Slavery in the Americas: A Comparative Study of Cuba and Virginia (review)

BOOK REVIEWS SL·very in the Americas: A Comparative Study of Cuba and Virginia. By Herbert S. Klein. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1967. Pp. xi, 270, $6.95.) Professor Klein's incisive and informative book follows the approach of Frank Tannenbaume influential essay Sfae and Citizen (New York, 1946), as modified by Stanley Elkins' Stoery: A Problem in American Institutional and Intellectual Life (Chicago, 1959). In an earlier age it was held to be a peculiar weakness of Latin American areas that they were overly dominated by an absolute monarchy and were priest-ridden by die Spanish Church; by contrast, one formerly praised die English colonies for their spontaneous self-government in matters secular and spiritual. Tannenbaum, Elkins, and Klein turn diat upside down in the obviously important area of slavery and race relations. Here die tyrant of Spain and his viceroys become the protectors of the exploited African, continuously reasserting his irreducible legal rights against die selfish designs of planters. The priests, obscurantists and parasites to die intellectual descendants of Voltaire and Jefferson, become die champions of the brotherhood of man, sanctifying and protecting the family life of Negroes , and contributing by means of solemn and festive observances a feeling of cultural integration. Thus in Cuba—the area illustrated by Professor Klein—and all of Latin America according to die general conclusions of this "Tannenbaum school," slavery, although sanctioned undei ancient legal codes, was also gready softened by diem. The legacy of die Middle Ages, therefore, contributed in Latin America to the enviable modern achievement of racially integrated societies, where color had never been an insurmountable barrier eidier to self-respect or self-advancement. In another important respect this new school of interpretation breaks with the past. The abolitionist writers of the nineteenth century took different positions on interracial marriages, but all agreed in condemning the illicit and unsanctified mating of white and black. In traditional moral terms this was at best seduction and at worst rape, and while there was obviously plenty of both in die North American colonies there was much more in the tropics. By sheer frequency of commission, this abomination reflected what dien seemed to be the more brutal tone of race relations in Latin America. But to Professor Klein the propagation of mulattoes was less a sign of cultural wickedness dian an engine of mobility, for "Cuban society organized itself around a tripartite color system that permitted mulattoes to think of diemselves and be accepted by both whites and 350 Negroes as a distinct group, not participating in many of the 'traits' and disabilities of die latter group. To be a mulatto usually meant more economic and social mobility. Also, given money and education, the mulatto even if obscuro, or very dark, would be ranked in the white category, and die corresponding Negro would be classified as mulatto, for in Cuba as in the rest of Latin America, 'money whitened.' " (p. 259) Professor Klein tells us diat he chose Cuba and Virginia for his comparative study because both were old colonial establishments, and had roughly equivalent proportions of die white and Negro races. But in Virginia he finds the feebleness of die Crown and the Anglican Church permitting the planters to have dieir own way, which was to force die Negro into a chattel position, from which, eventually, there could be no legal means of escape; not even white ancestry changed one's status. Comparisons need not be odious, but diis one works hard on die Virginians , white and black. Klein has proven his main thesis that die colored people of Virginia were walled off into an inferior caste more effectively dian were those of Cuba. But perhaps widiout intending it, he has made a book which strongly suggests diat die overall life conditions of die average colored person in Cuba were better than diose in Virginia. The laws of Virginia admitted no such thing as marriage for Negro slavesyet Virginia slaves often married. Virginia laws made no provision for Negro churches or for Negro education, and eventually oudawed them. Yet Negroes preached, prayed, read, and wrote. The laws of Virginia, in short, prescribed a more absolute and rigorous chattel slavery than ever...