Race to Revolution
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Race to Revolution

The U. S. and Cuba during Slavery and Jim Crow

Gerald Horne

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Race to Revolution

The U. S. and Cuba during Slavery and Jim Crow

Gerald Horne

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The histories of Cuba and the United States are tightly intertwinedand have been for at least two centuries. In Race to Revolution,historian Gerald Horne examines a critical relationship betweenthe two countries by tracing out the typically overlooked interconnectionsamong slavery, Jim Crow, and revolution. Slavery wascentral to the economic and political trajectories of Cuba and theUnited States, both in terms of each nation’s internal political andeconomic development and in the interactions between the smallCaribbean island and the Colossus of the North. Horne draws a direct link between the black experiences in twovery different countries and follows that connection throughchanging periods of resistance and revolutionary upheaval. BlackCubans were crucial to Cuba’s initial independence, and the relativefreedom they achieved helped bring down Jim Crow in theUnited States, reinforcing radical politics within the black communitiesof both nations. This in turn helped to create the conditionsthat gave rise to the Cuban Revolution which, on New Years’ Dayin 1959, shook the United States to its core. Based on extensive research in Havana, Madrid, London, andthroughout the U.S., Race to Revolution delves deep into thehistorical record, bringing to life the experiences of slaves andslave traders, abolitionists and sailors, politicians and poor farmers.It illuminates the complex web of interaction and infl uencethat shaped the lives of many generations as they struggled overquestions of race, property, and political power in both Cuba andthe United States.

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CHAPTER 1

Spanish Florida Falls, Cuba Next?

