Global Historiography of Slave Rebellions

Few topics have drawn more attention nor elicited as much debate within the fields of Atlantic History, Slavery Studies, and African Diaspora Studies than slave resistance and rebellion. Since at least the 1940s, scholars have argued about what constitutes resistance, what motivated slave rebels, agency, and how best to approach the documentary record among many other topics. More so than in most subfields, scholarship on slave resistance often resonates with contemporary political and cultural movements for racial equity. This review essay considers three new works on slave resistance.

The importance and meaning of slave rebellions for our understanding of slavery has changed. During the first half of the 20th century, when the historiography of United States slavery was dominated by and then emerging from the genteel racism of the U. B. Phillips school, slave rebellions provided evidence to refute claims that Africans and African Americans happily accepted their enslaved status. The historiography of other American plantation regions, especially the Caribbean, was dominated by concerns with colonialism and decolonization, which produced an analogous focus on heroic black resistance as part of a broader struggle for human liberation and progress. Among those writing about the United States, Herbert Aptheker famously catalogued hundreds of episodes of slave unrest in his effort to show that black Americans fought for their freedom just as did other oppressed people (see Aptheker 1983, cited under British North America and the United States). C. L. R. James’s work on the Haitian Revolution (see James 1989, cited under French) also placed black rebellion at the heart of an international struggle for freedom. Historians writing about slave uprisings continued to do so within progressive narratives—sometimes Marxian and sometimes liberal—until the combination of the fall of state socialism and the rise of postmodernism dealt a body blow to confidence in progressive narratives. Historians have not responded by turning away from slave rebellions, but they have begun to write about them differently. In a cultural environment in which no one professes to believe that slaves accepted enslavement, and in which fewer and fewer are confident that history is moving in an identifiable direction, historical analyses of individual slave rebellions fit much less securely into a single pattern. Sometimes historians analyze slave rebellions as evidence of the resilience of the enslaved in the face of their oppression. Others turn to rebellions because they produce unusually rich, if unquestionably problematic, sources with which to explore the often undocumented ideas and aspirations of slaves. Still others see traditions of slave resistance that culminated in uprisings as important evidence of the kinds of persistent pressure from below that postmodernism has—wrongly in their eyes—removed from center stage.

This chapter critically examines the modern terminology of "slave revolts" as applied to the two Sicilian conflicts. It argues that the conventional labelling of these events as "First" and "Second" Sicilian Slave Wars implicitly suggests a similarity between them and with other slave rebellions throughout history. This chapter demonstrates that these two conflicts are atypical in the history of slavery, both ancient and modern, particularly in their duration and scale. Through comparative analysis with documented slave uprisings in the USA, Brazil, and the Caribbean, the chapter challenges the appropriateness of categorizing these events as slave revolts. Instead, it proposes that the two Sicilian wars are best understood in their immediate historical and cultural context, that is Sicilian history, much as the Haitian Revolution can be best understand within its immediate historical and cultural context, that of the French Revolution and the international conflicts that arose from and framed it. This reassessment highlights the limitations of relying solely on literary narratives and emphasizes the need for a more comprehensive interpretative framework for these historical events.

This introductory chapter of the book Curacao in the Age of Revolutions, 1795-1800 reviews some salient characteristics of society and politics, slavery and slave resistance in Curacao, as well as the place of the island in a wider regional and Atlantic framework. The smouldering divisions came after the French Revolution and particularly the French occupation of the Netherlands and the establishment of the Batavian Republic in 1795, making the tides turn in favour of the Patriots. The contemporary canonical version of 1795 tends to underline the rightfulness of the slave revolt, the crucial influence of the Haitian Revolution, and the brutality of colonial suppression. The prevailing idea of the fin de siecle revolts provides a simple picture of enslaved but revolutionary blacks against repressive ancien regime whites. The reality was one of imperfect solidarity within the slave population as well as within the various 'colour communities'. Keywords: Batavian Republic; colour communities; Curacao; French revolution; Haitian revolution; slave resistance

