Abstract

The study of the press in relation to certain periods and themes remains undeveloped. Its analysis is nevertheless essential because it allows insight into prevailing positions, discourses, and historical contexts, even though press narratives during this period generally reflected the outlook of the elite, who wove their interests into the ink. The aim of this article is to analyze the press’s engagement with slave manumission within an adverse context for northern Peru, marked by prolonged droughts, locusts that destroyed crops, deadly diseases, and the decline of the northern slave trade, among other bitter conditions affecting the agricultural sector. The study advances the hypothesis of a close relationship between the press, the elite, and the landowners, who, despite the multiple challenges they faced, chose to maintain the slave system. This continued to provide economic returns—albeit diminished towards the end of the eighteenth century—as well as social implications, as the great families preserved the “prestige” of having numerous slaves, understood as a marker of abundance. Within this framework, the press mirrored the perspectives and interests of the northern elite, whose economic base lay primarily in agriculture and mining. It can therefore be concluded that northern newspapers largely opted to remain silent rather than debate and denounce the slave system, as this would have directly or indirectly threatened their economic interests.

Continue reading - PDF