Stamped in Sin: The Freedom Suit of Antonia Maria in 17th-Century Granada

This paper addresses a common theme in freedom suits where an enslaved woman bases her claim to freedom as an illegitimate child of her enslaver. The paper focuses on one case of contested paternity in seventeenth century Granada (Spain) that used the moment of branding that occurred on a young girl’s body to prove enslaved status. In all slave societies, branding was a practice that was both normalized to mark ownership and denounced as cruel and unusual, particularly by canonists and abolitionists. Branding conveyed both status and conduct and was a visceral symbol of commodification, natal alienation (“country marks”), and violence. The case enables us to see how branding as a violent social practice intersected with myriad forms of dependency, gender, age, and power to demonstrate ownership of children.