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Conceiving Freedom: Women of Color, Gender, and the Abolition of Slavery in Havana and Rio de Janeiro
In Conceiving Freedom , Camillia Cowling shows how gender shaped urban routes to freedom for the enslaved during the process of gradual emancipation in Cuba and Brazil, which occurred only after the rest of Latin America had abolished slavery and even after the American Civil War. Focusing on late nineteenth-century Havana and Rio de Janeiro, Cowling argues that enslaved women played a dominant role in carving out freedom for themselves and their children through the courts.
Cowling examines how women, typically illiterate but with access to scribes, instigated myriad successful petitions for emancipation, often using "free-womb" laws that declared that the children of enslaved women were legally free. She reveals how enslaved women's struggles connected to abolitionist movements in each city and the broader Atlantic World, mobilizing new notions about enslaved and free womanhood. She shows how women conceived freedom and then taught the "free-womb" generation to understand and shape the meaning of that freedom. Even after emancipation, freed women would continue to use these claims-making tools as they struggled to establish new spaces for themselves and their families in post emancipation society.
Cowling examines how women, typically illiterate but with access to scribes, instigated myriad successful petitions for emancipation, often using "free-womb" laws that declared that the children of enslaved women were legally free. She reveals how enslaved women's struggles connected to abolitionist movements in each city and the broader Atlantic World, mobilizing new notions about enslaved and free womanhood. She shows how women conceived freedom and then taught the "free-womb" generation to understand and shape the meaning of that freedom. Even after emancipation, freed women would continue to use these claims-making tools as they struggled to establish new spaces for themselves and their families in post emancipation society.
344 pages, Paperback
First published November 18, 2013
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
April 29, 2022
3.5 stars
Through Conceiving Freedom, Camillia Cowling tells the stories of enslaved and free(d) women in pursuit of freedom in the urban cities of Havana and Rio de Janerio. Cowling explores how enslaved and free women of colour were at the front line of daily battles for freedom, which inherently helped shape and speed the ending of slavery. The study of urban slavery would be vastly incomplete without looking at the role women played in the avenues of freedom in urban settings.
The stories in this text help show the connections across the Atlantic in popular discourses, tying different worlds with each other. Looking at these women of colour gives readers a look into the broader abolition processes to which their struggles were connected. Women of colour in urban settings are windows into inmate connections with domestic spheres in which they served, as they provided a “biological and social function” to bridge the gaps between cultures and worldviews.
By comparing women of colour’s actions in two different cities, Cowling shows the reader that slavery was a gendered concept: in its theory and everyday practice. Women of colour were at the centre of manumission and miscegenation, as their bodies were where “the violence of physical and cultural intermixture occurred.” Cowling follows recent scholarship by focusing on two Iberian societies.
Using the cases of Brazil and Cuba, differences in the level of language, legal tradition, and regional and political histories do appear throughout the text, though not in-depth. The book’s structure is layered as Cowling creates intimate intersections to show that claim-making was a collective social process. She wants to show the humanness in the cases presented in the text. She seeks to be a part of the wave of historians peeking behind the manumission statistics to look at enslaved people themselves and their role in their manumission.
By focusing solely on women claimants in her work, Cowling seeks to move away from the legal cases that tell readers primarily about the actions of enslaved men. Cowling’s belief is that women’s activities can reveal broader national development and the changing politics of gender, as expressed throughout the text. The emphasis on second slavery throughout the text is an important reminder of a phrase that I still have heard little about throughout my studies.
The focus of abolition in hand with women experiencing enslavement, whether they were struggling to maintain freedom or still enslaved, was of particular interest to me. Conceiving Freedom's framework helped me see the broader picture of what was going on during this period with abolition movements in the Atlantic world. In the process of abolition, gendered imageries were debated and recast to show that manhood and womanhood are forever evolving and changing. Anti-slavery commentators use the language of equality hoping to arouse feelings of sympathy and sentiment for enslaved people show emotion is a powerful tool. Motherhood is especially prominent in abolitionist rhetoric. Throughout the text, motherhood was a powerful tool for soliciting elite women’s sympathy on behalf of enslaved women. Women’s involvement in the abolitionist movement was seen to bolster it, as women brought moral authority to society. The rhetoric of morality, emotion, and sympathy was appropriated by women themselves, whether they were in the abolitionist movement or not.
Throughout Conceiving Freedom, it’s clear that women sought the freedom and autonomy they believed themselves and their children deserved. Camillia Cowling does an excellent job of making that point come across in the text.
Through Conceiving Freedom, Camillia Cowling tells the stories of enslaved and free(d) women in pursuit of freedom in the urban cities of Havana and Rio de Janerio. Cowling explores how enslaved and free women of colour were at the front line of daily battles for freedom, which inherently helped shape and speed the ending of slavery. The study of urban slavery would be vastly incomplete without looking at the role women played in the avenues of freedom in urban settings.
The stories in this text help show the connections across the Atlantic in popular discourses, tying different worlds with each other. Looking at these women of colour gives readers a look into the broader abolition processes to which their struggles were connected. Women of colour in urban settings are windows into inmate connections with domestic spheres in which they served, as they provided a “biological and social function” to bridge the gaps between cultures and worldviews.
By comparing women of colour’s actions in two different cities, Cowling shows the reader that slavery was a gendered concept: in its theory and everyday practice. Women of colour were at the centre of manumission and miscegenation, as their bodies were where “the violence of physical and cultural intermixture occurred.” Cowling follows recent scholarship by focusing on two Iberian societies.
Using the cases of Brazil and Cuba, differences in the level of language, legal tradition, and regional and political histories do appear throughout the text, though not in-depth. The book’s structure is layered as Cowling creates intimate intersections to show that claim-making was a collective social process. She wants to show the humanness in the cases presented in the text. She seeks to be a part of the wave of historians peeking behind the manumission statistics to look at enslaved people themselves and their role in their manumission.
By focusing solely on women claimants in her work, Cowling seeks to move away from the legal cases that tell readers primarily about the actions of enslaved men. Cowling’s belief is that women’s activities can reveal broader national development and the changing politics of gender, as expressed throughout the text. The emphasis on second slavery throughout the text is an important reminder of a phrase that I still have heard little about throughout my studies.
The focus of abolition in hand with women experiencing enslavement, whether they were struggling to maintain freedom or still enslaved, was of particular interest to me. Conceiving Freedom's framework helped me see the broader picture of what was going on during this period with abolition movements in the Atlantic world. In the process of abolition, gendered imageries were debated and recast to show that manhood and womanhood are forever evolving and changing. Anti-slavery commentators use the language of equality hoping to arouse feelings of sympathy and sentiment for enslaved people show emotion is a powerful tool. Motherhood is especially prominent in abolitionist rhetoric. Throughout the text, motherhood was a powerful tool for soliciting elite women’s sympathy on behalf of enslaved women. Women’s involvement in the abolitionist movement was seen to bolster it, as women brought moral authority to society. The rhetoric of morality, emotion, and sympathy was appropriated by women themselves, whether they were in the abolitionist movement or not.
Throughout Conceiving Freedom, it’s clear that women sought the freedom and autonomy they believed themselves and their children deserved. Camillia Cowling does an excellent job of making that point come across in the text.
February 6, 2021
Use for Atlantic World/Comparative slavery comps as well as required reading for a graduate seminar, Comparative Slavery in the Americas.
March 25, 2023
Really good book!
April 15, 2025
Incredible history of how women would use motherhood and conception to resist enslavement and empower themselves to achieve freedom from enslavement
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews