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ABSTRACT
This article explores the racial politics around African colonial subjects in Spain during the second half of the nineteenth century. Between the 1840s and the 1880s, colonial authorities brought to the metropole small groups of Africans from the Gulf of Guinea with the goal of turning them into hispanicized agents of colonization upon return to their communities. Drawing on official documents, newspapers and travel narratives I examine how the representations of the first groups reveal how Spain was moving from a model of social categorization based on monogenetic theories to a new paradigm influenced by the rise of scientific racism, albeit ideas from both would frequently converge. I will also argue that the mutable and unstable representations of African bodies correlate with the politicization of race, sometimes eluding depictions of physical features, while at other times showcasing them to construct an idea of racial difference.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 Portugal ceded Spain its territories in the Gulf of Guinea in 1778 but after a failed expedition that year, the Spanish government abandoned any colonizing plan. In 1841 the Prime Minister, Baldomero Espartero, considered to sell the colony to Gret Britain, since British companies had initiated a de facto colonization. This proposal outraged the opposition, forcing Espartero to send Juan José Lerena to take official possession of the territories in 1843 (Castro Citation1998, 43–48).
2 Before the Claretians, the priest Miguel Martínez Sanz and then the Jesuit José de Irisarri (Citation1998) tried to establish Catholic and Spanish-speaking schools without success. Susana Castillo Rodríguez (Citation2013) explains that while the Spanish missions counted with limited resources, the Anglican missions exerted a strong influence in the quotidian life of the colony and the usage of English was widespread. After their establishment in 1883, the Claretians began to complain to the colonial government about the competition of the British missions. By 1907, the education in Spanish was officialized by decree and progressively the Claretians consolidated their religious leadership.
3 As Margarita Zamora explains, Columbus’ diary is heavily marked by Las Casas’ interventions and the text interweaves citations in the first person with indirect narrative in the third person. In the passage I mention about the captived Amerindians, the text says: “[…] it had seemed to him that it might be well to capture some people of that river in order to take them to the king and queen so that they might learn our language and in order to know what there is in that land, and so that, returning, they might be interpreters for the Christians, so that they would take on our customs and faith” (Zamora Citation1993, 107).
4 I concentrated on textual production but given the African oral practices for the transmission of memories, interviews might be an alternative resource to obtain more information about these groups. Aixelà-Cabré (Citation2022) has encountered descendents from the fernandino diaspora in Europe who preserve memories that go back three generations.
5 For my archive work, I consulted the African Collection at the General Archive of the Administration (AGA). The boxes from which I quote come within the African collection from the “Inventario topográfico de los fondos del extinguido Gobierno General de los Territorios de Guinea” (15)004.000. I also reviewed all newspapers available at the “Digital Periodical and Newspaper Library” from the Spanish National Library, the “Periodical Publications” from the Digital Andalucian Library (Biblioteca Virtual Andalucía) and from the Archive of Old Catalan Publications (Arxiu de Revistes Catalanes Antigues).
6 See for example the account by father Irisarri who still in 1859 wrote about the dispersion of Noah’s descendants after the Flood (49).
7 AGA, Box 81/12926.
8 AGA, Box 81/12926. “Entry by Nicolás Chicarro” March 8th, 1843.
9 AGA, Box 81/12926. “Expenses caused by the trip of the morenos” July 1st, 1843.
10 All translations from the Spanish original are mine.
11 See El castellano, April 30th 1844 and La postdata, May 1st, 1844.
12 AGA, Box 81/6952.
13 AGA, Box 81/7049.
14 I found a few references about how the king Boncoro sent a relative -brother or son depending on the source- in this expedition. Unfortunately the threat disappears.
15 AGA, Box 81/6956. “Letter from Carlos Chacón to the General Captain of Cadiz”.
16 I did not find the death causes of any, but a oficial report informed that the three from Cape San Juan fell sick with fever and skin herpes in Cadiz. AGA, Box 81/6956.
17 AGA, Box 81/7049. “Report: Mission on the Spanish islands of the Gulf of Guinea. From Miguel Martínez Sanz to the Minister of Overseas.” June 24th, 1856. Martínez Sanz is quite explicit about the fear of the locals in this internal report while in his work, Breves apuntes sobre la isla de Fernando Poo en el golfo de Guinea, he just said “greater would have been the number if all those who desired to come, would have been completely free” (Citation2014, 196).
18 AGA, Box 81/7049. “Report to the Ministry of Overseas. By Miguel Martínez Sanz. June 18th, 1857”.
19 La Esperanza, March 6th, 1857.
20 La Iberia, March 10th, 1857.
21 El clamor público, March 10th, 1857.
22 See La Iberia, La España, La Correspondencia de España, El contemporáneo, El Pensamiento Español, La Regeneración o La Revista Católica, between December 20th and 22nd, 1860.
23 AGA, Box 81/6956. “Letter to the Minister of Overseas. By José de la Gandara” February 28th, 1861.