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

2. Spectacles of Power: Repressing the Conspiracy of La Escalera

2 / Spectacles of Power: Repressing the Conspiracy of La Escalera Being of immense goodness, Mighty God! To thou I turn in my vehement pain . . . Extend your omnipotent arm, Scratch off of calumny the odious curtain; And pull out this inominous stamp With which the world wants to stain my forehead! . . . Obstruct them, Lord, for the precious Blood shed, which guilt shields Of the sin of Adam, or for that Candid Mother, sweet and lovely, When wrapped up in sorrow, sad and crying Followed your death like a heliacal star If it suits your Suma Omnipotence that I perish in such impious wickedness, And that men insult my cold body —plácido As guards led Plácido (Gabriel de la Concepción Valdés), celebrated Cuban poet, to his death before a firing squad, he reportedly recited verses from his final work, “A Plea to God.”1 The above excerpt from the poem highlights his grief over the repression of the Escalera revolts and the suffering it caused himself and others. Official allegations and witness testimonies, which accused Plácido of leading a conspiracy, left an “inominous stamp” for all to see. Using words that could be interpreted as either a statement of innocence in the plot or as confirming his actions to abolish slavery and end colonial rule, Plácido proclaimed, “I cannot lie to you, God of clemence/ . . . see through my body and soul.” Although Plácido seemed prepared to “perish in such impious wickedness,” he also called upon God to “obstruct” the true culprits—the O’Donnell administration , planters, proslavery advocates, and Spanish loyalists—those truly at fault. The blood they shed during the Year of the Lash shields their guilt, asserted the condemned poet. His verses reportedly “thrilled upon the hearts of the attentive masses” that lined the streets. As Plácido spectacles of power / 43 moved to sit on the execution bench, he stood briefly to bid the crowd farewell with a solemn “goodbye world.” When five bullets failed to kill him, he reportedly turned to the firing squad and pointed to his heart, where two additional shots finally sealed his fate.2 Later that day, Aurora, a Matanzas-based newspaper, declared Plácido ’s death by firing squad, and nine others shot with him, an “Execution of Justice.” The article justified the public reckoning, in the form of open and deadly punishments, to suppress the slave rebellions and their disruption to social order. Moreover, the executions represented the apex of a broader spectacle of power authorities unleashed to assure metropole officials and international observers that all “evil will be stifled.”3 Spanish colonial officials in Cuba justified virtually all forms of violence and coercion as a means to root out the leaders of the Escalera revolts, suppress potential uprisings, and reassert political, social, and economic control over the colony. Cuban authorities were no strangers to rebellion or harsh retribution . Revolts throughout the Americas loomed ominously over Cuban slavery. The Haitian Revolution, Gabriel Prosser’s Virginia conspiracy, and uprisings organized among slaves of specific African ethnic and religious traditions in Cuba and Brazil were among the more than twenty insurrections that challenged slavery in colonial and republican realms during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.4 Decades of revolt in Cuba, particularly from 1812 to 1838, threatened to undermine the colony’s burgeoning plantation society. Authorities repeatedly used armed force to quell internal revolts by slaves, libres de color, and creoles. They also relied on prohibitive legislation to help prevent any recurrence of unrest. Nevertheless, uprisings persisted. The cycle of rebellion and suppression crisscrossing the Americas in the first four decades of the nineteenth century foreshadowed the brutality initiated by Cuban authorities in the final weeks of 1843. January of 1844 ushered in a repression that engulfed thousands, including slaves, free blacks, creoles, and foreigners. During the first three months of the Year of the Lash, authorities made mass arrests and tortured suspects on la escalera, the ladder, which became synonymous with the rebellions. Military Commission trials followed in April and condemned thousands to imprisonment, banishment, and death. The following month, Cuba’s Captain General Leopoldo O’Donnell implemented legislation to expel foreign-born free people of color, coerce black and mulatto natives into exile, and impose new labor restrictions on the general population of African descent. A 44 / spectacles of power summer of bloody executions ensued. The socially and politically toxic environment...