Acknowledgments Introduction Section I: From Saint-Domingue to Haiti Introduction 1. An Unthinkable History: Haitian Revolution as a Non-Event, Michel-Rolph Trouillot 2. Slave Resistance (from Making of Haiti: Saint Domingue Revolution from Below), Carolyn E. Fick 3. Saint-Domingue on the Eve of the Haitian Revolution, David P. Geggus 4. I am the Subject of the King of Congo: African Political Ideology and the Haitian Revolution, John K. Thornton Section II: Independent Haiti in a Hostile World: Haiti in the Nineteenth Century Introduction 5. Politics of French Negroes in the United States, Ashli White 6. Talk About Haiti: Archive and the Atlantic's Haitian Revolution, Ada Ferrer 7. Sword-Bearing Citizens: Militarism and Manhood in Nineteenth-Century Haiti, Mimi Sheller 8. Rural Protest and Peasant Revolt, 1804 - 1869, David Nicholls 9. The Black Republic: Influence of the Haitian Revolution on Northern Black Political Consciousness, 1816 - 1862, Leslie M. Alexander Section III: From the Occupation to the Earthquake: Haiti in the Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries Introduction 10. Under the Gun (from Haiti and the United States: Psychological Moment), Brenda Gayle Plummer 11. VIVE 1804! Haitian Revolution and the Revolutionary Generation of 1946, Matthew J. Smith 12. Dynastic Dictatorship: Duvalier Years, 1957 - 1986, Patrick Bellegarde-Smith 13. Water Refugees (from AIDS and Accusation: Haiti and the Geography of Blame), Paul Farmer 14. Rise, Fall, and Second Coming of Jean-Bertrand Aristide, Robert Fatton, Jr. 15. Eternity Lasted Less Than Sixty Seconds..., Evelyne Trouillot Index

Reviewed by: Diplomacy in Black and White: John Adams, Toussaint Louverture, and Their Atlantic World Alliance by Ronald Angelo Johnson Philippe Girard (bio) Diplomacy in Black and White: John Adams, Toussaint Louverture, and Their Atlantic World Alliance RONALD ANGELO JOHNSON Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2014 241pp. US historians of the colonial and Revolutionary eras have realized the need to eschew parochial celebrations of American exceptionalism and to situate historical developments within a wider (the buzzword is “Atlantic”) context. More specifically, US debates on race and slavery in the 1790s were directly inspired by the events of the Haitian Revolution (1791–1804). In his classic From Rebellion to Revolution (1979), Eugene Genovese used [End Page 793] that revolution as the pivotal moment when slave resistance in the Americas transitioned from narrowly focused uprisings aimed at escaping the plantation world to full-fledged revolts that challenged the very notion of human bondage. Early America may have been a “city upon a hill,” but it did not develop in isolation from neighboring towns. A field that lends itself particularly well to cross-national approaches is foreign policy, especially since the early US Republic was not yet a hegemon and it had to contend with the demands of its partners. Scholarly interest in the diplomatic relations between the United States and Haiti (known before 1804 as French Saint-Domingue) goes back to the 1930s, following a nineteen-year US occupation of Haiti. Early works included Charles Tansill’s The United States and Santo Domingo (1938), Ludwell Montague’s Haiti and the United States, 1714–1938 (1940), Rayford W. Logan’s Diplomatic Relations of the United States with Haiti (1941), and Alexander De-Conde’s The Quasi-War (1966). These authors embraced the traditional approach dominant at the time, both in style and substance: readers were treated to a series of diplomatic dispatches written by great men eager to defend national security interests for the greater good of the country. The culture wars inherited from the 1960s did not leave the field untouched. As part of a larger reassessment of the Founding Fathers and their involvement in plantation slavery, revisionists denounced their policies toward the Haitian Revolution. According to Tim Matthewson’s A Pro-slavery Foreign Policy: Haitian-American Relations during the Early Republic (2003) and Gary Wills’s “Negro President”: Jefferson and the Slave Power (2003), US policymakers were motivated at best by their financial interests and at worst by their racist impulses. Those two factors overlapped when it came to one key issue, slavery, and they underpinned the knee-jerk opposition of Virginian planters like Thomas Jefferson to the Haitian Revolution. As often with historiographical developments, the pendulum has now swung back. The most outspoken member of this postrevisionist school is Arthur Scherr, whose long and argumentative Thomas Jefferson’s Haitian Policy: Myths and Realities (2011) took no prisoners as it strove to rescue Jefferson’s unjustly maligned reputation. Gordon S. Brown embraced a more nuanced and convincing approach in his Toussaint’s Clause: The Founding Fathers and the Haitian Revolution (2005), which took into account the legitimate questions raised by the revisionists while underlining the manifold priorities of US policymakers torn between their eagerness to [End Page 794] foster close relations with Haiti for commercial purposes and their desire to contain its slave revolt for national security and racial reasons. Into this crowded field steps Ronald Angelo Johnson, an associate professor of history at Texas State University in San Marcos and the author of Diplomacy in Black and White: John Adams, Toussaint Louverture, and Their Atlantic World Alliance. Like Brown, Johnson may be labeled a moderate postrevisionist. He champions President John Adams and his secretary of state, Timothy Pickering, whom he largely portrays as well-intentioned statesmen. Under their leadership, “the United States financed a fight for universal emancipation and independence for people of color” (4). Johnson is not blind to the inability of these men to fully escape the racism prevalent in their time, but he emphasizes their willingness to engage their Haitian partners almost as equals, which stood in sharp contrast with Jefferson’s later attitude. Johnson would not have added much to Brown’s own work if he...

