Lexington Books
Pages: 292
•
Trim: 6⅜ x 9¼
978-1-4985-6263-8 • Hardback • November 2019 • $117.00 • (£90.00)
978-1-4985-6265-2 • Paperback • July 2021 • $44.99 • (£35.00)
978-1-4985-6264-5 • eBook • November 2019 • $42.50 • (£35.00)
Rafael Ocasio is Charles A. Dana Professor of Spanish at Agnes Scott College.
Acknowledgements
Note about Citations of George Howe’s Diary
Introduction: George Howe: A Testimonial Documentation of a Bristolian-Owned Ingenio in the Province of Matanzas
Chapter 1: Bristolian-Owned Ingenios in the province of Matanzas: George Howe’s Sugar Cane Plantation Diary
Chapter 2: Memorializing the Province of Matanzas: A Rural View of the Wildness
Chapter 3: A Plantation Diary: Work Sketches of a Bristolian-Owned Cuban Sugar Cane Ingenio
Chapter 4: The Embodiment of Slavery: Documenting the Work Underpinnings of an Enslaved Crew-Operated Cuban Ingenio
Chapter 5: Cuban Ingenios as an Artistic Inspiration: George Howe as a Writer and Painter of Plantation Work Customs
Conclusion: The Narrative of a Bristolian-Owned Cuban Ingenio: Silences and Intentional Omissions
Epilogue: Revolutionary Ideology and Afro-Cuban Icons: Representation of Racial Dynamics in Cuba Today
Bibliography
The book offers a deep dive into a little-known diary. It adds to the burgeoning literature on the dark and deep connection of slavery that bound Bristol, Rhode Island and Cuba together.
— C. V. Carrington-Farmer, Roger Williams University
Diarist, naturalist, poet, painter, and prolific letter writer, George Howe was a man of many parts. He was also the manager of a Cuban slave plantation at the height of the island’s sugar boom. In this work of historical recovery and literary analysis, Rafael Ocasio brings Howe and his long forgotten, utterly unclassifiable oeuvre back to life.
— James T. Campbell, Stanford University
Rafael Ocasio provides for us a thorough examination of the popular nineteenth century artistic travelogue opening our understanding of the critical relationship between Rhode Island and Cuba during the slaving era. Ocasio’s book will be the go-to book on slaving for all interested in the aesthetics of the nineteenth century bringing alive an otherwise hidden history.
— Autumn Quezada-Grant, Roger Williams University
Ocasio brings to life not only the American encounter with colonial Cuba, and the business practices of the ingenios, but also the labor demanded of the enslaved themselves and, through a close reading of this literary text, how a New Englander navigated the glaring contradictions between the highly profitable exploitation of enslaved labor (and the illegal slave trade closely tied to it) and complicity with that system’s inherent inhumanity and brutality.
— James DeWolf Perry, editor (with Kristin Gallas) of Interpreting Slavery at Museums and Historic Sites