Angela Batallas

I chose to write about the Batallas article because I found it much more interesting than the Sáenz one.

• I found this article one of the more interesting ones of the readings.
• The first thing that I admired about Batallas was the amount of courage that it must have taken to assert herself as a member of a doubly-oppressed class: a female slave.
  
• The second, and probably most interesting from a political view, was her likening of her disenfranchisement, both as a slave and as the plaintiff in a failed contract, as an assault on the new republic itself. This sets the stage for an ideological crisis of freedom and slavery. How can the freedom of the new republics be true if does not mean freedom for all? She used this argument to her advantage in her case. As the article states, "Did those fighting tyranny have the right to tyrannize others." Unfortunately, such reforms were tardy in coming.
  
• Bolívar himself was an abolitionist, he decried slavery as useless and uneconomical, and freed his own slaves in 1821 as on a condition of military service.
• Idlefonso's relationship with Batallas is difficult to interpret. To me he seemed as a youth, unaware of the consequences of his tryst with a member of the lower class. I do not believe in love, but he did seem to care for her. This is evidenced by his treatment of her at the begininng of their relationship; he did not coerce her into a relationship and even waited for a few weeks before he propisitioned her. His behavoir during the trial puzzles me. Perhaps he was threatened with his inheritence or something of that nature when Batallas pressed for her freedom, or perhaps he was offended that a female slave would flaunt her independence and their "dishonorable" relationship so freely.