Cartagena de Indias, 1715. The air was not just air, it was a dense, heavy soup, a suffocating mixture of Caribbean saltpeter, the sweet smell of sugar cane rotting in the sun, and the metallic smell of dried blood. In the kitchens of the mansion of Don Rodrigo de Armentia, a wealthy Basque, this miasma took on an even more grotesque texture.

Here the greasy aroma of fried foods clung to the stone walls like a shroud, mixing with the sweat of African bodies marked with fire. Scars that told stories of ghost ships and distant coasts in Benin and Senegal. At the heart of this domestic hell was Lucia. She wasn’t just a slave, she was an epicenter of colliding worlds.

Her eyes, an unusual amber color, did not reflect the submission expected of her. They glowed with the intensity of embers, as if containing the fire of ancient rituals celebrated thousands of miles away, captured in a Congo village, where drums were the voice of the dead and Inquisi spirits demanded tributes of flesh. Lucía had been stripped of her land, but not of her essence.

His lips, often silent, moved constantly in an inaudible murmur, weaving prayers to forgotten deities as in Sambi and at the same time cursing curses with the same devotion. She carried with her small amulets hidden in the folds of her threadbare clothes, little cloth bags containing monkey bones, soil from her village and Malagueta peppercorns, whose ardour, she said to herself, was more powerful than the equatorial sun, which punished the walled city. The night was his personal ordeal. Don Rodrigo,

A burly man whose obesity was a testament to his gluttony and power, he saw her not as a person, but as a vessel for his darkest and most forbidden desires. Night after night he wore it, his body becoming a cauldron where he poured out his lust.

From that violence three children were born, hybrid creatures with mulatto skin and, according to Lucía, cursed souls from their conception. Major Rodrigo Jr. already showed his father’s greed, his small hands, always looking to grab, to possess. The two twin daughters had a high-pitched and disturbing laugh, which resounded in the corridors of the house, like the echo of fullness in a distant savannah.

They were living proof of his subjugation, a constant reminder of his captivity to the outside world, to the Creole society of Cartagena. Lucia was a luxury possession. Don Rodrigo boasted of his skill in the kitchen, of how his hands could transform the local fish and the viands into delicacies worthy of a birrey.

He displayed it at his parties, where the colonial elite gathered to drink cane wine and talk about business and slaves. he ignored or chose to ignore the malaria fevers that consumed Lucia periodically. In these feverish delusions, the line between the physical and spiritual worlds dissolved. He saw the ghosts of his ancestors, warriors with their faces painted for battle, devouring the hearts of white men in a banquet of cosmic vengeance.

Their voices whispered in his ear like the rustling of dry leaves, recipes for oil servants capable of dissolving colonial sins, of purifying the world with fire. The kitchen was his domain and his prison, a large and cavernous space, with high ceilings from which iron hooks hung and a brick stove that burned and night.

In the center of the service courtyard, in the open air, was the large iron pail. It was a monstrous piece, so large that a man could curl up inside. It was used for large fried foods, to prepare the food of all the servants or for Don Rodrigo’s parties. For Lucía, that paila was more than a kitchen utensil. It was a potential altar, an instrument of retribution.

Each time she cleaned it, she felt the weight of the iron, the history of past fires. She imagined the palm oil imported from her own African homeland, not just frying fish, but purifying injustice. The plan began to take shape not as an act of cold logic, but as a feverish vision that refused to fade. The revenge would not be a fit of rage, but a meticulously orchestrated ritual, a final feast.

The perfect opportunity arose with the arrival of Carnival, that time of year when Cartagena plunged into a controlled chaos of music, dance, and masks. Leather and cardboard masks concealed identities. Sugarcane liquor flowed like a river of oblivion. And the boundaries between master and slave, though never entirely disappearing, became momentarily blurred in the collective euphoria. For weeks, Lucía prepared.

She gathered herbs during the times she was sent to market. Not the common varieties she used in her stews, but other, secret ones: lemon verbena leaves with a potent sleep-inducing property if one concentrated properly, roots that, according to old stories, clouded the mind. She observed the family with a new intensity.

