This reading answered a lot of my questions concerning the everyday lives and political turmoils which formed part of Cuban society in the 18th and early 19th century. I found it intriguing to draw connections between the individual struggles and the political responses. For example, the insurrections in Saint Domingue and neighbouring Caribbean islands, and how they would change the Cuban landscape. In particular the increase of slave population and trade, but also the fear that it instilled in Real Consulado. One might consider the slave-trade era in Cuba as divided into these two periods; before and after the events in Saint Domingue. The economic competition between sugar plantations in Saint Domingue and within Cuba was far more advanced and interdependent than I imagined, especially considering how it led to political, economical and social spillovers in both places. Even though Barcia considers the effects to have been exaggerated at times, I still think they were significant, as discussed in class, which can be envisioned through the policy-changes and visions for economic growth that were initiated as a result. Barcia’s first chapters are successful in serving very detailed, graphic and analyzed accounts of daily affairs and individuals, while also providing the general political context at that time, both locally and regionally. I think that aspects of the Spanish colonial rule and the demographic levels of classes could be further explored; especially the colonial assimilation into Cuban society while the coffee crisis and the new immigration laws were taking place.
After reading Barcia’s first three chapters, I found it very interesting the need for balance by the European colonizers of Cuba in the period after 1763. The balance necessary, which was a common thread until 1886 (abolition of slavery) was between attempting to take the opportunity Cuba had to be the leading sugar producer in the world (after the Saint Domingue revolution) and importing an immense amount of slaves, while avoiding a repetition of the events in Saint Domingue. Although they needed slaves on the island for the production, they also had to be careful to not allow ‘rebel’ slaves from Saint Domingue so ‘their’ slaves would not be corrupted by revolutionary ideas. The repetitive nature of the behaviour of the colonizers also surprised me quite a bit. They constantly used the ‘peligro Ingles’ and fear of a slave uprising to attain the resources and rules in place they wanted from the Spanish Crown and the Cortes. It seems that this constant begging worked for decades due to their loyalty and flattering of the crown (proposal of name-change of island to Ferdinand VII) to always have their demands met.
Having known almost nothing about Cuban or Latin American history beforehand, I felt that Barcia’s first 3 chapters were very good at “bringing me up to speed” regarding Cuba’s position in the late 18th and early 19th centuries leading up to the 1825 revolt. I was particularly surprised at the level of internationalization and diversity of Cuba’s economy and population as shown in chapter 3, with most of the plantation owners described being from places other than Spain. As a modern observer, I am also baffled that the 1825 revolt had caught the Cubans mostly unaware, given the propensity of slave uprisings (albeit on a smaller scale) in the years leading up to 1825. I would also be interested in knowing the extent to which Cuba’s security was at risk from foreign invasion. While Barcia seems to suggest that the Cuban government’s pleas to the Spanish crown for security forces were exaggerated for the Cuban’s benefit, did any of the other powers in the Atlantic have their sights set on the island at the time? Lastly, I would have liked to have seen more information in these chapters about daily life as a slave in Cuba to help give some context as to the motivations for slaves to rise up against their masters, although I understand that may already be common knowledge to other readers and thus may not have been included on purpose.
While reading the first three chapters of The Great African Slave Revolt of 1825: Cuba and the Fight for Freedom in Matanzas by Manuel Barcia, my conception of Cuba’s cultural and historical diversity was solidified and expanded. The outside forces influencing the direction Cuba takes politically and economically, from the British occupation of Havana to the revolution in Saint Domingue, are enormous in impact, especially with relation to the slave trade. What strikes me in this regard is that domestic issues are rationalized using external forces as arguments. One example is the argument that it is the incoming ‘French Negroes’ who perpetuate disturbance among slaves working in Cuba and will encourage these to revolt. Another way this period of Cuba’s history can be defined as diverse is demographically. Cuba’s population comes from a variety of backgrounds. Slaves are being imported from Africa, Creoles are born in Cuba, people are moving to Cuba from other areas of the Caribbean and Europeans are resettling there to escape from persecution back home or to build a fortune for themselves. Thus, the population in Cuba was not only divided into slaves and masters, but fragmented in a far more complex manner both in terms of social hierarchy and cultural background. Finally, Barcia’s discussion of the development of Matanzas, paired with an image of Havana and its own development, reflects Cuba’s diversity in urban settings. It seems as though these two cities, where slavery exists next to cultural refinement, reflect the contradictions that must arise from diversity. Unfortunately, little was written about the diversity within the groups of slaves coming from Africa. I assume that there is little relevant information on this topic. It would be interesting to know about diversity amongst the slaves, coming from different regions of the continent and working on the same sugar and coffee plantations together. Nonetheless, Barcia offered a picture of Cuban politics, economics, and society that was both detailed and gave a comprehensive overview of its diversity.
