Powerful Subjects: The Duplicity of Slave Owners in Nineteenth-Century Cuba

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International Journal of Cuban Studies

Volume 7, Issue 1

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Powerful Subjects: The Duplicity of Slave Owners in Nineteenth-Century Cuba

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Author(s): Manuel Barcia

Publication date (Print): Spring 2015

Journal: International Journal of Cuban Studies

Publisher: Pluto Journals

Keywords: Cuba, 19th-century, slavery, hidden and public transcripts

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Abstract

This article explores the ways in which Cuban-based merchants and planters attempted to keep a robust control upon their increasingly large slave population, while endeavouring to show to the rest of the world an idyllic picture of Cuban slavery. By using James C. Scott's concepts of ‘Hidden’ and ‘Public Transcripts’, the article examines primary sources produced precisely by those merchants and planters, sources that were meant to be kept between them. Thus, the article offers a window into their world and a good tool to understand their reasoning.

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Manuel Barcia

Journal

Journal ID (doi): 10.13169

Journal ID (publisher-id): intejcubastud

Title: International Journal of Cuban Studies

Publisher: Pluto Journals

ISSN (Print): 17563461

ISSN (Electronic): 1756347X

Publication date (Print): Spring 2015

Volume: 7

Issue: 1

Pages: 99-112

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University of Leeds, UK

Article

Publisher ID: intejcubastud.7.1.0099

DOI: 10.13169/intejcubastud.7.1.0099

SO-VID: c9a7f1d8-24ee-4216-b55c-b60751ab965c

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Notes

See James C. Scott, Domination and the Arts of Resistance: Hidden Transcripts (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1990).
Juan Bernardo O'Gavan, Observaciones sobre la suerte de los negros del África, considerados en su propia patria, y trasplantados á las Antillas españolas: y reclamación contra el tratado celebrado con los ingleses el año de 1817 (Madrid: Imprenta del Universal, 1821), pp. 4–5. Author's translation.
Ibid.
Martínez de Pinillos to Prior y Cónsules, Madrid, 1 November 1814, Archivo Nacional de Cuba (ANC): Gobierno Superior Civil, 1099/40587.
Ibid.
Robert Jameson, Letters from the Havana during the Year 1820: Containing an Account of the Present State of the Island of Cuba and Observations on the Slave Trade (London: John Miller, 1821), p. 45.
Manuel Barcia, Seeds of Insurrection: Domination and Resistance on Western Cuban Plantations (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2008), pp. 25–48.
See, for example, the opinion of Martínez de Pinillos, now count of Villanueva, in the late 1840s. The count of Villanueva to Captain General Leopoldo O'Donnell, Havana, 30 June 1847, ANC: Asuntos Políticos, 141/12.
See, for example, Robert L. Paquette, Sugar Is Made with Blood: The Conspiracy of La Escalera and the Conflict between Empires over Slavery in Cuba (Middletown: Wesleyan University Press, 1988), pp. 215–43; Gloria García, La esclavitud desde la esclavitud: La visión de los siervos (Havana: Ciencias Sociales, 2003); Matt D. Childs, The 1812 Aponte Rebellion in Cuba and the Struggle against Atlantic Slavery (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2006); Barcia, Seeds of Insurrection.
See Manuel Lucena Salmoral, Los códigos negros de la América Española (Alcalá: Universidad de Alcalá, 1996).
Lucena Salmoral, Sangre sobre piel negra (Quito: Abyua-Yala, 1994), pp. 27–8.
Richard Robert Madden, The Island of Cuba: Its Resources, Progress, and Prospects (London: Partridge and Oakey, 1853), p. 123.
