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“The purity of my blood cannot put food on my table”: Changing Attitudes Towards Interracial Marriage in Nineteenth-Century Buenos Aires*1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 December 2015

Jeffrey M. Shumway
Jeffrey M. Shumway*
Affiliation:
Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah
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Extract

Lorenzo Barbosa had a big problem with his daughter Josefa. In June 1821, in Buenos Aires, young Josefa Barbosa was in love with Pascual Cruz. What bothered Lorenzo was that Pascual was a mulatto, while the Barbosa family was white. When the couple asked his permission to marry, Lorenzo vehemently opposed the union and withheld his consent. He was acting within his rights, since minor children (men and women younger than 25 and 23 respectively) were required by law to obtain parental permission to marry. To bolster his case, Lorenzo invoked the power of a colonial law issued in 1778, known as the Royal Pragmatic on marriage, which gave parents the right to block their children's marriages to “unequal partners.” Even though Buenos Aires had broken away from Spain in 1810, most colonial laws regarding family life, including the pragmatic, continued in force into the national period. But just as in colonial times, children retained the right to challenge parental opposition in court. If they chose to do so, the resulting case was known as a disenso.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Americas , Volume 58 , Issue 2 , October 2001 , pp. 201 - 220
Copyright
Copyright © Academy of American Franciscan History 2001

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Footnotes

*

I am grateful to the University of Arizona and Brigham Young University for providing resources to conduct the research for this article, which is part of a larger project examining continuity and change in family life and society in nineteenth-century Buenos Aires. I would like to thank Donna Guy, B.J. Barickman, Ric Casper, Kathy Shumway, and the anonymous reviewers from The Americas for helpful comments on earlier forms of this article.

1.

The title comes from a statement made in 1832 by María Rodríguez in a civil suit against her father who had refused to give her permission to marry because her suitor was of African descent. More of her story appears below. Archivo Histórico de la Provincia de Buenos Aires, “Ricardo Levene” (hereafter cited as AHPBA) 7.5.17.54. María Rodríguez y Andrés Lorea, 1832.

References

2. The crown first issued the pragmatic in Spain in 1776 and extended it to the New World in 1778. An additional pragmatic on marriage, issued in 1803, provided a sliding age scale for orphans and others. For a look at the pragmatics, see Konetzke, Richard, Colección de documentos para la historia de la formación social de Hispanoamérica (Madrid: Consejo Superior de investigaciones científicas, 1962), vol. 3, pp. 406–413,Google Scholar 794–796.

3. AHPBA 7.5.17.18. Pascual Cruz y Josefa Barbosa. 1821.

4. Between 1779 and 1810, for example, 16 out of 51 disenso cases, or 32 percent, were based on racial “inequality.” In 50 percent of the cases based on race, judges ruled in favor of the dissenting parents. See the appendix in Porro's, Nelly “Los juicios de disenso en el Río de la Plata. Nuevos aportes sobre la aplicación de la Pragmática de hijos de familia,” in Separata del Anuario Histórico Jurídico Ecuatoriano, vol. 5. (Quito, Ecuador: Corporación de estudios y publicaciones, 1980).Google Scholar While the pragmatic was discriminatory, the colonial regimes did make limited efforts at social reform in race-related matters. New laws during the late-Bourbon period, for example, allowed free pardos to advance within the military. However, as David Bushnell points out, these measures “merely riddled the colonial Jim Crow laws with a few more exceptions” and should not be compared with “the virtual scrapping of those laws by the new governments” after 1810. See Bushnell's, David, Reform and Reaction in the Platine Provinces (Gainseville: University of Florida Press, 1983), p. 2.Google Scholar

