Historia mínima de las Antillas hispanas y británicas by Consuelo Naranjo Orovio (review)

This latest work by Consuelo Naranjo Orovio is in part the result of the discussions and knowledge gained from the five-volume work on the history of the Antilles published in Spain under her direction as editor in chief over the past five years. Guided by the spirit of that monumental enterprise, Historia mínima de las Antillas hispanas y británicas (A Brief History of the Hispanic and British West Indies), is an unprecedented and very successful attempt to establish a comparative analysis of the economies and societies that emerged from the shadows of the two European colonial enterprises that exercised the greatest degree of influence in shaping the early modern and contemporary history of the Caribbean.

The work is unique and particularly praiseworthy not only for its focused approach but also for being a precious exercise in brevity. The key to the enterprise’s success rests in the decision by the author, a renowned expert on Cuba, to limit her treatment of the Hispanic Antilles primarily to Hispaniola and Puerto Rico. Although the “Big Island” is inevitably and necessarily present in the background of every discussion, Naranjo Orovio’s approach is brave and commendable, as it shifts the focus of discussions away from the discourse of Cuban exceptionality to paint a more balanced and nuanced view of a varied colonial and frontier experience in the Spanish imperial enterprise, bringing to life the important and often neglected scenarios East of Havana. This allows for important moments in the book that refocus attention on the early colonial foundations in Hispaniola and Borinken (later Puerto Rico) and the War of Restoration of the Dominican Republic, as well as the Project of the Caribbean Confederation, all of which are often neglected by the emphasis on the rise of Havana as an emporium in the system of the flota, or Spanish Fleet, and a War of Cuban Independence that is so often framed exclusively as a heroic struggle for a national insular state in opposition to U.S. imperial hegemony.

The work is also a commendable attempt to redress centuries of anti-Spanish discourse and propaganda by looking instead at the ways in which both the Spanish and the British colonial experience and imperial institutions responded to local conditions, as well as broader commercial and territorial disputes among European powers. In every case, Naranjo Orovio emphasizes diversity in a context of cross-pollination between otherwise contrasting models of colonial subjugation and economic exploitation that produced different timings and variations on common themes.

The work contains five chapters, preceded by an introduction in which the author makes a strong case for the primacy of the Antillean experience, arguing that the region is a principal platform of the modern experience as well as the main mold where the American experience was forged. The first chapter traces the transition between an early Spanish concept of the Leeward Islands as being “useless” and devoid of value to the rise of major nodal points of Atlantic commerce and modern institutions in the West Indies. The second chapter deals with imperial competition for commercial dominance and the tensions of new technologies and modes of production with the political challenges brought about by the spread of revolution. It presents important information on Spanish attempts to counter the rise of British power and the permanent threat of insurrection through military reforms and changes in emigration policies to diffuse perceived socio-racial imbalances. The third chapter, which deals with population and society, is arguably a tour de force. Here, Naranjo Orovio, who is an expert on migration and exiled communities in the Antilles, paints a complex picture of Caribbean diversity within an experience of Creolization that repeats itself, with important variations, island by island. Here is the basis for understanding the complexity of the Antillean experience and being in relation to the rest of the world, which Naranjo Orovio measures against what she terms “the...