Anonymous letter received by Captain General Francisco Serrano in July 1862, ANC: Gobierno Superior Civil, 954/33752.
Prosecutor résumé and depositions of the slaves Eduardo, Diego, Bernardo, Pedro Congo, Mariana, Leonor, Hilaria, Isabel, Francisco, Antonio, and the Asiatic men Achón, Miguel and Julio, ANC: Miscelánea de Expedientes, 1391/A.
Childs, The 1812 Aponte Rebellion , p. 15.
Ibid., pp. 140–2.
Manuel Barcia, The Great African Slave Revolt of 1825: Cuba and the Fight for Freedom in Matanzas (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2012), pp. 124–5.
Ibid., pp. 124–6.
Paquette, Sugar Is Made with Blood , p. 4.
For the most recent scholarship on La Escalera, see Michele Reid-Vazquez, The Year of the Lash: Free People of Color in Cuba in the Nineteenth Century and the Atlantic World (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2011); Aisha K. Finch, Rethinking Slave Rebellion in Cuba: La Escalera and the Insurgencies of 1841–1844 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2015).
Paquette, Sugar Is Made with Blood , p. 220.
Francisco Ximeno to Manuel Sanguily, Havana, 22 January 1886. Cf. Paquette, Sugar Is Made with Blood , p. 221.
Ibid.
O'Donnell to Fulgencio Salas, Havana, 22 February 1844. Cf. Paquette, Sugar Is Made with Blood , p. 220.
The Count of La Fernandina to Valdés, Havana, 12 March 1842, ANC: Gobierno Superior Civil, 940/33158.
Sebastián de Lasa to Valdés, Havana, 5 March 1842, ANC: Gobierno Superior Civil, 940/33158.
Domingo Aldama to Valdés, Ingenio Santa Rosa, Sabanilla del Encomendador, 18 March 1842, ANC: Gobierno Superior Civil, 940/33158.
José Manuel Carrillo to Valdés, Havana, 3 March 1842, ANC: Gobierno Superior Civil, 940/33158.
Representation of the Cabildo of Havana to the King, 1772, Archivo General de Indias (AGI): Santo Domingo, 2211.
‘Los hacendados y dueños de los ingenios de azúcar de dicha isla [Cuba]’, sent by Cuban slave owners to the Crown, Havana, 19 January 1790. See also Marquis of Cárdenas de Monte Hermoso and Miguel José Peñalver y Calvo to the Count of Floridablanca, Havana, 5 February 1790, AGI: Estado, 7/5.
Valdés to Secretario de Estado y del Despacho de Hacienda, Havana, 30 November 1842, AGI: Santo Domingo, 1308.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Testimony of the diligences carried out regarding the Code of Rural Police of 1828, AGI: Ultramar, 89.
Ordenanzas para el gobierno de los esclavos (1844) . Archivo Histórico Nacional (Madrid): Ultramar, 17.

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Comment on this article

[1] See James C. Scott, Domination and the Arts of Resistance: Hidden Transcripts (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1990).

[2] Juan Bernardo O'Gavan, Observaciones sobre la suerte de los negros del África, considerados en su propia patria, y trasplantados á las Antillas españolas: y reclamación contra el tratado celebrado con los ingleses el año de 1817 (Madrid: Imprenta del Universal, 1821), pp. 4–5. Author's translation.

[3] Ibid.

[4] Martínez de Pinillos to Prior y Cónsules, Madrid, 1 November 1814, Archivo Nacional de Cuba (ANC): Gobierno Superior Civil, 1099/40587.

[5] Ibid.

[6] Robert Jameson, Letters from the Havana during the Year 1820: Containing an Account of the Present State of the Island of Cuba and Observations on the Slave Trade (London: John Miller, 1821), p. 45.

[7] Manuel Barcia, Seeds of Insurrection: Domination and Resistance on Western Cuban Plantations (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2008), pp. 25–48.

[8] See, for example, the opinion of Martínez de Pinillos, now count of Villanueva, in the late 1840s. The count of Villanueva to Captain General Leopoldo O'Donnell, Havana, 30 June 1847, ANC: Asuntos Políticos, 141/12.

