“From Aponte, who in 1812 sounded with the freedom of blacks and the extinction of slavery, to Martí, who forged our second, our penultimate war of independence, there was no hero on whom slander in its lowest form did not hit him. “
Nicolas Guillén
By: Dra.C. Kezia Zabrina Henry Knight
A critical reading of historical documents, such as the Chapter Acts of Puerto Príncipe, reveals the concealment, by the hegemonic thought, of the political scope of the self-emancipatory behaviors of blacks and mestizos, enslaved or free. Likewise, within this ethnic conglomerate the presence of an interconnected leadership among the different localities of the Island and even more so, eco-dependent with the Caribbean region – specifically with the recognition of the long-standing autonomy of the Maroon on the island of Jamaica and with the radicalism of the Haitian revolution.
At the same time, in the complex behavior of the self-liberation processes of Cuban Afro-descendants, its interconnection with the independence and anti-slavery thinking around the historical events of the Thirteen Colonies, the liberalism manifested in the Courts of the Spanish metropolis and also with the French ideology of liberty, equality and fraternity.
In this sense, the present work offers a decolonial and systemic view of this insufficiently socialized historical fact. Synchronous documents corroborate that the preparation of the antislavery uprising in Puerto Príncipe (Camagüey) was the emerging component that foresaw the national scope of the movement later known by Cuban historiography as the Conspiracy of Aponte.
The Chapter Acts of Puerto Príncipe state that:
F 314 v That not being able to look indifferently at a matter of as much activity as the one that motivated the Illustrious City Council of Havana to form particular Boards … the risk that threatens us, especially in a country like this, know the most necessary matters about defense against the Domestic Enemy… That… the Illustrious City Council be informed that… the Police Board conspires in the greatest tranquility.
Promptly, known and indicated by the Lieutenant Governor, the slave uprising that occurred in Puerto Príncipe was countered as a terrible threat to the country. Given the foregoing, a police committee is created to try to recover the unbalanced tranquility before the break that the Domestic Enemy originated, a euphemism used at the time to name this type of uprising.
As a first response, there were measures of rigorous social control over Afro-descendants, alluding that one of the causes of self-emancipation was… the sale of beverages to blacks and mulatto slaves and it turns out that sebums are detestable … drunkenness is observed among them as the most harmful and a source from which they end with other excesses.
So, a discerning fact and of political principles, it was criminalized as a result of misbehaviors due to the effects of alcohol. Since then —colonial stage— the invisibility of a counter-hegemonic Afro-diasporic thought has been systematized as a social and academic practice.
However, a systemic study shows that the counter-hegemonic thinking and action in Puerto Príncipe from a platform of slave self-emancipation in relation to the rest of the country was long-standing and occupied an important place registered in the General Archive of the Indies: “[…] in 1795 in Bayamo and Puerto Principe; in 1796 in Puerto Príncipe; in 1798, in Trinidad, Güines, Mariel, Santa Cruz and again in Puerto Príncipe, […] in 1809 in Havana and Puerto Príncipe; and in 1811 – 1812 in Puerto Príncipe, Bayamo, Holguín, Remedios and Havana. “
This pattern of rebel behavior justified the intensification of the measures against the slave insurgency in Camagüey. Each day it was forged with greater precision: to the cavalry corps, the weekly reports with concrete data of the rebels and the creation of a Brotherhood in the name of the lost peace.
Other measures taken by the colonial power
In the town of Santa María del Puerto del Príncipe on January 7th, 1812:… two neighbors who are Mr. Domingo de Piña and Mr. Luís Loret de Mola appeared to give him their consent to open a voluntary subscription among the others to collect enough to free up the brown Rafael Medrano and Francisco Adan, complainants of José Miguel Gonzáles and Calixto Gutiérrez, engines of the insubordination that the black slaves have caused to invade the town in order to obtain their freedom by force, and they have already closed it and for you to let them enter this room to be held accountable for their actions … they were granted to fight collecting the amount of six hundred and seventy-seven reales …
Two informers, two slaves, jealous of the leadership of the movement assigned by Aponte to Miguel González and Calixto Gutiérrez, also slaves, denounced the conspiracy in Puerto Príncipe, their wicked names are included in the Chapter Acts: the brown Rafael Medrano and the black Francisco Adam. Consequently, the onslaught intensified not only in the city but also in the country estates.
The references of rebels were many in the states and in a sustained way, signs of a pertinent ideological interconnection between the slaves and the free, those of the countryside with the urban, despite the repression. In this sense, social exclusion, marginalization and isolation, the condition of slavery, suffering, and the spiritual, emotional and physical tear validated them as a platform of unity to fight against ignominious exploitation.
In addition, other measures were taken proportional to the magnitude of the event: … then in this town hall attended today … which, considering it very convenient to capture or exterminate the blacks … That in addition to the agreed prize will give fifty hundred pts to those who apprehend or kill one of the blacks named Pedro Manuel and Pablo slaves that claim to be from D. Juan de Dios …
A special jail was erected for the occasion for those who were detained, the monetary rewards officially offered were increased in addition to the money of the Alderman Sheriff, so that the insurgents began to have faces and names in addition to Miguel González and Calixto Gutiérrez; Pedro Manuel and Pablo were also added, of course, they were the main ones that the appeared on the Chapters. Their lives were in danger.
