Primer Acto: Colonial Performers

Africans and their descendants participated in three distinct cultural arenas in late-colonial Buenos Aires and Montevideo; these were not necessarily connected with each other. They were the African-based ritual celebrations of black associations, such as the gatherings on Sundays to play drums, dance, and sing; the local theater involving both high and low culture that drew together a large portion of the population; and finally, the pulperías where people of European, Amerindian, and African origins, and everyone in between, met to drink, sing, gamble, and get the news. Although these were distinct spaces, each with its own rules of performance and conceptions of appropriateness, some African and especially Afro-descendant artists might have performed in all of them, evidencing a mastery of different registers and the ability to “switch codes” according to genre. This article will not survey the African-based celebrations, which are considered extensively in other literature, but will instead focus on the less-studied black participation in theater, and to a lesser extent on the gatherings in the pulperías. The goal here is to create a fuller picture of the varied character of black public performance in late colonial Río de la Plata.

The participation of black actors and musicians in late colonial theatrical performances was part of the colony's demographic growth and the expansion of colonial institutions. Río de la Plata experienced a remarkable population expansion that led to Buenos Aires becoming the fastest growing city in the Spanish Americas during the Bourbon period, while neighboring Montevideo (its port twin-city) became a hub of Atlantic traffic.Footnote ¹⁴ The slave trade contributed to this growth, as nearly 70,000 captive Africans and Afro-Brazilians arrived in the Río de la Plata between 1777 and 1812. By 1810, nearly one-third of the population of Buenos Aires (between 46,000 and 70,000 in all), and Montevideo (20,000) were Africans or Afro-descendants.Footnote ¹⁵ With the new wave of Bourbon bureaucrats who flocked to Río de la Plata after the foundation of the viceroyalty in 1776 and the establishment of Buenos Aires as its capital, Spanish cultural production expanded during the same period.Footnote ¹⁶ Growth in Montevideo must have paralleled that of Buenos Aires, given that viceregal agencies were established there. Experts in military construction, artillery, and naval engineering took up residence, alongside increasing numbers of Spanish troops. These arrivals, who included priests, created a small public sphere where theater and print culture flourished, as evidenced by the Buenos Aires newspapers Telégrafo Mercantil (1801-02), Semanario de Agricultura y Comercio (1802-07), and Correo de Comercio (1810).Footnote ¹⁷

Priests and the military were at the center of the first theatrical representations in the Río de la Plata, fleeting though they were. The earliest performances took place as part of religious celebrations in seventeenth-century Córdoba, where Clarisa Pedrotti has identified at least three groups of slave musicians who accompanied clerics' singing in early eighteenth-century churches.Footnote ¹⁸ Initially, priests trained the enslaved musicians, but later the slaves themselves trained fellow captives and their own progeny. In addition to providing music for religious festivities, slave groups were rented out for civic shows and private parties, demonstrating that they had mastered a range of registers and styles. The Church also shaped the learning and work of black and pardo performers in Buenos Aires, where by the 1770s the majority of the musicians in the central cathedral were free and enslaved black men.Footnote ¹⁹ A theatrical performance was recorded in 1747, when a group of soldiers offered a show to celebrate the coronation of Spanish king Ferdinand VI; it was repeated on similar occasions. This presence of the Church and the military in theater continued through the following decades, as many black and pardo musicians had their first training in church orchestras, and many members of the theatrical companies came from colonial militias (including free black and pardo units) and the professional army.Footnote ²⁰

In the playhouse of late colonial Buenos Aires, Africans and their descendants were both part of the public and participants in the events. They worked not only as actors, singers, dancers, and on-stage musicians but also as stagehands and ticket collectors. Ticket prices were set according to caste, fixed at two reales for whites and one real for blacks and pardos. The latter could watch the performances as they stood in the stalls—the stalls had no seats—but were prohibited in the box seats unless they were serving the owners of the boxes.

Within the range of theater crafts, slaves and free blacks specialized in the musical parts of the show, singing and dancing to popular songs.Footnote ²¹ According to music historian Bernardo Illari, “Music was a dark-skinned profession in the city.”Footnote ²² The 1778 census of Buenos Aires recorded 17 professional musicians, of whom 11 were of African ancestry. Most of the players lived in Montserrat, the black neighborhood of colonial Buenos Aires. They formed a closely connected group and attained a certain stability and recognition, and were frequently hired as a group by the Church, guilds, private subjects, and increasingly by the cabildo, which became the main musical patron of the city by funding civic shows and religious processions.

Black and white actors and musicians, like other craftsmen, were paid to train free and enslaved men—these were male-dominated crafts before the revolution—to perform their trade. In 1784, the free black José Argüelles, native of Havana, was arrested in Buenos Aires. He was a music instructor. The manager of the recently created theater of Buenos Aires wanted to put Argülles to work in the orchestra because of the dearth of musicians in the city. While we ignore the reasons leading to his arrest, Argüelles spent three years jailed before being deported to Cuba.Footnote ²³ In 1792, the manager of La Ranchería hired Jerónimo Clarach to teach two (presumably white) children and a slave to play both the oboe and the flute for an orchestra.Footnote ²⁴ One of the musical and theatrical impresarios of this time, Antonio Vélez, owned seven slaves by 1778, among them three wind players. At the time of Vélez's death in 1793, his 18-year-old slave Crespín was learning to play violin. In effect, Vélez owned a small ensemble of slave musicians, around which he could gather additional free players (mostly of African ancestry) by furnishing accompanying instruments that he also owned.Footnote ²⁵

