| On a late September day in 1837, shortly after sunset, a
group of six slaves marched into the small Cuban village of
Güira de Melena, beating African drums and singing loudly. Alarmed,
villagers rushed into the streets with machetes, sabers, and
spears, ready to take action against the disobedient slaves.
This makeshift parade, however, never evolved into the violent
rebellion the villagers expected. Though the slaves who lived
on Cuban coffee and sugar plantations sometimes defied their
captors by orchestrating fierce uprisings and committing murder
and suicide, they also resisted in less overt ways—by running
away, feigning sickness, breaking tools, and by maintaining
their own cultures. In Seeds of Insurrection, Manuel
Barcia examines many largely overlooked ways in which African
and Creole slaves in Cuba defied domination in the first half
of the nineteenth century.
Ethnic and geographic origins, as well as slaves' personal
experiences, affected their resistance to bondage. Dividing
resistance into two broad types—violent and nonviolent—Barcia
examines when and why the slaves chose certain forms. Creole
slaves grew up in Cuba, for example, so they learned both
the language of their ancestors and Spanish, and they came
to understand their Spanish masters as few African-born slaves
ever could. Consequently, they cleverly used the few rights
colonial laws offered them to their advantage. African-born
slaves, by contrast, carried with them their memories from
home, their religious beliefs, jokes, and songs, and they
dealt with enslavement by incorporating this cultural heritage
into their everyday activities. Barcia demonstrates the ways
in which the slaves made use of the privacy of their huts
and barracks and the lack of surveillance in the fields to
voice their ideas and opinions—through song, religion, gossip,
folktales, and jokes—within an acceptable degree of safety.
Relying primarily on transcripts of local and central court
proceedings involving slaves, free people of color, slave
owners, and witnesses, Barcia reveals the slaves' view of
their world. He also explores the forms of domination practiced
by colonial authorities, plantation masters, and overseers,
gleaning insight from innovative sources, including medical
reports and diaries of rancheadores, as well as public
and private correspondence, newspapers, and the contributions
of contemporary scholars.
In Seeds of Insurrection, Barcia expands the definition
of resistance and adds an invaluable dimension to the understanding
of slavery in the Americas.
Manuel Barcia is a lecturer in Latin American Studies
at the University of Leeds. He is the author of Con el
látigo de la ira: Legislacion, represion, y control en las
plantaciones cubanas. |
