Ebook: Voices of the Enslaved in Nineteenth-Century Cuba: A Documentary History

First published in 1996 by the Mexican publisher Centro de Investigacion Cientifica, this documentary history provides a vivid overview of African slavery in Cuba and its relationship to the plantation system of the New World. The book is comprised of two parts; the first is a rich introductory essay by the author, and the second is a collection of eighty previously unpublished primary documents from various Cuban archives that shed light on the lived experiences of Cuba's African slaves. The volume highlights both the repressiveness of slavery and the hidden spaces within which slaves were able to challenge that repression. It also presents the rarely documented voices of enslaved individuals themselves, as well as a sense of the social and cultural milieu in which they lived.