“El tiempo de los libertos”: conflictos y litigación en torno a la ley de vientre libre en el Río de la Plata (1813-1860)

AUTOR(ES)
FONTE

História

DATA DE PUBLICAÇÃO

14/01/2019

RESUMO

Abstract The article seeks to deepen the knowledge about the process of abolition of slavery in Argentina and its gradual nature. To this end, it addresses the legal disputes and the social consequences generated by two laws that opened this process in the Rio de la Plata region, the law "declaring the slaves' children free" - established in February 1813 and known as the Free Womb Law - and the later "Regulations for the education and exercise of freedmen". The article is twofold. On the one hand, it gives an account of the fragility of the freedom “given” to these emancipated children and youth and shows that the ambiguity of their condition was not accidental, but rooted in the legal tradition of considering them as freedman, and resulted in denied rights, uncertainties about the patrons’ powers and even in the possible reversibility of their status liberi. On the other hand, the work traces the strategies deployed by freed children and youth (and their loved ones) to make effective the new sanctioned rights, stating that those rights were conquered and not simply a grace granted to the freedmen by compassionate or liberal elites. Finally, the study shows that the profiles and the scope of freedom were defined in the Courts, in the houses and in the street, in a casuistic way and on the basis of an intense negotiation and daily struggles.

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