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El tabaco y la esclavitud en la rearticulación imperial ibérica (s. xv-xx)

 | 
Santiago de Luxán Meléndez
, 
João Figueirôa-Rêgo

Towards a microhistory of the enslaved

Global considerations

Vicent Sanz Rozalén et Michael Zeuske

Résumé

Studies on slavery are of growing importance when analyzing and understanding colonial societies and, fundamentally, in the Atlantic region as a space of connection between Africa, America and Europe. In the text a reflection is made regarding the thematic and methodological aspects that have been carried out from the microhistorical perspective. The value of the slave testimonies, direct and indirect, of the so-called ego-documents is proposed and its historiographic value is analyzed. The qualitative aspects of the history of slavery had been relegated in historical studies, in most of the cases due to the difficulty of locating sources. However, in recent years, with the development of social and cultural history, a line of historical analysis has been developed in which the hidden or silenced aspects of the history of slavery are receiving attention and occupying a wider place.

Note de l’auteur

This essay is part of MINECO HAR2015-66142R, and also UJI P1.1B2015-21. It is a revised and greatly extended version of SANZ ROZALÉN, V. & ZEUSKE, M. (2017), «Microhistoria de esclavos y esclavas», in SANZ ROZALÉN, V. & ZEUSKE, M. (eds.), Millars. Espai i Història, Universitat Jaume I, vol. XLII, (a monographic issue dedicated to «Microhistoria de esclavas y esclavos»), pp. 9-21. The essay is part of a larger work in progress focused on the representations of the enslaved in slavery.

Texte intégral

  • 1 CALCAGNO, F., Los crímenes de Concha, La Habana: Librería e Imprenta de Elías Casanova Editor, 1897 (...)

Un negro de nación nunca sabe su edad ni en cual año llegó de Africa
[A negro never knows his age or in which year he came from Africa]
1

  • 2 Marques, L. (2016), The United States and the Transatlantic Slave Trade to the Americas, 1776-1867, (...)
  • 3 Perhaps the books most prominent in this debate are BAPTIST, E.E. (2014), The Half Has Never Been T (...)
  • 4 ZEUSKE, M. (2015), «Atlantic Slavery und Wirtschaftskultur in welt- und globalhistorischer Perspekt (...)
  • 5 This vacuum is relative, because from the African side the entire episode is part of African histor (...)

1The majority of books with the word slavery in their title deal either with the economic institutions, or with the legal, cultural or structural aspects, of slavery. Nearly all reproduce, consciously or unconsciously, the perspectives of either the slaveholders themselves or the society in which the slaveholders operated. This is also the case for those books that treat the transatlantic aspects of the slave trade.2 This is quite significant, in that many of the societies that we today call «Western», or «Northern», and to whom we attribute a liberal capitalism, began with much more exploitative capitalist systems-namely the violent commerce of human beings, along with the inhumane conditions produced under a system of forced labor-which enriched the exploiters by treating human beings as commodities, and at the same time justified itself by dehumanizing its enslaved victims.3 The most obvious of the participants in the system of slavery are the slave owners and the slave traders, along with the various personnel that facilitated the operation of the system, such as the ship crews, medical personnel, administrators, dock workers, and so on and, of course, the slaves themselves. The men, women and children who constituted this last group hugely outnumbered the other groups combined. Therefore, the vast majority of the histories written about slavery represent but a very small part of those involved in it. The majority of those who participated in the Transatlantic slave trade did so unwillingly4, and it is they who remain largely absent from the history of Atlantic slavery. It is this vacuum that this essay seeks to treat, albeit in a very modest way, given the spatial limits of our format.5

2Our first question, then, is: What can we know of the history of the enslaved? Or better yet, what can the enslaved men, women, and children tell us of their lives within the harsh institutions of slavery? What can their own voices tell us?

  • 6 LI, S. (2014), «12 years a Slave as a Neo-Slave Narrative», in: American Literary History, vol. 26: (...)
  • 7 EQUIANO, O. (2001), The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, Th (...)
  • 8 For a description of slave labor in the cotton fields, see: BAPTIST, E.E., «Toward a Political Econ (...)
  • 9 The works of BARNET, M. (1966), Biografía de un cimarrón, La Habana, Instituto de Etnología y Folkl (...)
  • 10 FRANCO, J. L. (ed.), Autobiografía, cartas y versos de Juan Francisco Manzano, La Habana, Municipio (...)
  • 11 WELD, T.D. (ed.) (1829), American Slavery As It Is: Testimony of a Thousand Witnesses, New York, Am (...)

3For a long period, beginning roughly in the middle of the eighteenth century, the reply would have come from slave autobiographies - generally transcribed from the oral testimony of either enslaved, freed, escaped, or temporarily enslaved individuals (as is the case of 12 Years a Slave)6- with Olaudah Equiano being the most well-known.7 Also, though principally in the United States, there have been published a number of interviews with ex-slaves about their work, many when these had reached a quite advanced age.8 There is also a testimonial literature, the classic example of which is the work of the Cuban ethnologist Miguel Barnet, who transcribed the oral history presented to him by the ex-slave Esteban Montejo in Biografía de un cimarrón.9 Later these also came to be called slave narratives or ex-slave narratives (or testimony - thousands in the Anglo-Saxon area and one, Juan Francisco Manzano, in the Iberian area10). 11

  • 12 LOVEJOY, P. (2011), «‘Freedom Narratives’ of Transatlantic Slavery», in: Slavery & Abolition, vol. (...)
  • 13 LOVEJOY, P. (2017), «Mohammed Ali Nicholas Sa’id: From enslavement to American Civil War Veteran», (...)
  • 14 Sa'id, Mohammad Ali, The Autobiography of Nicholas Said; A Native of Bornou, Eastern Soudan, Centra (...)

4These ex-slave narratives are always a special case. This because, on the one hand, they represent only one individual, and yet, at the same time, they are the only sources we have which are presumably representative of all slave perspectives. Here it needs be pointed out that these slave narratives are actually written post-slavery, albeit very shortly after the narrator’s release from slavery, and so they are the narratives of ex-slaves, and as such historical constructions, or re-constructions (even the most famous case in his time and, perhaps, in the history of slavery - Frederick Douglass who always emphasized his personal experience with the words: «I am a slave»).12 In this sense, the aforementioned Biografía de un cimarrón represents what could well be called memories from the future. As Paul E. Lovejoy’s study of the autobiography of Nicholas Sa’id makes clear,13 both the life and the book of Mohammad Ali ben Sa’id are exceptional.14 Prior to becoming a slave Mohammad/Nicholas received an extensive education in Islamic culture, and spoke eleven languages, the majority of which he learned as a slave in North Africa, Turkey, and Russia. In comparison to Sa’id, who wrote for and by himself with no outside control, in the very great majority of slave narratives, including thousands in English and, in Spanish, those of Juan Francisco Manzano and Esteban Montejo, there was always a white person to transcribe the illiterate slave’s words.

  • 15 DÍAZ, M.E. (2001), The Virgin, the King, and the Royal Slaves of El Cobre. Negotiating Freedom in C (...)

5With the recent popularization of so-called post-colonial studies, and its concerns with subalterns and subaltern studies (terms which lose coherence outside Gramsci’s specific use of them to refer to the poor, the enslaved, the peasants), the number of titles employing the concept of voices has grown.15

  • 16 ZEUSKE, M., «Die Nicht-Geschichte von Versklavten als Archiv-Geschichte von ‘Stimmen’ und Körpern», (...)
  • 17 SCOTT, R.J. (2017), «Reclamando la mula de Gregoria Quesada: el significado de la libertad en los v (...)
  • 18 GARCÍA, G. (1996), La esclavitud desde la esclavitud. La visión de los siervos, México, Centro de I (...)
  • 19 For example: PALMIÉ, S. (ed.) (1997), Slave Cultures and the Cultures of Slavery, Knoxville, The Un (...)
  • 20 VARELLA, C. (2007), «La coartación: ¿coartada de un falso abolicionismo?», in: OPATRNÝ, J. (ed.), P (...)
  • 21 LAVIÑA, J. & RUIZ-PEINADO, J.L. (2006), Resistencias esclavas en las Américas, Aranjuez, Doce Calle (...)
  • 22 FINCH, A. K. (2015), Rethinking Slave Rebellion in Cuba. La Escalera and the Insurgencies of 1841-1 (...)
  • 23 CORONIL, F. (1995), «Transculturation and the Politics of Theory. Countering the Center, Cuban Coun (...)

