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Peasant of Oriente © Chat-Verre Christophe |
The National Archives of the Republic of Cuba stores more than 27 linear kilometres of documents dating from the sixteenth century, arranged in 217 documentary collections, in addition to the documentation corresponding to 42 scriveners' offices and 47,935 description units provided by the work of 537 notaries' offices. Within this heritage 38 collections of the colonial period have been located that throw invaluable light on the Negro slave-trading phenomenon.
Such collections as the Reales Ordenes y Cédulas, Intendencia General de Hacienda, Real Consulado, Junta de Fomento and nine others, which have undergone archival processing and whose outcome we offer in this information product, contain primary and in many cases unpublished information on that crime against humanity, covering the origin of the various ethnic groups of that "immigration" basically from the Atlantic coast of Africa; legislation regulating the practice; applications for licences for legal trafficking; names of slave contractors; transfer of Negroes and landings, among other matters, and even documents relating to the prohibition and abolition of slavery.
Cuba was, together with Brazil, one of the most active centres of the "interloper" trade. British reports of the colonial period contain many names of merchants who, from Havana, handled Negro smuggling in the Caribbean and the southern United States: Julián de Zulueta; Francisco Marty y Torrens; Francisco Durañona (a) Caña Brava; Pedro Forcade; la Casa Cuesta; Pascual Goicochea; Simón Poey; Hernández y Co.; David Nagle; Manzanal y Co.; José Ricardo O'Farrill; Salvador Samá and Joaquín Gómez, among others, who had the backing of reactionary, mainly United States, groups constantly mentioned in the documents worked on. The North American element was very prominent in slave trading around the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries since most of the ships were US-owned and funded with US capital, commissioned by US citizens and flying the US flag, as recorded in the documents investigated.
To give an idea of the importance of this activity in the area, it suffices to observe that, between March 1806 and February 1807, over 30 ships entered Havana Bay with US crews and flying the US flag, carrying goods for many traders established in the country that included more than 5,000 Negroes to be sold as slaves, as recorded in Libro 4.611 of the collection Miscelánea de Libros.
Information such as the above is also to be found in some of the remaining historical archives in Cuban territory. It would therefore be crucially important in the future to make use of those documentary sources, some of which are a long way from the country's capital and lacking in technological resources, in order to achieve a fuller grasp of the phenomenon.
The implementation of this project, in which researchers and technicians from the National Archives are taking part, will make it possible to locate and assemble all existing documentation on the subject, to preserve it and to process it to make it accessible, by means of new technologies, to the rest of the Cuban and international scientific community.
The information on offer in the Database was taken from the documentary collections Audiencia de La Habana, Asuntos Políticos, Consejo de Administración de la Isla de Cuba, Correspondencia de los Capitanes Generales, Escribanía de Regueyra, Gobierno General, Gobierno Superior Civil, Intendencia General de Hacienda and the Real Consulado de Agricultura, Industria y Comercio y Junta de Fomento, and from the collections Donativos y Remisiones, Reales Órdenes y Cédulas and Miscelánea de Libros, and accompanying images that re-create it have been supplied.
The user of the Database may come across documents unaccompanied by any image, which is due to the state of deterioration of the documentation or to the presence of typed transcriptions of documents.
The outcome of this research does not cover the entire information on the subject existing in the institution because, since the work had to be completed within a year, it was not possible to review all the material.
Cuba was, together with Brazil, one of the most active centres of the "interloper" trade. British reports of the colonial period contain many names of merchants who, from Havana, handled Negro smuggling in the Caribbean and the southern United States: Julián de Zulueta; Francisco Marty y Torrens; Francisco Durañona (a) Caña Brava; Pedro Forcade; la Casa Cuesta; Pascual Goicochea; Simón Poey; Hernández y Co.; David Nagle; Manzanal y Co.; José Ricardo O'Farrill; Salvador Samá and Joaquín Gómez, among others, who had the backing of reactionary, mainly United States, groups constantly mentioned in the documents worked on. The North American element was very prominent in slave trading around the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries since most of the ships were US-owned and funded with US capital, commissioned by US citizens and flying the US flag, as recorded in the documents investigated.
To give an idea of the importance of this activity in the area, it suffices to observe that, between March 1806 and February 1807, over 30 ships entered Havana Bay with US crews and flying the US flag, carrying goods for many traders established in the country that included more than 5,000 Negroes to be sold as slaves, as recorded in Libro 4.611 of the collection Miscelánea de Libros.
Information such as the above is also to be found in some of the remaining historical archives in Cuban territory. It would therefore be crucially important in the future to make use of those documentary sources, some of which are a long way from the country's capital and lacking in technological resources, in order to achieve a fuller grasp of the phenomenon.
The implementation of this project, in which researchers and technicians from the National Archives are taking part, will make it possible to locate and assemble all existing documentation on the subject, to preserve it and to process it to make it accessible, by means of new technologies, to the rest of the Cuban and international scientific community.
The information on offer in the Database was taken from the documentary collections Audiencia de La Habana, Asuntos Políticos, Consejo de Administración de la Isla de Cuba, Correspondencia de los Capitanes Generales, Escribanía de Regueyra, Gobierno General, Gobierno Superior Civil, Intendencia General de Hacienda and the Real Consulado de Agricultura, Industria y Comercio y Junta de Fomento, and from the collections Donativos y Remisiones, Reales Órdenes y Cédulas and Miscelánea de Libros, and accompanying images that re-create it have been supplied.
The user of the Database may come across documents unaccompanied by any image, which is due to the state of deterioration of the documentation or to the presence of typed transcriptions of documents.
The outcome of this research does not cover the entire information on the subject existing in the institution because, since the work had to be completed within a year, it was not possible to review all the material.
