Communicative Infrastructures of Flight: Female Networks, Rumor, and Mobility in a Case of Slavery (Monesterio, 1653–1654)
Judicial documents sometimes preserve extraordinary traces of how subaltern groups constructed their own systems for circulating information. Far from institutional circuits—chancelleries, notarial offices, town halls—there existed silent, oral, and flexible networks that made it possible to sustain escapes, hide people, and manipulate time, distance, and expectations. The case of the enslaved woman María, removed from her master and protected among the towns of Monesterio, Fuente de Cantos, and Cala in 1653–1654, is an exceptional example of this type of informal communicative infrastructure: an architecture of knowledge made of bodies, voices, silences, and movements that challenged the reach of royal justice for months.
This case, preserved in the Archivo de la Real Chancillería de Granada (9960, 15), is a small file but extremely rich in content for understanding slave flight and the role of gossip and rumor—although the lawsuit initially began over the failed sale of the enslaved woman María. According to the facts, María was to be sold to Alonso de Paz, a resident of Monesterio, who took her into his house for a few days before finalizing the deed of sale. Taking advantage of that interim, María disappeared, and nothing more was known of her until her master, Cristóbal Godoy, presented a probanza and accused Alonso Domínguez, former governor of the town of Monesterio, of hiding María, first in his house and later in that of his mother-in-law. The witness testimonies offer a revealing view of women’s central role in concealing enslaved people. Let us examine it.
Houses and Women: The Heart of the Informal Infrastructure
Several witnesses testify that the concealment network did not revolve around public spaces but around two women-run households: that of Alonso Domínguez’s wife and that of his mother, Isabel García, in Fuente de Cantos. In both homes, María’s protection was plotted, discreet entrances and exits were managed, and the domestic logistics required to keep her hidden without arousing suspicion were organized.
Domínguez’s wife acted as coordinator, giving orders, selecting intermediaries, and supervising the conditions of concealment. The mother-in-law, for her part, provided the safe space, daily shelter, and domestic legitimacy needed to dilute María’s presence among visitors, internal movements, and feminine routines invisible to the men of justice.
This female protagonism is no coincidence: these women controlled the rhythm of domestic life, the flow of intimate information, and, above all, the gestures that could go unnoticed by judicial scrutiny. Their role reveals how women—free, enslaved, white, or mixed-race—became genuine nodes of subaltern communication, capable of managing sensitive information under the guise of everyday life.
Mobility as Technology of Resistance
María’s transfers between towns took place at night, at dawn, or during liminal moments, always guided by intermediaries. Martín Hernández, the priest Diego Navarro, and other neighbors performed crucial logistical functions: they accompanied María, surveyed the roads, carried messages, and assessed risks on behalf of those who directed the network from the domestic sphere.
These movements draw an alternative cartography of the territory: secondary paths, discreet entrances into town, stops in intermediate points, and the strategic use of pack animals (such as Alonso Domínguez’s donkey). Mobility, far from being a mere physical displacement, thus becomes a technology of resistance—a way of transforming rural space into a fragmented and temporary refuge.
Objects, Rumor, and the Human Messenger
Objects—such as the half-fanega of wheat sent by Domínguez’s wife to his mother—formed part of the communicative system. That wheat, seemingly innocent, is a coded message: it must be taken to a certain house, delivered discreetly, and accompanied by an explanation (“it is for María”). The messenger, unwittingly, becomes the connecting vehicle among the different nodes of the network. In this way, “human messaging” articulates an infrastructure in which people function as mobile couriers who see, hear, recognize, and transmit—sometimes involuntarily—signals that keep the network alive.
Despite the careful concealment, María’s whereabouts eventually became an open secret. Several witnesses agree that they had “full knowledge” and that it was “public and notorious” that the enslaved woman was hidden in the mother-in-law’s house. This community rumor did not weaken the network; on the contrary, it strengthened it. In this case, rumor functions as a cognitive infrastructure—a mechanism that distributes information effectively without the need for writing. The expression “public and notorious” shows how informal knowledge circulates on the margins of justice, forming a collective memory that operates alongside judicial processes.
