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Black Kos, Week In Review - She was a rebel slave leader, a cold war symbol, and a modern icon. [1]

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Date: 2022-09-16

Carlota Lucumi also known as La Negra Carlota de Cuba

La Negra Carlota de Cuba: The machete wielding anti-slavery freedom fighter, cold war revolutionary inspiration, to modern cultural icon.

BY DOPPER0189, BLACK KOS MANAGING EDITOR

In America Harriet Tubman is well known for leading slaves to freedom along the Under Ground Railroad. But historically woman who wrested freedom for their people through force are given less acclaim. The Caribbean has many such woman like Nanny of the Maroons (in Jamaica) but today I’m writing about She is Carlota Lucumi, La Negra Carlota de Cuba, an Afro-Cuban freedom fighter. She rose as a 19th century slave rebellion leader, later became a 20th century cold war symbol, and then a 21st Century UNESCO world heritage figure.

Early on the morning of November 6th, 1843, the gruesome discovery of a young woman’s body on the Triunvirato estate, a sugar mill in Cuba’s Matanzas province, was tragic but not unexpected. Triunvirato was a giant sugar plantation, and it was were many enslaved Afro-Cubans were housed and maltreated. The morning of November 6th 1843 just followed a night of rebellion. Slaves from plantations and sugar mills across the Cuban province of Matanzas had risen up in a well organized effort against their masters to win their freedom. Carlota, an enslaved black woman of the self described Lucumi nation, was one of the resistance fighters and movement’s leaders. Carlota had helped coordinate the rebellion across the province. Tragically she was also among the fierce warriors whose bodies were discovered that November morning.

La Negra Carlota painting

Historically, stories of slave rebellions like almost all stories were written by men. The male voices of these writers are reflected in how these narratives are told. Slave rebellions as portrayed in movies like Stanley Kubrick’s Spartacus or Cecil B. DeMille’s The Ten Commandments are typical works of this genre. But these famous Hollywood productions only serve to celebrate white men overcoming ancient slavery through the exploits of other white men. Women, and specifically women of color, don’t merit inclusion in Hollywood accounts because a military leader of liberation fighters doesn’t match Hollywood’s notions of what the public wants in their leading ladies. This is especially evident when it comes to woman of color. But Carlota Lucumi also known in Cuba as La Negra Carlota was as cunning and resourceful as any of history’s great male revolutionaries, and her contributions to the Cuban slave rebellion of 1843 has historical importance in several eras.

Carlota and her fellow Afro-Cuban female slave, Firmina, were two female leaders whom along with a number of male slaves, organized and participated in a slave revolt at the Triunvirato plantation. Traditionally, white Western scholars have focused on black slave rebellion as both heavily masculine and heavily violent affairs. Enslaved black women such as Carlota and Firmina counter this idea of slave rebellions only being able to be organized and carried out by men. Contemporaneous white writers represented rebellious black slave women as either traitors to the big house or harlots using sexuality to gain favors. But by serving as a military leader, and then later in the 20th century being represented as a martyr of the Triunvirato rebellion, Carlota symbolized a strong Afro-Cuban woman who would eventually come to represent ideas of Cubanness and revolution.

Some pre-colonial Yoruba cities

Information about Carlota’s origins are scant and only can only gleamed from clues. Part of this is due to the Western world’s method of dehumanizing enslaved Africans by erasing their links to past. But we do know Carlota was an ethnic Yoruba based on her use of the Lucumí language and religious practices. She was likely kidnapped as a child from the region that today comprises parts of the West African nations of Ghana, Togo, Benin and Nigeria. The Lucumí people (alternatively spelled as Lukumi ) are an Afro-Cuban ethnic group of Yoruba ancestry that practice La Regla Lucumí, otherwise known as Regla de Ocha or the Santería religion. As a side note the the Lucumi people are also found in Colombia, see Black Kos - Afro-Caribbean Religions (Santeria, Lukumi, Palo Mayombe, Vodou, Rastafari, and Poko — June 2018). A young Carlota was then forced to endure the brutal middle passage across the Atlantic, bought and sold in the business of the Caribbean slave trade, until she finally landed in Cuba.

Carlota was forced to work as a sugar cane harvesting slave on the giant Triumvirato plantation. In a reaction to the appalling work conditions and brutal treatment by its Spanish landlords, Carlota began to plan an uprising along with another slave woman named Fermina. But Fermina's role in the plan was discovered by her Spanish slave masters, and they had her severely beaten, tortured, and imprisoned. But Fermina didn’t give up her compatriots.

Yorubaland Cultural Area of West Africa

In spite of Fermina’s imprisonment, Carlota continued to secretly organize the rebellion. Known for both her intelligence and musical skill, Carlota sent coded messages using Dundun or talking drums to coordinate a series of attacks. Talking drums are hourglass shaped instruments of West African origin, indigenous to the Yorubaland of Carlota’s youth. The Spanish colonialist naively assumed that the drum’s sole purpose were to make music. Instead the talking drums were used to spread critical information. As the drums were a traditional instrument among the West African slaves, the Spanish were unaware that the music was also being used as a form of communication about the planned uprising. The talking drum’s pitch can be regulated to mimic the tone and prosody of human speech.

