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“Sewing” Civilization: Cuban Female Education in the Context of Africanization, 1800-1860*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 December 2015

Matt D. Childs*
Affiliation:
University of Texas, Austin, Texas

Extract

At the turn of the nineteenth century, the Spanish Crown issued a Real Cédula (Royal Decree) authorizing the administration of public education in Cuba to an elite Creole group of twenty-seven large landholders known as the Sociedad Económica de Amigos del País. The Real Cédula provided for the expansion and secularization of primary education in Cuba. The Sociedad embodied the elite planter Creole class whose influence had increased in Cuba steadily during the second half of the eighteenth century with the initial development of a slave-labor plantation economy. During the nineteenth century, their power and strength grew rapidly with the proliferation of sugar cultivation, culminating in the 1840s when Cuba became the world's primary producer. The Real Cédula entrusting the Sociedad with education recognized the emergence of the Creole planter class as a major influence in Cuban society. Just as the Creoles increasingly wielded more influence economically and politically in determining the future of the island, their control over the administration of public education allowed them to articulate their vision for the cultural and intellectual development of Cuba. The promotion of public education provided an essential medium to express the Sociedad's vision of Cubanidad (Cubanness), precisely at the time when the racial composition of the population was changing dramatically through the massive importation of African slave labor.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Academy of American Franciscan History 1997

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Footnotes

*

I would like to thank my colleagues in the Gender and Social History of Latin America Seminar at the University of Texas at Austin, Elizabeth Johnson, Russell Lohse, Jason Lowery and Kim Morse, James Sidbury and the participants of the Atlantic History Works in Progress Seminar, the anonymous referees for The Americas, and most of all Sandra Lauderdale-Graham for their insightful comments and criticisms. Aline Helg offered an insightful critique and suggestions for revising the paper that could not be incorporated because of time constraints. I alone, however, am responsible for the content of the article.

References

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6 Ibid., 1, pp. 74–8.

7 Ibid.

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31 Wurderman, John G.F., Notes on Cuba (1844; reprint with an introduction by Goldwyn, Robert M., New York: Arno Press, 1971), p. 357.Google Scholar

32 Paquette, , Sugar is Made with Blood, pp. 219–23.Google Scholar

33 Paquette’s discovery of the Domingo Del Monte letters in the archive of the Massachusetts Historical Society established, according to Hall, Gwendolyn Midlo, (and I second) that there is “little basis for doubt, that the conspiracy was real, extensive, very significant, and had wide international ramifications.” Review of Sugar is Made With Blood, Journal of Southern History, 56:1 (February, 1990), 115.Google Scholar Even if scholars still doubt the validity of the conspiracy as nothing more than a product of inflated fears of slave revolts and attempts by Spain to tie Cuba to the mother country, this is of small consequence for the purpose of this article. The important point emphasized here is how the massive importation of slaves resulted in fears over the Africanization of the island. For the Cuban elite of the 1840s, whether actual or fictitious, La Escalera represented the explosive potential of the Afro-Cuban population. The fact that hundreds were killed and thousands arrested and tortured, at a great loss in personal property to slaveowners, reveals the depth of panic and terror slave revolts could cause among the white population. For a discussion of the historiography dealing with La Escalera see Paquette, , Sugar is Made with Blood, pp. 326 Google Scholar.

34 Stocke, Verena, Marriage, Class and Colour in Nineenth-Century Cuba, p. 12.Google Scholar

35 Ibid., p. 13.

36 Ibid., pp. 42–57.

37 Klein, , “Colored Militia of Cuba,” p. 25.Google Scholar

38 Noticias estadísticas de la isla de Cuba en 1862 (Havana, 1864). Quoted in Stolcke, , Marriage, Class and Colour in Nineteeth-Century Cuba, p. 57.Google Scholar

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40 Van Ness, Cornelius P. to Forsyth, John, 10 December 1836, in Diplomatic Correspondence of the United States: Inter-American Affairs, 1831–1860, Manning, William R., ed., 12 vols. (Washington: Publications of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 1932–9), 11, p. 303.Google Scholar

41 “Creole acquiescence to colonial rule was induced as much by preference for past order as by abhorrence of the prospects of future disorder....They [Creoles and Spaniards] were all united in their defense of sugar and slavery, upon which rested prosperity, property, and privilege.” Pérez, L., Cuba, pp. 101,Google Scholar 93.

