We live under one sky -- and the sweep of a past painted from the palette of a bruise.
Until the 20th century, pale was the pigment of wealth and privilege. To be called blue-blooded was to be recognized as a member of the aristocracy: those who did no manual labor and as a consequence possessed skin pallid enough for blue-tinged veins to show through.
Work for the aristocracy occurs once in a blue moon, which is close to never, if ever. Why work when you can own the labor of others? Or own others.
"Economic Section: Sales of Animals," announces an ad in Havana, Cuba in 1839. For sale, for the sum of 500 pesos, "a Creole negro woman, young, healthy, and without blemishes" along with "a handsome horse of fine breeding, six spans and three inches."
"Leeches - superior quality, just arrived from the peninsula," goes a smaller advertisement -- under the heading, "Domestic goods for hire." Preceding the announcement for segmented worms, another commodity is marketed: "Negro women for service . . . and for any work."[1]
Blue is the swelling, limitless expanse -- the ocean on which Tacuabe travels on his way to France. The year is 1834 and the cavalry of the Uruguayan General Fructuoso Rivera has just completed their civilizing operation with high efficiency -- not one Indian remains alive in Uruguay.
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