Afro-Cuban Costumbrismo: From Plantations to the Slums

3. Urban Slaves and Freed Blacks: Black Women’s Objectification and Erotic Taboos

3 Urban Slaves and Freed Blacks Black Women’s Objectification and Erotic Taboos Cuban multidisciplinary texts documented in detail Blacks’ ordinary activities , making it possible to picture their changing status throughout colonial society. One of the earliest sources of Cuban slaves’ public activities is the Actas capitulares del Ayuntamiento de La Habana [Chapter minutes of the city council of Havana] at the City Hall of the city of Saint Christopher of Havana on the island Fernandina (the name of Cuba given by Christopher Columbus ) meetings. The Minutes are available in two volumes from 1550–1565 and 1566–1574 (Roig de Leuchsenring). Most of these records were of city ordinances or regulations imposed on slaves or freed Blacks. They covered the types of manual work allowed in public and private spaces as well as living arrangements, including restrictions on their location and on materials that freed Blacks could use. There were limits on their participation in public activities, and certain types of clothing were banned. There are also glimpses of the impact of Blacks on daily life in Havana. These prohibitions revealed the Blacks’ tenacity in re-creating regional African customs or in developing so-called Black Creole products. The meetings at the Havana City Hall fully addressed customs of slaves, and eventually they documented the presence of freed Blacks, known as horros, and the activities associated with their socioeconomic positions, first as enslaved individuals and later as freed Blacks in a highly structured ethnic society. In spite of the highly regulated lives imposed upon slaves and freed Blacks, they managed to preserve their popular customs (against restrictive monitoring of their activities), which were often viewed as illegal. Of much interest to literary critics are the images of emerging Black urban “types,” who became popular characters in the Costumbrista literature of the nineteenth century. The most common entry in the City of Havana’s Minutes is Black street ven- 88 · Afro-Cuban Costumbrismo: From Plantations to the Slums dors, who were either slaves or freed Blacks. The city closely regulated the kinds of merchandise they were allowed to sell and the prices of their goods. They dealt with specified goods, such as root vegetables and other vegetables, fruits, casaba bread, eggs, and poultry, to be sold at fixed prices and in certain locations within the city limits. This commerce gave rise to a booming Black social class, and from it came a literary character, the pregonero, or street vendor, whose selling style and advertising methods of yelling about his or her goods (as a pregón, or screamer) became a subject of Costumbrista literature. Violations by Black vendors were common entries in the City of Havana’s Minutes. One violation was the establishment of illegal taverns and other places of entertainment, which often included sleeping quarters, a coded reference to a house of ill repute. For example, on August 21, 1570, there was a hearing against Margarita Hernández, a Galician woman, who had been accused of selling wine to Blacks from her house turned into a tavern. Black freed women were by law forbidden to “sell wine in a public tavern since it is gravely damaging to a republic , because after getting drunk many Blacks would get killed” (I:286). White and Black men frequented taverns, which were one source of African -based music within an establishment that was often described in negative terms: “in the said house [ . . . ] there occurs much immodest and roguish behavior ” (II:201). The constant references to Blacks in attendance and the veiled references to the kinds of activities that took place would also be reflected in nineteenth-century Costumbrista literature. Another common theme in the Minutes was the City Hall’s handling of lands used by freed Blacks. The creation of areas specifically for the construction of houses for freed Blacks came about as the result of formal requests from freed Blacks. Granting such petitions, as stated in one case, seemed to have been in recognition of extraordinarily good habits. Permission to build permanent dwellings contrasted with the negative portraits mentioned previously. The freed Black asking for land to build a dwelling appeared named, often with first and last names, and there was a positive reason stated for his or her request. There seems to have been a concerted effort to restrict areas specifically geared to incorporate land under petition by freed Blacks. There were many requests by Blacks to inhabit lots next to properties owned by other freed Blacks. The rejection of land petitions...