Discovering the invisible Puerto Rican slave family: Demographic evidence from the eighteenth century

Journal of Family History

Volumn 21, Issue 4, 1996, Pages 395-418

  Stark, David M ^a  

^a NONE

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

AFRICAN AMERICAN; ARTICLE; FAMILY HEALTH; FAMILY PLANNING; FAMILY SIZE; HISTORY; HUMAN; POPULATION DYNAMICS; PUERTO RICO;

AFRICAN AMERICANS; BIRTH INTERVALS; FAMILY CHARACTERISTICS; FAMILY HEALTH; HISTORY, 18TH CENTURY; HUMANS; POPULATION DYNAMICS; PUERTO RICO;

EID: 0030251331     PISSN: 03631990     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1177/036319909602100401     Document Type: Article

References (87)

1. Lawrence Stone, "Family History in the 1980s: Past Achievements and Current Trends," Journal of Interdisciplinary History 12, no. 1 (Summer 1981), 57.
2. For a discussion of recent advances in the field of Brazilian slave demography, see Stuart B. Schwartz's "Recent Trends in the Study of Brazilian Slavery" in Slaves, Peasants, and Rebels: Reconsidering Brazilian Slavery (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1992), 1-38.
3. Previous historical studies have devoted particular attention to the evolution of slavery under plantation-style economies but do not study demographics. With regard to Cuba, see Laird Bergad, Cuban Rural Society in the Nineteenth Century: The Social and Economic History of Monoculture in Matanzas (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1990). For Puerto Rico, see Francisco A. Scarano, Sugar and Slavery in Puerto Rico: The Plantation Economy of Ponce, 1800-1850 (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1984). Also, Pedro San Miguel, El mundo que creó el azucar; Las haciendas en Vega Baja, 1800-1873 (Río Piedras: Ediciones Huracán, 1989).
4. Previous historical studies have devoted particular attention to the evolution of slavery under plantation-style economies but do not study demographics. With regard to Cuba, see Laird Bergad, Cuban Rural Society in the Nineteenth Century: The Social and Economic History of Monoculture in Matanzas (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1990). For Puerto Rico, see Francisco A. Scarano, Sugar and Slavery in Puerto Rico: The Plantation Economy of Ponce, 1800-1850 (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1984). Also, Pedro San Miguel, El mundo que creó el azucar; Las haciendas en Vega Baja, 1800-1873 (Río Piedras: Ediciones Huracán, 1989).
5. Previous historical studies have devoted particular attention to the evolution of slavery under plantation-style economies but do not study demographics. With regard to Cuba, see Laird Bergad, Cuban Rural Society in the Nineteenth Century: The Social and Economic History of Monoculture in Matanzas (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1990). For Puerto Rico, see Francisco A. Scarano, Sugar and Slavery in Puerto Rico: The Plantation Economy of Ponce, 1800-1850 (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1984). Also, Pedro San Miguel, El mundo que creó el azucar; Las haciendas en Vega Baja, 1800-1873 (Río Piedras: Ediciones Huracán, 1989).
6. See Fernando Picó, S.J. "Esclavos, cimarrones, libertos y negros libres en Río Piedras, 1774-1873," Anuario de Estudios Americanos 43 (1986), 25-33. Also see Francisco A. Scarano, "Población esclava y fuerza de trabajo: Problemas del análisis demográfico de la esclavitud en Puerto Rico, 1820-1873," Anuario de Estudios Americanos 43 (1986), 1-24.
7. See Fernando Picó, S.J. "Esclavos, cimarrones, libertos y negros libres en Río Piedras, 1774-1873," Anuario de Estudios Americanos 43 (1986), 25-33. Also see Francisco A. Scarano, "Población esclava y fuerza de trabajo: Problemas del análisis demográfico de la esclavitud en Puerto Rico, 1820-1873," Anuario de Estudios Americanos 43 (1986), 1-24.
