Tapuya: Latin American Science, Technology and Society

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Black peasants and forest extraction knowledge in

the transition to free labor in Latin America
Landscapes of freedom: building a post emancipation society in the
rainforest of Western Colombia, by Claudia Leal, Tucson, University of
Arizona Press, 2018, 352 pp., $55 (hardback)/$36.95 (paperback), ISBN
9780816536740/9780816536740; The people of the river. Nature and
identity in Black Amazonia, 1835–1945, by Oscar de la Torre, Chapel Hill,
The University of North Carolina Press, 2018, 242 pp., $90 (hardback)/$34.95
(paperback), ISBN 9781469643236/9781469643243

Reinaldo Funes-Monzote

To cite this article: Reinaldo Funes-Monzote (2021) Black peasants and forest extraction
knowledge in the transition to free labor in Latin America, Tapuya: Latin American Science,
Technology and Society, 4:1, 1-5, DOI: 10.1080/25729861.2020.1848122

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/25729861.2020.1848122

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TAPUYA: LATIN AMERICAN SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY AND SOCIETY
2021, VOL. 4, 1848122
https://doi.org/10.1080/25729861.2020.1848122

BOOK REVIEW

Black peasants and forest extraction knowledge in the

transition to free labor in Latin America
Landscapes of freedom: building a post emancipation society in the rainforest
of Western Colombia, by Claudia Leal, Tucson, University of Arizona Press, 2018, 352
pp., $55 (hardback)/$36.95 (paperback), ISBN 9780816536740/9780816536740

The people of the river. Nature and identity in Black Amazonia, 1835–1945, by
Oscar de la Torre, Chapel Hill, The University of North Carolina Press, 2018, 242 pp.,
$90 (hardback)/$34.95 (paperback), ISBN 9781469643236/9781469643243

In the same way that sometimes researchers arrive at similar conclusions or make scientific
findings simultaneously, historians can produce books almost parallel about very close
topics. In the history of science, we can find many examples, being one of the most famous
and controversial the discovery of the thesis of a biologic vector (the mosquito) for the trans-
mission of yellow fever (the Aedes Aegypti, by Carlos Finlay) and malaria (the Anopheles, by
Ronald Ross) (García 2019). To quote two cases closer to historians, we can remember the
almost simultaneous publications of classic books about the sugar industry during the XIXth
century in Cuban and Caribbean history. It is the case of El Ingenio. Complejo económico
social cubano del azúcar, by Manuel Moreno Fraginals, with a first volume published in
1964. A few months only separate this book from Cuando reinaba Su majestad el azúcar:
estudio histórico-sociológico de una tragedia latinoamericana, el monocultivo en Cuba, by
Roland T. Ely (1963), printed a year before in Buenos Aires. This kind of convergence looks
even more prominent in the case of two pioneer masterpieces of the historiography about
the Caribbean (from the same region), that appeared the same year and with an almost iden-
tical title: the book by the Dominican Juan Bosch (1970), De Cristóbal Colón a Fidel Castro. El
Caribe, frontera imperial; and the book by the trinitarian Eric Williams, From Columbus to
Castro. The History of the Caribbean, both published for the first time in 1970.
The two books we are presenting now, by Claudia Leal and Oscar de la Torre, can be taken
as examples of those coincidences that we all know are not merely casual and always depend
on the context and time. If we follow the quoted bibliography, we can presume that the
authors did not know about their works until the delivery to the press of Landscapes of
Freedom (Leal) and The People of the River (de la Torre). Both books are the fruit of their respect-
ive doctoral dissertations at the University of California at Berkeley (the first) and the University
of Pittsburgh (the second). The research they develop is an expression of the new findings and
new discussions on the study of the transition from forced labor (made by enslaved peoples
brought to the Americas from Africa in most of the cases) to the so-called free or wage labor.
We also know that the real condition between these two kinds of labor was not very distant or,
in some cases, it could even be worse, as we can see in some passages quoted by de la Torre.
The academic and social knowledge about the topic will benefit from new elements provided
in these two excellent books, which demonstrate the fruitful effort to integrate the local and
global dynamics.
2 BOOK REVIEW

The chronological framework used by the authors is very similar. Although Landscapes of
Freedom does not include specific dates in the title, most of the chapters deal with the
decades between 1850 and 1930. Only the initial section focuses on the background during
the colonial period and the first half of the nineteenth century. In the case of The People of
the River, we can find the specific dates in the subtitle: Nature and Identity in Black Amazonia,
1835–1935. As we can see, the chronology is almost the same. Both authors refer to the pre-
cedents or continuities of the topics they discuss, including the dialogue with more contem-
poraneous conflicts or events in the two areas, the Colombian pacific and the western Brazilian
Amazon.
Both authors pay attention to the slavery period and mainly to the following decades after
the abolitionist decrees in each country, 1851 in Colombia and 1888 in Brazil. The transition
from forced to free labor in the Americas awoke many historians’ interest at least since the
decade of 1980, drawing from classic pioneer studies like that of Rebecca Scott’s research
about this process in Cuba (Scott 1985). However, the initial nucleus of attention was dedi-
cated to the slavery system’s main centers or more dense areas of African descendants.
Namely, those areas with a robust slavery plantation system to produce sugar, coffee,
cotton, or other crops as tobacco and cocoa in the Caribbean islands, areas of Brazil (as the
Paraiba valley), and southern United States.
Similarly, many of those studies about the transition to wage labor privilege the urban or
built environments. In this sense, Leal and de la Torre offer original visions that enrich those
studies starting with the emancipation process in relatively marginal areas compared with
the zones dominated by vast plantations or even big land estates (or haciendas), as the
areas of extensive cattle ranching. The focus on the activities made by slaves and free
blacks (including Maroon communities) as gatherers of commodities from the forest, is less
common in the specialized bibliography. Here is one reason why the ecological and environ-
mental context is prominent in the two books, which we can consider as socio-environmental
histories of the Pacific region of Colombia and the Western Brazilian Amazon (particularly the
Belem do Para state). Both Leal and de la Torre pursue the common goal of exploring the inter-
sections between environment and race by creating what Leal called “racialized landscapes.”
The concept, “entitled both the material transformation of the forested environment and the
meanings ascribed to them by those who left a written record” (Leal, 10).
With nuances, a different kind of slavery emerged in both regions compared with the inten-
sive system at the plantation areas. Nevertheless, both the Pacific region of Colombia and
Belem do Para in Brazil, had a high percentage of the enslaved population, and of the free
population of color compared to the rest of the inhabitants. This remarkable characteristic
is taken to differentiate these territories from other regions within the same countries or
even the continent.
The dedication to extractive activities of minerals and forest resources in the areas studied
by the authors allowed a high degree of autonomy compared to the plantation zones. Leal
begins with the recount of the use of Africans enslaved in gold mining during the colonial
period, and the XVIII century, as it was the lead product of New Grenada exports. After the
independence war in the nineteenth century, different extractive cycles on the Pacific forested
lowlands contributed to creating afro descendants’ communities dedicated to those activities
with limited supervision of white owners. Emancipation in 1851 reinforced the level of auton-
omy around the gathering activities: rubber or “hule” (Castilla elastica), the so-called “veg-
etable ivory,” the seed of Tagua palm (Phytelephas macrocarpa), and the return of gold or
platinum mining. Later in the second half of the twentieth century timber exploitation
arose, an activity studied by Leal with a coauthor in a previous book (Leal and Restrepo
2003). According to Landscapes of Freedom, the ecology of the territory and its isolation of
 TAPUYA: LATIN AMERICAN SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY AND SOCIETY 3

the rest of the country conformed very different land occupation patterns from other regions
in Colombia, like the Andes or the Caribbean. For example, attempts to erect plantations or
cattle ranches were limited or failed, in part due to the high humidity and the characteristics
of the soils.
On the contrary, Oscar de la Torre shows that in Belem do Para use of enslaved labor force
was not alien at all to the plantation system. Some crops as sugar cane, rice, cocoa, and cotton
were grown in large plantations, although not at the scale of other regions in the center south
of Brazil. However, gathering or extractive activities also prevailed in his area of study. There
were famous cycles of extraction present, like the rubber (Hevea Brasiliensis) boom since the
1870s to the beginning of the twentieth century; and the cycle of Brazil nut (Bertholletia
excelsa), also known as “chestnut of Para,” which took off since the decade of 1910. Both
authors research the relation of power between the different groups or social sectors
around the extractive activities, especially between the afro-descendant workers dedicated
to collecting forest products and the commercial elites or foreign and national companies
that landed in the regions to invest during the boom cycles.
While it is possible to find some differences on the degree of autonomy and social unrest in
every region, Leal and de la Torre, converge in subscribing the thesis of the formation of the
social group defined as “black peasant,” “forest peasant,” or “black farmers.” In this conceptu-
alization, the high level of autonomy the authors found for those inhabitants of the forestlands
who combined the work at their subsistence plots with the gathering and extractive activities
of forest products or minerals, as a complementary revenue in their way of life, is considered.
Likewise, they emphasize the knowledge acquired by the black communities of their environ-
ment and the techniques for the extractive activities, which turn them into main actors in every
commercial boom.
The two books place the ecosystems and the interaction of afro descendants’ communities
with the local flora and fauna as crucial parts of the argument. The omnipresent forests and
certain species favored or not by the extractive economy, the rivers, the coastline, or seas as
a source of fisheries (like the mangrove at Colombian Pacific), are permanent in both texts.
In these regions, the emphasis for land was not the principal demand of workers but the
access to the forest resources or mineral deposits that allowed them a more significant auton-
omy in the face of local or foreign forces pushing toward the privatization of those resources.
On many occasions, the local afro-descendant communities became the leading defenders of
the public lands.
Leal and de la Torre mentioned cases of depletion or decline of natural resources due to the
intensity of exploitation or the techniques employed. For example, rubber in Colombia was
collected by cutting down the whole trees, and some nut regions in the Brazilian Amazon
were exhausted after years of exploitation. Nevertheless, more examples exist in both areas
about more sustainable use of resources by the same gatherer communities. It was the case
of the extraction of vegetable ivory, studied in detail by Leal, a raw material for the industry
(mostly factories in the United States) to make buttons and other applications. However,
the advent of artificial substitutes had an impact on the economic activity based on vegetable
ivory, which influenced its decline as a source of income for the local communities.
Beyond the peculiar patterns of the emancipation process in both regions, there are also
differences between the two cases. For example, in the slavery period in the Brazilian Amazo-
nia, the formation of Maroon communities was more widespread. Other contrasts are present
in both studies, like the attention that Leal conceded to the urbanization projects in her region
and the dichotomy between the jungle inhabited by the afro descendants’ communities and
the towns developed thanks to the export boom, dominated by the elite of white merchants.
4 BOOK REVIEW

