Hostname: page-component-77c89778f8-rkxrd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-19T10:33:01.409Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Manumission on the Land: Slaves, Masters, and Magistrates in Eighteenth-Century Mompox (Colombia)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 May 2017

Edgardo Pérez Morales
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

In the mid-1700s, the town of Mompox flourished in the Spanish viceroyalty of the New Kingdom of Granada, today part of the Republic of Colombia. Built on the banks of the northern Magdalena River, an important waterway connecting the Andean interior with the Caribbean Sea, Mompox constantly buzzed with travelers and trade alike. Mompox was home to a community of merchants who profited handsomely from both legal trade and smuggling, their networks reaching places as far away as Lima in Peru and Cádiz in Spain. These merchants were frequently also slaveholders and landowners. On haciendas outside of town, slaves cultivated the land and tended large herds of cattle. They gathered wood and resins and hunted for game and jaguars (panthera onca) that preyed on livestock. Along with free people of color, slaves also worked as artisans, journeymen, and oarsmen on boats transporting goods and people up and down the river (see Figure 1).

Type
Articles
Information
Law and History Review , Volume 35 , Issue 2 , May 2017 , pp. 511 - 543
Copyright
Copyright © the American Society for Legal History, Inc. 2017 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

The author thanks Rebecca J. Scott, Jean M. Hébrard, Daniel Gutiérrez Ardila, María Eugenia Chaves, Adriana Chira, Eric Schewe, Carly Steinberger, and the anonymous reviewers for Law and History Review for their valuable help and suggestions.

References

1. Robinson, David J., ed. Mil leguas por América. De Lima a Caracas 1740–1741. Diario de viaje de don Miguel de Santisteban, (Bogotá: Banco de la República, 1992), 170–76Google Scholar; de Peredo, Diego, “Noticia historial de la provincia de Cartagena de las Indias año 1772,” Anuario Colombiano de Historia Social y de la Cultura 6–7 (1971–1972): 148 Google Scholar; von Humboldt, Alexander, En Colombia: Extractos de sus diarios preparados y presentados por la Academia Colombiana de Ciencias Exactas, Físicas y Naturales y la Academia de Ciencias de la República Democrática Alemana (Bogotá: Flota Mercante Grancolombiana, 1982)Google Scholar “Diario VII a y b” (1801); and Duane, William, A Visit to Colombia, in the Years 1822 & 1823, by Laguayra and Caracas, Over the Cordillera to Bogota, and Thence by the Magdalena to Cartagena (Philadelphia: printed by Thomas H. Palmer, for the author, 1826), 597–601 Google Scholar.

2. “Don Gabriel Martínez Guerra alcalde ordinario de la villa de Mompox dirige testimonio de la solicitud de Juan Nepomuceno Surmay albacea testamentario de don Juan Martín de Setuaín, sobre la reducción y pacificación de los esclavos de la hacienda de San Bartolomé de la Honda; para la providencia que haya lugar,” Colonia, Negros y Esclavos de Bolívar, vol. 3, doc. 5, Archivo General de la Nación, Bogotá, Colombia (hereafter AGN). On labor control and settlement patterns, see Colmenares, German, “El tránsito a sociedades campesinas de dos sociedades esclavistas en la Nueva Granada. Cartagena y Popayán, 1750–1850,” Huellas 29 (1990): 8–24 Google Scholar.

3. Kagan, Richard L., Urban Images of the Hispanic World: 1493–1793 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2000), 19–44 Google Scholar; and Movellán, Tomás A. Mantecón and Castelao, Ofelia Rey, “Identidades urbanas en la cultura hispánica: policía y cultura cívica,” in Identidades urbanas en la monarquía hispánica (siglos XVI–XVIII), ed. Castelao, Ofelia Rey and Movellán, Tomás A. Mantecón (Santiago de Compostela: Universidad Santiago de Compostela, 2015), 17–41 Google Scholar. On vassalage and political belonging in the Spanish world, see Herzog, Tamar, Defining Nations: Immigrants and Citizens in Early Modern Spain and Spanish America (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2003)Google Scholar.