8. See Scarano, Sugar 41. Also see San Miguel, 85-6.
9. See Scarano, Sugar 41. Also see San Miguel, 85-6.
10. See, for instance, Scarano, Sugar, 164, and Marietta Morrissey, Slave Women in the New World: Gender Stratification in the Caribbean (Lawrence: University of Kansas Press, 1989), 104. Both intimate that the Puerto Rican slave regime during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries was relatively benign. Of the opposing view is James W. Wessman, "The Demographic Structure of Slavery in Puerto Rico: Some Aspects of Agrarian Capitalism in the Late Nineteenth Century," Journal of Latin American Studies 12, no. 2 (1980), 271-89. He contends that his "data contradicts some of the commonly heard statements about the benign character of slavery in Puerto Rico" (288).
11. See, for instance, Scarano, Sugar, 164, and Marietta Morrissey, Slave Women in the New World: Gender Stratification in the Caribbean (Lawrence: University of Kansas Press, 1989), 104. Both intimate that the Puerto Rican slave regime during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries was relatively benign. Of the opposing view is James W. Wessman, "The Demographic Structure of Slavery in Puerto Rico: Some Aspects of Agrarian Capitalism in the Late Nineteenth Century," Journal of Latin American Studies 12, no. 2 (1980), 271-89. He contends that his "data contradicts some of the commonly heard statements about the benign character of slavery in Puerto Rico" (288).
12. See, for instance, Scarano, Sugar, 164, and Marietta Morrissey, Slave Women in the New World: Gender Stratification in the Caribbean (Lawrence: University of Kansas Press, 1989), 104. Both intimate that the Puerto Rican slave regime during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries was relatively benign. Of the opposing view is James W. Wessman, "The Demographic Structure of Slavery in Puerto Rico: Some Aspects of Agrarian Capitalism in the Late Nineteenth Century," Journal of Latin American Studies 12, no. 2 (1980), 271-89. He contends that his "data contradicts some of the commonly heard statements about the benign character of slavery in Puerto Rico" (288).
13. It was conducted by the Visitador General Alexander O'Reilly when sent by Charles III to survey the island.
14. I am grateful to Teresa de Castro of Springfield, Massachusetts for providing me with a copy of her Libros I y II de Matrimonios de Caguas, unpublished manuscripts, 1994. The data set for San Germán is based on Ursula Acosta and David M. Stark, San Germán Marriages: 1759-1774, Mimeo., 1994.
15. I am grateful to Teresa de Castro of Springfield, Massachusetts for providing me with a copy of her Libros I y II de Matrimonios de Caguas, unpublished manuscripts, 1994. The data set for San Germán is based on Ursula Acosta and David M. Stark, San Germán Marriages: 1759-1774, Mimeo., 1994.
16. Parish registers in Caguas date from 1731, although a settlement had existed in the vicinity since the end of the seventeenth century. Caguas is the eighth oldest community on the island, whereas Cayey is more recent, having been established in 1776. San Germán is the second oldest community, having been established at its current location in 1573. Yauco, on the other hand, is more recent; founded in 1751, it is the island's twelfth oldest community. The size of my sample compares favorably with similar studies in the field of Brazilian slave demography. For example, my sample is smaller than Alida Metcalf's, which consists of 400 marriages between slaves during the years 1726 through 1820. See Alida C. Metcalf, Family and Frontier in Colonial Brazil: Santana de Parnaíba, 1550-1822 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992), 167. On the other hand, my sample of Puerto Rican slave and slave/free marriages is larger than that studied by Schwartz for the years 1774 through 1788 (63 marriages). See Stuart B. Schwartz, Sugar Plantations in the Formation of Brazilian Society: Bahia, 1550-1835 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985), 62, 392.
17. Parish registers in Caguas date from 1731, although a settlement had existed in the vicinity since the end of the seventeenth century. Caguas is the eighth oldest community on the island, whereas Cayey is more recent, having been established in 1776. San Germán is the second oldest community, having been established at its current location in 1573. Yauco, on the other hand, is more recent; founded in 1751, it is the island's twelfth oldest community. The size of my sample compares favorably with similar studies in the field of Brazilian slave demography. For example, my sample is smaller than Alida Metcalf's, which consists of 400 marriages between slaves during the years 1726 through 1820. See Alida C. Metcalf, Family and Frontier in Colonial Brazil: Santana de Parnaíba, 1550-1822 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992), 167. On the other hand, my sample of Puerto Rican slave and slave/free marriages is larger than that studied by Schwartz for the years 1774 through 1788 (63 marriages). See Stuart B. Schwartz, Sugar Plantations in the Formation of Brazilian Society: Bahia, 1550-1835 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985), 62, 392.
