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ABSTRACT
Paraguay was one of the last states to abolish slavery in the Americas. Yet the history of slavery in this landlocked republic remains understudied. Through a systematic examination of judicial evidence, this article analyzes the unique political relationship that enslaved servants built with dictator José Gaspar Rodríguez de Francia. The article foregrounds enslaved people’s role in denouncing an elite conspiracy to overthrow the government in 1821 and later expressions of discontent coming from enslavers. This collaboration with the government impacted master-slave relations, as enslaved people increasingly sought the dictator’s personal intervention to confront slaveholders and spread rumours that the dictator supported them. Meanwhile, confiscations of dissidents’ properties led to the expansion of state slavery, which reverberated inside households as enslaved people appealed to this institution to deny enslavers’ property rights over them. Through these diverse strategies, enslaved people made the government’s power visible in everyday life within elite households. At the same time, by upholding Francia’s rule, they gained leverage to contest slaveholders’ authority. By illuminating the unique mechanisms through which slavery produced obedience to the government in Paraguay, this article proposes new ways to understand the uses of slavery for governance and state-building in the Atlantic world.
Acknowledgements
Ada Ferrer's patient feedback decisively shaped the first version of this article. For their insightful readings of later versions, I would like to thank Nara Milanich, Annick Lempérière, Mike Huner, and the participants of the Princeton-Rutgers Latin America & Caribbean Workshop, Harvard’s Mark Claster Mamolen Dissertation Workshop, and the research group led by Raúl Fradkin at the University of Buenos Aires, especially Lucas Rebagliati, Isadora Moura Mota, Marisol Fila, and Sidney Chalhoub. The anonymous reviewers’ thoughtful suggestions substantially improved the article. I am grateful to Brais Lamela for helping me clarify the arguments and polish the prose of successive drafts.
Disclosure Statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes
1 Charles Ames Washburn, The History of Paraguay: With Notes of Personal Observations and Reminiscenses of Diplomacy under Difficulties (Boston: Lee and Shepard, 1871), 278.
2 This article predominantly uses the terms ‘enslaved people’ and ‘enslaver.’ However, other terms, such as ‘slaveholder,’ ‘owner,’ ‘state slave,’ and ‘master-slave relations’ are introduced, either when paraphrasing historical sources or when helpful for analytic clarity—especially in cases where the property over enslaved individuals was contested and in the discussion of the legal status of publicly-held enslaved people.
3 These cases, which span from 1805 to 1840, are located in four sections of the Archivo Nacional de Asunción (ANA): Civil y Judicial (SCJ), Nueva Encuadernación (NE), Historia (SH), and Carpetas Sueltas (CS).
4 Main works include Josefina Plá, Hermano negro. La esclavitud en Paraguay (Madrid: Paraninfo, 1972); Jerry W. Cooney, ‘Abolition in the Republic of Paraguay: 1840–1870’, Anuario de Historia de America Latina 11, no. 1 (1974): 149–66; John Hoyt Williams, ‘Black Labor and State Ranches: The Tabapi Experience in Paraguay’, The Journal of Negro History 62, no. 4 (1977): 378–89; Alfredo Viola, ‘La esclavitud en la época del Dr. Francia’, Estudios Paraguayos XIV, no. 1–2 (1986): 145–66; Jerry Cooney, ‘El afroparaguayo’, in Presencia africana en Sudamérica, ed. Luz M. Martínez Montiel (México: CONACULTA, 1995), 449–528; Ana María Argüello Martínez, El rol de los esclavos negros en el Paraguay (Asunción: Centro Editorial Paraguayo, 1999); Alfredo Boccia Romañach, Esclavitud en el Paraguay: vida cotidiana del esclavo en las Indias Meridionales (Asunción: Servilibro, 2004); Capucine Boidin, ‘Esclaves, pardos et milices au Paraguay (XVII-XIXe siècles)’, in D’esclaves à soldats: miliciens et soldats d’origine servile, XIIIe-XXIe siècles, ed. Carmen Bernand and Alessandro Stella (Paris: L’Harmattan, 2006), 329–52; Ignacio Telesca, ‘Esclavos y jesuitas: el Colegio de Asunción del Paraguay’, Archivum Historicum Societatis Iesu 77, no. 153 (Jan. 2008): 191–211; Ignacio Telesca, ‘Afrodescendientes: esclavos y libres’, in Historia del Paraguay (Asunción: Taurus, 2011), 337–55.