Reviewed by: The Slaveholding Crisis: Fear of Insurrection and the Coming of the Civil War by Carl Lawrence Paulus Michael J. Megelsh The Slaveholding Crisis: Fear of Insurrection and the Coming of the Civil War. Carl Lawrence Paulus. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2017. ISBN 978-0-8071-6435-8. 311 pp., cloth, $49.95. With a vivid narrative, Carl Lawrence Paulus ably describes how fear consumed the American South on the eve of the Civil War. The horror that induced manic frenzy among southerners, primarily elites, was the concern that a slave rebellion was imminent. In The Slaveholding Crisis: Fear and of Insurrection and the Coming of the Civil War, Paulus examines the often-studied role that fear had in motivating southern secessionists. The fear of revolt, heavily intensified because of the 1791 Haitian Revolution, remained prevalent in the minds of pro-slavery advocates. Weaving together the themes of fear and the Haitian Revolution, Paulus contends that this anxiety reinforced a southern version of American exceptionalism that sought to preserve what they considered the ideal America. To reinforce this exceptionalism, slavery needed preservation and had to expand. Ultimately, a philosophy of fear and control spurred the South's actions. The Slaveholding Crisis weaves together content that is familiar within the historiography yet offers strong analysis of the political worldview of southern planters and how international events helped shape slavery in the United States. In the introduction, Paulus describes the conflicting visions between southerners and northerners. Both sides, in rhetoric and in practice, thought their nation was exceptional. Yet to the South, American exceptionalism could not persist, as well as their way of life, without the institution of slavery. "The southern planter class," Paulus asserts, "could never be convinced that their society—or their families—would safely survive emancipation in any form" (8). The slave versus "free soil" exceptionalism quickly became the root of division. Additionally, the omnipresent dread of a slave uprising seemed more likely unless slavery could expand westward—dispersing the high concentration of the enslaved people in the American South. With free soil Republicans in control of the White House and Congress in 1860, the South saw little option other than independence to [End Page 211] preserve their society, security, the American ideal, and belay a violent uprising akin to the one in Haiti. In seven chapters, The Slaveholding Crisis details three phases of the predicament. The first pertains to the Haitian Revolution itself. Paulus describes how the violent revolution alarmed the South's planter elite, who saw commonalities between their own situation and that of the European plantation colonies in the Caribbean. This intensified the South's efforts to appeal to the federal government to safeguard their peculiar institution. From there, Paulus emphasizes the futile political maneuvering of southern leaders to ensure that slavery could expand into newly acquired territory in the American West. Simultaneously, southerners coped with the rise of abolitionism that preached the undermining of the South's structure. Last, the book chronicles how wealthy planters concluded that an antislavery Federal government controlled by the Republican Party jeopardized the South's vision of American exceptionalism. Furthermore, they argued that unless a pro-slavery government was enacted, the ominous slave insurrection Dixie feared would finally manifest. This platform, resting on unease and exceptionalism, helped the planter elite garner the support of many southerners and lead the country to civil war. The Slaveholding Crisis is a solid contribution to the historiography. Expertly, and with an articulate narrative, Paulus highlights the fear of the planting class and how that distress—in the shadow of the Haitian Revolution—urged aggressive political action. This book does not break new ground in the historiography because it discusses how fear and racial supremacy encouraged southern secession. It does, however, chart a unique course by connecting international events to the slaveholding crisis in America while also examining the conflicting visions of American exceptionalism between North and South. By merging politically and racially incited fear prior to the Civil War with different visions for America, the book adeptly contributes to this field of study and feels relatively fresh in the midst of an extensive historiography. "With the election of Abraham Lincoln on...

