Límites y Linderos: Una interpretación decolonial de los conflictos territoriales en la Región Norte de Esmeraldas durante los finales del siglo XIX.

Abstract

This thesis examines the interactions between Anglo-American mining companies and Afro Ecuadorian communities in the northern region of Esmeraldas province, Ecuador during the late nineteenth century. Specifically in these interactions, the thesis analyzes the territorial conflicts that emerged between the mining companies and communities based on their opposing conceptualizations of land and their different definitions of land use and ownership. In analyzing the conflicts, the thesis aims to provide a decolonial interpretation, meaning it gives value to both Afro Ecuadorian and Anglo-American legal frameworks, philosophies in order to depict the tensions and conflicts between the two groups in a more equitable fashion. Based on primary research at government archives in Ecuador and private document collections in the United States, the thesis recreates a historical narrative in which a mining company’s corporate documents and letters to shareholders are juxtaposed with interviews of community members and oral histories passed down from generation to generation in the community. The thesis also incorporates government maps, public notary entries, land sale contracts and diplomatic correspondence from several major government archives in Ecuador: The Archive of the Ecuadorian Central Bank in Esmeraldas, The National Archive of Ecuador in Quito, The Archival Library at the National Assembly of Ecuador in Quito and the Library of the Ministry of Foreign Relations in Quito. In addition to the government archives, community interviews and recordings of community members’ oral traditions were obtained from the Afro-Andean Document Collection at the Universidad Andina Simon Bolivar in Quito. In addition to research at document collections and government archives, personal correspondence between company executives and original preliminarysurvey maps of the region were obtained from the private family collection of the granddaughter of the vice president of the Anglo-American mining company.