Singer, Soldier, Subaltern: Competing Reappraisals of Ansina, the Afro-Uruguayan Independence Hero

This article studies how Ansina – Uruguay’s Black hero par excellence – has been represented in historical sources, art, monuments, commemorations, and literary fictions, to assess how this icon’s unstable identity encapsulates shifting frameworks of inclusion for Afro-Uruguayans. The first section considers the ways in which early official depictions of Ansina sought to include Afro-Uruguayans in the emerging nation-state whilst concomitantly depicting their subaltern position. Subsequently, the article assesses unofficial portrayals of Ansina promoted by Afro-Uruguayan activists which embolden his military role during the independence revolution and propose that he may have been a writer-payador. The third section explores the limitations of official and unofficial depictions, focusing instead on a post-2018 persona which could be labelled as a hybrid Ansina. The final section studies the novel La sombra: la novela de Ansina (2013), written by the prolific Afro-Uruguayan author Jorge Chagas, to examine a radical reimagining of this figure.