18. Arecibo is the island's fourth oldest community. Although it was founded circa 1616, the oldest surviving parish registers begin in 1708. Coamo was officially recognized as a community in 1579 and is the island's third oldest community.
19. There are additional reasons for selecting these communities. Arecibo has the oldest complete set of parish registers for the entire island, followed by Caguas with the second and Yauco with the fourth oldest complete sets. More importantly, the total numbers of baptisms, marriages, and deaths in these communities during the eighteenth century satisfy requirements to ensure statistically significant results.
20. "Memoria de Alejandro O'Reilly," in Crónicas de Puerto Rico, ed. Eugenio Fernández Méndez (Río Piedras: Editorial Universitaria, 1981), 252.
21. Altagracia Ortiz, Eighteenth Century Reforms in the Caribbean: Miguel de Muesas, Governor of Puerto Rico 1769-1776 (Rutherford, NJ: Fairleigh Dickinson Press, 1983), 115.
22. Ibid. Ponce and San Sebastián were tied with Coamo, San Germán, and Yauco for the lead among island communities in the cultivation of cotton.
23. Juana Gil-Bermejo García, Panorama histórico de la agricultura en Puerto Rico (Seville: Escuela de Estudios Hispanoamericanos, 1970), 151, 166, 197.
24. Levels of slave importation are impossible to document for Puerto Rico. According to Scarano, Sugar, 121, "No official records or estimates of slave imports have ever been found, not even for the period of legal trading before 1820." We can, however, infer the paucity of slave imports to Puerto Rico during the early years of the eighteenth century. Miguel Enríquez, sole distributor of slaves on the island for the Real Compañía de Guinea, which held the exclusive monopoly of human cargo supplies to the Spanish Caribbean in the years 1696 through 1714, was authorized to introduce 40 slaves per year (1710-1714). Due to the War of Spanish Succession, few slaves were brought directly from Africa to Puerto Rico and the Real Compañía was granted permission to buy slaves from the Dutch in Curazao and the English in Jamaica. Enríquez was able to acquire and introduce a total of 96 slaves (88 adults and 8 boys aged 12 or younger) for sale in Puerto Rico in the years 1710 through 1714 - considerably fewer than the 160 his contract allowed. See Angel López Cantos, Miguel Enríquez: Corsario boricua del siglo XVIII (San Juan: Ediciones Puerto, 1994), 113-114.
25. Levels of slave importation are impossible to document for Puerto Rico. According to Scarano, Sugar, 121, "No official records or estimates of slave imports have ever been found, not even for the period of legal trading before 1820." We can, however, infer the paucity of slave imports to Puerto Rico during the early years of the eighteenth century. Miguel Enríquez, sole distributor of slaves on the island for the Real Compañía de Guinea, which held the exclusive monopoly of human cargo supplies to the Spanish Caribbean in the years 1696 through 1714, was authorized to introduce 40 slaves per year (1710-1714). Due to the War of Spanish Succession, few slaves were brought directly from Africa to Puerto Rico and the Real Compañía was granted permission to buy slaves from the Dutch in Curazao and the English in Jamaica. Enríquez was able to acquire and introduce a total of 96 slaves (88 adults and 8 boys aged 12 or younger) for sale in Puerto Rico in the years 1710 through 1714 - considerably fewer than the 160 his contract allowed. See Angel López Cantos, Miguel Enríquez: Corsario boricua del siglo XVIII (San Juan: Ediciones Puerto, 1994), 113-114.
26. The unmarried mother might not have been living with the father of her children, or she might be cohabiting with the father although not legally married to him.
27. See Angel López Cantos, "Contrabando, corso y situado en el siglo XVIII: Una economia subterránea," Anales 2 (1985), 31-62, for a discussion of the contraband trade in Puerto Rico.
28. See Fernando Picó, S.J. Historia general de Puerto Rico (San Juan: Ediciones Huracán, 1986), 94.
29. López Cantos, Miguel Enríquez, 106.
30. I found that owners whose holdings increased in size during the years 1749 through 1764 include José Correa, Raymundo Ortiz, Gregorio González, Nicolás del Olmo, and Ignacio Villafaña, who were among Arecibo's 15 largest tobacco planters in 1770. Gil-Bermejo García, 192-6, provides a list of the island's leading coffee producers in each community.
