LIBRARY Michigan State University This is to certify that the dissertation entitled INSCRIBING AFRICAN DESCENDANT IDENTITY IN NINETEENTH CENTURY CUBA: THE TRANSCULTURATED LITERATURE OF JUAN FRANCISCO MANZANO AND GABRIEL DE LA CONCEPCIoN VALDEs presented by MATTHEW JOSPEH PEI IWAY has been accepted towards fulfillment of the requirements for the Doctoral degree in Hispanic Cultural Studies 0&2” " " Nrafjor Pr‘ofessor’s Signature 06/ l 4 / 20 :0 Date MSU is an Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity Employer . . . . . . o-- . .— IHI-‘-I-I-I--I--I-o-I-D-I-I-t-l-0-0-I-t-l-I-I-I-I-v-n---l-t-l--0-1--¢-I-o-m -- —- - — PLACE IN RETURN Box to remove this checkout from your record. TO AVOID FINES return on or before date due. MAY BE RECALLED with earlier due date if requested. DATE DUE DATE DUE DATE DUE 5/08 K'lProj/Acc8PresIClRC/DateDue.Indd INSCRIBING AFRICAN DESCENDANT IDENTITY IN NINETEENTH CENTURY CUBA: THE TRANSCULTURATED LITERATURE OF JUAN FRANCISCO MANZANO AND GABRIEL DE LA CONCEPCION VALDES By Matthew Joseph Pettway A DISSERTATION Submitted to Michigan State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Hispanic Cultural Studies 2010 ABSTRACT INSCRIBING AFRICAN DESCENDANT IDENTITY IN NINETEENTH CENTURY CUBA: THE TRANSCULTURATED LITERATURE OF JUAN FRANCISCO MANZANO AND GABRIEL DE LA CONCEPCION VALDES By Matthew Joseph Pettway This dissertation explores how Juan Francisco Manzano and Gabriel de la Concepcion Valdés (also known as Placido) appropriated Hispanic literature to inscribe an African descendant subjectivity in nineteenth century proto-nationalist Cuban discourse. I revise Mary Louise Pratt’s notion of “intercultural texts” and Angel Rama’s “literary transculturation”, proposing “transculturated colonial literature" to trace the contradictions, re—significations, silences and shifts in the aesthetic and ideological function of Manzano and Placido’s texts. As such, nineteenth century Afro-Cuban literature is analyzed as an active space of negotiation and exchange disputing racial and religious hierarchies to inscribe an Afro-Cuban religio-cultural subject. Through the analysis of Africa-based spirituality and race, I conclude that both Manzano and Placido disrupted the aesthetic and ideological norms of the colonial status quo by producing what I consider to be the first instance of literary transculturation In Cuba. After the close reading of poems, letters. self-narratives, and court testimonies, my findings are twofold. First, the construction of a mulatto-Catholic persona by writers of African descent is a politically driven representation legitimating their tenuous association with white cultural elites in Charge of disseminating their literature. The portrait of Afro-Caribbean Characters that emerges from their writings not only re-signifies racialized bodies but also functions as a disputation of the dominant colonial gaze. Secondly, Manzano and Placido produced a transculturated religious subject embedded in Africa- based rituals, and able to subvert normative ecclesiastical practice through the construction of new meanings. My research contributes to Latin American studies by revealing that Manzano and Placido’s literature does not amount to mimicry of white culture, instead their work juxtaposes Afro-Cuban and Hispano-Catholic practices, subverts the institutional authority of the Church and challenges colonial racial discourse while lending itself to sometimes contradictory but equally plausible interpretations. In this way, my project proposes a new way of reading Afro- Cuban colonial writing that privileges the construction of subjectivities over colonial strategies of subjugation. The comparison of Manzano and Plécido’s racial and religious self- inscriptions in early nineteenth century literature reveals important dissimilarities. Whereas Placido’s lyrical persona avoided racial self-description - only classifying as a pardo in the course of legal proceedings —- Manzano identified with the unattainable inbetweeness of a mixed-race identity. With regard to Africa-derived spirituality, Manzano’s lyrical voice and narrative persona renders a highly autobiographical account of apparitions, ancestral reunion and rituals to draw upon the power of spirits, while Placido’s poetic voice does not refer to ‘ himself, instead portraying the Afro-Cuban confratemity as collective space for sacred practice that proclaims the judgment to befall colonial slave society. Copyright by MATTHEW JOSEPH PETTWAY 201 O A mis muertos. .. (Kawtharun, Daddy, my dear Timothy, Grandma, Mama, Qadira, Uncle Herbert and my colleague, Simplice Boyogueno) Your presence, legacy and pain have guided and encouraged me along this arduous journey. You will never be forgotten. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS First and foremost, I offer a heartfelt thanks to my dissertation advisor, Professor Marla Eugenia Mudrovcic. In our many years of working together you taught me what it means to be a literary scholar by challenging my readings, paying attention to detail, and imparting the value of intellectual integrity. I cannot thank you enough. I am also grateful to my dissertation committee: Professors Roclo Quispe-Agnoli, Saulo Gouveia, Laurent Dubois and Doug Noverr, for carefully and critically reading my work. Your feedback and multiple insights will serve to make this dissertation a valuable contribution to the field. A special thanks to Professor Jualynne Dodson and the African Atlantic Research Team, for walking with me and for encouraging me to ask questions I had yet to perceive. __ vi TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................... 1 lnscribing Cuba in Nineteenth Century Literature ....................................... 1 Recounting the Untold Story of Juan Francisco Manzano and Gabriel de la Concepcion Valdés ..................................................................................... 2 Investigating the Critical Gaze: Inquiries into Manzano and Placido .......... 7 Racializing the Colonial Order During the Rise of Cuban Plantation Society ...................................................................................................... 10 Manzano and Placido as Afro-Cuban Literati in the Age of La Escalera.. 15 Summation of Chapters ............................................................................ 21 CHAPTER 1 NEGOTIATING TEXTS WITHIN CONTACT ZONES: TRANSCULTURATED COLONIAL LITERATURE A THEORETICAL PERSPECTIVE ........................... 26 From Colonial Frontier to Contact Zone ................................................... 26 Stratifying Race in Colonial Cuba ............................................................. 29 Catholicism, Africa-based Spirituality and Social Control in Early Nineteenth Century Cuba ......................................................................... 35 Transculturating the Text .......................................................................... 40 CHAPTER 2 PRESENT BUT UNSEEN: CATHOLICISM AND AFRICAN DESCENDANT SPIRITUALITY IN THE POETRY AND SLAVE NARRATIVE OF JUAN FRANCISCO MANZANO .................................................................................... 50 Introduction ............................................................................................... 50 Catholicism and the Biblical Narrative in Manzano's Poetry and Slave Narrative ............................................................................................. . ...... . 52 Christianizing the Enslaved: Religious Identity and Self-Representatron In la historia de mi Vida ................................................................................. 70 Africa-based Spirituality in Manzano’s Literature ..................................... 79 CHAPTER 3 RESIGNIFYING RELIGION AND SPIRITUALITY WITHIN CONTESTED SPACE: THE POETRY OF GABRIEL DE LA CONCEPCION VALDES ......................... 105 Introduction ............................................................................................. 105 Speaking Christian in the Contact Zone ................................................. 110 The Christianization of Placido ............................................................... 116 Deciphering Africa-based Spirituality in Placido’s Verse ........................ 125 CHAPTER 4 THE BODY AS OBJECT: RACIALIZATION AND SELF-REPRESENTATION IN THE LITERATURE OF JUAN FRANCISCO MANZANO .................................. 1:; Introduction ............................................................................................. 152 Objectifying the Self-Aware Subject ....................................................... v11 African descendant Self-Portraiture and White Voyeurism .................... 160 The View From Inside: Gauging Manzano’s Glance .............................. 167 The Body as Black: La Escalera and Juan Francisco Manzano ............ 176 CHAPTER 5 RECHARTING RACIAL AESTHETICS, SATIRICAL COSTUMBRISMO AND SELF-REPRESENTATION IN THE POETRY OF GABRIEL DE LA CONCEPCION VALDES ................................................................................... 186 Introduction ............................................................................................. 1 86 The New Shade of Literary Aesthetics in Placido's Love Poems ........... 191 Romanticizing Blackness: Rafaela as la Venus Etiope .......................... 208 Scoming the Negation of Blackness in Buriesque Bodies ...................... 217 Race and Self-presentation in el Aflo del cuero ..................................... 227 EPILOGUE ........................................................................................................ 239 WORKS CITED ................................................................................................. 245 viii - INTRODUCTION: Transculturating Literature in a Society of Dead Poets Those with power can afford to tell their story or not. Those without power risk everything to tell their story and must. ------ Laura Hershey claimed, cultivated and sought to define literature in their own way and on their mOdified an emerging literary tradition, which posited the Hispano-Catholic aesthetic as the religio-cultural foundation of colonial society. In What manner did Juan Francisco Manzano and Gabriel de la Concepcion Valdés avail themselves of the Hispanic text to inscribe an African descendant subjectivity in nineteenth century proto-nationalist Cuban discourse? The present dissertation will analyze representations of Catholicism, Africa- based spirituality and race in Manzano and Placldo’s lesser-studied works to determine what was at stake for Afro-Cuban poets who contested the status quo of colonial discourses on race and religion. Did the mere fact that Manzano and Placido were poets of African descent represent a threat to the Spanish colonial order, which was premised on the economic exploitation of dark bodies? In what fashion did Manzano and Placido’s modes of racial and religious representation imperil an emerging, yet inchoate, Hispano-Catholic national narrative? By addressing these questions, I will study the manifold processes of transculturation that took place in Manzano and Placido’s poetry, narratives, letters, and court testimonies, adopting racial and religious representation as dual axes of analysis. My objective is to focus on the contradictions, re-significations, silences, as well as shifts in the aesthetic and ideological rationale that Manzano and Placido produced in Hispanic literature. 1.2 Recounting the Untold Story of Juan Francisco Manzano and Gabriel de la Concepcion Valdés In the first half of the nineteenth century. colonial slave society was premised on a structure of racial domination entrenched in biological as well as cultural notions of white superiority. Whiteness was granted normative status whereas persons with named or claimed African ancestry were relegated less significant standing within a socio—cultural and, more notably, economic order. Moreover, the Catholic Church enjoyed a privileged alliance with the Spanish monarchy, which sanctioned Christianity as the monopolistic system of religious belief on the island (Cros Sandoval 20-21). Non-Christian modes of religious and spiritual praxes were deemed inferior to Catholicism, socially marginalized and racialized as superstition and witchcraft. Although Spain did not institute a legal apparatus to prosecute practitioners of Africa-derived spiritual practice, their rituals were anxiously viewed as plausible sources of social unrest and sedition (Palmié 225, 228-29). For African born captives and their Cuban descendants, Catholicism and racialization represented dual structures of subjugation. While race devised a phenotypical hierarchy to privilege the bodies of European descendants over those of their darker-skinned counterparts, in the socio- economic order of the colony the Catholic Church asserted and inculcated a Euro-centric sense of morality that justified the enslavement and oppression of persons of named and claimed African ancestry. Such structures of subjugation placed tremendous limitations on what African descendant writers were permitted to publish. The white literary establishment circumscribed what genres and t0pics were fashionable for publication subjecting the work of Afro-Cuban poets and playwrights to intense and frequent scrutiny. Juan Francisco Manzano and Gabriel de la Concepcion Valdés were the most celebrated early nineteenth century Cuban writers of African descent in Cuba. Representing different sectors of colonial society - that of enslaved and freebom Afro-descendants respectively — their lives can be traced back to different socio-economic conditions. Born an enslaved person in Havanain 1797, Manzano was raised on a Matanzas sugar plantation and made the occasional trip to Havana with his mistress and white godparents (Luis, ed. 13, 304). Placido, on the other hand, was born free in Havana in 1809 and grew up with his black grandmother (presumably in the extramural neighborhoods).1 Manzano and Placido paths' crossed, however, in 1840, after which they came to share a similar fate as alleged co-conspirators in the La Conspiracién de la Escalera (The Ladder Conspiracy). In 1821, Manzano published Poesias Liricas, the first in a series of compositions that he would release and one of the initial collections of verse made available in Cuba by anyone, black or white. Owing to his legal status as a slave, Manzano had to rely on white sugar baron and patron of the arts, Domingo del Monte to put his poems in Circulation (Luis, ed. 14, 59). Among these, “Mis treinta afios” was translated into four different languages having been widely received as a sophisticated and poignant allusion of the poet's life (Calcagno, 79). Furthermore, Manzano authored the only known slave narrative produced anywhere in Spanish America, which in his time was known as la Autobiografia, a cogent denunciation of slavery that attracted the attention of wealthy white Cubans who later purchased his freedom in 1836.2 Though Manzano’s fame did 1 Placido’s baptismal records confirm that Diego Gabriel de la Concepcion Valdés was born in Havana in 1809 and was left in La Casa de Beneficencia y Matemidad, a Church run orphanage (Cue, Placido: EI ggeta 15). Eugenio Maria de Hostos makes the claim that Valdés was raised by his black grandmother after being rescued from the orphanage. De Hostos says that she was a formerly enslaved blind woman. However, I am unable to confirm these claims because de Hostos does not cite his sources (213). 2 William Luis explains that Manzano’s slave narrative was known as la Autobiografia to a small group of white Cuban writers that circulated the autograph manuscript among themselves. The manuscript has been preserved in the Biblioteca Nacional Jose Marti in Havana, Cuba. The spelling used here is that of Anselmo Suarez y Romero who corrected and standardized the orthography and the accents in Manzano‘s slave narrative before It was . translated to English and published in Great Britain by Richard Robert Madden (Luis, ed. 50-51). not surpass that of Placido, his literary achievements did earn him considerable recognition among the Delmontine literary circle and garnered admiration among free blacks. Gabriel de la Concepcion Valdés Is one of the most contentious figures in the history of early nineteenth century Cuban letters. Born of a Spanish mother and a quadroon father, his racial ancestry and celebrity, made him a target of the pro-slavery colonial regime. Although, Placido did not publish until 1836 -- more than ten years after Manzano - he became the most prolific poet and renowned improvisator throughout the island (Horrego Estuch 71). No other Cuban poet, black or white, published more than Placido in the nineteenth century. His career began in earnest when he extemporized "La siempreviva” in 1834, the poem that launched his vocation as a poet (Casals 16-17). In merely ten years he wrote, extemporized and published nearly 700 poems that were disseminated in a number of books and newspapers all over Cuba (Morales, ed. 678). But Valdés’ newly attained notoriety proved to be more of a curse than not. Colonial authorities frequently placed him under surveillance and detained him on three separate occasions for writing what was purported to be seditious verse. In 1844, he was arrested yet again. This time, however, he was charged with being the ringleader of what the colonial government regarded as “la conspiracion proyectada por la gente de color...para el esterminio...de la poblacion blanca" (sic), which came to be known as La Conspiracion de la Essa/era (Nwankwo 35).3 In order to substantiate Charges of treason, the prosecution linked his historical-political poems to an island-wide conspiracy to unseat the Spanish government. Alleging that poets of color were provocateurs, agents of conspiracy and agitators the colonial regime placed the free population of color under siege. The same year, Manzano also fell under suspicion and was arrested for aiding and abetting what authorities portrayed as a conspiracy to establish black rule. Given their uneasy relationship with the colony, I maintain that Manzano and Placido's portrayals of Africa-derived spiritual practice and their re- significations of race denote the introduction of inventive modes of representation in Hispanic literature that disturb and modify the aesthetic and ideological status quo. Producing within a cultural contact zone Afro-Cuban writers were obliged to be familiar with, partake in, and contend with more than one religio-cultural paradigm at once. Such conditions of colonial production created the possibility for texts to become an intervening space linking disparate religious and cultural traditions. I would like to put forward a new hypothesis in regard to the literature of Juan Francisco Manzano and Gabriel de la Concepcion Valdés. I propose that Manzano and Placido's writings represent what maybe the first instance of transculturated literature in Cuba, in view of the fact that the text juxtaposes Afro- Cuban and white Hispanic religious practices, subverts the institutional authority of the Catholic Church and challenges colonial racial discourse even as it lends itself to sometimes contradictory but equally plausible interpretations. 3 l have rendered the colonial government's title for La Conspiracion de la Escalera in English: “the conspiracy devised by people of color to exterminate ...the white population”. 6 1.3 Investigating the Critical Gaze: Inquiries into Manzano and Placido In the main, Manzano’s work has been studied to determine his purported racial identity, which has been unproblematically conflated with his cultural worldview. Some contend that Manzano did not comprehend who he was until he wrote an account of his life, so that identity for the African descendant subject was contingent on his ability to produce a written record.4 In fact, it has been commonly asserted that Manzano’s decision to publish Hispanic literature amounted to a repudiation of his African heritage.5 Others point out that Manzano self-identified as a mulatto and a practicing Catholic in order to make the case that his racial and religious identities reflected those of a colonized individual (DeCosta Willis 9,11). Such a line of reasoning dismisses the prospect that Manzano may have acknowledged his African heritage and, in some way, identified with that religio—cultural frame of reference. 4 In “From Serf to Self: The Autobiography of Juan Francisco Manzano“ Sylvia Molloy posits that the written word and the process of writing transformed Manzano from a slave into true self. Quoting the poet, Molloy argues that Manzano's poems were “cold imitations” that so deliberately mimicked the neoclassical model of the white master that they became original in their unintentional parody of the conventions the poet sought to COpy. Instead, she proposes that the slave narrative is where the poet, who lacked an available literary model, “writes himself down in his autobiography as a black man and a slave, there is... — no master image — to be rescued from texts” (414-16). in C n arrativ William Luis posits that Manzano's choice to embrace the conventions of literary discourse represent an abandonment of an African frame of reference (65). Jerome Branch's article “’Mulato entre negros' (y blancos): Writing, race, the Antislavery Question and Juan Francisco Manzano's Autobiografla‘ makes a forceful but flawed argument that given that Manzano never identified with his African heritage he was not faced with a choice of abandoning it for white bourgeois ideology (82). 7 On the other hand, Placido has been the object of intense scrutiny by those who have sought to resolve his alleged involvement in the Ladder Conspiracy. Cuban critics hold opposing viewpoints concerning Placido’s role in La Conspiracion de la Escalera as well as with regard to the merit and significance of his poetry. One such perspective condemns Placido as a talentless rogue who concocted baseless stories to sink respectable members of high-society.6 Even still, others admit Placido’s involvement in the uprisings but discard the assertion that he was the ringleader, instead portraying him as a well- informed courier and a propagandist.7 Placido’s critics have often branded him a virtually white poet whose work they consider deficient in the reproduction of a black cultural and political thematic. The dissociation of Placido from blackness has the consequence of detaching him from any possible expression of Africa- derived culture and spirituality, as is the case with much of the research on Manzano.8 That being said, more recent approaches imagine Placido within a pan-African perspective as a transnational icon of black resistance in the 6 Manuel Sanguily did not deem Placido a national hero. Nor did he think the poet was deserving of inclusion in Cuba's yet unstructured literary canon. In fact, according to Sanguily Placido was unworthy to be called an artist of any kind. Sanguily described him as a rhymester and simple versifier whose rudimentary worked lacked logic and true order (164,166). Moreover, Sanguily asserts that Placido denounced the liberal abolitionist ideas of white patrician José de la Luz y Caballero (Bueno, ed. W 189-90). 7 Historian Robert Paquette says that it is unlikely that Placido led La Conspiracidn de La Escalera but not improbable that due to his widespread fame, broad network of social contacts and mobility he might have served as a courier of messages and a propagandist for the chief conspirators (257, 259). 8 See Fernandez de Castro's “Tema negro en Ias letras de Cuba haste fines del siglo XIX” (Bueno, ed. graham 170-71) and Pedro Barreda's Wm Magnum (17). nineteenth century.9 While this African Diaspora method is promising, it fails to take account of Valdés’ representations of African descendant cultural and spiritual practices, in that way it neglects ways of reading the colonized and enslaved persona’s subjectivity. The aforementioned criticism tends to address Manzano and Placido’s identity formation by giving undue attention to the Hispanic components of their published work and by de-emphasizing, or (even worse) erasing the marks of an African descendant subjectivity in their literature. In general, the scholarship on both writers has defined their work as largely imitative of white literary models, failing to inquire about their selective and negotiated appropriation of Hispanic literature as a medium for self-inscription.10 How do we read the nineteenth century Afro-Cuban text without reproducing the dominant gaze or privileging multiple colonial structures of subjugation? My analysis of Manzano and A Placido’s writings as transculturated colonial literature interrogates the manner in which such a corpus constructs an imaginative Afro-Cuban subject position previously unknown in literature written on the island. I trust that a comparative assessment of Manzano and Placidc’s work will help to perceive the double 9 Ifeoma Kiddoe Nwankwo studies how the Spanish government's broad notion of black racial community was an inherently contradictory point of view. At once the authorities saw Placido as a mixed raced person who was assumed to be biologically and culturally close to whites even as they portrayed him as a fervent racist who had concocted a plot to exterminate the white population. Employing a comparative approach, Nwankwo contrasts Placido with William Delany and formeriy enslaved writers Frederick Douglass and Juan Francisco Manzano. Her book examines the manner in which, Valdés was enshrined as a leader of black resistance in the Caribbean and the United States following his execution in 1844 (18-21, 34-40). 10 According to Sylvia Molloy, Manzano models his self and the poetic “I” on the voice and the conventions of his white masters. For that reason she believes it is pointless to search for any sincere or personal expression in his poems because they so ardently conform to convention that they fail to represent Manzano himself (414-15). 9 binded cultural texts of poets of named and claimed African ancestry in Cuban slave society. 1.4 Racializing the Colonial Order During the Rise of Cuban Plantation Society Towards the close of the eighteenth century and at the dawn of the nineteenth, an interrelated series of events transformed Cuba into the foremost sugar-producing colony in the world. Changes in international markets demands, the British siege and brief military occupation of Havana and the far-reaching economic and administrative reforms of Spanish monarch Carlos ”I (1759-1788) had broad political, economic and cultural repercussions on the island. However, it was the precipitous destruction of the French colony of St. Domingue and Haitian independence that followed (1791-1804), which created a deep void in world sugar production (Knight 6, 12). As only the second nation to gain its independence from a European colonial power and the first black republic ever to exist, the Haitian Revolution was the shot heard around the world.11 At once, Haiti became a potent symbol of Black Nationalism and a terror to slave-owning white elites throughout Latin America and the Caribbean (Rolph-Trouillot 37). At the same time, the Haitian Revolution meant economic promise for white Cuban landowners, known as sacarocratas because the consequent lull in world sugar exports amounted to unmet market demand. Even so, the 11 I have appropriated language used about the first battles of the American Revolution at Lexington and Concord for what I consider to be a far more suitable context. The thirteen colonies gained their independence from Great Britain in 1776, becoming the first nation in the western hemisphere to do so. 10 combined effect of labor shortages and antiquated Spanish legal restrictions on land usage at first rendered white landowners unable to take advantage of the new market (Knight 12).12 Havana’s solicitor general (Procurador del A yuntamiento de la Habana) Francisco de Arango y Parrefio designed an economic platform to build a plantation society that would be competitive with Saint Domingue.” He opposed the monopolistic slave trade and advocated for its deregulation. In 1789, the Spanish crown granted Arango y Parreno’s appeal, liberalizing the trade to permit both Spaniards and foreigners to import captive Africans into a number of Hispanic Caribbean ports, among them Havana, Cuba.14 This decree allowed slave traders to put an unlimited number of captives on the market and it eliminated all sales taxes on the purchase of human cargo (Knight 11).15 In the first fifty years of the nineteenth century, Cuban sugar production and exports increased dramatically as a consequence of the liberalization of the slave trade, improvements in production technologies and agricultural methods, 12 Deregulation of the slave trade addressed the first obstacle; the second was remedied when planters were permitted full ownership of their lands in 1800, putting an end to usufruct. Additional royal decrees in 1815 and 1816 permitted landowners to freely sell, sublet, sub—divide, and use their lands without legal interference. Significant changes in land reform laws facilitated the expansion of coffee and sugar plantations throughout the island (Knight 17). 13 Manuel Moreno Fraginals states that between 1760 and 1791 Cuba experienced an impressive increase in plantation sugar production. Production on the island expanded from 5,000 to 17, 000 tm (29-30). 14 Other Spanish Caribbean ports opened to the slave trade included Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, San Juan de Puerto Rico, and Puerto Cabello, Venezuela (Knight 11). 15 As the interest and demand in African labor increased: Spain made eleven different pronouncements between 1789 and 1798 to expand the slave trade in the Spanish Caribbean. Altogether, previous restrictions on the transatlantic slave trade were lifted so that prices were set In step with the local market (Knight 11). 11 in addition to a continually replenished enslaved labor supply. Sugar exports were fewer than 16,000 tons in 1790 but they increased to more than ten times that amount (161, 248 tons) by 1840 (Perez Jr. 76-77). Naturally, increased sugar productivity meant that the island underwent noteworthy demographic shifts in urban and rural areas between 1775 and 1838. These changes in population made African-bom captives and their Cuban descendants the majority throughout the island by 1827, a trend that continued so that in 1841 the enslaved inhabitants alone were greater in number than the entire white population (Knight 22).16 Haiti also represented a veritable threat to the political and cultural dominance of the emerging landed gentry that hoped to generate wealth through the exploitation of captive African labor. Demographic shifts in the racial and cultural composition of the island was reminiscent of the numeric predominance of blacks in St. Domingue prior to the Haitian Revolution.17 In the late eighteenth century and during the Latin American wars for independence (1810-1825) opponents of Cuban independence manipulated the white public with the racialized nightmare of a Haitian-style revolution on Cuban soil. They argued that the notion of Cuban independence was counter to and indeed threatened the 16 Due to notable increases in the African population, whites lost the majority they had enjoyed throughout the 17005. By 1841 the census counted 436,495 enslaved persons, 152,838 free persons of color and 418,291 whites (Knight 5, 22). _ 17 In Saint Domingue enslaved persons (and free people of color) numbered 480,000 making up the overwhelming majority Of the population. Captive Africans and free persons Of color dwarfed the colony's 40,000 white inhabitants. Naturally, this system of radical social inequality and brazen economic exploitation engendered a colonial environment were racial tensions ran high (Dubois 61). 