conflictos y litigación en torno a la ley de vientre libre en el Río de la Plata (1813-1860) 1
"The time of the freedmen": conflicts and litigation around the Free Womb Law in the Rio de la Plata (1813-1860)El presente artículo busca profundizar el conocimiento sobre el proceso de abolición de la esclavitud en la Argentina y su carácter gradual. Para ello aborda las disputas judiciales y las consecuencias sociales que generaron dos leyes que abrieron este proceso en la región rioplatense, la ley "declarando libres a los hijos de las esclavas" -establecida en febrero de 1813 y conocida como ley de vientre libre-y el posterior "Reglamento para la educación y ejercicio de los libertos". El artículo persigue dos objetivos centrales. Por un lado, dar cuenta de la fragilidad de la libertad de esos niños y jóvenes emancipados y mostrar que la ambigüedad de su condición no fue casual, sino que se enraizó en la tradición del patronato de libertos y se tradujo en derechos negados, en incertidumbres sobre las potestades de los patrones e incluso en la posible reversibilidad del status liberi. Por otro lado, el trabajo rastrea las estrategias que desplegaron niños y jóvenes libertos (y sus seres queridos) para hacer efectivos los nuevos derechos sancionados, dando cuenta así del carácter de conquista que ellos tuvieron y no de gracia otorgada por élites compasivas o liberales. El estudio muestra finalmente que los perfiles y el alcance de la libertad fueron definidos en los tribunales, en las casas y en la calle, de modo casuístico y sobre la base de una intensa negociación y de luchas cotidianas.Palavras-chave: libertos, abolición de la esclavitud, ley de vientre libre.
Abstract. -The main purpose of this work is to elucidate the moment of strong experimentation and legal innovation, regarding slavery's regulation and its end, that opened up in some of the Hispanic American new republics between 1810 and 1830. The article reconstructs some of the legal tools and models of abolition that were thought and discussed by elites and used, and sometimes debated, by subaltern subjects that were part of these legal spaces in process of redefinition and construction. The legal tools discussed were the "free womb" laws, the patronage on freed blacks, the idea of "free soil", the abolition of the slave trade, and immediate abolition of slavery. The article reflects on the logic of these measures as well as on the explicit or implicit borrowings among elites that were creating a new way of relationship with the populations of African descent, the regulation of their work and its possibilities to access to citizenship in the new legal and political orders. At the same time, it argues that the letter of the law did not involve immediate changes in the condition of the enslaved since they had to fight over its interpretation in order to really acquire rights and improve their lives.
This article analyzes in depth the history of Petrona, an enslaved woman sold in Santa Fe (Argentina), sent to Buenos Aires and later possibly to Montevideo (Uruguay). By reconstructing her case, the article demonstrates how the legal status of enslaved persons was affected by the redefinitions of jurisdictions and by the forced or voluntary crossings between political units. This study also shows the circulation and uses of the Free Womb law in Argentina and Uruguay and traces legal experts’ debates over its meaning. At the same time, it reflects on the knowledge enslaved people had of those abolitionist norms and how they used them to resist forced relocations, attempt favorable migrations, or achieve full freedom. The article crosses analytical dimensions and historiographies—legal, social, and political— and articulates them by reflecting more broadly on these factors: the impact of the revolution of independence on enslaved persons’ lives, the scarce circulation of abolitionist public discourse in Río de la Plata, the gendered bias of the process, and the central yet untold uses of antislavery rhetoric in the national narratives.
El presente artículo busca periodizar y contextualizar la relación entre la (re)definición de la ciudadanía y los modos de construcción de diferencias aciales en el Río de la Plata entre los años 1810 y 1853 a fin de discutir específicamente la supuesta insignificancia de las distinciones fundadas en la afrodescendencia, el pasado esclavo y el color a la hora de definir la inclusión política de los tras la evolución y hasta la organización constitucional.
Secuencia, ISSN 0186-0348, núm. 98 | mayo-agosto de 2017 | pp. 35-65 35 "Una época en la que el Ciudadano ve su seguridad individual respetada". La circulación del lenguaje de los derechos en los tribunales de la Buenos Aires posrevolucionaria (1810-1830)*
Between 1811 and 1870, policies of gradual abolition of slavery were deployed in Hispanic South America. They consisted of two fundamental measures: the prohibition of the transatlantic slave trade and the enactment of free womb laws that prevented the enslavement of newborn children. These antislavery policies were adopted in contemporary Argentina, Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Paraguay, Peru, and Uruguay in an implicit and explicit Interamerican and Atlantic dialogue as well as with strong doses of experimentation. The processes also unfolded as the second slavery expanded in Brazil and the Caribbean.
A first set of antislavery policies was deployed between 1811 and 1830, and the wave of definitive abolitions occurred mostly in the 1850s. There were exceptions to this periodization with very early examples of complete abolition (such as Chile in 1826) or very late examples of gradual abolition (Paraguay in 1842). In any case, a common feature in these processes was the extension of the dependency of persons of African descent through the creation of different kinds of freedmen’s status, tutelages, or patronatos. Laws declared the right to freedom but established conditions that extended unfree labor and subjection for years and even decades, othering and stigmatizing the free and freed offspring of the African diaspora in Spanish South America.
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