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E-book
Author Edwards, Erika Denise, 1980- author.

Title Hiding in plain sight : Black women, the law, and the making of a White Argentine Republic / Erika Denise Edwards
Published Tuscaloosa : The University of Alabama Press, [2020]

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Description 1 online resource (xvi, 168 pages) : illustrations, charts, and photographs
Contents Miscegenation, marriage, and manumission in Cordoba -- Regulating and administering freedom in Cordoba -- "Her best performance" : from slave to senora -- "A woman of his class" : contested intermarriages -- Maternity and the manumission process -- Lessons of motherhood : the beginning of institutionalized whitening -- Conclusion: Visualizing black invisibility
Summary "Argentina promotes itself as a country of European immigrants. This makes it an exception to other Latin American countries, which embrace a more mixed--African, Indian, European--heritage. Hiding in Plain Sight: Black Women, the Law, and the Making of a White Argentine Republic traces the origins of what some white Argentines mischaracterize as a "black disappearance" by delving into the intimate lives of black women and explaining how they contributed to the making of a "white" Argentina. Erika Denise Edwards has produced the first comprehensive study in English of the history of African descendants outside of Buenos Aires in the late colonial and early republican periods, with a focus on how these women sought whiteness to better their lives and that of their children. Edwards argues that attempts by black women to escape the stigma of blackness by recategorizing themselves and their descendants as white began as early as the late eighteenth century, challenging scholars who assert that the black population drastically declined at the end of the nineteenth century because of the whitening or modernization process. She further contends that in Córdoba, Argentina, women of African descent (such as wives, mothers, daughters, and concubines) were instrumental in shaping their own racial reclassifications and destinies. This volume makes use of a wealth of sources to relate these women's choices. The sources consulted include city censuses and notarial and probate records that deal with free and enslaved African descendants; criminal, ecclesiastical, and civil court cases; marriages and baptisms records and newsletters. These varied sources provide information about the day-to-day activities of cordobés society and how women of African descent lived, formed relationships, thrived, and partook in the transformation of racial identities in Argentina."-- Provided by publisher
Bibliography Includes bibliographical references and index
Notes Print version record
Subject Women, Black -- Argentina -- Córdoba (Province) -- History
Black people -- Legal status, laws, etc. -- Argentina -- Córdoba (Province) -- History
Black people -- Legal status, laws, etc.
Race relations
Women, Black
SUBJECT Córdoba (Argentina : Province) -- Race relations -- History
Subject Argentina -- Córdoba (Province)
Genre/Form History
Form Electronic book
ISBN 9780817392659
0817392653