Abstract

PEREZ, Ana. Legal actions undertaken by enslaved people. memorias [online]. 2019, n.37, pp.12-39. ISSN 1794-8886.  https://doi.org/10.14482/memor.37.986.101.

In this article, we analyzed how the enslaved appropriated the legal tools (Real Cédula de 1789, Laws of Manumission of 1814 and 1821) to appeal to legal freedom in the province of Antioquia in 1789-1821. Methodological tools of microhistory were used, such as the reduction of scale, the small indication as the scientific paradigm, the attention to the story and a specific definition of context. To argue the objective of this article, the subaltern studies were taken as a conceptual framework and the judicial and notarial funds of the historical archives were consulted. The petitions and lawsuits of freedom carried out by some enslaved are exposed from what the legal system of the time offered them. It is concluded that the status obtained by the enslaved to receive his letter of freedom was to be named a man responsible for himself and not by the acts of will of others. However, in daily life continued to preserve acts of submission, characteristic of the slave system.

Keywords : slavery; freedom; manumission laws; Antioquia; 18th -19th century.

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