5 Classic works include Justo Pastor Benítez, La vida solitaria del dr. José Gaspar de Francia, dictador del Paraguay (Buenos Aires: El Ateneo, 1937); Julio César Chaves, El supremo dictador (Madrid: Atlas, 1964); John Hoyt Williams, The Rise and Fall of the Paraguayan Republic, 1800–1870 (Austin: University of Texas at Austin, 1979); Alfredo Viola, El Dr. Francia: defensor de la independencia del Paraguay (Asunción: Servilibro, 2004). For social histories, see Richard Alan White, Paraguay’s Autonomous Revolution, 1810–1840 (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1978); Milda Rivarola, Vagos, pobres y soldados: la domesticación estatal del trabajo en el Paraguay del siglo XIX (Asunción: Centro Paraguayo de Estudios Sociológicos, 1994); Nidia R Areces, Estado y frontera en el Paraguay: Concepción durante el gobierno del Dr. Francia (Asunción: Universidad Católica Nuestra Señora de la Asunción, 2007). For more recent political histories, see Bárbara Potthast and Ignacio Telesca, ‘¿Nueva jurisprudencia o pragmatismo político? Paraguay y su lucha por mantener la independencia’, in Juristas de la independencia, ed. Samuel Rodrigues Barbosa and José María Pérez Collados (Madrid: Marcial Pons, 2012), 521–82; Ana Ribeiro, Los muy fieles. Paraguay, tierra sin mal (Montevideo: Planeta, 2013); Nidia R. Areces, ‘La construcción de identidades políticas en Paraguay. De la invasión porteña a la Dictadura de Francia’, in Entre la colonia y la república: insurgencias, rebeliones y cultura política en América del Sur, ed. Beatriz Bragoni and Sara Mata (Buenos Aires: Prometeo, 2009), 51–74.
6 As Nidia Areces asserts, studies on popular politics in Paraguay’s First Republic are lacking. ‘Los sectores populares y la política. Paraguay, 1800–1864’, in Hacer política: la participación popular en el siglo XIX rioplatense, ed. Raúl Fradkin and Gabriel Di Meglio (Buenos Aires: Prometeo, 2013), 69. The post-Francia period is better known thanks to the work of Michael Huner. Michael Kenneth Huner, ‘A Devilish Prank, a Dodgy Caudillo, and the Tortured Production of Postcolonial Sovereignty in the Borderlands of López-Era Paraguay’, in Big Water: The Making of the Borderlands Between Brazil, Argentina, and Paraguay, ed. Jacob Blanc, Frederico Freitas, and Zephyr Frank (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 2018), 131–57; Michael Kenneth Huner, ‘How Pedro Quiñonez Lost His Soul: Suicide, Routine Violence, and State Formation in Nineteenth-Century Paraguay’, Journal of Social History 54, no. 1 (1 Sept. 2020): 237–59.
7 Barbara Potthast-Jutkeit, ‘Vivir bajo la dictadura del Dr. Francia: ventajas y problemas del régimen patrimonial desde la perspectiva de las clases populares’, in El Paraguay bajo el doctor Francia: ensayos sobre la sociedad patrimonial (1814–1840), ed. Thomas Whigham and Jerry W. Cooney (Asunción: El Lector, 1996), 141–57. Another important work to understand Francia’s relationship with the poor is Richard Peter Huston, ‘Folk and State in Paraguay: Political Order and Social Disorder, 1810–1840’ (Ph.D., University of California, Los Angeles, 1993).