12 white Hispano-Catholic ideal. In both racial and cultural terms, Haiti came to signify blackness in the white imaginary. The idea of a race war convinced the white propertied elite not to pursue independence from Spain but to rely on the military power of the mother country to dominate subject populations (Ferrer 8). Officially, the Spanish military government (represented by the captain general) fulfilled the orders of the crown and it put down slave rebellions to preserve a fragile socio-economic order. All the same, the military regime upheld the economic interests of the hacendados by backing the clandestine slave trade even as it barred the white Cuban elite from exercising political control over its own affairs (Knight 24). Rapid growth of the black population on the island was but one factor that terrified white Cuban hacendados. Accounts from St. Domingue also warned of the efficacious use of African ritual poWers In warfare against the French. Haitian soldiers who had fought in the Revolution were largely African-bom and there was evidence to suggest that their religio-cultural frame of reference in the form of incantations and oaths of secrecy had guided them in combat (Thornton, “African Soldiers” 71-72). In Cuba, Africa-derived religion stirred anxiety in the white public and it was anathema to Catholic doctrine. Black confratemities (known as cabildos de nacion) were strongholds of Africa-based ritual practices, and regularly were associated with the guidance of “African-style - spiritual leaders" resulting in a ban on African drumming (Palmié 90, 226, 228). The “era of our happiness” that Arango y Parreno had envisaged years prior was now at risk, as ambitions for wealth felt increasingly threatened by the 13 afn'canizacr'on of Cuba.18 WIth dread of a black Cuba in mind, Arango y Parrer'io proposed the importation of European field hands to replace enslaved Africans on sugar plantations and to promote a system of free labor (Paquette 95). With the support of other hacendados Havana’s solicitor general envisioned the eventual whitening of the island by way of miscegenation rooted in the pseudoscientific belief that when the races mixed black would yield to white, therefore diluting the African influence (Kutzinski, Sugar’s Secrets 31). In theory, . the new racial project would permit whites to retain their wealth while preserving the economic system based on plantation sugar production. The plan to attract free white labor, however, yielded mixed results so that plantation labor demands continued to be met by the importation of African captives.19 Domingo Delmonte also contemplated the expansion of the enslaved and free population of color with great trepidation. In a series of conversations with Richard Robert Madden of the Mixed Court of Justice, he advocated for the end of the slave trade as a means to restoring the numeric predominance of whites on the island.20 Delmonte believed that Spain should put an end to the slave trade to assure the salvacion y prosperidad futures (“salvation and future prosperity") of the island. In 1839, like Arango y Parrefio before him, Delmonte appealed for European immigrants to work the cane fields and grow the white 18 In 1793, Arango y Parrefio viewed the establishment of a sugar-producing colony as a means to expand white Cuban wealth, thus ushering in an age of prosperity (Knight 3). 1 9 Between 1835-1839, whites immigrated to Cuba at an average of 7,000 per year while the annual average of Africans imported surpassed 12,000 (Knight 114-15). 20 The Anglo-Spanish Treaty of 1817 set up the Mixed Court of Justice to prosecute slave trading once it had been outlawed by Great Britain (Luis. We 35). 14 population (Fernandez de Castro, ed. 144-45). He evoked the racist image of a white minority surrounded on all sides by muchos negros esclavos that would surely slaughter them and proceed to ruin the island (Fernandez de Castro, ed. 154-55). Like many patricians of the time, he believed in African intellectual, cultural and biological inferiority. Despite the fact that members of Delmonte’s literary group produced what was essentially anti-slavery fiction, it would be a mistake to infer that support for such literature, in any way, embodied an egalitarian transracial racial project.21 The black and mulatto characters portrayed in Delmonte's anti-slavery literature were Romanticized victims of white oppression, never the rebellious maroon able to challenge colonial subjugation (Barreda 44-45). 1 .51 Manzano and Placido as Afro-Cuban Literati in the Age of La Escalera In the first fifty years of the nineteenth century, writers of African descent were members of a small, albeit, active artistic community nestled within a growing westem Cuban population of color. With few exceptions, these poets and playwrights were free people, almost exclusively male and had limited 21 The Cuban anti-slavery narrative refers to literature written mainly during the 18303 starting with Juan Francisco's Manzano slave narrative which was written in 1835 and published in English by Richard Madden in 1840, and in Spanish by Jose Luciano Franco in 1937. Following the slave narrative there is also Anselmo Suarez y Romero’s Francisco written in 1839 and published in 1880, Felix Tanco y Bosmoniel's Escenas de la vida privada written in 1838 and published in 1925 and his Un nifio en la Habana written in 1837 and published in 1936. All of these early works were requested by Domingo del Monte. Luis says that Gertrudis Gemez de Avellaneda's romantic novel Sag could be considered an anti-slavery work although it was published in Spain in 1841 and Avellaneda was not part of the Delmonte literary circle. However, he does exclude the versions of Cirilo Villaverde’s Cecilia Valdés because their content passed the censors and was published in Cuba. The latter version drew on earlier anti-slavery works but was published not in Cuba but in New York in 1882 (Luis, Wage 1, 4). 15 access to formal education. Afro-Cuban poets recited verse and published in newspapers and magazines of the period such as La Aurora de Matanzas, El Eco de Villa Clara, Diario de la Habana, Diario de Matanzas, La Mada o Recreo Semanal del Bel/o Sexo and El pasatiempo. In the years 1815-1885, twenty-five writers of color published a little over fifty different literary works. The dissemination of nineteenth century Afro-Cuban literature spanned a number Cities and towns including Havana, Matanzas, Villa Clara, and Trinidad (Trelles 31-34). The number of works in print is relatively few, but the information on published poets does not tell the whole story. While it was customary for Afro- descendant writers to devote themselves to the fine arts and to the composition of poetry, not all of their works saw publication (Calcagno 88). The earliest published Afro-Cuban poet in the 18005 and perhaps the first in the history of Cuban literature, was Juana Pastor. In 1815, six years prior to Manzano’s Poesias lin'cas, she released two collections, Décimas and Soneto (T relies 33). Very little is known about Pastor since most of her work has disappeared, but Calcano says that she was a distinguished schoolteacher in her time (Bueno, ed. Orbita de Feméndez 164). Antonio Medina was another notable member of the Afro-Cuban literati. Born in Havana in 1829 - about three decades after Manzano and twenty years after Placido — Medina was well acquainted with Juan Francisco Manzano and familiar with Placido (Calcagno 91). Medina garnered recognition as a poet and dramatist in his own right, publishing three plays, a compilation of poems and a pamphlet, only a few years after La Conspiracion de la Escalera (T relies 34). Furthermore. he read French 16 and English and earned a living directing a small school for persons of color (Calcagno 91-92). Among early nineteenth century writers, Juan Francisco Manzano and Gabriel de la Concepcion Valdés stand out because they were prolific, much of their work has survived, and they articulated a critique of white racial hierarchy while their affirmative representations of Africa-based spirituality undermined the ecumenical authority of the Catholic Church. Unlike oral performers, such highly published poets of color did not enjoy the anonymity that may have protected their spoken word counterparts from political persecution and arrest. The Spanish govemment’s long-held suspicions of African descendant poets came to a head in 1843-1845 when both were accused, arrested and blamed for plotting to massacre the white population and institute a republic of blacks and mulattoes along the same lines as Haiti (Paquette 258-59). In the nearly three decades that his marked literary career, Juan Francisco Manzano published what were regarded as typically neoclassical poems in the mold of Spanish poet Juan Bautista Arriaza. Perhaps because Manzano enjoyed connections with the Delmontine literary salon, his poetry was not thought to articulate seditious content. With the exception of his slave narrative, which was translated into English by Richard Robert Madden and published in Great Britain in 1840, Manzano’s work was frequently available on the island. Many of his poems appeared in Diario de la Habana, (1830, 1831, 1838, 1841), Diario de Matanzas (1830), La Mode 0 Recreo Semanal del Belle Sexo (1831) and El pasatiempo (1834-1835) among other publications (Luis, ed. 14). Such visibility, 17 however, mme to an abrupt end in 1844, when colonial authorities accused Manzano of aiding and abetting Domingo Delmonte to depose the colonial regime.22 The authorities initially mistook J'uan Francisco Manzano for an individual identified as Manuel Manzano. Even so, in a statement to the Governor of Matanzas, Capitan General Leopoldo O’Donnell insinuated that Manzano might also be a threat to the regime, given his reputation as an intellectual among persons of color. The government decided to detain Manzano for questioning once he was in custody (Azougarh, ed. 11-13). Manzano’s predicament resulted from two related affairs: his ties with high society whites and free persons of color, who had also fallen under suspicion, and his vocation as a poet. The prosecution suspected that Manzano was not only informed of Delmonte’s plans but might also be implicated in them. Unlike, Placido, however, Manzano was not under surveillance for any poem that he had written. Between 1844-1845, Manzano was incarcerated on two occasions, twice brought before a military tribunal, interrogated and physically tortured. In Matanzas, in June of 1844, el poeta emancipado was 22 Historians and literary scholars alike have debated rather or not the Ladder Conspiracy of the 18403 was a veridical event, or merely a concoction of the colonial regime meant to justify wide scale terrorism against the free population of color. Robert Paquette examines this ongoing dispute among Cuban and North American scholars. After assessing voluminous testimony from the Military Commission, correspondence between involved parties, and a close study of the historiography concerning La Escalera, as well as other forms of evidence, Paquette concludes that the Conspiracy of La Escalera did indeed exist. He states that this string of conspiracies were organized from 1841-1844 and were comprised of many autonomous yet related centers of seditious activity. The conspiracies and subsequent uprisings were lead and executed by two distinct councils; one made up of white Cubans and another of both enslaved and free people of color. Additional support was provided (and later revoked) by certain elements of the British government (Paquette 263-64). 18 acquitted of Charges brought against him in the first case and released. Only a month later, he was detained yet again, subjected to further interrogations and maltreatment and held until November of 1845 (Friol 64-66). The case brought against Gabriel de la Concepcion Valdés was, by far, more severe. Placido’s literary career began in earnest only ten years prior when he extemporized “La siempreviva”, the poem that launched his successful trajectory as a renowned poet. With only a modest education, Placido improvised several genres of poetry at soirées, weddings, baptisms and other social events attended by Cuban high society (Morales, ed. xviii-xxi). During his lifetime, he published four books of poetry and collaborated in newspapers such as La Aurora de Matanzas, El Eco de Villa Clara and El Pasatiempo (Cue, Placido: El Poeta 178).23 Though marked by brevity, Placido’s career was exceptionally productive. In merely ten years he wrote, improvised and published nearly 700 poems, which were disseminated in a number of books and newspapers throughout the island (Morales, ed. 678). As a prominent free poet of color, Valdés was constantly under surveillance and arrested on three separate occasions for writing what was purported to be seditious poetry.24 Among the poems named in the indictment, “El juramento” (“T he Oath”) (1840) may have cost him his life, for it conveyed a yearning for liberty and articulated a solemn vow to be “the eternal enemy of the 23 Jorge Casals states that Placido collaborated in El Pasatiempo (17). 24 Placido was initially arrested in 1834 for what was suspected to be subversive content in “La sombra de Padilla“. Also, his ode to General Andres de la Flor, which decries slavery and alludes to “the spirit of Hatuey“, was also cited in the charges brought against him (Horrego Estuch 70-71, 107-9). 19 tyrant”. For the Spanish government this sonnet amounted to a political manifesto inscribed in verse that was well known and often recited all over the island (Horrego Estuch 56). Placido’s frequent and extensive travels between Havana, Matanzas, and Trinidad; his elaborate network of influential and politically active friends, coupled with the anti-colonial content of his verse provided the captain general with justification for his arrest and prosecution. On June 28, 1844, Gabriel de la Concepcion Valdés was executed as the president, mastermind, and recruiter of people of color that had plotted to depose the colonial administration (Cue, Placido: El meta 16). The official narrative of the conspiracy, however, was riddled with contradictions. The regime’s account does not justify how Juan Francisco Manzano, Gabriel de la Concepcion Valdés and white patrician Domingo Delmonte could have allied themselves with a rebellion that had apparently incompatible objectives: the establishment of a Cuban government predominantly lead by whites on the one hand and the complete eradication of all white people on the other. Notwithstanding the incongruous account of events on which the government relied, the devastating effects of the racial purge on African descendants were without dispute. The full scope of the repression was breath- taking and colonial authorities did not forfeit the opportunity to prosecute four thousand persons by military tribunal, 98 of whom were condemned to die, 600 were imprisoned, and more than 400 were deported (Midlo Hall 58).25 Africans 25 In economic terms, the Ladder Conspiracy was also damaging to Cuban sugar exports. The exportation of boxes of sugar from Havana (each box equaled two hundred pounds) 20 and African descendants overwhelmingly suffered the brunt of colonial retribution. More people died from starvation, cruel beatings, and other tortuous forms of punishment than were executed, having a destructive effect on the overall size of free and enslaved populations. Between 1841 and 1846 the number of enslaved persons sharply declined by nearly 100,000 persons from 436,495 to 326,759 while the free populace lost almost four thousand (Midlo Hall 59-60).26 Although the devastating crackdown did not silence Afro—Cuban poets and playwrights indefinitely, the damaging events of 9! Afio del cuero, as the Spanish government onslaught came to be known, had a lasting effect on their possibilities for publication. 1.5 Summation of Chapters To address how Manzano and Placido produced the first transculturated literature in Cuba that can be traced back to the early nineteenth century, I am proposing the following chapter distribution. In Chapter 1, “Negotiating Texts within Contact Zones: Transculturated Colonial Literature, A Theoretical Perspective”, I will delineate a theoretical framework that will debunk the current characterization of Afro-Cuban literature as imitative of white aesthetic models. My contention is that poetry, narrative, letters, and testimony produced by writers of African descent in the colony take on a quality peculiar to the socio-historical dropped by more than 300,000 and from Matanzas by about 200,000 between 1844 and 1845 (Midlo Hall 59). 26 Between 1841 and 1846 the number of enslaved persons sharply declined by from 436.495 to 326,759 persons (Midlo Hall 5960). 21 context and precise cultural spaces in which they emerge. In order to analyze such writing I focus on literary discourse; censorship and the white aesthetic -— which place demands on the text - as well as the nature of reader response. Mary Louise Pratt’s notion of “intercultural texts” and Angel Rama’s literary transculturation are my points of departure since the production of colonial (and postcolonial) literature can be analyzed in terms of co-presence, exchange, ongoing conflict and asymmetrical dialogue between different (but not always recognized) cultural paradigms. On this basis I sustain that transculturated colonial literature introduces new modes of racial and religious representations in Hispanic letters that disrupt and modify the dominant aesthetic and ideological rationale. The subsequent Chapters are an analysis of how Manzano and Placido responded to the pressures imposed by the colonial order in Cuba. Chapter 2, “Present but Unseen: Catholicism and African descendant Spirituality in the Poetry and Slave Narrative of Juan Francisco Manzano”, contests the widely asserted view that Manzano’s poetry and slave narrative represent a wholesale negation of his African heritage. This Chapter problematizes Manzano’s construction of a devout Catholic identity in his poetry and life story as a rhetorical strategy designed to legitimate his involvement in white Cuban literary circles. In his writings, a normative self-portrait can be seen as juxtaposed with an autobiographical persona that partakes in Africa-based spiritual practices thus transculturating an otherwise orthodox religious identity. The analysis of “Suefio a mi segundo hermano”, “La visibn del poeta compuesta en un ingenio de 22 fabricar azr'rcar” and la histon'a de mi vida (the story of my life) will show how Manzano’s lyrical voice communes with spirits, performs rituals, receives otherworldly revelations, achieves manonage and engages in ancestral reunion, all hallmarks of an African descendant spirituality. Far from a futile appeal for whiteness, Manzano’s religio-cultural inscription emerges as a constructed and intricate transculturated identity. In Chapter 3, “Re-signifying Religion and Spirituality Within Contested Space: The Poetry of Gabriel de la Concepcion Valdés”, I will analyze Placido’s rendering of Catholic and African descendant spiritual practice as incompatible yet coexistent paradigms whose encounter within the text necessitates an uneasy but sustained dialogue. I interrogate the frequent assertion that regards Placido as a virtually white Catholic poet who espoused religious and cultural affinity for white lettered society. Placido’s normative religious persona in “Muerte de Jesucristo", “A la resurreccion de Jesds", “MUerte del Redentor", “A la resurreccion' and “A la muerte de Cristo" is devoid of self-referentiality and as such is best interpreted as a conscientious reproduction of the carefully scripted interactions he maintained with Cuban white elite. “Mi no sé que ha richo”, “Ala Virgen del Rosario”, “El diablito”, and “Fantasmas, duendes y brujas” along with “El juramento" will also be analyzed to explore Placido's alternative perception in the natural world, the prophesy of imminent judgment, and the re-signification of space as compelling affinnations of Africa-based spirituality. As a final point, Placido's portrayal of an African descendant religio-cultural voice will be 23 examined in tandem with the charges of subversive political participation that the Spanish colonial government brought against him. In Chapter 4, “The Body as Object: Racialization and Self-Representation in the Literature of Juan Francisco Manzano”, I analyze Manzano’s construction of a mulatto racial persona as a discursive act that acknowledges the power of plantation society while critically assessing the authority of the dominant gaze. It is my belief that Manzano’s representation of race is far more complex and problematical than has been previously recognized by scholars who are inclined to put emphasis on his self-identification as a mulatto manservant. On the contrary, my reading suggests that Manzano’s racial identity serves different purposes: it ventures to make the enslaved persona palatable to white literary patrons, it forges positive renderings of black and mulatto beauty and morals and it subverts white claims to racial supremacy. In spite of Manzano’s mulatto self- portrait, my analysis of police interrogations and the poet's eleventh hour letter to a friend written from prison during la Conspiracion de la Escalera, established that there was no in-between that might diminish colonial racial hostility, which, no matter what regarded every dark body, a black body. My final chapter, “Re-charting Racial Aesthetics, Satirical Costumbn'smo and Self-Representation in the Poetry of Gabriel de la Concepcion Valdés” takes a critical look at the manner in which Placido’s poetry embodies one of the first aesthetic and moral valorizations of the mulatta and the black woman in, nineteenth century poetry written in Cuba. This chapter takes a look at the construction of a male racial persona in lesser-known satirical poems: “Que se lo 24 cuente a su abuela", “Si a todos Arcino dices”, “El guapo", “30h...l no juegue, que me moja” and “La respuesta de un curro”. I maintain that like Placido’s Romantic verse, his satire also espouses the notion of a broad African descendant community situating the characters’ lineage in Africa, thus confronting color divisions among Afro-Cubans. Although Valdés eludes racial self-portraitu re in his poetry, his involvement in La Conspiracion de la Escalera obliged him to identify within colonial racial classifications, hence threatening the far-reaching notion of African descendant community, which his literature had posited. Comparable to Juan Francisco Manzano, I make the case that Placido’s purportedly “almost white status” was illusory in view of the fact that all brown bodies were deemed black and therefore subversive within the white colonial imaginary. 25 CHAPTER ONE Negotiating Texts within Contact Zones: Transculturated Colonial Literature A Theoretical Perspective Todo el guarapo no se puede convertir en blanco azrfrcar... The Last Supper 1 .1 From Colonial Frontier to Contact Zone In Imperial Eyes: Tr_a_vel Writjng_a_nd Trggscultuggtjgrj (1992) Mary Louise Pratt coins “contact zones” to describe colonial places wherein disparate cultural groups, who had been historically and geographically apart, were brought into zones of encounter where on-going interactions marked by coercion, deep- seated inequality, and enduring conflict take place (6). Her notion of contact zones places emphasis on improvisational interchanges that link dissimilar subjects whose historical and cultural trajectories now intersect within New World colonies. Pratt implements a “contact perspective”, theorizing that colonial subjects are constituted through the reciprocal and habitual nature of their unequal relations to one another. The colonized (and enslaved) as well as the colonizer are studied in terms of co-presence, intercultural communication, intertwined understandings and sometimes-shared practices. For Pratt, the “colonial frontier“ is not a narrative about unfettered European expansion but a place where dialogue, exchange and overlap create new possibilities for cultural expression (6-7). 26 Cuban colonial slave society during the 18003 did not merely constitute a sugar-producing Spanish plantation island, which had been designed and structured to meet the economic imperatives of empire. On the contrary, it was a dynamic site of cultural contestation wherein Africans, Europeans, their offspring and the remaining Amerindian populations struggled for and negotiated space where precise cultural identities could be articulated. As such, I believe Pratt’s notion of the contact zone is particularly helpful for understanding nineteenth century Cuban colonial society. Pratt asserts that the contact zone creates the conditions for transculturation (6). This speaks to nineteenth century Cuba where the selective absorption and use of outside cultural practices was an ever-present component. The implication is that plantation slavery, the effects of racialization, Spanish colonialism, and compulsory conversion to Christianity - which imposed serious limits on African and African descendant self-expression — did not prevent the oppressed from being active in the production of New World culture. As a point of departure, Pratt relies on Fernando Ortiz’s transculturation model, which was originally posited to expound upon the multifaceted and prolonged history of cultural production in Cuba. Ortiz first used transculturation in Contrapunteo cubano de tabaco y gigs: (1940) to promote an enhanced understanding of the historical processes that informed the origins of Cuban culture. His was a nationalist perspective meant to problematize acculturation, which suggests the almost complete loss of one’s native culture and an inevitable assimilation to the dominant one. For 2.7 Ortiz, acculturation did not adequately describe the means by which Cuban cultural identity was forged, given that it effaced the active role of the oppressed in the formation of national culture (254, 260). He envisaged Cuban culture as the result of multifaceted processes of geographic and cultural uprooting, several dislocations, forced adjustments to new landscapes, the loss of one’s autochthonous culture and the imposition (acculturation) of the dominant one that resulted in what he termed transculturacién (254). Transculturation provides highly plausible explanations with regards to how culture is produced within colonial environments in the course of sustained reciprocal interactions and selectivity: so as to avow that the conquest of the Other is never fully realized. The description of Cuban national culture as an amalgamation of African, Iberian and Amerindian influences permitted Ortiz to rewrite his earlier works Los Negros Brujos (1906) and Lee Negros esclavos (1916) whose deterministic posture had denigrated Afro-Cuban culture as a malignant stain on the social fabric.27 Nearly three decades later, transculturacién provided a conceptual means for re-imagining Cuba even as it effectively overlooked a troublesome and protracted history of white racial domination. Throughout Cuban history race embodied an agonizing site of economic exploitation, conflict and social animosity. Presumed to be a naturally existing biological category, race was implemented as a legal instrument of social control and collective domination. Although meaningfully dissimilar to processes 27 In W (1916) Ortiz decried what he termed “Afro-Cuban“ culture as part of a socially corrupt underworld peopled by individuals which he presumed to be intellectually, morally, and culturally inferior on the basis of biological ancestry (30-31). 28 of transculturation, race cannot be discounted as a considerable factor in nineteenth century Cuban identity formation. 1.2 Stratifying Race In Colonial Cuba Cuban colonial society operated under the aegis of a multipartite racial caste system. By law, Europeans and their descendants were deemed to be white, whereas Africans and their offspring were categorized in ways meant to accomplish two contradictory goals: to consign all people of African ancestry to a racial group that would be judged inferior while also accentuating the phenotypical differences among them. The first colonial census taken in Cuba in 1774 categorized persons of African descent as either negros or mulatos, enslaved or free (Nwankwo 34-35). These categories were meant to distinguish betvreen persons of mixed heritage and those known only to have African ancestors. ‘ Under the law, persons regarded as white were granted privilege. In principle, this meant that the perception of European features garnered more social capital than African phenotypes. Official categorizations were based entirely on European norms of physical appearance and Euro-centric beauty standards, and judged skin color, the shape and slope of the nose and lips, as well as hair textures as outstanding determinants of racial identity. The Spanish concept of limpieza de sangre or purity of blood, dating back to medieval times, 29 maintained relevancy in eighteenth and nineteenth century colonial Cuba.28 Mixedness implied racial impurity; though it was not the inverse of whiteness but a less than perfect progression within a color scheme that exalted whiteness as a social and cultural ideal. In the first half of the nineteenth century, long before the thirty-year Cuban struggle for independence from Spain (1868-1898) whites perceived miscegenation as a step towards the eventual whitening of the island through biological means.29 In social terms, persons of mixed race —- thought to be both biologically and culturally closer to the white ideal -— operated under the notion of a “mulatto escape hatch” (Helg 4). Official designations, known as “legal color", were determined at birth, even though they did not reasonably correspond to the physical appearance of Cuban born people. Cubans were of infinite skin colors for various reasons; including white male rape of enslaved women, consensual interracial concubinage, and On a few occasions marriage (Martinez-Alier 73-74).30 Nonetheless, an individual’s legal color at birth ultimately did not determine his or 28 Race finds its inception in fifteenth century Spanish legal codes, which regarded Christians to be the only persons to have limpieza de sangre or purity of blood. Such a classification excluded Jewish and Muslim persons from participating in the political process. (Martinez-Alier 6, 15) 29 Towards the end of the 18005, however, mixedness would become the battle cry of the independence movement. This mestizaje was expressed in terms of the absence of race, as was the case with one of the movement’s principal intellectual leaders, white poet Jose Marti, who denied the existence of race all together. Additionally, leading Afro-Cuban military officer General Antonio Maceo said there were “no whites nor blacks, but only Cubans”. HoWever, this did not mean that race ceased to exist among pro-independence leaders but that it was de- emphasized in order to imagine Cuban national identity wherein all racial groups were united as one (Ferrer 4, 7). 3° Colonial legal codes regulated and restricted interracial marriage (Martinez-Alier 2). 