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An Institution Defended: Slavery and the English Invasions of Buenos Aires in 1806–1807

2013; Frank Cass & Co.; Volume: 35; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/0144039x.2013.817721

1743-9523

Peter Blanchard,

Historical Studies in Latin America

AbstractIn 1807, in anticipation of a renewed British attack on Buenos Aires, the local authorities turned to slaves to supplement their military forces. It was an unexpected choice in view of fears raised in recent years by the growing number of slaves in the region, the Haitian Revolution and local threats involving the black population. Indeed, the process of recruitment was surrounded by reservations and limitations with nothing being offered to the slaves. Nevertheless, they proved willing recruits, in part because of a commitment to king, religion and patria, in part because the British had offered them nothing when they had held Buenos Aires briefly in 1806. But the reservations about the slaves continued even after the successful defence of the city, as only a handful of those who fought were rewarded with their freedom. The events indicate the state of race relations in the Río de la Plata in the period immediately before the independence struggles, and that while the slaves' military contribution in 1807 may have eased racial fears to some extent, it did not produce any significant abolitionist feelings. Notes[1] The terminology has traditionally been ‘English invasions’, although ‘British’ would be more accurate. Indeed, many of the contemporary documents refer to the invaders as ‘British’.[2] See Archivo General de la Nación, Buenos Aires, Argentina (hereafter AGN), Invasiones Inglesas, Solicitudes, 1806–1807, Sala IX 26-7-4; AGN, Gobierno, Bandos, 293–4, plus note for 26 Jan. bando, Sala IX 8-10-8.[3] Jane Landers, ‘Transforming Bondsmen into Vassals: Arming Slaves in Colonial Spanish America’, in Arming Slaves: From Classical Times to the Modern Age, ed. Chistopher Leslie Brown and Philip D. Morgan (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2006), 120–45.[4] In March 1803, for example, free blacks and slaves in the Banda Oriental (Uruguay) were prohibited from using all types of arms. See Paulo de Carvalho Neto, El negro uruguayo (hasta la abolición) (Quito: Editorial Universitaria, 1965), 96. See also Juan Carlos Coria, Pasado y presente de los negros en Buenos Aires (Buenos Aires: Editorial J.A. Roca, 1997), 32.[5] ‘Expedte promovido por Dn Manuel Martn de la Calleja, deben qe se declare por libre del servicio de las milicias, a un esclavo suyo nombrado Julián’, AGN, Tribunales Administrativos (hereafter Admin.), 1801, legajo (hereafter leg.) 6, expediente (hereafter exp.) 161, Sala IX 23-5-1.[6] Jeremy Adelman, Sovereignty and Revolution in the Iberian Atlantic (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2006), 72, 85.[7] Alex Borucki, ‘The Slave Trade to the Río de la Plata, 1777–1812: Trans-Imperial Networks and Atlantic Warfare’, Colonial Latin American Review 20, no. 1 (2011): 85. Philip Curtin's estimate for the La Plata region was 20,300 for the period 1774–1807. See Philip D. Curtin, The Atlantic Slave Trade: A Census (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1969), 21–36. Juan Carlos Coria provides a figure of 24,756 legal imports for the period 1781–1806. See Coria, Pasado y presente, 47.[8] Borucki, ‘Slave Trade’, 85. Lyman Johnson has pointed to the difficulties in calculating the size of the slave population in Buenos Aires at this time. See Lyman L. Johnson, ‘Manumission in Colonial Buenos Aires, 1776–1810’, Hispanic American Historical Review 59, no. 2 (1979): 277. H.S. Ferns gives a smaller figure, that at the time of the invasions slaves numbered just over 6000, constituting about 7.5 per cent of the city's population. See H.S. Ferns, Britain and Argentina in the Nineteenth Century (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1960), 28n2.