5. While excellent scholars have examined these sources, many of the in-depth studies focus on the colonial and late colonial period. Nelly Porro and Susan Socolow have both looked at the disensos of the colonial period, but their studies have not extended into the national period. See Porro, Nelly “Los juicios de disenso en el Río de la Plata;”Google Scholar and Socolow, Susan M. “Acceptable Partners: Marriage Choice in Colonial Argentina, 1778–1810,” in Lavrin, Asunción ed., Sexuality and Marriage in Colonial Latin America (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1989).Google Scholar For work on similar cases in colonial Mexico, see Seed, Patricia, To Love, Honor, and Obey in Colonial Mexico: Conflicts over Marriage Choice, 1574–1821 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1988).Google Scholar Two notable exceptions include Szuchman's, Mark D. “A Challenge to the Patriarchs: Love Among the Youth in Nineteenth-Century Argentina,” in Szuchman, Mark D. ed., The Middle Period in Latin America: Values and Attitudes in the 17th-19th Centuries (Boulder: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 1989),Google Scholar and Mayo's, Carlos, Un loco amor. Romances juveniles perseguidos (para una historia del amor en la sociedad rioplatense) (1770–1830) Investigaciones y Ensayos 49 (1999).Google Scholar Ricardo Cicerchia has also used civil and criminal cases to examine the continuities in the family between the late colonial and national periods. See Ricardo Cicerchia's, Hector “La vida maridable: Ordinary Families in Buenos Aires, Argentina, 1778–1850” (Ph.D. diss., Columbia University, 1995);Google Scholar “Vida Familiar y prácticas conyugales. Clases populares en una ciudad colonial, Buenos Aires, 1800–1810” Boletín del Instituto de Historia Argentina y Americana “Dr. E. Ravignani serie 3, semestre 1 (1990); “Familia: la historia de una idea. Los desordenes domésticos de la plebe urbana porteña, Buenos Aires, 1776–1850,” in Vivir en familia, ed. Wainerman, Catalina (Buenos Aires: Editorial Losada, 1994).Google Scholar

6. For the persistence of racist views, as seen in the thought of future Argentine president Domingo F. Sarmiento, see Garrel's, Elizabeth “Sobre Indios, Afroamericanos, y los racismos de Sarmiento” Revista Iberoamericana vol. 63, nums. 178–179 (January-June 1997).Google Scholar

7. For more on Afro Argentines, see Goldberg, Marta B. “La población negra y mulata de la ciudad de Buenos Aires, 1810–1840,” Desarrollo Económico 16:61 (April-June 1976),CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Reid Andrews, George, The Afro-Argentines of Buenos Aires (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1980).Google Scholar

8. AHPBA 7.5.14.29. Bárbara Benavente con Felipe Butes, 1827.

9. As cited in Goldberg, “La población negra y mulata,” p. 79.

10. The difference between Indians and blacks is also evident in the regulations on marriage. Although the pragmatic is not clear on this point, it appears that the “inequality” in the decree meant specifically African blood. The presence of Indian blood, however, did not justify opposition to a marriage. Juan Tomás Touvé of Paraguay, for example, claimed that his fiancé’s father, Anastasio Sosa, opposed his daughter's marriage to Juan “without other reasons except that I am of Indian origin.” Even “supposing that I was really an Indian, this is not an impediment, nor a rational opposition.” The court agreed with his line of reasoning and approved his marriage. AHPBA 7.5.14.42. Juan Tomás Touvé con María Isabel Sosa. 1826.

11. Socolow, , “Acceptable Partners,” p. 236.Google Scholar

12. Carlos Chiaramonte, José, Ciudades, provincias, Estados: Orígenes de la Nación Argentina (1800–1846) (Buenos Aires: Ariel Historia, 1997), p. 38.Google Scholar

13. de Monteagudo, Bernardo “Observaciones didácticas,” as found in Chiaramonte, Ciudades, provincias, Estados, pp. 362,Google Scholar 366.

14. Bushnell, , Reform and Reaction, pp. 8–14.Google Scholar Nevertheless, the slave trade continued under different guises until much later, at least until 1840. See Angel Rosal, Miguel “Negros y pardos en Buenos Aires, 1811–1860” Anuario de Estudios Americanos 51:1 (1994).Google Scholar

15. Chiaramonte, , Ciudades, provincias, Estados, p. 186.Google Scholar

16. See Reid Andrews, George “The Afro-Argentine Officers of Buenos Aires Province, 1800–1860” Journal of Negro History 61:2 (Spring 1979).Google Scholar

17. Johnson, Lyman L. “The Frontier as an Arena of Social and Economic Change: Wealth Distribution in Nineteenth-Century Buenos Aires Province,” in Guy, Donna J. and Sheridan, Thomas E. eds., Contested Ground: Comparative Frontiers on the Northern and Southern Edges of the Spanish Empire (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1998), p. 181.Google Scholar

18. These activities caused no small stir among the Unitarian exiles, who now had even more evidence to show that Rosas was a barbarian and a tyrant. See Andrews, , The Afro-Argentines of Buenos Aires, p. 97.Google Scholar

19. See Echeverría, Estaban, La cautiva, El matadero, Ojeada retrospectiva (Buenos Aires: Centro Editor de América Latina, 1979), pp. 77–78.Google Scholar

