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ABSTRACT
For decades the public and private documents of enslavers have been examined to produce seminal studies of slavery. This article explores the interval between public and private, exposing it as a liminal space of emotional direction for the enslaving elite of nineteenth-century South Carolina and Cuba. Consulting confidential correspondence, periodicals, and published proclamations gathered from archives across Cuba, Spain, and the U.S., this study focusses upon instances when enslavers strategized as to how their violence, words, architectural surroundings, legal codification, and press should best buttress what they regarded as the necessary emotional balance for maintaining their dominance: white confidence and Black fear. Analyzing these words and actions using History of the Emotions methodologies and principles including emotionology, emotional regimes, and the emotional politics of slavery, this article contributes the theorization of the ‘confidence script’, a performative narrative style deployed by proslavery elites to publicly assert unalloyed white composure regardless of tangible unrest among the enslaved population, or furtive admissions of slaveholder dread. Its conclusion asserts that the silences and proclamations surrounding racialised white fear and performative confidence in Cuba and the U.S. continue to propagate and justify nefarious white violence and injustice against Black Cubans and Americans today.
Acknowledgements
My earnest thanks first go – effusively – to Beth Wilson and Emily West for having organised the Slavery and Emotions in the Atlantic World conference that brought together such a splendid group of historians of the emotions. Thank you to everyone present at the conference who offered me constructive, thought-provoking feedback. Beth and Emily brought this trailblazing special issue into being, and our discipline is richer for it. Their advice during the editing and proofing stages was invaluable, as was their tirelessly kind support. My wholehearted gratitude is finally extended to Erin O'Halloran, Rodrigo Mendoza Smith, and Katherine Burns, for their priceless guidance as I composed this article.
Disclosure Statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 Diario de La Habana, no. 150, May 29, 1843, excerpt sent from Gerónimo Valdés to Secretario de Estado y del Despacho de la Gobierno de Ultramar, Archivo Histórico Nacional, Madrid [henceforth AHN], Ultramar, leg. 4617, exp.13, no. 677, May 31, 1843.
2 Speech of William Smith, Annals of Congress, Senate, 16th Congress, 1st Session: 267.
3 See, for instance, Stephanie E. Jones Jones-Rogers, They Were Her Property: White Women as Slave Owners in the American South (New Haven, Yale University Press: 2019) and Teresa Prados-Torreira, The Power of Their Will: Slaveholding Women in Nineteenth Century Cuba (Tuscaloosa, University of Alabama Press, 2021).
4 This theory was developed in my doctoral thesis alongside a ‘Supplication Script’. Liana Beatrice Valerio, ‘Scripts of Confidence and Supplication: Fear as the Personal and Political Among the Elite Male Slaveholders of South Carolina and Cuba 1820 – 1850’ (PhD diss., University of Warwick, 2019).
5 Carol Z. Stearns, Peter N. Stearns, ‘Emotionology: Clarifying the History of Emotions and Emotional Standards’, American Historical Review 90 (1985): 813–36.
6 Emotions have been termed by Neuroscientists as ‘neurosocial’: the products of cognitive and physical reactions flavoured by their social contexts. See, for example, Jaak Panksepp, Affective Neuroscience: The Foundations of Human and Animal Emotions (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 1998).
7 William Reddy, The Navigation of Feeling: a Framework for the History of the Emotions (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2001): 323–4.
8 Barbara Rosenwein, ‘Worrying About Emotions in History’, The American History Review 107, no. 3 (2002): 842.
9 (My emphasis.) Barbara Rosenwein, ‘Problems and Methods in the History of the Emotions’, Passions in Context 1 (2010): 11, 15.
10 I am sincerely grateful to Lacy K. Ford for his comments to me on this subject.
11 Erin Austin Dwyer, Mastering Emotions: Feelings, Power, and Slavery in the United States (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2021): 3.
12 Beech Island Farmers’ Club Records, South Caroliniana Library [henceforth SCL], Manuscripts Misc., Beech Island Farmer's Club, 7 August 1847: 102–3.
13 ‘Testimonio de las Diligencias Formadas Sobre el Reglamento de Policía Rural’, sent to Dionisio Vives, signed José Vizarro y Gardín, Juan Montalvo, Rafael O’Farril, Pedro Diego, Archivo General de Indias [henceforth AGI], Ultramar, leg. 89, November 26, 1827.
