Fearful loyalty: The strategic deployment of emotion by the Cuban proslavery elite, 1830–1850

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article presents the expression of colonial loyalty in nineteenth century Cuba as a tool mobilised by otherwise disenfranchised enslaving elites seeking to shape the island’s governance. Combined with the judicious expression of fear, this paper suggests that “fearful loyalty” was deployed to influence the Spanish colonial government on the subject of slavery. Contemporary periodicals from the USA, examined here, presented Cuban loyalty as effeminate and baffling. Employing the methodology of History of Emotions to analyse private correspondence between Cuban enslavers, Captain Generals in Cuba, and the metropolitan government in Spain, this study rebuts that outsider impression. Adding depth to our understanding of Atlantic History, this article argues that fearful loyalty was a creolised emotional protocol utilised by enslavers and pro-slave trade individuals when attempting to manipulate the Crown to follow the course of action they considered most advantageous to their interests regarding slavery, censorship, and abolition.