Freedom, Mobility, and Social Location(s) in 18th-Century Oaxaca and the Kingdom of Guatemala

By the early eighteenth century, most African-descended people remained in captivity in Oaxaca, Mexico. These individuals often sought legal freedom using strategies, such as self-purchase and reliance on personal networks, which were employed throughout the Americas. This paper examines the tactics that enslaved women and men used to attain freedom in southern Mexico and Guatemala at the tail-end of the seventeenth century and in the eighteenth century. In some instances, enslaved people in Oaxaca filed freedom suits to secure their legal freedom. On other occasions, bondsmen and bondswomen traveled long distances along commercial routes to find freedom in new locations such as Guatemala, the Caribbean, and South America. Drawing on notarial and judicial records, I argue that enslaved people from southern Mexico not only challenged slaveholders but also made claims to freedom and negotiated their social location, oftentimes by transcending viceregal boundaries. The movement of these formerly enslaved people along Mesoamerican roads offers a window into the rival geographies of colonial roads that connected Mexico with Central and South America. These trading routes, which featured commerce in both agricultural products and enslaved people, illuminate colonial roads as discursive spaces for studying the experiences and liberties of enslaved people across the Americas.