"We deserve a better treatment": The rise and fall of the Black militias in the Western Hemisphere during the nineteenth century

Abstract

The article explores the history of black militias in the Western Hemisphere during the nineteenth century. African descendants viewed the militia as a vehicle to establish their sense of belonging and participation in the emerging nineteenth century nation-states in both North and South America. While in Latin America it emerged as a component of the independence and civil wars that shaped nation-building during the first half of the century, in the United States free blacks turned to black militia companies as a public means of defending their bodies, achieving economic and political autonomy, and asserting their citizenship and their freedom.