She studied their routines, their weaknesses, Don Rodrigo’s gluttony, the son’s arrogance, the twins’ cruel laughter. She didn’t see her children; she saw extensions of their oppressor, branches of the same poisoned tree. The chosen night was the culmination of the carnival. The city vibrated with the sound of drums and flutes.

Don Rodrigo and his family, having returned from one of the street parties, were euphoric and exhausted. He asked Lucía to prepare a late dinner, something special to cap off the evening. His famous fish fried in palm oil was the signal she had been waiting for. “Yes, my master,” Lucía replied.

Her voice was strangely calm, a stillness that contrasted sharply with the chaos of the city and the storm brewing in her soul. A dinner they wouldn’t forget. While the family relaxed in the main room, removing their sweaty masks, Lucía moved with ritualistic precision. She prepared a lemon verbena infusion, much stronger than usual, sweetening it with honey to mask the bitterness.

She served it to the family as a refreshing drink to quench their thirst in the evening heat. They drank it eagerly. Then she went out to the patio. The large iron pot was already on the mangrove wood stove. She began to feed it, the wood crackling, throwing sparks into the night sky like malevolent, shooting stars. The sound was like bones breaking in a hellish fire.

He emptied several jugs of palm oil into the pan. The thick, reddish liquid captured the dancing reflection of the flames. The air filled with the familiar scent of his homeland. An aroma that night brought not nostalgia, but the promise of judgment. He waited. The silence inside the house deepened as the drug took effect. First, yawns. Then lethargy.

Soon, the four bodies lay in a deep, unnatural sleep. The moment had arrived. The cauldron of whispers was ready to receive its guests. The silence that gripped Don Rodrigo’s mansion was dense and unnatural, a sonorous void amidst the din of the carnival that still roared outside the stone walls.

Lucía moved through the silence like a ghost. Her first target was Don Rodrigo, who was snoring heavily in his armchair, his massive chest rising and falling with difficulty. The poison from the herbs had rendered him completely unconscious. Dragging him out was a Herculean task.

Lucía, though strong from years of relentless work, had to use all her strength. She pulled him by the arms. His obese body was a dead weight that resisted every tug. Sweat beaded on her forehead, but her determination was ironclad. She dragged him out of the room across the inner courtyard, leaving a trail on the tiled floor. Every meter was a victory.

She led him to the edge of the large vat, where the palm oil was already emitting a soft murmur as it slowly heated over the crackling flames of the mangrove wood. With ropes she had previously hidden, she tied him up. He didn’t struggle. His snores were the only answer to his impending fate. Lucía worked with the efficiency of a butcher preparing an animal for slaughter.

She stripped his white, flabby body bare, exposing it to the night air. His skin, normally hidden beneath layers of fine linen, looked pale and vulnerable in the flickering firelight. The horror began with a deliberate act of immersion. Lucía, using a rudimentary pulley sometimes employed for lifting heavy sacks, lifted him and submerged him, alive but unconscious, in the now bubbling oil.

The first contact of the hot oil with his skin caused a violent hiss, a high-pitched sound that sliced ​​through the night air. Don Rodrigo’s body convulsed instantly, a reflex spasm that roused him from his induced lethargy. His eyes snapped open, the initial confusion quickly replaced by an understanding of pure and utter terror.

A guttural, inhuman scream burst from his throat, but it was drowned out by the crackling of the oil. His skin began to melt. Layers of epidermis and fat dissolved in bubbles that burst on the surface, releasing a nauseating smell of burnt flesh that quickly overpowered the earthy aroma of the palm oil.

His body fat exploded in small flames, turning him into a writhing, screaming human torch. His eyes, fried in their sockets, burst with a wet sound, releasing yellowish pus that mingled with tears of agony. Lucia watched his impassive face, a mask of deadly serenity.

As he struggled, his limbs charring into black scabs that cracked open to reveal the red, pulsating muscle beneath, she began to sing in Kikongo. They were the songs her grandmother used to sing to her. Not lullabies, but war chants, invocations to vengeful spirits. Pelo fogo dos meus, tua carne alimenta os espíritus famintos.