31. According to Francisco A. Scarano, "Congregate and Control: The Peasantry and Labor Coercion in Puerto Rico Before the Age of Sugar, 1750-1820," New West Indian Guide 63, nos. 1 & 2 (1989), 23-40, after 1765 Puerto Rican agriculture entered a period of rapid expansion due to the easing of restrictions on trade with peninsular and other colonial ports, the spending of several million pesos on military construction in San Juan, a liberalization of the slave trade, and an intensification of commercial relations with the surrounding plantation colonies. (35)
32. This study of the distribution of slave ownership in Coamo is based exclusively on a reconstitution of the baptismal register and is therefore limited. The oldest marriage and death registers in Coamo date from 1778 and 1773, respectively.
33. The largest slaveholding in Coamo during the years 1701 through 1722 was that of Nicolás de Aponte. The slaveholdings of two of Aponte's sons, Nicolás and Domingo, are among the largest in Coamo during the years 1755 through 1780. Moreover, we see various grandchildren of Nicolás de Aponte among the largest slaveholders in Cayey after its establishment in 1776 as a separate community from Coamo.
34. At least eight ingenios azucareros, or water driven mills for processing sugar, were operating in 1660 along the north coast of the island, all in the vicinity of San Juan. Sugar was also grown on several smaller cane growing operations known as trapiches, similar to those used by paulistas (inhabitants of Sao Paulo) in Brazil. One of these smaller growers with a trapiche on his property is Miguel de Miranda, who in the early 1700s lived in Bucanas (Ponce). See Gil-Bermejo García, 112 and 124. Miguel de Miranda and his wife appear in the Coamo baptismal register as godparents in 1707. David Stark, Libro primero de bautismos para Coamo, Puerto Rico, 1700-1722, Mimeo., 1992, 64.
35. Gil-Bermejo García's list does not include four of the five largest slave owners that I found in Coamo during the years 1755 through 1780. These are Antonio Colón de Torres (23 slaves), Andrés de Santiago (15 slaves), Domingo de Aponte (14 slaves), and Juan Aponte Ramos (13 slaves). Gil-Bermejo García, 192.
36. Schwartz, Slaves, 10.
37. Ibid, 11.
38. For a list of communities with parish records dating from the eighteenth century, see Mario A. Rodríguez León, O.P., Los registros parroquiales y la microhistoria demográfica en Puerto Rico (San Juan: Centro de Estudios Avanzados de Puerto Rico y el Caribe, 1990).
39. Cited in Jalil Sued Badillo and Angel López Cantos, Puerto Rico Negro (San Juan: Editorial Cultural, 1986), 260.
40. Upon his pastoral visit to Coamo in 1674, the island's bishop ordered the parish priest to combine the four separate sheets (hojas) listing slave baptisms with those of the baptismal register. According to the bishop, "el sínodo de este obispado no los distingue ni separa a los dichos esclavos de las personas libres" ("This diocese's synod does not distinguish nor does it differentiate [baptisms] of slaves from those of free persons"). This and other seventeenth- and eighteenth-century pastoral visits to Coamo are part of the Bancroft Library Collection, Coamo, Puerto Rico, M-M 513, 87. Of the parishes whose registers I have examined, only two, Cayey and San Juan, kept separate registers as mandated.
41. According to Schwartz, marriage registers that record three or four slave couples belonging to the same master all marrying in the same ceremony seem to indicate direct intervention of the master in selection and timing of unions. Sugar, 386.
42. Schwartz, Sugar, 391-2.
43. In San Germán there were two marriages pairing individuals from Ethiopia, and another simply listed the spouses' origin as Africa. Yauco had only one marriage involving spouses from Africa. All other slaves of African origin who married were from West Africa (Guiné). Data compiled for this article suggests that Caguas and Cayey had larger concentrations of African slaves than San Gerḿan and Yauco's slave population, which were more Creole in composition.
