Racial Independence - Essay Example

Vanessa Tejada History 109 Jean April 18, Racial Independence For hundreds of years, blacks and other minority races were considered a little more than speaking animals to the elite aristocracy, unable to be in ranks of polite and civilized society, not allowed to seek education, and certainly not allowed to hold important political offices. Racial inequality existed in caste system in such a way that social stratification of an individual identity was as a result of birth and ancestry. The elite included generals, congressmen amid other people with high social status in the society. The issue of pursuit of racial equality in the early to mid 18th century and the consequences associated with it, such as military juntas, insurrection and political rebels, forms the bulk of this paper. Andrew makes an important distinction in his discourse about minority groups as defines the separation of the African Indians. He talks in depth about the urgent need to free the blacks and mulattoes in situation where camaraderie would have ensured political success. Even though they shared an ethnicity and were similarly oppressed within the Caste System, still Africa- Indians fought the same battle separately. Luckily, this dissention didn’t hinder the social revolution because, as nineteenth-century jurist Peridigao Malheiro described, slavery was “a volcano…a bomb ready to explode with the first spark and slave rebellion was most likely during the periods when the free population was divided by internal disputes and conflict.”1 For this case, the minorities who held power were still unsure about it. But it was just a matter of time before they clinched power after the collapse of the Caste System. Essentially, the Caste System in Spanish America was one dictated from birth and based purely upon the color of one’s skin. There’s meant that no one could ever move above Caste System, unless it was a woman lucky enough to marry a man of lighter skin tone or those in the Venezuelan elites who included the top soldiers and affluent businessmen that held ultimate control over society because they were granted certain inalienable assets and power. In, perhaps, the most poignant definition of the inherent impact the Caste System held over those in the lower castes, Andrew cites a satirical poem from a newspaper in Rio de Janeiro “about a planter’s efforts to hire newly freed libertos to work on his plantation.”2 Further, Andrew asserts “he writer leaves no doubt of the damage done to these former salves by slavery: the liberto’s crippled condition, his shortness of breath.”3 In comparison, in an excerpt from John Lynch’s work on the Spanish American Revolutions 1808-1826 entitled Revolution in the Rio de la Plats, Lynch highlight that pressed by economic expansion and cracks within the current aristocratic mores, revolutionaries made decisive militant advances and found leadership under Pedro Domingo and Jose Antonio Medina. The minorities created an official announcement that “now the time to organize a new system of government, founded upon the interests of our country which is downtrodden by the bastard policy of Madrid.”4 Their demands concluded with a statement that now [was] the time to raise the standard of liberty in these unfortunate colonies”5 On 26 May, the audienca took over government and imprisoned the president intendant, and sooner than later violence spread from Chuquisaca to La Paz, but with this disparity, the uprising La Paz was purely American in personnel and objectives. By taking advantage of the loopholes in the empirical administration appeared in public and took over the barracks, ousted the intendant and the bishop, thus, eventually, formed a government junta under the presidency of Mestizo soldier. Further, there is no rebellion that starts out perfectly and Lynch asserts that ”in the event social and racial issues split the movement.”6 As result, rebellion ended up drawing its leadership from two groups, including Mestizos like Juan Manuel de Cazerea and Murillo himself, and the Creole like Gregorio and Manuel Garcia Lanza. Even as Mestizo offered the status and file of the rebels, the military was bitterly disputed. Having two sides to the same rebellion made it easy, at least for the government, to control the uprisings and contain the flame of social revolution that threatened the Caste System. However, the rebellion seemed long lasting at first, breaking a span of almost twenty years, which meant that even though the spark of change flickered with dissent and lack of focus, the ultimate need for change from oppression wasn’t a mare nuisance, despite the totalitarian regime believed their control to be. All in all, the “anarchy had a cathartic effect…it purged the past and forced men to think of a new future of a new future.”7 After so many years “of violence and frustration, political independence was assured.”8 And though it would take many more years of careful planning and construction of new-states, the spark that set off the social revolution in Spanish American was strong enough to bring racial equality to the forefront of the political agenda. And finally, in Marixa Lasso’s work entitled Race War and nation in Caribbean Gran Colombia, 1810-1832, Lasso asserts that ”historians have tended to downplay the social importance of the years during the War of Independence between 1808 and 1824, arguing that the new republican notions of citizenship provided an illusion of change while leaving social structures unchanged.”9 The aristocracy fought the war slaves in some regions early in the Spanish American wars by linking patriotism to racial equality. The aristocracy understood that to give an absolute power to the minority race was to bring an end to the core belief system—which they were literally unable to relinquish, even though societal mores were being rightfully challenged. Even though that was an outright refusal to give up the formal confines of the Caste System, in their minds they believed they were making great strides to placate the needs of the black contingent. At that time, the minorities were satisfied that their demands were being heard and that enough concessions had been made to allow true racial equality, despite the hushed undertones of their success. It was clever, really, and in many ways this attitude of a false compliance “derived in large part from the notion that racial equality was empty rhetoric that served the needs of the elites to attract the black population to their side during the struggles.”10 The elite included the generals, congressmen amid others. It was unthinkable to the aristocracy that the minorities, deserving of equality or not, could gain enough control over the power source in Spanish American society to possibly achieve an overthrow of the entire caste system. While it definitely needed revamping, it was clear that things needed drastic change. The nation-states were not ready for a complete overhaul of the social structure. Change would happen, but it had to be gradual, and from the elite perspective, little adjustments would be enough to satisfy the populace as long as they believed they were being understood. Ultimately, the social revolution “challenged entrenched cultural traditions and hierarchies.”11 The effect was enough to “push the elites to acquiesce to radical measures they had initially contemplated.”12 Further, while the social revolution was merely the spark in racial equality, it was the driving factor ending the oppressive caste system of Spanish American wars that defined the roles of minorities within civilized society. The War of Independence was not the attainment of true racial equality, but it was the spark that led to the eventual destruction if the caste system and shift aristocratic values that skin color were the ultimate defining factor in establishing a person’s worth. As George Reid Andrew, John Lynch and Marixa Lasso illustrated, the minority races created an unshakable foundation by inherently shaping the outcome of the War of Independence by enacting a social revolution that was powerful enough to shake the elites to their core and allowed for a consequent abolishment of the caste systems that separated mankind by the virtue of their color. Work Cited Andrew, George R. Our New Citizens, the Blacks: Politics of Freedom, 1810-1890. New York: Oxford UP, 2004. Print. Lasso, Marixa. “Race and nation in Caribbean Gran Colombia, Cartagena, 1810-1832”. American History Review. 111.2 (2006): 336-361. Print. Lynch, John. Revolution in the Rio de la Plata: The Spanish American Revolution 1808-1826. 2nd Edition. New York: W.W.Norton & Company, 1986. Print. Read More