In broad strokes, the three main points that the Barcia reading highlighted for me were: 1) the centrality of maintaining power and control over resources, land, and people; 2) the naturalization and externalization of racial “characteristics” as a means of deflecting responsibility; and 3) the rampant fear of losing control and being overthrown from within. In my perspective, the second and third points are simply an extension of the first: in order to maintain power and wealth, the Spanish authorities and white Cuban population had to externalize their own brutality, so they projected it onto the slave population and used this judgment as justification to tighten their grip on control through punishment and violence. Ultimately, this strategy backfired and led to the increasing occurrence of revolts in the early 19th century. To be honest, I had a hard time getting excited about this text – what’s the meaty human struggle behind this narrative? And why? I want to hear more about that.
What I find most intriguing about this week’s chapters are the sources employed to display the progression of Cuba as a colonial hub. There is a stark absence of the perspective of slaves throughout the text, and I wonder why. The fretting of local city council records and various societies with distinct Old World connections are the focus in Barcia’s piece. It is interesting that these local organizations composed of planters and officials guide the legal precedents in Havana and the surrounding areas, superseding or ignoring completely at times the authority of international treaties and pressures. It is interesting then, that some Royal slaves invoked their allegiance, or their submission, to the King of Spain, and thus part of their rebellion was ignoring the will of the local powers. While distinct, this seems to emulate the rebellion of San Dominique where slaves denounced the authority of the Spanish replacement to the French throne, solidifying their connection to the colonial oppressors to rebel against those that claimed ownership of them. The cabildo discusses every aspect of Cuban conduct with slaves, information that must come from planters but is also produced and distributed to planters. I wonder how effective these societies were in unifying those directly empowered to implement their recommendations. Were the cabildos in control of local troops or was the military solely Spanish/ British? I wonder how the population of slaves will become integrated and affect the future of Cuba’s independent identity.
Chapter 4 of Barcia was extremely interesting for me. While most of it detailed what happened at which estate and to whom, one thing that stood out most for me was the slaves who chose to protect their masters, or warn others of what was happening, and also the slaves who chose not to participate. This made me think of a few things. What drove these slaves to help out their owners? Why did some choose not to participate? Was it because they didn’t want freedom, or could it even be that they thought the living conditions on their plantation would be better than if they were freed? I also found it interesting that the rebels would capture those who didn’t want to participate and hold them as prisoners. It seemed like an “all for one and one for all” kind of attitude; or a “You’re either with us, or against us” a la Georg Bush approach? This for me highlighted the collective effort that was probably desired for a successful rebellion, and it also showed how it was expected that everyone participate – any sentiment for the owners/Whites would result in negative consequence. Of course this train of thought directly leads me to that of a class struggle and communist revolution – which comes later on.
When I signed up for this course, I had little to no knowledge of Cuba’s history. For the longest time, I thought tobacco was Cuba’s primary agricultural cash crop and always was. I never knew Cuban sugar and coffee was such a huge part of Cuba’s, I suppose, “dark” past. The first three chapters gave me a whole new perspective on Cuba’s culturally and politically diverse historic past. I was fascinated by the constant struggle between Cuba’s development and slavery and the tensions that were created as a result. I liked how Barcia included information about foreign investors and the issues local plantation owners had with the newcomers, but also the stories about the successes and failures of different plantation owners in Matanza. While all this information was fascinating to read about, I thought that it would have been helpful to have more about foreign diplomatic reactions to Cuba’s continued use of slave labour to drive economic growth, given the Brits’ abolishment of the slave trade across their Empire.