The coming out (CO) process is fundamental for identity integration among LGBQ+ people, and its impact can vary greatly depending on personal and contextual factors. The historical, cultural, and social contexts in which LGBQ+ people develop their sexual identity can mediate the relationship between CO and health outcomes. The present study aimed at clarifying the CO process in three generations of Italian LGBQ+ people (young adults: aged 20–40 years; middle adults: aged 41–60 years; older adults: aged 61–80 years) by providing data on: (a) sexual orientation milestones, such as age of first awareness, age of first self-label, and age of first CO, as well as the rate of disclosure during different life stages; (b) the rate and average age of CO to significant others; and (c) CO within the religious context and its effect on participants’ minority stress experiences. A total of 266 Italian LGBQ+ people participated in the study, with ages ranging from 20 to 80 years (M = 41.15, SD = 16.13). Findings indicated that, on average, the older adult group became self-aware, self-labeled, and disclosed their sexual identity at a significantly older age than the other groups. Older adults were also more Catholic and had CO more frequently to their Catholic community, relative to young and middle adults. CO within the Catholic context was associated with distal and proximal minority stressors, such as discrimination, vigilance, and internalized sexual stigma. Catholic community reactions to participants’ CO were distinguished through thematic analysis in three main types: unconditional acceptance, invitation to change, and open rejection. The present research extended current knowledge on CO and minority stress experiences in different generations of LGBQ+ people. Several differences emerged between generational groups on sexual orientation milestones, highlighting the potential impact of historical and cultural contexts in determining sexual minorities’ experiences related to sexual identity. It is recommended that mental health professionals working with LGBQ+ clients implement targeted interventions based on their clients’ multiple salient aspects, including age and religious background. Clinicians should also be aware of the potentially detrimental effects of CO within an unsupportive context, rather than encouraging CO tout court.

This volume includes eight studies of faith and giving for youth and emerging adults. Combined,we find organizational, cultural, institutional, educational, informal, familial, and developmentalinfluences on the shape and contours of youth and emerging adult faith and giving. These studiesprovide some challenges to popular interpretations of Millennials, and to the ways researchers typicallystudy religiosity and charitable giving. Accounting for the greater demographic and cultural diversityof Millennials may require changes to interpretations of young people by religious and spiritualleaders, parents, and scholars.

(1996). Bids for freedom: Slave resistance and rebellion plots in Bermuda, 1656–1761. Slavery & Abolition: Vol. 17, No. 3, pp. 185-208.

