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Objective/context: This article shows the internal dynamics of a distinct frontier region along the eastern plains of the New Kingdom of Granada during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The foundation of cities, the creation of governorships, their constant shifts and jurisdictional disputes, the exploitation of indigenous labor, security, and the imperial expansion were highly complex issues that today allow analyzing the territorialization of the Spanish Empire on a local scale in which multiple negotiations took place between the central power of the Audiencia at the Reign's capital and the rulers and settlers in the frontier. Methodology: By comparing and contrasting rarely explored sources, such as the capitulations of governorships and the reports of royal officials and Jesuit missionaries on indigenous slavery and settlement, the article shows how the plain's provinces were politically and administratively constructed over this period. Originality: the research delves into the complexities of provincial formation in a frontier area, expanding in detail the procedures for the settlement of the Llanos' governorships, a topic little studied in the literature dedicated to the imperial past in the New Kingdom of Granada. Conclusions: The dynamism and mobility that occurred in the plains piedmont, influenced by phenomena such as indigenous slavery, jurisdictional instability and fear of possible invasions by foreign powers, reveal the local construction of the Empire and the relationships between different managing levels. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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]

This article explores how popular classes, especially Afro-Colombians, created an alliance with the Liberal Party in the Cauca region of Colombia during the mid-nineteenth century. Afro-Caucanos negotiated with elite leaders of the party, trading their votes and service as soldiers in the civil wars of the era for a variety of social, economic and political gains, including the abolition of slavery, access to commons, the reduction of aguardiente monopolies, and obtaining the status of citizens. Afro-Caucanos also redefined citizenship, imagining a popular liberalism different from the conceptions of Liberal elites, investing it with more powerful notions of liberty and equality. In the 1870s, the alliance began to fracture as elite Liberals refused to break the hacienda system and grant land rights to their popular supporters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Contraband was an important component of the system of economic monopolies that Spain maintained with the Indies during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. In this illegal trade, the traffic of human beings followed the same pattern as that of merchandise. The illegal slave trade in the Caribbean region of New Granada had two main characteristics. First, the illegal trade of captives carried out by pirates, corsairs and foreigners. Second, the fiscal fraud conducted by Portuguese merchants who brought more slaves than permitted by their contracts. This type of illegal trade benefited from the complacency of provincial authorities and royal officials who profited enormously from the bribes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article is based on ethnographic and ethnohistorical research about the "Culimochos", the name given to a most unusual people of Spanish ancestry. Unlike other groups of similar origin, the Culimochos did not leave the southern Pacific coast of Colombia after slavery was abolished in 1851. Instead, they continued living on the beaches of Mulatos and Almarales on the northern coast of Nariño. They claim to have descended from Basque navigators whose ships were supposedly shipwrecked upon those shores one hundred years before Columbus reached America, and from whom they learned the art of shipbuilding they still practice. They also allege to forbid marriage with black people and to despise black customs in general. Nonetheless, they are highly knowledgeable regarding the Afro-Colombian culture of Nariño, more so than they are about the culture of the "whites" (the Hispanic-American mores) of the region. Furthermore, they give "black" names to important landmarks within their territory (e.g. "Mulattos") and, in Bogota, Culimochos displaced by economic modernization or by the ongoing war identify themselves as "Afrocolombians". Increasing Africanization of local and urban identities is of interest to those who study the formation and changes of ethnicity, as well as to those concerned with the effects of armed conflict on Afrocolombians. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]