Marriage as a Singular Legal Institution in Colombian Institutional History: Strategy, Law and Slavery in the Cauca Region (1804–1843)

Abstract

This article analyzes the unique character of marriage as a legal institution in Colombian institutional history during the transition between the late colonial period and the early Republic (1804–1843). Based on the paleographic and diplomatic study of three original judicial files preserved in the Collection of the Old Central Archive of Cauca (José María Arboleda Llorente Historical Research Center, University of Cauca) —Signaturas 10256 (Col. JII–14cr), 4016 (Rep. JIII–8em) and 1771 (Ind. JI–3cr)— the work shows that marriage worked, in Cauca legal practice,  as a mechanism of articulation between the right to slavery and the right to freedom, generating unresolved tensions between the system of the Seven Parts, Bourbon legislation and republican constitutionalism. It is proposed that this singularity is not accidental but structural: marriage occupied an ambivalent position in Indian and New Granada law, both as an instrument of social control and as a vector for claiming rights for the enslaved population. The findings contribute to the historiography of Hispanic American law, the history of slavery, and studies of institutional history in Colombia.