Not only did men of African ancestry work in the playhouse, but enslaved and free women of color also did so. By the end of the eighteenth century, the slave Juana Bertelar was one of the Ranchería's actresses. In the Coliseo Provisional in 1804, Antonina Montes de Oca and José Antonio—the latter a mulatto slave of the theater contractor—performed tonadillas, a genre of popular song. The following year, the slave Ana Josefa Echavarría joined the theater as the new tonadilla singer. The theater proceeds fed and clothed her, as well as providing 20 pesos a month to her master, a man named Segismundo. Segismundo had promised Ana her freedom after two years of work, but the closing of the theater in 1806 due to the British invasions cut that arrangement short.

After the May revolution, Echavarría appeared again in the Coliseo, but this time as a free person. She had transitioned from slavery to freedom within the theater.Footnote ²⁶ While appearance of a slave on stage was not typical, the chronic lack of women to fill female roles (including dancing and singing roles) may have created the openings for these performances by women of African ancestry. Iberian Spanish actresses rarely traveled alone to the Río de la Plata, typically arriving only with touring companies that did not stay permanently in the region. Given the moral prejudice against actors—even worse against actresses, whose social standing was somewhat similar to that of prostitutes (with a very few notable exceptions)—few local women wanted to perform. Even though colonial authorities considered theater to be a “school of mores,” the actors and actresses themselves faced the old social stigma associated with this profession.Footnote ²⁷

Pulperías were sites of lower-class entertainment and performance that also included people of African ancestry. Guitars were the most important musical instrument in these performances; they drew people together around outdoor fires, as they did in the typical Spanish and country-folk singing. Here the payador, a figure similar to a troubadour, reported and retold local stories with music.Footnote ²⁸ Juan de Dios, a free black man, owned a pulpería in Buenos Aires in the mid 1770s.Footnote ²⁹ In San Isidro, a few miles north of Buenos Aires, two slaves operated a pulpería during the mid 1780s, known by its patrons as the “Pulpería de los Negritos.”Footnote ³⁰ Another bar was known as “Pulpería de los Negros” in Montevideo in 1784, but it is unclear if it was owned or managed by Afro-descendants.Footnote ³¹ The captain of Montevideo's free black militia, Juan de Dios Gavira (not to be confused with the previously mentioned Juan de Dios), sang accompanied by guitars at pulperías around 1800 and was well known for his voice.Footnote ³² Bourbon reformers cracked down on pulperías, which were noted for gambling and drunkenness, and tried to attract plebeians to the newly established theaters of the 1780s and 1790s. While pulperías, churches, and theaters were clearly different spaces, abiding by different rules, colonial audiences in the River Plate were able to share a multilayered cultural landscape. Actors and musicians of African ancestry learned, performed, and sometimes confronted the rules in these spaces.

The development of theater in Montevideo was closely connected to events in Buenos Aires and also shows the participation of slaves. In 1792, the Ranchería theater in Buenos Aires was set aflame, which led some actors to work in Montevideo's first theater. In 1793, Cipriano de Melo leased a plot in front of the Fuerte (today's Plaza Zabala) to build the playhouse known as the Casa de Comedias.Footnote ³³ De Melo, a Portuguese-born merchant, was not only second in command at the customs office of Montevideo during most of the 1780s but a smuggler and slave trader as well. He was also the leading impresario of the city.Footnote ³⁴ To secure topflight actors for his playhouse, don Cipriano granted lucrative contracts that included slaves. To the Montevideo-born leading lady Petronila Serrano he granted an extensive salary, a room, and a female slave. To the Buenos Aires-born leading actress Josefa Ocampos he transferred a house in Buenos Aires and four slaves.Footnote ³⁵

Sometimes we come to know about the slaves belonging to actors when these captives fought for their freedom. These captives worked in the theater, helping their masters to prepare for stage. Ysidora Viera belonged to the actor Andres Moreno and his wife in Buenos Aires and Montevideo during the 1780s and 1790s, traveling with them as they moved from La Ranchería to the Casa de Comedias. Moreno's wife drew up a will in which she freed Ysidora, but after her death her husband tried to sell Ysidora as if she were still enslaved.Footnote ³⁶ Slaves who worked with their masters in the theater not only contributed with their work to the performances but also learned the trades associated with theater, which became important for them when they sought freedom—they could save money to free themselves and find employment as skilled laborers.Footnote ³⁷

At the time of the British invasions of the River Plate in 1806–07, some of the Coliseo's musicians were black and pardo artists. Commonly, they were free rather than enslaved. Roque Jacinto de Pintos, Francisco Pozo, Apolinario Pimienta, and Manuel Espinosa were free black and pardo violinists in the theater, and also officers of the free black and pardo militias, again demonstrating the links between military service and theater. Early on, they had shared the learning of music in the cathedral and then had the experience of becoming officers of non-white militias. The 1778 census recorded the nearly nine-year old Apolinario Pimienta as a second violinist of the cathedral. José Pimienta owned both Apolinario and his mother Francisca, an African. Apolinario went from his early playing of music in the cathedral to the theater (and played in the militia's band as well), and eventually gained freedom. Francisco Pozo, a free pardo, was born in 1748 and worked as a musician throughout this period, as Pimienta did. While Pimienta was born in slavery, Pozo owned a slave.Footnote ³⁸ Thus, the late colonial theater housed a diverse group of people of African ancestry, ranging from recently disembarked Africans performing menial tasks to those learning to play instruments (as did the slaves of the impresario Antonio Vélez), to those who trained black and pardo artists native to the Río de la Plata and were generations apart from slavery, such as Francisco Pozo.