30 her social status. To the contrary, facial features defined social identity not the skin color described in legal documentation (Andrews 74). In any case, race Imposed the social stigma and the legal reality of hypodescent on Africans and their descendants. Martinez-Alier explains that the Cuban kinship system was bilateral. This meant that children traced their descent through both parents and were equally related to the consanguines of both their mother and father. In terms of racial Classifications it was always the non-white parent that determined the group membership of the offspring of mixed parentage (17). No matter what type was assigned to individuals of color, by law African ancestry translated into an inferior social (and often economic) status. This scheme was utterly foreign to African new arrivals given that, as George Reid Andrews states, Africans who were involved in and fell victim to the Transatlantic slave trade had no concept of race. They organized and perceived themselves and other Africans according to their particular ethnic-linguistic and geographic designations (21). Race, then, was an imposition of the colonial power structure, which - along with the doctrine of the Catholic Church - functioned as one of the legal and social justifications for their enslavement and economic exploitation. Frantz Fanon’s pioneering work, Black Skin Whit Ma ks brings a vital critical lens to the study of race in colonial situations by making an allowance for the power of the white gaze, the black body as object, and the self/Other divide. His study relies on psychoanalysis to examine the black condition as an exploited 31 morbid body.31 For Fanon people of African descent exist within a zone of non- being, which is the result of economic dependence that produces the internalization of a shared sense of inferiority. That is to say, that black persons do not experience the fullness of their existence as they might, owing to the restraints placed upon them by a hostile, racist society. This non-being produces a desire for social and cultural whitening and the perceived need to gain the approval of white society. Implicit in this condition is the infantilization of blacks, which denies them full subjecthood (8-12, 31, 51). In Fanon’s painful, autobiographical account the dominant white gaze emerges as an instrument of violence against the black body, dismembering the body, as it is shattered into unequal fragments. This dominant gaze generates a grave sense of awareness within the colonized person who is not only conscious of his/her body in the third person but also becomes a triple person; at once held to account for the black body, the black race and his/her African ancestors. In other words, the white gaze threatens to dislocate the black subject by projecting preconceived notions of intellectual deficiency, primitivism, religious savagery, slavery, and even anthropophagy (112). The dominant group’s prejudicial view of the black body is the result of the intrinsic power of the white gaze reinforced by socio-economic privilege and a prolonged history of colonialism. In such a state of affairs, colonized persons yearn to experience the full range of their subjecthood and to speak on their own behalf. Fanon posits that 31 . Fanon uses “black” as a general descriptor for all people of African descent. In some Instances, however, he uses the term mulatto to refer to people of a lighter hue within the same group. 32 the mastery of the metropolitan tongue is crucial since it affords the colonized social recognition and relevancy. Within this colonial paradigm the oppressed garner social presence through imperial languages because speaking the language of the dominant group implies the ostensible adoption of their culture. Consequently, to speak is to be present for the white Other whose denial of African descendant cultural values situates blacks within an atemporal space, devoid of culture and without history. The linguistic hegemony of dominant groups also means that blacks have “two dimensions” given that they are expected to behave differently with white persons than with members of their own racial community (17, 35). This linguistic authority reinforces notions of cultural difference that find their basis in a “fixed concept of the Negro” (35). For Homi Bhabha, Fanon’s notion of a “fixed concept of the Negro” can be best explained in terms of stereotypes, which he says are the foremost discursive strategies of the colony. Bhabha sees the stereotype as an ambivalent “form of knowledge and identification” whose existence is constant even though it requires reiteration. This is not merely a false description but an “arrested fixated form of representation” with societal repercussions for the colonized subject. Bhabha asserts that such a representation remains the same throughout time and space (66, 75). The stereotype is produced by colonial discourse to depict the colonized as a completely knowable and observable Other from the dominant group’s point of view (70-71). Taking a page from Fanon, Bhabha explains that this form of representation may engender a desire to mimic the white colonizer. In his words, 33 “colonial mimicry is the desire for a reformed, recognizable Other, as a subject of a difference that is almost the same, but not quite,” in other words not quite white (86). According to this formulation, white society maintains its authority by insisting that colonized peoples conform to and reproduce the white ideal which functions as a desired yet unattainable standard for measuring the humanness of non-European peoples. Mimicry, then, results in the ridicule of the colonized subject who is not able to escape this perceived sense of otherness. Although the hostility of the white gaze fragments the black body into Fanon’s triple person, it is clear that this fragmentation does not produce the disintegration of the black subject since the body is but a vessel for the subject. The colonial situation provides multiple examples of the ways in which colonized and enslaved persons survived by exercising subjectivity: i.e. the production of culture or violent resistance to complete subjugation. In fact, Bhabha says that colonized persons can subvert the white masculinist gaze turning back the discriminatory glare through a counter gaze (47). Although, Fanon very carefully diagnoses the condition of the black colonial subject he seems unable or unwilling to prescribe a feasible solution to the black dilemma or to reflect on the inherent value of the strategies that persons of African descent have adopted in order to endure white racial domination. In my view, the very blackness he discards as a mere negation of whiteness holds significance as a suitable mode of racial and/or racial-cultural identity empowering the African descendant subject in a hostile colonial situation (228-31). Besides the frequent inculcation of racial hierarchy, the Spanish government set up the Catholic Church as the monopolistic religion on the island, operating as part of a broader apparatus to maintain social control of the African and African descendant populations. 1.3 Catholicism, Africa-based Spirituality and Social Control in Early Nineteenth Century Cuba I would like to theorize about the function of the Catholic Church as a prime structure of colonial subjugation foisted upon the nineteenth century African descendant subject. There are three distinctive, although, related problems that interest me here: What was the prevailing rationale for the renaming of the land in Christian terms? How did the Catholic Church operate as an instrument of social control of the enslaved population? Lastly, in what manner did Afro- Cubans transform colonial space into contact zones to make possible the construction of a religio-cultural subject as an exception to, and, in spite of the authoritarian posture of the Church? Seldom have such theoretical issues been addressed as regards to the literature produced by colonial writers of African descent. By taking up these disregarded questions, I aim to determine the manner in which processes of transculturation came to fruition in nineteenth century Afro-Cuban colonial literature. Catholicism, the official religion of the colony, exercised a major organizational and social role since the Spanish conquest of Cuba. The influence of the Church was such that each town was named and “placed under the protection of a saint, a path of the Virgin, or other religious figure” (Cros 35 Sandoval 19-21).32 Within the colonial imaginary the act of naming represented . a christening of the land to dissociate it from what was deemed its pagan past, thus consecrating the terrain for exclusively Christian use. This de- spiritualization of the conquered land envisaged the terrain as tabula rasa where the Church might efface all pre-existent sacred traditions, while lnscribing a white Hispano-Catholic presence for perpetuity.33 The consecration was both political and religious since the Catholic personages assigned to protect the land also guarded its rearrangement and settlement for agricultural exploitation. The onomastic was an act of symbolic violence, reimagining the land and Othering non-Christian and non-white religious belief systems. The institutional authority of the Catholic Church was also reflected in colonial slave codes. In 1789, the Spanish crown decreed the Cédigo negro espafiol, a summary of slave lawlbased in part on the Slate partidas, a thirteenth century medieval code. The cédigo negro espaflol differed from previous summaries of the law introducing ameliorative measures to protect enslaved persons and to penalize abusive masters. It was comparable, however, to all other prior slave laws in that it reiterated the clerical duties of the Roman Catholic Church: to conduct daily prayer, provide religious instruction, perform compulsory baptisms and give mass to the enslaved population. With the exception of the 32 Catholicism was the official religion of the colony from 1512-1898 so that the Catholic Church enjoyed a privileged alliance with the monarchy functioning as an arm of the metropolitan government (Cros Sandoval 19-21). 3 3 I am indebted to Latin American literary scholar Marla Mudrovcic for coining the Spanish term. “desespiritualizacion'. l have translated it to English and defined it within the context of this dissertation. 36 harvest season, bondsmen were not obliged to work so that they might participate in sanctioned religious holidays (Knight 124—25). In effect, the law delineated and reiterated the paternalistic role of the Catholic Church in the lives of enslaved persons, having been designed to sequence their quotidian activities and, indeed, their lives in accordance with plantation work cycles.34 Catholicism was imposed upon Africans and their descendants predicated on the assertion that Christianity was a religion superior to all others, and could justify Spanish conquest and enslavement. In explicit, as well as less perceptible ways, Christian theology undergirded the system of colonial Oppression (Erskine 8).35 Midlo Hall says that in large part, “fundamental religious beliefs” determine how people see the world so that conversion to Christianity was “the ultimate device of social control” intended to alter the worldview of enslaved persons. In other words, the proselytization of the enslaved population was not born of a Christian evangelical mandate; on the contrary, it was a kind of deculturation and indoctrination meant to make slaves more compliant.36 Reshaping the worldview of the enslaved was meant to foster servility, so that the slave would be pliable to the will of the master, indisposed to claim a subjecthood that might surpass the 34 Although legally not enslaved, Spanish slave codes also placed restrictions on the lives of free persons of color who were required to have a white patron. Such a legal obligation was part and parcel of a socio—economic system based on white male paternalism (Knight 124). 35 I have adopted Neo Leo Erskine' s critique of Christian theology based largely on the Jamaican context for my dissertation since what he says about the function of Christian theology is also applicable to the nineteenth century Cuban context. 36I generally use “enslaved person“ throughout this dissertation to clarify that the status of captive Africans and their descendants under the law did not speak to the fullness of their collective or individual Identities. In this instance, I use “slaves” as a necessary reference to colonial jurisprudence. 37 confines of the Hispano-Catholic norm. It was thought that a Christianized slave would be disinclined to Africa-derived ritual practice, since the process of religious conversion would detach him/her from acts of ancestral remembrance. As such, conversion to some form of Christianity was preferable to any continuation of an African religious belief system (Midlo Hall 32-34). Despite its designated function in colonial law, the Catholic Church’s sphere of influence in early nineteenth Cuba was considerably muted. Whereas in the eighteenth century the priesthood was large enough to minister to the needs of practicing Catholics, by the beginning of the 18003 it had diminished even as the enslaved and free population of color increased. Cros Sandoval states that few Cubans were willing to join the sacred orders making the priesthood increasingly Spanish so that the Catholic Church managed to have only limited influencefon the growing enslaved population (21-23). Many might presume that the Catholic Church - buttressed by colonial legislation, the demands of the planter elite, and Spanish military power - would have effectively eradicated, or at least seriously encumbered, the practice of Africa-based ritual on the island. However, this was simply not the case; given that the cabildo and religious festivals generated overlap where African descendants constructed, negotiated, and projected an Afro-Cuban religio- cultural subject.37 37 Jualynne Dodson uses Africa—based (and Africa-derived) in reference to religious customs, which contemporary Cuban practitioners inherited from Africans enslaved in Cuba during the colonial era. Dodson says that the New Worid origin of such ritual practices can be located in African cultural antecedents and are informed by an Africa-based system of epistemology (1 -2). 38 .‘ In Cuba, co—ed religious confratemities can be traced to the late sixteenth century, when - of their own accord - Africans organized in cabildos (Cros Sandoval).38 White slave owners envisioned the cabildo as a deterrent to rebellion, since the enslaved were encouraged to organize (and often did) according to ethnic-linguistic origin. It was thought that the tensions inherent in slave societies could be mitigated if blacks were granted some measure of autonomy (Childs 106). Although cabildos permitted non-Africans to join, persons of color born in Cuba were granted limited rights within these organizations since African-bom leadership was preferred (Childs 108). Indeed, the predilection for leaders born on African soil represented the socio-cultural inverse of colonial society, since the African held the most privileged position as a purveyor of ritual practice. Cabildos had certain functions; these brotherhoods raised funds to purchase the freedom of enslaved members (known as cofrades) buried the departed, and participated in religious festivals with drumming, dance, and pageantry (Ortiz, Loe cabildos y la fiesta 7-8). Congas and comparsas were performative street processions that the cabildos organized on Church sanctioned religious holidays, which were carefully veiled celebrations of African divine spirits and ancestors (Cros Sandoval 53). Such associations provided enslaved and free people of color a space wherein they might produce new sacred practices and re-root religious traditions that were informed by an Africa- 8In the eighteenth century, the Spanish colonial government recognized the legal right of African and African descended people to associate in brotherhoods and sought to exploit these organizations to control the subject population' In urban areas (Ortiz, W 3). 39 based spirituality, hence perpetuating shared social and religio—cultural values. Moreover, the cult of the Wrgin Mary and the saints —- then prominent in Western European Christianity - created a space within the cabildo for African-bom captives and their Cuban descendants to appropriate Catholic religious figures (and images) for the observance of Africa-based sacred practices (Cros Sandoval 41, 53).39 In this way, the proselytization of pe0ple of African descent failed to irreversibly transform the religio-cultural worldview of subject populations, thus leaving an opening for an authority system over which Europeans had little control (Midlo Hall 34). Church sanctioned religious holidays and the cabildo constituted contact zones where persons of African descent maintained ongoing dialogue and exchange with Hispano-Catholic culture, adopted outside cultural practices, and negotiated boundaries in order to assure the continued existence of an African spiritual heritage, even while facilitating the construction of an Afro- Cuban religio-cultural subject that did not emerge from the Hispano-Catholic norm. It is my pr0posltion that Afro-Cuban writers produced such processes of transculturation in the Hispanic literature of colonial nineteenth century Cuba. 1.4 Transculturating the Colonial Text In Transculturacién narrativa en América Latina (1982) Angel Rama — who popularized transculturation in Latin America — embraces Ortiz’s concept as a 39 Although Spain did not institute a legal apparatus to prosecute practitioners of Africa- derived spiritual practice, their rituals were anxiously viewed as plausible sources of social unrest and sedition (Palmié 225, 228-29). 40 constructive means for the study of Latin American culture because it acknowledges that not only the colonized suffered uprooting and loss in the process of cultural production. Those that were acted upon also induced alterations in the culture of the colonizer as well as in Metropolitan society itself (39). For Rama transculturation in the Latin American narrative is an enduring and ongoing process that began with the initial contact between Spain and indigenous peoples and came to take on new dimensions in the twentieth century. Unlike Mary Louise Pratt, Rama argues that transculturation is not limited to the specific historical conditions of the colonial context.40 He explains its development in the Latin American narrative as a twentieth century occurrence involving direct contact between regional cultures and modernization that resulted in losses, selectiveness, rediscoveries and integrations. Rama understands these concomitant operations as the height of the creative process which are themselves resolved within a general restructuring of the cultural system (38-42). Moreover, the literary record supports Rama's idea of literary transculturation as a reflection of colonial encounters between the dominant group and subjugated persons throughout the history of Latin America. Nonetheless, I am partial to Pratt’s contention that transculturation is most 40 Cuban poet Nancy Morejon maintains that the poetry of Nicolas Guillén, Metivos del son (1930) SCngoro Cosongo (1931 ), West indies Ltd. (1934) and El son entero (1947) not only illustrate and dissect the various elements of transculturation but that it imparts lyrical voice to the very process of transculturation. Although he did not call it transculturacidn, Guillén identified the first “symptoms” of cultural amalgamation towards the end of the eighteenth and the dawn of the nineteenth centuries in Cuba (16. 36)- 41 relevant to the colonial situation. The socio-historical conditions of the colonial environment constitute a situation much unlike postcolonial Latin American societies. To be precise, the imposition of a dehumanizing racial hierarchy on African descendant subjects, their prolonged enslavement and proselytization at the hands of the Catholic Church (as the designated colonial religious institution) imposed much greater constraints on their possibilities for cultural production. As I have previously discussed, transculturation is both process and product. It is a site of contestation and exchange, asymmetrical dialogue and clashes between disparate cultural groups who were brought into significantly disproportionate relations of power. In due course, these ongoing confrontations, interactions and struggles produced new cultural forms in colonial places. Although subordinated groups do not control what emanates from the dominant culture, they do actively determine what they absorb into their own cultures and how they choose to use it (Pratt 6). This sort of selective absorption and use of outside cultural materials was an ever-present component of Cuban colonial society. The implication is that plantation slavery, Spanish colonization, and compulsory conversion to Christianity - which imposed serious limits on African and African descendant self-expression — did not prevent the oppressed from being active producers of New World culture. Pratt’s notion of “intercultural texts“ serves as my point of departure since it refers to literature produced under extraordinary circumstances either by the colonizer or by colonized subjects otherwise thought to be powerless (4). To make sense of such texts, she adopts a “contact perspective” because like 42 religion or oral traditions that emerged in the contact zone, colonial writing is defined by the exceptional disparities within colonial societies, the regular contact, interpersonal relations, asymmetrical exchange of ideas and the boundary marking of colonial subjects. This “contact perspective” underscores that the colonized were highly innovative in their production of cultural forms. It is also recognition that colonial literature is the product of reciprocity in which “interlocking understandings and practices” forge the production of the text (7). Such an approach is meaningful to my dissertation because it moves beyond the notion of uncontested white domination of early nineteenth century literary discourse. This method suggests that texts produced by African descendant writers articulated a cultural expression that was neither purely African nor Spanish. The intercultural text, then, makes a selective and purposeful use of cultural practices from the dominant group in order to create space for the representation of Afro-Cuban identity. The focal point of Pratt’s book is an analysis of eighteenth and nineteenth century travel writing produced by European joumeyers roving throughout Africa and Latin America.41 It is intended as a study of genre and a critique of the ideology it represented (9). Pratt reads travel writing as texts that were constructed in dialogue, negotiation, and conflict with local customs and autochthonous forms of self-knowledge (11, 135). As such, she disturbs, even deconstructs, the monologic notion of the all-seeing male-personed imperial eye 41 Pratt writes extensively about German Alexander von Humboldt whose wealth enabled him to travel extensively and independently throughout Spanish America and Cuba. gumboldt published a cepious collection of travel journals, political essays and scientific treatises 15.119) 43 capable of surveying the land, people and customs, which will be rewritten, restructured and possessed. Pratt defines “autoethnographic expression” in terms of colonial writings that involve at least partial collaboration with the colonizer and use the discursive tools of the dominant group to authoritatively self-represent. These writings were addressed to both metropolitan audiences and literate members of the writers’ own group, and undeniably, they were received and comprehended in different ways by each readership (7). Although she coins the language of “autoethnographic expression” her near exclusive focus on white writers and European modes of representation in this book does not give due consideration to the ways in which colonized persons appropriated ostensibly European literary formats to self-represent. My conception of transculturated colonial literature differs from Pratt’s idea of “intercultural texts” in a number of ways. I maintain that the Afro-Cuban transcultural text privileges racial and religious representations, acknowledges and dialogues with white literary discourse, and lends itself to divergent even contradictory readings. Such transcultural texts construct African descendant subjectivity within a predominately white Hispanic format and are read by a literate colonial elite as well as non-literate African descendant interiocutors, both, who lay claim to the texts.42 42 My theory about “African descendant subjectivity“ originated with close readings of Manzano and Plécido’s colonial literature. By “African descendant subjectivity”, I am referring to the construction of a representative self that manifests an Afro-Cuban religio-cultural paradigm and performs what I have termed, “the will to subject”. Such a frame of reference emerges within the colonial contact zone drawing upon the cultural capital of the enslaved and freebom African 44 A Throughout the 18003 literature was subject to the scrutiny of colonial censors, which inflicted severe limitations on what could be published in Cuba. While certain books and poetry were disseminated illicitly, or not at all, censorship did manage to confine what writers of color, or anyone else for that matter, could bring to press.43 Moreover, the white Cuban aesthetic delimited and defined the genres and the subject matter that were deemed palatable and fashionable to their readership. Afro-Cuban texts were subjected to twin pressures; the foremost of these resulting from the inherent dangers of writing in a contact zone as well as the constraints emanating from a fledging, though important, white literati. These external pressures or strains created, even cultivated, palpable tensions within the text. I believe that these writings should be read for what appear to be contradictory statements existing on multiple - planes as a way of assessing the function of conventional as well as Unorthodox imagery. Thus, the question at hand: How does transculturated colonial literature take form and how might understanding it make Afro-Cuban representations of spirituality and race readable? For early nineteenth century white Cuban writers, literature was tantamount with Enlightenment thought, it was purported to be a conduit for elite cultural values as well as a genuine means to economic and social progress. descendant communities It rs my contention that although Afro—Caribbean characters In colonial literature may not always exercise agency. they do reflect a “will to subject”. 4 . . . 3 The colonial government censored anti-slavery works; refusrng them publrcatron so that they did not appear in print until the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries when enslaved persons were no longer considered an imminent threat to the white order (Luis, Literary W1 3) 45 Given that music and the fine arts were the almost exclusive domain of persons of color, literature was perceived as the last bastion of Hispanic culture, thought to be untainted by a black presence (Esténger, ed. 94).44 All the same, the budding contributions of published poets of color disturbed this rather delimited notion of literature. Their poetic and narrative portrayals of Africa-derived spirituality and race constituted modes of representation that had not yet emerged in nineteenth century Hispanic literature. By presenting affirmative descriptions of Africa-based spirituality as a means to othenrvorldly revelation, an occasion for the remembrance of the dead and instances of collective ritual activity, Cuban writers of color called into question, even delegitimated, the institutional authority of the Catholic Church. In such a context, representations of Afro-Cuban ritual practice functioned as an identity marker as well as an instrument of subversion within the text. At the same time, Afro-Cuban writings on race cast serious doubts on colonial assertions of white superiority by creating space for the celebratory depiction of black and mulatto women as aesthetically desirable and morally upright Characters. The poetic and narrative depictions of religion and race identify and critique the dominant gaze as an instnrment of violence against collective Afro-Cuban spirituality and the dark body. 44 On a trip to Cuba in 1839. Spanish traveler Jacinto de Salas y Quiroga, wrote that “el verdadero terrnometro de la civilizacién actual e inmediata es el estado de sus Ietras' (“the true thermometer of civilization, both present and immediate is the state of her letters '). From this vantage point, the gleaming light of literature fostered possibilities for true learning, for where there is much literature there is much knowledge, so that the dissemination of literature was thought to be a means to inculcate las masas in elite notions of virtue (Bueno, ed. Acerca de 49139151931)- 46 Such racial and religious representations engage the aesthetic norms and ideological rationale of the Hispanic text by alluding to the presence of an African descendant subject position that posits an atypical cultural and political function for Cuban literature. The poems, narratives, letters and testimony analyzed in this dissertation are self-dissembling texts existing within an intervening space, situated on the periphery but palatable to a metropolitan readership. The negotiations inside the text and reader response enable transculturation, inviting two opposing but equally plausible interpretations as to play a game of hide and seek with the reader. This is the “intercultural” nature of writing in the contact zone in that symbols and images may mean one thing to a white Catholic audience even as they allude to something altogether different for the African descendant interlocutor. Reader response is decisive in the transculturation of colonial literature since cultural competency and socio-economic positionality play a vital role in the meaning of literature. Naturally, there is an active affiliation between writers and the cultural communities that they belong to or partake in. Such a relationship implies conditions of the contact zone - dialogue and mutual exchange - since the poet writes for an “implicit interlocutor” as well as a larger community of readers (Williams 4). Literate persons constituted only a fraction of the population in early nineteenth century Cuba (Esténger, ed. 77-80). Although there was an artistic-literary population of color who could read and write, the majority of those consuming the printed word were members of the white propertied order. This means that the greater part of the African descendant 47 population, who did not read and write, became acquainted with Afro-Cuban poetry through the recitation and extemporization of verse.45 Such a circumstance makes for at least two different types of audiences; the white elite positioned as the mainstream audience and the African descendant individual as an “implicit interlocutor”. Each has distinguishing cultural competencies, draws upon disparate sources of cultural capital and employs different ways of relating to the texts. As sites of contestation, transculturated literature contends with the dual strains of colonial censorship and the dominant aesthetic so that it may speak to two readers at once, corresponds to apparently incompatible systems of religious practice and reiterates as well as critiques pervasive racial stereotypes. The silences, double entendre, repetitions, and emphasis on the perspectival enables audiences to construct differing even incongruous interpretations of the same text, since making sense of it is an inherently ideological practice. The participation of African descendant writers in early nineteenth century Cuban letters disturbed prevailing notions of literature as a purveyor of Hispano- Catholic values and as the exclusive cultural patrimony of white audiences. Afro- Cuban racial and religious representations transformed Hispanic literature into a site of contestation since transculturation undermined rampant claims to white 45 Samuel Feijoo in n I lit Ikl ' b n credits both Catholic religious songs and the cabildo songs of enslaved Afro-descendants as the birthplace of what he terms un nuevo idioms poético. F eijoo says that in the nineteenth century the rhythms, dances and songs of enslaved peoples - which had already been transculturated — were co-opted for white Cuban minstrel shows known as 9] teatro popular Bufo Cubano and also found expression in literary forms such as Cirilo Villaverde's novel Ceciljelafies and Anselmo Suarez y Romero’s madam (20-25). 