42 Bachiller, y Morales, , Apuntes para la historia …, 1, p. 7 Google Scholar

43 Ibid.

44 Ibid., 1, p. 8

45 Memorias de la sociedad económica, 1794, pp. 31–44. Quoted in Schafer, , Economic Societies in the Spanish World, p. 308.Google Scholar

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47 Pérez, E., Historia de la pedagogía en Cuba, p. 52.Google Scholar

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54 “Aquel grado de cultura que adquieren los pueblos o las personas, cuando de la rudeza natural pasan al primor, elegancia y dulzura de voces, usos y costumbres propias de la gente culta. —El resultado de la aplicación practica de la razón perfeccionada, y de los nobles instintos de la humanidad, al bienestar del individuo y de las sociedades.—CIVILIZACIÓN MATERIAL: el desarrollo mas o menos progresivo de las artes y de la industria.” Fontain, Diccionario enciclopédico de la lengua española, …,1, p. 572.

55 Paquette, , Sugar is Made with Blood, p. 108.Google Scholar

56 Thomas, , Cuba, p. 199.Google Scholar

57 The Sociedad focused heavily on ameliorating this aspect of “civilization” through the promotion of cultural and intellectual activities. However, according to the caustic American traveler Julia Ward Howe in 1860, much work remained to be done. “We are dreaming of Rome,—and this is Cuba, where the spirit of art has never been….The taste of the Cubans, if judged by the European standard, is a bad taste. They love noisy music, —their architecture consults only the exigencies of the climate, and does not deserve the name of an art. Of painting they must have little knowledge, if one may judge by the vile daubs which deface their walls.” Howe, Julia Ward, A Trip to Cuba, (1860; reprint with an introduction by Wilgus, A. Curtis, New York: Praeger, 1969), p. 231.Google Scholar

58 Paquette, , Sugar is Made with Blood, p. 92.Google Scholar

59 Huber, , Aperçu statistique de l’île de Cuba, pp. 228–33;Google Scholar Sagra, , Historia econòmica, política y estadística de la isla de Cuba, pp. 310;Google Scholar Humboldt, Alexander Von, Ensayo sobre la isla de Cuba (Paris: Joules Renourard, 1827), pp. 108113;Google Scholar and War Department, Report on the Census of Cuba, 1899 , p. 710.

60 Londres, , “Educación del bello sexo,” Revista bimestre cubana (1831), 62.Google Scholar

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62 Guiteras, , “Influencia de la mujer en la sociedad Cubana,” p. 145.Google Scholar

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64 Howe, , A Trip to Cuba, p. 43.Google Scholar

65 Londres, , “Educación del bello sexo,” p. 60.Google Scholar

66 Ibid., p. 62.

67 Ibid.

68 Guiteras, , “Influencia de la mujer,” p. 146.Google Scholar

69 See Losada, Sabino, “¿El hombre y la mujer deben ser educados de la misma manera?,” pp. 21–3.Google Scholar Thomas described the Sociedad as the “favourite hispanicization of the French encyclopedists.” Cuba, p. 73.

70 Quoted in Wilkins, , “Debate over Secondary and Higher Education for Women in Nineteenth-Century France,” p. 14.Google Scholar

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72 [ Saco, José Antonio] “Notices of Brazil,” Revista bimestre cubana (1832), 185217.Google Scholar

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76 Fitchen, , “Primary Education in Colonial Cuba,” p. 107.Google Scholar

77 Pérez, L., Cuba, p. 67.Google Scholar

78 “Educación del bello sexo,” p. 63.

