Afro-Andean Sailors and Shipbuilders in Spanish America and the Black Pacific

While popular memory may have forgotten them, about half of the sailors, soldiers, missionaries, tradesmen, and colonists that made up the Spanish Empire were Black, people who were part of the African diaspora. Studying their history allows scholars new ways to research and interpret Spanish colonialism, perhaps especially in the Pacific context. 

Dr. Leo Garofalo, Virginia Eason Weinmann 1951 Professor of History at Connecticut College, is laying the foundation for generations of new research on the Black Pacific. In his work on Afro-Andeans he has illuminated the central role played by the Black people of Spanish Peru in the expansion of Iberian power across the Pacific Ocean. As skilled sailors and shipbuilders they built and operated the ships, charted the routes, and advanced the missions that formed the very marrow of imperial might. Focus on the African diaspora as it emanated across the Atlantic and Indian oceans accompanying and staffing Iberian imperial projects, underscores the intersection of the two streams in the Pacific and the creation of a Black Pacific world. 

In support of his work Garofalo received funding from the Center for the History of Business, Technology, and Society at the Hagley Museum and Library.