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Divisas and Deberes : Women and the Symbolic Economy of War Rhetoric in the Río De La Plata, 1810–1910

2013; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 22; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/13569325.2013.795131

1469-9575

William G. Acree,

Politics and Society in Latin America

Abstract From the outbreak of the wars for independence in the Río de la Plata to the 1910 centennial celebration of independence, color-coded headbands known as divisas served as means of identifying political affiliation, necessary accoutrements for battle, symbols bearing war cries, and powerful icons that attested to and participated in the politicization of popular classes. In most cases divisas were handmade and sewn by wives and mothers, making these ribbons the touch of love that soldiers took into hate-filled fights. The ribbons were also emblems of deberes—duties. Divisas provide a unique index of how popular political sentiment reached deep into Rioplatense society, and they offer a glimpse into the world of female duty in the elaboration of a symbolic economy of war. Through writing with the needle and their central role in the confection of symbols, women not only developed parallel forms of literacy; they also participated in political discourse during wartime that the state could not ignore after the end of battle. Manifestations of the political agency women achieved appear in the impact of female affect, and in the formal, public education of women as model mothers in the home and model teachers in the school. Notes *I would like to thank the JLACS editorial team and the journal's anonymous reviewers for their insightful comments on a previous version of this article, and for the help they provided me to improve this final version. I am also grateful to Christopher Conway, Paul F. Ramírez, Alex Borucki, and Ronald Briggs, who read and commented on multiple drafts of the article or listened to me discuss (at length) its arguments. Special thanks to Ariadna Islas (Director of the Museo Histórico Nacional in Uruguay–MHN) and the staff at the MHN for granting me access to incredibly rich sources, for authorizing the reprdocution of images of divisas here, and for enthusiastic conversations about the article. Thanks go as well to the staff at the Museo del Indio y del Gaucho in Tacuarembó, Uruguay, and to the Complejo Museográfico Enrique Udaondo in Luján, Argentina. Pura Fernández, Mariselle Meléndez, and Aurélie Vialette shared helpful suggestions thanks to conversations held as part of the CSIC (Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas) Project FFI2010-17273. 1 CitationMena Segara, Pers. comm. At the time of the interview, Mena Segara was Director of Uruguay's Museo Histórico Nacional. All translations in this essay are my own unless noted otherwise. 2 Broquetas and Cuadro, Colores políticos. 3 Brewster, Women and the Spanish-American Wars; Potthast Citation2010: 159–62. 4 Chartier Citation2007: 103. 5 Though she does not examine how, Ehrick suggests that such 'extra-political' activity during war was important for 'women's subsequent political involvement in Uruguay' in the early twentieth century (2005: 29). 6 My understanding of the domestication of wartime activities of women draws on CitationColomina's study of US architecture and design following World War II (2007). 7 Dore Citation2000. 8 CitationPotthast and Scarzanella, Introduction to Mujeres y naciones (2001: 7). 9 One well-known example of the display of social identity through military dress is that of the 'lieutenant nun' Catalina de Erauso, who clothed herself in male garb to take part in the Conquest. See Root Citation2010: 38–40. Royal army uniforms used fabric, button, and sash colors, as well as elements like cords and stripes to indicate regiment and caste (Campbell Citation1978: 64–67). On liveries of black militias and sartorial distinctions from slaves, see Vinson and Restall Citation2005; Vinson Citation2001, 188–90; Sánchez Citation1994: 169. 10 López Cantos Citation1992. 