Anchoring an Empire

Gender and Ethnicity in Colonial Panama

Bethany Aram

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Year: 2025
• Topic: History
• eBook ISBN:
  9781009595384
• Subtopic: Latin American & Caribbean History
• Index: History

Anchoring an Empire is a bottom-up exploration of how gender and ethnicity shaped the lived experience of Spanish subjects across the sixteenth- and seventeenth-century isthmus of Panama. Focusing on understudied historical actors, Bethany Aram sheds light on how indigenous Americans, Afro-descendants, and Europeans contributed to critical debates on race and gender. From the Caribbean port cities of Nombre de Díos and Portobello, to Panama Viejo on the Pacific coast, free, enslaved, and in-between women and men managed to become arbiters of Spanish and competing interests. Those who lived and died in these cities sustained them as hubs of interaction, communication, and commerce. Whether victims, beneficiaries – or both – of the slave trade, these individuals found ways to meet and to exploit the region's episodic demand for housing, provisions, and other services. Their expertise grounded global transport and trade, with a lasting impact on processes of mobility and globalization.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half-title
• Reviews
• Series information
• Title page
• Imprints page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• List of Figures, Maps, and Tables
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• 1 ‘‘The Secrets of the Land’’: Knowledge, Nutrition, and Survival
• 2 Elusive Returns: Native Americans and Africans between Slavery and Freedom
• 3 Hospitality on the Trans-Isthmian Trek: The Comforts of Home
• 4 Marriage and Mobility
• 5 Space and Status: The Purpose of Precedence
• 6 Immaculate Conceptions
• Conclusions
• Select Bibliography
• Index