Professor examines lives of enslaved people in Spain, Santo Domingo and Puerto Rico

On Thursday, March 5, Dr. Lissette Acosta Corniel, assistant professor at Borough of Manhattan Community College, delivered a lecture titled “Transatlantic Bondage: Slavery and Freedom in Spain, Santo Domingo, and Puerto Rico” at the John B. Davis Lecture Hall at Macalester College. Corniel’s work focuses on the history of enslaved people in Santo Domingo, in what is now the Dominican Republic.

Corniel’s book, sharing the same title as her lecture, is a collection of new and newly translated essays on the experiences and enslavement of Black Africans in Spain, Hispaniola, and Puerto Rico. She found that prior scholarship has been insufficient in the region, particularly when it comes to covering the stories of the enslaved people themselves.

The research began as a database, but as Corniel realized the depth of the scholarship gap, she decided to develop the work into a book: “Transatlantic Bondage was born out of the need to fill a tremendous, and I cannot emphasize that enough, tremendous gap in U.S. scholarship. I specify U.S. scholarship because a lot has been written about slavery in Santo Domingo, by Dominican scholars, or by multilingual scholars.”

In her lecture, Corniel discussed the specific historiographies of enslaved people based on information she found in colonial documents. Many of these documents required intense labor and effort to translate and make them legible.

Corniel argued that many historians have traditionally focused on the economic systems of slavery rather than the lives of the enslaved people themselves.

“Scholars of colonial slavery and the Caribbean became more interested in following the sugar, because the sugar industry dwindled in Santo Domingo after the 1560s,” she explained. “They decided to focus on the wealth that the enslaved people were producing. But what about the people? What about how they were living every day? …. Sugar should not have been the main focus of slavery from the beginning. It should have been a focus to write and read and research about the people.”

Corniel’s work recovers stories from colonial documents that reveal the everyday experiences of enslaved people in Santo Domingo.

The first story Corniel uncovered, and the one that inspired her to dive deeper, was “the Free Black Woman from the Hospital.” A 1693 inquiry from the King of Spain asked an archbishop why he had heard that the first hospital of Santo Domingo was built by a Black woman. The archbishop responded that it was true: “the first medical facility was built by a pious Black woman who cured and welcomed everyone she could in her hut.”

The document went on to explain how white colonizers donated to the woman and trusted her with their health and finances. “That got our attention,” Corniel explained. “I said, ‘Wow. We need to know more about these women, and we need to know more about these people.’”

The signage around the historical site today does not mention the original founder.

Corniel’s research also led her to Juana, an enslaved woman who was called to testify in court after her owners were accused of murder. Her owners told her not to say anything and promised her clothes in return. In court, Juana said, “My name is Juana Helofa Pelona. I think that I am 17 or 19 years old, and they told me not to say what I know, and that they were going to give me clothes.”

She was called to testify again, as Corniel described: “So they said, ‘You have to change your testimony, or we’re going to whip you.’ [So in court she says] ‘I think I’m 17,’ and then she says, ‘and they said that if I haven’t changed my testimony, they will whip me.’ Now, [called to court a] third time, they say, ‘Juana, you need to keep your mouth shut, or we will burn you with hot wax.’ Juana goes to court, and guess what happened?”

Juana was eventually sold across the island. Her story, which adds texture and nuance to our understanding of the lived experience in the region, had not been told before Corniel’s work.

Corniel highlights many personal stories that have thus far been overlooked: an elderly woman sent back to Africa, a woman described as defective for enjoying dancing, and an enslaved woman sold in fractions to multiple owners.

The lecture also honored scholar-activist and Macalester History Professor Emeritus Jim Stewart (1940–2025). Stewart developed Macalester’s Latin American Studies Department, and remarks from his colleagues opened the night.

Macalester Professor Paul Dosh noted how Stewart’s work centered on people impacted by settler colonialism, the same ones Corniel focuses on. Stewart’s historical work was deeply tied to activism.

“That’s how I think of Jim,” Dosh described. “This fellow with a sparkling eye, who was excited about the intellectual activist project that is historical study.”

Anya Armentrout is a freelance journalist, a student at Macalester College, and a contributing writer for the Minnesota Spokesman-Recorder.