The trial of Micaela Mutis (1822). A turning point in the historiography of Colombian Independence

Résumé 0

Between 1822 and 1824, Micaela Mutis, the niece of Don José Celestino Mutis, launched an intense legal battle against her husband for the custody of her illegitimate son, and to claim her rights as a citizen in the new republic of Colombia. Paradoxically, she was condemned by the new state, under the laws of the recently abandoned Spanish empire. The case, discovered and analyzed by the historian Aída Martínez Carreño, indicates the need to reinterpret the role of women in Colombian historiography, as well as the relationships between the private, public and political life of many of these women, who were encouraged to claim citizenship as a result of their commitment to the patriot cause. In recent years, researchers such as Judith González and Martha Lux have contributed to the history of women in Colombia with findings that discuss and demonstrate once again that the role played by women in this period is far from the passive role that traditional historiography, mostly written by men, had ascribed to them.