Silence as Collective Shield
The network functioned because no one broke the silence. Neighbors, messengers, and the women involved upheld a tacit pact not to reveal María’s presence. This silence is not passivity but a political practice that allows resistance to royal authority.
In this “conspiracy of silence,” we find an essential mechanism of subaltern communities: protecting those who flee, delaying judicial investigations, denying key information, and allowing justice to stumble against the limits of its own territorial reach. Silence thus becomes a collective shield, a form of power that operates outside institutions.
Conclusion
The combination of female-run households, rural messengers, nocturnal mobility, community rumor, and pacts of silence constitutes a genuine communicative infrastructure of flight—characterized by its orality, flexibility, dependence on human ties, and capacity to divert, delay, or neutralize judicial action.
María’s case demonstrates that the everyday resistance of enslaved people was not expressed solely in individual gestures (running away, hiding) but also in collective structures of solidarity and knowledge capable of manipulating information, managing time, and generating safe spaces within a profoundly unequal world.
Magdalena Díaz Hernández
February, 2026
This article forms part of a broader research project currently being developed within the European project. Esta [publicación) forma parte del proyecto BADEMS que ha recibido financiación del Consejo Europeo de Investigación (ERC) en el marco del programa de investigación e innovación HORIZON EUROPE de la Unión Europea (Acuerdo de Subvención nº 101086104 together with other members of the research team.







![A pedestrian stops to read an issue of the antisemitic newspaper "Der Stuermer" (The Attacker) in a Berlin display box. [LCID: 02629]](https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/images/large/21168f2c-61a8-4033-8b72-6662080a15b7.jpg)








mos oído hablar mucho en los medios de comunicación de lo perjudicial que es. A pesar de parecer un concepto novedoso, no lo es. Tanto en el pasado como en la actualidad, las sociedades se han servido de ella para defender distintos tipos de intereses desde lo social hasta lo político. Como característica general la desinformación suele compartirse con la intencionalidad de dañar, aunque existen dos subtipos menos conocidos: la misinformation o información incorrecta y la malinformation o mala información. La primera se refiere al contenido falso compartido por una persona o grupos de personas que no saben que el contenido es falso o engañoso. La segunda es información auténtica que se comparte con la intención de dañar. Estas definiciones tienen mucho que ver con la forma en que la monarquía española intentaba establecer los tipos de información para conocer qué sucedía en las Indias y así organizar mejor las formas de gobierno. Desde este punto de vista el trabajo de Brendecke es fundamental ya que distingue entre los procesos de comunicación de información de manera vertical y la producción del saber empírico dirigido desde las instituciones hacia el rey. Para ello era imprescindible lo que el autor llama la «política comunicativa triangular» que admitía grupos distintos de informantes (que mentían o hablaban tácticamente) mediante información interesada para mostrar su lealtad o la deslealtad de otros al rey. Este sistema de comunicación de información tiene un importante potencial desinformativo como sucedió con la Brevísima Relación del dominico Las Casas.Para conjugar dichos tipos de desinformación sobre la Conquista y hacerla comprensible, es necesario tener en cuenta cuatro cuestiones importantes para entender la desinformación: 1) Esta obra no puede ser considerada histórica porque no cumple algunos de los criterios de escritura histórica establecidos en el siglo XVI, incluso comparada con otros trabajos que Las Casas escribió. Aunque sí tiene una gran relevancia historiográfica, además por su tono denunciatorio. 2) La repercusión que tuvo el escrito original y los continuos cambios realizados desde el mundo editorial de las potencias enemigas de la monarquía española. 3) La censura de la obra por la Inquisición española a mediados del siglo XVII. 4) Los ataques del independentismo americanista a través de dicha obra a la monarquía española en los siglos XVIII y XIX.