6Michael Zeuske has called the history of the area most familiar to the authors of the current study, that of the slave-holding society in Spanish colonial Cuba, a «non-history».16 This because to date there are very few histories of the area that focus specifically and exclusively on the enslaved and the ex-slaves, although this situation has been ameliorated somewhat by the work on life histories of Rebbeca J. Scott17 and, in a somewhat different sense, by the work of Gloria García, María de los Angeles Merino, Aisnara Perera, Ulrike Schmieder and José Luis Belmonte.18 Works treating «slave cultures» are another issue (because material goods, food, commodities and/ or animals «speak» even less than enslaved people or not at all, but all are new dimension of social history).19 More importantly, there are practically no sources that contain autobiographical accounts from within the system of slavery, that is, from those enslaved at the time of their «speaking» and writing. This is certainly not the fault of the authors. Our own experience in this field - and Michael Zeuske began research on the subject in 1993 - is that the large number of works examining the cultural history of the period hides the fact that the vast number of slaves lived and died within the institutions of slavery, never experiencing any escape -manumission, abolition, flight, revolution, and so on - from its confines.20 It’s not that the various forms of resistance were not important. Indeed, quite to the contrary, they were very important at the individual level, and also in their symbolic dimension.21 One of the new works on slave resistance - of slaves and slave women (to highlight one of its very strong parts), tries to make faces and individual voices visible and audible.22 It bears repeating, however, that the great majority of slaves worked, lived, and died as slaves. Therefore, in the sense of transculturation or agency, borrowing concepts here from Fernando Ortiz and Antonio Gramsci respectively, it is crucially important to approach slavery from the point of view of those who formed the great mass of slavery’s population.23

  • 24 MARTÍNEZ, F., SCOTT, R.J. & GARCÍA, O. (2003), Espacios, silencios y los sentidos de la libertad: C (...)
  • 25 We cite here, as an examplo of the «non-mention», the early testimonial «morena libre natural de Gu (...)
  • 26 As for example the aforementioned work of MERIÑO, M. A. & PERERA, A., El universo de Hipólito criol (...)
  • 27 The official sheet (hoja de servicio) of an ex-enslaved (probably from Venezuela) during the wars i (...)
  • 28 ZEUSKE, M., «Slaving – Traumata und Erinnerungen», pp. 55-115.
  • 29 See some «Quejas» in the section «Gobierno Superior Civil» in the Archivo Nacional de Cuba: ZEUSKE, (...)

7The problem lies in the sources of the lives of the enslaved and/or, for example, the accounts of their lives in the world of slave labor. To base our investigations solely on accounts derived from the memory of former slaves and their descendants seems to us to be, at best, unsatisfactory. The ex-slaves themselves, in the numerous written texts that have survived in Cuban notary archives, tend to minimize descriptions of their time spent in slavery, thus constructing «silences»24, and typically speaking only of an «unfortunate» period in their lives. At times they don’t even mention their slave experiences, save for allusions to «Guinea» or «Africa», which as we know refer to their enslavement.25 There are, nevertheless, approaches that are more satisfactory.26 For example, we have available reports written by individuals very shortly after being freed (as, for example, the hoja de servicio of an ex-slave in the army of Simón Bolívar and other patriot troops in the wars of Spanish American independence27). These refer back to their time in slavery and are therefore indispensable.28 And we have, citing here Cuban documents, the totally unexplored sources of quejas (complaints) - only possible in this written and archived form in a system of a centralized law, like the Catholic empires of Spain, and Portugal.29

  • 30 GRINBERG, L. (2008), A lei da ambigüidade. As ações de liberdade da Corte de Apelação do Rio de Jan (...)

8The most of the sources utilized regarding the lives of slaves, especially women and children, are judicial acts, principally legal proceedings which entered the public record in the Caribbean, Cuba, and Brazil.30

  • 31 For Berbice see: Burnard, T., «Introduction», in Burnard, T. (2010), Hearing Slave Speak, Georgetow (...)
  • 32 BARCIA, M. (2017), «"Going back home": slave suicide in nineteenth century Cuba», in: SANZ ROZALÉN, (...)
  • 33 LIENHARD, M. (1990), La voz y su huella. Escritura y conflicto étnico-social en América Latina (149 (...)

9Given that all historical sources must be critically evaluated, including the legal documents referred to above, we need keep in mind that these documents come from a situation of repression, violence, and certain social values. But also, as is the case in most legal systems, these documents permit us to observe the possibilities of negotiation and deliberation both from the perspective of the legal system, and also from that of the slaves involved in the judicial processes. Some enslaved, defending their traditional rights are even appearing in legal sources with the word «dice» (he says - that means he is speaking for himself in a legal case), like for example Robert or Robin Botefeur.31 In this sense, in the majority of studies that avail themselves of this type of source material there are typically added observations, letters, or travel reports from witnesses or travelers (or from the slave-holders themselves, as for example in the case of the written reports of the Italian doctor and plantation owner Jose Leopoldo Yarini32). We should note that this is especially true in the case of sources that refer to the suppression of rebellions and outbursts of violence on the part of the enslaved (or in the case of processes of the Inquisition) - which on the other side often are the only written traces about really lived lives.33 In the case of Cuba there existed a state institution responsible for the persecution of slave resistance that generated and controlled this type of legal documents, namely the Military Commission (la Comision Militar).

  • 34 Intestado de la morena Belén Álvarez, en Archivo Nacional de Cuba (ANC), Escribanía de Gobierno, le (...)
  • 35 ANC, Escribanía de Gobierno, leg. 864, exp. 9, f. 195r-196v, here f. 195v.
  • 36 Ibíd., f. 145v-f. 151v, here f. 149r (original spelling).
  • 37 HEVIA, O. (2011), «Reconstruyendo la historia de la exesclava Belén Álvarez», p. 40.

10From time to time, as a product of the legal processes set out in official codes and in day to day norms, we are presented with some surprising accounts. For example, Belen Alvarez, a freed African slave, died in 1887 leaving a considerable estate but no valid will and testament. Her legal inheritor was her niece, Evarista Gonzalez, the only daughter of Belen’s deceased brother, Agustin Gonzalez. The two siblings, Evarista and Agustin, had as slaves been sold to different owners and, therefore, the niece did not share her aunt’s last name. In order to prove that the parents of Belen and Agustin had indeed been married, and that therefore they were indeed brother and sister, the Law of Civil Judgements (La Ley de Enjuicimiento Civil) permitted the lawyer to search for witnesses who had been present in Africa at the wedding of Belen and Agustin’s parents.34 Surprisingly, the lawyer had no difficulty in finding witnesses who not only had been present at the wedding, but who also had come to Cuba on the same slave ship as Belen and Agustin. On January 18 of 1888, the prosecuting attorney Francisco O. Ramirez concluded that «both were children of Elocun Esin and Dada, who were indeed legally married in Africa [in the Empire of Obu, in what is today Nigeria - MZ/VSR],35 that both continued calling themselves brother and sister in Cuba, and were recognized as such by their conspecifics, and finally that all black slaves from Africa lost the names they had used in Africa, and took the names their new owners in Cuba gave them, along with the surnames of said owners.»36 The original names of the siblings in Africa were Oyo in the case of Augustine, and Luoco in that of Belen.37

  • 38 ZEUSKE, M. (2017), «The Hidden Atlantic/El Atlántico oculto (October 2017)» (https://www.academia.e (...)
  • 39 ANC, Escribanía de Gobierno, leg. 864, exp. 9, f. 145v-f. 151v, here f. 115v.
  • 40 Ibíd., f. 116r.
  • 41 ZEUSKE, M. (2002), «Hidden Markers, Open Secrets. On Naming, Race Marking and Race Making in Cuba», (...)

