The Great African Slave Revolt of 1825: Cuba and the Fight for Freedom in Matanzas

Abstract

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.