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Slavery, the Labour Movement and Spanish Colonialism in Cuba, 1850–18901

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 February 2009

Joan Casanovas
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Nineteenth-century Cuban colonial and slave society sharply divided its inhabitants by race and ethnicity. These race and ethnicity divisions, and the formidable repressive apparatus necessary to sustain slavery and colonialism, hindered the emergence of a class identity among the urban popular classes. However, this oppressive atmosphere created working and living conditions that compelled workers of diverse ethnicity and race to participate, increasingly, in collective action together. Free labour shared many of the adversities imposed on unfree labour, which led the emerging Cuban labour movement, first to oppose the use of unfree labour in the factories, and later, to become openly abolitionist.

Type
Research Article
Information
International Review of Social History , Volume 40 , Issue 3 , December 1995 , pp. 367 - 382
Copyright
Copyright © Internationaal Instituut voor Sociale Geschiedenis 1995

References

2 For works focusing on sugar slavery in Cuba, see Raúl Cepero Bonilla, “Azúcar y abolición (apuntes para una historia crftica del abolicionismo)” (1st pub. 1948), in Bonilla, Raúl Cepero, Escritos históricos, ed. Fernandez, Maria Luisa Cepero (Havana, 1989), pp.11–171Google Scholar; Muñiz, José Rivero, “Esquema del movimiento obrero”, in Sánchez, Ramiro Guerra y et al. (eds), Historia de la nacidn cubana, 10 vols (Havana, 1952), VII, pp. 247–300Google Scholar; Knight, Franklin W., Slave Society in Cuba during the Nineteenth Century (Wisconsin, 1970)Google Scholar; Scott, Rebecca J., Slave Emancipation in Cuba: The Transition to Free Labor, 1860–1899 (Princeton, 1985)Google Scholar; Fraginals, Manuel Moreno, El Ingenio: complejo enondmico social cubano del azucar, 3 vols (Havana, 1978; 1sted. 1964)Google Scholar; and Bergad, Laird W., Cuban Rural Society in the Nineteenth Century: the Social and Economic History of Monoculture in Matanzas (Princeton, 1990)Google Scholar.

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4 This development is best exemplified in Cepero, “Azácar y abolición” Moreno Fraginals, El Ingenio; and Knight, Slave Society, pp. 178–182.

5 Scott's Slave Emancipation and Bergad's Cuban Rural Society best represent this point.

6 Codina, Joan Casanovas, “Labor and Colonialism in Cuba in the Second Half of the Nineteenth Century” (Ph.D., State University of New York at Stony Brook, 1994), pp. 32–53Google Scholar.

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18 “Libreta para oficiales artesanos dispuesta por el Superior Gobierno en resolución de 25 de julio de 1851” (transcribed in Portuondo, Joseé Antonio, “La Aurora” y los comienzos de la presna obrera en Cuba (Havana, 1961), pp. 102–105)Google Scholar. Cuba, Proyecto de Reglamento de la Junta y Ramo de Aprendizaje, p. 7; and D. del G. de 22 de Diciembre de 1856, previniendo que las libretas de oficiales de tabaquerta se expidan por la junta de aprendizaje de artes y oficios (transcribed in Eré;nchun, Fé;lix, Anales de la Isla de Cuba. Diccionario administrativo, econdmico, estadtstico y legislativo […] Año de 1856 (Havana, 1857), p. 736)Google Scholar. Although Rivero Muńiz in Tabaco, II, p. 276 states that the Libreta del tabaquero system did not last long, it lasted more than a decade.

19 “Circular” no. 1829, signed by Captain General José [Gutiérrez] de la Concha on 16 March 1859 (transcribed in Portuondo, “La Aurora”, pp. 105–107).

20 For the debate on the use of the Libreta to discipline the workforce, see Velasco, José María, Guerra de Cuba. Causas de su duración y medios de terminarla y asegurar su pacificación (Madrid, 1872)Google Scholar. Concha, in trying t o extend the Libreta to rural labour, was probably following the system already implemented in Puerto Rico in 1849, and which fell into disuse in much of the island by the late 1860s. It was finally suppressed with the end of slavery in 1873. For the Libreta system in Puerto Rico, see Mattei, André A. Ramos, “Technical Innovations and Social Change in the Sugar Industry of Puerto Rico, 1870–1880”, in Fraginals, Manuel Morena et al. , (eds), Between Slavery and Free Labor (Baltimore, 1985), pp. 161–163Google Scholar; and Información sobre reformas en Cuba y Puerto Rico celebrada en Madrid en 1866 y 67 por los representates de ambas Islas, 2 vols (2nd ed. New York, 1877), I, p. 126.

21 [Roig, ] “La patria y los obreros”, El Productor (Havana) (hereafter E.P.H.), II:63 (12 05 1889), p. 1Google Scholar; J., , ”La libreta y ‘La Lucha1’”, E.P.H., 2nd series, 1:2 (12 09 1889), pp. 1–2Google Scholar.

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25 Cepero, “El Siglo (1862–1868) un periódico en lucha contra la censura” (first pub. 1957), in Cepero, Escritos históricos, pp. 189–193.

26 For El Sigh's exposition of socialist ideas, see Cepero, “El Siglo”, pp. 191–192. See too de Fuentes, José Moreno, Estudios econdmico-sociales (Havana, 1865)Google Scholar.

27 “Utilidad de las tribunas en los talleres”, La Aurora, 1:27 (22 April 1866).

28 For the acceptance of separatism among the popular sector in Havana, see Pino, César García del, “La Habana en los dfas de Yara”, Revista de la Biblioteca National José Martí, 20 (1978), pp. 149–172Google Scholar.

29 “Exp. prom, por el Gobernador Político dando cuenta del espediente instruido á consecuencia de la solicited d e D. Saturnino Martínez, para establecer una Sociedad que se titule ‘Instituto de Artesanos’”, AHN, Ultramar, leg. 5899.

30 “Inmigración Asiática”, La Unión, 20 (12 October 1873), p.2

31 “Carta del Ministro Plenipotenciario de España en Washington al Ministro de Estado. Manifestación de comunistas franceses y emigrados cubanos, La International, la Alianza”, 27 January 1872, Real Academia de la Historia. Colección Caballero de Rodas, doc. 858, vol. IV, ff. 270–271. On the support that separatists in New York expressed for the Communards, see Instituto de Historia, Historia del movimiento obrero, I, pp. 37–39.

32 Pierce, Frank H., consul at Matanzas, 5 03 1886Google Scholar, “Labor troubles in Cuba”, in US Congress, House, Reports from the Consuls of the United States, April–December, 1886, House of Representatives, 49th Congress, 2nd Session, 1886–1887, Miscellaneous Documents, 55, vol. 4 (Washington, 1886), p. 266Google Scholar.