The effervescence was such that in the first days of January due to the uprising of black slaves, the council could not meet:
F 34 v That even though Messrs. Ricard ͦ Alg ˡ M ͦ, Mr. Juan Recio, Atty. Mr. Franco Agmote, Mr. Diego Batista, Mr. Faustino, Mr. Juan Catro, Mr. Luis Z., Mr. Bernabé Barona and the Attorney General Mr. José Bonifacio Caono, there was no corporal due to the absence of Messrs. Aldes … having caused Sor. Tte Gvor to preside with the serious occupations in which he is having in the cause of uprisings mentioned by the black slaves, in which the Regor Lcdo advises him. D. Man ˡ Usatorres I also feel him present Prb. Reg. January 17th, 1812 .
Peace banished for the people of Puerto Príncipe. In this sense, the researcher José Luciano Franco pointed out:
“Since September of 1811 _ before the Charity festivities_ in the town of Santa María del Puerto del Príncipe (Camagüey), the preferred subject of popular conversations, both of whites and blacks, was the one who would cease the slavery … Nicolás Montalbán, Mandinga, and Fermín Rabelo, Carabalí, met with other slaves, exchanged views, and came to the conclusion that on Easter of that year the Captain General of the island was going to free the slaves, but that the wealthy owners of Puerto Príncipe were against it.
To force them to grant them their freedom, after several meetings with the slaves from the other estates and mills in the region, they agreed to attack the town on September 24th, 1811. They would meet at La Matanza, continue along Soledad Street, and at the entrance to the town they would begin to set fire to the houses, killing all who resisted”.
There is a boiling context with a preparatory plan, promoted by rumors of denied freedom. It takes place in a scenario of understanding between slaves and free people, between those on the estates and sugar mills and those in the village, associative networks that are as common as they are silenced.
On January 20th and due to the arrests, some endowments of the Maraguán sugar mills rose up, setting fire to “El Jobo”, “Magantilla” and “La Candelaria” sugar mills owned by José de la Cruz Quesada, Rafael de Varona and Don Tello Masvidal. The mounted militia and neighbors ran to the news and killed 92 rebels from the three crews. 92 heads were exposed to the public in various places, in iron cages.
Conclusive sentence
F 120 v … It causes me great admiration that in that town and its surroundings and not in any other part of the island the spirits of the blacks have been held in such a way, that virtue tell me that these natives were consensual stating that in the mentioned blacks there is a greater disposition to a break. Send me virtue for my divine knowledge and that I form a judgment of a matter of such seriousness for that town and the entire island, testimony of the file in which eight blacks were sentenced to hang. They suffered it on January 29th at the San Agustín de la Florida prison.
Havana, February 24th, 1812 = the marquis of Someruelos = Lord Lieutenant and Governor of the town of Puerto Príncipe… Diego de Urra
So, on January 29th at 6:00 in the morning in the Plaza de Armas, today Parque Agramonte, the eight leaders of the conspiracy were hanged, including: José Miguel González, Calixto Gutiérrez, Pedro Manuel, Pablo , Nicolás Montalbán, Mandinga, and Fermín Rabelo, Carabalí; Another 31 blacks suffered punishment of whipping, some died in the process and the rest were sent to the San Agustín de la Florida prison with life imprisonment and another 42 suffered punishment of whipping and confinement in the town jail, with forced labor.
National significance
With the harsh repression of the movement in Puerto Príncipe, what broke out on March 15th in Peñas Altas and other places, Sancti Spíritus, Trinidad, Bayamo, Holguín and Santiago de Cuba, was constrained. The leader of this movement, José Antonio Aponte Ulabarra, a free black Cuban, artist: writer, painter, cabinetmaker, was also beheaded and his head exposed in an iron cage on the corner of Carlos III and Belascoaín (nowadays, the Masonic Grand Lodge) in the city of Havana, on April 9th, 1812.
Relevance of the topic
Camagüey became the first province to erect a monument to safeguard in the collective memory the antislavery and independence conspiracy led by José Antonio Aponte (1811-1812). On January 18th, 2013, the Unveiling of the commemorative plaque was held by Dr. Fernando Martínez Heredia, Social Sciences Prize, director of the Juan Marinello Center for Studies – now deceased – and by the former Cuban ambassador to several African countries, to the date President of the National Commission José Antonio Aponte of the UNEAC Lic. Heriberto Feraudy Espino.
Cuba, from Camagüey, annually praises the history of these early counter-hegemonic revolutionaries of thought and action. Every January 29th a wreath as tribute is placed at the foot of the memorable bronze plaque on a marble pedestal. The town is summoned by the Slave Route Project: heritage, resistance and identity, the OHCC, the UNEAC, together with other political, governmental, cultural and educational institutions of the province and the country.
Bibliography
Archivo General de Indias Ultramar, Leg 312, Citado por Yacou, A.: (1989) “El proyecto de las rebeliones esclavas de la Isla de Cuba en la primera mitad del siglo XIX”, en Revista Del Caribe, Año V, No. 13, Editorial Oriente, Santiago de Cuba, Cuba.
Ferrer, A.: (2009) “Hablar de Haití. Esclavitud, revolución y libertad en los testimonios de esclavos cubanos” en Revista Caminos, Centro Memorial Dr. Martin Luter King, Jr. No. 52, abril – junio, La Habana, Cuba.
Franco, J.L.: (2006) La Conspiración de Aponte 1812, Editorial Ciencias Sociales, La Habana, Cuba.
Guillén, G.: (2002) “Cuba – Paraguay” En Prosa de prisa, T. 3, Editorial Unión, La Habana, Cuba.
Translated by: Aileen Álvarez García
