Free wombs: study on the representations of African and African-American women in Brazil and Cuba in the 19th century

Abstract

The womb of the enslaved woman occupied a fundamental place in the establishment of slavery in the Americas. Through the Roman principle partus sequitur ventrem it was defined that the condition of slavery of a person would be necessarily linked to the status of his mother. The matrilineality of slavery meant that enslaved women and their bodies played central roles as producers and reproducers of slavery across the Atlantic World. In line with the debates on the end of slavery developed at the end of the 18th century, Brazil and Cuba implemented their Free Womb Laws in the 1870s, responsible for derogating its structuring principle. These legislations freed children born from enslaved wombs, who had to render services to the masters of their mothers, and prohibited the separation of slave mothers and small children. By freeing the wombs of enslaved women, these laws interfered directly in their bodies, reproduction and motherhood. Based on a vast national documentation - especially the annals of the Chamber and Senate and the debates in the Spanish courts - the objective of this research project is to follow all the formulations and opinions placed around the Free Womb Laws, in Brazil and Cuba, in relation to enslaved women, seeking to analyze how the figure of this woman is being evaluated in terms of her performance, her body, sexuality, reproductive capacity, and what is the historical role attributed to these women in the exercise of motherhood. We, therefore, propose an investigation of the construction of representations about black women - enslaved, freed and libertandas - from a interseccional, transnational and gender perspective. (AU)