Slavery and Resistance in Matanzas: Labor, Rights, and Race in the Crisis of Slavery in Cuba, 1868-1886
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.5007/1984-9222.2024.e101346Keywords:
Slavery, Resistance, CubaAbstract
The article investigates the resistance of enslaved workers and patrocinados (apprentices) on the sugar mills of the province of Matanzas, in Western Cuba, between the 1820s and 1880s — focused on the crisis of slavery between 1868 and 1886. One of the objectives of this research is to analyze the strategies and repertoires of resistance of the enslaved during the 1870s and 1880s, in contrast with their African antecessors from the first half of the century. Second, this investigation contributes to discussions about the role of slave resistance to the abolition of slavery in Cuba. While most studies focused on the agency of enslaved people in the Eastern provinces, this research shed light on struggles that took place in the most important plantation enclave in the Western region. This investigation also revealed that enslaved people and patrocinados established precedents for the struggle of rural workers for labor rights in post-emancipation Cuba. Finally, the article presents a periodization of three phases of slave resistance in Matanzas between 1825 and 1886, and its intersection with the temporalities of Black resistance in Cuba between 1790 and 1912, during the long 19th century.
References
BALBOA NAVARRO, Imilcy. Protesta Rural e Independencia Nacional. En La Turbulencia del Reposo Cuba 1878-1895. Editorial de Ciencias Sociales, La Habana, pp. 200-271, 1998.
BALBOA NAVARRO, Imilcy. El Camino a la Libertad. Los Patrocinados en las Áreas Rurales. Cuba 1878-1886. Espace Caräibes Amériques, París, Université des Antilles-Guyane, 2000.
BARCIA PAZ, Manuel. Seeds of Insurrection: Domination and Resistance on Western Cuban Plantations, 1808-1848. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2008.
BARCIA PAZ, Manuel. The Great African Slave Revolt of 1825: Cuba and the Fight for Freedom in Matanzas. Louisiana State University Press, 2012.
BARCIA PAZ, Manuel. Con el Látigo de la Ira: Legislación, Represión y Control en las Plantaciones Cubanas, 1790- 1870. La Habana: Editorial de Ciencias Sociales, 2000.
BARCIA, María del Carmen. La Otra Familia: Parientes, Redes y Descendencia de los Esclavos en Cuba. La Habana: Casa de las Américas, 2003.
BARCIA, María del Carmen. Mujeres al Margen de la Historia. Instituto Cubano del Libro: Editorial de Ciencias Sociales, La Habana, 2009.
BARCIA, María del Carmen. Táctica y Estrategia de la Burguesía Esclavista de Cuba Ante la Abolición de la Esclavitud. Estudios de Historia Social, nº. 44-47, pp. 137-148, 1988.
BERBEL, Marcia; MARQUESE, Rafael & PARRON, Tâmis. Escravidão e Política, Brasil e Cuba, c.1790-1850. São Paulo: Hucitec, 2010.
BERGAD, Laird. Cuban Rural Society in the Nineteenth Century: The Social and Economic History of Monoculture in Matanzas. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1990.
BERGAD, Laird; García, Fe Iglesias & Barcia, María del Carmen. The Cuban Slave Market, 1790-1880. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995.
BORREGO MORENO, Reiner. Lo Importante aquí es no Morirse: Azúcar, Esclavitud y Mortalidad En Cuba (1840-1886). Tese (Doutorado em História) - Universidade Jaume I, Castellon, 2019.
CEPERO BONILLA, Raúl. Azúcar y Abolición. Havana: Editorial Cenbit, 1948.
CHAPEAUX, Pedro Deschamps. Sublevación de Esclavos en Cuba, 1533-1880. San Juan: Ediciones Puerto, 2013.
CHAPEAUX, Pedro Deschamps; RIVA, Juan Perez de la. Contribucion a la História a la Gente Sin História. Habana: Editorial de Ciencias Sociales, 1974.
CHILDS, Matt. The 1812 Aponte Rebellion in Cuba and the Struggle Against Atlantic Slavery. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2006.
CHILDS, Matt. Cuba, the Atlantic Crisis of the 1860s, and the Road to Abolition. In: DOYLE, Don (ed.). American Civil Wars: The United States, Latin America, Europe, and the Crisis of the 1860s. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2017, pp. 204-221.
CHIRA, Adriana. Patchwork Freedoms: Law, Slavery, and Race Beyond Cuba's Plantations. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2022.