Talking Drum

The Dundun possesses two drumheads connected by a leather tension cord. This allows a player to modulate the pitch of the drum by squeezing the cords between their arms and body. A skilled player is able to play whole phrases. Most talking drums sound something akin to a human humming depending on the way they are played. Many African languages are tonal (similar to Chinese) and pitch is important in ascertaining the meaning of words. The Yoruba language in particular is defined by the three do, re, mi tones. Different inflections of these tones are used to convey different messages. These same principles applies to how the drum talks in all Yoruba music and culture. An English emigrant to Africa, John F. Carrington, in his 1949 book The Talking Drums of Africa explained “Using low tones referred to as male and higher female tones, the drummer communicates through the phrases and pauses, which can travel upwards of 4–5 miles. This process may take eight times longer than communicating a normal sentence but was effective for telling neighboring villages of possible attacks or ceremonies.”

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On November 3rd of 1843, Carlota led a raid which freed her still imprison loyal fellow rebel Fermina and a dozen other slaves from captivity. Then later on November 5th, with to the sound of drum beats the uprising began in force by attacks on the Triumvirato and Acane sugar plantations, forcibly overthrowing their Spanish owners. The attacks on these plantations were personally led by Carlota, who went into battle wielding a machete. The same machete her former slave masters had forced her to wield to harvest sugar cane.

A map illustrating the province of Matanzas, where Carlota's memorial site is held.

Attributed: NordNordWest

Continuing more uprisings into the next year, 1844, the Carlota lead rebels liberated slaves from at least five large sugar plantations in the province of Matanzas, as well as from a number of coffee plantations and cattle estates located nearby. I have to note that very annoyingly the contemporary report of these slave rebellions just tend to dwell on the brute physical power and savagery of the slaves. But I personally see this as a reflection of Western ideas that people of African descent are just physically brutes rather than intelligent warriors. But a close examination of the historical records of conflicts the aftermath, shows the rebels possessed great military sophistication, outsmarting and ambushing seasoned imperial Spanish soldiers. The rebels, many of whom were former African soldiers that were captured and sold into slavery used what would today be recognized as advanced guerrilla tactics. This along with their coded communication using their Yoruba talking drums thwarted the Spanish troops for months. But eventually Cuba called for more reinforcements and the overwhelming numbers and superior firepower of the Spanish Governor was able to put down the rebellion in late 1844.

Carlota and Fermina were both captured that year and executed as the rebellion was extinguished. The year 1844 became infamous in Cuba as the 'Year of the Lashes” due to the absolute violence inflicted on the slave population to break the back of the rebellion. Lashes is a reference to whipping disobedient slaves over the back. But even in death, Carlota's actions created a legacy which inspired numerous subsequent rebellions against white slave owners throughout the Caribbean basin. Today there is a monument to mark her place in history at the Triumvirato sugar mill in Cuba.

Triumvirato sugar mill monument

But the Nov. 5 uprising Carlota helped lead did spawn in a vacuum. According to historian Aisha Finch, author of Rethinking Slave Rebellion in Cuba. Prior to the 1840’s, enslaved Afro-Cubans had been resisting forced servitude through both violent and nonviolent means throughout colonial Cuban history. But Finch argues the rebellions spark was the increasing numbers of Africa slaves many of whom had prior military training (over 600,000 were brought to the Cuba in the 19th century). This combined with increasingly harsher conditions of tropical confinement, was the catalyst that gave the 1843 revolt a much greater resonance than Cuba’s prior rebellions.

La Escalera — the ladder or “rack”

The Triunvirato rebellion was also just the largest in a series of slave uprisings throughout the island of Cuba in the1840’s which posthumously became known as La Escalera, translating as the ladder in Spanish. This name is derived from the most notable form of torture that was inflicted on slaves and free people of color during the wave of repression that followed the violent put down of the rebellions. The La Escalera rebellions were often characterized by massive violence against white overseers and plantation owners, as well as immense property damage through the torching of property. The Triunvirato rebellion in particularly, as well as La Escalera generally, marked the peak of white fear in Cuba of slave uprising and the end of a streak of slave revolts throughout the first half of the 19th century that wouldn't then pick up again until the start of Cuba’s independence movement against Spain in 1868. Cuba was the second to the last of country in the New World to end slavery, only abolishing it in 1886 (Brazil was last ending it in 1888).

Carlota’s Triunvirato revolt is ingrained in modern Cuba’s national consciousness. Its central place in the country’s history is cemented, according to Finch, because many see it as a precursor to Fidel Castro’s socialist revolution of 1959. “Leaders of the revolution [in 1959] looked to this moment as a symbol of an ongoing spirit of Cuban resistance,” she says. It is also taught extensively in Cuba’s schools.

Yet Carlota, and the other women who joined the resistance, are seldom mentioned in the colonial archives. But what hasn’t escaped the archives, are the testimonials of Carlota’s ferocity and leadership. Witness accounts describe her attacking María de Regla, an overseer’s daughter, with a machete; one fieldworker, Matea Gangá, noted that Carlota bragged about how hard she had struck her victims. De Regla the overseer’s daughter survived Carlota’s attack and later told investigators that as she lay wounded, the “Black woman” had shouted to other slaves that “they should strike her harder because she was still living.”