Reviewed by: Medical Revolutionaries: The Enslaved Healers of Eighteenth-Century Saint Domingue James E. McClellan III Karol K. Weaver . Medical Revolutionaries: The Enslaved Healers of Eighteenth-Century Saint Domingue. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2006. xii + 163 pp. Ill. $50.00 (cloth, ISBN-10: 0-252-03085-0; ISBN-13: 978-0-252-03085-7); $20.00 (paperbound, ISBN-10: 0-252-07321-5; ISBN-13: 978-0-252-07321-2). Saint Domingue (modern Haiti) was the most important and most intensely slave-based European colony in the eighteenth century. Disease and unhealthy conditions constrained its productivity, and French authorities invested significantly in medical personnel and infrastructures. Official colonial medicine has been well studied, and Karol Weaver summarizes this material in her first two chapters; commendably, she goes beyond official medicine to explore medical practice in slave communities. Two arguments inform this study. The first, medical, argument is that Saint Domingue's slaves created an "Afro-Caribbean health care system" (p. 59), that these enslaved healers therefore rank with Pasteur and Semmelweis as medical revolutionaries (p. 1), and, further, that their successors—"marginalized medical practitioners" (p. 127)—are key to transforming Third World communities today. The second, political, thesis is that the enslaved healers of Saint Domingue "participated in acts of rebellion that laid the foundation for the Haitian Revolution" (p. 130). There is more to this claim, but how much the resistance by slave medical practitioners was responsible for the Haitian Revolution, or to what extent such acts are distinguishable from slave resistance in general, is not addressed. Weaver is most successful in her chapter devoted to hospitalières, high-ranking slave women who tended plantation infirmaries. Hospitalières were essential to the day-to-day functioning of plantations. Slave midwives played similarly important roles. Weaver nicely shows the ambiguous position occupied by these women, simultaneously supporting and undermining the slave system. The remaining chapters—concerning slave herbalists, animal caretakers, mesmerists, and healers known as kaperlata—are informative, but they are not wholly persuasive, primarily because everything is made to fit the political thesis. For example, Weaver sees animal caretakers (p. 97) as "crucial actors" in the Haitian Revolution. In particular, she examines the case of the legendary insurrectionist slave Makandal, who was dramatically executed in 1758: Makandal became a symbol of rebellion and freedom that colored race relations for decades—but did his power stem essentially from his role as an herbalist and animal caretaker? Similar approaches shape chapters concerning "enslaved magnetists" (p. 107) and the kaperlata. European mesmerism deeply impacted Saint Domingue after 1784, but its crossover into slave communities is historiographically more problematic than is suggested here. Even if French officials were not simply projecting mesmerism onto voodoo practices, can we unequivocally assert the existence of a class of "enslaved magnetists" and claim that "the practice of mesmerism by slaves was a political act of revolution" (p. 112)? Weaver acknowledges that the kaperlata could be either slaves or free people of color, but rhetorically she makes them all enslaved healers. Her treatment raises questions about mulatto medical practice and the invisibility of gens de couleur in this account. The story of the [End Page 197] Haitian Revolution and of medical practice in the colony is less black and white than is implied here. Several assertions need more support. Given that Amerindians were essentially extinct, did slave medicine really incorporate indigenous Caribbean medical practices? Was it actually the case (p. 29) that "inoculation in the colony and in France [sic!] came from the use of the technique by enslaved men and women"? Similarly, Weaver's narrative contains many conditional statements; too often, matters are "likely," "might" have been, "seem," or are "not unreasonable to imagine" (p. 94). This book is well researched and nicely illustrated, but citations are overwhelmingly to whole books and without page numbers. What is one to make of the reference (p. 96 n. 98) to nine books (without page numbers) to support the point that Toussaint-Louverture was once an herbalist? Weaver's study is worth reading for the questions it raises and the vistas it reveals. It is a praiseworthy attempt to explore new and difficult territory, and her map will undoubtedly...

