Conceiving Freedom: Women of Color, Gender, and the Abolition of Slavery in Havana and Rio de Janeiro by Camillia Cowling (review)

Conceiving Freedom constitutes an important contribution to the growing literature on the slave trade and slavery in the nineteenth-century Atlantic world. In particular, this book enriches the existing historiography centered on the experiences of women of color, both slave and free, across that place and time.

Over the past years we have seen an increase in the number of academic books that address the similarities and differences between the slave systems that were in place in Brazil and Cuba during this period. Cowling’s study is an addition to this burgeoning yet still small body of comparative literature. It is well known that Brazil and Cuba were the last two territories of the Americas to import African slaves and that they did so until well into the nineteenth century, a circumstance that led to almost parallel processes of Africanization among their slave populations—and this at a time where the rest of the slave and post-slave societies of the continent were experiencing a rise in their Creole populations.

Cowling focuses her attention on the plight of women of color in the two main urban centers of these slave societies, Havana and Rio de Janeiro. The book is divided into three main parts, each offering insights into the paths to freedom available to those women of color who are Cowling’s main subject of study. In Part I, she explores the infrastructure of gender relations, slavery, and the law in Brazil and Cuba, highlighting the main differences between the ways in which legal processes worked in each country. Here she also stresses the fact that in many respects these two capital cities were connected, thanks in large extent to the increasingly global nature of the Atlantic world they both belonged to.

In Part II, Cowling delves into the individual stories of the historical subjects that are at the center of her investigation. She reveals the ways in which women engaged with the law, often taking advantage of loopholes to advance their own claims to freedom. In Part II there are also fresh discussions and innovative interpretations of the Free Womb legislation in both territories, and on their impact on the pace and unfolding of the emancipation process and the post-1871 debates it generated. As a result, we are presented with a very rich examination of the ways in which different actors constructed political, social, and legal discourses related to gender and freedom. Also quite important in this regard are the digressions on the potential of urban environments to increase the odds of success of any freedom claim.

Part III explores the meanings of womanhood and freedom and how they were cast and recast in these two cities during the period, paying special attention to how women of color in particular redefined these concepts in their day-to-day lives. To conclude, Cowling includes an opportune discussion on the expectations of freedom that usually accompanied these new definitions and understandings.

Cowling connects war, urban life, slavery, and the lives of women of color in a sublime comparative Atlantic palette. The manner in which she depicts and assesses the social, cultural and economic milieu of women of color in Havana and Rio de Janeiro is a notable achievement in itself. As much as it is an important addition to the fields of slavery and Atlantic, Cuban, and Brazilian studies, this book may also serve as a valuable template for future studies.