FIGHTING WITH THE ENEMY'S WEAPONS

Abstract

This article focuses on the use of the colonial legal framework by Cuban slaves. It examines briefly the particulars of the slave laws across the Americas, before focusing on nineteenth century Cuba. Cases drawn from Cuban plantation archives illustrate and analyse the way plantation slaves learned to use the law for their own benefit, and show what limitations they found while attempting to exercise their legal rights. Slaves often encountered a variety of legal obstacles. Their chances of taking advantage of the law were frequently determined by whether they were African or Creole, by whether they lived in the countryside, and by other factors. Although these laws were devised to control them rather than to offer them valid channels to claim their rights, slaves never stopped trying to test the Spanish colonial legal system to its limits, and on some occasions, they succeeded in improving their condition.

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