Black Africans and Mulatto women: hidden identities in the Spanish Empire

Abstract

Afrohispanic community has been usually forgotten by historiography. In this article, we try to analyse the construction of identities in the heterogeneous group of women of Subsaharian origins that were part of the population of the Spanish Empire in early modern times. The analysis of productivity, of the cultural perception of colour and of the vital experience of Black women, mainly slaves, will offer us reference tools for the historicalanthropological debate, giving rise to reflection about perceptions of the “other”, in order to build a new memory, informed and respectful towards differences and minorities. We want to recover our hidden memory, the history of slavery in Spain.