Her voice intoned a dark melody over the symphony of crackling and screams. The smell of burning flesh attracted flies that buzzed around the cauldron like a swarm of lost souls. When Don Rodrigo’s screams finally died away in a final gurgle, Lucía returned to the house. The poison had worked differently on the children.

The eldest son, Rodrigo, was fast asleep. The younger twins huddled together on a sofa, also unconscious. He dragged the boy next. He was lighter, but the task was no less grim. He carried him to the communal cauldron, where his father’s remains were still cooking. He undressed him and, without hesitation, submerged him legs first.

The boy awoke with the shock of searing pain. His howl was sharp and piercing, the cry of a young animal caught in a deadly trap. The skin of his legs peeled off in flakes like scales of rotten fish. Bubbles of boiling oil entered his mouth, open in an eternal scream that was silenced by the deadly liquid. Finally, it was the twins’ turn.

He lifted them together, their small, lifeless bodies in his arms. For a moment, a fleeting glimmer of something akin to doubt crossed his face. They were his flesh, his blood. But the image of Don Rodrigo, the memory of the nights of rape, the echo of his cruel laughter hardened his heart once more. They were the seed of the oppressor.

She threw them into the pan as if they were offerings to Mami, the deity of the treacherous waters who gives as much as she takes away. Their tender flesh fried with a sharp crackle. Fat spurted out, splattering like blood in sacrifices of old. Their curly hair caught fire, creating a halo of blue flames that briefly illuminated their faces.

Now grotesque masks distorted by a pain they could never express. Lucia stayed by the fire for hours, feeding the flames, watching as the bodies disintegrated, reduced to a shapeless mass of bones and charred tissue, floating in the thick, reddish soup.

The already heavy air of Cartagena grew thick with the smoke from his funeral pyre. He felt neither triumph nor joy. He felt an immense emptiness, the calm that follows the most violent storm. He had performed his ritual, he had fed the spirits. The banquet was over. The masks had fallen, revealing the raw and brutal truth that lay hidden beneath the surface of colonial life.

Dawn arrived with a pale, sickly light that filtered over the rooftops of Cartagena. The din of the carnival had faded to a distant murmur, leaving behind dirty streets and the stench of alcohol and sweat. In the courtyard of Don Rodrigo’s house, the fire under the cauldron had died down, leaving only smoldering embers.

A layer of solidified grease was beginning to form on the surface of the oil, partially concealing the horrors it contained. The discovery was made by one of the youngest servants, a girl named Inés, sent to wake the family. Finding the rooms empty and the house eerily silent, her growing panic led her to the service yard.

The smell hit her first, a pungent, repulsive stench of burnt flesh that caught in her throat. Then she saw the cauldron, peering out fearfully. Her scream tore through the morning silence; what she saw would scar her forever. Charred human remains, fragments of bone, and bits of crispy meat floated in a dark, oily soup. The uproar erupted like a powder keg.

The colonial authorities, led by the captain of the guard, a stern man named Morales, arrived quickly. The scene was so gruesome that even the most hardened soldiers looked away. Lucía was found in her small room, sitting on her cot, her gaze lost in the distance. She did not resist arrest. Her calmness was disconcerting, almost inhuman.

The news spread through Cartagena like wildfire. The Congo slave who fried her master and his children. The story was whispered in the markets, in the taverns, in the salons of the elite. It was a mixture of horror and morbid fascination. For the slaves, it was an almost mythical act of rebellion. For the masters, it was confirmation of their worst fears about the barbarity of Africans.

Lucía was imprisoned in the dungeons of San Felipe Castle, a damp and dark place where hope was destined to die. She was interrogated, but barely spoke. Her silence was her last refuge. Meanwhile, Captain Morales, a methodical man not given to simplistic explanations, ordered a thorough search of the mansion.

I didn’t believe the story was as simple as an act of revenge by a deranged slave. Something didn’t add up. It was during this search, in a small wooden chest hidden beneath the floor of Lucia’s room, that they found the turning point of the whole story: a bundle of letters. These weren’t Lucia’s letters; they were written in refined Spanish with elegant calligraphy.

