Becoming Free, Becoming Black - Alejandro de la Fuente and Ariela J. Gross

Good evening everyone, I hope everyone is having a nice wind. Sorry, spring break.

Um This is my presentation to talk about becoming free becoming black race,

freedom and law in cuba Virginia and Louisiana

written by Alejandro de la fuente and Ariella Gross.

I'm gonna start with the basics.

So, thesis and contribution of the text to the existing historiography.

The thesis

antithesis the book aims that demonstrated that

these three territories cuba Louisiana and Virginia

Between the 16th and 19th centuries had

elites that progressively work towards creating race as

a legal construct and especially pushing one step

forward two to align blackness and enslavement.

Um this of course, um

had major consequences on the free black population of these three territories.

Um however,

the book also argues for the fact that these that that black people

took advantage of the fact that laws

weren't really crystallized throughout this period,

especially at the beginning.

And then even when they started becoming more set in stone,

there were still liminal spaces that could be taken advantage of for these people to

Richmond emissions to reach their freedom, find more rights.

Um and so these people, black people, free black people or black people in general.

Um used these spaces, these liminal spaces to reject the construct of race as a legal

legal idea and the association between blackness and enslavement

to fight for their freedom and their rights

in terms of contribution of the tax to the wider historiography.

The authors themselves

Um cover what the historiography on this particular topic has already said.

So in mid the mid-20th century historians contract tend to contrast Latin America

and anglo american systems. Obviously, latin american system is based more on

the imperial system.

Um

And

this system obviously considers um enslaved people as people nonetheless,

Whereas the anglo american system considers enslaved people as property per se.

Um during the second phase in the 20th century,

we have revisionist historians who instead rejected this kind of binary between

the Iberian and Anglo-American systems and

focus more on demographics and economic factors

rather than law and religion only.

And then thirdly, in more recent times, we have cultural legal historians.

So historians have focused on legality but consider cultural factors within it.

Um And so they took the law as a central, but they take the law as a central point,

but they look more a history

in cases from the bottom up. So looking more

what exactly this Della

um

growth are trying to do here looking at cases

Where the subaltern is fighting back against the system, I suppose you could say.

Um and indeed, as you can see here wrote,

the contribution of the book is that it applies a comparative approach

as I'll talk about later as well as a cultural legal one

by focusing on participants strategies and the influence

they had on the law about race.

So not only these people who are fighting

back against the system for their own interests,

but they also ended up determining

um

uh effects on how the law was being designed and why

it was being designed and so on and so forth.

Um secondly, the structure and the content in terms of structure.

The book is organized in seven chapters altogether.

Introduction, five chapters, 5 body chapters and a conclusion.

Um It has both a chronological and thematic structure.

The chronological structure is

I call it more of a progressive approach in the sense that it is in chronological.

However, different chapters sometimes do cover the same um

period,

but because

The three different territories were settled and the

legal systems within them developed in different centuries.

So for Cuba would be the 16th century,

For Virginia would be the 17th century and for Louisiana,

Louisiana was only was started to be settled by the French in the 18th century.

So all of these three centuries tend to appear in the beginning chapters of the book.

However, the progression is maintained throughout.

So as the book moves along in time,

the three different territories that are

considered in progressively increasing periods,

if that makes sense.

The thematic structure also appears, as I said,

different chapters sometimes look at the same period,

especially the last two chapters.

However, they do consider different aspects of the theme that is at hand here,

But going more in detail,

how do de la Fuente and growth prove their argument in Chapter 1?

They focus mainly on the president's.

So what legal systems were these three territories looking

at when they started developing their own legal system?

Of course cuba looked back at Iberia

and the spanish established from the beginning,

a basis of law that included um

clauses and legislation about

slavery.

Um the french just sat on the in Louisiana.

This settled later on and they also

had already experienced in including blackness and slavery

as concepts in their legal system with the Cold War,

uh literally cold black in french,

that was used in the french colonized territories in the caribbean

and lastly Virginia. So in Virginia actually, the system was quite um,

I believe the authors call it fluid

at the beginning.

The british did not have um already legislation in place

for um determining categories like slavery or blackness in the law.

They later developed them in the first case for

their um legislation about slavery was in Barbados.

And later on it came to all the other colonies, colonies in their empire.

So when

The cases, the court cases that the authors talked about in the book,

when we look at the initial ones at the beginning of the 17th century,

there is um the language used and the decisions made in the courts are a bit more

um a less set in stone, less clear,

less clearly related to the concept of slavery and blackness itself,

Although they do develop towards the end of the 17th century,

the beginning of the 18th century systems that are much more, much closer to

what the Cuban system was like or what the Louisiana,

the french system in Louisiana was.

Um as you can see here later on in the slide, I say that british and french,

we're more susceptible to the influence and preferences of slave slave owners.

