SOURCE: Branche, Jerome. “Ennobling Savagery? Sentimentalism and the Subaltern in Sab.” Afro-Hispanic Review 17, no. 2 (fall 1998): 12-23.

In the following essay, Branche contests standard depictions of Avellaneda's Sab as a pioneering abolitionst/feminist novel, arguing that the novel's characters, plot, and themes betray the author's own deep-seated racism.

“Rock stone a' river bottom no know sun hot.”

Jamaican Saying.

Notwithstanding what seemed obvious to a contemporary reading of Gertrudis Gomez de Avellaneda's first novel, Sab (1841)¹ there is a preponderance of critical evaluations today, which with greater or lesser adamancy, proclaim it to be a discourse of liberation.² Sab as liberation discourse is thereby read as a pioneering abolitionist novel,³ an early demonstration of modern feminism in literature,⁴ and an exemplary articulation of Enlightenment vindication of human liberty and equality.⁵

The trend in liberationist critical readings of Sab, may well be seen in terms of what Stuart Hall refers to...