Entremés: Rioplatense Performances

Now we turn to how differences in terms of social hierarchy and order were expressed on the Rioplatense stages, for which we focus on a sample of performances from the late colonial period and the mid nineteenth century. The large role of music in theatrical shows, whether in plays or in separate musical performances, led audiences to see and listen to black musicians, singers, and dancers almost every weekend. In contrast, social inequality in the larger society, articulated through the concept of caste, was represented less frequently on stage. Although caste differences constituted insurmountable obstacles to love in late-colonial presentations, caste did not seem to be an obstacle in some mid-nineteenth century plays, which may illustrate some of the larger consequences of the revolution of independence across the Río de la Plata.

On stage, Africans and their descendants typically worked as musicians, singers, and dancers of tonadillas. Stage songs or tonadillas escénicas, were musical compositions of eighteenth-century Spain that consisted of “an array of songs composed of several numbers such as a solo, a duet, a trio and so forth, and a ‘general’ that included more than six people.”Footnote ³⁹ Although the greatest period for tonadillas in Río de la Plata extended from the 1790s to the 1820s, the genre persisted into mid century.Footnote ⁴⁰ Spanish authors composed the majority of tonadillas, with the librettos and musical scores being adapted and performed in theaters in the Americas. Lyrics and music written for Iberian audiences were adapted for local spectators through production and performance by Rioplatense actors and musicians. On occasion, the plots incorporated characters set in the Americas, resulting in the portrayal of cultural stereotypes, including caste-based stereotypes, through on-stage characters. Music historian Lauro Ayestarán explains:

This description does not necessarily imply that slaves performed African rhythms and dances in Río de la Plata's theaters when they had to play African roles in tonadillas. Rather, these tonadilla performers were Africans or black criollos representing Spanish conceptions about Africa and Africans.Footnote ⁴² The tonadillas and their black performers shared the Rioplatense stage with all of the other genres and performers from the late colonial to the Republican era and were onstage weekly, before people of all walks of life. Black performers must have been able to introduce on-stage modifications to European-based stereotypes and gazes of what was deemed “African” by using their own repertoire of music, dance, and body movements based in African cultures. The ‘house of mirrors’ effect of these crisscrossing gazes—the mix of “otherness” and “tradition”—must have been amazing to watch.

Many late-colonial Spanish plays had servants as minor characters. In the Río de la Plata adaptations of the plays, the servants were frequently depicted as slaves; the majority of household servants were Africans and their descendants. Two pieces that amused the locals and had long runs were the sainete (a Spanish comedic genre, with music) titled El chasco de los aderezos and the entremés (short theater piece) titled El valiente y la fantasma. The latter debuted in 1798, and continued through various productions until at least 1810 in Montevideo. Chola, one of its comedic characters, was represented as an enslaved African woman, “an ignorant and timid maid,” . . . [who] “denotes the typical black style of speech, bozal, someone who trembles with fear (‘tiembra de miero’) and says ‘seño’ . . . [or] ‘señola,’ (for señor and señora), ‘olejas’ (for orejas, ears), ‘cala’ (for cara, face).”Footnote ⁴³ This character embodied the stereotype of the superstitious maid, performing with merciless scorn toward the masses and exhibiting racism by mocking the bozal dialect. However, like the gauchesco literature of Río de la Plata, the characterization was intended to portray grassroots dialogue specific to subaltern groups.

The Rioplatense theater portrayed some aspects of the caste system in its founding play, Siripo, by Manuel José de Lavardén (1754–1809). The play debuted in Buenos Aires in 1792 as the first locally written play staged there. The plot followed the impossible love between Siripo, an Amerindian cacique, and the Spanish woman Lucía Miranda. As Siripo's heart broke for Lucía, he died, which moved the audience to tears. Dressed in a cloak, dressing gown, and feathered hat, Siripo was the first representation of an American Indian—inaccurately, of course—in the local theater.Footnote ⁴⁴ These Spanish actors dressed as Indians, as the cast was a mix of Iberian- and locally born whites, but some performers may have been of mixed indigenous and African ancestry. The plot of this play prefigures the foundational national romances analyzed by Doris Sommer, with the caveat that this piece celebrated the Spanish monarchy and legitimized conquest.