11Perhaps even more surprising was the matter-of-factness with which these official processes surrounding what was at the time illegal contraband in slaves were carried out, given that the formal abolition of the Spanish slave trade occurred in 1820 (Michael Zeuske calls this practice the «Hidden Atlantic»).38 Regarding the illegal arrival of a «slaving expedition»,39 the lawyer Juan Marti observed at the time «there was not a trace [a written trace that is] to be found».40 Actually, even at the time, that was not quite true, as the archives of slave sales and purchases, the navy records of the contracts of slaving ship captains and crews, and the church baptism records of newly arrived slaves all contained documented information regarding the slave trade. In all this one of the most difficult issues is to track the name changes of the slaves, their new «slave names», as they move through the system. This is especially problematic in the present day for families who wish to discover their ancestry.41

  • 42 Some of the representative works of Rebecca Scott are: SCOTT, R. J. (2000), «Small-Scale Dynamics o (...)
  • 43 We mention here only the excellent book: REIS, GOMES & CARVALHO (2010), O Alufá Rufino, passim.
  • 44 MAYA RESTREPO, L. A. (2005), Brujería y reconstrucción de identidades entre los africanos y sus des (...)

12The sources from legal processes, both in the aforementioned cases and in many others, can serve to open a window into the lives of the slaves going back to their African origins. For this reason, it is also important to know the laws, codes, and processing systems of the day, that is, the social history of the legal system of that period. Additionally, it is quite useful to be able to analyze sources (diaries, letters, travel logs, etc.) of slave traders and slave holders, who had direct contact with the slaves (as in the aforementioned case of Yarini). The pioneer in the study of the microhistory of ex-slaves, and of the uses, effects, and construction of the legal system that surrounded them, is Rebecca Scott (also in a Cuban tradition of early works by Pedro Deschamps and Juan Pérez de la Riva).42 Pioneers in the reconstruction of lives of enslaved with sources of control and repression, in a sense also legal and legal sources (police sources, interrogations or sources of the inquisition), within the slavery are João José Reis and colleagues43 for Brazil, as well as Luz Adriana Maya for New Granada.44

  • 45 RUSERT, B. (2017), «New World: The Impact of Digitization on the Study of Slavery», in: American Li (...)
  • 46 Another source, albeit minor, but extremely important in terms of ascertaining slave names, are the (...)
  • 47 One of the few examples of a list of African names comes from a North American slave trader who wan (...)
  • 48 GUTIÉRREZ, I. (1983), «Los libros de registro de pardos y morenos en los archivos parroquiales de C (...)
  • 49 ZEUSKE, M., «"Sin otro apellido"», pp. 153-208.

13The two types of sources that, at least theoretically, include all slaves within a given slave-holding society, or more specifically, within the legal system of civil codes in Iberian (Catholic) societies are first the baptismal records, that cover both slaves and non-slaves in a fairly exhaustive manner and, secondly, the legal records of the sale and purchase of slaves. Both sources can be considered «big data», as opposed to «life history» sources,45 in that they were produced by institutions of social control - the Church and the State - for religious reasons and for economic reasons respectively. The religious sources (which were manipulated so as to hide the massive illegal slave trade after 1820) also form part of the construction of private property, and they form a written record which served as an essential element of the economic culture of Western capitalist societies of the time. While they offer very little direct information regarding individual slaves, and certainly none directly from the point of view of the enslaved, they are nonetheless quite important. In the case of the baptismal records we find the place of birth, the legal status, the baptismal or «slave name», and the names of the godparents.46 In the reconstruction of a slave’s life in Cuba, that is, of their life history, this data is extremely useful, and is one of the few sources which mentions the African name of the slave.47 The Baptismal Registries (libros de bautismos or registros de bautismos),48 maintained by the plantation priests are, in a sense, responsable for a sort of «racism without mention of race» (something to which the notaries contributed as well).49

  • 50 ZEUSKE, M. & GARCÍA, O. (2008), «Estado, notarios y esclavos en Cuba. Aspectos de una genealogía le (...)
  • 51 BELMONTE, J.L. (2004-2007), «Erosionando el dominio de sus propietarios. Un análisis de las tachas (...)
  • 52 ANC, Miscelánea de Libros, nº 2370, f. 1r-208r, «Negros cimarrones que quedaron existentes en las o (...)
  • 53 LANDERS, J. G., GÓMEZ, P., POLO, J. & CAMPBELL, C. J. (2015), «Researching the history of slavery i (...)

14The notary records of sales and purchases are the only primary sources in Cuban slave society which theoretically contain information on all human beings arriving from Africa via the Atlantic.50 They are the type of big data that contains a thorough description of each individual: gender, African name, often in multiple variants, the apparent age (important in sales), the nation of origin, along with the concomitant ethnic, cultural, and psychological features adscribed to the various African nations - lucumí, arará, congo, angola, mandinga, carabalí, macuá, etc. - and at times comments regarding the character of the individual slave if this information were available: respondón, embriaguez, ladrón, callejera y cimarrón, etc.51 Some reports also mention injuries, ritual scarification, and tatoos. In the case of runaway slaves these identifying features are given in much greater detail, and include such things as tribal or clan tatoos, dental modifications, and brandings from fire (calimbos).52 Few slave histories have used this type of source, above all because these documents are difficult to find, often being hidden away in local archives rather than in centralized archival locations, although some efforts are currently being made to digitalize these sources with an eye to simplifying access to them.53 Additionally, they are big data, and so difficult to handle both in individual cases and in the cases of large slave populations. They are, however, extremely useful not only for the information they provide about slavery in general, but also for the insight they provide into the lives of the individual men, women, and children who were enslaved.

  • 54 SINGLETON, T.A. (2010), «Archaeology and Slavery», in: PAQUETTE, R. & SMITH, M. (eds.), Slavery in (...)

15With the later development of post-colonial studies (or even post-post-colonial studies), a focus on material history (and the above mentioned new dimension of social history) has emerged. This approach allows one to understand the history of the enslaved through material sources pertaining to slavery in general: archeological discoveries, textiles, often of the actual slaves, landscape and even seabed analysis, and so forth. Unfortunately, these methods suffer from their own set of difficulties. Specific chronology is hard to determine, and information concerning specific individuals is difficult to ascribe, so that it is still relatively problematic to assign a certain function to a specific individual within a determined time frame. Probably the best studies connecting specific facts to specific individuals are those done in plantation cemeteries and in the material history of resistance.54

16Finally, then, we wish to conclude by underlining the importance of the microhistories of the individual slaves in the task of the construction a total picture of slavery. Various other methods certainly have their place as well, but they do not, in and of themselves, make for a complete understanding of slavery: i.e. old plantation and sugar-mills enslaved cemeteries and the material history of slave resistance.

Notes

1 CALCAGNO, F., Los crímenes de Concha, La Habana: Librería e Imprenta de Elías Casanova Editor, 1897, p. 20.

2 Marques, L. (2016), The United States and the Transatlantic Slave Trade to the Americas, 1776-1867, New Haven: Yale University Press.

3 Perhaps the books most prominent in this debate are BAPTIST, E.E. (2014), The Half Has Never Been Told: Slavery and the Making of American Capitalism, New York, Basis Books; BECKERT, S. & ROCKMAN, S. (eds.) (2016), Slavery's Capitalism: A New History of American Economic Development, Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania Press, and Piqueras, J. A. (ed.) (2016), Esclavitud y capitalismo histórico en el siglo XIX. Brasil, Cuba y Estados Unidos, Santiago de Cuba, Casa del Caribe.