So of the elites.

Um because of course, as I said, they're legal, legal,

um language and legal regulations were based off of legal

system that were applied in the colonies in the caribbean.

And those legal systems were designed after all, by

en slavers,

right by slave owners that inhabited the caribbean

who served as officials of the government there.

Whereas the in cuba the legal system derives directly from the metropolis,

right from spain itself and it is often dedicated to the interest of spain itself.

And so the legal conception of slavery is different. Um

in Virginia,

Louisiana versus cuba for um in terms of

the presidents of the basis of the legislation,

it will obviously later on developed.

Um

so as I say at the end here,

obviously throughout the period of time that the authors explore the connection

between blackness and enslaved status was progressively built into the law.

It wasn't studying stone from the beginning.

Um but these also while the elites pushed for this to happen,

this also backfired on them because by equating blackness and enslaved status,

they allowed for more union,

more solidarity solidarity between um free blacks and enslaved blacks.

So the um

the exploitation that both were seeing the taking away of

their rights no matter whether they were free or enslaved,

unified these communities,

and this per se became in a sense of threat to the institution of slavery itself.

Now in Chapter two,

they the authors focus more on two particular um

aspects.

One is my commission,

so um the process by which an enslaved person could become

free and then interracial marriage um in cuba both were somewhat

simple. There were many more cases compared to Virginia and Louisiana.

Inter interracial marriage was legal, and animation was easier to obtain.

One of the techniques other than self purchase for someone who

was enslaved to achieve freedom was actually a conversion to Catholicism

in Virginia, as I said, because the system was fluid at the beginning.

Uh interracial marriage was not really specifically prohibited.

Um And manu mission was somewhat easy to obtain at the beginning of the 17th century,

mostly through self purchase.

However,

later on at the end of the 17th century and

the beginning of the 18th century becomes highly restricted.

As the authors let us know

In

Louisiana. Similar restrictions applied in the 18th century,

um my permission was sought after in all

three territories have to say from the beginning,

from what surfaces with the court cases that the authors present to us.

Um

However, in Louisiana, it was hard to achieve

from the get go

uh in particular,

even if an enslaved person managed to convince their

um their enslave er to let them free by,

you know, self purchase or other measures,

they still had to take an additional step compared to the other

two territories and they had to get approval from the Superior Council.

Um Eventually in all three territories,

it became harder and harder to obtain manu mission and or two

um marry inter racially

the elites in the

black community as

a powerful subversion of the binary system that they were trying to create.

And um these black communities also um

became powerful in the sense that they helped

other enslaved people to achieve freedom and rights.

Um not mentioning also the fact that they started becoming seriously

challenging economic entities.

Um

obviously interracial unions um contributed to the further blurring of the race

and social status connection that the elites were trying to construct.

Um the authors also remind us that gender played a role in all of this as well.

Um not only black women where um the majority of

those enslaved who managed to get some man mission,

um but also because they're probably by law in all three in all three territories.

Um if a black woman was freed, her progeny was also free.

Uh this was speeding up the process of free and enslaved. Um much faster

gender also played a role in the sense that slave owners themselves,

if we look at the gender, um women who owned slaves tended to

be more prone to frame them

more often than men did

Speeding up to Chapter three.

These focuses on the age of revolution,

particularly Haitian Revolution had a massive impact on all three territories.

The elites in the us in the Caribbean and so on.

Um We're concerned of the dangers of what could happen

if whether free or enslaved black people rebelled against them.

Um

However,

the authors claim that the revolution itself and the revolutionary ideals did not

on their own contribute to the changes that we'll

see in these chapters and in the following ones,

it was a factor.

Um

However,

they claim that formulation formulation of new laws

um came from other factors as well.

One of them was to secure revenue for the spanish crown.

So for example,

in cuba they continued man emissions because

these assured revenue for the spanish crown

and the creation of the constitution in the U. S.

After civil War um started crystallizing race as a major category of legal status.

Um So the revolution in Haiti itself did not um it

did contribute to changes but not only on its own.

And the authors do remind us that this is

a period of greater commonalities among the three territories.

So they seem to move in the same path, although once they enter the 19th century,

they do seem to divert, divert once more

in particular in this chapter recovered the fact that in

Virginia the higher submission rate was not pleasing the residents.

So um in order to keep under control the black population,

the law became more lenient on man emissions,

which means that the man emissions were becoming higher.

Um in terms of trends they were increasing,

but many residents of the state were not pleased about this.

They thought it was dangerous. They thought

it was beginning to

shape up as citizenship being awarded to black people,

which was unbelievable for the binary system the elites were trying to construct

and also Manu mission started to be linked to debates about rights and abolition

because of course we have the civil war going on and so we have,

there's a more political um

consequence of this debate in cuba and

Louisiana and we're putting them together at this

point or the authors are putting them

together at this point because Louisiana had seen

passed under spanish control and left french control.

