THE POLITICAL CULTURE OF FREE PEOPLE OF AFRICAN DESCENT IN EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY NEW GRANADA (1750-1810) by Katherine Bonil Gómez A dissertation submitted to Johns Hopkins University in conformity with the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Baltimore, Maryland February, 2017 © _2017 Katherine Bonil Gómez All Rights Reserved ABSTRACT This dissertation is a study of the lives and political culture of free people of African descent in eighteenth-century Colombia. It explores the ways in which free people of African descent interacted with the Hispanic monarchy institutions and how these interactions shaped their conception of their membership in the body politic and constituted themselves as political subjects. I analyze the ways in which these subjects were incorporated to the Monarchy, how they understood, claimed and negotiated this membership, and how, in this process, they forged their own political notions. I pay attention to the different repertoires of actions of free people and analyze the different ways in which they manifested discontent and participated in politics. Chapter 1 offers an overview of the population of free people in eighteenth-century Colombia. Chapters 2, 3, and 4 delve into three different groups of free people, traders, fluvial workers, and urban and rural poor. Chapter 5 explores participation free people of African descent in one of the largest upheavals of the colonial era, the Comunero revolt. I argue that the corporative and jurisdictional nature of the composite Hispanic monarchy had enduring effects on the ways in which free people of African descent imagined and framed their relation to the state. Free vassals of African descent were not allowed a corporate existence as indigenous group. However, through their continued engagement with legal institutions, they carved out a political place for themselves, that was informed by the corporative and jurisdictional culture. This research recasts previous interpretations of the Age of Revolutions that read free people’s political participation mostly through the lens of political modernity and assessed their ideas and actions in terms of their commitment towards legal equality and ii freedom. Modern ideas of equality and freedom were instrumental for free people, but they were deeply entrenched with notions of privileges and corporate and jurisdictional difference. This explains the fragmentary nature of their political participation in the first years of the Republican life. LIST OF READERS ADVISORS: Gabriel Paquette, PhD. Ben Vinson III, PhD READERS: Maria Portuondo, PhD Rachel O’Toole, PhD Franklin Knight, PhD iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This text would have not been possible without the support of many individuals over the last seven years. Pursuing a doctoral degree abroad was certainly a challenging but rewarding journey. In this venture, I have incurred many personal debts. I am immensely grateful to my mentor, Gabriel Paquette, who has been a vital source of guidance and encouragement and whose deeds as scholar and tutor has been a decisive inspiration for my scholarly career. I thank him for his dedicated reading, his insightful comments, for pushing me to think in innovative ways, and for his inspiring intellectual support. I am also immensely grateful to Ben Vinson, who welcomed to Hopkins, guided me throughout the hard first years of grad school, contributed greatly to the conception of my dissertation and inspired me to undertake the study of the Afro-descendant people in Spanish America. I also would like to acknowledge Franklin Knight, whose reading and comments on my work also contributed greatly to the conception of this project. His vast knowledge of the Caribbean and his intellectual support has enhanced this dissertation. I wish to thank other faculty members in Hopkins’ History Department who, through their teachings, comments and queries, opened my eyes into new and fascinating ways of historical thinking. I am particularly indebted to Richard Kagan, Erin Rowe, Pier Larson, María Portuondo, Michael Kwass, Michael Johnson, Laura Mason and Michael Hanchard. In Hopkins, I also received stimulating feedback at different stages of my research from Paige Glotzer, Emily Mokros, and Linda Braun. In the Latin American History Workshop I greatly benefited from the insightful comments from my Hispanists and Atlanticists fellows, whose amazing projects led me to broaden the scope of my scholarly interests and defined with more precision my research questions. Thanks to Jonathan Greenwood, Yonatan Glazer-Eytan, Matthew Franco, Dexnell Peters, John Harris, Alvaro iv Caso Bello, Brandi Walters, Norah Andrews, Joe Clark and Lauren McDonald. I would like to specially thank Norah, Joe and Lauren, my Latin Americanists buddies, for their support during these seven years, their friendship, camaraderie, and their editing help. I specially thank Megan Zeller Graduate Admissions Coordinator who helped me in many ways and guided through the administrative intricacies of grad