48 racial superiority and delegitimated the institutional authority of the Catholic Church. Literature was subjected to the dual tensions of colonial censorship and the strictures of a white aesthetic. As a consequence, transculturated texts reflect the exchanges, asymmetrical dialogue, clashes, and imbrications of Cuban colonial slave society while inviting opposing but conceivable interpretations by audiences with different cultural capitals. 49 CHAPTER TWO Present but Unseen: Catholicism and African descendant Spirituality in the Poetry and Slave Narrative of Juan Francisco Manzano Yo soy catolico a mi manera... -- a Cuban saying 1 .1 Introduction Critics have frequently described Juan Francisco Manzano as the archetypical slave, a mulatto poet whose Ieaming to read and write was characteristic ofan affinity for Hispano-Catholic cultural values. Manzano’s publication of neoclassical poetry has been interpreted as an unapologetic act of cultural assimilation disassociating him from blacks on the plantation while also negating an African Cultural frame of reference. Such criticism of Manzano’s cultural identity, however, does not assess the image of the Christianized slave, as a leitrnotif in the slave narrative genre, and it says nothing of the portrayal of African descendant ritual practice in his work. Miriam DeCosta-erlis casts Manzano as a “tragic mulatto”, a severely injured personality whose racial and cultural in-betweeness made him a social misfit in nineteenth century Cuban slave society. DeCosta says that Manzano was denied membership in white literary circles even though he had no roots in the African community (9,11). In her view, Manzano was the quintessential victim of the colonial slave system, a deculturated and miscegenated house servant, whose espousal of Hispano-Catholic values rendered him a doubly 50 Othered outsider. DeCosta argues that by carrying the young Manzano to French operas and Catholic mass, his owners created a marginal person whose sense of social privilege was not recognized by the larger society. In this way, she sees Manzano's publication of Hispanic literature as a futile act of social whitening (9—10). According to William Luis, Manzano’s written account of his life demonstrates that African oral traditions functioned as his original cultural background (“Oralidad y escritura" 34,40). Even still, Luis avers that by embracing Westem literacy and the conventions of Hispanic literature; Manzano abandoned his African heritage as a mandatory concession to the dominant cultural aesthetic (Luis, Literary Bondage 65). On the other hand, Jerome Branch Claims that Manzano’s literature did not represent a negation of an African cultural heritage sinCe the poet never had such a frame of reference to begin with (82). Such analyses recognize Hispanic culture as a point of departure, thus discarding the prospect that Manzano‘s literature might portray an Africa-derived cultural identity. What is more, the aforementioned critics largely neglect the representation of religion and spirituality in Manzano’s body of work, a silence that I will correct in this chapter. My analysis of Manzano’s poems, life narrative and letters to Domingo del Monte, aims to identify the frequently obscured encounters, interstices, overlap and dialogue between Spanish Catholic and African descendant cultures. I propose that Manzano’s self-representative 51 portrayal of Africa-based ritual transculturated an otherwise normative religious persona. 1.2 Catholicism and the Biblical Narrative in Manzano’s Poetry and Slave Narrative Published in 1831 while Manzano was still an enslaved writer, “Oda a la religion“, (“Ode to the Religion”) is an unmediated plea to God the Father for relief, redemption and escape from a sinful world through spiritual rapture. It is both an ode and a jeremiad paying homage to the Christian faith even as it laments and problematizes the social condition of the poetic voice. In the first stanza, the lyrical voice lifts his tender soul and weeping face to God who raises him up from the earth for a sacred and intimate encounter with the divine. The poet writes; “Cuando triste levanto l el alma tiema, do el amor repose / y con vista Ilorosa / a Dios me elevo desde el bajo suelo / rapido subo en alentado vuelo”, (“When sad I raise l the tender soul where love rests land with tearful visage l to God I am lifted from the lowly earth / swiftly I rise in Cherished flight") (Luis, ed. 140). As is common in neoclassical verse, the poem places emphasis on God the Father as Redeemer and Judge of all mankind. By flying the poetic voice draws near to the divine father figure who he addresses as “<>" (“Oh, Father, Oh Supreme Being!” / Great, Immense, Eternal, Omnipotent) (Luis, ed. 141 ).46 La sangre tefr’ida del cordero appears to allude to the New Testament figure of Jesus Christ whose blood sacrifice makes divine redemption possible (Luis, ed. 46 All translations in this dissertation are mine, unless otherwise noted. 52 141). Although the poetic voice’s plea is to God the Father, it is the blood sacrifice of the Lamb, Jesus Christ, that makes human contact with God possible. The highly personal nature of this stanza is palpable. Such unvarnished approach to God does not reflect either Catholic dogma or Africa-based spirituality. Cros Sandoval explains that in Catholicism and in Yoruba-based religion (which is informed by traditional African religious belief systems) the Supreme Being is the source of all power in the universe so that the devoted gain access to that power through spiritual entities that act as mediators. In Catholicism these intermediaries are manifested as saints and as different paths to the \frrgin Mary, while Yoruba-based religion identifies them as on'chas or divine spirits (41 ). Thus, the poetic voice's encounter with God — which is articulated in the language of Christianity- neither reflects Catholic orthodoxy or Africa-based spirituality. Instead, this direct appeal to God is made possible by way of divine ecstasy and can be understood within the broader context of Christianity since such spiritual intimacy with God the Father is analogous to the prophetic tradition of the Old Testament. Like Manzano’s poem, José Marla Heredia’s “Ala religion“ is safely perched within discursive nonnativity displaying a profound deference for Catholicism as the official religion of colonial society. Both are neoclassical poems that make use of apostrophe to laud the Catholic faith, recognize the Christ figure as the suffering Redeemer of humankind, depict God the Father as the Maker and the Judge of all that exists as well as formulate personal appeals 53 to God. Manzano and Heredia’s poems are also alike given their portrayal of flight as a means to draw near to the divine and the unambiguous condemnation of tyranny. Nonetheless, the difference in these contemporary texts lies in their positionality and in the nature of their appeal to God. Heredia's lyrical voice doubles as a candid, unapologetic and forceful denunciation of the Spanish Inquisition. He writes; jBarbara lnquisicion! Cueva de horrores, / Cuantas vlctimas jay! atormentadas / En tu infernal abismo,” (“Barbaric Inquisition! Cave of horrors, I How many tormented victims / In your infernal abyss”) (Augier, ed. 206). In contrast to this fiery denunciation, Manzano’s poem, not unlike “Treinta anos" and “Desesperacion” is not written from a position of strength but weakness. Manzano’s poetic self speaks elusively of an indescribable pain in polite language. Neoclassicism provides the enslaved poet space in the public transcript with which to construct a poetic voice that both references and obscures the true self at the same time. For Manzano, this was a necessary obfuscation, a way to grin and bear oppression and racial violence without losing his privileged access to literary society through government censorship. With the exception of the unedited poem “La esclava ausente”, this tendency to be self-referencing but not self-representative was common in all the poetry he wrote prior to 1835. Both Manzano and Heredia's poems reflect their perspective socio-economic position. Manzano’s poetic voice experiences ecstasy with God as a means of escape from a world gone astray, while Heredia’s text exalts Catholicism only to condemn the prosecutorial politicization of the religion in the final stanzas. In “Oda a la religion”, as in all his other published poems, there is no explicit mention of slavery. Instead, divine rapture permits the poetic voice to leave the idle pursuits of life behind: “olvida los fugaces devaneos / y sélo a Dios consagra sus deseos” (“forget the idle pursuits / and to God alone consecrate your desires“) (Luis, ed. 141). If indeed this poem is read as a self-reflexive text then Charles Long’s work on African-American religious experience has implications for my reading. For Long, the experience of God transforms and empowers the oppressed so that they do not acquiesce completely the norms of the dominant society and culture (180). For the enslaved and colonized this is more than mere escapism it is veritable transcendence, access to a different, indeed a higher awareness. It is my contention that the poetic voice in “Oda a la religion”, struggles to transcend his unstated but no less real enslavement. For this afflicted character, the Christian religion is: “Consuelo siempre dulce al desgraciado” (“Eternally sweet consolation for an ill-fated soul”) (Luis, ed. 141). The poem continues; “Y en éxtasis profundol el alma siento de mi cuerpo huyendo / que a su Hacedor rindiendo l veneracién y amor, del vano mundo”, (“And in deep ecstasy l I feel my soul fleeing my body I to its Maker surrendering l adoration and love, of this futile worid") (Luis, ed. 141). In short, the poetic voice longs to escape his wretched earthly condition by experiencing a profound rapture with his Maker. In a sudden Change of di3position, the lyrical voice asks; “aPorqué me dejas do el pecado nace l y no haste ti me llevas. . .7”, (“Why do you leave me where sin is born I instead of carrying me to where you are?) (Luis, ed. 143). 55 These verses draw heavily on the Christian tradition, depicting the world as a place that spawns sin. In this ode, sin could very well function as a metaphor for the abuse, beatings and other indignities of plantation slavery. The aforesaid verses from the penultimate stanza and this verse, “el pueblo de Israel por ti Iloraba” (“the people of Israel cried out for you") suggests that Manzano employed Christian scripture as a way to speak to the contemporary experiences of enslaved Africans and their Cuban born descendants (Luis, ed. 141). The biblical narrative serves to construct a historical and religious parallel between the experience of captive and oppressed African descendants in nineteenth century Cuba and the slavery of the Hebrews in the ancient world. This compelling analogy was not uncommon among enslaved peoples who had been exposed to Christianity and the Bible.47 As God was able and willing to deliver the people of Israel from unjust bondage in Egypt, he would also be able to free Afro-descendants from exploitation and slavery in Cuba. What Dodson calls the “total power“ of Creator is on display in this narrative from the book of Exod. 11: 9-10 where God sends disastrous plagues on Egypt compelling Pharaoh to let the people of Israel go (53). Manzano alludes to this passage where the Almighty moves earth, fire and sea to assure the liberty of his downtrodden people: “Hoy pues tu voz nos guia l al magnifico portico del Cielo" 47 In the antebellum United States enslaved African descendants often linked the slavery and the divine deliverance of the ancient Israelites to their own plight. Lawrence Levine says that African American spirituals were the product of “improvisational communal consciousness“ that forged new songs from “pro-existing bits of old songs“ with novel tunes and lyrics. In this way they made use of what they knew of Old Testament accounts to construct a narrative about their own liberation (23, 29). 56 (“Today your voice guides us / to the magnificent heavenly colonnade") (Luis, ed. 142) This act of divine guidance is not situated in the distant past but the colonial present. The first person poetic voice becomes the first person plural suggesting that the Almighty will lead the Afro-Cuban enslaved community out of bondage much in the same way that he delivered Israel, his Chosen people. Embedded into this narrative, enslaved African descendants become a divinely chosen people. God himself challenges their status as the substratum of colonial society so that deliverance comes by his hand not theirs. Within the text, the poet retrieves the past and situates people of African ancestry in historical space not unlike that of the ancient Hebrews. The voice of the God of the Hebrews becomes a celestial guide that leads the enslaved in Cuba to heaven’s door. The historical memory and oppression of persons of African descent are transposed on the biblical texts, so that these ancient narratives vindicate and proffer hope to the poet and to those enslaved in Cuba during his lifetime. In this very same line of thought, Erskine writes about Jamaican slavery and oppression: The good news that biblical religion announces is that God’s freedom breaks the power of bondage and offers to oppressed humanity the possibility to participate in their freedom. The witness of scripture indicates that freedom must challenge human bondage in all its forms (23). For those who have been held captive and systematically oppressed the good news of the biblical narrative is God’s freedom from man’s bondage. If the Bible and Christianity are to be important to Afro-descendants in Cuba or elsewhere in the Diaspora, it must stand in clear opposition to all forms of what Erskine terms 57 “unfreedom”, however they are manifested. It is clear that Catholicism provided Manzano social acceptance in white colonial society given that it was the official religion. However, it may also be true that he drew upon its narratives to confront the inherent contradictions of his society; namely that some persons were free from birth while others were deemed to be slaves for life. As in “Oda a la religion” Manzano’s lyrical voice in “A Jesr'rs en la cruz” is intimately familiar with the biblical narrative and the self-sacrifice of the Christ figure.48 The poem lies somewhere between the exuberant worship of Jesus as a noble Redeemer and a disquieting query about his reluctance to save himself from crucifixion. Within the poem Old Testament prophecy is fulfilled in the execution of Jesus Christ who makes himself a lowly lamb to be slaughtered. He parishes for an ungrateful and wretched people saving them from the dreadful grip of perpetual and eternal death: “Asi cuando llena a el mundo todo. /Con tu muerte y pasion fue redimido, / El hombre de las garras arrancado / Del infernal poder ya no es perdidoz" (“In that way the whole world is filled. / By your death and passion was redeemed, / Man from the claws snatched / Of hellish power he is no longer lost“) (Azougarh, ed. 220). These verses are grounded in the biblical tradition that depicts the defenselessness of humankind before the power and lure of wrongdoing. With eternal retribution Providence punishes the disobedient that defy God’s will. Only the blood sacrifice of the Christ figure that “Sandse en la piscina de su sangre” (“Heals in the pool of his blood”) can redeem a lost world 43 This poem is cited from Abdeslam Azougarh’s edition. It was published in 1841 and is not found in William Luis' collection. 58 (Azougarh, ed. 220). With evangelistic overtones, the suffering Messiah becomes the hope of the entire world. On the other hand, this poem takes on another level of complexity because the poetic voice juxtaposes the common place of exalted praise for the Christ figure (as also seen in Heredia’s poem) with a questioning about the need of the Messiah to suffer in order to bring about divine redemption. iY porque queda piedra sobre piedra Cuando te privan del vital alientol... iPor qué la muerte tu piedad no arTedra Cuando se emplaza tan terrible intentol... iPor que docil y facil cual la yedra A quien arrolla en su tortura el viento, Te dejas abatir de gente impia A quien solo tu aliento abrasarla! (Azougarh, ed. 220) For Manzano’s poetic voice, Christ’s disinclination to preserve himself is unfathomable. Why would such a divinely powerful figure allow self to be destroyed for an ungrateful and inferior lot? The poetic voice questions the mission of the Christ figure asking why he was crucified: “gPor bien del hombre y a la cruz subistes? l (Para que interrogar?“ (“Did you rise to the cross for the good of mankind? / But why question?) (Azougarh, ed. 219). His query may be a rhetorical one since it is immediately recanted insinuating that the poet, although by that time an emancipado, is treading lightly as not to be seen as blasphemous. In the poem both humankind and the “Redeemer of the Universe,“ are vulnerable and defenseless. Manzano introduces a more pronounced undertone in this poem than in “Oda a la religion.” Whereas “Oda a la religion“ makes a plea to God the Father to be rescued from a sinful world, “A Jesr'rs en la cruz” 59 speaks directly to and questions both God the Father and the Son. The poem reads; “Y en Igneo Trono su clemencia santa! ng porque me llenas de amargura tanta?” (“And on the Igneous Throne your holy mercy! I And why do you fill me with such bittemess?“) (Azougarh, ed. 219). These two verses stand in apparent contradiction to one another. The poetic voice has a conflicting relationship with the Almighty. He humbly recognizes the incalculable immensity of God’s power but is troubled, even perplexed, that God would allow such suffering in the wond. Such discomfort extends to the poetic voice himself, who accuses a merciful God perched on a celestial throne of filling his existence with bitterness. In this way, the mercy of the Almighty God is called into question. These questions about the true extent of God’s mercy and about Jesus’ unwillingness to defend self from death could be seen as uncharacteristic of the author. In the slave narrative Manzano writes; “desde mi infansia mis directores me enseiiaron a amar y temer a Dios,” (“from my Infancy my teachers taught me to love and to fear God”) (Luis, ed. 318).49 This statement is very much in line with the poet's representation of his own religious devotion in la historia de mi vida. Yet, there is another possible explanation. Published in 1841, “A Jestrs en la cruz“ is a post-manumission poem representing a significant shift in Manzano's self image. Indeed, this poem may reflect a new resolve to defend self from wanton physical and emotional abuse. A number of passages in la historia de mi vida suggest as much. 4 , . 9 Considering the exceptional conditions in which they published, I have preferred not to use (sic) to indicate the orthographical errors in Manzano and Placido’s literature. 60 On a number of different occasions within the text Manzano speaks to a continual transformation in his self-image where the Christ figure becomes a metaphor for his own suffering: amarra mis manos 3e atan como las de Jesucristo se me carga y meto los pies en las dos aberturas qe. tiene también mis pies se atan ioh Diosl corramos un velo pr. el resto de esta exena mi sangre se ha derramado yo perdi el sentido... (Luis, ed. 321) The enslaved person comes to occupy a space similar to that of the crucified Savior because he is made to suffer devastating abuse like Jesus Christ. He is portrayed as good while his mistress and overseers are seen as cruel and merciless. Manzano, the enslaved protagonist, depicts himself as the innocent victim of unprovoked abuse at the hands of his white slave mistress and overseers. In that way he is a likely candidate for God’s redemption within the Christian belief system since he is the victim of unjust suffering. This self-conversion is evidenced when Manzano writes about his mother’s attempt to spare him yet another whipping at the hands of the overseers. Sor. Silbestre qe. era el nombre del joben malloral este condusiendome pa. el sepo se encontro con mi madre qe. siguiendo Ios impulsos de su corazon vino a acabar de colmar de mis infortunios ella al berme quiso preguntarme qe. abia hecho cuando el malloral imponiendole silensio se lo quiso estorbar [...j lebanto la mano y die a mi madre con el manati este golpe lo senti mi corazon dar un grito y convertirme de manso cordero en un Ieon todo fue una cosa... y me le tire en sima con dientes y manos cuantas patadas manatiazos y de mas golpes qe. llebé se puede considerar y mi madre y yo fuimos condusidos y puesto en un mismo lugar... (Luis, ed. 311-12) In this very telling passage Manzano’s mother tries to shield her son from further abuse but the overseer rebukes her for interfering in the punishment he has chosen to mete out. Manzano explains that as one of the domestic enslaved Persons his mother was not subjected to physical abuse before the death of her 61 husband Toribio de Castro. The intensity of his immediate and violent reaction can be explained by his desire to be his mother’s protector and in that way to stand in for his deceased father. it should also be noted that at this point in his life Manzano was a young male person that was coming of age and as a result felt a clear sense of responsibility for the defense of his widowed mother and his younger brothers Florensio and Fernando.50 In the above-cited passage, Manzano does not compare himself favorably to the Christ figure suggesting instead that a personal metamorphosis has taken place. Manzano has refused to acquiesce the beating of his mother being transformed “de manso cordero en un leon" (“from meek lamb into a lion”). By refusing silence, deference to the power of the overseer, or fear, Manzano represents the African descended self as an active subject not a defenseless lamb. Taking these two passages into consideration I am able to account for Manzano’s incredulity regarding the humility and long suffering of Jesus as depicted in “A Jesus en la cruz”. The poet may have been asking himself why he had assumed the role of the lamb and endured so much abuse for so many years. In la historia de mi vida after the episode where he is accused of stealing a castrated rooster. Manzano resolves not to submit to the physical abuse he has been subjected to all his life. Concerning this change in his thinking he remarks: 5° I have chosen not to standardize Manzano's spelling of his brother‘s name Florensio. By preserving his spelling my intention is to provide space for the writer to speak for himself, his family and his cultural community. 62 This is a pivotal moment in Manzano’s slave narrative. The poet who has only known bondage, humiliation and abuse since birth decisively recognized his own value as a human being and choose to resist, either by coming to blows with his oppressors or by fleeing danger to protect his own welfare. Manzano throws off this earlier association with the meek and maltreated Lamb of God and is converted into the lion, the tiger, or the gravest beast imaginable. In effect, he became determined to protect and defend self in a way that the plantation slavery system did not permit. The violence of self-defense makes Manzano an active subject. His mistress and overseers will no longer be able to act upon him without considering the possibility of a swift and violent response. “La esclava ausente” can be categorized both as an anti-slavery and a religious-themed poem. Among Manzano's religious poetry, “La esclava ausente" stands apart as the only one that constructs a female poetic voice. Although the portrayal of an enslaved female persona presents numerous possible readings, the uniqueness of this poem has also led some critics to question its authorship. Adriana Lewis Galanes muses that Manzano may have adopted a feminine voice in “La esclava ausente” for dramatic effect; even still, she has reservations about attributing the poem to Manzano. Galanes posits that this poem may have been written by a woman in love with Manzano or by someone else and later confused with his work (102-03). Even so, Abdeslam Azougarh clears up questions about the poem's authorship demonstrating that Manzano 63 indeed wrote this poem and dated it 1823. According to Azougarh “La esclava ausente” formed part of a dossier of writings that Delmonte passed to Madden to be published in England, although, for unknown reasons, Madden choose not to publish it with the poet’s slave narrative (36-37). By constructing a subject that is gendered female, the poet brings questions of race, gender, sexuality, and the white male domination of the African descended female body into the scope of our discussion on religion. This poem’s subject matter necessitates that we consider how the system of plantation slavery utilized the bodies of enslaved African-descendant women. Like all enslaved people, female bodies were considered a market commodity that were bought and sold to be used for domestic and field labor. While their purchase was primarily intended to meet labor demands, African and African descendant women were also compelled to fulfill white male sexual desire. Although the female poetic voice in this poem sheds light on the cross section between gender, race and the domination and exploitation of female bodies, religion is the focus of my analysis here. By law, masters could dispose of the bodies of enslaved African and Afro- Cuban women for domestic or field labor production, sexual reproduction with an enslaved male to grow the population or as a commodity to be bought and sold. Spanish slave law allowed enslaved men to marry the women of their choice and mandated the compulsory manumission of enslaved women that had been sexually violated by their masters or had been used for prostitution (Shepherd, ed. 43). In this way, the law intended to safeguard the whiteness of the colonies by preventing racial miscegenation. Their legal status as wives notwithstanding; enslaved women were subjected to and had little protection from the sexual advances and abuse of their white male masters (Shepherd, ed. 59). Shepherd explains that white male dominated plantation societies stereotyped women of African ancestry as “loose, immoral and promiscuous” and so did not regard the unsolicited and forced sexual acts white men committed against them to be rape (59). Then again, the legal act of penalizing white slave masters by freeing their enslaved female servants was a tacit recognition of white male guilt. White male slave owners, not African descendant women, were the true source of the problem, the culprits of sexual exploitation and abuse. “La esclava ausente" provides space for the enslaved African descendant female poetic voice to articulate her right to love and many her lawfully appropriate mate. She directs her appeal and her complaint to the white male slave master, who acts as a silent interiocutor, and to God the Father. The plea is predicated on the assertion that the law should not empower one person to dominate the body of another nor to preclude them from exercising the freedom to love whomever they choose. As in Manzano’s other poems that project a male lyrical voice, the enslaved female subject speaks in a neoclassical style: Pues todos los placeres se acibaran Cuando la dulce libertad no media... aQué pudo un juramento firme, eterno? aQué la constancia y fe; qué la firmeza Si de un poder el barbaro precepto Tenaz hoy burla todas tus promesas? (original emphasis, Azougarh, ed. 171) 65 The body of the enslaved female persona is the site of dispute between two male persons one whom she has chosen as a husband and another who legally owns her and may dispose of her as he wills. For that reason, her complaint addresses the injustice of the law as 9! bérbam precepto that makes her the chattel of the white male master who seeks to control and dominate the African descendant female body. To be property of another is to be - as Manzano points out in a letter to Delmonte - un ser muerte, a dead being in the eyes of the master (Luis, ed. 125). The particular nature of the enslaved female character’s oppression is unlike that of the self-reflexive male lyrical subject depicted in Manzano’s other work. This text recognizes that the oppression of Cuban slavery is perceived and experienced differently from the female vantage point because to be gendered female meant that the body was considered incapable of rendering the same field labor as the male body and hence it was thought to have less intrinsic value. Enslaved women. suffered a double oppression. Not only were their bodies were legally deemed property but were also made to perform roles that marked them as inferior. ln plantation societies the value of female bodies was tied to their biological sex so that Caribbean plantation owners often preferred to buy male persons to do heavy field labor (Shepherd, ed. 39-40). “La esclava ausente” creates a silence around the matter of sexual abuse. This is not surprising considering the literary movement in which the poet participated, the poet’s own legal status as a slave in 1823 when he wrote the poem and the general silence about the rape of enslaved women in slave 66 narratives.51 It is possible, however, that the poetic voice is not referring to sexual abuse at the hands of the white male master. She says that he has kept her from being with her husband for a year. Perhaps her complaint is born of the fact that the slave master has chosen to sell her or her husband and in that way prevent her from loving her lawfully wedded mate. Whatever the case, the poem is clear that the legal power of the white male master over her body is the nature of her grievance. Manzano’s poem is traditional in that the female subject makes a plea about her natural right to love the man of her choosing. It becomes counter discursive, however, when we consider the enslaved female character’s locus of enunciation. Her voice is marked not by strength but by weakness as she makes her entreaty to the white master who she refers to as “(Duefio duro inhumano, hombre teniblel” (fHard, inhuman possessor, terrible manl”) “Mas padezco, que soy mujer al cabo / Y como humane, es justo me rescinta.” (“But I suffer, after all i am a woman I And as a human it is right that this troubles me”) (original emphasis, Luis, ed. 171, 174). Reminiscent of the poet’s slave narrative, the African descended female voice inverts categories by asserting her own humanity and accusing her white master of being merciless and inhuman. Furthermore, the poetic voice brings nature and God the Father into the text to shore up her appeal. Si, yo amo: amar nunca fue crimen 51 Annette Niemtzow’s "The Problematic of Self in Autobiography: The Example of the Slave Narrative” notes that the rape of enslaved women is conspicuously absent from the nearly 6,000 extant collected slave narratives creating a deafening silence about the sexual exploitation of African descended women (Sekora, ed. 1 06). 