties distinct from each other. Rural slaves usually performed back breaking work in the sweltering heat, growing and harvesting sugar cane and coffee beans. The lifespan of rural slaves varied significantly from urban slaves. Rural slaves often performed heavy manual labor on plantations for most of the working day, received no pay, and had very little sleep, thus damaging health in the process. The masters could easily replace dead slaves with new slave offspring. Female plantation slaves were made to breed to produce more slaves. Urban slaves usually worked in domestic areas, women cooked, cleaned, and took care of children. The men would work various odd jobs in which they would earn a wage. They gave their masters a majority of their earnings while being allowed to keep some for personal necessities, like food and clothing. Rural slaves could eventually save up enough money to purchase their freedom. Thus, the life of rural and urban slaves would prove to hold stark differences from one