Las puertas de la virtuddiscursos y prácticas de la élite de los pardos por la igualdad de derechos en el Circuncaribe Hispano (1790-1821)

Resumen

The aim of this study is to analyse the discourses and social practices of the Pardo elite to achieve equal rights in the Hispanic Circum-Caribbean (1790-1821). This is a region made up of the mainland Caribbean coast, which demographically was characterised by a majority free population of mixed blood (approximately 30% to 50%, depending on the province), who were commonly referred to as Pardos. This population, although a social majority, politically represented a minority by virtue of their mixture of African ancestry, which gave them a legally uncertain status. In sociological terms, however, this population constituted an emerging elite. Within the Hispanic Circum-Caribbean, this research specifically analyses the provinces of Cumaná and Caracas, in the Captaincy General of Venezuela; Cartagena de Indias, Panama and Portobelo, in the Viceroyalty of New Granada; and Cartago and Matina, in the Governorate of Costa Rica, during the period between 1790 and 1821. This was a politically and ideologically conflictive period in the circum-Caribbean provinces, due to the Atlantic-Caribbean revolutionary experiences; the ideological ferment of the radical republican and liberal monarchical ideology; and the profound institutional transformation of the Spanish Monarchy. In this ideologically convulsive scenario, the Royal Decree of Gracias al Sacar (1795), whose requests for a Dispensation of Colour represented an opportunity for the free elite of mixed blood to be granted civil status with the same rights as the rest of the ordinary Spanish vassals, subject to the payment of a fee. The measure thus represented a legal instrument to renegotiate, within the colonial institutional channels, the inconsistency between their social position and their uncertain legal status...