Manuel Barcia has produced an important contribution to the study of slavery and slave resistance in Cuba with his engaging study of a crucial 1825 revolt in Matanzas. Barcia sets out to establish the significance of the 1825 revolt, arguing that it was a turning point in slave rebellions in Cuba, an action distinct from previous incidents in that it was organized by Africans rather than collaborative groups that included slave and free, Africans and creoles. This would have several consequences, as Barcia demonstrates, both for the participants and for our understanding of slave uprisings in Cuba.To make the case that this relatively unknown incident was pivotal in the history of Cuban slavery, the author begins with an overview of earlier slave revolts on the island. Barcia situates the Cuban examples within the larger regional context, including US and British North America. He also offers concise discussions of the Haitian Revolution and its impact on Cuba, as well as the colonial constraints imposed by Spain. These all affected growth and development in Cuba, including the area near Matanzas, where a rapid increase of the enslaved African population helped create the conditions for the slave revolts.Barcia situates his study in relation to scholarship on rebellions in Cuba by Robert Paquette, Matt Childs, and Gloría García in order to highlight the differences of the 1825 revolt. He also contrasts the context of this revolt to slaves’ experiences as described in the works of Manuel Moreno Frajinals, Fernando Ortiz, and Laird Bergad. This contrast is significant because it enables Barcia to discuss the larger picture of plantation agriculture on the island and show that the landscape of slavery in Cuba was much more complex than many might assume. Revolts occurred in many places and involved slaves on multiple plantations as well as in urban locations, but Barcia significantly demonstrates that many rebellions began on coffee plantations rather than on sugar cane plantations, as has often been assumed. The story of the 1825 revolt that Barcia tells is as much about the growth of the coffee district and the coffee plantation complex as it is about a consequential revolt. This work joins other recent studies, such as those by María Elena Díaz and Charlotte Cosner, that shift away from sugar, the focus of the vast majority of the historiography on slavery in Cuba, to other important topics.Beyond this important contribution, Barcia is centrally concerned to show that acts of revolt were rooted in African cultural understandings of war. Using extensive documentation, Barcia recreates the revolt’s cells, describing their leaders, the steps they followed, and the violence that occurred, as well as the reaction of the survivors. Through this painstakingly reconstructed detail Barcia demonstrates a point he has argued elsewhere: that African military knowledge and experience, especially among the leaders, was a crucial factor in the rebellions in Cuba from this revolt on. This is best seen in the uprising’s planning by an ethnically diverse group of slaves living on several different farms.Barcia rightly notes that to better understand this rebellion and its importance we must also know why the slaves rebelled. Barcia offers some of his strongest analysis in explaining the counterintuitive connection between the relatively easier lives for slaves on coffee plantations, compared to their counterparts on sugar cane plantations, and revolt. He attributes this to increased freedom of movement, evidenced in the revolt’s planning. The second factor was their African backgrounds, which included an understanding of the ways of war. This is a compelling case but does not speak to why slaves gathered to plot and ultimately rebel rather than to interact benignly. Barcia does an excellent job discussing the motivations of authorities in Havana and Matanzas as well as planters in Guamacaro; existing documents illuminate their reactions to events as they unfolded. Admittedly, it is more difficult to get at the slaves’ proactive motives for revolt, as Barcia notes; the authorities were the ones who produced the documentation of the event, who told the stories they wanted to tell and who thereby distorted the testimonies of the captured rebelling Africans.The work concludes with a rousing call for more studies, acknowledging that this is a first attempt at addressing some of these largely ignored issues. The author also notes that nearly all the literature that actively takes up the connection between slave revolts and the Age of Revolution suggested by Ira Berlin ignore Cuba, even though, as Barcia has shown, there were important rebellions during the period that warrant investigation.Barcia, with this monograph, has started us on the road to filling a substantial gap in the historiography of slavery in Cuba. This work will also prove to be a significant contribution that connects African origins with the cultural practices of enslaved Afri-cans and African-descended people in the Western Hemisphere.

