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10 Gendering the African Diaspora in the Iberian Atlantic Religious Brotherhoods and the Cabildos de Nación Matt d. ChiLdS In 1803 the captain general of Cuba (equivalent to an English governor), the Marques de Someruelos, received several petitions to intercede in a disputed election. After local judicial officials in Havana investigated the complaints, several women called on the captain general to take on the case himself. The disputed election centered on who should hold the position of second capataz (foreman, captain, or overseer) of the African religious and mutual aid society known as the cabildo de nación Carabali Induri del Santo Cristo de Buen Viaje. None of the parties contesting the election disputed the vote count. Free black Juan Echevarría had easily won by nearly a 2–1 margin. But the losing side, representing Mateo Villarte , challenged the election. They solicited the aid of attorney don Gabriel Aleman and argued that their candidate’s loss was the result of the vast majority of women voting for Juan Echevarría.1 The disputed election had occurred on June 17, 1803. Following established procedures, the commissioner of Havana’s Santa Teresa neighborhood , accompanied by a notary, went to the house of the cabildo de nación Carabali Induri to observe and record the election of second capataz . The other cabildo de nación societies throughout Cuba employed the same terminology to designate rights as did governmental cabildos. Under these rights, the free black male and female members who held the authority of “voto y voz” had the privilege to “vote” and “speak” at the meetings and cast their ballots. Among the seventy-one votes counted in the election, forty-seven were for Juan Echevarría and twenty-four were for Mateo Villarte. Under normal procedures, the sources documenting 230 Gendering the African Diaspora in the Iberian Atlantic 231 cabildo elections simply recorded the winner of the election. In this case, however, because Mateo Villarte and his supporters challenged the results , the vote tally for the disputed election listed the names—and by inference , the gender—of those who voted.2 Although males held the leadership titles of first, second, and third capataz of the cabildo Carabli Induri, the voting records indicate that women wielded decisive authority over who would hold the elected positions by their numerical superiority. Of the forty-seven votes cast in favor of Juan Echevarría, thirty-two came from females and fifteen from males. Of the twenty-four votes cast in favor of Mateo Villarte, eight came from females and sixteen came from males. The attorney representing Villarte requested that the election be considered null and void because when “they have elections for capataz, they should not admit the votes of women.”3 If the female votes could be thrown out, Mateo Villarte would win the election by one vote, rather than losing by a landside. When the case reached Captain General Someruelos, he quickly dismissed the protests . The captain general concluded that it would be “absolutely” unjustified to dismiss “the votes of women when they routinely follow the opposite ” procedure in the day-to-day operations of the cabildos.4 Someruelos upheld Juan Echevarría as winner of the election for second capataz, and affirmed the women’s influence and the ability to vote in cabildo elections. The disputed election over who should hold the position of second capataz of the cabildo de nación Carabali Induri offers a gendered perspective of a colonial Cuban institution that served the spiritual and worldly needs of the population of African descent. Dating back to as early as the sixteenth century, Africans in Havana had the ability to form religious and mutual aid societies that had evolved over the centuries from lay religious brotherhoods into collective voluntary associations that emphasized a common place of origin in Africa. Africans organized these societies by stressing a shared place of family ancestry and culture, such as Kongo, Lucumi, Mina, and Carabali, among others. Often a cabildo took a name that reflected both a broad provenance region in West Africa, such as Calabar (known in Spanish-speaking Cuba as Carabali), and emphasized a specific locality or polity, such as Nri (known in Spanish-Speaking Cuba as Induri), which is located in the Bight of Biafra on the Niger River delta and was a major source for Caribbean slaves during the eighteenth and nineteenth century.5 As these organizations became more prevalent in colonial society during the eighteenth century, they owned their...

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