Cecilia Valdés

I made notes in the margin of an article by David Graeber, on slavery and debt. It seems that conquest leads to slavery, because one has captives. If the life of a captive is spared then they owe a debt. Also, credit precedes money. Graeber has much to say about this and I am fascinated, and would like to read the whole book. War, slavery, debt, money, the state and the economy generally are a constellation in it and it is very interesting to see how much history goes against what one was taught.

I must do an entire levantamento of bibliography on Cecilia Valdés. In the margins of this article, I have, connected to this novel, these terms or phrases:

EXCHANGE VALUE
CONTENT FREE
SLAVERY – DEBT – COIN – KING – CIRCULATION

My impression when I first read this novel, sticks with me: Cecilia, the character, as coin, a possession but an abstract one, something with exchange value but no actual content, someone who could produce a white child. Someone who is and also is not acknowledged by the state; is she white or Black? Is she legal or not? How is she related to the state,
is she a coin bearing the King’s stamp or … ?

These were my impressions and I want to find out what there is to them.