Black Atlantic: The History of Africans Fight for Freedom

Name
Lecturer
Black Atlantic
Date
Introduction
Jose´ Guadalupe Ortega presents the history of Africans fight for freedom, identity and social in colonial regimes in the black. The case involves a Charleston –based French privateer in 1795 and members, subjects and citizens of multiple society from western Africa, Cuba, Spain and Great Britain. The main aim is to highlight the legal element of transatlantic trade as much as slave and their freedom were concerned.
A forty year litigation battle ensured with the capture of Britishvessel by the French maritime in the Caribbean and the subsequent transfer of enslaved African people from the British to French. The legal battle take place in in Madrid, Philadelphia, and Havana. The Atlantic society were confronted by the most prominent issue of that era (Ortega, pg. 2). While the officials in French and Britain competed to outsmart each other in identifying the legal identity of the carabali-oru people on the British vessel, their Philadelphia counterpart refrained from participating in the process. Faced by unjust environment, the carabali-oru people exploited the ambiguity created by the system of Atlantic jurisprudence in order to challenge the system.
This paper analyses the text by Ortega to evaluate and understand the competing notions of freedom and liberty across colonial times. And also explain to what extent the African experiences contribute to modernity.
Discussion
The competing legal interest in the black Atlantic region was necessitated by the transfer of two hundred African people from British to French. The legal battle would rage for forty years culminating to French’s early decision to abolish slave trade thereby creating a platform for the slaves, magistrates and publicdefenders participated in the development of Atlantic jurisprudence. Slaves thus became free men thanks to the authority from the French republic. However, the magistrates in Madrid would argue that the two hundred and seven slaves who now possessed civil legal personality could sue for their freedom as because the French claimed content of the Spanish and British ship after capturing them.
The economic merits of maritime seizures become a question for the officials in Madrid and Philadelphia, and while they struggle to grasp its relevance, the survivors of the harrowing experience, most of them the carabali-oru people confronted the actual economic, political and legal system that they were faced with in the unjust system in Cuba. Even though they enjoyed limited legal privileges, a group of carabli-ouru women refused to bow to pressure from the colonial system to determine their fate, by gathering and reliving their memory of the middle age passage, these women used the narratives, memory and cultural identity to establish a strategy for manumission that complemented imperial policies (Ortega, pg. 4).
They then became aware of news and information that relate to their case for freedom and they passed the information to less informed member of their group. In an attempt to secure their freedom, the carabali-oru women constructed a cultural and ethnic identity, combined it with their new found status of free to leverage and develop a legal strategy for emancipation.
After the French revolution, there was a clash between Spain, France, and Great Britain over the legibility of enslaved people within their respective jurisdictions. While colonial masters in Havana refused to comply with the decisions, officials in Madrid were fighting by promoting the interest of slaves through institution of legal transcript that increased their legibility. On their part, the carabali-oru people did not just sit and what, they took advantage of the Spanish laws to influence, resist without challenging the imperial power.
The dealings of Gariscan had a larger implication on the Atlantic. They influenced United States policy makers to define role of executive and judicial branches in administering diplomatic concerns. The acts which also forced Madrid to and Havana colonial master s in Havana to revisit their legal stand in the wake of carabali our suing for freedom. France later entered into a treaty with United States to have access to its American ports.
One factor that helped the Africans people gain civil right wa...