Geographies of slavery in the Les Malouines/Las Malvinas/Falklands Islands: The Maroon connection

Abstract

This paper analyses slavery in the Les Malouines/Las Malvinas/Falklands Islands to advance the historical study of the geographies of race in Argentina with reference to marronage and critical place naming. These islands are an example of an assemblage of colonial military extractive powers. There still are disputes with Argentina since the armed conflict of 1982. However, Las Malvinas were a part of the Spanish Empire since the French colonial authorities sold this territory in 1766. Despite being seen as at the margins of this Empire, an infertile terrain with unbearable weather, and a place of punishment for those who defied colonial rule, it was of strategic value, expensive but worth maintaining to keep the British Empire removed from Buenos Aires and Montevideo. To reduce the islands' expenses, the plan was to relocate recaptured fugitives to this territory as a labour force. Archival records collected from the National General Archive of Uruguay, General Archive of the Indies, and National Historical Archive of Madrid show that Las Malvinas were not exempt from slavery. In 1770, Antonio and Miguel, ‘royal slaves’, were part of the islands' population among white Europeans and indigenous people held captive there. They were allowed to leave the islands to live and serve the King and they navigated through the ports of Montevideo and Buenos Aires, where their tracks end. This paper demonstrates how this insular space, meant for penance, was also a place where resistance linked with marronage broke an assemblage of colonial military powers. It also highlights that the historical geographies of slavery in Argentina are intrinsically assembled with the dispossession of indigenous and other disadvantaged groups proposing an Afro‐Marrón approach to their analysis with a potential extension to other racialised Latin American geographies.