4. See, for example, Schwartz, Stuart B., “The Manumission of Slaves in Colonial Brazil: Bahia, 1684–1745,” Hispanic American Historical Review 54 (1974): 603–35Google Scholar; Johnson, Lyman L., “Manumission in Colonial Buenos Aires,” Hispanic American Historical Review 59 (1979): 258–79Google Scholar; Aguirre, Carlos, Agentes de su propia libertad. Los esclavos de Lima y la desintegración de la esclavitud. 1821–1854 (Lima: Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú, 1993)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Giolitto, Loredana, “Esclavitud y libertad en Cartagena de Indias. Reflexiones en torno a un caso de manumisión a finales del período colonial,” Fronteras de la Historia 8 (2003): 65–91 Google Scholar; Brana-Shute, Rosemary and Parks, Randy J., Paths to Freedom. Manumission in the Atlantic World (Columbia: The University of South Carolina Press, 2009)Google Scholar; and McKinley, Michelle A., “Till Death Do Us Part: Testamentary Manumission in Seventeenth-Century Lima, Peru,” Slavery & Abolition 33 (2012): 381–401 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

5. In accordance with legal practice in the eighteenth-century New Kingdom of Granada, I will avoid the expression “tribunal” and “court case” when referring to Mompox. In towns such as Mompox, legal proceedings took place through paperwork exchanges pushed by magistrates and their assistants.

6. Ángel, Marta Herrera, Ordenar para controlar. Ordenamiento espacial y control político en las Llanuras del Caribe y en los Andes Centrales Neogranadinos. Siglo XVIII (Bogotá: Academia Colombiana de Historia, Instituto Colombiano de Antropología e Historia, 2002)Google Scholar; Helg, Aline, Liberty and Equality in Caribbean Colombia, 1770–1835 (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2004), 18–41 Google Scholar; and Mejía, Hugues R. Sánchez, “De arrochelados a vecinos: reformismo borbónico e integración política en las gobernaciones de Santa Marta y Cartagena, Nuevo Reino de Granada, 1740–1810,” Revista de Indias 75 (2015): 457–88Google Scholar.

7. This formulation is owing to Scardville, Michael C., “Justice by Paperwork: A Day in the Life of a Court Scribe in Bourbon Mexico City,” Journal of Social History 36 (2003): 987–91Google Scholar. On dynamics of social interdependence, see Elias, Norbert, On the Process of Civilization: Sociogenetic and Psychogenetic Investigations (Dublin: University College Dublin Press, 2012 [first published 1939])Google Scholar; Elias, Norbert, The Court Society (Dublin: University College Dublin Press, 2006 [first published 1969])Google Scholar; and Elias, Norbert and Scotson, John L., The Established and the Outsiders (Dublin: University College Dublin Press, 2008 [first published 1965])Google Scholar.

8. Pereyra, Juan Solórzano, Política Indiana (Madrid: Fundación José Antonio de Castro, 1996 [first published 1647]), 3:2002–4Google Scholar.

9. In addition to having logistical difficulties, slaves in Mompox had to carefully navigate local feuds. Undermining a master's authority over his or her slaves became a tactic of confrontation among bitterly quarreling elites. Borda, Orlando Fals, Historia doble de la costa. Tomo I. Mompox y Loba (Bogotá: Carlos Valencia Editores, 1980), 99B–102BGoogle Scholar; Villa, Carlos Eduardo Valencia, Alma en boca y huesos en costal. Una aproximación a los contrastes socio-económicos de la esclavitud. Santafé, Mariquita y Mompox 1610–1660 (Bogotá: Instituto Colombiano de Antropología e Historia, 2003), 100–105 Google Scholar; Helg, Liberty, 108–20; and Villar, Vladimir Daza, Los marqueses de Santa Coa. Una historia económica del Caribe Colombiano, 1750–1810 (Bogotá: Instituto Colombiano de Antropología e Historia, 2009), 247–86Google Scholar.

