A Republican Myth of Racial Harmony

Berghahn Books
A Republican Myth of Racial Harmony: Race and Patriotism in Colombia, 1810-12

Author(s): Marixa Lasso
Source: Historical Reflections / Rflexions Historiques, Vol. 29, No. 1, Slavery and
Citizenship in the Age of the Atlantic Revolutions (Spring 2003), pp. 43-63
Published by: Berghahn Books
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/41299259
Accessed: 23-06-2016 06:29 UTC
Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at
http://about.jstor.org/terms
JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted
digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about
JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.
Berghahn Books is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Historical
Reflections / Rflexions Historiques
This content downloaded from 132.239.1.231 on Thu, 23 Jun 2016 06:29:06 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
A Republican Myth of Racial Harmony:
Race and Patriotism in Colombia,
1810-1 21
Marixa Lasso
During the Spanish-American wars of independence, a new language

of patriotism, liberty, brotherhood and republican unity recast colonial
racial relations. This new rhetoric buttressed a concept of nationhood that
tightly linked national identity with racial harmony and equality - what
contemporary scholars call "the myth of racial democracy."2 In spite of the
1 . The author gratefully acknowledges the financial support from the Wenner-Gren
Foundation for Anthropological Research, the Social Science Research Council, and the
Tinker Foundation to conduct research in Colombia. I also wish to thank Malick Ghachem,
David Geggus and Mark Thurner for their invaluable help and comments.
I. I he power and endurance or this nationalist notion is apparent in the ways in which
Latin-American intellectuals and politicians adapted European and U.S. racist ideas. Even
during the height of scientific racism in the mid-nineteenth century, Latin-American
intellectuals refrained from wholeheartedly endorsing European racial concepts. They hoped
their nations would progressively lighten through racial mixing between white immigrants and
local blacks. Perhaps more importantly, these modified racist notions failed to affect a
political discourse which continued to emphasize racial unity and equality attractive to black
voters. For Latin-American intellectual ideas about race, see Richard Graham ed., The Idea
of Race in Latin America, 1870-1940 , (Austin, 1990). For a careful analysis of the relationship
between racial discourse and Afro-Cuban political participation, see Alejandro de La Fuente,
A Nation for All: Race , Inequality , and Politics in Twentieth-Century Cuba (Chapel Hill, 2001).
Marixa Lasso is an Assistant Professor of History at California State University , Los Angeles.
2003 HISTORICAL REFLECTIONS /REFLEXIONS HISTORIQUES, Vol. 29, No. 1
44 Historical Reflections/Reflexions Historiques
historical link between the emergence of this myth and the foundation of
Spanish-American republics, scholars of race relations in the region have
tended to criticize the early republican period for its failure to eliminate
racial discrimination. They have condemned elite use of the rhetoric of
equality for purposes of simply winning over the black population during
the wars of independence and subsequent civil conflicts.3 These
assessments not only fail to address the complex processes of myth
construction, but trivialize a major and fascinating historical moment.
The powerful association linking republicanism, nationalism and racial
equality that characterized the Spanish-American independence period
cannot be taken for granted. In the Western world republican notions of
citizenship did not always result in nationalist rhetorics of racial equality.
Quite the contrary: the height of nineteenth-century liberalism coincided
with increasing scientific racism.4 Moreover, when the notion of racial
equality became firmly established in patriotic discourse in Spanish
America during the 1810s, not all contemporary American republics
followed suit. In the United States nonwhite inferiority was central to the
political landscape, and only a few radical abolitionists favored full legal
equality for blacks.5 In Haiti the declaration of racial equality by
revolutionary France was associated with civil war, slave rebellion, the
defeat of the French planter class, and the formation of a black
independent state: hardly an appealing image for Spanish-American white
Creoles. Indeed, when Creole elites decreed racial equality, they
relinquished well-established mechanisms for maintaining social hierarchy
and instituted a new racial system with implications that were far from
clear or reassuring. In spite of this, Spanish-American elites seemed to
agree on the notion of racial equality to a surprising degree. While the
Creole elite fought bitter wars over issues such as federalism and church-
state relations, consensus over racial equality was reached in the early
years of the Independence struggle. Why? Was the peculiar Spanish
American nationalist rhetoric of racial harmony and equality a
3. For elite use of a republican rhetoric of equality to attract black support during the
wars of independence, see John Lynch, The Spanish American Revolutions (New York, 1 973);
Winthrop R. Wright, Cafe con Leche: Race , Class, and National Image in Venezuela (Austin,
1990).
4. David B. Davis, The Problem of Slavery in the Age of Revolution, 1770-1823 (Ithaca,
1966); George Stoking, Race, Culture and Evolution: Essays in the History of Anthropology
(Chicago, 1982); Robert Young, Colonial Desire: Hibridity in Theory, Culture, and Race
(London, 1995).
5. Robin Blackburn, The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery (Lonon, 1988), pp. 267-291 .
A Republican Myth of Racial Harmony 45
consequence of a colonial past of racial hybridity or a novel invention that

arose during the political and racial conflicts of the Independence period?
Gilberto Freyre and Frank Tannenbaum first popularized the notion of
Latin-American racial democracy in the 1930s and 1940s. Since then,
historians have searched the colonial past for the origins of the relative
flexibility that characterizes Latin-American as opposed to U.S. race
relations. Some have explained this flexibility by alluding to the
demographic and economic weight of people of mixed descent, together
with the transculturation found in the region's colonial culture, law and
religion.6 This perspective has been successfully challenged by a new
generation of scholars noteworthy for arguing that the notion of racial
democracy was the mythic, hegemonic construction of Latin-American
elites.7 Their research has turned to an analysis of continuing patterns of
racial discrimination in Latin America.8 An unintended consequence of this
scholarly shift was to abandon the question of origins of racial democracy.
This essay returns to that question, but rather than searching for a history
of racial flexibility, it focuses on the construction of the myth itself.
More than thirty years ago David Brion Davis, unable to find substantial
differences between the slave systems of the United States and Latin
America, concluded that contemporary differences in race relations
between the two societies could only be explained by political changes
that arose during the Age of Revolution.9 The recent work of Anthony Marx
profitably develops this insight through an ambitious comparison of the
United States, Brazil and South Africa. He argues that the origins of different
patterns in modern race relations are to be found in foundational moments
of state formation and consolidation, such as the U.S. Civil War or the
struggle for Brazilian independence.10
6. Gilberto Freyre The Masters and the Slaves: A Study in the Development of Brazilian
Civilization (New York, 1956); Frank Tannenbaum, Slave and Citizen, the Negro in the
Americas , (New York, 1946); Marvin Harris, Patterns of Race in the Americas (New York,
1964); Carl Degler, Neither Black nor White , (New York, 1971).
7. The best treatment in this vein is Richard Graham, e<, The Idea of Race in Latin
America, 1870-1940 (Austin, 1990).
8. Florestan Fernandes, A integraqao do negro na sociedade de classes (Sao Paulo,
1965); Emilia Viotti da Costa, The Brazilian Empire: Myths and Histories (Chicago, 1985);
George Reid Andrews, Blacks & Whites in Sao Paulo, Brazil, 1888-1988 (Madison, 1 99 1 ) ; Peter
Wade Blackness and Race Mixture: The Dynamics of Racial Identity in Colombia (Baltimore,
1993); Winthrop Wright, Cafe con Leche.
9. David B. Davis, The Problem of Slavery in Western Culture , p. 286.
1 0. Anthony W. Marx, Making Race and Nation: A Comparison of South Africa, the United
States, and Brazil (Cambridge, 1998). Although Marx's focus on the processes of national
formation is useful, his emphasis on Brazil's peaceful political transition from colony to
46 Historical Reflections /Reflexions Historiques
Following Marx's thesis that moments of national formation are crucial

