Abstract

MAYA, Adriana. PAULA DE EGUILUZ AND THE ART OF LOVING WELL. NOTES FOR THE STUDY OF FEMALE FUGITIVE SLAVES IN THE CARIBBEAN IN THE 17TH CENTURY. hist.crit. [online]. 2002, n.24, pp.101-124. ISSN 0121-1617.

Paula de Eguiluz, like many other women o in the Caribbean, was obliged by the Inquisition to narrate her body, her emotions, her affections and her sexuality. Her testimonies manifest an untiring search for affection and reiterate the use of love magic so that others would be well loved. In the eyes of the inquisitors, women like Paula were "witches" and "sorcerers". The declarations transcribed during the hearings that the Inquisition carried out against her shed light on two moments of her life. The first occurred in 1624 when she first appeared before the Tribunal of the Holy Office in the city of Cartagena de Indias. Paula was 33 years old and had recently been deported from Cuba. Accused of witchcraft, she was sentenced to wear a reconciliation habit, to 200 lashes, and to work in the city hospital. The second period developed 8 years later, in 1632, when the second process against her began. Paula was then 41 years old. During her eight years in Cartagena, she sold her knowledge of how to trap lovers and how to be well loved. Her clients were white women and free mulattas of the city who paid up to 50 pesos for her work. I wish to invite the reader to listen to Paula de Eguiluz say words that, although fragmented by the interpretation of the scribe, speak more of the condition of female slaves in the Caribbean in the 17th century than any of the stories of Sabbaths of witches that flew on broomsticks and devoured children that predominated in the minds of the judges. The fragments of her discourse will be interpreted from the perspective of the fugitive slaves, which means that knowledge of love and desire as well as the art of sensuality will become territories of freedom and autonomy for enslaved women.

Keywords : fugitive slaves; inquisition; sorcery; identity; caribbean; women; sensuality.

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