Breaking the chains, forging the nation : the Afro-Cuban fight for freedom and equality, 1812-1912 / edited by Aisha Finch and Fannie Rushing ; with a foreword by Gwendolyn Midlo Hall.
"Commanders in the diaspora": West African warfare in colonial Cuba and the issue of leadership / Manuel Barcia -- In search of their rights: slaves and the law / Gloria García -- Unlocking the spatial code of plantation landscape: material processes and social space in Cuban slavery, 1760-1870 / Reynaldo Ortíz-Minaya -- José Antonio Aponte in the work of José Luciano Franco: a historiographical analysis on the occasion of the Bicentennial of 1812 / Barbara Danzie León -- Braggarts, charlatans, and curros: black Cuban masculinity and humor in the poetry of Gabriel de la Concepción Valdés / Matthew Pettway -- The repeating rebellion: slave resistance and political consciousness in nineteenth-century Cuba, 1812-1844 / Aisha Finch -- Formidable rebels: enslaved and free women of color in Cuba's conspiracy of La Escalera, 1843-1844 / Michele Reid-Vazquez -- Leopard men: manhood and power in mid-nineteenth-century Cuba / Jacqueline Grant -- Agency and its lack among liberated Africans: the case of Gavino the waterboy / Joseph C. Dorsey -- Resistance, "race," and place in Cuba during the transition of empires, 1878-1908 / Fannie Theresa Rushing -- The Cuban Race War of 1912 and the uses and transgressions of blackness / Melina Pappademos -- Gender and the role of women in the Partido Independiente de Color / Takkara Brunson -- The role of museums in the preservation of historical memory: the Museum of the Slave Route in Cuba / Isabel Hernández Campos.
Summary:
"Breaking the Chains, Forging a Nation offers a new perspective on black political life in Cuba by analyzing the time between two hallmark Cuban events, the Aponte Rebellion of 1812 and the Race War of 1912. In so doing, it provides fresh insight into the ways in which black freedom and resistance were practiced and understood in Cuba, from the aftermath of the Haitian Revolution to the early years of the Cuban republic. Bringing together an impressive range of scholars from the field of Cuban Studies, the volume is the first to examine the continuities between disparate forms of political struggle and racial organizing during the early years of the nineteenth century and trace them into the early decades of the twentieth. Together, the authors in this collection rethink the ways in which African-descended Cubans battled racial violence, created pathways to citizenship and humanity, and exercised claims on the nation state"-- Provided by publisher.
This resource is supported by the Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act as administered by State Library of Iowa.