Cuba and the Myth of the 'Race-less' Nation

By the time the first phase of the Cuban war for independence began in 1868, Cuba and Puerto Rico were the only two colonial Latin American possessions Spain retained control over. In the aftermath of losing its mainland empire in the early 19th century, Spain held a tight grip on both islands. The tenacity with which Cuba was guarded was not only a function of Spain's desire to lay claim to the last bit of its imperial prestige, it was also a direct result of the 19th century sugar boom that bolstered the island's economy in unprecedented ways and created a renewed sense of mutual dependency between metropolis and colony.

The Cuban sugar boom, which began at the turn of the century, was prompted in large part by the vacuum in sugar production caused by the Haitian Revolution.  The increased number of slaves imported into Cuba to facilitate sugar production, however, also created widespread fears about the possibility of Cuba turning into another Haiti. This in turn played a crucial role in the Creole (Spaniards born in the colonies) elite's decision not to opt for independence from Spain, even though the rest of Spanish America was doing so.

According to the historian, Ada Ferrer, by mid-century the population of slaves and freed people of colour comprised the majority, and the minority "white population, educated in the fear of black and slave rebellion, looked to Haiti and clung to Spain in fear." Yet, Spain's declining position in the international arena, which resulted in great part from the loss of revenue it had once received from its former mainland colonies, meant that the Cuban sugar-based economy was increasingly essential to the maintenance of the Spanish Crown. 

Spain's growing inability and unwillingness to deliver on promised economic reforms to Creole planters had devastating economic effects for the eastern region of Cuba. While the Creole elite of the monoculture sugar-producing western region may have been disappointed with Spain's reform failures, their economic standing remained strong. Moreover, they depended on the protection they believed Spain offered them from their dense slave populations.  Conversely, the eastern region was characterised by a multi-crop economy that depended far less on slave labour. As a result, the region's demographic make-up was far more racially balanced. The growing frustrations of the eastern region's Creole elite with their declining position vis-à-vis the sugar-rich western region spawned the first phase of the Cuban war for independence, called "The Ten Years' War".

It was evident to this group of Creoles that the only way they would be able to successfully launch a revolution was by enlisting the participation of the eastern region's free(d) and enslaved populations.  As a result, they offered the latter manumission in exchange for their participation in the insurgency movement against Spanish colonial rule. This seemingly radical move on the part of the insurgent Creoles was, as the historian Rebecca Scott notes, symbolically important, but nonetheless "legally represented nothing more radical than the exercise of the right of a master to manumit his slaves". Moreover, their actions were tempered by over-riding concerns about alienating the region's more conservative planters by demanding immediate abolition. A compromise was reached in 1869 when the insurgency forces declared all inhabitants of their self-pronounced republic free, but enacted the Reglamento de Libertos, which established a tutelage system that allowed former slave owners to retain control over their former slaves.

This arrangement allowed the insurgency leadership to continue reaping the benefits of slave labour, but to do so outside the paradigm of slavery. It increased the manpower of the military, while provisioning the labour of former female slaves to attend to the domestic needs of the insurgency forces. Ferrer points out that this system was also designed to encourage the subservience, indebtedness and gratitude of former slaves to the rebel leaders. While it certainly had this effect, libertos also seized the revolutionary language of freedom, liberty, and justice to demand a more inclusive role in the anti-colonial struggle. As a result, former slaves and free blacks and mestizos rose in the ranks of the military and to a limited extent the latter were also placed into public office at the local level.

Their success along with the relatively peaceful transition from slavery to (quasi) freedom that had occurred in the eastern region was in turn used by the rebel leaders to argue against the idea that Cuba's racial make-up and slave population necessarily rendered its independence an impossibility. While abolition in the eastern region freed only a minority of the island's slaves, as the majority laboured in the western region, it forced Spain to recognise that if it was to successfully quell the insurrection, it would have to effectively deal with the question of slavery. In 1870, Spain passed the "Moret Law" which freed all children born to slaves since 1868 and those over 60 years of age, and suggested that indemnified emancipation was likely to occur once the insurrection was over. The law was an attempt on the part of Spain to prevent the rebel forces from characterising it as pro-slavery.

Spain, moreover, used the law to present itself as progressively working towards abolition, while simultaneously employing the spectre of Haiti to suggest that without the firm hand of Spain the insurgents would turn Cuba into a black republic. Spanish and Cuban proponents of the colonial relationship effectively used this rhetoric to dissuade others from joining the insurgency and to convince the increasingly beleaguered elite rebel leaders to call it quits. As a result, "The Ten Years' War" came to an end in 1878 when most of the rebel leadership signed a peace agreement with Spain, called the Pact of Zanjón.

According to the historian Louis Pérez, "Zanjón represented Spain's attempt to renew the imperial lease over the colony by offering reforms to Creole dissidents and promising political participation to Creole loyalists." Yet, it was precisely Spain's inability to carry out the promised reforms and the continued disenfranchisement of Creoles from politics in the following decades that would ultimately undermine colonial rule. Finally, the Pact of Zanjón angered the more radical elements of the separatist movement, who denounced any form of compromise. Ferrer notes that opinion on the Pact split the movement, along racial lines, into two groups, "one mostly white and elite and the other significantly (but not exclusively) non-white." The latter would become the backbone of "The Little War", the second phase of the independence struggle during 1879 and 1880. As a result, the racial make-up of the second war's insurgency forces was significantly of African descent and this only increased as slaves who had seen their counterparts earn their freedom in the preceding war joined the insurgency.