They were love letters, but of a profoundly disturbing nature. They were signed R and addressed to my dear D. This is where the narrative takes a complete turn. The tensuan of Kishotenketsu, the twist that redefines everything. The letters, read by an increasingly astonished Morales, were not from Don Rodrigo to some lover.

The handwriting belonged to Rodrigo Jr., the eldest son, barely 14 years old. And the recipient, my dear D, was Diego, the son of a neighboring family, also from the Creole elite. The letters revealed a devastating secret. Rodrigo Jr. and Diego were having a clandestine love affair, but the content went far beyond forbidden affection.

The letters detailed the deep hatred Rodrigo Jr. felt for his father. He described him as a tyrannical monster, a hypocritical tyrant who abused his mother, Don Rodrigo’s legitimate wife, a Spanish woman who had died years before, officially from tropical fevers, and the slaves alike. But the most shocking revelation was in the last letters.

Desperate to escape his father’s control and inherit his fortune so he could run away with Diego, Rodrigo Jr. had devised a monstrous plan. He wrote to Diego, “My father is an obstacle, a tumor that must be removed, and my sisters are merely extensions of his tyranny, his little spies. I have found a way. I will use the Congo.”

Her hatred for him is a perfect tool. I will convince her. I will manipulate her pain. I will make her believe that the spirits of her ancestors are demanding vengeance. I will give her the herbs. I will teach her the dosage. She will be the instrument, the hand that holds the knife. But the will will be mine. When it is all over, she will be blamed, a mere savage slave who went mad. And we, my dear D, will be free.

Suddenly, the story was reversed. Lucía wasn’t the mastermind behind an ancient vendetta; she had been a puppet. The real monster wasn’t just the Father, but also the Son, who, consumed by his own desire for freedom and power, had plotted the murder of his entire family.

He had manipulated Lucía’s spirituality, her beliefs, her pain, turning her genuine suffering into a weapon for his own selfish ends. Morales realized that Lucía’s visions, the whispers of the ancestors, had likely been fueled and directed by young Rodrigo. He had provided her with the sleeping herbs. He had planted the idea of ​​the final feast.

He had made Lucía the executor of her own parricide and fratricide. The horror of Lucía’s act did not diminish, but it was now shrouded in an even deeper layer of tragedy: manipulation and betrayal. She had believed she was carrying out an act of cosmic justice, a ritual of liberation for her people, when in reality she was being used in the cruelest way possible.

The revelation of the letters changed the perception of the public and the authorities. The narrative of the wild slave crumbled, replaced by a much darker saga of depravity within the Creole elite itself. The scandal was no longer about a slave rebellion, but about the moral rot festering at the heart of Cartagena’s most powerful families.

Lucía, the murderer, also became a victim, a pawn in a game far more sinister than anyone could have imagined. The revelation contained in Rodrigo Hijo’s letters shook the foundations of Cartagena society. Captain Morales, with the bundle of letters as irrefutable proof, presented his findings to the governor.

The scandal, which had previously centered on the terrifying figure of Lucía, now shifted to the unimaginable corruption of the colony’s privileged youth. Diego’s family was immediately placed under scrutiny, and the young man was arrested and interrogated. Cornered and terrified, Diego confessed everything, corroborating the story of manipulation and the macabre plan orchestrated by Rodrigo Jr.

The ensuing trial was the most talked-about event in decades. It was no longer just the trial of a murderous slave, but a mirror reflecting the decadence of the ruling class. However, colonial justice had its own twisted priorities. Despite overwhelming evidence that Lucía had been manipulated, she had committed the acts, dragged the bodies, lit the fire, and watched them burn. According to the law, her hand was the one that had carried out the crime, and the law

The precedent of a slave killing their master, regardless of the circumstances, with impunity could not be allowed. The prosecutor, an ambitious man seeking to ingratiate himself with the terrified elite, argued that while manipulation was a mitigating factor, it did not absolve Lucía of her inherently violent nature.

He portrayed her as a perfect vessel for evil, a pot that young Rodrigo had simply filled with his poison. The defense, a court-appointed lawyer with little conviction, could barely mount a coherent argument against the enormity of the charges. Lucía remained silent for most of the trial.