Scholars have posited the Gothic as the natural mode for American discourses, with numerous texts illustrating Gothic slips. Discussions over slavery and slave rebellion are particularly given to such slips, and are wrought with images of the dark Other as the site of transgression and contagion. Indeed the Haitian Revolution and Nat Turner’s insurrection were narrated through a Gothic frame, inspiring nearly supernatural terror. Yet slavery constituted a greater, inherent horror for its subjugated bodies. This chapter examines how discourses about slave rebellions use Gothic tropes to argue the terrors of black liberation before examining black appropriation of the Gothic in slave narratives such as Charles Ball’s Fifty Years a Slave to write back to a genre and national discourse that masked them as monstrous.

Louis Perez’s wonderful new book is a welcome addition to an emerging field of study. Natural disasters, especially hurricanes, have attracted little serious attention from historians of the Caribbean (or elsewhere, for that matter). Individual calamities often appear as dramatic scenes in larger studies of cities, colonies, and nations, but few scholars have considered hurricanes as important agents of change in themselves or explored the impact and meaning of the storms in any detail. Pérez addresses this oversight and in doing so makes an important contribution to our understanding of nineteenth-century Cuba.The book focuses on three specific hurricanes that struck Cuba in 1842, 1844, and 1846. Pérez and other scholars argue that calamities are caused by social forces as much as natural ones, and that understanding the effects of disasters requires placing them in their larger social, economic, and cultural contexts. Pérez, thus, begins by tracing briefly the European encounter with these terrifying storms in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and then offers a succinct discussion of the structure of the Cuban economy in the years between the Haitian Revolution and 1840. He emphasizes the diversity of the Cuban agricultural sector, in which small farmers prospered alongside larger sugar, coffee, and tobacco planters, and the tremendous growth during this period that fueled optimistic expectations for the future. Those expectations, and the structure of the Cuban economy itself, were shattered and transformed by the 1840s hurricanes. Coffee plantations were the hardest hit. The widespread destruction and loss of crops, combined with increased competition from Brazil and a downturn in the world price of coffee beans, created losses from which many planters could not recover. As a result, land and slaves were shifted into sugar production and the island moved towards an increased dependence on sugar. These changes affected all Cubans, but the impact was felt most severely by those at the bottom of society, particularly slaves, many of whom were forced from the relatively benign coffee labor regime to the harsher world of sugar production. Not coincidentally, Pérez suggests, the number of slave rebellions increased during these same years.In addition to economic restructuring, the storms exacerbated growing tensions between Spain and Cuba. Local officials’ efforts to ease shortages of food and building supplies by removing tariffs met resistance from metropolitan authorities who had little interest beyond filling Spain’s coffers. Combined with the close proximity of supplies from the North American mainland, such actions further pushed Cuba into the commercial and political orbit of the United States. Hurricanes were not the only factors involved in these changes, but as Pérez notes, historians have not considered their importance in reshaping the political and economic geography of the island.The final chapter explores the relationship of hurricanes to the development of a Cuban national identity. Shared experience with disaster, Pérez maintains, was central to an emerging sense of solidarity and identity among Cubans that highlighted the ability to withstand and overcome hardship. This final chapter represents something of a break from the rest of the book, moving from the particulars of the 1840s storms to the problem of hurricanes generally, and from historical materials to literary evidence and a discussion of hurricanes as metaphor. It nonetheless forms a fascinating coda and suggests that the impact of hurricanes extended far beyond the tangled debris and immediate hardships wrought by them. Pérez’s vivid prose and insightful connections between hurricanes and larger themes and issues in Cuban and Caribbean history make the book ideal for classroom use. Perhaps more importantly, he has directed attention to an important but neglected field of study and illustrated some of the rich possibilities that await historians who follow his lead.

‘Excited Almost to Madness:’ Slave Rebellions and Resistance in the Atlantic World