4 ZEUSKE, M. (2015), «Atlantic Slavery und Wirtschaftskultur in welt- und globalhistorischer Perspektive», in: Geschichte in Wissenschaft und Unterricht, vol. 66:5/6, pp. 280-301.

5 This vacuum is relative, because from the African side the entire episode is part of African history. See, for example: Lovejoy, P. E. (1997), «The African Diaspora: Revisionist Interpretations of Ethnicity, Culture and Religion under Slavery» in: Studies in the World History of Slavery, Abolition and Emancipation, vol. II:1 (online: https://www.academia.edu/3624702/The_African_Diaspora_Revisionist_Interpretations_of_Ethnicity_Culture_and_Religion_under_Slavery (03 de junio de 2017)); ARNALTE, A., La diáspora africana. De la trata de negros a la esclavitud voluntaria, Sevilla, RD Editores, 2006, («Vidas de esclavos», pp. 63-81), and also Sweet, J. H. (2009), «Mistaken Identities? Olaudah Equiano, Domingos Álvares, and the Methodological Challenges of Studying the African Diaspora», in: American Historical Review, vol. 114:2, pp. 279-306; ZEUSKE, M. (2015), «Slaving–Traumata und Erinnerungen der Verschleppung» en ZEUSKE, M., Sklavenhändler, Negreros und Atlantikkreolen. Eine Weltgeschichte des Sklavenhandels im atlantischen Raum, Berlín/ Boston, De Gruyter Oldenbourg, pp. 55-115.

6 LI, S. (2014), «12 years a Slave as a Neo-Slave Narrative», in: American Literary History, vol. 26:2, pp. 326-331.

7 EQUIANO, O. (2001), The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, The African, Written by Himself (Authoritative Text) [1789], SOLLORS, W. (ed.), New York/London, W.W. Norton Company; and CARRETTA, V. (2005), Equiano the African: Biography of a Self-Made Man, Athens, University of Georgia Press. For an excellent review of the debate concerning Equiano see: SWEET, J.H. (2009), «Mistaken Identities? Olaudah Equiano, Domingos Álvares, and the Methodological Challenges of Studying the African Diaspora», in: American Historical Review, vol. 114:2, pp. 279-306

8 For a description of slave labor in the cotton fields, see: BAPTIST, E.E., «Toward a Political Economy of Slave Labor. Hands, Whipping-Machines, and Modern Power», in BECKERT & ROCKMAN, Slavery's Capitalism, pp. 31-61. For other agricultural fields see TOMICH, D. (2015), «Commodity Frontiers, Spatial Economy and Technological Innovation in the Caribbean Sugar Industry, 1783-1878», in LEONARD, A. & PRETEL, D. (eds.), The Caribbean and the Atlantic World Economy. Circuits of Trade, Money and Knowledge, 1650-1914, London, Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 184-216; MARQUESE, R. (2009), «Espacio y poder en la caficultura esclavista de las Américas: el Vale do Paraíba en perspectiva comparada», and SANZ ROZALÉN, V. (2009), «Los negros del Rey. Tabaco y esclavitud en Cuba a comienzos del siglo XIX», in PIQUERAS, J.A. (ed.), Trabajo libre y coactivo en sociedades de plantación, Madrid, Siglo XXI, pp. 215-251 and 151-176, respectivly; ZEUSKE, M. (2014), «Postemancipación y trabajo en Cuba», in: Boletín Americanista, vol. LXIV: 1/68, pp. 77-99; ZEUSKE, M. (2016), «Sklaven und Tabak in der atlantischen Weltgeschichte», in: Historische Zeitschrift, vol. 303/2, pp. 315-348; and TOMICH, D. (ed.) (2015), New Frontiers of Slavery, New York, SUNY Press.

9 The works of BARNET, M. (1966), Biografía de un cimarrón, La Habana, Instituto de Etnología y Folklore; y (1967), Cimarrón, La Habana, Gente Nueva/Instituto Cubano del Libro. See also those of ZEUSKE, M. (1997), «The Cimarrón in the Archives: A Re-Reading of Miguel Barnet's Biography of Esteban Montejo», in: New West Indian Guide/Nieuwe West-Indische Gids, vol. 71/3-4, pp. 265-279; (1998), «El «Cimarrón» y las consecuencias de la guerra del 95. Un repaso de la biografía de Esteban Montejo», in: Revista de Indias, vol. LVIII/ 212, pp. 65-84; and (1999), «Novedades de Esteban Montejo», in: Revista de Indias, vol. LIX/216, pp. 521-525; for a broader perspective see: LUIS, W. (ed.) (1984), Voices from Under: Black Narrative in Latin America and the Caribbean, Westport: Greenwood Press; and LUIS, W. (1990), Literary Bondage: Slavery in Cuban Narrative, Austin, University of Texas Press.

10 FRANCO, J. L. (ed.), Autobiografía, cartas y versos de Juan Francisco Manzano, La Habana, Municipio de La Habana, 1937; MANZANO, J. F. (1839), Autobiografía de un esclavo, ed. SCHULMAN, I.A. (1975) Madrid, Ediciones Guadarrama; YACOU, A. (ed.) (2004), Un esclave-poète à Cuba au temps du péril noir. Autobiographie de Juan Francisco Manzano (1797-1851), Paris, Karthala; GHORBAL, K. (2015), «La instrumentalización del yo esclavo: los espejos conceptuales de Juan Francisco Manzano», in: LEONARDO, R. (ed.), Palabra de negro. 9 asedios a la literatura afrolatinoamericana, Lima, Universidad Nacional Federico Villareal/Editorial Universitaria, pp. 19-40.

