‘Political changüí’: race, political culture, and black civic activism in the early Cuban republic

Abstract

This article examines race and the structure of republican Cuban politics after Spanish colonialism ended in 1898. It discusses the structural role of patronage and political sociability in the transition from colony to republic, alongside ideas circulating about political modernity, democracy, and civil society. The article places special emphasis on black civic activism and uses race as its central lens to understand the political forces unleashed by the formal collapse of monarchial rule as well as the limits of republican democracy due to competing interests, racialist ideas, and foreign domination. These factors set the stage for ongoing republican political crises and were influential in the tenor of Cuban political culture through the 1959 Revolution.

Keywords:

• Afro-Cubans
• civic activism
• Cuba
• politics
• race

Notes

1. For Wood's and T. Bently Mott's comments, see Orum (1975, p. 66). For an excellent discussion of annexation and of US attitudes regarding Cuban self-governments, see Pérez (1983), especially the chapter, ‘The Electoral Imperative’, pp. 303–314; Pérez (2008, p. 100); Pérez (1997, p. 101).

2. ‘Changüí Político’, La Lucha, 14 January 1901.

3. See Meriño Fuentes (2001, p. 29).

4. See Bacon and Brown Scott (1916, pp. 189–203).

5. For discussion of Latin American postcolonial identity, modernity, nationalist identities, and before and following 1898, see Zavala (1992, pp. 1–5).

6. For figures on the number of black congressmen serving in office in the early republic, see de la Fuente (2001, p. 64). De la Fuente offers an extensive study of race relations in the Cuban republic. For 1907 population figures see Censo de la república de Cuba bajo la administración provisional de los Estados Unidos, 1907 (1908, p. 207). Figures for the electorate are found on pp. 232–239.

7. Risquet (1900).

8. See Carrera y Justiz (1904, pp. 9, 10, and 20).

9. For institutional records of clubs and other civic and political institutions discussed here, throughout, see Fondo Gobierno Provincial, legajo (leg.) 2625, expediente (exp.) 3, 8, 11, 18, 61903, Archivo Histórico Provincial de Santiago de Cuba (AHPSC); Fondo Gobierno Provincial, leg. 2663, exp. 1, AHPSC; Fondo Gobierno Provincial, leg. 2659, exp. 2, AHPSC; and Gobierno Provincial, leg. 2660, exp. 1, AHPSC. These records show, for example, that Club Antonio Maceo, founded in 1899, was led by several prominent black Santiagueros, such as ex-captain of the Liberation Army Luis Mancebo (also a longstanding leader of the Veterans Association), Saturnino Cos y Riera, Manuel Mena Hechavarría, Pablo Sánchez Gastón, and Alberto Castellanos.

10. Societies visited include Club Aponte, Luz de Oriente, Casino Cubano, El Tivolí, Club Juan de Góngora, La Unión, La Estrella de Oriente, Altopino, and Club Unión Cubana. See El Nuevo Criollo: Seminario Político Moderado, 15 October 1904. For the debate between ‘Negro Oriental’ and Negro Falucho (both pseudonyms), see ‘Al negro Falucho’, El Nuevo Criollo, 5 November 1904.