to the development of racial constructs, this essay argues that a detailed
examination of the first decades of independence provides an insight into
how and why the new Spanish-American nations came to develop a myth
of racial equality. In particular, it asks how racial harmony became
associated with a patriotic love." The tactical device to attract black
soldiers to the struggle for independence - the common
explanation - does not suffice to explain the strength and longevity of the
myth. Moreover, promises of equality could have been reversed, as
happened in the United States following Reconstruction.12 The myth of
racial harmony, like all nationalist myths, needed something that provoked
love and alliance - it is indeed difficult to profess love to Machiavellian
military tactics. It is argued here that this something that first captured the
imagination of Creole patriots was the Cadiz constitutional debates of 1 8 1 0-
1 2. 1 argue here that what first captured the attention of creole patriots and
led them to embrace the idea of racial harmony were the Cadiz
constitutional debates of 1810-12. Just as British imperial policies in favor
of Africans helped consolidate an Afrikaner identity based on white
domination, Spanish refusal to grant citizenship to people of African
descent contributed significantly to the association between creole
patriotism and racial equality.13
Focusing on Caribbean Colombia, this essay examines how citizenship
for people of African descent became one of the main issues dividing
Spanish from American patriots. The years 1810-11 were crucial for this
development. They witnessed the emergence of patriot conspiracies in
which Afro-Colombians and elite Creoles joined together against Spanish
authorities. In cities like Cartagena and Caracas these associations led to
formal declarations of racial equality. Further, during these years the Cortes
at Cadiz gave rise to long debates over the citizenship rights of people of
African descent in the Spanish world. What made these debates a
foundational moment for the history of race relations in Spanish America
republic is highly problematic because in other regions of Latin America the emergence of
the myth of racial democracy was tied to bloody conflicts between royalists and patriots.
11.1 have found the theoretical approaches of Benedict Anderson and Lynda Colley on
nationalism quite useful for answering this question. Benedict Anderson, Imagined
Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism (London, 1991); Linda
Colley Britons: Forging the Nation , 1707-1837 (New Haven, 1992).
12. C. Vann Woodward, The Strange Career of Jim Crou) (New York, 1957); Anthony
Marx, Making Race and Nation , pp. 120-144.
13. I am using Anthony Marx's summary of the association between Afrikaners' identity
and Africans' inferiority: Making Race and Nation , pp. 35-42.
A Republican Myth of Racial Harmony 4 7
is that racial equality became linked to American patriotism. Race could

well have become an issue that divided radicals from conservatives
regardless of nationality, as happened during the French and Haitian
revolutions.14 Instead, linkage to its American representation made racial
equality an issue that clearly separated Americans from Spaniards. It was
the association with patriotism that gave racial equality its force and led to
its commanding hold over Creole opinion. After Cadiz, to oppose racial
equality was to be unpatriotic and un-American.
Citizenship and Racial Equality: The Cadiz Assembly, 1810-12
The French invasion of the Iberian peninsula in 1808 and the

subsequent imprisonment of King Ferdinand VII had dramatic political
consequences for Spain. In the following years the Empire witnessed
extraordinary changes in its political culture, as modern notions of nation,
representation and citizenship began to emerge.15 Even though the
monarchy's legitimacy initially remained unopposed, by 1810 the idea
prevailed that the King's absence returned sovereignty to the people, the
original source of legitimacy. Following this principle, cities in Spain and
the Americas began to organize locally based governments called juntas.
The return of sovereignty to the people and local authorities brought to the
fore questions about the relationship among the regions of the Empire. This
issue was particularly acute in the Americas, where the creation of juntas
tended to remove government from the Spanish authorities and place it in
the hands of the Creole elite. In response to the increasing conflicts over
representation, a Cortes was called; drawing representatives from all of
Spain's regions, including the Americas, it took up the task of drafting a
constitution for the monarchy.
In 1810, while a French army occupied most of the Iberian peninsula,
the Cortes met in the free city of Cadiz. Its members faced the daunting
task of transforming Spanish political and legal institutions.16 Among the
sweeping transformations enacted, the restructuring of metropolitan-
colonial relations was of special importance. On October 15, 1810 the
14. C.L.R. James, The Black Jacobins ; David Geggus, Slavery , War and Revolution: The
British Occupation of Saint Domingue, 1793-1798 (Oxford, 1982).
15. The complex political and ideological changes of these years have been studied in
detail elsewhere. See Frangois-Xavier Guerra, Modernidad e independencias: ensayos sobre
las revoluciones hispanicas (Madrid, 1992); Jaime Rodriguez, The Independence of Spanish
America (Cambridge, 1998).
16. Manuel Chust, La cuestion nacional americana en las Cortes de Cadiz (1810-1814)
(Valencia, 1999).
Cortes confirmed an 1809 decree, which theoretically abolished the