20. Bushnell, , Reform and Reaction, p. 14.Google Scholar

21. AHPBA 7.5.14.7. José María del Corazón de Jesús Calleja con Pablo Garcia, 1828.

22. AHPBA 7.5.16.32. Juan Lamas y Justa Arnold, 1834.

23. According to César García Belsunce and his team, child mortality in Buenos Aires orphanages was terrible. In 1822,69 out of 147 children who entered died (46.9%); in 1823,78 of 124 (62.9%); 1824, 72 of 114 (63.1%); and in 1825, 83 of 119 (69.7%). See García Belsunce, César A. et al, Buenos Aires, 1800–1830, tomo III: Educación y asistencia social (Buenos Aires: Ediciones del Banco Internacional y Banco Unido de Inversión, 1976), p. 371.Google Scholar

24. AHBPA 7.5.16.32. Juan Lamas y Justa Arnold, 1834.

25. See Partida IV, título 15, ley 1 (hereafter cited as Partida 4.15.1).

26. See Twinam, Ann “Honor, Sexuality, and Illegitimacy in Colonial Spanish America,” in Lavrin, , Sexuality and Marriage, p. 119.Google Scholar

27. AHBPA 7.5.16.32. Juan Lamas y Justa Arnold, 1834.

28. AHBPA 7.5.16.32. Juan Lamas y Justa Arnold, 1834.

29. AHPBA 7.5.16.32. Juan Lamas y Justa Arnold, 1834.

30. Chambers, Sarah, From Subjects to Citizens: Honor, Gender, and Politics in Arequipa, Peru, 1780–1854 (University Park: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 1999), pp. 79,Google Scholar 90.

31. Chambers, , From Subjects to Citizens, p. 87.Google Scholar

32. While there is no doubt about the effectiveness of Rosas’ mazorca henchmen, or his role in the execution of Camila O'Gorman and Ladislao Gutierrez, there is a clear need to evaluate Rosas from more than one angle. From these and other civil cases, there is continuity between the liberal Rivadavian era and the Rosas regime. While this topic deserves more attention, in recent years scholars have been revising the image of the Rosas regime, finding more continuities with previous governments. Jorge Meyer, for example, has shown how Rosas’ political discourse was essentially republican in nature. See Meyer, Jorge, Orden y Virtud: El discurso republicano en el régimen Rosista (Buenos Aires: Universidad Nacional de Quilmes, 1995).Google Scholar Richard Slatta has also pointed to important continuities between Rivadavia, and Rosas, in his Gauchos and the Vanishing Frontier (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1992).Google Scholar

33. See Cicerchia's, , La vida maridable, p. 211.Google Scholar

34. Andrews, , The Afro-Argentines of Buenos Aires, pp. 4–5.Google Scholar

35. The question of how much of this was a conspiracy, and how willing people were to be reclassified, is an important question, one that speaks to the difficulty of understanding racial and ethnic identity not only in the nineteenth century, but in Latin America today. As Lowell Gudmondson has pointed out, in Buenos Aires, as in the rest of Latin America, people of color sought to “trade up” in their racial classification if they could. See Gudmondson, , “De negro a bianco,” p. 318,Google Scholar note 15. George Ried Andrews also found that many Afro-Argentines were eager to escape their racial label. Speaking of Brazil, Mario Bonatti, argues that centuries of slavery eroded the self-worth of Afro-Brazilians and weakened their identity, causing them to ascribe, to a certain degree, to the white man's racial and ethnic hierarchies. Today, many activists and scholars are disappointed by the apparent unwillingness of many Brazilians to recognize their African heritage and organize on behalf of Afro-Brazilians. See Bonatti's, , Negra bela raiz: A presença negra na formação do Brasil (SP: Editora Santuaria, 1991).Google Scholar

36. As cited in Garrels, , “Sobre indios,” p. 106.Google Scholar

37. As cited in Andrews, , The Afro-Argentines of Buenos Aires, p. 106.Google Scholar

38. As cited in Andrews, , The Afro-Argentines of Buenos Aires, p. 106.Google Scholar

39. Andrews, , The Afro-Argentines of Buenos Aires, pp. 87–89.Google Scholar

40. AHPBA 7.6.17.54. María Rodríguez y Andrés Lorea, 1832. Until the coming of the railroad, wagons served as the major source of overland freight and transportation. As a wagon driver, Lorea would have had ample opportunity in the growing economy to transport wheat, flour, tanned leather, timber, blankets, ponchos, as well as foodstuffs. See Brown, Jonathan, A Socioeconomic History of Buenos Aires: 1776–1860 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1979), pp. 101–102.Google Scholar

