Identidades in English No 1, February 2014 | Page 69

produced by the colonial-slave regime. It represented
an evil that had to be battled, for which they resorted
not only to the law, but also to science, literature and
religion to do away with them.
One of the ways this fear takes shape in nineteenthcentury chronicles and novels of manners is through
the “typical” features and physiognomy that characterized the black population. In an essential article for
understanding these representations, “Black Phobia
and the White Aesthetic in Spanish American literature,” Richard Jackson focuses on the paradox present
in the fact that even writers who criticized slavery in
their novels, commonly represented blacks as either
inferior beings or as having white characteristics, to
distinguish them from all other blacks.
For example, Gómez de Avellaneda’s Sab possessed
“none of the abjection and vulgarity that was common
among his kind.”2 He is an educated mulatto and
Avellaneda describes his soul as “white.” According
to Jackson, in doing this, Avellaneda is refusing to
acknowledge the beauty of blacks, and reveals deep
disdain for slaves.
Thus, the way physical attributes are presented in
these novels are important for understanding the narrator’s position. The farther they are from the GrecoRoman norms established by society, the better the
reader can read in them feelings, desires and abilities
“objectionable” to whites. Cuban, anti-slave novels
were not unique in this; they closely followed tendencies found in European realist literature, in which portraits of characters in which the physical and moral
converge abound.
From a linguistic point of view, the very same fear is
present in the debate about lower-class society’s colloquial or “vulgar” language and the influence of foreign literature on Spanish. This is debated throughout
the nineteenth century, but actually begins around
1837, when Esteban Pichardo y Tapia submitted his
Diccionario provincial casi razonado de vozes
cubanas [sic], with Andres Bello’s grammar, and with
Spanish writers’ biting criticism of Rubén Darío.
Unlike all the other Latin American countries, which
had already established themselves as independent republics, in Cuba, this debate emerges and evolves concurrently with the establishment of slavery and formal
study of lenguaje bozal [recently arrived slave speech]
for use by those in power. The earliest mention of this

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language appears in a communication from Bishop of
Santiago de Cuba, Morell y Santa Cruz, after turning
so-called African cabildos [brotherhood houses] into
hermitages. By the end of the nineteenth century, the
word reappears in Explicación de la doctrina cristiana
[Explanation of Christian Doctrine], by Antonio
Nicolás Duque de Estrada. The important thing about
both texts is their intention to turn the bozal language
of African slaves into the lettered city’s instrument of
domination, so as to have the conscious transformation or imitation of this language and its variants be
an instrument to transform the souls and bodies of
slaves, and protect and maintain slavery. Seen from
this perspective, the bozal language found in the Explicación is a ‘biologized’ language with grammar as
a sign to replace humans; this knowledge becomes an
instrument of subjugation for the “saving” of blacks
from their ancient superstitions, and teaching them
obedience to all colonial powers—the Church, overseer, master and the State.
Nevertheless, the bozal language in the Christian doctrine is easily read by those who know Spanish, and
who can even understand the text despite its omitted
articles, subjects and grammatical agreement. For this
reason, as a “language” it acquires its suspect uniformity and transparency, which is precisely what allowed priests, overseers and sugar mill owners to understand it and be able to use it to communicate with
their slaves.
Later on, with the writings of Creto Gangá and José
Victoriano Betancourt, this language will represent
the absolutely best form of communication used by
whites to represent blacks. Their goal was to reinforce
cultural stereotypes and criticize this distorted speech.
On the other side was another manners writer, Anselmo Suárez y Romero, who thought that bozal language should not mix with Spanish in literature, and
that it was not true that blacks had a special way of
talking.
Suárez y Romero wrote one of the most important Cuban novels of the nineteenth century, Francisco, prohibited by colonial censorship and published only
forty years later, in New York. In it, Suárez y Romero
shows his self to be compassionate towards slaves.
Notwithstanding, he was openly hostile regarding the
language of slaves and their influence on whites.