colonial status of overseas territories, declaring them an integral part of a
single Spanish nation.17
Far from settling the matter, the Cortes's declaration of equality
between peninsular and overseas Spaniards raised a new series of
questions and debates. How would that equality manifest itself? Would
Americans have equal representation? How was equal representation
going to be defined : by an equal or proportional number of deputies? Given
the demographic weight of nonwhites in the Americas, discussions of
equality and representation soon acquired racial connotations. If
representation was proportional, would it be proportional to the number
of whites, or whites and Indians, or all free subjects, including blacks? This
last question became one of the thorniest, one which forced Spanish
Americans to develop notions of race and citizenship that could not have
been foreseen earlier. From this point forward American representation
became tied to discussions of racial equality.
At the core of the debates was the question of how a racially
heterogeneous society would be represented in a constitutional
parliament. 1 8 Since the number of deputies was proportional to the number
of citizens, the issue of whether people of Indian or African descent could
be citizens would determine the political weight of American deputies.
After some discussion, Indian citizenship was quickly recognized. As
James King has noted, Indians' legal freedom and nominal equality were
overtly grounded in Spanish legislation.19 It was quite different for people
of African descent. The question of whether they could be citizens sparked
a passionate and heated debate between Spanish and American deputies.
Because few castas (people of mixed racial descent) could prove they
were free of African ancestry, to count people of African descent would
lead to a situation where Americans would dominate the Cortes through
sheer numbers. Since official nationalist rhetoric promoted harmony and
equality between Americans and Spaniards, Spanish deputies could not
openly express their fears at being outnumbered. They therefore focused
their attack on the qualification of pardos (free blacks and mulattos) for
citizenship. This proved significant because it tied American representation
17. Ibid., p. 52.

1 8. The best analysis of C&diz debates over representation concerning blacks remains
James F. King, "The Colored Castas and American Representation in the Cortes of Cadiz,"
Hispanic American Historical Review 33 (1953): 33-64. See also Marie Laure Rieu-Millan, Los
diputados americanos en las cortes de Cadiz (Madrid, 1990), pp. 152-1 73; Chust, La cuestion
nacional, pp. 53-73 and 150-173.
19. James F. King, "The Colored Castas," pp. 43-44.
to pardo citizenship, and ultimately linked full racial legal equality to patriot
nationalism.
Pardo equality did not become an intrinsic part of patriotic discourse
overnight. Debates over the rights of people of mixed descent at Cadiz
began in January 1811 over the issue of whether American representation
should be discussed immediately or after the drafting of the constitution.
When the debates began, some deputies still drew upon a traditional
notion of representation in which every estate was distinctly represented
in parliament. Indians would represent Indians, Creoles represent Creoles,
and mestizos represent mestizos. Eventually, the idea of racial
representation along corporate lines did not prevail against notions of
representation that sought to abolish all vestiges of feudal society, including
representation by estates.20
Even if American deputies favored liberal notions of representation,
they did not immediately promote that of the pardos. Most liberal deputies
believed that the Cortes should represent the nation, in which sovereignty
now resided.21 Basic to this notion was the idea that the nation had a
collective interest not divisible by factions or parties. In the January debates
Spanish deputies used this idea to contrast a racially homogeneous and
harmonious Spain with an America rife with racial diversity and rivalry.22 To
the Americans' request for equal representation, Spanish deputies
responded that American racial heterogeneity was a complex and little-
understood phenomenon that required further study. Thus, the discussion
over American representation needed to wait until the constitution was
drafted. This argument proved difficult for American deputies, since they
shared with their Spanish counterparts ideas of nation and sovereignty that
privileged unity and homogeneity over division and difference. As a result,
in January they chose for a hesitant compromise. They acknowledged the
problem and requested the explicit acceptance of only Indian and Creole
representation, leaving the problem of African-American representation for
later. At the same time, they sought to discredit Spanish representations of
America as a society torn by racial conflict. The Spanish used the frightful
example of Haiti to warn Americans about the dangers of conceding
citizenship to pardos. Americans responded with images of a harmonious
society of benign slave-owners and peaceful blacks, one that had nothing
in common with Haiti, where the cruelty of French masters had fostered
20. Guerra, Modernidad e independencias, pp. 327-333.

21 . Chust, La cuestion national, pp. 128-129.
22. See, for example, Arguelles' arguments on January 23, 1811 in Diario de Sesiones de
las Cortes Generates y Extraordinarias (hereafter, Diario de Sesiones ) vol. 3 (Madrid, 1870).
bloody revolution.23 Eventually, the Spanish attack on American racial

heterogeneity forced Americans to adopt a series of arguments in defense
of American racial diversity.
In September 1811, when a draft of the new constitution was presented
to the Cortes, American deputies were obliged to develop a firmer defense
of their racially heterogeneous societies. By declaring that all free men
were Spanish, the draft officially included free people of African
background as members of the Spanish nation. Yet, additional articles
declared as citizens only those whose origins went back to Spain or
America, but not Africa. In addition, according to Article 29, parliamentary
representation was to be proportional to the number of people whose
origins could be traced exclusively to Spain or America, once again
including Creoles, Indians and mestizos, but excluding those of mixed
racial descent with some degree of African background. This greatly
diminished American representation and called into question Spanish
official declarations of American equality.
In spite of their opposition to pardo citizenship, Spanish liberal deputies
could not create a rigid barrier between black and white citizens. They
shared the Christian notion of intrinsic equality among men and the
enlightened belief that merit rather than origin should determine social
status. Even more, they feared the alienation of the pardo population in
America, which, for the most part, remained loyal to Spain. They therefore
explained African Americans' inferiority as the result of their "regrettable
origin and lack of education." In the less euphemistic words of another
Spanish deputy, blacks originated in Africa and thus "belonged to a nation
of irreligious and immoral habits." Even those born and raised in America,
he continued, had learned African habits from their parents.24 As a result,
the incorporation of people of African descent had to be gradual. The
Cortes would grant citizenship individually to those pardos who could
prove merit and virtue, in accordance with the gracias al sacar principle of
23. Sessions of January 23-25, Diario de Sesiones , vol. 3. El Amigo de los Hombres
(Philadelphia, 1812; Cartagena, 1813) Archivo General de Indias (hereafter AGI) R.17170, 3-4.
When the example of Haiti was used to dissuade Creoles from Cartagena from declaring a
junta , Antonio de Villavicencio, a royal emissary, responded: "It is completely absurd to fear
an outcome similar to that of Saint Domingue, because of differences in circumstances and
precedents. We recognize our king Ferdinand VII and we have not proclaimed liberty and
equality or abolished the slavery of blacks, whose number was as excessive in Saint
Domingue as it is scarce here. To all of those who share these fears with me I tell them to
hide them." Antonio de Villavicencio to Virrey Amar, 30 May 1810, AGI, Santa Fe, 747, doc. 34.
24. 1 0 September 1811, Diario de Sesiones , 3: 1 808.
1795.25 To accusations that the general exclusion of people of African