14 ‘Testimonio de las Diligencias Formadas Sobre el Reglamento de Policía Rural’, Manuel M. Figuera to Dionisio Vives, AGI, Ultramar, leg. 89, June 11, 1828.
15 ‘El Gobernador Dn. Gerónimo Valdés inserta su comunicación al ministerio de Ultramar remitiendo ejemplares del bando del gobernación y Policía’, AGI, Santo Domingo, leg. 1308, November 30, 1842.
16 ‘Representación acerca del articulo 25 del reglamento de esclavos pidiendo se derogue el mismo y otras observaciones sobre la situación de los esclavos’, [Unmarked sender] to Gerónimo Valdés, Biblioteca Nacional José Martí [henceforth BNJM], classification: C.M. Morales T.78, no. 132, August 11, 1843.
17 Ibid.
18 See Will Perez’ article in this collection, ‘Happiness in Havana? Día de Reyes as an EmotionalRefuge in Colonial Cuba’.
19 Frances Anne Kemble, Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation in 1838–1839 (New York, 1864): 295–6.
20 Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America (London, 1835): 345.
21 Charles Colcock Jones, The Religious Instruction of the Negroes in the United States (Savannah, 1842): 108.
22 (My emphasis.) Governor Thomas Bennett, Jr. ‘Letter To the Board of Managers of the Charleston Bible Society’, October 1, 1822, printed in Douglas R. Egerton and Robert L. Paquette ‘Of Facts and Fables: New Light on the Denmark Vesey Affair’, The South Carolina Historical Magazine 105, no. 1 (January 2004): 3.
23 Ibid., 2.
24 Ricard Furman, Exposition of the Views of the Baptists, Relative to the Coloured Population in the United States in a Communication to the Governor of South-Carolina (Charleston, 1822): 5.
25 Ibid., 4.
26 James Hamilton, Negro Plot: An Account of the Late Intended Insurrection among a Portion of the Blacks of the City of Charleston (Boston, 1822): 2, 50.
27 Samuel C. Jackson to William True, SCL, Samuel C. Jackson Papers, December 14, 1832.
28 Miguel Tacón to Secretario de Estado y del Despacho de la Gobernación (de Ultramar), AHN, Ultramar, leg. 4627, exp.1, no.15, August 31, 1836.
29 ‘Providencia Acordada Entre los Excmos. Sres. Presidente Gobernador y Capitán General e Intendente Superintendente General de Real Hacienda de esta Isla, Mandada insertar en Tres Diarios’, Dionisio Vives and Claudio Martínez de Pinillos, AGI, Ultramar, leg. 89, April 10, 1826; letter from Nicholas Mahy to Secretario de Estado y del Despacho de la Gobernación de Ultramar, AGI, Santo Domingo, leg. 1293, March 8, 1822.
30 Real Cedula, AHN, Ultramar, leg. 4627, exp.1, July 25, 1838.
31 Gerónimo Valdés to Sr Secretario de Estado y del Despacho d la Gobernación de Ultramar, AHN, Ultramar, leg. 4627, exp.1, no.133, August 28, 1841.
32 José Antonio Saco, Mi Primera Pregunta. ¿La abolición del comercio de esclavos Africanos arruinara o atrasara la agricultura Cubana? Dedicado a los hacendados de la isla de Cuba su compatriota José Antonio Saco (Madrid, 1837): 25, 30.
33 Ministerios de Estado y de Gobernación del Reino to Ministro de Estado y Dirección de Gobierno Ultramar, AGI, Ultramar, leg. 90, November 3, 1848.
34 Noticioso y Lucero, no. 152. vol. 12, June 2, 1843, excerpt sent from Gerónimo Valdés to Secretario de Estado y del Despacho de la Gobierno de Ultramar, AHN, Ultramar, leg. 4617, exp. 13, no. 677, May 31, 1843. [Henceforth abbreviated: Valdés to Secretario de Estado].
35 Faro Industrial de la Habana, no. 150, May 31, 1843, Valdés to Secretario de Estado.
36 Diario de La Habana, no. 150, May 29, 1843, Valdés to Secretario de Estado.
37 Noticioso y Lucero, no. 152., vol. 12, June 2, 1843, Valdés to Secretario de Estado.
38 Diario de La Habana, no. 150, May 29, 1843, Valdés to Secretario de Estado.
39 Conde de Villanueva to Secretario de Estado y del Despacho de Hacienda, AGI, Indiferente, leg. 2828, no. 5910, February 7, 1849.
