After the Nov. 8 Afro Argentinean Day march in Buenos Aires, various organizations across Argentina have tailored their programs to promote national acknowledgment of the country’s African descendants.
On Nov. 15, the coastal city of Gualeguayú held a night at the museums, which encouraged people to join free guided tours of eight of its local cultural heritage sites. One of the sites featured was the Casa de Haedo (Haedo House) Museum, where the EntreAfros association sponsored the research presentation “Gualeguaychú Esclava.” The night was focused on demonstrating the impact Africans had on the city’s development.
In an interview with the Amsterdam News, Casa de Haedo museologist Natalia Derudi spoke about the role Blacks have played in Gualeguaychú’s history.
AmNews: Could you briefly explain where Gualeguaychú is in Argentina and how its geographical location led to Africans being enslaved there?
Natalia Derudi (ND): San José de Gualeguaychú is a city in the province of Entre Ríos, 220 km north of Buenos Aires, the capital of the country. This province is between the Paraná and Uruguay rivers and borders the provinces of Corrientes, Santa Fe, and Buenos Aires, and the Oriental Republic of Uruguay, which historically links it with the most important events that have shaped Argentina’s identity.
Gualeguaychú was founded Oct. 18, 1783, and is a product of the Spanish policy prevailing in the 18th century, which was to limit the advance of the Portuguese, but the history that links it to the arrival and sustained advance of Europeans goes back more than a century before. As early as 1662, the Dominicans settled strategically near the Uruguay River and established the first settlement of Indigenous people from different nations. In 1664, this settlement, known as Yaguarí Miní or Santo Domingo Soriano, surpassed Buenos Aires in terms of population. Yaguarí Guazú was also founded (on the banks of Arroyo Lorenzo – Gualeguaychú River). They were the two most important groups at that time.
Colonial occupation continued into the second half of the 18th century, with the settling of large landowners. This is when the first major records of enslaved Africans appear due to the profitability of their labor on the viceroyalty’s estancias or plantations.
The Ravignani Institute/National Council of Scientific and Technical Research records that “The Estancia de Esteban had a total of 61 slaves in 1803 (a number that was the same in 1809, although they were no longer the same people) … The 61 slaves in 1803 included 12 families with a total of 42 members between parents and children, that is an average of 3.5 people per family. This policy of establishing slave families had a long tradition in the farms of the coast. The baptism books of Gualeguaychú record 56 births of children of Esteban’s slaves between 1785 and 1817; on the other hand, the death books from that same period show the deaths of all these children, sometimes even shortly after their birth …”
AmNews: What does the Casa de Haedo (Haedo House) Museum mean in terms of slavery in Gualeguaychú?
ND: The Haedo House, a National Historic Monument, is the only colonial building in Gualeguaychú and one of the few that has been preserved in Entre Ríos. Therefore, we can say that it is the bearer of memory of the city’s first years and, as a site of Afro memory, it is also a witness to and architect of the social context of the time.
People who were deprived of their freedom lived in this house, and there are historical documents that allow us to visualize how different members of the family were involved in the purchase and selling of enslaved Africans. An example from the Eduardo Gomes Moreira Haedo archive is, “Of the number of slaves that I introduced in these Balisas on September 21, last year, in the Goaleta of my property named La Marcelina, coming from Rio Janeiro, I sold to Don Jodef Borrago, two slaves called Mursiana and Franca; both in the amount of 482 pesos…”
Don José Borrajo was the one who built the house and, therefore, the first owner of this property. His family and his descendants lived there, and in the corner room, there was an important commercial office. His daughter Petronila married José Antonio Haedo, a Spanish merchant who settled in the town at the end of the 18th century, and since then, all his descendants have lived in this house.
The presence of Africans in the city, their stories, and their impact on the local identity are some of the topics that are addressed in this museum, based on the museographic research and dissemination project “Gualeguaychú Esclava” (Slave Gualeguaychú).
AmNews: Is there still a significant population of Afrodescendants in Gualeguaychú? Why do you have this celebration in Gualeguaychú if there are not many Afro-descendants? If there are a lot of Afrodescendants, what is their reaction to the event?
ND: Although the museum has not carried out specific studies of the descendants of the Africans who participated in the life of the city ever since the 18th century, their presence has been evident for a long time afterward –– in censuses and municipal records, and even in the local press.
An article from April 15, 1880, in the newspaper El Noticiero, reads: “Joaquina García, one of the only two queens of African nations in this city, died on Monday. Joaquina, despite her 95 years, was still working.”
In addition, many families have been formed with descendants of different Indigenous peoples. An important example is the first marriage registered by the church, in 1766, between Francisco Solano Martínez, born in Paraguay, and María Josefa de los Santos, born in Angola and enslaved by D. Juan de los Santos.
It is worth mentioning the presence of Creoles and migratory waves from different European nations that brought a great cultural plurality and fusion. The Afrodescendants were no strangers to this reality and the result was miscegenation, with the increasingly notorious presence of mulattos and zambos. It’s also worth mentioning that Argentina’s Black population was decimated in the wars of independence because Black citizens were recruited to form the shock infantry military unit Battalions of Pardos and Morenos, and many of them died.
In the Entre Ríos province, the EntreAfros Civil Association represents the Afro Argentinean community. They promote recognition, visibility, and respect for Argentina’s African descendants. They are involved in multiple projects with the community, which links them through art, urban archeology, anthropology, and research. Our museum is in a fluid dialogue with them for mutual enrichment and plans to do more with them in the future.