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

Notes

Notes Introduction 1. Aurora, 29 June 1844, Archivo Nacional de Cuba, Havana, Asuntos Políticos (hereafter ANC-AP), Leg. 42, Exp. 5, p. 5. 2. I use the following terms to refer to the greater free African-descended population in nineteenth-century Cuba: “of color,” “of African descent,” and libres de color. The terms “free” and libres are used interchangeably to indicate individuals or groups who are not legally slaves. During the nineteenth century, individuals were denoted in the records I examined for this study as pardo, parda, mulata, and mulato, referring to persons who physically appeared to have partial African ancestry, typically a mixture of African and European heritage. Similarly, the terms moreno, morena, and “black” refer to persons recorded as appearing to be of full African ancestry or dark in complexion. I also use the term “free blacks” to reference the broader population of African descent, on the island or in the diaspora, or to reference issues involving colonial race relations. I use the terms “white,” “Spanish,” and “creole” (or criollo) when referring to individuals and groups recorded or recognized as European or having European parentage in Cuba. 3. Leopoldo O’Donnell to Secretario de Estado y del Despacho de la Gobernación de Ultramar, Havana, 30 March 1844, Archivo Histórico Nacional, Madrid, Ultramar, Gobierno, Cuba (hereafter AHN-UGC), Leg. 4620, Exp. 33, folio 1. 4. José Moreno to Ministro de Gracia y Justicia, Campeche, Mexico, 26 June 1846, Archivo Nacional de Cuba, Havana, Cuba, Real Órdenes y Cédulas (hereafter ANCROC ), Leg. 159, Exp. 106. 5. Cuba, Colección de los fallos pronunciados por una sección de la Comisión militar establecida en la ciudad de Matanzas para conocer de la causa de conspiración de la gente de color (Comisión Militar Ejecutiva y Permanente, 1844). The Military Commission in Matanzas listed sentences for 1,836 individuals (67% libres de color) as following: 78 executed (48.7% libres de color), 1,165 imprisoned (52.9% libres de color), 435 banished (99.5% libres de color), 31 sentenced to workhouses and lighter 182 / notes to introduction punishments (58% libres de color); Kenneth F. Kiple, Blacks in Colonial Cuba, 1774– 1899 (Gainesville: University of Florida Press, 1976), 88–90; Spain, Superintendencia General Delegada de Real Hacienda, 1841, Informe fiscal sobre fomento de la población blanca en la isla de cuba y emancipación progresiva de la esclava con una breve reseña de las reformas y modificaciones que para conseguirlo convendría establecer en la legislaci ón y constitución coloniales . . . (Madrid, 1845), 6. The 1841 census breaks down the 1,007,624 inhabitants as follows: 152,838 (15.1%) free people of color, 436,495 (43.4%) slaves, and 418,291 (41.5%) whites. 6. Celia María Parcero Torre, La pérdida de la Habana y las reformas borbónicas en Cuba, 1760–1773 (Spain: Junta de Castilla y León, 1998); Nicholas Tracy, Manila Ransomed: The British Assault on Manila in the Seven Years War (Exeter: University of Exeter Press, 1995). 7. Jorge I. Dominguez, Insurrection or Loyalty: The Breakdown of the Spanish American Empire (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1980), 76, 79. Percentages calculated from Tables 6.1 and 6.2—approximately 20,758 black militiamen; total militia for Mexico, Cuba, and Venezuela listed as 51,897; total regular army comprised 15,129; total for all forces approximately 67,026. 8. Dominguez, Insurrection or Loyalty, 77. 9. Mónico de Flores, Francisco Abrante, Marcelino Gamarra, et al., Justo sentimiento de pardos y morenos españoles libres de la Habana (Havana: Oficina Filantrópica de Don J. M. de Oro, 1823), p. 5, Archivo Nacional de Cuba, Comisión Militar, Leg. 60, No. 2. 10. Robert L. Paquette, Sugar Is Made with Blood: The Conspiracy of La Escalera and the Conflict between Empires over Slavery in Cuba (Middleton: Wesleyan University Press, 1988), 177–179, 201–210, 214–215; Jonathan Curry Machado, “Catalysts in the Crucible: Kidnapped Caribbeans, Free Black British Subjects and Migrant British Machinists in the Failed Cuba Revolution of 1843,” in Nancy Priscilla Naro, ed., Blacks, Coloureds and National Identity in Nineteenth-Century Latin America (London : Institute of Latin American Studies, University of London, 2004), 122–124. 11. Leopoldo O’Donnell, Cuba Captain General, to Secretario del Estado y del Despacho de la Gobernación de Ultramar, Havana, 1 December 1843, Archivo General de Indias, Digital Collection, Archivo Histórico Nacional, Ultramar (hereafter AGI-AHNU), Leg. 8, Exp. 14, No. 2...