These tensions and contradictory feelings became apparent within the framework of a particular intermingling of enslavement and freedom, germane to the existence of the inherent gaps in colonial enslaved societies. For this reason, we have proposed the historical possibility of referring to the existence of a private life among enslaved people in their confrontations with enslaved society (Díaz Díaz, 2011, p. 227 et seq.), which negotiated the construction of a feeling of freedom - freedom in enslavement in a proper way, where space, territory, and habitat were 'spatial surroundings [...] placed in the service of the practices of reaction, resistance, accommodation and autonomy' (Díaz Díaz, 2011, p. 232). Particularly around the Pacific rivers in the colonial era, the ecclesiastical authorities complained perpetually about the absence of religious instruction and evangelization. This led to the creation of a long series of popular Christianisms, popular or vernacular religiosities and the abundance of open or covert dances accompanied by the consumption of crafted beverages.  
A central and decisive dynamic in the formation of these 'local societies in freedom', according to Almario García (2012, p. 74), was the fabric of family networks and longitudinally dispersed populations based on the gangs of enslaved miners following the outline of the rivers flowing towards the sea. This was studied systematically by Romero (1995) and is referred to as offshoots or trunks, in which the role of enslaved women producing children with different enslaved men, along with territorial or population appropriation, bound these cognitive networks to their territory, following or emulating African patterns of the extended family that required a cyclical and constant colonizing mobility across more or less extended areas. In these gangs of enslaved people, the node or knot of family relationships and the grim necessities of group solidarity which enabled the formation of 'free societies' were located both inside and outside the colonial slave order, as qualities woven into women.