“La patria es nuestra madre”: family metaphor and race in the La Guaira Conspiracy

Abstract

Abstract This paper explores the intersection of race and the metaphor of the national family in the texts generated during the Conspiración de La Guaira, a failed 1797 republican independentista revolt in colonial Venezuela led by Mallorcan enlightened intellectual Juan Mariano Picornell. Turning away from traditional representations of the dynastic state in terms of paternity, the La Guaira conspirators figure the nation as a mother and creoles and Afro-Venezuelans as brother citizens. Yet, at the same time that it indicates a transition from dynastic to republican paradigms, the conspirators’ emphasis on revolutionary brotherhood serves to contain the radical notions of equality unleashed by the republican independence movement.