Bolivia’s ‘black king’ defies slavery’s legacy
Bolivia’s ‘black king’ defies slavery’s legacy
Sunday, December 21, 2014
LA PAZ: He doesn’t have Queen Elizabeth’s throne or Kate and Wills’ paparazzi, but Bolivian peasant Julio Pinedo is New World royalty: a king who inherited his title from his African ancestors.
Pinedo’s calloused hands, the mark of a lifetime of farming, belie the royal blood passed down to him by the Congolese prince Uchicho, who was brought to the Americas as a slave sometime around 1820.
In the nearly two centuries since then, Afro-Bolivians have lost their languages, religions and much of their history, but Pinedo’s family has managed to hold onto its royal heritage.
Today he is recognised as a king by Bolivia’s black community, some 26,000 people descended from the slaves imported to the South American country under Spanish colonial rule from the 16th to the 19th centuries.
Pinedo, 73, lives in the small village of Mururata, about a two-hour drive north of the capital La Paz, where he still goes out to the fields every day to farm citrus fruits, coca and coffee.
More:
http://www.thenews.com.pk/Todays-News-1-291476-Bolivias-black-king-defies-slaverys-legacy
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Julio Pinedo, Angelica Larrea, son Roland[/center]
