Sugar, Coffee, and Tobacco and the Construction of the Cuban Nation in Cirilo Villaverde’s Cecilia Valdés

• In Event: Roots and Offshoots: New Approaches to Cirilo Villaverde’s Cecilia Valdés

Abstract

This paper explores how, during the first half of the nineteenth century, sugar and coffee determine Cuba’s nascent economy and culture. These two parts of the island's economy, each amply represented in Cecilia Valdés, represented two types of slavery and two different directions for the development of Cuban culture. I will also study the cultural effects of these two crops' modes of cultivation in light of Fernando Ortiz’s later work Cuban Counterpoint: Tobacco and Sugar, which juxtaposes sugar with tobacco and not coffee. Each crop signifies a particular cultural and economic model that contributes and also responds to the construction(s) of national identity underway in the era.

Author

• William Luis, Vanderbilt University