After the revolution, Siripo was staged differently, with an oppositional message that criticized Spanish oppression. During the important festivities in May 1816 in Montevideo (the Fiestas Mayas, celebrating the May revolution of 1810) Siripo was adapted to the egalitarian imprint of the new politics of the region, condemning Spain.Footnote ⁴⁵ This “filo-indigenismo,” which appropriated aspects of indigenous culture and material life into national culture and symbols with the aim of providing historical breadth to the new nations, pervaded in the theatrical repertoire of revolutionary River Plate. This cultural phenomenon was part of a more general appropriation and rebranding of “Indian markers” by local elites for the construction of new national imaginings in nineteenth-century Latin America.Footnote ⁴⁶

The playwright Manuel José de Lavardén was influenced by the Atlantic World and the African Diaspora in a surprising way: the support of slave traders for the arts. Cipriano de Melo, mentioned earlier as a leading contrabandista of Montevideo and a slave trader, founded the Casa de Comedias and invested heavily in theater. In Buenos Aires, Tomás Antonio Romero, the most important slave trader of the region, sponsored and supported Lavardén, who in turn praised him in newspaper articles in the Telégrafo and in his play Sátira. Lavardén's writings enshrined for the enlightened minds of the Río de la Plata the notion that progress meant commerce, and in this region commerce meant slave traffic.Footnote ⁴⁷

The revolution of independence that began in the Río de la Plata in 1810, transformed the depiction and possibly the reception of black characters. Billed as “a romantic play in three original scenes by A. Dumas,” El Mulato debuted in Montevideo on October 30, 1841. Three actors and one actress comprised the cast.Footnote ⁴⁸ As in Siripo, the play dramatized the caste barriers to love. However, in the end the two lovers married. In its review, the newspaper El Nacional caustically called the play “a bloodless drama . . . the exemplar of democracy.”Footnote ⁴⁹ Here, the writer intended “democracy” to mean equality, a typical nineteenth-century interpretation. El Nacional doubted El Mulato’s authorship and questioned whether it should have been promoted as an autobiography of Alexander Dumas, as the theater company had done. In fact, Dumas's paternal grandmother had been a slave in Saint-Domingue.

With respect to the plot, the newspaper highlighted its egalitarian character and moralistic tone:

The differences of caste overlapped the class struggle between the contenders for the lady's affection: a nobleman and a commoner. Superimposed barriers of exclusion reinforced the obstacles that the mulatto had to overcome. The lady's decision to prefer talent to wealth astonished critics. The journalist was also surprised that such an event did not end in bloodshed, given that late colonial legislation, put into effect 30 years earlier, discouraged marriage between different castes.Footnote ⁵⁰ Although illegitimate unions between white men and women of color occurred, the notion of a white woman with a man of African descent remained taboo. The journalist's disapproval can be seen through his commentary on the ancestry of the mulatto:

One wonders whether the critic disapproved of the relationship between the male owner and the enslaved woman, the sale of the latter (while still pregnant) by the former (who was the father), or both. In the play, the various differences between nobles, commoners, whites, blacks, and mulattos, overlapped, thereby demanding a value judgment from the audience. This critic considered the play to be dull and uninspiring, and emphasized the “kinky hair” and “pigmentation.” Perhaps his opinion spoke to new nineteenth-century conceptions that were hardening racial identities. On the other hand, love motivated the protagonists to break racial and socioeconomic barriers, culminating in a happy ending. The representation of this play also carried the new meaning of democracy as equality, in parallel with the dismantling of colonial caste regulations in favor of a system based on freedom and republican sovereignty.Footnote ⁵¹

The originality and social context of the play are important, as the abolition of slavery was under discussion in those same years.Footnote ⁵² The play was especially relevant at the time of its debut, when the press was debating the first steps toward abolition in the context of a civil and international war involving Argentina and Uruguay. El Nacional was the newspaper that called for abolition in Montevideo most insistently from 1841 on. The discussion culminated with abolition in December 1842, which resulted in all able-bodied enslaved men, once freed, being assigned to newly created infantry battalions serving the Colorado government of Montevideo. Most of El Nacional's editors were Argentine exiles living in Montevideo, having moved there from Buenos Aires during the time of Juan Manuel de Rosas. Although the newspaper defended the principles of equality and personal liberty typical of nineteenth-century Latin American liberalism, this political position did not equate to support for the mixing of castes, which seemed beyond the bounds of good taste for “decent people.”

Segundo Acto: Actors of the Revolution

The leadership emerging from the revolution had noted the relevance of theater as an instrument of moral reform and continued the governmental scrutiny of performances in the Río de la Plata after 1810. Although elites continued to conceive theater as a tool that could keep men away from lower-class entertainment such as drinking and gambling, they also saw it as an arena in which to build loyalty to new political communities. Thus, the pedagogic character of theater typical of Bourbon times persisted, but with new values.Footnote ⁵³ This was evident in the patriotic celebrations taking place both in theaters and outdoors. Emancipated slaves in military bands provided the music for shows celebrating independence, in performances stretching from Buenos Aires to Lima.Footnote ⁵⁴ Some actors and musicians of African ancestry gained preeminence in the context of the revolution with the foundation of these new nations, and the theater became an arena in which to test the extent of equality as proclaimed by the new rioplatense republics.

The significant place of black musicians, dancers, and instructors of performing arts continued during the revolutionary period, with new underpinnings. In May 1812, the free black Joaquín Fret and the slave Bernardo, both musicians, led an aborted slave conspiracy in Mendoza. This region was already governed by authorities loyal to the revolutionary junta of Buenos Aires, but men of African ancestry wanted some measures favorable to slaves—specifically the right to freedom and the right to join the army—to be enacted more quickly. Joaquin was African-born, which meant he must have arrived in the River Plate as a slave. He was later sent to Santiago de Chile, and returned to Mendoza as a freedman, the result of Chilean revolutionary measures in 1811. He taught music in Mendoza, where he also read aloud to fellow black men the newspapers from Chile and Buenos Aires that promised better conditions for slaves. News of impending measures against the slave trade led blacks to circulate rumors about the end of slavery in Buenos Aires, which prompted the conspiracy in Mendoza. After Joaquin, Bernardo, and his fellows were arrested, the local tribunal sent them to Buenos Aires to enroll them in the newly formed revolutionary units, which had been one of their own goals.Footnote ⁵⁵

