Enslaved and Free Afro-descendant Mobility in Colonial New Spain, 1500–1750

From 1500 to 1750, this relational database documents the spatial and social mobility of enslaved and free people of African ancestry in colonial New Spain. It contains records for 3,917 enslaved individuals and 4,957 non-enslaved persons derived from notarial records in twelve Mexican archives. The project was created by Alvaro Alcántara and Trayectorias Afro, with a version updated in May 2026.

Use Cases

• Analyze spatial trajectories of individuals across colonial territories based on documented movement.
• Study socioethnic classifications (calidades) and ethnonyms to understand colonial racial constructs.
• Map social networks and relationships between individuals and slaveholding institutions.
• Examine demographic patterns like marital status, occupations, and health records of enslaved populations.

Strengths

• Contains individual-level data for 3,917 enslaved persons and 4,957 associated individuals.
• Derived from 3,339 source documents across twelve archives, suggesting a multi-source foundation.
• Includes nine core data tables and ten controlled vocabulary tables with a machine-readable schema.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• Data may reflect geographic and source bias inherent to the notarial records from specific Mexican archives.

Provenance

Source

Trayectorias Afro

Collection Method

Derived from notarial records (bills of slave sale, manumission letters, wills, property inventories, donations).

Time Range

1500–1750

Freshness

Last updated 2026-05-12 22:09:02

Geography

Colonial New Spain (present-day Mexico and parts of the southwestern United States)