Rivers of Gold, Lives of Bondage

In this pioneering study of slavery in colonial Ecuador and southern Colombia — Spain’s Kingdom of Quito — Sherwin Bryant argues that the most fundamental dimension of slavery was governance and the extension of imperial power. Bryant shows that enslaved black captives were foundational to sixteenth-century royal claims on the Americas and elemental to the process of Spanish colonization. Following enslaved Africans from their arrival at the Caribbean port of Cartagena through their journey to Q