The Canary Islands played a significant role in the commerce of enslaved individuals. Ships bound for America passed through its ports, with a lesser but notable percentage disembarking individuals who would be forced to work on the Islands. But what were the traditions, lives, and cultures of those who remained on the Islands? This is the question posed by historian Claudia Stella Geremia, whose research focuses on the lives of enslaved African women accused of witchcraft by the Inquisition. “My work seeks to restore emphasis on women’s experiences, which were often silenced by inquisitors and men,” she acknowledges.
Geremia, a Doctor of Modern History from the University of Florence and the University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria (ULPGC), and a researcher at the University of Venice, has concentrated her work on the roles of enslaved women in the Canary Islands during the Modern Age. Recently, she has been at the Institute of Canarian Studies in Tenerife, where she delivered a lecture at the seminar Slavery, Gender, and Family, 16th-18th Centuries. The academic interest in this topic has also reached Harvard University, where the historian has highlighted the role of women during the transatlantic slave trade in the Canaries through her collaboration with the Hutchins Center for African Studies.
“The Canary Islands and Macaronesia were a laboratory for the preparation of the slavery system that would be exported to America,” she asserts. Geremia emphasises the importance of ‘proving’ that the Canary Islands had an active role in the slavery system, not only due to its involvement in the trafficking of enslaved individuals but also as a receiving location for thousands who settled on the Islands, attempting to preserve their customs and knowledge—all under the watchful eye of the inquisitorial system. Consequently, beyond the numbers of people who have been part of Canary Islands history for 300 years, the researcher felt that there was a gap in the narrative that remained orphaned: “We need to know something about the culture of the people who arrived,” she stresses.
In the Canary Islands, the distinctiveness of the practices developed by women was tied to their geographical proximity to Africa. Except in Andalusia, where the historian notes a considerable presence of enslaved African women, in many territories of the Spanish Monarchy at that time, rituals had been Christianised. “In the Canary Islands, it is clear that there was African heritage, from both the north and the west, which is quite peculiar,” she emphasises.
For the Inquisition tribunals, the maintenance of these practices and customs was grounds for prosecution. The preserved archives of this institution have enabled Geremia to delve into the lives of these women who lived in the Canary Islands between the 16th and 18th centuries. “From the inquisitorial and parish sources, I analyse the multiple forms of violence that marked their lives, as well as their capacity for agency. I understand agency as the transmission of cultural practices, rituals of African origin, the construction of family networks in the context of oppression, and their participation in the formation of multicultural Atlantic societies in the Canary Islands context,” she details.
For the historian, one of the most significant legacies brought by the presence of enslaved individuals was the construction of a multicultural Canary society that has persisted to this day.
Enslaved women accused of witchcraft and judged by the Inquisition lived under constant suspicion. A defining marker was their skin colour. The historian notes that the first pages of inquisitorial trials specified the black skin of the accused, as exemplified by Catalina, an enslaved woman accused of “denying God,” who is described as “a black bozal,” as recorded by the historian in one of her essays.
The same document details that the accused stated during the trial that she hailed from Guinea, that her family was originally from Nigeria, and that she had been transported first to Cape Verde before being sold in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria. “Being black while enslaved or in pursuit of her freedom were indicators of suspicion, for when a woman was white, on the first page of the trial, you would never find Catalina, the white one.”
Manding Bags
One of the researcher’s findings in Gran Canaria was the use of manding bags, originating from one of the predominant cultures of West Africa. These bags were used as talismans containing images of saints, prayers, or stones of various sizes and colours intended for protection or even to find a husband on the night of San Juan. “This is very important. Across the Atlantic, as in Brazil, Cartagena de Indias, or Cuba, the use of this amulet is well documented, yet no one had ever mentioned this in the Canary Islands,” she reveals. In fact, this practice continues today in Cuba and West Africa. “I discovered the manding bags thanks to the letters preserved by the Canarian Museum. In the proceedings, the women accused of witchcraft, for instance, recounted using this type of amulet. They stated it was necessary to keep it hidden so that people could not see it to avoid being denounced. They often mentioned that their grandmother or mother had taught them how to make it. This is clearly of African origin,” she specifies.
The use of African rituals in the Canary Islands, now mixed with other beliefs, even crossed the Atlantic and reached the Caribbean, where healers persist, represented in the Canary Islands by women who seek to heal their loved ones through prayers. In this sense, the historian notes that the inquisitorial trial documents in Cuba and the Canary Islands share many similarities concerning the healing rites of individuals.
Geremia has focused her study on the objects used by these women, which also represented a form of resistance. Amulets, talismans, and instruments for divining the future or uncovering past events served to illuminate the spiritual world and adaptation of these women. “The manual skills and healing techniques of these women constituted specific knowledge for Canary society during the Modern Age,” she highlights.
To reach these conclusions, she has spent considerable time consulting the archives preserved in the Canarian Museum in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria. Geremia notes that, unlike other territories that were part of the Crown, where many archives were destroyed, the records in Gran Canaria have been preserved intact.
The historian began her research in Sicily on the witches living on the island during the presence of the Spanish Crown and subsequently sought to make comparisons with other insular territories of the Monarchy. She travelled to the Canary Islands, where she found something unexpected: “When I arrived at the Canarian Museum, I realised that there was a plethora of letters and processes in the integral version that no other place in the Spanish Monarchy possesses. That is why it is precious. Nowhere else do we have comprehensive processes like those in the Canary Islands,” she concludes.
