Background and Introduction

    When Africans were brought to the new world of Latin America, their beliefs and traditions were not left behind. Sources left to us allow us to glimpse how African culture infiltrated and transformed society in Colonial Latin America. One such cache of sources that creates a portal to the past through which we can glimpse a crossroad of traditional African beliefs and Latin American culture is through the trials of Paula de Eguiluz. Paula de Equiluz, a woman of African descent, was born in Santo Domingo in Hispaniola. She was the slave of Juan de Eguiluz, who lived in Cuba. She was tried for witchcraft numerous times throughout her life in Cartagena de Indias. She remained an active part of the African community, made evident by the fact she visited friends on several occasion in Havana. From these friends, she learned love spells and other “occult” gifts of which she made use to earn a living. Paula was publicly known as a witch, or “sorceress”.  She was accused in 1623 of witchcraft, divination, and apostasy.  After her first trial, Paula was freed from slavery. Paula was accused again in 1632 and 1636, suggesting that these trials did not deter her from performing her “witchcraft” and that she incurred the enmity of those around her. [1] One of those that accused Paula accused her of having “disappeared before his [her master’s] eyes” when he was about to hit her with a saber. However, it goes on to explain that she had merely jumped out a window, showing the almost absurd nature of the accusations.[2] However, African beliefs treated witchcraft as an extremely serious charge in which any charges being made were taken seriously, something Latin American reaction to witchcraft reflected.

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[1] Kathryn McKnight and Leo J. Garofalo, Afro-Latino Voices: Narratives from the Early Modern Ibero-Atlantic World, 1550-1812 (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing, 2009), 214-216

[2] McKnight, Kathryn Joy and Leo J. Garofalo, editors. Afro-Latino Voices: Narratives from the Early Modern Ibero-Atlantic World, 1550-1812. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 2009.