descent from citizenship was inconsistent with liberal principles, a Spanish
deputy responded with the examples of Great Britain and the United
States. Nobody could deny the progress, enlightenment and liberal laws of
these countries, yet they had not, he claimed, granted citizenship to free
people of African descent. How then, he asked, could Spain, which was
only beginning the path toward liberty, take that innovative and dangerous
step?26 Spanish deputies further accused their American counterparts of
denying their racial antagonism out of political expediency and challenged
them to give pardos not only the right of being represented but the right to
become deputies.27
Spanish deputies built upon the ideas of Jean-Jacques Rousseau to
argue for the establishment "in all citizens the moral unity that is essential
for the government to promote the general good without the hindrance of
divergent habits and opinions."28 Since both American and Spanish
deputies agreed that a nation's citizens shared common interests and
values, the latter had to prove that people of African descent represented
a threat while the former had to present a racially harmonious picture of
America. Thus, Spanish deputies used the segregation of American parish
registries and the offense Creoles took at being mistaken for mulattos to
prove that racial differences and antagonisms divided Americans.
Moreover, Spanish deputies appealed to the lengthy catalog of elite Creole
racial prejudices, and they reminded Creoles that Spaniards had
traditionally acted as the pardos ' allies and protectors.
During the September 181 1 debates on Article 29, American deputies,
with one exception, closed ranks in favor of the right of pardos to be
25. In 1 795 the Spanish Crown published a royal decree which contained a list of some
seventy-one royal waivers (gracias al sacar) with their respective prices. Among the listed
exemptions was that of the category of pardo. For 500 re ales it was possible for a pardo to buy
his or her whiteness. This decree did not establish a new procedure but only regularized a
previous practice that allowed meritorious and wealthy pardos to acquire the legal privileges
of whites through service to the crown and a monetary gift. James King, "The Case of Jose
Ponciano de Ayarza: A Document of Gracias al Sacar," HAHR 31 (1951): 640-645. See also Jose
Maria Ots Capadequi, "Sobre las confirmaciones reales y las "gracias al sacar" en la historia
del derecho indiano," Estudios de Historia Novohispana 2 (1968): 35-47.
26. 7 September 1811, Diario de Sesiones, 3: 1 796.
27. Chust, La cuestion national, p. 160.
28. 7 September 1811, Diario de Sesiones, 3:1797. Jean-Jacques Rousseau, The Social
Contract and Discourses (New York, 1950), pp. 26-28. For an analysis of Spanish-American
ideas about factionalism during the revolutionary era, see Glen Dealy, "Prolegomena on the
Spanish American Political Tradition," HAHR (1968): 37-58.
represented.29 They nevertheless divided over how this representation

would be implemented. More conservative deputies opted for granting
people of African descent the right to elect but not be elected. In the words
of the Guatemalan deputy Larrazabal, this was a fair solution because "the
hierarchies present in heaven prove the presence of hierarchies on
earth."30 Most American deputies, however, did not share this traditional
view. Like the Spanish deputies, they thought that education and merit
would gradually enable people of African descent to enjoy the full rights of
citizenship. Still, the Americans' threshold for merit was considerably lower
than that of the Spanish. They were willing to submit pardos to the same
citizenship requirements that the Cortes had decreed for Spaniards. Most
American deputies shared the notion that people of African descent born
of free parents and having a profession - this included artisans - or
possessing enough property to sustain an independent position should be
citizens.31 They also held that those who met the required constitutional
qualifications should enjoy the right to be elected regardless of their racial
origin.
In defending pardo citizenship, American deputies proved innovative.
They constructed an image of American racial diversity not at odds with
the contemporary ideal of a nation where citizens shared common
interests and values. They therefore set about to prove that harmony rather
than conflict characterized racial relations in Spanish America. Moreover,
since American deputies wanted the immediate enactment of pardo
citizenship and representation, they had to prove that harmonious race
relations were a current reality. According to one deputy's idyllic picture,
whites and blacks were nursed together by black women from whom they
learned to love one another.32 American deputies also overturned the curse
of illegitimacy that traditionally had characterized people of mixed racial
descent. Interracial sexual relations were now presented in a positive light,
indicating interracial harmony. They argued that pervasive racial mixing
had developed strong ties between Creole and black families not to be
broken by exclusionary laws. Moreover, since many members of the Creole
elite were racially mixed, mulattos passing for whites had often occupied
29. Rieu-Millan, Los diputados americanos , p. 154.

30. 6 September 1811, Diario de Sesiones, 3: 1 788, "las distintas jerarqufas que hay en el
cielo nos convencen de que las hay en la tierra."
31. For an analysis of characteristics of citizenship in Spain and American during these
years, see Frangois-Xavier Guerra, "El soberano y su reino: reflexiones sobre la genesis del
ciudadano en America Latina" in Ciudadanfa politico y formation de naciones: perspectivas
historicas de America Latina, Hilda Sabato ed. (Mexico, 1999), pp. 33-61.
32. 7 September 1811, Diario de Sesiones , 3: 1 798.
positions of authority, thus proving mulattos' political abilities.33 While

admitting that racial prejudices led people to hide their mixed racial
descent, American deputies argued that this was only the product of
outdated and barbarous laws, such as the regulations on limpieza de
sangre (purity of blood).34 It followed that the constitution's exclusionary
laws were not a remedy for a society riven by conflict, but rather the
continuation of laws that generated conflict in a society characterized by
harmony.
In addition, American deputies had to develop arguments against the
Spanish exclusion of pardos from the national body politic. Spanish
deputies argued that people of African descent were outside the original
social pact created during the conquest among Spaniards, Creoles and
Indians; consequently they did not participate in the constitution of the
nation.35 In response, American deputies presented a notion of nationality
in which contribution to the patria prevailed over origin. Building on the
ideas of the Abbe Sieyes, they argued that citizens who performed useful
work constituted the nation. They extolled at length pardos ' toil as
agricultural laborers, their contributions as craftsmen, and their invaluable
role as militiamen.36 One deputy went so far as to say that "our castas are
the depositories of all our happiness."37
Further, American deputies emphasized an idea of nationality that
privileged birth, culture and love for the fatherland over racial origins.
According to one deputy, pardos "were Spanish by birth; from their cradle
they had suckled the Spanish religion, language, customs and concerns."38
Another argued that people of African descent born in America were
"shaped by the land," which they loved as their fatherland. To deprive
them of citizenship was to condemn them to a punishment reserved only
for Jews: not to belong to the nation where they were bom.39
33. 10 September 1811 Diario de Sesiones , 3: 1 809.

