Cuando el amor no basta: matrimonio y racialización en el Puerto Rico del siglo XIX

Abstract

This article examines racial dynamics in nineteenth-century Puerto Rico through an analysis of prenuptial disputes based on the Royal Pragmatic on Marriage, promulgated by Carlos III of Spain. This article argues that the racial world of nineteenth-century Puerto Rico developed within the limits of an ambivalent and contradictory discourse of the Spanish state regarding race, which oscillated between the doctrine of an indelible stain and the doctrine of a removable stain. This ambivalence opened a space of contention in which individuals and social groups struggled, negotiated, and came to terms with racial identities. In this sense, the racial status of an individual was negotiated. In this process, divergent notions regarding what constituted the racial quality of a person converged in discussions, confrontations, and negotiations that forged complex racial meanings.

URI: http://hdl.handle.net/11721/1504