The Sun of Jesús del Monte

A Cuban Antislavery Novel

Andrés Avelino de Orihuela, David Luis-Brown

• Publisher: University of Virginia Press
• Year: 2022
• Print ISBN: 9780813946207
• eBook ISBN: 9780813946221
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Latin American & Caribbean Literary Criticism
• Index: Literature

Translated into English for the first time, Andrés Avelino de Orihuela's El Sol de Jesús del Monte is a landmark Cuban antislavery novel. Published originally in 1852, the same year as Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin (which Orihuela had translated into Spanish), it provides an uncompromising critique of discourses of white superiority and an endorsement of equality for free people of color. Despite its historical and literary value, The Sun of Jesús del Monte is a long-neglected text, languishing for 150 years until its republication in 2008 in the original Spanish.

The Sun of Jesús del Monte is the only Cuban novel of its time to focus on La Escalera, or the Ladder Rebellion, a major anticolonial and slave insurrection of nineteenth-century Cuba that shook the world's wealthiest colony in 1843–44. It is also the only Cuban novel of its time to take direct aim at white privilege and unsparingly denounce the oppression of free people of color that intensified after the insurrection. This new critical edition—featuring an invaluable, contextualizing introduction and afterword in addition to the new English translation—offers readers the most detailed portrait of the everyday lives and plight of free people of color in Cuba in any novel up to the 1850s.

Writing the Early Americas

The Sun of Jesús del Monte

A Novel of Cuban Customs

Señor D. Victor Balaguer1

Dear friend: your arrival in Paris, the capital of the civilized world, was such a lovely surprise. Here we happily embraced each other once again, remembering the good times we had in your beautiful city, Barcelona. I doubt that we will be able to see each other again under similar circumstances, especially now, since I have no intention of returning to Spain and since you have gone from poet to politician [positivista] and are bound to your country by the sweetest ties of a new family. To the contrary, in keeping with my firm resolution to study men and the world, and continuing the nomadic life as a traveler that I began in 1846, it is certain that every day we will move further apart: as a true cosmopolite, with the world my country, every friend my brother, and all of humanity my family, I have resolved to relish the most complete independence in all its plenitude.2 For that reason, I don’t expect to settle in another country unless I happen to die there.3 That’s why once I discovered that you were preparing to return so soon to your country, I felt truly sorry, because I firmly believe that we won’t see each other again. I will renounce the manifold pleasures of Paris, leaving it to satisfy my restless spirit with the new sensations of traveling to the Orient, losing myself in its immense ruins, with so many graves of lost cities and past generations. Since it would not be strange if you never heard from me again, in writing the novel El Sol de Jesús del Monte, some of whose episodes are closely related to my own life, I would like to offer you a token of my appreciation by dedicating it to you.

Goodbye, your good friend, Orihuela.

Paris, August 2, 18524

1 “D.” stands for Don. As Jane Landers has observed, the honorific Don was typically reserved for white men. Landers, Atlantic Creoles, 140. For biographical information on Víctor Balaguer (1824–1901), the Catalan novelist, politician, and historian, see the introduction.

2 This sounds strikingly similar to the masthead for William Lloyd Garrison’s Liberator, which read beginning in its very first edition on January 1, 1831, “Our country is the world—our countrymen are mankind.”

3 I am grateful to one of the readers of this manuscript for this translation.

4 For the sake of comparison, Orihuela dates the preface to his translation of La cabaña del tío Tom, the “Carta del traductor a Ms. Harriet Beecher Stowe, después de haber leido su novela,” 12 October 1852. Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin, one of Orihuela’s inspirations for writing El Sol but in no way a blueprint for it, appeared in weekly installments in the National Era, of Washington, DC, from June 1851 to April 1852. It was published in book form in 1852. Cavendish, “Publication,” n.p.

1

Mother and Daughter

Only a short distance from Havana, on Jesús del Monte Road near the corner of Teja, there was in 1844 a single-story house with a long portico flanked by a wooden railing, whose jerry-rigged and uneven structure suggested that if the architect had been more sensible, he would not have been satisfied with his work. Entering the gallery of the portico, one found on the right side a barred window that extended from the top of the wall to within a foot of the ground, so that through the curtain the living room received a considerable amount of light, and on the left there was a large entryway. Beyond the humbly appointed living room there was a small alcove and another bedroom that led into a large, square patio, which allowed access to rooms for the domestic servants.

Three people lived in this house: a woman of about fifty, bitter, inconsiderate, and very vulgar in her manners; her young daughter, aged thirty, who was the flip side of the coin, since her remarkable beauty, her elegance and good manners, her courteous actions, and her friendliness and sweetness all combined in such a way that it was not possible to meet her without loving her; and a black slave of about forty, dedicated to the chores of the house.1 On the island of Cuba, where the events we are about to narrate took place, there exists the custom of changing most baptismal names for special nicknames that typically correspond to those given names: you will not find a Sebastián who is not also called Chano, nor a José de Jesús who is not also named Chuchu, nor a Dolores who is not also known as Lolita, nor a Soledad who is not also called Solita. This is so obligatory for proper etiquette in that society that if one commits the indiscretion of calling Dolores, Dolores and Micaela, Micaela she will of course take it as a terrible insult, and the poor purist will expose himself as rude and insolent. It is only acceptable to call black slaves by their given names because even the class of free people of color follow the custom of the whites.2 For that reason, in the family that we are describing the señora, called María de Jesús, was known despite her fifty Christmases as Chuchita by her friends and niña Chuchita by the slaves and even free people of color; the young Gertrudis as Tulita; and the slave Dolores as Dolores.

