Pre-Abolition Puerto Rico Slave Registration Form Listing a 22 Year Old Enslaved Black Man, 1871

Slavery Puerto Rico

Manuscript & Autographs

[Slavery] [Black Labor] [Puerto Rico] This official Puerto Rican slave registry document, issued in Arecibo in 1871 under Spanish colonial administration, represents the bureaucratic infrastructure of slavery in the Caribbean at the precise moment preceding abolition. Titled within the printed form as part of the “Registro de Esclavos – Isla de Puerto Rico,” the document records the forced legal identity of an identified enslaved man.

Single sheet slave registry document "Empadronamiento General de esclavos" from Arecibo, Puerto Rico dated 20 de Enero de 1871. Measuring 6.25" x 8.5". This document was registered by a person registering their slave. Document bears official signatures from the local authorities. The enslaved person is listed by their age, stature, "color", hair color, beard, eyes, nose, and mouth. The person is listed as 22 years old and the "color" of this individual is listed as "negro". The physical list of classifications functioned as mechanisms of surveillance, control, and verification within the colonial slave system. Inclusion of official signatures from both the “dueño” and “comisario,” along with a stamped fiscal seal en verso.

Produced just two years prior to the 1873 abolition of slavery in Puerto Rico, the document reflects the transitional legal environment in which enslaved individuals were increasingly catalogued in anticipation of emancipation policies that would, in practice, impose systems of forced apprenticeship and indemnification to former enslavers.
Some minor wormholes and occasional spotting. Overall good condition. The document stands as evidence of how emancipation in Spanish territories was mediated through administrative control, prolonging coercive labor conditions even as slavery was formally dismantled.

Item #23118

Price: $850.00