41. Andrews, , The Afro-Argentines of Buenos Aires, p. 18.Google Scholar

42. El Lucero, 19 July 1830, as cited in Szuchman, , “Love in Nineteenth-Century Argentina,” p. 160.Google Scholar

43. This case was reviewed in El Lucero, July 17 and July 23, 1830. As cited in Szuchman, , “Love in Nineteenth-Century Argentina,” p. 159.Google Scholar

44. AHPBA 7.5.14.105. José Peralta. Sobre disenso, 1825. The relative definition of “supporting” a family was also evident in the case of Julio Rosquellas and Benita Barreda. Benita's father objected to their marriage because Julio did not have the financial resources to sustain a wife and family. He made this charge even though Julio had ten to twelve thousand pesos between him and his mother, and another eight thousand pesos which his father had promised him for his marriage. While a few hundred pesos was enough for some other suitors, to please their perspective in-laws, several thousand was not enough for this perspective father in-law to approve of Julio. AHPBA 7.5.14.26. Julián Rosquellas con Benita Barreda, 1828.

45. AHPBA 7.5.16.33. Amona Amonasen y Sofia Hartwig, 1844.

46. AHPBA 7.5.14.112. Juan Antonio de Avendaño solicitando el permiso para esponsales, 1824. In a similar case, Carlos José Lara wanted to marry Josefa Agustina, a parda and a slave, but their different racial backgrounds prevented it. Being from Paraguay, Carlos had no family in the area that might oppose or approve the marriage. After hearing witnesses who attested to Carlos’ good character and that he had no family in the city, the judge issued them a license to carry out their matrimonial desires. AHPBA, 7.5.14.13. José Carlos de Lara con Josefa Agustina, 1825.

47. AHPBA, 7.5.14.23. Juan Martínez de Sosa con María de los Santos Ogorman, 1825. AHPBA 7.5.14.22. Joaquín Moreira, 1825.

48. See Bushnell, , Reform and Reaction, p. 3.Google Scholar

49. As quoted in Halperín-Donghi, Tulio, Politics, Economics, and Society in Argentina in the Revolutionary Period, trans. by Southern, Richard (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1975), p. 167.Google Scholar For a useful listing of the reforms of the revolutionary juntas, see Bushnell, , Reform and Reaction, pp. 123–126.Google Scholar

50. Tau Anzoátegui, Victor, Las ideas jurídicas argentinas (siglos XIX–XX) (Buenos Aires: Editorial Perrot, 1977), p. 46.Google Scholar

51. See for example the use of the image of the Indian in Hidalgo's, Bartolomé, Antología de la poesía gauchesca, pp. 77–79,Google Scholar 83–85, as quoted in Shumway, Nicolas, The Invention of Argentina (Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1991), p. 73.Google Scholar

52. de Monteagudo, Bernardo “Clasificación de ciudadanos,” as found in Chiaramonte, Ciudades, provincias, Estados, p. 357.Google Scholar

53. AHPBA 7.5.15.7. José Fortunato Silva, 1833.

54. AHPBA 7.5.15.24. Francisco Armero, sobre disenso, 1818.

55. AHPBA 7.5.14.58. Matias Almeida con Robustina Belmonte, 1851.

56. See Levene, Ricardo, Historia del derecho Argentino, vol. 5 (Buenos Aires: Editorial Guillermo Kraft. 1945–1958), pp. 101–102;Google Scholar 288–89, 298.

57. For more on inter-faith marriages, see Mariluz Urquijo, José M. “Los matrimonios entre per-sonas de diferente religión ante el derecho patrio Argentino,” Conferencias y comunicaciones, folleto XXII, Instituto de Historia del Derecho, 1948.Google Scholar

58. Somellera, Pedro Antonio, Principios de derecho civil: curso dictado en la Universidad de Buenos Aires, 1824 (Buenos Aires, 1939), p. 81.Google Scholar

59. Chiaramonte, , Ciudades, provincias, Estados, p. 190.Google Scholar

60. See título I, capítulo III, artículo 16 in Vélez Sarsfield, Dalmacio, Código Civil de la Repúbica Argentina (Nueva York: Imprenta de Hallet y Breen, 1870), p. 51.Google Scholar

61. AHPBA, 7.5.17.31. Juan de Sousa Araujo con Manuel de Sousa Araujo. 1846.