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Image / Children playing at the river, San Basilio del Palenque, ca. 1978

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Title
Children playing at the river, San Basilio del Palenque, ca. 1978
Creator
Cross, Richard, 1950-1983
Date Created and/or Issued
1978
Publication Information
California State University, Northridge
Contributing Institution
California State University, Northridge
Collection
Richard Cross Photographs (Bradley Center)
Rights Information
Use of images from the collections of the Tom & Ethel Bradley Center is strictly prohibited by law without prior written consent from the copyright holders. The responsibility for the use of these materials rests exclusively with the user.
The Bradley Center may assist in obtaining copyright/licensing permission to use images from the Richard Cross collection. http://www.csun.edu/bradley-center/contact
Description
A group of children, three boys, play in the river, a place were usually the women and girls of the community of San Basilio del Palenque would gather to socialize and work. It was women's role to walk to the river and collect water, and girls from very young age accompany their mothers and other women to the well (or casimba), which are the holes in the stream bed from which water is drawn for daily life. San Basilio del Palenque, a town located 31 miles from Cartagena, is considered the first community to officially free enslaved people in the Americas because, on August 23, 1691, the Spanish King Charles II signed a royal charter recognizing the freedom of the runaway communities in the María Mountains. Local authorities, however, did not sign a treaty with these communities until January of 1714 acknowledging their freedom and ordering the establishment of the town of Palenque San Basilio Magno. People in San Basilio del Palenque speak a Spanish-based creole language known as Palenquero. According to local public records, in 1975 the village had 2,400 residents (mostly farmers or day laborers) and 388 houses. Colombian anthropologist Nina S. de Friedemann had been studying the Afro-Colombian community of San Basilio del Palenque for the Colombian Institute of Anthropology and Richard Cross joined her to do work as a visual anthropologist in June 1975. This image illustrates Cross's anthropological category: Social organization, Inventory of male-female work roles.
Un grupo de niños, tres niños, juegan en el río, un lugar donde generalmente se reunían las mujeres y niñas de la comunidad de San Basilio del Palenque para socializar y trabajar. El papel de las mujeres era caminar hacia el río y recoger agua, y las niñas desde muy temprana edad acompañan a sus madres y a otras mujeres al pozo (o casimba), que son los agujeros en el lecho del arroyo del que se extrae el agua para la vida cotidiana. San Basilio del Palenque, a town located 31 miles from Cartagena, is considered the first community to officially free enslaved people in the Americas because, on August 23, 1691, the Spanish King Charles II signed a royal charter recognizing the freedom of the runaway communities in the María Mountains. Local authorities, however, did not sign a treaty with these communities until January of 1714 acknowledging their freedom and ordering the establishment of the town of Palenque San Basilio Magno. People in San Basilio del Palenque speak a Spanish-based creole language known as Palenquero. According to local public records, in 1975 the village had 2,400 residents (mostly farmers or day laborers) and 388 houses. Colombian anthropologist Nina S. de Friedemann had been studying the Afro-Colombian community of San Basilio del Palenque for the Colombian Institute of Anthropology and Richard Cross joined her to do work as a visual anthropologist in June 1975. This image illustrates Cross's anthropological category: Social organization, Inventario de roles de trabajo entre hombres y mujeres.
Type
image
Format
Photographs
image/jpeg
Black-and-white prints (photographs)
Extent
35 mm
Identifier
99.01.RCr.P.B6.120.03
http://digital-collections.csun.edu/cdm/ref/collection/p17169coll1/id/10830
Subject
Children, Black--Colombia--San Basilio del Palenque
Play environments
Rivers
Place
San Basilio del Palenque (Colombia)
Relation
99.01.RCr.P.B6.120.03.tif
Richard Cross Photographs
California State University Northridge. University Library. Special Collections & Archives. Tom & Ethel Bradley Center

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