Lettered and Nonlettered Connections: Enslaved Black People in Viceroyalty of the Royal Audience of Quito, 1776–1823

This paper analyzes the engagement of enslaved Black women and men with written culture in the Audience of Quito (this administrative region spanned Ecuador’s present territory and parts of Brazil, Colombia, and Peru) from 1776 to 1826. I draw largely on primary sources in Ecuadorian and Colombian archives. These sources, albeit mediated, offer glimpses into the knowledge of enslaved individuals occupying diverse roles, such as gold miners, farmers, musicians, domestics, and cooks. Court cases in Latin American archives provide rich documentation for exploring the dynamics between enslaved individuals and literacy. Litigation practices combined orality and collaboration with literate intermediaries to draft petitions. Recent work has illuminated the mixed authorship of multiple kinds of documents in dissimilar archival contexts. For instance, some illiterate individuals, despite their inability to write, physically carried documents, while others, indeed literate, left their trembly signatures subtly interwoven amid the more “schooled” script produced by professional scribes.

The paper has three parts. First, I examine two uprisings of enslaved people in the Audiencia of Quito (1789 and 1798) and one during the República de Colombia (1826). Second, I explore the relationship between enslaved individuals and written materials, encompassing their participation in scientific projects, the intimacy of personal correspondence, and the place of books and archives on the slave hacienda. Third, I focus on the written practices of enslaved individuals who were literate. During the Age of Revolutions, varying degrees of literacy made for complex and multifaceted interactions with written culture. This project aims to develop a more capacious understanding of reading and writing practices by exploring gaps and silences in the historical record. Rather than reaffirm literacy's exclusivity as a domain of Latin American elites, I offer supplementary perspectives on how subaltern agents acquired and shared knowledge during the transition from colonies to republics.