IDENTIDADES 1 ENGLISH IDENTIDADES 2 ENGLISH | Page 75

Black and Mulattos Societies in
Pinar del Río (1902-1963):

Their Realities and Encounters
Fidel Guillermo Duarte González
Historian. community work specialist

History

Pinar del Río, Cuba

T

he study of the emergence, splendor and
decline of Pinar del Río’s Black and Mulattos Societies1 from 1902-1963 is
marked by the start of the Revolution and the
great structural changes that came that created
new kinds of relations within capitalist production that replaced those that had been established
by the U.S., as the center of economic might and
domination in all of Latin America.
The very same illusion that convinced in some
blacks and mulattoes and brought about a new
constitution that outlawed discrimination based
on skin color soon dissipated. The result could not
be more tragic. The definitive exit of the colonial
army brought about a concomitant material and
“spiritual reconciliation” between the dominant,
Spanish class and he new social elite that emerged
from among old and valiant, white Cubans, and
the smell of gunpowder, sorrow for dead friends
and family members, exile and plunder of 30
years of armed struggle, from 1868-1878.
This reconciliation at the new society’s highest
levels abandoned those black men and women,
peasants and poor, white laborers with whom they
had shared scarcities, as they fought for their
lives. The presence of settlers from the U.S. South
brought with it a discriminatory lifestyle that allied itself with the great business concerns and

consortiums that controlle B