10. McKinley, “Till Death,” 384.

11. On corporatist society, see Rojas, Beatriz, ed. Cuerpo político y pluralidad de derechos. Los privilegios de las corporaciones novohispanas (México: CIDE, Instituto Mora, 2007)Google Scholar. For a useful synthesis on issues of law, slavery, and legal activism in the Spanish world, see McKinley, Michelle, “Fractional Freedoms: Slavery, Legal Activism, and Ecclesiastical Courts in Colonial Lima, 1593–1689,” Law and History Review 28 (2010): 752–61Google Scholar. For a detailed bibliographical review with special emphasis on the history of the United Sates up to 2001, see Gross, Ariela, “Beyond Black and White: Cultural Approaches to Race and Slavery,” Columbia Law Review 101 (2001): 640–90CrossRefGoogle Scholar. On various slaves societies in the Americas, see the special issue on “Law, Slavery, and Justice” of Law and History Review 49 (2011): 915–1095 Google Scholar. For the case of Brazil see Hébrard, Jean, “L'esclavage au Brésil. Le débat historiographique et ses racines,” in Brésil. Quatre siècles d'esclavage. Nouvelle questions, nouvelles recherches, ed. Hébrard, Jean (Paris: Karthala, CIRESC, 2012), 7–63 Google Scholar (available in English translation as “Slavery in Brazil: Brazilian Scholars in the Key Interpretative Debates,” Translating the Americas 1 (Fall 2013): 47–95 Google Scholar.

12. Act of Sale, Gabriel de Aguilar to José de Mier, Mompox, February 16, 1729, “Propiedad de la hacienda de La Honda que dejó don Martín de Setuay [sic] a sus herederos José Emeterio y María Isabel de Mier y Setuayn en 26 de noviembre de 1798 por el último codicilio,” ff. 4r–7v, Archivo Anexo III, Real Hacienda-Cuentas, Tierras de Bolívar, vol. 2883 c, AGN; and Colmenares, Germán, Haciendas de los jesuítas en el Nuevo Reino de Granada (Bogotá: Universidad Nacional de Colombia, 1969), 63 Google Scholar.

13. Inventory and estate appraisal, San Bartolomé de la Honda, May 10, 1802, “Propiedad de la hacienda,” ff. 12r–13r.

14. de Santa Gertrudis, Fray Juan, Maravillas de la naturaleza (Bogotá: Biblioteca Banco Popular, 1970), 1:78Google Scholar.

15. Inventory and estate appraisal, San Bartolomé de la Honda, May 10, 1802, “Propiedad de la hacienda,” ff. 12r–16v.

16. Ibid.

17. Deposition of José María Rodríguez, Mompox, July 1, 1799, “Don Gabriel Martínez Guerra,” ff. 788r–789r. On “spiritual goods,” see Bauer, Arnold J., Goods, Power, History: Latin America's Material Culture (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2001), 122 Google Scholar.

18. Haciendas in the province of Cartagena rarely had 100 slaves. See Uribe, Jaime Jaramillo, “Esclavos y señores en la sociedad colombiana del siglo XVIII,” in Ensayos de historia social (Bogotá: Universidad de los Andes, 2001 [first published 1963]), 16–17, 61–62 Google Scholar; and Pinzón, Hermes Tovar, Hacienda colonial y formación social (Barcelona: Sendai, 1988), 45–58 Google Scholar.

19. Palenques (maroon settlements) were not very common in this region during the 1700s. Runaway slaves often blended into small communities formed by free people of color. Herrera Ángel, Ordenar, 203–48; and Meneses, Orián Jiménez and Morales, Edgardo Pérez, La Mojana. Medio ambiente y vida material en perspectiva histórica (Medellín: Imprenta Universidad de Antioquia, 2007), 40–70 Google Scholar.

20. Daza Villar, Los marqueses, 56.

21. “Libro de compras de simples de la Real Fábrica de Aguardiente de Mompox para el año de 1798,” ff. 1r–2r, Archivo Anexo III, Real Hacienda-Cuentas, Aguardientes, vol. 2299, AGN; General inventory of slaves, Hacienda de La Honda, June 25, 1795; and Norberto Aconcha to Juan Nepomuceno Surmay, Morales, May 25, 1801, “Don Gabriel Martínez Guerra,” ff. 831v–833v. On aguardiente, see de Tovar, Gilma Mora, Aguardiente y conflictos sociales en la Nueva Granada durante el siglo XVIII (Bogotá: Universidad Nacional de Colombia, 1988)Google Scholar; and Mora, Felipe González, Reales fábricas de aguardiente de caña en el Nuevo Reino de Granada. Arquitectura industrial del siglo XVIII (Bogotá: Pontificia Universidad Javeriana, 2002)Google Scholar.

22. “Libro de compras,” ff. 5v–9v.

23. Deposition of José María Rodríguez, Mompox, July 1, 1799, “Don Gabriel Martínez Guerra,” ff. 782v–795v; Daza Villar, Los marqueses, 55–56.

