Witnesses to Freedom: Paula's Enslavement, Her Family's Freedom Suit, and the Making of a Counterarchive in the South Atlantic World

IF 0.6 2区 历史学 Q1 HISTORY
Americas Pub Date : 2021-05-01 DOI:10.1215/00182168-8897477
John C. Marquez
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引用次数: 2

Abstract

In 1753, a pregnant woman named Paula was kidnapped in Angola, enslaved, and taken to Brazil. Four decades later, in 1794, Paula's children and grandchildren, 15 in total, filed a lawsuit for their family's freedom in Rio de Janeiro claiming that Paula was a free woman in Angola before her enslavement. This article reconstructs Paula and her descendants' multigenerational legal battle and reveals that their struggle for freedom was, in large part, a struggle against archives. I examine a unique aspect of the freedom suit: witness testimony from Paula's former kin and community in Angola, collected across the Atlantic Ocean four decades after Paula's enslavement. I argue that the memory and testimony of Paula's kin and community in Angola formed a powerful counterarchive that not only narrated her freedom in Angola but also challenged the Brazilian colonial archive's reliance on paper evidence of freedom.
《自由的见证:宝拉的奴役,她家人的自由诉讼,以及南大西洋世界反档案的建立》
1753年,一位名叫宝拉的孕妇在安哥拉被绑架、奴役,并被带到巴西。四十年后的1794年,保拉的子女和孙辈(共15人)在巴西里约热内卢为家庭的自由提起诉讼,声称保拉在被奴役之前是安哥拉的一名自由妇女。本文重构了宝拉及其后代几代人的法律斗争,揭示了他们争取自由的斗争在很大程度上是与档案的斗争。我研究了自由诉讼的一个独特方面:宝拉在安哥拉的前亲属和社区的证人证词,这些证词是在宝拉被奴役40年后横跨大西洋收集的。我认为,宝拉在安哥拉的亲属和社区的记忆和证词形成了一个强大的反档案,不仅叙述了她在安哥拉的自由,而且挑战了巴西殖民档案对自由的书面证据的依赖。
本文章由计算机程序翻译,如有差异,请以英文原文为准。
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来源期刊
Americas
Americas Multiple-
CiteScore
0.60
自引率
0.00%
发文量
99
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