Abstract

OCHOA-RINCON, Astrid-Carolina. "I Request my Freedom": The Construction of the Free Identity in the Liberty Requests Sent to Manumission Boards of Medellín, Colombia (1830-1851). Hist. Soc. [online]. 2023, n.44, pp.98-127.  Epub Feb 21, 2024. ISSN 0121-8417.  https://doi.org/10.15446/hys.n44.104506.

The free womb law of July of 1821 raised for Gran Colombia the gradual emancipation of the enslaved and the creation of Manumission Boards in charge of carrying out this process in each province and canton of the territory. From the promulgation of the legislation until the abolition of slavery -1851-, the enslaved people from Medellín appeared before the board requesting to be elected to enjoy the precious gift of freedom and declaring that they possessed a series of qualities that made them free men and women. In this sense, this paper investigates the process of construction of this free identity and raises the following questions: How was the idea of freedom configured in the imaginary of the enslaved population? What was the point of requesting it before the Manumission Board? What characteristics made a person deserve or not freedom and how did these characteristics influence the representation that the enslaved made of themselves? To answer these questions, the requests for freedom of 335 enslaved were characterized and a sample of these was analyzed and interpreted in light of the context in which they were created, with which it is concluded that through the requests the enslaved made use of a language hegemonic and some strategies of enunciation that allowed them to build an identity of subjects deserving of the freedom given by the Manumission Board of Medellín.

Keywords : Slavery; freedom; manumission; people of African descent; nation building; identity; Manumission boards; Colombia; New Grenada; 19^th century.

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