Macro and microhistory in the study of Negro slavery

Abstract

This article sinthesizes the historiographical controversy about de Negro slavery in the American continent. On the one hand it's studied the economicist interpretation of E. Williams —slavery, in anglosaxon America like expresión of an socialeconomic system— that was continued by authors like Stampp, Elkins, Genovese, Davis; and on the other hand those authors that emphasize the patronizing and benevolent attitude to the slaves in Latin America, thanks to the contributions of Tannnenbaum, Freyre and others. On the other hand the author proposes that slavery in Latin America, must be studied not only from a necessary macrohistorical point of view, but from microhistorical view also. In this way historians would avoid the general and wrong valuations about slavery and they would get the intepretation of the ideas of people faced with the historical events and political and social transformations.

Keywords

• esclavos negros
• historiografía sobre la esclavitud
• macrohistoria
• microhistoria