44. See Teresa de Castro, Libro I de Matrimonios de Caguas (unpublished manuscript, 1994, folio 20).
45. In Miguel Enríquez (109), López Cantos elaborates on this phenomenon known as buscar el bautismo (in search of baptism): Todo esclavo que se refugiase en la Isla y solicitase la conversión al catolicismo, quedaba automáticamente libre. Durante un año permanecía bajo la custodia de un buen cristiano que se comprometía a enseñarle los rudimentos de la religión. A cambio trabajaba para él. Después de ese tiempo recibía el bautismo y con él la total libertad. (All slaves who take refuge on the Island and seek conversion to Catholicism are automatically freed. During one year's time, such individuals are to remain in the safe-keeping of a good Christian who commits himself to instructing them in the rudiments of the faith. In exchange, they work for him. Once this time is complete, they receive baptism and, with that, total freedom.) At least 90 slaves fled the island of St. Thomas and made their way to Puerto Rico in the years 1701 through 1724 (Ibid, 111). Moreover, I observed eight marriages in Caguas during the years 1735 through 1766 that pair free persons of color who had escaped from slavery in the Danish West Indies.
46. In Miguel Enríquez (109), López Cantos elaborates on this phenomenon known as buscar el bautismo (in search of baptism): Todo esclavo que se refugiase en la Isla y solicitase la conversión al catolicismo, quedaba automáticamente libre. Durante un año permanecía bajo la custodia de un buen cristiano que se comprometía a enseñarle los rudimentos de la religión. A cambio trabajaba para él. Después de ese tiempo recibía el bautismo y con él la total libertad. (All slaves who take refuge on the Island and seek conversion to Catholicism are automatically freed. During one year's time, such individuals are to remain in the safe-keeping of a good Christian who commits himself to instructing them in the rudiments of the faith. In exchange, they work for him. Once this time is complete, they receive baptism and, with that, total freedom.) At least 90 slaves fled the island of St. Thomas and made their way to Puerto Rico in the years 1701 through 1724 (Ibid, 111). Moreover, I observed eight marriages in Caguas during the years 1735 through 1766 that pair free persons of color who had escaped from slavery in the Danish West Indies.
47. Schwartz, Sugar, 392.
48. Metcalf (169) observed that only 6% of slave marriages in her sample occurred between slaves who belonged to different owners.
49. Schwartz, Sugar, 383.
50. Schwartz, Sugar, 443, and Metcalf, 170.
51. Schwartz, Sugar, 443, and Metcalf, 170.
52. Acosta and Stark, folio 109.
53. Ibid, folio 183. Juan was born in Toa Baja, along the north central coast, and was the son of Antonio and Isabel (free persons of color). Eusebia, on the other hand, was born in San Germán and was the daughter of Francisco, who belonged to the parish priest Francisco Luciano Mujica, and Tomasa, who belonged to María de la Candelaria Torres.
54. See Metcalf, Family, 243, footnote 27.
55. Ibid, 169.
56. Antonio belonged to Dionicio Rodríguez de Seda whereas Isabel belonged to Pedro Muñiz Súarez, the father of Dionicio's wife, María de Jesús Muñiz.
57. See my article "Reconstructing Yauco's Colonial Population: A Geographic Distribution of Land, Residence, and Slaveholding Patterns, 1751-1765," Boletín de la Sociedad Puertorriqueña de Genealogía 6, no. 1/2 (1994), 49-70.
58. Proof of non-compliance by owners with these regulations is a decree by the island's bishop in 1774 stipulating that married slaves who lived on separate estates were to be reunited. Ortiz, 63.
59. Rodríguez León, 45.
60. See Luis M. Díaz Soler, Historia de la esclavitud negra en Puerto Rico (Río Piedras: Editorial de la Universidad de Puerto Rico, 1953), 174, and Sued Badillo and López Cantos, 173 and 175, for further information on slave owners and civil authorities encouraging slave marriages as a means of increasing the island's slave population during the pre-plantation period.
61. See Angel López Cantos, "La vida cotidiana del negro en Puerto Rico en el siglo XVIII: Alimentación," La Revista del Centro de Estudios Avanzados de Puerto Rico y el Caribe, 4 (enero-junio 1987), 147-55, especially 149, for further information on slaves living together and pooling their rations as a survival strategy.
62. Morrissey, 92.
63. Ibid, 99.
64. For a discussion of slave provision grounds in Brazil see B. J. Barickman, "A Bit of Land, Which They Call 'Roca': Slave Provision Grounds in the Bahian Reconcavo, 1780-1860," Hispanic American Historical Review (HAHR) 74, no. 4 (November 1994), 649-87.
