The Active Participation of Afro-Descendant Women in the Advancements of Afro-Argentines

Finding detailed and most of all reliable information on the history of Afro-descendant women and their particular role in the Argentine society, has showed us once more the limitations of this project. Seeing how little information there is on Afro-Argentine history in general, we found that there is even less data and research on Afro-descendant women in this country. The question of Afro-descendant women, their history, and their role in Argentina, is a very important but equally complex issue that we can not, due to time limitations, engage with as much detail as we would have liked.

As we have established so far, Afro-descendants in Argentina historically belonged to the lower classes of the social strata. They were, and still are, subject to prejudice and stereotypes that developed during the nineteenth century as we will see in the following paragraphs. Women take a special position within the Argentine society, as they are not only subject to discrimination because of their skin color, but also because of their gender (“Día De La Mujer Afrodescendiente“). This is the case today as it was during colonial times. As Leslie Rout emphasizes, “white males […] (were) taking the Indian and African women they pleased” (126). Black women were subjected to men’s will, but this was not only true for the white men from Spain but also for Afro-descendant men. Rout continues:

“Few unmarried European women came to the colonies, and Spanish males enjoyed virtually unlimited access to the mass of African and Indian females. Furthermore, African males, whatever their status, also sought the sexual favors of the indigenous women, especially when those of their race were unavailable” (Rout 126).

During colonial times and slavery, black women would usually work as domestic servants or nannies. Often enslaved women also got promised their freedom in exchange for sexual services – a promise that would just as often be broken (Goldberg, “Las Mujeres Africanas” 231). In her article Afrolatinoamericanas … Una Experiencia de Subversión Estereotípica en el Museo de la Mujer de Buenos Aires Lea Geler reconstructs the stereotypization and hypersexualization of Afro-descendant women in porteño society. She highlights how on one hand Afro-descendant women were constructed as savage creatures with animalistic instincts, including untamable sexuality, while on the other hand they were, as were all Afro-Argentines, regarded as non-existent within Argentina. Most importantly, she states that these images are not unfamiliar within Argentine society today (Geler, Afrolationamericanas 349-353, 357).

While women had an inferior role within Argentine society in general, and the Afro-Porteño society in particular, that does not mean that they silently stood by. Afro-descendant women had an important role in Afro-descendant organizations in the nineteenth century. Martha Goldberg investigates their partaking in the nineteenth century African societies in Buenos Aires in her article Las mujeres africanas en el Río de la Plata: Organización comunitaria y conservación del patrimonio cultural. As already explained above, the early to mid-nineteenth century saw a remarkable organization of Afro-descendants in the African nations. While Goldberg states that there is no official record of how many women participated in these Nations, she draws attention to the fact that while Afro-descendant men had to leave to fight in numerous wars throughout this period, Afro-descendant women took over the organization of the Nations (Goldberg “Las Mujeres Africanas” 232f.). Andrews illustrates their efforts by reconstructing the history of the Mayombe nation:

“The Mayombe nation, for instance, lost virtually all of its males in 1840 to Rosas's army, leaving one lone man and all the women to keep up the nation's headquarters. When the men returned in 1852, they attempted to sell the building, which had been much improved by the women in the meantime. The women refused to allow them to do so and went to court rather than see their headquarters sold. Eventually the Mayombe were split in two by court order, the men retaining the house having to pay the women a large indemnity. Similar events transpired in the Carabari and Malave nations, in which the women and a few male supporters refused to hand over control of the nation's property to the returned soldiers” (Andrews 148).

As exemplified in Andrews’ anecdote, men had the advantage of the law, but in the larger perspective the women’s take over had positive consequences for the women within the Afro-descendant community. According to Martha Goldberg they accomplished a standing within the Afro-Porteño society that white women did not have in their respective community (Goldberg, “Las Mujeres Africanas” 233). After slavery was abolished in Argentina in the 1850s, women started to establish their own associations, gathered and organized separately (233f.).

One example of the importance of Afro-descendant women in Argentine history and most of all the lack of awareness and data availability in this field, is the Afro-Argentine woman María Remedios del Valle. A number of holidays have been established recently in her honor and commemoration, and she seems to have become an icon in the history of Afro-descendants in Argentina. María Remedios del Valle fought in the War for Independence and got promoted to the rank of a captain (Monkevicius 117f.). In the interview we conducted with Lea Geler, a scholar in the field of Afro-Argentine history and culture, she told us that María Remedios del Valle, years after her military service, had been found living homeless in the streets of Buenos Aires. A former military servant recognized her and helped her get a pension so she could spend her last years with at least a little dignity (Geler Interview 3f.).