67 El mismo Dios, amando se deleita Las obras que creo su sabio influjo. A todo, a todo dio naturaleza El derecho de amar: pues un principio lnviolable confinna este problema, (Luis, ed. 172) As the enslaved female subject explains, love is a marvelous and integral part of God who is represented in the poem as the origin and source of love so that the right to love is an unassailable principle of nature. The African descended female gendered voice participates in Enlightenment era discourses on the abolition of slavery and the rights of man. She is a person of reason intending to persuade her white male owner that she alone has natural rights over her own body, which he has denied her. Slavery, then, is antithetical to the natural rights of man. She does not make an entreaty to God, as does the male lyrical voice in “Oda a la religion” instead; she gains discursive power by comparing her love and her right to love with the love of God himself, the Creator of humankind and nature. Hence, it is God the Father — the ultimate male authority in a patriarchal colonial society - whose principles give power to the enslaved woman’s appeal. Esta débil mujer, as she refers to herself, defies the silence imposed on enslaved women, defines her subject position and claims her personhood before a silent white male interlocutor. The objectified and enslaved female body becomes a present and active subject through the speech act (Luis, ed. 171). For the enslaved African descended female subject the body is not a commodity to be bought and sold in order to fulfill the labor demands cf plantation society. Neither is it an object to be abused for the gratification of the sexual fantasies of a white male ownership. On the contrary the physical body is 68 one with the nonmaterial beings - which the poet refers to as the soul - because the two are integral parts of God’s creation. The female self is fused with the spiritual world and the natural law of the universe. Written in a Christian idiom, the following stanza poses questions about the extent of the master’s power over the enslaved female body. Esta mano, este pecho, este mi todo Es de mi bien: mi boca lo confiesa. Déjame unir a él, que asi lo exigen Religion, amor, naturaleza. Si la suerte te ha hecho Senor mio, aSon por ventura tuya mis potencias? Si en tu poder, hoy tienes mi albedrio, Esta mi vida y alma a caso es vuestra?... (original emphasis, Luis, ed. 172-73) The enslaved woman problematizes and even challenges the master’s domination of her body. If at the present time chance has made him the master of her will does that also mean that her life and spirit are his? ln'this way she acknowledges the inherent power of speech as a means to manifest that which is not so. She verbalizes and envisages a circumstance in which she may choose to whom she will give herself. All the same, such an exercise of freedom is not possible unless the female character is liberated from slavery. Religion, love and nature (creation) compel her to be united to her rightful spouse. in this instance, religion is not depicted as an oppressive force of the colonial system; instead it functions as that which justifies the right of the enslaved female persona to exercise a modicum of freedom with regard to her body. The female poetic voice constructs and articulates an unrepentant challenge to the very foundation of the slave 69 society by questioning the legal authority of the white master to dehumanize and objectify the female body. Alla volara, si también pudiera A buscar en regiones mas felices, Vida, de miseria manos llena; Mas que «viva» ordena el cielo...y vivo Hasta apurar el caliz, que presentan Amory esclavitud, cuando se unen Y a sufrir sus tonnentos me condenan. (original emphasis, Luis, ed. 174) Escape through flight is posited, as an imagined path to freedom but the female lyrical voice does not appear to have much hope of realizing her longing. The poem concludes with a tragic acknowledgement that the female persona is destined to imbibe a bitter fate having been made the property of another; she is condemned to an enslaved gendered body, and denied her true love. 1.3 Christianizing the Enslaved: Religious Identity and Self— Representation in la historia de mi vida Juan Francisco Manzano set out to write a slave narrative that would be regarded by his white readership as a truthful account of his life. This was no easy feat for any enslaved writer since Spanish colonial societies forbade slaves to publish without white sponsorship. Colonial society did not regard the word of enslaved persons as trustworthy, so that white consent and endorsement were necessary for them to print literature. Moreover, slave narratives were subversive texts that could not be published in eariy nineteenth century Cuba. Naturally, Manzano had no control over these factors, which only complicated his undertaking. Not long after beginning to write la historia de mi vida, Manzano expressed concern that as someone legally deemed a slave he would not be 70 regarded as an adequate witness to his own life. In a letter to Domingo Delmonte dated June 25, 1835 the poet writes; “He estado mas de cuatro ocasiones por no seguirla. Un cuadro de tantas calamidades no parece sino un abultado protocolo de embusterias;" (“On more than four occasions l decided not to complete it. A portrait with so many calamities doesn’t appear to be anything but an exaggerated heap of lies”) (Luis, ed. 125). To be believed by the white reader was to have one’s word recognized and validated as reliable within Hispanic lettered culture. For this reason Manzano hoped to produce a verisimilar narrative.52 in the letter he warns Delmonte to be prepared to see “una debit criatura” (“a weak creature”) and to “Consideradme un martin” (“Consider me a martyr”) (Luis, ed. 125). This letter was written in the initial stages of his life narrative, which may explain why the author depicts himself as powerless before a violent system of exploitation. In his latter correspondence with Delmonte, and towards the end of his life narrative, Manzano rid himself of the timid, meek and injured persona; in his own words he became “the most scomful beast imaginable” (Luis, ed. 333). In the letter dated June 25, Manzano wanted Delmonte to regard him as a martyr, someone who had been made to suffer without just cause (Luis, ed. 125). 52 I am referring to verisimilitude here in the sense of a text being deemed believable by its reader. For this to be the case representations need to appear realistic. In a genre such as the slave narrative such realistic depictions also afford the enslaved writer or oral informant the status of trustworthy eyewitness to self. This distinction was particulariy important for enslaved and emancipated writers since the societies in which they lived did not value them as reasonable human beings. On the other hand for Neoclassicists verisimilitude was not a synonym for realism. In llgstracion y negolasicismo en las legs espaftolas, Joaquin Alvarez Barrientos explains that as part of the didactic function of neoclassicism (el docere) imitation in poetry and literature was meant to be verisimilar in that it represented things not as they were but as they should be (195). 71 This early acknowledgement of weakness implies that Manzano wanted to create the impression that he was a good and moral person while his mistress and overseers were excessively cruel .53 As a martyr he locates himself within the prophetic tradition of the Old Testament and the apostolic tradition of the New Testament, since both the prophets and apostles were subjected to public humiliation, abuse, and torture for having fulfilled the will of God. This inversion of moral categories portrays Manzano as religiously devout, and as such worthy of the reader’s trust. Jenny Sharpe describes the slave testimony as a politically motivated text whose clearly stated objective was to employ representation as a means to promote the abolition of slavery. The political objective of the slave testimony was to demonstrate the subjectivity of a human being whose humanity had been negated and to produce its narrator as a reliable eyewitness to the horrors of slavery. In order to fulfill its objective it was obliged to privilege the Christianized, morally upright, and obedient worker over the Africanized, ungovemable, and troublesome slave. lts teleological narrative necessary placed the slave on the path toward Christianity and freedom (xxiv). Slave narratives were intended to be veridical documents that demonstrated the subjectivity of enslaved persons whose humanity had been denied. The horrors of slavery were not only depicted but also emphasized from the vantage point of an enslaved narrator whose trustworthiness as an eyewitness was of paramount importance. Sharpe says that for this reason, narrators who portrayed 53 Manzano intended to portray himself as an afflicted person even while he strived not to shame himself in the court of white public opinion. As a result he reveals a partial, incomplete and coded image of self to his reader. it was important that his readership saw him as a good and humane Christian person. At the same time he struggled not to shame himself and most of all to be believed by an elite readership that was far removed from the experience of his suffering. 72 themselves as faithful adherents to religious norms were regarded as having a moral character that endeared them to a white Victorian readership (xxiv). Manzano’s slave nanative portrays religion as a recurring and salient theme. The first mention of religion names Manzano's baptismal godmother, Trinidad de Zayas, with whom he spent part of his childhood thus confirming that as required by law, Manzano was baptized like all other criollitos, babies born to enslaved women (Luis, ed. 300-01 ). He was taught catechism at a young age because as a house servant’s child his family had a favorable relationship with their mistress, the Marchioness Jastiz de Santa Ana.54 Manzano was a prodigious youth who memorized the priests’ homilies by heart (Luis, ed. 301). The Marchioness Doria Justiz de Santa Ana often took him to church and to the opera providing him with early exposure to white Hispanic culture and orthodox religious tradition. These sermons consisted of references to the Bible and to the doctrine of the Catholic Church so that Manzano gathered cultural capital, in part, from orthodox sources, giving shape to his literary and non-literary writings (Luis, ed. 41). in la historia de mi vida the poet employs biblical allusions, references to Catholic family heirlooms and iconography, in addition to his repeated invocation of the saints to present self as at esclava fiel, the faithful Christianized slave (Luis, ed. 333). 54 Manzano explains the mortification that he felt when his mistress called him a “cricllo”. In response, he proudly refers to his baptism: ‘y yo sabia muy bien qe. estaba bautisado en la Habana' ('l knew very well that l was baptized in Havana”) to defend himself (Luis, ed. 335). 73 Manzano’s religious commitment can be characterized by his intense devotion to the saints. The poet relied on and appealed to the power of spiritual intermediaries and displayed extraordinary devotion when he felt powerless before the cruelty and abuse of his masters and overseers. pues llegaba hasta tal punto mi confianza qe. pidiendo al cielo suabiase mis trabajos me pasaba casi todo el tiempo de la prima noche resando sierto numero de padrenuestros y ave marias a todos los santos de la corte celestial pa. qe. el dia siguiente no me fuese tan nosibo como el que pasaba si me acontesia algunos de mis comunes y dolorosos apremios lo atribuia solamente a mi falta de devocibn [j o a enojo de algun santo qe. abia hechado en olvido pa. el dia siguiente... (Luis, ed. 318) Manzano’s religious certitude was such that he prayed the Lord's Prayer and said Hail Marys to call on the Virgin and the saints to intercede on his behalf and to ameliorate the day-to-day circumstances of his life. In the passage above his interpretation of negative events seems to rely on a Catholic understanding that humankind is sinful and will suffer on earth but may appeal to the Virgin Mary or , the saints to transmit their prayers to God the Father. Manzano concludes that his suffering resulted from his own religious negligence; in other words if he prayed more he would be less subjected to misfortune and mistreatment. Manzano's faith in the power and the willingness of the saints to intercede and intervene in his personal life is clear in the passage below that picks up where the other left off. todavia creo qe. ellos me depararon la ocasién y me custodiaron [el dia] de mi fuga de matanzas pa. la Habana como beremos pues tomando el almanaque y todos los santos de aquel mes eran resados pr. mi diariamente (Luis, ed. 319). Even though he recognizes that Don Saturnino, a white man, helped him escape slavery; the saints are credited with having provided Manzano the occasion to run away and for having protected him on his perilous journey from Matanzas to 74 Havana (Luis, ed. 339). Running away was motivated by a real need to protect self from further physical abuse or even an eariy death. That being said, Manzano comprehends this incident as an act made possible by divine power. Within a Christian frame of reference this affords his escape an even greater significance and solidifies his reputation as an enslaved but upright practicing Catholic. His devotion to the saints was a daily ritualistic and methodical practice that he relied on to avoid being chastised by powerful spiritual mediators. Manzano’s account of running away also evinces that he was certain that supernatural happenings are not only possible but do occur within the material world as another paragraph demonstrates. tenia yo desde bien chico la costumbre de leer cuanto era leible en mi idioma y cuando iva pr. la calle siempre andaba recojiendo pedasitos de papel impreso y si estaba en verso hasta no aprenderlo todo de memoria no resaba asi sabia la vida de todos los santos mas milagrosos y los versos de sus resos los nobena de Sn. Antonio los del trisajio en fin todos los santos (Luis, ed. 335-36). Manzano’s faith was informed and strengthened by printed material that recounted the lives of saints. This ardent focus on the saints as major spiritual intermediaries is in accordance with Catholic doctrine and — although we do not know for sure - it is likely that the almanac and other pieces of paper that he found about the saints were conventional religious materials. If they were hagiographies, they would have represented the Church’s position concerning the power of the saints and not consisted of Afro-Cuban narratives known as partakies, which relay accounts of African divine spirits.55 This leaves 55 The pattekl is a myth, legend, story, anecdote, or parable derived from the Yoruba- based oral traditions. Most often these narratives deal with matters of humankind’s connection wrth supernatural entities that function as intermediaries between the physical world and the 75 unresolved questions concerning the way in which the poet comprehended these written materials about the saints and what relationship he may or may not have drawn between them and Africa-based spirituality. Reading Richard Robert Madden's translation of Manzano’s 1835 slave narrative, F ionnghuala Sweeney states that the Manzano’s relation of his life emerges from a Catholic religio-moral context. Sweeney argues that: the existence of hierarchies in Catholicism [...j the tendency of these same hierarchies not only to mask the presence of other belief systems but also frequently to encourage their absorption and continuity beneath a common religious umbrella; [...1 and a tendency towards mysticism and/or the non-rational, with an emphasis on ritual (404). As an example of what she calls masking (but could be more accurately described as transculturation) Sweeney cites the adoration of African deities through the worship of Catholic saints because; “African religious belief systems are encoded in ostensibly Catholic practices” (404). Her explanation affirms that African descendant religion in Cuba makes explicit use of Catholic saints to carry on an Africa-based religious practice, which is itself programmed in what appears to be Catholic or Catholic—like rituals. For African descendants, then, Catholic religious hierarchy and ritual provided space for the reworking of Church orthodoxy. This means that Manzano’s devotion to the saints may have included the recognition and reverence of African divine spirits, which had been transculturated with Catholic saints.56 otherworld: i.e. divine spirits, ancestors, and other categories of spirits. However, there are pattakies, which are not religious in nature (Diaz Fabelo 8-9). 56 Thus, it is rather probable that for the African descended poet, as for many people of color, to speak of the saints was to refer to an Africa-based understanding of a transculturated divine entity that possessed qualities of the Catholic saints as well as those of the divine spirits or orichas of the Afro-Cuban pantheon. Teodoro Dlaz-Fabelo cites Lydia Cabrera‘s M to 76 At first glance, Manzano seems to substantiate the conventional belief that enslaved domestic servants - who were closer to the masters than field workers - tended to accept and practice Catholicism. Nevertheless, considering his motives for self-representation before a white Catholic audience, a different reading emerges. In the letter to Delmonte dated September 29, 1835 the poet explains his need to be perceived by Delmonte in a positive light: “ni mi esposa ni su merced me amaran si no fuera hombre de bien” (“neither Your Grace nor my wife would love me if I were not a good man”) (Luis, ed. 127). Manzano understood the need to humanize self in order to be an acceptable narrator to his readers. In view of that, the Christianization of the first person narrative voice was an effective and available recourse that might convince readers that the enslaved person was truly a meek and righteous sojoumer. Furthermore, there are other things worthy of consideration that could offer more insight into the religious identity of this nineteenth century poet. Roberto Friol cites interrogation records from La Escalera Conspiracy of 1843-1844 where, Manzano declares himself to be catolico, apostdlico, romano before authorities (Friol 194). Manzano makes this declaration under duress after having been arrested and questioned concerning his alleged role as a supporter of a series of antislavery uprisings. These records are significant because Manzano makes a clear statement about his religious affiliation. In fact this is the most apparently straightfonivard written statement we have about show that when an santero was accused of practicing what had been deemed illegal religious cults the authorities only found altars with Catholic images. This served as a cover for the practitioners whose understanding of the saints far exceeded the meanings aligned with Church dogma having taken on the transculturated, yet Africa-based identity of the divine spirits (11). 77 Manzano’s religious identity. On the other hand, the testimony from La Escalera Conspiracy was highly problematic because torture was used to extract confessions (Paquette 234). As a result we should bear in mind that the emancipated author’s life and liberty were at risk when he made the statement and so it might represent an effort to distance himself from all suspicions of conspiracy, given that enslaved persons who were interrogated made multiple references to Africa-derived ritual practices in their own defense.57 Manzano may have thought that in such dire circumstances a Catholic identity could divorce him of any harmful associations with Africa-based religion since Catholicism was the official religion of colony, he had written and published about it, and it was unlikely to be regarded as subversive. At the same time, such a statement might speak to Manzano’s personal religious identity. Which leaves me to ask: if indeed Manzano identified, as a Catholic was his practice orthodox or unconventional? Another nineteenth century source may be useful for addressing this question. In Pgetgs de Color, concerning Manzano's religious practice, Francisco Calcagno states that “Manzano era devoto, con aquella devocion mezclada de fanatismo de las personas ignorantes de su época" (“Manzano was devout, with that devotion mixed with the fanaticism of the ignorant peeple of his time”) (sic) 57 Robert Paquette says that on more than one occasion the Military Commission received reports from enslaved people who claimed to have been lured into conspiracy through the brujeria of free people of color. Paquette says that such testimony was not exceptional and “would be understandable since many African-born slaves would have blamed sorcery for their enslavement and thus would have looked to sorcery to undo it”. By brujeria and sorcery Paquette Eggening to the nature of Africa—based ritual powers used to effect change in the natural world 78 (77). According to Calcagno, Manzano was “un ignorante manso” (“an ignorant meek person”) (78). Because Calcagno does not specify what religion he is referring to the reader is left to make inferences as to what he means. This comment about Manzano’s religious practice seems to be based on Calcagno’s reading of la historia de mi vida, parts of which he published in the fifth edition of Poet_a_s dg Color (1887). Calcagno recognizes the poet’s religious devotion but characterizes it as fanatical and ignorant. Although it is not entirely clear whether Calcagno is referring to Catholicism or an Africa-based religion, if the slave narrative was his source then there is reason to believe that he saw Manzano’s devotion to Catholicism as excessive, misguided or even unorthodox. Perhaps for Calcagno, Manzano’s religious devotion was mixed with fanaticism because of his perceived unfamiliarity with the Catholic creed.58 ln the final section of this chapter, I argue that there is reason to believe, as Cros Sandoval says, that the Manzano was “Catolico a mi manera” (30).59 1.4 Africa-based Spirituality in Manzano’s Literature In addition to Catholicism, Manzano’s poems and slave narrative illustrate a familiarity with Africa—based spiritual practices. The representation of Afro- 58 To validate his comments on Manzano‘s religious devotion Calcagno cites the passage where Manzano’s mistress expresses her fear that his talent will make him worse than Enlightenment thinkers, Jean Jacques Rousseau and Voltaire (77-78). 59 Mercedes Cros Sandoval explains that for Cubans, to be Catdlico a mi manera or “Catholic my own way“ meant that persons were baptized into the Catholic Church, attended mass every so often, married in the church, if divorced would continue to be Catholic and would request the last rites when dying (30). 79 Cuban spirituality is often juxtaposed with Catholic images, metaphors and allusions to the biblical narrative. I examine portrayals of Africa-derived ritual practice in “La visibn del poeta: compuesta en un lngenio de fabricar azucar" (unpublished) (“The Poet's Vision: Composed on a Plantation to Manufacture Sugar”), “Sueno a mi segundo hermano" (“Dream to My Second Brother”) (1838) and “Poesias” (“Poems”) (1836) in addition to those representations found in Manzano's account of his life. In related, yet different ways, the aforesaid poems employ a recurring set of tropes that portray African descendant spirituality. The reoccun'ing themes include dream sequences, the depiction of ritual, visions and communication with the deceased and other spirit entities, transfiguration and flight, personal spirit devotion, as well direct resistance of the slave regime in the form of marronnage. Manzano’s representation of Afro-Cuban ritual and spiritual practices can be characterized in two distinct ways: as a familiar common place in his poetry and as a means of self-portrayal in his slave narrative. To be sure, the two are not the same but both may reveal something more about how Manzano drew on an African descendant cultural subjectivity as a means of religious devotion. The appearance and reappearance of this Africa-based spirituality in his poetry as well as in la historia de mi vida should not be read as fantasy literature, or art for art's sake. I have tried to show that Manzano was a writer who was well aware of the aesthetic and cultural materials available to him and made choices based on what he perceived would represent him well to his readership, while also exercising some degree of poetic license. Accordingly, I will analyze these 80 representations for what they may tell us about how the poet drew on heterogeneous sources of religious and cultural capital, while writing what had to be approved by colonial censors. in my view, the use of dreams is the most important device that Manzano employs because it creates an oneiric space within the text, so that other tropes, which convey Africa-based spirituality, are more amenable to the audience. In Manzano's poems, dreams function as a gateway from the physical world to the beyond, which is a space of otherworldly revelations and supernatural possibilities. It is necessary to consider the Catholic Church’s view with regards to the significance of dreams. ln sixteenth century Spain, the Catholic Church and laypersons alike valued dreams, visions, ecstasies, and raptures for their natural and supernatural meanings. These were well-publicized occurrences that were memorialized in engravings and printed libretti. Dreams and prophecies have long been a part of European religious traditions finding their origins and justification in Old Testament accounts such as those about Jacob and Joseph’s dreams (Kagan 38).‘30 ln religious circles, dreams were understood to have two sources; they were either derived from the natural (the human body) or the supernatural and were deemed either divine or diabolical.61 Since the Protestant Reformation, the 60 In the Old Testament dreams are a source of divine revelation. In the story of Jacob, God reveals himself at night through a dream where the angels are ascending and descending on a stairway that leads to heaven. After waking Jacob recognizes the land where he was standing as holy ground and renames it. In this way dreams are tied to divine revelation and promise, holy ground, and the act of renaming (Ihe Holy Bible, New lntemational Version, Gen. 28. 10-22). 61 It is interesting to note that for sixteenth century physicians, dreams had a medical purpose as they were interpreted to diagnose a patient’s health problems (Kagan 36). 81 Catholic Church feared the spread of heresies and sought to discourage most forms of personal religious expression fearing it might be unorthodox or even anti-Catholic. To maintain ecclesiastical authority, the Holy Office of the Inquisition pursued, persecuted and prosecuted oneiromancers (dream interpreters) and persons whose natural dreams the Church believed had been misinterpreted as divine “message dreams" and construed to have some bearing on future events (Kagan 10, 38). Wary of “false revelations”, Catholic priests were instructed to ask parishioners about their dreams to determine their basis and to encourage the faithful not to speak about them publicly (Kagan 11, 37). Renaissance theologians tended to agree with Church Father Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) who warned about the need to distinguish the true prophet from the false one as Richard Kagan explains. He condemned as superstitious and unlawful those who knowingly used “natural” dreams for purposes of divination, attributing the desire to know the future with an express contract with the devil or a tacit diabolical pact by one who sought knowledge beyond ordinary human means (39). The Church’s recognition of dreams as a means of legitimate divine revelation was tempered by its desire to maintain control over parishioners and the larger society. Church doctrine viewed any attempt to seek knowledge beyond human means as necessarily diabolical, even if the person in question did not intend to be aligned with the devil. Catholic dogma concerning the interpretation of dreams is important because in Manzano’s literature dreams have a dissimilar function; they do not 82 foretell forthcoming events. On the contrary, they are portals to the otherworld and provide revelations to the African descended poetic voice. The otherworldly disclosures in Manzano's poems do not come from God the Father of the Christian tradition but come from other spirit beings. In that way they represent what Thomas Aquinas considered “knowledge beyond ordinary human means” (Kagan 39). “Suefio a mi segundo hermano” is a narrative poem that provides an momentary glance into Manzano’s yearning to be united again with his family long after his parents’ death and shortly following his own manumission. This post-emancipation poem, published in El Album in 1838, recalls a time when Manzano and his younger brother Florensio lived and suffered together on the Matanzas sugar plantation.62 It is a poignantly nostalgic and self-representative poem in which Manzano shares a dream with his brother. In the dream the poetic voice finds emotional and spiritual refuge in el monte; “de Ios hombres huyendo l hacia el vecino monte / que de Quintana el cerro / domina y ameniza Ios lugares intemos / aproximéme a un bosque” (“from men fleeing / towards the neighborly mountain / that is the mount Quintana [outstanding it enlivens the places within / I draw near to a forest”) (Luis, ed. 144-45). El monte, the forested mountain, is the poet's preferred place to seek refuge because it soothes and 62 In his life narrative, Manzano refers to the emotional nature of his familial ties to his younger brother in terms of “esta union binculada pr. Ios indisolubles lazos del amor fratemo“ (“this union linked by the indissoluble bonds of fratemal love”). The poet’s closeness to his biological family is an important Ieitrnotif in the narrative that reinforces my view that the poet indentified as a member of the Afro-descendant plantation community. His biological family is his link to the plantation community (Luis, ed. 314). 