The Politics of Indians and Blacks in Southwestern Colombia, 1808–20

In response to Spain’s constitutional crisis, beginning in 1808, all social sectors in Spanish America mobilized politically. In some cases, their multiple and varied responses gave shape to anti-colonial movements and in others were articulated through a renewed, full-fledged royalism. It is impossible to make structural links between race or status and the political choices of Spanish Americans during the second decade of the nineteenth century. In fact, explaining the emergent political identities and alliances of this transformative decade requires fine-grained histories that uncover the specific interests behind political action. This paper focuses on the Indians and slaves that chose to side with the monarchy, called royalists, in southwestern New Granada. As royalists, enslaved Africans and Indians in that region were open to negotiation with colonial elites on the terms of their duties vis-à-vis the crown. For royalist elites, as well as for the crown, the economic institutions linked to each group – slavery and tribute – were politically negotiable and deployed simultaneously and self-consciously for their potential to mobilize popular classes in favor of the monarchy. The paper goes a step further and relates the royalist precedent with the most visible political interests and strategies of Indian and enslaved or free blacks in the early republican context until 1840. It inquires into the reasons why at the dawn of republican Colombia Indians in the southwest chose to defend their Indianness, instead of accepting the state’s legal offer to make them citizens. It also discusses the impact on national politics of black mobilization in the southwestern region to legalize freedom and acquire new social, political, and economic rights.