Cuba collection, circa 1748, 1798, 1808, 1817, 1823-1824, 1829, 1830-1899 (majority within 1845-1858, 1865-1883)

Summary

Creator:

William L. Clements Library

Abstract:

The Cuba collection contains around 91 individual manuscripts (mostly documents) related to the economic, racial, and political history of Cuba largely from the early to the late 19th century. The collection primarily focuses on the indentured servitude of Chinese workers, as well as Cuba's enslavement, trade, and manumission of largely African people. Another subset of the materials relates to 19th century insurrections and filibusters on the Island, including the López Expedition and Cuban resistance pertinent to the Ten Years' War.

Extent:

0.25 linear feet

Language:

Spanish
Chinese
English

Authors:

Collection processed and finding aid created by Vincent Longo

Background

Scope and Content:

The Cuba collection contains around 91 individual manuscripts (mostly documents) related to the economic, racial, and political history of Cuba largely from the early to the late 19th century. The collection primarily focuses on the indentured servitude of Chinese workers, as well as Cuba's enslavement, slave trading, and manumission of largely African people. Another subset of the materials relates to 19th century insurrections and filibusters on the Island, including the López Expedition and Cuban resistance pertinent to the Ten Years' War. The collection includes correspondence, documents, business records, citizenship certificates, death records, and contracts. The bulk of the materials were created in or relate to activities or people in Havana. Others relate to Santiago de Cuba.

Please see the box and folder listing below for details about each item in the collection.

Biographical / Historical:

Cuba is the largest island and country in the West Indies. The island was originally inhabited by several indigenous communities, including the Taínos, Ciboneys, and Guanahatabeyes. In 1492, Christopher Columbus claimed Cuba for Spain, beginning a more than four hundred year history of colonialism on the island that largely displaced and eradicated these groups. Over time, Cuba became the Spanish Empire's greatest source of sugar. To supplement and replace the shrinking supply of enslaved indigenous laborers forced to cultivate, plant, and harvest sugar cane, Spaniard plantation owners imported African slaves. Slave trading intensified during the 18th and 19th century, bringing as many 800,000 Black people mostly from Africa's West Coast, including Senegal, Guinea, and Congo, among others.

With the disruption of the transatlantic slave trade during the early 1800s, Cuba and its plantation owners established a new strategy to bolster its exploited labor force. Beginning in 1847, Hispano-Cuban landowners began importing indentured (largely Cantonese) Chinese laborers. Between 1847 and 1874, more than 100,000 thousand Chinese workers, mostly men, signed standardized eight-year contracts, which traded their labor in fields and factories alongside slaves for their voyage, minimal salaries, provisions, and board. Most of these Chinese-Cuban workers experienced harsh living conditions and rampant racism. By 1899, almost ninety percent of them left Cuba for the United States, elsewhere in Latin America, or returned to China. However, this was financially difficult to achieve, and so many of these workers were left with no option but to extend their servitude contracts until they could afford it.

During its reign, Spain successfully mitigated several challenges to its rule by both domestic and foreign opposition seeking the country's independence. Some in the United States, especially those in southern slave states interested in expanding American slavery, sought to "free" Cuba (largely to create an opportunity for it to join the United States' increasing the number of slave States). Such was a mission of the so-called López Expeditions. Between 1849 and 1851, Narciso López led a series of filibuster campaigns to Cuba with hundreds (at most six hundred) voluntary troops. López and his men did not always reach Cuba during the initial campaigns and when they did, captured only a single town. The filibusters met with polarized support from officials of the United States government. Despite, President Zachery Taylor taking measures to block the first expedition, López gained support in the South, most notably from John Quitman, the governor of Mississippi. López and his supporters were eventually indicted by a federal grand jury. Though they were not convicted, the charges squelched the fever over the campaigns from their most supportive Southerners. In 1851, López once again enlisted hundreds of troops and embarked on what would be their final expedition. López anticipated that sympathetic local Cubans would bolster his cause, but support did not manifest. Hispano-Cuban forces captured López and his teams, and executed most of its leaders. Spanish leaders imprisoned other lower-ranking troops, shipping many of them to Spain to undertake penal labor.

A more serious and long lasting challenge to the Spanish rule of Cuba came in 1868. With the support of other landowners, farmers, and laborers, Carlos Manuel de Céspedes issued the Grito de Yara decree declaring Cuban revolution and the manumission of slavery on the Island. Others, especially wealthy sugar producers who owned the vast majority of slaves, did not join the revolt, criticizing the plan either for its call to end slavery or Céspedes's desire for Cuba to join the United States. To mitigate the revolution, Spain issued the Pact of Zanjón in 1878, promising political and economic reform on the island. The Pact ended the war, but colonial rule remained controversial and Spain failed to enact most of its promises.