83 reinvigorates the places within, that is, his spirit and his emotions. Solitude on the mountain allows him to “Iamentanne en secreto" (“to grieve in secret”) (Luis, ed. 145). Within certain Africa-based Cuban religious communities a! monte holds a great deal of spiritual, religious and ritual significance. Jualynne Dodson points out that practitioners of Kongo based religions, Palo Monte/Palo Mayombe understand that the forested areas contain outdoor physical spaces that have been endowed with power and hold sacred significance for religious initiates (99). Dodson says, “In forests, a sacred center is a location wherein descending cosmic power is known to have previously intersected with other energies from elements in the four essential categories of the human realm.” These sacred geographic sites are spaces where power of “the four essential categories” of the human world has merged with power of the spiritual world creating a “highly articulated spiritual communication” (99).63 While Palo Monte/Pale Mayombe are distinctly Cuban religions, some of the ritual customs and ideas that undergird their practice can be found in the ancient Kongo Empire in West Central Africa. Farris Thompson writes about the Afiica-derived nature of Diaspora art and religious images in the Americas. His chapter on the influence of the ancient Kongo Empire offers some insight into the importance of the mountain within 63 The Palo Monte/Palo Mayombe traditions recognize that the human world has at least four elemental categories: (1) divine spirits; (2) spirits of the dead (ancestors and more); (3); animate things and (4) inanimate material. The Creator is known by the name Nsambe and it is understood that at the time of creation. Creator endowed all four categories with some of the power at the time the universe was brought into existence (Dodson 92). 84 ancient Kongo civilization.64 Thompson writes that Mbanza Kongo, the historic capital of the Bakongo—Kikongo ethnic-linguistic group, was sited at the top of a hill. The placement of the capital city reflected the idea that the world is a mountain that sits above the land of the dead, Mpemba. In Kongo thought, both the physical world and the othenlvorld of spirits are inextricably linked, which means humans are at all times connected to the world of the deceased (106). Although Africa-based religions in Cuba have different ways and distinct ritual practices with which they articulate the bond between the living and the dead, the understanding that the living exist in relation to the deceased is a fundamental feature of Africa-based ritual practice and is present in Manzano’s poetry and life narrative. My analysis of the ritual activities of Manzano’s poetic self will expound on the meanings he may have constructed about el monte. In the third stanza the African descended poetic voice falls asleep and takes to the air after being transfigured into a winged being. Winged creatures, birds and their ability to fly are unabashed metaphors for freedom in Manzano‘s verse and slave nanativef’5 Flight is also a common place within Neoclassicism, which Manzano cites in other poems. However, in the context of this poem, flight is meaningful because it allows the poetic self to transcend the bodily restraints of slavery in order to perform what is a symbolic reproduction of an Africa-based 64 The Kongo Empire established commercial ties with Portugal to trade in captives beginning in the 14003, In the sixteenth century, Portuguese slave traders brought captive Africans from this part of central West Africa to the Americas where they left an early and indelible cultural footprint (Dodson 34). I 65 In la historia de mi vida, Manzano says that he wished to be a bird that he might escape slavery by flying away; “quisiera aber tenido alas pa. desapareser trasplantandome en la Habana“ (“I wish I had wings to disappear transplanting myself in Havana“) (Luis, ed. 333). 85 ritual.66 Transfiguration metamorphoses the poetic voice into a spirit being therefore enabling him to transcend time and space. Flight modifies the poet’s perspective about his condition as an enslaved person thus making subjecthood possible: “Ufano contemplaba / entre la tierra y el cielo / las portentosas obras/ del alto Ser Supremo” (“Proud I contemplated / between the heavens and the Earth I the marvelous works / of the High Supreme Being”) (Luis, ed. 145, 146). In this way dreams open a space for the enslaved poetic voice to transcend his earthly condition by reaffirming his link with the otherworld. African revelations of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries included augury, visions, and spirit possession of humans, animals and inanimate objects, as well as dreams (Thornton, Africa and Africans 239). In the New World dreams continued to function as a source of revelation from the deceased, as Jualynne Dodson points out, saying that in addition to the embodied events of spirit possession and spirit sightings, Palo Monte/Palo Mayombe religious devotees who are informed by an Africa-derived spirituality, also receive revelation by way of dreams. The understanding that dreams are a means of spirit communication with humans is reflected in the African proverb; “Spirits that come in dreams, with no words to walk on." The implication is that humans are receptacles who are meant to receive, interpret, decipher, and give words to spirit messages in dreams (55). 66 By symbolic reproduction, I mean that the ritual depicted by Manzano may not be faithful to the exact activities prescribed by Afro-descendant religious adherents. Instead, it is meant to invoke the meanings and the power aligned with Africa-based ritual within a literary text. Jualynne Dodson explicates that: “rituals are prescribed activities through which humans can unite with the historical and thereby generate special time flexibility within the present” (56). 86 “Suefio a mi segundo hermano" is a rewriting of the recent past where Manzano’s lyrical voice reworks events so that they result in a favorable outcome. Manonnage is the path to freedom that a soaring transfigured Manzano has chosen. The self—representative poetic voice does what Manzano was unable to do: rescuing the younger brother from the sugar plantation. In flight, the transfigured subject sees places that are diametrically opposed to one another the “Palenque soberbio" (“the Proud Mountain refuge community”) and “at suntuoso Molino” (“the grandiose Molino sugar mill”) (original emphasis, Luis, ed. 147). For African descendants the former represents a freedom that is won and maintained through struggle, while the latter means perpetual bondage and incessant abuse. Mas como no podia sofocar en mi pecho las tiemas impresiones del dulce amor fratemo, ansioso, bajo y hallo a aquel mi caro objeto, en sus altos tan tiemo como robusto etiope Ios trabajos venciendo. (Luis, ed. 147). The rescue of the younger brother represents a need to make peace with, or by spiritual means, transcend past tribulations. The poem leads the reader to infer that Florensio is all the family Manzano has left since, as la historia de mi vida (1835) indicates, both of his parents had long passed away before he would publish this poem in 1838. In nineteenth century Cuba the act of running away from slavery and the collective establishment of palenque communities was viewed as a direct challenge to the economic power of the white propertied elite and the political 87 authority of the Captain General. Matanzas was among the four most productive sugar-producing provinces in nineteenth century Cuba. The other major sugar provinces included Colbn, Santiago de Cuba and Sagua la Grande (Knight 41, 94). The large importation of African captives to work the sugar plantations, coupled with the mountainous and sparsely populated terrain, contributed to the high rate of runaways making Matanzas a maroon stronghold. The first recorded cases of cimamones in Matanzas dates from 1770, when local officials became aware of a small group of runaways in the “Ios molinos“ area. In 1817, officials began to collect systematic data about runaways. These records include 133 enslaved persons who deserted their masters, among them, 64 in the Yumuri region where Manzano’s mistress Ia Marquesa Jl’lstiz de Santa Ana owned a plantation (Bergad 22, 83). There are also reports of well-armed palenque communities living in hilly areas in the 18203 and 18305. Maroon communities best survived when they were able to occupy and settle areas with a low population density. Such areas were ideal for their use since runaways could hide, constitute self—governing communities, raise domestic animals and provide for their collective defense.67 Manzano was enslaved on El Molina plantation of la Marquesa de Justiz de Santa Ana in Matanzas and escaped by night to Havana circa 1812. For this 67 A number of palenques in the mountainous forested areas of Matanzas were particularly strong and well-organized communities that effectively resisted white slave hunting Parties made up of rancheadones (Franco 114, 116). Independent palenque living became more difficult to achieve in the 18305 as the settlement and agricultural development of the land spread all throughout the province meaning there were fewer remote areas for the establishment of palenques (Bergad 84). 88 reason, he was familiar with the danger of running away and understood the contemporary symbolic importance of el palenque as a site of resistance and rebirth for formerly enslaved Africans and Afro-descendants. Runaways drew upon an African religio-cultural frame of reference to forcefully carve out sacred geographic space to collectively define freedom for themselves by building independent communities in the hills, in forested areas, and in the mountains. When writing about his own escape, Manzano demonstrates his awareness that cimarrdn was a byword which reflected the severe treatment that runaways received; “represento Ia mala suerte de un tio mio qe. abiendo tornado igual determinasion pr. irse donde el Sor. Dn. Nicolas [...] fue traido todo como un simarron” (“I personify the bad luck of one of my uncles who having made the same determination to go to Don Nicolas... was carried off like a maroon”) (Luis, ed. 340). While Manzano’s brief experience as a cimarron urbano was the result of an independent act of rebellion to save his own life, in this poem he calls upon his younger brother to join him in a great escape: “<>” (“Let us flee, I told him / from this horrible place / more terrible to my sight 1 than hell itself: I let us flee, dear brother, /we take off by the wind, / let us forever abandon our enemy soil”) (Luis, ed. 148). This imagined path to freedom is realized in joint struggle even though Manzano clearly depicts 89 himself as the heroic subject that carries Florensio to freedom in his an'ns.68 This act of joint eswpe restores the African descended family unit tom asunder by slavery, enabling the brothers to flee not only the sugar plantation but also the colony itself. Dreams that bring otherwordly revelation and employ transfonrlative flight also appear in the lenghty unpublished narrative poem, “La visibn del poeta: compuesta en un lngenio de fabricar azucar”. The enslaved, self-reflexive lyrical “I” falls asleep on more than one occasion to escape the harsh and miserable labor of the sugar plantation. The poem describes the operation of the sugar mill and the process for extracting cane juice to transform it into refined white sugar; “Vieras el gran trapiche crujir, dando / Octogonicas vueltas, que no enfrena I El jugo de la cafia en gruesa vena, I Que va lenta marchando con blandura I Donde ha de convertirse en piedra dura" (“You would see the great sugar mill, turning / Eight rotations, that do not stop I The thick sugar cane juice, I Slowly flowing with smoothness / Where it is to become hard stone”) (Luis, ed. 178, 179). The Matanzas sugar plantation is an unbearable place: a locus horrendus for the poetic voice who like the nightingale sings a sad hymn before ending his “mlsero destino” (“unfortunate fate”) (Luis, ed. 175). The metaphor of the nightingale describes the pain of the enslaved persona: “Y aparenta que canta, pero Ilora I El terrible dolor que le devora.“ (“And he appears to sing, but he cries 68 In the final pages of la historia de mi vida, Manzano explains that it was difficult to escape slavery without bringing his brothers with him: “no estaba yo con todo esto bastante resulto en considerar qe. dejaba a mis hennanos en el Molino y qe. tenia que andar toda una ggche solo pr. caminos desconocidos y espuesto a caer en manos de un comisionado" (Luis, ed. 9). 90 I The terrible pain that devours him”) (Luis, ed. 175). The image of the nightingale functions like a confession from a poet whose work often gave voice to a deep-seated personal pain. Deep meditation causes Manzano to fall asleep, and othenivorldly forces carry him to a space where chronological time is suspended and human beings come face to face with spirits.69 Time ceases its steady march in “Suefio a mi segundo hermano” and in “La visibn del poeta: compuesta en un lngenio de fabricar azucar' where the poetic voice moves back and forth between past and present time. Furthermore, Manzano’s account of his life does not arrange events according to when they took place instead, ordering them in terms of their significance to the author and their relation to one another.70 (Naturally, he is also concerned with silencing some of the shameful abuse he was subjected to.) His sense of time refects an event-based sequencing common in Africa-based oral traditions. Manzano’s persona portrays an anachronistic co-presence of events when he positions himself in present time only to return to the past as a transfigured winged spirit being that rescues his brother F lorensio from the sugar plantation. 69 Time, as it is represented in “Sueno a mi segundo hermano" and in “La visién del poeta: compuesta en un lngenio de fabricar azfrcar‘, functions like ritual time. Dodson explains that the ritual practitioners of Africa-based traditions understand that they are able to transcend present time and reestablish contact with inspired historical events in which they may not have participated (56-57). 70 Manzano explains why he creates so many leaps in time in his slave narrative: “Si tratara de aser un escacto resumen de la istoria de mi vida seria una repetision de susesos todos 4, semejantes entre[s] sl pues mi edad de trace a catorce anos mi vida ha sido una consecusion de penitencia ensierro azotes y aflisiones asi determino descrivir Ios sucesos mas notables qe. me han acarreado una opnion tan terrible como nosiva" (Luis, ed. 319-20). 91 It is the return to the past, in ethereal form, which makes a simultaneous display of events from past and present time a possibility. Hence, spirit performance allows for the concurrent display of happenings from past and present time. In this poem Manzano’s transfiguration into spirit form, ritual performance on the mountain, and recognition of his muertos (deceased parents) makes a reckoning and a refashioning of events that have already taken place, a possibility. The stanzas cited below from “La vision del poeta: compuesta en un Ingenio de fabricar azucar" illustrate how contemplation gives way to sleep, flight and transfiguration: Otras Ia fantasia me convierte En ave por las nubes transitando Y en la mitad del vuelo mas propicio Me siento descender a un precipiclo. (Luis, ed. 177) Preso en Ios lazos del mas dulce suer‘to, Sin saber cemo vime transportado A un prado deleitoso y halagl‘ieno. (Luis, ed. 182) The African descendant poetic voice falls asleep or becomes lost in a “fantasia”, metamorphosing into a winged creature.71 The flying creature is a spiritual entity of the kind that also appears in “Poesias” and “Suefio a mi segundo hermano” and is capable of what I term transformative flight. By this, I mean that flight is a trope, so that Manzano’s persona achieves othenrvise impossible feats, i.e. esmpe from bondage, intimate contact with spirits, and artistic inspiration. In these texts, the poetic self files off or is carried away by an unspecified supernatural force to experience encounters with the otherworld. Such 7 1 Manzano refers to his lapses into the dream state as fantasia, falling asleep or deep contemplation and meditation. Such references to fantasia can also be found in “Poeslas'. 92 encounters involve dialogue with different types of sprits and a symbolic depiction of Africa-based ritual practice. “Poesias' stands apart from the aforementioned poems because human/spirit interaction does not lead to ritual practice or human/spirit dialogue but instead enhances the creative powers of the poet. The poetic voice expresses an understanding that provided certain conditions, contact with non- ethereal beings and revelation can be achieved. In “Poesias” the African descendant subject is the recipient of revelations for the purpose of artistic literary creation. Manzano writes, “De la patria del suefio en los encantos I icuénta revolucién maravillosa I contemplé de aquel mundo imaginario I siempre desconocido, nuevo siempre / para la oscura mente del humanol” (“From the motherland of enchanted dreams I how marvelous a revolution I I contemplated that imaginary world I always unknown, always new I for the dark human mindl”) (Luis, ed. 147). Inspiration is not merely a matter of the poet's exceptional individual talent; on the contrary, it reveals the genius of spirit beings that exist outside of the constraints of historical time and space and within that “mundo imaginario” (“imaginary world”) that “patria del suefio en Ios encantos" (“motherland of enchanted dreams”). In this way Manzano directly links dreams with revelations that translate into literary inspiration. Manzano does not use the Grace-Latin concept of the female muse that he employed in other poems to 93 convey the source of his creative inspiration instead speaking indiscriminately of “seres” (“beings").72 The stanzas below provide a closer look at the idea of otherwortdly beings as agents of creative inspiration. johl loca fantasia que pudiste tomar las reglas del pincel sagrado y asi vestir con materiales forrnas un fantastico ser, tuyo es el cuadro: en tus tintes empapa ahora mi pluma cuyos bellos colores cotejando la humana copia ensayaré diciendo como del genio y la ilusicn llevado a un prado descendi. Creedme, o seres. que de ilusiones férvidas tocados revelasteis del hombre Ios destinos (Luis, ed. 147) The reference to acres or “beings“ leaves room for the reader to interpret these entities as something other than the classical muses that he overtly alludes to in other poems. In fact, even though the word muse does appear once in “Poeslas” it is not in reference to these verses about the source of poetic inspiration. The poetic voice suggests that he garners artistic insight from the ethereal beings he encounters while asleep. The above-cited verses explain that a “loca fantasia” (“maddening fantasy”) took the sacred paintbrushes dressing a fantastic being with material form so that Manzano’s work was but a copy of spiritually inspired ideas. It should be noted that Christian notion of God the Father, so very common in neoclassical poetry, is not evoked to explain the poet’s creative response to spirit inspiration. Instead, these unnamed ethereal beings that come 72 “Ala musa anacreéntica" published in W (1821) is an example of a poem where Manzano employs muse in the conventional Neoclassical sense (Azougarh, ed. 121-22). 94 to the poet in dreams uncover and make known the fate of humankind. In this same vein of thought, Dodson explains that within Africa-based spiritual practices, artists develop an ability to respond innovatively to spirit inspiration Ieaming to open a space in their compositions for disclosure from the otherworld (5455). Spirit visions are also an important and recurring theme in the slave narrative with one important difference; Manzano does not face spirits while asleep but encounters them in the waking hours. In la historia de mi vida, the narrator depicts the apparition of spirit beings as actual events with which he is compelled to deal. Most often when writing about spirits in the life narrative, Manzano describes the unwanted encounters that he was subjected to while physically and emotionally debilitated. These encounters took place after Manzano had endured the abuse and torture of the overseers. Below, I have cited two such passages that speak to how the poet understood and experienced these sightings. yo tenia la cabeza llena de las cuantas de cosa mala de otros tiempos, de las almas aparesidas en este de la otra vida y de Ios encantamientos de los muertos, qe. cuando salian un trapel de ratas asiendo ruido me paresia ver aquel sotano lleno de fantasmas y daba tanto gritos pidiendo a boses misericordia (emphasis added, Luis, ed. 305) del ingenio Sn. Miguel pero ya estaba basia y no se la daba ningun empleo alli estaba el cepo y solo se depositaban en él cadaver hasta la ora de Ilebar al puebo a darle sepultura alli puesto de dos pies con un frio qe. elaba sin ninguna cuvierta se me enserro apenas me vi solo an equal lugar cuando todos los muertos me paresia qe. se [level] levantaban y qe. vagaban pr. todo lo largo de el salon una ventana media derrumbada qe. caia al rio o sanja serca de un despefiadero ruidoso qe. asia un torrente de agua golpeaba sin sesar y cada golpe me paresia un muerto qe. entraba pr. alli de la otra vida... (emphasis added, Luis, ed. 321) 95 The appearance of ethereal beings - divine spirits as well as spirits of the dead - is a well-established tenet of Africa-based spirituality. Manzano's descriptions substantiate that he interpreted such apparitions as events that were within a wide range of spiritual possibilities. Presumably, it is not the mere presence of the unseen that terrified Manzano, but the nature of these recently deceased, which had not yet received proper burial. When beaten, Manzano was often placed in a cepo (the stocks) and either left in an abandoned slave dungeon on the deserted San Miguel sugar plantation or deprived of food and water in a coal cellar on the El Molina plantation.” Manzano was left in dark, squalid, lonely and odiferous places, some of which were temporary holding cells for the corpses of enslaved persons that had not yet been interred. All this means that Manzano may have figured that he was face to face with tormented spirits of the recently deceased, which Mbiti has termed “the living dead” (25).74 Manzano’s account describes these entities as nonmaterial beings that came from “otros tiempos” (“other times”) and were “de la otra vida” (“from the other life”). The writer sees these spirits as capable of transcending chronological time and space to make contact with those that exist in the present time. These spirits occupied historical space and carried the disfigurements and torment of their lives with them. Although on occasion, Manzano admits that he may have confused a dripping faucet with the appearance of spirits, it is 73 The capo was an instrument of torture used to physically restrain enslaved persons. It was made of two pieces of wood that fit together to confine the neck, the feet and the hands. 7 . 4 Dodson defines “the living dead’ as thlngs, events and persons that complete their time as material entities and whose spirits pass into past time. These nonmaterial entities are known as “the living dead“ as long as those living in the present honor their memory (49). 96 important to note that for him such apparitions lie within a broad realm of possibilities. For Manzano, Africa-derived spirituality may have been transmitted to him by the very cuentos de cosa mala (“tales of evil spirits”) that he refers to. Afro-Cuban oral traditions and staged memorial activities such as stories, poems, chants, art, dance, parades, theater, and pageants exposed members of African descended cultural communities to the past presenting events that they had not personally witnessed or experienced (Dodson 50). Manzano’s account of his life provides yet another anecdote that sheds light on the poet’s understanding of human/spirit interaction and communication, which may better explain his familiarity with the presence of, and contact with, nonmaterial beings. Manzano recalls that his mother summoned Toribio Castro, her then deceased husband (and Manzano’s father), from the grave. ...me Ilamaba «Juan» y yo le contestaba gimiendo y ella desia de fuera <> entonses are at llamar desde la sepultura a su marido pues cuando esto ya mi padre abia muerto tres ocasiones en menos de dos meses me acuerdo aber visto repetirse esta Exna...(Luis, ed. 311). Like the passages cited above where the narrator writes of the honifying manifestation of the spirits of the enslaved, this episode with Manzano’s mother is also worth mentioning. However, it should be noted that there is a marked difference between the two accounts. Unlike her son, an unwanted apparition from the beyond does not surprise Maria de Pilar; instead on at least three occasions, she makes a concerted effort to reach her deceased husband. This llamar desde Ia sepultura is a grief stricken cry that may have been intended to resolve matters left unsettled in the physical world or to improve her son's lot on 97 the sugar plantation?5 Manzano cites this episode after describing yet another scene where he was beaten and left in the plantation infirrnary. From the vantage point of an African spiritual frame of reference, Maria de Pilar's invocation of the dead at a time of personal family crisis would be understood as a determined effort to take hold of collaborative power, thus transforming her into a subject. Practitioners join their limited power with that of “the living dead” in order to affect the outcome of events. This account, as well as the one where Manzano prays to the saints of his devotion before escaping El Molina, are an illustration of the belief that devotees can rely on the superior power of spirit beings from la otra vida that exist in otros tiempos to change or ameliorate conditions within the physical world. With regard to Manzano’s portrayal of spirit sightings, Sweeney says that his text is “doubly othered” since his descriptions of the appearance of spirits bring to mind “creolised African religious beliefs, or at best Catholic superstition” that was vehemently rejected by Protestant Anglo-Americans and used in pro- slavery propaganda (409). There is reason to believe that Manzano’s way of relating to the saints was inclusive in a manner that would allow for African descendant spiritual and ritual practice. Furthermore, these accounts of spirit beings also stray from the othenuise well-crafted Catholic self-image that Manzano fashioned in la historia de mi vida. Passages from “Sueflo a mi 75 In African Religions and Philosophy, John Mbiti says that in traditional African religious thought and practice spirits of the deceased commonly serve as intermediaries between living persons and God. In effect, they constitute the largest group of intercessors in African religious life, conveying human requests, needs, prayers and sacrifices to God. In this way, “the approach to God“ is considered a collective act involving the living and the departed (69-71). 98 segundo hermano” and “La visibn del poeta compuesta en un Ingenio de fabricar azucar" further distance the poet from a conventional Catholic belief system and orthodox ritual practice. In “Sueno a mi segundo herrnano” Manzano portrays himself as a metamorphosed winged creature that has escaped slavery and takes part in an Africa-based ritual. Visto tanto en el aire buscaba con anhelo el centro de la tierra para posar mi vuelo. Recojo Ios plumajes inclino un poco el pecho y en clrculos rondando tomo a bajar de nuevo: desciendo con tino de Matanzas al seno, do do la ruta fijo a aquel lugar tremendo, donde yertos reposan Ios miserables restos, de aquellos nuestros padres que el primer ser nos dieron. (Luis, ed. 146) This is perhaps the most palpably Africa-based representation in all of Manzano’s oeuvre. The transfigured poetic voice, now in spirit form, carefully descends in the center of the earth and, with feathers in hand, initiates a ritual intended for his muertos, his recently deceased parents, recognized as “the living dead."76 In this way Manzano, like his mother before him, seeks to honor the memory of and, in some form or another, to make contact with the dead. 76 Farris Thompson says that the traditional “Kongo [yowa] cross refers therefore to the evertasting continuity of all righteous man and women,“ (108). This cross is not to be confused or conflated with the Latin Christian cross in its form or its meaning. The yowa, which represents “a fork in the road“ is a very significant “symbol of passage and communication between worlds," 99 The African descendant subject transcends the limitations of time in the present by way of a sacred act that honors his deceased parents and may call on them for power to rescue his younger brother from the sugar plantation. The poem does not elaborate on the precise nature of the contact between the subject and his parents, but his intent to make contact through ritual is without dispute. Manzano’s reference to his parents as those “que el primer ser nos dieron" or those that gave him and his brother their first being, is a subtle recognition that there is a second life that exists within another time. In this way, Manzano parents are progenitors designed to give birth in the natural world even as the second life is to be lived in the spirit realm. The poetic voice recognizes that his parents have transitioned to the other life but can be reached through the appropriate ritual activity. In Manzano’s poems the specific place where the metamorphosed poetic voice chooses to rest from flight is relevant in all three poems, because they set the stage for visions of and contact with Spirits. (It should be noted that in all three poems the transfiguration of the lyrical voice transforms him from a material to a non-material being: i.e. a spirit). El monte, then, is a refuge from enslavement and is sacred space for the African descendant subject who performs ritual activity to remember and call on the power of the dead. In “La visién del poeta: compuesta en un Ingenio de fabricar azucar" Manzano's poetic voice experiences flight on two different occasions. As in “Sueflo a mi segundo hermano" flight takes place within the dream sequence, (109). Thompson states that all spirits seat themselves on the center of the sign as a source of firmness (1 1 0). 