11 Brading Citation1991: 343–61; Olezkiewicz-Peralba Citation2007. Colonial confraternities, in addition to women, produced tailor-made clothes for representations of the virgin, though women became the primary makers of these religious symbols during and after independence (Trexler Citation2002: 374–408). At the outset of the 1800s in the Río de la Plata women competed with men to sell lower-priced clothes (Johnson Citation2011: 230–31). 12 Sánchez de Thompson Citation2003: 150–53. 13 Macintyre Citation2010: 41; Root Citation2010: 41–42. 14 Gaceta, 834–35. The first of these notes celebrated the 'many señoras who occupy themselves with tasks appropriate to the delicateness of their sex' to honor patriot soldiers (Gaceta, 833). The second note was more specific, calling attention to the shirts women made for their brothers, husbands, fathers, and sons (Gaceta, 833–34; Root 2010, 40, offers an engaging interpretation of this particular note). 15 Gaceta 1910–15: 836. 16 Círculo Militar Citation1941: 5. 17 Chasteen Citation2008: 124. 18 Beraza Citation1957: 45. 19 CitationRelación de gastos de la música; Relación de gastos por el baile. 20 Descripción 1992: 360, 362. 21 Broquetas and Cuadro Citation2001; Achugar Citation2004: 181–200. 22 De María Citation1957: 287. 23 Saldías Citation1881: 93–95. 24 Celesia Citation1969: vol. 1: 264–66; vol. 2: 481. 25 López-Alves Citation1995: 8. 26 Masiello Citation1992; Root Citation2010; and Hallstead 2005. 27 Broquetas and Cuadro Citation2001: 98, note 50. 28 Lynch Citation2001: 89–90. 29 MacCann Citation1853: 278. 30 Root Citation2010: 1–18; Avellá Cháfer Citation1970. 31 Broquetas and Cuadro Citation2001: 91. 32 Wilde Citation1960: 205–11. 33 Andrews Citation2004: 114. 34 Root Citation2010: 9. 35 See Chasteen Citation1995: 30–31, 146. 36 Museo del Gaucho y de la Moneda (Montevideo); Museo del Indio y del Gaucho (Tacuarembó, Uruguay); Museo Histórico Nacional, Casas Rivera y Lavalleja (Montevideo). I viewed approximately 150 divisas for this essay. 37 Divisas cited here are displayed at the Museo del Indio y del Gaucho. The original Spanish reads: 'Dios y Patria'; 'Patria y Honor'; 'Vencer o Morir'; 'Patria y Libertad'; 'Independencia o Muerte'; 'Raymundo Ferreira / Vencer o Morir'; 'Por el Partido Colorado'; 'Vivan los Nacionalistas'; 'Patria, Mi Anhelo es Verte Libre'; and 'Amor y Deber.' 38 Burman Citation1999: 1–20. 39 De Viana Citation1904: 107, 109. 40 Kortsch Citation2009: 5; Alexander Citation2003. 41 Scobie Citation1974: 143; Torrado Citation2003: 160–69; 203–11. 42 Theoretical work on affect informs in part this working definition. See Lawler Citation2006; and Seigworth and Gregg Citation2010. 43 Lavrin Citation1995: 7. 44 Palma Citation1962; Murray Citation2008. 45 Brewster Citation2005: 30–31. 46 Pereira Citation1897: 16–17. 47 Benavides Citation1974?. 48 Correspondence between men and women was another site where affect and duty were on display. Take for example a letter from a certain Miguela (no last name) to her husband-soldier Mateo, off fighting in the Paraguayan War, published on May 9, 1867 in the newspaper Citation El Centinela . Miguela's letter noted: 'The joy of your letter filled me with satisfaction. I read it and the song that you sent me over and over again to know them by heart, because as a fellow warrior I take consolation after those repetitions, in order to sing them to you' (El Centinela, May 9, 1867). The state-run newspaper that published Miguela's letter did so with the express intent of promoting patriotic sentiment and resolve. I am grateful to Michael Huner for sharing this source with me, and for his English translation of the text in Guaraní. See also Huner Citation2009; and Rivera Citation1968: 37, 43–45. 49 See Arrom 1985: 17; Vaughan Citation1990; Tedesco Citation1986. 50 Roldós y Pons Citation1880: 14, 129; emphasis in original. 51 Díaz Citation2005: 33–35. 52 Dirección General Citation190?–1918: vol. 5: 13–16. 53 Ibid., vol. 6: 136, 220. 54 Pérez Citation1901: 10. 55 Palumbo Citation1901: 3, 9. Variations on this idea are prevalent in textbooks and pedagogical references. 56 Rostan Citation2006; Spregelburd Citation2002. 57 Stage Citation1997a, Citation1997b; Apple Citation1997; Helvenston and Bubolz Citation1999. 58 Acree Citation2011: 97–120. 59 Lamas and Lamas Citation1909: 4. 60 Ibid., 96–97. 