8 The literature on post-independence slave politics in Spanish America is vast. The said forms of political participation are discussed, among others, by Alex Borucki, From Shipmates to Soldiers: Emerging Black Identities in the Río de La Plata (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2015); James E Sanders, Contentious Republicans: Popular Politics, Race, and Class in Nineteenth-Century Colombia (Durham: Duke University Press, 2004); Gabriel Di Meglio, Viva el bajo pueblo! La plebe urbana de Buenos Aires y la política entre la Revolución de Mayo y el rosismo (1810–1829) (Buenos Aires: Prometeo, 2006).
9 Like in Paraguay, in other parts of the broader Río de la Plata region enslaved people denounced their enslavers in moments of political tension, such as during the wars of independence. See Mariana Alicia Pérez, ‘¡Viva España y mueran los Patricios! La conspiración de Álzaga de 1812’, Americanía: Revista de Estudios Latinoamericanos, special issue (18 May 2015): 21–55; Peter Blanchard, Under the Flags of Freedom: Slave Soldiers and the Wars of Independence in Spanish South America (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2008), 145. Paraguay under Francia also bears similarities with Buenos Aires under governor Juan Manuel de Rosas, where it was widely believed that servants denounced members of the elites for betraying the Federalist cause. Gabriel Di Meglio, ¡Mueran los salvajes unitarios! La mazorca y la política en tiempos de Rosas (Buenos Aires: Penguin Random House, 2007), 132–8; María Agustina Barrachina, ‘¿Bailarinas indecentes, guerreras salvajes, y criadas delatoras? Las representaciones y prácticas de las mujeres negras y pardas durante el rosismo (1830–1852)’, Mora 28, no. 1 (June 2022): 1–10; Ines Dunstan, ‘The Maid as Political Spy in Argentine Literature and Historiography: The Rosas-Perón Nexus (1846–1964)’, TRANSMODERNITY: Journal of Peripheral Cultural Production of the Luso-Hispanic World 3, no. 1 (2013).
10 Sherwin K. Bryant, Rivers of Gold, Lives of Bondage: Governing through Slavery in Colonial Quito (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2014); Miranda Spieler, ‘Slave Flight, Slave Torture, and the State: Nineteenth-Century French Guiana’, French Politics, Culture & Society 33, no. 1 (1 March 2015): 55–74.
11 Evelyn Jennings, Constructing the Spanish Empire in Havana: State Slavery in Defense and Development, 1762–1835 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2020); Alvin O. Thompson, Unprofitable Servants: Crown Slaves in Berbice, Guyana, 1803–1831 (Kingston: University of West Indies Press, 2002); Cécile Vidal, ‘Public Slavery, Racial Formation, and the Struggle over Honor in French New Orleans, 1718–1769’, Anuario Colombiano de Historia Social y de a Cultura 43, no. 2 (2016): 155–83. On post-independence Brazil and United States, see Ilana Peliciari Rocha, Escravos da nação: o público e o privado na escravidão brasileira, 1760–1876 (São Paulo: Universidade de São Paulo, 2018); Ryan A. Quintana, Making a Slave State: Political Development in Early South Carolina (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2018); Aaron Hall, ‘Slaves of the State: Infrastructure and Governance through Slavery in the Antebellum South’, Journal of American History 106, no. 1 (1 June 2019): 19–46.
12 Marcela Echeverri, Indian and Slave Royalists in the Age of Revolution: Reform, Revolution, and Royalism in the Northern Andes, 1780–1825 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2016); Hendrik Kraay, ‘Reis negros, cabanos, e a Guarda Negra: Reflexões sobre o monarquismo popular no Brasil oitocentista’, Varia Historia 35 (April 2019): 141–75.