[9] See, for example, Robert L. Paquette, Sugar Is Made with Blood: The Conspiracy of La Escalera and the Conflict between Empires over Slavery in Cuba (Middletown: Wesleyan University Press, 1988), pp. 215–43; Gloria García, La esclavitud desde la esclavitud: La visión de los siervos (Havana: Ciencias Sociales, 2003); Matt D. Childs, The 1812 Aponte Rebellion in Cuba and the Struggle against Atlantic Slavery (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2006); Barcia, Seeds of Insurrection.

[10] See Manuel Lucena Salmoral, Los códigos negros de la América Española (Alcalá: Universidad de Alcalá, 1996).

[11] Lucena Salmoral, Sangre sobre piel negra (Quito: Abyua-Yala, 1994), pp. 27–8.

[12] Richard Robert Madden, The Island of Cuba: Its Resources, Progress, and Prospects (London: Partridge and Oakey, 1853), p. 123.

[13] Anonymous letter received by Captain General Francisco Serrano in July 1862, ANC: Gobierno Superior Civil, 954/33752.

[14] Prosecutor résumé and depositions of the slaves Eduardo, Diego, Bernardo, Pedro Congo, Mariana, Leonor, Hilaria, Isabel, Francisco, Antonio, and the Asiatic men Achón, Miguel and Julio, ANC: Miscelánea de Expedientes, 1391/A.

[15] Childs, The 1812 Aponte Rebellion , p. 15.

[16] Ibid., pp. 140–2.

[17] Manuel Barcia, The Great African Slave Revolt of 1825: Cuba and the Fight for Freedom in Matanzas (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2012), pp. 124–5.

[18] Ibid., pp. 124–6.

[19] Paquette, Sugar Is Made with Blood , p. 4.

[20] For the most recent scholarship on La Escalera, see Michele Reid-Vazquez, The Year of the Lash: Free People of Color in Cuba in the Nineteenth Century and the Atlantic World (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2011); Aisha K. Finch, Rethinking Slave Rebellion in Cuba: La Escalera and the Insurgencies of 1841–1844 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2015).

[21] Paquette, Sugar Is Made with Blood , p. 220.

[22] Francisco Ximeno to Manuel Sanguily, Havana, 22 January 1886. Cf. Paquette, Sugar Is Made with Blood , p. 221.

[23] Ibid.

[24] O'Donnell to Fulgencio Salas, Havana, 22 February 1844. Cf. Paquette, Sugar Is Made with Blood , p. 220.

[25] The Count of La Fernandina to Valdés, Havana, 12 March 1842, ANC: Gobierno Superior Civil, 940/33158.

[26] Sebastián de Lasa to Valdés, Havana, 5 March 1842, ANC: Gobierno Superior Civil, 940/33158.

[27] Domingo Aldama to Valdés, Ingenio Santa Rosa, Sabanilla del Encomendador, 18 March 1842, ANC: Gobierno Superior Civil, 940/33158.

[28] José Manuel Carrillo to Valdés, Havana, 3 March 1842, ANC: Gobierno Superior Civil, 940/33158.

[29] Representation of the Cabildo of Havana to the King, 1772, Archivo General de Indias (AGI): Santo Domingo, 2211.

[30] ‘Los hacendados y dueños de los ingenios de azúcar de dicha isla [Cuba]’, sent by Cuban slave owners to the Crown, Havana, 19 January 1790. See also Marquis of Cárdenas de Monte Hermoso and Miguel José Peñalver y Calvo to the Count of Floridablanca, Havana, 5 February 1790, AGI: Estado, 7/5.

[31] Valdés to Secretario de Estado y del Despacho de Hacienda, Havana, 30 November 1842, AGI: Santo Domingo, 1308.

[32] Ibid.

[33] Ibid.

[34] Ibid.

[35] Testimony of the diligences carried out regarding the Code of Rural Police of 1828, AGI: Ultramar, 89.

[36] Ordenanzas para el gobierno de los esclavos (1844) . Archivo Histórico Nacional (Madrid): Ultramar, 17.

International Journal of Cuban Studies

Powerful Subjects: The Duplicity of Slave Owners in Nineteenth-Century Cuba

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