María Antonia goes to court.

Opportunities and limits for the emancipation of enslaved people in Paraná during the abolitionist process

Abstract

In this paper we analyze the scope of the questioning about enslavement people from Africa, and the political nature that these reach during the gradual abolition process of slavery. Particularly, we highlight how the emergency of an anti-slavery rhetoric generate emancipation expectations on enslavement people and their public defenders, and how these expectations were mobilized in a court case departed from claim for old, conquered rights, like the owner obligation to give a human treatment to their slaves. Furthermore, adopting a genre perspective, we explore the extreme inequality of power that existed between black women, that worked on domestic labors, and their owners. At the same time, we analyze the consequences derived from it, that includes privation of basic needs, physical punishment, and rape. To carry out these objectives, we study the anti-slavery legislation, focus on the particularities of the provincial laws. Furthermore, we analyze a freedom request about an enslavement woman, that toke place in Paraná city during the 1820s and 1830s decades.

ARK CAICYT: https://id.caicyt.gov.ar/ark:/s16688090/rpplae8ik