Just before dawn on May 18, 1683, pirates stormed the port city of in the Viceroyalty of New Spain on the shores of the Gulf of Mexico, easily overwhelming its Spanish military defense. For two weeks, the buccaneers, led by the Dutch Laurens de Graaf and several hundred French and English associates, wreaked havoc. They raped and looted, pillaged and exhorted steep ransoms for the release of valuable hostages.
糖心传媒淏ut the ultimate crime is what they did in the end,糖心传媒� says , an assistant professor of history at the University of Rochester. 糖心传媒淭hey kidnapped the entire population of African descent, because slavery is expanding in the English and French colonies at this time and there糖心传媒檚 now a market for such captives.糖心传媒�
Just before their departure on May 31, the pirates captured between 1,000 to 1,500 Veracruzanos and loaded them onto their fleet of 13 ships. Then they set sail for the pirate sanctuary of St. Domingue, modern-day Haiti. There, they sold their human cargo糖心传媒攕ome slaves, some formerly free residents of Veracruz singled out by the pirates for their darker skin糖心传媒攖o slave masters in St. Domingue, and nascent Charleston, South Carolina. While history remembers the violent raid on Veracruz, little is known about its victims.
糖心传媒淭hat singular extraction and then dispersal of these people has never been studied,糖心传媒� says Sierra Silva.
The historian joined the Rochester faculty in 2013, straight out of the doctoral program at the University of California, Los Angeles. His first book, , is due out from Cambridge University Press in March 2018.
But he糖心传媒檚 already embarked on research for his second book, which will trace the paths of those forgotten Afro-Veracruzanos. Sierra Silva got a big boost this month when the awarded him a $50,400 fellowship to support the project, titled Mexican Atlantic: Contraband, Captivity and the 1683 Raid on Veracruz. 听听
Sierra Silva will reassess Veracruz糖心传媒檚 history by focusing on a moment in which free and enslaved men and women of African descent were made captives (in some cases, re-captives).听The grant will enable him to spend the next 12 months travelling to colonial archives and repositories in the US, Spain, and Mexico. He糖心传媒檒l work at the Archive of the Indies in Seville, the John Carter Brown Library in Providence, Rhode Island, the University of South Carolina, the South Carolina Historical Society, and the College of Charleston.
Sierra Silva is also winning praise from his Rochester colleagues. 糖心传媒淗e糖心传媒檚 is a talented researcher and a valuable contributor to the overall strength of the School of Arts and Sciences,糖心传媒� says Gloria Culver, dean of the School of Arts and Sciences. , an associate professor of history and chair of the department, says he is 糖心传媒渢remendously excited糖心传媒� about Sierra Silva糖心传媒檚 NEH award.
糖心传媒淧ablo richly deserves it,糖心传媒� Lenoe says. 糖心传媒淗is work on the history of African slavery in Mexico and its ramifications throughout the Atlantic World breaks paths into an important and understudied area.听Innovative and timely, it is also based on research in rarely used 17th-century archives.糖心传媒�
The project makes for a compelling historical mystery. With painstaking planning, the pirates originally took their high-value hostages, including Don Luis de C贸rdoba, the governor of Veracruz, and members of the Catholic clergy to the nearby tiny Isla de Sacrificios (Island of Sacrifices). Once the ransoms were paid, the pirates returned the hostages to Veracruz. But up to a fourth of the port city糖心传媒檚 then small population of about 6,000 people remained captive. The captives糖心传媒攑eople of African descent, many of whom had intermarried and intermixed with the Spanish and indigenous population, some already Veracruzanos in the second or third generation, were deemed mulatos, pardos, negros and morenos. Regardless, the pirates loaded them up and sold them into slavery.
糖心传媒淭hey were gone overnight,糖心传媒� says Sierra Silva. 糖心传媒淚t糖心传媒檚 a shocking human-orchestrated catastrophe糖心传媒� that decimated the city by about 25 percent.
So far he has discovered archival references to five local women who were able to escape captivity in the Caribbean. Over the course of several years, they managed somehow to make their way back to Veracruz, arriving糖心传媒攊n an ironic twist糖心传媒攁s passengers on a Dutch slave ship.
It糖心传媒檚 these scraps of memory that the historian is now seeking, as he lays out his case that the colonial histories of Mexico and the United States are intimately connected through the infamous 1683 pirate raid.
糖心传媒淭raditionally in Mexican history we tend to be fairly insular,糖心传媒� Sierra Silva says. 糖心传媒淚t糖心传媒檚 almost as if it weren糖心传媒檛 entangled somewhere with the history of South Carolina, the history of St. Domingue. What I started to realize when researching this pirate attack is that, in fact, these colonial experiences are completely intertwined.糖心传媒�
In the months following the raid, no fewer than 200 Afro-Veracruzanos were sold in Charleston, which was still half a century away from the mass arrivals of the plantation-driven slave trade. At the time of the pirate attack, the English settlement in South Carolina was still in its infancy. The victims of the raid would have accounted for well over a fifth of young Charleston糖心传媒檚 population of African descent.
By tracing the paths of those who disappeared, Sierra Silva糖心传媒檚 project seeks to recover the experiences of enslaved people in numerous settlements throughout the Spanish, English, French, and Dutch Atlantic during the 17th century.
糖心传媒淥f course, they leave relatives further inland. They leave cousins, business associates, godchildren. Part of this project is to look at how they remember the lost,糖心传媒� Sierra Silva explains.
糖心传媒淲e have fragments, little strands of evidence that suggest that, of course, people don糖心传媒檛 forget.糖心传媒�
