[Op-Ed] VULNERABLE POPULATIONS WEAVERS OF COLOMBIAN HISTORY. "Second part"

In this article I share with you about enslaved Africans and their contributions in the configurat

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In this article I share with you about enslaved Africans and their contributions in the configuration of Multiethnic and Multicultural Colombia and in the struggles for Peace and Dignity.

Caso Laura Sarabia: vicepresidenta Francia Márquez rechaza ...

Photo 1. Francia Márquez, Vice President of Colombia 2022-2026

ENSLAVED AFRICAN WOMEN AND MEN EXEMPLIFY PRACTICES OF FREEDOM, DIGNITY AND RESISTANCE IN COLOMBIA

 

Slavery as an ignominious practice has been present in many peoples over the centuries. It began in Colombia in the sixteenth century from the first years of the entry of Europeans. Enslaved African women and men came from different regions with histories of deep civilizations and traditions that systematic racism hid and distorted to a great degree. In Africa they exercised their plural existence like any civilization in the dialectic of friends, allies and enemy according to their own interests and conjunctures in all cultural dynamics (Ricardo Sánchez Angel in "Hacia la Independencia. From the Colony to the Republic. Rights, multitudes and revolution") 

Since colonial times, slavery became a systematic practice under the responsibility of slave traders or "ebony traders". Its commercialization and distribution were carried out through contracts called "asiento", formalized between the Spanish Crown and a contractor or asentista.

Sánchez Ángel, points out that from the sixteenth to the nineteenth century, 12,521,336 enslaved people were trafficked to America, of whom 1,818,680 died in the trade due to diseases, famines, murders including forced drownings, shipwrecks, suicides and deaths due to mutinies on board. In his chronicles, Pedro Claver stated that more than 300,000 slaves would have passed through his baptismal font in Colombia.

The slaveholders were not concerned with slaves, but with slavery as an economic-social institution and a decisive structure in the accumulation of capitalism (Ricardo Sánchez)

Groups of enslaved people tried to rebel against their masters on several occasions since the sixteenth century. The case of the great King Barullé in 1728 is illustrious, who led the largest insurrection in Chocó together with the brothers Antonio and Mateo Mina, who founded the Palenque of Tadó. For its part, the Palenque de San Basilio is the emblematic territory in Colombia, constituted as the first free town in America, founded by fugitive slaves in the seventeenth century, enslaved women and men who crossed the path to freedom and the reaffirmation of being culture. Sánchez records one of the most famous anti-slavery rebellions led by Benkos Biohó, African king of the Arcabuco, who from 1610 to 1619, demanded to be recognized as "irrefutable proof of counterculture and colonial counter-society".

In the sixteenth century, Africa enslaved as a colonial counterculture, took liberation actions in Santa Marta (1530), Cartagena (1533), Popayan (1556), in the mines of Zaragoza (1598), Valle del Cauca and in mining enclaves of Antioquia (1772). However, and despite these acts of liberation, the slave trade continued in Colombia until 1851. Although the issue of the liberation of slaves was addressed at different times, it was not until the beginning of the nineteenth century that abolition began to be seriously discussed. Around 1814, the Law of Freedom of Wombs was inspired in Antioquia, which provided that, from its sanction, the children of slaves were born free. However, his purpose was short-lived, because in 1816 Antioquia was reoccupied by the Spanish army.

Around 1819, the Liberator Simón Bolívar, when installing the Congress of Angostura, expressed his desire for the absolute freedom of the slaves. However, his request was not immediately met due to growing objections from the slave-owning elites. Finally, in the Law of May 21, 1851, sanctioned by President José Hilario López, all slaves who existed in the territory of the Republic were declared free. It establishes that the Manumission Boards created in the different cantons issue certificates of presentation, appraisal and freedom of each slave, so that the former masters could exchange them for manumission vouchers, the value of which would gradually be recognized by the State. The application of the Law took place from January 1, 1852, when slaves "... they will enjoy the same rights and will have the same obligations that the Constitution and the laws guarantee to the rest of Granada".

AFRO-DESCENDANT PEOPLES WEAVERS OF STORIES OF RESPECT FOR NATURE, PEACE AND UNITY IN COLOMBIA

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The cultures of Africa uprooted and the current Afro-descendant people have also been weavers of the history of Colombia. From the slave ships they built bridges and linked the same in the constitution of the MALUGAJE as a common identity and original place of the Resistance and since that agreement, they were present in different stages for freedom. In feats of the independence and in the republic until today, showing routes in perspective of decolonization, of building dignity from difference as a central task to make possible a Colombia where we all fit and in line with "a world where other worlds fit".

Although racism and classism rooted in patriarchal society persist in Colombia today, Afro-descendant peoples show us, like indigenous and peasant peoples, other possible ways of being.

Lideresas afro reivindican "la rebeldía" de sus ancestras en un ...

Photo 3. Afro leaders vindicate the rebellion of their ancestors. Source https://www.bing.com/images/search?view=detailV2&ccid

 

Born from the struggles and proposals for change of the Afro-Colombian people, today there is Law 70 of 1993, a regulatory milestone that, despite its slow implementation, guarantees the cultural, political, economic and cultural rights of this people. 

In an unprecedented achievement, COP16 approved the inclusion of Afro-descendant peoples in the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), officially recognizing them as guardians of biodiversity. It represents a significant advance in the fight for ethnic-racial and environmental justice.

BAPP - Biblioteca Abierta del Proceso de Paz colombiano

Photo 4. Process of Black Communities in Colombia-PCN Source: https://www.bing.com/images/search?view=detailV2&ccid

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