11 WELD, T.D. (ed.) (1829), American Slavery As It Is: Testimony of a Thousand Witnesses, New York, American Anti-Slavery Society; DOUGLASS, F. (1845), Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave, Written by Himself, ed. BLIGHT, D.V. (1993), Boston, Bedford Books; CURTIN, P.C., (ed.) (1967), Africa Remembered: Narratives by West Africans from the Era of the Slave Trade, Madison/London, University of Wisconsin Press; OLNEY, J. (1984), «’I Was Born’: Slave Narratives, Their Status as Autobiography and as Literature», in: Callaloo, vol. 20, pp. 46-73; BLASSINGAME, J.W. (ed.) (1977), Slave Testimony: Two Centuries of Letters, Speeches, Interviews, and Autobiographies, Baton Rouge, Louisiana State University Press; WOODWARD, C.V. (1985), «History from slave sources», in DAVIS, C.T. & GATES, H.L. Jr., The Slaves’s Narrative, Oxford/New York, Oxford University Press, pp. 48-59; ANDREWS, W.L. (1986), To Tell A Free Story: The First Century of Afro-American Autobiography, 1760-1865, Urbana/Chicago, University of Illinois Press; ZEUSKE, M. (2000), «Schwarze Erzähler - weiße Literaten. Erinnerungen an die Sklaverei, Mimesis und Kubanertum, Nachwort», in RUBIERA, D. (ed.), Ein Kubanisches Leben. Aus dem Spanischen von Max Zeuske, Zürich, Rotpunktverlag, pp. 211-262; DÍAZ, R. A. (2001), «Esclavos, amos y escribanos», in: CÁCERES, R. (ed.) (2001), Rutas de la Esclavitud en África y América Latina, San José, Editorial de la Universidad de Costa Rica, pp. 451-466; LARSON, P. M. (2008), «Horrid Journeying: Narratives of Enslavement and the Global African Diaspora», in: Journal of World History, vol. 19:4, pp. 431-464; MURPHY, L. T. (2014), Survivors of Slavery: Modern-Day Slave Narratives, New York/ Chichester, Columbia University Press; AMELANG, J.S. (2014), “Writing Chains. Slave Autobiography from the Mediterranean to the Atlantic”, in: HANß, S. & SCHIEL, J. (eds.), Mediterranean Slavery Revisited (500-1800). Neue Perspektiven auf mediterrane Sklaverei (500-1800), Zürich, Chronos Verlag, pp. 541-556; Kaye, A. (2002), «Slaves, Emancipation, and the Powers of War: Views from the Natchez District of Mississippi» in: Cashin, J. E. (ed.), The War Was You and Me: Civilians in the American Civil War, Princeton, Princeton University Press, pp. 60-84; MÁRQUEZ, R. & CANDAU, M. L. (2016), «Las otras mujeres de América: las esclavas negras en tiempos de la Colonia. Un estudio através de la correspondencia privada», in: Visitas al Patio, vol. 10, pp. 75-92; SINHA, M. (2016), The Slave’s Cause. A History of Abolition, New Haven, Yale University Press, («Slave Narratives», pp. 421-436); and ANDREWS, G. R. (2016), Afro-Latin America: Black Lives, 1600-2000, Cambridge, Harvard University Press (The Nathan I. Huggins Lectures Series). Some references on Antigua’s slaves testimonies in LIGHTFOOT, N. (2015), Troubling Freedom: Antigua and the Aftermath of British Emancipation, Durham, Duke University Press. The only slave in Brazil who narrated in first person is Mahommad G Baquaqua: LAW, R. & LOVEJOY, P. (eds.) (2001), The Biography of Mahommad Gardo Baquaqua. His Passage from Slavery to Freedom in Africa and America, Princeton, Marcus Wiener Publishers; BAQUAQUA, M. G. (2017), Biografia de Mahommah Gardo Baquaqua, ed. FURTADO, L., São Paulo, Uirapuru. See also TARRUELL, C. (2013), «Memorias de cautivos, 1574-1609», in: JANÉ, O., MIRALLES, E. & FERNÁNDEZ, I. (eds.) (2013), Memòria Personal. Una altra manera de llegir la història, Barcelona, Bellaterra, 2013, pp. 83-97; RINEHART, N. (2016), «'I Talk More of the French': Creole Folklore and the Federal Writers' Project», in: Callaloo, vol. 39:2, pp. 439-456. Wider than «enslaved»: ANDERSON, C. (2012), Subaltern Lives: Biographies of Colonialism in the Indian Ocean World, 1790–1920, New York, Cambridge University Press (Critical Perspectives on Empire).

12 LOVEJOY, P. (2011), «‘Freedom Narratives’ of Transatlantic Slavery», in: Slavery & Abolition, vol. 32/:1, pp. 91–107; for Frederic Douglass see: SINHA, M., «Slave Narratives», pp. 421-436, here p. 425; and for a general history of slavery in the perspective of the enslaved see: ZEUSKE, M. (2018), Sklaverei. Eine Menschheitsgeschichte von der Steinzeit bis heute, Stuttgart, Reclam.

13 LOVEJOY, P. (2017), «Mohammed Ali Nicholas Sa’id: From enslavement to American Civil War Veteran», in SANZ ROZALÉN, V. & ZEUSKE, M. (eds.), «Microhistorias de esclavas y esclavos», special issue Millars. Espai i Història, vol. XLII, pp. 219-232.

14 Sa'id, Mohammad Ali, The Autobiography of Nicholas Said; A Native of Bornou, Eastern Soudan, Central Africa, Memphis, Shotwell & Co., 1873 (https://docsouth.unc.edu/neh/said/summary.html [4 April 2017]); see also: Cugoano, Q. (1969), Thoughts and Sentiments on the Evil of Slavery and Commerce oft he Human Species, London, Dawsons Pall Mall; Domingues da Silva, D. (2007), «Ayuba Suleiman Diallo and Slavery in the Atlantic World» (July) in http://www.slavevoyages.org/assessment/essays# (21 November 2009); Walvin, J. (2000), Britain’s Slave Empire, Gloucestershire, Tempus Publishing Ltd., («Who was the real Olaudah Equiano?», pp. 99-106); Sparks, R J. (2004), The Two Princes of Calabar: An Eighteenth-Century Atlantic Odyssey, Cambridge, Harvard University Press; Alford, T. (1977), Prince among Slaves, New York/London, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich; Lovejoy, P. (2002), «Identidade e a miragem da etnicidade A jornada de Mahommah Gardo Baquaqua para as Américas», in: Afro-Ásia, vol. 27, pp. 9-39; Murphy, L. (2008), «The Curse of Constant Remembrance: The Belated Trauma of the Slave Trade in Ayi Kwei Armah’s Fragments», in: Studies in the Novel, vl. 40: 1/2, pp. 52-71; Baquaqua (2017), Biografia de Mahommah Gardo Baquaqua …. see la biografía de un esclavizado que se quedó en Africa (y se murió esclavo), Johnston, H. H. (2012), The History of a Slave, Ed. and Introduction LOVEJOY, P., Princeton, Markus Wiener (original edition London, Kegan Paul, Trench, & Co., 1889); an ex-enslaved biography in Kongo (by one of his colsest relatives) Makulo, A. (2013), La vie de Disasi Makulo: ancien esclave de Tippo Tip et catéchiste de Grenfell, par son fils Makulo Akambu, Kinshasa, Éditions Saint Paul Afrique.

15 DÍAZ, M.E. (2001), The Virgin, the King, and the Royal Slaves of El Cobre. Negotiating Freedom in Colonial Cuba, 1670-1780, Stanford, Stanford University Press; BAILEY, A. C. (2006), African voices of the Atlantic slave trade: beyond the silence and the shame, Boston, Beacon Press; WHEAT, D. (2009), «A Spanish Caribbean Captivity Narrative: Four African Sailors Escape Puritan Slavers, 1635», in: MCKNIGHT, K. & GAROFALO, L. (eds.), Afro-Latino Voices: Narratives from the Early Modern Ibero-Atlantic World, 1550-1812, Indianapolis, Hackett, 2009, pp. 195-213; CHAVES, M.E. (2010), «’Nos, los esclavos de Medellín’. La polisemia de la libertad y las voces subalternas en la primera república antioqueña», Nómadas, vol. 33, pp. 43-55; Burnard, T. (2010), Hearing Slave Speak, Georgetown: The Caribbean Press (Guyana Classics Series) (online: http://caribbeanpress.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/Trevor-Burnard-Hearing-Slaves-Speak-Complete-Text.pdf (1 de Julio de 2017)); BELLAGAMBA, A., GREENE, S.E. & KLEIN, M.A. (eds.) (2013), African Voices on Slavery and the Slave Trade, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press; JIMÉNEZ, O. & PÉREZ, E. (2013), “Estudio preliminar: esclavitud, libertad y voces del pasado», in: Voces de la esclavitud y libertad. Documentos y testimonios de Colombia, 1701-1833, Popayán, Editorial Universidad Valle del Cauca, pp. 13-33; ZEUSKE, M. (2015), «Slaving–Traumata und Erinnerungen der Verschleppung», in ZEUSKE, M., Sklavenhändler, Negreros und Atlantikkreolen. Eine Weltgeschichte des Sklavenhandels im atlantischen Raum, Berlín/Boston, De Gruyter Oldenbourg, pp. 55-115; with a few examples: DONNAN, E. (ed.) (1930-1935), Documents Illustrative of the Slave Trade to America, Washington, Carnegie Institute, 4 vols. (reimp.: Octagon Books, 1969).

16 ZEUSKE, M., «Die Nicht-Geschichte von Versklavten als Archiv-Geschichte von ‘Stimmen’ und Körpern», in: Jahrbuch für Europäische Überseegeschichte (mimeo); on another «non-histories», see also: VIDAL, A. & CARO, J. E. E. (2012), «La desmemoria impuesta a los hombres que trajeron. Cartagena de Indias en el siglo XVII. Un depósito de esclavos», in: Cuadernos de Historia, vol. 37, Universidad de Chile, pp. 7-31.