This reading answered a lot of my questions concerning the everyday lives and political turmoils which formed part of Cuban society in the 18th and early 19th century. I found it intriguing to draw connections between the individual struggles and the political responses. For example, the insurrections in Saint Domingue and neighbouring Caribbean islands, and how they would change the Cuban landscape. In particular the increase of slave population and trade, but also the fear that it instilled in Real Consulado. One might consider the slave-trade era in Cuba as divided into these two periods; before and after the events in Saint Domingue. The economic competition between sugar plantations in Saint Domingue and within Cuba was far more advanced and interdependent than I imagined, especially considering how it led to political, economical and social spillovers in both places. Even though Barcia considers the effects to have been exaggerated at times, I still think they were significant, as discussed in class, which can be envisioned through the policy-changes and visions for economic growth that were initiated as a result. Barcia’s first chapters are successful in serving very detailed, graphic and analyzed accounts of daily affairs and individuals, while also providing the general political context at that time, both locally and regionally. I think that aspects of the Spanish colonial rule and the demographic levels of classes could be further explored; especially the colonial assimilation into Cuban society while the coffee crisis and the new immigration laws were taking place.
After reading Barcia’s first three chapters, I found it very interesting the need for balance by the European colonizers of Cuba in the period after 1763. The balance necessary, which was a common thread until 1886 (abolition of slavery) was between attempting to take the opportunity Cuba had to be the leading sugar producer in the world (after the Saint Domingue revolution) and importing an immense amount of slaves, while avoiding a repetition of the events in Saint Domingue. Although they needed slaves on the island for the production, they also had to be careful to not allow ‘rebel’ slaves from Saint Domingue so ‘their’ slaves would not be corrupted by revolutionary ideas. The repetitive nature of the behaviour of the colonizers also surprised me quite a bit. They constantly used the ‘peligro Ingles’ and fear of a slave uprising to attain the resources and rules in place they wanted from the Spanish Crown and the Cortes. It seems that this constant begging worked for decades due to their loyalty and flattering of the crown (proposal of name-change of island to Ferdinand VII) to always have their demands met.
Having known almost nothing about Cuban or Latin American history beforehand, I felt that Barcia’s first 3 chapters were very good at “bringing me up to speed” regarding Cuba’s position in the late 18th and early 19th centuries leading up to the 1825 revolt. I was particularly surprised at the level of internationalization and diversity of Cuba’s economy and population as shown in chapter 3, with most of the plantation owners described being from places other than Spain. As a modern observer, I am also baffled that the 1825 revolt had caught the Cubans mostly unaware, given the propensity of slave uprisings (albeit on a smaller scale) in the years leading up to 1825. I would also be interested in knowing the extent to which Cuba’s security was at risk from foreign invasion. While Barcia seems to suggest that the Cuban government’s pleas to the Spanish crown for security forces were exaggerated for the Cuban’s benefit, did any of the other powers in the Atlantic have their sights set on the island at the time? Lastly, I would have liked to have seen more information in these chapters about daily life as a slave in Cuba to help give some context as to the motivations for slaves to rise up against their masters, although I understand that may already be common knowledge to other readers and thus may not have been included on purpose.
While reading the first three chapters of The Great African Slave Revolt of 1825: Cuba and the Fight for Freedom in Matanzas by Manuel Barcia, my conception of Cuba’s cultural and historical diversity was solidified and expanded. The outside forces influencing the direction Cuba takes politically and economically, from the British occupation of Havana to the revolution in Saint Domingue, are enormous in impact, especially with relation to the slave trade. What strikes me in this regard is that domestic issues are rationalized using external forces as arguments. One example is the argument that it is the incoming ‘French Negroes’ who perpetuate disturbance among slaves working in Cuba and will encourage these to revolt. Another way this period of Cuba’s history can be defined as diverse is demographically. Cuba’s population comes from a variety of backgrounds. Slaves are being imported from Africa, Creoles are born in Cuba, people are moving to Cuba from other areas of the Caribbean and Europeans are resettling there to escape from persecution back home or to build a fortune for themselves. Thus, the population in Cuba was not only divided into slaves and masters, but fragmented in a far more complex manner both in terms of social hierarchy and cultural background. Finally, Barcia’s discussion of the development of Matanzas, paired with an image of Havana and its own development, reflects Cuba’s diversity in urban settings. It seems as though these two cities, where slavery exists next to cultural refinement, reflect the contradictions that must arise from diversity. Unfortunately, little was written about the diversity within the groups of slaves coming from Africa. I assume that there is little relevant information on this topic. It would be interesting to know about diversity amongst the slaves, coming from different regions of the continent and working on the same sugar and coffee plantations together. Nonetheless, Barcia offered a picture of Cuban politics, economics, and society that was both detailed and gave a comprehensive overview of its diversity.
