La gran recompensa en el otro mundo: Esclavitud y manumisión en Tetuán (1800-1956)

This study analyzes the practice of slave manumission by notables in Tetouan between 1800 and 1956, using unpublished notarial sources in combination with oral and colonial sources. The documentation indicates that manumission was part of a moral mechanism through which slave owners hoped to gain religious merit before they died, thus securing a reward and a place in paradise. The liberation of slaves also contained a public and ritual dimension. In their wills, the notables, both men and women, expressed their generosity by redistributing their wealth among the poor and bequeathing money or the usufruct of their residences to former slaves. This notarial material is extremely useful in analyzing the inequalities of Morocco's social structure from the point of view of the owners, but it also provides valuable information about the names, status and physical characteristics of their male and female slaves, and their trajectories after release.