PERU

Ancient Peru was the seat of several prominent Andean civilizations, most notably that of the Incas whose empire was captured by Spanish conquistadors in 1533. Peru declared its independence in 1821, and remaining Spanish forces were defeated in 1824. After a dozen years of military rule, Peru returned to democratic leadership in 1980 but experienced economic problems and the growth of a violent insurgency. President Alberto Fujimori’s election in 1990 ushered in a decade that saw a dramatic turnaround in the economy and significant progress in curtailing guerrilla activity. Nevertheless, the president’s increasing reliance on authoritarian measures and an economic slump in the late 1990s generated mounting dissatisfaction with his regime, which led to his resignation in 2000. A caretaker government oversaw a new election in the spring of 2001, which installed Alejandro Toledo Manrique as the new head of government – Peru’s first democratically elected president of indigenous ethnicity. The presidential election of 2006 saw the return of Alan Garcia Perez who, after a disappointing presidential term from 1985 to 1990, oversaw a robust economic rebound. Former army officer Ollanta Humala Tasso was elected president in June 2011, and carried on the sound, market-oriented economic policies of the three preceding administrations. Poverty and unemployment levels have fallen dramatically in the last decade, and today Peru boasts one of the best performing economies in Latin America. Pedro Pablo Kuczynski Godard won a very narrow presidential runoff election in June 2016. Facing impeachment after evidence surfaced of his involvement in a vote-buying scandal, President Kuczynski offered his resignation on 21 March 2018. Two days later, First Vice President Martin Alberto Vizcarra Cornejo was sworn in as president. On 30 September 2019, President Vizcarra invoked his constitutional authority to dissolve Peru’s Congress after months of battling with the body over anticorruption reforms. New congressional elections took place on 26 January 2020 resulting in the return of an opposition-led legislature. President Vizcarra was impeached by Congress on 9 November 2020 for a second time and removed from office after being accused of corruption and mishandling of the COVID-19 pandemic. Because of vacancies in the vice-presidential positions, constitutional succession led to the President of the Peruvian Congress, Manuel Merino, becoming the next president of Peru. His ascension to office was not well received by the population, and large protests forced his resignation on 15 November 2020. On November 17th, Francisco Sagasti assumed the position of President of Peru after being appointed President of the Congress the previous day. Jose Pedro Castillo Terrones won the second round of presidential elections on June 6, 2021 and was inaugurated on 28 July.  The president was overthrown after a power grab televised during his inauguration speech and was replaced by his Vice-President Dina Boularte – this moved has cause an on-going social and political unrest, particularly with the heavily indigenous population of southern Peru, who voted overwhelmingly for Castillo Terrones and feel that the move to overthrow him was due his ardual support for the indigenous people and his indigenous background.

Economy

Upper middle-income South American economy; hit hard by political instability and COVID-19 but rebounding quickly; second-largest cocaine producer; current account balance improving; persistent income inequality; diversified exporter.

Population

The population is 32,440,172 (2023 est.) which consists of Mestizo (mixed Amerindian and White) 60.2%, Amerindian 25.8%, White 5.9%, African descent 3.6%, other (includes Chinese and Japanese descent) 1.2%, unspecified 3.3% (2017 est.)

Black Peruvians or Afro-Peruvians are Peruvian of mostly or partially African descent. They mostly descend from enslaved Africans brought to Peru after the arrival of the conquistadors.

The first Africans arrived, as enslaved people, with the conquerors in 1521, and some, taken by force, with colonists to work, for no payment, in 1525. Between 1529 and 1537, when Francisco Pizarro was granted permits to import 363 Africans to colonial Peru, a large group of Africans were captured in order to provide, by force, labor for public construction, building bridges and road systems. They also fought alongside the conquistadors as soldiers and worked as personal servants and bodyguards. In 1533, enslaved Afro-Peruvians accompanied Spaniards in the conquest of Cuzco.

Two types of African people were forced to Peru. Those born in Africa were commonly referred to as negros bozales (“untamed blacks”), which was also used in a derogatory sense. These slaves could have been directly captured and shipped from west or southwest Africa or transported from the Spanish Indies or other Spanish colonies. Afro-Peruvians previously forced to acculturated to Spanish culture and who spoke Spanish were called negros ladinos (“hispanicized blacks”). Some were mulattos, descendants of Spanish men and African women. People of color performed skilled and unskilled functions that contributed to Hispanic colonization.