40 Noticioso y Lucero, no. 152., vol. 12, June 2, 1843, Valdés to Secretario de Estado.
41 See Erin Dwyer's article in this collection: ‘The Poison Pen: Slavery, Poison, and Fear in the Antebellum Press’.
42 Faro Industrial de la Habana, no. 150, May 31, 1843, Valdés to Secretario de Estado.
43 Noticioso y Lucero, no. 152. vol. 12, June 2, 1843, Valdés to Secretario de Estado.
44 James Hamilton, Negro Plot, 2.
45 ‘Informe de la Comisión, Nombrada al Efecto, Sobre el Proyecto de Convenio de SM Británica Relativo a la Libertad de los Esclavos’, Ignacio Francisco de Borja de Peñalver y Peñalver, Evaristo Carillo, Narciso García y Mora and Tomás de Juara, BNJM, classification: C.M. Morales, T.78, no. 123, September 28, 1841.
46 Edward B. Bryan, The Disunionist: Or, Secession, The Rightful Remedy Being a Few Facts, and Hints on Things That Are and Ought to Be, Addressed to the Slaveholders of the South (Charleston, 1850): 44.
47 ‘Five-hour Television Appearance’ [transcription], Castro Speech Database, Latin American Network Information Center, December 21, 1959. < http://lanic.utexas.edu/project/castro/db/1959/19591221.html> [accessed January 31, 2023].
48 Samuel Osborne, ‘Hillary Clinton's Most Controversial Quotes of the Campaign’, The Independent, November 3 2016, <https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/hillary-clinton-quotes-donald-trump-emails-benghazi-libya-what-did-she-say-career-a7391661.html> [accessed January 31, 2023].
49 Martel A. Pipkins, ‘“I Feared For My Life”: Law Enforcement's Appeal to Murderous Empathy’, Race and Justice 9, no. 2 (2017): 187.
50 ‘Transcript of Trump's Call With Governors: “Dominate, or You’ll Look like a Bunch of Jerks”’, The Mercury News, June 2, 2020, <https://www.mercurynews.com/2020/06/02/transcript-of-trumps-call-with-governors-dominate-or-youll-look-like-a-bunch-of-jerks/ [accessed January 31, 2023].
51 Nicholas Demertzis, ‘Introduction: Theorising the Emotions-Politics Nexus’, in Emotions in Politics: The Affect Dimension in Political Tension, ed. Nicholas Demertzis (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013): 8; Brent E. Sasley, ‘Theorising States’ Emotions’ International Studies Review 1, no. 3 (2011): 452–76.
52 Tommy J. Curry, The Man-Not: Race, Class, Genre, and the Dilemmas of Black Manhood (Philadelphia, Temple University Press: 2017), 111. On what Curry terms ‘Super-predator Mythology’, see: 111–4.
53 Dwyer, Mastering Emotions, 202–7.
54 Danielle P. Clealand, ‘When Ideology Clashes with Reality: Racial Discrimination and Black Identity in Contemporary Cuba’, Ethnic and Racial Studies 36, no. 10 (2013): 1619; Nadine Fernandez, ‘The Changing Discourse on Race in Contemporary Cuba’, International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education 14, no. 2 (2001): 117–21.
55 Alejandro De La Fuente, ‘The Resurgence of Racism in Cuba’, NACLA Report on the Americas 34, no. 6 (2001): 34; Alejandro De La Fuente, ‘Recreating Racism: Race and Discrimination in Cuba's “Special Period”’, Socialism and Democracy 15, no. 1 (2001): 74–5.
56 De La Fuente, ‘The Resurgence of Racism in Cuba’, 34.
57 I am sincerely grateful to Erin Austin Dwyer for her comments to me on this subject.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Liana Beatrice Valerio
Liana Beatrice Valerio is a Teaching Fellow in History at the University of Warwick. Her first book project [currently underway] will theorise the manner in which the prolific enslavers of Cuba and South Carolina performed, utilised, and deployed emotion in their attempts to defend and perpetuate slavery well into the nineteenth century.