34. 6 September 1811, Diario de Sesiones , 3: 1 789-1 790.
35. 5 September 1811, Diario de Sesiones , 3: 1 781 .
36. 7 September, 1811, Diario de Sesiones , 3: 1 799. Chust, La cuestion national, pp. 1 53-
1 5. For the re-evaluation of mechanical arts during the enlightenment, see William H. Sewell,
Jr., Work and Revolution in France: The Language of Labor from the Old Regime to 1848
(Cambridge, 1980), pp. 64-72, 77-86. See also Sewell's recent study of Sieyes: A Rhetoric of
Bourgeois Revolution: The Abbe Sieyes and What Is the Third Estate? (Durham, NC, 1994).
37. Carta 6a de Juan Sintierra sobre un articulo de la Nueva Constitution de Espana, El
Espahol , 30 October 1811.
38. 5 September 181 1, Diario de Sesiones, 3:1781.
39. 7 September 1811, Diario de Sesiones , 3: 1 799.
Early Alliances: Pardos and the People, Cartagena, 1810-11
While parliamentarians debated American representation and pardo

citizenship at Cadiz, in Caribbean Colombia events proceeded at a fast
pace. As in other cities of the empire, Creoles in the Caribbean port of
Cartagena deposed Spanish authorities and established juntas invoking the
sovereign people. "The people," however, was not merely a rhetorical
invention to legitimize Creole government. Cartagena's creole elite asked
men and women to join the patriot movement, many of whom armed
themselves and gathered in plazas. In the province of Cartagena, where
free people of African descent constituted the majority of the population,
the entrance of the people as a political protagonist had radical
implications. It opened the question of the racial and social limits of
political participation. As the question of whether to call an open meeting
(ccibildo abierto) of the town council in the city of Mompox indicated, the
answer was neither simple nor immediate. For the Mompox council the
inconvenience of such a meeting derived from uncertainty about how best
to convene it:
If only the nobility is called to participate, the inferior classes would

be offended at their exclusion . . . [I]f only honorable and educated
pardos are called, the rest would argue that poverty is not a crime.
There are several reasons to fear this outcome that you are aware
of and that prudence forces us not to mention.40
The predicament faced by the Mompox council reveals the problems of

political inclusion raised by revolutionary events. It was not clear who had
the right to participate in local political decisions. Moreover, an official
rhetoric that set the limits and characteristics of political citizenship had
not yet been developed.41 Contemporary revolutionary ideology provided
a range of examples, some more inclusive than others, and it was unclear
40. Manuel Ezequiel Corrales, comp., Documentos para la historia de la prooincia de

Cartagena , hoy Est ado Soberano de la Union Colombiana (Bogota, 1883), 1:198.
4 1 . Antonio IN anno asked ot Lartagena s junta : in tne suaaen state or revolution it is said
that the people assumes sovereignty; but in fact, how does it exercise it? By its
representatives, it is answered. And who names the representatives? The people. And who
convokes this people? When? Where? Under what formula?" Although Narino's questions
were intended to satirize Cartagena's fondness for liberal notions of representation, he
pointed out the crucial question of how, in fact, the people were to exercise sovereignty. I am
quoting from Jaime Jaramillo Uribe, El pensamiento colombiano en el siglo XIX (Bogota,
1996), p. 152.
for the moment which would be the best choice. Given the volatile
situation, the town council decided not to call an open meeting.
Notwithstanding their apprehensions, the Creole members of the
Cartagena town council - mostly merchants and lawyers - could not
depose the Spanish authorities without first securing the support of the
local lower classes.42 Pardo support became essential in the patriot
success against the royalists. In May 1810 Cartagena's council began to
conspire against the province's Spanish governor, a task facilitated by his
unpopularity. The governor openly distrusted Creoles. Moreover, he had
stopped the construction of defense projects, which not only had left many
artisans unemployed but made him vulnerable to accusations of treason.43
According to a local witness, the town council sought support from persons
close to the commoners before trying to depose the governor. For the
artisan and pardo neighborhood of Getsemani, it chose Pedro Romero and
Juan Jose Solano. The former was a successful pardo artisan and militia
member who worked with his sons in the arsenal shop. Thanks to his
support and that of Solano, Getsemani joined the plot.44
The alliance was made official during Cartagena's first elections, which
incorporated pardos into the definition of "the people." Without waiting for
legislation from Cadiz, the Cartagena junta granted equal citizenship to
42. For the crucial role that pardos played in Cartagena's independence, see Alfonso
Munera, "Failing to Construct the Colombian Nation: Race and Class in the Andean Caribbean
Conflict, 1717-1816," Ph.D. diss., University of Connecticut, 1995, pp. 237-240. See also, Aline
Helg, "The Limits of Equality," Slavery and Abolition 20 (1999): 1-30.
43. Alfonso Munera, El fracaso de la nacion: region, clase y raza en el Caribe colombiano
(1717-1821) ( Bogota, 1998), pp. 157-159, 175-176.
44. Documentos para la historia , 1 : 127. As a result the council deposed the governor on
June 14, 1810, when men armed with machetes and a crowd of local people of all classes
surrounded his palace. It should be noted that Cartagena was not unique. In the nearby city
of Mompox, the zambo (half-Indian, half-black) Jose Luis Munoz was part of the 1810 town
council conspiracies against Spanish authorities. According to the Spanish military
commander, Don Vicente Talledo, it was necessary to win back Munoz's support because of
his influence with mulattos and zambos. "Informe del Comandante de Ingenieros, Don
Vicente Talledo, al Virrey Amar, sobre conatos de revolution en Cartagena y Mompox,"
Documentos para la historia , 1 :53-54. This pattern of securing pardo alliance for urban patriot
conspiracies continued until the very end of the independence struggle. In 1819 Spanish
authorities discovered a patriot conspiracy in Mompox in which members of the Creole elite
participated with zambo artisans. "Testimonio de lo que resulta de la Causa Principal contra
Don Jose Manuel de la Paz, Administrador General de Tabacos de la Villa de Mompox:
Indiciado de haber entrado en la conspiration tramada en Mompox contra las armas del
Rey," AGI, Cuba 719 A. Similarly, the list of patriot conspirators in 1819 Ocana includes men
and women, whites and blacks, free and nonfree: "Relation de las personas que resultaron
complices en la sorpresa y asesinato verificados en esta ciudad de Ocana el 1 0 de Noviembre
de 1819," AGI, Cuba 719 A.
people of African descent. The December 1810 electoral instructions for