24. Juan Nepomuceno Surmay to Alcalde Ordinario [Martín Ribón], Mompox, n.d., “Don Gabriel Martínez Guerra,” ff. 804r–805v.

25. For a discussion of “negotiation and conflict” among slaves and masters in Brazil, see Reis, João José and Silva, Eduardo, Negociação e conflito. A resistência negra no Brasil escravista (São Paulo: Companhia das Letras, 1989)Google Scholar. The idea of masters eliciting accommodation from their slaves seems particularly valuable to describe what happened in La Honda. See Bradley, K. R., Slaves and Masters in the Roman Empire. A Study in Social Control (New York: Oxford University Press, 1987), 139–43Google Scholar.

26. McKinley, “Till Death,” 381–401; and Bradley, Slaves and Masters, 81–112.

27. Pinzón, Hermes Tovar, De una chispa se forma una hoguera: esclavitud, insubordinación y liberación (Tunja: Universidad Pedagógica y Tecnológica de Colombia, 1992), 24–25 Google Scholar; and McKinley, “Till Death.”

28. Even when no promises of freedom existed, some slaves monitored changing circumstances around them. The replacement of an overseer, the death of a master, or internal feuds among slaveholders sometimes prompted slaves to seize the moment and push for concessions or freedom. Tovar Pinzón, De una chispa, 31–39.

29. Deposition of Francisco Javier, Mompox, July 2, 1799, “Don Gabriel Martínez Guerra,” ff. 795v–801r.

30. Deposition of José María Rodríguez, Mompox, July 1, 1799, “Don Gabriel Martínez Guerra,” ff. 787v–788r.

31. Norberto Aconcha to Juan Nepomuceno Surmay, Morales, February 15, 1800; and Norberto Aconcha to Juan Nepomuceno Surmay, Morales, February 29, 1800, “Don Gabriel Martínez Guerra,” ff. 821r–824r.

32. Instructions by Juan Nepomuceno Surmay to José María Rodríguez, Mompox, June 13, 1799, “Don Gabriel Martínez Guerra,” ff. 774r–778v.

33. Deposition of José María Rodríguez, Mompox, July 1, 1799, “Don Gabriel Martínez Guerra,” f. 784r–v.

34. Deposition of José María Rodríguez, Mompox, July 1, 1799, “Don Gabriel Martínez Guerra,” ff. 784r–785r.

35. Deposition of José María Rodríguez, Mompox, July 1, 1799, “Don Gabriel Martínez Guerra,” ff. 785r–787r. On Cartagena de Indias during the 1700s, see Stevenson, Haroldo Calvo, ed., Cartagena de Indias en el siglo XVIII, (Bogotá: Banco de la República, 2005)Google Scholar.

36. Dubois, Laurent, Avengers of the New World. The Story of the Haitian Revolution (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2004)Google Scholar. On the reverberations of the Haitian Revolution abroad, see Julius S. Scott III, “The Common Wind: Currents of Afro-American Communication in the Era of the Haitian Revolution” (PhD diss., Duke University, 1986); Geggus, David Patrick, ed., The Impact of the Haitian Revolution in the Atlantic World (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 2001)Google Scholar; and Ferrer, Ada, Freedom's Mirror: Cuba and Haiti in the Age of Revolution (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2014)Google Scholar.

37. Deposition of José María Rodríguez, Mompox, July 1, 1799, “Don Gabriel Martínez Guerra,” f. 787r–v.

38. Archivo General de Indias, Seville, Spain (hereafter AGI), Estado, 52 N.76. Helg, Liberty, 39, 42, 248–53.

39. Joaquín de Cañaveral to José de Ezpeleta, Cartagena de Indias, January 29, 1793 and Juan Nepomuceno Berrueco to Joaquín de Cañaveral, Mompós, January 22, 1793, AGN, Colonia, Milicias y Marina, vol. 84, f. 102r–v, 104r–105v. Another fire was reported on March 19. See Matías Ruíz and José Feliciano Cassado to José de Ezpeleta, Mompós, April 19 1794, AGN, Colonia, Milicias y Marina, vol. 127, No. 105, ff. 880r–881r; AGN, Colonia, Juicios Criminales, vol. 139, doc. 1.

