Bound to History
Leoncia Lasalle's Slave Narrative from Moca, Puerto Rico, 1945
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 5771537 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Ellen Fernandez‐sacco (corresponding author) |
| Year | 2020 |
| Volume | 4 |
| Issue | 3 |
| Pages | 93-93 |
| Publication date | 2020-09-11 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Genealogy (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 2313-5778 • E-ISSN: 2313-5778 |
| Publisher | MDPI AG (PUBLISHER • IT) |
| DOI | 10.3390/genealogy4030093 |
| OpenAlex | W3086073870 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 9 |
The only slave narrative from Puerto Rico is included in Luis Diaz Soler's Historia de la esclavitud negra en Puerto Rico (1953; 2002). This article considers this embedded account as part of the literature of slave narratives to address a gap in the literature; this is perhaps due to the account's singularity and brevity. Beyond this, the other source for understanding the experience of enslaved women in Puerto Rico is through legal and parish documents, generated by a colonial government and church supportive of slavery. As a result, lives under enslavement are quantified statistically, and the lack of oral history or personal accounts hampers understanding of the effects of enslavement from an individual perspective. Documenting such a life comes with its own set of issues, as shown here by demonstrating the limits of various archival resources. There is no one methodology to follow to reconstruct lives and family histories under slavery, an institution designed to prevent the formation of a historical sense of self and agency. Factoring in familial connections makes my own location as a researcher visible, as knowledge is not neutral. Despite its brevity, considering Leoncia Lasalle's account, and that of her daughter, Juana Rodriguez Lasalle, in terms of its multiple contexts-microhistory, similarities with U.S. and Cuban slave narratives, family histories, and the archive-reveals the constructed nature of the idea of historical knowledge, which also has implications for genealogical practice involved with slavery and life post-emancipation
Institution · Microhistory · Caribbean history, culture, and politics · Cuban History and Society · Latin American and Latino Studies
Rural Puerto Rico in the Early Twentieth Century Reconsidered
How is Historical Knowledge Recognized
Black genealogy
Slave Families and the Hato Economy in Puerto Rico
Creating an Alternative Kinship
Credit—Without Banking—In Early Nineteenth-Century Puerto Rico
The 'Cimarrón' in the archives
From Enslavement to Emancipation
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |