Another Black Like Me : The Construction of Identities and Solidarity in the African Diaspora [1 ed.] 9781443873017, 9781443871785

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Another Black Like Me

Another Black Like Me The Construction of Identities and Solidarity in the African Diaspora Edited by

Elaine Pereira Rocha and Nielson Rosa Bezerra

Another Black Like Me: The Construction of Identities and Solidarity in the African Diaspora Edited by Elaine Pereira Rocha and Nielson Rosa Bezerra This book first published 2015 Cambridge Scholars Publishing Lady Stephenson Library, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE6 2PA, UK British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Copyright © 2015 by Elaine Pereira Rocha, Nielson Rosa Bezerra and contributors All rights for this book reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner. ISBN (10): 1-4438-7178-8 ISBN (13): 978-1-4438-7178-5

CONTENTS

Introduction ................................................................................................ ix Chapter One ................................................................................................. 1 “Another Black Like Me”: Strategies of Identification among Afrodescendientes in Latin America Elaine Rocha Chapter Two .............................................................................................. 24 Transplanted West Indians: Forgotten People on the Western Shores of the Caribbean Sea Ron Harpelle Chapter Three ............................................................................................ 46 Racial Taxonomy in Puerto Rico and the Anglophone Caribbean Victor C. Simpson Chapter Four .............................................................................................. 65 Mothering Cuba: The Poetics of Afro-Cuban Women Rhonda Collier Chapter Five .............................................................................................. 97 Escape Routes, Mocambos and Fears of Sedition in Brazil and French Guiana during the 18th and 19th Centuries Flávio dos Santos Gomes Chapter Six .............................................................................................. 132 Slave Resistance and the Notion of Space: The Case of Afro-Amazonians (c. 1850-1880) Ygor Rocha Cavalcante Chapter Seven.......................................................................................... 159 The Trajectory of Mahoman Bardo Baquaqua in Brazil: Slavery, Freedom and Emancipation in the Atlantic World Nielson Rosa Bezerra

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Chapter Eight ........................................................................................... 174 A Nation “Blended of Colours”: African-American Abolitionists and their Perspectives on Race Relations in Nineteenth Century Brazil Luciana da Cruz Brito Chapter Nine............................................................................................ 185 Afro-Brazilian Diaspora in West Africa: The Tabom in Ghana Marco Aurelio Schaumloeffel Bibliography ............................................................................................ 200 Contributors ............................................................................................. 219 Index ........................................................................................................ 222

INTRODUCTION

The project that gave rise to this book was motivated mainly by the idea of bringing together authors from different institutions and perspectives and, most of all, researchers on different aspects of the experiences of the African Diaspora in Latin America, to create an overview of the complexities surrounding the lives of black people in various periods of history, as they struggled to build their lives away from Africa amidst societies that in general denied them the most basic rights, such as the right of fully belonging in the countries where they lived, by choice or force of circumstance. Over several centuries, Latin American societies have struggled to face the reality of blackness, holding on to fantasies of miscegenation that would erase any trace of African cultures or features among their population. The long process of denial arises from the colonial process, when slaves were brought from Africa but denied recognition as persons, while the humanity of Amerindians became part of political and religious arguments between colonizers, religious authorities and administrators. During the long process of nation building that took place for most Latin American countries throughout the 19th century, the discriminatory structure of the social and racial hierarchy was reinforced by the newly coined arguments of scientific racism that reinforced discrimination. In addition, those nations aimed above all to be thought as civilized and modern as their models, the cities of Western Europe. Civilization would come with a price: the internal pacification and the subjection of ethnic groups other than Europeans. Unable at the time to stop, control or deny the prevalence of interracial sexual contact, and the resulting mixed populations, these countries created a different perspective on the racial hierarchy. Instead of seeing a mixed population as degenerate, as proposed by some of the masterminds of scientific racism, authors like José Vasconcelos1 invested in the idea of a cosmic race, a proposal that argued that a mixed population was the strongest and best fit as it would bring together the positive elements of every racial group. Here was the adoption of the mestizo as the national identity. However, representations of the 1

José Vasconcelos, The cosmic race / La raza cosmica, (Baltimore: John Hopkins, 1997).

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mestizo emphasize the mix between European and Amerindian, condemning the black population to invisibility. Similar phenomena can be seen in Brazil where, even with the largest Afro-Brazilian population on the continent, the country embraced the idea of a land of mixed race people, predominantly European and Amerindian. Although theoretically recognizing the African element, popular culture tends to minimize its influence. Therefore, all over Latin America, Brazil included, racial identity was forged with the Amerindian as the heroic character that in the end submitted to the European, recognized as superior. The black population was for a long time relegated to the margins of society, culture and history. Few works explore the trajectory of Blacks in Latin America and most do so from the last years of the 20th century, following the revision of black history and the demands of Afro-Latin Americans for more visibility in history and in textbooks in general. Among the best works published in the period are Richard Graham’s edited collection, The idea of race in Latin America, 1870-1940, with articles on the Brazilian, Argentinean, Cuban and Mexican perspectives on race;2 the seminal work of George Andrews that discusses two centuries of black experiences in Latin America;3 Peter Wade’s discussion on race and ethnicity in Latin America;4 and the extensive book edited by Appelbaum, Macpherson and Rosemblatt with articles discussing racial relations involving Blacks and Amerindians in Colombia, Peru, Cuba, Belize, Brazil, Mexico and Latin America in general.5 The latest to add to this list is the popular work of Henry Louis Gates Jr. that uses interviews and bibliographic research to understand the concepts of blackness in Brazil, Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Cuba, Mexico and Peru.6 This book, therefore seeks to add new perspectives on Black History in Latin America, exploring the strategies constructed by Africans and their descendants in the diaspora to identify and differentiate themselves in a 2

Richard Graham, The Idea of Race in Latin America, 1870-1940, (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1990). 3 George Reid Andrews, Afro-Latin America, 1800-2000, (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004). 4 Peter Wade, Race and Ethnicity in Latin America, (New York: Pluto Books, 1997). 5 Nancy Appelbaum, Anne Macpherson and Karin Rosemblatt, Race and Nation in Modern Latin America, (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2003). 6 Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Black in Latin America, (New York: New York University Press, 2011).

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manner that resisted the imposed patterns of inferiority, and to build networks that permitted them to deal with the harshness of their conditions in various parts of the continent. Another Black Like Me is in this way an attempt to present a few cuts from the long history of Blacks in Latin America, in different periods and circumstances: as runaway slaves through the official documentation denouncing the illegality of those who resisted captivity; through the memoirs of a slave who still dreams of his homeland; reflections on the status of black women; the demands for citizenship and kinship from black immigrants; the fantasies of Blacks in the United States about the lives of Blacks in Brazil; a case of those who returned to Africa and there had to build a new identity based on their experiences as slaves; and the abstract representations of race and colour in the Caribbean. All to give the reader a glimpse of complex phenomena that, though they cannot be generalized in a single definition of blackness in Latin America, share one common element, which is the fate of living in societies where the definition of blackness is quite flexible, there are no laws of racial segregation, and where the culture is such that on one hand it tolerates miscegenation, and on the other denies full recognition of rights to Blacks. By using the term Black, instead of Afro-Latin American or African Diaspora in Latin America, I am acknowledging the problematic situation in which blackness can be circumstantial, subjective, and even changeable. For Latin Americans, the main reference points in determining racial relations are the physical features (skin colour, hair type and shape of lips and nose), making it not uncommon to have Blacks, morenos and Whites among siblings. However, racial classification is heavily influenced by class, affection and education, as explored here by Simpson. In this way, a person can be seen as black by some and as moreno (or any other variation of colour denomination) by others, because of his economic status or education or because of affection. The book focuses on a wide time frame, discussing issues related to identities and networks from slavery until recent decades. The reason for this is that Blacks in Latin America are still seen as strangers and the networks and strategies of identification still play a major role in the way the Afro-Latin American populations—including those in the Caribbean— adapt and resist in such hostile environments. The stigma generated by centuries of slavery and European domination was not erased by abolition and even today, after many achievements in equal rights and recognition, the black population in Latin America continues to struggle to prove that they belong in their homeland or in whatever country they decide to live as immigrants.

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Introduction

Starting with the title article, Another Black Like me – strategies of identification among Afrodescendientes in Latin America aims to give an overview of the questions of identification among Blacks in Latin America, from slavery up until the 20th century. It discusses how the identities could be created and manipulated to meet specific needs and how identities became a tool in resistance to domination and cultural annihilation under the pressures of hegemonic powers. In the second chapter, Transplanted West Indians: forgotten people on the western shores of the Caribbean Sea, Ronald Harpelle explores in depth the fate of (black) Caribbean immigrants in Central America and their struggle to be recognized (and protected) as British by the British Empire at the turn of the 20th century. The presence of those immigrants in countries like Costa Rica, Guatemala, Belize, Panama, Honduras and Nicaragua challenges the national identities of those countries, that— except for Costa Rica, which asserts a white identity—have adopted the indigenous and mestizo as the symbol of their nationality, denying the importance of their black citizens. Victor Simpson, in Racial taxonomy in Puerto Rico and the Anglophone Caribbean, uses literature to discuss the diversity of representations of blackness in the Caribbean, as opposed to the polarized definitions that prevail in the United States. Latin America and the Caribbean constructed over the centuries of miscegenation a variety of colour classifications that still have great influence on social life in those islands. Also using the literature, Rhonda Collier analyzes the views of black poets on the racial issues of Cuba. Her article tackles the problems of racial discrimination and exclusion before and after the Cuban Revolution, utilizing references from the Afro-Cuban religion, santería. The article, Mothering Cuba: the Poetics of Afro-Cuban Women, gives voice to black women in Cuba, acknowledging their importance and incorporating the issues of gender and interracial sex alongside race into the problem of national identity. Flavio Gomes describes and analyzes the phenomenon of runaway communities in northern South America in Escape routes, mocambos and fears of sedition in Brazil and French Guiana during the 18th and 19th centuries. The article brings a new perspective to the topic as it uses official documentation to analyze the transit of slaves across the borders between the two countries and the existence of maroon communities on both sides of the frontier. Apart from the diplomatic problems with respect to capturing escapees and exchanging prisoners, the fear of a black revolution that would follow the example of Haiti, the influence of the

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ideas of equality raised by the French Revolution, followed by the abolition of slavery in the French and British Caribbean were among the topics found in the documentation analyzed and that demand more comparative and transnational studies. Also discussing slavery in the Amazonian region, Ygor Cavalcante’s article—Slave resistance and the notion of space: the case of AfroAmazonians, 1850-1880—deals with the perceptions of territory and freedom in the strategies used by slaves to escape from rural and urban properties. The author analyzes slavery in a region, the Brazilian Rain Forest zone, that is traditionally seen as not having had a significant number of African slaves. In addition, the article gives the reader the opportunity to visualize rivers and creeks as routes for runaways and traders amidst the jungle. The phenomenon of miscegenation in that area, heavily populated by Amerindian groups and a diverse number of Europeans, also gave space to a complicated representation of the slave, based on the skin tone and on other physical features that were quite subjective and is part of the argument in this chapter. From a different perspective, Nielson Bezerra writes on the autobiography of a man who transited from freedom in Western Africa into slavery in Brazil and back to freedom in the United States. The trajectory of Mahoman Bardo Baquaqua in Brazil: slavery, freedom and emancipation in the Atlantic World utilizes the memoirs of Baquaqua as the main source for analyzing aspects of the daily life of an enslaved man, working as a sailor in Brazil, and his memories from his life in Africa. The personal narrative is combined with some official documentation that clarifies the roles of enslaved men in the nineteenth century coastal trade. Luciana Brito, in "Blend of Colours": African-American Abolitionists and their Perspectives on Race Relations in 19th century Brazil, examines the uses of Brazil as a model for the non-conflictive racial relations that abolitionists in the United States were struggling to implement in their society. With the support of articles and books published around the mid1800s, Brito offers an insight into African American abolitionists’ views and representations of Brazil as a place of racial integration in contrast to the segregationists laws found in the United States at the time. The views of those abolitionists are based on superficial observations by travelers who, influenced by two main factors, namely the absence of segregation laws and the prevalence of interracial marriages, failed to identify the patterns of racial discrimination and exclusion in Brazil—and in Cuba and Puerto Rico. The quest for identity is posed from a different angle in Marco Schaumloeffel’s Afro-Brazilian Diaspora in West Africa: the Tabom in

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Ghana, where the author analyzes a group that claims Brazilian identity in Ghana, to which they returned around the 1830s. The events surrounding this migration of Blacks from Brazil to Africa during a period of slavery calls for more investigation and is probably related to a slave rebellion occurring in Bahia during that period. This chapter introduces the problem and examines their strategies of identification as a differentiated group in Ghana, and that still preserves elements of the Brazilian culture of the 19th century. The experiences of slavery in Latin America, influenced by the cultural norms of racial differentiation implemented by the colonial system and reinforced by the necessities of subordination, prevailed for more than four centuries, including the post-independence and nation building period of the 19th century. At that time, as nations constructed their national identities, the heavy influence of scientific racism became an ally to the desire of the elites to maintain the status quo by exploiting the labour force to the maximum. Part of the dynamics of inequality was to create differentiation based on physical features, to which scientific racism— reinvented in Latin America—provided a perfect argument. Latin America managed to extend these dynamics of exclusion into the 20th century and even today the Afro-Latin Americans are struggling for recognition and equal rights and full citizenship. In the words of George Andrews: People of African ancestry are not the only ones who live in Afro-Latin America, of course. Whites, Indians, Asians and racially mixed people lived there, too, often (and since 1900, almost always) outnumbering the black population. Whether majority or minority, however, the black presence marks a specific historical experience shared by almost all the societies of Afro-Latin America: the experience of plantation agriculture and African slavery. This requires them to define their relationship to “blackness”, the most visible and obvious indicator of low social status.7

Considering that blackness is the most important indicator of low social status and barriers to upward social and economic mobility, although not stated in legislation, and that miscegenation is very common in these societies, it is easy to conclude that personal success becomes more difficult as African features are more visible. In this way, what was once called a pigmentocracy is put in place, where lighter skin tones get a better chance of upward social mobility. That gave way to the culture of whitening. Whitening started as the practice of miscegenation, allied to the 7

George R. Andrews, p. 4.

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importation of more European immigrants who would increase the proportion of the white population in contrast to the black. However, whitening took place also in the cultural sphere, as elements of black culture were influenced by European patterns or simply forced to change or disappear, creating a culture of syncretism. In a way this culture has contaminated Latin American historiography, with studies of Afro-Latin Americans usually contained within the frames of slavery and condemned to invisibility in the 20th century. This book is part of the struggle against that invisibility. What the reader will find here is parts of the extended research being undertaken by the authors and by those included in the bibliography. I would like to thank all the contributors for their confidence and for their commitment to black history in Latin America. I also want to thank Andy Taitt, who patiently revised and formatted every text, and without whom this book would not be possible.

CHAPTER ONE “ANOTHER BLACK LIKE ME”: STRATEGIES OF IDENTIFICATION IN AFRODESCENDIENTES IN LATIN AMERICA ELAINE PEREIRA ROCHA When the issue is racial identification Latin America is known as a territory of contradictions. Latin societies are strongly marked by miscegenation and national obsession with being represented as modern (using European models of modernity) while trying to distance themselves from the backwardness traditionally associated with Africa. Therefore, blackness has been historically an undesirable element in their culture and in their population, resulting in racist attitudes and policies. Strategies of self representation among Latin American societies follow irregular patterns of exclusion and inclusion, with unwritten norms for denial or acceptance of Blacks and mixed people as part of the select group that is intended to represent their countries. The only common element in this dynamic is the rejection of blackness and African descent and culture as an important component of the society, just as the indigenous element is accepted as part of the past, as the ancestral and mythic hero, that separates America from Europe, reinforcing the independence of the nations of the New World. This paper discusses the politics of identification of African descendants in Brazil and other countries in Latin America, and how these identifications have influenced misconceptions about the origins of enslaved peoples and the stereotypes related to the African phenotype and its relation to behavior and ability. On the other hand in this game of belonging and not-belonging, the politics of self-identification have created networks and given self confidence to groups of Blacks who have managed to survive and overcome the challenges of being taken away from their homeland or being subjected to exploitation and abuse. Amidst the tensions of the external identifications or stereotypes and the challenges of a hostile environment, groups of African descent, part of the

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African Diaspora, have created new identities and survived away from home creating cultural and political experiences that are quite peculiar and constantly changing over time and circumstances. Some intellectuals, like Raymond Williams, have proposed a system that could explore the complexity of the cultural process as the product of the constant conflict between residual, dominant and emergent features of the culture and its eternal transformation. In the same line of thought, Michel De Certeau talks about the construction of tactics and strategies that people use to deal with the challenges of everyday life. In fact, the quest for identification, whether self-constructed or imposed by outsiders, is a matter that is related to cultural, social and political issues and that demands strategic adaptations and transformations in order to survive a hostile environment. This is not a phenomenon found only in Latin America or in societies that have experienced slavery, given that that there can be found, in every society, groups that differentiate themselves from others and have created reference points of identity as a means of selforganization and as a tool to deal with the challenges of negotiating with other groups. At the base of every structure of identification are the cultural norms of differentiation that allow a group to distinguish between those who belong and outsiders. Normally the mechanisms of differentiation follow a pattern of the granting and denial of certain attributes. In this way we are fairly accustomed, for example, to reading “non-Whites” as a term to indicate everyone other than Caucasians. There is also the frequent use of negative characteristics such as uncivilized, unskilled and illiterate. These classifications are loaded with notions of hierarchy that separate those who have the required features from those who lack them. As explained by Simon Clarke, The question of difference is emotive; we start to hear ideas about “us” and “them”, friend and foe, belonging and not belonging, in-groups and outgroups, which de¿ne “us” in relation to others, or the Other.1

With the African population and the African Diaspora, as seen by outsiders, the definitions and classifications are part of the policies of domination and exploitation that must be justified by other notions of biological differences, added to religious, political, social and economic definitions that often put the Africans at a disadvantage, or as the group or 1

Simon Clarke, "Culture and Identity." The SAGE Handbook of Cultural Analysis. 2008. SAGE Publications. 8 Aug. 2011.

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groups defined in negative ways. The Africans would be those who combine the characteristics of “not having” this or that attribute with the idea of “not being”, in contrast to the European groups that “have” the wanted qualities and therefore “are” superior. Given the powerful influence of such discourses on Africans that have prevailed for centuries and are still unfortunately strong in the media and in academia, even the discourse that denounces racial exploitation is contaminated by these hierarchies of values translated into a victimization of the “poor” Africans by the “evil” European. In past decades, these views have been challenged by post-modern intellectuals, heavily influenced by those of African origin. The first questions that must to be asked are: Who are the “Africans”? Are they Blacks? Can we use blackness as a synonym with Africanity? The idea of “the Africans” as a collective only came about with colonization and the slave trade from Africa to other continents. At that time, external references would classify as “Africans” individuals from very diverse ethnic backgrounds, but fairly soon “Africans” became “Blacks” or “negroes”. In a study on Somali immigrants in the United States and Canada, Abdi Kusow points out that among those interviewed about their experiences in those racialized societies, there was the common understanding that the Somalis did not see themselves as “Africans” or “Blacks”, but mostly as Somali and Muslims.2 Similarly, in my experience living in Ethiopia, I found that Ethiopians in general do not consider themselves as “Africans” or even “Blacks”. Analyzing the same issue, my good friend Ochieng, from Kenya, explained to me that he used to think of himself only as a Luo, and of the other as Kikuyu or Maasai. It was only when he left his village to study in Nairobi that he discovered that they were “Africans”. Nevertheless, in the Americas, the enslaved African became the negro or the “Black” even if, only for issues of control of trade, people were classified according to their region of origin, usually the port of embarkation. Once in American territory, each colony—and later, each country, as in Brazil or the United States—would employ their own differentiations in classifying Africans, a common one being to designate newcomers as “Africans”, separate from those born locally, often called creoles, criollos or crioulos, depending on the local language. The classifications could also determine other values. The same Africans, for example, were called bozales (Spanish America) or boçais (Brazil), 2

Abdi M. Kusow, “Migration and racial transformations among Somali immigrants in North America.” Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, vol. 32 (3), 2006, 533-51.

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designating those newcomers not able to speak the colonizer’s language. At the same time, some believed that the bozales were stronger and more resilient workers. The African slave who had already mastered the language and customs of the masters were called ladinos, and were often seen as lazy and as scamps. From colonial times, Latin American societies developed systems in which miscegenation between classes and races was tolerated and became common. The Spanish colonizers developed a long list of classifications for different forms of miscegenation, based on racial and colour schemes. Portuguese colonizers on the other hand simplified their classification into just a few categories, such as negros, caboclos, mulatos, pardos, cabras and cafuzos. Tolerance towards miscegenation does not mean the absence of racism in those societies. On the contrary, the entire colonial system relied on the assumption of European superiority over the indigenous, black and mixed populations, even though acceptance of a mixed person who had achieved economic power was not uncommon. In general, as in most parts of the world, in Latin America there is a hierarchy of race and colour that, if not obvious in legislation and national representations, is present in everyday attitudes, with consequences at each level of social life. The differentiations and categorizations based on inventions and representations of colour, cultures, regionalisms, body features, and other abstractions have also generated other classifications that vary according to region, time, group or circumstance. In Brazil, for example, the historiography points to a predominance among the slaves taken from Africa during the 18th and 19th century of people originating in the region that today includes part of Nigeria, Benin and Togo, whose language was Yoruba. The major ports of arrival for those slaves were Salvador, Bahia and Rio de Janeiro where, despite their common origins, the Africans were classified in different ways. In Salvador, documentation related to slave registrations and trade referred to Africans as Nagôs, while in Rio de Janeiro they were called “Pretos Mina” (Mina Blacks), in reference to the major Portuguese slave trading port from where many people were taken to the Americas: the Forte São Jorge da Mina, or Elmina Castle. João José dos Reis discusses the importance of ethnic and cultural identifications among slaves in 19th century Salvador, as they organized themselves in labour movements and urban rebellions, like the strike of 1857, when slaves of African origins working as porters in the city of Salvador halted activities for one week in protest against the imposition of

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taxes.3 Reis also studies another movement in Bahia, the 1835 rebellion of Muslim slaves, where ethnic and religious characteristics were key in organizing hundreds of slaves who fought for freedom in the streets of Salvador.4 In his words: Although the slaves involved in the movement could be of distinct regions of Western-Central Africa, in the documentation, they were identified and identified themselves as Nagôs. The self-identification as part of a large group was part of the strategy for unification and cooperation against the oppressions of the slave system, and a way of developing a network that would facilitate their survival in the hostile environment. It was also a way to differentiate themselves from the other Africans and ladino slaves.

In general, the enslaved had to adapt to slavery and to the new society and, indeed, it was essential to be able to negotiate their own identity in such a way as to create allies and to distinguish oneself from other groups. These types of strategies were useful for getting better jobs, especially in the case of urban slaves who had to find the means to provide services and make money for their masters. It was also important in the struggle for freedom or to achieve a higher status in a society through religious association, such as with the Catholic and Muslim brotherhoods. The same group was seen differently in Rio de Janeiro. Internal trade and migration between the two most important cities of Brazil during the 19th century brought many Blacks from Bahia to Rio de Janeiro, especially after the uprisings of 1835, and many of the newcomers to Rio de Janeiro found means to re-organize themselves by keeping in contact with others from Bahia, or by introducing themselves into similar networks in the new place, where they were known as the Minas. The Minas had a reputation for being dangerous, rebellious, arrogant and difficult to control. They were also resilient and organized workers. Some among them were Muslims, some Catholic and others practiced other African religions. According to Carlos Eugenio Soares, the Minas women in Rio de Janeiro’s urban life were usually quitandeiras (hawkers), many of them prominent practitioners of African-rooted religions—another way to make extra money. But they were also a majority among the female runaway slaves reported in public notices and rarely left the urban areas, preferring 3

João J. Reis, “The revolution of the ganhadores: urban labour, ethnicity and the African strike of 1857 in Bahia, Brazil.” Journal of Latin American Studies, vol. 29(2), 1997, 355-93. 4 João J. Reis, Slave rebellion in Brazil: The Muslim uprising of 1835 in Bahia. (Baltimore, John Hopkins University Press, 1995)

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to conceal themselves within the urban fabric with the help of other slaves or free peoples.5 Ethnic categories of identification for black people were not restricted to slaves. Beatriz Mamigonian analyzed cases of re-captivated African men (those who arrived in Brazil after the abolition of the international slave trade and were considered free by law, but were put to the service of the State or rented out to employers) fighting for freedom, finding the same patterns of identification among the Minas in Rio de Janeiro and in São Paulo, who organized themselves for collective action against the State. In one of the cases studied, Mamigonian highlights the letter from Cyro, a re-captivated freeman imprisoned in a dispute with the person who hired his services. The message was written after the prisoner learnt of the death of his wife and that his two children had been sent to an orphanage. It was added to an official complaint by Dionisio Peçanha, Cyro’s employer, to the Minister of Justice as proof of the danger represented by the African man, who identifies himself as a Mina.6 Between the years 1820 and 1835, Nagôs, Jejes, Hausas and Tapas (Nupes) made up 57.3 percent of the Bahian African-born slave population. (…) Once landed in Bahia, these same slaves inevitably and fundamentally altered the African community’s way of life. They also changed its internal structure, its sociocultural hierarchies, its strategies of alliance and interethnic conflict, and so on, as well as its relationship with the seigniorial class and the native inhabitants. This period (1800-1835) saw the Jeje-Nagô culture sweep over Bahia and become its dominant African culture. Also during these decades, African rebellions shook Bahian slave society.7

Cyro complained that this was the third letter he had addressed to Peçanha on the subject, so far with no response. He requested that his hirer go to the House of Correction next day to have his sons released and insisted that Peçanha obtain his immediate release. The liberated African added a threat: if his request were not fulfilled in three days,

5

Carlos Eugenio L. Soares, “Comércio, nação e gênero: as negras Minas quitandeiras no Rio de Janeiro 1835-1900,” Revista do Mestrado em História, Vassouras, vol. 4(1), 2001/2002, 55-78. 6 Beatriz Gallotti Mamigonian, “Do que o preto Mina é capaz: etnia e resistência entre Africanos livres,” Afro-Ásia, 24, 2000, p. 90. 7 Mamigonian, p. 140-1.

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Peçanha “would discover what a Mina is capable of.” He had written this note himself and signed “Chiro Pisanjes Africano Livre”.8 Mary Karasch also discussed the ethnic group called Mina in Rio de Janeiro. Analyzing several sources, she concluded that there were differences among the Mina, and that despite being commonly associated with the Muslims, there were other Africans who shared the same identity.9 In some cases, documents would refer to the Mina group as synonymous with African. There is also the hypothesis that other men and women embraced the Mina identity, emphasizing aspects of dignity, belonging and strength that could rescue them from a status of being almost inhuman. There was also the aspect of acquiring means to survive through the network of extended families and brotherhoods that could bring a better job, loans, religious comfort, education (many of the enslaved and freeman Mina were literate), support and even a proper funeral. More than three decades after abolition in Brazil (1888), most of the black porters or stevedores in Rio de Janeiro claimed to be Mina, even though by then the majority had been born in Brazil. The stevedores formed the oldest and most powerful labour union in Brazil. Their level of organization guaranteed better payment and working conditions for Blacks in times when there were no regulations to protect workers. Maria Cecilia Cruz refers to these workers and their high level of organization in Rio de Janeiro during the first decades of the 20th century. Given the large number of European immigrants who arrived in Rio de Janeiro at the time, the black porters there had to compete with European workers who, lacking the same organization, would accept lower pay. On some occasions the competition for work became violent with clashes between the two groups of workers.10 Then the Mina identification disappears and the struggle becomes part of the tensions between black and white workers competing for the same jobs. In other parts of Brazil and Latin America similar problems occurred between 1870 and 1930, a period in which European immigrant workers 8

Beatriz G. Mamigonian, “To be a liberated African in Brazil: labour and citizenship in the nineteenth century.” PhD thesis, University of Waterloo, 2002, p. 254. 9 Mary Karasch, A vida dos escravos no Rio de Janeiro 1808-1850 (São Paulo, Companhia das Letras, 2000) 10 Maria Cecilia V. Cruz, “Tradições negras na formação de um sindicato: sociedade de resistência dos trabalhadores em trapiche e café, Rio de Janeiro, 1905-1930,” Afro-Asia, vol. 24, 2000, 243-290.

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flowed into the continent. At that time, recently freed Blacks became unwanted workers in places where they had been enslaved for centuries. Treated worse than foreigners, they learned to build new networks in the urban centers where a great number had gone seeking employment in the construction boom that came with urbanization. These networks were built initially according to family ties, place of origin and religious affiliation, but later on would include neighborhood and profession or place of work. In some cases, as in Cuba, Blacks even formed a political party after abolition and independence, the Partido Independiente de Color, which challenged the white elite for political participation; in other cases, as in Brazil, they formed musical associations that progressively became the Samba Schools of Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo. By the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th centuries, Latin American countries were defining their national identity and at the same time trying to deal with the fact that the majority of their population was classified at the bottom of the scale created by scientific racism, one of the most prevalent ideologies in the contemporary period. As explained by authors like Richard Graham,11 Thomas Skidmore,12 Lilia Schwarcz13 and George Andrews,14 among others, the racial dilemma of Latin America revolves around the fact that these are countries of mixed populations, some with a large population of African descent, and therefore classified by scientific racism as inferior. Two paths were found out of this biological condemnation: one was to argue that the “American Race”, composed of mixed peoples (Blacks, Indigenous and Europeans) was superior because it would have inherited the best qualities of each racial group, being also more adaptable and able to survive;15 the other was to promote blanqueamento, or whitening, a policy that consisted of importing more European immigrants to increase the white population and to make the local mixed population “whiter” by introducing more Caucasians in the racial mixing pool. Obviously, this 11

Richard Graham, The idea of race in Latin America, 1870-1940 (Austin, Univ. Texas Press, 1997) 12 Thomas Skidmore, Black into white: race and nationality in Brazilian thought. (Durham, Duke University Press, 1974). 13 Lilia Schwarcz, O espetáculo das raças: cientistas, instituições e questão racial no Brasil 1870-1930 (São Paulo: Companhia das Letras, 1993) 14 Andrews. 15 This theory was common in Latin American countries in the first decades of the 20th century, but it was better developed by José Vasconcelos in La Raza Cósmica (Madrid, Agencia Mundial de Libreria, 1925) http://www.filosofia.org/aut/001/razacos.htm

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idea would only work in Latin America, where colour and physical features are more important than blood ties in racial classification. The plan fit perfectly into Latin American aspirations, as governments created laws and decrees to increase the number of European immigrants, injecting federal funds to finance what was seen as entrepreneurship, contracting recruiting agents to attract European families, offering public land to those immigrants and facilitating their nationalization. On the other hand, a ban was needed on immigration of Blacks, along with other undesirable people who would compromise the national plan for racial redemption. The Brazilian constitution of 1890 instituted a decree on immigration that specified that Asian and African immigrants should not be freely granted entry into Brazil, and could only be admitted on the authorization of the National Congress, and that diplomatic and consular agents and port police should prevent the disembarkation of those individuals, along with beggars and indigents.16 The topic came into the public eye in 1921 when a group of African-Americans tried to emigrate to Brazil, supported by the Brazilian-American Colonization Syndicate which planned to buy land in the state of Mato Grosso, in the central part of Brazil, to accommodate the families. The news of this project was presented through the newspapers not only to Brazilian authorities but to the general public, causing general commotion and great debate. In general, Brazilian opinion was for rejecting this project on the grounds that the United States attempt to expel troublesome people involved in racial disputes to Brazil showed a lack of respect and consideration. Many also said that Brazil had solved its racial differences satisfactorily and the arrival of those individuals would initiate power disputes and instigate the kinds of racial conflict that existed in the United States. However, during the first decades of the 20th century—while the southern and southeastern regions of Brazil were accepting European workers and their families as permanent immigrants—the northern states, complaining that the federal government was not supporting their demands to attract “good immigrants”, started to receive another type of foreign workers: black immigrants. West Indian immigrant workers arrived in Brazil from several islands of the Caribbean, but predominantly from Barbados. In the Amazon region they became known by the generic denomination of “Barbadianos”. The workers were part of the great project of modernization that gave British companies contracts to construct railroads, tramlines, infrastructure for 16

Skidmore.

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Chapter One

telegraphs and electricity, and to upgrade the harbours in the northern areas of Brazil. These immigrants managed to break through the barrier of immigration laws by entering the country as temporary workers, under the responsibility of the contractors. In the words of Brazilian historian Vicente Salles: In fact, there was no conventional immigration. The migratory movement of Barbadians was directed by British capitalists who were granted successive contracts to carry out urbanization projects in Para and Amazonas. For that they needed skilled labourers, probably some who could speak the language and shared the same culture. The Barbadian Blacks, tamed by the English, were brought by ships of the Booth Steamship Co. Limited, which came from New York to Manaus, stopping in Barbados and Belém. Many of those workers were also taken to work in the construction of the Madeira-Mamoré railroad.17

Even so, they had to face the discontent of the local population who rejected the idea of bringing more Blacks into their midst and therefore delaying the process of whitening. In Belém do Pará, on the occasion of the arrival of a few Barbadian immigrants, journalists argued against the newcomers, comparing them negatively with the local Blacks, who were already accustomed to the Brazilian invisible barrier of racism, softened by the miscegenation that created the smiling and easygoing pardos. “...the Barbadianos were seen as ‘ugly people’, as intruders, (...) people with scowling faces...”18 The West Indians, or Barbadianos, formed an isolated community. First because of the language barrier, but soon because of their culture: notably because they were not Catholics and because they behaved differently from the local Blacks. These intruders, seem as “ugly people” of darker skin, contrasted with the locals as they dressed in the British style and refused to participate in the batuques, sambas, and cults of the orixás, like the other Blacks. In just a few years, they formed a very well structured group, calling themselves barbadianos, no matter they came from different islands, working hard to maintain their language and

17

Vicente Salles, O negro no Pará sob o regime da escravidão. 3ª. ed., (Belém, IAP, 2005), p. 84. 18 Roseane C. Pinto Lima, Ingleses pretos, barbadianos negros, brasileiros morenos? Identidades e memórias (Belém, séculos XX e XXI). (Belem, Doctoral Thesis, Universidade Federal do Pará, Centro de Filosofia e Ciências Humanas, 2006) p. 24.

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customs, and trying not to mix with the locals, whom they saw as backwards and inferior.19 In less than 10 years, some of the Barbadianos had built their own businesses, such as bars, small hotels, taxis and clubs. But most preferred to rely on their jobs with the companies or, in the case of women, in the houses of high ranking British workers. As the community grew, they hired their own teachers from Barbados to educate their children in English and, as in Belém, they could attend the Anglican Church with an Anglican priest. Endogamy was encouraged as the Barbadianos did not trust the locals and socialized among themselves. They continued to buy products from England or—when possible—from the islands and to identify themselves as subjects of the Empire. Around the same time, thousands of West Indian migrants started to arrive in Panama to work in the construction of the Canal and related jobs. They were not the first ones; since the 1850s the zone had been receiving West Indian workers who moved there to work in constructing the railroad, contracted by British companies. However, from 1903 the numbers of these immigrants increased to a point that alarmed the local population and the authorities. Panamanian society shares the beliefs of other Latin Americans that try to distance themselves from slavery and inferior races and at the same time to improve their self image through “whitening”. Therefore it is no surprise that in 1904 the government of the newly created country of Panama passed a law that made the migration of West Indians to Panama illegal. Once again the black immigrants managed to overcome the prohibition, as they entered the country under the protection of foreign companies, as “contracted workers”, therefore, not expected to become part of the population, but to leave Panama at the end of their contracts. What was at first accepted as a temporary situation became a national problem as the Panamanians realized that some of those workers were not 19

For more information on West Indian immigrants in northern Brazil see Dante Fonseca and Marco Antonio Teixeira, “Barbadianos: os trabalhadores negros caribenhos da estrada de ferro Madeira Mamoré” in Teixeira, Fonseca and Angenot (eds.), Afros e Amazônicos: estudos sobre o negro na Amazônia (Porto Velho, Edufro/Rondoniana, 2009), p. 137-66; Menezes, Nilza, Chá das cinco na floresta (Campinas, Kimedi, 1998); Ma. Roseane C. Pinto Lima, Ingleses pretos, barbadianos negros, brasileiros morenos? Identidades e memórias (Belém, séculos XX e XXI). (Belem, Doctoral Thesis, Universidade Federal do Pará, Centro de Filosofia e Ciências Humanas, 2006); Elaine Rocha and Frederick Alleyne, “Millie gone to Brazil: Barbadian migration to Brazil in the early 20th century.” Journal of the Barbados Museum and Historical Society, vol. 58, 2002, 1-42.

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going back to their places of origin. Public concerns about black immigrants spread among the population who feared the immigrants would cause their society to degenerate, holding them back in the race towards whitening, seen as mandatory in the process of modernization. Marixa Lasso argues that despite Panama having had a local black population since colonial times, when the country was still Colombian territory, Blacks were seem as inferior to mestizos and Whites. However, after the arrival of a large number of West Indians in the country, the category of blackness was applied only to foreign Blacks.20 At first, the West Indian workers were accused of stealing jobs from Panamanian workers; there was also animosity based on the foreign workers being paid better salaries than locals. Although working and living conditions in the Canal Zone during the construction years were far from desirable, foreign workers were seen as privileged by those struggling to find steady employment there. Panamanian society has constantly questioned the right of the Chinese and West Indian community to become Panamanians. In 1904, one year after the formation of the Republic, law declared them races of prohibited immigration, a status that was reinforced by successive laws and culminated in the 1941 constitution that denied citizenship to the races under the category of prohibited immigration.21

Velma Newton states that by 1921 a total of 13,319 West Indians had been repatriated. Still, a great number of those workers stayed behind. Many of them had formed family ties with locals, some had opened small businesses in the area, and many could see no job opportunities in the islands and decided that prospects in their homeland were no better than what they had overcome in the foreign land. The Panama Canal Zone was politically isolated from the rest of the country, as the United States government ruled the zone and everything to do directly or indirectly with the construction, workers included. Discrimination, based on Jim Crow laws, was enforced in the hierarchical system among the Canal workers. Given this, West Indian workers were doubly isolated: from the local workers, as they resided inside the Canal Zone, and from white workers, who were given better living standards. As the years went by, without decent prospects of life in their home countries, the West Indian workers renewed their contracts, got married to Caribbean or local women and 20

Marixa Lasso de Paulis, “Race and ethnicity in the formation of the Panamanian identity: Panamanian discrimination against Chinese and West Indians in the thirties,” Revista Panameña de Política, n. 4, 2007, 61-92. 21 de Paulis.

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started families. It then did not take long for the Caribbean workers to create their own living/social spaces, creating dancing and sports clubs, churches, schools, fairs and other events.22 Barbadian and Jamaican were the predominant nationalities; however, they used their West Indian identity to separate themselves from the local Blacks, called Congos, and to deal with job related issues. Aside from being a racial category of identification, West Indian became a category of worker in the Canal Zone, one that gave them an advantage in negotiating better work and living conditions. After the inauguration of the Canal, in 1914, some West Indians decided to stay put and negotiated contracts to work in the maintenance and operation of the Canal; others engaged as field workers or overseers or skilled workers in the banana plantations, also controlled by US capitalists, while a small group managed to buy some land and establish themselves as banana farmers. Others opened small businesses in the two main cities: Colón and Panamá. The hostilities between West Indians and Panamanians prevailed during the 20th century, as the children and grandchildren of those foreign Blacks held on to their West Indian identity even though after two generations they could hardly consider themselves Jamaicans, Barbadians, or Trinidadians, etc. and had adopted the Spanish language. In the 1930s the West Indians were the target of a nationalist campaign that identified them with the imperialist Yankees. In 1932, of 17,407 nonAmerican workers in the Panama Canal, 10,115 were West Indians, as opposed to 4,474 Panamanians. There were about 50,000 people in the West Indian community in the same period, however, a Panamanian law passed in 1929 denied citizenship to West Indian children until they reached adulthood and the police made a point of criminalizing the black foreigner.23 The persecution only increased the isolation, as the West Indians were left with no choice but to provide education for their children in their own English speaking schools, and to avoid socializing and doing business outside of their community. It also made community ties and the West Indian identity grow stronger, because the Caribbean descendants embraced their identity to differentiate themselves from the locals, claiming cultural superiority, meaning being more educated, better work skills, and—from the second generation on—being bilingual, as they could master English and Spanish. 22

Velma Newton, Silver Men: West Indian Labour Migration to Panamá 18501914 (Kingston, Ian Randle Publishers, 2004) 23 de Paulis.

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A similar phenomenon occurred in Costa Rica among those identified as “Jamaiquinos”, West Indian immigrant workers from different islands but predominantly from Jamaica, who established a community in the east coast province of Puerto Limón from around 1870 and which is still the most important locus of Afro-Caribbean culture in the country. However, it is probable that Caribbean migration to Costa Rica and other Central American countries started earlier, around the middle of the century, as individual enterprises that are quite difficult to trace. The postemancipation period in the British Caribbean was marked by economic crisis and political and social exclusion, aggravated by the limited access to land ownership for former slaves and the maintenance of the colonial administrative structure that kept Blacks and Coloureds out of power, and by occasional natural disasters such as hurricanes or droughts.24 In response, many individuals left their homeland seeking a better life elsewhere. The railroad project was taken over by the American Henry Meiggs Keith, who turned towards the British Caribbean for cheaper workers, given the lack of interest among Costa Rican workers who preferred to avoid the tribulations of the east coast with its dense forests and accompanying dangers and tropical diseases.25 There, too, the black immigrant was unwelcome. The racist ideologies of the 19th century, as discussed before, had a strong influence on Costa Ricans’ notions of national identity and modernity. The country became independent in 1925 and was built on the notion that Costa Rica was a white nation, closer to Spain than to indigenous communities and denying any African roots, despite a history of African slavery and the fact that part of the population was a mix of Whites and Blacks and Índios. Slavery was abolished in 1823. In 1862, the nation’s leaders had promptly reacted to rumours, that United States president Abraham Lincoln was planning to create a colony of black immigrants in Central America, by passing the Ley de Bases y Colonización that, among other things, was to protect Costa Rica from undesirable immigrants, mainly Chinese and people of African descent. At the same time, the law created a means of supporting government policies to attract European immigrants. The demand for workers in the railroad and the company’s preference for Caribbean workers forced the

24

Erna Brodner, The Second Generation of Freemen in Jamaica, 1907-1944. (Gainesville, University Press of Florida, 2004) 25 Ronald Harpelle, The West Indians of Costa Rica. Race, Class and the Integration of an Ethnic Minority (Kingston, Ian Randle Publishers & McGillQueen’s University Press, 2001)

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government to be more flexible and to accept labourers from the prohibited races.26 As in the cases of Panama and Brazil, the construction of the railroad opened the country to other Caribbean immigrants who would take other jobs, create small businesses or small farms to make some money. Harpelle gives the case of the female immigrants who ... arrived in the region as daughters, sisters, wives, and mothers of the workers. Since they were seldom contracted for work in the West Indies they were not counted as part of the labour drive and the details of their arrival are less clear. Nevertheless, thousands of women did make their way to the region, where they too found employment in and around the construction project.27

The presence of West Indian women facilitated adaptation to the new environment and to overcoming isolation. Carmen Hutchinson-Miller explores the construction of a Jamaican way of life in Puerto Limón, where the Jamaican version of English, the patois, became the spoken language among all immigrants and the identity also shifted from West Indian to Jamaican. According to the author, women supported their families often not with regular jobs but by keeping house, and by occasional self-employment as laundry women, nannies, cooks or seamstresses, or by selling food, and keeping vegetable gardens and small animals like chickens, goats and pigs in their backyard.28 The Jamaicans of Puerto Limón faced discrimination and isolation. Federal authorities paid little attention to the needs of the province such as health, education and transport services. The community tried to manage their own needs by hiring teachers and priests, for example, reinforcing the Anglo-Caribbean culture and the differentiation between Costa Ricans and the Jamaicans of Puerto Limón. When work on the construction of the railroad finally ended in 1910, there was a new generation of workers, born in Costa Rica of Caribbean descent, to whom the host country denied citizenship. Some found employment in services and maintenance related to the railroad, others moved on to work for the United Fruit Company in the banana plantations.

26

Harpelle. Harpelle, 13-14. 28 Carmen Hutchinson-Miller. “The Province and Port of Limón: Methaphor for Afro-Costa Rican Black identity,” PhD dissertation, University of the West Indies, Cave Hill, Barbados, 2011. 27

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Authors like Ronald Harpelle and Aviva Chomsky29 agree that the construction of the railroad between San José and Puerto Limón opened a connection between the capital and the Atlantic coast, inserting the Caribbean coast of the country—which had been neglected for centuries— into the capitalist system and making it possible for the United Fruit Company to implement a modern form of agro-business with the development of banana plantations in the region. West Indian struggles in Costa Rica also need to be framed within the context of experience of capitalism and modernization. This distinction is important because it speaks to the ability of West Indian migrants to deal with the issues they confronted as they participated in the emergence of United Fruit as a modern multi-national corporation. Like the fruit company, the West Indian community in Costa Rica was transnational, adaptable, and complex, and so were their responses to the challenge they faced.30 Considering similar analysis in Eric Hobsbawm’s Age of Capitalism,31 it is important to note that while other immigrants in this period, mainly from Europe and Asia, were settling in several countries to work in manufacturing, commerce, and other activities related to the modernization and transition of economies from agricultural to industrial, West Indian immigrants, as stated above by Harpelle, were foreigners adapting to life as workers for foreign companies in the hosting countries, thereby multiplying their challenges. The expansion of the United States business in Costa Rica contributed to another wave of West Indian immigrants, again with a predominance of Jamaicans. It is estimated that more than 20,000 Caribbean workers migrated to Costa Rica between 1870 and 1940. The arrival of the West Indian immigrants was key to the development of the Province of Limón. The population of the provincial capital rose from 1,000 in 1875 to 32,278 in 1927, with 57% of African descent.32 In 2010 the census taken by the government of Costa Rica counted a population of about 450,000 people in the province, of whom at least 225,000 were of Afro-Caribbean descent. Similar to Panama, the economic crisis of the 1930s affected the West Indian community of Costa Rica more than it did the rest of the country. 29 Ronald Harpelle, The West Indians of Costa Rica; Aviva Chomsky, West Indian Workers and the United Fruit Company in Costa Rica, 1870-1940 (Baton Rouge, Louisiana State University Press, 1996) 30 Ronald Harpelle, West Indians of Costa Rica, 17. 31 Eric Hobsbawm, The age of capital 1848-1875. (New York, Random House, 1975). 32 Ronald Harpelle, West Indians of Costa Rica, 19.

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As unemployment rose everywhere the government passed laws limiting the number of foreign workers that could be hired in the banana industry and prohibiting companies from employing foreigners on the Pacific Coast. Government also instructed immigration officials to discourage West Indian migration to Costa Rica and to support the repatriation of those already in the country. At that point, still unable to claim citizenship, the Jamaicans could only complain in the newspapers.33 Racism played a major role in national policies and cultural attitudes towards the inhabitants of the Province of Limón. The Minority Rights Group International announced recently that the province was still facing the effects of Costa Rican racism. There is high unemployment in the province and a lack of educational services that limits job opportunities for the majority of the population who cannot achieve university level education unless they move to San José, where they would face racism in competition for jobs.34 West Indian immigrants and their children and grandchildren often wrote to newspapers complaining of ill-treatment and lack of rights. During the debates about their rights to citizenship, Costa Ricans often argued that the Jamaicanos did not show any patriotism, that they refused to speak Spanish and to convert to Catholicism, holding on to West Indian culture and British citizenship, and therefore should not be given the same rights as others born in Costa Rica. Finally, in 1953 Afro-Costa Ricans of West Indian descent were fully accepted as citizens of the country where they were born. The new situation created a lot of stress in the West Indian community where some people thought they would be betraying their motherland if they opted for Costa Rican citizenship, while others embraced the opportunity for civil and political rights.35 Although this question was frequently treated as a problem of ethnic identity, as presented by researcher Reina Rosário Fernández, issues concerning national identity among the descendants of Jamaicanos in Limón go beyond the ethnic origins of its inhabitants, and includes strategies of adaptation and political disputes between the hegemonic group and the dominated. As exposed by one of the Costa RicanJamaicans: Al principio está claro que hubo una gran dosis de racismo y discriminación, era la tendencia mundial. No fueron tratados como 33

Hutchinson-Miller. http://www.minorityrights.org/4110/costa-rica/afrocosta-ricans.html, retrieved in June 13, 2014. 35 Hutchinson Miller; Harpelle. 34

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Chapter One costarricenses hasta mucho tiempo después de haber estado en Costa Rica. Se les rechazaba su cultura y sus características físicas. Lo cual no era exclusivo de Costa Rica, no exclusivo hacia las poblaciones negras. Está claro que al principio, en muchos casos tiende a haber un rechazo hacia las poblaciones de inmigrantes. Sin embargo ese rechazo fue mutuo. La población afro-costarricense durante mucho tiempo no tuvo ningún interés en ser costarricense. Ellos se consideraron superiores al ser súbditos de la Corona Inglesa. Para los jamaicanos, los costarricenses eran gente mal educada y con hábitos no muy limpios. Esto influyó también en la creación de sus propias escuelas y grupos sociales. Ellos querían regresar a Jamaica.36

The ties with the mother country played an important role in identities forged in the Diaspora, as much as the demands of adaptation and survival. This is also important in the psychological sphere, and quite revealing in the case of the Jamaicans of Limón, as they claim an inner power and courage that enabled them to face the racist Costa Ricans.37 While the black population in Panama and in Costa Rica is considerably smaller than the white, or at least the non-black population, the situation is different in Brazil and Cuba with both countries having had a large number of people of African descent since the first century of colonization. In spite of this, Blacks in Brazil and in Cuba are still considered minorities. So when, at the turn of the 20th century during the first years of Cuba as an independent republic, the society was faced with the problem of the black immigrant worker, it did not react positively. Cuba was marked by the extended survival of slavery, abolished only in 1886. As a result the society developed in an environment marked by strong notions of hierarchy based on class and colour and, even though miscegenation was widely accepted, there were some privileges that were reserved for those who were bien nacidos, reflecting the colonial policy that emphasized “purity of blood” as the essential requisite for “spanishness”.38 Unlike in Brazil, the participation of Afro-Cubans in the wars of independence, which included the abolition of slavery, gave them a sense of belonging to the Cuban nation where black and mulatto heroes 36

Shirley Campbell Barr interviewed by Reina Cristina Rosário Fernández in “Las identidades de la población de origen jamaiquino in el Caribe costarricense, 18721850.” Diálogos, 9th Congresso de Centroamericano de História, Universidade de Costa Rica, 2008; p. 1251. http://historia.fcs.ucr.ac.cr/articulos/2008/especial 2008/articulos/04-Cultural/55.pdf, retrieved in June 21, 2014. 37 Hutchinson Miller. 38 Verena Martinez-Alier, Marriage, class and color in nineteenth-century Cuba. (London, Cambridge University Press, 1974).

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were celebrated. Moreover, the racial divisions in Cuban society were clear at the turn of the century, when the newly independent government, supported by the United States authorities during the intervention period, limited the participation of Blacks in the politics and administration of the nation. The military experience and the spirit of nationalism that prevailed during the wars of independence gave the Afro-Cubans what Aline Helg called a “high level of organization and mobilization compared with that of Blacks in other Latin American societies (with the exception of Haiti)”.39 This sense of organization moved them forward in their struggle for political rights that culminated with what became known as the “racial war of 1912”, when thousands of Blacks were massacred in Cuba. Another aspect of the black experience in Cuba reflects the influence of the international intellectual and ideological currents that employed “scientific racism” to define and classify human races. Hierarchical society in Cuba, as in the whole of Latin America, took major advantage of these currents of thought to justify the domination and exploitation of its black population. Furthermore, as happened in Brazil, concerns over the growing blackness of the population supported the idea of embracing European immigration and racial whitening to transform the society and build a modern nation. The Cuban elite saw in the importation of European immigrant workers a chance to distance itself from its Caribbean neighbours with their predominantly black populations.40 At the same time, the demands of the sugar industry turned towards the Caribbean islands to recruit cheaper workers, as was happening in other parts of Latin America. Black immigrants from Jamaica, Barbados and Haiti arrived in Cuba during the first decade of independence to work in the sugar cane fields and in the sugar industry, motivated by the economic crises in their countries. The situation alarmed the Cuban elite. Worried about the image of the newly independent republic and its future, they asked the Cuban population if they wanted their country to be like Canada—an independent, white, modern nation—or Barbados—a small colony, where Blacks made up the majority of the population, and marked by poverty.41 The arrival of thousands of black immigrants was supported by the United States investors against the desires of the Cuban upper class; the debate 39 Aline Helg, Our rightful share. The Afro-Cuban struggle for equality, 18861912. (Chapel Hill, University of North Carolina Press, 1995) 4. 40 Aviva Chomsky. “‘Barbados or Canada?’ Race, immigration and nation in earlytwentieth-century Cuba.” Hispanic American Historical Review, 80(3), 415-63. 41 Chomsky.

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over such controversial immigration influenced the discourse on race, with a differentiation between local and foreign Blacks. Some argued that the Afro-Cubans were better than foreign Blacks, because of their loyalty to the Cuban nation, respect for Cuban institutions and the fact that they were not as black as the foreigners. Among the immigrants, the Haitians were the most dangerous, seen as rebellious and inassimilable. As pointed out by Chomsky, even Afro-Cuban demands for political reforms were seen as the product of the “contamination” by Haitian immigrants.42 Analyzing the presence of British West Indian and Haitian immigrants in Cuba in an anti-black context when Cuban attitudes towards blackness were marked by exclusion and discrimination, Marc McLeod pointed to great differences between Haitian and what the Cubans called generically “Jamaican” immigrants, but truly included workers from other Englishspeaking islands of the Caribbean. According to him, Cuba attracted about 900,000 Spanish immigrants between 1900 and 1929. The number of Antillean immigrants is difficult to pinpoint given that many arrived illegally in the island, and many went back and forth, but in 1931 the Cuban census showed that 77,575 Haitians and 28,206 Jamaicans resided in Cuba, while the Jamaican Secretary for Immigration in Cuba estimated that 60,000 Jamaican immigrants lived in Cuba in 1930.43 The presence of those undesirable immigrants in Cuba, as mentioned above, generated an internal debate about blackness and identity, in which the Cuban population tried to differentiate Afro-Cubans from Haitians and Jamaicans. The risk of compromising the ideal process of whitening was seen as real, given the fact that the Antilleans were considered much darker than the local Blacks, i.e., “blacker”. Afro-Cubans were at this point fighting for rights, against racism, and to be accepted as equal in their own society, now they had to come to terms with another black population, that at first represented job competition, and then, it seemed to many, would increase anti-black feelings among the non-black population. The dynamics of identity worked in different ways, according to the circumstances and groups involved. While some Cubans acknowledged the value of Afro-Cubans over foreign Blacks, others would also differentiate among the foreigners, seeing Jamaicans as more acceptable, given their higher level of education, the fact that they spoke English and attended Christian churches regularly; while the Haitians were seem as illiterate, wild, speaking French-Creole and practicing voodoo. In general, 42

Chomsky. Marc McLeod, “Undesirable aliens: race, ethnicity, and nationalism in the comparison of Haitian and British West Indian immigrant workers in Cuba 19121939,” Journal of Social History, 31(3), 1998, 599-623. 43

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black foreigners were accused of carrying malaria, smallpox, cholera and other infectious diseases; they were also accused of being criminals and the women were accused of prostitution.44 While some Afro-Cubans proclaimed their superiority over Antilleans, some Afro-Cuban intellectuals denounced the immigration laws and the forced repatriation of Haitians as proof of the racist ideologies that held sway in Cuba.45 McLeod refers to these differences also in terms of socialization, pointing out that Jamaicans often opted for living in urban areas, were offered better jobs than the Haitians who often had no option but to work in the fields and to live in rural areas. Jamaicans—whatever would be their nationality—created a sense of community, living closer, sending their children to English speaking schools (most of them run by Jamaican teachers), attending Episcopal churches and creating self-help associations as they did in Brazil and in Costa Rica. Once contracted to work in the sugar cane fields, they managed to upgrade their status by working as managers, chauffeurs, cooks, gardeners, hotel servants, teachers and priests. On the other hand, Haitians were mostly illiterate and their poor English limited their access to better jobs and made them more prone to discrimination. Over the decades, the Cuban government several times expelled Haitian workers from the island, and many complaints were registered against government and employers for abusing Antillean workers, the majority of them being Haitians. Another major difference was the larger number of women among Jamaican immigrants, which made it easier to build up a stable community; Haitian female immigrants were much lower in numbers.46 The situation, however, changed during the strikes in the 1930s against abuses in the sugar industry, when black Cuban, Haitian and Jamaican workers united to demand changes in the system and denounce racist practices. The sugar workers demonstrated the ability to unite across racial and national lines—at least for a short time. The national sugar workers’ union, the Sindicato Nacional de Obreros de la Industria Azucarera (SNOIA), issued public proclamations railing “against all discrimination, in salary, in treatment, of Blacks, Jamaicans and Haitians.” The SNOIA leadership also urged all union locals to make specific demands on behalf of the Antillean

44 Marc McLeod. “‘We Cubans are obligated like cats to have a clean face’: malaria, quarantine, and race in neocolonial Cuba, 1898-1940.” The Americas, 67(1), 2010, 57-81. 45 Chomsky. 46 Marc McLeod, “Undesirable aliens.”

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Chapter One

workers. Workers at the Central Tuinucu complied by demanding an end to all wage discrimination against Jamaican and Haitian Blacks, equal payment for equal work and the right of Jamaican and Haitian Blacks to hold any position at the sugar mill.47

The dynamics of racial and national identity and their representations are well represented in the case of Cuba, where it is possible to see the transformations in the meaning of blackness, when applied to those who belong, Afro-Cubans, and to the other, also divided into acceptable, Jamaicans, and unacceptable, Haitians. Circumstances can also change alliances among groups, as they build up strategies to deal with challenges imposed by external powers and the internal dynamics of solidarity. Jamaicans, for example, had more opportunities for endogamy, which was largely denied to Haitians. Intermarriages united Haitians, Jamaicans and Cubans, including non-Blacks. That in a way confirmed the fears of Cubans that the population would grow darker with undesirable miscegenation. Similar dynamics took place in Brazil, Costa Rica and Panama where, with miscegenation among different national and racial groups, other types of identifications were created. In Brazil, the descendants of West Indian immigrants to Belém celebrate their heritage around the Anglican Church, those in Porto Velho identify with the construction of the railroad; Blacks in Costa Rica and Panamá still celebrate their Caribbean roots in their communities, identified by English surnames and the maintenance of certain cultural characteristics. Miscegenation took away the specificity of other identification in Brazil such as the Mina group, but other categories of solidarities were built up according to the place of birth and/or residence, according to type of work, such as the stevedores of Rio de Janeiro and Salvador, and religious practices and other associations like carnival groups and samba schools, which while not exclusive to Blacks of African descent are linked to their traditions. Only in recent decades, influenced by the black movement of the 1960s against racism and for equal opportunity that was particularly strong in the United States since the turn of the 20th century, has Latin America made progress, creating other forms of identification as the Afro-Latin American began to identify with African Americans as other Blacks like themselves. The identification, as usual, comes with questions over the 47

Marc McLeod, “Undesirable aliens”, 605.

“Another Black Like Me”

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differences, features and limitations of the new identify, such as the classification of the mestizo and the frontiers between race and nationality, reproducing the dynamics of racial representation that never cease to change.

CHAPTER TWO TRANSPLANTED WEST INDIANS: FORGOTTEN PEOPLE ON THE WESTERN SHORES OF THE CARIBBEAN SEA RONALD HARPELLE

In early 1955 the Colonial Office in London conducted an enquiry into the attitude of officials in Foreign Service posts in the Central American region toward local British West Indian residents.1 Officials in London were contacted by a West Indian journalist who complained that British West Indians living in the region were not invited to important social events organized by the consulates and embassies, where British subjects not of African descent were. The complaint stemmed from an incident in Haiti the year before when the organizers of an official party to honour the Governor of Jamaica, Hugh Mackintosh Foot, and his wife Florence, neglected to invite some “local Jamaicans” to the event. The journalist’s complaint caught the attention of the Colonial Office and the Foreign Office was asked to provide information about British West Indians residing in nine republics on the Central American isthmus and in the neighbouring Caribbean region. The result of the enquiry was a series of short anecdotal accounts by consular officials about the “coloured” British subjects in their region. The uncertainty in the Colonial Office about the extent of the West Indian diaspora in the Hispanic republics of the Caribbean region may seem surprising given that migration is one of the most important themes in the history of the British West Indies since emancipation, but they could not be faulted for not having information at their fingertips because of the haphazard nature of this largely unregulated and massive movement of Caribbean peoples. The forgotten West Indians of Central America and Panama are a case in point. Not only did the authorities not know how 1

C.G. Kemball to Mr. Vincent, 24 February 1955, FO 371 114016

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many transplanted West Indians were resident in the Hispanic republics of the Caribbean region in 1955, no one has ever been able to provide an accurate account of how many British West Indians had ventured to these countries after emancipation had created the possibility of moving about freely. However, it is surprising that the British authorities could have forgotten the West Indians of Central America and Panama because the consular files for the region reveal that one of the most consistent complaints was that the West Indians relied far too often on Consuls to settle matters that the officials considered trivial and a waste of time. British authorities accused the West Indians of taking up too much of their time with petty issues while more important work was left undone. In the first decades of the 20th century many, if not most, West Indians living in Central America were proud British subjects and they demonstrated their allegiance to the crown and empire at every opportunity. One such occasion of the West Indian community's expression of pride in its "British heritage" was the coronation of King George V in 1911 when celebrations were held across the region. Similarly, a few years later 2,000 men signed up to serve in the British West India Regiment during World War One. The Great Depression and World War Two may have caused Britain to forget the West Indians in Central America, but they did not forget Britain. West Indians kept abreast of events within the British Empire and demonstrations of allegiance to Britain were commonplace in small coastal communities of the circum-Caribbean region where dark skin, the English language and the protestant faith defined the majority of the residents. By 1955 the heyday of British West Indian migration to and through the republics of the region was long since over and the British subjects who remained were generally older individuals. The migration to the Central American isthmus began in 1850 with the construction of the Panama Railroad and it all but ended in the 1920s and 1930s, when factors like the end of the major construction projects, political agitation by Hispanic Central American nationalists, and the onset of the Great Depression closed what were once open doors to foreign labour.2 French attempts to construct the Panama Canal in the 1880s and 1890s attracted labourers from across the Caribbean, as did the U.S. phase which lasted from 1904 to 1914. Throughout Central America, railways, along with opportunities in and around the banana and mining industries, and access 2

For the purposes of this chapter the isthmus includes the Central American republics and Panama, but not Belize.

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to land attracted many thousands more in the same period. Most of those who ventured to the region moved on in search of greener pastures elsewhere when employment opportunities dried up, but hundreds of communities were built along the coast from Panama to Belize and they were still home to many thousands of people of West Indian descent in 1955. As was noted by the British authorities in the region, a significant number of “coloured” British subjects continued to reside in the republics of Central American and Panama in 1955. The responses prepared by Britain’s representatives in Central America and Panama to the Foreign Office make for an inadequate census, but they provide a mid-century snapshot of what remained of a once vibrant extension of the British West Indies on the Central American isthmus. Not surprisingly, the largest concentrations of West Indians were in Panama and Costa Rica, where most of the employment opportunities once existed. In contrast, in El Salvador, the only country on the isthmus that does not border on the Caribbean, the British Legation responded that there were no British West Indians there, except for “one lady from Kingston” and “two coloured men who sometimes ride as professional jockeys...”3 The enquiry by the Foreign Office revealed that a total of about 9,000 West Indians, most of whom were older men and women, registered with the British authorities in the region.4 These people were the remnants of one of the greatest free labour migrations in the history of the Western Hemisphere and they were the pioneers of the communities where they, their children and grandchildren now formed a significant visible minority group. The problem with the snapshot taken by the Foreign Office was in the depth of field because it only focused on those who were registered with the authorities and many thousands of others appeared as a blur in the background. A century after the first waves of post-emancipation immigration from the West Indies to the Hispanic republics of the Western Caribbean began, the presence of British West Indians in the region was rapidly declining but had not disappeared because their offspring continued to thrive. Those British subjects who remained mostly lived in fading West Indian 3

British Legation, San Salvador to Morgan Man, 6 April 1955 FO 371 1140 6. This figure is suspect because in Costa Rica alone, the 1950 census showed that 7,728 British subjects lived in Costa Rica and that 7,060 of them were living in Limón, the province where most of the West Indian population lived and where few other British nationals were resident. Harpelle, West Indians of Costa Rica: Race, Class and the Integration of an Ethnic Minority (Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2001) p. 151. 4

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communities that were being rapidly assimilated into the Hispanic mainstream and their children and grand-children were becoming or had already become Afro-Hispanics. The assimilation process was hastened by legislation designed to prevent further immigration of people of African descent and to oblige the offspring of British West Indians to apply for citizenship or risk the consequences of being stateless, and therefore without the rights of citizens in the countries they called home. The West Indians were not the first people of African descent to arrive in Central America, but they were a significant challenge to the status quo in the places where they established their communities. Few regions of the planet saw as much mixing of peoples from around the world as Latin America and the Caribbean prior to the mid-twentieth century and, with the qualified exception of Costa Rica, Central Americans transformed miscegenation into a symbol of nationalism. Consequently, to view Central American reaction to West Indian immigration simply in terms of race and racism is to obscure the history of relations between Hispanics and people of African descent on the isthmus. In the mid-nineteenth century, when the first wave of West Indian workers arrived in the region, communities of people of African descent were already well established in Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica and Panama. However, West Indians, unlike the people of African descent who preceded them, were considered a threat because they competed for employment, did not assimilate and they challenged national identities by establishing vibrant English-speaking, West Indian communities. As elsewhere in the Americas, relations between Africans and Europeans were conditioned by the relative importance of slavery in the history of the countries that form the republics of Central America and Panama. Compared to some other parts of the Americas, modest numbers of slaves were brought to the region, but wherever there were slaves there soon emerged free persons of colour. Although slavery existed in every country in the region, the number of people of African descent in bondage was relatively small. For example, in Costa Rica where as few as 80 individuals were set free after Independence, the image of a “white settler” prevailed and the descendants of slaves faded into the Costa Rican gene pool.5 Since slavery was not a prominent feature of the economy in what became the Central American republics, no large concentrations of people of African descent existed on the isthmus. Miscegenation in a region with small populations of Europeans and Africans served to obscure racial 5

Carlos Meléndez Caverri and Quince Duncan. El Negro en Costa Rica. (San José: Editorial Costa Rica, 1989), 48.

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divisions in the societies that evolved. Similarly, independence from Spain in 1821 coincided with emancipation to create new republics where the issue of racial identity was quickly eclipsed by the sudden emergence of national projects designed to instil nationalism among former colonial subjects.6 Only indigenous communities, with their traditional land tenure systems and native languages were able to resist these forces of change. As a result, during the nineteenth century national identities were forged and most of the descendants of slaves brought to the isthmus were fully integrated into Hispanic culture. In Panama and Nicaragua, where slavery was common, emancipation created opportunities and miscegenation served to blur much of the racial divide that had characterized colonial society. People of mixed descent, in all their shades, climbed social ladders throughout the isthmus as post-emancipation society incorporated people of African or mixed African descent into the Hispanic mainstream. In Panama, the descendants of slaves became known as “Colonial Blacks,” a distinction that was important when the West Indians began arriving and settling in the country.7 Colonial Blacks were not treated as equals, but they were culturally Hispanic and a small part of the national identity.8 However, skin colour was a relative indicator of identity in Central America, where Mestizos, Amerindians and people of African descent outnumbered people who considered themselves to be “pure” Europeans. The best example of this ability to ignore the inconvenient is in Costa Rica, a country sandwiched between Panama and Nicaragua, where a national narrative argues that the vast majority of the population is directly descended from “white settlers.” According to Mauricio Meléndez Obando, the Costa Rican and Nicaraguan elite often had African ancestors.9 Similarly, all over Latin America wealth and status tended to 6

Central America was a backwater in the Spanish Empire and was largely spared the ravages of the wars of independence from Spain. A common joke in Costa Rica is that it took one month for Costa Ricans to find out about their independence from Spain. And, when they did find out, Central Americans began immediately to focus on the big questions of governance and the construction of identity. As part of the national building process, slavery was abolished throughout Central America on 17 April 1825, two years after independence was declared. 7 According to one source, Colombians referred to Panama as their black province. See Michael Conniff, Black Workers on White Canal, Pittsburgh (University of Pittsburgh Press, 1985), 10-12, for a discussion of race relations in Panama. 8 Panama did not obtain its independence from Colombia until 1903. As a result, for 75 years its identity was shaped by Colombia’s national project which included having to incorporate a significant number of former slaves. 9 Mauricio Meléndez Obando, “Afro-Descendants in Costa Rica and Nicaragua,” in Blacks and Blackness in Central America: Between Race and Place, edited by

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“whiten” people and African genes are everywhere. It is also important to note that there were two other important groups of people of African descent who preceded the arrival of the British West Indians in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The first group was tied to British entrepreneurs who brought hundreds of slaves and free persons of colour to the Mosquito Coast which stretched from Honduras through Nicaragua to Costa Rica. These people of African descent settled in isolated areas, intermingling with the aboriginal population and blending into the societies of the indigenous people from the region. Continued contact with the British, who maintained control of a portion of the Nicaragua’s Caribbean coast until the end of the nineteenth century, meant that Hispanic influence over this group was minimal until the twentieth century. The result was the evolution of an Afro-Amerindian identity among the Miskito Indians of the Caribbean coast where English, not Spanish, was the language of politics and commerce until well into the twentieth century. Similarly, in the 1790s the ancestors of the Garifuna, or Black Caribs, arrived and settled on the Caribbean coast of Central America.10 The Garifuna were an Afro-Amerindian group from St. Christopher who were brought to Roatan Island off the coast of Honduras by the British who feared a spread of the unrest that threatened European slaveholders in Haiti in the aftermath of the French Revolution.11 Approximately 4,000 men, women and children were taken to Roatan Island, which they soon abandoned for the coast. Once on the mainland, the Garifuna, who depended on the sea for a big part of their subsistence needs, spread from Nicaragua and Honduras to Belize.12 In terms of their identity, the Lowell Gudmunson and Justin Wolfe (Durham: Duke University Press, 2010). Similarly, Leslie Rout categorized Honduras and Nicaragua as having significant Negroid influence (6-30% of population); and Costa Rica and El Salvador as having a small minority (2-5%). (Rout 1976: 211) 10 See Nancie Gonzalez's Sojourners of the Caribbean: Ethnogenesis and Ethnohistory of the Garifuna (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1988) for a full discussion of the history and culture of the Garifuna. 11 Haiti obtained its independence on January 1, 1804 after decades of unrest. 12 Belize remained a British possession until 1981 when it gained its independence. As a British colony it had a long history of slavery and a predominantly African population, but it was not a magnet for Afro-Central Americans or the West Indians that eventually migrated to the region. Poor people of African descent were never welcome anywhere, but continued British control meant that Afro-Central Americans were not welcome because of their connection to the Hispanic republics and the West Indians that drifted to Central America showed little interest in establishing themselves in another British colony.

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Garifuna adapted to the societies that they encountered and became distinct ethnic groups. Some became hispanicized, others were more like the Miskitos and those in Belize retained their British Caribbean orientation because of the British presence. Anthropologist Nancie Gonzalez characterizes the Garifuna as being mostly Amerindian in their material culture and family life, but more African in their religion.13 When the West Indians arrived in the latter half of the nineteenth century, these two groups, the Miskito and the Garifuna, lived in isolated communities along the coast between Belize and Costa Rica. Unlike the descendants of slaves brought to the region before independence, the Miskito and Garifuna were not integrated and remained geographically and culturally distant from the Hispanic mainstream. They lived in small villages in the most remote regions of the Hispanic republics and were easily overlooked in the decades of nation building that followed independence. Isolation also helped them resist domination by hispanic governments and authorities with the result that force was often used against them. A notable incident is the massacre of Garifuna in the village of San Juan, Honduras in 1937 when all of the men were shot because they were suspected of being part of a conspiracy to overthrow a dictatorship. Today, approximately 200,000 Garifuna, representing about 90% of the entire Garifuna population of Central America, live in Honduras.14 People of African descent were therefore divided into two groups prior to the arrival of the West Indians. The descendants of colonial slaves were assimilated and, although discriminated against, became a piece of the national fabric in the Hispanic societies they inhabited. In contrast, the Afro-Amerindians were not assimilated and, if their existence was even known to Hispanics, were not accepted as part of the national project. As a small population living in a region that was not fully incorporated into the national economy or society, they were ignored because they did not pose a threat to the Hispanic mainstream. People of African descent had landed on Central American shores for centuries prior to the nineteenth century, and these small pockets of Africans were a curiosity, a nuisance, and they were often brutalized, but they were not the same kind of challenge that the West Indians became. The challenge and the change came as a result of modernization schemes that saw railways, mines and plantations spread across the tropical lowlands on the Atlantic side of the isthmus. 13

For more information about the Garifuna see Nancie L. Solien Gonzalez, Black Carib Household Structure: A Study of Migration and Modernization (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1969) 14 Virgilio Lopez Garcia, La Bahía de Puerto del Sol y la Masacre de los Garifunas de San Juan (Tegucigalpa: Guayamuras, 1994)

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The history of West Indian immigration and settlement in Central America begins with emancipation in the British Caribbean, which resulted in what one author has called the "problem of freedom".15 The Emancipation Act of 1833 was not unexpected but the economies of Britain’s West Indian colonies were slow to adjust to the new reality. Although every facet of Caribbean society underwent change in the wake of emancipation, the issue that overshadowed all others was the restructuring of the economy. Everyone experienced significant challenge in the evolving capitalist environment of the mid-nineteenth century Caribbean and ex-slaves were the most vulnerable to fluctuations in the economy. This was because the new economy was merely the modernization of the old economy. In the transition, some estates failed, others were converted into modern plantations and the fate of everyone in the region was dictated by the shift to wage labour. People generally stayed where they were because there was no new frontier and there was a labour surplus throughout the region. For some, migration in and around the Caribbean was seen as a viable alternative to staying put. As free people who were cast adrift by the end of slavery, many West Indians began washing up on other Caribbean shores and these waves of migration eventually took some as far as Central America. The start of construction on the Panama Railroad in 1850 provided the first real opportunity for people to get work off the islands of the Caribbean. This enterprise was completed in 1855 but some West Indians remained behind where they established the first of many Caribbean communities on the isthmus. The next big opportunity came in 1881when French engineer Ferdinand de Lesseps was contracted to build the Panama Canal. He failed in his attempt, but the project lasted until 1890 and then another French company made a second attempt between 1897 and 1900. During this period a number of other construction projects also attracted West Indian labourers to Central America where they built railroads and established the first banana plantations. By the time the Panama Canal opened in 1914, Costa Rica was the world’s biggest exporter of bananas, thousands of miles of track had been laid to connect the lowlands to a number of ports and all of it was built by West Indians. Although no record of the total number of West Indians who went to Central America exists, it is safe to say that as many as 500,000 men, women and children ventured to the isthmus in the century between 1850 and 1950. Nine thousand were still there in 1955, but many thousands more had either 15 Thomas C. Holt, The Problem of Freedom: Race, Labor, and Politics in Jamaica and Britain, 1832-1938 (Baltimore; John Hopkins University Press, 1992)

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moved on or were buried in the cemeteries that tell the tale of hardship these sojourners endured. The statistics on banana production reflect the establishment of West Indian communities in Central America. For example, the first significant shipments of bananas from Costa Rica began in the late 1880s, when just under one million stems were exported. By 1900, exports had climbed to 3,420,186 stems and two years later to 4,174,199. By 1908 around ten million stems were being exported each year and the industry peaked in 1913 when Costa Rica became the world's leading exporter of bananas with the export of 11,117,833 stems, which were destined primarily for the United States.16 Although high export levels were a function of the physical and climatic characteristics of the Atlantic Coast region, perhaps the most important factor in banana production was the availability of workers and until about 1920 West Indians were the majority of that labour force. As a consequence, it is possible to provide a conservative estimate of the number of West Indians who went to Central America between the beginning of the construction of the Panama Railroad in 1850 and the informal survey conducted by the British in 1955. The best figures are based on estimates, but it is obvious that peak employment on railways, the canal, the ports and the banana plantations was preceded by a build up and followed by a decline in the need for imported labour. As many as 250,000 men and women were attracted by the opportunities offered in Panama for the construction of the Panama Railroad (1850-55), the French attempts to construct a canal (1881-89), the U.S. completion of the canal (1904-1914) and to work on the plantations on Panama’s Caribbean coast. Family reunification and the refurbishing of the Canal in the 1940s also attracted people from the West Indies to the country. If only 10,000 West Indian workers per year arrived in Panama to work on the Canal during the decade that the U.S. took control of its construction, this would mean 100,000 people, and even though most of those who did not die as a result of diseases or accidents left Panama, thousands remained behind. In 1920, six years after the completion of the project, Canal authorities estimated that there were 70,000 West Indians in the country.17 Added to this are the banana enclaves of Costa Rica, Nicaragua, 16

See Reinaldo Caranholo, "Sobre la evolución de las actividades bananeras en Costa Rica," in Estudios Sociales Centro Americanos, No. 19, (enero-abril) 1978, 145-151, and Clarence F. Jones, and Paul C. Morrison, "Evolution of the Banana Industry of Costa Rica," Economic Geography, Vol. 28, No. 1, 1952. 17 Spirit of the Missions, Vol. 85, June, 1920, p. 359. See also Olive Senior, “The Colon People” 2 parts, Jamaica Journal, 11-12, 1978.

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Honduras and Guatemala that attracted a steady flow of West Indians. In Costa Rica alone, one study estimates that close to 43,000 Jamaicans made their way to work on the banana plantations between 1891 and 1911.18 Added to these would be the other islanders and all those who arrived after 1911 during the boom years of the banana industry when Costa Rica became the world’s largest exporter of the fruit. If an average of just four thousand people per year, including men, women and children, went to these republics during the initial heyday of the banana industry, between 1890 and 1930, totalling 120,000 for that period, and an additional thousand per year for the decades that bracket the peak of the industry, an estimated 140,000 West Indians can be said to have gone to and through the region during this time. One of the most interesting aspects of the West Indian diaspora to the Central American isthmus is the cultural transformation that occurred as people adapted to new circumstances in a Hispanic environment. Often arriving with little or no financial security, limited skills and an uncertain future, West Indians proved adept at assessing and exploiting opportunities. Their ability to adjust to new surroundings and new demands was all the more remarkable because they usually found themselves in situations where racial discrimination was prevalent. Wherever West Indians arrived in Central America, they found themselves confronted with a set of issues specific to the location and their objective, in order to succeed, was to look for solutions that allowed for their security as individuals and as a distinct community. West Indians found that systematic segregation and harsh working conditions dulled and clouded the promise of prosperity. As a community West Indians were ostracized by the Hispanic mainstream and were mostly dependent on international corporations, like the Compagnie Nouvelle du Canal de Panama or the United Fruit Company, for their livelihoods.19 Nevertheless, West Indians carved out spaces for communities and took advantage of every opportunity to settle on the isthmus. The opportunities that came and went along the Caribbean coast resulted in a several waves of immigration, each one bringing a new generation from all corners of the British West Indies. Jamaica had the largest population and therefore the largest number of men and women ready to try their luck abroad, but every village, town and city along the 18

Elizabeth McLean Petras, Jamaican Labor Migration: White Capital and Black Labor, 1850-1930 (Boulder: Westview Press, 1988), 102. 19 Refer to Petras; Michael Conniff; and Aviva Chomsky, West Indian Workers and the United Fruit Company in Costa Rica, 1870-1940 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1996), for recent histories of West Indian migration and settlement in Central America and Panama.

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Caribbean coast of the isthmus was Pan-Caribbean in its composition, and cleavages along religious, social or ethnic lines were common.20 Despite the divisions, their West Indian identity united people in working together to protect themselves and this in turn solidified the foundations of the new communities that emerged along the coast. These Caribbean migrants were also caught in the cross currents of a declining British Empire, the new imperialism of the United States and the growing aspirations of the impoverished Hispanic republics they resided in. They were third country nationals; British subjects living in Hispanic republics and working for some of the first modern multinational corporations. As West Indian workers disembarked from the ships that carried them to jobs on the isthmus, they were usually greeted on the docks by Jim Crow, a system of segregation, differential pay scales and racial attitudes imported from the United States. The subtleties of ethnicity and class divisions in the West Indies, although apparent to the workers themselves, were not fully understood, but were exploited nonetheless, by the men who ran the construction projects and banana plantations of Central America and Panama. West Indians were an attractive workforce for several reasons. For one thing, the Caribbean basin functioned as an enormous labour pool that served to keep wages down and provide conditions that ensured a captive workforce. The decline of the British Caribbean economy in the second half of the nineteenth century, coinciding as it did with the end of slavery, resulted in the creation of a massive free labour force that was geographically isolated and mobile.21 These factors combined to ensure that the companies that imported West Indian workers to the region could exercise inordinate control over the lives of their employees. As part of the labour strategy employees were supplied transportation, housing, schools, all manner of merchandise, and medical services, making West Indians a malleable workforce. People who stepped out of 20

The literature on the West Indian diaspora to Central America and Panama is uneven, but a few significant studies have been produced. See for example, Conniff; Philippe Bourgois, Ethnicity at Work: Divided Labor on a Central American Banana Plantation (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1989); Chomsky; and R. Harpelle, The West Indians of Costa Rica: Race, Class, and the Integration of an Ethnic Minority (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2001) 21 Refer to Michael Craton, “Reshuffling the Pack: The Transition from Slavery to other Forms of Labour in the British Caribbean, 1780-1890,” in Empire, Enslavement and Freedom in the Caribbean (Ian Randle Publishers, 1997) for a discussion of the development of a labour pool in the region.

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line could easily find themselves without a job and a place to live. The various corporations of the region also cooperated with one another to ensure that agitators were isolated, monitored, harassed and arrested if need be. West Indians also did not enjoy the full protection of the governments of the host countries in the Hispanic Caribbean. As foreign nationals, West Indians were not citizens and often had to rely on the benevolence of their corporate masters and British officials to guarantee their interests.22 Another advantage to using West Indian workers was that in addition to being a captive workforce, they also tended to be better educated than their Hispanic counterparts and they spoke English, which was the language of U.S. corporate enterprise in the region. After emancipation in the Caribbean, British colonial authorities introduced an education system that served to meet the changing needs of the island economies.23 Although vocational training was emphasized, qualified bureaucrats and professionals were also needed because the colonial administrations of the newly free societies of the British Caribbean required the services of an educated West Indian élite. The majority of West Indians who went to the region worked as labourers, but some became peasant farmers, small business owners, or occupied skilled positions such as clerks, school teachers, nurses and accountants. The result for the U.S. corporations operating in Central America and Panama was the availability of a literate and skilled labour pool that could supply almost any corporate need. West Indians were but one part of a tripartite labour pool that also included Hispanics and Amerindians, and the corporations of the region used ethnic divisions between the three groups to manipulate workers. The borders between the Central American republics were not an obstacle to movement for Hispanic workers, so every worksite contained subgroupings that were divided along national lines and this also became a feature of the politics of identity. Salvadorans, Guatemalans, Nicaraguans, Hondurans, Costa Ricans and Panamanians were all Hispanics, but they knew who they were and this complicated things. No greater divide existed than between the West Indians and their Hispanic counterparts, and employers knew this. Philippe Bourgois’ research demonstrates that 22 See R. Harpelle, “Bananas and Business: West Indians and United Fruit in Costa Rica.” Race & Class (July, 2000) for a discussion of the relationship that existed between the company and its employees. 23 See Kazim Bacchus, Education As and For Legitimacy: Developments in West Indian Education Between 1846 and 1895 (Kitchener, Ontario: Wilfred Laurier University Press, 1994) for a discussion of post-emancipation education in the British Caribbean.

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the United Fruit Company developed a conscious policy of dividing workers along ethnic lines in order to prevent unified action on their part.24 Segregation was common on the job and in the communities established by the corporations. The animosity between West Indians and others was obvious to observers and was a functional part of company operations.25 Although they inhabited the same communities and worked for the same employers, not all workers were treated alike. Better education and a facility with the English language meant that West Indians often enjoyed the status of a labour élite, getting better jobs and higher pay than even the locals. The result was a high level of animosity among Hispanics toward West Indians.26 In addition to competition on the job, British West Indians were seen by some as an expression of the contentious foreign investment schemes hatched in every country at the turn of the century and a daily reminder of the subservience of national interests to international commerce. The face of foreign capitalism was the face of the West Indian community and they could not escape the glare of the working-class or the politicians who stirred them up. As non-citizens and an obviously foreign element, British West Indians were often subject to denigration by their Hispanic coworkers and neighbours. The resentment was not limited to the enclaves established by the corporations. In the Hispanic cities and towns of the interior, West Indians were considered a threat to the national identities of the various states in the region and politicians often exploited the xenophobia of the electorate. Nationalism blended with racism to isolate people who were seen to live up to the stereotypes held by Hispanics in the region of people of African descent. West Indian immigration and settlement became a political issue across the isthmus when Hispanic workers began to compete for the jobs held by the foreigners. Coincidentally, the expansion of capitalism in other parts of the country, through coffee and other agricultural production, put pressure on peasants 24

Bourgois offers a superior treatment of the divide and conquer methods used by United Fruit on its plantations. 25 Elisavinda Echeverri-Gent, "Forgotten Workers: British West Indians and the Early Days of the Banana Industry in Costa Rica and Honduras," Journal of Latin American Studies, 24, 1992. p. 285. 26 For one account of an incident between Hispanics and West Indians see Paul Dosal’s account of the murder of Mr. Esson, a Jamaican, in Doing Business with the Dictators: A Political History of United Fruit in Guatemala, 1899-1944 (Wilmington, Delaware: Scholarly Resources Books, 1993), 119. Documentation on abuses committed against West Indians by Hispanic authorities in Central America and Panama abounds in the Public Record Office in London.

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to move off the land, creating a rise in unemployment and pressure for jobs and land in the tropical lowland where the West Indians lived. West Indians, unlike Colonial Blacks or the Afro-Amerindian inhabitants of coastal villages, were often considered a threat because they arrived in very large numbers over a short period of time, and they took root wherever they landed. Much like the companies they worked for, Jamaicans, Barbadians and other Caribbean migrants were considered to be itinerants who would never become a permanent fixture in the region. As the twentieth century began to unfold and the interests of the Central American republics diverged from those of the United States, the large corporations operating on the isthmus and their imported labour were seen increasingly as a challenge to national sovereignty. West Indians were an obvious target for the concerns raised by those who sought to challenge the domination of the multinational corporations in their midst. Consequently, people of African descent, along with other non-Europeans were singled out by legislation that restricted, denied, or even stripped them of their legal rights.27 With respect to the West Indians, the objective of the governments in the region was to control and curtail the immigration of people of African descent in order to prevent what some considered to be the “Africanization” of the isthmus. The pressures on West Indians and other non-Hispanic foreigners to assimilate or emigrate began in the 1910s and intensified thereafter. Every country from Panama to Guatemala passed a series of new immigration laws that sought to close the doors on non-Europeans entering the various republics and restrict employment opportunities to Central Americans. In 1906 Honduras passed a new “Alien Law” and, according to Frederick Opie, the Guatemalan government passed its first “anti-non-white” immigration policy in 1914. Michael Conniff provides a long list of similar policies in his work on the Panama Canal.28 At the same time, 27

For an account of the efforts of one government to restrict the immigration and settlement of West Indians in Central America see R. Harpelle, The West Indians of Costa Rica and "The Social and Political Integration of West Indians in Costa Rica: 1930-1950." Journal of Latin American Studies, Vol. 25, Part 1, (February, 1993). 28 For Honduras see British National Archives FO 372 46 13241. Frederick Opie, “Africans in the Caribbean and Latin America” in A Companion to African American History, Edited by Alton Hornsby, Jr. (London: Blackwell Publishing, 2005), 67-85, and Conniff. See also Steven Scott Gillick, “Life and Labor in a Banana Enclave: Bananeros, the United Fruit Company and the limits of trade unionism in Guatemala, 1906–1931,” PhD dissertation, Tulane University, 1995; Echeverri-Gent, and Lara Putnam, The Company They Kept: Migrants and the Politics of Gender in Caribbean Costa Rica, 1870–1960 (Chapel Hill: North

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other laws were passed that gradually closed the door on the naturalization of resident foreigners and gradually closed the window on claims to citizenship by those born on Central American soil to foreign nationals, obliging adults to either apply for citizenship or risk the consequences of being an undocumented foreigner.29 Typically, the laws passed by Central American governments were creative in targeting specific minority groups who were considered undesirable at the time. For example, in Costa Rica, the government often raised concerns about people from other “races,” and these “races” were defined in the broadest possible terms. Typically, in legislation, “Negroes,” the Chinese, and Arabs, were lumped together with people from specific regions of the world, like Syrians and Armenians, and with groups like coolies and gypsies, and non-Christians like Hindus and Jews. Restrictions on these groups evolved over time, reflecting national and international events, and a series of pieces of legislation was passed over many years to raise barriers to potential immigrants or even visitors, who were seen by the state as a problem. Costa Rica provides a good example of how legislation on immigration evolved. The Costa Rican government began in 1904 with a prohibition on immigration by people from the Middle East in general and gypsies from all countries. This was followed in 1911 by an effort to register all of the “Chinos” in the country and by a 1934 “special reglementary law” that prohibited “people of colour” from being hired on United Fruit Company plantations on the Pacific coast.30 One of the most revealing efforts to impose restrictions, and one that best captures the xenophobic concerns of Costa Rican legislators, was the 1942 law on immigration that prohibited the immigration of "the black race, Chinese, Arabs, Turks, Syrians, Armenians, Gypsies, Coolies, etc."31 The addition of “etcetera” gave immigration officials the widest possible latitude to interpret the law. As might be expected, the authorities interpreted legislation to suit their own prejudices and the circumstances of the moment. For British West Indians, almost all of whom were of African descent, the 1942 law, coupled with the restrictions on their mobility within the country, stimulated emigration by those who could hope for a better life elsewhere.32 However, for thousands of British West Indians, Carolina Press, 2002) 29 See Harpelle, West Indians of Costa Rica. 30 Decreto No.1 de 10 de junio de 1904, Brisith National Archives, FO 372 1906 1059, Government of Costa Rica, Coleccion de Leyes y Decretos, 1911; 1912, Government of Costa Rica, Ley Reglamentadora Especial, Congreso 17004. 31 Government of Costa Rica, Colección de leyes y decretos, 1943. 32 The Atlantic Voice, 12 February 1944 and 26 February 1944

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their children and grandchildren, emigration was not an option because they either had no place, or means, to go because they had invested their lives in Costa Rica. The same situation existed for British West Indians and other visible, cultural, or religious minorities elsewhere on the isthmus. Along the way, a series of other laws was passed to encourage West Indians and others to opt for Costa Rican citizenship. Restrictions on immigration were similarly coupled with efforts to assimilate West Indians in other countries. The effect was to separate second- and third-generation immigrants from their roots and create the conditions for the emergence of an Afro-Central American identity among people of West Indian descent. Despite the efforts to target people of African descent, West Indians remained the largest single non-Hispanic ethnic group in the region and in 1955 they were the vast majority of the British subjects in Central America. For most there was no blending in in the way other groups may have been able to blend into the mainstream. West Indians stood out because of the colour of their skin, their use of English and their Protestant beliefs. And while the 9,000 British West Indians the Foreign Office identified was a significant number, far more noticeable were the descendants of West Indians who outnumbered British subjects by about ten to one. According to the British authorities in Panama, an estimated 90,000 or more people in the country were of “pure West Indian descent”.33 Thousands of others lived in villages, towns and cities that dotted the Caribbean coast and a much smaller number moved inland to other parts of the isthmus. Many of these “pure” West Indians could possibly have claimed British colonial status by virtue of their parents’ citizenship, but very few of those who were born and remained in Central America did so. This is because these were people who identified with the communities and countries they were born in and who had nowhere to return to and no intention of leaving The fight for rights for people of African descent was a long battle shaped by the history of West Indian immigration and settlement in the region. A large number of West Indian communities were established in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries along the western shores of the Caribbean. These frontier towns were a function of the industries that provided their livelihoods. Their populations were extremely fluid, experiencing a constant ebb and flow of people from all corners of the Caribbean. By 1955, communities large and small lined the Caribbean coast and served as a long series of stepping stones that connected Belize to Colombia. Like Antonio Benitez-Rojo’s notion of the “repeating 33

R. Milburn to M.C.G. Man, 5 May 1955, FO 371 1140 6.

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island,” an alternative route between North and South America was through the communities found along the Caribbean coast of Central America.34 Some people came as immigrants looking to begin a new life while others came as sojourners who wanted to make money and return to their home islands. But in the end, these communities were populated with forgotten West Indians who had been left stranded on the Caribbean shores of the Central American isthmus after enterprises collapsed or otherwise changed their labour force. Costa Rica’s 1927 census provides evidence of the banana enclave as a diverse social setting where West Indians were prominent among the population. By 1927, approximately 50 years after the banana enclave in the Province of Limón attracted its first West Indian labourer, about 32,000 people lived in the province and roughly half of the population, or about 18,000 people, were of African descent. Significantly, about 9,000 of the “black” population were women and, apart from men living in barracks out on the plantations, everyone lived in multigenerational households, indicating their permanence as a community. Virtually all of the people identified as being of African descent were either West Indians or their descendants. Moreover, by 1927 most people of African descent in Limón were no longer employed directly by the United Fruit Company. Many West Indians who were working for the company were in specialized trades and not out on the plantations, but most others were independent farmers, shopkeepers, artisans, professionals and everything in between.35 However, government documents indicate that in 1927, only twenty-five out of about twenty thousand residents of West Indian origin had become Costa Rican citizens.36 In other words, a community had evolved out of a migrant workforce and they were there to stay, but they were not yet ready to become Costa Rican citizens. All indications are that the West Indian communities of the rest of Central America experienced the same general trajectory of growth and development, from contract labourers to diverse communities. The provenance of most of the West Indian labourers who ventured to Central America is largely unknown because records were poorly kept. However, a review of existing documentation reveals that West Indians came from every island, city and town in the Caribbean basin. Certainly, the attraction of opportunities in Central America was a major part of the equation, but other factors played a role as well. For example, population 34

Antonio Benitez-Rojo, The Repeating Island: The Caribbean and the Postmodern Perspective (Duke University Press, 1996) 35 See Ron Harpelle, West Indians of Costa Rica, 82. 36 Secretaría de Relaciones Exteriores, Indice completo de opciones.

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density, the local economy and availability of transportation to a given location in Central America were significant determinants. The construction of the U.S. Canal attracted more Barbadians than were attracted to the banana plantations. The Canal project was not only in closer geographical proximity to Barbados, but the construction company sent labour recruiters to the island. Also, some governments were more willing than others to allow their young men and women leave to seek their fortunes in Hispanic America. Jamaica, with the largest population, exported the most labour and had the largest impact on the culture and population of Central America. These were the visible expression of labour migration and they were an easy target for those who were looking for scapegoats and issues to rally Hispanics. The fear of the West Indians was rooted in their African origins and their cultural orientation. In addition to being of African descent, West Indians were English-speaking Protestants who were also class conscious British subjects. These differences were reinforced by the fact that most West Indians settled in segregated communities in the enclaves established by the foreign-owned corporations that built the Panama Canal, the railways, and the massive banana plantation complex that dominated the economy of the Caribbean coastal plain. West Indians also had the ear of their employers because of they spoke English and this translated into what was perceived as preferential treatment. West Indian loyalty to their employers was sometimes challenged, but they were dependent on corporations like the United Fruit Company for jobs, services and protection against Hispanic attempts to curtail immigration and the extension of rights to this group of immigrants. As a result of this hostility, laws were passed to restrict immigration after the Canal was finished and after the banana boom of the 1910s gave way to the spread of plant disease in the 1920s, followed by the decade of depression in the 1930s and the disruption to markets caused by World War Two. Not surprisingly, newspaper articles and pamphlets denouncing West Indian immigration and settlement appeared throughout the region. Olmedo Alfaro's 1925 booklet, “El peligro antillano en la America Central: la defensa de la raza,” (“The danger of the West Indian in Central America: in defence of the race”) and Jose Guerrero’s "Como quiere que sea Costa Rica, blanca o negra? El problema racial del negro y las actuales contrataciones bananeras” (“How do you want Costa Rica, white or black? The racial problem of the negro and the current banana contracts”) are two examples of anti-West Indian propaganda that Hispanics in the region consumed.37 37

See Olmedo Alfaro's El peligro antillano en la America Central: la defensa de

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Generally, these publications spoke about the africanization of Central America by a race that was incapable of being assimilated. In response, to growing opposition to the their presence in the region, West Indians isolated themselves in communities where West Indian churches, schools, businesses, sports clubs, newspapers and fraternal organizations insulated them from the mainstream. For a time, one of the most prominent organizations in the region was the Universal Negro Improvement Association. Between 1919 and 1922 chapters of the UNIA were founded throughout the Caribbean basin and in Central America from British Honduras to the Panama Canal. Two of the most important centres for UNIA activity were Limón and Bocas del Toro. Limón's small community eventually produced more branches of the UNIA than Jamaica and many other larger West Indian societies.38 By the mid-1920s, there were reported to be twenty-three branches of the UNIA in Costa Rica and forty-seven in Panama, of which many were in the Bocas del Toro region.39 The entire Caribbean coast was, therefore, one of the most important areas of UNIA activity outside of the United States and this can be attributed to the need among West Indians for defensive institutions.40 The UNIA’s influence was short lived but many other less radical, but no less defensive, organizations remained fixtures in every West Indian community in the region. The establishment of West Indian institutions served to isolate the group while at the same time confirming Hispanic fears that they would never assimilate. At best West Indian immigrants, and those who clung to a West Indian identity despite not having been born in the West Indies, could be integrated into Hispanic society. Governments began to focus on opening up West Indian communities to the Hispanic world and this meant establishing the primacy of national institutions. Nowhere was this more evident than in the field of education. The introduction of mandatory la raza (Panama: Imprenta Nacional, 2nd ed., 1925) and José Guerrero, "Como quiere que sea Costa Rica, blanca or negra? El problema racial del negro y las actuales contrataciones bananeras," Repertorio Americano, 13 August 1930. 38 Tony Martin, Race First: The Ideological and Organizational Struggles of Marcus Garvey and the Universal Negro Improvement Association, (Westport: Greenwood Press, 1976), 16. 39 Martin. 40 For a full account of the UNIA in Central America see Ronald Harpelle, “Cross Currents in the Western Caribbean: Marcus Garvey and Garveyism in Central America,” Caribbean Studies, Special Issue: Garveyism in the Hispanic Caribbean, eds. Jorge L. Giovannetti and Reinaldo L. Roman, Vol 31: 1 (JanuaryJune 2003).

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education in Spanish that followed a national curriculum provided governments with a means of promoting Hispanic identity among new generations of West Indians. Beginning in the 1930s, the English language schools that were mostly run as denominational Protestant schools were marginalized by legislation that obliged children to attend state run schools. Education in English was relegated to after school and on weekends. As a result, as the children and grandchildren of the West Indian immigrants came of age they identified increasingly with the Hispanic mainstream and although in 1955 there may have been many thousands of individuals who were of “pure West Indian descent,” a significant shift in their cultural orientation was taking place. The pressure to assimilate had its intended effect and they combined with generational changes that caused the children and grandchildren of the West Indian immigrants to seek protection by becoming citizens of the countries they were born in. As pressure mounted on the West Indians of the region, locally-born West Indians chose whenever possible to formalize their relationship with their country of birth and governments were willing to accommodate them. For example, in October 1930, the government of Costa Rica passed a law creating a central registry for Naturalization and Options.41 The Civil Registry was to be responsible for obtaining all relevant information and deciding on the merits of each application.42 Between 1935 and 1950, a total of 2,191 people of African descent opted for Costa Rican citizenship. Of the total, 2,155 identified themselves through their parents' nationality as West Indian in origin. Those who opted for citizenship amounted to a total of 14.3 percent of the total number of people of African descent who were still in the country for the census of 1950.43 41

Government of Costa Rica, Colección de leyes y decretos, 1930, No. 21, October 27, 1930. 42. The record of each successful application was put into a bound volume which was used for future reference. Individuals who died, voluntarily gave up their citizenship or had their citizenship revoked, as in the case of several suspected Nazi sympathizers during World War Two, had their entries amended to reflect their new status. 43 Government of Costa Rica, Libro de acuerdos del Ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores, Vol. 2 to Vol. 8. Figures are drawn from a database of 2,155 individuals of African descent who opted for citizenship between 1935 and 1950. The subjects who were included in the study were selected from the 5,177 individuals who opted for citizenship between June 1935 and December 1949. Choices were made on the basis of the applicant's own statement on his or her parents' nationality and the accompanying photos were used only in the case of individuals who identified themselves as being of English origin. Deaths and births

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Of the 2,155 people of West Indian origin who opted for Costa Rican citizenship between 1935 and 1950, 80 percent were between 21 and 36 years of age. The youngest was a child of under one year and only fortynine children under the age of fifteen obtained Costa Rican citizenship.44 The oldest was fifty-nine years old, and only forty-two individuals were over forty-five years of age. Children usually obtained their citizenship at the same time as their guardian did, but in some cases, especially among young adults, the option was requested by the child with the parent consenting. Young adults between sixteen and twenty-one comprised the majority of the minors who exercised their options. Older minors were usually members of the work force and, therefore, on their way to being independent adults. This trend is telling because Costa Rica was home to one of the largest and most isolated populations of West Indian immigrants and, of all the concentrations of West Indians in the region, they were in the best position of any community in Central America to resist the pressures of assimilation into the Hispanic majority. Individuals and small groups resisted, but the tide of change and the desire of young people to ensure their rights as citizens were far too strong. When the British Foreign Office conducted its enquiry in 1955 and found that the majority of people of African descent in the region were of “pure West Indian descent,” time was rapidly running out for those who clung to their British identity because the resistance was over. A handful of British West Indians can still be found living in Central America, but West Indian communities have become Afro-Hispanic communities with West Indian roots whose history is fading and becoming more difficult to unravel. The heroes are no longer people like Marcus Garvey who fought for universal rights; they are national figures who fought for equal rights for people of African descent living in the Central American republics. These 2,155 individuals in Costa Rica are a reflection of the 90,000 people in Panama who were considered to be of “pure West Indian descent” and the thousands of others who were scattered across the Central American isthmus in 1955. They and their offspring represent the majority of the Afro-Hispanics who continue to struggle for rights and recognition in the countries that ring the Western shores of the Caribbean Sea. These transplanted West Indians may have been forgotten by the British and by other West Indians, but they are the foundation of the Afro-Hispanic within the group were not given. Therefore, a slight fluctuation may be expected in the numbers that represent totals over time. 44 The parents of people under the age of twenty-one had to apply on behalf of their children.

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population of Central America. Today an estimated two million people are identified as being of African descent in the region.45 Of these it is difficult to separate the descendants of West Indians from the descendants of people who were brought to the region as slaves. It is also impossible to define “black” across societies where it is easy to pass as Hispanic. Nicaragua and Panama, the two countries with the most extensive history of slavery in the region, have the largest populations of people of African descent who are not of West Indian origin but hundreds of thousands of others are of “West Indian descent” and currently living in Central America. These are the descendants of the British subjects who ventured to Central America in the century before the British Colonial Office called for a report on the number of West Indians resident in the region in 1955. The offspring of transplanted West Indians are the forgotten West Indians on the Western shores of the Caribbean Sea.

45

This figure is an estimate and derived from information available online at websites like The World Fact Book which is produced by the Central Intelligence Agency. https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/

CHAPTER THREE “SHADES OF SPADES”: RACIAL TAXONOMY IN PUERTO RICO AND THE ANGLOPHONE CARIBBEAN VICTOR SIMPSON

Sidney Mintz, an anthropologist who has done much of his work on the Caribbean, claims that the question of “racial” identity in the Caribbean—who is “black” and who is not—is one of the most vexing in the interpretation of the region’s social structure1. Indeed, the region’s racial history does make it difficult to determine who is black and who is white and who belongs to any one of the many intermediate categories between these polar opposites. And the reality is that the very rich and extensive taxonomy used to categorize people in some areas of the region, while apparently seeking to be as specific and accurate as possible, can be seen to complicate and confuse the issue. Regardless of which European power dominated a particular region or territory racial mixing has given rise to an elaborate taxonomy that seeks to establish and maintain what is at one level an artificial and at another a very real distinction among people. Even though it is not difficult to identify differences between the colonial experiment as practised by the Spanish and the English in the Caribbean, a study of racial nomenclature in the Hispanic Caribbean nation of Puerto Rico and the Anglophone Caribbean reveals that ultimately similar racial attitudes prevailed, leading to a definitive effort to highlight difference based on racial/ethnic elements and, more significantly, to maintain each group in its assigned position in the social hierarchy. The whole historical experience of the Caribbean region confirms that the construction of race is essentially social in nature and that a person’s 1 Sidney Mintz, “The Localization of Anthropological Practice: From Area Studies to Transnationalism.” Critique of Anthropology, vol. 18(2), (1988): 117-133.

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“race” may differ depending on where that person is and indeed the age in which he/she lives. When a person is able to say, “I was black”, it forces us to acknowledge how shifting is the concept of race and the extent to which we may have to re-evaluate our understanding. An interesting comment is made by Jorge Duany, a PR anthropologist, about his experience in a barrio of San Juan, Puerto Rico regarding people’s responses to a question on their race. Responses . . . ranged from embarrassment and amazement to ambivalence and silence; many informants simply shrugged their shoulders and pointed to their arms, as if their skin colour were [sic] so obvious that it did not need to be verbalized. When people referred to others’ race, they often used ambiguous euphemisms . . . without committing themselves to a specific racial label2.

This kind of response suggests a sensitivity to the race question that does not exist in the same way in the Anglophone Caribbean where, today, one is more likely to receive a much more direct answer to such a question. Indeed arguably, in the case of the majority of potential respondents, the need to ask the question would not even arise. At the same time, Charles Rogler, some decades ago, recorded some of the responses he received in Puerto Rico when he asked the question, “Who is a negro?” Responses included: “He is a person who is so black that he cannot possibly be white”; “A Negro is a person with ‘bad’ hair” and, “A Negro is a person who works with his hands”.3 These responses illustrate the problem of social perception that is such an integral part of people’s understanding of race, whether they are aware of it or not. As we know, the issues surrounding race in the Caribbean have their origin and basis in the historical experience of European colonization and in slavery, which was an essential part of the colonial experiment. The virtual extermination of the indigenous peoples in some areas and the introduction of enslaved Africans into the region in the early years of colonization set the stage for the interaction in various areas between two races (black and white). The inevitable miscegenation which resulted and the strong sense of superiority on the part of the dominating race are fundamental to an understanding of the construction of race in the area. In the colonial societies of the Caribbean, power, especially economic but also political and in other spheres, has traditionally been distributed 2

Jorge Duany, The Puerto Rican Nation on the Move: Identities on the Island and in the United States (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina, 2002), 236. 3 Charles Rogler, “The Role of Semantics in the Study of Race Distance in Puerto Rico,” Social Forces 22 (4) (1944): 448–53.

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according to race. And this, as Stuart Hall, Jamaica-born cultural theorist argues, is where the problem of classification lies because while the act of classification of different types or groups is normal enough, it is, as he says, when “the systems of classification become the objects of the disposition of power” that problems arise.4 The process of racial formation typically placed Whites on the highest rungs of the social ladder and Blacks, who were until the mid-nineteenth century the enslaved, at the bottom. In the middle were people of mixed race (mainly the offspring of Blacks and Whites, indeed most often of black women and white men) who occupied that position primarily because of the European element of their ancestry. These were generally referred to as “coloured”. Technically the term “coloured” covers all who fit along the colour continuum between the polar opposites of black and white. But the social, economic and political underpinnings of the term are extensive and cover the relationship between Coloureds and the white group; between them and the Blacks and the enslaved; and indeed among themselves. They also determined the economic power they wielded at different periods. As would be expected in such a racially charged environment, these coloureds tended to see themselves as superior to the Blacks and were sometimes classified, and classified themselves, with the Whites. Those who, by virtue of their phenotype, could aspire to whiteness often did. It was the existence of this category that gave scope for the sometimes very wide classification into a number of sub-groups depending on the extent (or the perceived extent) of the mixture. And the history of the Caribbean has, in large measure, been a record of the systematic exploitation of various groups in all spheres of life, by other groups, largely on the basis of a hierarchy of skin colour, established and carefully patronized by the dominant class. In the Spanish areas such as Puerto Rico, perhaps because of the greater degree of racial mixing and consequent higher numbers, there seems to have been more scope to divide this group into many smaller categories. But, in all these societies, dominated as they were by white Europeans, because of the perception of white being superior, the tendency on the part of all people who were not (considered) white was to aspire to be white or to be as close to white as possible or to be thought of as white, while at the same time despising blackness. As Hoetink says, “The whole racial power structure conspires to encourage the coloured elite to emulate the white groups, both culturally and in physical appearance”, fostering a

4

Stuart Hall, Race, the Floating Signifier (Northampton: Media Education Foundation, 2002).

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desire for “whitening” or “improving the race”.5 And indeed, it has been possible for people to improve their social status, a step which was naturally much easier for the person of lighter skin than for the black person. In such an environment of perceived white superiority, people from a very young age learn to be part of the category into which they are placed. Whites learn to be white, Blacks to be black and, perhaps with greater difficulty, people of the various intervening shades also learn how to be what they are. It is to be noted that generally speaking the term “coloured” is hardly used anymore, as people who in times past carried this label are now considered “black”. No doubt, there are a few who, because of the evident predominance of the white element in their ancestry, may pass for white. In the case of these “coloured” people, perhaps their “race” will be determined by the particular social environment in which they are able to function, and that may depend on where they fall along the colour continuum between black and white. But the racial classification system must be seen for what it really is—an attempt to create a social system that privileges some people at the expense of others considered to be inferior. This state of social and economic (and in the past, political) inequality has been a fundamental and normal aspect of the reality in many Caribbean countries to the extent that it came to be accepted even by those who are its victims. In the Anglophone areas, people have grown accustomed to the reality of economic power resting in the hands of the white minorities, regardless of where the political “power” lies. In the Caribbean region as a whole, non-white people are essentially the victims of the intersection of capitalism and race. And if, as Stuart Hall argues, one of the functions of group classification is to maintain order in the system, to keep every man in his place,6 then one would have to say that in Caribbean societies, racial classification has accomplished its goal. The structure of these societies was such that it was clearly advantageous to be white, to appear white or to be accepted as white; an environment in which laws existed to regulate and restrain the activities of non-white people (not to mention the enslaved); in which people struggled to affirm their supposed pure bloodedness and where it was possible to purchase a certificate to affirm one’s whiteness. In these societies Whites of the lower class marrying coloured people could be considered coloured and some people (including some “Whites”) felt compelled to hide any traces of their black ancestry. This has been very common in Puerto Rico 5

H. Hoetink, “Race” and Color in the Caribbean (Washington D.C.: The Wilson Center, 1985), 16. 6 Stuart Hall.

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and discussion of it has made its way into the island’s literature to a noticeable degree. Isar Pilar Godreau7 claims that the term “indio” is used in Puerto Rico to describe people of dark complexion with black straight hair or to describe people with dark skin and curly hair, when you do not want to say that they are “black”. People of mixed race felt the need to “mejorar la raza” [improve the race] by marrying people of a lighter complexion, as mentioned earlier. These were also societies in which, understandably, Blacks and people of mixed race were relegated to the periphery of the society both literally and figuratively and in which the words “slave” and “negro” were seen as synonymous.

Origin of the System It is in this context that some tend to see the motive behind the use of the variety of terms to reflect the difference in colour and levels of racial mixture. With regard to Puerto Rico, Godreau expresses it in terms of a “flight from blackness”: this distancing and the reasons that blackness is frequently denied in Puerto Rico relate to the stigma associated with slavery. To proclaim, on the other hand, one’s black identity as something positive can be an important challenge to this stigma. It is for this reason that some professionals, intellectuals and students in Puerto Rico criticize the use of terms such as “trigueño”, “mulata”, “jabao” (all referring to people of mixed race) because they consider them to be euphemisms which whiten blackness. 8

It is also known that within the “mixed” group there is a degree of class consciousness based primarily on complexion. The colour prejudice that was instituted by the dominant race has been assimilated and perpetuated by that group as well as by the very people who have been its victims and who have practised discrimination against those among themselves who are “less white”. There is in the Caribbean generally the interesting phenomenon of Blacks themselves having adopted the same prejudices based on colour as Whites have. Subconsciously, and in some cases consciously, some Blacks have tended to undervalue blackness and to judge and respond to nonwhite people on the basis of colour, evidently tending to grant favour or 7

Isar Pilar Godreau, “La semántica fugitiva cuando hablamos de raza y color.” Paper delivered at Tercer Simposio sobre Traducción: El Multiculturalismo y la Práctica de la Traducción, San Juan, 25 May 1996. 8 Godreau.

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respect proportionate to the extent of white phenotypic features which are visible. Even in cases where there may be no discrimination, and even if no tangible significance is attributed to it, there is a certain consciousness of small differences in complexion that seem to demonstrate how effectively the awareness of colour (variations) and the sense of inferiority (or superiority and a sense of entitlement) which often accompanies it, has been assimilated into the psyche of many black people.

Classifications in Puerto Rico Racial classifications and their significance vary from one country to another and within one country from one historical period to another, based on criteria (social, historical and cultural) that differ. By the eighteenth century, several “official” subcategories had already been assigned to the mixed group of people in these societies to establish differences according to the perceived extent of the mixture. The terms “mulatto”, “brown” and “yellow” were applied to enslaved people of colour. Kathryn Dungy, referring to nineteenth century Puerto Rico, speaks of the three major categories of “blanco”, “pardo” or “moreno” and “negro”, making an interesting observation regarding the intermediate category that “pardo” was used if the person’s appearance was more European and “moreno” if the person’s appearance was more African.9 In Puerto Rico, in addition to the influence of Spanish colonialism and slavery, there is the more recent factor of North American influence. These all have a bearing on the construction of racial and ethnic identity. As is well known, the system of race construction in the United States is very different from what obtains in the Puerto Rico. But as a result of the former’s strong political and cultural influence on the island, the island’s system which allows for various categories between black and white comes under pressure from a system which basically recognizes only black and white. This intensifies the “flight towards whiteness” in a society in which, as in all Caribbean societies, the psychological effect of slavery and the awareness of privileges to be gained lead people of light complexion to aspire to whiteness. And indeed, it is possible to “attain” that whiteness. It is widely recognized that a person’s wealth, occupation or education can “whiten” him/her, which in fact means raise the person’s social standing. Since “white” represents the apex of the social scale, then

9

Kathryn Dungy, Free People of Color and the Growth of Puerto Rican Society: 1795-1848 (Ann Arbor: UMI, 2001), 14.

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to advance socially is effectively to become white or approach whiteness more nearly. This is the “mulatto escape hatch”. This concept is by no means universally accepted, but the term reflects the racist mentality that has characterized the slavery and post-slavery period in Latin American and the Caribbean. It implies that there is something to “escape” from— blackness, through marriage, or other social “advancement” and something to escape to, namely whiteness. While “hatch” means an opening, it also has the implication of restriction, and therefore means that this escape is not available to all, but only to those who are mulatto, that is, those who are of partial white ancestry. Indeed, it is not even available to all mulattoes, but only to those who by virtue of their light complexion could more easily be accepted as white. As is widely recognized, Puerto Ricans (and traditionally other Caribbean people) focus on phenotypic characteristics in determining a person’s racial identity. The category into which a mixed person falls, therefore, will depend on skin colour, hair texture and perhaps to a lesser extent other characteristics such as the shape of the person’s mouth, nose or the colour of the eyes. Added to these are often social factors such as occupation and education. Jorge Duany identified as many as nineteen different folk differentiations along the colour continuum in Puerto Rico. Most of these terms will not appear on an official census form. Most will not be found recorded in government documents. But they are familiar to most people living in the society, even if particular individuals may not need to use them frequently. (In Cartagena, Colombia, Solaún and Kronus10 identify sixty-two of these categories). And there are other areas in which one can count many more. They are complicated and confusing and for a person who is not part of that society, it is a challenge to remember and assimilate all the various nuances implied in the many terms. And, as if to confirm Godreau’s idea of a “shifting semantics” in respect of the usage of these designations, Dungy asserts regarding Spanish colonial America: “If pardo in most places meant a whiter phenotype within the broad mulato grouping, in others it could mean the opposite”.11 Following is a sample from Duany’s list, which also identifies the phenotypic characteristics12:

10

Mauricio Solaún and Sidney Kronus, Discrimination without Violence: Miscegenation and Racial Conflict in Latin America (New York: Wiley, 1973). 11 Dungy,16 12 Duany, 238

Racial Taxonomy in Puerto Rico and the Anglophone Caribbean

Blanquito

Literally “little white”; figuratively, elitist, upper class

Jincho

Pale skinned, sometimes used pejoratively

Blanco con raja

Literally “white with a crack”, white with some visibly black features

Jabao

Fair skinned with curly hair

Trigueño

Literally “wheat coloured” or brunette; usually light mulatto

Moreno

Dark skinned; usually dark mulatto

Mulato

Mixed race; rarely used in public

Indio

Literally “Indian”; brown skinned with straight hair

Prieto

Dark skinned; usually pejorative

Grifo

Dark skinned with kinky hair; usually derogatory

De color

Euphemism for black; usually meaning black

Negrito

Literally “little black”; often used as a term of endearment

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It is evident from the approximate meaning given to each of these terms that skin colour is the major distinguishing factor among these categories. It has also been shown that hair texture is the next most important determining element in these characterizations.13

A Flexible System An important factor regarding the proliferation of racial terms in Puerto Rico is the degree of flexibility which attends their use. As Charles Rogler and others have pointed out, not every term has the same meaning for everyone who uses it or hears it. Even a word as basic as “negro” can have meanings which are non-racial, while a diminutive form of “blanco” (“blanquito”) can have strongly negative overtones, even in a society 13 Clarence Gravlee, “Ethnic Classification in Southeastern Puerto Rico: The Cultural Model of ‘Color’,” Social Forces 83:3 (2005) 949–70.

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where white is seen as the standard. By the same token, terms that have obvious social meanings are often used as references to people of a particular race. When a word that is class referential is used, there is a definite colour/race implication that is understood by both interlocutors. The race of the person referred to is automatically known when the socially prescriptive word is used. Such words or terms include, to quote Godreau again, “términos referentes a la clase social como (terms referring to social class such as...): . . . los elitistas (the elistists), esa gente de por allá (the people over there), los comemierdas (literally, the shit eaters) los de buena familia (from a good family) o los pobres (poor people), los de barrio (barrio people); or terms that relate to a person’s education level or lifestyle, such as: uncouth, uncultured people; idiots, peasants, los cocolos, o los tiquis miquis (fussy). . .”. 14 The meaning of a particular term can also depend on who is actually speaking. The nature and use of the various designations are such that what a person may call himself/herself could be different from what he/she may be called by others. For example, would a “negro” classify a dark mulatto in the same way that a white person would? And would such a dark mulatto classify himself/herself as a white person would? This situation of uncertainty is clearly compounded in areas where there is the practice of using a large number of designations, as in Puerto Rico. Social context, the relationship between people as well as other factors all contribute to determine the meaning of terms such as “trigueño”, “negro”, etc. This is emphasized by Alleyne when he argues that the system of representation has, as a point of departure, the perceived skin colour of the individual. The perception then shifts to other phenotypic features, such as hair texture and colour, nose, lips, eyes. This may lead to some adjustment of the classification. 15

Rogler in his earlier article discusses the flexibility inherent in the use of a number of these racial terms. In the case of “trigueño”, while asserting that “the color reference is to the light mulatto”, he shows how the term was used also for darker mulatto types and concludes that “trigueño as used may cover virtually the whole range of colour shades found in

14

Godreau, 10 Mervyn Alleyne, The Construction and Representation of Race and Ethnicity in the Caribbean and in the World (Kingston, Jamaica: University of the West Indies Press, 2002), 144 15

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mulattos”.16 He goes further, illustrating the non-racial elements which may help the “trigueño” to “pass” into the white category. If a trigueño has wealth, “pull”, marries well, has good family traditions, or gains political or professional recognition he is, in general, socially defined as a white person. 17

But, speaking of the nineteenth century, Kinsbruner is quite categorical in stating that the lines of demarcation between Whites and non-Whites were firmly drawn and that it was rare that a person of colour became white during his lifetime.18 (Since obviously such a person could become “white” only in his/her lifetime, implied in Kinsbruner’s statement is the idea that the offspring of such a person could, as the family or individual’s circumstances changed, become white with time). Another interesting, and indeed paradoxical, factor relating to the existence of this extensive system of racial designations is that while presumably it strives for greater “accuracy”, the fact that a person can “negotiate” his/her race, adds to the confusion and ambiguity. Alvin Thompson’s assertion that skin colour, though normally critical in determining a person’s socio-economic and political position in the society, “in itself did not guarantee material or social success in a society full of contradictions”19 is amply borne out in the experience of the “Redlegs” of Barbados, a group which seems to have been quite representative of its counterparts in other Anglophone territories. This group provides a good example of class overtaking race in the social categorization of people in a racially super-sensitive environment. These are poor white people, some imported into the island in the seventeenth century as indentured workers before the sugar revolution. (It was this event, according to Peter Simmons, which “began the descent from poor white to Red Leg”20). Others were victims of forced emigration and included some of the most undesirable categories in British society, such as prisoners of war, convicts, vagrants. Some were seen as rebels and made political prisoners, while others were kidnapped and “exported” to 16

Rogler, 450 Rogler, 450 18 Jay Kinsbruner, Not of Pure Blood: The Free People of Color and Racial Prejudice in Nineteenth Century Puerto Rico (Durham: Duke University Press, 1996), 32-33 19 Alvin Thompson, The Haunting Past: Politics, Economics and Race in Caribbean Life (Kingston, Jamaica: Randle and Oxford: Currey, 1997), 224 20 Peter Simmons, “‘Red Legs’: Class and Color Contradictions in Barbados,” Studies in Comparative International Development 11 (1), (1976), 3–24. 17

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Barbados. So that even though they were white, from the outset, because of their background, they were clearly of the lower class and could not be placed in the same category as the bona fide colonists. They certainly could not constitute part of the white “upper class”. Indeed, according to Thompson, they were seen by some Whites as not really being white at all. Even though they were white, since they did not possess the wealth of their racial counterparts, for three hundred years their history in Barbados has been marked by discrimination and rejection by the white upper class. Even though Barbados was a society in which whiteness automatically meant privilege and opportunity, this group, because of its poverty and because it was so close in actual status to the Blacks, was not accepted into the higher echelons of society. Nor have they traditionally enjoyed the best of relations with the black population partly because they considered themselves superior by virtue of their race, even though socially they found themselves at the bottom or near the bottom of the social ladder along with the Blacks. Of interest here is the use of the term “spawgee” to refer to this group. According to Simmons, this is a term “suggestive of melanin deficiency, resulting in anemic and freckled complexion”.21 One wonders if some of the harsh comments that have been made about them over the centuries by white commentators may not reflect a sense of shame on the part of such writers who perhaps subconsciously believed that poverty and “laziness” and the many other words associated with the poor Whites were really conditions that Whites were not supposed to experience. Any group so described cannot therefore be white. “White nigger” or “red nigger” are terms that seemed more apropos. And, as Simmons argues, the terms (such as “spawgee” and “ecky-becky”) used in relation to this group suggest that the group “constitute[s] a subculture manifestly and manifoldly different at all levels of conception and function from the modal white construct”.22 In contemporary Caribbean societies, people take exception to the fact of others (often people of mixed race or in some cases black people who show no evidence of racial mixture), referring to themselves as, or “thinking” themselves to be, white, or, worse yet, even though clearly not being white but behaving in “the way that whites do”, suggesting that the person is arrogating to himself/herself an elevated status based on race which has not been “earned” by virtue of racial ancestry. These reactions not only highlight the fact that Whites are perceived to function in the society differently from Blacks but it also reinforces the idea that wealth, 21 22

Simmons, 15. Simmons, 15.

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as well as social standing and behaviour are elements that are integrated into the designation of race. Hence, black people or people of mixed race are sometimes seen to be aspiring to “whiteness”. And in societies where Blacks now have the opportunity primarily through education to develop wealth and social acceptability, the definition of race as a determinant of one’s social class becomes even more fluid. Indeed, Alleyne argues that in Jamaica, the former neat correspondence between race/colour and socioeconomic position is broken down, and that class stratification, ignoring racial differences, is the dominant order. The many blacks . . . in the professional and business elite have more in common with their white, brown or Jewish colleagues than they have with their racial brothers in the lower classes.23

Karl Watson makes a similar claim regarding poor Whites and Blacks in Barbados. Of course, while some in Puerto Rico aspire to be white and would, therefore, probably be willing to accommodate the many categories based on colour and other factors, there are those who are happy to acknowledge their blackness and who reject these categorizations as merely euphemisms, a means of “softening” the idea of blackness, making it “less black”. They see it as a way of rejecting blackness. However, such a conclusion is only partly correct since, even if one were to reject the concept of dozens of categories, the idea of some intermediate category between black and white seems totally defensible. In what other way would one categorize a person who is “half-white” and “half-black”? Certainly, it cannot be argued logically on the basis of race that such a person must be put into any particular one of these two categories. However, the question of avoiding blackness is significant also in that the multiplicity of racial terms seems to reflect a certain sensitivity which arguably is born of the conscious or unconscious belief in the superiority of the white race. The point may be that historically in that particular environment if a person is not white, the white person wants him/her to be conscious of not reaching the “standard”, so to speak; and Blacks have been schooled in this way as well. In the Anglophone Caribbean territories there are standard categories such as “Grenadian White” and “Bajan White”. What do these categorizations mean? It seems evident these terms are used to indicate that the person is “not really white”. The status of “white” was evidently very well guarded. At the same time, the various gradations may have been seen to offer some hope to those who aspire to 23

Alleyne, 237.

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be white, an attitude which has always been quite widespread because it was, and is, recognized, as Elena Padilla has written of Puerto Rico, that “[a]ll other things being equal, it is a social advantage to look white rather than negro. This is particularly true in the upper and middle classes and is a factor in social mobility”.24 Historically, this has been true of the Anglophone Caribbean as well. Even today, one can still hear the comment made derogatorily of someone in the local dialect: “He tink he white”, suggesting, in effect, that the person has not really reached “the standard” (which is whiteness) to which, by his behaviour, he is judged to aspire. However, there has been significant change in the last forty years. For example, according to Alleyne, “In Jamaica, ‘brown’, signifying the ‘highest’ shade of mulatto, has become the more active pole of opposition and antithesis to black”, black being the most dominant element in the colour continuum.25 In any case, in the Anglophone region as a whole, there still remains the tendency to view “white” as superior and white phenotypic features as “better”. But people generally accept their blackness and do not seek to hide the characteristics of their African ancestry. This is evident in the relatively recent but growing trend among black women to move away from the practice of straightening their hair to look like that of white people. This “natural” look is seen as a means of affirming blackness, even if with much less “revolutionary” connotations than the “Afro” of earlier decades. In the Anglophone Caribbean, there are people who would fit at any point along the racial continuum that is recognized in Puerto Rico at the popular level. The difference may be that in this area people do not now focus to the same degree on this continuum, on the various categories that fall into it, nor on the subtle differences between these categories. The reason for that may be that relative to the total population those who fit into these categories are few, even if in some respects socially significant. Another reason might be a corollary of this, namely that over the years these categories have effectively been collapsed into “black”, so that it can correctly be said that more than ninety percent of the population of the Anglophone areas (with the exception of Trinidad, and Guyana on the South American continent) are black. And black, which traditionally has carried the connotation of poor, now in a more militant age of black affirmation also has its ideological connotations, taking on the meaning of identifying with what are perceived to be “black” causes. And, according to Alleyne, this has been accompanied in Jamaica by a significant increase 24

Elena Padilla, Up from Puerto Rico (New York: Columbia University Press, 1958), 72. 25 Alleyne, 192, 194.

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as reflected in census figures for “black” and a concomitant decrease in other categories, suggesting, perhaps, that mixed people may be more willing to be considered black.26 One should mention here that Trinidad and Guyana, and to a lesser extent Jamaica, provide another element in this racial complex with the immigration of Indians, Chinese and Middle Eastern people. The racial mixtures that have proceeded from the intermingling of these races and ethnic groups with each other and with Blacks and Whites are not the concern of this chapter. One of the more important factors influencing the reduction in the significance of colour as an influential element in an individual’s social progress has been the democratization of education in the Englishspeaking Caribbean. Since independence most governments have spent significant portions of their annual budgets on educational programmes including the provision of free secondary and heavily subsidized tertiary education. The effect of this policy is that any child, regardless of race, colour or social standing, has the opportunity to receive a good quality education up to the tertiary level at relatively low cost. This means greater opportunity for economic and therefore social advancement. As a result, it is no longer true in most islands that the most important positions are occupied by Whites and light skinned people, even if these people do retain a level of economic influence disproportionate to their numbers and, dare one say, their level of education. But, subconsciously and in subtle ways, complexion still matters. A black person is not despised automatically because he/she is black, as would have been the case even in nineteenth century society. But where a black person and one of lighter complexion find themselves in the same situation, the lighter skinned person is likely to be given precedence at least in some subtle way, except in the case where the person providing the service wants to make a statement of black affirmation.

Anglophone Caribbean Nomenclature This does not mean, however, that there has not been and is not any consciousness of colour. Whether as extensive as Puerto Rico or not, there existed in the English Caribbean, in addition to the same basic divisions based on colour (white, “coloured”, black), the variety of designations according to colour or according to the perceived extent of racial mixture. Douglas Hall offers the Jamaican version from the nineteenth century as 26

Alleyne, 235-6.

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follows: “sambo” child of mulatto and negro; “mulatto”, child of white and negro; “quadroon”, child of white and mulatto; “mustee”, child of white and quadroon: “mustifino”, child of white and mustee; “quintroon”, child of white and mustifino; “octoroon”, child of white and quatroon.27 And these designations did have social (and indeed economic) implications. For example, as was the case with Puerto Rican banks, up until the 1960s it was still the case that bank tellers and attendants in certain department stores in British Caribbean territories were people of lighter complexion. People at the head of any institution or company that was not public were invariably white. In Trinidad [t]there is a variety of ‘shade’ discrimination in the coloured intermediate group . . ., shade implying not exclusively colour of skin but also other typically negroid features”28

Hoetink affirms, further, The closer the approximation to European features, the more likely is the individual man both to get acceptance as an individual and to achieve mobility by marrying someone even closer to the European in skin colour, hair and facial characteristics29.

And indeed, in the perception of many, some fundamental realities relating to colour in the Caribbean have not really changed. Some observers believe that even though politically black and coloured are seen to be dominant today, “social stratification still broadly reflects, although less rigidly, the racial and colour classification of the slavery and early post-emancipation periods”.30 The use of the intermediate terms in the Anglophone Caribbean is illustrated in a poem by Barbadian author Jeannette Layne-Clark entitled “Shades of Spades”31 which takes a humorous look at the serious issue of the categorization of people by colour (and some phenotypic features) in Barbados. She identifies eighteen categories, including “cob-skin”,

27

Douglas Hall, The Caribbean Experience: An Historical Survey, 1450-1960. London: Heinemann Educational Books, 1982. 28 H. Hoetink. The Two Variants in Caribbean Race Relations: A Contribution to the Sociology of Segmented Societies. London, New York and Toronto; Oxford University Press, 1967, 44. 29 Hoetink. The Two Variants, 44. 30 Thompson, 228. 31 Jeannette Layne-Clark, Bajan Badinage. Bridgetown, Barbados: Impact, 1993.

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“brown-skin”, “light-skin”, “high-brown” with “purty hair” and “fairskin”, some of which are commented on in the verses quoted below. ‘Cob-skin’ li’l bit different From ‘clean-skin’ . . . dat’s a fack; It half-shade short o’ ‘light-skin’ An’ four shades up from black. ‘Light-skin’ li’l bit clearer, But it en reach ‘brown-skin’ yet! . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . .. . . .. . . . . . . De nex’ shade up is ‘brown-skin’ Dat colour sweet fuh so! It rich an’ smood an’ purty — .... As far as black Bajans concern, Lemmuh tell yuh straight— ‘Brown-skin’ is a passport To get t’rough de Pearly Gate Yuh talks ‘bout a ‘brown-skin gentleman’— Yuh words got to be right . . . A brown-skin woman is ‘a lady’— Yuh don’ treat dat colour slight! From ‘brown-skin’, yuh movin’up To ‘red’, ‘high-brown’ an’ ‘clear’ . . . Wuh does separate dem t’ree shades Is de quality o’ de hair!

Some of these categories are also to be found in some of the other Anglophone Caribbean territories even though one might want to suggest that Barbados, being very respectful of things British, may have been more sensitive to this gradation than some of the other islands. Once again, there is nothing “official” about most of these categories and most people do not now give any special attention to them. But most people above a certain age would have heard these terms and perhaps somewhat intuitively understood how and to whom to apply them. In the Dictionary of Caribbean English Usage,32 Richard Allsopp’s definition of “cob-skinned” is interesting in that in addition to explaining what it means in terms of colour (“brown skin” and “loosely applied . . . to any person whose skin is not quite black”) there is the sociological connotation of “a person who feels he/she is of better quality because 32 Richard Allsopp, Dictionary of Caribbean English Usage. Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1996.

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his/her skin is not quite black”. The explanation of this usage is a clear reminder of the reality that in the Caribbean, regardless of the brand of colonialism experienced, there has been traditionally among non-white people the unconscious and often conscious tendency to ascribe to oneself and to others more worth and importance socially and even morally according to the lightness of one’s complexion. Indeed, such a practice could arguably be considered to have had support in law. People who are “clear”, according to Layne-Clark, are “high brown” without “pretty” hair. Interestingly, though, Allsopp says that the “clear” person has “light or very light brown complexion with soft hair”. The difference here may be a reflection of some fluidity in the use of the term or perhaps that while Allsopp speaks of the Anglophone Caribbean in general, Layne-Clark refers specifically to Barbados. In any case, it is worthy of note that in the English-speaking Caribbean, as in Puerto Rico, there is a relatively strong emphasis on the “quality” of one’s hair. If the person is black and has “good hair” it suggests that there is present in that person’s ancestry an element other than African. The term “brown skin” is one of some significance. According to Layne-Clark’s humorous poem, it is “a passport through the Pearly Gate”, indicating that positive non-racial connotations are automatically ascribed to the term. People who are “brown skin” clearly are considered to be of a higher social class; they are gentlemen and ladies, deserving of particular respect. “Yuh don’ treat dat colour slight”. Obviously it is because of the recognition of the social value of “brown skin” that people of light complexion, even during the days of slavery, have resorted to the practice of bleaching the skin. At the same time, it is also noted that throughout the Caribbean, black men often marry “brownings”. Evidently this has been a deliberate practice and there seems to have been the sense that such women are more desirable, not just in terms of perceived beauty but also because such marriages provided a means of social advancement for the black man himself as well as for the offspring of such a union. This practice seems widespread enough among educated Blacks to the extent that, to my mind, it is difficult to see it as coincidental. One notes, however, that the definition of “brown skin” given by Allsopp—“of light or dark brown skin; a person whose skin is noticeably less than quite black”—is much more general and apparently devoid of the social implications which are so strong in the Barbadian usage of the term, as suggested by Layne-Clark. It seems to be that today the term is less used and when used, is more likely to have a neutral meaning (restricted to complexion), a fact which may be attributed to the social changes which

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have taken place over the past forty years and which have strengthened the position of black people in Anglophone Caribbean society. Allsopp offers a definition of “red” that is quite broad: “any colour from brown to near white, showing varying mixtures of Black and White races”. This seems consistent with Layne-Clark’s definition. But, there is also a definition that is much more narrow. Of interest is the fact that the term is widely used for people who show relatively little evidence of race mixture. It is perhaps for this reason that there is often a tinge of negativity in the use of the term. It is of further interest that Alleyne, speaking of Jamaica, suggests that the term is accompanied by “a slight connotation of unattractiveness” and that it is used in reference to people who look less European than those considered brown.33 “High brown” people are whiter than brown, approaching white more closely and they have “purty hair” which implies an element of straightness and a close approximation to the white man’s hair. It is very ironic, therefore, that many black people (including some of very dark complexion) have practised straightening of the hair, although even with straightened hair, it would still be impossible to categorize them as “white”. In the case of other terms not mentioned by Layne-Clark, such as “terceron”, “mustee” and “quarteroon”, it is clear that many of these have gone out of everyday use in the Anglophone Caribbean, no doubt largely because of the preponderance of Blacks in the population. It is also evident that there is no absolute agreement regarding their meanings where and when they are used and they clearly do not have the same level of social and other significance which attends them in Puerto Rico. It is difficult to miss the fact that Allsopp’s definitions are vague and broad such that they can have relatively little meaning. To get it “right”, so to speak, one would have to walk around with some specially devised instrument that would measure the various elements that make up a person’s phenotype. This in itself reinforces the worthlessness of the whole system of racial taxonomy, even though we recognize that it did make a difference to the people who were subjected to its application. And we recognize also that vestiges of it still remain today.

Conclusion It seems safe to say that whoever was the colonizer and whatever the specific history of each area; whatever the various colour permutations and the terms used to denote race or colour; whatever the extent of racism, 33

Alleyne, p 235

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prejudice, discrimination; and whatever the nature of the plantation experience and the length of time it lasted; when we speak of racial nomenclature, it should be recognized that the essential reason for the wide variety of terms that are used issued forth from the basic fact of the Caribbean colonial experience, that the white race not only held the dominant position in the society, but was also considered to be the superior race and of a status to be coveted. The corollary, of course, is that the black race was at the bottom of the social scale and there was a corresponding flight from that status. It is a reflection of the extent to which European standards of value and worth have been dominant and the extent to which they have permeated the psyche of the people of the Caribbean so that even though most of the terms used carry no official sanction, they still remain in the awareness and, perhaps to a lesser extent, in the use of the public. It is to our discredit that a system that is so inherently valueless was and continues to be considered so important culturally, socially and economically in the region.

CHAPTER FOUR MOTHERING CUBA: THE POETICS OF AFRO-CUBAN WOMEN RHONDA COLLIER

Of her 1992 visit to Cuba, Afro-Brazilian poet Elisa Lucinda recalls a surprising experience in a Cuban hotel. She notes that the local police mistook her for a prostitute and refused to allow her admittance to the hotel. Once she began speaking Portuguese and saying “sou brasileira” [I am Brazilian], she was immediately allowed entrance accompanied by profuse apologies. The experience of being mistaken for a prostitute unfortunately marked Lucinda’s experience of Cuba. This is not to say that the incident could not have happened in Brazil, but Lucinda did not expect this as a tourist in Cuba. In a 1996 interview, “Poetry, Prostitution, and Gender Esteem,” Afro-Cuban poet Georgina Herrera discusses the difficulties that black women still face in Cuba, some forty years after the 1959 Cuban Revolution. She reiterated these difficulties at a 2011 conference in her honor at the University of Missouri at Columbia, Missouri. In present day Cuba, it is not uncommon for women who look like Lucinda to turn to prostitution. It seems that my obvious “black from the U.S.” look saved me from a similar scrutiny, but prevented my black Cuban poet colleagues from accompanying me inside hotels in the early twentieth-century. Indeed, Lucinda’s experience reflects the economic difficulties and options that many Afro-Cuban women face. Since the 1989 disintegration of the USSR, the majority of Cubans have faced extreme economic difficulties in what is commonly called “the special period.” In the current dual economy of Cuban pesos and U.S. dollars prostitution is a means of survival. The post-Fidel Castro and twenty-first century emergence of a small market for entrepreneurs still leaves many women at the mercy of tourists. In fact, the Cuban term for these women, who are seen by tourists as exotic and attractive, is “jineteras.” The term

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jinetera literally means “horseback riding,” or “breaking in a horse,” but the Cuban vernacular use of the term is “gold-digger.”1 The majority of the jineteras are black women who exchange sex for food, clothing and shoes,2 not only for themselves but for their families. Afro-Cuban poet and activist Georgiana Herrera notes that these women are young and intelligent and do what they have to do to survive in Cuba. She concludes that for a young, intelligent woman to go out and give her body to bring food home for her family and for herself, she has to have very high self-esteem, she has to be very sure of what her values are and what she’s going after.3

Not surprisingly, Herrera’s outspoken comments on the legitimacy of prostitution are seen as oppositional to the national rhetoric.4 Herrera’s validation of prostitution suggests that the Cuban government is failing to adequately provide for its citizens and promotes illegal behavior. Her implied criticism of the government may make it difficult for her to publish, and thus survive in Cuba. Concerned for her children and family, she alludes to the government’s response to her outspokenness: GH: …I would have been extremely anguished if my son Ignacio were here in Cuba, or my daughter Anaís, who died a few years back in a traffic accident, were alive. That’s the egoism of a mother. Nothing can happen to me, I’m not going to be doing great things for anything to happen. Ignacio and Manolo [Granados], who are both outspoken, and are the ones I love most, are safely out of it. I do feel down. I would have wanted this to be something better. You realize how I’m lowering my voice, almost to a whisper. That’s a reflection of the situation here.5

1

Elisa Facio, “Jinterísmo During the Special Period,” 57. Facio, 123. 3 Facio, 124. 4 Georgina Herrera was involved in a non-official women’s group called MAGIN, a term taken from the word “iMAGINation” (Afro-Cuban Voices 121). This group became very involved in women’s issues and advocated major shifts in tourism’s focus. Instead of tourist advertisements with implied sex adventures, they encouraged advertisements that emphasized cultural, medical and family resources (Facio 69). Pérez Sarduy reports that MAGIN was short-lived. “The positions it espoused were not well taken by the FMC and it was closed down by the government” (177). 5 Pedro Pérez Sarduy, Afro-Cuban Voices, 125. 2

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Herrera’s comments allow one to imagine the self-censure all Cubans, but in this case Afro-Cuban women poets, must face in a nation where citizens are expected to praise the success of the revolution. A study of the poetry of Afro-Cuban poets Georgina Herrera, Nancy Morejón, and Excilia Saldaña provide multiple responses to the question of how one critiques the nation without criticizing it. This chapter argues that Morejón, Herrera, and Saldaña use “signifyin(g)” language,6 in the sense that Henry Louis Gates uses the term, to express their own religious and political values in a manner that does not counter Castro’s revolution. For these Afro-Cuban women poets, “signifyin(g)” language, as Gates understands the term, is rooted in the politics of motherhood as nation, as well as in the Afro-Cuban notion of syncretism. In terms of the Cuban mother figures that appear in the poetry of Herrera, Morejón, and Saldaña, “La Virgen de La Caridad del Cobre” [The Virgin of Charity of El Cobre] is a symbolic mother that watches over Cuba—she is the patron Catholic saint of the nation. “La Virgen de La Caridad” is a mulatta and embodies the miscegenation of the Cuban people. The story of “La Virgen” involves three fishermen,7 each named Juan—Juan the Black, Juan the White and Juan the Indian—who saw an image of the Virgin embracing the baby Jesus.8 In 1687, the virgin appeared to these men during a storm off the coast of El Cobre, a mining area just outside of Santiago de Cuba, and led them to safety in the midst of a storm.9 In gratitude, the men built an altar in her name at the site where the Iglesia de Caridad del Cobre [Church of Charity of El Cobre] now stands. Cubans, who until recently have hidden many of their religious practices, syncretize the brown-skinned “La Virgen de La Caridad del Cobre” with the orisha, Oshún. Oshún is the divine whore, goddess of honey, rivers, joy and sensuality,10 and also rules sex and 6

According to Gates, “signifyin(g)” language is black double-voicedness, a language of implication that relies on rhetorical games to contradict the literal meaning of standard English (51-2). In The Signifyin(g) Monkey, Gates connects the African American “signifyin(g)” tradition to the trickster figure represented as Elegguá-Esu in Cuban Santería and Exú in Brazilian Candomblé. 7 Zúñiga notes that the color of the three men changes in different versions of the myth. The Indian, who is indigenous to Cuba, is often called the mulatto. The same story is often told of three black men, three white men, or two Indians and one white man. Zúñiga argues that the story of “La Virgen” protects the utopian idea of an ethnically united Cuban village (33). 8 Zúñiga, La Virgen De La Caridad Del Cobre, 24-30. 9 Zúñiga, 33. 10 Pedro Pérez Sarduy, Afro-Cuba: An Anthology, 168.

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marriage.11 Oshún, who manifests herself in the poetry of Herrera, is also the name of a major river that flows into the Niger River in West Africa. Oshún’s mother, Yemayá, is the ultimate mother figure in the Yoruba pantheon, as she is the mother of all creations. In Cuba, she is syncretized with “La Virgen de Regla” [Our Lady of Regla], who is a black saint. In all actuality, “Yemayá” is syncretized with “La Immaculada Concepción” (Immaculate Conception).12 As an orisha, Yemayá, however, is described as follows: The goddess of the sea and the moon. She is the mother archetype and the provider of wealth. As the one who gives life and sustains the Earth, she is extremely generous and giving.13

Furthermore, she rules the ocean and represents women’s fertility. As this chapter will discuss, the image of Yemayá is invoked in the poetry of Morejón. Another goddess, Oyá-Yansá, who figures largely in the poetry of Saldaña, is the orisha of life and death. The following is a praise song for Oyá: Mother, Oyá She’s the one who employs truth against wickedness She stands at the frontier Between life and death Custom officer of multitudes!14

She is the guardian of the cemetery, justice, and hurricanes, and is concerned with death and the business world.15 In summary, Oyá is a weather deity that transports the dead to their realm. In West Central Africa, Oyá controls the Niger River, and is associated with strong winds. Additionally, Oyá is a warrior who fights alongside Shangó, her lover, but who is married to Oggún.16 Since Oyá and Shangó are warriors and weather deities, their match is said to be a perfect one. In Yoruba mythology, Oyá wins Shangó by putting ikú [death] in the corner of her home. She is said to have loved Shangó too much. In Cuba, Oyá is syncretized with the Catholic saint “La Virgen de La Candelaria” [the Virgin of Candelaria]. During slavery and throughout Cuban history, syncretism of the orishas with Catholic saints protected those who valued 11

Brandon, Santeria from Africa to the New World, 77 Natalia Bolívar Aróstegui, Los Orishas in Cuba, 154. 13 “Dictionary of Afro-Caribbean Deities,” 1. 14 Jordan Paper, Through the Earth Darkly, 197. 15 Brandon, 77. 16 Bolívar Aróstegui, 238. 12

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African religious traditions by providing a mechanism through which they could outwardly assimilate into the majority belief system. Yet national symbols such as “La Virgen de La Caridad del Cobre” and “Virgen de La Regla” do not necessarily translate to the black woman’s voice in the nation. Afro-Cuban women’s poetry resists the national images of the black or mulatta “La Virgen” by creating new national mother figures. Herrera’s comments on prostitution in Cuba highlight the idea of a different kind of national mother. Ideally, one would not want to represent Cuba’s black mother as a prostitute or suggest that the image of Cuba is a sexualized figure facing economic difficulties.17 Yet the image of Cuba as a prostitute is exactly the experience that Afro-Brazilian poet Elisa Lucinda encountered, and what Herrera’s poem, “Calle de Las Mujeres de La Vida” [Streets of the Women of the World], implies.18 In this poem, she skillfully describes the prostitutes as the embodiment of the nation. Ironically, the poem invokes the image of the orisha, Oshún, who is called the divine whore. Specifically, “Calle de Las Mujeres de La Vida” locates an actual street in Havana where decent women cannot walk: Desde la línea para allá, hacia arriba, el paso Era prohibido. Las personas decentes, junto Las que por tal pasaban mientras No se descubriese lo contrario, Torcían el rumbo, los dos labios Todo, nada más que de oir mencionar aquella calle.19 [On the other side of that line, up the hill, we couldn’t walk. The decent ones, or those Who passed for such til one learned otherwise, Switched direction, expression, Everything, at the mere mention of that street. ]20 17

In Sugar’s Secrets: Race and the Erotics of Cuban Nationalism, Vera Kutzinski argues that the mulatta is the embodiment of Cuba as an erotic nation, the erotic symbol of Cuban mestizaje. 18 Afro-Cuban poet Ismael González Castañer also has a poem that highlights “jineterismo.” The poem, similar to Herrera’s poem, is entitled “Nuestras Negras en la Calle” [Our Black Women in the Street]. The poem, and other poems from his series Países [Countries], is featured in Cuba’s premiere literary magazine, La Gaceta de Cuba [The Journal of Cuba], the November-December 2001 issue. 19 Herrera, “Calle de las mujeres de la Vida,” 118. In Breaking the Silence, Margaret Randall provides both the Spanish and English of Herrera’s poem. I will use her translation unless otherwise stated.

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The street becomes the line separating acceptable and unacceptable Cuban women. It is a marginalized place that cannot be mentioned. The fact that the street’s name, Calixto García, invokes national history does not redeem the street or the women. There is a divide between those who are able to survive by legitimate means and those who sell their bodies. No remedió la culpa el que llevase Nombre de un general de las pasadas guerras. Decir En qualquier casa de mi pueblo “Calixto García”, venia siendo como mentar al diablo. Yo, corriendo algunos riesgos, hubiese dicho que era mencionar la soga en casa del ahorcado.21 [The fact that it bore the name of a general in an old war didn’t mitigate the shame. To pronounce “Calixto García”22 in any house in my village was like calling on the devil. Risking a bit I’d say it was like mentioning the noose in the hangman’s23 house.]24

Calixto García is no longer remembered as the Major General who led “La Guerra Chiquita” [The Little War] in an effort to carry on the 1868 battle for independence against Spain; 25instead his name invokes fear for 20

Translation by Margaret Randall, Breaking the Silences, 118. Herrera, 120. 22 General García was an important general who fought in the Ten Year’s War (1868-1878), The Little War (1879-1880), and The War of Independence (18951898). In 1898, García died of pneumonia in Washington, D.C., where he received honors from the U.S. government (“Biography of Calixto García”). 23 Del ahorcado literally translates as “of the hanged man” not “of the hangman.” Yet, Randall’s translation reflects the fact that one should not mention the tools of oppression in the hangman’s house, since the he may decide to use them on the speaker. Herrera’s hangman suggests a man with the power to punish those who draw attention to his evil doing. 24 Herrera, trans, Randall, Breaking the Silences, 121. 25 Jane Franklin. Cuba and the United States: A Chronological History, 7. Franklin provides a chronological history of U.S. and Cuba relations from the Cuban Revolution of 1959 to 1995. 21

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women who wish to be seen as decent. The “mujeres de la vida” [women of the world]26 shame national history, for they sell themselves on one of the very streets that represents their struggle for national independence. Of course, Herrera carefully insinuates that black women are not independent, but dependent on patriarchy within the socialist society. Furthermore, she knows that she is risking her own independence by even suggesting that the revolution has failed black women. Ironically, with no relation to Herrera and with the voice of a tourist, Elisa Lucinda proclaims that the Cuban revolution has failed in her poem, “O Estado da Revolução” [The State of Revolution]: O desfile da pobreza No meio do apartheid Feriu-me o peito Quero voltar pra casa Cuba esta doente Cuba esta equizofrênica mora de um lado a fome e o pobreza de outro, o dólar a Cuba é pra quem pode comprá-la não é para cubanos os pretos cubanos estãos sós por que na guerra da liberdade quem venceu foi seu algoz.27 [ The parade of the poor in the middle of apartheid burns in my chest. I want to go home. Cuba is sick Cuba is schizophrenic on one side hunger and poverty The other, the dollar The almighty dollar Cuba is for those who have who can buy her not for Cubans the black Cubans are alone because in the fight for liberty 26 27

Herrera, trans. Randall, Breaking the Silences, 121. Lucinda, “O Estado da Revolução,” 95.

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The Afro-Brazilian Elisa Lucinda speaks without risk as she seeks to return home. Yet, Herrera’s independence is her ability to be heard and her ability to be seen as one of Cuba’s decent women, for unlike the women she writes about she is not a “jinetera.” Speaking about prostitution as a result of socialism “[es] mencionar la soga en casa del ahorcado”29 [[is] like mentioning the noose in the hangman’s house].30 Both writers are aware of a “hangman,” which may be read as the Cuban dictatorship or the dual economic situation in Cuban that relies on foreign currency to thrive. Herrera’s language of “algunos riesgos” [some risks] implies risks for not only herself, but for the women who engage in “jineterismo.” Not only do these women risk persecution by the government and other citizens, they risk personal harm from physical violence and sexually transmitted diseases. But Herrera writes of these women as national heroes who prevail in the face of national difficulties: A la luz del recuerdo, porque de los ojos Se han perdido, las presento: Formales, finas, serias; ellas, las Que dieron más que recibieron En esa compra-venta del vivir a diario a como se pudiera31 [By memory’s light, because my eyes have lost them: formal, refined, serious, women who gave more than they got In that daily buying and selling as one could. Out of my memory they appear on this paper, speaking of that difficult time, long as an era.]32

28

My translation. Prostitution was a problem before the revolution, and in fact, many prostitutes learned to read and gained legitimate employment in the years following the revolution. However, the “special period” has forced many women to once again consider prostitution. For many women, the revolution has failed to keep its promise. 30 Herrera; trans, Randall 121. 31 Herrera, 120. 32 Trans. Randall, 121. 29

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In Herrera’s eyes, these women are a part of national history, a history that she rewrites. They are not worldly women but women who give their bodies in exchange for very little—they receive very little money or recognition. More importantly, these women have no voice in the nation. The poem recalls “Calixto General” as a street once leading to a village. For the women, “Calixto General” is no longer a path to a village, but a doomed path to the world. It is a path that brings people searching for something more than “apacible formulismo” [passive formality]: la habitual rigidez de los que iban en busca de algo más que el apacible formulismo, siempre a mano en el hogar, formado más que de amor, por las costumbres pueblerinas.33 [one moment of the habitual rigidity of those who came looking for something more than the passive formality always on hand at home, nothing to do with love in those village customs.]34

Herrera positions Cuba as a nation that no longer loves as a village, and as a nation that has allowed a dual economy to oppress black women, who struggle to earn U.S. dollars to meet the most basic needs of their families. While the lines note that the sexual encounters are a release from “passive formality,” Herrera’s risky language suggests that socialism is “passive formality.” While “decent” Cubans thrive on socialized tourism, jineteras become the illegal national product.35 They are seen as exotic

33

Herrera, 120. Trans. Randall, 121. 35 In her article, “Jineterismo During the Special Period,” Elisa Facio discusses the emergence of “jineterismo” in the growth of the 1990s Cuban tourist industry. She contrasts this new phenomenon with the forms of prostitution that existed in Cuba during the 1950s. Also, she notes that the image of the sexy mulatta is used in advertisements directed at Europeans, Canadians and Mexican who make up the majority of the tourists visiting Cuba. She explains that during “the special period” the government has often turned a “blind–eye” to “jineterismo” in hopes that it will stimulate the economy. Her articles confirms that the majority of these women are dark-skinned, Afro-Cuban, women (68). Facio concludes that the Cuban government is inconsistent in terms of the treatment of these women. They are 34

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Cuban women to be consumed by foreign tourists; at the same time, they are seen as shamed citizens of Cuba. Herrera implicates Cuba for allowing a system to exist in which all citizens need foreign dollars to survive. The nation prostitutes herself for U.S. dollars, although she rejects U.S. products and political intervention. Like the passing sexual encounters of “las mujeres de la vida,” the relationship between the U.S. and Cuba is an illegitimate relationship in which both parties remain unfulfilled. In another poem, “Canto de amor y respeto para doña Ana de Souza” [Song of Love and Respect for Doña Ana de Souza], Herrera seeks a legitimate and respectful relationship between Cuba and Africa. She suggests that respect for the black mother and Cuba lies in the invocation of Mother Africa, so instead of focusing on the reality of Cuba the poem “signifies” by discussing events and symbols specific to Africa. “Canto de amor y respeto para doña Ana de Souza” pays homage to Queen Yinga36 of Angola. Doña Ana is called holy lady and queen: En fin, Señora Santa y reina de las riberas del río Kuanza; madre de los principios y la unidad, desde aquel año de 1581, cuando en nombre de Dios y el rey de Portugal, cruces feroces intentaron hacer del padre suyo y de su pueblo, facil mina de esclavos.37 [So then, Holy Lady, Queen of the shores of the River Kwanza, mother of all origins and oneness, since 1581 when in the name of God and the king of Portugal fierce crossed did attempt to make your father and your people an easy source of slaves.]38 used to attract tourists, while at the same time they are seen as women operating outside of society’s norms. 36 Throughout the chapter, I use Herrera’s spelling, which is the Spanish spelling of the Angolan name. The Angolan spelling is N’zinga. 37 Herrera, Granos de Sol y Luna, 10. Throughout the chapter, I use the original Spanish from Herrera’s 1978 publication in Cuba. Catherine Davies has a good translation in her 1993 article “Writing the African Subject.” 38 Catherine Davies, “Writing the African Subject,” 44.

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Herrera invokes Doña Ana de Souza (1582?-1663), an early seventeenth-century Angolan queen who changed her name to Doña Ana de Souza after the Portuguese began the slave trade in Angola, as “madre de los principios y la unidad” [mother of all origins and oneness]39. As Catherine Davies notes, Herrera draws from African history instead of Marxist dialectic.40 Instead of discussing events in Cuba, she imagines Africa. This is significant because she is imagining Angola, a place she has never visited, instead of Cuba, her actual home. When asked why she writes about Africa instead of Cuba, Herrera responds: Para mí escribir sobre África es escribir sobre Cuba, porque es seguir una huella que empezó en África y continuo en Cuba. Y si yo estoy aquí es gracias a los que salieron de África, a los que sobrevivieron a la travesía, que para mi es importantísimo. Y entonces estando aquí ya me parece que África no me está lejana. Cuba es una tierra que fue prodigiosa. La historia de África se reconstruye en Cuba. La gente que llego de allá, no tuvo tiempo de recoger nada, tuvieron que rehacer su historia aquí. Para mí Cuba y África son la misma cosa.41 [For me to write about Africa is to write about Cuba because it is to follow in the tracks of what began in Africa and continues in Cuba. That I am here is thanks to those who left Africa, those who survived the middle passage, and that for me is very important. Thus, Africa does not seem very far away to me. Cuba is the land that was very generous. The history of Africa is reconstructed in Cuba, the people who arrived from there had no time to gather their things [so] they had to make their history here. For me, Cuba and Africa are the same thing.]42

For Herrera, Africa represents mother, home and origins for AfroCuban people, and the African roots that have been implanted in Cuba since slavery. The once queen of Angola embodies Herrera’s desire to know Africa and the power of this knowledge comes not only to her as a person, but to Cuba as a nation.43 At the same time she is imagining Angola, Cubans are fighting in the 1975 war for Angolan independence against the Portuguese. Interestingly, the poem does not praise or criticize Cuba’s involvement in Angola’s 39

Herrera, 10, trans. Catherine Davies, “Writing the African Subject,” 44. Herrera, 42. 41 Personal interview conducted with author in July 2002. 42 My translation. 43 McGarity and Cárdenas note that Cuban involvement in Angola and Ethiopia did not produce significant changes in race relations in Cuba, although black Cubans related to their “brothers and sisters” in Africa (97). 40

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struggle. Instead, the poem goes back to the beginning of the sixteenthcentury Portuguese colonization of the present-day Angola, and Herrera writes of Doña Ana as one of the great queens of Africa. Ironically, there is very little documented on this queen to whom Herrera has chosen to give voice. So once again, she honors a black mother whom national rhetoric has forgotten. Referring to rivers that have made “una mujer no repetida” [a unique woman], Herrera deifies Doña Ana as the mother of Angola.44 The poem notes: Usted, establecida entre los ríos Dondo y Kuanza, haciendo grande al pueblo, y de los esclavos del Jesuita Baltasar Barreira un viento fuerte.45 [You, entrenched between the Dondo and Kwanza rivers, making the people great, and making the slaves of the Jesuit Baltasar Barreira into a mighty wind.]46

Herrera’s description of Doña Ana sounds much like Oshún, who, in the Yoruba pantheon, controls the rivers. Herrera also draws the reader’s attention to Doña Ana’s name: Usted, doña Ana, con ese nombre occidental, tomado por estrategia, usado sólo en documentos. Madre Yinga Mbandi para su pueblo. Vencida a veces, nunca prisionera, siempre emergiendo47 [You, doña Ana, with that western name, take for strategy, used only in documents. Mother Yinga Mbandi for your people. conquered at times, captive never, always emerging]48 44

Herrera, Granos de Sol y Luna, 10. Herrera. 46 Trans. Catherine Davies, “Writing the African Subject,” 45. 47 Herrera, Granos de Sol y Luna, 11. 45

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Herrera acknowledges the strategy of syncretism and its origins in Africa. Doña Ana is a skillful international figure who knows how to work in the western world, all the while remaining a mother figure and leader to her people. Indeed, Herrera is very comfortable with interchanging the words “mother” and “queen,” which indicate that motherhood is a highly politicized role entailing much more than childbirth. Doña Ana’s skill as a mother is her ability to negotiate with the colonizer. Her western name only masks her African title as Queen Yinga. In the final lines of the poem, Herrera stops referring to her as Doña Ana and, instead, calls her Yinga. She also notes that her grave is “todo el territorio de Angola,/Sin más flores, ni lápidas ni señalamiento” [the vast land of Angola,/without flowers, nor tombstones, nor distinction].49 The African mother not only rules the land but becomes the land. The poem has many agendas that center around the idea of Mother Africa, and offers many possibilities for reading motherhood as nationhood. As mentioned before, the poem may be read as Herrera’s support of Cuba’s 1975 involvement in Angola’s independence from Portugal. Pérez Sarduy notes, “The celebration of Cuba’s African heritage was legitimized by Cuba’s involvement in Africa, especially its thirteen year presence beginning in 1975.”50 The Cuban involvement in Angola saw a relaxation of the once strict prohibition against openly practicing Afro-Cuban religions. This, of course, allows Herrera to write more openly about African themes, as well as Afro-Cuban religious traditions. The lines, “Tantos años de lucha contra el enemigo/de las pequeñas flores de sus ríos, hacen” [so many years spent fighting the assailant/of the tiny flowers in your rivers, have made]51 indicate Herrera’s acknowledgement of the Angolan struggle for independence, as well as the struggle of AfroCubans to express themselves in Cuba. She recognizes the struggle against the enemy, the European colonizer, as well as the existence of the river, thus invoking Oshún. This struggle also implies the Cuban struggle against Spain, and later the United States, as well as the post-1959 struggle of Cubans to freely practice Afro-Cuban religions. Another possible reading of the poem recognizes the power of the black woman and the black mother in building the nation, and thus readers see the black woman prevail in the struggle for independence. Herrera strives to write the black woman as an active participant in the nation. Mother Yinga serves as a godlike representation and a role model for 48

Trans. Catherine Davies, “Writing the African Subject,” 45. Herrera 10; translation Davies 45. 50 Pedro Pérez, Afro-Cuban Voices, 20. 51 Herrera 10; trans. Davies 45. 49

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Cuba’s black mothers. The poem suggests that Cuba’s black women have struggled for many years and invokes the presence of a different Oshún with the phrase “de las pequenas flores de sus rios” [the tiny flowers in your rivers].52 Herrera’s Oshún is a mother who is identified by her flowers and not her sexual endeavors. Thus, instead of a prostitute, Oshún is read as protective Mother Africa. Similarly, in the famous 1975 poem “Mujer Negra” [Black Woman], Nancy Morejón invokes the presence of Mother Africa. Her Mother Africa is an enslaved black woman who lands in Cuba without the geographical knowledge of her specific home in Africa. Morejón’s nameless black woman is a product of the Atlantic slave trade. Without negating the importance of Cuban identity and without negating socialist values, the poetic voice of Nancy Morejón recognizes race and gender as factors in the oppression and enslavement of black people. She writes with what Linda Howe calls a “global Black female consciousness in the absence of an ‘officially’ recognized Black movement in Cuba.”53 As Carlos Moore indicates, Castro’s government “would allow no sort of activity that would ‘divide’ the people along racial lines.”54 In 1968, Castro’s administration implicated Morejón in the “Black Manifesto” plot in which black intellectuals “held private meetings and drafted a position paper on race and culture in Cuba.”55 “Mujer Negra,” written seven years after the “Black Manifesto,” indicates the carefulness with which Morejón approaches “ethnic protest.”56 In this “signifyin(g)” poem, she subtly 52

Herrera 10; trans. Davies 45. Linda Howe, “Nancy Morejón’s Womanism,” 165. 54 Carlos Moore, Castro, the Blacks and Africa, 309. 55 Moore, 308. 56 In his 1993 article, “Race, Poetry, and Revolution in the Works of Morejón,” William Luis notes that in 1965, the year after Morejón published the very well received Amor, Ciudad Atribuida (1964), a book that glorified Havana, the El Puente publishing house was disbanded by the government and accused of being homosexual, anti-socialist, and elitist (87). According to Luis, “this event made it clear that Cuban poets were expected to not only support the Cuban revolution, but to glorify it in their works” (87). Linda Howe also notes that both Morejón and Herrera were linked to the 1965 publishing scandal (“Nancy Morejón’s Womanism” 159). Howe notes that, after this incident, official institutions did not publish Morejón’s poetry for twelve years (162). The 1968 Manifesto plot, of which Morejón denies being a part, but in which she was implicated, marks the beginning of the “silent years.” During the “silent years,” Morejón published critical works on Nicolás Guillén and a testimonial narrative, Lengua de Pájaro [Language of the Bird] (1969). Howe notes that Parajes de una época [Places of an Era] (1979), of which “Mujer Negra” is a part, works to neutralize gender and 53

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overturns the symbolic notion of the Afro-Cuban mother whose body is essentially used to birth and feed a nation, but whose voice is silenced in the national rhetoric. Furthermore, she is able to creatively imagine Africa without separating herself from the idea of a homogeneous Cuban national identity. “Mujer Negra” narrates the life of an individual slave woman who experiences the past and present of Cuba. In addition to offering an alternate view of Cuban history through the black woman’s eyes, the poem’s physical structure represents the physical space that is Cuba. The body of the poem expands with long lines and returns with short lines, like the waves of the ocean that surrounds Morejón’s Cuba. Moreover, as Morejón describes the forgotten passage from Africa, the words and structure of the poem invoke the image of Yemayá. She holds the power to create, give birth to new ideas and leave a physical imprint on the land. Recalling Yemayá, the first six lines of “Mujer Negra” demonstrate the wave-like structure of the Morejón’s dynamic poem: Todavía huelo la espuma del mar que me hicieron atravesar. La noche, no puedo recordarla. Ni el mismo océano podría recordarla. Pero no olvido al primer alcatraz que divisé. Altas, las nubes, como inocentes testigos presénciales. Acaso no he olvidado ni mi costa perdida, ni mi lengua ancestral.57 [I still smell the foam of the sea they made me cross. The night, I can’t remember it. The ocean itself could not remember that. But I can’t forget the first gull I made out in the distance. High, the clouds, like innocent eye-witnesses. Perhaps I haven’t forgotten my lost coast, Nor my ancestral language.]58

racial issues. As my study attempts to also show, Howe agrees that Morejón’s silences invite readers to speculate on the very issues that she denies promoting (166). One important note regarding the “silent years” is that “Mujer Negra” was originally published in 1975 in the Casa de Las Américas magazine. Additionally, Morejón’s work on Guillén highlighted issues of race in his texts. Thus, the “silent years” were only silent in the sense that Morejón did not publish a book of poetry, which does not mean that she did not write anything about race or that she did not publish poems. 57 Nancy, Morejón, Where Island Sleeps Like a Wing: Selected Poetry by Nancy Morejón, 86. Trans. Kathleen Weaver. 58 Morejón, trans. Weaver, 87.

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Her shortest lines are written in the first person singular preterite and are separated from each other by longer, more complete stanzas. In this sense, the preterite tense is used to advance the nation. The poem’s short lines, which are embedded in the text of the poem, state: Me rebelé. Anduve. Me sublevé. Trabajé mucho más. Me fui al monte. bajé de la Sierra.59 [I rebelled. I walked. I rose up. I worked on and on. I left for the hills. I came down from the Sierra.]60

These short lines offer a historical summary of Morejón’s fictional mujer negra and the events leading to the 1959 Cuban Revolution. The physical actions of the black woman’s body personify the history of Cuba. In the past, the black woman rebelled, walked, rose up, went to the mountains, and then came down from the Sierra Maestra mountains. Morejón’s reference to the Sierra Maestra recognizes the mountains as a symbol of independence and revolution for all Cuban people. By invoking the mountains, she places herself comfortably within the national rhetoric that glorifies the mountains as an empowering symbol for all Cubans. Yet before there was La Sierra, in the symbolic sense, Morejón recalls el palenque [territory for freed slaves]. She notes, “Mi real independencia fue el palenque” [my real independence was the free slave fort]61. This “signifyin(g)” line, which is immediately followed by a more unifying reference to “La Sierra,” shows that Morejón remembers the history of enslaved Afro-Cubans who also sought freedom in mountains. Thus, in spite of the pressure to write within a unifying rhetoric of equal Cubanness for all, Morejón’s black woman is not neatly swept into the homogeny of a Cuban identity that is a mixture of Spanish and African origin, and thus neither black nor white. Like Afro-Brazilian Elisa Lucinda, Morejón interrogates Cuban history, but very carefully. Morejón 59

Morejón, Where Island, 86, 88. Trans.Weaver, 87, 89. 61 Morejón 88, trans. Weaver 89. 60

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invokes contradictory symbols of national history through the actions of the black woman. When Morejón’s black woman leaves for the hills, she leaves with Maceo: “y cabalgué entre las tropas de Maceo” [I rode with the troops of Maceo]. This action recalls the Cuban Independence War of 1868-1878 and the War of 1895-1898, times when the majority of Cubans, black and white, joined together in opposition against the colonial presence of Spain, and later against the economic control of the United States. José Martí (1852-1895) notes “[The U.S.] has never looked upon Cuba as anything but an appetizing possession with no drawback other than its quarrelsome, weak and unworthy population.”62 Martí insists on Cuba’s financial independence from the United States claiming, “To change masters is not to be free.”63 General Antonio Maceo (1845-1896), an Afro-Cuban, is also considered one of the founding fathers of Cuban Independence. While the black woman rides with Maceo, it is “only” a century later, as the poem notes, that the black woman comes down from the Sierra. Morejón’s signifying line, “Sólo un siglo más tarde” [Only a century later], allows readers to conceptualize time in the eyes of the black woman. The black woman parallels the Cuban nation that, once freed from Spain, must also free itself from the U.S. The Cuban nation is a marginalized nation that fights to have its own voice in the world, rather than be dominated by imperialistic powers. Morejón invokes the image of Maceo, widely recognized as an Afro-Cuban national hero, to suggest that in spite of the struggle for independence there was still a significant wait for the black woman to be a part of the nation immediately after the Revolution. Nationalist rhetoric would have one believe that Cubans have been racially united since Blacks and Whites fought together against Spain, but this is not the case. Events such as the Race Wars of 1912, which led to the massacre of over 6,000 black men because of their participation in the Independent Party for Colored Men, suggest that well after independence from Spain, in which Martí and Maceo were instrumental, black Cubans still faced political, as well as social segregation.64 Furthermore, Cuba’s early feminist movement, as in the 62

Louis A. Perez, Cuba Between Empires, 110. Perez. 64 In my July 2002 interview with Afro-Cuban poet Soleida Ríos, she discussed this event which was called “Guerrita de 12” “Little War of [19] 12.” Thousands of mulatto and black men were killed for participation in a political party that sought to protect the rights of working class men of color. This incident is not a part of the national rhetoric and only recently have Cuban historians begun to discuss this post-republic event. Afro-Cuban documentary filmmaker Gloria Rolando, whom I 63

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United States and Brazil, was largely made up of middle-class white women. Thus, while Cuban women began to vote in 1934, black Cuban women struggled to be a part of the Cuban Women’s Movement until after the 1959 revolution. Readers may infer, from what is not said, the actual position of the black woman during Cuba’s multiple struggles for independence—a position without a voice in the nation. The “signifyin(g)” 1975 poem reflects what Luis calls “a growing sentiment of racial pride among black intellectuals in Cuba […].”65 While carefully augmenting Cuban national history, “Mujer Negra” also links the black woman to Mother Africa. The first line of “Mujer Negra” is: “Todavía huelo la espuma del mar que me hicieron atravesar.”66 The black woman notes that she can still smell the foam of the ocean that “they” made her cross.67 In the same stanza, the “black woman” has faint memories of her ancestral language and forgotten home in Africa. The poem notes that she looks to her ancestral roots and “Mandinga epics” for strength in her current home, Cuba. The black woman rebels against her marginalized position in national history in that despite her past as a slave, she is able to imagine a pre-slavery history. Thus, in this poem, Morejón claims her own blackness and the validity of her African roots. She is not the daughter of unnamed slaves from an unknown land. In fact, in the poem’s fourth stanza, the black woman questions her African origins. Morejón imagines the road to many possible places in Africa and asks: “¿Era a Guinea? ¿A Benín? ¿Era a Madagascar? ¿O a Cabo Verde? [Was it to Guinea? Benin? To Madagascar? Or Cape Verde?].68 These signifying questions implicate Spanish imperialism in the slave trade, as well as a homogenizing revolution in separating AfroCubans from their racial and ethnic roots in the name of a unified Cuba. In response to these unanswerable questions about her African origins, Morejón replies that the black woman is a Cuban who sings the song of the native bird. If one reads the poem literally, the black woman embodies Mother Nature as she joyfully accepts her place in the nation. Yet one wonders about the singing with “pájaros nacionales” [“national birds”].69 also interviewed, has a short film where she dramatizes the events of the massacre. This 1999 film is called “Raíces de mi corazón” [“Roots of my Heart”]. 65 William Luis, “The Politics of Aesthetics,” 36. 66 Morejón, 86. 67 Trans. Weaver, 87. 68 Morejón 86, trans. Weaver 87. 69 Morejón 86. My translation. Weaver translates pájaros nacionales as “native birds”(87), but my literal translation “national birds” captures the essence of the birds that belong to the nation .

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Music in Cuba has always been heavily influenced by African tradition, so the black woman’s song may be read as an act of cultural and political resistance. The native bird sings because it allows her to express herself creatively while no one really understands the implication of the song; what sounds like a national song is thus a song of her own. Certainly song creates a language of its own implicit only to the singer and the songwriter. Thus, Morejón’s patriotic language may only mask the desire to soar to another creative place available only in song or in flight. Moreover, “Mujer Negra” presents a woman who triumphs in spite of the actions of what she calls the “lord inglés” [English lord]—which can be read as white men. The fact that Morejón uses and italicizes the English word, “lord,” in the original Spanish version of the poem speaks volumes to the colonial influence in Cuban history. The English word “lord” implies an undeniable English influence, and suggests the English involvement in the slave trade, as well as the U.S. desire to control Cuba. As the poem suggests, the impeccable English lord kills “Su Merced” [His Worship], the Spanish ruler of Cuba, and leaves the black woman’s son no name. The poem reads: Bordé la casaca de Su Merced y un hijo macho le parí Mi hijo no tuvo nombre. Y Su Merced murió a manos de un impecable lord inglés.70 [His Worship bought me in a public square. I embroidered His Worship’s coat and bore him a male child. My son has no name. And His Worship died at the hands of an impeccable English lord.]71

The black woman bears a male child, but this male child is not recognized as the heir to the nation. Much like the black woman, who is nameless throughout the poem, the child of mixed ancestry has no legitimacy or voice in the nation. In other words, although His Worship wears a coat made by the black woman, who also bears him a child, she and her son are not officially a part of the nation. Furthermore, these lines suggest the unspeakable in that Morejón implicates European men in the rape of her African mother. The white father uses the black female body, and denies the offspring, a mulatto son. These lines are also “signifyin(g)” lines because not only do they highlight English imperialism, but they also implicate colonial Cuba in the exploitation of African female slaves. 70 71

Morejón, 86. Trans.Weaver, 87.

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In the fifteen-page poem “Monólogo de la Esposa” [The Bride’s Monologue], Excilia Saldaña (1946-1999) represents imposed silences by writing a double-voiced monologue in which a bride72 invokes two separate personalities. The text indicates this dichotomy by using italicized lettering throughout the poem and countering this italic with four stanzas of indented non-italicized text embedded through the poem. In the first stanza of the poem, the poet sounds much like a lost child: Los crespos de la noche cuelgan de cielo. Se esparcen por los hombros de la casa las guedejas del silencio. Yo las peino. Sauvemente yo las peino: Soy la anónima alisadora de las ondas del sueño. también soy una niña acuática trenzando y destrenzandomé la cabellera del recuerdo. A veces me paro en los acantilados del hogar y los aciclono hasta convertirlos en cumbres borrascoas: Vengan huracán y lamento A soplar sobre la mentira. Lo que no me niega la vida Lo que niego yo a cada momento. O los oreo por verles florecer las piedras: Vengan la brisa y la porfía a soplar sobre la verdad Lo que a mí niega tu faz No lo niego yo a la alegría73

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While the most obvious translation of esposa is “wife,” the poem’s monologue suggests that the woman is in the process of becoming married, and the use of esposa is in the sense of becoming a “wife.” Two well-respected Cuban literary critics, Catherine Davies and Flora González have translated esposa differently. Davies translates esposa as “bride,” while Gonzalez translates it as “wife.” Understanding that the translation of esposa is literally “wife,” I chose to translate it as “bride” because it allows me to read the “wife” as the “bride” of Christ, which is an important religious connection for reading the poem as a “signifyin(g)” poem. The bride marries herself to divinity, and thus becomes empowered in the patriarchal nation. 73 Saldana, In the Vortex of the Cyclone, 12.

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[The curls of the night hang from the sky. The lockets of silence spread across the shoulders of the house I comb them. Softly, I comb them: I am the nameless one smoothing down the waves of dreams. I am also the water-child Binding and unbinding memory’s long mane of hair.]74 [Sometimes I stop in the cliffs of the home And I make a cyclone until I convert them into wuthering heights: Come hurricane and lament to blow over the lie. The lie that does not negate my life. the lie that I negate every moment. I blow the cliffs to see them flower the rocks: Come wind and struggle to blow over the truth, The truth that negates your face to me I don’t deny myself that happiness.]75

The poem’s italicized text attempts to romanticize some horrid event that occurred in the child’s past. By contrast, in the non-italicized text, the child conjures hurricanes and winds to reveal the truth about the unknown event. The child describes herself as a “water-child,” which may be read as a child of Oshún, the orisha that protects the rivers, or of Yemayá, who protects the oceans. Additionally, as Cuba is surrounded by water, the child may be read literally as a child of Cuba. More than anything, the child appears to be motherless in that she is a “nameless one smoothing down the waves of dreams.”76 The child personifies a motherless nation in that she has no one to protect her, and is surrounded by dreams. The “water-child” finds freedom in the presence of the female orishas, who become her protectors—her mothers. She invokes the female orishas and links Mother Nature’s elements to the female body. Female orishas represent flow whether it is the flow of water, which represents the women’s ability to give life, or the flow of wind, suggesting Oyá, who represents the power of life over death. “Water is the essence of life, as are childbearing women, and women are containers of water.”77 Women’s physical traits embodied in the orishas seem to be synonymous with Mother Nature as the poet’s lines gender 74

Catherine Davies, “Hybrid Texts,” trans., 212. My translation. 76 Catherine Davies, “Hybrid Texts,” trans., 212. 77 Paper, Through the Earth Darkly, 197. 75

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nature. For example, the first italicized stanza repeatedly refers to woman’s hair, which materializes the past. Tresses are silent, and lockets of hair are hanging from the sky. Thus, a gendered female national memory has very long hair that the child braids and unbraids. The silent hair that refuses to, or cannot, speak the truth spreads across the child’s home and invokes a negligent mother figure unable to protect the child’s home—Cuba. To further suggest that she is talking about Cuba, Saldaña writes the child’s home as a place surrounded by strong winds and steep cliffs. The child is not only a child of Cuba, but she is a child of a turbulent Mother Nature. Interestingly, the child has the power to conjure and the elements act on her behalf. As the majority of the poem is italicized, the non-italicized text draws the reader’s attention to the child’s power as a conjurer. The ambiguity of the italicized text suggests that the child is in a trance as she at times speaks to a figure of power, and at other times speaks as a figure of power. The child calls for the wind and hurricanes to tell the truth about the past; thus, she invokes the orisha, Oyá. In the second page of the poem, Saldaña refers to strange rituals, music, and fat women who ask questions about the magic formula of her winds. These images are clearly Santería images, in which women are empowered when possessed by the spirit of the orishas during rituals. The presence of wind and storms once again suggest the orisha, Oyá. These images, as well as other images of Santería, figure prominently throughout the poem. During a Santería ritual, a “hijo de santo” [a child of a saint] may receive an orisha, at which time there is dancing, complaints, advice, problem solving and giving thanks. In the poem, the presence of orishas is a poetic technique designed to parallel syncretization and, therefore, empower the child-bride, who receives an orisha, to speak. The orisha is pure, immaterial force, which is only perceptible to human beings when one of the descendants is chosen by the orisha to be possessed. This is the origin of what much later, through the process of syncretization, we would call in Regla de Ocha the hijo de santo (child of the saint).78

While the term “shaman” refers largely to Native American peoples, the idea is that the shaman, like the “hijo de santo,” acts as a medium between the visible world and the spiritual world. The “shaman” practices magic or sorcery for healing, divination and control of the visible world.79 Anthropologists note that 78 79

Natalia Bolívar Aróstegui, Los Orishas en Cuba, 137. “Shaman” 1

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persons on the threshold of becoming shamans or schizophrenics face crises revolving around a severely damaged conception of self and that their abnormalities may be regarded as a desperate attempt to redefine a personally meaningful self-concept.80

Ironically, without reference or knowledge of Saldaña, Afro-Brazilian poet Elisa Lucinda calls Cuba schizophrenic in her poem “The State of the Revolution.” This theory develops in “Monólogo de la Esposa,” where Saldaña uses the orishas to “signify” the child-bride’s protest against male oppression. Davies notes that in Saldaña’s own life this oppression stems from sexual abuse at the hands of her father.81 In calling on nature to avenge her, the poet conjures Shakespeare’s Macbeth with images of bloodied hands, an unstable mind, and a ruined life. Consistent with a schizophrenic monologue, throughout the poem the child-bride changes voices and personalities as she becomes concerned with the spots on her hands. She invokes another powerful lady, Lady Macbeth, as she focuses on her powers as the bride. She is a bride who should be revered, but she is also a bride who has gone mad. The poem suggests that the bride’s madness is a result of her lost innocence, and focuses on the blood on her hands. She notes: Las manos. Las manos. Las manos. No hay agua suficiente para limpiar mis manos, Para desteñir el estigma de sangre —de mi propia sangre— tañendo para siempre mis manos.82 [These hands. These hands. These hands There is never enough water to clean these hands, to unstain the damned spot of blood —of my own blood— forever touching my hands.]83

This blood is the blood of lost innocence and clarifies why Davies translates “la esposa” as “the bride” and not “the wife.” Additionally, these lines recall Saldaña’s sexually abused childhood in which she loses her innocence to her father not her husband. Thus, not only does “bride” in the traditional and most religious sense of the word imply innocence, the 80

Lois Paul, Women in Ritual and Symbolic Roles, 143. Catherine Davies. “Hybrid Texts” 206 and “Cross-Cultural Homebodies” 187. 82 Saldaña, Excilia. In the Vortex of the Cyclone, 14. 83 “Hybrid Text,” translation Davies, 213. 81

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tension between “bride” and “wife” indicates the contrast between innocence and lost innocence. “Being a bride implies that the bride is in the process of being a wife.”84 Additionally, the word “bride” evokes the biblical metaphor of the church being “the bride of Christ.” “In Catholic thought, the intimacy of the bride is combined with the apparently contradictory purity of a virgin.”85 Saldaña’s child-bride imagines herself as “la pobre mulatica bizca…que quiso ser princesa de un exótico reino” [poor cross-eyed little mulatta...who wanted to be princess of an exotic kingdom].86 In the italicized lines, the reader hears the voice of a sad bride who laments that her fantasies for marriage have not come true. She notes: que se acerque el que tomó mi doncellez, la oscura magnolia de mi vientre que venga a desosarme el primero87 [let the one who took my virginity come forth, the dark magnolia of my womb, let him who was first, marry me.]88

The bride, the would-be wife, continually calls for the first one to step forward. The first one has violated the bride and now she wants him to marry her. She questions: ¿O tú, de quien tengo un hijo, aliento de mi aire, un hijo que se te parece, pero quien te niega en mi talle?89 [Or you, from whom I have a son, Spirit of my breath, a son who resembles you, but who, having my stature, denies you?]90

By discussing her son, as the spirit of her breath, Saldaña’s bride positions herself as the mother of the nation, an exotic nation. Her son’s rejection of his father sounds much like the bride’s rejection of the 84

Daniel Maltz, Women in Ritual and Symbolic Roles, 32. Maltz, 33. 86 Saldaña, In the Vortex of the Cyclone, trans. González and Rosenmeier, 25. 87 Saldaña, 24. 88 Trans. González and Rosenmeier, 25. 89 Saldaña, 26. 90 Trans. González and Rosenmeier, 27. 85

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traditional husband. Perhaps this is Saldaña’s rejection of prerevolutionary Cuba. Her autobiographical information indicates that she was a strong supporter of Castro, so much so that she was expelled from her own home because of her support of the revolution.91 In “The Bride’s Monologue,” Saldaña talks back to her nation, her father and the men who have disappointed her. The poem is a conjure poem in which Saldaña confronts the spirits of the dead that have failed her.92 In the following cemetery scene, she concocts a disturbing image of post-1959 Cuba. She notes: No, los muertos no descansan en los cementerios. Su lugar de reposo son las tendederas, en la democracia del alambre y la soga --donde conviven el paño lujoso y el jirón maltrecho. En la némesis del sol descansan los muertos.93 [No, the dead do not rest in cemeteries. Their resting places are clotheslines, in the democracy of wires and ropes -where luxurious cloth and frayed tatters live together. The dead rest in the nemesis of the sun.]94

Using language associated with domestic chores, the poem seems to advocate the revolution that stripped Cuba of its layers of social and economic class. However, by providing a domestic scene she implies that the woman’s role in the post-1959 revolution is still largely domestic in spite of national rhetoric that suggests otherwise. In contrast to this subtle criticism, the fact that los muertos do not lie comfortably in the cemetery praises socialism in that it does not privilege wealth. The bride is a worker in the nation who hangs both luxurious and frayed tatters side by side. Everyone, rich and poor, lives in the “nemesis of the sun,” which is a metaphor for Cuba invoking the presence of Fidel Castro as the nation’s leader. However, the word “nemesis” suggests that the sun is not a gentle sun, and that “the democracy of wires and ropes” is often painful. Saldaña subtly criticizes a Cuban “democracy” that threatens the lives of its citizens, once rich and poor, both now equally miserable. Again, Lucinda’s critique of Cuba rings true.

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Catherine Davies, “Hybrid Texts,” 206. Davies, 206. 93 Saldaña, 20. 94 Trans. González and Rosenmeir, 21. 92

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The poem’s most hopeful moment is when the bride finds the answer to her question “who will be the first?” in a rusty key. The bride recalls her grandmother, her mother and the grandmothers of her grandmothers.95 Her female ancestry is the key to overcoming the bloodstains on her hands.96 She notes --la frágil carabalí de la tersa piel morena y la adusta castellana, rosa fiel, flor marfileña--. En la recámara de piedra y cristo y en la choza de engorde y selva, la misma llave, la misma, que no puede ya cerrar ninguna reja. Mi llave herrumbrosa97 --fragile Carabalí woman of smooth dark skin and austere Castilian faithful rose, ivory flower--. in the dressing room of stone and Christ, and in the jungle hut for fattening cattle, the same key, the same one, that no longer locks any gate. My old rusty key98

The bride draws on the strength of these women from both Africa and Europe to overcome a painful past. Saldaña repeatedly refers to “algún rincón” [some corner] in which there is an altar, a prayer, a stone, and dead bloody hands.99 She alludes to both the pain and the healing implicit in blood shed. For Saldaña, blood has the possibility to cleanse, and the bride’s spoken words have the power to break the silence and heal the past. The bride’s schizophrenic monologue allows the truth to come out and the bride can move on with her life. As she does throughout the poem, Saldaña recalls Macbeth:

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Trans. González and Rosenmeir 33. In her epic poem, “Mi nombre (Antielegía),” Saldaña also invokes her grandmother’s name as a source of power (78-111). 97 Saldaña, 32. 98 Trans. González and Rosenmeir, 33. 99 Saldaña, 33-35. 96

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qué paloma, qué ebbó, qué recogimiento, qué hombre no dado a luz por mujer, Padre, podrá exorcizarte el recuerdo?100 what pigeon, what ebbó, what gathering, what power of man, for none of woman born, Father, could exorcise for you the memory?101

Citing the famous quote from the three witches in Shakespeare’s Macbeth, the bride invokes an image of powerful women who meet on a cliff in the midst of a storm to influence who will be king of the nation. If one considers the power of the witches in Macbeth, it is apparent that their predictions set in motion the events that determined the future of Scotland. In their power to predict, they are able to affect the actions of both Lady Macbeth and Macbeth. Furthermore, they are partially responsible for the blood shed by Macbeth, as he kills again and again to secure his predicted position as King of Scotland. The witches are also implicated in Lady Macbeth’s madness, which manifests itself in her visions, brought on by the guilt she feels for pushing her husband to be more ambitious. Furthermore, Lady Macbeth may be read as a powerful force in the nation as she mercilessly encourages her husband’s ambition. In recalling Shakespeare, Saldaña parallels Morejón’s criticism of the English lord. She also implicates European colonialism (read as Macbeth’s desire for power) which is partially responsible for the Cuban Revolution. As a poet, Saldaña is unable to escape her education in the Western canon, which serves her creatively, but at the same time ignores her own writing. Yet, Saldaña couples Western tradition with her Afro-Cuban roots. This marriage of traditions, which privileges the voice of her female ancestors, implies that the Afro-Cuban woman has the power to rewrite Cuban history to include her own voice. In the final lines of the poem, Saldaña’s repetition of “Soy yo. La Esposa” [It is I. The Bride] becomes a powerful call as she describes herself as a dreamer, a red ruby 102 and an apetedbí.103 She is a bride who awaits her husband, “the secret one.”104 The ones she describes as: 100

Saldaña, 38. Translation González and Rosenmeir, 39. 102 In the Old Testament, Proverbs 31 describes “the wife of noble character.” Verse ten notes that a noble wife is worth far more than rubies. 103 This word means woman, wife of Orula, the orisha of divination. She is the assistant to the babalawo, who is an Afro-Cuban priest. 104 Trans. González and Rosenmeir, 41. 101

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Chapter Four Alguien que me lave las manos como un padre feliz, y me las enjoye luego con fuego y pasión con fuerza ye con ruegos. Alguien que diga: “Soy yo. El Esposo.” Y comencemos unidos la Cópula del Universo.105 Someone who will wash my hands as a happy father would, and who will adorn them later with fire and passion with strength and prayers. Someone who will say: “It is I. The Husband.” And together we will begin the Copula of the Universe.”106

The poem ends with the bride willing to become the wife of Christ, or of a Christ-like figure, and to create a universe. But even the marriage promise is a “signifyin(g)” one in that the bride only has a stake in the nation when she is the wife of an empowered male figure. In line with Cuban national rhetoric, this male-female union of diverse traditions has the power to create Saldaña’s exotic kingdom. The bride embraces the male-figure and the struggle of the nation. Sex unites the male and female figure, and the image of the orisha, Esu-Elegguá,107 is invoked as the two begin to communicate. In their poems, Morejón, Herrera and Saldaña seek not only to talk back to Cuban national rhetoric, but to rewrite Cuba in their own words. Their voices acknowledge the same concern that the tourist poet AfroBrazilian Elisa Lucinda has for a Cuba that does not belong to Cuba’s black women. For these select Afro-Cuban poets, nation manifests itself in Mother Nature, the mothering female orishas, female ancestors and the mythical female figures that they create in their poetry. Doña Ana may be read as an African queen, an orisha and a mother who controls not only people but the elements of the earth. “Mujer Negra” is a mythical slave 105

Saldaña, 42. Trans. González and Rosenmeir, 43. 107 As Henry Louis Gates, Jr. discusses, “Esu is the guardian of the crossroads, master of style and stylus, the phallic god of generation and fecundity, master of the elusive, mystical barrier that separates the divine world from the profane” (6). Esu, at the end of the poem, symbolizes the opening up of the monologue to a national dialogue. Although I read the poem as critical of the nation, the poem’s ending suggests that there is hope when the wife finds the right husband. 106

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woman who births kings and faintly recalls her origins in Africa. She is also a brave woman warrior who fights alongside Maceo and accepts her unifying role in Cuba. Saldaña’s child-bride may be read as a Santería priestess who conjures the wind to reveal the truth and then destroy her enemies. Her bloody hands implicate the dead and those national heroes who have not kept her safe. Like Morejón’s black woman, Saldaña’s child-bride marries the nation and accepts her position as the mother of the nation. The poetic voice of these Afro-Cuban women, as Flora González suggests, is a vortex that embodies the winds of the orisha, Oyá. For these poets, wind and water signify the precarious situation that personifies Cuba’s relationship with itself and the outside world. Water symbolizes the ability to create and destroy, as well as the distance that enslaved Africans had to cross to come to Cuba. Similarly, wind is the symbolic power of the nation to destroy itself, as well as the power of the poets to reveal things that are hidden. Wind and water are Mother Nature’s tools, and they both empower and destroy humans. Wind, specifically, draws attention to the cycle of life and contradiction of time because it implies a chaotic revolution that is marked by uncertainty. Wind dislocates those historical keys that allow citizens to understand their national origins and value all those who have worked to build the nation. Furthermore, the female orishas, which embody wind and water, signify the progression of the nation. Yemayá and Oshún, who represent the Virgin Mary, suggest the initial matrix in which the nation was conceived. Oshún, as the Lady of Cobre, embodies the mestizaje of Cuba, and, in Saldaña’s words, personifies Cuba as un exótico reino [exotic kingdom]. Additionally, Oshún captures the joy and passion implicit in Afro-Cuban music that seduces its listeners with its African beats. Finally, Oyá, embodies the struggle of the revolution, and of course, the completion of the life cycle that must end in human death. In essence, like Morejón’s “Mujer Negra,” the black mother figure embodies the life cycle of the nation. She births the nation, sees and becomes the productivity of the nation, and, finally, she witnesses the death of the nation and its traditional ideas. The resurrection of nation exemplifies the chaos inherent in wind and water, which invoke yet another revolution and thus allow for the continuation and renewal of new national ideas. Herrera, Morejón, and Saldaña have carefully written themselves into the changing political and historical landscape of Cuba. As their own words indicate, their poetry embodies Cuba and Cubanness. Their subaltern voices capture the doubleness of lived experience and memory for Cuban women of African descent. As Saldaña suggests, la némesis del sol [nemesis of the sun] can be a dangerous place for any outspoken

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person. In response to the question in Catherine Davies’ title, A Place in Sun? Women Writers in Twentieth-Century Cuba (1997), the Afro-Cuban women poets of this chapter answer that they successfully write in the sun. In line with traditional rhetoric, they are concerned with the struggle of all Cuban people, both men and women and black and white. While their poetry privileges the black mother figure, and readings of their poetry suggest that they are very concerned about women’s roles and representation in Cuba, Saldaña, Morejón and Herrera do not consider themselves to be feminists. They refused to be labeled as feminists, but cling to their identities as Cubans and women of the African Diaspora. In an interview with Pedro Pérez Sarduy, Herrera notes: I don’t think of myself as feminist, but very feminine. …Sometimes you have to dig deep in the poetry of Cuban women to know what’s being said. I don’t think I have anything to hide. That’s why I say I am feminine, not feminist.108

In her interview with Elaine Savory Fido, Morejón comments: I like ordinary feminism, the kind that has an everyday social force, that confronts the donkey (and clobbers him), wherever he might fall. There is very intellectualized, often literary, feminism, that makes me uncomfortable because it advocates living in and for the self, while striving to create a closed language or code that can be deciphered only by women.109

In a related response to being a Cuban woman writer, the late Excilia Saldaña answers: Es decir, de la mujer cubana, y de la cubanía que es madre; la patria como mujer y cultura, la patria como madre nutricia.110 [It is to say of the Cuban woman and the Cubanness that is mother; the homeland like woman and culture, the homeland like the nutritious mother.]111

Very much in line with national rhetoric, these women embrace the idea of nation as mother, and reject the idea of living for oneself instead of 108

Pérez, Afro-Cuban Voices, 119. Elaine Fido, “A Womanist Vision of the Caribbean,” 266. 110 Saldaña, “Lo cotidiano transcendente,” 8. 111 My translation. 109

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one’s country. Morejón and Herrera associate feminism with language that must be decoded because it has a hidden agenda. They claim they have nothing to hide and that their poetry does not require “digging into” in order to understand what is being said. Yet these claims are misleading in that this chapter highlights the “signifyin(g),” possibly coded, language, in their poetry. As evident in her selected poetry, Morejón exemplifies Alice Walker’s term “womanist,” which is a black woman feminist. For Morejón, this term “shows how she wants to connect Afro-Cuban women’s endeavors with their socio-historical context.”112 Thus, Morejón does not reject feminism, but accepts it on her own terms. Likewise Herrera’s use of “feminine;” is not a rejection of “feminism”. In fact, the president of the Federación de Mujeres Cubanas, nationally known and accepted in Cuba as a feminist socialist organization, “is often quoted saying about Cuban women, ‘We are feminine, not feminist.’”113 In a nation where the majority of the people struggle under extreme economic difficulty, the western idea of feminism is seen as self-indulgent. Furthermore, the emancipation of women is firmly engrained in the national rhetoric, although many Cuban women have yet to see its promise fulfilled.114 Using the black mother as a metaphor for nation, Saldaña, Herrera and Morejón creatively show readers the socio-historical contexts of their lives as women in Cuba. They also problematize the idea of a homogenized Cuban women’s experience. They claim a literary space for Afro-Cuban women’s voices in Cuban history. Readers do not know to what extent self-censure changes the contents of their poetry or their own ability to understand it. Spivak notes in her reading of “The Breast Giver” that knowledge is never adequate to its object and there is always a conflict between “the need for claiming subaltern identity” and “the program of 112

Linda Howe, “Nancy Morejón’s Womanism,” 153. Anton Allahar. “Women, Feminism and Socialism in Cuba,” 68. 114 In his 1995 article, “Women, Feminism and Socialism in Cuba,” Anton Allahar documents Fidel Castro’s strong support of women, and in particular his support of the Federación de Mujeres Cubanas, which, in 1960, upon Castro’s insistence, was established. National rhetoric supports the idea of Castro as the greatest champion of women’s rights in Cuba (Allahar 61). In a 1975 speech to the National Assembly, Castro called for a government of both men and women. Cuban women made many gains under socialism, particularly in the areas of education and maternity leave rights. Allahar concludes, against those who might argue that the revolution privileges the male role in the nation, that the integration of women from all sectors is “key and defining feature” of Cuba’s socialist agenda (69-70). However, he does acknowledge that “the Special Period” challenges the full realization of this agenda (70). 113

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knowledge that serves as an origin.”115 These poets are programmed in the national discourse, and their adherence to this discourse allows them to publish and speak in Cuba. Likewise, readers are programmed in their own knowledge, or lack thereof, of Cuban history and religion. The AfroCuban poets of this chapter fit comfortably into the national discourse that accepts Afro-Cuban religion as national folklore. Saldaña, in her introduction to Kele Kele (1987), 116 recognizes her literary production as a part of “nuestro folclor afroespañol” [“our Afro-Spanish folklore”].117 As Matibag notes, she places herself in the context of what Fidel Castro calls latinoafroamericanos [latinoafroamericans].118 Afro-Cuban women poets are Caribbean, black, womanists, feminine, Latinas, and, of course, they are Americans. They, like Afro-Brazilian women poets, challenge national symbols that distort their lives, and, like African American women poets, they search for their literary foremothers and female ancestors to resist the dominant discourse. Doris Sommer offers a strategy for understanding these women by simply contrasting the Spanish verbs “saber” and “conocer.”119 Saber refers to the practical knowledge that allows readers to identify the subaltern voice, while conocer is the intimate knowledge that is most often unspeakable. The use of “signifyin(g)” language demonstrates the ability of language to empower women to write as an act of resistance to those who seek to know them without listening to their “words.” More importantly, Gates’ concept of “signifyin(g)” language challenges readers to listen to the silences, as they may learn more from what is not said than what is said by Afro-Cuban women. Readers learn that it is not always possible to understand the other, and that, at times, it is enough to recognize that the other exists—saber, instead of to intimately know—conocer, the other.

115

Gayatri Spivak. “Can the Subaltern Speak?” 257. Kele Kele, which translates as “Softly Softly” from Lucumí, is a collection of patikín, short stories about the orishas in Cuba (Letras Cubanas, 1987). 117 Eugenio Matibag, Afro-Cuban Religious Experience, 236. 118 Matibag. 119 Doris Sommer, Proceed with Caution, 10. 116

CHAPTER FIVE ESCAPE ROUTES, MOCAMBOS AND FEARS OF SEDITION IN BRAZIL AND FRENCH GUIANA TH TH DURING THE 18 AND 19 CENTURIES FLAVIO GOMES

The slave, plantation and racist societies of the colonial Atlantic World were a laboratory of experiments, part of a movement that gave rise to ideas and their “agency”; a process of geopolitical and geocultural reinvention. Arguing on the basis of black music and political thought, Paul Gilroy stresses that cultural historians could view the Atlantic World as a unit of complex analysis from the transnational and intercultural perspectives. It would be necessary to rearticulate trans-local solidarity, as well as the trans- and inter-cultural processes and heterocultural contacts that formed and reproduced black cultures in the diaspora. They could be found in several places at the same time, sharing and constructing differences and similarities. Historic narratives—which have always been fragmented—could be connected.1 Although Gilroy’s approach is largely centered on the English-speaking world, we can transplant his categories and use them to analyze colonial border areas, particularly those that seemed on the economic periphery, in the light of Portuguese and French colonial policies regarding the Americas. In these areas and specific contexts we can analyze cultural exchanges and the formation of identities on the basis of experiences of flight and perceptions surrounding freedom. In this paper, I will identify forms of micropolitical agency and perceptions that changed as a result of these experiences. The objective of this study is to attempt to steer a course through this agitated sea of interpretations. The approach used will be to analyze the experiences of 1

See the perspectives of Paul Gilroy, The Black Atlantic. Modernity and Double Consciousness, London, 1993; (Brazilian edition) Atlântico negro: modernidade e dupla consciência (Rio de Janeiro, Ed. da Universidade Cândido Mendes, 2000)

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the mocambos, maroon societies established on the borders of Colonial Brazil and French Guiana, and the fears, ideas and connections surrounding them, which I will present as indications of these transatlantic experiences and some local significations.

Mocambos on the borders The colonial occupation of the Amazon region moved forward slowly. Only towards the end of the seventeenth century would the Portuguese metropolis begin more systematically introducing African slaves into the region through the Companhia de Comércio do Maranhão. However, there are signs of an African presence throughout the region from the middle of the century.2 The first Blacks to arrive in the Amazon were taken there by the British, who attempted to seize control of the extreme north of Brazil at the turn of the seventeenth century.3 Through trading posts established between the coast of Macapá and the straits region, the British attempted to set up a large colonial farming enterprise, planting sugar cane to produce sugar and rum. The decision to use African labour arose from the fact that the adventurers planned to win the Amerindians’ support to help establish their claim.4 Writing in the early nineteenth century, Baena stressed that disputes between the Portuguese and French in the eastern Guianas gradually worsened in the last quarter of the seventeenth century. In 1678, the French began exploring the land in the region of the Oiapoque River, which had belonged to Portugal since 1636. French settlers pushed as far as the source of the Amazon River and began penetrating nearby areas. In 1685, the Governor of Cayenne complained that the French were going to Cabo Norte to buy Amerindians. That region would soon become the setting of complex colonial (and later post-colonial) experiences and spaces for the redefinition of ethnic identities.5 With the help of traders

2

Salles, Vicente. O Negro no Pará: sob o regime da escravidão (Rio de Janeiro, FGV, 1971), p. 13. 3 Arthur César Ferreira Reis. “O negro na empresa colonial dos portugueses na Amazônia,” in Salles, Vicente. O Negro no Pará, p. 17. 4 Nádia Farage. As Muralhas dos Sertões: os povos indígenas no Rio Branco e a colonização. Rio de Janeiro, Paz e Terra, ANPOCS, 1991, 4-39; Arthur César Ferreira Reis, “O negro na empresa colonial dos portugueses na Amazônia,” in Salles, p. 13-17 5 See Antônio Ladislau Monteiro Baena, Discurso ou Memória sobre a Instrução dos Franceses de Caiena nas Terras de Cabo Norte em 1836, Maranhão, 1846,

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and indigenous groups, black slaves also migrated in search of freedom, from both the Portuguese and French sides of the border. In 1732 the two crowns signed an international treaty on sending back fugitives. In practice, however, territorial disputes made it impossible to control the area effectively. France and Portugal mistrusted each other where their colonial territories in that region were concerned. Seeking to carry out the agreement as far as possible, the French and Portuguese authorities engaged in reciprocal exchanges of captured fugitives on several occasions. There were constant complaints from settlers and authorities, Portuguese and French alike, regarding the growing number of escapes. Even when international treaties were in place, returning captured fugitives was a complicated process. The governor of Pará once complained that he had received “harshly” worded letters from French slaveholders and even the governor of Cayenne regarding delays in the return of fugitives. However, the governor of Pará pointed out that the French did not always fulfill the Treaty of Utrecht. Jesuit and Capuchin missionaries also complained that their slaves (or Amerindians living in missionary villages under their protection) were fleeing to Cayenne. The Portuguese authorities stressed that the return of runaway slaves had to work both ways. When they handed over recaptured slaves in 1733, the Pará authorities demanded that the French do the same. In 1739, the French Crown ordered the punishment of anyone who helped slaves escape across the border.6 The Macapá region played a doubly important role in Portugal’s colonial policy because the region’s strategic position on the Amazon delta helped in defence of the mother country’s dominions, while at the same time producing goods that were in great demand in the commercial capital. transcribed letters dated 14/08/1688; 13/10/1691; 08/01/1721; 14/02/1723 and 05/02/1724. 6 Instituto Histórico Geográfico Brasileiro (henceforth referred to as IHGB), Conselho Ultramarino, Évora, tomo V, arq. 1.2.24, fl. 149 v. and tomo VII, arq. 1.2.26, fl. 180 v. and Códice Arq. 1, 2, 26, Conselho Ultramarino, Évora, volume VII, fls. 193v and 194. See also: Arthur Cezar Ferreira Reis, "A ocupação de Caiena." in, Sérgio Buarque de Holanda, (org.) História Geral da Civilização Brasileira. O Brasil Monárquico, Difel, 1979, vol. Tomo III, p. 271; Salles, 221222 and, Anaíza Vergolino-Henry and, Arthur Napoleão Figueredo, A Presença Africana na Amazônia Colonial: Uma Notícia Histórica (Belém, Arquivo Público do Pará, 1990). Regarding colonial disputes between the Portuguese and French, the treaties of Utrecht, etc., see, among others, the following works by Reis, A política de Portugal no Vale Amazônico (Belém, SPVA, 1940); A expansão Portuguesa na Amazônia nos séculos XVII e XVIII (Belém, SPVEA, 1959); and A Amazônia e a cobiça internacional (São Paulo, Cia Ed. Nacional, 1960)

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Generally speaking, the African presence in the region is associated with the construction of Fort São José de Macapá, which began around 1764 and was completed in 1773. During that period, settlers were required to send their slaves to work on the project, much to the chagrin of the masters, who frequently complained. The influx of black slaves in the Amazon region increased considerably after the creation of the Companhia Geral de Comércio do Grão-Pará e Maranhão in 1755. During its 22-year existence, the company introduced about 12,587 African slaves into Grão-Pará alone, although some were sent on to Mato Grosso.7 When the company was liquidated in 1778, private enterprise, smugglers and the domestic market kept up the supply of slaves. For example, the internal trade in African slaves, called “ladinos,” went on in a number of regions, particularly Pernambuco, and became a reality for Grão-Pará in the early nineteenth century. In addition to doing farm work and building military installations, African slaves in the Amazon worked on urban construction projects and at shipyards, as well as serving as musicians and household servants. As in the case of Macapá, local residents provided large numbers of slaves to build public works.8 Mocambos and the constant movement of fugitives evolved and grew in several parts of the colonial Amazon. In particular, escapes by slaves from colonial dominions were a major cause for concern in the border regions. These borders were not fixed because they were the subject of constant disputes, particularly in the second half of the eighteenth century. The Amapá region—which bordered on French Guiana—was the greatest source of apprehension. With the help of settlers, merchants and indigenous groups, black slaves from the Portuguese and French sides of the border were constantly migrating and establishing mocambos. As noted earlier, the two Crowns signed a treaty in 1732 on the return of fugitives. Mutual distrust and territorial disputes made the area increasingly difficult to police but the French and Portuguese authorities were able to exchange escaped slaves on several occasions. We know that 12 Blacks owned by a Frenchman named Dit Limozin escaped from Cayenne’s prison fortress in 1732, and Jesuit and Capuchin missionaries complained that their slaves had fled to Cayenne.9 In 1733, when handing 7

Salles, p. 32. Vergolino-Henry and Figueiredo, p. 56. 9 IHGB, Conselho Ultramarino, Évora, tomo V, arq. 1.2.24, fl. 149 v. and tomo VII, arq. 1.2.26, fl. 180 v. and Códice Arq. 1, 2, 26, Conselho Ultramarino, Évora, volume VII, fls. 193v and 194. --- For further commentary in this regard, see note 6, above. 8

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25 slaves over to Messrs. Fossard and Simosen, the Grão-Pará authorities asked the French to do likewise. The following year, King John I of Portugal wrote to the Captain General of the State of Maranhão to clarify his instructions regarding the return of slaves who had escaped from Cayenne and sought refuge in Portuguese territory. And in 1739, the Portuguese Crown ordered the punishment of anyone who helped slaves flee across the border.10 In the second half of the eighteenth century, not only were escapes a constant occurrence but slaves began fleeing en masse. In 1752, the governor of Cayenne requested the return of 19 Blacks. Several years later, accusations were made regarding the presence of French emissaries who had infiltrated the border regions to spy on and capture fugitives. In 1760, there were complaints about the arrival of Monseigneur Galvete in Grão-Pará to collect some slaves. Later on, two canoes sailed down the Oiapoque carrying French officers hunting fugitives. The return of escaped slaves—and the escapees themselves—would become a problem for the French and Portuguese authorities alike. There were complaints about French raids that were supposedly intended to capture fugitives.11 The problem was more complex than escapes in that border region, where an improvised stage was being set for colonial disputes. The main focus was the constant push to occupy more and more territory. More than just looking for fugitives, the Portuguese, Spaniards, Dutch and mainly French crossed the borders to trade with the Amerindians and expand their 10

Cf. Flávio dos Santo Gomes, “Fronteiras e Mocambos: O protesto negro na Guiana brasileira,” in Flávio dos Santos Gomes (org.), Nas Terras do Cabo Norte. Fronteiras, Colonização e escravidão na Guiana Brasileira – séculos XVIII/XIX (Belém, NAEA/UFPA, Fundecap, 1999), 239 et seq. 11 APEP, Anais VII, documento 428, 209, official communication dated 16/0/1734. A esse respeito See APEP, Códice 695, official communication dated 17/08/1755 and Códice 667, official communication dated 26/05/1756; Letter from the Governor of Pará, Manoel Bernardo de Mello e Castro, to the King of Portugal, 22/08/1759 quoted in Anais da Biblioteca e Arquivo Público do Pará, vol. VIII, document 315 and Letter from the Governor of Pará, Manoel Bernardo de Mello e Castro, to the King of Portugal, 08/11/1760 quoted in Anais da Biblioteca e Arquivo Público do Pará, vol. X, document 387, 275; IHGB, Códice Arq. 1,2, 13, Conselho Ultramarino, Évora, Volume VII, fls. 193v and 194; APEP, Códice 696, official communication dated 06/04/1767. For a documented debate on the Cayenne region between the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, see José Antônio Soares de Souza, "Uma questão diplomática em seu início (Oiapoque).” RIHGB, Rio de Janeiro, volume 320, 1878, 17-48 and "Oyapock divisa do Brasil com a Guiana Francesa á Luz dos Documentos Históricos.” RIHGB, Rio de Janeiro, Tomo 58, part II, 215-223.

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dominions. In 1724, on the orders of the Overseas Council (Conselho Ultramarino), Portuguese authorities based in Pará captured a ship from French Guiana, and discovered that its crew had intended to engage in trade in that border region. Every move caused suspicion and redoubled vigilance.12 Amid these disputes and fears, slaves continually escaped from Cayenne. In 1763, three black people were captured at the mouth of the Camarupi River, near the town of Monforte. Although the forest was vast and therefore a guaranteed refuge, escape routes were dangerous. When fleeing from Cayenne to Pará or vice versa, fugitives generally preferred to travel by sea or on the rivers that flowed through the region. Entering the rugged forests was out of the question. There, they would fall easy prey to starvation, wild beasts, fevers and the tracker dogs of the French. They therefore built canoes and rafts to venture onto the waterways. In 1765, word was received from Amapá that some fugitives had crossed the Matapi River on rafts, which were found in the grasslands beside the Uanará-Pecú River and by the lakes formed by the Arapecú River, where sure signs were also discovered that the fugitives had been there. Their boats often sank, however. When sailing off Cabo Norte, Manoel Antônio de Oliveira Pantoja learned that some “fugitive Blacks” from Cayenne had been there, and found the remains of boats that had foundered. It was even said that, plagued by hunger and despair, some gave themselves up voluntarily. In fact, an Amerindian hunting at the source of a stream found four escaped slaves, weak after several days of eating nothing but hearts of palm. As the years went by, colonial disputes remained unresolved and slave escapes continued, accompanied by complaints from the French and the establishment of mocambos on the borders. It was not unusual for canoes from Cayenne to arrive in Grão-Pará, intent on capturing fugitives. The authorities also learned that Blacks from Cayenne were to be found in the Maguari-Caviana point region. It should be observed that the escape routes ran both ways. Although the French complained more loudly and continuously, the flow of escaped slaves from Grão-Pará to Cayenne was just as steady. Some of the news was ominous. In 1752, a French escort 12 Official letter from the Governor of Pará, José da Sena, to M. D'Albon, 02/11/1733, quoted in Baena, 39-41, and Letter from King John to the Captain General of the State of Maranhão, 16/03/1734, quoted in Anais da Biblioteca e Arquivo Público do Pará. vol. VII, documento 428, 209; Letters from the Governor of Pará to the King of Portugal, 14/11/1752 and 17/08/1755 quoted in Anais da Biblioteca e Arquivo Público do Pará, vol. II and IV, respectively documents 9 and 144, 9 and 168.

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ship that docked in Belém put the local authorities on high alert. They did not want any contraband whatsoever, although many soldiers were bartering goods to obtain “some thick kerchiefs and pieces of striped cloth they could hide in their fort.”13 In 1759, they charged that French emissaries had entered the region. In 1773, they identified escaped slaves from Grão-Pará who were now in Cayenne. According to the Jesuit priest Laillet, “A little over two years ago, seven Blacks arrived here in Cayenne, after several battles and deaths, but they were poorly received,” which in this case meant punished and imprisoned. The following year, slaves who had fled into French territory were returned to Macapá.14 The entire region was involved in conflicts caused by colonial disputes. Slave escapes and the establishment of mocambos made the occupation drive more complex. There were literally no boundaries in the search for support, alliances and solidarity in that region. Quilombolas (maroons) and fugitives in the eastern regions of the Guianas, particularly colonial Grão-Pará, were of the same opinion. They looked to the other side of the border and saw French settlers and peasants, as well as Amerindian settlements and other groups of fugitives and deserters who, although not on the friendliest terms, became occasional trading partners. In 1789, it was even feared that Blacks might enter “the Maroni village that the French of Cayenne have established by force.”15 Contacts between the quilombolas and the French and other social sectors, more than a threat or a possibility, were a reality that severely frightened the colonial authorities of Grão-Pará. Investigations conducted in Macapá in 1791, including the interrogation of Miguel, a slave owned by Antônio de Miranda, unearthed the details of these colonial experiences and revealed how Blacks on both sides of the border communicated with each other. According to his statement, when he was on his way back from “his master’s field” he came across José, the slave of the late João Pereira de 13

APEP, Anais II, documento 9, official communication dated 14/11/1752; Códice 7, official communication dated 26/04/1763; Códice 63, official communication dated 06/02/1793; Códice 61, official communication dated 11/10/1765; Códice 65, official communication dated 28/08/1765 and Códice 255, official communication dated 04/02/1789. 14 Letter from Cláudio Laillet translated from the Latin by J. de Alencar Araripe, quoted in: RIHGB, tomo 56, part 1, 1893, 163-165. See also: APEP, Códice 671, Letter from the Viceroy to the Governor, 20/01/1768; Códice 65, official communication dated 26/08/1765 e Códice 593, official communication dated 14/11/1773 and Códice 148, official communication dated 03/03/1774. 15 APEP, Códice 609, official communication dated 20/06/1780.

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Limos, who asked Miguel if he “wanted to see and talk to Blacks who had run away.” José took Miguel to a corral, where they found Joaquim, the slave of Manoel do Nascimento. Miguel was then told that “their [the quilombolas’] signal is to suck in their lips,” as if whistling. They met several quilombolas who were suspicious because they did not know Miguel and threatened to “attack him with bows and arrows.” The first contacts began, and the quilombolas wanted to know “how they [black slaves] were doing around here,” meaning the Town of Macapá. Miguel also asked “how they were doing over there” in the mocambos in the Araguari region, as well as the borderlands and French territory. According to the quilombolas, “they were doing very well,” and had “large fields and they sold their produce to the French because they traded with them.” In the mocambo where they lived there was also a Jesuit priest sent by the French, and it was he who “governed them and they were very fortunate.” Some of the mocambo’s inhabitants were away at the time, because they “had gone to salt meat for the priest and others had shortly before finished making bricks for the French to build a fortress.” Also according to Miguel, the quilombolas “always went about armed with short swords” and their clothes were “dyed with Caapiranga.” Because they were already fearful and suspicious, this detailed information struck terror in the authorities of Grão-Pará. The problem seemed to be not only how to contain the constant escapes but keeping a close watch on French spies and putting up with their insults as well as slaveholders’ complaints. Mocambos near the border traded with French settlers on a regular basis. They also had their own economic base— salting meat, dying cloths, planting crops, herding cattle and making the bricks used to build French forts. These quilombolas also visited the Town of Macapá during the “Christmas feast.” They came and established contacts with several slaves, but “they did not come to force the Blacks” to escape; they “would only go of their own free will.” They revealed “that the path they take to the town was no longer along the canebrake” but “down where Manoel Antônio de Miranda has the corral for love of the whites who went after them.” Furthermore, they had a “small canoe on the Araguari River,” because when they “came and went” they crossed the river “in it from one side to the other.” As for contacts with French settlers: “their assistance to get there was the Araguari, but all the escaped slaves were from here.” In other words, they were well aware that their settlements on the banks of the Araguari were in Portuguese territory but “to work in French lands they crossed the salt-water river to go there and they went in the morning and came back at night” and “when they came back they left half of their

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supplies on the way for when they went back.” This mocambo was inhabited by “all the Blacks who have fled from this town.”16 The details in this information are revealing. They point to escape strategies and routes, and even to the prospect that these quilombolas might seek autonomy and protection. They lived near the Portuguese border, but traded, worked and had a variety of relationships with the French on the other side. The success of this strategy was assured by crossing the border on a daily basis, which appears to have been a difficult task. They traveled across rivers and through forests, carrying enough provisions for long journeys, among other things. These quilombolas were actually on the border of freedom, and they knew it. The authorities were alarmed. Two years later, the Judge of the Macapá Council himself went so far as to propose that if these quilombolas were captured, they should not be released and returned to their masters immediately. He suggested that they be sent directly from jail to their owners [so that they can] sell them, which they must do in different countries whence they will never again appear in these parts because on the contrary they will pose the threat of another great disaster, for each of these slaves is a guide to these continents.17

It is worth mentioning the experiences of other maroon societies on colonial borders in the Caribbean. Those of Le Maniel in Saint Domingue, which struggled for nearly a century against French and Spanish settlers in the 1800s, benefited from their geographic location for several reasons. On numerous occasions, the Spanish authorities paid little heed to the comings and goings of fugitives, most of whom were slaves from the French side of the island. As a result, the hunt for these maroon groups involved countless interests, including those of the settlers and the Spanish and French authorities in that border region. Farm workers and plantation owners on the Spanish side traded with escaped slaves and informed them of the movements of French troops sent to find them.18

16 APEP, Códice 259, Record of the interrogation of “preto Miguel,” a slave of Antônio de Miranda, 05/09/1791. 17 APEP, Códice 259, official communication from the City Council of Macapá, 21/02/1793. 18 Cf. Yvan Debbash, "Le Maniel: Further Notes,” in Richard Price, (ed.), Maroon Societies: Rebel Slave Communities in the Americas. 2nd ed. (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1979), 144-5.

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Of the many mocambos established near the border with French Guiana, those in the Araguari area were without a doubt the most populous and stable. These mocambos were quite old, because by 1762 it was already being said that there was a “large sum” of fugitives there, both from the nearby settlements and outlying areas, and it was also warned that they were “well supplied with arms.” In 1785, the governor of GrãoPará declared that military expeditions were needed to capture or disperse escaped slaves and mocambos in several areas along the Araguari River. In 1788, there was another warning about the mocambos in that region. Later, information would arrive that, at the headwaters of that river, mocambos enjoyed a “safe asylum,” and that with great “effrontery,” groups of fugitives actually approached the Town of Macapá with a view to “inciting the slaves of residents to follow them.” 19 More detailed descriptions of the mocambos on the Araguari appear in investigations undertaken in 1792. It began with the usual complaints about escaped slaves. The residents of Macapá were so nervous about the frequency of these escapes that they did not punish slaves “for their customary rebellions” for fear that they would flee en masse. At the beginning of that year, three Blacks, one of whom had escaped before, were captured in the Baixa Grande area not far from the Town of Macapá. They were brought in by residents and their slaves. The captured fugitives confessed that they had intended to join several other slaves who had escaped from Macapá and go “to the mocambo of their relatives.” They were getting ready to set out, hiding in nearby farms where they intended to “make all the [manioc] flour they judged would be sufficient for their journey.” Arrests and interrogations such as these helped expand investigations of the mocambos on the Araguari. The strategies adopted included the idea conceived by the military commander Manoel Joaquim de Abreu of trying to simulate a slave’s escape in order to gather more detailed information about the mocambos’ whereabouts. To carry it out, Manoel, the black slave of a resident named Pedro Corrêa, was contacted so that he “could question the slave of Antônio Trez Orta, by the name of João, about all the circumstances of the mocambo and its distances [from the town].” The authorities were well aware of the communications network among the slaves and quilombolas in that region, although they were unable to destroy it. Whereas Manoel was considered in Macapá to be one of the few slaves “worthy of trust and friendly to whites and good Portuguese,” 19

APEP, Códice 25, Official communication dated 13/03/1762 and Arquivo Histórico do Itamarati (Henceforth referred to as AHI), Documentação Rio Branco, Códice 340-1-3, official communication dated 08/07/1782.

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João was an important link, “being the only one who escaped from said mocambo over two years ago, but always [being] in contact with the fugitives” when they returned to the town to trade, attack and kidnap.20 So as not to cause any misgivings, the commander reminded Manoel that he should tell João that he was planning his own escape and therefore wanted to “get information for the best success” of his flight. This strategy was partially successful. In addition to providing an escape route for Manoel, João gave a thorough socioeconomic description of an Araguari mocambo. To start with, he revealed that the distance between the Town of Macapá and the Araguari River could be traveled in four days “of good walking.” After crossing the river, it would be another two-day journey to the mocambo. The mocambeiros were unaware of “any path by sea” as “they never exposed themselves to this because it was very far and the land routes facilitated the brevity of the journey” from the Araguari to Macapá. The mocambo was well protected. First, there was a topographic barrier, an area surrounded by rivers and waterfalls that obstructed the approach of punitive expeditions and facilitated sudden retreats. It was located at the ford on the Araguari River “above the fourth waterfall” at the confluence of two brooks. That is where the artificial and natural defense systems came together. Although they did not build “stockades” or “trenches”—commonly found in many colonial Brazilian quilombos— they did dig pits and place “thorns about their dwellings” to prevent military expeditions of re-enslavers from approaching. They also had weapons: bows, arrows, knives and “some long jardineiras [sic] shaped like short swords.”21 With regard to the demographic structure of that mocambo, João told Manoel that it was probably made up of about 100 people at the time, including men, women and children, because when “he came away or escaped here from those companions, there would have been nearly forty persons.” As for the houses, they were made from straw. In economic terms, the farms “only” produced manioc flour, maize and rice, “being that some of these in distance were over a league and others next to their dwelling.” They used “this method so that they could move far away as soon as they were attacked by whites, using this precaution to have what they [can] turn to.” Protective and defense strategies were combined with socioeconomic strategies. The community was constantly on the alert for anti-mocambo 20 21

APEP, Códice 457, Official communication dated 27/02/1792. APEP, Códice 457.

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troops. By working several farms located near to and far from the mocambo, they sought to have enough food in case of attack so that they could hide out in the forest for long periods. They knew that the authorities were cruel and intolerant about their economy but did not isolate themselves. Instead, some quilombolas traveled to settlements and even the Town of Macabá, making contacts and engaging in trade. There was an entire social structure surrounding this matter. Also according to João, the older mocambeiros did not allow fugitives who had recently joined the Araguari mocambo to return to the Town of Macapá. They could only do so after spending a year at the mocambo and only then with the permission of the “overseer” (capataz) and in “the company of his trustees.” Mocambeiros wanted to ensure that these escapees (more recent residents) were not being used as “couriers” to discover the location of the mocambos/camps. All indications are that despite all Manoel’s talk about his supposed escape plans, João warned him, “I advise thee not to flee, because they will soon kill thee for they know thou art friendly with the whites and thou art of their nation.” And Manoel, must have answered in a “fictitious statement” that “I always run away. If I do well, I stay, when I do not, I return and tell my [Master] I was lost since the day I went hunting.”22 Considering this information, we can analyze the political strategies adopted to prevent temporary residents of mocambos from giving away their location to the authorities when captured. The mocambo’s “overseer” only allowed people who had lived there for over a year to frequent the town of Macapá. Temporary residents—those who lived in the mocambos for a time and then chose to leave those communities and even return to their masters—were viewed with mistrust. They could become allies and establish contacts for the more permanent quilombolas, but not infrequently they turned into traitors and enemies, as they could serve as guides for anti-mocambo troops. At least, in this settlement on the Araguari, we can see the leadership powers of the “overseer,” who banned and persecuted anyone who fell under suspicion. João, who was supplying all this information to the authorities, was well aware of the power of that leader and his persecutions. During the time he lived in the mocambo, he saw that the work of hunting and [farming] fields is ordered by the overseer, and as soon as they return from the hunt or the product of the fields they take it to the same, who shares the [results] with everyone.

22

APEP, Códice 457.

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In his “revelations,” João also stated that he felt “a very great anger” towards the mocambeiros of Araguari, because “they also wanted to kill him.” Furthermore, when they went to the town of Macapá, the mocambeiros invited him to return to the mocambo, but he realized that the invitation was a trap on the “overseer’s recommendation to catch him here.” For that reason, he agreed that if he led an expedition against the mocambo all its inhabitants would be captured, because he knew the locations of their dwellings well, even if they had moved them.23 There was probably more than one quilombo on the Araguari. A number of maroon groups must have spread out and established countless small mocambos. One of them—possibly the community where João lived for a time—was quite large, with dozens of residents. But size was not the only difference between these mocambos. There could also be ethnic differences, some being older and others more recent, some where only Africans lived, and even in some cases only those of specific ethnic groups, which was the case with the above-mentioned mocambo, which was referred to as being of the “Benguela nation,” while there was another “small mocambo de mendigar” of those who had “absented themselves from the said Benguelas for many years.”24 The Araguari mocambos continued to worry the authorities in Amapá. In the last decades of the seventeenth century, the Portuguese officials received numerous complaints: between the headwaters of the Araguari River and on many other rivers in that border region, “there were settlements of our Blacks who escaped over 20 years ago.” They were eventually attacked by soldiers but managed to escape, because the French forewarned them. There were also a large number of escaped Amerindians and military deserters, many of whom were in constant touch with the quilombolas. It was said that there were “settlements” of escaped Amerindians that had been there for 20 or 30 years or even longer, such as the one on the Anani and Casipure rivers. And on the Uranary River there were “scattered Indians and Blacks [who were] former slaves in several thatched huts and ranches.”25 Near the turn of the nineteenth century, the matter of mocambos and the movements of escaped slaves had become so serious that it was suggested that groups of Amerindians might be used against the quilombolas. The idea was to “attract a body of six hundred to seven hundred Indians of the Mundurukus nation,” considered the “most warlike” in the Grão-Pará captaincy and with whom—after many wars— 23

APEP, Códice 457. APEP, Códice 457. 25 BN, Códice 5, 1, 2 n. 2 (1791) 24

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the Portuguese colonial authorities had recently managed to “win peace.” In terms of strategies and resources, it was understood that “they would be the most appropriate people to make war with the Blacks in the forests and marshes.”26 A fundamental question brought forward when analyzing such narratives about the quilombos—usually colonial reports about punitive expeditions or preparations for them—is how the quilombolas themselves forged their own views of life, their experiences and the communities they established. These documents can help reconstruct “events” on the basis of specific “memories” with their own itineraries and intentions. But how did the quilombolas view their own communities? How did they define “time,” “change” and “alliances”—including the small quilombos that were in constant touch with other social sectors? The above narratives do little to disclose “multivocal” sources and methodologies about the quilombos for the purposes of ethnographic history.27 Furthermore, the border region, the logics of occupation and, essentially, local significations, redefined the quilombos in those areas. In an updated interpretation of post-emancipation slavery and its legacy in Brazilian historiography,28 the subject of quilombos (particularly former maroon communities) has emerged as an important instrument for struggle, as well as a political tool. There has also been an attempt to build up the symbols of an ethnic identity around analyses of these quilombos.29 More recent studies of slavery carried out in several areas of the Americas have sought to reexamine slave resistance from different perspectives on the basis of extensive empirical studies, as well as engaging in dialogue with other theoretical and methodological inputs. The subject of maroon 26

PCDL, Códice A-44, Correspondence between the Governors and Portugal (Regency of John VI, 1797-1799), official communication dated 29/03/1798 27 Here I have followed studies by Richard Price: "Novas Direções na História Etnográfica." Estudos Afro-Asiáticos, no. 23 (1992): 191-200 and "Palmares como poderia ter sido,” in, João José Reis and Flávio dos Santos Gomes, Liberdade por um fio. História dos Quilombos no Brasil (São Paulo, Cia. das Letras, 1996), 5259, and the classics: Alabi's World (Baltimore, Johns Hopkins University Press, 1990) and First-Time: The Historical Vision of Afro-American People (Baltimore, Johns Hopkins University Press, 1983) 28 For an analysis of the legacy of slavery and the post-emancipation period in the Americas, see Geert Oostindie, (samenstelling en redactie) Het Verleden Onder Ogen. Herdenking van de slavernij (Uitgeverij arena/Prins Claus Fonds, 1999), and Oostindie, Facing up to the Past. Perspectives on the commemoration of Slavery from Africa, the Americas and Europe (Kingston, Ian Randle Publishers, 2001) 29 See Gomes, Histórias de Quilombolas.

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societies, which has always attracted interest, now seems to have been revived in countless new studies. Particularly in Brazil, the most recent original studies of the subject include ethno-historical analyses of former quilombos, begun long ago for other countries, and which are now taking on an interesting shape.30 Among the main perspectives analyzed in these new studies are those that view quilombola groups through their interactions with the worlds of slavery. Through the quilombolas’ complex experiences, we can see beyond their resistance struggle and the various aspects of their social, economic and cultural lives to the transformations taking place in masterslave relations. Rather than being isolated, the worlds the quilombolas created affected and altered the worlds of those who were still enslaved, and of the entire surrounding society. Recent analyses have brought to light multifarious aspects of black resistance during slavery. On several occasions, slaves managed to escape, established quilombos, organized mocambos, staged uprisings, protests and mutinies, and in this sense lived out the multiple experiences of day-to-day resistance. More than that, whenever possible they re-elaborated, reorganized and transformed the world in which they lived. In the course of these historic processes, they experienced extreme situations involving struggles, conflicts, accommodations, clashes and confrontations. This was the daily experience of slavery that shows us how the significations of freedom were continuously recreated. More than just

30

There are numerous studies of former quilombos in Brazil, particularly in the Amazon. See, among others: Rosa Elizabeth Acevedo Marin and Edna M. Ramos Castro. Negros do Trombetas: Etnicidade e História (Belém, NAEA/UFPa, 1991); Negros do Trombetas. Guadriões de matas e rios (Belém, UFPa, 1993); Alfredo Wagner Berno de Almeida, (ed.), Frechal, terra de preto: quilombo reconhecido como reserva extrativista (São Luís, SMDDH/CCN-PVN, 1996); Eurípedes Funes, "‘Nasci nas matas, nunca tive senhor.’ História e Memória dos mocambos do Baixo Amazonas.” PhD dissertation, São Paulo, FFLCH/USP, 1995 and Eliane Cantarino O'Dwyer, (org.), Terra de Quilombos (Rio de Janeiro, Associação Brasileira de Antropologia, julho de 1995). For recent critical commentary and studies of former quilombos in Brazil, see Richard Price, “Reiventando a história dos quilombos: rasuras e confabulações.” Afro-Ásia, Savador, CEAO/UFBA, número 23, 1999, 239-265. I also discuss the “political” uses of the concept of quilombos by historiography and social movements in Flávio dos Santos GOMES, "Ainda sobre os quilombos: repensando a construção de símbolos de identidade étnica no Brasil," in Elisa Reis, Maria Hérminia Tavares de Almeida and Peter FRY, (eds.), Política e Cultura. Visões do passado e perspectivas contemporâneas (São Paulo, ANPOCS/Hucitec, 1996), 197-221

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“reacting” to slavery, slaves were the agents of quilombos and many other forms of slave protest—explicit and otherwise. 31

Transnational connections Borderlands—plantations—can be viewed as transnational spaces. If this is true for structure (and only economic structures are usually emphasized), it should also be valid for human agency.32 On colonial borders in the latter decades of the eighteenth century—more precisely in the Guianas (the borderlands of Grão-Pará Captaincy, Portuguese America and French Guiana), the focus of contesting Portuguese and French colonial interests—rumors, the circulation of ideas and fears took on a different magnitude. These regions were increasingly teeming with mocambos and fugitives.33 There was also great concern among the colonial authorities who, being on a border region, feared that slaves could escape from Portuguese territory. In 1795, Governor Souza Coutinho admitted that fugitives were easily traveling to the grasslands of Macapá and that it was “essential to prevent” such “communications.” He deliberated on the need to have boats available and kept a close watch on border posts, as the number of escapes was on the rise, all the more so “now that in Cayenne [the escaped slaves] will obtain freedom.”34 In the late eighteenth century, the colonial authorities were extremely nervous. They feared that slaves—particularly those in Portuguese territory—would come into contact with “dangerous ideas” about revolution arriving from Europe and the Caribbean through Cayenne. The main examples of such “contagion” were the French and Haitian revolutions and the maroon wars in Jamaica and the Guianas. The Portuguese colonial authorities were mainly concerned about the 31

Gomes and Reis, Liberdade por um Fio. and “Quilombo: Brazilian Maroons during Slavery,” Cultural Survival Quarterly, USA, volume 25, number 24, 16-19, 2002. 32 Here I have taken Sidney Mintz’s suggestions in “The Localization of Anthropological Practice: From area studies to transnationalism.” Critique of Anthropology, Volume 18, number 2, 1988, 117-133 33 Salles, O Negro no Pará continues to be the classic study on black slavery in the Amazon region. See also: Vergolino-Henry and Figueredo, A presença Africana na Amazônia Colonial. 34 Arquivo Público do Pará (henceforth referred to as APEPA), Códice 272, official communication dated 20/11/1795 and Instituto Histórico Geográfico Brasileiro (henceforth IHGB), Coleção Manoel Barata, official communication dated 10/01/1795

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borderlands due to the possible impact on slaves of news of abolition in the French colonies and later in Venezuela, as a result of the independence struggles in Spanish America.35 Portuguese officials said that they were apprehensive about what “the French have done on their islands with regard to slaves.” Two years later, the governor of Grão-Pará gave the Viceroy a detailed account of the panic that reigned in the borderlands. Even so, he gave little credence to fears of a French invasion of Portuguese territory. In his assessment, the slave insurrections in the neighboring colony were a factor in their favor. As a precaution, however, he kept a close watch on ships from Cayenne and on navigation on the Casipure River.36 How did the settlers, soldiers, Amerindians, Blacks, slaves and freedmen and women view this state of affairs? They reconstructed episodes, contexts and fears with their own logics and expectations. Dayto-day affairs and their interpretations were essentially politicized. Amid colonial disputes between Britain and the Netherlands in the Guianas, it was said, for example, that some Amerindians were “influenced by mulattos from Demerara,” seemingly “happy to obey the present British government in the colony.” Trans- and inter-Atlantic contacts and ideas that circulated in that context were shared by Blacks and Amerindians. Entire indigenous communities traveled across Spanish territory in search of refuge. On several occasions, foreign ships—particularly French vessels—sailed into Portuguese territory to hunt and recapture fugitives. Portuguese authorities and plantation owners also charged that their slaves found refuge in Cayenne, where French merchants and authorities gave them protection. In 1798, the arrival of two ships from Cayenne in the city of Belém in Grão-Pará intending to “recruit” Blacks who had fled there was accompanied by tremendous tension. The focus was the possibility of revolutionary propaganda and rumors of insurrection. It was said also that there were suspicions of a French presence near the Oiapoque. It was feared that, like others passing through the region, they could incite unrest among slaves in Portuguese territory. Investigations were immediately 35

Letter from Governor Francisco de Souza Coutinho, 08/06/1795, in REIS, Arthur Cezar Ferreira. Limites e Demarcações na Amazônia Brazileira. Rio de Janeiro, Imprensa Nacional, 1947, 241 and Rosa Elizabeth Acevedo Marin, "A influência da Revolução Francesa no Grão-Para,” in José Carlos C. da Cunha, (ed.) Ecologia, Desenvolvimento e Cooperação na Amazônia (Belém, UNAMAZ/UFPa, 1992), 35-40 36 Instituto Histórico Geográfico Brasileiro (henceforth referred to as IHGB), Códice Arq. 1, 1, 4, Conselho Ultramarino, Volume 4, fl. 184, 184v e 185, official communication dated 03/04/1796.

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ordered to determine whether “they brought books, manuscripts or pamphlets.”37 The governor of Grão-Pará received secret orders expressly recommending “great vigilance on all those individuals who through word or conciliabula and especially through demonstrations [spread] the false and disastrous principles that have infested all of Europe.”38 At that time, it was believed that escapes—although constant, and becoming collective—and mocambos on international borders could be controlled. It would be worse to have uprisings led by foreign emissaries and involving Amerindians and even poor Whites. The state of alert had reached its height. In 1791, when the Portuguese authorities observed the establishment of a small fort with some artillery and signs that another was being built, they recalled that the French objective was to establish “communications” on several rivers—which reached as far as the Amazon—and connect trade routes with French Guiana. The worrying question was not only disputes over “royal dominions,” control over trade and the elimination of contraband but the fact that the borderlands “were a comfortable haven for deserters and the safest mocambo in which slaves could hide” and the danger that “could also be introduced in that region by the malignant, vertiginous spirit that has unfortunately consumed the [French].”39 In that context, fugitives, mocambos and the possibility of the circulation of ideas at the international borders were viewed as an explosive mixture. One basic concern was determining whether in effect there had been introduced or anyone had introduced in any way pernicious maxims and abominable doctrines that might have [dire] consequences that had to be stopped in time.

There was less concern about a possible attack by the maroons and more that more opportune and effective measures [be taken] to safeguard [against] and prevent any and all communications between these inhabitants and those of that unquiet nation.40

37 Cf. Gomes, "Nas Fronteiras da Liberdade” in Anais do Arquivo Público do Pará (Belém, 1996), 258 et seq. 38 Cf. Antônio Ladislau Monteiro Baena, Compêndio das Eras da Província do Pará (Belém, UFPa, 1969), 232 39 Arquivo Histórico do Itamaraty (henceforth referred to as AHI), Documentação Rio Branco, Códice 340-1-3, official communication dated 01.03.1791. 40 AHI, 08/07/1792

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This was a surprise that the colonial authorities, slaveholders, military and sparse population of settlers were keen to avoid. Events that might have gone unnoticed could become a source of mass hysteria. In March 1795, attentions focused on a “gathering” of slaves and freedmen in the heart of Grão-Pará Captaincy, at the home of a black freedman in Belém. Although the investigations produced little information, it was a reminder that this was serious business, as “slaves did not hear with indifference [news] of what was occurring in the French colonies,” and therefore “several of their own voices went out to incite unrest.” One of the most important facts about that “gathering” was that its members included freedmen and slaves who were “many of the best known in the city for their cleverness.”41 Fugitives fled through brushlands, waterfalls and rainforests, over mountains, rivers and streams. They tried to escape their pursuers by fleeing into other colonies or establishing mocambos near the border. They relied on the help of plantation slaves, innkeepers, Amerindians, herdsmen, merchants, peasants, black slaves and others. In this context, in these parts of the colonial Guianas, whether they were escaped slaves, freedmen or free, Blacks (in addition to Amerindians and other social groups) created a space of contact and cooperation. With varying expectations, they established a setting of transnational experiences. Their inhabitants were a mixture of fugitives, plantation slaves and deserting soldiers from both sides of the border—French Guiana and Grão-Pará Captaincy. They held ideas that included perceptions that redefined or reinvented several different significations about the ideas of freedom. They were not indifferent to or dumbfounded by political decisions that could be beneficial to them or to the movements of occupation/ colonization; nor were they isolated in the vast Amazon forest. Through this constant flux and reflux, they secured their own protection and independence. The waters on this Atlantic border were definitely turbulent. Underestimating the perceptions slaves might have of this situation (and others) was yet another option for the version of history written by settlers and colonizers. At the same time that they said slaves might be “infected” by “ideas of liberty” from Europe through contacts with foreign colonies, the authorities feared that they might also organize a major revolt. The military commander of Araguari, near Macapá, argued this in 1794: “In 41

See Gomes, "Em Torno dos Bumerangues: Outras Histórias de Mocambos na Amazônia Colonial,” Revista USP, São Paulo, USP, Dezembro/Janeiro/ Fevereiro 1995-1996, 40-55

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regard to the manumission of slaves in Cayenne, I have already spread the word that the French are not doing the same for the Blacks.” Thus, to prevent [slaves] from fleeing and having them in this manner more secure for work in the fields, or any other tasks for which they might be used, and in this manner, or with this irony, I keep [them in] doubt about said liberty.42

Herein lie possibilities for focusing not only on how the authorities perceived contacts and the circulation of ideas between slaves from different colonies but the political use of those ideas, although in an inverted manner. We can reflect on how slaves, fugitives and deserters simultaneously perceived the new ideas, spread them and acted as political agents of the slaveholders’ and authorities’ fears of these events in several different contexts. It is a fact that slaves did not necessarily need a set of so-called “revolutionary ideas” from Europe or the proclamations of foreign abolitionists to undertake their own protest strategies. On the contrary, they were capable of perceiving, assessing and reconfiguring these times with their own meanings. In the last few years of the eighteenth century, the colonial Portuguese authorities judged that the movement of escapees to the borders— precisely as a result of the provisional abolition of slavery in the colonies and the possibility of connections with libertarian propaganda from Haiti—had taken on different meanings. Several assessments were made in a lengthy official communication written in 1798. First, the danger, if not the greatest at least the easier and more readily realized, is this Captaincy finding itself in a short time without slaves, and also without Indians, as they successively pass into the lands of Cayenne.

A detailed evaluation would be made of the reasons for slave escapes from Portuguese to French territory and the possibilities of effecting changes.43 Escape movements in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries are described as follows: [I]n the time when Blacks suffered in Cayenne and in the other French colonies slavery was incomparably harsher, and more inhumane than 42 Official communication dated 16/01/1779, Códice 214, Arquivo Público do Pará, quoted in Vergolino-Henry and Figueredo, 109-110. 43 Primeira Comissão Demarcadora de Limites (henceforth referred to as PCDL), Códice A-45, Correspondência dos Governadores com a Metrópole/Regência de D. João VI – 1797-1799, official communication dated 03/02/1798

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generally [practiced by] the Portuguese; in the time when those who fled from this colony to that were sent to the galleys there or given to private parties who exploited their labor until they were asked for or delivered; in the time when the French, in view of the fact that they have always wanted to extend their dominions at the cost of Your Majesty’s [slaves] did not have what they presently have and constantly proceed to subvert all governments and following their ruin establish their own, not only by force of arms but also through infernal machinations. In this same time without their cooperation, at least not officially, so many slaves fled from us that we lost those of whom only a small number could be taken, when attacking the mocambos where they dwell. During this time many Indians fled from us and formed settlements that were destroyed but only a few were taken also, not only because many fled on that occasion, but because to gain more security they had entered the lands of Cayenne.

In the latter decades of the eighteenth century, escape movements sparked fears of slave rebellions: Now that the Blacks are free in that colony and live there more or less as freely as in the lands where they were born. Now that the cooperation of the French cannot fail to be as or more active than it has been in all parts where they have entered willy-nilly, and they could count on Blacks and Indians entering into such easy, constant communication, it is inevitable….and one cannot find a slave who runs away from his master and seeks out a mocambo to live there in peace. All those who seek that life of freedom do not subsist on aught but theft, and take their effrontery to the point of entering not only the farms and settlements but even this city [Macapá] and lure companions [to join them] and take them by force when they do not find them willing, especially women.

Even when considering the “intense internal war such people can wage against us,” quilombos and mocambos in the borderlands were now viewed as a lesser evil—or at least one that could be more effectively controlled—compared with the possibility of sedition and the spread of “revolutionary” propaganda among slaves in Belém. Coincidentally or not, escapes, the movement of fugitives and the establishment of mocambos in the late eighteenth century increased in the eastern borderlands of the Amazon more rapidly than in any other region during the colonial period. The region had other serious problems as well, including militarization and fears of armed foreign intervention.44 In 1798, a time of great tension in the Amazon on the border with French Guiana, the Grão-Pará authorities advised residents to arm 44

Cf. Rosa Acevedo Marin, "A Influência da Revolução Francesa...."

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Chapter Five their slaves and defend themselves from enemy invasions of their fazendas, and even on the rivers, incorporating the armed force that exists in them for the same purpose.

The idea was to “persuade” slaves to collaborate in the defense of their property and the State with efficacy, zeal and courage, just as they have collaborated in other parts of Brazil to drive out the Dutch and French.

As for French settlers, every precaution should be taken because you know that the maxims they have used have only served to disperse their strengths, make easy conquests and steal all they wish, for even the slaves that they deceive with the idea of liberty, the same [settlers] now have them in their fazendas under bayonets and a tyrannical regime.45

Furthermore, an international analysis permits us to discuss the transnational movements of experiences in colonial and post-colonial slave societies. Certainly, the authorities were terrified and, fearing a foreign invasion, sought allies among their own slaves. It was necessary to transform “internal enemies” into friends in order to fight “external enemies.” However, they were unaware or gave little consideration to the political meanings that slaves could give to their actions at that time. For the Portuguese authorities, black slaves’ participation and collaboration with foreign invaders were the result of “seduction” and contact with “dangerous ideas.” For the slaves, however, it might have been different. They could fight with or against their former masters, choosing to fight alongside their masters and bargaining for some compensation for their loyalty while continuing to be slaves; or they could escape and join the ranks of the enemy forces. However, they would continue to be slaves, despite some false promises. For some slaves, escaping en masse and establishing quilombos would guarantee their independence—at least temporarily. Weakened by constant warfare, colonial armies could do little against maroon societies hidden deep in the forest. Slaves in several colonial areas probably had other options. They could closely and expectantly watch the outcomes of conflicts, arguments, debates, etc. in the mother countries to see whether they would benefit from them or not. In international borderlands, these expectations 45 Official communication dated 13/03/1798, Códice 259 do APEPA, quoted in Vergolino-Henry and Figueredo.

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intensified. The decision to escape to this or that place or to join—or not to join—a colonial army, might offer a shortcut to freedom. What the authorities viewed as “seduction” could be a management of identities (not necessarily racial) involving Blacks, both freedmen and slaves. In the late eighteenth century, the black population in several slave regions was substantial. And it should also be observed that in some regions, slaveholders were freedmen and pardos (brown-skinned). On both sides of the borders, in the heart of the forest in Portuguese and French territory, quilombolas, persistent fugitives, slaves housed in senzalas (slave-quarters) and working on plantations, as well as Amerindians and military deserters could be making their own different political evaluations, and possibly—but not necessarily—including news of the international scene in their considerations. In French Guiana, where slavery was briefly abolished, the slaves became restive. There was also the issue of marronage and rebellions. Baena stresses that “some Frenchmen owning good rural establishments” in French Guiana sought refuge in Grão-Pará and asked permission to emigrate there, because they were “fearful of the slaves, who declared themselves equal to whites.”46 Emissaries and spies who sent reports to the Portuguese authorities stressed that, “after being freed the Blacks threaten Indians with slavery.” Furthermore, In the streets of Cayenne one hears nothing but ‘Convention, Nation, Citoyen et Egalité,’ and this is from the mouths of these same Blacks, who are very boastful, although there is no sign that any Black has been made an Officer.47

By the latter years of the eighteenth century, Cayenne had lost control of its slave population. News arrived that planters and authorities hoped for “help from the troops to conquer the Blacks once and for all and put 46 Cf. Baena, 228. Regarding the local import of the French and Haitian Revolutions in French Guyana, seeYves Bénot, La Guyane sous la Révolution ou L´impasse de la Révolution pacifique (Ibis Rouge Editions, 1997). Regarding the economic structure of slave societies, marronage and slave resistance in French Guyana, see Ciro Flamarion Cardoso, La Guyane Française (1715-1817): Aspects économiques et sociaux. Contribution à l´étude des sociétes esclavagistes d´Amérique (Ibis Rouge Editions, 1998), 398-412; Economia e Sociedade em Áreas Coloniais Periféricas: Guiana Francesa e Pará, 1750-1817 (Rio de Janeiro, Graal, 1981) and Bernard Moitt, "Slave Women and Resistance in the French Caribbean.” in David B Gaspar and Darlene Clark Hine, More than Chattel. Black Women and Slavery in the Americas (Indiana University Press, 1996) 47 AHI, Ministry Documents prior to 1822, Pasta 9, Lata 172 and maço 2

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them to the work that they more or less continued to reject.”48 It was recalled that they raised in São Domingos [Saint Domingue] the bloody voice of Liberty for the slaves, a voice that decided amidst the most horrific torments, the fate of almost all the white inhabitants who resided on that island.49

A Portuguese priest in Belém soon caused fears and generated a great deal of correspondence among the police authorities in 1814. Why? He had recently arrived from Barbados and had been to Haiti and England. And it was discovered that In conversation with some Blacks who served him, he greatly deplored their fate, saying that all are children of God and there was no reason for them to be the slaves of whites, showing them the example of São Domingos.50

The winds of fear that blew in all directions had brought the boomerangs of Haiti to Grão-Pará. There was tremendous anxiety about contacts in the borderlands. Ears were attuned to Europe and eyes focused on the Americas. Regarding such fear, as the governors of Grão-Pará reported to the crown, It should not be measured by what has been seen in several European countries, because in these [parts] many and varied circumstances are added that make it much greater. First, in Europe, it was necessary for the government of France to send out its emissaries, these had to learn the language of the peoples whose spirits they should prepare and even alienate from subjection—[from] the laws of their supreme rulers - and always exposed to the great risk of being recognized and taken by surprise.51

In their view, the problem resided in how such ideas were perceived in that geopolitical context. Amerindians and Africans with different expectations were constantly crossing the borders:

48

PCDL, Códice A-44, 31/01/1798 and Códice A-45, 03/02/1799 Biblioteca Nacional (henceforth referred to as BNRJ), Códice I-32,18,3 (1809) 50 ANRJ, Coleção Caiena, Códice 1192 (1792-1816) 51 PCDL, Códice A-45, Correspondência dos Governadores com a Metrópole/Regência de D. João VI – 1797-1799, official communication dated 03/02/1798 49

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Here, on the other hand, Blacks from different nations that we have as slaves are the parents, children and siblings of those who live free in the neighboring colony. The Indians in our settlements, although of different nations, almost all have relatives in Cayenne, almost all of them speak the general language that is also spoken not only by those who fled from them but those who have always lived there. Some are without a doubt better emissaries than the best-instructed Frenchmen, and as many of our fugitives know all communications, being that many facilitate escapes on the many rivers, streams and islands in this country, and the settlements are very remote, and scattered, and the same fazendas, when we least expect it we can have in our house a large body of our [slaves] armed against us, and when we await a great remedy the great evil of seeing ourselves free of slaves and Indians, we can [instead] find ourselves in combat with them.52

Amid all the panic and hysteria that predominated in the authorities’ discourse, we can make out transnational ethnic scenarios in the borderlands involving indigenous groups, mocambos and other social sectors. Communities and “nations” and their connections were reinvented. The borders had been obliterated.53 Regarding the contexts within which ideas, connections and experiences in the borderlands circulated, particularly on the French Guianese border, it is interesting to note that the chronology of the Haitian Revolution, the declaration of the independent state of Haiti and the spate of uprisings, political debates and other slave rebellions in the Americas could have specific repercussions in different colonial regions. We can imagine the “African-American boomerangs” proposed by Peter Linebaugh, and Julius Scott’s “common winds” converging in the borderlands of part of the colonial Amazon, and crossing other borders in the Atlantic World.54 In this case, we could follow the paths of ideas, fears 52

PCDL, Códice A-45. In regard to Benedict Anderson and other authors, please note the reflections suggested in J. Lorand Matory, “Jeje: Repensando nações e transnacionalismo.” MANA. Estudos de Antropologia Social, PPGAS/Museu Nacional/UFRJ, April 1999, 57-80. See also Mintz. 54 See Peter Linebaugh and Marcus Rediker, The Many-Headed Hydra. Sailors, Slaves, Commoners, and the Hidden History of the Revolutionary Atlantic (Beacon Press, Boston, 2000) and “The Many-Headed Hydra: Sailors, Slaves, and Atlantic Working Class in Eighteenth Century.” Journal of Historical Sociology, Volume 3, number 3, September 1990, 225-252. See also Linebaugh, “Todas as Montanhas Atlânticas estremeceram,” Revista Brasileira de História. São Paulo, no. 6, vol. 3, 1983-1984, 7-46 and a critical response from Robert Sweeny, “Outras canções de Liberdade; Uma crítica de ´Todas as Montanhas Atlânticas Estremeceram,” 53

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and these agents’ historical connections and experiences. Other questions could be posed, particularly in a border region where transnational spaces were formed, as was the case with the colonial Amazon. Escaped slaves— some of whom established mocambos—could have taken ideas and expectations about the Haitian Revolution and its impacts to the Amazon via French Guiana, giving them new dimensions. As a result of the European wars fought by France, Britain, Portugal and Spain at the turn of the century, Portugal eventually invaded and occupied Cayenne in 1809. Although their routes and itineraries changed, the fears and terrors in that region would still persist. When Cayenne fell in June 1809, one of the orders its new rulers received was to ensure that all rebels leave the colony whose future conduct might give rise to concerns about future vicissitudes to which the establishment might be subjected.

With regard to the maintenance of Cayenne’s economic system, the Portuguese authorities stated, “the freedom of Blacks was highly prejudicial to Cayenne.” As for controlling the black population, they warned, above all thou shalt zealously [maintain] the Police system, which thou must establish in the Colony, not only to ensure its internal tranquility and the subordination of the Blacks but most essentially to prevent all correspondence between the inhabitants and the French government.55

It is interesting to note that both the French and the Portuguese used Blacks as soldiers. In fact, the French even used Blacks to put down slave rebellions, which also occurred in other parts of Brazil. The idea of “arming Blacks against black slaves” also heightened the fears of the Portuguese and French for different reasons. While the Portuguese were afraid of setting a “bad example” for their slaves, the French feared the Revista Brasileira de História. São Paulo, vol. 8, no. 16, 1988, 205-219 and 221231 and Julius Sherrard Scott, “The Common Wind: Currents of Afro-American Communication in the era of The Haitian Revolution,” Ph.D. Dissertation, Duke University, 1986, 118-119 et seq. 55 BNRJ, Códice 7, 4, 82, official communications from the Governors of the Pará and Rio Negro Captaincies...conquest of Cayenne...1805-1819, official communications dated 24/03, 06 and 10/06, 1809 and Códice I - 28, 28, 15, "Cópia da resposta do Bispo do Pará sobre a divisão dos bens da Conquista de Caiena de que deve servir de prova incontestável de asserção referida na Pastoral,” 19/08/1811

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outcome of such a measure—how would these “armed Blacks” return to their status as slaves. Being constantly informed—by their spies—of events in Cayenne, the Portuguese authorities in 1795 learned that “battalions of Blacks” were being formed in French Guiana to “put Blacks into subjection,” which they found “difficult to believe, given that it goes against reason to arm Blacks to subjugate Blacks.”56 In the struggles to occupy Cayenne in 1809, the French sent black slaves to the front lines, while the Portuguese armed Amerindians from their aldeamentos. It is also known that some French slaves deserted and fought alongside the Portuguese. Once the city had been occupied, the authorities disarmed the Blacks and Amerindians. They redoubled their vigilance over the slave population, as well as freedmen and women and mulattos. The document accepting Cayenne’s surrender, signed in January 1809, contains orders that “all black slaves from one side and the other” should be “disarmed and sent back to their homes.” As for the “French Blacks” admitted “into service during the war” or freed by the Portuguese government, they should be “ordered out of the colony so that they cannot in the future be an object of disturbance and discord.”57 Years after the occupation of Cayenne, the military commanders would still hold the same opinion regarding the black population of French Guiana: “these subjects who until now have been favorable to us, now discomfit us extremely: they have rebelled in nearly all the Colony, and pillaged some homes.”58 The Portuguese would only leave Cayenne when it was returned to France in 1817. Several memoirists and historians who discuss the conflicts involving border disputes with France have stressed that fears of invasions and slave rebellions permeated the entire historic process from the early eighteenth century to the first decades of the nineteenth century. Despite the silence of diplomatic history, beyond the fears and rumors of insurrection, Blacks and Amerindians, whether escaping, migrating or forming mocambos, laid the groundwork for establishing those borders. Ideas and experiences circulated there. Fears were the vectors for the development, occupation and colonization of those Amazonian borderlands. Costa e Sá put it this way, It would be better if the insurrection of black slaves spurred by the example of the Island of S. Domingos did not occasionally prevent the 56

ANRJ, Caixa 747, 1795 Cf. Reis, Aspectos da Experiência Portuguesa na Amazônia....., 289, 291, 293 and 305. 58 BNRJ, Códice 7, 4, 83 (1811) 57

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With regard to the spread of ideas and connections, he recalled the “excitement” in Suriname, the same Blacks being disposed by previous insurrections, there being no time limit or foreign tongue that could impede a similar act for such instigations were totally unnecessary.

As for the situation in Cayenne, “in the United States, reports were printed in 1798, on the advice of planters from those States, which have appeared translated into Portuguese,” and that “the French in the year 1802 on the occasion of their communications to execute the Peace Treaty the previous year” had “sought to instigate the spirit of revolt thus among the Blacks and Indians of Pará.”59 According to a study by Acevedo Marin, “revolutionary contagion” from France was viewed with equal dread in the Amazon. Such fears even led to the rapid militarization of border areas, in light of territorial disputes with French Guiana.60 Different readers—slaves, whether Creole or African, free men, soldiers, officers from the mother country, Europeans, sailors, mulattos, Amerindians and others—could each have reinterpreted these ideas of liberty differently. They were not unaware of all of these interests, as well as their ability to survive in the regions in which they had chosen to settle. Furthermore, the routes these ideas took could vary as well. On the eastern borders of Grão-Pará, the quilombolas and fugitives may have been responsible for spreading them. In Belém, there appeared the Franciscan friar Luiz Zagallo in 1815, “an apostate and freemason, fanatic of the French Revolution, instructed in the city of Cayenne.” Before being driven out two years later, he was accused of “revolutionary and absolutely troublesome preaching,” which stirred up the slaves of Belém and Cametá, saying that “in the age of freedom” there was no reason for “men to be subjugated by others.” Slave uprisings and fears of rebellion would forcefully return in the 1820s with the ferment of debates about political emancipation. It was a subject frequently discussed 59

See Miguel Maria Lisboa, Memória sobre os Limites com a Guiana Francesa, (Rio de Janeiro, Imprensa Nacional, 1895) and Manoel José Maria da Costa Sá, Compêndio Histórico do ocorrido na Demarcação dos Limites do Brasil do lado da Guiana Francesa (Rio de Janeiro, Imprensa Nacional), 1895, 16 and 34. 60 Cf. Acevedo Marin, "A Influência da Revolução Francesa...."

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in the local press. More than simply mobilizing, it was believed—at least the accusations were veering in this direction—that some political leaders, such as Felipe Patroni and later Father Batista Campos, were manipulating the slave and freed black population.61 In the first decades of the nineteenth century, during the popular uprising called the Cabanagem revolt, the borderlands presented an even greater danger because slaves had crossed over to the “Peruvian Republic”. Previously, in 1815, the Marquis de Aguiar of Grão-Pará wrote a letter expressing his concerns about “the rebellious state in which the Spanish provinces bordering on this Captaincy still found themselves.” The movements of Spaniards across the borders should be viewed tolerantly but with “caution”.62 On the borders with what were initially Dutch possessions, particularly in the Rio Branco area, there was concern about the “articulation” of settlers and the British authorities and the “beginnings of philanthropy in the defense of the independent tribes” of Brazilian Indians.63 In 1846, it was feared that Venezuela might stir up Brazilian slaves with abolitionist ideas. In some contexts, slave uprisings in the Americas from the late eighteenth century were linked to revolutionary propaganda from Europe, slave rebellions in the Caribbean—particularly the Haitian Revolution—and the independence movements underway in Spanish America. In Grão-Pará, images about Haiti reappeared in police records in 1848, precisely during the period when slavery was permanently abolished in the French colonies. Slaves who escaped from Grão-Pará increasingly fled to Cayenne following that abolition. In the beginning of 1849, an official letter from the Imperial Legation in Paris warned the Grão-Pará authorities about the activities of “a mulatto born in São Domingos [Saint Domingue].” He identified himself as an Englishman who was an “emissary of the societies that are working to free the slaves” and joining with other agents from the same associations set off with them to England and from there went on to Guyana with the intention of penetrating into Brazil. 61

Regarding Friar Zagallo, Patroni and Batista Campos, see Salles, 240 et seq. Regarding the role of political propaganda, the press, confrontation and radicalization vis-à-vis the military government of Grão-Pará in the early 20s, see an excellent study by Geraldo Mártires Coelho, Anarquistas, Demagogos e Dissidentes. A Imprensa Liberal no Pará de 1822 (Belém, Edições CEJUP, 1993), particularly 177 et seq. 62 ANRJ, Caixa 747, official communication dated 06/03/1815 63 APEPA, Caixa 79, official communication dated 01/10/1841

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They spoke of the need and means that should be taken to “prevent contagion from the innovations [with which] the French Revolution has affrighted that nation which does so much to remove it from the Empire.” For Grão-Pará, because the “consequences of such wiles” were well known, they stated in the strongest terms that every precaution should be taken when “any foreign agent should appear” wanting to “seduce slaves and move them to proceed [with]...any means to attain their liberty,” as well as the entry of freedmen and women into the province. In those fearful times, the focus continued to be on the borders and the possible connections they afforded. Slaves left the province and foreign emissaries could enter. It was necessary to take “effective measures of prevention” on the border of Rio Branco and Demerara (British Guiana) in 1849 as well, due to an “uprising of Blacks and mulattos.”64 Throughout the nineteenth century, the movement of fugitives continued to increase and the mocambos multiplied, both in the outskirts of Belém and on the borders with French Guiana and Suriname. And in 1854, fear of insurrections launched a wave of repression against the quilombos in several parts of Grão-Pará. From Óbidos in the Lower Amazon, the local deputy demanded that measures be taken on that occasion, pointing to the weakness and inefficacy of the provincial police and predicting that so many escapees and fugitives could result in “the same thing that happened in Haiti.”65 We know very little about what the slaves and even quilombolas really thought. Our views of them generally emerge from reports from planters and colonial officials who were trying to control and eliminate them. Rather than just seeking a view of the quilombolas’ world—particularly of those who moved about in the permeable borderlands—we should look to the multivocal sources for perceptions of flight and the constructed social space in the area disputed by colonial powers. Although we cannot know how slaves, fugitives and quilombolas interpreted the world they created and the ideas that surrounded them, the authorities’ fears (and details and 64

APEPA, Caixa 79, official communications regarding the border question (18411849), official communication dated 21/02/1849 65 Cf. José Maia Bezerra Neto, “Fugindo, sempre fugindo. Escravidão, fugas escravas e fugitivos no Grão-Pará (1840-1888),” Master’s thesis, Unicamp, 2001, 78-81. Regarding the eighteenth century and the early nineteenth century, I have already discussed the issues of fears, sedition and international borders in “Em Torno dos Bumerangues,” and "Nas Fronteiras da Liberdade.” Regarding the mocambos in the Lower Amazon, see Eurípedes Funes, "Nasci nas matas, nunca tive senhor,” Ph.D. dissertation, São Paulo, FFLCH/USP, 1995 and "Nasci nas matas, nunca tive senhor,” in Reis and Gomes, Liberdade por um Fio, 467-497.

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arguments) can show us how the fugitives assessed the most favorable junctures for escape, including foreign invasions and revolutions. They feared the “contagion of ideas” in social groups that were never isolated, in this case, quilombos in the heart of the forest. Although we cannot be certain and lack systematic proof, correspondence of the authorities reveals that the fugitives were well aware of what was going on in the borderlands, and in the late eighteenth century, perceptions of events in Saint Domingue and the French Revolution were also significant. We could raise questions about possibilities. Even with overlapping meanings, perceptions and varied expectations arose. The images and impact of Haiti were subjected to various interpretations in slave societies, and represented more than just a major slave revolt. In many cases, they were the agents of symbols of secret societies of freedpersons and literate black men. In several regions these images took on other significations in an immediately post-colonial context.66 The impacts and rumors of several Caribbean island revolts could have reached the continent’s borderlands. What was at stake were the changing perceptions, expectations, and policies of slaves and quilombolas, as well as those of the colonial sectors.67 In any event, the emphasis on images of Haiti and the associated fears expressed in the authorities’ correspondence—whether in borderlands or not—also points to the need to assess their significance for the formulation of policies on the control of slaves from a trans-Atlantic perspective. As for the fears and Atlantic connections in slaveholding Brazil, we must take care not to transform transient winds and breezes into gales of freedom.68 But we must also avoid running the risk of shutting the

66

See Flávio dos Santos Gomes, “Experiências transatlânticas e significados locais: Idéias, temores e narrativas em torno do Haiti no Brasil Escravista.” Tempo, Revista do departamento de História da UFF, volume 13, 2002. 67 For the context of Demerara in the Guianas, see Emília Viotti Da Costa, Coroas de Glória, Lágrimas de Sangue. A Rebelião dos Escravos de Demerara em 1823 (São Paulo, Cia. das Letras, 1994) 68 For a discussion of the theoretical and methodological possibilities for dealing with “fears”, “rumors” and “anxiety” in analyses of slave protests in Brazil, see Célia Maria Marinho Azevedo, Onda Negra, Medo Branco. O Negro no Imaginário das Elites - século XIX (Rio de Janeiro, Paz e Terra, 1987); Ciro Flamarion S Cardoso, Escravidão e Abolição no Brasil. Novas Perspectivas (Rio de Janeiro, Jorge Zahar Editor, 1988); Sidney Challhoub, "Medo branco de almas negras: escravos, libertos e republicanos na cidade do Rio,” Revista Brasileira de História, São Paulo, Volume 8, number 16, March/August, 1988; Gomes, Histórias de Quilombolas; Jacob Gorender, A Escravidão Reabilitada (São Paulo,

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theoretical windows too quickly and seeing nothing at all. For cultural (and other) contexts, it is essential to retrieve the idea of “internationalism” when dealing with Atlantic dimensions and forms of exchange and the reciprocal nature of possible interactions. Fragmented narratives on the material means of this or that form of transmission and interconnection should not become obstacles. It is a good thing that historians are beginning to identify subjective forms of cooperation in which experiences and knowledge cross borders—not just oceans and forests—that are thereby altered and enriched. Anti-slavery and libertarian ideologies, including racism and anti-racism, were born in the agitated waters of the Atlantic. In the preface to the Brazilian edition of The Black Atlantic, Gilroy himself suggests, International trade apart, the resistance to slavery also had significant translocal dimensions that historians cannot easily describe. As the song says, ‘Haiti is here,’ and we should recall that this marked the construction of Euro-modernity much more deeply than was previously recognized.69

More recently, several historians have investigated the size and impact of the Haitian Revolution, the formation of Haiti and its impact on slave societies and the modern world as a whole.70 One major challenge has been to arrive at an articulated explanation of the directions and significations of “internal” and “external” influences. In one of the most noteworthy studies produced in recent years, Michel-Rolph Trouillot criticizes the idea that the Haitian Revolution was merely an offshoot of its French counterpart and suggests and points to new directions for analysis that take into account the intellectual output and logic of its agents. He brilliantly argues how the idea that the Haitian episode was a “non-event” Ática, 1990) and Maria Helena Machado, O Plano e o Pânico. Os Movimentos sociais na Década da Abolição (Rio de Janeiro, Ed. UFRJ/EDUSP, 1994) 69 See the Portuguese edition of The Black Atlantic (Atlântico negro: modernidade e dupla consciência (Rio de Janeiro, Ed. da Universidade Cândido Mendes, 2000). 70 Regarding more recent studies of Haiti, including reflections on historiography, see Carolyn Fick, The Making of Haiti. The Saint Domingue Revolution from Below. Knoxville (University of Tennessee Pres, 1990); critiques of historiography of the slave revolution in Haiti can be found in David P. Geggus, "Slave Resistance Studies and the Saint-Domingue Slave Revolt. Some preliminary considerations,” (Occasional Papers Series, Florida University Press, 1993); Franklin W. Knight, “AHR Forum. The Haitian Revolution,” America Historical Review, volume 105, no. 1, February 2000, 103-130. For a recent overview of Haiti’s impact on slave and colonial societies, see Geggus (ed.) The Impact of the Haitian Revolution in the Atlantic World (University of South Carolina, 2001)

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was formed through power relationships, the silencing of the past and the production of history in the West.71 Haitian propaganda spread throughout the Americas in the latter part of the eighteenth century and firmly advanced in the nineteenth century. The Haitian or Saint Domingue Revolution and the one in France had an impact on French colonies and neighboring regions. Ships arriving from Haiti with all-black Haitian crews caused apprehensions. As the experience of sedition made the rounds, the authorities and planters made a fearful evaluation of the possibility of an articulation of that experience and subversion in the context of the end of the eighteenth century.72 Local meanings would be redefined. News of the abolition of slavery in the British Caribbean (1832) and principally in the French colonies (1848) was published in the press, alarming the Brazilian authorities. There actually were multiracial popular uprisings that encompassed several regions and contexts. Complex experiences (with a black and a white face that changed in a historic movement) were not only perceived and articulated but were transformed in terms of political significations.73 New studies should consider undertaking an in-depth analysis of the communities and cultures involved and the internal and external contexts that gave rise to slave protests.74 Quilombolas in the Amazon and other parts of Brazil and the Guianas were not unaware of all of these interests or their chances of survival in the areas in which they chose to live. By reconstituting the historic process involving some people and the political directions inherent in the quilombolas’ actions, and analyzing the forms of repression, agency and conflicts involving some groups of escaped slaves, it is possible to take stock of their day-to-day ideas and actions. This is in no way meant to imply that under these circumstances the quilombos were merely a tool for manipulation or that their continuing existence was due only to the presence of other interests. In contacts between groups of fugitives and the 71

Michel-Rolph Trouillot, Silencing the Past. Power and the Production of History (Beacon Press, 1995), particularly chapter 3: “An Unthinkable History,” 70-107. 72 See István Jancsó, “A sedução da Liberdade: cotidiano e contestação política no final do século XVIII,” in História da vida privada no Brasil: cotidiano e vida privada na América Portuguesa (São Paulo, Cia. das Letras, 1997), 387-438 73 Cf. Linebaugh, “Todas as Montanhas Atlânticas estremeceram…” and the critical response by Sweeny. 74 See suggestions in James Sidbury, “Saint-Domingue in Virginia: Ideology, Local Meanings, and Resistance to Slavery, 1790-1800,” Journal of Southern History, volume LXIII, no. 3, August 1997, 551

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worlds of slavery, the former must not be seen as mere tools that could be used at the whim of authorities and planters with commercial interests. On the contrary, Richard Price suggests that in several parts of the Americas where slavery still existed, numerous examples illustrate how some groups of fugitives expanded their strategies for struggle by forming “alliances of convenience” with plantation slaves, pirates, Amerindians, merchants and white farm workers, and even established truces and peace treaties with planters and colonial officials. Thus, tensions and conflicts between the mother countries and their colonies, the weakening of colonial authority as a result of internal and external struggles, parliamentary debates about emancipation and other circumstances, even within the fazendas, were perceived by slaves as favorable opportunities for open revolt or forcing their masters to concede greater freedom within the bonds of slavery. And even escaped slaves who formed maroon societies tried to force colonial armies to call a truce. Of course, in a correlation of forces, which were mostly unequal, the authorities and slaveholders not infrequently responded to the slaves’ attempts with violent repression.75 On the borders of the colonial Amazon, maroon societies—supported by other figures from the worlds of slavery—were already “many-headed hydras” when they came into contact with ideas and what were essentially different historic experiences.76 Reflections on these quilombolas and their interactions with the rest of slave society—Amerindians and Blacks— might take us in different directions. It is possible to discover more profoundly, among other things, that the worlds of the quilombos may not have been as distant from the senzalas as they seem, even from those in other countries. More than that, by following these paths we can also piece together the traditions of freedom. It is a good thing that these pieces are 75 Cf. Richard Price. "Resistance to Slavery in the Americas: Maroons and their Communities.” Indian Historical Review, no. 15, Volume 1-2 (1988-89) and Price, Maroon Societies. Rebel Slave Communities. 76 See Flávio dos Santos Gomes and Jonas Marçal Queiroz, “Entre fronteiras e limites: identidades e espaços transnacionais na Guiana Brasileira – século XVIII e XIX”. Estudos Ibero-Americanos, PUCRS, volume XXVIII, number 1, June 2002, 21-50; “Amazônia, fronteiras e identidades: reconfigurações coloniais e póscoloniais (Guianas - séculos XVIII-XIX),” Lusotopie, 2002/1: 25-49, Éditions Karthala, Paris; Flávio dos Santos Gomes, “Identidades e Ocupação Colonial na Amazônia Oriental,” Revista do Instituto Histórico e Geográfico Brasileiro, volume 162, number 413, 2001, 11-53 and "A 'Safe Haven': Runaway Slaves, Mocambos, and Borders in Colonial Amazonia, Brazil,” in Hispanic American Historical Review - Special Issue: Slavery and Race in Latin America (Durham: Duke University Press, Aug. 2002), vol. 82, n. 3, 469-498

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not found exclusively among the dust, silverfish and yellowing pages of official manuscripts stored in the archives. Part of this tradition may be stored to this day in the memories of indigenous and black ethnic groups in the Guianas. Furthermore, the histories of these communities—like many others—could be reconstructed on the basis of tales and images of the “early days” of flight, struggle and resistance.77

77 See Richard Price, Alabi's World, and First-Time: The Historical Vision of AfroAmerican People.

CHAPTER SIX SLAVE RESISTANCE, BORDERS AND AFRO-AMAZONIAN SPATIALITY (C.1850-C.1880) YGOR ROCHA CAVALCANTE

The present article1 analyzes the relationship between slave escapes and the construction of territoriality during the second half of the 19th century in the Amazon region, which includes the provinces of Amazonas, Para and Maranhão, and what are today the states of Roraima and Tocantins. In the 19th century, the region was characterized by a distinct geography of rivers and forests, and marked socially by the presence of indigenous groups living away from villages, by indigenous people and mestizos living in villages in freedom or in bondage, and free Blacks and mulattoes, along with white slave owners. There were also farms, mills, and other people, involved in various activities like collecting and preparing spices and rubber, and mining and trading, who could move around without settling in a particular place. Slavery, therefore, had particular features in such environments, quite different from in the plantation system or even the mining or cattle raising regions. It is important first to understand spaces and territories as loci of struggles, conflicts and solidarity among individuals or groups and, therefore, carrying close relationships between social dynamics and the construction of spatiality, reflecting processes of cultural and political confrontation. Secondly, it is very important to be clear that in the Amazon the loci are defined in close connection with the rivers. In a region where the geography does not allow regular use of roads, the rivers are the means of communication and transportation. The Amazon River is about 4,100 miles long, with more than 1,000 tributaries, including seven rivers that 1

My thanks to the history teacher, Felipe Cabral Cavalcante, for the informal English translation.

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are more than 1,000 miles long, forming the largest river system in the world. Afro-Amazonian maroons moved from makeshift hideouts to organized small villages, called mocambos, that were built with the support of ties and networks involving free persons and runaways that were essential to surviving at the margins of the slave system. Runaway slaves to avoid captivity had to elaborate tactics and strategies that included making family arrangements that could preserve the ties between those in freedom and those still enslaved, or those hiding and those still living in urban areas or on farms. The historical invisibility of the AfroAmazonian is not only an academic issue, but a social problem in Brazil. Today a few maroon villages in the region have managed to resist integration, and the descendants of African slaves continue to struggle for recognition as a community and for ownership of territory.2

Escapes and fugitives in 19th century Amazonas The reasons for a slave to escape captivity can be quite diverse, ranging from personal reasons like avoiding physical and sexual abuse to winning freedom and joining loved ones already free, or trying to escape to help other family members to break free as well. There were also many cases in which the enslaved person would escape and stay away for a limited time, trying to negotiate better living conditions, better treatment or the conditions for manumission. The escape routes were also diverse, and could be through rural areas or the wild, as well as it could follow back alleys and roads around the towns, although this happened more often in larger urban areas. In Amazonas, the goal of men and women who escaped slavery was either to redefine relations with their masters or to break free from the captivity. While some managed to hide in the towns in the slums and shacks scattered along the river banks with the help of friends, family or some kind of ally, others followed several routes along rivers, lakes and wetlands, traversing forest paths and valleys, trying to get as far as possible from those who would come after them. Alone or in small groups, some traveled long distances within the province, even crossing international borders, trying to find hideouts in the headwaters, sometimes 2

In Amazonas, the maroon communities suffer from a profound social invisibility. The notorious argument of the meaninglessness of slavery and diminished presence of Africans in the times of colonization in the region comes to reinforce what Alfredo Wagner Berno de Almeida (Almeida, 2010, p.12) called "ethnographic disempowerment and illegitimacy.”

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joining some existing group, in sparselyly populated areas. As they managed to create a safe haven and form a small community—even if sometimes made up of only one family—they started to build their own territoriality. Analysis of provincial newspapers for the period between 1850 and 1880 showed that most of the runaways were from the province of Amazonas, with a few cases from the neighboring provinces of Para and Maranhão. Ads can be found in the newspapers published on behalf of the slave owners that indicate that these individuals covered large distances and took arduous routes in their escape to freedom. The extension and complexity of the routes shown in the ads suggest the existence of a well-developed network to this end and good knowledge of the geography of the region, added to the ability to overcome the challenges of such a hostile environment. When the slave Gabriel fled the province of Maranhão, in December 1873, he was about 20 years old and could read and write. According to his master, he had been hired to work on the newspaper Paiz, and there were rumors that he would head towards the provinces of Amazonas or Pará. The rumors also suggested Gabriel would take a ship and go to Lisbon, in Portugal, “unless that is only a rumor spread intentionally". Gabriel’s master suspected that the rumors about the slave fleeing to another continent were meant to discourage attempts to find him.3 Examining the ads for runaway slaves in Amazonas, we are struck by the predominance of places located along rivers that could be freely crossed by boats or other vessels. Fugitives from the province of Para, on the Atlantic shore, preferred to risk fleeing into the interior of the country rather than heading towards the sea. Among the preferred routes, the Tocantins River and its tributaries served those who escaped from the towns of Barcarena, Cachoeira do Marajó, Obidos and Belém. This region is located in the southeastern Amazon, where the rain forest was less dense, where the economy followed the plantation system, with a large population of African slaves, employed in sugar cane mills4. These mills, called engenhos in Brazil, were located along rivers, sometimes established around villages or towns. Therefore, it is not surprising that the runaways took advantage of the river system to escape and hide away, forming mocambos of various sizes. It was not uncommon that a fugitive would set off from an engenho in the province of Para heading to Amazonas and vice-versa. 3

Comércio do Amazonas, 11/01/1874 Vicente Salles, O negro no Pará, sob o regime da escravidão (Belém: Instituto de Artes do Pará, 2005)

4

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On November 24, 1862, Captain Felipe Joaquim Batalha reported the escape of his slave Hilário. According to the slaveowner, both were on board the ship "Nossa Senhora da Conceição", on the Amazon river heading to the province of Pará, when the slave escaped in São José do Amatary—a small settlement located on the banks of the Amazonas River and near the mouth of the Madeira River. Hilário was born in a place located on the shores of the river Bujaru, in the province of Para, and was described by his master as a dark negro, thirty years old, short, slim, bearded, with perfect teeth and small feet. He was a talkative and outgoing man, despite a serious injury to his back that hunched his body, the result of a fracture to the spine. The master, Captain Batalha, was a well travelled and experienced police officer in the region, having served on the borders between Brazil and Peru, which could explain his concern in stating that Hilario was "as a child of Bujaru", a slave trading area, known for its large population of African slaves and the existence of mocambos in the region.5 There was a high possibility that Hilario knew the region and its inhabitants, and that he would surely find shelter and protection among them.6 Escapes from steamships must have been quite common. Felisberto, a slave owned by José Gusmão da Silva Amaral, disappeared from the steamship Amazonas, on May 17, 1875. Described by his master as an elegantly dressed mulatto of average height and very talkative, Felisberto’s escape was carried in the newspapers for six weeks without success. In the ads, the master expressed concern that the slave would have gone to seek protection with his previous master.7 Many slave owners suspected that their captives would seek refuge in the city of Manaus, while others believed that the province of Pará, especially the city of Belém, was the favorite hiding place. The fact that Manaus figures as the primary site of origin and destination of fugitives is explained by the growing importance of the city in the second half of the 19th century. Amazonas had high numbers of slaves of working age (62.9%) and one of the highest percentages of captives living in an urban environment across the Empire (50%). The profile of the local slave, in this case, was highly urban.8 While more than half of the province’s slaves in this period were living and working around Manaus, it is highly probable that some were in 5

Estrella do Amazonas, 26/11/1862. About Felipe Joaquim Batalha see Bastos, 2008, p.15. Information on Bujaru see Bezerra Neto, 2002, 222-228. 7 Commércio do Amazonas, 24/06/1875. 8 Marcondes, 2005, p. 87. 6

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contact with some fugitive. Even though manual labour was not exclusively dependent upon slave labour, testimonies of that period show that the few streets of the city and its suburbs relied heavily on the activities of Blacks and the various services performed by the enslaved population. They were the "aguadeiros"—Blacks who, together with indigenous people, collected water from the springs or rivers to sell to citizens—or "negros de ganho", the equivalent of “jobbing slaves” in the Caribbean system9, house slaves, state owned slaves and those who belonged to shop owners—farriers, masons, wheelwrights, shoemakers and blacksmiths. In general, those slaves enjoyed limited freedom, it being common to find them assembled in corners or plazas, chatting or trading.

Hiding places The city of Manaus has its origins in the first decades of the 19th century, when travelers referred to a few shacks inhabited by detribalized indigenous people. The development of the rubber economy increased interest in the region, and around 1860s the place was already known by many as an important port with new settlers coming to explore the new business and to build what soon became a village with European ambitions and relations of conflict among indigenous people, mestizos, White settlers from different social classes and the labour force, comprising mainly African slaves and indigenous people in bondage. In 1865, a local newspaper referred to Manaus as a city: Urban growth, at this juncture, comes to mean new jobs, high demand for skilled workers, new streets and alleys. As the economy grew Manaus started to receive boats and ships coming from the villages in the interior of the province, and from other provinces like Pará and Mato Grosso, also bigger steamships came from neighboring countries and from European cities. The definitive opening of the Amazonas River in the late 1860s to all "friendly countries" attracted foreign investment and helped to increase business activities in the region, definitively incorporating the Amazon region into the Brazilian Empire.10 The city of Manaus because of its geographic position and as the capital of a province whose magnificent future, already irrefutably predicted and with no need for further promotion, has necessarily to be the most 9

Jobbing slaves were slaves who lived independently in the town or cities, renting their services as carriers, cooks, or wet nurses, working in construction or selling goods, among other jobs, and paying “rent” to their owners in regular basis. 10 Gregório, 2009, p.185-212

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beautiful, rich and important of all the towns that endow the extensive Amazon Valley and its confluences, when the growth in future generations will provide its trade and industries with the increase of which they are capable, given the elements that nature has already lavishly sowed, for the hand of man to exploit.11

In March 1872, the president of the province, Dr José Miranda da Silva Reis, remarked that the rapid increase in the population of the province was causing serious difficulties as the government struggled to deliver justice in several parts of its territory. The remark reflected the demands provoked by the influx of diverse people: slaves, freemen, detribalized indigenous people in bondage, free indigenous people from various tribes, fugitives, Bolivians, Peruvians, French, Portuguese and Brazilians from the northeastern provinces shared the city, creating a diversified urban culture and new territories marked by tensions, conflicts and networks of solidarity. In addition there was a wide range of miscegenation between groups that created different categories and made control of the urban population even harder. Population lists and the 1872 census can offer good insight into society in Manaus and in Amazonas during the period in question. The documents classified the enslaved population into racial and colour groups, confirming mixing between groups. This phenomenon must be taken into consideration when analyzing the obstacles to identifying runaways among the free population. While the census of 1872 for the Brazilian Empire considered only two "colours" to identify slaves, black and pardo, the population lists by provinces—more detailed—offer a long list of variations in colour and race, which make it possible to visualize interracial sexual contacts between each group, the long lists of classifications varying according to region, province and date. This phenomenon is discussed by Jocelio Santos, who analyzed the population list in the province of Piauí in 1772 and found nine categories of race/colour; in contrast, when examining a different source, the registration books the Santa Casa de Misericórdia (a Catholic institution in charge of abandoned infants) of the city of Salvador, capital of the province of Bahia, he found seven different categories for the years 1763 to 1770, and no less than thirty categories when he analyzed similar

11

O Catechista, 01/04/1865

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documentation for the years 1815 to 1824.12 As one of the predominant elements, along with Blacks and Whites, in the racial/colour classification for Brazil during the 18th and 19th centuries is pardo, it is important to clarify that pardos were usually individuals of mixed race, sometimes equivalent mulatto (mixed Black and White), but in the northern provinces most probably a mix of black, white and indigenous people. Santos explains that sometimes pardos were described as individuals of lightbrown skin, and straight hair.13 Another relevant fact is that racial and colour classifications are flexible categories that change according to several factors, such as: the classifier, the social class of the person to be classified, the region and the time.14 In the same way, while the 1872 census for Manaus registered a population divided between Blacks, of whom 30% were enslaved and 70% free, and pardos, 10% slaves and 90% free. This shows that a large number of people, who at the time could be racially associated with slavery, were actually free people, and would make easier for this free lower class population to shelter fugitives. Table I – Colour and Status Colour

Quantity

(%)

Preta

145

41. 07

Parda

73

20. 67

Carafuza

72

20. 11

Cabocla

8

2.26

Mulata

54

15. 01

Branca

3

0. 84

Source: Lista de Matrícula dos Escravos da Comarca da Capital, 1869. 12

Jocelio Teles dos Santos, “De pardos disfarçados a brancos pouco claros: classificações raciais no Brasil dos séculos XVIII e XIX.” Afro-Asia, 2005, v.32, 115-37. 13 Jocelio Teles dos Santos. 14 Elaine Rocha Pereira, Racism in novels, a comparative study of Brazilian and South African Cultural History (Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishers, 2010)

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Table II – Colour and Status Colour

Quantity

(%)

Preta

336

45.71

Mulata

159

21.63

Carafuza

136

18.50

Parda

71

9.65

Tapuia

12

1.63

Cabocla

6

0.81

Cabra

4

0.54

Fula

4

0.54

Crioula

2

0.27

Caboré

1

0.13

Not stated

4

0.54

Source: Lista de Classificação dos Escravos para Emancipação, 1873.

Another fact that contributes to making racial/colour and status identifications in Manaus more difficult is the presence of enslaved people that could be normally be identified by phenotypes as "white" and "caboclo" (of mixed White and indigenous). These, and other intermediate categories, were present in the population lists for Manaus in 1869 and in 1873, as follows: According to the information above, many were the "colours" that could identify an individual as a slave in urban areas or in the workplace or in times of rest and recreation. In this sense, distinguishing an enslaved person amidst the free population in racial terms was very difficult. As argued by Russell Wood: Endogamy based on colour does not exist in Portuguese America and the impossibility of establishing a set of objective criteria to describe the racial

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The advertisements for fugitive slaves reflected the variations and the intermediate categories created to describe people, such as: light mulatto, claro, not so dark black, fula, moreno, mulatto atapoiado (more like the indigenous phenotype), cafuzo atapoiado (more like the indigenous phenotype), dark pardo, crioulo retinto (very dark black locally born person), mulatto alvacento (quite light), among others. It is true that many of these denominations had reference value only for the one who employed the classification. Most often, because of the entirely subjective nature of the expressions, the same individuals were classified in different ways by the evaluators. Fugitive slave Tristão, for example, was classified as pardo in a notice in March of 1869, when his master, the businessman merchant Hermenegildo Lopes Braga, was still alive. Two years later, Antônio Lopes Braga as legal representative and nephew of the deceased, placed another notice seeking the same slave, using the term "mulato atapoiado"16. In this context, the mixing factor cannot be disregarded. Since the colonial period, contacts between indigenous people and Africans had resulted in mixtures, as much in the biological realm as in the cultural field. Africans and Indians worked together on various activities and allied themselves with varying motivations. Sometimes, these relationships exceeded the creation of a mocambo and made possible the consensual unions or even legitimate marriages, even in slavery. As is shown in the case of the tapuio (detribalized indigenous person) Celestino Raimundo da Silva, a free man, who was prosecuted in December of 1863 for trying to kill his wife, a slave of João José Ferreira, with an ax.17 The complex racial fabric of Amazonas, and of Manaus in particular, which was predominantly multi-ethnic during the entire period of slavery but particularly so during the 19th century when, as was already discussed, the region experienced a great influx of people from diverse ethnic groups, allowed a fugitive to go unnoticed even when living in plain sight, especially in the case of mixed people. During their visit to Manaus, in 1965, the couple Agassiz had difficulty translating the phenotypic 15

Russel-Wood, 2005, p. 49. O Catechista, 14/03/1869; O AMAZONAS, 3/09/1870. 17 Oficial letter n. 778 of the Police Department of Amazonas in 24 of December, 1863 to the provincial president Dr. Sinval Odorico de Moura. Book n. 05 of the Police Department in 1863. 16

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characteristics of the population of Manaus. They said it was rare to find a person in Manaus that was of absolutely pure black race and resorted to vague terms to establish the degree of blackness of the population, emphasizing the presence of the mixture of indigenous and Africans. "…but numerous mulatos, mamelucos, as they call mestizos of Indians and Blacks, can be seen."18 Allied to this complex social fabric was the geographic environment, marked by numerous rivers, streams, springs, lakes and wetlands, many connected and surrounded by dense forest or vegetation, creating a tight net that only locals could navigate with confidence. The multi-ethnic alliances found in the urban environment could also be found among the populations that lived away from the busy centers, also marked by different levels of cooperation between free, slave and fugitive. The problem could be seen in the documentation, as police officers express despair and hopelessness in their ability to apply the law and recapture fugitives. As a result, the movements of slaves increasingly concerned provincial authorities. In urban areas it is possible to depict complex strategies and practices of the population, reinvented in the everyday actions designed to protect outlaws and fugitive slaves. In Vila Bela da Imperatriz, province of Maranhão, for example, the slave Maximiano José was described as a tall mulatto, 30 years old, with no beard, who worked as tailor’s assistant. The slave managed to escape and the authorities believed that he had been living for more than ten months in the "quarteirão do Mocambo", one of the districts of the same Vila, where several squads been sent to capture him.19 Places like the “quarteirão do Mocambo” constituted typical black territory, as presented by Flávio Gomes: a place of conflict, solidarity and protection that marked the slave experience.20 Escape routes , gatherings and mocambos (inside and outside the urban areas) reveal planning, efforts and networking that followed cultural logics of Africans and the people who identified similar necessities in running away, hiding and constructing other spaces of socialization and community life, bringing together fugitives, deserters, maroons, freedmen and indigenous people. Identifying common enemies, among the authorities and within the exclusionary system, as well as a common target, freedom, 18

Agassiz, 1975, p. 230 and 270. Office of Police Station of Vila Bela da Imperatriz of November 3, 1862 to the Chief of Police of the Province, Dr. Caetano Estelita Cavalcante Pessoa. Book of Official Letters, Department of Police, 1862. Public Archive of the State of Amazonas. 20 Gomes, 2006, p. 233 19

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indigenous people, Blacks and people of mixed origins cooperated in organizing escapes and reconstructing a community life away from slavery. In the process, they established routes and defined territories in connection with those who occupied the spaces and/or the legal authorities. However, those new spaces often maintained links with the urban environment and groups, forming an extended network that remained connected and in permanent operation, mainly by market exchange: protecting and supporting escapees, withholding information from the authorities on routes and places of refuge, and harbouring deserters and fugitives.21 The slave Maria Salome wandered about the outskirts of Manaus until she was arrested for running away in 186022. In March 1864, slave owner Manoel Thomaz Pinto requested the intervention of the urban authorities of Manaus to re-capture a black slave named Isabel, who had escaped and was wandering the outskirts of the city23. It was not the first time that Colonel Manoel Pinto had asked for police intervention. In January of the same year, the same runaway had been arrested by order of the delegate of police of the capital at her master’s request.24 These cases show eventual escapes that could or could not be permanent. During the last decades of slavery in Brazil, a great part of the work of policemen and city authorities was to search the inner city and surrounds for runaways. Between 1850 and early 1880s, while the number of runaways grew in the capital, the elite’s demand for slave labour increased. Newspapers circulated with more and more notices announcing slaves for sale and principally for rent, as it seemed quite a profitable business, given the abolition of the slave trade from Africa, as well as internally. Rented slaves were the responsibility of the renters, who had the same authority as the legal slave owner, and were equally expected to provide care, food, clothing and shelter to the slave. The rent was paid directly to owner or, if it was the case, to the agencies (printers, taverns and trading companies) that charged a commission to intermediate this service.25 Rent a slave, fit for service in a family home; those in need should come to this newspaper publishing company and will be told with whom to deal to this end.26 21

Gomes, 2005; Funes, 1996 Estrella do Amazonas, 19/09/1860 23 O Catechista,26/03/1864 24 O Catechista, 30/01/1864 25 Soares, 1988, p.137 26 Estrella do Amazonas, 06/04/1861 22

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Woman needed for housekeeping. Can be slave or freed, to work in a small family home. Anyone who fulfills these requirements should go to the tavern at Pottery Street to arrange the deal.27

Some slaves were not rented to work in private spaces, but in the streets. As mentioned before, the jobbing slaves were sent to the streets with duties and tasks defined by their owner or by the master who rented their services and were expected to provide a certain amount of money at the end of the day, week or month, as stipulated by the master. For example, industrial services (blacksmiths, potters, dressmakers) were worth much more on the market than were services like carriers. The autonomy and freedom enjoyed by slaves did not mean a less difficult life, because in some cases they had to work two shifts, one in the street, the other in the homes of their masters, especially if these masters were poor and had few slaves.28 Rental slaves, working in domestic services, on public works or in the streets had a greater opportunity to accumulate a few coins if the payment was made directly to them instead of to their owners, as the slave could earn a surplus known as pecúlio between the value previously set to be paid to the owner and the amount effectively collected for the services. Saving money was a fairly common practice among jobbing slaves and was legalized as a right by the law of only September 28, 1871. The money provided many with the possibility of living far away from the master, by renting a place of their own or for family, allowing the slaves greater autonomy to manage their own destinies, and ultimately to buy their own freedom29. The limited freedom also gave them opportunities to establish connections, sometimes even marrying other slaves or free persons, and contacts away from the eyes of the master. These connections were necessary when the slave was planning to run away. Moreover, living away from the master could provide time to escape, as it sometimes took days, weeks or months before the master realized that the slave had run away. Obviously, this limited independence meant also living under greater suspicion and vulnerability. On May 27, 1868, the Jornal do Rio Negro reported on the investigations conducted by the Chief of Police to find the person who had robbed the shop of Sebastião. The slave Manoel became the main suspect because he had been arrested days before for entering the house of the citizen Manoel Antonio Lessa “under disguise”. But the most 27

Estrella do Amazonas, 27/10/1858). Soares 29 Reis, 1989, p.17 28

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incriminating factor for the police was fact that the slave Manoel had a mistress residing in a "house rented for 6000 réis" located across the street from the victim. It was difficult to believe that a jobbing slave could support a lover living in such an expensive place, and that was enough to land him in jail.30 In Manaus, the neighborhood called Tamaracá was known as a place where slaves could rent a house or a space inside a house to live in the inner city and exercise a certain level of autonomy from his/her owner. This type of arrangement could be of interest to the masters, because it took part of the burden of supporting the slave off their shoulders, and it was also a way of reducing tensions between master and slave. The basic person in this type of limited freedom was the representative of public order and authority. In fact, police officers and street inspectors were often called to control captives who lived far from their masters and to keep order and peace in urban spaces. 31 The following document shows that in 1870 the police were called to take the "necessary measures" against a constant gathering of jobbing slaves, accused of offending the "honor of public morality." According to the Catechista, these problems occurred any time of day or night, … mainly from 6 to 9, (slaves) gather on the ramps in front of the houses of businessman Antônio Joaquim da Costa & Irmão, on the bridges, and other places. (They are) gangs of saleswomen and other unoccupied women who, together with sailors and men slaves set a very sad example of morality. Obscene words are common in the mouths of those assemblies and can be heard by anyone that by necessity or recreation pass through these places.32

Notices about the period of the day or night when slaves could freely move around the city were published in the newspapers, as well as in the municipality’s codes and rules. Substitute sub-sheriff of Manaus, Mr. José Miguel de Lemos, informed citizens in May 1861 that slaves without passes from their masters were not allowed to walk the streets of this capital after 3 pm; neither could sailors embarked on steamships, under the penalty of being taken to jail.33

30

Jornal do Rio Negro, 27/03/1868 Santos, 2006, p.148-151 32 O Catechista, 16/07/1870. 33 Estrella do Amazonas, 01/06/1861 31

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Strolling along the new bridges, plazas, slopes, taverns, and other places across the city, male and female slaves sold their products, made money and relaxed their own ways. More than that, they created strategies to impose limits on the control of the masters and systematically challenged the values of "civilization and progress" imposed by the elites and authorities. In large measure, the prevalence of these autonomous activities in the city may have interfered with the process of the disintegration of slavery34. In January 1871, the newspaper Catechista published a note directed to the police authorities saying that it was “very convenient” that the police pay attention to cambenbes (shacks) that were rented for slaves on streets around the cathedral and Tamaracá.35 African experiences maintained by their descendants in the Diaspora were adapted and modified in urban environments, especially those related to habitation and housing. Inside the city of Manaus, a neighborhood called “the Coast of Africa” was an area inhabited by black workers, some of African origin, free and enslaved. Everywhere in Manaus, new cultural territories were forged and reassigned, suggesting the presence of black communities with practices, symbols and meanings related to African experiences.36 The workers of African origin who served in various public works also lived under the authority’s suspicion. In 1861, the president of the province, Manoel Clementino Carneiro da Cunha, ordered the chief of police to take measures to make sure that free Africans found wandering in the streets of the city after eight o'clock in the evening were held in jail until they were brought before the director of public services.37 This decision was meant to keep these workers under control because, in the words of the President, even though they were not the best workers, they filled the demand for labour.38

34

Machado, 1988, p.149 It is interesting note that the name given to two places rented by slaves makes reference to a location in the interior of Angola, called Cambembe, "the banks of the Cuanza river and Pundo Andongo, ancient capital of the Kingdom of Ndongo.” Besides mean, also, salaried employees who worked with the slaves (Reginaldo, 2005, p.49). About the possibility of another meaning for the word Cambembe, see: Aulete, 1925, available in: http://www.auletedigital.com.br 36 About the presence of free Africans in Amazonas (Sampaio, 2005). 37 Estrella do Amazonas, 26/10/1861 38 Amazonas, 1862, p. 20 35

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A year later, the mobility of the slaves and the ways in which slave owners should manage it were some of the concerns of the authorities of the province. Slaves found at night, between curfew and sunrise, without their masters, and without a pass showing date, name of the slave and a declaration from the masters, or without lantern or torch, will be taken into prison.39

The norms of control were not only against African slaves and free black workers, including indigenous people, mestizos, tapuias and those who were part of the multifaceted ethnic universe and that needed to be "ordained", subordinated and controlled. As a result of the tension between these groups, the city territory acquired diverse meaning, according to the characters involved—masters, authorities, slaves, free workers, etc— giving place to various hiding places and a complex network of comrades, enemies and occasional allies. The city became, in the second half of the 19th century, a territory of continuous change, a result of a booming economy in rubber production and export. Social, economic and political changes took place under the influence of rising immigration that brought together individuals from different cultures and with various interests. In addition, the physical features associated with slavery became too broad, increasing the problems of identification relating to colour and slavery in Amazonas. In the same way, the connections between slaves, free Africans, indigenous people, tapuias, saleswomen and sailors in the urban environment became a target for the authorities’ suspicion. Not coincidentally, the number of arrests shown in the prison diaries increased between the last years of the 1850s and the early 1860s, revealing the everyday tensions and repression in which slaves and free indigenous, mixed people and Africans experienced similar fates. Moreover, these groups were also the target of forced recruitment for militias, the army or forced labour. In this context, escape was even more risky and life on the run was subject to constant persecution and uncertainty. Towards the end of the century, the difficult task of controlling the labour force grew worse with the increasing challenge of controlling a growing population of individuals seen as potential criminals, including deserters, fugitives, vagrants, brawlers, drunks, and those who helped runaway slaves and fugitives. On top of that, the growing city became infested with diseases and pests, the effects of urbanization without 39

Estrella do Amazonas, 8/02/1862

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sanitation. The panic caused by epidemics led the authorities to direct their actions against the poorest of the population who were seen as carriers of diseases, for example, cholera. The police acted against food sellers, trying to control the quality of the food, against overpopulated areas—as a way to prevent contagion and fire—removing sick people from the urban context,40 and also to ensure that the movement of slaves, indigenous people, free Africans, poor men, nationals and foreign migrants in the urban environment did not turn into generalized disorder. The greatest concern at the time was to control the movement of slaves in order to guarantee the necessary labour force. The abolitionist campaign gained importance from 1880 in the Brazilian Empire, influencing society in Amazonas as well. During this period, newspapers like the new Abolicionista do Amazonas actively engaged in the campaign for abolition of slavery, denouncing the arrest of slaves under any pretext. According to an article published in 1884, imprisonment of slaves in the city prison continued to be an abusive practice rather than a correctional measure, since it keeps the individual in prison for an indefinite time simply to meet the slave owner’s request41

Epistemologically, all these elements that characterized urban slavery in Amazonas present a new problem to local historiography, because it is no longer possible to consider the building of the city of Manaus only as a product of the conflict between the white elite and the indigenous population and culture without including the role of African slavery and the multi-ethnic mixed population in the social, economic and political fabric of the region. The slave who fled to Manaus found a city in full expansion, a trading port and safe haven for many people; through the streets, alleys and business houses circulated Portuguese, Bolivians, Peruvians, Venezuelans, White Brazilians, mixed people of diverse origins, indigenous people, and Blacks (African or crioulos, free or enslaved), some local, some just passing through, some outsiders looking for adventure and easy money, 40

The hygienic measures to prevent Cholera adopted by the province stated that the police should ensure the "cleanliness and neatness of the streets, examining the food substances that are sold not excepting the drinks, because it everywhere, and always the merchants of edible, speculate with public needs, selling genres corrupted" and, not least, "order to do fumigation in prisons, hospitals and other places, where there are gatherings and people that living in damp and poorly ventilated places. See: Canavarro, 1862, p. 10. 41 Abolicionista, 05/05/1884

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others introduced as forced labour. The complex make up of the population was in itself a good hiding place for a fugitive.

Among the forest, headwaters and wetlands: refuge and freedom For those who chose to get away from the urban scenarios, escape routes took them through some of the innumerable rivers, along several paths through the forest, to hide in the woods. To protect themselves from the authorities, the slaves fled to the headwaters of rivers, traded with people they found on their way, negotiated with locals and frequently changed hideout, leaving only small traces of abandoned huts, to create new refuges elsewhere—crossing valleys and the rain forest. In this one aspect, the Amazon mocambos and quilombos were different from those from other locations in Brazil in that they did not form large and stable communities but small groups of fugitives, constantly moving, modifying and reorganizing communities built around kinship and fellow fugitives. This itinerancy did not mean isolation from the surrounding society because contacts and trading with the small towns, villages and farms were constant. Especially because the small groups had greater mobility, allowing for dismantling of settlements and escape from authorities.42 The main characteristic of these groups of runaways was their ability to remain invisible, almost camouflaged, using the environment as their major ally. Knowledge of the environment was crucial to the fugitives in maintaining their maroon communities. The products of hunting, fishing, and extraction, as well as agriculture and some craft were used for trading and survival in the group. Sometimes these products were used to bribe outsiders and protect the group from potential informers. According to Euripides Funes: Knowing the environment was fundamental for the success of escapes, since nature became a natural accomplice. During the rainy season, grass grows tall on the banks of lakes, forming earthen dams, clogging wetlands that connect to other rivers, obstructing the passage and hiding paths. Settling above the rapids and waterfalls, the maroons interposed natural obstacles between them and their pursuers.43

42 43

Gomes, 2006, p. 290 Funes, 2009, p.150

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On the other hand, it is important to note that many of these fugitives found favorable conditions for the creation of communities, micro societies, self-sustaining. Through the creeks and wetlands, runaway slaves built mocambos—maroon settlements smaller than quilombos— sometimes staying long enough to develop agriculture. The economy is supplemented with the exchange of stolen objects from the masters or with trading agricultural products to indigenous people, deserters or others. Following the Amazonas River, Paul Marcoy found "two elderly darkskinned" people who had lived in the forest for many years as runaways. According to the traveler, the black couple had a servant, an indigenous man, who helped them in a small vegetable garden the surplus from which was exchanged with locals for salt, cotton, poison for hunting and fishing tools. The same traveler refers to a hovel that he found in the forest, which also had small vegetable garden and was inhabited by "three deserters (...) living in peace and security with their pardas women with flattened noses".44 It is no accident that more than half of the enslaved fled between the months of February and July (57%). The escapees followed the cycles of flood and ebb of rivers. Slaves were attentive to the movements of the rivers, when countless canals and creeks were connected, making navigation easier. It was then—during the Amazon winter—that one could take the animals or canoes to escape, during the brazil nut harvest and the season’s festivities.45 By settling along of rivers like the Madeira River, runaways could take advantage of a great number of lakes, populated with turtles and fish such as peixe-boi, pirarucus, tambaquis and many others. The region was mentioned by the president of the province in his report for the year 1861 as a place of significant economic development, attributed to the development of trade in natural products and the increasing importance of people coming from the Peruvian republic along the Madeira to trade.46 The Jornal do Amazonas issues, on May 5, 1882, a notice on the escape of a slave named Jorge, described as "mulatto, lightly bearded and very talkative", property of the captain of National Guard Pedro Antônio de Souza. Jorge fled at night, taking a small boat, from a place named "Gavião" on the banks of the Juruá River, an area of intense movement of vessels because of rubber production47. Other slaves took advantage of the rivers to run away from the city of Pará; João, age 24, was described as 44

Marcoy, 2006, 107-119 Funes, 2009. 46 Amazonas, 1864, p. 35 47 Jornal do Amazonas, 05/05/1882 45

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mulatto, slightly curly hair, brown eyes, short beard and a slim face, fled together with an Alexandrina, described as black, aged around 26-28, “good figure”, big dark eyes, flat nose, and big feet. Their owner suspected that the two captives decided to go "up the Amazon River”.48 João and Alexandrina lived in freedom for more than two years until they were captured near the garrison of Chibarú, up the Negro. The military unit where the two fugitives were captured had been created in January 1857 and was a place of relative prosperity in comparison to the surroundings; many people had taken refugee there, trying to escape the cholera and yellow fever epidemics that affected Rio Negro, ravaging locations along the same river. João was trying to get to his homeland, down the Rio Negro but found the place ravaged by the epidemics and had no choice but to follow the people who were heading to the garrison for help. 49 When the fugitive couple was arrested, Alexandrina stayed in the district of Chibarú to be sold, and the slave João was handed over to the police station in the capital, remaining in custody for about a month. In prison, he met another slave, named José Paulino but known as Macaçar, with whom he escaped from prison in a green boat that “they say belong to the master carpenter Funfão”. Antonio José Pereira Carneiro, who owned João, suspected that the escapees had gone "to the Rio Negro, or Madeira where José Paulino had lived for a period, under the name of Antônio Paulino.”50 There were innumerable routes to escape slavery in the region. If fugitives sought refuge in the lakes and tributaries of the Madeira river, they would surely find a wealthy region both in natural resources and from the increasing trade developing through shipping, with many sailing between Brazilian provinces such as Matto Grosso, Pará and Maranhão, and even crossing international borders.

48

Estrella do Amazonas, 16/04/1856 Estrella do Amazonas, 04/03/1857 50 Estrella do Amazonas 22/05/1858. The Macaçar nickname, may refer to a city in East Timor, called Pante Makasar, which literally means "bridge of macassares" because of the port traders of this locality of Asian east, inhabited by Islamized peoples. This place was colonized by the Portuguese since the first half of the sixteenth century,forming part of a set of Timor islands with strategic importance on the trade routes and shipping of spices and slaves, along with its economic importance as a source of rich sandalwood. See: Loureiro, 2001, 143-155. 49

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Latin American Africanities in Amazonian and transnational spaces A black crioulo slave named Peter, a master carpenter, ran away with the mulatto atapoiado (i.e. with indigenous features) named Aprígio, a baker, using a horse and moving up the Rio Negro, heading to a place called "Hespanha", located in the foreign state of New Granada (Colombia?)51 Another slave, Luiz, black, 42 years old, born in Maranhão, with a big mustache and missing front teeth, fled from Vista Alegre on the Purus river, paddling upriver in a damaged boat, suspected heading for “some of the neighboring republics: Bolivia, Venezuela or another"52. His master requested the police and the military border posts to capture the slave Luiz before he crossed the international border. Escapes to foreign countries reveal wider networks and broader strategies, being among the greatest concerns of the Brazilian authorities at the time, as the former Spanish colonies proclaimed the end of the slave trade and the abolition of slavery during the first half of the 19th century, the same going for the French, British and Dutch colonies in the Guianas. In some countries, such as Bolivia, the local authorities would openly shelter Brazilian runaway slaves. Besides the obvious problems for Brazilian diplomacy involved with international action in defense of the property of its citizens, there was also the concern of the Brazilian elites about the spreading of revolutionary ideas related to freedom and the end of slavery circulating across America. Although international escapes are still a subject rarely visited by historiography, there are important reports about the contacts of quilombolas, mocambeiros, deserters and fugitives in the border areas of the Amazon Caribbean, building their own territoriality in spite of international treaties. According to Flavio Gomes, since from the seventeenth century the colonial authorities of the captaincies of Rio Negro and Grão-Pará feared their slaves would receive information about the revolutions that occurred in the other American colonies, in the Caribbean and Europe. Moreover, between Cayenne and the Captaincy of Grão-Pará and Rio Negro there was a constant movement of runaway slaves and maroon communities that established relations that went beyond trading and that ignored written agreements between colonial authorities.53 .

51

Estrella do Amazonas, 03/03/1858 Diário do Amazonas, 14/08/1873 53 Gomes, 1996 52

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Chapter Six The eastern region of Grão-Pará captaincy—on the border with French Guiana—gave the most cause for concern. With the help of merchants and indigenous groups, escaped slaves migrated from the Portuguese and French sides of the border in search of freedom. (…) However, territorial disputes made it more and more difficult to control and police the area.54

Indeed, it is highly probable that the enslaved population in the Amazon region was aware of the international political situation. The fugitives built networks that allowed the exchange of information about the end of the traffic and abolition of slavery in the neighboring countries; there was also great interest in slave uprisings and revolutionary movements. The networks also included commercial exchanges between merchants, maroons, deserters, sailors and indigenous people of several ethnicities in the Brazilian Amazon and its borders.55 The contact between these groups had raised concerns among the Brazilian elites since colonial times. The movement across borders, the contacts that people of colour had with revolutionary ideas and deserter groups, relations between Suriname’s maroon groups and communities of fugitives from Brazil meant the possibility of rebellions of alarming dimensions. In the context of the independence of Brazil, for example, the revolutionary experience of Haiti (when slaves took power, killed their masters and established their own republic) disturbed the imagination of the elites, Brazilian and Portuguese. Other slave rebellions in the Atlantic spread fear among those who depended upon slave labour. Just to name a few: the revolts in Virginia (1800 and 1831) and South Carolina (1822); in Venezuela (1795); Cuba (1795 and 1812); in the British Caribbean, the rebellions of Barbados (1816), Demerara (1823) and Jamaica (1831). In Brazil, panic spread through the cycle of revolts in Bahia and the Malês movement (1835).56 In Amazonas, concern about the movement of slaves, with escapes and with contact among runaways, deserters and criminals of all sorts, especially if examples of such rebellion occurred in the border region, created a state of panic that Sidney Chalhoub called "the White’s fear"57, that was present during slavery across the entire Brazilian territory. 54

Flávio Gomes, “A ‘safe haven’: runaway slaves, mocambos, and borders in colonial Amazonia, Brazil,” Hispanic American Historical Review, v. 82(3), 2002, p. 478-9. 55 Bezerra-Neto, 2001 56 About some of these rebellions see the following works: Genovese, 1983; Costa, 1998. 57 Chalhoub, 1988

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Between 1831 and 1840, revolutionary movements spread along the Amazon basin, causing horror among the authorities and the local population. It was the Cabanagem Revolution, an uprising of slaves, indigenous people and all subordinate groups living under extreme exploitation—and influenced by ideas of freedom and equality—that challenged the local and imperial powers. In the 1850s the disturbing memories of the revolution and "latent or explicit anarchy" that took over the province of Grão Pará (which at that time included the provinces of Amazonas, Pará and Maranhão) were often mentioned in discussions about the networks among slaves, fugitives, outlaws and indigenous people, as part of the social, political and diplomatic concerns of local authorities.58 The Cabanagem revolution certainly was a fundamental experience in the lives of subsequent generations. In the Comarca of Alto Amazonas alone, the estimated number of deaths was sixty thousand people. Historians argue that this revolution can be fully analyzed only from an international perspective, given the fact that the movement crossed the borders of the Guianas and Spanish South America. The revolution increased contact and exchanges of food and weapons across borders with the English, Dutch, French and Hispanic worlds, and intensified the movement of revolutionary ideas and practices.59 While the colonial authorities tried to repress slave rebellions across the Atlantic, the British abolitionist movement, especially the Anti-Slavery Society, increased its strategies in the Caribbean for disseminating ideas of liberation, among Blacks, shifting public opinion and hastening the end of slavery.60 When slavery was abolished in French Guiana, in 1848, former slaves fled into the rain forest to re-create communities based on African tradition; however, in order to do so, they had to establish contact and cooperation with indigenous communities and others. The situation in French Guiana alarmed the president of the Province of Grão-Pará who requested instructions from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on measures to be adopted "in order to prevent escapes of slaves in this province to Guiana where slavery was abolished." The concerns of the President of Pará and fears of the Secretariat of the Ministry were fed by the news that men coming from that bordering country were acting as representatives of the abolitionist societies in the French Guiana and in

58

Amazonas, 1852, p.6 Ricci, 2008, p.91; HARRIS, 2010 60 Parron, 2011. 59

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British colonies were planning to enter Brazilian territory to conduct antislavery propaganda.61 The phenomenon of a circulation of ideas and experiences related to slave resistance movements and armed revolts was called the “African boomerang” by Linebaugh62. The propagation of anti-slavery ideas involving priests, sailors and people from different classes and ethnic identity was intensified after the 1850s. Although this paper’s aim does not include a full discussion of the antislavery international network and how it influenced Brazilian abolition, it is important to remember that those actions and ideas were present in the Amazon. The international abolitionist campaign added to the fear of connections among the fugitives, indigenous peoples and maroons of the Guianas, generating panic in the elites and provincial authorities of the region. The movements of fugitives along routes heading into foreign territories reveal detailed planning of escapes and knowledge of consistent networks of social relations, not only among slaves but also with detribalised indigenous people from several countries, foreign traders (mainly Bolivians, Peruvians, Colombians and Venezuelans), deserters, sailors, and other free people. These connections were at the margins of the political system, taking advantage of its flaws and linking people who were excluded from the political game. It also created personal or communal definitions of freedom, as well as territorial limits and notions of identity, belonging and property, and trespassed on social borders and politically established territorial borders. In April of 1854, amidst general fear of slave rebellions, a slave of Colonel Manoel Thomaz Pinto spread among the inhabitants of Manaus a tale about a group of indigenous and Blacks, dressed in black uniforms, armed with sticks and knives, hidden along the road that linked the city to the neighbouring town of Cachoeira Grande, at the city limits. According to the author of the rumors, the group of rebels was awaiting the right moment to invade the capital. The news quickly spread panic to the point that many families got ready to flee the city. The National Guard was mobilized to investigate and to deal with the matter, only to find that it was a prank.63 Evidence of inter-ethnic contacts that reinforce the existence of a historical process of communication and cultural exchange across borders 61

Arquivo Público do Estado do Pará. Fundo da Secretaria da Presidência da Província. Caixa 79. Ano: 1841-1849. Ofícios sobre a questão de limites de 16 de Janeiro de 1849 62 Linebaugh, 1983 63 Estrella do Amazonas, 21/04/1854

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and status in Amazonas can be found in the newspapers and government reports and correspondence. During the month of May, 1860 multiple correspondence between the president of the province and the military commander on the banks of the Rio Branco (connecting with British Guiana) refers to the presence of Blacks from Demerara making entrenchments in the Amazonas village of Pirarara. What seemed more alarming to the commander was the cooperation between local indigenous people and those black foreigners who, according him, threatened the military unit located on the border between the two countries. The president of the province advised the commander to negotiate with the leaders of the group of indigenous people and Blacks to get them to abandon their offensive attitude.64 Years before, in 1841, the Brazilian diplomat Duarte da Ponte Ribeiro, complained to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs about the reluctance of Congress and the Government of Bolivia to return slaves to Brazilian owners, claiming that that government intended to "populate the desert provinces of Mojos and Chequitos" with Brazilian runaways. Almost twenty years later, in 1859, Duarte Ribeiro saw as useless the Brazilian efforts to sign an agreement for the return of runaway slaves in the treaties aimed at setting the frontiers between the two countries. In his opinion: Even if it was agreed with the Government of Bolivia, it would never happen, as it has never happened in any of the republics that have agreed with the Empire (in such matter). Slavery was abolished there since the birth of the Republic; its Constitution gives freedom to any slave who sets foot on Bolivian territory; and the Criminal Code in force penalizes whoever delivers, or sends to another Government or private individual, a refugee slave in Bolivia with four years in prison.65

In Peru the situation was similar. The imperial government of Brazil struggled with the problem of extradition of criminals and runaway slaves. Besides, the fragility (or even absence) of agreements on frontier demarcation kept the region unstable and governments prone to international disputes over borders. The controversies both in relation to 64

Estrella do Amazonas, 05/05/1860 Pasta A-73. Instruções de Duarte da Ponte Ribeiro para o negociador de um Tratado de Limites do Império do Brasil com a República Boliviana. Missão Diplomática à República da Bolívia, 1860, p. 13. Arquivo da Comissão Brasileira Demarcadora de Limites. Belém. Pará. Ver também: Pasta A-63. Informação ao meu sucessor sobre o estado das relações políticas do Peru e Bolívia com o Brasil relativamente a limites, navegação fluvial, comércio, etc. Lima, 9 de Julho de 1841. Duarte da Ponte Ribeiro, p. 12-13. Belém. Pará. 65

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limits on the restitution of deserters and slaves created an expectation of distrust among governments on both sides; however, from the point of view of fugitives, the borders presented real possibilities of finding safe haven cross boundaries66.

Conclusion Out in the forests, lakes, headwaters, tributaries, rivers, creeks, settlements, and villages and inside the cities, runaways and maroons built and shared their experiences on captivity and forms of resistance. The multi-faceted society and the complex geographic territory generated another culture, founded on ethnic exchanges and the struggle for freedom. In Manaus, many fugitives found hiding places in alleys, along multiethnic creeks and shacks on the outskirt. They could hide in plain sight, taking advantage of the process of urban change and population increase, and of the heavy traffic of vessels, goods and, obviously, experiences among the lower classes along the rivers of the Amazon. This way, through multiple and different trajectories, the fugitives were eventually able to extend the margins of autonomy and freedom that escape provided them. The resulting constant migration built other borders, occupied and controlled by maroon groups. The escapes generated fear among the authorities and masters, who were afraid of the emergence of articulated insurrections among Blacks, Indians and other "criminals". The flow and movement of ideas were taking in these networks and exchanges, in the canoes that penetrated the Amazonian hinterlands in search of refuge.

66

Bastos, 2006

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Runaway slave routes in the Amazon. (© Cavalcante &Souza, 2014.)

Slaves and free persons of Manaus. (Photos by Walter Hunnewell; credit: Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology - Harvard University.)

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Slaves and free persons of Manaus. (Photos by Walter Hunnewell; credit: Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology - Harvard University.)

CHAPTER SEVEN THE TRAJECTORY OF MAHOMMAN GARDO BAQUAQUA IN BRAZIL: SLAVERY, FREEDOM AND EMANCIPATION IN THE ATLANTIC WORLD NIELSON ROSA BEZERRA

Mahomman Gardo Baquaqua was an African born in Zoogoo, a town within the present-day territory of Benin, West Africa, probably around 1830. There is no record of his death. This young African experienced slavery and the Atlantic trade and his story stands out among millions of enslaved Africans who came to the American continent. Baquaqua described his life’s trajectory in an autobiographical document, first released in the United States in 1854. Baquaqua thus became the bearer of the African voice in the Atlantic diaspora. In this essay, I want to consider the perspective of the Atlantic trajectory of those Africans enslaved during the diaspora, employing memoir and self-description. For this reason, I will examine evidence and clues found in some Brazilian documents that point to the contexts in which Baquaqua lived during the period when he was a slave in the Atlantic cities of the Empire of Brazil. Baquaqua’s spectacular trajectory started in West Africa and took several Atlantic routes, passing through many Brazilian provinces such as Pernambuco, Rio de Janeiro, Santa Catarina and Rio Grande. Those routes also included the USA, Haiti and Canada. In his autobiography, Baquaqua gave details of his life and the social relations experienced during his Atlantic voyages. However, many other details have been suppressed for reasons that can and should be problematized. Thus, it is possible to crossmatch the information on the Brazilian contexts experienced by Baquaqua in order to establish a dialogue with the details recalled and those omitted by him in his own narrative.

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Baquaqua’s trajectory and Atlantic experiences can be included in the study field of the historical biography. Regarding the idea of a biography as the description and contextualization of a personal trajectory—the narrative of a life—Baquaqua gave us significant details about the transformations that occurred over most of his life. In this sense, one also has here a perspective on the recollections and omissions delimited by his memoirs. As in any autobiographical narrative, one can see in his writings a selection of episodes from his life as well as the way how each of these episodes was told. However, his narrative also features some gaps, some spaces where the details are not enough for contextualizing the social relations in which he was inserted. In the case of Baquaqua’s narrative, perhaps from a desire for oblivion, his passage through slavery is somewhat elusive, with few details that will ensure an overview of the contexts in the different places of the Brazilian territory through which he passed over those few years. In Brazil, historical biographies are a reality. Biographical studies of Africans or people who underwent the experiences of the Atlantic slave trade are recurrent. While biographical studies in the Anglo-Saxon world are embedded in the tradition of using autobiographical narratives followed by a long contextualization, Brazilian historiography is devoted to writing about individuals who continually appear in the documentation. Some of them were so present that it was possible to identify a set of virtually accurate details. Thus, one can identify two historiographical traditions within the field of biographies of Africans: one is an autobiographical tradition, always focusing on narratives written by the individual himself or with his direct participation; the other tradition is part of a more accurate “historical imagination,” based on documents with information, testimony or evidence of the trajectory of a person. However, in both cases, the methodology based on the biography of an African needs to be grounded in some crucial factors: a) focus on the biographee, seeking as much information about his physical characteristics, activities and occupations, beliefs and cultural perspectives, with it being quite impossible to find an autobiography where the person is described with some accuracy, though self-descriptive information can be found in some documents, for example in escape, rental or purchase and sale advertisements, police records or even testaments; b) look for the context because, in considering an individual trajectory, it is not always possible to fill all the gaps, though it is possible to involve the biographee into a context, searching out his close relations, taking as examples other people who held similar social positions, with baptisms, marriages and deaths registered in ecclesiastical registers being examples of documents that can

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provide such information; c) establish collective experiences, as people generally live as a collective, the result of the social living that characterizes humankind, and, therefore, thinking about a person and his trajectory is also thinking about at least some collective parameters of social relations, regardless of the condition of the person in that social sphere, with many documents—commitments of brotherhoods, testaments of freedmen or letters of manumission—able to favor this step in the biographical research on the life of Africans during the Atlantic diaspora; d) finally, it is important not to expect definitive answers because it not always that the diversity of human experiences can be condensed into a few descriptive lines of a police record, a baptism entry or even an act of commitment to a brotherhood, with people generally being inserted into a multitude of contexts that can be confusing if the researcher is not prepared to discover the African biographee, regardless of his social status (Bezerra, 2011) . In order to think of the trajectory of Mahomman Gardo Baquaqua, emphasizing his passage through slavery in Brazil, I join the historiographical tradition that seeks out those traces of African cultural identity that single individuals have preserved. If, for survival, they needed to reframe their existence in face of the condition of slavery through the “conversion” to Christianity, the adoption of another name and so on, it sometimes created an “ethnic mirage” that could lead to confusing interpretations of African identities in the Atlantic diaspora (Lovejoy, 2002). Before being a slave in Brazil, Baquaqua was an African born in Zoogoo and, as such, he bore a series of cultural markers that forged his first and main identity. The family experiences accumulated while he was a child were fundamental and marked his personality; the proof is his own autobiographical description. When he had the opportunity to write (or dictate) his memoirs, the cultural meanings of his life in Africa were emphasized to establish his self-identification. At that time Baquaqua was a Protestant missionary, he had already lived as a slave in the Atlantic world and had adopted a Christian name. However, his African recollections and experiences assumed greater importance. That means Baquaqua wished to be identified as an African, regardless of the other experiences lived throughout his short but spectacular personal trajectory. As an African, Baquaqua was an agent of his own history, in spite of those realities experienced along his Atlantic trajectory (Ki-Zerbo, 2010). Thus, the most important perspective for a historian of the Atlantic diaspora is established. New cumulative cultural experiences, even the most adverse ones, do not replace identifying marks. These new experiences are able to reframe some aspects of a person’s life, transforming his daily

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actions and perspectives, but the deeper perspectives that actually forged his “self” are always preserved, even when little activated for even extended periods. Such at least was the case with Baquaqua, as revealed in his autobiography published in 1854. Even after assuming the identity of José da Costa, a slave from the African coast, first an assistant baker in Pernambuco, then a sailor on a cabotage vessel sailing to several ports in Brazil, Baquaqua demonstrated that he never ceased being an African, whose references and memories related to family and a culture that remained reference points in his life experiences. There is some disagreement about Baquaqua’s date of birth, largely because of inaccurate information. According to J. Austin (1984), Baquaqua was born in 1830. Paul Lovejoy and Robin Law, after examining his biography, estimate his age at 30 years old. Considering the autobiography was released in 1854, this puts his year of birth as 1824. Determining the year of birth and age of Africans in the Atlantic diaspora is a very controversial issue as the lack of accurate records always leads to some speculation. In the case of Baquaqua, many facts from his narratives are incompatible with his adolescent phase (Law and Lovejoy, 2007). Baquaqua’s parents were from different tribes, demonstrating the diversity of African cultures synthesized within his family. While his father was from Berzoo, of Arab origin and with not very dark skin, his mother was from Kashina, a Hausa region, and was very dark. According to Baquaqua, she was “completely black”. His father had known wealth and poverty. He was a merchant who traveled to various places looking for good business opportunities. He was a devout follower of Islam and his religious community sometimes met on a property that belonged to Baquaqua’s grandfather. One of Baquaqua’s uncles, though not a priest, was sometimes responsible for carrying out collective reading activities or mediation. Baquaqua’s family rose to some prominence in their community. His mother was a woman of outstanding social position, having received an inheritance from an uncle. In addition, she was related to one of the local chiefs with political prominence in the region. When Baquaqua’s parents got married, his father was poor. However, they had many mules and slaves, possibly because Baquaqua’s mother brought better economic conditions to the marriage. Thus, one can see that Baquaqua was not from just any family. Even after being taken into slavery at very young age and having major problems with alcoholism, Baquaqua had access to good education and good living conditions as a child. No doubt that is reflected in his trajectory along his Atlantic experiences.

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His town, Zoogoo, was located in the north of the present-day Republic of Benin. According to Baquaqua’s description, it was a city without a written law establishing the forms of government but there were laws and regulations established by oral tradition. The king ruled, but there were also local chiefs or rulers and some other authority figures. Although Baquaqua’s description does not give much detail of the political organization of Zoogoo, we can surmise the existence of complex political relations. Slavery was nothing new to Baquaqua. Through his words, one can identify two ways of reproducing slavery within the political culture of the region where he lived. According to him, murder was not a capital crime but a person who had committed such a crime “was sold as a slave and banished from the country.” He also describes a case he had witnessed, where a man was caught in adultery. After confessing under torture, the man was offered as a slave. Even without many details, one can see the different forms of slavery in Africa through Baquaqua’s descriptions (Lovejoy, 2002). In both cases, it is possible to note the vast differences between slavery as a form of social adjustment, based on secular cultural traditions in Africa, and the process of commodification of slavery during the Atlantic slave trade. Baquaqua’s memoirs take us to a place of agriculture and animal husbandry, where he spent most of his childhood. He describes it as hot, with a moist climate and fertile soil. The houses were built of clay, and were low and had no windows or chimneys. He remembered the plains and valleys, hills and mountains, and many springs, which supported agriculture. According to his memoirs, there were many flowers and trees, providing fragrance, beauty and freshness. It was not uncommon to see elephants and lions and elephant tusks were used in the creation of musical instruments. Baquaqua also described his own city as a place where the king’s palace was located, on a wide avenue, next to a huge market, shaded by large trees. The entrance door consisted of six gates, each bearing the name of their respective guardians, usually “chosen for their courage and bravery,” which gave them social distinction. It is known that Baquaqua was a very young man when he was enslaved in Benin and brought to Brazil, even though his age is unsure. There are many works by Brazilian and foreign researchers that have explored the dynamics of the trade routes between the Bay of Benin and Brazil during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries (Verger, 1987; Soares, 2007). Many of those people were Islamized Africans, as was Baquaqua’s family, becoming a cultural and identity reference at different points in slavery in Brazil (Reis, 2005; Reis, 2012). Many others

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converted to Christianity by adding other symbols and signs to their individual and collective references. Paul Lovejoy argues that these “new” cultural signs do not change the African characteristics since individuals like Baquaqua retained their ethnic identities, even though diverse cultural elements can be identified in their trajectories (Lovejoy, 2002). According to the calculations of Robin Law and Paul Lovejoy, Baquaqua arrived in Brazil in 1845 at 21 years of age. The place of his landing would have been a clandestine harbour around Olinda in Pernambuco. Baquaqua’s memoirs tell us of his daily life in Recife. For a short period, he worked for a baker in that city. He recalls the period of adaptation and the cruel relations of slavery, based on much physical punishment and strict rules of behavior. The situation was aggravated by his habitual consumption of alcoholic beverages, a habit he had acquired when he lived in Africa (Law and Lovejoy, 2007). It was not very long before Baquaqua was sold to Captain Clemente José da Costa, to whom he still belonged when he made a spectacular escape in New York. Most of the information we have about Baquaqua has come through his master. In this case, it is imperative to think of biography as a method based on the social context of the biographee because this is how one can get more details about the trajectory of Baquaqua during the period when he was a slave in Brazil. This is not new. Most works on enslaved Africans in Brazil are based on documents related to their masters. Concerning Baquaqua, in particular, there are descriptions and memories of the remarkable experience of his trajectory through the Atlantic world. Two years passed between his landing in Brazil and his escape. Baquaqua fled in New York, where he had accompanied his master who commanded the barge Lembrança with a cargo of coffee. He and another escapee had support from the abolitionist movement, which ensured his escape and freedom through many journeys to other places in the United States, Haiti and Canada. This article is inserted in the field of African diaspora studies since it seeks to consider the perspectives of enslaved Africans in the Americas, despite the difficulty in finding documents containing the ideas, interests and memories of Africans. In the case of Baquaqua, it has been possible to cross-match his narrative with new documents so that one can at least know the various contexts he experienced. By considering some archives in Rio de Janeiro and Rio Grande do Sul, it was possible to find new information about the owner and the skipper of the vessel Lembrança, where Baquaqua worked while he was still a slave in Brazil. Thus, I think I can make some contribution on the life of Baquaqua in Brazil and the time he spent as a slave.

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Baquaqua was a personal slave belonging to Captain Clemente José da Costa. Usually Baquaqua traveled with his owner on various trade routes that connected many Atlantic ports of Brazil, such as Rio de Janeiro, Recife, Santa Catarina, Santos and Rio Grande. Through Baquaqua’s memoirs, one can learn when Lembrança arrived in New York coming from the city of Rio de Janeiro, where Baquaqua said he had been many times. That tells us that he knew the “life of the slaves in Rio de Janeiro.” According to Mary Karasch, the city of Rio de Janeiro was unusual. Many enslaved Africans sat in front of houses and shops to sing about their lives and about African traditions, recalling the past of freedom on the African continent. Despite living for a long time in Brazil, many Africans did not forget the flavors and sounds of their land. Many of them wished to return to Africa one day, even if it happened only within a belief in an afterlife (Karasch, 1986:35). Carlos Eugênio Soares presented several forms of socializing found in the zungus1 in Rio de Janeiro (Soares, 1998). Considering the position of a slave who worked as a sailor, Baquaqua possibly wandered around the outskirts of the port, where he witnessed some of these scenes of slavery in Rio de Janeiro (Rodrigues, 2005). In his memoirs, Baquaqua describes his interest in freedom. It is symptomatic that during the voyage to New York he discovered that he was going to a place where slavery had been abolished. Even more symptomatic was his claim that freedom had been the first word of the English language that he learned, even on that very voyage. It is not known if Baquaqua had a plan but he certainly did not miss the opportunity to escape from that vessel in search of the freedom that he and so many other Africans had sung and wailed about outside the doors of shops and houses in Rio de Janeiro, as Mary Karasch describes. I have no doubt that Baquaqua nurtured this dream of freedom because he worked as a sailor. Many studies have shown that those enslaved who worked as crews of vessels sailing the Atlantic world were more likely to manage to escape or seek the possibility of freedom (Soares, 2001; Rodrigues, 2005; Bezerra, 2010). In addition, there was an element of mobility in the everyday life of those people. Constant daily contact with places, people and different realities broadened their horizons, their interests and perspectives. I have no doubt that it amplified the desire for freedom 1

In the early nineteenth century, women peddling vegetables usually gathered around the vendors selling angu from trays. Angu, a polenta-like dish, was a cheap food for freed slaves with little money. Later, it began to be sold at houses roofed with tiles, metal sheets or grass – the angu houses, which in Brazil were later renamed zungus. Those houses also offered dancing to cheer up those who were not yet used to living in freedom.

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nurtured by Baquaqua. There are still other questions that need to be considered. Baquaqua was young, had lived a relatively short time as a slave and came from a family that was in contact with the outside world through its Islamic faith and through commerce. I have no doubt that these characteristics that forged his identity were also fundamental in making his passage through slavery in Brazil a relatively short one. From documents found in Brazilian archives, it has been possible to find some relevant information to better understand Baquaqua’s social context. Unable to find any information directly related to Baquaqua, even when he was known as José da Costa, I sought information about the owner of the vessel Lembrança, Mr. Antônio José da Rocha Pereira. It was also possible to find information about Baquaqua’s master, Captain Clemente José da Costa. So, I tried to cross-match information about the vessel Lembrança, its owner and its skipper in order to contextualize the period in which Baquaqua was in Brazil. Antônio José da Rocha Pereira, the owner of Lembrança, was a merchant in the city of Rio de Janeiro. He was born in Portugal and came to Brazil at 17 years of age. It was not difficult to find his entry in the Royal Chamber of Commerce.2 He lived on Rua Direita, a busy commercial street where people and goods from various origins in the Atlantic world circulated, a place that Baquaqua certainly knew very well. In 1837, Rocha Pereira had already married Maria Roza Leite.3 According to Almanack Laemmentz, Rocha Pereira was from a family that included other merchants, like João Antônio da Rocha Pereira, the owner of a dry and wet goods store at number 20 Rua São Pedro. It was common for slaves who belonged to or were put to work by such merchants to walk about the city, so they knew the streets and the main areas of the city. After a brief investigation in the Jornal Diário do Rio de Janeiro, covering January to February 1846, it was possible to find vessels that belonged to Antônio José da Rocha Pereira. These vessels arrived in and departed from the port of Rio de Janeiro with several kinds of goods. It is very important to note that those voyages largely exploited the coastal trade, involving the movement of people and goods between Brazilian towns and provinces during the nineteenth century. Baquaqua was a crew member on one of those vessels. Thus, it is possible to identify the dynamics of Baquaqua’s way of life during most of his time as an enslaved African in Brazil. In the table below, I have drawn up small 2

Arquivo Nacional. Junta do Comércio. Caixa 394. Pacote 1. Rio de Janeiro, 1809-1850. 3 Arquivo da Cúria do Rio de Janeiro. Habilitação Matrimonial. Documento 1839. Caixa 1024. Rio de Janeiro, 1837.

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sample of those voyages noting the sizes of the vessels, some places with commercial connections for Mr. Rocha Pereira, as well as the time taken for those voyages. Table 7-1: Voyages of the vessels of Antônio José da Rocha Pereira, leaving Rio de Janeiro (January/February – 1846) Vessels Tender Beleza do Sul Brigantine Marquês de Pombal Smack Leopoldina

Tonnage Destination 155 Porto Alegre

Goods Cargo from the North

Date Jan 9, 1846

168

Santos

General merchandise

Jan 15, 1846

92

Campos

General merchandise

Feb 7, 1846

Source: Biblioteca Nacional. Diário do Rio de Janeiro. Janeiro/Fevereiro, 1846.

The data reveals that Antônio José da Rocha Pereira was a merchant in the city of Rio de Janeiro, but he also had vessels engaged in the cabotage trade. It is important to notice that his activities were diversified since the records found point to “varied goods.” Moreover, his vessels were used on commercial routes that connected Rio de Janeiro with other regions of Brazil and hence it made sense to hire people from other places to work for him. This seems to be the case of Clemente José da Costa, who was employed as the skipper of Lembrança and took one of his own slaves with him. According to the national register for coastal and long-distance vessels, Antônio José da Rocha Pereira owned five vessels in 1847, including the barge Lembrança. In this sense, one may notice that Baquaqua and his owner worked for people who dealt with a significant number of businesses. João Luís Fragoso has shown us the ability of these people in capital accumulation and how they sought political prestige throughout the nineteenth century (Fragoso, 1992). In Almanack Laemmert, Antônio José da Rocha Pereira was a cabotage merchant. In addition the vessels and goods he owned, many people were employed in his businesses. For a short time, Baquaqua worked among those people. In his memoirs, he tells about his voyages between Rio de Janeiro and southern Brazil. Table 1 shows some of Mr. Rocha Pereira’s vessels being sent to that region. Table 2 shows that Lembrança was his largest capacity vessel. It demonstrates that

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Lembrança could undertake longer trips, like to New York. It also demonstrates that the crew needed more workers. Even if there is no information on this, research related to enslaved work on ships has demonstrated the everyday coexistence of free, freed and enslaved sailors (Rodrigues, 2005). Baquaqua possibly lived within the multiplicity of social conditions of the people working on the same vessel, although he did not emphasize this in his memoirs. Table 7-2: Vessels of Antônio José da Rocha Pereira (1847) Kind of vessely Barge Brig Brig Patache (tender) Patache (tender)

Name Lembrança Ânimo Marquês de Pombal Conde de Thomar Beleza do Sul

Tonnage 232 192 161 137 155

Source: Almanak Laemmert, 1847, p. 352-357

Baquaqua’s master, Clemente José da Costa, was the skipper of Lembrança for a long time. I found three records in Rio Grande do Sul that prove that Lembrança was used on a route that connected Rio de Janeiro and Rio Grande. In all cases, besides Antônio José da Rocha Pereira being the owner, Clemente José da Costa appears as the captain of that vessel. Therefore, at least from 1841, Clemente José da Costa commanded Lembrança on its voyages between Rio de Janeiro and Rio Grande, often with stops in Santos and Santa Catarina.4 As it can be seen, when sold to Clemente José da Costa, Baquaqua was inserted into the dynamics of the life of maritime cabotage trade in Brazil. His master traveled in several parts of Brazil and Baquaqua started to accompany him, as described in his own memoirs. Given this context, it is possible to imagine Baquaqua in Brazil, a slave who accompanied his master in the work of the cabotage trade. Baquaqua was a crew member, a slave who directly served his master, in this case the captain of the vessel. One cannot say that Baquaqua had any distinction or prestige among the other slaves who worked on the crew, however, the fact of belonging to the ship’s captain could favor his plans for greater autonomy or even the chance of obtaining his freedom. But Baquaqua was young and not yet

4

Arquivo Histórico do Rio Grande do Sul. Série Marinha. Março 24. I thank Vinicius Oliveira for all references from Rio Grande do Sul.

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experienced in that context, as he had spent just two years enslaved in Brazil. Considering the biography as a methodological perspective (Lovejoy, 1997), my intention is not only to cross-match information about Lembrança and its owner. I am particularly interested in collecting more information about Captain Clemente José da Costa, Baquaqua’s owner. During his time as a slave, Baquaqua spent most of the time with his master. In this case, the relationship of ownership also meant a relationship of everyday work, something rare in the reality of plantations in Brazil. Even in cities, where the relations of slavery were quite fluid, masters and slaves did not live together so closely as was the case of Baquaqua. His case was not unique but neither was it common. In Brazil, Baquaqua was José da Costa. It is unknown if he received his Christian name in Pernambuco. One cannot help but notice that it was almost a homonym of Clemente José da Costa. It was common, especially among freed slaves, to take the surname of their former master. This way, the right to freedom was assured since bearing the surname of the one who granted the manumission was a guarantee of social recognition of their freedom. It was also common for the children of slaves to be given the name of their parents’ master. Children often received the surname of their owner even when they were not free. In both cases, the slaves were interested in ensuring some social recognition of their autonomy or freedom by preserving the relationship with their former employer. However, Baquaqua did not fit any of these situations. He was neither a freedman nor the child of his master’s slave. He could have been identified as “José Mina” or “José Nagô,” like many Africans who were brought from the same region or shipped from the same port. Maybe he could have been identified as José the sailor, in allusion to his occupation, like many others became known through documentation commonly used in the studies of slavery in Brazil. In my opinion, Baquaqua's recognition as José da Costa reflected the concern of his master—Clemente José da Costa—to quickly link that young slave to his name in case of an escape. Even though Baquaqua traveled in the company of his master, the young African lived every day in an atmosphere of escape and rebellion by Africans that largely marked nineteenth-century Brazil. (Reis, 2005) As captain of the vessel, Clemente José da Costa had a prominent position in the activities undertaken. Within the vessel, he commanded people and was responsible for the goods. He was used to dealing with port authorities in several parts of Brazil and probably in other countries. According to Jaime Rodriguez, the skippers of vessels were the owner’s representatives, with authority to command vessels and crew. They held

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primary responsibility for the navigation, command and management of each voyage (Rodrigues, 205: 163). “Sea Captain” Clemente José da Costa was listed among those people qualified to vote in the city of Rio Grande between 1848 and 1859, that is, after Baquaqua’s escape in New York. At that time, Clemente José da Costa possessed four slaves. Naomi Kuniochi drew up a list of people who had recorded deaths of slaves, in which Clemente José da Costa also appeared (Kuniochi, 2007). In 1866, the same Clemente José da Costa liberated Teresa (seven months old), daughter of Rufina, his slave. He stated that he wished the child to be baptized as a free-born,5 a statement of a kind widely known by those historians who problematize the question of manumission in Brazil. There were many cases of sea captains who managed to acquire a vessel and—besides commanding it—also entered as owners or partners in the cabotage trade or even received a share of profits from the Atlantic slave trade. This was also the case of Clemente José da Costa, as seen in a record found of the schooner Olive—as his own property. According to the document found, he bought the vessel from Manoel Pereira Jardim, attorney for Lourenço Gomes de Oliveira, the previous owner. Finally, the Oliveira schooner was valued at “two million réis” (2,000,000), a significant amount for the economic standards of the nineteenth-century Brazil.6 In his memoirs, Baquaqua describes a voyage between Rio de Janeiro and Rio Grande, passing through Santa Catarina. According to Baquaqua’s description, the voyage started in Rio de Janeiro, something easily accounted for since Lembrança’s owner was Antônio José da Rocha Pereira, a merchant from Rio de Janeiro. This information led Robin Law and Paul Lovejoy to claim that Baquaqua lived in Rio de Janeiro. However, the information presented here suggests a possible establishment of Clemente José da Costa, Baquaqua’s owner, in Rio Grande. Probably interested in the trade routes of southern Brazil, Rocha Pereira may have looked for a captain from southern Brazil to improve his access to the business in that region. On the other hand, after a long time working on those trade routes, it is possible that the skipper had later chosen to settle in Rio Grande. Since the information that I present is subsequent to Baquaqua`s escape in New York, one cannot disregard the hypothesis of 5 Arquivo Histórico do Rio Grande do Sul. Carta de Liberdade de Teresa, filha de Rufina. Data de Concessão: 26-03-1866. Data de registro: 03-04-1866. Livro 24, página 28. 6 Arquivo Histórico do Rio Grande do Sul. Rio Grande, 2º. Tabelionato, Transmissão e Notas, Livro 21, fls 73.a

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Lovejoy and Law, but I distinctly prefer the first explanation. Anyway, the presence of Clemente José da Costa in several documents related to Rio Grande adds a new perspective to the context of Baquaqua’s trajectory in Brazil. The city of Rio Grande was one of the most important ports in Brazil and the Atlantic world. According to Naomi Kuniochi, Rio Grande was the third busiest port in Brazil, mostly receiving vessels from Rio de Janeiro (Kuniochi, 2007). Vinicius de Oliveira says that the Port of Rio Grande established connections with many places in the Atlantic world, enabling the presence of people, goods and vessels from several origins (Oliveira, 2009). Rio Grande was a strategic port for trading goods from southern Brazil, also attracting Brazilian traders attracted by the connections with the River Plate. Baquaqua was involved in those connections as a slave in the service of Captain Clemente José da Costa. To better understand those connections, I searched Almanack Laemmertz for information on vessels and crews working on the trade routes in southern Brazil. Usually the vessels were capable of carrying about 150 to 200 tons (Lembrança carried 200 tons). The vessels sailed from Rio de Janeiro to Rio Grande do Sul. They often stopped to load supplies or deliver goods in Santa Catarina. Each voyage cost nearly 1,637,120 réis and took about three months. One can view the details of these expenses in the table below. Baquaqua surely knew Rio Grande and probably spent most of his time in that city. This experience must have broadened his personal perspectives, his possibilities of escape and his continued interest in freedom, as becomes clear in his biographical memoir. Table 3 shows the expenses for paying the crew members and buying provisions. Even being a slave, Baquaqua was probably paid for his work, even if that amount was directly given to his master, in this case, the skipper of the vessel. Given the previous information, one can be more confident in saying that Captain Clemente José da Costa lived in Rio Grande and not in Rio de Janeiro. Baquaqua’s memoirs also help to establish this idea since there are more descriptive details of Rio Grande than of Rio de Janeiro. Altogether, it is clear that he was a person in transit, often aboard a vessel travelling between several destinations. Consider his description of one of those voyages: Our first voyage was to Rio Grande; the voyage itself was pleasant enough had I not suffered with sea sickness. The harbour at Rio Grande is rather shallow, and on entering we stuck the ground, as it happened at low water, and we had great difficulty in getting her to float again. We finally succeeded, and exchanged our cargo for dried meat. We then went to Rio

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Table 7-3: Expenses of Vessels trading between Rio de Janeiro and Rio Grande do Sul, 19th century Kind of expense Payment of captain by voyage Payment of Foreman Payment of 8 sailors Payment of 4 cabin boys Purchase of goods by captain Purchase of goods by foreman Food for 12 people Firewood, salt and water for voyage Dispatch and Anchorage TOTAL

Amount 300$000 150$000 560$000 200$000 100$000 60$000 3$120 100$000 200$000 1:637$120

Source: Almanak Laemmertz 1846, p. 45.

Voyage apart, Baquaqua also described the port of Rio Grande in detail—a place of shallow water where the vessels could hardly enter or leave, with many boats repeatedly getting stuck. In his description, he also states that he had stayed for a short period in Rio de Janeiro, a contribution to the idea that he did not live permanently in the capital of the Empire, though he knew that place well (Law and Lovejoy, 2007:166). Continuing with his biographical memoir, Baquaqua said that “one day I had to go to the beach with my master” (Law and Lovejoy, 2007:166), referring to a moment when they were in Rio de Janeiro. Everything indicates that at that time they both lived on the vessel, and went to the beach solely to resolve some issues. They surely took the time to drink a little, since both of them were declared lovers of strong alcoholic drinks. Thus it becomes clear that Clemente José da Costa was in Rio de Janeiro because of his voyages, especially as Baquaqua stated that he and the captain were aboard with the rest of the crew. Besides, one must not forget that the name of Clemente José da Costa would later appear among voters

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in Rio Grande, registered as the owner of a vessel and four slaves, as previously mentioned.7 Before concluding this text, it is important to return to the initial proposition, promoting the contextualization of Baquaqua’s memoirs through the investigation of documents from that period. To do so, let me digress on what were the possibilities of freedom for the young “José da Costa,” slave of a sea captain. Probably the experience accumulated each year, due to his autonomy and the possibility of moving through different parts of Brazil, would work together for him in obtaining his manumission. However, these same conditions also made his escape possible. Many Africans in the same positions as Baquaqua negotiated their freedom, while many others fled to live in communities of maroons. Baquaqua is a spectacular example because his escape was transnational, and his case had repercussions in Brazil, the United States and Canada. But his uniqueness is also in his ability to articulate, to enter the abolitionist fight through the release of his biography.

7

CDH/FURG. Prefeitura de Rio Grande. Livro de eleitores-1853. Apud Naomi Kuniochi. “Ter escravo em Rio Grande.” In: 3º Encontro de Escravidão e Liberdade no Brasil Meridional. Florianópolis: UFSC, 2007.

CHAPTER EIGHT A NATION “BLENDED OF COLOURS”: AFRICAN-AMERICAN ABOLITIONISTS AND THEIR PERSPECTIVES ON RACE RELATIONS IN NINETEENTH-CENTURY BRAZIL LUCIANA DA CRUZ BRITO

It is a very common idea, even today, that the racial mixing widely practiced in Brazilian society represents a primary socio-historical difference between Brazil and the United States.1 It is also believed that racial mixing explains the supposed absence of racial prejudice that gave Brazil the moniker of a "racial democracy." In the 1930s, the work and ideas of the author Gilberto Freyre became a reference for this myth2. A look at the documents of travelers and at the American press of the nineteenth century, including black abolitionist press, reveals that from the country’s beginnings, Brazil has been mistakenly read as unmarked by the racism of slavery.3 American travelers in Brazil during the 19th century, even when participants in slavery and the slave-trade, very often expressed strong opinions on the way enslaved men and women in Brazil were treated. In most opinions, they were treated better than their counterparts in United States. In the books that became popular narratives of travel and were 1

The author is a PhD candidate in History at the University of São Paulo (USP), Brazil. This article is a partial version of a dissertation she is writing on the perspectives of different groups in American society on slavery, emancipation and race relations in 19th century Brazil. 2 Gilberto Freyre, Masters and the Slaves: A study in the Development of Brazilian Civilization (California: University of California Press, 1987) 3 Gerald Horne, The Deepest South: The United States, Brazil, and the African Slave Trade (New York: New York University Press, 2007) Also about American travelers in Brazil, see Manoel Cardoso, “Slavery as Described by Americans, 1822-1888,” The Americans, Vol. 17, No. 3 (Jan., 1961), 241-260.

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widely circulated in America, these foreign observers described Brazil as having two main characteristics in race-relations: freed Blacks had access to any position in society and faced no segregation. As noted by Thomas Ewbank there were “fortunate” black people in Brazil, such as the doctor in the city which he was visiting and the president of the province, a man of colour.4 The second eccentric feature of this Latin American country was its seemingly natural acceptance of racial mixing. To the surprise of the American travelers, “there was no distinction between white and black” and it was even more scandalous that “African blood runs freely throughout”.5 Revealing the circularity and political use of these observations, in a speech given in New York in May 1858, Frederick Douglass cited important information from the book, Brazil and the Brazilians, by Kidder and Fletcher.6 Demanding political rights and citizenship for freed Blacks in the United States, the black abolitionist mentioned the experiences of freed Blacks in Brazil who, he believed, enjoyed complete freedom when no longer in bondage, contrary to Blacks in his country. By intentionally appropriating elements of Kidder and Fletcher’s travel narrative, Douglass affirmed: Even the Catholic country of Brazil, a country which we in our pride stigmatize as semi-barbarous, does not treat the colored people, both free or slave, in the unjust, barbarous and scandalous manner in which we treat them. The consequence of this difference is seem in the better condition of the colored man there than here. The practice in that country is that, when the slave is emancipated he is at once invested with all the rights of a man.7

Brazilians were frequently recognized worldwide since the 19th century as a people of mixed race origins. Influenced by the news of racial miscegenation, it was a common belief that these interracial social relationships prevented Brazilians from nurturing biases based on skin

4 Thomas Ewbank, Life in Brazil. Or a Journal of a Visit to the Land of the Cocoa and Palm (New York: Harper and Brothers Publishers, 1856), Chapter XXIII. 5 John Codman, Ten Months in Brazil. With the Incidents of Voyages and Travels, Descriptions of Scenery and Character, Notices of Commerce and Productions, etc (Boston: Lee and Shepard, 1867), Chapter XIX. 6 D. P. Kidder and J. C. Fletcher, Brazil and the Brazilians: Portrayed in Historical and descriptive Sketches (Philadelphia: Childs and Peterson, 1857) 7 John W. Blassingame (ed.), The Frederick Douglass Papers. Series One. Speeches, Debates and Interviews. Volume 3: 1855-1863 (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1985), 208-212.

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colour.8 In January 1855, during an abolitionist conference in London, one of the participants asked if racial prejudice in Brazil was as intense as in the United States. A speaker answered that he didn’t believe that, because Brazilian masters have the same colour of the skin as their slaves.9 As Brazil was growing in recognition as a country where people of different "races" mingled without any social rebuff, in the United States African-American abolitionists were fully engaged in the fight to end slavery and ensure the rights and citizenship of freedmen who lived in the north. While the southern U.S. still required the complete legal subjugation of enslaved men and women, African-Americans living in the north, where slavery was abolished, also faced a hostile reality.10 Prior to the abolition of slavery in America, black men living in the North had very limited voting rights in only a few states. After the 13th Amendment was passed, most Whites in that region argued against the black vote, contending that freed Blacks were not prepared for this right. Rejecting the idea of a politically embedded black population, Southerners developed measures like the "Black Codes" which severely limited the citizenship of freedmen through an environment where violence was used to ensure racial disparity. Additionally, science and religion played important roles in mitigating the racial myths that served as the main argument for those who opposed racial equality.11 As a consequence, African-American abolitionists appropriated and published in their newspapers various experiences of Afro-Brazilians who, despite being freedmen, were considered citizens with the right to vote.12 In September 1840, the abolitionist newspaper, The Colored American, 8

An academic debate about the ideas of race relations in Brazil can be found in David Hellwig. African-American Reflections on Brazil’s Racial Paradise (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1992) 9 Frederick Doulgass’ Paper. January 12, 1855. 10 George M. Fredrickson. The Black Image in the White Mind. The debate on Afro-American character and destiny, 1817-1914 (New York: Harper & Row, 1971), 175-186. 11 James M. McPherson, The Struggle for Equality: abolitionists and the negro in the Civil War and Reconstruction, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1964), 221-237. About the social and legal conditions of black people in the South see Eric Foner. A Short History of Reconstruction, 1863-1877 (New York: Harper and Row Publishers, 1988) 12 About the African-American abolitionist press see Martin E. Dann. The Black Press, 1827-1890: The quest for national identity (New York: Capricorn Books, 1972); Benjamin Quarles, Black Abolitionists (New York: Oxford University Press. 1969); Frankie Hutton, The Early Black Press in America (1827 to 1860) (Westport-Connecticut/London: Greenwood Press, 1997)

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published an article expressing outrage against racial prejudice in America. In the article, "Prejudice Against Color," the author denounced the classification of people based on skin colour as inaccurate and unjust. The article also used a common the strategy of comparing racist America with other “non racist” countries. Indeed, in many countries, where multitudes of Africans and their descendants have been long held slaves, no prejudice against color has ever existed. This is the case in Turkey, Brazil, and Persia. In Brazil there are more than two millions of slaves. Yet, some of the highest offices of state are filled by black men. Some of the most distinguished officers in the Brazilian army are blacks and mulattoes. Colored lawyers and physicians are found in all parts of the country. Besides this, hundreds of the Roman Catholic clergy are black and colored men; these minister to congregations made up indiscriminately of blacks and whites.13

The author cited examples of other countries in order to emphasize the racial prejudice that limited the opportunities of freedmen in the United States. Brazil received special mention as a nation where the so-called "color prejudice", according to the author, "never existed." The knowledge of Brazilian reality, albeit superficial, already satisfied the socio-political interests of African-American abolitionists. The citizenship of Brazilian Blacks and mulattoes nourished their hopes for equal social policies. Meanwhile, in the northern States, freed Blacks would face a segregationist reality that made it impossible to fully exercise their citizenship.14 The African-American abolitionist William G. Allen also used Brazil as a model to emphasize the strength of the prevailing racial prejudice in American society. Allen announced that he was a "quadroon", a 19th century term indicating a person with one-quarter African ancestry. He defended his mixed origin stating several times that it disputed the ideas of racial purity advocated by the white elite. According to Allen, the most successful nations in the world were those where racial mixing was not only practiced socially, but also legally accepted. In the year 1853 he

13

The Colored American. September 5, 1840. Leon Litwack, “The abolitionist Dilema: The antislavery movement and the northern negro’, New England Quarterly, 34 (March 1961), 50-73. Leslie M. Harris. “From abolitionist Amalgamators to ‘Rulers of the Five Points’: The Discourse of Interracial Sex and Reform in Antebellun New York City,” in Martha Hodes (ed.), Sex, Love, and Race. Crossing Boundaries in North American History. New York, New York University Press, 1999, 191-212. 14

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propagated news about Brazil as an example of racial egalitarianism.15 During a conference in London, he stated the following: In England, we have not seen color prejudice, we have walked through parks, visited the cities, we have been in hotels and we have not yet encountered any of those feelings that exist in America (United States). This sentiment was generated entirely by American slavery and there was not even in Brazil, where some of the most distinguished government officials were of African blood. It was said that this color prejudice existed because the colored man was naturally inferior. But surely it was only necessary to turn the pages of history to refute this claim. No man of color in the United States could afford to write poetry or become an artist when all the mighty powers were combined to keep him on the floor.16

The idea that in Brazil it was possible that "distinguished government officials were of African blood," confirmed the country's image as a racial paradise. This certainly fueled the hopes of those black abolitionists who believed a society without racism was possible especially for freed Blacks endowed with intellectual ability. This idea touched Allen personally. In response to his own limited social mobility, he was forced to migrate to England after marrying a white woman, Mary Kings Allen. Although his wife came from a family of abolitionists, William and Mary Allen faced strong objection to their union, once demonstrated in an attempted lynching that nearly took the abolitionist’s life.17 The observations about Brazil made by William G. Allen and many other African American abolitionists raised questions about the condition of freedmen in Brazil. Attracted by the widely spread news on race relations in Brazil, specifically the rights that freed Blacks had, another African-American engaged in the struggle for citizenship and the end of slavery, Martin Delany, pointed to Brazil (as well as Puerto Rico and Cuba) as possible destinations for free Blacks who were willing to 15

Sarah Elbert, “An Inter-racial Love Story in fact and fiction: William and Mary Kings Allen’s marriage and Louisa May Alcott’s tale, ‘M.L.’” History Workshop Journal, No. 53 Spring, 2002, 17-42. 16 William G. Allen, London, December 1853 in The Black Abolitionists Papers. Vol 1. The British Isles, 1830-1865, Peter Ripley, (ed.) (University of South Carolina Press, Chapel Hill and London, 1985) 17 William G. Allen, The American Prejudice Against Color. An authentic narrative, showing how easily the nation got into an uproar. By William G. Allen, a refugee from American despotism (London: W. and F.G. Cash, 1853). About miscegenation in Antebellum America see Elise Lemire, Miscegenation: Making Race in America (Philadelphia: University of Philadelphia Press, 2002)

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migrate. Motivated by a strong sense of optimism, Delany tried to convince Blacks to emigrate to the Latin American country by affirming that captivity in Brazil was “almost a blessing” compared to the United States and that freed people did not encounter social or legal barriers based on race.18 These positive expectations of the country begged the following questions: Did captivity for these Blacks make them overlook the values and rules established by Brazilian slave-holding society? Were these Blacks in fact free of the stigma of slavery, with full access to social mobility? Brazilian historiography has produced important information about the ambiguity and fragility of the social and legal status of freed slaves in Brazil. While gains were real and certain Blacks even achieved some social mobility, they were constantly reminded of the limits of their “freedom”. In fact, freedmen born in Brazil were granted the benefits of citizenship guaranteed by the Constitution of the Empire but could not vote for all electoral offices, and consequently could not elect representatives and senators. Africans, even when freed, were not considered citizens. Freedmen, especially the poorest, lived with the constant threat of re-enslavement, and were required at all times to be ready to prove they were legally free. Not even the famous black Brazilian abolitionist Antonio Rebouças could avoid having his freedom challenged. In many episodes in his political career, Rebouças ran into racial prejudice. Even as a personal friend of the imperial family, he had to face the rejection of those who did not accept that people of African descent were part of privileged spaces, and of those who positioned themselves publicly as opposed to slavery. 19 Undoubtedly, it was better to be free than to be a slave, and the two conditions had profound differences that favored the possession of liberty. Yet the reality of freedmen in Brazilian society was far from that projected in an American society that seemed unaware of the methods of social control imposed on their Brazilian equivalents. However, the absence of legal barriers based on race and the apparent rights enjoyed by freed 18

Robert Levine (ed.), Martin Delany: A Documentary Reader (North Carolina: University of North Carolina Press, 2003), 245-279. 19 Sidney Chalhoub, “The Politics of Silence: Race and Citizenship in NineteenthCentury Brazil,” Slavery and Abolition͒Vol. 27, No. 1, April 2006, 73–87. Keila Grinberg, O Fiador dos Brasileiros: Cidadania, Escravidão e Direito Civil no Tempo de Antônio Pereira Rebouças (Rio de Janeiro: Civilização Brasileira, 2002) and Hebe Maria Mattos, Das Cores do Silêncio: Os Significados da Liberdade no Sudeste Escravista, Brasil século XIX. 2a ed., (Rio de Janeiro: Nova Fronteira, 1998.)

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Brazilians were not seen positively by all members of American society. The Reverend Ballard Dunn in his book Brazil, the home for Southerners rejected what he called free negroism among the Brazilians, when referring to the absence of racial barriers that placed freed Blacks and Whites in distinct social hierarchies.20 Still, even with partial knowledge of the reality in Brazil, black abolitionists in the States continued to cite Brazil as an important counternarrative to the prevailing racism in American society. In June 1849, the newspaper The North Star, whose editor was the most prominent black abolitionist, Frederick Douglass, published an article whose title was nothing more than "Blacks in Brazil".21 The newspaper emphasized the absence of racial prejudice in this Brazil, making a disgrace of American society, which claimed to be anchored in democratic values. The social status of the population is not marked by distinction of color, so operative in another country in the production class. In Brazil there is only distinction between freedom and servitude. The blacks have access to all, and are in possession of many offices of honor and trust, and engage in every department of business. The white race and the black meet on terms of equal equality in social intercourse, and intermarry without scruple, provided there exists no obstacle in the relative position in life of the respective parties. 22

This editorial presents a powerful example of the assumptions about free Blacks in the higher level of Brazilian government, stating that the Brazilian ambassador in England was a mulatto, as were most of the soldiers in the Brazilian army. Douglass accurately recognized the presence of mulattoes in prestigious positions within Brazilian society at the time, but this was far from being the social norm. In order to report on the racism of America, he strategically attempted to shame and isolate the US as a unique example of a racist society. This resulted in Douglass’ understating Brazil’s racial prejudice. In the same article, the abolitionist highlighted another important aspect of Brazilian society that was also seen very positively among radical abolitionists: the practice of racial mixing. Although American society strongly rejected interracial relationships and the socializing of Blacks and Whites, these relationships occurred often. The radical 20

Ballard S. Dunn, Brazil, the home for Southerners (New York: George B. Richardson, 1866), 18-19. 21 Frankie Hutton. The Early Black Press in America - 1827 to 1860. (WestportConnecticut/London: Greenwood Press, 1997), 166. 22 The North Star. July 13, 1849.

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abolitionists, often scorned as “amalgamators” by Southerners, responded to these accusations by pointing out the numbers of light-skinned slaves in the plantations, resulting from their intercourse with female slaves.23 The variety of shades present among freed and enslaved mulattoes in the South, composing a significant part of the population, revealed that the racial classification in the American slave society was a complex process. The imprecise nature of the defining lines between black, mulatto and white created legal questions in societies where even minor degrees of “whiteness” carried privileges. Conversely, in the case of individuals of ambiguous racial identity, African ancestry meant being closer to enslavement.24 Also, while marriage between races was restricted under the law in both North and South, Brazilian society seemed to naturally accept racial miscegenation. The issue of marriage was one of particular significance for many white men who frequently accused black abolitionists of coveting freedom as a way to finally marry white women. In response, Frederick Douglass once again cited Brazil as an example of a country where "the white and black races were equal in terms of social interaction and married each other without restrictions since there were no obstacles imposed on the lives of both parties”. 25 Again, the racial miscegenation widely practiced by Brazilian society was not seen positively by all American observers. Defenders of slavery as well as conservative groups who advocated abolition agreed in stating that amalgamation would be a terrible consequence of abolition, serving only to degrade American society. These ideas were also supported by the dubious work of racially motivated scientists. Josiah Clark Nott, a physician from Mobile, Alabama, supporter of slavery, and member of the American School of Ethnology, argued that Blacks and Whites were beings of different species. He promoted the idea that intercourse between the two produced a hybrid offspring with a shortened life-span. Still, for Nott, mulattoes were more intelligent than Blacks but less intelligent than the pure White, and racial mixing meant the extermination of both races.26 23

Ronald G. Walter, “The Erotic South: Civilization and Sexuality in the American Abolitionism,” American Quarterly, vol. 25, no. 2, May 1973. 177-201. 24 Ariela J. Gross, “Litigating Whiteness: Trials of Racial Determination in the Nineteenth Century South, Yale Journal, Vol. 108, No. 1 Oct., 1998, 109-188. 25 The North Star. July 13, 1849. About the rejection of “amalgamation” in North American society see Leslie M. Harris, “From abolitionist Amalgamators…’, Hodes (ed.), Sex, Love, and Race, 191-212. 26 William Stanton, The Leopard’s Spots. Scientific Attitudes Toward Race in America, 1815-59 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1960) 65-68.

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Later on, the scientist Louis Agassiz, for example, argued that miscegenation produced the degeneration of the white race and produced a result (the mestizo) that carried the worst characteristics of both species. To confirm his theory, Agassiz came to Brazil in 1863 to investigate pure breeds (African) and mixed (mestizo, Blacks and indigenous). Here, the scientist supported his thesis of racial degeneration produced by miscegenation by highlighting the social ills prevalent in societies where the races mingled. Agassiz used the example of Brazilian society to defend his theory emphasizing that after the abolition of slavery in the United States African-Americans should be deported from the country and sent to other countries, like Brazil.27 Agassiz’s view was reflected in American society among those who were opposed to racial mixing and who supported the deportation of freed Blacks, in order to prevent the same “evil” that had characterized Brazil from occurring in the States. We can consider the content of the article "Brazil as seen by Mr. Agassiz", published in the Saturday Evening Post, on April 4, 1868: “A mixture of races seems to be producing the worst effects”. According to Professor Agassiz, the amalgamation of the white, black and Indian races is producing a "mongrel nondescript type, deficient in physical and mental energy and without the good qualities of either progenitors”.28 While news about the wide practice of miscegenation and its acceptance in Brazil was used by those in defense of slavery and even by conservative abolitionists who defended the expatriation of AfricanAmericans after emancipation,29 black abolitionists interpreted this information in a completely distinct way. For them, a mixed Brazilian society was evidence of the exceptionally strong racial prejudice nurtured by North Americans. For many African-Americans, Brazil was proof that Blacks and Whites would rather live in a condition of equality without social or legal condemnation. In order to defend the right to remain in the United States and reject ideas of massive black deportation, Frederick Douglass wrote an article in his newspaper, Douglass Monthly, October 1862 edition: Why should Americans be less tolerant of national differences in forms, 27

Maria Helena P. T. Machado and Sasha Huber, Races and Traces of Louis Agassiz: Photography, Body and Science Yesterday and Today (São Paulo: Capacete, 2010) 28 Saturday Evening Post. April 4th, 1868. 29 Eric Burin, Slavery and the Peculiar Solution: A History of the American Colonization Society (Gainesville, Florida: University Press of Florida, 2005)

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features and complexion, than other nations of the white race, which in many other respects are far less enlightened than we? — Why is it that we hear of no schemes for getting rid of the free colored people of Cuba, or of the free colored people of Brazil? In the latter country where there are more than four million Negro slaves, the free colored man is not subjected to expatriation. The moment the chains are taken from his limbs, he is at full liberty to rise to any position for which his talents and acquirements fit him. — Why should not the same be the ease here? The white Brazilian is as white as the white American, and the black man in Brazil is as black as the black man here. What makes the difference? Is Protestantism less tolerant of national differences than Catholicism? Are Republics less liberal than monarchies?30

Douglass’ reflections reveal his concerns about the future of the African-American population after the Civil War. He believed it was unjust to abolish slavery without ending all racial prejudice. The violence that followed the abolition of slavery in the States and the subsequent segregationist policies guaranteed that Blacks would have to wait for another century before finally being recognized as citizens endowed with inalienable civil rights. Representing a version of egalitarianism, it is clear why Brazil continued to be a model society for Blacks before and after emancipation. Since the nineteenth century, it has been used to embarrass America into questioning if it were indeed more democratic than its Southern neighbors. Furthermore, the example of Brazil was also an effective way to emphasize and expose the insidious and systematic racism prevailing in the United States.31 Brazil and the southern states both had biracial individuals, referred to as mulattoes. During the Antebellum years the numbers of the mixed population increased. According to Abraham Lincoln, in 1850 there were 56,649 mulattoes in free states compared to 348,874 in the slave states; while in 1860 there were 70,000 in the freed states and 500,000 in the slave states. These numbers are evidence that interracial relations occurred to a great extent in the United States, mostly in the South, and the question of amalgamation practiced in Brazil was not by itself the most surprising

30

Douglass Monthly, October 1862. About the ideologies regarding race in American society see Barbara J. Fields, “Ideology and Race in American History,” in J. Morgan Kousser and James M. McPherson. Region, Race and Reconstruction (New York, Oxford University Press, 1982 143-177)

31

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fact to American observers.32 But in both countries, white ancestry alone did not guarantee the fulfillment of the citizenship. News returned by travelers to South America of a Constitution which conferred citizenship on freed Blacks, coupled with a superficial knowledge or complete ignorance of the dynamics and existing racial codes in Brazilian society, initiated an exaggerated description of Brazil as a country where Blacks and Whites lived equally. In addition to serving as a political strategy, using the example of a perfect Brazilian society also reveals the implicit expectations, dreams and hopes of Blacks about the future of race relations in the United States. These expectations encouraged the romanticism of Brazilian society. Meanwhile, on the other side of the Atlantic, Afro-Brazilians were also fighting against a slave system that would exist until 1888. They also fought for and built their dreams of equality through social integration, mobilizing themselves for better living conditions and citizenship. In many ways, the recent post-slavery American society was also serving as a model of a free society to which African-Brazilians aspired.33

32

Lawrence R. Tenzer, The Forgotten Cause of Civil War. A New Look at the Slavery Issue. (New Jersey: Scholar’s Publishing House, 1997), 5-7. 33 A debate about transnational studies and perspectives on Brazilian and US society can be found in Micol Siegel, “Beyond Compare: Comparative Method after the Transnational Turn,” Radical History Review, issue 91 Winter, 2005 6290.

