Transatlantic Bondage

Lissette Acosta Corniel is Assistant Professor of Latin American Studies in the Department of Ethnic and Race Studies at the Borough of Manhattan Community College, the City University of New York.

"Transatlantic Bondage is a much-needed study that contributes new ways of thinking about laws, enslavement, and freedom in the Atlantic world … it is a welcome study that provides significant motivation for other scholars to consider these areas, and the relationships between slavery and the laws, so that previously silenced voices can be heard." — H-Net Reviews (H-Caribbean)"What an important, innovative book! Dedicated to original archival research, this volume goes a long way toward correcting the neglect of Spanish Santo Domingo and Puerto Rico in studies of the African diaspora in the Americas. Acosta Corniel and contributors open our eyes to difficult new questions in places that should become more familiar to readers." — Gwendolyn Midlo Hall, author of Haunted by Slavery: A Memoir of a Southern White Woman in the Freedom Struggle"Transatlantic Bondage makes a unique and welcome contribution to the study of race and slavery over a period of four centuries in Hispaniola, Puerto Rico, and peninsular Spain. The volume will appeal to a wide set of scholars and students in Caribbean history, the history of slavery in Spain and Latin America, and African Diaspora studies. It is a superb collection." — David Wheat, author of Atlantic Africa and the Spanish Caribbean, 1570–1640

• AcknowledgmentsIntroductionLissette Acosta Corniel1. Spanish Slave Legislation: From Slavery to Abolition in Spain and the AmericasAurelia Martín Casares2. Legislation and Slavery from a Local Perspective: Slaves in the Municipal Ordinances of Extremadura, 1500–1800Rocío Periáñez Gómez3. Slavery and the Pursuit of Freedom in Sixteenth-Century Santo DomingoRichard Lee Turits4. African Slavery and Laws in La Española: The Beginnings of Modern Colonization in the Americas (1520s–1540s)Anthony R. Stevens-Acevedo5. Black Women in Sixteenth-Century Santo Domingo: Free, Enslaved, Founders, and ExplorersLissette Acosta Corniel6. Transgressing Social, Gender, and Sexual Norms in Colonial Santo Domingo (1716–1719)Jacqueline Jiménez Polanco7. Fostering a Sense of Community in Seventeenth-Century Puerto Rico: The Godparenthood of Enslaved Infants, Children, and Adults in San Juan, 1672–1706David M. Stark8. A Tradition of Contraband: Secreting and Silencing the Illegal Importation and Exploitation of Enslaved Africans in Spanish Colonial Puerto RicoJorge L. ChineaContributorsIndex