Um man emission was more linked to customary practices rather

than um republican equality ideals or a political debate.

Um,

at this point CUBA has already a huge free

black community huge compared to both Louisiana and Virginia.

Um

and although the the man emissions and intermarriage where

interracial marriage were much more common in cuba.

Free blacks in cuba did start seeing limitations to their rights because the

government there was trying to obviously avoid

a Haitian revolution case there as well

in Virginia and Louisiana instead

um

after they saw the revolutions and with everything that

was going on at the political level um they decided

to start backpedaling on the increasing of man emission

trends um in the antebellum era in the US.

Um there was more debate, debate as I said and the idea of white supremacy and has

these used as a justification of slavery started coming about more and more often

Moving on to Chapter four focuses on the 1830,

period.

Um there are campaigns in all three regions to limit the freedom

of free blacks or to even get rid of their communities,

their associations and so forth.

Fourth, um in Louisiana Virginia,

there are also more and more restrictions on there

man emissions on man emissions of enslaved black people.

Um whereas in cuba they saw a limitation of

their rights and the Cuban government was trying to

um limit um

their opportunities

not by directly limiting them, but by inviting more white settlers to the island

blanca memento, I suppose

in a sense, um

revolts started appearing.

Um there was a rise in abolitionism in terms of debating

politics and the role of free black people heightened this,

this trend.

Um the results were there in Louisiana and Virginia,

blackness was almost entirely acquitted with enslavement

by then

and in cuba this was not

entirely true, although the position of free blacks

did become more challenging

than it had previously been.

And

finally

In Chapter five,

which also focuses in on the period between 1830

and 1860 but with special attention to the 1850s,

um

Virginia Louisiana went after uh free black people's institutions,

or black peoples in general's institutions, communities.

Um They also place much harsher restrictions on interracial marriage in cuba.

Um The government does treat black people

as people as we've seen from the beginning.

They are considered capable to be upright citizens and allowed to um

to marry inter racially.

However,

the government did face a lot of opposition from the elites in cuba about this.

Um at this time we're reaching the second half of the 19th century.

By now,

race has now become an important category in all three regions in the legal system,

although it does have

different implications on the legal and social level.

Um

in Virginia and Louisiana,

blackness signified exclusion for politics and

basically equated enslavement in practical terms,

although not in theoretical terms.

Um citizenship was absolutely acquitted to whiteness and racial,

A lot of individuals challenged their racial identity

in court, so they claimed to either be indians, for example,

to get away from the position of slavery from the status of slavery. Um

but these court cases seem to help the

case of oneness being a signifier of citizenship even

more and one is being a superior superior to

all other races on a social and cultural level

in cuba.

Um Whiteness was not technically associated with

was still associated with the superior status.

Status. However,

when judging an individual,

social and economic status was also taken into consideration.

So for example,

a poor white person could be equated to black people or if a black person,

free black person had a certain social and economic status that

could be considered superior to even a poor white person.

Um Free blacks in cuba did have many more rights compared to the US.

And this is the content in terms of evidence.

Most of the primary sources are core cases brought forward by black

people attempting to achieve man emission

or gain partial full citizenship rights.

Um they're very interesting and so they're based on

the bottom up perspective that I mentioned earlier.

The comparative approach.

The authors themselves declared that they have a

comparative approach at the beginning and introduction.

Um and they apply this comparative approach to the study

of the development of regimes of race and slavery.

They explained their choices of items of comparison, Cuban Virginia posed.

The latin american and anglo american diatribe

diatribe Louisiana was chosen because they had

a hybrid system. Right? So we switched from french to them spanish to them.

Um US systems,

all three

where plantation society is heavily based on enslaved labor by the 19th century,

race was a major category in legal notions in all three economically.

They were all linked through trade,

culture and finance to the atlantic networks and

they all had been influenced by the Haitian revolution

Or ideas of revolutions in general in the 19th century.

And this is a quote from the book that

um that the authors write themselves because of the

these similarities and linkages comparing the three societies allows

us to see the difference that the developing law

of freedom made in their divergent trajectories of race.

So this is their ultimate purpose.

And then finally

connections that I could see our with pre mose the alignment on trial

book. Because of course

Prima also focused on the subaltern subjects being in court and trying

to fight against what the system isn't trying to impose on them.

And the fact that the subaltern subjects could actually

participate in the formation of the legal system,

participate in ideas of revolutions, ideas, in her case of enlightenment

that were being formulated, they weren't simply receivers of these ideas.

So that's my presentation. I hope you enjoyed. Thank you so much for listening.

Becoming Free, Becoming Black - Alejandro de la Fuente and Ariela J. Gross

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