[9] The information on slave occupations in the Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata is extensive. See, for example, Adelman, Sovereignty and Revolution, 64; George Reid Andrews, The Afro-Argentines of Buenos Aires, 1800–1900 (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1980), 29–41; Coria, Pasado y presente, 33–4; José Oscar Frigerio, ‘Con sangre de negros se edificó nuestra independencia’, Todo es historia, no. 250 (1988): 58; Marta B. Goldberg, ‘Mujer negra rioplatense (1750–1840)’, in La mitad del país: la mujer en la sociedad argentina, comp. Lidia Knecher and Marta Panaia (Tucumán: Bibliotecas Universitarias, 1994), 72, 77–80; Marta B. Goldberg, ‘La población negra y mulata de la ciudad de Buenos Aires, 1810–1840’, Desarrollo Económico, 16 (April–June 1976): 81; Marta B. Goldberg and Silvia C. Mallo, ‘La población africana en Buenos Aires y su campaña. Formas de vida y de subsistencia (1750–1850)’, Temas de Africa y Asia 2 (1993): 36–7; Tulio Halperín-Donghi, Politics, Economics and Society in Argentina in the Revolutionary Period, trans. Richard Southern (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1975), 17, 24, 43, 49; Lyman L. Johnson, ‘La manumisión de esclavos en Buenos Aires durante el virreinato’, Desarrollo Económico, 16 (October–December 1976): 341; Johnson, ‘Manumission’, 260, 262, 277; Lyman L. Johnson, Workshop of Revolution: Plebeian Buenos Aires and the Atlantic World, 1776–1810 (Durham: Duke University Press, 2011), 42–3, 179–80, 202–3, 216–33; Carlos A. Mayo, ‘De esclavo a empresario’, Todo es historia, no. 335 (1995): 26–36; John Miers, Travels in Chile and La Plata, Including Accounts Respecting the Geography, Geology, Statistics, Government, Finances, Agriculture, Manners, and Customs, and the Mining Operations in Chile; Collected During a Residence of Several Years in These Countries (New York: AMS Press, [1970]), I: 229–30; Mario Rufer, Historias negadas: esclavitud, violencia y relaciones de poder en Córdoba a fines del siglo XVIII (Córdoba: Ferreyra Editor, 2005), 86–7.[10] Frigerio, ‘Con sangre de negros’, 50; Andrews, Afro-Argentines, 29.[11] Miers, Travels in Chile and La Plata, I, 228; Elena F.S. de Studer, La trata de negros en el Río de la Plata durante el siglo XVIII (Buenos Aires: Universidad de Buenos Aires, 1958), 331–2; José M. Mariluz Urquijo, El virreinato del Río de la Plata en la época del Marqués de Avilés (1799–1801), 2nd ed. (Buenos Aires: Plus Ultra, 1987), 595; Frigerio, ‘Con sangre de negros’, 50.[12] Among those who challenge the view of a ‘humane’ system, see Andrews, Afro-Argentines, 95; Coria, Pasado y presente, 29–30, 32; Lyman L. Johnson, ‘“A Lack of Legitimate Obedience and Respect”: Slaves and Their Masters in the Courts in Late Colonial Buenos Aires’, Hispanic American Historical Review 87, no. 4 (2007): 631–57; Rufer, Historias negadas, 50–5; Eduardo R. Saguier, ‘La fuga esclava como resistencia rutinaria y cotidiana en el Buenos Aires del siglo xviii’, Revista de Humanidades y Ciencia Sociales (Santa Cruz, Bolivia) 1, no. 2 (1995): 115–84.[13] Johnson, ‘Lack of Legitimate Obedience’, 634.[14] Johnson, ‘La manumisión’, 333–48; Johnson, ‘Manumission’, 258–79.[15] Johnson, ‘Manumission’, 277; Coria, Pasado y presente, 53.[16] ‘Expedte promovido pr Cayetana negra natl de Rio Janeyro y residte en esta ciud, sobre su livertad’, AGN, Admin., 1801, leg. 5, exp. 147, Sala IX 23-4-7.[17] ‘El moreno Juan Jph Garcia, sobre que pr el Alvacea del Dr Dn Pedro Garcia y Zuñiga se le otorgue carta de libertad, a virtud de haverlo asi dispuesto dho Dr en su testamento’, AGN, Admin., 1801, leg. 5, exp. 165, Sala IX 23-4-7.