13 Keila Grinberg, ‘Emancipación y guerra en el Río de la Plata, 1840–1865: hacia una historia social de las relaciones internacionales’, Historia Mexicana 69, no. 2 (2019): 693–742. Marcela Echeverri, ‘Esclavitud y tráfico de esclavos en el Pacífico suramericano durante la era de la abolición’, Historia Mexicana 69, no. 2 (2019): 627–92.
14 Estimate based on the growth rate provided by Thomas L. Whigham and Barbara Potthast, ‘The Paraguayan Rosetta Stone: New Insights into the Demographics of the Paraguayan War, 1864–1870’, Latin American Research Review 34, no. 1 (1999): 174–86.
15 Telesca, ‘Afrodescendientes’.
16 For an overview of Paraguay’s indpendence, see Jerry W. Cooney, El proceso de la independencia del Paraguay 1807–1814 (Asunción: Intercontinental, 2012). On the congresses, which were particularly numerous and included many peasant deputies, see Hérib Caballero Campos, ‘Los congresos de 1811 y 1813: representación política y ciudadanía’, in Paraguay 1813. La proclamación de la República (Asunción: Taurus, 2013).
17 Ignacio Telesca, ‘Revolución, república y pueblo’, in Paraguay 1813: La proclamación de la República (Asunción: Taurus, 2013), 53. In addition to the case of defender Francisco Moreno referenced by Telesca, see arguments made by Tomás Antonio Ferreryra in ‘Solicitud de libertad de Matías Zavala esclavo de Gaspar del Villar, por medio del Defensor General de Pobres’ (1814), vol. 2003, n. 4, SCJ, ANA.
18 George Reid Andrews, Afro-Latin America, 1800–2000 (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004), 65. There is a voluminous literature on slave military engagement during the wars of independence. A comprehensive view in Blanchard, Under the Flags of Freedom.
19 Iturbe, Vicente, ‘El comandante de San Pedro sobre sublevación de los esclavos de Ygnacio Sosa’ (27 May 1812), vol. 220, n. 12, SCJ, ANA. See also Viola, ‘La esclavitud’, 147–8.
20 Isasi, Carlos, ‘Recurso del defensor de pobres a nombre de Juan Gabriel esclavo de D. Pedro García sobre su libertad’ (Feb. 1814), vol. 3091, SNE, ANA. These revolts coincided with a turbulent situation in the northern border due to ongoing confrontations with the Portuguese and with autonomous indigenous groups.
21 Chile had passed a free womb law and had abolished the slave trade in October 1811. The United Provinces of the Río de la Plata banned the slave trade in May 1812 and enacted a free womb law in January 1813. As happened elsewhere in the hemisphere during the Age of Revolutions, news of emancipation, real or exaggerated, circulated quickly among the enslaved. When an enslaved man fled the Paraguayan town of Villarrica in July 1813, his enslaver believed he was trying to reach Buenos Aires, encouraged by the ‘vague news of the freedom of the slaves’. García, Juan Antonio (a nombre de Jose Marcos Legal y Cordova) to Riera, Francisco, 5 July 1813, vol. 3091, SNE, ANA.
22 Although she was unable to write herself, Cañete made similar arguments through two different writers, which suggests that she was responsible for these remarks against her former enslaver. ‘Litigio por la libertad de la esclava Maria Francisca Cañete’ (1815), vol. 2025, n. 4, SCJ, ANA. See also a similar argument in Pereyra, José Ventura to Dictador de la República, May 1817, vol. 2161, n. 2, SCJ, ANA. On the rhetoric equating slavery and colonialism, see Camilla Townsend, ‘The Efforts of the Enslaved to Attain Abolition in Ecuador, 1822–1852’, in Beyond Slavery: The Multilayered Legacy of Africans in Latin America and the Caribbean, ed. Darién J. Davis (Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 2007), 38–56; Magdalena Candioti, Una historia de la emancipación negra. Esclativud y abolición en la Argentina (Buenos Aires: Siglo XXI, 2021), 31–4.