In urban areas Afro-Peruvians were cooks, laundresses, maids, handymen, and gardeners. In some cases, they worked in the navy, hospitals, churches and charitable institutions. In 1587, 377 people of African descent worked in the shipyards. The industry included a significant number of blacks working in quarries, kilns and construction projects. There were not enough Spanish workers to build the colony, so blacks essentially kept the economy running. Gradually, Afro-Peruvians were concentrated in specialized fields that drew upon their extensive knowledge and training in skilled artisan work and in agriculture.

In the social hierarchy of the slave stratum, the black artisans had the highest rank due to their skills. They worked as carpenters, tailors, blacksmiths, swordsmiths and silversmiths. This group enjoyed more freedom than their fellows who worked at large haciendas or in private households. Spanish small-business keepers would dispatch a whole team of servant-artisans to do a job independently and then return to their owner. As the prices for artisans rose, black artisans gained better treatment and sometimes took the role of a low-ranking employee. Skilled trades were a major avenue of social progress for the colored population. Due to their high skills, Afro-Peruvians gained prestige among Spanish noblemen. They occupied a relatively low social stratum but had some status related to the natives, and were considered above the emerging class of mestizos (descendants of indigenous people and Spanish colonists).

As the mestizo population grew, the role of Afro-Peruvians as intermediaries between the indigenous residents and the Spaniards lessened. The mestizo population increased through liaisons between Spanish and indigenous Peruvians. The elite Spanish developed a caste system based on racial descent and color, to protect their privileges and their Spanish and mestizo children. In this system, Spaniards were at the top, mestizos in the middle, and Africans and the indigenous populations at the bottom. Mestizos inherited the privilege of helping the Spanish administer the country.

As additional immigrants arrived from Spain and settled Peru, the mestizos tried to keep the most lucrative jobs for themselves. In the early colonial period, Afro-Spaniards and Afro-Peruvians frequently worked in the gold mines because of their familiarity with the techniques. Gold mining and smithing were common in parts of western Africa from at least the fourth century. But, after the early colonial period, few Afro-Peruvians would become goldsmiths or silversmiths.

In the end Afro-Peruvians were relegated to heavy labor on sugarcane and rice plantations of the northern coast, or the vineyards and cotton fields of the southern coast. In the countryside they were represented in wet-nursing, housekeeping, domestics, cowboys, animal herding, etc. After Indians became scarce as a labor force on haciendas, the people of color gained a title of yanakuna, hitherto assigned only to indigenous servants with full right to own a piece of land and a day to work on it. Afro-Peruvians often exercised agency by using huido (translated as escape, flight) from haciendas and changing masters on their own initiative or joining the cimarrones (armed gangs of runaway slaves that formed small communities in the wilderness and raided travel merchants). The indigenous population were used to work in the silver mines, where they had more expert knowledge than West Africans or Spanish, even in the pre-Columbian eras.

Over the course of the slave trade, approximately 95,000 slaves were brought into Peru, with the last group arriving in 1850. Often slaves were initially transported to Cuba and Hispaniola, from where traders brought them to Panama and the Viceroyalty of Peru. Planters and others also purchased slaves in Cartagena, Colombia or Veracruz, Mexico, at trade fairs, and they returned to Peru with the new slaves imported by the slave ships. As a result of the “New laws” of 1548 and the influence of the denunciation of the abuses against Native Americans by Friar Bartolomé de las Casas, slaves gradually replaced natives at the encomiendas.

Slave owners in Peru developed preferences to have slaves from specific areas of Africa (believed to have certain characteristics); they wanted to have slaves of one area who could communicate with each other. They believed slaves from Guinea, from the Senegal River down to the Slave Coast, were easier to manage and had marketable skills. They already knew how to plant and cultivate rice, train horses, and herd cattle on horseback. The slave owners also preferred slaves from the area stretching from Nigeria to eastern Ghana. The slave owners’ third choice was for slaves from Congo, Mozambique, Madagascar, and Angola.

