Under the Flags of Freedom: Slave Soldiers and the Wars of Independence in Spanish South America (review)

Although it is well known that patriots and royalists alike recruited slaves for their military forces during the independence wars in Spanish South America, this important episode in the intertwined histories of slavery and state formation has received surprisingly little attention. Thanks to Peter Blanchard’s impressive research in the archives of six countries, we now have a carefully documented analysis of patriots’ and royalists’ motives for turning to slave manpower (and their lingering misgivings about it), the debates about the legal status of the slave soldiers, and the actions of the slave men and women caught up in these struggles.

Neither royalists nor patriots had a monopoly on slave recruitment. In Venezuela and New Granada, most slave soldiers served in the royalist ranks until Simón Bolívar linked independence and manumission in 1816. His lukewarm acceptance of former slaves, however, meant that some slave soldiers remained with the royalists until the bitter end. In Río de La Plata, patriots raised levy after levy of slaves for their forces, and almost 40 percent of the 4,000 men with whom José de San Martín launched his invasion of Chile in 1817 were exslaves. Both sides offered freedom in return for military service, but that freedom was usually conditional upon a specified term of good service, which left the slave soldiers in a “nebulous legal situation” (p. 48). Masters, especially in Río de La Plata, frequently received compensation for slaves drafted into the armies, evidence of patriots’ concerns to uphold property rights. As the struggles moved to Chile (1817) and Peru (1820), the importance of slave recruitment waned, both because there were fewer slaves to be recruited (in Chile), and because there were other sources of manpower (in Peru). Moreover, both Bolívar and San Martín were by then increasingly reluctant to recruit slaves.

Two chapters examine “the long-standing social struggle” (p. 112) that had been occurring alongside the independence wars. Wartime dislocation and the possibility of military service opened new opportunities for resistance. Slaves accused their masters of disloyalty, fled to join armies (or in the case of women, to tag along as camp followers), and deserted when it suited them. If promises of freedom were not upheld, slaves turned to the courts, and at least some won their cases, although one Venezuelan slave was still pursuing his claim for freedom in 1854! Thanks to slaves’ efforts, the institution of slavery was profoundly shaken, but not destroyed (except in Chile), and in his final chapter, Blanchard addresses the persistence of the institution for another generation.

Blanchard’s meticulous research raises questions that merit further consideration. Patriot leaders apparently drew no distinctions between Africans and creoles when recruiting, which meant that there were numerous Africans in the Río de La Plata armies’ ranks (thanks to the male majorities in the large late-colonial slave trade), an African-Atlantic connection that raises potentially interesting cultural questions. Somewhat curiously, Blanchard draws no comparisons with the many other instances of slave recruitment in the Americas and elsewhere.

At one point, Blanchard notes that slaves’ thoughts “can only be surmised” (p. 63), but he accepts at face value what was recorded as slaves’ statements. The abbreviated archival references—no doubt mandated by the publisher in the interests of economy—make it impossible to determine the kinds of filters through which slaves’ words reach us. Elegant phrases in what appear to be slave soldiers’ petitions for promised freedom, such as the book’s title quotation, may indeed have reflected slaves’ views, but their phrasing owes at least something to the scribes and other professionals who prepared documents for presentation to the courts. This, in turn, raises the question of the alliances that slave soldiers constructed with free people in order to secure freedom, and more broadly, the wars...