Cuba

Cuba — marelibri

Manuscript Manifest of Chinese Laborers Bound for Havana

1867réf. 3978Macau: April 6 1867. Very good. 6pp. on large folio partially-printed forms printed in two columns completed in manuscript. Old folds with minor losses at a few spots along the horizontal fold. Five hundred and fifty Chinese laborers bound for Cuba aboard the Spanish galley "Cervantes" are listed by name with their age and town or city of origin given. The laborers hail from several different cities in China and their ages range from 18 to 36 with the majority of the men in their 20s. The end of the document is signed and dated on the final page by José de Aguilar the Spanish consul at Macau. The left side of the final page contains two separate lists one with five numbers and the other with four numbers keyed to the manifest. The list of five names has an "x" next to each number perhaps noting that these men did not in fact make the trip to Cuba; each "x" could also signal that these men died during the voyage from Macau to Cuba which was a common-enough occurrence that it is often noted on manifests of this kind. Chinese indentured servitude in 19th-century Cuba was an insidious practice tantamount to slavery which flourished in Cuba even after the abolition of the peculiar institution in the British West Indies. With their free source of labor no longer available plantation owners in Cuba looked elsewhere; and they looked east. From around 1848 to the mid-1870s over 100000 Chinese indentured servants made their way to Cuba often sailing to Cuba in large groups. Once they arrived Chinese laborers indentured themselves to Cuban masters for terms of at least five years. The treatment of Asian indentured servants in Cuba varied widely with reports of some particularly ill-treated laborers ending their lives by suicide. "Some contemporaries and later historians.have condemned the servitude of the Asians as a thinly disguised revival of slavery. These critics have pointed to a variety of abuses to which the Asians were subjected both legally - with severe laws governing absenteeism vagrancy and insufficient work - and illegally in the form of harassment by vicious masters. Yet other observers have defended the system as a boon to the Asian workers. Voluntary reindenture at the end of their terms was common among the migrants suggesting that many Asians judged the system to be beneficial to them" - Drescher. Seymour Drescher & Stanley L. Engerman editors A Historical Guide to World Slavery New York 1998 pp.239-42. April 6 unknown books

McBride Rare Books · États-Unis4 250,00 $US≈ 3 797,02 €

[Cuba]: Barranco y Miranda, Manuel FranciscoABAA

Manuscript Journal and Scrapbook Containing Original Poems and Extracts of Printed Works by 19th-Century Cuban-American Poet Manuel Francisco Barranco y Miranda

1889réf. 4403Havana Cuba 1889. Good. 69pp. of manuscript text plus 77pp. of newspaper extracts. Contemporary quarter calf and marbled paper-covered boards. Moderate scuffing and wear to boards and edges spine scuffed. Hinges broken with text block only nominally attached by threads with many leaves detached. Ownership ink stamp on front free endpaper "Manuel F. Barranco" with a gilt insignia affixed below reading "MB." A unique and personal manuscript journal and scrapbook composed and maintained by an important but obscure Cuban-American poet and author Manuel Francisco Barranco y Miranda 1843-1894. Barranco was born in Puerto Principe and lived about half of his life in Cuba before emigrating to Florida in 1875. He married Mercedes Fernández y Fernández-Mora and the couple raised a family in Cuba Florida and New York. Mentions of Barranco are rare in available records but he seems to have been a colleague of famed Cuban revolutionary figure Jose Marti. Barranco and Marti were involved with a Cuban revolutionary emigrant colony in Key West as well as Cuban literary and political societies in Havana and New York such as La Liga. Regarding the latter one of Barranco's poems in the present work composed in eleven parts is titled "Versos recitados en la sesion ordinaria de la Sociedad Literaria Hispano-Americana la noche del 17 de Maya de 1889." The Sociedad Literaria Hispano-Americana or Spanish American Literary Society provides a further connection to Jose Marti as Marti was one of the most prominent members of the club in the 1880s and '90s. Barranco presumably spent the remainder of his life between Cuba and the eastern coast of the United States where he passed away in Tampa Florida in 1894. The present material was written and compiled by Barranco over about a thirty year period in the mid-19th century before and after he emigrated to the United States. The chief feature of the present work is contained in almost seventy pages of manuscript poetry by Barranco. The poems which number around a couple dozen compositions include "Un Delirio" written in six parts "Versas improvisados en el Bautiro de mi hija Ana Maria el dia 1 de Enero de 1875" "Versos improvisados en comemora cion del Bautiro de mi hija Ana Maria el dio 1 de Enero del 1876" "Al congreso de la Paz" and various sonnets and other poems dated between 1875 and 1889. Barranco authored a few poems here about his wife Mercedes with titles such as "A Mercedes" "Improvisados a la orrilla del mon - A Mercedes" and "Al contemplar tu retrato." He also composed poems about his mother Ana Maria Sebastiana de Miranda. Several of the later poems from 1888-89 are datelined Havana next to the date of composition indicating Barranco moved back and forth between Cuba and America. The manuscript text is supplemented by almost eighty pages of newspaper extracts featuring various articles letters and printed poetry by Barranco published under his own name and a pen name "Leunam." The subject matter of these pieces include education women literature and various family members and other subjects in his own poetry. An example of the latter is a memorial poem for his granddaughter Margarita Barranco who died in Puerto Principe in 1866. Following the manuscript poems themselves is a single handwritten page of contents relating to these newspaper extracts. The extracts very likely come from Cuban newspapers and periodicals since they predate his move to Florida in 1875. A printed note laid into the book reads: "A Bound Journal Containing Published and Unpublished Handwritten Letters and Poems by My Grandfather Manuel Francisco Barranco y Miranda in Habana in the mid-19th Century Probably During the Period 1859-1869." Not much else is easily discovered about Barranco providing an excellent chance for original research into the work of this obscure but important 19th-century Cuban-American poet and writer. unknown books