the Suprema Junta of the province of Cartagena included all races. Thus,
"all parishioners, whites, Indians, mestizos, mulattos, zambos and blacks,
as long as they are household heads and live from their own work, are to
be summoned for elections." Only "vagrants, criminals, those who are in
servile salaried status, and slaves are excluded."45
The alliance was also represented in patriot narratives of the period,
which extolled the new social and racial unity and contrasted it with
Spanish colonial practices. A contemporary witness described the
cooperation between Creoles and pardos in deposing governor Montes as
the birth of a new revolutionary people unencumbered by colonial social
hierarchies. In exuberant revolutionary language he narrated the transit of
Cartagena's people from darkness to light. In becoming free they left
behind divisions separating nobles and plebeians, the arrogance of birth
and riches, and the vilification of mechanical work.46 His account of an
interview between the town council leader, Jose Maria Garcia de Toledo,
and the pardo artisan, Pedro Romero, can be read as a compelling
example of that process. We are told that when first asked to support the
movement against the governor, Romero saw it as an extremely odd and
altogether impossible action. His initial response was explained as the
natural result of his education in false political notions. Like most
Americans, Romero was ignorant of his political rights. However, Garcia de
Toledo convinced him of the project's justice, and Romero accordingly
agreed to cooperate. Together they joined forces to defend the fatherland.47
Given pardos' active paarticipation in support of Cartagena's junta, it is
not surprising that Cartagena's declaration of independence followed the
Cortes's denial of citizenship to pardos and (as it was interpreted) of equal
representation to the Americas.48 When the news from Cadiz arrived, the
junta had already conferred equal legal rights on all races; a nationalist
45. "Instrucciones que deberan observarse en las elecciones parroquiales, en las de

partido y en las capitulares, para el nombramiento de diputados en la Suprema Junta de la
provincia de Cartagena, 1 1 December 1810, Manuel Ezequiel Corrales," Efemerides y anales
del Estado de Bolivar (Bogota, 1889), 2:48.
46. "Apuntamientos para escribir una ojeada sobre la historia de la transformation
politica de la Provincia de Cartagena," Documentos para la historia , 1 : 129.
47. Ibid., 1:127. This narrative was strengthened by junta accounts of patriot actions
against the Spanish that praised the action of pardo and white militia battalions. AGI, Santa
Fe 747, doc 43, Cartagena, 7 February 181 1.
48. This point is made by Munera, "Failing to Construct the Colombian Nation," p. 238.
Documentos para la historia , 1 :368.
rhetoric that associated racial hierarchy with Spanish despotism had begun
to emerge.49
Pardos ' Rights Are Patriots' Rights
Patriot nationalism gained power and cohesion by setting itself in sharp

contrast to its opponent, imperial Spain.50 The latter symbolized corruption,
despotism and the past. In contrast, America represented enlightenment,
virtue and the future. Patriot racial constructs fit neatly within these
dichotomies, linking racial hierarchies to Spanish despotism and making
racial discrimination a sign of un-Americanness. The introductory address
"to the Americans" in Juan Bautista Mariano Picornell's 1 797 translation of
the Rights of Man , which was republished in 1813 in Bogota, gave
expression to these developments.51 By examining what republicanism
meant in America it adapted liberal ideas of nation and citizenship to
Spanish-American racial realities, and carefully elaborated the notions of
civic virtue that underlay official discourse in early-republican Colombia.
49. Although the debates of the Cartagena junta about pardo citizenship have not
survived, those concerning pardo equality of the Venezuelan Constitutional Congress (1811)
provide an illustrative example of the arguments used for and against pardos in a region with
racial and political characteristics resembling those of Cartagena. In July the first congress of
republican Venezuela discussed a constitutional prohibition of legal distinctions between
pardos and whites. As in other parts of Spanish America where blacks and mulattos
constituted an important percentage of the population, pardos in Venezuela had been an
active and decisive force in the struggles between royalists and patriots. For a summary of the
pardos' military role in the Llanos (the Venezuelan plains), see, for example, Robin
Blackburn, The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery , pp. 340-360; Lynch, The Spanish American
Revolutions , pp. 190-227; Gerhard Masur, Simon Bolivar (Caracas, 1987). Unlike their Cadiz
counterparts, Venezuelan deputies did not debate pardos ' rights to citizenship. The issue was
whether the constitution should explicitly eliminate political and civil distinctions between
blacks and whites. The prohibition became part of the 1812 constitution. See the Venezuela
debates of Session of July 31,1811, Libro de actas del Supremo Congreso de Venezuela , 1811-
1812 (Caracas, 1959), pp. 254-262, and Rodriguez, "Los pardos libres," p. 52.
50. This rhetorical tactic was shared by other contemporary nationalist ideologies. See
Eric Hobsbawn, Nations and Nationalism since 1 780: Programme, Myth, Reality (Cambridge,
1990), p. 91 ; Linda Colley, Britons : Forging the Nation, 1 707-1837 (New Haven, 1992), pp. 6-7,
368.
5 1 . Derechos del hombre y del ciudadano con varias maximas republicanas y un discurso
preliminar dirigido a los americanos (Santa Fe de Bogota, 1813) Coleccion de Libros Raros
y Manuscritos, Biblioteca Luis Angel Arango. For the 1 797 version, see Pedro Grases, "Estudio
historico-critico sobre los Derechos del Hombre y del Ciudadano," Derechos del Hombre y
del Ciudadano (Caracas, 1959), pp. 103-246.
Picornell predictably presented a sharp contrast between a despotic

colonial past and the new era of republican virtues.52
Among those virtues, unity had special weight. Highly influenced by
Rousseau, Picornell emphasized its importance. He argued that in a
monarchy vassals cared only about their individual needs; color, lineage,
customs and education divided them, as each subject was driven by
personal interest. This excluded merit and talent, producing only vice and
crime. Men were selfish and isolated, oblivious to the welfare of their
fellow men. Such a society, the author continued,
is in constant conflict and its members are united only by the chains
that oppress and fasten them. In a true Republic it is the opposite;
the body politic is one, all citizens have the same spirit, the same
feelings, the same rights, the same virtues; reason alone commands
and not violence; obedience derives from love not fear.53
The significance of race relations became evident in Picornell's

