Race to Revolution: The United States and Cuba during Slavery and Jim Crow

By Gerald Horne, Monthly Review Press 2014
ISBN 9781583674451 paperback 429 pages
Maps the movement of people and ideas between the US and Cuba to 1959 to show the history of racism and the important role of the anti slavery movement and anti-racist struggle in the success of the Cuban revolution.

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In the average potted history of Cuba, the Spanish colonialist powers enslaved Africans and transported them to the island to work to death on the sugar plantations.

This book reveals US slave traders being heavily responsible for the presence of so many Africans in Cuba and focuses on the important role of the antislavery movement and antiracist struggle both sides of the Florida straits in what led to the triumph of the Cuban revolution. It maps the movement of people and ideas, of African slaves, freed men, abolitionists and radicals, between Florida, the Southern States and Cuba. Written by a US Marxist historian, this book is fascinating reading, with the last third devoted to references.
As early as the 1790s aggressive Yankee merchants were dominating the slave trade to Havana. After breaking from British rule the US found it difficult to trade with Canada and the British Caribbean so turned to the Spanish colonies for commerce. “We must have the Floridas and Cuba” said Thomas Jefferson and by the 1840s Florida passed from Madrid control to Washington, Cuba followed in 1898.
By 1839 83% of slave ships arriving in Cuba were owned by and fitted out from US ports, with profits going to develop Boston, New York and Baltimore. Cuba became the channel through which slaves were imported into the US and sold most of its sugar there. As late as 1876 US ships were still transporting slaves to Cuba.
However, this role of US nationals in promoting slavery in Cuba for commercial reasons brought the attention of British abolitionists, whose anti-slavery stance had attracted mass support from African Americans. US Negro abolitionists crusaded against slavery in Cuba, seeing its eradication a precondition for freedom in the Americas, working with Jose Marti and black Cuban independence leader Antonio Maceo and many went to fight in Cuba.
The US ‘Jim Crow’ system of racial segregation imposed on Cuba in the early 20th century brought together black Americans and black Cubans even more. During the ‘30s as the Cuban Communist party focused on racism black Cubans swelled its ranks to 5000 members by 1935. However, the anti-Communist US government in the ‘50s backed Batista and encouraged black Americans to sympathise with Batista, being mixed race, as the one to support.
The book ends at 1959 but with a parting swipe at some contemporary African American critics of Cuba’s record on racism, lamenting it would have been more helpful at least to acknowledge this important uneven history.

Review appears in CubaSi Autumn 2014 magazine