In response, Spain once again tried to use this to their advantage by characterising it as a race war designed to bring about black rule. As with the Ten Years' War, this kind of propaganda successfully extinguished the second phase of the liberation struggle. The final phase would not occur for another 15 years. During the interim period, several developments set the stage for the final push towards independence. First, Spain came under increasing domestic and foreign pressure to abolish slavery. As such, pro-slavery planters were increasingly unsure of whether Spain would be able to avoid immediate calls for abolition.

While they slowly came to accept that slavery would have to end, they hoped it would do so gradually, without disrupting sugar production or the prevailing socio-economic structures that guaranteed their privileged positions. Second, when slavery finally ended, between 1880 and 1886, it did so peacefully and this worked to alleviate the Creole elite's fears. Moreover, increasing numbers of indentured Chinese workers and Spanish immigrants ameliorated the expected loss of labour that sugar planters had dreaded. Finally, Spain's declining economy, once again, prevented it from providing the island with the necessary aid to reconstruct the areas that had been hardest hit by the revolution. It became clear that Spain no longer had the resources to follow through on its promises and this called into question the utility of the colonial pact among those who had remained loyal. 

The interim also witnessed the birth of a number of political parties that provided outlets where Cuba's future could be discussed and planned. The two most important parties were the Autonomists and José Martí's Cuban Revolutionary Party (CRP). The Autonomist Party, established in 1878, desired Cuban autonomy, hence their name, through peaceful means.  As such, they condemned the actions of the insurgents. Autonomy, for this party, did not equate to independence. The party's racial make-up was predominantly white and its membership was drawn from a wide cross-section of the Cuban elite. It counted amongst its members, hacendados (landowners), planters and professionals who formed the Cuban aristocracy. END OF PART ONE

In 1892, José Martí founded the multi-racial Cuban Revolutionary Party (CRP), which unified the various groups who favoured complete independence. Unlike earlier insurgents who had hoped to enlist the support of the US, Martí was alarmed by the increasingly imperialist tendencies of the US. His deep concern that a protracted war would not only lead to US intervention, but also to the destruction of the economy, propelled him to plan an island-wide mass rebellion in 1895 designed to ensure a quick victory. The war, however, lasted three years and witnessed the death of Martí and ended in US occupation of Cuba. Moreover, the way in which race played itself out during the final phase of the war foreshadowed the gap that would emerge between the revolution's anti-racist ideology and the reality of race-relations in the nation it produced. It is to this question that we turn in the second installment of this two-part series.

In order to neutralise the potent rhetoric that had characterised Spain's earlier attempts at discrediting the Cuban independence movement as a race-war designed to institute a black republic, the island's intellectuals disassociated the issue of race from the revolution by constructing Cuba as a race-less nation. They argued that national unity would be forged through interracial cooperation, which in transcending race would transform blacks and whites into race-less Cubans.

Proponents of this nation-building myth pointed to the two most prominent leaders of the 1895 rebellion, José Martí and Antonio Maceo, who were white and mixed race respectively, as the embodiment of this principle. Yet, this cosy rhetoric ignored that the two men had serious ideological differences. In her pioneering study, Our Rightful Share: The Afro-Cuban Struggle for Equality, 1886-1912, the historian Aline Helg points out that Maceo was conveniently "made ... the true incarnation of colour-blind revolutionary Cuba." Indeed, the myth latched on to "...the fact that he had managed to become the most famous general of Cuba Libre [Free Cuba, a.k.a. the anti-colonial forces]despite his partial African descent and limited formal education as proof that racism had disappeared".

Black and mixed race men attempted with some success to use this colour-blind ideology in pursuit of military, political and social advancement. The strides they made did not go unnoticed by the insurgency's white leaders, who were increasingly concerned about how alterations made to the racial hierarchy as a result of wartime exigencies were affecting the racial status quo. A wholesale retraction of the racial egalitarianism that underpinned the revolution was out of the question. Rather, white insurgency leaders continued to point to the few men of colour who were in leadership positions, while neglecting the fact that Afro-Cubans were over-represented in the rank and file and intentionally discriminated against.

Their marginalisation was even starker in the civil arm of the insurgency movement.  According to Helg, "the civil branch of Cuba Libre continued to show its attachment to colonial hierarchies.  The new assembly of representatives in 1897 had not a single Afro-Cuban member; instead it comprised men of refinement" while the "new provisional government was all white as well". The ability of Afro-Cubans to combat the increasing discrimination they faced was effectively curtailed when the US declared war on Spain in 1898. 

