Freedom's captives : slavery and gradual emancipation on the Colombian Black Pacific / Yesenia Barragan.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Barragan, Yesenia, author.

Series:

Afro-Latin America.

Afro-Latin America

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Slavery--Colombia--Pacific Coast--History.

Slavery.

Enslaved persons--Emancipation--Colombia--Pacific Coast--History.

Enslaved persons.

Pacific Coast (Colombia)--History.

Pacific Coast (Colombia).

Colombia--Race relations.

Colombia.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xvii, 326 pages) : digital, PDF file(s).

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, United Kingdom ; New York, NY : Cambridge University Press, 2021.

Summary:

Freedom's Captives is a compelling exploration of the gradual abolition of slavery in the majority-black Pacific coast of Colombia, the largest area in the Americas inhabited primarily by people of African descent. From the autonomous rainforests and gold mines of the Colombian Black Pacific, Yesenia Barragan rethinks the nineteenth-century project of emancipation by arguing that the liberal freedom generated through gradual emancipation constituted a modern mode of racial governance that birthed new forms of social domination, while temporarily instituting de facto slavery. Although gradual emancipation was ostensibly designed to destroy slavery, she argues that slaveholders in Colombia came to have an even greater stake in it. Using narrative and storytelling to map the worlds of Free Womb children, enslaved women miners, free black boatmen, and white abolitionists in the Andean highlands, Freedom's Captives insightfully reveals how the Atlantic World processes of gradual emancipation and post-slavery rule unfolded in Colombia.

Contents:

Cover

Half-title

Series information

Title page

Copyright information

Dedication

Epigraph

Contents

List of Figures

List of Tables

Acknowledgments

Introduction: ''Reborn for Freedom''

Gradual Emancipation Rule in Colombia and the Atlantic World

Beyond the Andes: The Pacific Lowlands of Colombia and the Black Pacific World

Sources, Methodology, and Questions

Outline of Chapters

Part I The Social Universe of the Colombian Black Pacific

1 Black Freedom and the Aquatic Lowlands

Rivers

Gold

Black Women and the Lowland Gold-Mining Economy

2 Slavery and the Urban Pacific Frontier

Quibdó

Nóvita

Part II The Time of Gradual Emancipation Rule

3 The Gradual Emancipation Law of 1821 and Abolitionist Publics in Colombia

Origins of Colombia's 1821 Law: The 1814 Law of Antioquia and the Late Wars of Independence

The Free Womb Debate at the Congress of Cúcuta

Abolitionist and Antiabolitionist Publics in 1820s Colombia

4 The Children of the Free Womb and Technologies of Gradual Emancipation Rule

Learning and Litigating the Free Womb Law

The Trafficking of Lowland Free Womb Captives

The War of the Supremes and a New Law of Manumission

5 Routes to Freedom, Gradients of Unfreedom: Testamentary Manumission, Self-Purchase, and Public Manumissions

Testamentary Manumission and Self-Purchase in the Lowlands

The Making of the Manumission Junta and the Politics of Liberalidad

The Evolution of the Manumission Juntas

Part III Final Abolition and the Afterlife of Gradual Emancipation

6 Final Abolition and the Problem of Black Autonomy

A New Era in Colombia and the Pacific Lowlands

Final Abolition and the Politics of Compensation in Colombia

Postemancipation Geographies and the Problem of Black Autonomy

Epilogue: ''The Precious Gift of Freedom''.

Bibliography

Archives

Colombia

England

United States

Newspapers and Periodicals

Printed Primary Sources

Secondary Sources

Index.

Notes:

Title from publisher's bibliographic system (viewed on 18 Jun 2021).

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

1-108-93613-X

1-108-93636-9

1-108-93589-3

OCLC:

1259283411