Empire In Spanish Cuba Research Articles

Bad Film Histories: Ethnography and the Early Archive by Katherine Groo

Book Review| March 01 2020 Bad Film Histories: Ethnography and the Early Archive by Katherine Groo BOOK DATA Katherine Groo, Bad Film Histories: Ethnography and the Early Archive. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2019. $112.00 cloth; $28.00 paper. 376 pages. David Sartorius David Sartorius DAVID SARTORIUS is an associate professor of history at the University of Maryland and the coeditor of Social Text. He is the author of Ever Faithful: Race, Loyalty, and the Ends of Empire in Spanish Cuba (2013) as well as articles about early anthropology in Cuba, mobility and the colonial archive, and the circulation of falsified documents. Search for other works by this author on: This Site PubMed Google Scholar Film Quarterly (2020) 73 (3): 111–113. https://doi.org/10.1525/fq.2020.73.3.111 Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Video Audio Supplementary Data Peer Review Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MailTo Tools Icon Tools Get Permissions Cite Icon Cite Search Site Citation David Sartorius; Bad Film Histories: Ethnography and the Early Archive by Katherine Groo. Film Quarterly 1 March 2020; 73 (3): 111–113. doi: https://doi.org/10.1525/fq.2020.73.3.111 Download citation file: Ris (Zotero) Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All ContentFilm Quarterly Search This content is only available via PDF. © 2020 by The Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved. Please direct all requests for permission to photocopy or reproduce article content through the University of California Press's Reprints and Permissions web page, http://www.ucpress.edu/journals.php?p=reprints.2020 Article PDF first page preview Close Modal You do not currently have access to this content.

Ever Faithful: Race, Loyalty, and the Ends of Empire in Spanish Cuba

Ever Faithful: Race, Loyalty, and the Ends of Empire in Spanish Cuba

Review of Ever Faithful: Race, Loyalty, and the Ends of Empire in Spanish Cuba; & Punishment in Paradise: Race, Slavery, Human Rights, and a Nineteenth-Century Brazilian Penal Colony

Ever Faithful: Race, Loyalty, and the Ends of Empire in Spanish Cuba, by David Sartorius. Duke University Press, 2013. Punishment in Paradise: Race, Slavery, Human Rights, and a Nineteenth-Century Brazilian Penal Colony, by Peter M. Beattie. Duke University Press, 2015.

Ever Faithful: Race, Loyalty, and the Ends of Empire in Spanish Cuba, written by David Sartorius

Ever Faithful: Race, Loyalty, and the Ends of Empire in Spanish Cuba, written by David Sartorius

Ever Faithful: Race, Loyalty, and the Ends of Empire in Spanish Cuba by David Sartorius (review)

Ever Faithful: Race, Loyalty, and the Ends of Empire in Spanish Cuba by David Sartorius (review)

David Sartorius. Ever Faithful: Race, Loyalty, and the Ends of Empire in Spanish Cuba.

David Sartorius. Ever Faithful: Race, Loyalty, and the Ends of Empire in Spanish Cuba.

Ever Faithful: Race, Loyalty, and the Ends of Empire in Spanish Cuba by David Sartorius (review)

Reviewed by: Ever Faithful: Race, Loyalty, and the Ends of Empire in Spanish Cuba by David Sartorius William C. Van Norman Jr. David Sartorius. Ever Faithful: Race, Loyalty, and the Ends of Empire in Spanish Cuba. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2013. 312 pp. David Sartorius has written an important book that challenges much of the standard narrative regarding people of color in Cuba during the nineteenth century. This rich analysis sustains a compelling and nuanced argument that will reshape what we know about race in Cuba during the nineteenth century. Sartorius convincingly contends that there were significant numbers of people of African descent who were loyal to Spain, participants in an ever-shifting relationship in which Spanish leaders unevenly sought their support and rewarded their loyalty. The author uses key events of Spanish imperial and Cuban colonial history to structure the six chapters. Each begins with an event that the author uses as a lens to explicate the context, actors, motivations, and implications of each moment. This facilitates the introduction of dozens of African-descended people, slave and free, loyal and rebel, and places them at the center of Cuban colonial history. While this book has a strong narrative structure, it is also theoretically informed, as the author draws on numerous sources to show how positions of loyalty or disloyalty to the Crown of Spain affected understandings of race and the status of people of color. In a brief introduction, the author establishes for the reader his argument and methodological concerns, and summarizes the chapters. Each part balances discussion of enslaved and free African-descended Cubans, revealing the complexity of race on the island. Sartorius also works to avoid the teleological position of only tracing events and participants that led to the ending of slavery and Cuban independence. His approach is both important and well executed, allowing the reader to fully grasp the ideas of people living in an empire and the possibilities and choices that existed for them, rather than only highlighting the road taken. In discussing the first half of the nineteenth century, Sartorius contrasts differing attitudes regarding the population of color between the leadership in Spain and elites in Cuba. There were ongoing debates on the peninsula about race and citizenship, while on the island the focus was on the question of slavery. This is highlighted by the role of Cuban deputy to the Cortes, Andrés de Jáuregui, who effectively killed the abolition debate by invoking the French debates on abolition that he claimed sparked the Haitian Revolution. Two factors contributed to attenuated freedoms for most people of color in the years leading up to the Ten Years’ War. Continued debates over slavery along with significant slave rebellions, such as those associated with the mass, state-led campaign of repression known as La Escalera in 1844, created a perceived need to limit opportunities of interaction and participation for all people of color, slave and free. [End Page 229] The first important challenge to the colonial government and imperial control in Cuba came from planters who understood that slavery was deeply tied to Spanish power. Using different strategies, both Spain and the rebels were able to attract significant numbers of African-descended Cubans to their struggle. Sartorius shows how ideas of citizenship and the loyalty of many people of color resulted in freedom for many slaves who assisted Spain. The rebels, relying on a similar rhetoric of citizenship, also freed slaves who came to their cause. The Pact of Zanjón in 1878 gave way to increased freedom of association and of the press for all. People of color seized such opportunities, establishing new branches of social and political clubs and several black newspapers. The importance of associations, cabildos, and cofradías grew, but there was a cost to these new opportunities. Members of these associations felt pressed to give up “primitive” practices, conform to Spanish colonial norms, and render apolitical any public expression of a shared identity or mutual interest. This resulted in limited opportunities for dissent. During the 1880s, both discourse and political actions reflected concerns over voting rights for men of color as well as over final emancipation. Loyalist actions were complex...

Ever Faithful: Race, Loyalty, and the Ends of Empire in Spanish Cuba. By David Sartorius. Durham: Duke University Press, 2013, p. 312, $24.95

The Latin AmericanistVolume 58, Issue 3 p. 74-76 Book Review Ever Faithful: Race, Loyalty, and the Ends of Empire in Spanish Cuba. By David Sartorius. Durham: Duke University Press, 2013, p. 312, $24.95 Bonnie A. Lucero, Bonnie A. Lucero Dept. of History & Philosophy, University of Texas-Pan AmericanSearch for more papers by this author Bonnie A. Lucero, Bonnie A. Lucero Dept. of History & Philosophy, University of Texas-Pan AmericanSearch for more papers by this author First published: 15 October 2014 https://doi.org/10.1111/tla.12037_5Read the full textAboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditWechat Volume58, Issue3September 2014Pages 74-76 RelatedInformation

Ever faithful: race, loyalty, and the ends of empire in Spanish Cuba

Ever faithful: race, loyalty, and the ends of empire in Spanish Cuba