The relations between the local elites and the black peasants’ communities were not without
conflicts, although the intensity or magnitude diverge in many cases.
In relation with the conflicts for resources at the local level, we can consider the authors
could have taken advantage of a more extensive dialogue with concepts from the political
ecology, like “ecology or environmentalism of the poor” proposed by Joan Martínez Alier
(1991, 2005), and the debates about this. Perhaps it is exaggerated to qualify these Afro Colom-
bian or Afro Brazilian communities’ strategies as part of an ecologic or environmentalist
struggle. However, after reading both books, we can have an idea about the in-depth knowl-
edge achieved by those communities about the base of resources in their territories. The
defense against privatization and the fight for customary rights were common in both
regions, as strategies for preserving the natural resources, which provided the way of life of
the black peasants in the forest.
Before ending this comment, we could bring forth the point about the relationship
between these books with the history of science and technology in Latin America. The ques-
tion might have many answers. First, the authors include in the narrative in several moments
aspects of the role of scientific knowledge or techniques implemented within the extractive
economies. Claudia Leal follows the technological evolution of gold mining and platinum,
and the great transformation after the arrival of the industrial machinery, as the introduction
of big dredges. The new mining techniques allowed the re-exploitation of abandoned areas,
the opening of new ones, and the intensification of extraction with huge impacts on the local
environment and communities.
De la Torre quotes examples of enslaved peoples or their descendants that were guides or
assistants to some naturalists who visited the Amazon basin, a kind of activity usually neg-
lected by the historian of science. The enslaved or afro descendants living in the forest
were relevant for the extractive process, which benefited from their botanical and spatial
knowledge. The same notion of black farmers or forest peasants expresses the role of local
knowledge, transmitted from one generation to another, in both regions. For sure, the
history of science and technology in Latin America and the Caribbean must give more atten-
tion to these processes of creation or construction of knowledge “from bellow,” at the level of
communities, as a key to understanding the global patterns to configure scientific knowledge.
Although biopiracy is not a topic in any of the books, the authors could have presented some
examples during the period studied.
Finally, despite many similarities between both books because of the chronology and close
topics in several aspects, we can also find differences in the methodology and discursive strat-
egies. In Landscapes of Freedom, the spatial or geographical component is more present, com-
bining historical geography and environmental history. The inclusion of excellent maps along
the chapters is a valuable complement for the better understanding of the study and the geo-
graphical and ecological characteristics of the Colombian Pacific lowlands. The People of the
River does not forget to give attention to the geographical aspects (for example, his
concept of “environmental creolization).” But his approach is more anthropological, exploring
identity processes and giving more emphasis on economic history and demography. Of
course, this impression could be wrong or may not capture all the richness of the interdisci-
plinary work made by both authors. The two books are a valuable contribution to the Environ-
mental History field and, in general, to the studies about race and slavery in the Latin American
and Caribbean context. Moreover, they are very relevant for Agricultural History and the Social
History of the region during the transition from slavery to free labor. At the same time, they are
a very welcome complement for the History of Science and Technology in its broad con-
ception, beyond the cabinets, labs, scientific institutions, or scientists with an academic
degree.
 TAPUYA: LATIN AMERICAN SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY AND SOCIETY 5

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Row.

Reinaldo Funes-Monzote
Universidad de La Habana, Habana, Cuba
rfunesmonzote@gmail.com

© 2021 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://
creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any
medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
https://doi.org/10.1080/25729861.2020.1848122