[18] Quoted in Arturo Ariel Bentancur, ‘Amos y esclavos en el viejo Montevideo. El combate por la libertad (1790–1820)’, in Amos y esclavos en el Río de la Plata, Arturo Ariel Bentancur and Fernando Aparicio (Montevideo: Planeta, 2006), 32.[19] For examples, see the charges appearing in AGN, Solicitudes de Esclavos, 1766–1808, Sala IX 13-1-5. See also ‘Juan Romero, esclavo de Dn Franco Romero y en su nombre El Regor Defensor Gral de Pobres de la Asumpción sobre que se le venda a justa tasación por la sevicia y malos tratamtos qe le da su amo’, AGN, Admin., 1804–1805, leg. 15, exp. 417, Sala IX 23-6-3.[20] Johnson, ‘Lack of Legitimate Obedience’; Saguier, ‘La fuga esclava’. With regard to slaves having long used the courts to defend their interests, see Sherwin K. Bryant, ‘Enslaved Rebels, Fugitives, and Litigants: The Resistance Continuum in Colonial Quito’, Colonial Latin American Review 13, no. 1 (2004): 7–46.[21] For the differing views, see the sources cited in Peter Blanchard, Under the Flags of Freedom: Slave Soldiers and the Wars of Independence in Spanish South America (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2008), 187n35. Seymour Drescher has pointed to the continuing and expanding sale of slaves in the region as evidence of the Haitian revolution's limited effect. See Seymour Drescher, Abolition: A History of Slavery and Antislavery (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 169–84.[22] Andrews, Afro-Argentines, 95; Johnson, Workshop of Revolution, 38, 151–4.[23] Norma Bueno, Conspiración de esclavos en el Río de la Plata en 1795 (Buenos Aires: Editorial Biblos, 1990); Johnson, Workshop of Revolution, ch. 5; Carlos Roberts, Las invasiones inglesas del Río de la Plata (1806–1807) (1938, Buenos Aires: Emecé Editores, 2006), 52–7.[24] Johnson, Workshop of Revolution, chs. 3 and 4.[25] Jorge Pelfort, 150 Años: Abolición de la esclavitud en el Uruguay (Montevideo: Ediciones de la Plaza, 1996), 17–18, 19.[26] The trial of the slaves can be found in Archivo General de Indias, Seville (hereafter AGI), Gobierno, Buenos Aires 91.[27] John Lynch, The Spanish American Revolutions 1808–1826, 2nd ed. (New York: W.W. Norton, 1986), 40.[28] The story of the invasions has attracted extensive attention at both the academic and popular levels. For older but comprehensive studies, see Roberts, Las invasiones inglesas, chs. 3–18; Juan Beverina, Las invasiones inglesas al Río de la Plata (1806–1807), 2 vols. (Buenos Aires: Círculo Militar, 1939).[29] A copy of Beresford's edict can be found in Colección Documental ‘Monseñor Pablo Cabrera’, Biblioteca Elma K. de Estrabou, Sección Estudios Americanistas, Facultad de Filosofía y Humanidades, Universidad Nacional de Córdoba, Córdoba, Argentina (hereafter ‘Pablo Cabrera’), No. 6079. See also Alberto González Arzac, ‘Prolongación de la esclavitud en la Argentina’, Todo es historia, Suplemento, no. 32 (1970): 10; Roberts, Las invasiones inglesas, 141, 147, 195.[30] Betancur, ‘Amos y esclavos’, 149–50.[31] Antonio Caspe y Rodríguez to Prince of Peace, No. 123, October 30, 1806, AGI, Gobierno, Buenos Aires 555.[32] Betancur, ‘Amos y esclavos’, 150.[33] Sobremonte to Tente Asesor Govr Interino de Córdoba, June 30, 1806, ‘Pablo Cabrera’, No. 6071; Archivo Municipal de Córdoba, Actas capitulares de Córdoba, Libros 43° y 44°, 1805–1809 (Córdoba: Universidad Nacional de Córdoba, 1969), 270, 313–4.[34] The religious difference has been used to explain desertions by some British soldiers while in the area. See Roberto L. Elissalde, Historias ignoradas de las invasiones inglesas (Buenos Aires: Aguilar, 2006), 62–4; Beverina, Las invasiones inglesas, I: 308–9. For the religious terms granted by Beresford, see enclosure with Beresford to Baird, July 2, 1806, National Archives, London (hereafter NA), War Office 1/161.