The Year of the Lash: Free People of Color in Cuba and the Nineteenth-Century Atlantic World

Conclusion

Conclusion “Every visitor to Havana notices the variety in appearance, as well as the numbers of the negro population,” noted American writer Samuel Hazard , who traveled to Cuba in late 1860s. Englishman Henry Latham not only reiterated these sentiments but offered a positive appraisal of black residents. After touring American East and Gulf Coast port cities in 1867, he observed, “The condition of the negro population in this city [of Havana] strikes one at the first glance as being better, as far as material comfort goes, than in any part of the United States. . . . The splendid apparel of some of the nurses, housekeepers, and I suppose, freed women, is quite startling. . . . These ladies of coulour are well-to-do and shining in the sun.”1 The commentary by these visitors echoed those made by travelers in the 1820s and 1830s. Free black street vendors continued to sell sweets and hawked their wares, laundresses delivered finished orders , and dock workers attended disembarking ships.2 These images, although limited in scope, nevertheless offer evidence suggesting not only that free people of color had recovered from the devastating impact of the Escalera era but also that they had made significant strides in securing avenues for economic stability, despite competition from creoles, Spanish immigrants, and Chinese who had completed their contracts. Above all, at the end of the Escalera era, libres de color persisted in making their presence felt in Cuban society by continuing to carve out spaces for autonomy, community, and freedom. As an approach to understanding this process, the Year of the Lash has detailed and analyzed the decades between 1844 and 1868 and the 174 / conclusion impact of the repression on libres de color. By exploring free blacks’ varying levels of agency in response to the Escalera era’s shifting political dynamics, this work has exposed the evolving nature of race relations, slavery, and freedom within nineteenth-century Cuba, the Americas, and the Spanish empire. An examination of the sociopolitical context in which free blacks lived during the years preceding the 1843 uprisings revealed the dual colonial conceptualization of free men and women of African descent as both essential and threatening to nineteenth-century Cuban society. In the wake of the rebellions, colonial administrators implemented prohibitive legislation and dismantled institutions and social organizations as a means to further marginalize the population of color, but officials also contradicted these measures. As dozens of foreign-born free men of color discovered, such as shoemaker José Ramón Ortega of Cartegena, bricklayer Vicente Pacheco of Caracas, and militiaman Juan Arregui of Veracruz, they could successfully protest expulsion orders on the basis of evidence of their ability as skilled artisans, property owners , or soldiers.3 Others, like midwife Pilar Poveda, managed to have occupational bans lifted.4 When authorities reinstated the militia of color in the 1850s, hundreds of potential militiamen, such as Marcelino Lamadrón and Gabriel Benítez, proved the most successful at using exemption regulations to their advantage on the basis of poor health and family hardship.5 Scrutinizing the array of free blacks whose requests for exemption from these same policies were approved sheds light on the complex, multidirectional negotiation process between free blacks and the state. These inconsistencies emphasized the range of ways in which free people of color circumvented, accommodated, or directly resisted coercive and racist practices. Situating libres de color at the center of the Escalera era has not only unearthed an important, yet previously untold, perspective on the aftermath of the alleged conspiracy but also provides a vital understanding of the lengths the Spanish colonial state went to as they reasserted control over key political and social elements in Cuba, particularly those pertaining to race, slavery, and rebellion. This study offers numerous insights into the history of nineteenthcentury Cuba, the African diaspora, and the Atlantic World, and their intersections. Moving beyond the existing historical literature on the Conspiracy of La Escalera, which has focused exclusively on verifying the subaltern authenticity or government fabrication of the conspiracy, this project reexamined key sources, such as the Military Commission records, not for proof of a plot, but rather for evidence of African diasporic agency in confronting state authoritarianism in Cuba and abroad. conclusion / 175 Piecing together shards of information from archival sources in Cuba, Spain, Mexico, and the United States produced results that radically depart from prior assumptions about both the immediate and long-term impact of the...