Review of Graubart's 'Pesa más la libertad." (2021)
Article Review: Spanish Empire, Abolitionism, Atlantic World, Intellectual History
Karen B. Graubart, “Pesa más la libertad: Slavery, Legal Claims, and the History of Afro-Latin American Ideas,” The William and Mary Quarterly 78, No. 3 (2021), 427-458.
Karen Graubart’s framing of her article as an insertion into the intellectual history of the Atlantic World provides a unique look into the ground level of Spanish antislavery. Previous articles I have reviewed focused on the monarchy’s antislavery and proslavery stances, the religious antislavery elements in the Spanish empire. This article traces the story of four enslaved African men who, with the help of some unnamed individual(s), use their experience to craft a theological and legal argument that enslaved Africans were as deserving of the crown’s support to end their enslavement.
This article is critical in providing a bridge between the abolitionist activism to end Native American slavery and that to end African slavery. While the petition is ultimately unsuccessful in generating anything more than orders to treat the enslaved better, it does illustrate the deep theological and legal arguments swirling across the Spanish Atlantic world. Intriguingly, these African petitioners viewed a temporary slavery as acceptable, until the justly enslaved (i.e. those who were enslaved correctly under just war theory) became Christians. Graubart places the ideas and experiences articulated by the petitioners in the context of a Catholic world and Black Catholicism. Ultimately, her article makes a convincing argument about a milieu of antislavery thought floating throughout the Spanish Empire.
While in no way arguing that this antislavery thought was dominant, the fact of its existence pushes back on decades of scholarly inactivism on the pushback against slavery. It also helps push back on the Black Legend, illustrating that activists believed that the Spanish crown was not only capable of attacking slavery (something a dysfunctional state could not do) but that they would be willing. Overall, a fascinating essay further expanding Spanish Imperial antislavery.
Robert Swanson