The political turmoil of the 1810s had in effect put an end to the visits of Spanish theater companies and thus created a favorable context for actors of African ancestry, who were promoted and played new roles unthinkable during colonial times. Born in slavery, the free pardo Juan Antonio Viera (1773–1841) was a singer who eventually became a music copyist in Buenos Aires. He and Ana Rodríguez Campomanes comprised the Coliseo's house singing duo after the revolution. Although exceptional, Viera's story puts light on one of the paths to social ascent: slaves in Buenos Aires could navigate into freedom and respectability as artists.Footnote ⁵⁶ The Campomanes-Viera duo headlined tonadillas and operettas, taking part in various plays. Viera, alongside the now free Ana Echavarria, played pieces such as El Rábula (1814), in which two Afro-descendant actors had important roles. Viera himself played a doctor.Footnote ⁵⁷ It is known that by 1815, Ana Echavarría and the pardo Manuel Viderique moved from Buenos Aires to Montevideo.Footnote ⁵⁸ In May 1816, during Artigas's brief government in Montevideo, Echavarría earned 30 pesos for playing the role of a “graciosa” (comedic actress) and Viderique the same sum as a “sobresaliente” (important role).Footnote ⁵⁹ In this context, it is understandable that several actors displayed ideological affinities for the revolutionary-based shows of the new era.Footnote ⁶⁰

Though the fact is usually concealed in the literary canon, the most famous actor of the revolutionary Río de la Plata, Luís Ambrosio Morante (1780–1836), came from an ethnically mixed family. His paternal grandfather was Spanish, his maternal grandfather was of mixed African and European ancestry, and both his grandmothers were Amerindians. Born in Buenos Aires, Morante spent his early years with his maternal grandfather, Francisco Molina, who had been a slave of the La Merced church. His family moved to Montevideo in 1793, where from 1799 he worked as a prompter in Cipriano de Melo's theater. In 1803, Morante was hired by the Coliseo Provisional and relocated to Buenos Aires. By 1805, he was listed as the first alternate leading man. Teodoro Klein has noted that Morante's color was underscored to slight his talent and fuel discriminatory criticism: “For some of the enlightened he would never cease to be the ‘mulatto Ambrosio.’”Footnote ⁶¹ While it was generally considered bad taste to comment in writing on the actors' mixed ancestry, critics sometimes veered back to colonial sensibilities.Footnote ⁶² Overall, Morante's ascent in the theater of Río de la Plata was linked to the development of the revolution in matters of both personnel and taste.Footnote ⁶³

The revolution also proved fortuitous for the playwright Bartolomé Hidalgo, who became the leading author of the first gauchesco genre. He directed Casa de Comedias in Montevideo and worked in various posts from postmaster to treasurer during Artigas's government.Footnote ⁶⁴ His role as both playwright and author of revolutionary verses called cielitos granted his posterity across the River Plate. Ángel Rama analyzes two documents that consider Hidalgo's “mulatto” condition and criticize him as a letrado.Footnote ⁶⁵ As they had with Morante, Hidalgo's contemporaries made note of his color to deprecate his writings, referring to him as the “Mulatillo Hidalgo” (the Little Mulatto Hidalgo) and the “obscuro montevideano” (the dark Montevidean).

Nonetheless, the label “mulatto” represented only one of several subaltern identities.Footnote ⁶⁶ Morante and Hidalgo's pardo traits were not emphasized in their stage or literary productions. The racial and social description of the artist was not automatically considered an expression of the sensibility of a racial group or a social stratum. These authors played and wrote for all of the urban masses. While the revolution created a space in which artists of mixed origin such as Morante and Hidalgo could lead theatrical companies—as well as create politically charged literature—we may wonder if they were, to a certain extent, “whitened” under new postrevolutionary understandings of race. An inclusive and broadened sense of whiteness developed in nineteenth-century Argentina to incorporate people of mixed origins (by suppressing the categories describing them) and narrowed the labels of “black” and “Indian” nearly to the point of disappearance. In this sense, prominent artists like Morante and Hidalgo were considered white—except when critics pointed to their mixed origins in racist attacks.Footnote ⁶⁷

Other lesser-known people of mixed ancestry, such as dance instructors, were active in both the politics and the arts of republican Río de la Plata. Dance academies multiplied and were popular among people of African ancestry, to such an extent that the press of Buenos Aires complained in 1827 that they distracted free black and enslaved people from their labor obligations.Footnote ⁶⁸ Dance teachers, like actors and musicians, were suspected “others” by the enforcers of Catholic standards of morality, and thus they needed a police authorization to work. In 1837, León Cuevas and Juan Chaín requested such a license from the police, to register their dance academy in Montevideo.Footnote ⁶⁹ In their petition, Cuevas and Chaín wrote that “they were already committed to various decent families,” which meant that white elite families were ready to vouch for them. A lieutenant Alcalde of their district approved their petition, noting that they had run their academy without problems for two years. In the application there is no mention that either Cuevas or Chaín was of African ancestry. However, the census of 1836 and other documentation point out that Cuevas and Chaín were free pardo men.Footnote ⁷⁰

The political side of this story comes from León Cuevas's signing of another petition, 12 years earlier, that sought to free Montevideo from Brazilian rule, to which it was subject from 1817 to 1829. When the patriotic leader Manuel Oribe established his camp near Brazilian-occupied Montevideo in 1825, during the war of independence, news of the patriots' first victories sparked a response from those of the self-described “low color” from within the city. A group of free black and pardo men, León Cuevas among them, sought to support Oribe's forces with the freedmen's battalion as well as with other people of African ancestry inside the city.Footnote ⁷¹ The petition in which these groups joined illustrates parallels between freedom from slavery and the freedom of the country. As owner of a dance academy, León Cuevas held a position of leadership among his clientele, including free blacks and slaves, which may have reflected political leadership as well.

