"Although most blacks who came to America in early years were slaves, records of the Casa de Contractión showed that a good many freed black freedmen from and elsewhere found passage on westward-bound ships. Some... settled in the ... others... to Mexico and Peru, identifying... as Catholic subjects of a Spanish king, with much the same privileges and ambitions as white Spaniards. "Benito el Negro" and "Juan el Negro" (...[i.e.,] Juan de Villanueva) were encomenderos in the province of Pánuco and thus... should not have been slaves..."