17 SCOTT, R.J. (2017), «Reclamando la mula de Gregoria Quesada: el significado de la libertad en los valles del Arimao y del Caunao, Cienfuegos, Cuba (1880-1899)» in: SANZ ROZALÉN, V. & ZEUSKE, M. (eds.), «Microhistorias de esclavas y esclavos», special issue Millars. Espai i Història, vol. XLII. pp. 101-129.

18 GARCÍA, G. (1996), La esclavitud desde la esclavitud. La visión de los siervos, México, Centro de Investigación Científica Ing. Jorge Y. Tamayo. The various studies of MERIÑO, M.A. & PERERA, A. (2008), Un café para la microhistoria. Estructura de posesión de esclavos y ciclo de vida en la llanura habanera (1800-1886), La Habana, Editorial de Ciencias Sociales; (2009), Para librarse de lazos, antes buena familia que buenos brazos. Apuntes sobre la manumisión en Cuba, La Habana/Santiago de Cuba, Editorial Oriente; (2011), El universo de Hipólito criollo. Derecho, conflicto y libertad en el ingenio La Sonora. La Habana (1798-1836), Artemisa, Editorial Unicornio; and (2015), Estrategias de libertad. Un acercamiento a las acciones legales de los esclavos en Cuba (1762-1872), La Habana, Editorial de Ciencias Sociales; SCHMIEDER, U. (2014), «Eine Archäologie "subalternen" Sprechens: Afrokaribische Frauen und Männer reden über ihre persönlichen und gesellschaftlichen Ziele», in: Zeitschrift für Weltgeschichte (ZWG), Interdisziplinäre Perspektiven, vol. 15/ 1, pp. 9-36. Also those of BELMONTE, J. L. (2013), Ser esclavo en Santiago de Cuba. Espacios de poder y negociación en un contexto de expansion y crisis (1780-1803), Aranjuez, Doce Calles; and BELMONTE, J.L. (2013), «De cómo la costumbre articula derechos. Esclavos en Santo Domingo a fines del periodo colonial», in LAVIÑA, J., PIQUERAS, R. & MONDÉJAR, C. (eds.), Afroamérica, espacios e identidades, Barcelona, Icaria, pp. 65-92.

19 For example: PALMIÉ, S. (ed.) (1997), Slave Cultures and the Cultures of Slavery, Knoxville, The University of Tennessee Press; MORGAN, P. (2011), «Slave Cultures. Systems of Domination and Forms of Resistance», in: PALMIÉ, S. & SCARANO, F. A. (eds.), The Caribbean. A History of the Region and Its Peoples, Chicago/London, The University of Chicago Press, pp. 245-260; BUNCH, L., CREW, S. & PRICE, C. (eds.) (2014), Slave culture: a documentary collection of the slave narratives from the Federal Writers’ Project, 3 vols., Santa Barbara, Greenwood; for the new dimension of social history see: SCHIEL, J., SCHÜRCH, I. & STEINBRECHER, A. (2017), «Von Sklaven, Pferden und Hunden. Trialog über den Nutzen aktueller Agency-Debatten für die Sozialgeschichte», in: Schweizerisches Jahrbuch für Wirtschafts- und Sozialgeschichte / Annuaire Suisse d'Histoire Économique et Sociale, vol. 32, pp. 17-48.

20 VARELLA, C. (2007), «La coartación: ¿coartada de un falso abolicionismo?», in: OPATRNÝ, J. (ed.), Pensamiento caribeño. Siglos XIX y XX, Praga, Univerzita Karlova pp. 285-292; and VARELLA, C. (2012), «The price of "coartación" in the Hispanic Caribbean: How much freedom does the master owe to the slave», in: International Journal of Cuban Studies, vol. 4:2, pp. 200-210.

21 LAVIÑA, J. & RUIZ-PEINADO, J.L. (2006), Resistencias esclavas en las Américas, Aranjuez, Doce Calles; TAYLOR, E.R. (2006), If We Must Die. Shipboard Insurrections in the Era of the Atlantic Slave Trade, Baton Rouge, Louisiana State University Press; ELTIS, D. & ENGERMAN, S.L. (2010), «Shipboard Revolts and Abolition», in: DRESCHER, S. & EMMER, P.C. (eds.), Who Abolished Slavery? Slave Revolts and Abolitionism. A Debate with João Pedro Marques, New York/Oxford, Berghahn Books, pp. 145-155.

22 FINCH, A. K. (2015), Rethinking Slave Rebellion in Cuba. La Escalera and the Insurgencies of 1841-1844, Chapel Hill, The University of North Carolina Press.

23 CORONIL, F. (1995), «Transculturation and the Politics of Theory. Countering the Center, Cuban Counterpoint» [introducción], in ORTIZ, F., Cuban Counterpoint. Tobacco and Sugar, Durham, Duke University Press, pp. IX-LVI. Regarding «transculturación» and its role in the construction of Cuban identity discourse, see SANZ ROZALÉN, V. (2015), «Tabaco, escravidão e campesinato na construção identitária cubana», in: LUXÁN, S., FIGUEIRÔA-RÊGO, J. & SANZ ROZALÉN, V. (eds.), Tabaco e escravos nos impérios ibéricos, Lisboa, CHAM/Universidade Nova de Lisboa, pp. 199-201.

24 MARTÍNEZ, F., SCOTT, R.J. & GARCÍA, O. (2003), Espacios, silencios y los sentidos de la libertad: Cuba (1898-1912), La Habana, Ediciones Unión.

25 We cite here, as an examplo of the «non-mention», the early testimonial «morena libre natural de Guinea», by Feliciana Rodríguez de Santiago de Cuba, which treats, among other things, a female slave with a minor child (later freed after her death) who reports that her two children later went to recently independent Haiti. See also, «Testamento Feliciana Rodriguez», in Archivo Histórico Provincial de Santiago de Cuba (AHPStC), Fondo Protocolos, Escribanía Real de Manuel Caminero Ferrer, vol. 81 (1830), f. 161v-162r, [sin numeración de las escrituras], Santiago de Cuba, 3 de Julio de 1830.

26 As for example the aforementioned work of MERIÑO, M. A. & PERERA, A., El universo de Hipólito criollo; or works by REIS, J. J. (1993), Slave Rebellion in Brazil, Baltimore, Johns Hopkins UP; (2003), Rebelião escrava no Brasil. A história do levante dos malê em 1835, São Paulo, Companhia Das Letras, ed. Corrected and expanded; and (2014), «From slave to wealthy African freedman: The story of Manoel Joaquim Ricardo», in: LINDSAY, L. A & SWEET, J.W. (eds.), Biography and the black Atlantic, Philadelphia, University of Pennsylavania Press, pp. 131-145. See also REIS, J. J., GOMES, F. S. & CARVALHO, M. J. M. (2010), O alufá Rufino. Tráfico, escravidão e liberdade no Atlântico negro (c. 1822-c. 1853), São Paulo, Companhia Das Letras; ARAUJO, A. L., CANDIDO, M. P. & LOVEJOY, P. E. (eds.) (2011), Crossing Memories. Slavery and African Diaspora, Trenton, Africa World Press. Also, the studies of ARAUJO, A. L. (2012), Public Memory of Slavery: Victims and Perpetrators in the South Atlantic, New York, Cambria Press; (ed.) (2012), Politics of Memory. Making Slavery Visible in the Public Space, New York, Routledge; (2014), Shadows of the Slave Past. Memory, Heritage, and Slavery, New York, Routledge; and (2017), Reparations for Slavery and the Slave Trade. A Transnational and Comparative History, New York, Bloomsbury.