CORWIN, Arthur. Spain and the Abolition of Slavery in Cuba, 1817-1886. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1967.
COWLING, Camillia. Concebendo Liberdade: Mulheres de Cor, Gênero e a Abolição da Escravidão nas Cidades de Havana e Rio de Janeiro. São Paulo: Editora Unicamp, 2018.
IBARRA CUESTA, Jorge. Encrucijadas de la Guerra Prolongada. Santiago de Cuba: Editorial Oriente, 2008.
DE LA FUENTE, Alejandro. A Nation for All: Race, Inequality, and Politics in Twentieth Century Cuba. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2011.
DE LA FUENTE, Alejandro. Slavery and Claims-Making in Cuba: The Tannenbaum Debate Revisited. Law and History Review, vol. 22, 2004, pp. 339-69.
DE LA FUENTE, Alejandro. Slaves and the Creation of Legal Rights in Cuba: Coartación and Papel. Hispanic American Historical Review, vol.87, n.4, 2007, 659-92.
DIAZ, Aisnara Perera; FUENTES, María de los Ángeles Meriño. Estrategias de Libertad: Un Acercamiento a las Acciones Legales de los Esclavos en Cuba (1762-1872). La Habana: Editorial de Ciencias Sociales, 2015, Tomo I e II.
FERRARO, Marcelo Rosanova. A Economia Política da Violência na Era da Segunda Escravidão: Brasil e Estados Unidos, Século XIX. Tese (Doutorado em História Social) - Faculdade de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas, Universidade de São Paulo, 2021.
FERRARO, Marcelo Rosanova. The Political Economy of Punishment: Slavery and Violence in Nineteenth-Century Brazil and the United States. International Review of Social History, 68 (S31), 197-212, 2023.
FERRARO, Marcelo Rosanova. A Economia Moral da Escravidão nas Fazendas de Café do Vale do Paraíba (1830-1888). In: Mariana Muaze e Keila Grinberg (orgs.) Segunda Escravidão, Memória e História no Vale do Paraíba Fluminense. (prelo)
FERRER, Ada. Insurgent Cuba: Race, Nation, and Revolution, 1868-1898. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1999.
FERRER, Ada. Freedom's Mirror: Cuba and Haiti in the Age of Revolution. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2014.
FINCH, Aisha. Rethinking Slave Rebellion in Cuba: La Escalera and the Insurgencies of 1841-1844. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2015.
FINCH, Aisha & RUSHING, Fannie. Breaking the Chains, Forging the Nation: The Afro-Cuban Fight for Freedom and Equality, 1812–1912. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2019.
FRAGINALS, Manuel Moreno. El Ingenio: Complejo Económico Social Cubano del Azúcar. La Habana: Editorial de Ciencias Sociales, 1978.
FRANCO, Jose Luciano. La Conspiración de Aponte, 1812. La Habana: Editorial Ciencias Sociales, 2006.
GARCÍA RODRIGUEZ, Gloria. Vertebrando La Resisténcia: La Lucha de los Negros contra el Sistema Esclavista, 1790-1845. In: GONZÁLEZ-RIPOLL NAVARRO. Ma. Dolores. El Rumor de Haití en Cuba: Temor, Raza y Rebeldía, 1789-1844. Madrid: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, 2004, pp. 233-320.
GARCÍA RODRIGUEZ, Gloria. Conspiraciones y Revueltas. Santiago de Cuba: Editorial Oriente, 2003.
GARCÍA RODRIGUEZ, Gloria. Voices of the Enslaved in Nineteenth-Century Cuba: A Documentary History. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2011.
GROSS, Ariela Gross & DE LA FUENTE, Alejandro. Becoming Free, Becoming Black: Race, Freedom, and Law in Cuba, Virginia, and Louisiana. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020.
HELG, Aline. Our Rightful Share. The AfroCuban Struggle for Equality, 1886-1912. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1995.
HELG, Aline. Afro-Cuban Protest: The Partido Independiente de Color, 1908-1912/Protesta Afro-Cubana: El Partido Independiente de Color, 1908-1912. Cuban Studies, 21, 1991, p.101.
HELG, Aline. Os Afro-Cubanos, Protagonistas Silenciados Da História Cubana. Revista de Estudos e Pesquisas Sobre as Américas, 8 (1): p. 29, 2014.
