Católico a mi manera

This chapter discusses Manzano’s early identity formation from a religious and racial standpoint prior to his 1836 manumission.Instead of reading Manzano’s Catholicism as imperfect mimicry–as Homi Bhabha might suggest–this chapter explores the mulatto-Catholic identity as a persona that garnered social capital and as a political statement that rendered Manzano inoffensive when questioned by the Military Commission under suspicion of conspiracy.The racial self-image that Manzano created in his slave narrative, poetry, and letters to his patron Domingo Del Monte manifest double-consciousness because the poet reads himself through the prism of the white gaze.But unlike in previous studies, Pettway demonstrates that Manzano’s Autobiografíaand poetry demonstrate that the Catholic redemption narrative was insufficient to emancipate the enslaved person.