THERE WAS A CRY AMONG THE PEOPLE. “The Spanish Negroes; the Spanish Negroes; take up the Spanish Negroes.”1
This was the anguished response in Manhattan in 1741 when one of the more significant uprisings among the enslaved erupted—and Africans from Cuba, who were in and out of this rapidly growing port town regularly, were blamed. This created numerous complications.2 This finger-pointing was an aspect of the larger competition between London and Madrid for hegemony in the hemisphere and a reflection of the fact that Spain stole a march on its competitor by militarizing Africans more consistently. Africans were a ubiquitous and pivotal part of the Spanish conquest, virtually from its inception.3 The same was not so for the colonists who were to form the United States. Thus a similar outcry erupted earlier—in 1739—when yet another revolt of the enslaved unfolded in South Carolina and, again, Africans from St. Augustine and Havana were fingered as the instigators.4 The point is that British colonists and their successors on the mainland came to see Cuba and its differing approach to Africans as a threat to their projects. This conflict was embodied notably in the relatively larger free Negro population on the island, which not only carried arms but whose presence on vessels from Cuba to the mainland also became an irritant between the two rising powers.5
Ultimately, the conflict between London and Madrid led to the redcoats seizing Havana in 1762,6 a tenure that lasted for months and was in many ways a turning point: it did not sufficiently intimidate the Spaniards, encouraging them to ally with mainland rebels in ousting London from a good deal of North America, creating the United States, and this brief occupation also led to a spurt in the African slave trade to Cuba,7 which became a preoccupation for mainlanders for decades to come, utilizing Havana as a base of operations.8 Eventually a bludgeoned Spain was able to wrest back Cuba but in 1763 had to relinquish Florida after centuries of rule. In a telling coda, Africans fled en masse to Havana,9 well aware that the model of development emerging on the mainland gave pride of place to a kind of racist despotism targeting Africans particularly.
Still, the compelled marriage between Spaniards and self-styled North American “patriots” was a poisoned chalice for the latter—to a degree—since as more of the mainland came under control of London’s opponents, His Catholic Majesty dispatched to his realm more armed Africans from Cuba. Thus in 1769 as Louisiana came under Spanish control, of the 1,847 troops and 240 militia dispatched there, at least 160 of the latter were of African ancestry, hailing from Havana.10
Spain aided immeasurably in the creation of the United States in pursuit of its long-standing animus toward London,11 but as evidenced by the fact that California, Texas. and Florida, three of the largest states in the republic today, (and numerous territories), were once under Madrid’s rule, it is questionable if this was a wise investment. Shortly after the formal creation of the republic, the prominent U.S. politician Oliver Wolcott, Jr. . already was eyeing Cuba hungrily—though strikingly, U.S. emissaries seemed to be unnerved by the sight of armed Africans guarding Havana. At the same time, it was felt on the mainland that Cuba could absorb many more enslaved Africans than those already enchained, and the republicans were well positioned to make sure this happened.12
Shortly thereafter, the republicans were the major force in the slave trade to Cuba,13 a process facilitated by Spain’s decision in 1774 to rescind all duties on Cuban imports, followed in the next decade by the decision to initiate free trade in enslaved Africans, a virtual invitation for intensified mainland influence.14 In some ways, Havana was a waystation before enslaved Africans were deposited on the mainland.15 Spaniards in Louisiana smoothed the way for this development, since by the 1790s it seemed that New Orleans and Havana were sister cities, particularly in terms of the slave trade. After the unsettling Point Coupee uprising of the enslaved in 1790s Louisiana, numerous Africans were exiled to Cuba, though forwarding rebels to the island was not necessarily in the long-term interests of slavery there.16 Yet this was part of a continuing trend for in the late eighteenth century an increasing number of the enslaved arriving in Havana had departed from Charleston, Baltimore, and the mainland17 and vice versa, as by 1796 the enslaved arriving in Louisiana were departing increasingly from Cuba.18
This flux was driven in part by the slave insurrection that came to be denoted as the Haitian Revolution. Yet it was not as if these arriving Frenchmen fleeing this island of unrest were being greeted with warm abrazos, for the leading Havana official—the Captain General—warned as early as 1796 that precautions should be taken to screen these exiles and in particular free persons of color.19
Despite the alliance with Spain that led directly to the birth of the new republic and as evidenced by the early interest displayed by Oliver Wolcott, Jr., relations between the two nations were not a model of concord. John Adams was not singular in reasoning that if Cuba or Puerto Rico became independent, Africans would dominate the emerging governments and might try to turn the islands into havens for runaway slaves; therefore the republic tended to take a more forthcoming stance toward many Latin American nations that could be encouraged to gain independence (thereby eroding Madrid’s influence), as opposed to the Caribbean.20
Because capital was so heavily invested in enslaved Africans, the republic was quite sensitive about the matter of slave flight to Florida, leading to a carefully negotiated treaty that hardly resolved the matter.21 With Florida reverting to Spain by 1783,22 Africans once more began departing the Carolinas and Georgia in droves, heading southward,23 adding to an already complicated relationship. Spain had its own problems with Africans,24 but they paled in comparison to those of the Anglo-Americans: Jamaica was an analogue to the Carolinas in that Africans from there also sought to flee to Cuba.25
William Carmichael—the republic’s emissary in Madrid, whose authorization was signed by both George Washington and Thomas Jefferson26—sought to focus Spain instead on the “machinations of the common enemies” of the two,27 so as to distract attention away from issues of contention. Adroitly, Carmichael, to foil a Spain that could make life even more difficult for the republic, maneuvered to steer Madrid away from aligning with militant mainland indigenes, an alignment that was inimical to the health of the toddling republic. He sought to influence Madrid to intensify its own conflict with indigenes in “Spanish colonies,” for example, Texas and Florida, and denied that his nation was “exciting the Chickasaws to war on the Creeks.” Strikingly, he appealed to Spain as a fellow “white nation” and sought to stress their common hostility toward indigenes.28 This was even more ironic, given that arriving U.S. nationals would be questioning the racial integrity of Spaniards in Cuba particularly, which provided a rationale for ousting Madrid altogether. And, in any case, conflict between the two powers was not abated easily.29
Spain had leverage over the republic, particularly control of the Mississippi River, and Carmichael charged repeatedly that Madrid was “exciting among the Indian tribes animosity” toward his nation, “furnishing” them with “arms & ammunition.”30 Naturally, this only encouraged the republic to more aggressively seek to seize Louisiana, Florida, and Cuba. But as evidenced by his emphasis on who was “white,” the republic had a trump card in confronting Spain, for it was not long before Baron de Carondelet, Spain’s chief representative on the mainland, was complaining about an influx onto lands he ostensibly controlled of “many refugees” from various parts of Europe who could more easily fit in the republic’s expansive “whiteness” than as Spanish subjects (particularly if they were not Catholic).31
The republic thought that Cuban authorities handled its diplomats much too roughly and that Spain in collaboration with North Africans detained its seafarers to the point of bondage.32 Nonetheless, with the complexity that inexorably enveloped two nations—one rising, the other headed toward decline—Spain found that the danger presented by mainland republicans may not have been its most severe challenge. As unrest began to rock Hispaniola, it became evident that this contagion could spread to neighboring Cuba—then, perhaps, the republic itself.33 That Cuba—not least due to the ministrations of republicans—continued to bring in massive cargoes of humans34 only underscored this concern, as it hampered the ability of Havana to focus its external energy on its neighbor to the north.
When finally the republic obtained Louisiana in 1803, it included what well could have been considered a poisoned pill: Days after taking control the new governor expressed mordant concern about the presence of “two Negro companies contained in the Spanish militia”; though he knew there was a “scarcity of troops,” this was no tiny issue given the fearsome presence of indigenes in the vicinity. New Orleans resembled Havana, it was said, in that “all free Negroes and persons of color in the territory” were “suspect because of their seeming attachment to the comparatively liberal laws of their former motherland.”35 When Madrid’s men exhibited reluctance in returning Negro fugitives from Louisiana who had fled to Texas, the republic’s worst fears materialized.36 Spain made it plain that their colonies had little interest in returning Negro fugitives to the republic, emphasizing that since 1789 they had made this firm decision, particularly since their enslaved population in this vicinity was so much smaller than the republic’s, a treaty based on equality of return would disadvantage Madrid. Besides, this was leverage against a growing rival, a strategic consideration given the republic’s desire for Cuba.37 Moreover, the republicans had taken enslavement of Africans as the paragon of development to such a heightened level that Spain began to cast a jaundiced eye on republicans arriving in their colonies with bonded laborers,38 sensing that such an influx was just a prelude to a republican takeover.
The presence of these African militias in New Orleans may have been even more worrisome because Hispaniola was in the process of undergoing a revolutionary transformation that was to change the calculus—forever—on slavery. Coincidentally, in 1791 as what came to be called the Haitian Revolution was ignited, officials in Santiago de Cuba were busily soliciting troops to smother a similar uprising of the enslaved.39 Apparently, uprising...

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