Uruguay - Ministerio de Transporte y Obras Públicas (MTOP) (Ministry of Transportation and Public Works)

The Society of Jesus –a Catholic order– was the largest owner of slaves during the initial period of Montevideo and the countryside until their expulsion in 1767. This situation was common in the rest of the continent, since religious congregations owned slaves that worked in dissimilar establishments, from cattle ranches in Cordoba to sugar plantations in Bahia. The congregations sustained their religious and educational activities economically based on slave labour. The Jesuit residence of Montevideo with its rooms, courtyards and estate was the first place charged and criticized by the Spanish colonial authorities due to the celebrations of the people of African descent that took place there, in the centre of the old Montevideo. Likewise, there were slaves in the Jesuit mill that today gives its name to a neighbourhood of the Uruguayan capital: Paso del Molino. Once the Society of Jesus was expelled from Spanish territories, around fifty slaves that had belonged to them stayed in Montevideo and in its rural areas, and they were the most significant black population nucleus to the south of the Eastern Bank.As to historical research, this site is linked to the extension of a study on the first generation of slaves and free descendants who arrived in Montevideo before the viceroyalty period (1777-1812).