65. López Cantos, La vida, 152.
66. Schwartz, Slaves, 10-1.
67. In Arecibo, at least 15 unmarried mothers married between 1708 and 1749. Although marriage registers from Coamo for the eighteenth century date from 1778, my findings suggest that a minimum of 2 unmarried mothers married between 1701 and 1722, whereas a minimum of 21 unmarried mothers who gave birth between 1755 and 1780 eventually married.
68. Victoria had given birth as recently as 19 months prior to her marriage and had an additional two children after marriage to the slave Pedro.
69. Michael Craton comments on a similar situation he observed in his analysis of nineteenth-century slave families in the British West Indies, where single mothers eventually married after having given birth. Single mothers younger than 20, according to Craton, "began separate cohabitation [with their mate] at or shortly before, the birth of their second children" (13). See his article "Changing Patterns of Slave Families in the British West Indies," Journal of Interdisciplinary History 10, no. 1 (Summer 1979), 1-35.
70. The emigration of White males from the island during the seventeenth century in search of areas with better economic opportunities left behind a surplus of women. A census of San Juan conducted by the island's bishop in 1673 reveals the severity of the sex-ratio imbalance. Free and slave women outnumbered their male counterparts by an overall ratio of two to one. White males were particularly scarce, comprising a mere 15% of Puerto Rico's inhabitants. White females were more numerous, accounting for 30% of the population. Such a limited marriage pool of White males suggests that many White women probably selected non-White or slave spouses if they did marry. The results of the 1673 census of San Juan are reproduced in Ortiz, 63.
71. Schwartz, Sugar, 392.
72. Ibid, 393.
73. Metcalf, 166-7.
74. Ibid.
75. If we disregard the baptisms of adult slaves - primarily of African origin and acquired through the slave trade, the proportion of all slave baptisms that were legitimate increases by approximately 3%. For example, in Arecibo the proportion of all slave baptisms that were legitimate is greater than 40% for all but the earliest years of the eighteenth century.
76. The fact that levels of illegitimacy were actually declining in the years immediately preceding the rise of sugar and concomitant upsurge of slavery among slave populations in Arecibo, Bayamón, and Coamo is at variance with trends in illegitimacy observed by Fernando Picó for the community of Río Piedras at the end of the eighteenth century. According to Picó, the illegitimacy rate among the overall population increased substantially from 13.5% in 1776 to 29.8% in 1799. See his Al filo del poder: Subalternos y dominantes en Puerto Rico, 1739-1910 (Río Piedras: Editorial de la Universidad de Puerto Rico, 1993), 136.
77. Picó, "Esclavos", 30.
78. I observed the following number of slave children legitimized by their parents' subsequent marriage: 26 in Arecibo (1708-1749), 3 in Coamo (1701-1722), 48 in Coamo (1755-1780), and 16 in Yauco (1751-1788).
79. This is precisely what scholars such as Schwartz, Slaves, 10-1, and Metcalf, Family, 163, have suggested.
80. This is precisely what scholars such as Schwartz, Slaves, 10-1, and Metcalf, Family, 163, have suggested.
81. Data for Arecibo includes 65 such deaths, that for Coamo (1755-1780) includes 39 deaths, and that for Yauco includes 15 deaths.
82. To convert the number of birth intervals into the number of baptized slaves: first, add the number of intervals for legitimate and illegitimate births in addition to the number of married and unmarried mothers; next, add the number of married and unmarried mothers with 1 child only; finally, add the set(s) of twins and the number of adults baptized. For Coamo (1701-1722), the calculations involved are: (23 + 61) + (9 + 35) + (34) + (3) + (6) = 172, which is the total number of baptized slaves.
83. John Knodel, Demographic Behavior in the Past (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1988), p. 52.
84. Craton, 8.
85. Unfortunately, a lack of data makes it impossible to provide a breakdown of intervals according to the age groups of mothers.
86. According to Craton, the process of family formation tended toward matrifocality rather than the nuclear family, especially where a lack of slave-controlled provision grounds, money, and property deprived slaves of the chance of "marriage strategies." (27)
87. At the height of the sugar plantation period in the 19th century, slaves were never more than 11% of the population. See James L. Dietz, Economic History in Puerto Rico (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1986), p. 36.