61 See the official textbook lists of the CitationDirección General de Instrucción Primaria. Numerical portraits of textbook distribution from the Uruguayan School Board's warehouse to public schools throughout the country feature in memoirs of national inspectors. Specific numbers of textbooks exemplify the size of the publishing market and its growth. Thus, in 1887, over thirty thousand copies of the three-volume series Libros de lectura alone were distributed to schools (CitationVarela 1887: chart 16). By 1890 the distribution number of these same three books had risen to some thirty-four thousand (Chucarro Citation1892: chart 16). In 1900 two other multi-volume series were making authors handsome profits. School officials sent out almost twenty-four thousand copies of the six titles in these series (Pérez Citation1901: 82). In Argentina a similar, though larger, publishing phenomenon was underway. The 1903 edition of Consejos a mi hija, for instance, reached at least seven thousand copies that year alone. 62 Citation Anuario estadístico 1907: 55; Mitchell Citation1988: 24, 30, 735–41; Núñez Citation2005. 63 Pérez Citation1911: chart 12. 64 Morgade Citation1997; Gandulfo Citation1991: 314, 316, 323–25. 65 Hallstead Citation2005: 62, 249, 282; Masiello Citation1992: 70–76. 66 Jones and Stallybrass Citation2000: 134–71. 67 While women were important players in public health reform in Uruguay and Argentina around the turn of the century (Lavrin Citation1995: 97), female suffrage was not legislated until 1932 and 1947, respectively. See Lavrin Citation1995; and Ehrick Citation2005 for debates surrounding changes to civil legal codes, family law, female suffrage, and women's organizations in the early twentieth century. 68 Ehrick Citation2005: 19–30. 69 When Francisco Miranda attempted to invade Venezuela in 1806, he and his militia brandished handkerchiefs with images and slogans intended to speak to América's new promise (Racine Citation2003: 163). Women clothed some of Simón Bolívar's soldiers in the fight for the independence of Colombia (Cherpak Citation1978: 225). Others doubled as seamstress and messengers for patriots, like the Colombian Policarpa Salavarrieta who was executed in Bogotá's main square, and Mexican messenger and heroine Gertrudis Bocanegra. A more compassionate (and ironic) form of punishment for female spies was cooking and sewing for royalists (Cherpak Citation1978: 223; Chasteen Citation2008: 130). When Miguel Hidalgo's revolutionary followers raised a flag with the image of the Virgin of Guadalupe as they prepared to encircle Mexico City, a group of royalist women known as the Patriotas Marianas sewed flags with the image of the Virgin of Remedios (patron saint of the royal army) to combat those of Hidalgo's forces (Arrom Citation1985: 34). On symbolic roles of women in the US-Mexican War (1846–48), see Conway Citation2012. Decades later during the Paraguayan War of the 1860s, women volunteered aid and were also forced to sew certain numbers of uniforms depending on the size of the town in which they lived. Wealthy women of Asunción pooled their jewels to provide the state with funds for the war. In 1867 women delegates from across the country gave the president the famed Libro de Oro, a book with golden covers and a list of the names of those women who had fulfilled their patriotic duty by donating to the war. Such actions took on profound meaning for Paraguayans of all economic backgrounds, as can be seen in Miguela's letter published in El Centinela. She speaks of giving her wedding ring to the president, apparently out of a sense of duty to help finance the war: 'for only the love of country could I remove it from me, a distinct patriotism, like yours, my Mateo.' Miguela also relates that she has planted the cotton fields and congratulates her husband for his success in battle, recorded with notches on the scabbard she made for him. Each notch corresponded to an enemy killed (El Centinela, May 9, 1867). For more on women in the Paraguayan War, see Potthast Citation2004; and Ganson 1990. Lastly, CitationFlint (1898: 5–6, 244, 257) recalls impressions of women stitching emblems for soldiers in Cuba's last war for independence in the 1890s. 70 Ganson 1990; Cherpak Citation1978: 229–31. 71 Davies Citation2005.