Free black and pardo men also became dance teachers for upper-class patrons, which put them in contact with those in power and offered opportunity to gain social respectability. Antonio Pereira, the son of Uruguayan president Gabriel Pereira (1856-60) describes the best dance teacher in Montevideo, a black man named Martínez who taught during the 1830s and 1840s: “He gave dance lessons in his home . . . where there were always dance gatherings, and [where] almost every young person learned to dance.”Footnote ⁷² US Navy doctor Gustavus Horner, who left a record of his visit to Montevideo, attended an upper-class ball in July 1842 where Martínez's band provided the music. One of Martínez's daughters played the piano. While attending a Carnival ball, Horner referred to her as “Miss Martínez, a pretty quadroon, the daughter of my old dancing Master, and the best musician in the city.”Footnote ⁷³ Musicians, actors, and artisans who taught their craft, as Cuevas and Martínez did, alongside peoples of African descent who owned small ranches and farms, formed the most prominent sector, both culturally and economically, of Montevideo's black population, even with their modest means.Footnote ⁷⁴ The black artists were generally known by the local elites as well.Footnote ⁷⁵

While the drumming and dancing that took place on Sundays was the most visible expression of black culture in mid nineteenth-century Buenos Aires and Montevideo, Africans and their descendants also participated in other arenas of performance. Commoners frequently saw black street performers in pulperías in the 1830s. Records of mixers where guitars and drinks gathered people from diverse origins fill the police archive. In June 1837, for example, “three white men [paisanos], a free pardo, nine free blacks, and seventeen slaves” were arrested together for dancing late at night without police permission.Footnote ⁷⁶ The police detained two free blacks on the streets for not carrying a written permission (papeleta) late one night in May 1835; at the time, one of the men was playing a guitar. In January 1842, eight free blacks were arrested for playing guitars and singing on the streets at one o'clock in the morning.Footnote ⁷⁷ In the 1830s, free blacks and slaves were arrested if the police found them at racially mixed dance gatherings without a license, particularly if they were gambling.Footnote ⁷⁸ It is difficult to distinguish the street performers from the participants in these social gatherings, but surely performers occupied central stage. Mastery of the guitar at the time meant the ability to reproduce, adapt, and change Iberian Spanish, criollo, and country folk culture, and shows one more context in which free blacks and slaves shaped local culture beyond the often-studied African-based celebrations.Footnote ⁷⁹

Amateur theatrical companies comprised another cultural arena of black participation. These companies emerged from associations of aficionados, as well as from professional theatrical and musical performance. For these shows, friends rehearsed together to perform for just one night, pooling their money to rent the playhouse. The black confraternity of Saint Benedict in Córdoba organized the first recorded black amateur theatrical shows in 1800 and 1805 (still in the colonial era); the members presented a comedy.Footnote ⁸⁰ During the May Festivities of 1823 celebrating the revolution, the Buenos Aires police allowed an “amateur company of pardos” to perform plays at a private residence. Teodoro Klein hypothesizes that the performance took place at the house of a black confraternity or an African-based association (sociedad africana), which points to the fact that these groups had the organizational capacity to mount theatrical pieces and a public that would attend and support such activities. In 1837, amateur actors of color, another “company of pardos,” rented the Coliseo of Buenos Aires and performed various pieces.Footnote ⁸¹ We have no record of how that event was received by the press. However, we do have a full account of another instance in the same year, in which an agreement between black and pardo actors to rent the main theater in Montevideo was rescinded and the performance did not take place as planned.

Tercer Acto: Enter the Free Black and Pardo Aficionados

It is true that we have seen actors and musicians of African ancestry advancing their social standing during the revolution, but the just-mentioned 1837 event in which free black and pardo theater aficionados were prohibited from performing in Montevideo's main theater illustrates another side of the story: black performers (and the entire black population) continually faced limits of equality in relation to place and space, in spite of the ongoing transformation of social hierarchies.

The 1837 incident in Montevideo unfolded around the effort of Afro-descendant actors to present a patriotic play. When the actors, “blacks and pardos from an amateur company,” tried to perform a show to celebrate President Manuel Oribe's actions in the Battle of Carpintería, El Universal, Montevideo's main newspaper, published two opinion pieces sent by readers anxious to censure the rehearsals of these amateurs. A letter signed by “Two Zealots” argued that the theater was a “school of mores,” and, therefore, that a “gathering of blacks” to trample this sphere of civility could not be tolerated:

The playhouse was owned by the Hermandad de la Caridad and operated for the purpose of gathering funds for the Hermandad's hospital.Footnote ⁸³ As the contractor, Melitón González would sublet the premises to groups that wanted to perform plays and musicals, amateur shows, and special events, but he was sharply criticized for allowing a group of black amateur performers to rent out the theater. Apparently, a detractor who held the theater to be a privileged realm of moral refinement witnessed their rehearsals. This critic stated that the theater should be in the hands of “youth of the highest caliber” rather than “a gathering of Blacks,” who should be treated as passive objects of enlightenment provided and directed by others, rather than active subjects and performers in their own right.

