IDENTIDADES 1 ENGLISH IDENTIDADES 5 ENGLISH | Page 31

potheses of these pro-slavery experts.
At the height of the plantation system
era, a period of about 30 years, two historic events gradually sealed black exclusion from the country’s political,
economic and social life, what at this
time was taking shape: the repressive
act known as the Aponte Conspiracy
and the brutal massacre that came about
after the Ladder Conspiracy. 1
In addition to the impact of an already
increasing slave trade, these events
marked the course on which these people, whose only sin was being born with
dark skin, should follow from then on.

work of another considerable part of the
same society (the exploited class). The
interest of the slave owner, of the dominant class, is to keep slaves from attaining anything at all that might free them
from their servile condition.
This is the direction of slave owners’
politics (of both Spaniards, at first, and
then of their descendants). They became
the so-called criollo sugar aristocracy
and joined their interests with those of
foreign slave owners. The economic
reality that incorporates blacks in Cuba
determines their political and social
development in a way that could do
nothing but lead them the to their disastrous, current, social reality. 2
Nineteenth-century Cuba was influenced by events in Latin America and
the Caribbean. After a bloody struggle
against French colonialism, Haiti becomes a Republic by former slaves;
neighboring Latin America nations were
in the midst of putting a death knell to
Spanish colonialism, by expelling their
representatives and quickly and continuously declaring themselves independent.
This generated fear in Cuba among the
classes that gained from the sugar plantation system and was actually exacerbated by Haiti’s geographic closeness. It
was feared that the Haitian example
spread to Cuba, which is why when the
Aponte Conspiracy headed by slave
descendant José Antonio Aponte was
discovered in 1812, it was brutally and
cruelly repressed, to demonstrate that
black rebellion was not going to be tolerated. As one might expect, the Ladder
Conspiracy thirty years later, met the
same fate. 3

A little bit of history
With the exception of natural differences resulting due to time and place,
the conquest, colonization, and repopulation of Cuba is not fundamentally different for that of any other people in the
New or Old World that was forcefully
subjected by a stronger people or more
advanced civilization.
Once again, it is the same story in Cuba.
Once the island is incorporated as a colony of Spain, we now have the reason
or fundamental explanation for all organized political or military actions aimed
at conquest: the exploitation and subjection of the vanquished people. This has
been the case throughout history, both
for the primitive savage and today’s
civilized peoples.
Slavery was not a uniquely Cuban phenomenon and its consequences were no
different in the sixteenth century than
those of Greek slavery during the time
of Solon. Slavery is fundamentally an
economic phenomenon that allows a
small portion of society (the privileged
class) to appropriate the product of the

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