Spain did fulfill some of the revolutionaries' goals. The Spanish Cortes (i.e. parliament) passed a manumission law for Cuba in 1880. Instead of immediately abolishing slavery on the island, though, the law enacted a gradual plan that essentially preserved the systems of slavery, but combined it with the stipulations of indentured servitude imposed on Chinese workers. Formerly enslaved persons received total freedom only after an additional eight years of work. In exchange, they received basic rights and minimal goods, housing, salaries, and the "mentorship" of a "sponsor," who oversaw and benefitted from their exploited labor.

Other uprisings and conflicts would follow, with Cuba finally gaining its independence in 1898 after the Empire's loss in the Spanish-American War to Cuban and American forces. The flag that López designed and had his troops carry was later adopted as the national flag of Cuba.

Acquisition Information:

1980, 1992, 2021, 2022, 2023. M-1898, M-2896.2 M-7318, M-7330, M-7359.1, M-7359.2, M-7359.3, M-7359.4, M-7368.1, M-7368.2, M-7385.1, M-7385.2, M-7385.3, M-7385.4, M-7385.5, M-7386.1, M-7386.2, M-7392., M-7397.1, M-7397.2, M-7411, M-7418, M-7443, M-7444, M-7491.3, M-7603, M-7679, M-7685.1, M-7686, M-7702.8, M-7702.9, M-7712, M-7824.1, M-7824.2, M-7942.4, M-7948.2, M-8067.8, M-8126.1, M-8126.2, M-8126.3, M-8126.4, M-8126.5, M-8126.6, M-8126.7, M-8126.8 .

Arrangement:

The collection is arranged chronologically.

Rules or Conventions:

Finding aid prepared using Describing Archives: A Content Standard (DACS)

Related

Additional Descriptive Data:

Bibliography

Finch, Aisha K. Rethinking Slave Rebellion in Cuba: La Escalera and the Insurgencies of 1841-1844. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2015.

Knight, Franklin W. "Cuba." Encyclopædia Britannica Online Academic Edition. Encyclopædia Britannica, 2011.

Knight, Franklin W. Slave Society in Cuba during the Nineteenth Century. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1970.

Lewis, Clayton. "Taking Havana" in The Quarto, no. 36. Ann Arbor, Mich.: William L. Clements Library, 2011: 3-5.

López, Kathleen. Chinese Cubans: A Transnational History. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2013.

Scott, Rebecca J. "Reclaiming Gregoria's Mule: The Meanings of Freedom in Arimao and Caunao Valleys, Cienfuegos, Cuba, 1880-1899" in Past & Present, no. 170. Oxford, Eng.: Oxford University Press, 2001: 181-216.

Scott, Rebecca J. Degrees of Freedom: Louisiana and Cuba after Slavery. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2005.

Subjects

Click on terms below to find any related finding aids on this site.

Subjects:

Child slaves--Cuba.
Foreign workers, Chinese--Cuba--History.
Indentured servants--Cuba--History.
Slave labor--Cuba--History--19th century.
Slave records--Cuba.
Slave trade--Cuba--History--19th century.
Slavery--Cuba--History--19th century.

Formats:

Bills of lading.
Biographies.
Birth records.
Business records.
Circular letters.
Citizenship certificates.
Contracts.
Death certificates.
Death records.
Documents (manuscripts)
Free papers.
Free papers.
Identity cards.
Letter books.
Letters (correspondence)
Manifests (shipping records)
Minute books.
Passports.
Vital records (document genre)

Names:

Central Republican Committee of Cuba and Puerto Rico (Saratoga, N.Y.)
China. Consulado General Imperial de China (Havana, Cuba)
Compañia General Cubana para el Seguro Mútuo de los Valores de los Esclaves.
Hospital General de San Felipe y Santiago de la Habana.
Aldama, Miguel de.
Cisneros, Francisco Javier, 1836-1898.
Monte, Leonardo del.
Polhamus, J. Nelson.
O'Donnell y Joris, Leopoldo, 1809-1867.
Paula, Francisco de.
Scott, Samuel S.
Thrasher, J. S. (John Sidney), 1817-1879.
Yuan, Lim Liang.

Places:

China--Emigration and immigration.
Cuba--Civilization--American influences.
Cuba--Civilization--Chinese influences.
Cuba--Civilization--Spanish influences.
Cuba--Emigration and Immigration.
Cuba--History--1810-1899.
Cuba--History--Insurrection, 1849-1851.
Cuba--History--Insurrection, 1868-1878.
Cuba--Politics and Government–1810-1899.
Cuba--Politics and government--1868-1878.
Cuba--Race relations--History--19th century.