100 functioning as a gateway into the othenrvorld as well as the opening of an oneiric space within the text. The first instance is preceded by a reference to the deceased. Death, the dead and ongoing Iamentations are recurring themes in Manzano's work that resurface in this poem as well. With death in mind the poetic voice sighs, pondering “Mi usurpada fortuna contemplando” (“Contemplating my usurped fate”) (Luis, ed. 176). Subsequently, in what is one of the most salient verses of all his poetry, Manzano explains that he bathes himself in the ashes of his deceased father, “La paternal ceniza voy bafiando” (Luis, ed. 177). This symbolic reproduction of ritual activity functions to link the poet to the “living dead” and perhaps maintain equilibrium between the material and spiritual worlds. It is also an act of remembering and a bold and unequivocal identification with the historical memory of his African ancestry. The African descendant subject’s act of bathing himself in his father’s ashes is followed by this poem’s first instance of flight where he is once again transfigured into a winged being; this time he is specifically metamorphosed into a bird. The lyrical voice flies to a precipice, bringing into his range of sight views of the plantation from on high. In this elevated position, Manzano is now able to survey his locus horrendus from a place of sanctuary. As a spirit being, the Afro- Cuban persona can observe the physical world, interact within it and seek to modify and ameliorate racial slavery. In his transitory condition as an ethereal being, Manzano has greater access to the “living dead” and divine spirits. He comes to “El escabroso monte en esqueleto I Parece estar gimiendo en una uma I Con la naturaleza tacituma” (“Rugged mountain of skeletons I It appears to 101 be groaning in an urn / With nature hushed”) (Luis, ed. 178). The mountain is covered with bones, presumably the remains of Palenque maroons (Luis, ed. 178). Manzano’s poetic voice describes the mountain - which functions as the epitome of the soared in Kongo-based religion — as a funerary um for the remains of the African-descended, hence this poem transforms a! monte into sacred space. The symbolic complexity and the polyphony of voices within this poem are heightened by the poet’s allusions to the biblical narrative and his nuanced use of neoclassical imagery. To the poetic voice the nightmarish sugar plantation is comparable to the biblical notion of Hell where Satan is imprisoned in exile from the heavenly hosts. The slave plantation is skillfully juxtaposed and contrasted with creation itself, the work “Del supremo Criador" (“Of the supreme Creator”) because it is an aberration to all that is good and beautiful (Luis, ed. 180). Torrnented by his life on the plantation, the poetic voice bewails being unable to forget: “Que no pasé las aguas de Leteo" so that Leteo is metaphorical, implying his inability to disregard his painful past (Luis, ed. 180).77 In the second instance the lyrical self is transported, without knowing how, to an idyllic green pasture where ultimately he encounters Venus, the Gram- Latin female deity of love. Even as he writes of the biblical and the neoclassical, Manzano inscribes Afro-descendant historical memory into this poem by way of the dream. The lyrical voice again falls asleep and in contrast to the first dream 77 Leteo (Lethean) is an adjective in Spanish derived of Neo-Classical imagery which refers to all that is related to Lethe the river in Hades whose waters cause drinkers to forget their past. Lethe is the river of oblivion. 102 experiences a temporary and short-lived reprise from the horrors of plantation slavery. The male persona’s attraction to this female spirit is both erotic and emotional as she represents the glorification and manifestation of male heterosexual desire and for the enslaved a potential escape from the perpetual pain of bondage. Notwithstanding his passionate desire, the poetic self tries in vain to dissuade the divine female entity from taking up residence on the plantation: “Soberana mujer, huye y no insanes” (“Sovereign woman, flee and do not be foolish”) (Luis, ed. 184). To his surprise she quickly rebuffs him and explains that the very motive of her visit is to relieve his suffering. Calla necio, rne dijo y no profanes De mi sagrado influjo el casto fuego; <> (Luis, ed. 184) The divine female persona rebukes the male voice, telling him not to desecrate by speaking ill of her coming to the plantation. She identifies herself as Truth incarnate, “Soy la misma Verdad” (“I am Truth itself') (Luis, ed. 185). Following this brief proclamation Manzano’s poetic voice is carried by “un mégico poder” (“a magical power”) of this divine being of Truth to celestial mansions where he is surrounded by a prairie with a garden and a high temple. Manzano interposes a narrative within an already symbolically complex poem, intensifying the polyphony of ethereal voices with which the reader and the lyrical voice must contend. The poem grants divine authority to the female personage, which possesses some of the traditional qualities of Venus, while also endowing her with the unconventional mission of bringing relief to an 103 enslaved person who has been transfigured into a winged spirit being. Within the text, a Hispano-Catholic paradigm is brought into dialogue with an Afro-Cuban frame of reference: neoclassical imagery and the biblical narrative come face to face with Africa-based spirituality. The writer introduces the conventional image of Venus into a narrative poem, which portrays plantation slavery, in that way transposing African descendant historical memory upon Greco-Latin mythology. Manzano demonstrates considerable mastery of the varied symbols, images and religious narratives that he incorporates into his work. The three poems and the slave narrative that l have analyzed evince the presence of an Africa-based spirituality, thus enabling the constmction of a religio—cultural subjecthood not based in Hispano-Catholic normativity. Manzano’s poetic persona and first person narrative voice resignify an African descendant spirituality that was Othered, obfuscated and ultimately vilified by the dominant discourses, thus constructing, negotiating and lnscribing an African descendant subjectivity. 104 CHAPTER THREE Re-signifying Religion and Spirituality within Contested Space: The Poetry of Gabriel de la Concepcién Valdés ...palabras hinchadas, resonantes, disparatadas, huecas — (palabras, palabras, palabras! - siendo lo peor que a menudo ignora su significado. -—-Manuel Sanguily’s critique of Placido’s poetry 1.1 Introduction The above-cited epigraph is one of Manuel Sanguily’s many sharply worded invectives about the merit and meaning of the poetry of Gabriel de la Concepcion Valdés. In 1894, at the time this statement was published in the journal, Hojas Literan'as under the title, “Un improvisador cubano: el poeta Placido y el juicio de Menéndez y Pelayo,“ it formed part of a larger debate taking place within Cuba and internationally conceming the poet known by the pseudonym Placido. From Sanguily’s point of view, Placido's resounding words were inflated, ridiculous, hollow nonsense language (Bueno, ed. Acerca de Plécido 166). He decried the popular association of Placido as “el Plndaro cubano”, (“The Cuban Pindar’), whose verse had been described as “homérica”, (“Homeric”), in quality (Bueno, ed. Acerca de Placido 161 ). Sanguily attributed broad public admiration of Placido with a general ignorance of literary conventions and credited his fame with his untimely death at the hands of colonial authorities. For Sanguily, Plécido’s execution by the Spanish colonial 105 government, not the quality of his poetry, transformed the pitiable poet into a national martyr. On this matter he wrote, “y aun el hombre mismo, como purificado por el martirio, aparece confuso pero inmaculado en su marco sombrlo de sangre y dolor" (“and even the man himself while purified by martyrdom, appears perplexed but immaculate in his gloomy condition of blood and pain”) (Bueno, ed. Acerca de Placido 160). In this article, Placido was portrayed a miserably tragic figure whose execution justified an otherwise indefensible martyrdom. For Sanguily, Placido was not a national hero whose memory should be enshrined in Cuba’s yet unstructured literary canon; he was not a Cuban poet, a black poet, or an artist of any kind, but simply: “un COpIero, simple versificador” (“a rhymester, a simple versifier") (Bueno, ed. Acerca de Placido 164).78 He considered Placido’s body of work to be illogical and devoid of order except for instances of, “una concepcién rudimentaria, o infantil, o primitive” (“a rudimentary conception, or infantile or primitive”) (Bueno, ed. Acerca de Placido 166). In this regard, Sanguily exalts himself as a white critic above the object of his disapproval so that he might analyze, primitivize and infantilize Placido’s poetry as the unadomed verse of the racialized Other. The highbrow conception of culture imagined an intrinsic association between the character of the bard and his poems, so that if poetry lacked aesthetic merit, the poet was regarded as socially and intellectually inferior. Such criteria made certain that poets of color, 78 Manuel Sanguily was a white, propertied liberal intellectual and a formidable orator, who studied under José de la Luz y Caballero. Sanguily served also as a rebel officer during the Ten Years War (1868-1878) (Paquette 5). 106 with little formal humanistic education, like Placido, would be excluded from Cuban canon formation. The execution of Gabriel de la Concepcibn Valdés -— fifty years prior and his brief but prolific literary career - generated much discussion about the value of his poetry and his significance as a historical figure. In 1844, colonial authorities charged, prosecuted and eventually executed Placido for treason as the ringleader of a series of plantation uprisings that came to be known as La Conspiracion de la Escalera, The Ladder Conspiracy. After he was put to death, Placido came to be regarded as a paragon of anti-colonial fervor among people of color and as a traitor among whites who feared the power of black revolution on Cuban soil. Even in death, the colonial govemment’s dread of Placido lingered, so that it was forbidden to recite his poetry, consecrate his memory, or even speak his name (Paquette 265). If indeed Sanguily believed Placido's work was insignificant, it is peculiar that in 1894, he devoted three articles to convince the public of its irrelevance. These articles attest to Placido’s posthumous status as a historically significant Cuban poet who engendered impassioned responses from white and African descendant writers alike. Published only a month after the previous article, in “Otra vez Placido y Menéndez y Pelayo. Reparos a censuras apasionadas” Sanguily tacitly acknowledged that Placido had come to represent much more than a simple versificador for Afro-Cubans. A March 1894 article, published in La Igualdad, reported that the Placido had been pronounced “EL IDOLO DE LOS CUBANOS NEGROS” (“THE IDOL OF BLACK CUBANS”) at an evening party 107 attended by people of color (Bueno, ed. Acerca de Placido 187).79 Whites were admonished not to blemish “el nombre glorioso de Placido” (“not tarnish the glorious name of Plécido”) who was equated to José de la Luz y Caballero, a white Cuban patrician also implicated in the Ladder Conspiracy (Horrego Estuch 223). Unlike Placido, Luz y Caballero was absolved of all charges brought against him. According to the article in La Igualdad, both figures were held in high esteem by their respective communities and were deserving of the admiration they had received (Bueno, ed. Acerca de Placido 187).80 Speaking of race as biological fact, Sanguily’s rejoinder described Plécido as someone who was mostly white, since his mother was Spanish and his father was a quadroon, implying that Placido was not a black person. Sanguily saw Placido, as someone had not defended the political interests of people of color thus making him unworthy of any commemoration by African descendants (Bueno, ed. Acerca de Placido 188). The impassioned exchange between Sanguily and La Igualdad exemplified the disputed interpretation of Placido’s poems by black and white audiences, signifying the enduring debate about his place within national memory. The question remains: Why did Placido’s memory arouse such fervent debate fifty years after his execution, if, as Sanguily avers, Placido was merely a 79 La lgualdad was a black Cuban newspaper that dates from 1892-1894 directed by Juan Gualberto. Cuba Contemporanea (Guiral Moreno, ed. 70). Gbmez helped to organize La Guerra Chiquita of 1878, 1879 and later played a pivotal role in the Cuban War for Independence 1895-1898 (Bueno, ed. Acerca de Plecido 22, 53-54). 80 In 1894, people of color in Cuba demanded that a statue be erected in Placido honor (Paquette 4). 108 rhymester, whose poetry was not inspired by anti-colonial fervor? Critics have often studied Placido’s historical and political poems to establish or refute, his alleged involvement in the Ladder Conspiracy. In the main, Gabriel de la Concepcion Valdés has been appropriately portrayed as a political poet; however, such studies have generally ignored his religious representations. On the other hand, critics that do explore religion — Francisco Calcagno, Sebastian Alfredo de Morales and Jorge Castellanos - concentrate almost exclusively on Catholicism and are essentially silent on the poet’s portrayal of African descendant spirituality. Such an omission has resulted in a somewhat myopic reading and lead to inconclusive statements about Placido's religious identity and spiritual practice. In this chapter, however, I analyze Placido’s illustrations of Catholicism as a normative means of religious representation reproducing biblical narrative as a an avowal of faith in the ecumenical authority of the Catholic Church. At the same time, I will explore Placido’s portrayal of an Afro-Cuban religious persona who negotiates with the dominant religious discourse even while subverting Christian claims to pre-eminence thus, transculturating the Hispanic text. How did these representations produce themselves in a colonial contact zone and what were the political implications of Africa-based ritual activity in the Age of La Conspiracién de la Escalera? 109 1.2 Speaking Christian in the Contact Zone Among the most conventional of Placido's religious-themed poems are “Muerte de Jesucristo", (“Death of Jesus Christ”) “Ala resurreccibn de Jesus”, (“To the Resurrection of Jesus“) “Muerte del Redentor”, (“Death of the Redeemer”) “A la resurreccibn“ (“To the Resurrection”) and “Ala muerte de Cristo” (“To the Death of Christ”). The representation of Catholicism and biblical narratives reproduce, if not reinforce, ecclesiastical doctrines regarding a sinful humanity, the need for repentance, redemption, and the preeminence of the Christian God. Jesus is enshrined as the Messiah and the Redeemer, an afflicted, yet resurrected Savior whose epic triumph over death and the grave is celebrated by all of nature. “Muerte de Jesucristo” is a sonnet-dirge despondently recounting the crucifixion: “Cuando en el monte Golgota sagrado I Dice el Dies-Hombre con dolor profundo: I <>” (“When on the sacred Mount of Golgotha I With profound pain the God-Man says I «Father, let your will be done>>") (Morales, ed. 31).81 The Christ figure submits to the will of God the Father, dying a martyr's death, marked by notable disturbances in the natural realm. As in the Gospels, the death of Jesus reverberates throughout nature: the sky becomes dark, lightning strikes, the stones break open, the rivers cease to flow, the birds refuse to sing and even the dead rise. Jesus is the innocent lamb to the slaughter, afflicted for the transgressions of the world: “Y a la rabia de un pueblo furibundo, / Inocente, 81 Alfredo de Morales does not mention the place or date of publication or “Muerte de Jesucristo“ Muerte del Redentor" (31, 606-08). 110 sangriento y enclavado, I Muere en la cruz el Salvador del mundo.” (“And to the fury of a enraged people, / Innocent, bloody and nailed to the cross / The Savior of the world dies upon the cross”) (Morales, ed. 31). Although a longer narrative poem, “Muerte del Redentor" is parallel to “Muerte de Jesucristo” also relating the passion and crucifixion. Jesus is represented as the embodiment of God, so that although he resided in a human body, he is rendered divine. The death of the Christ has a transformative power atoning for sins and altering nature. Although Jesus is equated with God the Father, both poems reveal a significant distinction. “Muerte del Redentor" refers to Jesus as “el hijo de Dios”, (“the son of God”) “Hijo en came de Dios”, (“Son in the flesh of God”) and “Hijo de Dios Padre” (“Son of God the Father”) (Morales, ed. 606-08). Although endowed with unparalleled redemptive power, the Christ figure is subordinated to God the Father since the poet refers to him as the Son. Such a designation conforms to Christian doctrine, which maintains that God the Father is the ultimate patriarch. On the other hand, the poetic persona in “Muerte de Jesucristo“ identifies Jesus as “Dios—Hombre” (“the God-Man”), in that way embracing the apostolic, yet paradoxical view of the early Church, that, at once Jesus possessed the qualities of the divine and the human. “Ala muerte de Cristo" (1843) is a poem written by Placido while incarcerated in Trinidad under suspicion of conspiracy against the Spanish government.82 Like the aforementioned poems, “Ala muerte de Cristo" also ‘ 82 Placido’s motives for writing this poem should be questioned considering his Imprisonment on anti-govemment conspiracy charges. 111 memorializes the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. On the whole these poems are Iaudatory, dedicatory, and without self-representation.“3 However, “Ala muerte de Cristo” is less moumful than the other poems instead describing divine creation of humankind, corruption as a result of sin and redemption through grace. Mankind is depicted as treacherous and violent by nature, desperately needing, even if unworthy of forgiveness. Even so, “A la muerte de Cristo” focuses on the absolute power of God the Father to create as well as devastate describing him as “Destructor de Sodoma”, (“Destroyer of Sodom”). “Hacedor Supremo”, (“Supreme Maker") and “Rey de los Reyes” (“King of Kings"). The poetic voice equates the judgmental God of the Hebraic tradition with the God of the New Testament, a holy and sacred entity demanding righteousness but also disposed to sacrifice for the redemption of wayward man (Garbfalo Mesa 149— 150). Such religious poetry was not exceptional in early nineteenth century Cuba. Jose Jacinto Milanés — who authored the Matanzas newspaper, La Madrugada and was acquainted with Placido - published “En la muerte de nuestro Senor Jesucristo" (“In the Death of Our Lord Jesus Christ”) in 1850, a sonnet that replicates the same theme as “Muerte del Redentor" (Castellanos 19). The poem refers to Jesus Christ as “at Hombre-Dies exanime” (“the debilitated God Man”), depicting a suffering Messiah wishing only to fulfill the will 83 The only exception to this is “A la muerte de Cristo' where in one verse the poetic voice refers to himself as “El cantor del Yumuri“, a celebratory title linking him to Matanzas. However, as in the other poems, there is no self-reflexivity with regard to the meaning of the crucifixion for the poetic voice himself (Garbfalo Mesa 148). 112 of God the Father by submitting to cmcifixion. In the same manner as “Muerte de Redentor" and “Muerte de Jesucristo”, the sonnet illustrates changes in the natural realm as a consequence of the crucifixion (Milanés 348). In fact, the only significant difference is that Milanés’ poetic voice is self-reflexive, intimating that divine sacrifice demands contrition: “Murio...Quien?...Quien compuso cuanto admiro. I Por quién?... Por mi, que en mi feroz crudeza / sin deshacerrne en Iagrimas lo mirol" (“Who died?...He that composed everything I admire. I For whom?...For me, in my ferocious severity / l gaze upon him without dissolving into tearsl”) (Milanés 349). The lyrical voice in Milanés’ “En la muerte de nuestro Ser‘lor Jesucristo” self-consciously reflects on his lack of penitence as an insensitivity to divine sacrifice. On the other hand, Placido's poems portraying the passion, crucifixion, and death of Jesus are all without personal response or reflection. In both poems. the poetic persona is positioned oritside the narrative, so that he merely recites the well-known biblical account as an act of religious tribute.84 “Ala Resurreccibn" (1843) and “Ala Resurreccibn de Jesus" (of unspecified date and place of publication) adopt an exultant tone venerating the rebirth of Jesus Christ from the dead as a glorious victor.85 As a suitable case 84 “Muerte del Redentor“ and “Ala colocacién de la primera piedra en la nave de la iglesia panoquial de Matanzas“ (“In the Positioning of the First Stone of the Nave of the Parish Church of Matanzas“) were written to Dr. Don Manuel Francisco Garcia, a Matanzas Parish Priest. Another such poem “Ala bendicibn de la nave construida en la lglesia parroquial de Matanzas“ (“In the Blessing of the Nave Constructed in The Parish Church of Matanzas“) pays homage to this same church (Morales. ed. 610-15). 85 Garcia Garbfalo Mesa says that Placido composed this poem during Holy Week while imprisoned in Trinidad in 1843 (Garbfalo Mesa 150). 113 in point I am citing from “Ala Resurreccion”: “Es Jesucristo el hijo de Maria, I Es el Rey de Ios Reyes que triunfante IAlza el divino cuerpo centellante I Del polvo inmundo que su faz cubria.“ (“It is Jesus Christ the son of Mary, / He is the King of Kings who triumphant I Lifts his luminous divine body/ From the repugnant earth that covered his countenance”) (Morales, ed. 31). Such poems draw on the Gospels where the resurrection is the culmination of a series of events portraying the divinity of Jesus. Whereas the crucifixion is an act of suffering meant to convey divine sacrifice for errant mankind, Jesus’ rising from the dead is a decisive triumph over sin, death, and the grave. The second of these poems, “A la resurreccion de Jesus“, concludes: <> gas acaso natural que invocando a Dios, Ie llamara: <> Con una pasibn mas dura Que cascara de tocino, Y con su rostro cetrino Que africana estirpe indica, Alucinado publica Ser de excelsa parentela! Que se lo cuente a su abuela. (original emphasis, Morales, ed. 482) Al que mentiras amoja Como agua por azotea, Le dire cuando Io vea: «i Oh...l No juegue, que me moja.» Atencion: salgo de case 218 Con Juan, hallo at Don Marcelo, Hombre tan largo de pelo Que hasta el bigote le pasa. -¢ Porque se unta con tanta grasa? -—Para que no se le encoja. <<,' Oh.. .! No juegue, que me moja.» (original emphasis. Morales, ed. 482) Don Longino’s public claims to “sangre noble y para” (“noble and pure blood”) in the first stanza are contradicted by the texture of his hair and his yellowish skin tone, which bespeak non-European parentage. The poetic voice mocks this appeal to whiteness by indicating that his hair is: “pasicn mas dura I Que cascara de tocino” (“[Hair] with a persistence tougher I Than the rind of bacon“) (Morales, ed. 482).123 His claims to racial purity are laughable in the public sphere since they are easily disproven by salient physical traits that function as cultural signifiers of African ancestry. “iOh...l no juegue, que me moja” disparages Don Marcelo as an impostor who is very much afraid that his long well-oiled hair will get soaked and shrivel up, in this manner revealing his non-white ancestry and complicating his claims to racial purity. “<>” (“Don’t Play You’ll Get My Hair Wet”) is a scomful yet comical refrain restating what Kutzinski referred to as the problem of “cultural anxiety over ancestry”. For Kutzinski, “Que se lo cuente a su abuela” (and by extension this poem as well) represents yet another of Placido’s countless social critiques of the unbridled hypocrisy of colonial society (“Unseasonal Flowers” 155, 157). While this is a this observation, there 12 . 3 I use Vera Kutzinski‘s English translation of the last stanza of “Que se lo cuente a su abuela'. However, I have added the word hair as to make the meaning of this verse clearer (“Unseasonal Flowers“ 155). 219 is something more to be said about the prevalence of white domination and its detrimental influence on oppressed persons. The social presentation of dark bodies was a complicated matter in a society where whiteness was the prevailing ideology. This was true because the white Other’s perceptions of African descendants might well decide access to education and economic opportunity. In an environment where blackness was cast as primitive, prelogical and servile, the need to access whiteness, albeit symbolically, became a matter survival on a daily basis. This is what Bhabha is referring to when he defines “colonial mimicry” as the desire for a transformed and identifiable Other who — like Don Marcelo and Don Longino - is expected, even prompted, to pursue an inaccessible whiteness (86). This same desire for whitening is portrayed once again in the epigrama satlrfco, “Si a todos Arcino dices”. Si a todos, Arcino, dices que son de baja ralea, cuando tienen a Guinea en el pelo y las narices. Debes confesar, Arcino, que es desatino probado, siendo de vidrio el tejado tirar piedras al vecino. (Luis Morales, ed. 149) Like Don Longino and Don Marcelo, Arcino denies his non-European ancestry and insists that his lineage is without black or mulatto heritage. He conveys this rejection of mixed ancestry by assuming a sense of racial superiority in relation to those of baja ralea or of the lower casts. All three poems caricature social types whose longing to improve their ranking in society prompts them to self-identify as persons of European descent. There is great irony and contradiction in their 220 claims, since their dark bodies bear witness against these false assertions of limpieza de sangre. Such characters’ racial anxieties are parallel to a broader desire for whitening as a solution to the africanizacidn of Cuban society. As Kutzinski notes, proponents of mestizaje, like Francisco de Arango y Parrefio, thought that the mixture of the races meant black would yield to white, thus achieving blanqueamiento (Sugar’s Secrets 31 ). “Que se lo cuente a su abuela” and “Si a todos Arcino dices” candidly refer to the hair, the nose and skin color as “africana estirpe” (African origin) and “Guinea I en el pelo y las narices” (“Guinea I in the hair and nose“) respectively (Morales, ed. 482) (Luis Morales, ed. 149).124 In this way racial difference is not equated with a notion of mestizaje that would characterize these men as racial subjects situated within the interstices of colonial society. Instead, it is associated with Africa as the embodiment of their racial and cultural origins. Although couched in an innocuous literary format, this critique of whiteness deconstructs the mulatto sense of racial superiority and designates Africa as the symbolic origin of African descendant racial identities. These poems repudiate the widely purported notion of mulatto racial superiority and they unequivocally reject a perceived need for whitening among persons of mixed ancestry. I maintain that the message of self-love inherent in these poems, as well as in Placido’s love poems, allude to the prospect for an inclusive sense of African descendant racial community in nineteenth century Cuba. 124 Daisy Cue explains that “pasién' was nineteenth century Cuban argot synonymous with the more common slang term pass, meaning thick and dry hair generally associated with people of African ancestry W 228). 221 “El guapo” and “La respuesta de un curro” problematize Afro-Cuban male gender identity through the satirical illustration of three social types: eI criado, 9! came and e! guapo. Although these poems only imply racial identity, their color- writing images are relevant to this chapter since they represent distinct models of Afro-Cuban masculinities in the colonial era. In a similar fashion to the poems that caricature African descendant men who want to pass for white, both costumbrista poems are also concerned with social standing. However, instead of obsessing over skin color, hair texture and facial features eI guapo and eI curro make a name for themselves by carefully cultivating reputations, which reinforce hyper-masculinist notions of gender performance. The following stanzas from “El guapo” are indicative of a broader colonial narrative that portrayed African descendant men as violence-prone, sex-crazed womanizers. Andres era un valenton De juego en juego vagaba Y de burdel en burdel, Alla cobrando el barato Para echar a otra despues. Nunca se vio que a ninguno Hiciera ni mal ni bien; Asi que su fama era No mas que entre dos o tres. (original emphasis, Morales, ed. 412)125 In the context of this poem, guapo can be rendered thug, since Andres is a dishonest character reputed to be a hooligan who frequents brothels and gaming houses. Publicly, he is perceived as un hombre who takes pleasure in female 125 Valenton refers to an arrogant male person who boasts about being brave when in reality he is not. 222 bodies at will and is thought to be dangerous. His mffian reputation precedes him, although no one has ever witnessed him commit an act of brutality. When a judge - representative of the corrupt criminal justice system — solicits the guapo’s help to hunt down a fugitive, he is unable to do so and confesses to being a coward who is good for little more than fleeing danger. The irony (and perhaps the most humorous part of the poem) lies in the fact that Andrés is a painter who reproduces violent scenes in which he does not partake. His visual portraits are texts that reflect and perhaps add force to the hyper-masculine and heterosexual narrative of black male criminality. The poetic voice reveals that Andrés’ fraudulent claims to thuggery are a futile attempt to associate with the flamboyant demeanor ascribed to this type of male gender performance. It is interesting to note that in nineteenth century Cuban Spanish, guapo was a synonym for curro, which was a street entertainer associated with criminality and camivalesque performance (Fernandez Guerra and Suares ed. 3, 17). Like Don Marcelo and Don Longino, Andres is a free person of color. Moreover, he is a member of the bustling artisan sector dominated by la gente de color in the early 18003 (Esténger, ed. 93-94). However, unlike the characters in the race poems, eI guapo’s falsified accounts of manly pursuits and womanizing place his masculinity in question. Whereas Andres the painter feigns participation in the black criminal underworld, eI cuno is depicted as an authentic presentation of that social type. “La respuesta de un curro” briefly recounts an exchange between eI criado‘of a white lawyer reputed to have studied in Europe and a cane who is enslaved to 223 no one. The enslaved person, euphemistically referred to as a servant, boasts for two hours about the extent of his new master’s Ieaming. Despues que el simple, alabando Su nuevo sefior estuvo Mas de dos horas, é hizo Relacién de sus estudios. Dijo--<>--- A lo que muy socarrcn Contesto el taimado curro, 126 Although elsewhere I have insisted on referring to captive Africans and their descendants as enslaved persons, it seems more appropriate to use the word slave here since it accurately reflects the mentality and worldview represented by this caricature. 