school. Life in Baltimore had not been the same without my very good friends. Patricia Madariaga offered me friendship, companionship, and long stimulating chats over tee and homemade cookies. Her cares and her two beautiful cats made me feel in home. Rachel Hsu, friend from the first day of grad school, offered me friendship and support even when I was miles away, forgiving my delayed emails and salways ending me all her love and words of encouragement. Guillermo García, my beloved patita, who endured this long journey through grad school with me, supplied endless support, care and great chat over beers. I would also like to thank my friends Morgan Shahan, Gustavo Valdivia, and Chiara Valle for their companionship. Beyond Hopkins, I was fortunate to meet scholars who contributed, in many ways, to my research. The General Archive of the Indies in Seville is famous among colonialists for bringing together researchers from all over the world, who, over the cafelillo de las once, shared their projects and ideas. There I had the pleasure to talk with many colleagues who I wish to thank, specially Medófilo Medina, Luis Miguel Glave, Yoer Castaño, Jesús Bohorquez, Kristie Flannery, Marie Scherier, Felipe Antonio, Adriana Chira, Roraima Estaba, Roberta Fernandes dos Santos, Luiz Cerveira, and Mauricio Gómez. In Seville I had the great fortune to make a wonderful bunch of friends v that showed me the wonderful Seville and made my live even happier, Fran Molinero, Inés Santos, and Chloe Ireton occupy such a special place in my heart. In Providence, at The John Carter Brown Library and Brown University, I wish to thank Neil Safier, Ken Ward, Alcira Dueñas, Mark Lentz, Rebecca Earle, Roquinaldo Ferreira, Luis Filipe Lima, Dan Zborover, Verónica Pacheco, and Cristobal Silva, for their insightful comments on my work and chats on academic life. I am particularly indebted to Rachel O’Toole, whom I had the fortune to meet in Providence and who enthusiastically commented on my work and provided invaluable criticism, pushing my thinking in fruitful directions. At the Hutchins Center for African & African American Research in Harvard University, I am particularly thankful with Alejandro de la Fuente, George R. Andrews and Tamar Herzog, as well as to the participants of The Mark Claster Mamolen Dissertation Workshop on Afro-Latin American Studies, for reading early drafts of one of my chapters and offering insightful comments. In the course of these years I encountered other scholars who generously read or commented on my work. I wish to thank Marcela Echeverri, whose work has been a decisive inspiration for mine, Ernesto Bassi, Marixa Lasso, Jorge Cañizares Esguerra, Lina María del Castillo, Chris Schmidt-Nowara, Juan Carlos de Orellana, Fidel Tavarez, and María José Afanador. In Colombia I have incurred in many personal and intellectual debts. I wish to thank Diana Bonnett, for her interest in my intellectual development, her constant support and stimulating friendship. I wish to thank Margarita Garrido for her insightful comments and for encouraging my passion for colonial political culture. I owe a great deal to her vi enormous generosity; she shared her thoughts and materials on the Comunero revolt. I also acknowledge gratitude to Marta Herrera for her great teachings and her insightful comments on the Magdalena River and to Muriel Laurent for sharing her fascinating research on race and contraband in nineteenth-century Mompóx. I also want to thank the members of the Grupo Colonial, for their feedback on early drafts of two of my chapters. Thanks also to Rafael Díaz who commented my research proposal, to Guillermo Sosa who thoroughly read and commented Chapter 3, and to Santiago Muñóz, Robinson Salazar, Camilo Zambrano for their comments on different aspects of my research. In the Universidad de Cartagena, I owe special thanks to Sergio Solano and Rafael Acevedo, who gave me the opportunity to share my work in progress with them and with the students of the History Department. To the Erigae people, Monika Therrien, Germán Ferro and Catalina García, who not only invited me to join them in a trip to Honda and shared with me their knowledge also for their love for the Magdalena River and its inhabitants. In Mompóx I am especially thankful with Pablo Miranda, who very kindly allowed me acces to the Archivo Histórico of Mompóx and its wonderful history. I thank the librarian and archivist who allowed me access to the sources this dissertation, particularly to the staff of the Archivo General de Indias (AGI) in Seville, Archivo General de la Nación (Bogotá), Biblioteca Nacional de Colombia (Bogotá), the Biblioteca Luis Angel Arango (Bogotá), the Archivo Histórico de Mompóx (Mompóx), the Archivo Histórico de Cartagena (AHC) and the John Carter Brown Library. I am indebted to the institutions that financed research for this project: the Department of History, the Program of Latin American Studies and the Singleton Center vii for the Study of Pre-Modern Europe in Johns Hopkins University and the Instituto Colombiano de Antropología e Historia (ICANH).