40. AGI, Estado, 53, N.76 and N.77.

41. Tovar Pinzón, Hacienda, 58.

42. Deposition of José María Rodríguez, Mompox, July 1, 1799, “Don Gabriel Martínez Guerra,” ff. 787v–788r.

43. Tovar Pinzón, De una chispa, 59, 62; and Reis and Silva, Negociação, 7–12, 18–19, 66–68.

44. Deposition of José María Rodríguez, Mompox, July 1, 1799, “Don Gabriel Martínez Guerra,” ff. 788v–789r.

45. Deposition of José María Rodríguez, Mompox, July 1, 1799, “Don Gabriel Martínez Guerra,” ff. 788v–789r, 792v.

46. Deposition of José María Rodríguez, Mompox, July 1, 1799, “Don Gabriel Martínez Guerra,” ff. 788v–790v. Abundant information on tithes collection in the New Kingdom of Granada is available in AGN, Colonia, Diezmos.

47. On patronato real, see Juan Solórzano Pereyra, Política, vol. 2, Libro Cuarto.

48. Herrera Ángel, Ordenar, 86–94.

49. Robinson, Mil leguas, 167–68; de Peredo, “Noticia,” 149; de Angel, Pilar Moreno, Antonio de la Torre y Miranda. Viajero y poblador. Siglo XVIII (Bogotá: Planeta, 1993), 63–169 Google Scholar; Herrera Ángel, Ordernar, 79–116; and Helg, Liberty, 18–79.

50. Antonio Maria Cassiani to the King, Cartagena de Indias, December 25, 1713, Reyes, Gabriel Martinez, ed. Cartas de los obispos de Cartagena de Indias durante le periodo Hispánico. 1534–1820, (Medellín: Academia Colombiana de Historia Eclesiástica, 1986), 389–93Google Scholar; and de Peredo, “Noticia,” 140.

51. Deposition of José María Rodríguez, Mompox, July 1, 1799, “Don Gabriel Martínez Guerra,” ff. 789v–790v, 792r–v. People at La Honda referred to outsiders as whites (blancos). Terms such as blanco, negro, and mestizo did not have fixed, unchanging meanings. The use of such expressions was contextual, changing according to specific power relationships and social dynamics. In this case, the word blanco seems to have served to highlight the tension with Setuaín's heirs and those who worked for them (would-be masters and their free employees). By contrast, priests, although free and of presumable Spanish ancestry, seem to have been outside of this category, perceived by the former slaves mainly as men of the cloth. Deposition of José María Rodríguez, Mompox, July 1, 1799, “Don Gabriel Martínez Guerra,” ff. 787v–788r, 784r–v. On the use of racial categories, see Rappaport, Joanne, The Disappearing Mestizo: Configuring Difference in the Colonial New Kingdom of Granada (Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2014), esp. 3–20Google Scholar.

52. Deposition of José María Rodríguez, Mompox, July 1, 1799, “Don Gabriel Martínez Guerra,” ff. 792v–794v.

53. Juan Nepomuceno Surmay to Alcalde Ordinario [Martín Ribón], Mompox, n.d., and Norberto Aconcha to Juan Nepomuceno Surmay, Morales, January 5, 1800, “Don Gabriel Martínez Guerra,” ff. 765v, 811v–812r.

54. Jaramillo Uribe, “Esclavos,” 28–37; Tovar Pinzón, De una chispa, 59, 62; Helg, Liberty, 111–18; Chaves, María Eugenia, Honor y libertad. Discurso y recursos en la estrategia de una mujer esclava. (Guayaquil a fines del período colonial) (Gothenburg: University of Gothenburg, 2001)Google Scholar; Tardieu, Jean-Pierre, El negro en la Real Audiencia de Quito (Ecuador) ss. XVI–XVIII (Quito: Abya-Yala, 2006), 317–30Google Scholar; Bryant, Sherwin, Rebels, Enslaved, Fugitives, and Litigants: The Resistance Continuum in Colonial Quito,” Colonial Latin American Review 13 (2004): 7–46 Google Scholar; Echeverri, Marcela, “‘Enraged to the limit of despair’: Infanticide and Slave Judicial Strategies in Barbacoas, 1788–1798,” Slavery and Abolition 30 (2009): 403–26CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Meneses, Orián Jiménez and Morales, Edgardo Pérez, Voces de esclavitud y libertad. Documentos y testimonios. Colombia 1701–1833 (Popayán: Universidad del Cauca, 2012), docs. 22 and 23, 163–257 Google Scholar.

