Customer Reviews

The 1812 Aponte Rebellion in Cuba and the Struggle against Atlantic Slavery (Envisioning Cuba)

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

The Haitian Revolution remains a watershed in Atlantic world history. The real or imagined specter of black slaves and nonwhites slaying their masters devastated the white psyche. More than simply fear, the idea of a "terrified consciousness" nearly consumed entire classes of owners on all sides of the Atlantic. In contrast, for free and slave alike, Haiti inspired and emboldened men and women to act. But the image of Haiti was never static. In places like nearby Cuba, as Matt Childs demonstrates, the Black Republic had multiple meanings.

For Childs, Associate Professor of History at Florida State University in Tallahassee, Haiti's impact is evident in the so-called Aponte Rebellion in Cuba (1812). A somewhat chaotic and seemingly disjoined series of plantation revolts, only later did they appear as parts to a greater whole. Taking literal and symbolic meaning from the Haitian Revolution, leaders like Jose Antonio Aponte used words and images to convey both the significance and possibility of black freedom in Cuba. Socially and politically adept at surviving the all-encompassing plantation hierarchy, free and slave used those skills (what one might broadly call an "Atlantic consciousness") to overcome obstacles in geographical distance, language, class, and race (ethnicity). Despite what Crown officials believed, after the collapse of black militia importance in Cuban society, free and slave nonwhites organized a rather remarkable series of revolts aimed at destroying slavery.

A revised, pared-down version of Childs's dissertation, 'The 1812 Aponte Rebellion and the Struggle against Atlantic Slavery' weaves together several strands of historical methodology. In linking the Aponte Rebellion to events in Haiti, Childs rightly sets Cuba within the greater Atlantic, Trans-Caribbean, and Latin American contexts. Additionally, showing the rather lengthy and complicated relationship to slave revolts in the American South, Childs's account adds to a growing and important body of work that highlights the transnational, multiethnic composition of the slave and free-colored mentalities under chattel slavery. More importantly, following the example of recent trends in African Diaspora historiography, the author carefully places Africa itself at the root of the complicated and flexible ethnicity in early nineteenth-century Cuba.

In order to reconstruct the rebellion and its aftermath, Childs scoured archives on some four continents. Though not unproblematic, the author relies heavily on the extensive interviews with accused participants and trial testimony of those concerned. Some critics have previously dismissed similar proceedings out of hand. Philip D. Morgan, for one, recently devoted a lengthy diatribe to giving such sources any considerable weight. "It is chilling," he writes, "to read how the court intimidated slave witnesses, silenced the majority who claimed innocence, and then produced a so-called official report of its proceedings, which, at best, airbrushed the truth and, at worst, blatantly lied about what had transpired. Most depressing and humbling is the realization that so many historians have simply taken the court's propaganda and/or lies at face value and built whole books on questionable, coerced testimony." Childs admits that the surviving evidence is fragmentary and limited by government haste and participant coercion. Nevertheless, the author clearly supports his arguments and rarely overextends his claims. One minor quibble hampers the work's later chapter. A rather lackluster and ultimately inconclusive section on the issue of one or multiple revolts that comprised the Aponte Rebellion warrants a caveat to this otherwise fantastic work. Promising to end the historiographical sparring over the issue, Childs instead cannot conclusively argue for or against either idea.

Aponte's own book of symbols, drawings, and stories has yet to be uncovered by historians. In all likelihood, authorities destroyed it lest it fall into the wrong hands for a second time. As something akin to the "Bible of Revolution," Aponte's crucial text could provide historians with a remarkable window into the transnational and culturally hybrid elements of the African Diaspora in the early nineteenth-century Caribbean. Filled with poignant symbols of the Afro-Atlantic world and its factual and fabled heroes, the work perfectly illustrates the Diaspora itself. Taken from their lands and kin, Africans adapted and constructed identities from a variety of influences. Distinguished by their multiple, overlapping social contexts, Africans in the Atlantic world remained at once connected to and divorced from their native land.

Clearly written, impressively synthesized, stellar archival work, Childs's work is highly recommended.

The 1812 Aponte Rebellion in Cuba and the Struggle against Atlantic Slavery (Envisioning Cuba)
This book is insightful and tells a compelling story about the development of the Cuban culture in its formative years.

A pact with the devil can be most expensive

Childs, Matt D 2006 The 1812 Aponte Rebellion in Cuba and the Struggle against Atlantic Slavery (Envisioning Cuba series). The University of North Carolina Press Chapel Hill ISBN-10 0807830585, ISBN-13: 978-0807830581


This book covers an abhorrent topic, slavery, specifically the Aponte rebellion of Cuban slaves beginning in January 1812. This is an important topic and of great interest. However, by necessity this book must rely on Cuban archives which are firmly in the hands of the present Cuban regime which demands an ideological toll be paid for access to them.

The author's willing acceptance of this price, this pact to the devil, is made clearly apparent in the series of dedications at the beginning of the book. The first dedication reads:

"For my compañeros and compañeras in this world and the next."

These words compañeros compañeras are italicized in this text, a clear indication that they refer to the current vernacular in Cuba where these words substituting for "comrade" refer to association with the communist party. Then the author's reference to the "next" world then may be taken to refer to the Marxist vision of an earthly paradise always placed some time in the future.

To make this point even clearer the quotations on the following page show this political allegiance to a revolutionary Marxist, rather than a scholarly, view of history.


One should not overlook the possibility that the author rebelled against the price he paid for access to Cuban government archives, and thus unable to avoid the required shema of faith made his vow adherence to this credo so overdone that one is not sure that he is sincere.


Despite this, perhaps because this book cost a great deal, I plowed on. The first page of the introduction narrate the killings of "whites" (apparently the author is not aware that many of the first families of Cuba had significant indigenous, e.g. Taíno, inheritance) which was apparently the first thing that the revolting slaves did. Still I did not know the details of this. Thus in this respect the book was proving useful to me.

Reaching page 7 I find examples of partiality in the mention of the brutal execution of the ring leaders of the plot. This is true; however, there seems to be no condemnation of rebels for their killings. This is followed by a diatribe against the abuses of the state, in this the author paying the price for his access to Cuban archives, avoids mention of abuses of the present regime in Cuba. Instead the author, forgetting the numerous prisons in Cuba, goes off topic to attack the U.S. government run Guantanamo prison for accused Al-Qaeda and or Taliban. Certainly this is not scholarly book.


Pages 35-40 cover the topic of the conditions of slavery and the food rations the slaves received. It seems obvious that these would not be completely followed. However, there is a physical reality, that work requires energy and that either slaves were well fed for their excessively hard work, or they worked less. There is a deeper meaning to this criticism of Código Negro Español," opponents of the present Cuban government readily point out that present day food rations do not meet the slave rations required by this code in the early 19th century.


On the other hand this book is useful to bring up points, if not necessarily substantiate them. I particularly enjoyed and note the narrations about the 1762-1763 military exploits during when the English took Havana. And the point made of the fear of repetition of Haitian atrocities in Cuba is well made.


Thus, when one reads this book it is wise (in analogy to sex among porcupines) to do most carefully and with the greatest skepticism.


Larry Daley 2007