Between Slavery and Freedom on the Atlantic Coast of Honduras

African slaves exhibited considerable geographic and social mobility in late colonial Spanish Honduras. In the contested terrain of the Atlantic coast especially, people of African descent occupied a broad range of social roles. While English-owned slaves who escaped to Spanish territory were freed and then utilised as settlers and workers along the coast, the esclavos del Rey ('Crown slaves') originally employed in the construction of the fortress of San Fernando de Omoa found other avenues to enhance their status and even obtain varying degrees of freedom.