Baculamento or Encomienda?

Abstract

This article examines pan-Atlantic legal jurisdictions in the early Atlantic world to argue that the legal domains of people nominally conquered by Iberian powers are of fundamental importance to understanding the emergence of subjectivities in Atlantic Africa during the era of the slave trade. An analysis of the legal framing of the enco-mienda in Mexico and of categories of slavery in Brazil shows how transformations in the Americas influenced the development of plural legal frameworks in Atlantic Africa in proto-colonial settings, specifically Angola and Upper Guinea.