Manumision as a political dimension of freedom in the Province of Cartagena, 1800 - 1810

Abstract

The central proposal of this research project is to analyze the dynamics that occurred in the process of manumission, during the nineteenth century, in the Province of Cartagena. Basically, what we are trying to explain are the means that enslaved blacks had to leave their slave status. It will be highlighted in the appeal of the manumission, found in the manuscripts of the litigation made, in the background of blacks and slaves of the General Archive of the Nation; It is important not to lose sight that the voice of these social actors and their access to freedom will be traced.

 It is therefore that the present investigative work will analyze the resources that identified a black slave, of unknown name, who during the year 1802 sought the mechanisms to obtain his freedom in the province of Mompox. However, the lawsuit between Francisco Blanco de Castilla will be studied, for the title deeds of a black slave named Clemente, aged 13, given in the province of Santa Cruz de Mompox, on the coast of the Rio Grande de la Magdalena of the governorate of Cartagena de Indias.

Manumission as a mechanism to obtain freedom, compared to some cases that were generated in the province of Cartagena in the years 1800 - 1810. The mechanism of manumission is detailed in time as a legal process sometimes confronts the viability of slaves in front of their masters, in that we can verify the mechanism that opposes and imposes itself as a device in the slave system.

 In this journey we perceive the way in which the manumission as a legal action causes a change of perspective against the dominant slavery, it was not only in a certain place that this legal option could be obtained, but in many places they were made available by the slaves many times, a change of condition that not only remained in the thought, did not remain in an acceptance of the slavery of life, but was used in the generated facts that determined several cases, in its assumption it was in being able to have a significant reward for them called freedom letter.

That is why in this study we are interested in analyzing the manumission of blacks in the Caribbean of the mainland, more specifically in the Province of Cartagena de Indias, highlighting this option as one of the legal routes to which black slaves appealed to obtain your freedom Starting from the dynamics that were lived in the Caribbean at that time, illustrating through some examples of the period how

it was these mechanisms used by blacks already manumitted and how they were decisive in the city, based on the sources found in the A.G.N. and the Historical Archive of Cartagena de Indias.