55. The same was true for free women pursuing legal action, though on occasion people from the countryside managed to reach urban authorities by traveling or proxy. See Premo, Bianca, “Before the Law: Women's Petitions in the Eighteenth-Century Spanish Empire,” Comparative Studies in Society and History 53 (2011): 272–76, 288Google Scholar.

56. Francisco Javier de Mier to José Solis Folch de Cardona, Mompox, December 24, 1760, Colonia, Negros y Esclavos de Bolívar, vol. 9, doc. 16, AGN.

57. “Pretensión del esclavo José Antonio Moya sobre su libertad, perteneciente que dijo ser a la causa mortuoria del difunto señor marqués de Santa Coa don Julián Trespalacios Mier,” 1770–1776, Colonia, Negros y Esclavos de Bolívar, vol. 2, doc. 18, AGN; and “Autos sobre la libertad de Fermín, y su hija Norberta esclavos de la testamentaría del señor marqués de Santa Coa don Julián de Trespalacios Mier,” 1772–1773, Colonia, Negros y Esclavos de Antioquia, vol. 6, doc. 10, AGN.

58. Primary sources on informal scribes seem to be scant, but some historians have come across disparate traces. See Premo, “Before the Law,” 271–73; Kalman, Judy, Writing on the Plaza. Mediated Literacy Practice Among Scribes and Clients in Mexico City (Cresskill: Hampton Press, 1999), 22–28 Google Scholar; Martín, José Ramón Jouve, Esclavos de la ciudad letrada. Esclavitud, escritura y colonialismo en Lima (1650–1700) (Lima: Instituto de Estudios Peruanos, 2005), 91–97 Google Scholar; Burns, Kathryn, Into the Archive: Writing and Power in Colonial Peru (Durham: Duke University Press, 2010), 132–35Google Scholar; Graham, Sandra Lauderdale, “Writing From the Margins: Brazilian Slaves and Written Culture,” Comparative Studies in Society and History 49 (2007): 615–19Google Scholar; Cháves, María Eugenia, “‘Nos los esclavos de Medellín.’ La polisemia de la liberated y las voces subalternas en la primera república antioqueña,” Nómadas 33 (2010): 44–45 Google Scholar.

59. Silvestre Trillo, José Andrés de Urquinaona and José Antonio Maldonado to the Viceroy, Santa Fe, n.d [June 1790], Colonia, Milicias y Marina, vol. 35, doc. 7, AGN; Fals Borda, Historia doble, 75B–126B; Helg, Liberty, 80–84, 90; Múnera, Alfonso, El fracaso de la nación: región, clase y raza en el Caribe colombiano (1717–1821) (Bogotá: Banco de la República, 1998), 188–91Google Scholar; Silva, Renán, Los ilustrados de Nueva Granada, 1760–1808. Genealogía de una comunidad de interpretación (Medellín: Banco de la República, Universidad EAFIT, 2002), 83–90, 459–60Google Scholar; Garnica, Armando Martínez and Ardila, Daniel Gutiérrez, eds., Quién es quién en 1810. Guía de Forasteros del Virreinato de Santafé (Bogotá: Universidad del Rosario, 2010), 62, 115Google Scholar; and Ardila, Daniel Gutiérrez, “Las querellas de Mompox: subordinación estratégica, erección de junta provincial e invención historiográfica de la independencia absoluta, 1805–1811,” Historia y Sociedad 23 (2012): 113–15Google Scholar.

60. Helg, Liberty, 88–91, 108–20.

61. Burns, Robert I., S.J., ed. (Translation and notes by Scott, Samuel Parsons), The Siete Partidas, 5 vols. (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2001)Google Scholar, Part III, Tit. XXIX, Laws XXIII–XXV, 3:847; Part IV, Tit. XXI, Law VI, 4:979.

62. de la Fuente, Alejandro, “Slave Law and Claims-Making in Cuba: The Tannembaum Debate Revisited,” Law and History Review 22 (2004): 339–69CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and de la Fuente, Alejandro, “Slaves and the Creation of Legal Rights in Cuba: Coartación and Papel ,” Hispanic American Historical Review 87 (2007): 659–92CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

63. Premo, “Before the Law,” 279–80.

64. “Don José Antonio Ambros [sic] de Arango sobre la venta que se le quiere precisar de un negro esclavo,” 1777, f. 703v, Colonia, Negros y Esclavos de Antioquia, vol. 1, doc. 23, AGN; and Uribe–Uran, Victor M., Honorable Lives. Lawyers, Family, and Politics in Colombia, 1780–1850 (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2000), 42 Google Scholar.

