Royalism, Freedom, and Black Communities in Popayán, 1811–20

This paper speaks to the contingencies of national state formation in Colombia by inserting popular royalists into the narrative of the independence process. I explore the political life of slaves and free blacks that participated in royalist military alliances in the southwestern province of Popayán during the independence wars as well as their particular conditions of integration into the Bolivarian Republic in the 1820s. Previously crucial allies of the Spanish army, between 1819 and 1820 slaves in the Pacific lowlands and free blacks from the town of Patía changed loyalties to support Simón Bolívar. Asking how republican leaders negotiated with royalists in the aftermath of independence, I examine their incorporation by the republican project and its bearers until 1840. Free blacks and slaves’ military roles on the royalist side from 1808 until 1819 were a source of empowerment, transforming their interests and political strategies. This was an important precedent that set the conditions of their integration to the early republic through novel legal categories and sometimes as soldiers of the republican army. In particular, I explore the ways in which the commitment of the Bolivarian state to the institution of slavery defined the distinct opportunities that emerged for enslaved and free blacks in the new political context.