23 John Hoyt Williams, ‘The “Conspiracy of 1820”, and the Destruction of Paraguayan Aristocracy’, Revista de Historia de América, no. 75/76 (1973): 141–55; White, Paraguay’s Autonomous Revolution.
24 Johann Rudolph Rengger and Marcelin Longchamp, Essai historique sur la révolution du Paraguay, et le gouvernement dictatorial du docteur Francia (Paris: H. Bossange, 1827); Francisco Wisner, El dictador del Paraguay José Gaspar de Francia (Asunción: Instituto Cultural Paraguayo-Alemán, 1996), 160–72; Chaves, El supremo dictador, 271–5; Williams, ‘The “Conspiracy of 1820”’; Anahí Soto Vera and Belén Cantero, El intento de asesinar al Supremo (Asunción: Atlas, 2021). Although most scholars date the conspiracy in 1820, I have not found any archival evidence before May 1821. For this reason, I believe the failed conspiracy occurred in early 1821.
25 A few historians mention this fact in passing, including Mário Maestri who points to it as the cause of the discovery of the conspiracy. Paraguay: la república campesina, 1810–1865 (Asunción: Intercontinental, 2016), 123. The two enslaved men are also mentioned by Alfredo Viola and Ana Ribeiro, who nevertheless do not attribute any significant role to them. Viola, El Dr. Francia, 153; Ribeiro, Los muy fieles, 192. This denunciation needs to be considered in the context of the broader relationship established between Francia and enslaved servants discussed in this chapter.
26 The original court case has been lost, but Francia’s order from May 26, 1821 was published along with his correspondence. Guido Rodríguez Alcalá, Margarita Durán Estragó, and Martín Romano García, eds., Francia (Asunción: Tiempo de Historia, 2009), 733.
27 Francia’s order from Oct. 8, 1821. Ibid., 742.
28 Williams, ‘The “Conspiracy of 1820”’; White, Paraguay’s Autonomous Revolution, 86, 91; Chaves, El supremo dictador, 285–6; Ribeiro, Los muy fieles.
29 Huston, ‘Folk and State’, chap. 5. Two of the cases analyzed in this section have been previously discussed by Huston.
30 ‘Expediente sobre la reprehensión dada a María Lucia Montiel por su padre’ (1822), vol. 1670, n. 7, SCJ, ANA.
31 Juana Rosa to Alcalde ordinario de segundo voto, May 1821, vol. 3229, SNE, ANA.
32 ‘Proceso a Maria Valentina Zarza por hablar contra el gobierno dictatorial’ (1824), vol. 1768, n. 5, SCJ, ANA. This case is discussed in depth in Potthast-Jutkeit, ‘Vivir bajo la dictadura’.
33 In addition to the cases referenced in this section, see José Gregorio Balenzuela’s concern about the ‘sinister report’ that enslaved Carmen could have given to judges, as well as the anxieties voiced by Juana Maria Robledo—the wife of a political prisoner—about being near enslaved Angelo after he had ‘declared himself against her home’. Balenzuela, Jose Gregorio, ‘Expediente que trata la venta de una esclava con su hijo’ (June 1822), vol. 1718, n. 9, SCJ, ANA; Cuevas, Vicente, ‘Expendiente promovido por el defensor general de pobres a nombre del pardo Angelo esclavo de Juana Maria Robledo, sobre se le otorgue papel de venta’ (21 March 1822), vol. 2223, n. 7, SCJ, ANA. The latter also expressed her worry that Angelo would try to rape her, yet took no judicial action around this crime, which suggests that her main concern were the ‘slanders’ that Angelo produced in front of judges.
