Abstract
If we take the modern history of Cuba as beginning at the start of the sixteenth century, then the island has had a well-defined political significance for almost five centuries. For nearly four hundred years of that period Cuba existed as a slave society. It is important to note the principal factors that encouraged and sustained this condition: not least, Christianity, free-enterprise business enterprise, and the rivalries of the European powers.
Everyone should remain in the state in which he was called.
Were you a slave when you were called? Never mind.
St Paul1
The first cause of slavery, then, is sin — that a man should be put in bonds by another; and this happens only by the judgement of God, in whose eyes it is no crime.
St Augustine2
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Notes
Edward Westermarck, Christianity and Morals (London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner, 1939) p. 283 (sources cited).
Joachim Kahl, The Misery of Christianity, translated by N. D. Smith (London: Penguin Books, 1971) p. 33.
Quoted by John Dower, War without Mercy: Race and Power in the Pacific War (London: Faber and Faber, 1986) pp. 150–1.
Herbert S. Klein, Slavery in the Americas: A comparative study of Cuba and Virginia (London: Oxford University Press, 1967) pp. 88–9.
Robert Francis Jameson, Letters from the Havana during the Year 1820 (London: John Miller, 1821) pp. 21–2.
Clarence Henry Haring, The Spanish Empire in America (New York: Oxford University Press, 1947) pp. 209–10.
Eric Williams, From Columbus to Castro: The History of the Caribbean 1492–1969 (London: André Deutsch, 1970) p. 50.
Louis A. Pérez, Cuba: Between Reform and Revolution (New York: Oxford University Press, 1988) p. 39.
Irene Aloha Wright, The Early History of Cuba, 1492–1586 (New York: Macmillan, 1916) pp. 69, 81.
John Hope Franklin, From Slavery to Freedom: A History of Negro Americans (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1947) pp. 63, 69.
J. G. F. Wurdemann, Notes on Cuba (Boston: James Monroe & Co., 1844) p. 153.
Juan J. Reyes, Memoria sobre las causas de la vagancia en la Isla de Cuba (Habana, 1851), in Aimes, op. cit., p. 262.
Leslie B. Rout, The African Experience in Latin America (London: Cambridge University Press, 1976) p. 81.
David Turnbull, Travels in the West Cuba: with Notices of Porto Rico, and the Slave Trade (London, 1840) p. 42.
Mariano Torrente, Cuestiôn importante sobre la esclavitud (Madrid, 1841) pp. 4–7;
cited in Philip S. Foner, A History of Cuba and its Relations with the United States, Volume I, 1492–1845 (New York: International Publishers, 1962) p. 203.
Quoted in Philip S. Foner, A History of Cuba and its Relations with the United States, Volume II, 1845–1895 (New York: International Publishers, 1963) p. 78.
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© 1996 Geoff Simons
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Simons, G. (1996). The Slave Society. In: Cuba. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-24417-1_3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-24417-1_3
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