BLACK SOCIAL HISTORY : SLAVERY AND SLAVE TRADE IN PERU - AFRO PERUVIAN :

The first African Peruvian's and Dominican's arrived with the Conquistadors in 1521 to return permanently in1625. One of the biggest import of African slaves occurred between 1529 and 1637. When Francisco Pizarro was granted permit to import 363 slaves to colonial Peru for public construction, building and road system and they also fought along side the Conquistadors as soldiers and worked like personal body guards and personal servants. People of color performed a variety of skilled and unskilled functions that contributed to Hispanic colonization. In Urban areas Afro-Peruvians were cooks, laundresses, maids, handymen, gardeners, in some cases, they worked in the Navy, hospitals, churches and charitable institutions. In 1587 377 workers of African descent worked in ship yards.

Blacks work in various industries, quarries, kins, and construction projects. As the Spanish colonist increased in numbers they took all the skilled and unskilled jobs from the Afro-Peruvians who had all these jobs in the early periods. So the Afro-Peruvians were sent to back breaking jobs in the sugar cane plantations and the rice plantations.Over the cause of the slave trade 95,000 slaves were brought to Peru, with the last group arriving in 1850. Peruvian slave owners prefer slaves from specific areas of Africa, the Guinea Coast from the Senegal river down to the slave coast as the Spanish consider them easy to manage and they were highly skilled in planting rice, train horse, herd cattle on horse back.