The “enemies of indiscreet toleration,” as another detractor identified himself and his fellows, lodged a complaint about the spread of amateur performances in a second letter, published in the press. These critics considered the enthusiasm for the amateur groups to be excessive. Professional and amateur companies performed 34 functions in the five months from the momentous victory at Carpintería in mid-September to March of the following year, averaging almost two theatrical evening gatherings a week.Footnote ⁸⁴ This activity reflects the significance of theater in the public sphere in Montevideo, and the opposition expressed by the “enemies of indiscreet toleration” toward the black aficionados reflects that their part in all this was not minor. In discriminatory language, the “enemies” expounded on the aesthetics limits of any equality that would be supported by the republican regime:

This letter voiced alleged natural distinctions, employing terms descriptive of class as euphemisms for caste and race, a feint common in nineteenth-century Latin American writings to conceal race. The critics found unacceptable the contrast that was to occur between the pardo and black actors and a mostly white audience. A foreign visitor, they warned, would question the “enlightenment” of the country if they watched a play whose cast consisted of Afro-descendants. According to this opinion, the playhouse was to be reserved solely for shows that represented the tastes of the upper classes, providing an example of morality and promoting actors who had garnered respectability and acceptance in society. While the critics acknowledged the freedom of African descendants to organize such events, they were to do so only in places considered appropriate for their status, but not in the theater. These critics were probably horrified by the evidence that the winds of freedom blew across the theater seats and through the stalls, creating a hodgepodge of classes and colors among the spectators that was now spreading to the stage.

The response came in a letter signed by “blacks and pardos from the amateur company” and published in El Defensor de las Leyes. This newspaper was founded by Oribe's supporters in September 1836, and represented contemporary opinions most similar to those of the government.Footnote ⁸⁶ In its pages, through careful prose, peoples of African descent highlighted their status as free citizens who possessed the right to express themselves in public spaces such as the press and the theater. The rules that governed both mediums were now tempered by republican principles. The extension of republican principles needed both the press and the theater, as both were integral to the material fabric of public opinion:

They then enumerated their motives for the riposte: to counter the affronts published by El Universal; to illustrate that González had not committed any offense by renting the theater to them; and finally, to relay to the critics that their arguments were inconsistent and only proved effective for González as he broke the contract. For two months, the amateur group had prepared for a show that would celebrate the second anniversary of Oribe's inauguration. However, the pressure exerted on González led him to break his commitment to the group, thus precluding the performance. In response, the theater group claimed that it would take its case to the courts, arguing that “before justices and the law, all men are of the same color.” The company asserted that the play did not morally offend anyone, adding that it was only the authors of the grievances against them who felt affronted.Footnote ⁸⁸

The amateurs also maintained that the production and their intent in staging it constituted a patriotic and moral commemoration in harmony with contemporary theatrical precepts that emphasized moral instruction. They also referred pointedly to the military conscription of peoples of African descent during the wars of independence, emphasizing their patriotic commitment. During Artigas's revolution (1811-20) and the war fought against Brazil from 1825 to 1828, the colony had recruited slaves in what became Uruguay. On numerous occasions, these levies included free men of African ancestry, not just slaves. In fact, all of these amateur actors were members of the national guard, a militia unit. Recruitment had created new links of solidarity and organization among men of African ancestry, and that solidarity and patriotism was now to be expressed on the stage.

The origin of this intersection of occupations—actor and soldier—goes back to Río de la Plata's early theatrical plays. Performances organized by the Spanish navy in Montevideo, as part of celebrations marking the king's coronation and the birth of his firstborn, were the eighteenth-century antecedents of the show organized by these black militiamen. The first theatrical show in Montevideo took place in 1789, when Spanish naval officers celebrated the coronation of Charles IV. The new republican legitimacy built on these old displays of power and loyalty, and they survived during the early years of independence, as shown by the celebration of President Fructuoso Rivera's birthday in 1832 in Montevideo's theater. The military and militias continued to organize theatrical shows in honor of their commanders. In the 1837 incident in Montevideo, the limit stood at the color line. Amateur actors were no longer Spanish officers but former slaves of Montevideo's citizens, or their sons, now transformed into soldiers of the republic. Those who sought to establish themselves as guardians of good taste and distinction, as evidenced by the letters to El Universal, rejected these new actors' presence in the public sphere.

The particularly American consciousness expressed in the militiamen's response, quoted above, is surprising and novel in its reference to “our America” as the adoptive fatherland of enslaved Africans, rather than a specific nation. Also, it highlights the belief that the rights enjoyed by those of African descent under the republican regime should correspond to the honor they had won on the battlefield—if no one questioned their duty to die on the battlefield, no one should restrict their right to speak freely in public spaces. In Uruguay, the elite (and dominant) discourse on slave emancipation via conscription usually portrayed military service by slaves as a duty, performed in exchange for the freedom bestowed on them. This narrative of freeing slaves who then became soldiers of the homeland was embedded in the elites' view of patriotism: freedmen owed the homeland—and particularly the elites—a debt of gratitude.Footnote ⁹⁰ The black and pardo amateur actors turned the tables on this narrative of elite patronage and patriotism, basing their claim to the full rights of citizenship not on a debt but on the past and present black militarization that had led to the foundation of the new republics in the Americas.

