Independence for those without freedom: slavery and manumission in Mérida, Venezuela, 1810–1854

Abstract

ABSTRACTThis article examines slavery and manumission in the state of Mérida in western Venezuela from the wars of independence (1810–1821) until abolition in 1854. It argues that slavery was preserved during the insurgency and reinstituted after independence through the continuation of Iberian slave law and the implementation of republican manumission legislation, which served to prolong slavery rather than hasten its demise. Slaves also used the corporate legal rights of colonial law to seek manumission and protection from abuse after 1821. Iberian legislation, though, was reinterpreted within the ideological and institutional framework of the liberal nation-state. Thus, competing legal frameworks and political interests, the growing influence of liberal doctrine and the selective and often arbitrary application of property, slave and manumission laws constituted important aspects of struggles over slavery and manumission in the early republican era.