34 For examples of enslavers who sent enslaved people to prison, see ‘Recurso de defensa del esclavo Felipe Santiago referente a castigo y documento de venta’ (15 Jan. 1805), vol. 2026, n. 1, SCJ, ANA; ‘Queja del esclavo Ramón Alberto, contra Pedro Hurtado sobre maltrato’ (1 Aug. 1806), vol. 2020, n. 9, SCJ, ANA; ‘El defensor general de pobres a nombre de la esclava Teresa contra Juan Francisco Decoud por maltrato’ (1812), vol. 1364, n. 3, SCJ, ANA; Mereles, Juan Bautista (a nombre de Tomas) to Presidente de la Superior Junta, 2 January 1813, vol. 2532, SNE, ANA; De la Rosa, Jose (a nombre de Maria Vicencia de la Mora) to Dictador de la República, 23 November 1816, vol. 2555, SNE, ANA; ‘Demanda del regidor defensor de pobres contra Francisco Rodríguez Mireyes por los maltratos dados a su esclavo Joaquín’ (1818), vol. 1992, n. 6, SCJ, ANA.
35 For a systematic examination of this strategy in Buenos Aires, see Lucas Rebagliati, ‘“Dios y el Rey son contentos que los siervos lleguen a su libertad”. Esclavos y Defensores de pobres en el Buenos Aires tardocolonial’, Prohistoria 32 (2019): 35–67.
36 In colonial times, some rare cases made it one step further to the royal courts in present-day Sucre, Bolivia. Ignacio Telesca, ‘La población parda en Asunción a fines de la colonia’, Estudios Paraguayos XXII–XXIII, no. 1–2 (2005): 29–50.
37 On the justice system, see Huston, ‘Folk and State’, chap. 4; Guido Rodríguez Alcalá, Justicia penal de Francia (Asunción: RP, 1997); Ezequiel Abásolo, ‘La dialéctica entre codificación y pervivencia de la cultura jurídica indiana en un ambiente signado por la ausencia de Universidad: el Paraguay de los López (1841–1870)’, Quaderni fiorentini per la storia del pensiero giuridico moderno 37, no. 1 (2008): 207–32; Nora Esperanza Bouvet, Poder y escritura: El doctor Francia y la construcción del estado paraguayo (Buenos Aires: Eudeba, 2010), chap. 6. Cases involving criticism of the government went straight to the dictator. On women’s appeals to Francia, Potthast-Jutkeit, ‘Vivir bajo la dictadura’.
38 Francia had received diverse poor visitors since he rose to dictator, an attitude that earned him censure from the elites. A pamphlet published in Buenos Aires in 1816 criticized Francia for welcoming peasants into his palace, while barely paying attention to ‘noble’ visitors. F.M.I.V., ‘Proclama de un paraguayo a sus paisanos’, Pamphlet (Buenos Aires, 1816), S7–2667, Colección Andrés Lamas, Archivo General de la Nación (Argentina). See also the case of six indigenous men from Itá who went to see Francia to request a new authority in 1817, in which the right to resort to the dictator is discussed explicitly. ‘Querella del protector de naturales contra el corregidor del pueblo de Itá a nombre de los naturales de dicho pueblo por castigos injustos’ (1817), vol. 1674, n. 3, SCJ, ANA.
39 ‘Expediente promovido por Luis esclavo de los hijos de Fulgencio Yegros para que se le franquee papel de venta’ (Feb. 1823), vol. 3106, SNE, ANA.
40 Eventually she fled again and managed to live like a free person for at least 23 years, during which the case remained open. Rodríguez, Juan Candido to Dictador de la República, 25 September 1829, vol. 1251, SNE, ANA. For a narrative retelling of this case see see Plá, Hermano negro, 181–91.
41 Juan Pedro Peña to Alcalde primer juez ordinario, 1831, vol. 1271, SNE, ANA and ensuing documents. A narrative retelling of this case in Plá, Hermano negro, 221–32.
42 ‘Remisión de la persona del esclavo del Estado de Tabapy llamado Juan Rodriguez’ (1828), vol. 1711, n. 7, SCJ, ANA.
