The Afro-Peruvian Struggle

The plight of Afro-Peruvians has long been overshadowed by the conflict between the Spanish and Indian cultures but there is reason to believe that could be changing.

Since the 1980s, black activists have gradually been growing in influence and, in recent years, have coalesced around a single national figure - Congresswoman Martha Moyano.

In recent years Moyano – the sister of the famed Maria Elena Moyano, an activist slain for standing up to the Sendero Luminoso - has taken up the cause of Afro-Peruvians in the government and in the public’s awareness.

A recent article in The Peruvian Times outlines how she has been on the vanguard of a rocky effort for greater awareness and representation of Afro-Peruvians in Peru.

Current estimates put the black population in Peru between 5 and 10 percent of the estimated 28 million residents of the country. By contrast, between 44 and 70 percent of the population of Brazil – about 200 million – are black.

Many of the blacks who were brought to Peru by the Spanish were not originally from Africa but from other colonies. As a result they had already been assimilated into the Hispanic culture – a fact that placed them in an uneasy social position above the native Indian populace.

“Blacks stood at the bottom of the Spanish world, but on top of the Indian majority over whom they exerted some power,” wrote historian Peter Flindell Klaren in his 2000 history of the country, Peru.

Many blacks were brought to areas of Peru that concentrated on the agricultural crops from other colonies – notably sugar cane for which blacks from the Spanish Caribbean were brought to work the great plantations near Trujillo.

Today, Peru even celebrates Afro-Peruvian Culture Day on June 4, the birthday of famed folklorist Nicomedes Santa Cruz.