Building a Postemancipation Society in the Rainforests of Western Colombia /
First Statement of Responsibility
Claudia Leal.
.PUBLICATION, DISTRIBUTION, ETC
Place of Publication, Distribution, etc.
Baltimore, Maryland :
Place of Publication, Distribution, etc.
Tucson [Arizona] :
Name of Publisher, Distributor, etc.
Project Muse,
Name of Publisher, Distributor, etc.
University of Arizona Press,
Date of Publication, Distribution, etc.
2018.
Date of Publication, Distribution, etc.
[2018]
PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION
Specific Material Designation and Extent of Item
1 online resource (1 PDF (xiii, 336 pages)) :
Other Physical Details
illustrations, maps.
SERIES
Series Title
Latin American landscapes
INTERNAL BIBLIOGRAPHIES/INDEXES NOTE
Text of Note
Includes bibliographical references (pages 305-328) and index.
CONTENTS NOTE
Text of Note
Voyages into the rainforest : an introduction in three acts -- part I. An extractive economy -- 1. Slave mining and emancipation -- 2. Freedom and the persistence of extraction -- 3. Traders in natural commodities -- 4. The politics of natural resource access -- part II. Racialized landscapes -- 5. Blackness, forests, and nation -- 6. Urban dreams and nightmares -- Conclusion : a people and an environment with history.
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SUMMARY OR ABSTRACT
Text of Note
After emancipation in 1851, the African descendants living in the extra-humid rainforests of the Pacific coast of Colombia attained levels of autonomy hardly equaled anywhere else in the Americas. This autonomy rested on their access to a diverse environment--including small strips of fertile soils, mines, forests, rivers, and wetlands--that contributed to their subsistence and allowed them to procure gold, platinum, rubber, and vegetable ivory for export. Afro-Colombian slave labor had produced the largest share of gold in the colony of New Granada. After the abolishment of slavery, some free people left the mining areas and settled elsewhere along the coast, making this the largest area of Latin America in which black people predominate into the present day. However, this economy and society, which lived off the extraction of natural resources, was presided over by a very small white commercial elite living in the region's ports, where they sought to create an urban environment that would shelter them from the jungle. Landscapes of Freedom reconstructs a nonplantation postemancipation trajectory that sheds light on how environmental conditions and management influenced the experience of freedom. It also points at the problematic associations between autonomy and marginality that have shaped the history of Afro-America. By focusing on racialized landscapes, Leal offers a nuanced and important approach to understanding the history of Latin America.