Celia Cussen is a professor of history at the University of Chile in Santiago, where she has consolidated the field of African diaspora studies. She is the author of Black Saint of the Americas: The Life and Afterlife of Martín de Porres (Cambridge UP, 2014), translated into Spanish as Martín de Porres, santo americano (Instituto de Estudios Peruanos, 2016). She edited Huellas de África en América: Perspectivas para Chile (Universitaria, 2009) and La cofradía de Nuestra Señora de la Candelaria: Una hermandad de mulatos y naturales en Santiago, s. XVII (Universitaria, forthcoming). Her current book project, Masters and Slaves of Chile’s Colonial Past, takes a nuanced view of African slavery from the intertwined positions of the enslavers and the enslaved from the period of conquest until the abolition of slavery in 1823 against the backdrop of prolonged conflicts between the native population and provincial creoles.

Research Project: Masters and Slaves in Chile’s Colonial Past