Work, family, and honor understanding colonial slavery in Peru

Abstract

Starting from the rich historiographical advance done in Peru, I suggest that the slavery modalities were not exclusively ruled by the geographic space (urban/country), but was also important in the massive minoring use such as the slave work, the working specialty of slaves, the control over the slave's work benefit and the owners status. The combination of these aspects set an exploitation of the work force to such a point that it ends up generating different slave modalities deep in Lima's slavery. This scheme incorporates the slave's experience, for their behavior questioned and changed constantly the normativity and daily functioning of slavery. This way we can perceive their life perspectives, their loving and friendly bonds, and their claims for humanity and honor, which redefined the basic concepts such as slavery, family and honor. This means recovering the human sense of the historical experience of men and women in their constant battle against slavery and the surviving of their families.