Guerras, libertad y ciudadanía. Los afrodescendientes de Esmeraldas en la independencia

This essay considers the transformation of colonial racial and social hierarchies and the shaping of new citizenship rights produced by the crisis of the Spanish empire and independence wars. Focusing on the case of Esmeraldas, a border region in the Northwest of Ecuador, it underlines the different mechanisms used by people of African descent – both slaves and free – to accede to freedom and citizenship during the breakdown of the Spanish monarchy. Their strategies were different from those employed by slaves and free coloreds in other Spanish-American spaces for they responded to the dynamics of a border region.