Black Freedom in the Urban Americas: Free People of Color, Organizational Membership, and Social Distinction in Charleston and Cartagena

This paper examines the protest strategies employed by free people of color in the urban Americas, an oft-overlooked cultural connection between North and South America. Using Charleston, South Carolina, and Cartagena, Colombia, as case studies, I argue that free people of color in both Spanish America and the United States engaged in a hemispheric discourse about race and respectability. By actively crafting identities and reputations for themselves as respectable, virtuous members of their local communities, free people of color throughout the urban Americas were able to carve out spaces of freedom for themselves beneath the weight of persistent racial discrimination.

One of the critical components of this pan-American strategy for social inclusion was organizational membership. In Charleston, wealthy free people of color often belonged to a variety of voluntary organizations and mutual aid societies in the city. For free people of color in Cartagena, being a member of the local militia served a very similar purpose. In both cities, free people of color used membership in exclusive organizations to create a crucial class distinction between themselves and the black lower classes, cultivate a social network that included prominent whites, and gain social distinction within their local communities. By fostering this reputation for respectability, free people of color throughout the urban Americas effectively challenged white racial anxieties and policies of racial discrimination, establishing themselves as not only fit for freedom but for inclusion in civic and political life.

That free people of color in both the U.S. and Spanish America engaged such a strategy suggest that, rather than being solely a means of improving one’s individual situation, they were engaged in a hemispheric discourse on race and respectability. An appreciation of this cultural link between North and South America is crucial for understanding of the power of race in the Americas.