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Afro-Ecuadorian History
1) Map
2)
• When did Africans first come? Where did most Africans come from?
Africans first came in 1533 via ships to Ecuador. In the early 16th century, Spanish ships that carried slaves were wrecked along the coast.
They ran and hid away, forming maroon communities there where they formed an alliance with indigenous people.
Most Africans in Ecuador came from West Africa, including Senegal, Congo, and Angola.
• What were the principal industries involving enslaved labor?
The principal industries involving enslaved labor were tobacco, sugar, and gold mining.
They also grew cacao towards the end of slavery. They needed more hands due to the lack of labor by indigenous people so this led to more importation of slaves.
In the mid-18th century, gold mining was the greatest form of profit. Slave imports started to grow immensely due to the popularity of gold mining in that area. Mining was one of the most dangerous slave labors.
• Major forms of African resistance
Slaves were able to purchase freedom by selling precious metals that they mined, raising livestock, participating the in bartering economy.
They also “often purchased their liberty and created “free towns”” (Romero 1). With the very first maroon communities formed from the shipwreck,
frequent rebellions occurred due to harsh conditions of mining. The most violent form of resistance occurred in Tado in 1728.
It was mostly African-born slaves with some creoles who killed 14 white mine owners and administrators.
• When and how did slavery end?
Crop switched from tobacco to cacao which did not require a year-long attention. It was “just as profitable for an owner to let his slaves buy
themselves and hire them to work for wages during the seasons of the year when he needed them” (Davis 41). It began to slowly die out due to
little profit of having slaves. After the Spanish Crown issued the Real Cedula de 1789 (Rules of slave-holding) that allowed religions and kept
slave punishments at a low level, many slave made lawsuits against the slave owners for breaking those laws. Many whites supported them. Some who
were exposed to Enlightenment demanded reform of Spanish government. In 1809, Spanish conquistador Antonio de Villaviencio sent a plea to Cortes
(head of conquistadors) for the abolition of slavery. José Joaquín de Olmedo who worked with Cortes also showed opposition of slavery.
The March Revolution: This revolt was led by José Joaquín de Olmedo in 1845 against Flores (President of the Republic Ecuador during this period).
The city of Esmeraldas all joined Olmedo and drove Flores from his office. Finally, on September 27, 1852, “the Assembly voted nineteen to seventeen
to abolish all slavery in the land” (Davis 51). Slavery in Ecuador ended on September 27, 1852.
• What happened with the African descent population after abolition?
After abolition, Afro-Ecuadorians struggled to reform the deeply slavery instituted society. They sued and bought themselves; they also “becam[e]
involved in national politics in times of upheaval and even by speaking out directly against slavery” (Davis 52).
• What is the approximate number/percentage of African descendants in the population today?
Right now, 7% of the Ecuadorian population is Afro-Ecuadorians. Most is concentrated in the Esmeraldas.
3)
African based/black popular culture
Marimba: Afro-Ecuadorian Music and Dance form
The marimba is an instrument made from wooden bars and metal mallets.
It has the roots in Bantu and Mande heritages in West Africa.
Marimba dances were expressions of freedom
Contemporary issues
Racism against Afro-Ecuadorians still exist in Ecuador.
Norman Whitten, a professor and director of Latin American and Caribbean studies, examined racist stereotypes
in Quito, Ecuador. An interview with one Afro-Ecuadorian revealed that people categorize black people as all from the Esmeraldas.
Identity
Whitten discovered that “an Ecuadorian ideology of national identity proclaim the mestizo (mixed-race person with
both European [Spanish] and indigenous ancestry) as the prototype of modern Ecuadorian citizenship” (Whitten 299).
Emigrants and descendants now living in the US
No record was found about them.
- ^ Black, Chad T. Making of an indigenous movement: culture, ethnicity, and post-Marxist social praxis in Ecuador. Albuquerque, NM. : University of New Mexico, Latin American Institute, 1999. David L. Chandler. “Slave over Master in Colonial Colombia and Ecuador,” The Americas, no. 3, (1982), 315-326. Davis, Darién J. Beyond slavery : the multilayered legacy of Africans in Latin America and the Caribbean. Lanham, MD. : Rowman & Littlefield, 2007. Foote, Nicola and Ren D. Harder Horse. “Monteneros and Macheteros: Afro-Ecuadorian and Indigenous Experiences of Military Struggle in Liberal Ecuador, 1895-1930.” Military Struggle and Identity Formation in Latin America: Race, Nation, and Community During the Liberal Period, University Press of Florida, (2010). Lane, Kris. “Unlucky Strike: Gold and Labor in Zaruma, Ecuador, 1699-1820.” Colonial Latin American Review, vol. 13, no. 1 (2004), 65-84. Rahier, Jean Muteba. Kings for three days : the play of race and gender in an Afro-Ecuadorian festival. Urbana : University of Illinois Press, 2013. Romero, Mario and Kris Lane. “Miners & Maroons: Freedom on the Pacific Coast of Colombia and Ecuador.” Cultural Survival Quarterly, vol. 25, no. 4 (2002), 32-37. Santangelo, Roberta, et al. “Research Paper: Analysis of Ancestry Informative Markers in Three Main Ethnic Groups from Ecuador Supports a Trihybrid Origin of Ecuadorians.” Forensic Science International: Genetics, vol. 31 (2017), 29-33 Whitten, Norman E., Jr. Class, kinship, and power in an Ecuadorian town; the Negroes of San Lorenzo. Stanford, CA. :Stanford University Press, 1965. Whitten, Norman E., Jr. Millennial Ecuador : critical essays on cultural transformations and social dynamics. Iowa City : University of Iowa Press, 2003.