Slavery, Race, and Freedom on the Spanish Anglo Borderlands

• Published in: The Latin Americanist (Orlando, Fla.) Fla.), 2017-12, Vol.61 (4), p.551-568
• Main Author: Pinnen, Christian
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: 18th century; Borders; Colonies & territories; Freedoms; Governors; Justice; Law; Race; Racial identity; Slavery; Slaves
• ISSN: 1557-2021; 1557-203X
• DOI: 10.1111/tla.12169

On a cool, crisp fall day, the free black man James appeared in front of the Spanish governor of Natchez during court day in 1781. James had recently been freed and now sought to prove to everyone in town that indeed he deserved to be treated as a free man. To do so, James had to demand from the governor that two white men pay the debt owed to him.There are many things we do not know of the encounter. How did James address the governor? How did the Spanish governor receive James? Did he accept his case as any other, or did he hesitate in light of the racial identity of the other petitioners and claimants that day, assuredly all white? Did the governor understand the importance of the case for the next decade and a half of Spanish stewardship in Natchez, or did he simply follow the letter of the law? Whatever the case, James, a former slave, received justice. With this decision, the governor of Natchez had brought the full leverage of Spanish law to an Anglo-American white population and their black slaves, and this would have tremendous consequences for the following decade. James’s actions might not appear revolutionary in the Age of Revolutions that had recently swept up the remote district in its wake, but in many ways they can be read as such.