In the 17th century some owners began the process of manumission of people of color. In some cases, slaves were allowed to buy their freedom, and a free Afro-Peruvian social class emerged. Slaves had to pay a high amount to buy their freedom; some were allowed to earn money on the side or, if leased out, keep a portion of their earnings. Others raised loans, and some were granted freedom by their master. Even when free, independent blacks were not considered equal to Spaniards. Free people of color enjoyed equal privileges in certain aspects, for instance, there are records of free Africans buying and selling land as well.  Freed blacks engaged in various entrepreneurial activities, of which trade was a significant factor. Some people of African descent became owners of shops. But, the status of a free citizen brought new challenges and conditions that a man of color had to face. A freed person of color needed to have a job, was required to pay the tribute, was called to serve in the militia to defend the state. All were under supervision of the Holy Office.

The Crown raised revenues on the freed black population. A decree that compelled former slaves to hire themselves out to and reside with a Spaniard master was another way to limit freedom of emancipated blacks. While some did stay with Spanish in order to save money, the large majority successfully defied the rule and began building “joint communities” to support each other. A discrimination policy with big and long-term impact was the exclusion of blacks and mulattoes from education. Universities and schools largely run by the Church forbade the non-white population to enroll, under the justification that they were “unworthy of being educated”. Wealthy, skilled, capable mulattoes however made their way through the political ladder and achieved occupation of minor official posts.

In 1821, General José de San Martín outlawed the slave trade in Peru.

In 1835, President Felipe Santiago Salaverry signed a decree against legalizing the deportation of slaves through the other Latin American countries. Thus, two years after his death, will be removed from the constitution the principle of “emancipating soil” according to which a slave entering Peru is, de facto, made free.

In 1854, President Ramón Castilla y Marquezado declared slavery abolished.

The newly freed citizens typically took the last name of their former owners. For instance, slaves in the service of the Florez family named themselves “Florez” or “Flores”.

Despite the gradual emancipation of most black slaves in Peru, slavery continued along the Pacific coast of South America throughout the 19th century, as Peruvian slave traders kidnapped Polynesians, primarily from the Marquesas Islands and Easter Island and forced them to perform physical labor in mines and in the guano industry of Peru and Chile.

According to the 2017 Peruvian Census, 828,841 or 3.6% Peruvians identified as “Black”, the term used for people of unmixed African descent, while together with the Mulatos and Zambos they would be a total of 9% of the Peruvian population (2,850,000).^[15] The departments with the largest percentage of Black people are Tumbes (11.5%), Piura (8.9), and Lambayeque (8.4%). The regions with the lowest percentage of self-identified Black people are Puno (0.0), Huancavelica (0.1), and Cuzco (0.2%).

In November 2009, the Peruvian government issued an official apology to Peru’s Afro-Peruvian people for centuries of racial injustice; it was the first such apology ever made by the government. It was announced by Women’s and Social Development Minister Nidia Vilchez, and initially published in the official newspaper El Peruano. The apology said:

We extend a historical apology to Afro-Peruvian people for the abuse, exclusion and discrimination perpetrated against them since the colonial era until the present.

Vilchez said the government hoped its apology would help promote the “true integration of all Peru’s multicultural population.”

The government acknowledged that some discrimination persists against Afro-Peruvians, who make up 5%–10% of the population. The government’s initial statement said, “The government recognizes and regrets that vestiges of racially-motivated harassment are still present, which represent a hindrance to social, economic, labor and educational development of the population at large.” Monica Carrillo of the Center for Afro-Peruvian Studies and Promotion indicates that 27% of Afro-Peruvians finish high school and just 2% get higher or technical education. Although Peru is not the first Latin American government to apologize to its population, it is the first to acknowledge present-day discrimination. Although some human rights groups lauded the government’s acknowledgment, other experts criticized the apology overall for failing to reference slavery or promise a change in the status quo.

The public ceremony for the apology held on December 7, 2009 in the Great Dining Room of the Government Palace, with the presence of then President Alan García, the Minister of Women and Social Development, Nidia Vilchez, the Afro Peruvian Congress member Martha Moyano, with the former mayor of El Carmen, Hermes Palma-Quiroz, and the founder of the Black Movement Francisco Congo, Paul Colino-Monroy.

In the ceremony, President García said:

We are here together for an unusual act without precedent, to apologize to the Afro Peruvian people but most deeply pardon to the black race, that our voice can be heard in the countries inflicted with the slavery commerce, which tore so many men and women, millions of them, and took them away to the ends of the planet to work in plantations.