Defective Merchandise: The Redhibitory Actions Related to the “Physical and Moral Defects” of enslaved black women in Lima from the 18th to the early 19th century

Abstract

The files labelled Autos de Redhibitoria kept in the Archivo General de la Nación del Perú (AGN) and the Archivo Arzobispal de Lima (AAL) record the legal actions taken by slave owners against previous owners for deliberately concealing a physical illness or “moral defect” of a slave for which the buyer had paid a considerable sum of money. A significant number of the documented trials directly concern enslaved women, who are the focus of this article. Throughout the trial, the enslaved women’s illness emerges as the subject of the slave owners’, doctors’ or surgeons’ discourse. A large majority of the files also contain the source of the conflict, the declaration of slaves. The redhibitory actions prove to be a rich source of information both on the diseases that afflicted enslaved women and on the way various actors viewed the wrongs of slavery. This article lists the diseases considered to be prohibitive and analyses the speeches of the actors involved in the annulments of sale. Adopting a social history approach, it attempts to draw a fragmentary portrait of the enslaved women concerned, thus centring on these women who were deemed “useless” and therefore invisible because they no longer conformed to their masters’ logic of profitability. As attention is paid to their testimonies, they become tangible.