Conflicting Abolitionisms: Cuba’s Royalist Black Press and the Battle for Representation of la raza de color

• In Event: 
Paradoxes of the Enlightenment and the Liberal Revolutions: Sugar and Coffee over Freedom?

Abstract

In March, 1882, Rodolfo Lagardere addressed the Casino Español de la Habana about how to implement the abolition of slavery. The prominent black royalist argued that the Spanish empire should grant reparations to black Cubans in the form of education, jobs and lands, for practical and ethical reasons. After all, he added, Spain was responsible for slavery. Despite Lagardere’s radical abolitionist position, his royalist stance pitted him against other leaders of Cuba’s burgeoning black press, most of who linked racial equality to national independence.

This paper reexamines the politics of abolition and the social sphere surrounding the civil rights movement by way of competing interests’ claims of racial justice. To appreciate the dynamicity of abolitionism, the historical choices of blacks and nineteenth-century revolutionary thought, it is necessary to challenge binary divisions that associate popular sectors and liberal-republican platforms. Many journalists and readers of royalist black press newspapers sided with empire not because they lacked an awareness of their political options but because it suited their antiracism agenda. Considering how royalists contributed to abolition, positioned themselves as representatives of la raza de color and negotiated a political system in transition adds an important layer to the history of emancipatory politics.

Author

• Alexander J Sotelo Eastman, Washington University in St. Louis