 It is written in the first person as by the title character de Pareja, a half-African slave of Velázquez's.Juan de Pareja is born into slavery in Seville, Spain in the early 1600s, and after the death of his mother when he is just five years old he becomes the pageboy of a wealthy Spanish lady, Emilia.At the end of the first chapter, Doña Emilia passes along with Juan's master.