After years residing in Seville, a freed black woman from Santo Domingo missed her city (1575)
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There were occasionally some free or enslaved Blacks, Spanish subjects, who were able to travel between the metropolis and La Española during the second half of the sixteenth century,
On November 16th, 1575, in Seville, a freed Black woman from Santo Domingo named María de Cota requested a license to travel to Peru, the main gold-producing economic center of the empire, after spending 18 years in Seville serving a Spanish family that had returned to Seville from La Española. To support her request, María presented the required testimonies of acquaintances who confirmed her place of origin as well as her freed legal status and her condition of being an unmarried woman with no criminal history. The officials of the Casa de la Contrataciónin Seville issued María the license to travel roughly a month later, on December 13th, 1575. The documents indicate that the very next day María left Spain for Peru on board a ship.