US intervention rendered the nearly 30 years of struggle for Cuban independence a mere footnote to the Spanish-American War, in which Spain was defeated in a matter of three months. While many Cubans, devastated by the final phase of the war, which had done extensive damage to the entire island, not just its eastern region, welcomed the entry of the US into the war, they did so with the belief that the latter would ultimately respect Cuban sovereignty. General reaction to US intervention, however, broke down along racial and class lines. While Martí and his supporters were aware of the dangers posed by inviting US intervention, those who saw their economic interests impeded by Spain were willing to run the risk of enlisting US support. While the civil arm of Cuba Libre was split in its opinion on US intervention, its military branch strongly disfavoured it. They were also the first to get a taste of what life under American control would be like. Unlike the conservative, upper-middle-class white Cuban expatriates who were most familiar to Americans, when the US military penetrated Cuba it encountered insurgent armies that were predominantly Afro-Cuban and staunchly pro-independence.

Prevailing attitudes about race in the US, and the tattered condition of the liberation army, rendered it useless in the eyes of the American forces. While white Cuban insurgents had discriminated against Afro-Cubans, their fate under American control was even worse. Americans perceived the unwillingness of Afro-Cubans to respond favourably to their subordinated positions as unpatriotic and unmanly. Either it did not occur to them or they chose to ignore the fact that the actions of the insurgent forces were a sign of their resistance against US intervention and its ultimate outcome - US occupation and control of the island. Rather Americans continued to see white Cubans as the true patriots and in doing so conveniently ignored the fact that until US intervention most of them, especially those in the western region, had remained neutral or supported Spain, while Afro-Cubans had been the backbone of the nationalist movement for 30 years. As a result, the liberation army was dissolved by the US with the support of Cuba Libre's provisional government, highlighting once again the split between the civil and military branches of the movement.

Helg points out, moreover, that the US used the division between the two branches to prove Cuba's lack of preparedness for self-government and when the provisional government collapsed under pressure, the North Americans were now "free to ‘civilise' Cubans according to their own views". Cuba's restructuring along lines that reflected American ideas about who constituted the Cuban nation, which benefited American interests, had dire consequences for Afro-Cubans. This, however, should come as no surprise, as it would have been downright dangerous for a deeply racist and segregated society like the US to promote the development of a racially democratic nation 90 miles off its southernmost shores. As such, it installed a conservative pro-North American government whose ranks were filled with elite and middle-class white Cubans, many of whom were former expatriates in the US, while Afro-Cubans were largely deemed unfit for public service.

Cuba's national destiny had made an about-face from the promise of a race-less nation in which all Cubans would have equal opportunity to one in which the socio-economic structures mirrored those of the colonial era, with the exception that the agricultural elite increasingly entered into government employ, the primary avenue of upward mobility, as a result of US control over private enterprise. Helg points out that public employment was the only area that the Cuban government had full control over. As such it was the one arena in which anti-discrimination policies could have been implemented, but because government posts were the most lucrative, "few white Cubans were ready to carry out the egalitarian ideals of the revolution of 1895 and to share public office with more than a handful of prominent Afro-Cubans, and as a result, no equal rights policy was promoted in state employment."

The fact that the few Afro-Cubans who had any power within the state were unwilling to risk the security of their positions to lobby for equal rights for the larger Afro-Cuban populace, made reform all the more difficult. In this environment, Afro-Cubans came under assault, as did their African-based cultural practices, like drumming and dancing. Nonetheless, Afro-Cubans continued to harness revolutionary ideologies in an attempt to carve out their place in the nation. Indeed, not surprisingly, the first collective Afro-Cuban organisations emerged among the war veterans. 

It was not until 1908 that a national party representing wider Afro-Cuban interests emerged, when the Partido Independiente de Color (PIC) was formed. Yet, in the following year, the conservative Afro-Cuban leader, Martín Morúa Delgado, introduced the Morúa Law, banning the formation of political parties based on race or religion. Besides revealing the continued divide between the elite Afro-Cubans and the popular masses, the law exemplifies the way in which the myth of Cuba as a race-less nation continued to be employed to militate against the inclusion of Afro-Cubans in mainstream politics and society under the guise of racial egalitarianism. The PIC, however, did not go away quietly. In 1912 when it launched an armed struggle in the eastern provinces, it was summarily denounced as a race war and immediately and violently repressed. Between three and four thousand Afro-Cubans were killed during the rebellion, including Evaristo Estenoz, the founder of the PIC. The events of 1912 effectively snuffed out Afro-Cuban activism. In 1918, the Afro-Cuban journalist, José Armando Pla, proposed the formation of another party to represent the interests of black Cubans, but his proposal fell on deaf ears. In short, 1912 marked a turning point for Afro-Cubans as they became painfully aware that the myth of Cuba as a race-less nation was just that - a myth.

Thus, when we assess the question of racial inequality today in Cuba, we must remember that Fidel Castro inherited an extraordinarily racially divided nation. While Castro has arguably done far more to address racial inequality than his counterparts in other parts of the Caribbean and the Americas, Cuba still has a long way to go. The most revolutionary thing Castro could do is to ensure that Afro-Cubans, who make up the majority of the island's population, are proportionally represented in the island's social, economic, and political institutions.  END OF PART TWO

Originally published in New African, Part 1, March, 2009 & Part 2, April, 2009