explanation of how republican unity should be achieved: "The most
perfect union must rule among whites, Indians, pardos , and blacks." To
better enslave them, despotic Spanish kings had introduced unnatural
distinctions that made Americans see one another as different in nature.
Picornell claimed that only vices stood between Americans and their
liberty, and he asked them "to remain always bonded to virtue" in order "to
achieve a perfect unity." 54
The association between despotism and racial division did not have to
become a marker of distinction between Spaniards and Americans.
Indeed, Picornell was a republican Spaniard. What made racial equality a
distinctive American characteristic were the Cadiz debates which were
widely followed throughout Spanish America. Joseph Blanco White
favored abolition and racial equality. Like Picornell before him, he
52. Benedict Anderson emphasizes the sense of newness shared by Spanish- American
patriots, yet he restricts it to the elite. Imagined Communities, p. 193. Lynn Hunt's conception
of the French Revolution as a "liminal period ... in which the nation appeared to hover on the
margins between what had been declared old and what was hoped for as new" is also
appropriate for the Wars of Independence. Lynn Hunt, Politics , Culture , and Class in the
French Revolution (Berkeley, 1984), p. 180. The irremediable differences between Spain and
America would be a constant element of patriot rhetoric throughout the Independence
period. See, for example, Cuartel General del Libertador en Turbaco to Sr. Brigadier and Jefe
Supremo de la Plaza de Cartagena, 28 August 1820, AGI, Santa Fe 1017.
53 . Derechos del hombre y del ciudadano con varias maximas republicanas y un discurso
preliminar dirigido a los americanos, p. 21 .
54. Ibid., p. 16.
considered that differences among classes of people were "fatal for the
union and prosperity of America."55 Yet, in July 1 81 0 he thought there were
compelling reasons to believe that such racial reforms were more likely
under the Spanish monarchy than in an Independent America. Experience
showed that Creoles were very attached to their racial prerogatives; thus,
a Creole government would likely increase rather than diminish distinctions
between blacks and whites. Moreover, the U.S. example seemed to
confirm this prediction. In the U.S. anxieties concerning blacks and
mulattos increased following independence to such a degree that its last
president proposed expelling people of African descent to avoid the
"contamination of Virginians' blood."56 Only a year later, Blanco White's
argument would be impossible to sustain. The Cadiz debates had made
racial equality a distinctive American characteristic. What began as a
tactical attempt to secure a larger number of American representatives had
become a powerful nationalist construct. The evolution of the debates, the
ways in which they set Americans and Spaniards against each other, and
the publicity they received gave to pardo citizenship a strength and
emotional appeal which could have hardly been predicted a couple of
years earlier.
The Cadiz debates were widely followed throughout Spanish America.57
Newspapers, and particularly the London-based El Espanol, played a
crucial role in this development. While the Cadiz deputies were discussing
the citizenship rights of people of African descent, El Espanol published a
long article on black intellectual abilities.58 In addition, it summarized the
Cadiz debates on black citizenship, indicating the inconsistencies of
Spanish opponents and applauding the arguments of American supporters.
Americans read that castas were crucial to the welfare of the Americas, a
situation that entitled them to full citizenship.59
55. El Espanol, 30 July 1810, p. 282.

56. Ibid., pp. 282-283.
57. David Brading, The First America (Cambridge, 1991 ), pp. 573-577. In 181 1 Cartagena,
the newspaper El Argos Americano reproduced fragments of El Espanol coverage of the Cadiz
debates.
58. "Sobre las facultades intelectuales de los negros," El Espanol , no. XIX, 30 October
1811, pp. 3-25. Translating and commenting upon the abolitionist Wilberforce's "Letter from
Liverpool," the writer for El Espanol presented a defense of black intelligence that attacked
the major arguments of contemporary racism. He contested the association between physical
difference and intellectual inferiority.
59. "Carta 6a de Juan Sintierra sobre un articulo de la Nueva Constitution de Espana,"
El Espanol, 30 October 181 1, pp. 65-79.
Although whites wrote most of the commentaries on the Cortes, at least

one political pamphlet claimed a pardo as author. Its title translates as
"Political and Moral Reflections of a descendant of Africa to his nation, in
which he manifests his amorous lamentations to his American brothers."
The pamphlet sought to demonstrate that the Cadiz laws legislation lacked
any moral, religious or political basis for discriminating against people of
African descent.60 The author developed two main arguments. First, he
insisted that social hierarchies are unnatural, the product of force or
necessity. Second, he argued that racial discrimination was unchristian. To
discriminate against pardos contradicted the notion that, as descendants
of Adam and Eve, all humankind was equal. Moreover, laws that
discriminated against pardos violated a fundamental Christian principle:
do unto others what you would have them do unto you. Mockingly, the
author declared that until this moment he had believed that only original
sin was transmitted from generation to generation. But baptism eliminated
it. In contrast, there was no absolution for being a descendant of Africans.
He summarized his arguments in patriotic verse:
The cause of causes that created the world

To all men liberty gave,
And of equal material Adam and Eve made;
Then all men are equal without possible argument
Even if selfishness opposes it without reason
Then pardos should not be excluded from the elections
Because any law established according to religion
Is for all and should make happy every nation.
May mine be justly granted, what others enjoy under the constitution
When united in society we gave up our liberty,
It was to be happy like citizens,
For that reason we bestowed our rights on the king,
And leaving our land in wars we sacrificed ourselves;
But what advantages did we get?
To lack all knowledge from education,
Exclusion from employment by the constitution.
Fellow patriots lets shed tears over our sad condition,
Which neither the fatherland nor the constitution could alleviate.
60. "Reflexiones politicas y morales de un descendiente de Africa a su nacion en que

manifiesta sus amorosas quejas a los americanos sus hermanos," Imprenta de los huerfanos
por D. Bernardino Ruiz, in AGI, R. 15497.
The use of commonplace liberal principles to support pardo citizenship

makes this poem special. It argues that because all men are created equal,
pardos should be equal before the law and not excluded from suffrage. It
alludes to military service in defense of the Spanish crown, and laments
that the rewards for this sacrifice were the denial of education and
employment. For the author, citizenship would mean the end of colonial
laws prohibiting people of African descent from entering universities and
practicing the professions.61
The "Political and Moral Reflections of a descendant of Africa" provided
one of the more eloquent examples of pardo interest in the Cadiz Cortes,
but it was not unique. According to James King, pardos followed with
interest parliamentary dicussions, paying particular attention to those
concerning their legal status.62 It was probably no coincidence that
Cartagena's declaration of independence coincided with arrival of the
news that the Cortes had rejected pardo citizenship. A speech by Jose
Francisco Bermudez to black soldiers during the Spanish siege of the
Republic of Cartagena in 1815 indicates the importance the Cadiz debates
had come to assume:
Remember, above all you men of color, how this conflict began; it
can only call more strongly on your gratitude, your self-interest, and
your honor.
In forming its government, Spain excluded America from its rightful

share of representation; American governments opposed this
arbitrary measure by force. Spain modified it by granting whites their
rights but denying them completely to men of color; and the whites
then cried out that they would defend with weapons in hand the
rights that belong to you. Could you fail to respond to such a
generous resolution?
No, the origin of this conflict was more yours than ours.
61. The pamphlet does not identify its author, but it is clear that he was educated. He
began his text with an extensive quote in Latin, a language that he continued to use
throughout the text in citing classical and Christian authorities. This show of erudition was
probably not gratuitous. Most early nineteenth-century political pamphlets no longer used
Latin. Yet, this use of Latin sent a clear political message to those who alleged that pardos
lacked civilization and were naturally inferior.
62. James King, "The Colored Castes and American Representation," p. 34; James King,
"A Royalist View of the Colored Castes in the Venezuelan Wars of Independence," Hispanic
American Historical Review 33 (1953): 533.
Come, let us unite and give Europe an example of fraternity; let our
oppressors know what a people unjustly insulted is capable of
doing.63
To fire up the support of his pardo soldiers, Bermudez portrayed the

