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This article analyzes the genesis and consolidation of devotion to the holy Ecce Homo in the city of Popayán -- located in the New Kingdom of Granada-- during the second half of the 17th century. It explores the influence of this mystical experience in crystalizing the city's religious feasts and the cultural nuances that permeated this particular invocation. It also describes the relationship of interdependence between the liberty of the free black man Juan Antonio de Velasco and other merchants, slaves, artisans, and the devout public in stabilizing this particular form of worship of the holy one. At the same time that it specifically traces the "life world" of the founder and confrere of the tradition, it calls attention to the imprint he made on this religious ritual in Popayán, "the white city." In addition to these social factors, it also shows the influence that the generalized natural crisis of the 17th century had on the emergence of new brotherhoods, rogation days and forms of devotion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Tracing the history of a family across three generations, from enslavement in eighteenth-century West Africa through emancipation during the Haitian Revolution and subsequent resettlement in New Orleans, then France, then Belgium, can shed light on phenomena that are Atlantic in scope. Together, the experiences of the Vincent/ Tinchant family illuminate an Atlantic and Caribbean rights-consciousness that crossed the usual boundaries of language and citizenship. Uncovering these experiences suggests the value of combining the close focus displayed in Sidney Mintz's Worker in the Cane with the Atlantic approach of his later Sweetness and Power. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]