224 Con risa burlesca, Y dejéndole confuso. --<>-- (original emphasis, Morales, ed. 166) The curro's reply demonstrates that he is entirely unimpressed with the social standing, knowledge and purported wealth of the slave’s new owner. The indifference he feels for the status symbols of white society is reflected in his comic smile, which leaves the slave perplexed. Although the poem parodies both figures, it is clear that the slave is the object of ridicule. With an onomatopoeic accent, reminiscent of the cabildo elder in “Mi no sé que ha richc”, the curro tells the slave that he does not know what he is talking about. Whereas the slave thinks his master is riding a horse - a sign of his social standing as a gentleman - the cumo is quick to inform him that, indeed, he is the ass that his master is riding. The humor of the last few verses is best understood by historicizing the image of e! curro in colonial society. Fernando Ortiz describes Ios curros del Manglar as Andalusian blacks and mulattoes known for an ostentatious form of dress, verbal battles, and a random sense of delinquency. El curro was regarded as a marginal and potentially violent figure that always carried a knife. Living on the wrong side of the law, his fashion sense, musical performance and dance rhythms distinguished him any other Afro-Cuban social type in the city of Havana, including members of cabildos and secret societies. Although originally thought to be murderous henchmen, eventually they came to be regarded as inoffensive street performers (Fernandez Guerra and Suares, ed. 3-5). In this 225 way, the threatening and foreboding black Other was transformed into an innocuous jester in the public imagination. The fact that Ios curros were free people who had never been enslaved further distinguished them in early nineteenth century Cuba from other persons of African descent (Fernandez Guerra and Suares, ed. 8). This difference explains the symbolic force of the character found in Placido’s poem. The camp mocks the slave's desire to seek validation in the professed greatness of the white Other. Whereas the slave has no autonomous sense of self, eI cumo epitomizes independence, virility, rebelliousness and black self-deterrnination. His broken Spanish and purported criminal behavior notwithstanding, eI cumo is free, since he is not the property of the white master. In this way, the curro's gender performance is a self-defined articulation of freedom for Afro-Cuban male persons. This forceful affirmation of African descendant masculinity counters Fanon's contention that the Negro is a toy in the hands of the white man (140). El curro replies by exemplifying a type of masculinity in which he alone is the master of his own body. The remaining texts that I examine in this chapter stand apart from Placido’s love poetry and satirical poems since they were not written for aesthetic or comic effect. Much to the contrary, these texts characterize a desperate appeal to the colonial government regarding the poet’s alleged involvement in an anti-colonial conspiracy. The years 1843-1844 represent the worst repression ever unleashed on African descendants by the colonial administration. As a result of La Conspiracién de la Escalera the government of Captain General 226 Leopoldo O’Donnell abandoned judicial norms and implemented a reign of terror on enslaved and free people of African descent. This brought about a vast number of arrests, prosecutions and executions of people of color that resulted in population loss (Midlo Hall 58-60). As the most prolific Cuban poet of the time and the most illustrious person of color on the island, Gabriel de la Concepcién Valdés became the leading target of this brutal crackdown, which, subsequently, came to be known as eI Afio del Cuero, the Year of The Whip. 1.5 Race and Self-Representation in El Ario del Cuero Written almost a month before his execution, on June 23, 1844, Plécido's penultimate statement to the President of the Military Commission is a protracted . . 7 defense of his innocence.12 It is an apologetic writing, a plea that makes explicit claims to veracity in order to win clemency from the Capitan General. At the same time, however, it functions as a self-representative narrative: a story about race, nation, and personal identity purported to have been written by the author himself.128 This hastily written account vehemently repudiates the author’s alleged involvement in conspiratorial activities, even though the poet’s words reveal 127 Gabriel de la Concepcién Valdés was executed before a military firing squad on July 28, 1844 (Cue, Elacidg: El meta 16). 128 Historian Robert Paquette acknowledges that the use of torture and coercion call into question Placido’s authorship of the statement. However, he concludes that the structure of the text, the ramblings. its disjointedness and its revelations mean that it was most likely written by the poet himself, not the prosecutor. I concur with Paquette's point of view with regard to the authenticity of the document (261 ). 227 considerable knowledge of the plot. Placido does not deny the existence of an anti—colonial conspiracy; instead he depicts himself as “una VICTIMA DESIGNADA” (“a designated victim”), targeted by whites and people of color alike as a pretext to shield powerful wealthy white conspirators (Cué, “Plécido y la Conspiracicn” 198). As such, Placido denies all responsibility and portrays himself as a guiltless bystander, a lowbom poet incapable of inciting rebellion. Ynutiles seran Sefior a mi entender cuéntos afanes emplee el gobiemo para hallar la causa motriz de estos acontecimientos en estas clases de pardos y morenos, ellos no son a lo mas otra cosa que unos INSTRUMENTOS CIEGOS de maquinaciones MAS PROFUNDAS Y ANTIGUAS manejadas por manos mucho mas PODEROSAS Y HABILES que las de estas AUTOMATAS, y los hechos que paso a esponer probaran que mi asercién no carece de fundamento. (original emphasis, Cué, “Placido y la Conspiracion” 193). This rhetorical strategy is significant because it counters the nuanced subversive tension extant in many of his poems, the alleged purpose of his many travels throughout the island, his impressive network of powerful white and Afro-Cuban acquaintances - some of whom also fell under suspicion - and a litany of past imprisonments. Not only does Plécido repudiate having been involved in the plot, but he also denies having the intellectual power and necessary wherewithal to effect change in a system of white racial domination and collective intimidation.129 129 The exigencies of the text are evident in the use of the upper case, the repetition of words, multiple exclamation points and rhetorical questions. Daisy Cué explains that this statement is a faithful reproduction of Manuel Sanguily’s copy. Sanguily implemented the use of upper case letters to place emphasis on certain phrases within the document (Cue, “Placido y la ConspiraciOn" 206). l have not seen the original text and so cannot be certain if Sanguily’s changes in any way violate Placido’s original. As is the case with Manzano’s Autobiografla, the text available to me is a palimpsest scarred by the marks of others whose motives should be subjected to careful scrutiny. 228 Nevertheless, in order for the author to be deemed innocent, the counter- narrative had to assign blame elsewhere. Throughout the text, Placido’s racial self-representation suggests an implied yet well—defined identification with las clases de pardos y morenos, that is with free people of color purported to be of mixed ancestry and with free blacks. Although several persons of color — some of whom are cited by name in this statement - had accused Placido of leading the conspiracy, the poet never once implicated them. Much to the contrary, this testimony is a vindication, an acquittal of persons of African descent. Although the poet was identified as a pardo, his statement to the Military Commission does not dissociate him from free blacks. As a group, la gente libre de color appear as blind pawns, automatons that were manipulated by far more artful and powerful hands. This synecdochic reference is an allusion to white persons with whom the text situates the conspiratorial locus of control. Sugar baron, abolitionist and ' patron of the arts, Domingo del Monte, becomes the prime representative, the embodiment of Ios bIancos. In view of the fact that Delmonte was a notorious abolitionist and social reformer, Placido's charge that he was the principal architect and chief instigator of the conspiracy was not implausible. The poet’s version of events portrays Del Monte as a duplicitous schemer and a cowardly agent of subversion who made several attempts to convert Placido and Ios pardos to his untoward cause as passages below seem to suggest: En la epoca a que me refiero en la declaracibn que consta de autos que fui SOLICITADO por D. Domingo Delmonte...dicho Sr. Me ENCONTRABA en la alameda de extramuros que era mi ordinario paseo, se me quejo de la falta a la promesa que la hice de volver a su casa, a que contesté que podian dar sospechas mis frecuentes visitas, y por lo tanto era conveniente evitarlas; 229 y en estos paseos me instruyo de los siguientes: Que un general de Costa-Firrne Ilamado Sucre, estuvo en la Habana el afio veinte y uno y este fue el primero que aconsejo que la independencia de la Ysla de Cuba debla hacerse al revés de los otros paises de America, (original emphasis, Cue, “Placido y la Conpsiracién” 193). Delmonte’s presence in the extramural neighborhoods represents the crossing of a socio-racial barrier, which situated him outside the intramural district of the city. The district inside the wall was the administrative, economic, ecclesiastical, and military center of the city where whites lived. The extramural neighborhoods were home to the black and mulatto population that housed runaways from the inner district (Deschamps Chapeaux 5). It is clear from Placido’s description that the wall was an artificial barrier designating a symbolic divide among populations whose lives were considerably interrelated. In fact, although this passage is meant to depict Delmonte as a suspicious character, it has the undesired effect of revealing that there was sustained dialogue and regular visits between the two men. The discourse of freedom and independence is portrayed as a misguided cause fomented by Delmonte who preys on an unsophisticated yet good-natured poet of color. Delmonte informs Plécido of a long-held belief that the island should wrest independence from Spain much in way that other countries of Latin America had done. In sharp distinction to the manipulative and subversive language of the whites, represented by Delmonte, Placido declares “estoy resuelto a cumplir Ios deberes que me imponen la naturaleza, la humanidad y mi patria” (“I am resolved to fulfill the duties that nature, humanity and my country oblige me”). In this way, the poet relies on the Romantic ideal of the hero to 230 present himself as a dutiful patriot, a virtuous person and even a would-be government informant (Cue, “Placido y la Conspiracibn” 195, 198). His loyalty lies with the fatherland, an expression inexorably infused with double meaning since Placido's patria is not Delmonte's. Ever since his first arrest in 1834 for writing “La Sombra de Padilla”, Placido remained conscientious of the fact that the colonial administration considered his poetry subversive and was wary of his ever-increasing notoriety among the lower socio-economic groups. This paragraph acknowledges those suspicions while also implying that they were misplaced, given that, according to Placido, Delmonte was the actual mastermind behind the conspiracy. Habiendcle hecho presente que ese are un plan de sangre en que el mismo pereceria, repugnante a la humanidad. Que Ios blancos del pals aun cuando Iograsen reunirse a los pardos, nunca serlan bastante para contener el inmenso numero de negros dado el caso que estos solo peliasen a pedradas, y que en fin YO NO HABIA NACIDO para guerrero ,SINO PARA POETA, me contesto COBARDE... (original emphasis, Cue, “Placido y la Conspiracién” 194). Once more, Delmonte is portrayed as the chief conspirator and the prime representative of white revolutionaries. Placido asserts that the white agitator conspired to unite free people of color and enslaved blacks in a scheme to overthrow the government and abolish slavery. As the testimony maintains, Placido is a benign creature of the arts, a poet, not a warrior. To support his own claims to innocence, Delmonte is presented yet again as the genuine source of the plot against the colonial status quo. What is more, the narrative addresses the government's belief that people of color from very divergent social sectors had conspired as one. Placido’s contention that a leading white abolitionist was the chief architect and ideological 231 mastermind of a revolutionary movement also implies that this could not have been what the govemment repeatedly called “Ia conspiracion proyectada por la gente de color. . .para el esterrninio de la...poblaci6n blanca” (“the conspiracy devised by people of color to exterminate ...the white population”) (sic) (Nwankwo 35). In other words, the poet aims to exonerate himself from the charges brought against him while deconstructing the official narrative about the events of 1843-1844. By assigning complete responsibility for the conspiracy (and the attendant slave revolts) to abolitionists, Placido manages to invert the symbolic power of racialization by representing whiteness as the major threat to colonialism. The implication is that the conspiracy was the work of liberal-minded abolitionists and that the subsequent response of colonial authorities was yet another unwarranted manifestation of white racial panic. As previously acknowledged in Chapter Four, the colonial regime supposed that Ios pardos had conspired because they wished to improve their social condition and that Ios morenos had joined under the supposition that it might benefit them as well. Nonetheless, no explanation was given for the driving force behind the involvement of Ios negros who were only cited for their brawn (Nwankwo 35-36).130 The perception of Ios pardos as the conspiratorial leaders among African descended people reflects a belief that people of mixed ancestry were inherently envious of the power and social prestige enjoyed by white persons in society (Nwankwo 38). In what follows, I will discuss the way in 130 . . . In this context, Ios negros ls synonymous wrth enslaved persons. 232 which Placido’s account reproduces some of the stereotypes about persons of color, although not with the intent to convict, but acquit. In spite of what they did (or did not) know about certain details of the plot, or their aversion towards the white racial hierarchy, Placido never implies that free or enslaved persons of color colluded to abolish slavery or overthrow the colonial government. Seran Ios negros y mulatos los que habran coordinado estos acontecimientos? Ah Sefiorl aqul hay una mano fuerte y maestral iCuantas copas de Champafia se habran apurado al presente en loor de las vlctimas que se inmolaran para EXASPERAR estas clases, que ni pueden unirse entre sl por la natural ANTIPATIA que se profesan, ni ligarse a ninguna maquinacion oculta por la imposibilidad que hay de CONSERVARSE UN SECRETO entre ellos. (original emphasis, Cue, “Placido y la Conspiracién” 197). In an attempt to clear all persons of African descent from even the slightest blame, the text relies on the impression that the inherent antipathy among persons of color would have made it virtually impossible for them to cooperate in order to devise such an intricate scheme. In this passage there is a shift in the author’s use of racial descriptors. Instead of referring to pardos y morenos in relation to whites (free persons of mixed race and free blacks), he compares enslaved blacks with free people of mixed heritage. As Placido’s account reiterates a number of times, the colonial imaginary placed free persons of mixed heritage and free blacks into one cIase unto themselves while enslaved blacks or negros were in another altogether. Such a choice does not group or associate enslaved blacks with free persons of color. On the contrary, it alludes to colonial racial stereotypes of the feeble racialized Other in order to deny that any person of African descent could have been an agent of conspiracy. Instead, they 233 become potential victims: pawns in strong and masterful white hands whose high stakes games might mean their destruction. Nwankwo points out that the colonial administration had an inconsistent even convoluted view of African descended persons. On one the hand, they dreaded the merging of these subgroups into a cohesive front that might undermine their authority. At the same time, the government took solace in the chimerical idea that pardos, morenos and negros were incapable of being the catalysts for such a complex and far-reaching conspiracy. According to this racist premise, they concluded that white Europeans, namely British agents, had incited the colored folk (40). Placido's illustration of the incompetent and divided Other added force to the colonial govemment’s belief that pardos and morenos were incapable of conspiring in unison. In this way, the poet’s narrative about La Conspiracion de la Escalera evokes Bhabha’s assertion that the stereotype is a complex, ambivalent, and contradictory mode of representation positing divergent views about the racialized Other (70). It is also worth noting, that while Placido’s account was inadequate to save his life, the authorities did embrace the belief (at least on paper) that whites were the agents of conspiracy responsible for seducing persons of color. On numerous occasions, Placido repeatedly denied that free people of color had colluded with whites against the government. In one such account he recalls the presence of several prominent white personalities at a dance organized for la gente de color in Guanabacoa. Placido says: “se aparecian' con los bailes y convites de la gente de color, y en uno de ellos...nos dio varios pies 234 alusivas a la libertad, que para glosasemos” (“they appeared at dances and banquets of the people of color, and at one of them.. .they extemporized verses alluding to liberty for so that we might discuss them”) (Cué, “Placido y la Conspiracién” 199). In this instance, freedom appears as an unfamiliar discourse, an unsolicited intrusion at an otherwise festive event for people of color. Although abolition would have ushered in a new era of great benefit to those present, it is portrayed as the sole concern of self-interested white outsiders. Placido alleges that the pro-independence faction solicited the support of Ios pardos and that the English Consulate planted clandestine agents to incite black uprisings with the assurance that the rebels would be protected. In fact, he maintains that white abolitionists’ aspirations were such that some wealthy landowners (among them Domingo Delmonte) were disposed to incite their own slaves to revolt (Cue, “Placido y la Conspiracién” 194, 202-03). With regard to his dealings with enslaved blacks Placido writes the following: En la causa hay un calesero Ilamado José Chiquito del Sr. D. Francisco de la C. Garcia, que ME ACUSA de haberle seducido. Es bien raro que habiendo yo estado en las fincas... jamas me haya mezclado con los esclavos, ni resultado la menor alteracién en ellas, y que no habiendo pasado nunca ni por Ios linderos de la Garcia haya venido a egercer en el pueblo, y gratuitamente una mision que no acepto de Delmonte en que pude haber hecho fortuna sin liesgo. (original emphasis, Cue, “Placido y la Conspiracicn” 200). The poet’s claim that he had no affinity with Ios esclavos is a disidentification with blackness whose function is hidden in plain view. Throughout the narrative the enslaved black population, identified as Ios negros or Ios esclavos, is distinguished from free blacks known as morenos. The enslaved are pictured as a collective body, moving and acting as a throng, without clear direction and 235 easily seduced by devious men. This representation is far removed from the imaginative re-signification of blackness in Placido’s satirical poems “Si a todos Arcino dices” and “Que se lo cuente a su abuela”. Such an image of blacks on the plantation situates them within the discursive norm as violent, restless automatons and it clearly reinforces Placido’s identity as a pardo, that is, a free person of mixed ancestry. José Chiquito, the carriage driver who alleged that Placido seduced him to insurrection, comes to represent black slaves as a whole. By distancing himself from the carriage driver, the author conveys a notion of African descendant racial community that excludes enslaved blacks in an apparent attempt to exculpate himself. More than anyone else thought to be involved in the plot, thirty-two accusations were leveled against Placido by a number of prominent free persons of color (Cué, “Placido y la Conspiracicn” 176-77). Furthermore, his fame extended into the countryside so that even free rural people of color and the enslaved were familiar with the name Placido, even if they had never laid eyes on him (Paquette 259). For that reason, this account might represent the desperate actions of a poet who found himself in dire straits, fighting a losing battle to save his life that did not afford him clemency. He was counted among the other dark bodies, which had been deemed black enough to be tortured, exiled, imprisoned and executed at the hands of a firing squad. Regardless of the fairness of their skin, virtually no person of color was spared the colonial regime’s insatiable desire to ravage the collective dark body. 236 The almost white status that Pedro Barreda and José Antonio Fernandez de Castro consign Placido is not a pervasive factor in his lyrical representations of race. His body of love poetry constructs dynamic and multihued depictions of black and mulatto women who are flanked in local nature metaphors. The positive valorization of their physical appearance coupled with an unambiguous vindication of their social compartment qualifies as an important re-signification of the African descendant female character in literature. Read side by side with the scathing, yet humorous critique of a misplaced longing for whiteness, these poems evince a broad conception of African descendant community found in his satirical verse. Nonetheless, this notion of shared community among free persons of mixed ancestry and free blacks was not without rhetorical limits. In the course of the military trial that he was subjected to — and in order to secure his claims to innocence - Placido denied having maintained any ties with black slaves and in that way disidentified with blackness. As Nwankwo so insightfully argues, the colonial racial hierarchy was not multiracial but bipartite, divided into two groups, whites and non-whites (34-35). Although the colony recognized a variety of racial groups on paper, all measured by greater or lesser degrees of whiteness, the racial hierarchy was in reality dualistic. The Spanish govemment’s interrogations of Manzano and Placido, Manzano’s prison letter to a friend, and Placido’s penultimate statement to the Military Commission bear out that in colonial Cuba dark bodies were inexorably equated with blackness. As Captain General O’Donnell's reign of terror ' demonstrated, the blackness of dark bodies was much more than a symbolic 237 designation within the white imaginary, for it proved to be a matter of life and death. 238 EPILOGUE This dissertation examined the processes of transculturation in the poems, letters, narratives, and court testimonies of Gabriel de la Concepcién Valdés and Juan Francisco Manzano embracing racial and religious representations as dual axes of analysis. My interpretation of Afro-Cuban representations of race as an agonizing site of economic exploitation, violence against the collective dark body, and social animosity revealed the consequence of racial hierarchy that structured the colonial system in Cuba during the first half of the nineteenth century. Manzano and Placido’s representation of religious and spiritual practices was also significant for my study, in view of the fact that the proselytization of enslaved persons was a social control measure designed to erase Afro-Cuban identities by portraying slavery as the mandate of divine will. As such, I explored how transculturation manifested as contradictions, re-significations, silences and shifts in the aesthetic as well as ideological function that came to be traced in Manzano and Placido’s texts. My study of African descendant Cuban writers from different social sectors revealed a predilection for the construction of a mulatto Catholic self-portrait in response to racialization and compulsory conversion to Christianity. It became apparent that Manzano and Placido’s normative racial and religious self- representations served a political function, legitimating their tenuous presence in white literary circles as well as increasing their prospects for publication. _ Whereas Placido’s lyrical persona was elusive about racial self-identification — only self-classifying as a pardo in the course of legal proceedings - Manzano’s 239 self-portrait identified with the purported inbetweeness of a mixed-race Cuban identity. My research demonstrated that Manzano and Plécido’s self-reflexive writing situated both poets within the confines of discursive normativity even as the representation of African descendant spirituality and the critical assessment of the dominant gaze negated and, ultimately, transculturated a meticulous construction of mulatto Catholic identity. As I stated in the previous chapters on religious practice, Catholicism is enshrined in the literature of Manzano and Placido as Ia Religion, an acknowledgment of the Church’s exclusive claims to universal moral authority and a means to social ascension for the emancipated poet and his free counterpart. The self-referential Catholic persona in Manzano’s poetry and life narrative, however, differed from Plécido’s dispassionate devotion in non- autobiographical poems. More often than not, Manzano’s lyrical (and narrative) voice articulated from a place of powerlessness as a character whose locus of enunciation had been marked by the horrors of plantation slavery, thus appealing to divine liberation at the hands of spiritual intermediaries. With the exception of a few poems which appropriated religious discourse to defy metropolitan rule, Placido’s Christian poetry is nearly devoid of personal reflection, portraying a mere replica of New Testament accounts of Jesus’ death, crucifixion, and 131 resurrection. Both poets laid claim to a Catholic identity and their literature 131 In this dissertation, I have not analyzed the so-called “prison poems“; a small collection of poetry attributed to Placido and thought to have been written while he awaited execution for his alleged role as leader of anti-govemment uprisings. The “prison poems" portray a much deeper religious sentiment than any of the dedicatory poems studied here. However, my decision to leave out this corpus was motivated by the focus on Afro-Cuban spiritual verse. 240 evinces an appropriation of official religious discourse speaking to the immediate concerns of the Afro-Cuban character. At the same time, the mulatto Catholic persona is juxtaposed with an oppositional character, a practitioner of Africa-based rituals and spirituality, which the white imaginary inextricably associated with primitiveness, subversion, and black revolutionary ambitions. The re-signification of space and physical spaces, the reiterative performance of Africa-based ritual acts, and insight into ethereal revelation are the prime leitmotifs in Manzano and Placido’s representations of African descendant spirituality. The representation of Africa—derived spiritual practice promotes uneasy dialogue and enduring negotiation within the text, thus disturbing the aesthetic function and ideological rationale of Hispanic literature, which enshrined whiteness and Christianity as racial and religious ideals. Manzano and Placido’s Afro-Cuban personas receive otherworldly revelations, commemorate Ios muertos and partake in ancestral reunion through ritual practice. In my analysis, Africa-based spirituality as a means to subjectivity suggests the presence of an autonomous worldview not subject to whiteness, as such, unbound by the religious normativity of Catholic dogmata. It is apparent from my analysis that Manzano and Placido’s renderings of Africa-derived spirituality have racial implications as well, in view of the fact that practitioners of Afro-Cuban ritual were categorically racialized as negro. For the most part, the introduction of innovative modes of racial representation by Manzano and Placido affinned the beauty and moral character of the Afro- Caribbean female persona. In fact, whereas the espousal of Black Nationalism 241 does not surface in these poems, the portrayal of blackness in Manzano and Placido’s body of work is remarkable, seeing as negro was a pejorative referent exposing white fears of an inescapable Africanization of the island. Indeed, the re-signification of blackness in Placido as well as Manzano’s body of work correlates blackness with African ancestry. The depiction of a wide-ranging African descendant community, emerging in the work of Gabriel de la Concepcién Valdés, is called into question in the course of the government prosecution’s of the eminent poet, ensuing the disavowal of blackness. The slave plantation system bestowed privilege on Manzano only to revoke it later; his dark body is draped in finery, although later it will be stripped, exposed to public scorn and abused. Thus, Manzano reveals that mulatto claims to social privilege are unfounded, given that white objectification of the enslaved person negates the subjectivity of the collective dark body. Moreover, I have shown that the understated and, at times, acerbic critiques of the dominant gaze empowers the mulatto persona in Manzano and Placido’s literature given that the enunciative posture of the Afro-Cuban lyrical voice enables subjectivity even while subverting uncontested claims to white superiority. Given my focus on Manzano and Placido’s poetry, correspondence, narratives and court testimony, I have not placed emphasis on the publications of prominent white novelists and poets, who also engaged racial representation and 242 portrayed African descendant spirituality.”2 Although, for the most part white authors’ racial and religious representations of Afro-Cuban characters rendered monochromatic stereotypical personas, a more thorough analysis and comparison with Manzano and Placido's literature are warranted in a future study. Other unanswered questions and related issues have also come to my attention in the course of writing the dissertation. The notoriety Gabriel de la Concepcién Valdés coupled with the political content of his poems justified the colonial regime’s charges of conspiracy against him. Did the Spanish govemment’s dossier of evidence take account of his Afro-Cuban spiritual poems in the charges against him? Following his imprisonments, torture and multiple trials, did emancipated poet Juan Francisco Manzano cease to publish altogether as many critics have alleged? Subsequent to La Conspiracion de la Escalera what were the cultural implications, if any, of Manzano and Placido’s literary transculturation for black and white Cuban writers? In conclusion, my dissertation has established that the transculturated colonial literature of Gabriel de la Concepcién Valdés and Juan Francisco Manzano constituted product and process, meeting and disjuncture so that Hispanic literature ceased to be the exclusive capital of white discourse, instead becoming an intervening space that challenged racial and religious hierarchies. The coexistence of Hispano-Catholic and Afro-Cuban religio-cultural paradigms 2Anse|mo Suérez y Romero’ s W and Cirilo Villaverde’ 3 Cecilia Valdés o la loma del angel along with José Jacinto Milanés' poems, “El negro alzado, “La esclava con amores, “El esclavo", construct Afro-Cuban racial and religious personas. 243 generated negotiations, tensions, overlap and struggle within texts that, more often than not, performed an autonomous Afro-Cuban identity rarely recognized by a homogenous concept of Cubanness that became common under the “new“ nation recently independent from Spain. 244 WORKS CITED Andrews, George Reid. Afro-Latin Amerig, 1800-2000. New York, New York: Oxford University Press, 2004. Arredondo, Alberto. El negro en Cuba. La Habana: Editorial “Alia”, 1939. Augier, Angel, ed. Jose Maria Heredia: Obra metica. La Habana, Cuba: Editorial Letras Cubanas, 2003. Azougarh, Abdeslam, ed. Juan Francisco Manzang: Esclavo meta en la Isla de Cuba. 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