[35] The 1789 Caroline code's correct title was ‘Instrucción sobre la educación, trato y ocupaciones de los esclavos’. See Marcela Echeverri, ‘“Enraged to the Limit of Despair”: Infanticide and Slave Judicial Strategies in Barbacoas, 1788–98’, Slavery and Abolition 30, no. 3 (2009): 411–5. See also Blanchard, Under the Flags, 10.[36] On indigenous loyalty, see, for example, Elina Lovera Reyes, ‘La fidelidad de los indios caquetíos de Coro durante la independencia de Venezuela’, in Indios, negros y mestizos en la independencia, ed. Heraclio Bonilla (Bogotá: Editorial Planeta Colombiana S.A., 2010), 174–76, 180–1.[37] Roberts, Las invasiones inglesas, chs. 8–10.[38] Klaus Gallo, ed., Las invasiones inglesas (Buenos Aires: Editorial Universitaria de Buenos Aires, 2004), 151–2.[39] AGN, Solicitudes de esclavos, 1766–1808, Sala IX 13-1-5; AGN, Invasiones Inglesas, Solicitudes, 212–66, Sala IX 26-6-12.[40] Servants who accompanied military men had a right to the military fuero or corporate privileges enjoyed by their masters. See letter to Liniers, October 20, 1807, AGN, Intendencia, 1806–1808, Sala IX 5-3-5.[41] Letters accompanying Conde del Campo de Alianza to Prince of Peace, August 5, 1807, AGI, Gobierno, Buenos Aires 555, No. 145; the case of José Rosales, AGN, Gobierno, Invasiones Inglesas, 305, Sala IX 26-7-3; Argentina, Archivo General de la Nación, Acuerdos del extinguido cabildo de Buenos Aires, Serie IV, Tomo II, Libros LIX, LX, LXI, y LXII, 1805–1807 (Buenos Aires: G. Kraft, 1926), 277–8, 303–4, 362–4, 373; Carlos Martínez Sarasola, Nuestros paisanos los indios: Vida, historia y destino de las comunidades indígenas en la Argentina (Buenos Aires: Emecé Editores S.A., 2005), 150–2; Roberts, Las invasiones inglesas, 157, 200; Alberto M. Salas, Diario de Buenos Aires, 1806–1807 (Buenos Aires: Editorial Sudamericana, 1981), 252–3.[42] AGN, Audiencia de Buenos Aires, 1806–1809, IX 27-6-4; AGN, Invasiones Inglesas, Solicitudes 1806–1807, 350, Sala IX 26-7-4.[43] Peter Voelz has argued that the recruiting of slaves in the Americas was usually a result of desperation. See Peter M. Voelz, Slave and Soldier: The Military Impact of Blacks in the Colonial Americas (New York: Garland Publishing, 1993), 29, 31.[44] Instancias resueltas en Junta de Guerra 1806 y 1807, AGN, Guerra y Marina, 1807, leg. 43, exp. 10, Sala IX 24-5-2.[45] Resoluciones de la Junta de Guerra, AGN, Guerra y Marina, 1807, leg. 43, exp. 4, Sala IX 24-5-2. The same document can also be found in AGN, Invasiones Inglesas, Actas de Junta de Guerra, 1806–1808, Sala IX 26-6-9.[46] Argentina, Acuerdos, 476–7.[47] Roberts, Las invasiones inglesas, 363. Andrews gives the figure as 688. See Andrews, Afro-Argentines, 43.[48] Juan Manuel Beruti, Memorias curiosas, in Biblioteca de mayo: Colección de obras y documentos para la historia Argentina, Argentina, Senado de la Nación (Buenos Aires: Imprenta del Congreso de la Nación, 1960), Tomo IV, 3713 [page 67 of the actual work].[49] AGN, Audiencia de Buenos Aires, 1806–1809, exp. 126, Sala IX 27-6-4; Salas, Diario, 617.[50] Argentina, Acuerdos, Tomo II, 620. Salas gives the date for this as 7 July, that is, after the British had been defeated, and it is quite likely that the order was not implemented until then. The offer proved effective, as almost 1000 firearms and numerous swords and other weapons had been handed in by 16 September, resulting in a payout of 2734 pesos and 2 reales. See Salas, Diario, 511, 562n85.[51] Whitelocke to Wyndham, July 10, 1807, NA, War Office 1/162.[52] AGN, Cabildo 1807, 189–90, 192–3, Sala IX 19-5-8.[53] AGN, Cabildo 1807, 133–5, Sala IX 19-5-8; AGN, Invasiones Inglesas, Solicitudes, 1806–1807, 208–22, Sala IX 26-7-5.