The indigenous people of Peru, descendants of the great Incan civilization, endured centuries of mistreatment and exploitation under Spanish colonial rule. Vallejo, who was of mixed Indian heritage and spoke Quechua, shared this lineage and witnessed its impact in his rural village and on the plantation where he worked for a period. The anguish he observed is captured in “The Black Heralds,” where the speaker's life is depicted as being filled with unexpressed agony, leaving the speaker feeling frustrated and hopeless. Like many oppressed peoples, the poem's subject cries out for relief from life's harshness yet suppresses desperation with a sense of fatalistic melancholy about a future that seems inevitable. Despite this, there is a subtle hint of pride from a once-great people yearning for their long-lost rightful place. The suffering described is both physical and emotional: blows that leave marks on the body, erode faith, and drive a person into a state of frenzied desperation and confusion.

Vallejo was deeply troubled by existential questions about life's purpose. The thought of the grave haunted him, as he viewed life as an unrelenting journey toward death. In “The Black Heralds,” the title refers to the “black heralds sent to us by Death,” while the phrase “deep falls of the Christs of the soul” suggests the final path Christ took to his crucifixion. It seems Vallejo may doubt that Christ ever reached Calvary or achieved a resurrection to rescue humanity, as the poem portrays the soul's ongoing suffering. This perspective argues that a compassionate God, who provided a savior, would not act like the vengeful God Vallejo describes. These feelings explain why the message in “The Black Heralds” is seen as questioning and challenging God, if not verging on blasphemy. The poem conveys intense, painful frustration over the inability to understand why life is so difficult.

"The Black Heralds" serves as a prime illustration of existential despair. The poem vividly portrays the existential experience: attempting to derive meaning from a world that appears meaningless, vacant, and perplexing; striving to comprehend the purpose of an existence that seems irrational; seeking to balance personal freedom and responsibility with established ethics and morality; and persevering through life's challenges when there seems to be neither justification nor reward. Angst is frequently linked to existentialism due to the overwhelming anxiety, guilt, and isolation that accompany personal accountability and arise from unresolved questions about causality and human suffering. One potential conclusion is that life lacks meaning, leading only to a void, yet Vallejo expresses uncertainty about what conclusion to reach.