Enslaved women and the use of the partus sequitur ventrem at courts: inscribing maternal ancestry and intervening in the gender-racialized archive in colonial Chile

Authors

  • Carolina González Undurraga

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.35305/eishir.v11i30.1477

Keywords:

enslaved, free wombs, maternal ancestry, gender-racialized

Abstract

In this paper I describe and analyze the implications and uses of the legal principle partus sequitur ventrem through two lawsuits for the recognition of freedom by enslaved women of calidad mulata and/or zamba. They disputed the slave version of their origin by presenting evidence to register a new maternal ancestry, one from a free india. I am interested in exploring how they created their own archive and juxtaposed to the judicial file that described them and, to a certain extent, determined them. At the time of demanding the recognition of freedom, they had to enter and exit gender-racialized markers that were strongly implicated in the very constitution of slavery.

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Published

2021-07-30

How to Cite

González Undurraga, C. (2021). Enslaved women and the use of the partus sequitur ventrem at courts: inscribing maternal ancestry and intervening in the gender-racialized archive in colonial Chile. Estudios Del ISHiR, 11(30). https://doi.org/10.35305/eishir.v11i30.1477