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1 results

  • 18 - Gabriela, Nineteenth-Century Rio Grande do Sul (Brazil)

  • from Part III - Envisaging Emancipation during Second Slavery
  • Edited by Erica L. Ball, Occidental College, Los Angeles, Tatiana Seijas, Rutgers University, New Jersey, Terri L. Snyder, California State University, Fullerton
  • Book:
    As If She Were Free
    Published online:
    24 September 2020
    Print publication:
    08 October 2020, pp 331-343

  • Summary

    In the 1860’s, Candida manumitted Gabriela and gave her a letter of freedom. Armand nevertheless contested this manumission. He argued that married women were illegally incapable of giving manumission to their slaves without their husband’s consent. Faced with this resistance to her freedom, Gabriela resorted to the courts. She brought two lawsuits against Armand—a civil one and a criminal one, for the crime of reducing a free person to slavery. Gabriela lost both lawsuits. Judges accepted Armand’s argument that a married woman was legally incapable of manumitting a slave without the explicit authorization of her husband, who was the legal administrator of her property. Thus, Brazilian courts nullified Gabriela’s manumission because a married woman had granted her freedom. Gabriela’s judicial struggle was not unique. By analyzing Gabriela’s judicial trajectory, this chapter will address broader questions regarding enslaved women’s access to courts and the role of law in the outcome of judicial claims for freedom in a patriarchal society.