Fin: Conclusions

On Saturday, February 25, the day the black and pardo aficionados' letter regarding their rights as militiamen was published, and on the very day that their performance was to take place, the well-known actor Juan Casacuberta, a white man, debuted as the lead in Othello at the National Theater in Montevideo. Casacuberta had returned to Montevideo, where less than ten years earlier he had been accused of supporting Brazilian rule.Footnote ⁹¹ Small firework explosions and intermittent boos interrupted his performance.Footnote ⁹² That night, the police imprisoned two young white men named José Viñoles and Gil Llerena, the two free pardos Pedro José and Andrés Pérez, the free black Juan Rosas, and the slave Alejandro Legris for bringing about “disorder in the theater.” On Monday the 27th, the police handed over the free Afro-descendants to the militia, because they were militiamen. Thus, the black and pardo militiamen who had fought for independence of the country participated in an act of repudiation against an actor known for his allegiance to the Brazilian occupation.Footnote ⁹³ Surely, these men had been involved in the show that the black and pardo aficionados had been prevented from performing.

The story does not end there, although it was a little more than a year before it resumed. Forbidden to perform in the National Theater, the black and pardo amateur actors could have performed the show elsewhere. They had already rehearsed for two months. They might have held the performance in one of the meeting houses used by the African-based associations, or they could have taken advantage of the mild March weather (the end of summer in the Southern Hemisphere) to hold an outdoor performance. However, they wanted to have their voices heard in a theater—the main venue of cultural expression and patriotic festivities in these nascent republics.

As it happened, the National Theater was not the only playhouse in Montevideo: a small venue called the French Theatre had opened, at the former location of a circus, in mid 1837. The free black Pedro Vacari, “in his name and on behalf of other free blacks” asked permission of the head government secretary (Ministro de Gobierno) to perform Othello in this playhouse in June 1838, more than a year later. In his request, Vacari referred to the earlier failure:

Pedro Vacari and his fellows surely were the same black and pardo amateurs who had tried to perform at the National Theater. Mentioning that the former show was intended to celebrate Carpintería was a smart strategy, as it brought out the patriotic focus of the group and its attempt to honor Oribe as military leader and president. Now, Vacari was requesting permission for a different play, but this time from the highest-ranking member of the cabinet. The black aficionados wanted to put on Othello, the same play in which Casacuberta had had the lead one year earlier, and one of the few classics with a black protagonist. Whether they meant to show that black actors could perform a better Othello than Casacuberta in blackface, or simply wanted to perform a widely known piece, these black militiamen intended with the play to honor their chief.

However, even as the black and pardo aficionados were honoring white leaders in the traditional ways, with a performance in the playhouse, their presence as a theatrical company defied the convictions held by the elite regarding the use of place and space, illustrating again the limits of equality and democracy proclaimed by these new republics.

Public amateur shows within the military included black actors as a consequence of their conscription, not surprising given that militarization affected every aspect of black social life. Thus it was not surprising to see them in the theater by the mid nineteenth century. It was Spanish colonial tradition that had shaped this intersection of performing arts and military, but even in the new patriotic environment, the largely white theater audience of Montevideo probably was more willing to see Spanish navy officers than black militiamen on stage, even if the black and pardo aficionados were honoring white leaders.

Nonetheless, the black population of Buenos Aires and Montevideo did play a more active role in the development of late colonial and early republican theater than has previously been thought. The new playhouses, opened under the auspices of Bourbon reformers who saw theater as a “school of mores,” drew the labor and talent of free and enslaved Africans and their descendants, some of whom had previously trained as musicians in the Church. Generations of black and pardo performers contributed not only to colonial theater, but also to popular culture, in the pulperías and later in the dance academies. As professional black artists became more common in Buenos Aires and Montevideo during the colonial era, black social organizations such as confraternities and militias began to organize amateur theatrical representations and the black population came to participate in various cultural arenas outside the African-based celebrations. Beyond candombes, they shaped both popular and high culture.

These stories of the theater also lead us to reconsider the many interactions of people of African ancestry and literacy during the late colonial period, by showing various gradations and depths of involvement of Africans and their descendants in the functioning of the lettered city. They also show the formation of a small and always-at- risk black middle class during the nineteenth century, whose status was based on the mastery and teaching of the performing arts.

Black participation in Río de la Plata's theater and other performing arts cannot be understood without emphasizing how these performances intersected with the establishment of republican sovereignty. The bodies of former slaves had been—and would for a long time remain—the same bodies that took up arms to defend the new homeland. Both the forces that militarized men of African ancestry and the aim of developing the national theater as an arena of the public sphere emerged during the founding of these new nations. Soldiers who shed their blood while defending American sovereignty sought to enjoy the cultural objects of the lettered city, and certainly theater was one. The power of representation was at stake. In the case of the 1837 prohibition of the patriotic Carpintería performance by black and pardo aficionados of Montevideo, racial differences apparently took precedence over the new egalitarianism. In spite of the claims of democracy, understood then as equality, the “enlightened” opinion that theater performances by people of color defied criteria of cultural distinction and good taste could and did drive them from the stage.Footnote ⁹⁵