IDENTIDADES 1 ENGLISH IDENTIDADES 5 ENGLISH | Page 45

‘Abolicionist novels and controlled
discourse

dependently of the stereotypes imposed
on them: “By carrying out only partial
manumissions, all we’ve done is make
peace with our consciences, and wash
off the stain, without really doing anything to benefit a third party: we have
been accidental heroes… Advocate for
this law, Anselmo. Ask for the suppression of cruel, barbaric punishments…don’t let them chastised the
way Pancho Fufú and so many others
were (real people who they both saw
severely punished); and like my heroine, Concha, who tragedy followed…Advocate, Anselmo, advocate…if I had your pen I would consecrate it, because we could not ask for
anything more.”5 What is that ‘anything
more’? It is not only emancipation, but
also equality, an acceptance of black
culture and Cuban culture, of blacks as
fully Cuban. Neither can we obviate the
fact that some of these works, like
Francisco: El Ingenio o las Delicias del
Campo, by Anselmo Suárez y Romero
(written in 1838 but not published till
1880, in New York), were written at the
instigation of others, like British abolitionist Richard R. Madden, in this case.
Thus, they gave blacks words, but not
without limitations, some self-imposed.
Most if not all the members of Domingo
del Monte’s literary circle, just as many
of the nation’s founders and statesmen,
advocated for a white, Catholic, chaste
Cuba free of blacks and mestizos, either
by repatriating them to Africa, or
through whitening. Their representation
of slaves and even freemen, and they
way in which they controlled their
thoughts and speech through indirect
discourse reveals a very real anxiety
about giving blacks words, offering
them freedom of expression.

Given their content and message, there
is no doubt whatsoever that these novels
were about slavery in Cuba, or even
against slavery. Yet, the level of commitment of those who were supposedly
advocating for the cause—abolition—
and the weapons with which these
champions fought—words—were truly
deceitful and fragile. Just a couple of
examples should suffice to illustrate
this, one from a possibly lesser-known
author, the other not.
Chapter IX of “El Buen Amo” [The
Good Master], in Francisco Calcagno
Monzón’s book Los crímenes de Concha (Havana: 1863; 1887), is dedicated
precisely to Anselmo Suárez y Romero
(Cuba’s most famous ‘abolitionist’ author), and begins thus: “To you I dedicate this chapter of my novel, oh my
good friend, Anselmo! To you, a man of
conscience who possesses slaves and is
an abolitionist.”3 Hence, his own simplification of this great contradiction: “The
truth is that I don’t see why one cannot
be both things at the same time…[I],
who am anxious to see