When she was finally given the opportunity to speak, she looked directly into the judge’s eyes and said, “In broken but firm Spanish, he promised me the return of my gods. He promised me that fire would cleanse the land. I was deceived. But the fire, the fire was real. His words were not a plea for mercy, but a statement of fact.

The confession of a betrayed faith. The verdict was as expected. Lucía was found guilty of multiple murders. The sentence was death by garrote, one of the cruelest methods of execution, reserved for the most heinous crimes. After the execution, her body would be dismembered and fried in oil, a grotesque parody of her own crime.

The pieces would be hung on hooks in public squares as a warning to any other slave who harbored thoughts of rebellion. The execution was scheduled to take place in the main square, in front of the cathedral. On the appointed day, a crowd gathered. It was a grim sight. Slaves, merchants, soldiers—all were there to witness the final act of this tragedy. Lucia was led to the gallows.

Her face showed no fear, only infinite weariness. As the executioner placed the iron collar around her neck, her eyes scanned the crowd, not seeking sympathy, but as if searching for something or someone beyond the visible world. When the tourniquet turned, her neck snapped with a dry crack. Her body convulsed and then lay still. But the story did not end with her death.

The second part of the sentence was carried out with performative brutality. His body was taken down, dismembered, and, in a pan brought to the plaza, his remains were fried in palm oil before the horrified and fascinated gaze of the crowd.

The smell of burnt flesh, the same smell that had filled the courtyard of Don Rodrigo’s mansion, now permeated the heart of the city. The blackened pieces of his body were hung on hooks like macabre artifacts. They became a powerful and ambiguous symbol. For the ruling class, they were a reminder of the restored order, of the power of colonial law.

But for the enslaved population and many of the city’s poor, those charred remains represented something more. They were the relics of a martyr, a woman whose immense suffering had driven her to a terrible act, but who had ultimately been betrayed by the very system that oppressed her. The curse, however, transcended Lucia’s physical death and the execution of her sentence. The story became legend, and the legend began to manifest its own dark power.

Lucía’s death and the public display of her remains did not bring peace to Cartagena. Instead, they seemed to unleash a kind of collective madness, a curse that clung to the city like the smell of rancid grease. Lucía’s essence, her ninquisi, her wronged and betrayed spirit, found no rest.

According to the legend that quickly spread through the slave quarters and kitchens of the city, his spirit had become attached to that which had been the instrument of his crime and his punishment: boiling palm oil. The curse began to manifest itself in subtle but terrifying ways. Cooks in the large houses, while frying fritters or fish, would begin to go mad. They swore they saw things in the bubbling oil.

Some spoke of a woman’s face forming on the surface, with amber eyes staring down at them from the depths of the cauldron. Others—and this was the most chilling—claimed to see small, childlike hands emerging from the boiling oil, hands that tried to grab their throats and drag them down. Several cooks were found dead in their kitchens.

With expressions of pure terror, their bodies strangely unharmed, the hysteria grew. Cases were reported of people found dead in their bathtubs, the water cold, but their bodies scalded, their skin peeling off like old, damp paper, as if they had been boiled from the inside out. No one could explain it.

The doctors of the time spoke of malignant vapors or sudden fevers, but the people in the street knew the truth. It was Lucia’s curse. Don Rodrigo’s mansion was abandoned. No one dared to buy it, much less live in it. It was said that on sweltering nights, when the Caribbean wind blew through the broken windows, one could hear the ghostly hiss of an eternal frying pan.

Sometimes a whisper seemed to travel on the breeze, a woman’s voice saying in a mixture of Spanish and an unknown African language: “O aceite une, e devora os opresores, no calor esquecimento. Oil unites and devours oppressors in the heat of forgetfulness.” The legend of Lucía de Cartagena became a cautionary tale, a ghost story told to frighten children, but also a powerful, subterranean reminder of the brutality of the colonial system.

Her story became a foundational myth of the city’s dark side. It was no longer just the story of a slave, a master, and their children. It was the story of how violence begets more violence, how oppression can twist the human soul beyond recognition, and how injustice, once unleashed, can leave an echo that resonates through generations.