KNIGHT, Franklin. Slave Society in Cuba During the Nineteenth Century. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1970.
LLAVERÍAS Y MARTÍNEZ, Joaquín. La Comisión Militar Ejecutiva y Permanente de la Isla de Cuba. La Habana: Imprenta “El Siglo XX”, 1929.
MATA, Iacy Maia. Conspirações da Raça de Cor: Escravidão, Liberdade e Tensões Raciais em Santiago de Cuba (1864-1881). Campinas: Editora Unicamp, 2015.
MARQUESE, Rafael. Feitores do Corpo, Missionários da Mente: Senhores, Letrados e o Controle dos Escravos nas Américas, 1660-1860. São Paulo: Companhia das Letras, 2004.
PAQUETTE, Robert. Sugar Is Made with Blood: The Conspiracy of La Escalera and the Conflict Between Empires over Slavery in Cuba. Middletown.: Wesleyan University Press, 1988.
PARRON, Tâmis. A Política da Escravidão na Era da Liberdade: Estados Unidos, Brasil e Cuba, 1787-1846. Tese (Doutorado em História Social) - Faculdade de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas, Universidade de São Paulo, 2015.
PAYNE, Samantha. The Last Atlantic Revolution: Reconstruction and the Struggle for Democracy in the Americas. Tese (Doutorado em História) - Universidade de Harvard, Cambridge, 2022.
PERERA DÍAZ, Aisnara & MERIÑO FUENTES, María de los Ángeles. Esclavitud, Familia y Parroquía en Cuba: Otra Mirada desde la Microhistoria. Santiago de Cuba: Oriente, 2006.
PIQUERAS, Jose Antonio. Azucar Y Esclavitud En El Final Del Trabajo Forzado: Homenaje a M. Moreno Fraginals. Madrid: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 2002.
REID-VAZQUEZ, Michele. The Year of the Lash: Free People of Color in Cuba and the Nineteenth-Century Atlantic World. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2011.
RUBIO, Alina. La Justicia Excepcional en la Primera Mitad del XIX Cubano: Orden Público y Gobierno Militar de los Territorios Coloniales. Almanack, 18, pp. 6-55, 2018.
RUSHING, Fannie. Resistance, Race”, and Place in Cuba during the Transition of Empires, 1787-1908 In: FINCH, Aisha & RUSHING, Fannie. Breaking the Chains, Forging the Nation: The Afro-Cuban Fight for Freedom and Equality, 1812–1912. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2019, pp. 223-247.
SCHMIDT-NOWARA, Christopher. Empire and Antislavery: Spain Cuba and Puerto Rico 1833-1874. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1999.
SCOTT, Rebecca. Slave Emancipation in Cuba: The Transition to Free Labor, 1860-1899. Pittsburgh/Pennsylvania: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2000.
SCOTT, Rebecca. Gradual Abolition and the Dynamics of Slave Emancipation in Cuba, 1868-86. The Hispanic American Historical Review, 1983, 63 (3).
SILVA JUNIOR, Waldomiro Lourenço da. Entre a Escrita e a Prática: Direito e Escravidão no Brasil e em Cuba, c. 1760-1871. Tese (Doutorado em História Social) - Faculdade de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas, Universidade de São Paulo, São Paulo, 2015.
TARDIEU, Jean-Pierre. “Dominar o morir”: En Torno al Reglamento de Esclavos de Cuba (1841-1866). Frankfurt: Vervurt; Madrid: Iberoamericana, 2003.
THOMPSON, Edward. The Moral Economy of the English Crowd in the Eighteenth Century. Past & Present, 50(1), pp. 76-136, 1971.
TOMICH, Dale. Pelo Prisma da Escravidão: Trabalho Capital e Economia Mundial. São Paulo: Edusp, 2011.
YOUSSEF, Alain El. O Império do Brasil na Segunda Era da Abolição, 1861-1880. Tese (Doutorado em História Social) - Faculdade de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas, Universidade de São Paulo, São Paulo, 2019.
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
The authors assign to Revista Mundos do Trabalho the exclusive rights of first publication, with the work simultaneously licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY) 4.0 International. This license allows third parties to remix, adapt and create from the published work, giving due credit for authorship and initial publication in this journal. Authors are authorized to take additional contracts separately, for the non-exclusive distribution of the version of the work published in this journal (e.g. publish in an institutional repository, personal website, publish a translation, or as a book chapter), with authorship and publication in this journal.