CHAPTER NINE AFRO-BRAZILIAN DIASPORA IN WEST AFRICA: THE TABOM IN GHANA MARCO AURELIO SCHAUMLOEFFEL

The displacement of African peoples due to enslavement generated the African diaspora mainly, but not exclusively, in the Americas and especially in Brazil where the vast majority of enslaved Africans were taken during the horrendous transatlantic slave trade. A type of diaspora that is not so well known and that accounts for a quite different history is the presence of an Afro-Brazilian diaspora in West Africa, formed by free Afro-Brazilians who decided spontaneously to return to Africa, and by Africans and Afro-Brazilians who organized revolts against their masters and, as a consequence, had no choice since they were expelled by Brazilian authorities to West Africa. In light of the studies done by Pierre Verger, Alberto Costa e Silva, J. Michael Turner, Roger Bastide, Antônio Joaquim de Macedo Soares, Zora Seljan, Marianno and Manuela Carneiro da Cunha, A. B. Laotan, J. F. de Almeida Prado, Antônio Olinto, Alcione Amos, Kristin Mann, and Robin Law, among others, we in Brazil know about various communities of Afro-Brazilian descendants in West Africa, most of them spread across Benin, Nigeria and Togo, where they are called agudás or amarôs. Some studies estimate that in the nineteenth century approximately 10,000 former slaves returned to Africa from Brazil. Some returned voluntarily and some were deported. Throughout these countries we can find neighbourhoods, schools and museums with the name “Brazil”. In Lagos, there is a “Brazilian Quarter” and a “Brazilian Social Club”, in Benin we can find a school called “École Brésil”. In those countries family names like Souza, Silva, Olympio or Cardoso are common. Some of those Afro-Brazilians and their descendants are prominent citizens. For instance, Sylvanus Epiphanio Kwami Olympio became the first President of Togo in 1960. He was

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killed in 1963 during a military coup. The first Chachá of Benin (chief and controller of trade and relations with foreigners) was the Afro-Brazilian Francisco Felix de Souza, who became very rich due to his involvement in the slave traffic. He had 53 wives, 80 children and about 12,000 slaves. When he died, he left his heirs an empire of an estimated 120 million dollars, an unbelievable fortune in those days. The royal line of the Chachás still exists in Togo. The first Brazilian Ambassador to Ghana (1961) was an Afro-Brazilian called Raymundo de Souza Dantas. He writes in his book Africa Difícil, that he received a letter from a Togolese called Benedito de Souza, who claimed to be his cousin. Unlike the other countries mentioned above, the only representative group of Afro-Brazilian returnees in Ghana is the community of the Tabom, sometimes also called Tabon people. Only a few lines have been dedicated to them up to now, so that their history has remained almost unknown to scholars. Portuguese-speaking people are surprised when they hear the term Tabom for the first time. Unlike agudá or amarô, the word Tabom is a direct link with the origins of the community, even though they no longer speak Portuguese. According to the oral tradition, the Tabom arrived in Ghana speaking Portuguese. They used expressions such as “Como está?” (How are you?) and the informal reply “Tá bom” (I’m fine) to greet each other and also to salute the Ga people, who received them amicably. Apart from that, the expression “tá bom” certainly was also used by the returnees as a confirmation (in the sense that “it’s okay”) and as a question, as customary in Portuguese. On hearing the expression “tá bom” so often and initially not being able to communicate with the new arrivals, and ignorant of its meaning, the Ga started calling the group of returnees the “Tabom”. This appellation in a one sense reflects acceptance and at the same time a way of distinguishing them as a group, determining their past and origins, even though the group completely integrated with the residents of James Town in “Old Accra”. The publication of UNESCO Oral tradition relating to slavery and the slave trade in Nigeria, Ghana and Benin, dated 2004, also referred to “esta bon” (sic) as a possible origin of the name of this community, and speculates about the possibility that “Tabon” (English spelling commonly used in writing “Tabom”) came from the word “taboo” (p. 31), due to the fact that the Ga could not understand Portuguese spoken by their guests and referred to this strange language as being a kind of “taboo”. For this explanation to be corroborated it would have to undergo a cognitive process of abstraction of the presence of the Tabom, seeing it as something to be avoided, which is known not to be the case with the Ga. Apart from

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that, it would also demand an exercise in morphological and phonetic transformation difficult to explain through linguistics. Where would the nasal sound of “tabom” come from since the sound does not exist in “taboo”? Another plausible explanation for the name of the community is given by Professor Fiscian, himself a Tabom, in a letter addressed to the Brazilian Embassy in Ghana on 20 May 1994. He explains that the Tabom became traders soon after their arrival in Ghana.1 In order to sell their wares in the markets they had to make an effort in front of the customers to show that the merchandise offered for sale were good (ta bon, according to him). Thereby the community as a whole would have received this name. This explanation, however, has not been confirmed in any other statement by members of the group to the author of this article, not even by the traditional Nelson family, nor can it be found in the written records available. The same Professor Fiscian affirmed in interviews in 2003 and 2005 that the word originated from the greeting “está bom”. In that case, the explanation widely accepted in the oral tradition of the Tabom is that it derived from the typical Portuguese greetings, commonly used in popular language (“Cê tá bom?”, “Como vai, tá bom?”) and as an affirmative expression with the same meaning as “it is okay”. Some of the Tabom did not come to Ghana directly from Brazil, but came via Nigeria, where they stayed for a short period. The first group to arrive in the Gulf of Guinea from Brazil sailed in the cargo ship S.S. Salisbury, supplied by the British Government. Although there are historical proofs to the contrary, oral tradition has it that they arrived in Ghana as one group around 8 August 1836 from Nigeria. Although this version is consistent and emphatic, the exact date of arrival of this supposedly first single group of Tabom in Ghana is not certain. In the brochure “Brazil House Rehabilitation”, based on research and information obtained from the community, both the years 1829 and 1836 are mentioned as dates of arrival of the members of the Nelson family. Amos and Ayesu throw some light on the question. They say that there were three different groups of Afro-Brazilians who returned to Ghana. The first group would have arrived in 1829, under the leadership of Kangidi Asuman, who later changed his name to Azumah Nelson; and the other two groups would have landed in Accra in 1836, one with about 200 1 This affirmation seems very generalized. It is know from written records, based on statements before the court of the former Gold Coast, by Tabom members born in the nineteenth century, that they practised many other professions soon after arrival. The main one seemed to have been that of farming, as explained throughout this work.

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people coming directly from Bahia and another one coming from Brazil via Lagos, Nigeria under the leadership of Mahama Sokoto. Besides these, the families Costa and Ribeiro arrived independently at a later stage2. The same occurred with the Morton family who are said to have “arrived one or two years later than the great group of families that had already settled” (Quarcoopome, 1970: 5). Contrary to oral tradition and also not very clear, there are records that Nii Azumah II, the Brazilian Chief in Otublohum, Accra also confirmed that his ancestors arrived in 1829 in Accra, after the Bame [?] war and on disembarking in 1836, met Mantse Ankrah as chief of the Otublohum, who gave them shelter in his own suburb in Otublohum—Accra3.

With regard to the group that passed through Nigeria, there is no precise information about the motive for not staying there. According to suppositions by the members of the Tabom, the immigrants had vague memories of being told by their elders that their families originated from the Gold Coast. This reference may mean that their ancestors left from one of the castles or forts of Ghana, built by the slave traders—which does not mean that the slaves were necessarily from that region. Studies show that the slaves were captured in various regions of West Africa, also from deep in the interior of the continent and brought to the coast to be sold. In Accra the Tabom were well received and sheltered by the Ga, through the Mantse (Chief or King) Nii Ankrah of the Otublohum division who considered them his personal guests. This warm reception encouraged them to stay. Statements by members of the Tabom before the West African Court of Appeal, Gold Coast Session, (in the National Archives of Ghana), confirm the oral tradition of more than half a century that on arrival the

2 As per Amos and Ayesu (2002: 39-40). We could not confirm the exact date (or dates) of the arrival of the Tabom. The fact that more than 200 Afro-Brazilians came to Ghana, contrary to oral tradition - 70 people of seven different families seems to make more sense, as today there are nearly 30 surnames, claiming to be of Tabom origin. The records presented by Amos and Ayesu (a Dutch “Journaal” and a letter of that time) are conflicting. While the letter refers to 20 freed returnees, the “journaal” cites 200. 3 The law suit M. D. A. Ankrah against Nii Aponsah II, dated 24 March 1941. This apparently illogical statement, recorded in the Tribunal of the Gold Coast, “arrived in 1829 … disembarked in 1836.” can be understood to mean that more than one group arrived. Oral tradition, with the passing of time, tends to “reduce” information, making it imprecise.

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group of Tabom was made up of 70 to 75 Brazilians.4 According to the Nelson family, leader of the community, this group was made up of seven different families, who bought their own freedom in Bahia and spontaneously decided to return to the Ghana of their ancestors. A future in Brazil did not appear promising due to the exploitation to which they had been subjected.

Fig. 9-1: One of the first photographic records of the Tabom. Nii Alasah (the Brazilian João Antônio Nelson, later Nii Azumah II), on the extreme left with the Paramount Chief of the Ga Nation, Ga Mantse Nii Tackie Tawiah, and other Chiefs of clans (Picture courtesy of the Tabom People, provided by Nii Azumah V)

Araújo made the following observations about the situation of the Afro-Brazilians in Salvador at that time: The slaves and liberated Africans were foreigners and prisoners of a hostile society and looked upon by the population of that country as the most fierce of barbarians, as the slaves amongst slaves, they were considered at the lowest level of urban society and submitted to the most exhausting and humiliating labour. (…) For them, the city was their prison and to escape slavery it was imperative to leave the city or conquer it to make it into an African city (undated: 4). 4

According to the statement given by Henry Azumah Kwaku Nelson, on 16 November 1945.

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These seven liberated families who returned to Ghana and almost always mentioned in conversation with the Tabom were the following5: Azumah Nelson (the leader), Mahama Nassu6, Vialla7, Manuel, Zuzer8, Gomez and Peregrino. Though this is the oral tradition, there is insufficient evidence whether all the members of Tabom really bought their freedom and decided to return to Africa or if some, or all, were freed workers deported after the Revolt of the Malês9 in 1835, organized by slaves and freed ex-slaves. It is known that after that Revolt a great number of Afro-Brazilians were deported to Africa, especially those of Islamic origin who organized the revolt. Since a large group of Tabom coincidentally arrived in Accra in 1836, coming from Bahia, and the majority practiced Islam, the hypothesis of their deportation, at least of part of the group, is feasible10. These facts also raise the possibility that Tabom groups that practiced Islam, or some of them, were of Hausa origin11.

5

Also cited by Professor Fiscian in the letter dated 20 May 1994, referred to earlier, and by various Tabom, even by those bearing different surnames to the ones mentioned below. 6 There are some records where the name appears as “Nassau.” we use only Nassu as it is more frequently mentioned, even though its origin may have been “Nassau.” Mr. Lutterodt, descendant of the Nassu, thinks that there was an “adaptation” to the name in Ghana, referring to various other names that were modified through phonetic influence of local languages. The same phenomenon happens in Brazil, where a descendant of Germans with the surname “Müller.” for instance, becomes “Mueller”, “Muller” or even “Miller.” 7 Sometimes appearing as “Viala” or “Viara”, probably a corruption of “Vieira.” 8 The sound of this name gives the impression that it derives from “Souza”, which underwent phonetic and written modifications with the interference of the languages spoken in Ghana. 9 Pierre Verger (1987) stated that this revolt was organized by emancipated Africans and slaves, who originated mainly from West Africa: “Of the 286 accused there were 194 Nagos, 24 Hausas, 6 Tapas, 7 Minas, 9 Ewes (...) only 7 of them originated from other regions in Africa situated south of the Equator and 3 were mulattos.” (Page 343). 10 According to Ahmed-Rufai (2002: 104), there was at least one deportee amongst the Tabom, namely Mammon Peregrino. 11 For further information of the Hausa ethnic group, see Costa e Silva (1996:431448). Amos and Ayesu (2002: 38) also speculate on this possibility. Later, on analyzing the “Brazilian” heritage of the Tabom, we would come back to this subject.

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With the passing of time, these seven families who came from Brazil multiplied and allegedly formed new families12. According to them, all persons who today bear the surnames of Vialla, Gomez, Maslieno13, Massino, Johsah, Nelson, Adama, Abu, Manuel, Zuzer, Sokoto, Azumah14, Peregrino, ad Ricga, Tintingi, Codjoe, Costa, Matta, Kofi, Bossman15, Martin, Domingo, Lawrence, Ribeiro, Pedro, Morton, Aruna, Marcolino, Nassu, Aliptara and Fiscian are undoubtedly of Tabom origin. The Fiscian family was derived from the Aruna family (Quarcoopome, 1970: 4). At present the majority of Tabom believe that there was only one leader of the group at the time of their arrival in Ghana, Nii Azumah Nelson. Some people say that there were two or even three leaders when the Tabom arrived, the second being Mahama Sokoto16 and the third Mahama Nassu. The latter is alleged to have been the Flag bearer of the group and not its leader, according to one of his descendants, W. L. Lutterodt, the person presently responsible for matters concerning Brazil House. Mahama Sokoto would have been the spiritual leader and the negotiator with the Ga Chiefs for arable land of the Otublohum division (Amos & Ayesu, 2002: 43)17. The existence of three Tabom leaders seems plausible, given the fact that three different groups of Afro-Brazilians arrived in Ghana. In spite of that, historically the Nelsons’ stand out in the leadership of the community, which was only consolidated after the Tabom came to live in Ghana and were identified as a community of AfroBrazilian returnees.

12

Here, once more, it is possible to observe the contradiction between the oral tradition of the Tabom and the records. Certainly the group was composed of more than seven families. Their explanation that, with the growing number of members they adopted other “Brazilian” names, thus increasing the number of surnames, seems possible but not probable. 13 Probably a corruption of the name “Marcelino” or “Marciliano”, in some instances it also appears as “Marselieno” or “Maslino.” 14 This name also appears as “Asuman”, “Asuma”, “Azuma” and “Asumah” 15 Although this surname is not “originally” a Tabom surname, it has become part of the community due to inter-marriage. The Bossman family is also qualified to provide the community with a Queen Mother. 16 Mahama Sokoto does not appear in the list of the seven families, always referred to as “original”, which meets the explanations given by Amos and Ayesu (2002:30-40), of the existence of three different groups of immigrants. The name “Mahama” is sometimes also recorded as “Mama” or “Mamah.” Both are probably a corruption of “Mohammed.” 17 In Dantas (1965:46) the Reverend G.K. Nelson also confirmed that Sokoto was the leader of the community.

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From the effective settlement of the Tabom in Ghana, as a community of returnees coming from Brazil, until the present day there have been six chiefs, five of them holding the honorary title of Nii Azumah, obviously as homage by the successors to the revered Brazilian immigrant Azumah Nelson, who was Nii Azumah I. He preceded them as headman, fulfilling the function of Chief of the Tabom from their arrival on the African Continent until about 1865. The six chiefs have been: 1. Nii Azumah I – from 1836 to approximately 1865 2. Nii Azumah II – from approximately 1865 to approx. 1900 3. Nii Aruna I – from about 1900 to 1926 4. Nii Azumah III – from 1936 to 1961 5. Nii Azumah IV – from 1961 to 1981 6. Nii Azumah V – since 1998 From 1981 to 1998 there was a long transitional period in which an interim chief took over the role as Tabom Mantse. The dates between the time of the death of Nii Azumah I and the installation of Nii Aruna I are not precise since there are no written records and are based on an estimate of the Tabom elders. The Tabom landed with a reasonable quantity of possessions and many skills learned in Brazil, skills that were needed by the Ga. They knew irrigation techniques; how to find the best location for digging wells; they were shoemakers; they were also skilled in carpentry, architecture, metal working—especially precious metals, and tailoring, and were also experienced farmers. The Tabom boast these skills even today. In 1961, Reverend C.K. Nelson wrote that some houses that the Brazilians built in Accra are still standing, are in perfect or very good shape, and some of them till recently served as residences (palaces) to some clan Chiefs of Accra. They were (the Tabom) in truth our first great architects of the past and were also excellent tailors. Even to this day in Accra they are traditionally respected as cutters and their wives excellent sewers (Dantas, 1965: 46).

Noting that they were ambitious and enterprising, the Mantse Nii Kwaku Ankrah had no objections to their settling in his territory. However the Dutch commander of the area, Christian Ernst Lars, had doubts, being initially against the presence of the Brazilians but accepting them at a later

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stage.18 Nii Ankrah saw in them a great opportunity to improve the quality of life of his people. The Tabom in that era were an interesting addition to the Ga clan, who were basically fishermen. But the warm reception given by Nii Ankrah to the Afro-Brazilians was probably not only related to their skills and their enterprising nature. Amos and Ayesu state that “the cordial relations that developed between the Afro-Brazilians in Dutch Accra apparently were due to a combination of factors” (Amos & Ayesu, 2002: 41). The authors speculate on the possibility that Ankrah had personal interests as he had a son called Antonio and a nephew called Pedro, an indication that Ankrahs married Tabom women, or at least had children by them. In the position of Otublohum Chief, Nii Ankrah was the broker for the Dutch and the biggest slave trader in the area. To fulfil this nefarious function, he apparently also recruited Afro-Brazilians as slave traders. In a report of 1845, the Danish governor of the Christianborg Castle, Edward Carstensens, writes that “Dutch Accra has for some time been the centre for slave traders, especially emigrant Brazilian Negroes” (Amos and Ayesu, 2002: 41), relating also that Brazilian traders were arrested in the interior of the country in possession of slaves. Furthermore, Amos and Ayesu say that “almost twenty years later, in 1864, it was still reported that the Afro-Brazilians were controlling ‘a flourishing trade in slaves’ who were sold as farm workers” (Amos & Ayesu, 2002: 42). The Tabom themselves had household slaves and slaves for agricultural work, a common occurrence of the times.19 It is improbable that the objections of the Dutch Commander, Christian Enrst Lars, to the settling of a second group of Afro-Brazilians in 1836 were linked to the involvement of the Tabom with the traffic, as he probably also had an interest in the traffic. The more likely reason for his objections might have been that he had information that the group arriving in Accra had been expelled from Brazil for plotting a revolt. The most important indication that the Tabom were welcome in the Otublohum division was the donation to them, by the Ga people, of extensive tracts of land a few years after their arrival. The Tabom landed on a beach close to Ussher fort, in Old Accra, part of District Ashiedu Keteke, in the Otublohum division. They were able to establish themselves 18

As per Amos and Ayesu (2002: 40). The Dutch commander Christian Ernst Lars wrote this information in a letter to Ankrah, dated 16 August 1836, and in his official log. 19 As per appendix 2 in Amos and Ayesu (2002: 58). This appendix is a table with 18 names of slaves belonging to Mahama Nassu (6), Malam Aruna (11) and José Viera (1).

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very close to that area. Historian Samuel Quarcoopome (1970: 7) described the relatively small area occupied originally by the Tabom thus: If one stands in front of the Ussher Fort Prisons and examines the area where the Brazilian Community stayed then the southern part is bounded by the High Street, the northern part by Salaga Street, the eastern part by Onamroko Street and the western part by Tackie Tawiah Street.

He continues: A few years’ stay in what might be termed this ‘concentrated area’ created problems of its own. Members of the Aruna family and Mahama Nassau family were by and large farmers. Being restricted in this area did not seem to have served their best interests. There was the population explosion problem and its attendant evils. The Accra chiefs and the Ga Mantse were greatly disturbed by the plight of the Brazilians and they resolved to ameliorate their conditions (Quarcoopome, 1970: 7).

This happened through the donation of land which probably followed the rituals prescribed by the Ga traditional belief that ‘the ultimate owners of their lands are the gods’. Even though the gods owned the land, rights for its use could be given to strangers, such as the Tabom (Amos & Ayesu, 2002: 44).

It would have been under this tradition that the spiritual leader, Mahama Sokoto, approached the Ga elders for the performance of the necessary ritual, which … [involved] provision of drinks for the pouring of libation to the gods and the ancestors, the payment of a token fee … and the slaughter of a sheep,20

receiving in this manner the land to which they aspired. The land was located in what are today very well known neighbourhoods in Accra: Tudu21, Adabraka, the entire area of Asylum Down up to Ring 20

Quarcoopome, Samuel S. “The impact of urbanization on the socio-political history of the Ga Mashie people of Accra: 1877 – 1957.” In :Amos and Ayesu (2002: 44). 21 It is curious that one of the great commercial areas of Accra is still called Tudu today. It was established as a commercial estate by a few Portuguese traders in the beginning of the twentieth century. In competition with the central market of Accra (known as the Makola Market), they claimed that only in their shops, all located in the same area, it was possible to find “tudu” (from the Portuguese word “tudo”,

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Road Central; the area adjoining the central train station; and the area surrounding Accra Breweries. This occurred after Chief Nii Mantse Ankrah, of the Dadeban Section of Otublohum, had introduced and recommended the Tabom to the Chief responsible for the whole Ga area, the paramount chief, the Ga Mantse Nii Tackie Tawiah, who was very generous in the land donations. On that land, the Tabom immediately began plantations of cassava, beans, pineapple, bananas, maize, cashew, pepper, flowers, mangoes, medicinal herbs, Bahian coconut, and millet amongst others. They built an irrigation system. Henry Azumah Kwaku Nelson, born on 11 November 1883, who became a tailor, was the son of George Aruna Nelson, Nii Azumah II, second Chief of the Tabom community. In a statement to the court to resolve a question of land dispute on 16 November 1945, he revealed that his father ploughed the land and planted cassava and cashew between the Ankwandor and Fanofa valleys. The wife of George Aruna Nelson, Helen Ashong Nelson, also remembered in a statement that during the rainy season he used to plant maize. Henry Azumah Kwaku Nelson also cited that the Fiscian family, also of Brazilian origin, planted sisal in the portion of land designated to them. Furthermore he also states that the place in question was reserved for agriculture, and was not inhabited until 1890. The land received from the Ga was not the private property of any Brazilian, but was communal land, administered by the Tabom Chief. It could be used by all even though each family was allocated a specific area for cultivation. If someone wanted to build on the land or even sell the portion allocated to him, it was necessary to obtain the Chief’s consent. During the 1890s almost all the Brazilian descendants lived in Ankwandor; the Ga name for the area. The Tabom called the same area Amusudai. Today this area is part of the Adabraka estate, which has a street called Amusudai. The childhood reminiscences of the present Tabom Chief, Nii Azumah V, include excursions to the area that they called the Mango Line at the time, a reference to the mango trees there. This area is located between the Holy Spirit Cathedral and Asylum Down. Some of those trees are still there, even in urbanized Accra, and are silent witnesses to the Tabom presence in the city. In the present Estate of North Ridge, one of the areas of the Mango Line, there is a Tabon Street, homage of Ghana to the community and the plantations they had in the area. meaning “everything“), including rare imported goods. Today, Tudu, after having been dominated by Syrians and Lebanese for a few years, is in the hands of Ghanaian and Chinese traders. Apart from the name, there is no other reminder of the Portuguese presence.

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In many conversations with members of the Tabom clan, they often said that they were well regarded by the Ga as they helped significantly to improve the general sanitary conditions. The reference to it was always very brief, as no one could explain in detail how exactly this contribution was made. However, a judgment on 15 February 1938 in a land dispute between two Tabom, Messrs J. E. Maslieno and J. A. Nelson, with the verdict given by Chief Kojo Ababio IV, Mantse of Ngleshi, assisted by the notary B. Francisco Ribeiro, another Tabom, sheds light on the subject.22 In the verdict there is a reference to a member of the Sokoto family who had requested, soon after arriving from Brazil, that Mantse Ankrah, Chief of Otublohum, ask the Ga for a portion of land to enable the Brazilians to dig wells for fresh water, as many people were dying of dysentery as a result of the brackish water they were obliged to drink. The request was granted and the Brazilians started to dig wells and find water. As a result the place became known by the Tabom as Mungatabu, a name which can be interpreted to mean “we found water”. Today, Mungatabu is known as Anetebu or Angetebu. In a visit to Carola Nelson, eldest daughter of Edward Pedu Nelson, the fourth Chief of the Tabom, Nii Azumah III, she confirmed the story. Carola Nelson currently lives in a street called Angetebu Street, in a compound besides the house where E. P. Nelson, Nii Azumah IV lived. This street passes through the estates of Adabraka and Asylum Down and is located close to Jones Nelson Road and Amusudai Street, all proof of the strong presence of the Tabom in the area. Another skill of the Tabom was house building. An elder of Brazil House states that she heard mention, by her grandparents, that the first houses of strong structure built of stones, usually two-storey houses—in some cases even multi-storeyed—and with arches at the entrances (unlike any other houses in Old Accra) were the work of the Brazilians. Furthermore, tailoring and dressmaking skills brought from Brazil by the Tabom were also much appreciated by the Ga. Even today the Tabom tailors are very well known. The tailor Dan Morton is the present synthesis of the history of tailoring amongst the Tabom. Famous at home and abroad, he was apprenticed to master George Aruna Nelson, master-tailor of the Ghanaian army, recruited by President Nkrumah soon after the independence of Ghana. The Nelsons have a great tailoring tradition, evident from the history of the First Scissors House—the first tailor shop in the country. It supplied the Ghanaian Army with uniforms in 1854, during the time of Chief Nii Aruna I. 22

This judgement is a part of the attachments to an appeal made in 1945 (see bibliography). The document is a certified copy, made on 15 February 1938 by the Registrar B. Francisco Ribeiro.

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In addition to all these contributions, the Tabom also influenced the religious life of the community, helping with the establishment of the Islamic religion on the coast of Ghana and the preservation of some African religions which they had modified in Brazil, like Shangô. Today the Tabom have completely integrated into Ghanaian society, and are a part of the Otublohum Section of the Ga people.

Brazil House The History of Brazil House is closely related to the history of the Tabom people. Along with the First Scissors House, it is the biggest structure commemorating the history of the Tabom people in Ghana. This is evident from its privileged location, in Brazil Lane of Old Accra, facing the sea, right in front of the old port, and, for years, the gate to the rest of the world. A chat with Mr. W. L. Lutterodt, a Tabom Senior and the accredited head of the Mamah Nassu family, with authority to represent the family in all matters pertaining to Brazil House, reveals a lot of its history. When Mamah Nassu arrived with six other families in 1836 from Brazil, he was the flag bearer of the clan. He bought land in Brazil Lane and built a house there for his family. He was married to Naa Supiana and had a daughter called Naa Chercher, who later married a royal from the Nii Oto Din family of Otublohum. This marriage is a clear sign that the Tabom people were welcomed and accepted in the Ga State. Naa Chercher had four children: Okanta Acquah, Kofi Acquah, Florence Acquah and Mary Acquah. Her son, Kofi Acquah, became a professional cook, went to Warri in Nigeria and worked there for some years. On his return to the Gold Coast, he demolished the old family home built by Nii Mama Nassu and replaced it by the existing two storey house as a family home for himself and his sisters. For many years the late Kofi Acquah leased the house to various European businessmen. One of these companies built a warehouse on the land. From 1942, however, the house was no longer rented out and the family went to live there. The warehouse was converted into dwellings and let out to outsiders. A few direct descendants of Kofi Acquah still live in the house. Brazil House fell into a state of disrepair and the Brazilian Government, together with UNESCO and the Tabom people, decided to restore it. The Government of Ghana also supported the project in the “Old Accra Integrated Urban Development and Conservation Framework”.

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During a visit to Ghana and the Tabom in April 2005, Lula da Silva, the then President of the Federative Republic of Brazil, announced the donation of a considerable sum of money to the Tabom foundation for the restoration of Brazil House. It was a great step by Brazil in supporting the Tabom people in their efforts to have a cultural centre that preserves their history. The private sector, Coral Paints (M&K Ghana) and the Brazilian construction company, Camargo Corrêa, also donated money to the foundation. The rehabilitation project became a reality in November 2007, when Brazil House was inaugurated.

Fig. 9-2: Historical moment for the Tabom: Nii Azumah V, accompanied by his delegation, welcomes President Lula at the Accra Airport on the 12.4.2005. At the left of President Lula stands the President of Ghana, J. Kufuor (Picture courtesy of Ricardo Stuckert.)

Since then, Brazil House has served as a cultural space where Brazil and the Brazilian community in Ghana are able to interact with the Tabom people and the general public. It also serves as the Official Hall of the Tabom Mantse. Most of the people living on the premises remained on the site and saw their dwellings refurbished in the context of the project. The Tabom Mantse’s Official Hall highlights the Brazilian roots of the Tabom people. Eventually, the Tabom want to establish a documentation centre, and Brazil House already serves as an exhibition space where the

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Tabom have a chance to learn more about their history and their links to Brazil. The fascinating History of the Tabom portrays an aspect of the African diaspora that is unique. These Afro-Brazilian returnees to Ghana, already in their sixth and even seventh generation in Ghana, still identify themselves proudly as “Brazilians”. Within the Ga people, they are also seen as a distinctive group. Some of their cultural traditions influenced Ghanaian society and the Tabom were also influenced by Ghanaian society. Nevertheless they remained culturally unique and can be considered a people that literally and completely are part of what Pierre Fatumbi Verger called the flux und reflux of human beings between Africa and Brazil.

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Simmons, Peter. “‘Red Legs’: Class and Color Contradictions in Barbados.” Studies in Comparative International Development 11(1), 1976, pp. 3–24. Simpson, Alaba (ed.). Oral Tradition Relating to Slavery and Slave Trade in Nigeria, Ghana and Benin. UNESCO: Paris, 2004. Skidmore, Thomas. Black into White: Race and Nationality in Brazilian Thought. Durham: Duke University Press, 1974. Smart, Ian. “Nancy Morejón as Guillen’s Mujer Nueva.” Afro-Hispanic Review 15(1), 1996, pp. 50-55. Soares, Carlos E. L. Zungu: rumor de muitas Vozes. Rio de Janeiro: APERJ, 1998. —. A capoeira escrava e outras tradições de rebeldia no Rio de Janeiro, 1808-1850. Campinas: EDUNICAMP, 2001. —. “Comércio, nação e gênero: as negras Minas quitandeiras no Rio de Janeiro 1835-1900.” Revista do Mestrado em História, Vassouras vol. 4(1), 2001/2002, pp. 55-78. Soares, Luiz Carlos. “Os escravos de ganho no Rio de Janeiro do século XIX.” Revista Brasileira de Historia. São Paulo, v.8(16), mar.88/ago.88. Soares, Mariza de Carvalho (ed.) Rotas atlânticas da diáspora africana: entre a baía do Benim e o Rio de Janeiro. Niterói: EdUFF, 2007. Mauricio Solaún and Sidney Kronus. Discrimination without Violence: Miscegenation and Racial Conflict in Latin America. New York: Wiley, 1973. Sommer, Doris. Proceed with Caution, when Engaged by Minority Writing in the Americas. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999. Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty. “Can the Subaltern Speak?” In Cary Nelson and Lawrence Grossberg (eds.), Marxism and the Interpretation of Culture. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1988, pp. 271-313. —. “A Literary Representation of The Subaltern: A Woman’s Text from the Third World.” In Other Worlds: Essays in Cultural Politics. New York: Routledge, 1987, pp. 241-309. Stanton, William. The Leopard’s Spots. Scientific Attitudes toward Race in America, 1815-59. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1960. Sweeny, Robert. “Outras canções de Liberdade; Uma crítica de ´Todas as Montanhas Atlânticas Estremeceram.” Revista Brasileira de História vol.8(16), 1988, pp. 205-231. Tenzer, Lawrence. The Forgotten Cause of Civil War. A New Look at the Slavery Issue. New Jersey: Scholar’s Publishing House, 1997.

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CONTRIBUTORS

Nielson Rosa Bezerra received his PhD in History from Universidade Federal Fluminense, Brazil in 2010. He was an Exchange Student at The Harriet Tubman Institute for Research on the Global Migrations of African Peoples, York University, Toronto, Canada. His thesis is on transatlantic slavery between the Bight of Biafra and Rio de Janeiro, 1780-1840. He has published six books on slavery and the African Diaspora in Brazil, including Escravidão, Farinha e Comércio no Reconcavo do Rio de Janeiro, século XIX (Clio Press, 2011). Currently, He is working on a project on liberated Africans in Brazil, 1820-1900. He was appointed to a prestigious Banting Fellowship (2012-2014) at The Harriet Tubman Institute, York University, Toronto, Canada. He is also a Director of the Museu Vivo do Sao Bento, Duque de Caxias, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Luciana da Cruz Brito is a historian specializing in slavery and abolition, with an emphasis on Latin America and the United States. Dr. Brito lectures in the areas of race relations from a comparative transnational view of United States history. Her recent work on American interpretations of slavery, abolition and race relations in 19th century Brazil was awarded a Fulbright fellowship in 2012. She is the author of Tópicos sobre a história do negro na sociedade brasileira, along with several articles such as “The South Atlantic "freedom": the American media's view of Brazil's abolition of slavery process”, in Pictures and Mirrors: race and ethnicity in Brazil and the United States. Ygor Olinto Rocha Cavalcante is a historian and professor at the Federal Institute of Education, Science and Technology of Amazonas. He currently serves as Academic Coordinator-General. He is an Advisor to the Campus Coari Scientific Technical Committee. He has a Masters in the History of the Amazon from the Federal University of Amazonas (2013) and conducts research on black and Indian slavery in the Amazon. He is the author of several articles published in scientific journals and newspapers on the African presence and people of African descent in northern Brazil. He is the author of the book A lively and permanent threat": stories of resistance, rebellion, and slave escapes from the Amazon (in publication)

220

Contributors

Dr. Rhonda Collier is an Associate Professor of English at Tuskegee University, Alabama. She holds a Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from Vanderbilt University. She is a former U.S. Fulbright Scholar, and studied at the Universidade de São Paulo, Brazil and served as Director of the Abilene Christian University Latin American Study Abroad Program in Montevideo, Uruguay for three years. She has published on Brazilian literature, global hip hop and public theology. Her essay “Over the Rainbow: Finding Home in Cleage’s West End Atlanta” appears in Pearl Cleage and Free Womanhood: Essays on Her Prose Work (McFarland P., 2012). Her chapter “From Hip Hop to Hip Hope: Art and Public Theology” appears in Walking Together: Christian Thinking and Public Life in South Africa (Abilene Christian UP, 2012). Most recently, she coedited a special Afro-Brazilian edition of Obsidian Journal: Literature of the African Diaspora (Volume 13. No 1). Flávio dos Santos Gomes is an Associate Professor at the Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ) and coordinator of the Graduate Program in Comparative History. He has received 12 awards for his research work, from such institutions as Casa de las Américas, the Guggenheim Foundation, and Arquivo Nacional de Pesquisa. He has published some 90 academic articles and more than 20 books, among them: O Alufá Rufino: tráfico, escravidão e liberdade no Atlântico Negro (with João José Reis and M.J. Carvalho); Quase-Cidadão: histórias e antropologias da pós-emancipaçãono Brasil (with Olivia Gomes Cunha); Negros e Políticas, Palmares: escravidão e liberdade no Atlântico Sul and A hidra e os pântanos: mocambos e quilombos no Brasil escravist.. He is currently involved in research on comparative history and material culture related to slavery and post-emancipation in Brazil, Cuba, Venezuela, Colombia and French Guiana. Ron Harpelle (PhD, University of Toronto) is a professor of History at Lakehead University and a specialist in Latin American and Caribbean History and in the history of International Development. He is an awardwinning documentary filmmaker focusing on history, development issues and human rights. Among his most significant publications are: The West Indians of Costa Rica: Race, Class, and the Integration of an Ethnic Minority; The Lady Lumberjack: An Annotated Collection of Dorothea Mitchell's Writings, (edited with Michel S. Beaulieu), and Karelian Exodus: Finnish Communities in North America and Soviet Karelia during the Depression Era, (edited with Varpu Lindstrom and Alexis Pogorelskin).

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Elaine Pereira Rocha (Ph.D., University of Sao Paulo) is Senior Lecturer in Latin American History at the University of the West Indies, Cave Hill, Barbados. She also holds an M.A. in Social History from the Catholic University of Sao Paulo and an M.A. in Cultural History from the University of Pretoria. Her research interests in Afro-Brazilian history include a current project on the immigration of Caribbean workers to Brazil in the early twentieth century. She is the author of a number of articles on Brazilian history and of the following books: Racism in Novels: A Comparative Study of Brazilian and South African Cultural History (2010); Entre a Pena e a Espada, a trajetoria de Leolinda Daltro, 18591935 (2005) and Saci Pererê, o vento da liberdade (2000). Marco A. Schaumloeffel is Lecturer in Brazilian Studies (Portuguese, Brazilian Culture, and Brazilian Film) at The University of the West Indies, Cave Hill Campus, Barbados. Previously, he was Lecturer at the University of Ghana. In addition to several published articles, he is the author of Tabom, the Afro-Brazilian Community in Ghana (2009), the first book on the History the Afro-Brazilian returnees to Ghana; Interferência do Português em um Dialeto Alemão Falado no Sul do Brasil (2008), a dialectology study on the German Hunsrückisch spoken in Southern Brazil, and is currently researching creole languages, focusing on the Portuguese origins of and influences in Papiamentu, spoken mainly in Aruba, Bonaire and Curaçao, comparing it with Papiá Kristang, a nearly extinct Portuguese Creole spoken by a very small community of Portuguese descendants in Malacca, Malaysia. Victor C. Simpson was born in Barbados and received his PhD in Spanish from The University of the West Indies. He has taught a number of courses in Peninsular Spanish, Hispanic Caribbean and Spanish American literatures. His area of specialization is the literature and culture of Puerto Rico. He is the author of Colonialism and Narrative in Puerto Rico (Peter Lang, 2004), Afro-Puerto Ricans in the Short Story (Peter Lang, 2006), Hispanic and Francophone Caribbean Studies: Contemporary Perspectives (edited with Kahiudi Mabana), and Trajectories of Freedom: Caribbean Societies, 1807–2007 (edited with Alan Cobley), as well as a number of articles on Puerto Rican literature and culture.

INDEX

Abolicionista do Amazonas, 147 abolitionists, 116, 125, 147, 153, 154, 164, 173, 174, 175, 176, 177, 178, 179, 180, 181, 182 Accra, 186, 187, 188, 190, 192, 193, 194, 195, 196, 197; Old Accra, 186, 193, 196, 197 African-American, 9, 121, 174, 176, 178, 182, 183 Afro-Brazilian diaspora, 185 Afro-Hispanics, 27, 44 Agassiz, Louis, 140, 182 agudás, 185 Allen, William G., 177, 178 Almanack Laemmentz, 166 Amazon, 98, 100, 117, 121, 122, 123, 124, 129, 130, 132, 134, 136, 149, 151, 152, 153, 154, 156; delta, 99; forest, 115; Lower, 126; region, 9, 98, 100; River, 98, 114, 132, 150 Amazonas, 10, 132, 133, 134, 135, 136, 137, 140, 146, 147, 149, 152, 153, 155 Amerindians, 109, 113, 114, 115, 119, 120. See also Indigenous peoples Angola, 74, 75, 76, 77, 145 Araguari, 104, 106, 107, 108, 109, 115; River, 104, 106, 107, 109 assimilation, 27, 44 Azumah Nelson, 187, 190, 191, 192. See also Nii Azumah Baena, Antônio Ladislau Monteiro, 98, 102, 114, 119 Bahia, 4, 5, 6, 137, 152, 188, 189, 190 Barbados, 9, 10, 11, 15, 19, 41, 55, 57, 60, 61, 62, 120, 152;

Barbadian, 10, 11, 13, 60, 62; Barbadianos, 9, 10, 11 Belém, 10, 11, 22, 103, 113, 115, 117, 120, 124, 126, 134, 135 Benin, 4, 82, 159, 163, 185, 186; Bay of, 163; Chachá of, 186; Republic of, 163 biography, 70, 159, 160, 162, 164, 169, 173 Black Code, 176 bleaching, 62 borders, 26, 99, 100, 101, 102, 103, 105, 110, 112, 113, 114, 115, 116, 117, 118, 121, 122, 123, 124, 125, 126, 127, 128, 130, 132, 133, 150, 151, 152, 153, 154, 155, 156; Brazil-British Guiana, 126; Brazil/Dutch, 125; Brazil/French Guiana, 99, 100, 101, 102, 103, 104, 105, 106, 109, 112, 113, 114, 115, 116, 117, 119, 120, 121, 123, 124, 126, 152; Brazil-Peru, 125, 135; Central American, 35; colonial, 97, 105, 112; of French Guiana, 98, 99; in Saint Domingue, 105. See also frontiers. Brazil, 1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 9, 18, 21, 22, 97, 98, 118, 129, 135, 138, 140, 148, 152, 155, 163, 164, 166, 167, 168, 169, 170, 171, 174, 175, 176, 177, 178, 179, 180, 181, 182, 183, 184, 185, 187, 188, 189, 191, 192, 193, 196, 198 Brazil House, 187, 191, 196, 197, 198 Brazil Lane, 197 British government, 113, 187

Another Black Like Me Cabanagem, 125, 153 cabotage, 162, 167 Caribbean, 46, 47; Anglophone, 46; Hispanic, 46 Chachá of Benin, 186 Christianborg Castle, 193 codes, 94, 144; criminal, 155; racial, 184 colonization, 47 Costa Rica, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 21, 22, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44; Costa Ricans, 14, 15, 17, 27, 28, 38, 40, 43, 44 Cuba, 18, 19, 20, 22, 65; AfroCubans, 8, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 65, 66, 67, 68, 69, 70, 71, 72, 73, 74, 75, 77, 78, 79, 80, 81, 82, 83, 85, 86, 87, 89, 90, 92, 93, 94, 95, 96, 152, 178, 183; census in, 20; Cuban Women’s Movement, 82; elite, 19; government, 21; population, 20; Revolution, 65; workers, 21 de Souza, Benedito, 186; doña Ana, 74, 75; Francisco, 113; Francisco Felix, 186; Pedro Antônio, 149; Raymundo, 186 diaspora, 97, 159, 185; African, 2, 94, 164, 185, 199; Atlantic, 159, 161, 162; West Indian, 24, 33 Duany, Jorge, 47 Elmina Castle, 4 escapees, 101, 108, 116, 126, 142, 149, 150 escapes, 99, 100, 101, 102, 103, 104, 106, 112, 114, 116, 117, 121, 132, 133, 135, 141, 142, 148, 151, 152, 153, 154, 156 escravidão, 10, 98, 101, 126, 127, 134, 173, 179 Estrella do Amazonas, 135, 142, 143, 144, 145, 146, 150, 151, 154, 155 freed persons, 8, 80, 113, 115, 119, 123, 125, 126, 127, 141, 143,

223

161, 168, 169, 175, 176, 177, 178, 179, 181, 182, 183, 184, 190 freedom, 5, 6, 80, 85, 97, 99, 105, 112, 117, 119, 122, 127, 130, 132, 133, 134, 136, 142, 143, 144, 148, 150, 151, 152, 153, 154, 155, 156, 159, 164, 165, 168, 169, 171, 173, 175, 179, 180, 181, 189, 190; ideas of, 115; 'problem of...', 31; significations of, 111 frontier, 23, 31, 68, 101, 114, 126, 130; Brazil-Bolivia, 155; BrazilPeru, 155; towns, 39. See also borders fugitives. See escapes; escapees Ga, 186, 191, 193, 194, 195, 196, 197, 206; Mantse, 194, 195 Garifuna, 29, 30 Ghana, 185, 186, 187, 188, 189, 190, 191, 192, 195, 196, 197, 198, 199; Brazilian Ambassador to, 186; Government of, 197; National Archives of, 188 Gold Coast, 187, 188, 197; West African Court of Appeal, Gold Coast, 188 Guatemala, 27, 33, 36, 37 Haiti, 29, 112, 116, 120, 121, 122, 125, 126, 127, 128, 129, 152, 159, 164; Haitian immigrants, 20; Revolution, 119, 121, 122, 125, 128 Hall, Stuart, 48, 49 Hall, Douglas, 59 Honduras, 27, 29, 30, 33, 37, 42 identity, 2, 5, 7, 8, 13, 14, 15, 17, 20, 22, 28, 29, 34, 35, 39, 42, 43, 44, 46, 50, 51, 52, 78, 79, 80, 95, 110, 140, 154, 161, 162, 163, 166, 181 immigration, 9, 10, 12, 19, 20, 26, 27, 31, 33, 36, 37, 38, 39, 41, 59, 146; black, 9; laws, 10, 21, 37, 38

224 indigenous, communities, 28, 113, 149, 153; groups, 99, 100, 121, 131, 132, 152, 153, 155; people, 29, 132, 136, 137, 138, 139, 142, 146, 147, 149, 152, 154, 182; peoples, 47, 140, 141, 154; phenotype, 140, 151 insurrection, 113, 123, 124, 126, 156 integration, 95, 133, 184 Jamaica, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 24, 31, 33, 37, 41, 42, 57, 58, 59, 63, 112, 152; immigration from, 21; Jamaicanos, 17, 18; Jamaicans, 15, 36; migration from, 33 Jesuits, 76, 99, 100, 103, 104 jineteras, 65, 66, 72, 73 Jornal do Amazonas, 149 Karasch, Mary, 7, 165 Kuniochi, Naomi, 170, 171 Lagos, 185, 188 Liberdade, 110, 112, 114, 121, 126, 129, 170, 173, 179 Limón, 14, 15, 16, 17, 40, 42 Lovejoy, Paul 161, 162, 163, 164, 169, 170, 172 Macapá, 98, 99, 100, 103, 104, 105, 106, 107, 108, 109, 112, 115, 117; Fort São José de, 100 Madeira-Mamoré, 10 Mahama Sokoto, 188, 191, 194 Manaus, 10, 135, 136, 137, 138, 139, 140, 142, 144, 145, 147, 154, 156 manumission, 116, 133, 161, 169, 170, 173 memória, 10, 11, 98, 111, 124 migration, 5, 11, 14, 17, 24, 25, 26, 31, 41, 156 Minas, 6, 7, 22; Elmina Castle, 4; Forte São Jorge da, 4 Mintz, Sidney, 46 miscegenation, 1, 4, 10, 18, 22, 27, 28, 47, 67, 137, 175, 181, 182

Index Miskitos, 29, 30; Mosquito Coast, 29 mocambeiros, 107, 108, 109, 151 Mocambos, 97, 98, 100, 101, 102, 103, 104, 106, 108, 109, 111, 112, 114, 115, 117, 121, 122, 123, 126, 130, 133, 134, 135, 141, 148, 149, 152 movement, 5, 10, 22, 24, 147, 164, 177; of Caribbean peoples, 24; cross border, 152, 153 (See also borders); escape, 116, 117; of fugitives, 100, 109, 116, 117, 126, 154; of ideas, 97, 118, 156; migratory, 10; of people and goods, 166; of runaways, 151; of slaves, 141, 147, 152; of troop, 105, 115; of vessels, 149 movements, abolitionist, 153 (See also abolitionists); Black, 22; Black in Cuba, 78; feminist, 81; independence, 125; labour, 4; of Males, 152; resistance, 5, 129, 154; revolutionary, 152, 153 Munduruku, 109 Nagôs, 5, 6 Nicaragua, 27, 28, 29, 32, 35, 45 Nigeria, 4, 185, 186, 187, 188, 197 Nii Azumah, 188, 191, 192, 195, 196. See also Azumah Nelson Nott, Josiah Clark, 181 Oiapoque, 98, 101, 113 Old Accra, 186, 193, 196, 197 orisha, 67, 68, 69, 85, 86, 87, 91, 92, 93 Oshún, 67, 69, 76, 77, 78, 85, 93 Otublohum, 188, 191, 193, 197 Panama, 11, 12, 13, 15, 16, 18, 22, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 32, 33, 34, 35, 37, 39, 42, 44, 45; Canal and Zone, 12, 13, 25, 31, 37, 41, 42; Railroad, 25, 31, 32 Partido Independiente de Color, 8 Pernambuco, 100, 159, 162, 164, 169 prostitution, 21, 65, 66, 69, 72, 73 protest, 4, 78, 87, 111, 112, 116, 129

Another Black Like Me Puerto Rico, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 57, 58, 59, 62, 63, 178 quilombos and quilombolos, 103, 104, 105, 106, 107, 108, 109, 110, 111, 112, 117, 118, 119, 124, 126, 127, 129, 130, 148, 149, 151 race, 46; construction of, 47; question, 47; as territory, 46 racism, 4, 8, 10, 17, 19, 20, 22, 27, 36, 63, 128, 174, 178, 180, 183 rebels, 55, 122, 154 rebellions, 4, 5, 6, 106, 117, 119, 121, 122, 123, 124, 125, 152, 153, 154, 169 Redlegs, 55 resistance, 44, 96, 111, 119, 131; cutural, 83; slave, 110, 111, 119, 128, 129, 130, 132, 154, 156 revolts, 115, 124, 125, 127, 130, 152, 154, 185, 190, 193 Revolt of the Malês, 190 revolution, 67, 82, 112, 127, 151, 153; Cabanagem, 153; Cuban, 67, 71, 80, 87, 89, 91, 93; French, 124, 126, 127; Haitian, 112, 122 revolutionary, activity, 124, 153; contagion, 124; experience, 152; ideas, 116, 151, 152, 153; propaganda, 113, 117, 125 Rio de Janeiro, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 22, 97, 98, 101, 111, 113, 119, 124, 127, 128, 159, 164, 165, 166, 167, 168, 170, 171, 172, 179 Rio Grande, 159, 164, 165, 168, 170, 171, 172, 173 Rogler, Charles, 47 S.S. Salisbury, 187 sailors, 124, 144, 146, 152, 154, 172; enslaved, 168 San Juan, 47 San Juan, Honduras, 30 Santa Catarina, 159, 165, 168, 170, 171

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santería, 67, 86, 93 segregation, 33, 34, 36, 81, 175, 177, 183 senzala, 119, 130 sexuality, 69, 72, 73, 74, 78, 87, 133, 137 slaves, 1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 27, 29, 45, 4751, 79, 80, 82, 92, 93, 98-106, 109, 111-127, 130, 134-149, 151-156, 159, 162, 164-170, 176, 177, 181, 183, 185, 188, 189, 190, 193; African born, 6; descendants of, 27, 28, 30; escaped, (see escapes and escapees); ex-, 31, 190; former, 14; freed, 80, 169, 179; holders and owners, 29, 99, 104, 115, 116, 119, 130; jobbing, 136, 143, 144; ladino, 5; mulatto, 181; muslim, 5; ports, 4; rentals, 143; runaway, 5, 100, 101, 102, 103, 104, 105, 106, 109, 112, 129, 133, 134, 140, 141, 146, 151, 155; society, 6, 97, 118, 127, 128, 130, 179, 181; system, 5, 133, 184; trade, 3, 75, 78, 82, 83, 100, 135, 142, 151, 160, 163, 174, 186, 188, 193; urban, 5, 147; women, 78, 79, 83, 92, 145, 174, 176, 181 slavery, 2, 52, 110, 116, 128, 130, 159, 160, 161, 162, 163, 165, 174, 176, 178, 179, 181, 182, 183, 189; abolition of, (see abolition); abolition of in Bolivia, 155; abolition of in French Guiana, 153; abolition of in United States, 176, 182, 183; in Africa, 163; by blacks, 119; in Brazil, 110, 111, 130, 132, 133, 138, 140, 142, 145, 146, 147, 150, 152, 161, 163, 164, 165, 166, 169; in the Caribbean, 31, 34, 60, 62, 129; in Central America, 11, 27, 28; commodification of, 163; in

226 Cuba, 68; in the French Caribbean, 116, 119; in Puerto Rico, 50, 51 soldiers, 103, 109, 113, 115, 124, 180; black, 122 spanishness, 18 syncretism, 67, 68 Tabom, 185, 186, 187, 188, 189, 190, 191, 192, 193, 194, 195, 196, 197, 198, 199, 206; Tabom Mantse, 192, 198 taxonomy, 46 territory, 3, 12, 77, 101, 112, 113, 132, 134, 137, 142, 145, 146, 151, 152, 154, 156, 159, 160, 192; Anglophone, 55, 57, 61; Black, 141; Bolivian, 155; British Caribbean, 60; colonial, 99; disputes over, 99, 100, 124, 152; for freed saves (palenque), 80; French, 103, 104, 116, 119; Spanish, 113 Togo, 4, 185, 186 United Fruit Company, 15, 16, 33, 36, 37, 38, 40, 41

Index United States of America, 16, 19, 22, 32, 34, 37, 42, 51, 70, 77, 81, 82, 124, 140, 159, 164, 173, 174, 175, 176, 177, 178, 179, 182, 183 uprisings, 5, 111, 114, 121, 124, 125, 126, 129, 152, 153 Ussher fort, 193, 194 Utrecht, 99 West Africa, 68, 159, 185, 188, 190; West African Court of Appeal, 188 whitening, 8, 10, 11, 12, 19, 20, 49 women, 7, 11, 12, 15, 21, 32, 33, 40, 41, 48, 58, 62, 65-74, 82, 85, 86, 90-96, 107, 113, 117, 123, 126, 133, 144, 149, 165, 174, 176, 181, 193; Afro-Cuban, 65, 67, 73, 93, 95, 96; black, 65, 66, 71, 78, 82; Cuban, 70, 74, 82; Garifuna, 29, 31; laundry, 15; Minas, 5; sales, 144, 146; West Indian, 15, 26 Zoogoo, 159, 161, 163