Freedom in the making: the slaves of hacienda La Esperanza, Manatí, Puerto Rico, on the eve of abolition, 1868–76*

Abstract

The article studies the experience of slavery and its abolition on the sugar plantation La Esperanza, on the northern coastal plain of Puerto Rico. It offers a snapshot of La Esperanza's slave crew and presents insights into the affective relationships slaves established among themselves. Based on census material and court records, the article focuses on slave agency and on the opportunities rendered by the political and administrative context created in the colony after the triumph of liberalism in Spain. As the abolition of slavery approached, the local court restricted planters' traditional rights to administer punishment to their bondsmen, who they now began to see as potential free citizens. Slaves responded accordingly and played a decisive part in the process of change, thus showing understanding of the law and its possibilities. The events described here will help depict how ‘freedom’ took shape and how the administration of justice was becoming an exclusive prerogative of the state and its already dense network of intervention. The slaves were quick to observe and partake in the rigorous truth-establishing processes of meticulous investigation and witness interrogation characteristic of the practice of ordinary justice as it began to break into the plantation.