[54] AGN, Invasiones Inglesas, Solicitudes, 1806–1807, 208–22, Sala IX-26-7-5. Salas provides lists of names of those killed and wounded, including those not part of the Corps of Slaves. Among the wounded were 23 slaves, one of whom died. See Salas, Diario, 511, 513, 521, 531, 543-5n77a, 546–61.[55] AGN, Invasiones Inglesas, Solicitudes, 191–6, Sala IX 26-6-12.[56] ‘El presbitero Dn Juan Manuel de Zavala solicitando se informe a S.M. sus particulares servicios hechos en ayuda y defense de esta Capital’, AGN, Guerra y Marina, 1807, leg. 40, exp. 31, Sala IX 24-4-8; AGN, Escribano, Juan Cortes, Registro 7, 1807, 8 Oct. 1807, 219v. The description of their service indicates that it was in the defense and not the reconquest.[57] AGN, Escribano, Inocencio Agrelo, Registro 6, 1807, 297.[58] Johnson, Workshop of Revolution, 265.[59] AGN, Escribano, Manuel Francisco de la Oliva, Registro 4, 1804-1807, 74v, 84v/88.[60] AGN, Cabildo 1807, 122–4, Sala IX 19-5-8.[61] AGN, Cabildo 1807, 133–5, Sala IX 19-5-8; AGN, Solicitudes de esclavos, 1766–1808, Sala IX 13-1-5. The various requests and supporting evidence can be found in AGN, Invasiones Inglesas, Solicitudes, 1806–1807, 208–22, Sala IX 26-7-5.[62] Argentina, Acuerdos, Tomo II, 712–3.[63] A more complete description of the ceremony can be found in Seth Meisel, ‘“The Fruit of Freedom”: Slaves and Citizens in Early Republican Argentina’, in Slaves, Subjects and Subversives: Blacks in Colonial Latin America, ed. Jane G. Landers and Barry M. Robinson (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2006), 282–3. See also Beruti, Memorias curiosas, 3705–6 [59–60].[64] Argentina, Acuerdos, Tomo II, 712.[65] Beruti and Roberts claim that Liniers personally paid to free one. See Beruti, Memorias curiosas, 3706 [60]; Roberts, Las invasiones inglesas, 363. However, Beruti's figures for those freed add up to 69 even with Liniers' donation.[66] Argentina, Acuerdos, Tomo II, 703.[67] AGN, Hacienda, 1809, leg. 141, exp. 3623, Sala IX 34-8-3; AGN, Escribano, Manuel Francisco de la Oliva, Registro 4, 1804–1807, 243, 285v.[68] See, for example, ‘El Fiscal declarando no diverse abonar a los prisioneros ingleses el real y medio diario’, AGN, Guerra y Marina, 1807, leg. 42, exp. 7, Sala IX 24-5-1; Johnson, Workshop of Revolution, 262–4.[69] For the values of those freed, see AGN, Escribanos, Inocencio Agrelo, Registro 6, 1808, 70, Manuel Francisco de la Oliva, Registro 4, 1804–1807, 200, 203, 204, 205, 210, 214, 215, 217, 229, 245; ‘Razón de las cantidades que ha suplido el cabildo de los fondos públicos para el valor de 25 esclavos’, AGN, Hacienda, leg. 141, exp. 3263, Sala IX 34-8-3.[70] AGN, Invasiones Inglesas, Solicitudes, 14–16, Sala IX 26-6-11. The peso was divided into eight reales, and the real into 34 maravedis.[71] Argentina, Acuerdos, Tomo II, 723–4.[72] AGN, Cabildo 1807, 281, Sala IX 19-5-8.[73] AGN, Cabildo 1807, 195, Sala IX 19-5-8.[74] Argentina, Archivo General de la Nación, Acuerdos del Extinguido Cabildo de Buenos Aires, Serie IV, Tomo III, Libros LXII, LXIII, LXIV, 1808 y 1809 (Buenos Aires: G. Kraft, 1927), 91–2.[75] See Argentina, Archivo General de la Nación, Acuerdos del Extinguido Cabildo de Buenos Aires, Serie IV, Tomo IV, Libros LXV, LXVI y LXVII, 1810 y 1811 (Buenos Aires: G. Kraft, 1927), 85, 106–7.[76] AGN, Invasiones Inglesas, Solicitudes, 1806–1807, 208–22, Sala IX 26-7-5; Beruti, Memorias curiosas, 3706 [60].[77] AGN, Cabildo 1807, 166, Sala IX-19-5-8; Argentina, Acuerdos, Tomo III, 459.[78] AGN, Solicitudes de esclavos, 1766–1808, Sala IX 13-1-5.[79] ‘El negro Antonio, esclavo de Dn Juan Diaz, sobre papel de venta,’ AGN, Admin., 1809–1810, leg. 26, exp. 846, Sala IX 23-07-07.[80] Argentina, Acuerdos, Tomo III, 463.[81] Andrews, Afro-Argentines, ch. 7; Blanchard, Under the Flags, ch. 3.