Abstract

PEREZ MORALES, EDGARDO. Félix José de Restrepo, the Ambiguities of Slavery and Anti-Slavery Sensibility. Popayán, 1783-1808. Anu. colomb. hist. soc. cult. [online]. 2021, vol.48, n.1, pp.45-67.  Epub Jan 27, 2021. ISSN 0120-2456.  https://doi.org/10.15446/achsc.v48n1.91544.

Before standing out as the author of early Colombia's free womb and gradual slave manumission law, Félix José de Restrepo owned and legally represented slaves in colonial Popayán. This article analyzes Restrepo's ambiguous relationship with slavery, as well as his intellectual formation and legal practice over the last colonial years in the New Kingdom of Granada. Assessing Restrepo's life before the Revolution allows us to account for the colonial roots of the anti-slavery sensibility that would crystalize as a republican political proposition after 1808. Restrepo recognized in an early stage that no homogenous juridical doctrine on the origins of slavery existed, and maintained that slaves possessed human dignity. With his background in modern philosophy and drawing on his knowledge of the Latin canon, Castilian law, and seventeenth-century political theory, Restrepo autochthonously developed this position in the justice tribunals of Popayán.

Keywords : Colombia; Félix José de Restrepo; human dignity; law; slavery.

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