27 The official sheet (hoja de servicio) of an ex-enslaved (probably from Venezuela) during the wars in the Independencia of South America (today's Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Bolivia, the «Bolívar states») is found under: «35. Hoja de servicios del sargento segundo Juan Castillo, su país África, su calidad negro», in: JIMÉNEZ MENESES, O. & PÉREZ MORALES, E. (eds.) (2013), Voces de la esclavitud y libertad. Documentos y testimonios de Colombia, 1701-1833, Popayán, Editorial Universidad Valle del Cauca, pp. 301-302.

28 ZEUSKE, M., «Slaving – Traumata und Erinnerungen», pp. 55-115.

29 See some «Quejas» in the section «Gobierno Superior Civil» in the Archivo Nacional de Cuba: ZEUSKE, M. (2017), «The Hidden Atlantic/El Atlántico oculto (October 2017)», p. 18 (https://www.academia.edu/35009046/The_Hidden_Atlantic_El_Atl%C3%A1ntico_oculto_Octubre_October_2017_) [20 de marzo de 2018].

30 GRINBERG, L. (2008), A lei da ambigüidade. As ações de liberdade da Corte de Apelação do Rio de Janeiro no século XIX, Río de Janeiro, Centro Edelstein de Pesquisas Sociais, 1st ed. 1994; GRINBERG, K. (2001), «Freedom Suits and Civil Law in Brazil and the United States», in: Slavery and Abolition, vol. 22/3, pp. 66-82. Also DE LA FUENTE, A. (2004), «Slave Law and Claims-Making in Cuba: the Tannenbaum Debate Revisited», in: Law and History Review, vol. 22:2, pp. 339-369; (coord.) (2004), Su «único derecho»: los esclavos y la ley, Madrid, Fundación Mapfre Tavera; (2007), «Slaves and the Creation of Legal Rights in Cuba: Coartación and Papel», in: Hispanic American Historical Review, vol. 87:4, pp. 659-692 (reprinted in FRADERA, J. M. & SCHMIDT-NOWARA, C. (eds.) (2013), Slavery and Antislavery in Spain's Atlantic Empire, Nueva York, Berghahn Books, pp. 101-134); ARAUJO, A. L. (2017), «El purgatorio negro: historias de dos esclavas que resistieron la esclavitud en el sur profundo de Brasil» and SCHMIEDER, U. (2017), «Les sévices commis par la famille Desgrottes, histoires de maltraitance d’esclaves et de leur résistance à la Martinique», both in: SANZ ROZALÉN, V. & ZEUSKE, M. (eds.), «Microhistorias de esclavas y esclavos», special issue Millars. Espai i Història, vol. XLII, respectively pp. 23-47 and pp. 193-217. As an example of one of the extremely rare accounts of domestic slave life in Egypt under the Ottoman Empire in the XIX century, we cite the renowned historian Ehud Toledano: TOLEDANO, E. R. (1993), «Shemsigül: A Circassian Slave in Mid-Nineteenth-Century Cairo», in: BURKE, E. (ed.), Struggle and Survival in the Modern Middle East, Berkley/Los Angeles: University of California Press, pp. 59-74.

31 For Berbice see: Burnard, T., «Introduction», in Burnard, T. (2010), Hearing Slave Speak, Georgetown: The Caribbean Press (Guyana Classics Series), pp. IX-XXIV (online: http://caribbeanpress.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/Trevor-Burnard-Hearing-Slaves-Speak-Complete-Text.pdf (1 July 2017)); regarding the British colonies of North America (with connections to Cuba), and the early years of the United States, see: Retzlaff, C. (2014), «Wont the law give me my freedom». Sklaverei vor Gericht (1750-1800), Paderborn, Ferdinand Schöningh; for the «legal speaking» slave Robert Botefeur see: ZEUSKE, M. (2017), «Microhistorias de vida y Hidden Atlantic: los ‘africanos’ Daniel Botefeur y Robin Botefeur en África, en el Atlántico y en Cuba», in: SANZ ROZALÉN, V. & ZEUSKE, M. (eds.), «Microhistorias de esclavas y esclavos», special issue Millars. Espai i Història, vol. XLII, pp. 151-191.

32 BARCIA, M. (2017), «"Going back home": slave suicide in nineteenth century Cuba», in: SANZ ROZALÉN, V. & ZEUSKE, M. (eds.), «Microhistorias de esclavas y esclavos», special issue Millars. Espai i Història, vol. XLII, pp. 49-74.

33 LIENHARD, M. (1990), La voz y su huella. Escritura y conflicto étnico-social en América Latina (1492-1988), La Habana, Casa de las Américas; and Lienhard (2001), Le discours des esclaves de l’Afrique à l’Amérique latine (Kongo, Angola, Brésil, Caraïbes), Paris, L’Harmattan. In the case of sources of the Inquisition with some reconstructions of individual lives (life histories) of enslaved in continental Portugal and Atlantic islands under Portuguese control: CALDEIRA, A. M. (2017), Escravos em Portugal. Das Origens ao Século XIX. Histórias de Vida de Homens, Mulheres e Crianças sob Cativeiro, Lisboa, A Esfera dos Livros.

34 Intestado de la morena Belén Álvarez, en Archivo Nacional de Cuba (ANC), Escribanía de Gobierno, leg. 864, exp. 9. See also, HEVIA, O. (2011), «Reconstruyendo la historia de la ex-esclava Belén Álvarez», in: RUBIERA, D. & MARTIATU, I. M. (selecc.), Afrocubanas. Historia, pensamiento y prácticas culturales, La Habana, Editorial de Ciencias Sociales, pp. 30-53.

35 ANC, Escribanía de Gobierno, leg. 864, exp. 9, f. 195r-196v, here f. 195v.

36 Ibíd., f. 145v-f. 151v, here f. 149r (original spelling).

37 HEVIA, O. (2011), «Reconstruyendo la historia de la exesclava Belén Álvarez», p. 40.

38 ZEUSKE, M. (2017), «The Hidden Atlantic/El Atlántico oculto (October 2017)» (https://www.academia.edu/35009046/) [20 de marzo de 2018]; ZEUSKE, M. (2018), «Out of the Americas: Slave traders and the Hidden Atlantic in the nineteenth century», in: Atlantic Studies, vol. 15:1, pp. 103-135.

39 ANC, Escribanía de Gobierno, leg. 864, exp. 9, f. 145v-f. 151v, here f. 115v.

40 Ibíd., f. 116r.

41 ZEUSKE, M. (2002), «Hidden Markers, Open Secrets. On Naming, Race Marking and Race Making in Cuba», in: New West Indian Guide / Nieuwe West-Indische Gids, vol. 76/3-4, pp. 235-266; ZEUSKE, M. (2002), «"Sin otro apellido". Nombres esclavos, marcadores raciales e identidades en la transformación de la colonia a la república, Cuba (1870-1940)», in: Tzintzun. Revista de Historia, vol. 36, pp. 153-208; PERERA, A. & MERIÑO, M.A. (2006), Nombrar las cosas. Aproximación a la onomástica de la familia negra en Cuba, Guantánamo, Editorial El Mar y la Montaña; ZEUSKE, M. (2011), «The Names of Slavery and Beyond: the Atlantic, the Americas and Cuba», in: SCHMIEDER, U., FÜLLBERG-STOLBERG, K. & ZEUSKE (eds.), The End of Slavery in Africa and the Americas. A Comparative Approach, Münster, LIT-Verlag, pp. 51-80; ZEUSKE, M. (2014), «The Second Slavery: Modernity, mobility, and identity of captives in Nineteenth-Century Cuba and the Atlantic World», in: LAVIÑA, J. & ZEUSKE (eds.), The Second Slavery. Mass Slaveries and Modernity in the Americas and in the Atlantic Basin, Münster, LIT Verlag, pp. 113-142. For Arabia see: HUTSON, A.S. (2016), «"His Original Name Is …" - REMAPping the Slave Experience in Saudi Arabia», in: DAMIR-GEILSDORF, S., LINDNER, U., MÜLLER, G.; TAPPE, O. & ZEUSKE M. (eds.) (2016), Bonded Labour: Global and Comparative Perspectives (18th-21st Century), Bielefeld, Transcript Verlag, pp. 133-161.

