Then in the waning days of 1611 an enslaved African woman in Mexico City who had been beaten and tormented by her owner for years was murdered by him. The owner was Luis Moreno de Monroy, from a famous and wealthy family; today we do not even know the brutalized woman’s name. But the people knew her name then. The large black population—many of whose members had by now attained positions of great authority as supervisors and foremen—nearly rioted the day of her funeral. The organizers of the protest were said to be members of a black confraternity at the church of Nuestra Señora. Hundreds of
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