Enslaved rebels, fugitives, and litigants: the resistance continuum in colonial quito

On 7 May 1640, in the town of Popayán, Francisco, an enslaved Afro-criollo, filed a lawsuit against his master, Fray Diego Revelo de Chaves, a priest in the local Augustinian monastery. Francisco explained that Fray Diego was a harsh taskmaster who punished him daily with extreme cruelty. Referring to his master’s influence and perhaps also to his own lack of confidence in a system that tended to favor elite interests, Francisco said, ‘[although] one flees, neither is this effective, and [now] they have me in the jail [carsel] to return me to his command’ (ACC Sig. 108, Col.–JI–1cv, 1640). Theoretically, in such instances the cárcel pública served as a locus for depósito (a form of protective custody), since masters were required to pay one real per day to cover the costs associated with the slave’s stay while the authorities investigated the veracity of the charges. But, according to Francisco, officials were holding him there only to return him to the abusive Augustinian friar. Unfortunately for the historian, the documentary trail ends with four folios or eight hand-written pages; missing is the resolution of the case, as well as precious details of Francisco’s experience before Popayán’s judicial authorities. Consequently, one cannot know if Chaves had in fact ‘mistreated’ Francisco, or if Francisco was simply a maroon seeking to evade punishment by filing a sevicia (mistreatment) claim. Francisco’s basic argument, however, is certainly plausible. The case reflects both the real abuses that often occurred and the resolve of the enslaved to resist brutality wherever they met it, whether from exacting secular figures, or the Christian God’s representatives here on earth. Specifically, it provides evidence of early legal action by the enslaved, a resistance strategy that African and Afro-criollo captives would carry to its full extent throughout the colonial era and beyond. In Quito, as in other areas of Spanish America, slaves had been suing their masters since at least the 1590s. As the 1596 freedom suit of Duarte Gonzalez (native of Angola) demonstrates, slave petitions, involving everything from mistreatment to the right to reclamaciones (libertad or freedom lawsuits), underscore Africans’ and