42 Some of the representative works of Rebecca Scott are: SCOTT, R. J. (2000), «Small-Scale Dynamics of Large-Scale Processes», in: American Historical Review, vol. 105:2, pp. 472-479; and (2002), «The Provincial Archive as a Place of Social Memory», in: New West Indian Guide, vol. 76, pp. 191-210; (2005), Degrees of Freedom. Louisiana and Cuba after Slavery, Cambridge/London, The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press; (2012), «Under Color of Law: Siliadin v. France and the Dynamics of Enslavement in Historical Perspective», in: ALLAIN, J. (ed.), The Legal Understanding of Slavery: From the Historical to the Contemporary, Oxford, Oxford University Press, pp. 152-164; (2013), «O Trabalho Escravo Contemporâneo e os Usos da História (Contemporary Slavery and the Uses of History)», in: Mundos do Trabalho, vol. 5/9, pp. 129-137; and with HÉBRARD, J. -M. (2012), Freedom Papers: An Atlantic Odyssey in the Age of Emancipation, Cambridge, Harvard University Press. Rebecca Scott started her work in a tradition of the Cuban historian Pedro Deschamps Chapeaux, see: DESCHAMPS CHAPEAUX, P. & PÉREZ DE LA RIVA, J. (1974), Contribución a la historia de la gente sin historia, La Habana, Editorial de Ciencias Sociales.

43 We mention here only the excellent book: REIS, GOMES & CARVALHO (2010), O Alufá Rufino, passim.

44 MAYA RESTREPO, L. A. (2005), Brujería y reconstrucción de identidades entre los africanos y sus descendientes en la Nueva Granada, siglo XVII, Bogotá, Ministerio de Cultura. A pioneering work on the history of enslaved as groups, without many primary sources, but highlighting the problem of writing history from this perspective, is: BERLIN, I. (2003), Generations of Captivity. A History of African-American Slaves, Cambridge/London, The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.

45 RUSERT, B. (2017), «New World: The Impact of Digitization on the Study of Slavery», in: American Literary History, vol. 29:2, pp. 267–286 (online: https://www.academia.edu/33349255/New_World_The_Impact_of_Digitization_on_the_Study_of_Slavery_American_Literary_History_Spring_2017_ (26 June 2017)).

46 Another source, albeit minor, but extremely important in terms of ascertaining slave names, are the «Declarations of Paternity» («declaraciones de paternidad»), see MORRISON, K. Y. (2007), «Creating an alternative kinship: Slavery, Freedom and the nineteenth-century Afro-cuban hijos naturales», in: Journal of Social History, pp. 55-80; and MERIÑO, M.A. & PERERA, A. (2007), Matrimonio y familia en el ingenio, una utopia posible. Cuba (1825-1886), La Habana, Editorial Unicornio.

47 One of the few examples of a list of African names comes from a North American slave trader who wanted to bring the named African children to Cuba from Africa: «Jacob Faber’s slave list with African names», in ZEUSKE, M. (2014), Amistad. A Hidden Network of Slavers and Merchants, Princeton, Markus Wiener Publishers, p. 130; taken from: List (original), written August, 21, 1815, Rio Pongo (in English) in ANC, Tribunal de Comercio (TC), leg. 184, no. 13 (1815). Faber (Jacobo): «Jacobo Faber, contra Juan Madrazo, sobre pesos de ciertas cuentas de negros bozales», f. 4r.

48 GUTIÉRREZ, I. (1983), «Los libros de registro de pardos y morenos en los archivos parroquiales de Cartagena de Indias», in: Revista Española de Antropología Americana, vol. 13, pp. 121-142; DÍAZ BENÍTEZ, O.C. (2012), Verdades ocultas de la esclavitud. El clamor de los cautivos, La Habana, Editorial de Ciencias Sociales, («La realidad cubierta», pp. 34-35).

49 ZEUSKE, M., «"Sin otro apellido"», pp. 153-208.

50 ZEUSKE, M. & GARCÍA, O. (2008), «Estado, notarios y esclavos en Cuba. Aspectos de una genealogía legal de la ciudadanía en sociedades esclavistas», in HATZKY, C. & ZEUSKE, M. (eds.), Cuba en 1902 después del imperio - una nueva nación, Berlín, LIT Verlag, pp. 86-156.

51 BELMONTE, J.L. (2004-2007), «Erosionando el dominio de sus propietarios. Un análisis de las tachas de los contratos de compraventa de los esclavos en Santiago de Cuba, 1780-1803», in: Contrastes, vol. 13, pp. 37-54; JODA, B. (2016), «Esclavas de alma en boca. Las leyes redhibitorias en La Habana (1790-1849)», in: PIQUERAS, J. A. (ed.), Orden político y gobierno de esclavos. Cuba en la época de la segunda esclavitud y de su legado, Valencia, Fundación Instituto de Historia Social, pp. 151-175.

52 ANC, Miscelánea de Libros, nº 2370, f. 1r-208r, «Negros cimarrones que quedaron existentes en las obras de caminos en 31. de Diciem. de 1830 (La Habana)»; ANC, ibíd., n.º 7785, f. 1r-180r, «Negros cimarrones que quedaron existentes en las obras de caminos en 31. de Diciembre de 1831 (La Habana)»; ibíd., nº 2605, f. 1r-144v., «Registro de cimarrones del depósito consular de Cardenas correspondiente al año de 1856». See Lovejoy, P. (2010), «Scarification and the Loss of History in the African Diaspora», in: Apter, A. & Derby, L. (orgs.), Activating The Past Historical Memory in the Black Atlantic, Newcastle, Cambridge Scholarly Publishing, pp. 99-138; LA ROSA, G. (2011), Tatuados. Deformaciones étnicas de los cimarrones en Cuba, La Habana, Fundación Fernando Ortiz.

53 LANDERS, J. G., GÓMEZ, P., POLO, J. & CAMPBELL, C. J. (2015), «Researching the history of slavery in Colombia and Brazil through ecclesiastical and notarial archives», in: KOMINKO, M. (ed.), From Dust to Digital. Ten Years of the Endangered Archives Programme, Cambridge, Open Book Publishers, pp. 259-292; and LANDERS, J. G. (dir.), Ecclesiastical & Secular Sources for Slave Societies, Vanderbilt University (http://www.vanderbilt.edu/esss/).

54 SINGLETON, T.A. (2010), «Archaeology and Slavery», in: PAQUETTE, R. & SMITH, M. (eds.), Slavery in the Americas: Oxford History Handbooks, Oxford, Oxford University Press, pp. 702-724; SINGLETON, T.A. (2014), «Nineteenth Century Built Landscape of Plantation Slavery in Comparative Perspective», in: MARSHALL, L. (ed.), The Archaeology of Slavery: Toward a Comparative Global Framework, Carbondale, Center for Archaeological Investigations, University Press of Southern Illinois, pp. 93-115; SINGLETON, T.A. (2015), Slavery Behind The Wall: An Archaeology of a Cuban Coffee Plantation, Gainesville, University Press of Florida; FUNARI, P.P.A. & DOMÍNGUEZ, L.S. (2015), «Archaeology of contact in Cuba, a reassessment», in: FUNARI, P.P.A. & SENATORE, M. X. (eds.) (2015), Archaelogy of Culture Contact and Colonialism in Spanish and Portuguese America, Cham [etc.], Springer, pp. 133-140; about the different readings by different actors and different time spaces see: VIOTTI, A. C. (2017), «Revisitar Palmares: histórias de um mocambo do Brasil colonial», in: Trashumante/Revista Americana de Historia Social, vol. 10, special issue BORUCKI, A. & PÉREZ MORALES, E. (eds.), «Tráfico de esclavos y esclavitud en las Américas. Siglos XVI-XIX», pp. 78-99.

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