In broad strokes, the three main points that the Barcia reading highlighted for me were: 1) the centrality of maintaining power and control over resources, land, and people; 2) the naturalization and externalization of racial “characteristics” as a means of deflecting responsibility; and 3) the rampant fear of losing control and being overthrown from within. In my perspective, the second and third points are simply an extension of the first: in order to maintain power and wealth, the Spanish authorities and white Cuban population had to externalize their own brutality, so they projected it onto the slave population and used this judgment as justification to tighten their grip on control through punishment and violence. Ultimately, this strategy backfired and led to the increasing occurrence of revolts in the early 19th century. To be honest, I had a hard time getting excited about this text – what’s the meaty human struggle behind this narrative? And why? I want to hear more about that.
What I find most intriguing about this week’s chapters are the sources employed to display the progression of Cuba as a colonial hub. There is a stark absence of the perspective of slaves throughout the text, and I wonder why. The fretting of local city council records and various societies with distinct Old World connections are the focus in Barcia’s piece. It is interesting that these local organizations composed of planters and officials guide the legal precedents in Havana and the surrounding areas, superseding or ignoring completely at times the authority of international treaties and pressures. It is interesting then, that some Royal slaves invoked their allegiance, or their submission, to the King of Spain, and thus part of their rebellion was ignoring the will of the local powers. While distinct, this seems to emulate the rebellion of San Dominique where slaves denounced the authority of the Spanish replacement to the French throne, solidifying their connection to the colonial oppressors to rebel against those that claimed ownership of them. The cabildo discusses every aspect of Cuban conduct with slaves, information that must come from planters but is also produced and distributed to planters. I wonder how effective these societies were in unifying those directly empowered to implement their recommendations. Were the cabildos in control of local troops or was the military solely Spanish/ British? I wonder how the population of slaves will become integrated and affect the future of Cuba’s independent identity.
Chapter 4 of Barcia was extremely interesting for me. While most of it detailed what happened at which estate and to whom, one thing that stood out most for me was the slaves who chose to protect their masters, or warn others of what was happening, and also the slaves who chose not to participate. This made me think of a few things. What drove these slaves to help out their owners? Why did some choose not to participate? Was it because they didn’t want freedom, or could it even be that they thought the living conditions on their plantation would be better than if they were freed? I also found it interesting that the rebels would capture those who didn’t want to participate and hold them as prisoners. It seemed like an “all for one and one for all” kind of attitude; or a “You’re either with us, or against us” a la Georg Bush approach? This for me highlighted the collective effort that was probably desired for a successful rebellion, and it also showed how it was expected that everyone participate – any sentiment for the owners/Whites would result in negative consequence. Of course this train of thought directly leads me to that of a class struggle and communist revolution – which comes later on.
When I signed up for this course, I had little to no knowledge of Cuba’s history. For the longest time, I thought tobacco was Cuba’s primary agricultural cash crop and always was. I never knew Cuban sugar and coffee was such a huge part of Cuba’s, I suppose, “dark” past. The first three chapters gave me a whole new perspective on Cuba’s culturally and politically diverse historic past. I was fascinated by the constant struggle between Cuba’s development and slavery and the tensions that were created as a result. I liked how Barcia included information about foreign investors and the issues local plantation owners had with the newcomers, but also the stories about the successes and failures of different plantation owners in Matanza. While all this information was fascinating to read about, I thought that it would have been helpful to have more about foreign diplomatic reactions to Cuba’s continued use of slave labour to drive economic growth, given the Brits’ abolishment of the slave trade across their Empire.