Exquisite Slaves: Race, Clothing, and Status in Colonial Lima

Abstract

Exquisite Slaves centers on clothing and its unique ability to convey an unspoken language of status. Tamara Walker argues that dress served two purposes: it was central to elite dominance and claims of superiority, while it simultaneously provided the means for enslaved men and women to challenge those dominant norms. By examining material culture, Walker examines the racialization of Blackness in colonial and republican Lima, Peru. Her work engages scholars, such as Herman Bennett, Ira Berlin, and Rebecca Earle, who study the legal use and social ramifications of clothing by enslaved people throughout the Americas. Her work, however, shifts the focus to not just the bodies that wore the clothing but also the visual representation of clothing in print culture.Walker uses legal codes, edicts, newsletters, criminal cases, notarial records, wills, and runaway ads to delve into the body politics of Lima. Walker refers to these sources as “fragments” that reveal how clothing took on meaning through “writing . . . acquiring . . . selling . . . and wearing” (pp. 12–13). The book has six chapters that are organized thematically and demonstrate clothing's importance in a society whose bedrock was social hierarchy. The first half of the book details the body politics of dress and how it empowered both slaveholders and the enslaved to break the law; the second half explores dress in print culture and the intended audience for such publications.Chapters 1–3 reveal that Black bodies were constantly disputed spaces. Chapter 1 provides a social and cultural history of Lima centered on sumptuary policies. This chapter sets the stage for a discussion of body politics and highlights the measures taken by Spaniards to break sumptuary laws and use clothing to cover and create an ideal image of Blackness. Chapters 2 and 3 delve into the enslaved population's lived experiences of quotidian activities and their access to clothing. Chapter 2 focuses on the gendered roles of enslaved men and women and their self-fashioning, and their ability to politicize their bodies by way of dress. This self-fashioning often allowed both enslaved men and women to become empowered as they looked to acquire elegance and attire to reclaim their masculinity or femininity. Chapter 3 discusses the results of enslaved and freed men and women's acquired clothing. At times, Walker argues, the procurement of certain garments blurred the strict lines of social hierarchy to such an extent that enslaved and freed men and women reclaimed their coveted bodies, transforming them from units of labor to loving individuals. Her use of wills in this chapter not only reveals the clothing bequeathed to enslaved and freed people but also highlights the intimate relationships formed between slaveholder and the enslaved and between enslaved and freed families.The second half of the book delves into print culture and the visual representations of clothing. Walker's analysis of casta paintings in chapter 4 is to be commended for reminding us that Mexico was not the only place to create casta paintings; furthermore, her method of tracing over generations the use of garments such as headcloth reveals that the goal of these paintings was to emphasize social grooming and institutionalized whitening. Chapter 5 deals with runaway ads and their descriptions of dress. It stands in stark contrast to chapter 4, in which these casta paintings extolled whiteness purity over time. In this chapter clothing is used as a marker to capture rebellious acts of Blackness. Chapter 6 delves into the republican period and the paintings of Francisco “Pancho” Fierro, which depict Black men and women in elegant wear. These paintings suggest that the new republic was egalitarian. The book's epilogue examines the newspaper El Negro to reveal that in the republican period the use of elegant dress by enslaved and free Blacks brought humiliation, instead of emulation experienced in the colonial period. As a result, Walker's book ends with the racialization of Blackness in which Blackness is affiliated with deception and is deemed deserving of discrimination and mockery.Walker's book has stitched together various fragments that remind us that Black life matters and that Black lives constantly sought ways to reclaim their humanity. However, I have one small quibble with this otherwise creative and noteworthy book: Walker's thematic approach requires a careful read for those not familiar with eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Peruvian history, a transformative period characterized by the racialization of Blackness. Students and experts interested in the African diaspora, material culture, racial identity, the formation of Blackness, and gender will surely benefit from this book. If clothes truly make the man, Walker skillfully demonstrates that enslaved women and men and freed ladies and gentlemen used clothing as shields that protected and projected their bodies to become representations of who they wanted to be.