independence conflict as a struggle over pardo rights. Skillfully, he
transformed the Creoles' need of pardo support to defeat the Spaniards
into a pardo need of Creoles to obtain their citizenship rights. According to
Bermudez, the was was not about Creoles' rights of representation; the
Cortes, after all, had granted them those rights. If the conflict persisted it
was only because altruistic whites had stood up in defense of their black
American brothers' rights. If followed that pardos should not only support
the patriot cause - which was, after all, their own cause - but also be
grateful for the self-sacrifice of their white brothers.
Conclusion
The year 1811 represented a turning point for the nationalist republican
rhetoric of racial equality. The Cadiz debates made racial discrimination a
distinctively Spanish characteristic, and thereby prevented patriots from
openly opposing black citizenship. Racial discrimination became linked to
Spanish oppression and despotism, racial harmony to a new era of
republican virtue. American deputies in Cadiz and patriots in America had
turned Creole colonial racial prejudices upside down and developed the
major themes of what would later be known as the myth of racial
democracy. Miscegenation, previously associated with illegitimacy, now
became evidence of American harmony. Even the recurrent motif of the
black woman nursing white children was used. The brotherhood of white
and black Americans became a patriotic cry. The Spanish translation of the
Rights of Man declared it. Pardo patriots used it to vindicate their rights,
and white patriot officers used it to secure the support of black soldiers.
Contemporary racial problems, including slavery, which remained legal,
were dismissed as yet another nefarious legacy of Spanish domination.64
This discourse relieved Creoles of blame for current racial conditions,
63. "Proclama de Jose Francisco Bermudez," Cartagena, 8 August 1815, Archivo General
de la Nation, Archivo Restrepo, rollo 5, fol. 179.
64. "Observaciones de G.T. sobre la ley de Manumision del Soberano Congreso de
Colombia," (Bogota, 1822). Coleccion de Libros Raros y Manuscritos Biblioteca Luis Angel
Arango; "Los Hacendados y Vecinos de la Provincia de Cartagena de Colombia al Congreso,"
November 30, 1 822, Archivo Lesislativo del Conereso de Colombia, Camara, Peticiones, p. 33,
fols. 24-31.
making whites and blacks joint victims of Spanish tyranny. From this
moment forward pardo citizenship and representation became intrinsically
linked to patriotic discourse; African-American rights had become patriot
rights.
The early 1812 constitution of Cartagena granted pardo citizenship and
legal equality. Ten years later the 1821 Cucuta constitution, which
governed Gran Colombia, also granted full legal equality to whites and
blacks. Unlike the Cadiz debates, the issue was not even discussed. One
important repercussion of this silence was that pardos citizenship did not
become a marker between opposing patriot factions - as happened with
issues such as state-church relations and federalism. After independence
racial equality became a pillar of a shared nationalist discourse.65 That
"harmony" would not last. The end of the wars did not prevent conflicts
from emerging over the meaning and political implication of racial
equality.66 Nevertheless, the racial discourse constructed during these years
had long-term consequences and would influence race relations for the
next two centuries.
65. This is not to deny that some parties were more strongly associated with pardo
demands than others. The early federalist faction and later the Liberal Party tended to enjoy
a larger degree of pardo support than did conservatives. For an examination of the
relationship between abolitionism and the Liberal Party in the 1840s and early 1850s, see
James Sanders, "Contentious Republicans: Popular Politics, Race, and Class in Nineteenth-
Century Southwestern Colombia" (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Pittsburgh, 2000).
66. I examine these conflicts in detail in Marixa Lasso, "Race and Republicanism in the
Age of Revolution, Cartagena 1795-1831" (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Florida, 2002).

A Republican Myth of Racial Harmony

Cargado por

Información del documento

Derechos de autor

Formatos disponibles

Compartir este documento

Compartir o incrustar documentos

Opciones para compartir

¿Le pareció útil este documento?

¿Este contenido es inapropiado?

Copyright:

Formatos disponibles

A Republican Myth of Racial Harmony

Cargado por

Copyright:

Formatos disponibles

Berghahn Books

A Republican Myth of Racial Harmony: Race and Patriotism in Colombia, 1810-12

Race and Patriotism in Colombia,

During the Spanish-American wars of independence, a new language

2003 HISTORICAL REFLECTIONS /REFLEXIONS HISTORIQUES, Vol. 29, No. 1

consequence of a colonial past of racial hybridity or a novel invention that

Following Marx's thesis that moments of national formation are crucial

is that racial equality became linked to American patriotism. Race could

Citizenship and Racial Equality: The Cadiz Assembly, 1810-12

The French invasion of the Iberian peninsula in 1808 and the

Cortes confirmed an 1809 decree, which theoretically abolished the

17. Ibid., p. 52.

20. Guerra, Modernidad e independencias, pp. 327-333.

bloody revolution.23 Eventually, the Spanish attack on American racial

1795.25 To accusations that the general exclusion of people of African

represented.29 They nevertheless divided over how this representation

29. Rieu-Millan, Los diputados americanos , p. 154.

positions of authority, thus proving mulattos' political abilities.33 While

33. 10 September 1811 Diario de Sesiones , 3: 1 809.

Early Alliances: Pardos and the People, Cartagena, 1810-11

While parliamentarians debated American representation and pardo

If only the nobility is called to participate, the inferior classes would

The predicament faced by the Mompox council reveals the problems of

40. Manuel Ezequiel Corrales, comp., Documentos para la historia de la prooincia de

people of African descent. The December 1810 electoral instructions for

45. "Instrucciones que deberan observarse en las elecciones parroquiales, en las de

Pardos ' Rights Are Patriots' Rights

Patriot nationalism gained power and cohesion by setting itself in sharp

Picornell predictably presented a sharp contrast between a despotic

The significance of race relations became evident in Picornell's

55. El Espanol, 30 July 1810, p. 282.

Although whites wrote most of the commentaries on the Cortes, at least

The cause of causes that created the world

60. "Reflexiones politicas y morales de un descendiente de Africa a su nacion en que

The use of commonplace liberal principles to support pardo citizenship

In forming its government, Spain excluded America from its rightful

To fire up the support of his pardo soldiers, Bermudez portrayed the

También podría gustarte