Historia y Sociedad (Jul 2011)
Paternalismo, iluminismo y libertad. La vigencia de la Instrucción esclavista de 1789 y su impacto en la sociedad colonial
Abstract
In 1789 the colonial government of Spain emitted a Royal Decree which regulated the handling of slaves in America. This document recognized the humanity of the slaves and required their masters to fulfill a number of duties to assure the protection and conservation of their lives. This reformative rule became the target of harsh criticism on the part of American slavers that finally forced the Spanish Crown to temporally suspend its application. Despite that, the decree was distributed and made known in all the American territories. Its strength as a legal tool was fundamental to the slave freedom movement up until the 19th Century. In this article it is argued, that the effectiveness of the rule in legal practice responded to the long tradition of identity construction of slaves in the West. From the Roman Codes of Common Law, through the Medieval Castilian Codes to the Indian Legal Rules, this discourse opened the way for slaves to affirm their humanity and independence. The master, on the other hand, defined himself in a close relationship to his paternalistic duties towards slaves. Those duties were to condition his control. This historic thickness is present in the reformist rules and allowed its postulates to adapt quickly to the changing circumstances of slavery at the end of the 18th Century.
