Role Of AfroCubans In The War Of

Role Of Afro-Cubans In The War Of Independence Essay, Research Paper

What distinguished the final War of Independence (1895-1898) from the earlier Ten Years’ War (1868-1878) and the short-lived Guerra Chiquita (1879-1880) was the war’s success throughout the majority of the island, the final ousting of the Spanish through the American intervention, the espousal of an egalitarian ideology by a radical multiracial military leadership, and the iconization of the war’s two most revered heroes: Jos. Mart. and Antonio Maceo. As has been documented, the aims of the liberation were modified when elite Cuban planters joined the insurgent cause beginning in 1896 and brought their social agenda to bear on the civil wing of the separatist cause (P.rez 1983:125). The liberation army under M.ximo G.mez, however, sought to eliminate the very socio-economic basis of Cuban society by razingl the sugar plantations as a means towards creating a more egalitarian society. While the division between the civilian and the military was in fact a deciding factor for the final outcome of the war and led to the intervention of the United States, the tension between the two wings has gathered too much attention at the expense of examining how class and racial conflicts before the final war were the source of later divisions among the separatists (Ferrer 1995:283). By discussing the historiography of Afro-Cuban nationalist discourse, a mythologized vision of nationalist unity emerges which was reproduced and interpreted differently by diverse segments of the separatist front, but nonetheless served to mobilize vast numbers of Afro-Cubans against the Spanish in an unprecedented display of force.

Afro-Cubans participated in greater numbers during the final war, and while there were divisions among them as well, a majority of these former slaves on the rebel side shared a nationalist vision for a freer, more egalitarian Cuba (Helg 1995:44). The source of this vision can be located in their struggle for liberation from slavery itself and their participation in the failed rebellion of the Ten Years’ War. Rebecca Scott (1994:81) reports that in the early 1860s, 173,000 slaves resided on around 1,500 sugar estates in Cuba. Before slavery was outlawed in 1886, over 100,000 former slaves had already gained freedom through self-purchase, flight, legal means, and individual arrangements. In addition the Pact of Zanj.n with Spain at the conclusion of the Guerra Chiquita had secured the freedom of all slaves who had fought for the rebel cause. It is in the intermediary period after the Guerra Chiquita and before the War of Independence that the debate over the Afro-Cubans’ role in previous wars and their participation in future liberation armies was to determine the character of their nationalist identity and the eventual betrayal which Afro-Cuban veterans experienced after 1898.

The debate was over the question of gratitude. Focusing on the writings of Afro-Cuban journalists in the early 1890s, Ferrer (1995:254-268) documents the reactions of Juan Gualberto G.mez and Rafael Serra to the general feeling among white Cubans that the abolition of slavery indebted ex-slaves and all people of the raza de color to political allegiance with the Autonomist Party for voting purposes. According to Serra in 1893, while not disputing that whites had led the previous war efforts, Afro-Cubans had not been graciously freed by their white masters, but instead they had fought for their freedom in the war and were thus ‘entitled’ to equality. This argument was rebutted by Manuel Sanguily who reaffirmed white preeminence in the Ten Years’ War and reasserted that black indebtedness to white Cubans should be expressed by political allegiance.

To understand G.mez’ conceptualization of Afro-Cuban nationalism, we must first turn to the thoughts of J.se Mart. who espoused a qualified racial equality. An anti-annexationist to the end, Mart. was engaged in a counterdiscourse against Spanish propaganda of the rise of ‘another Haiti’ while he advocated a revolution against the Cuban social order. Afro-Cubans took Mart.’s statement to heart that, “the greater the suffering the greater right to justice” (P.rez 1983:106). As the founder of the PRC (Cuban Revolutionary Party) in 1892, Mart. became the voice of the civil arm of the revolutionary movement abroad, and Afro-Cuban nationals embraced his ideals as justification for the affirmation of their “Cubanness” and the legitimization of their call for equal rights (Ferrer 1995:266) .

Consequently, G.mez and others described their struggle not as an affirmation of their Africanness, but as an effort to unite all Cubans. These Afro-Cuban journalists characterized the civil rights struggles of the 1890s as “Cuban” struggles and countered the accusation of the threat of a “race war” with the rebuff that it was in fact certain white sectors’ perpetuation of racist attitudes that posed the real threat to unity (Ferrer 1995:266). In 1887, the Directorio Central de las Sociedades de la Raza de Color was created by Afro-Cubans led by Juan Gualberto G.mez in order to challenge the Spanish government’s racist laws. The PRC publicly endorsed the Directorio’s cause as opposed to other major white party elements: the pro-Spanish Constitutional Union and the liberal Autonomists (Helg 1995:45). However, even members of the white separatists like Manuel Sanguily did not share Mart.’s v