65. “Don José Antonio Ambros,” ff. 701v, 703v, 704r, 705v, 706r, 711r–712r.

66. “Don José Antonio Ambros,” ff. 713v–714r. Untitled document, n.d., f. 656r–667v, Archivo Anexo I, Esclavos, vol. 3, AGN. Burns, The Siete Partidas, Part. V, Tit. V, Law III, 4:1027–28.

67. “Don José Antonio Ambros,” f. 701v.

68. Garavaglia, Juan Carlos and Schaub, Jean-Frédéric, ed., Lois, Justice, Coutume. Amérique et Europe latines (16e–19e siécle) (Paris: École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, 2005)Google Scholar; and Yannakakis, Yanna, “Costumbre: A Language of Negotiation in Eighteenth-Century Oaxaca,” in Negotiation Within Domination: New Spain Indian Pueblos Confront the Spanish State, ed. Medrano, Ethel Ruíz and Kellogg, Susan (Boulder: University Press of Colorado, 2010), 137–71Google Scholar.

69. Juan Solórzano Pereyra, Política, 1:366, 2:984.

70. “Don José Antonio Ambros,” ff. 704v–705r. On plausibility and legal truth in the early modern world, see Davis, Natalie Zemon, Fiction in the Archives: Pardon Tales and Their Tellers in Sixteenth-Century France (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1987)Google Scholar.

71. Deposition of José María Rodríguez, Mompox, July 1, 1799, “Don Gabriel Martínez Guerra,” ff. 788v–789r.

72. “R. Instrucción sobre la educación, trato y ocupación de los esclavos,” Aranjuez, May 31, 1789, in Colección de documentos para la historia de la formación social Hispanoamericana. 1493–1810, ed Konetzke, Richard (Madrid: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, 1962)Google Scholar, vol. III, 2 (1780–1807), doc. 308, 643–52. See also Salmoral, Manuel Lucena, ed., Los códigos negros de la América Española, (Alcalá de Henares: Ediciones Unesco, Universidad de Alcalá, 1996), 95–123 Google Scholar.

73. Helg, Liberty, 114–17; and Echeverri, “Enraged,” 415–20.

74. “Don Melchor Sáenz de Ortíz contra don Francisco de la Barcena Posada sobre la libertad de una esclava,” 1803–1804, f. 265r–v, Colonia, Negros y Esclavos de Bolívar, vol. 9, doc. 3, AGN; Febrero reformado y anotado, o librería de escribanos que compuso don Joseph Febrero Escribano Real y del Colegio de la corte, y ha reformado en su lenguaje, método, estilo y muchas de sus doctrinas, ilustrándola y enriqueciéndola con varias notas y adiciones para que se han tenido presentes las Reales Órdenes modernas, el Lic. D. Joseph Márcos Gutierrez: Obra no solo necesaria á los escribanos sino tambien utilísima á todos los jueces, abogados, procuradores, agentes de negocios y á toda clase de personas. Parte II. De inventarios, tasaciones y particiones de bienes, y de los juicios ordinario, ejecutivo y de concurso de acreedores, como tambien del criminal que faltaba y se añade á esta obra, 2nd. ed. (Madrid: Imprenta de Villalpando, 1802), III:211.

75. Research on this topic remains scant. See Berquist, Emily, “Early Anti-Slavery Sentiment in the Spanish Atlantic World, 1765–1817,” Slavery & Abolition 31 (2010): 181–205 Google Scholar.

76. I borrow the expression “efficacy of ink on paper” from Scott, Rebecca J. and Hébrard, Jean M., Freedom Papers: An Atlantic Odyssey in the Age of Emancipation (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2012), 26 Google Scholar.