43 Lyman L. Johnson, ‘“A Lack of Legitimate Obedience and Respect”: Slaves and Their Masters in the Courts of Late Colonial Buenos Aires’, Hispanic American Historical Review 87, no. 4 (2007): 631–57; Evelyne Laurent-Perrault, ‘Esclavizadas, cimarronaje y la Ley en Venezuela, 1760–1809’, in Demando mi libertad: Mujeres negras y sus estrategias de resistencia en la Nueva Granada, Venezuela y Cuba, 1700–1800, ed. Carmen Luz Cosme Puntiel and Aurora Vergara Figueroa (Bogotá: Universidad Icesi, 2018), 77–108.
44 Justo Poyzon’s testimony in ‘Proceso contra José Ignacio Frutos por proferir palabras ofensivas contra el gobierno dictatorial’ (1822), Vol. 1556, n. 5, SCJ, ANA. Gregoria’s testimony in ‘Expediente sobre la reprehensión’. Manuel’s testimony in ‘Proceso contra José Ramón Romero por proferir palabras indecentes contra el gobierno dictatorial’ (1822), Vol. 1556, n. 8, SCJ, ANA. Words attributed to Pedro Juan Contreras by Rosa Catalina Montiel in ‘Proceso a Maria Valentina Zarza’. Huston has interpreted the last testimony as a fabrication, yet representative of the gossip that circulated among slaveholders. ‘Folk and State’, 185.
45 Juana Rosa to Alcalde ordinario de segundo voto, 1821.
46 This last point is inspired by Kirsten Schultz’s work on Brazil: ‘In challenging the hierarchy of owners and slaves, slave petitioners, like others who sought royal grace, also reaffirmed the hierarchy of sovereign and vassal’. Tropical Versailles, Empire, Monarchy, and the Portuguese Royal Court in Rio de Janeiro, 1808–1821 (New York: Routledge, 2001), 176.
47 Williams has claimed that in the 1810s the republican government held several hundred formerly royal slaves, the offspring of enslaved people held by the Jesuits before their expulsion in 1767. However, Ignacio Telesca has shown that most slaves in Jesuit-owned ranches were sold. Williams, The Rise and Fall, 118; Ignacio Telesca, Tras los expulsos: cambios demográficos y territoriales en el Paraguay después de la expulsión de los Jesuitas (Asunción: Universidad Católica Nuestra Señora de la Asunción, 2009), chap. 5; Telesca, ‘Esclavos y jesuitas’, fig. XVIII. The confiscation of property from dissidents was far from a consistent policy, and the fate of enslaved people varied case by case. The estimate that half of the slaves were state-held comes from Williams, ‘Black Labor’, 387.
48 ‘El defensor general de pobres a favor de la negra Simona Goiburú – sobre su libertad’ (1827), vol. 1364, n. 7, SCJ, ANA.
49 ‘Solicitud de libertad y donación de la esclava Manuela, perteneciente a Manuel Santos López’ (1829–1833), vol. 2003, n. 6, SCJ, ANA. When her foreign owner had died, Manuela had left Valenzuela’s home in an attempt to escape state slavery and possibly serving Valenzuela as well. Pedro Nolasco Torres to Dictador de la República, Dec. 16, 1823, vol. 383II, n. 1, Sección Historia (SH), ANA.
50 Words attributed to Pedro Juan Contreras by Rosa Catalina Montiel in ‘Proceso a Maria Valentina Zarza’. See note 45.
51 Nolasco Torres to Dictador de la República, 16 Dec. 1823.
52 Williams, ‘Black Labor’.
53 G. J. R. Gordon, ‘Remarks in Reply to the Points Indicated in Lord Aberdeen’s Dispatch No. 1 of February 2nd 1842 to Mr. Gordon’ (29 April 1843), F.O. 13/202, The National Archives of the UK.
