Slaves, Amerindians and poor whites

By Marion O’Callaghan, newsday.co.tt
Monday, May 14 2007

AfricansIt seemed an ordinary enough church until someone pointed me to the angels.

“It is the only church in Latin America,” he said proudly, “with black angels.”

I hadn’t thought of it before. I had seen a black and miraculous Jesus, a black Virgin-Mother, but never black angels. Here the cherubim who worship God day and night, were black. I tried to disentangle symbol from what may well have been only a vapse portrayal by some artist. We were here in the heart of Peru’s cotton farms and-since they go together-in the heart of Afro-Peru although neither the words Afro-Peru nor Black Peru describes the people in the villages and homesteads which stretched beyond the church.
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