ABSTRACT
In Chapter 7 women are represented as a particular type of sexual deviants, specifically as miscegenationists, or rather those women involved in interracial sexual relationships. The image of the enslaved Black African is utilized in two pliegos sueltos to suggest the inherent danger they represent to early modern Spanish society and to early modern women, leading to their death or dishonor. One enslaved Black African, Francisco Meneses, is represented as first a buffoon and later a rapist and murderer of a young white woman. Another enslaved Black African, referred to as Jorge or Jorgico, engages in an adulterous albeit seemingly consensual relationship with a white woman. In both examples, the enslaved Black Africans’ reputed sexual voracity threatens early modern Spanish women, repositories of masculine and familial honor. In a third pliego suelto, an unfounded accusation against a woman of sexual infidelity with an enslaved Black African results in abandonment by her husband, and the threatened death of and later separation from her son. She is, however, unwittingly responsible for the racial condition of her son, having gazed upon a beautiful little enslaved Black African girl either during coitus or while pregnant and, thereby, imprinted the image of her race on her unborn child.