77. Juan Nepomuceno Surmay to Alcalde Ordinario [Martín Ribón], Mompox, n.d, “Don Gabriel Martínez Guerra,” f. 765v.

78. Burns, The Siete Partidas, Part. III, Tit. XVIII, Law C, 4:745; Part. VI, Tit. X, 5:1258–60; de Palomares, Thomas, Estilo nuevo de escrituras públicas, donde el curioso hallará diferentes géneros de contratos, y advertencias de las leyes, y prematicas destos reynos, y las escrituras tocantes a la navegación de las Indias, a cuya noticia no se deven negar los escrivanos (Madrid: En la Imprenta Real, 1656), 81–82 Google Scholar; and Colom, Joseph Juan y, Instrucción de escribanos, en órden a lo judicial: utilísima también para procuradores, y litigantes, donde sucintamente se explica lo ritual, y forma de proceder en las caufas civiles, y criminales, afsi en la theorica, como en la practica, fundada sobre las leyes reales, y eftilo de tribunales ordinarios (Madrid: En la Imprenta de Antonio Marín, 1761), 255–300 Google Scholar.

79. Instructions by Juan Nepomuceno Surmay to José María Rodríguez, Mompox, June 13, 1799, “Don Gabriel Martínez Guerra,” ff. 777r–778r.

80. Norberto Aconcha to Juan Nepomuceno Surmay, Morales, December 15, 1799, “Don Gabriel Martínez Guerra,” f. 809r.

81. Norberto Aconcha to Juan Nepomuceno Surmay, Morales, January 8, 1800, “Don Gabriel Martínez Guerra,” f. 812v.

82. Norberto Aconcha to Juan Nepomuceno Surmay, Morales, December 8, 1799; Norberto Aconcha to Juan Nepomuceno Surmay, Morales, January 25, 1800; Norberto Aconcha to Juan Nepomuceno Surmay, Morales, February 5, 1800; and Norberto Aconcha to Juan Nepomuceno Surmay, Morales, February 9, 1800, “Don Gabriel Martínez Guerra,” ff. 807r–v, 815r, 816r–817r, 817v–818v.

83. Norberto Aconcha to Juan Nepomuceno Surmay, Morales, February 15, 1800 (two letters), “Don Gabriel Martínez Guerra,” ff. 820v, 821r–822r.

84. General inventory of slaves, Hacienda de La Honda, June 25, 1795, “Don Gabriel Martínez Guerra,” f. 833r.

85. On the organization and distribution of labor in haciendas around Mompox, see Fals Borda, Historia, 118B–123B.

86. Juan Nepomuceno Surmay to Mis amados esclavos de la hacienda de la Honda, Mompox, February 23, 1800; Juan Nepomuceno Surmay to Norberto Aconcha, Mompox, February 23, 1800; and Norberto Aconcha to Juan Nepomuceno Surmay, Morales, May 25, 1800, “Don Gabriel Martínez Guerra,” ff. 827r–831v.

87. Juan Nepomuceno Surmay to Alcalde Ordinario [Domingo López], Mompox, n.d., “Don Gabriel Martínez Guerra,” f. 837r.

88. Ibid., f. 836v.

89. Ibid.,ff. 836v–837r.

90. Ibid., ff. 837v–838r.

91. Deposition of José María Rodríguez, Mompox, July 1, 1799; and Norberto Aconcha to Juan Nepomuceno Surmay, Morales, February 15, 1800, “Don Gabriel Martínez Guerra,” ff. 787v–788r, 821v.

92. Gabriel Martínez Guerra to the Viceroy, Santa Fe, n.d. [c. October 1, 1801], “Don Gabriel Martínez Guerra,” ff. 845r, 846r.

93. “Propiedad de la hacienda,” f. 35v; Colonia, Miscelánea, vol. 117, doc. 3, f. 952r, AGN; Colonia, Juicios Criminales, vol. 59, doc. 17, f. 880r, AGN.

94. Norberto Aconcha to Juan Nepomuceno Surmay, Morales, January 8, 1800, “Don Gabriel Martínez Guerra,” f. 813r; Inventory and estate appraisal, San Bartolomé de La Honda, May 10, 1802, “Propiedad de la hacienda,” ff. 15r–v, 35v.

95. Inventory and estate appraisal, San Bartolomé de La Honda, May 10, 1802, “Propiedad de la hacienda,” f. 15r–v.

96. María Isabel and José Emeterio de Mier y Setuaín to Real Audiencia, Mompox, July 13, 1807, ff. 951r–952r, Colonia, Miscelánea, vol. 117, doc. 73, AGN.

97. María Isabel de Mier y Setuaín to Real Audiencia, Mompox, September 13, 1808, ff. 317r–318v, Colonia, Miscelánea, vol. 132, doc. 45, AGN.