79 Stolcke, , Marriage, Class and Colour in Nineteenth-Century Cuba, pp. 2226.Google Scholar

80 Ibid., p. 26, fn. 28.

81 Ibid., p. 24.

82 See the sources listed in fn. 8.

83 Wilkins, “The Debate Over Secondary and Higher Education for Women in Nineteenth

86 Ibid.

87 Miller, , “Avellaneda,” p. 179.Google Scholar

88 This argument is adapted from Stolcke, Marriage, Class and Colour in Nineteenth-Century Cuba. Stolcke, however, only considers the female role in transmitting racial social status neglecting that males and females equally contribute to the genetic makeup of the child. Stolcke suggests that mulatto children of Afro-Cuban women were not as threatening to the social order as mulatto children of white Cuban women. Nonetheless, colonial Cuba, as she argues, was defined in racial terms; and thus, a mulatto population whether the parentage of Afro-Cuban or white women, could still undermine the racial social hierarchy.

89 Noticias estadísticas de la isla de Cuba en 1862 (Havana 1864). Quoted in Stolcke, , Marriage, Class and Colour in Nineteeth-Century Cuba, p. 57.Google Scholar

90 Ibid., pp. 12–3.

91 Ibid., p. 57.

92 Londres [ Varela, ], “Educación del bello sexo,” p. 70.Google Scholar

93 Guiteras, , “Influencia de la mujer en la sociedad cubana,” p. 154.Google Scholar

94 Londres [ Varela, ], “Educación del bello sexo,” p. 60.Google Scholar

95 Losada, , “¿El hombre y la mujer deben ser educados de la misma manera?” pp. 21–3Google Scholar

96 Ibid.

97 Ibid., p. 22.

98 Londres [ Varela, ], “Educación del bello sexo,” p. 65.Google Scholar

99 Oliva, Antonio de, “A las madres de la familia,” Revista de la Habana (Marzo-Agosto, 1853), p. 115 Google Scholar Similar comments are made elsewhere in Sociedad publications. See Teresa, , “Instrucción del bello sexo,” p. 28;Google Scholar and Losada, ¿El hombre y la mujer deben ser educados de la misma manera?” p. 23.Google Scholar

100 Howe, , A Trip to Cuba, p. 204.Google Scholar

101 Teresa, , “Instrucción del bello sexo,” p. 27.Google Scholar

102 Wilkins, , “The Debate Over Secondary and Higher Education for Women in Nineteenth-Century France,” p. 15.Google Scholar

103 Londres [ Varela, ], “Educaión del Bello Sexo,” p. 66.Google Scholar Also see Teresa, , “Instrucción del bello sexo,” p. 27;Google Scholar and Oliva, deA las madres de la familia,” pp. 115–7.Google Scholar

104 “Do you not think that by elevating the organism of the mothers, you elevate the intellectual chances of the whole race? Stupid mothers will have stupid sons-the results of culture are inherited.” Howe, , A Trip to Cuba, pp. 203–4.Google Scholar

105 Biographical information based upon Clifford, Deborah Pickman, Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory: Julia Ward Howe, 1819–1910 (Boston: Little, Brown, 1979);Google Scholar and Mary H. Grant, Private Women, Public Person: An Account of the Life of Julia Ward Howe from 1819–1868 (Brooklyn: Carlson Publishers, 1994).

106 Howe, , A Trip to Cuba, p. 202.Google Scholar

107 Ibid.

108 Ibid., pp. 202–3.

109 Cuba, , Legislación de instrucción de la isla de Cuba (Havana: Imprenta del Gobierno y Capitanía General por S.M., 1881),Google Scholar articles II and III.

110 Ibid., article IV.

111 Ibid., article V.

112 Fitchen, , “Primary Education in Colonial Cuba,” p. 110.Google Scholar I only had access to the Plan of 1880.

113 Howe, , A Trip to Cuba, p. 89.Google Scholar

114 Thomas, , Cuba, p. 145.Google Scholar

115 Howe, , A Trip to Cuba, p. 43.Google Scholar