54 The Dominican ranchería had been an important site of gathering for the enslaved community, where many night parties were held. See ‘El Alcalde Antonio Cáceres, de ronda, toma medida de oficio por lo acaecido en el fandango entre mulatas y mulatos, en la ranchería de Santo Domingo y del Convento de Predicadores de Santa Catalina Virgen y Mártir’ (1802), vol. 1300, n. 1, SCJ, ANA; ‘Proceso a los mulatos de Santo Domingo por resistirse a la Real Justicia’ (1803), vol. 1453, n. 3, SCJ, ANA; ‘Proceso a los esclavos Antonio y Pedro Mongelos por robo’ (1814), vol. 1804, n. 6, SCJ, ANA. On the location of rancherías in colonial times, see Boccia Romañach, Esclavitud en el Paraguay, 219–20. For state slaves living in rental homes, see ‘Informe de Francisca de las Llagas’ (undated), vol. 184, CS, ANA. See also Juan’s case below.
55 For instance, an enslaved man named Juan was paid about two thirds of the salary received by free workers in public works. Enslaved women who ironed soldiers’ clothes were paid at market rates. Alvarez, Juan Manuel, ‘Razón de cantidades de dinero que en virtud de orden de S.E. invertí del caudal de esta tesorería’ (31 Aug. 1836), vol. 1889, SNE, ANA; Alvarez, Juan Manuel, ‘Razón de las cantidades de dinero que en virtud de orden verbal de SE invertimos del caudal de esta tesorería general’ (Sept. and Nov. 1838), vol. 1296, SNE, ANA. Drawing on evidence from the post-Francia era, Josefina Plá has argued that state slaves had greater access to wage work and manumission. Plá, Hermano negro, 103–11, 138–46.
56 ‘Demanda entre Antonio Silva (portugués) y Francisco esclavo del estado’ (1830), vol. 241, n. 3, SH, ANA. For a different analysis of this case centered on Francia’s treatment of judges and scribes, see Bouvet, Poder y escritura, 149–63.
57 See the case of José Manuel Gómez and his wife María de Mercedes, a woman enslaved by Margarita Recalde. The couple sought help from the defender of the poor, but he denied them support once he discovered that Gómez was a state slave. ‘El Defensor general de pobres a nombre de María de Mercedes (esclava) contra su ama por maltratos’ (1828), vol 1557, n. 3, SCJ, ANA.
58 María Elena Díaz, The Virgin, the King, and the Royal Slaves of El Cobre: Negotiating Freedom in Colonial Cuba, 1670–1780 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2000), chap. 3. Carlos Eugênio Líbano Soares, ‘Clamores da escravidão: requerimento dos escravos da nação ao Imperador, 1828’, História Social, no. 4/5 (1997): 223–8.
59 On racial language, see Borucki, From Shipmates to Soldiers, 19.
60 ‘Expediente sobre matrimonio de extranjeros en el país’ (1826–1828), vol. 239, n. 15, SH, ANA.
61 Candioti, Una historia, 142.
62 Telesca, ‘Afrodescendientes’, 339.
63 Cooney, ‘Abolition in the Republic of Paraguay’, 161–65.
64 Celso Thomas Castilho and Marcela Echeverri, ‘Ecos atlánticos de las aboliciones hispanoamericanas’, Historia Mexicana 69, no. 2 (2019): 624–25. Some salient works about abolition include Carlos Aguirre, Agentes de su propia libertad: los esclavos de Lima y la desintegración de la esclavitud, 1821–1854 (Lima: Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú, 1993); Candioti, Una historia; Natalia Sobrevilla Perea, ‘The Abolition of Slavery in the South American Republics’, Slavery & Abolition, 20 Sept. 2022.
65 Andrews, Afro-Latin America, 65–7.
66 Cooney, ‘Abolition in the Republic of Paraguay’, 156.
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Mariana Katz
Mariana Katz is a PhD candidate in the Department of History, Columbia University, 413 Fayerweather Hall, 1180 Amsterdam Avenue, New York, NY, 10027, USA