To Punish and Protect: Communal Responses to Infanticide in the Early Venezuelan Republic, 1830s–1860s.

This article examines the diverse and complex responses of civilian communities and judicial authorities to infanticide cases in Mérida province, Venezuela, during the early republican period (circa 1830s–1860s). Following independence in 1830, infanticide prosecutions increased in Mérida, with defendants consistently being poor, illiterate, single mothers, while community reactions ranged from denunciation and cooperation with authorities to protection and concealment of the accused women. The study highlights how cultural values—such as honor, religion, family ties, and notions of femininity—shaped these varied responses, which balanced condemnation of the crime with sympathy and mercy toward the mothers, who were often seen as victims of harsh social and economic circumstances. Unlike other regions or periods, civilians rarely enacted vigilante justice, instead relying on the judicial system, which frequently arranged acquittals despite evidence, reflecting a legal and social tension between punishment and clemency during a time of significant political and social transition in Venezuela.