Over time, the historical details faded, swallowed up by the myth, Rodrigo Jr.’s manipulation, the letters, the trial. All of that became a footnote to the main story, which was most powerful in its simple, brutal form: the slave who fried her master. But the truth of the manipulation added a layer of tragedy that made her curse all the more comprehensible.

It wasn’t just the spirit of a murderess; it was the spirit of a woman who had been robbed of everything, including her own vengeance. In the kitchens of Cartagena, for centuries, cooks would eye the pans of boiling oil with suspicion.

And on hot nights, when the air is thick and the past feels close, some still swear they smell a faint scent of burnt flesh on the wind and hear a whisper promising that oil binds everything together and that in the warmth of oblivion, debts are always paid. Lucía’s story became an indelible scar on the soul of Cartagena, a perpetual reminder of the price of cruelty. Centuries passed, and Cartagena de Indias was transformed.

The walls, which once enclosed a society of masters and slaves, now surround a tourist treasure. Its cobblestone streets are strolled by visitors from all over the world. The colonial mansions, once symbols of power and oppression, have been transformed into boutique hotels, luxury restaurants, and museums. The house that belonged to Don Rodrigo de Armentia, after more than a century of abandonment and ruin, was finally demolished and rebuilt.

Its somber history, buried beneath new foundations and whitewashed walls in vibrant colors. Yet some stories are like oil; they seep deep into the wood, stain the stone, and never truly disappear. The legend of Lucía de Cartagena survived. It ceased to be a scandalous news story and became folklore, a whisper in the city’s collective memory.

The story was told by grandmothers not only as a horror story to discipline children, but as a complex parable about pain, injustice, and the terrible forms that revenge can take. The figure of Lucía became an archetype.

For some, she remained the fritter woman, a nightmarish specter associated with the smell of hot oil and the crackling sound of frying. Street vendors of arepas de huevo and carimañolas, while handling their large pans, sometimes made the sign of the cross, half in earnest, half out of tradition, to ward off her spirit. Spilling oil was believed to be a bad omen, an invitation for Lucía’s sorrow to visit the kitchen.

For others, especially in circles of scholars of Afro-Caribbean history and among practitioners of African-derived religions that secretly survived, the image of Lucía was more complex. She was seen as a tragic spirit, a tortured soul whose immense spiritual strength was perverted and manipulated.

She was not a demon to be feared, but an ancestor to be understood. Her story served as a brutal reminder that resistance, when stripped of its own agency and truth, can become just another tool in the oppressor’s hands.

The revelation of the cards, though often omitted from popular versions of the tale, was at the heart of its tragedy. The woman who sought cosmic justice was reduced to a pawn in a sordid family drama. The curse also evolved. It no longer manifested as unexplained deaths or literal apparitions. It transformed into something more subtle, a cultural anxiety.

The hiss of oil in the pan on a silent night. A shadow dancing strangely in the light of the stove. The feeling of being watched in the solitude of an old kitchen. Lucía’s curse became the personification of the city’s guilty conscience. The tacit acknowledgment that Cartagena’s vibrant beauty was built on a foundation of unspeakable suffering.

In modern times, the story took on new forms. Visual artists portrayed her not as a monster, but as a figure of pain and power, with amber eyes ablaze. Writers and poets reclaimed her voice, imagining the songs she sang, the prayers to Ensambi, the curses woven with allspice; she became a potent symbol of female resistance and the brutality of slavery.

A somber counterpoint to the romanticized image of the colonial past. Such is the story of Lucía de Cartagena, the slave who fried her master and his children in palm oil in 1715. It is finished, but not over. It lingers in the salty breeze that carries the smell of fried food from the Getsemaní market, in the dryness of the stone walls of the historic center, and in the depths of the eyes of a people who have learned to live with their ghosts.

The oil that united and consumed the oppressors in 1715 continues to bind the past and the present, ensuring that in the warmth of memory, oblivion is never complete. The oily scar on Cartagena’s soul has never truly disappeared; it has only learned to shine under the Caribbean sun.