“Are you going to stop sewing so early, Tulita?” the mother asked her child, observing that she had drawn back the window curtain and sat down to eagerly watch the passersby.

“Mamá, it’s already past five o’clock. You are probably tired as well.”

The thoughtful pose Tulita had just adopted, resting her face on her left hand and betraying uncertainty in her expression [fisonomía], made such an impact on the soul of her mother that acting either out of a spontaneous impulse of her heart or out of her natural hypocrisy, she hid the anger she had felt when her daughter set down her needle so early and without replying stood up and planted a kiss on her daughter’s forehead.

“Which dress do you plan to wear to María Ignacia Menocal’s dance?”

“Whichever one you want, mamá.”

“The pink one perfectly becomes you.”

“Certainly, but now in Horcón everyone has seen me wear that dress.”

“What else do you expect? Are we by chance so rich that you can wear a new dress to every dance? And not even the daughters of the captain, who are so wealthy, act like you. Our only living comes from our sewing needles, whereas they live off the fines their father charges, along with his briefs, licenses, and other various sources of income in his profession.”

“On that night, if you like, I will wear the white dress with pink trim.”

“As you wish, just so there is no need to head to the stores in search of some new trifle.”

“No, mamá: everything is set.”

“I warn you that we will not stay there past midnight. I don’t want a repeat of what happened last Sunday, when we returned home at two in the morning and, worse still, on the way home we got caught in a downpour.”

“Agreed, mamá. Would you like to call Dolores and ask her to bring us coffee?”

“Aren’t we waiting for Don Valentin?”

“What a fool,” murmured Tulita under her breath so that her mother could not hear her. “I would like to drink my coffee now,” she continued out loud, “and I have not yet smoked my cigarette. Since you have already finished yours, you can easily wait for him.”

“You always deny the slightest courtesy to Don Valentin. You know how eager he is to drink coffee with us, and you haven’t joined him even once.”

“I do it without thinking about it—and what does it matter? Hasn’t he besieged us with his cigarettes, beer, and liquor when he has accompanied us to dances?”

“Well and good, but appearances [la política] require us to be friendly to our guests. And above all, it is an obvious snub to not wait for him before drinking your coffee.”

“Please, mamá, allow me to tell you this: you shouldn’t give such importance to a nobody like him who doesn’t deserve it. Dolores! Dolores!”

A moment later the humble and despondent figure of a black woman presented herself in the living room.

“What does su mercé wish?”3

“Serve me coffee.”

“Just a moment, niña Tulita.” And the black woman quickly returned to the kitchen.

“Where have you placed the novel The Count of Monte-Cristo? I would like to continue reading while we wait for Don Valentín,” said Chuchita, searching for her reading glasses in one of the pockets of her dress.

“On top of the side table,” replied Tulita without looking away from the stretch of sidewalk that she could see from her window.

“The noise from the street is intolerable,” said the mother, walking to the interior bedroom in search of the novel. “I’m going to enjoy the breezes on the patio and entertain myself for a while with the brilliance of Alejandro Dumas.4 Would you like to come?”

“No, mamá. I have not read the literary supplement included in today’s Prensa and would like to see what it tells us.”

“It will always contain some foolishness by Riesgo.5 In all my years I’ve never seen a more inane chronicler of fashion—he is a writer who merits a plow rather than a pen. Tell me when Don Valentin comes.”

Already wearing her eyeglasses, Chuchita walked into the bedroom, and since she didn’t notice Dolores, who just at that moment was entering the living room by the same door, she bumped into the tray of coffee that Dolores was holding. The slave took care not to spill one drop on the tray, but before she could avoid it, some of the coffee spilled onto Chuchita’s dress.

“Jesus, what an idiot!” Chuchita exclaimed angrily.

“What’s wrong?” asked Tulita, who had not noticed anything since she had not taken her eyes off the street.

“That clumsy bitch spilled coffee on me.” And Chuchita slapped the black woman.

“I’m sorry, señora, I was taking care to not spill any . . .”6

“Shut up, you shameless woman, unless you want me to send you to get a boca-abajo.7 I can’t stand that woman because she is so insolent. Damn you [maldita sea tu estampa]!”

“Mamá don’t get worked up—it was an accident.”

“An accident! That little bitch doesn’t have eyes in her head.” Saying this, Chuchita pinched Dolores on the arm and then went to her bedroom to change her dress.

“Now you see, niña,” said the poor black woman to Tulita, “the señora always mistreats me even though it’s not my fault.” Two large tears rolled down her cheeks.

“You know she has a bad temper; never talk back to her. And . . . come on, give me some coffee. That’s enough.”

Once Tulita finished drinking her coffee, Dolores returned to her kitchen chores. Perhaps the slave meditated on the sad state of her condition in life, but she felt consoled by the observations of he...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• Textual Essay
• Note on the Translation
• The Sun of Jesús del Monte
• Afterword
• Notes
• Bibliography