María Josefa Ramírez

Other names/titles:
Gender: F
Ethnic origin: Black

Biographical details

A Venezuelan slave woman who, with her husband and two children, claimed her freedom after escaping from the royalist territory after the battle of Carabobo (24 June 1821). The son of their owner then donated them to the state and enlisted Ramírez's husband in the Apure batallón in his place. Ramírez appealed to the courts for their freedom, claiming "Señor, the poor and the unfortunate are regularly the plaything of the powerful, because the former can only with difficulty demonstrate to those who govern the latter's insults." She stated that her husband had been treated "as an animal" by their owner and that after the battle of Carabobo he had joined the patriots working as a spy and thus had earned his freedom. She won her case, in July 1823 and the intendant decreed, "having taken refuge in the free territory of the Republic, they cannot be reduced again to servitude". (Blanchard, 12)

Life Events

Other	1821	She and her family fled and joined the patriots after the Battle of Carabobo on 24 June 1821.
Other	1823	She won a legal case for her freedom.

References

Blanchard, Peter, (2004), Freedom and Family: Slave Women and the Wars of Independence in South America

Publications

There is no writing by this subject in the database.

Links

Resource id #23 (50)

Resource id #27 (18)

Gendering Latin American Independence

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