It’s impossible to say how accurate the overseer’s daughter’s account of the insurrection was. She have an incentive to exaggerate to enact revenge. But it is clear that Carlota did not shy away from getting her hands dirty fighting. And her skills as a combatant were just as easily matched by her mastery in organizing and planning the Triunvirato rebellion.

Collage by Tony Seed, 2007

From my readings there is some disagreement among historians who studied this period on what specifically gave fuel to the rebellion across Cuba in the 1840’s. Some historians site the era’s increasing numbers of enslaved Africans being trafficked to Cuba, others seem to emphasize the impact of the news of rebellion on the neighboring Caribbean island of Haiti’s independence movement. But in a strange twist the Haitian rebellion bizarrely served to intensify plantation-style sugar production in Cuba, as the island of Hispanola the world’s largest sugar supplier was cut off from world markets.

But from my standpoint the older takes in how La Escalera was written about are problematic. There are bodies of work by Afro-Cuban writers that La Escalera was a massive conspiracy by the Cuban government to justify the repression inflicted upon people of color, and no actual slave rebellion took place. Unfortunately this mass belief by black Cubans only helped to erase knowledge of rebel slave’s battle for freedom. Unfortunately there just aren’t as many older takes from Afro-Cubans on how they saw the rebellion.

However the Triunvirato rebellion again later shaped the course of Cuban history long after Carlota’s 1843 execution. Carlota’s memory rose from the grave and was used by the post-revolutionary communist in Cuba. Carlota’s memory was merged into Castro’s revolutionary ideology of the oppressed rising up to defeat their oppressors. Carlota was further memorialized in Cuba, when Castro called Cuba’s 1974 intervention in Angola’s war of independence “Operacíon Carlota”.

Historian Myra Ann Houser writing in her book "Avenging Carlota in Africa: Angola and the memory of Cuban slavery" helps illuminated how Fidel Castro and his revolutionary government capitalized on Cuba’s slave rebellion past to further his political aims. As I wrote earlier a key tenet of this was Castro’s ideology of the oppressed rising up to defeat the oppressor, just as he argued enslaved people had done in Cuba throughout the 19th century. This attitude is exemplified in Cuba’s pro-government historian José Luciano Franco’s analysis of the Triunvirato rebellion, where he writes that slave rebellions in the 19th century were “precursors” to the 1959 revolution. Franco cites Fidel Castro's own speeches linking Cuba's slave past to his revolutionary aims.

Cuban soldiers, veterans of Cuito Cuanavale

Photo: The Greanville Post

Naming a military intervention in Africa after an African born Cuban female slave wasn’t a coincidence. Castro built up her historical connection to try and portray Cuba's intervention in Angola as a sort of homecoming of vengeance from the African descendants of Cuba. On the 15th anniversary of the Cuban victory at Bay of Pigs, Fidel Castro declared that Cubans “are a Latin-African people.” The Cuba’s Abbuno Gonzalez underscored this connection, “My grandfather came from Angola. So it is my duty to go and help Angola. I owe it to my ancestors.” The Cuban revolutionary government mobilized on “claims to roots” in justifying their intervention in the African nation.

Operation Carlota began on Nov. 5, 1975 and lasted more than 15 years. During that time, more than 330,000 Cubans served in Angola. With more than 2,000 Cubans giving their life. Castro's ability to push this narrative rested in part on Cuba’s particular conceptualization of race relations at the time, which emphasized Cubanidad, or Cubanness, over racial identity. In 70’s communist Cuba the idea of nation building took precedence over racial divisions, allowing Castro to conceptualize Cuba's African past as affecting all of its citizens equally, justifying a “return” to Angola in the 20th century. By connecting the 19th century slave struggle for freedom, to both Cuba's 20th century fight versus Western neocolonialism, and Africa nation’s then fight for independence, Carlota's memory proved a useful tool to advance Cuban revolutionary ideals.

Decades after Carlota name was used to justify Cuba’s cold war intervention in Africa, it came roaring onto the public scene through UNESCO’s Slave Route Project. Another memorial was erected in 1991 at the Triunvirato plantation where the rebellion took place, commemorating rebel slave’s leadership. That is reason, tourist can now tour the remains of the sugar mill at Triunvirato and see a towering statue of Carlota, machete in hand ready to fight for freedom. The memorial site at Triunvirato, according to the Cuban newspaper Granma, was erected to honor Carlota and the legacy Cuban slaves have had on Cuban society and culture today.

The UNESCO Slave Route Project is intended “to break the silence surrounding the slave trade and slavery that have concerned all continents and caused the great upheavals that have shaped our modern societies”. The project's goals are to better illuminate the history of slavery, understand what global transformations came from its legacies, and contribute to an international culture of peace.

Image from Ozy.com

Although Carlota’s name may be unfamiliar to many outside the Caribbean, she has gone from being a 19th century rebel slave leader, to a 20th century cold war symbol, to a now 21st Century UNESCO world heritage figure. Carlota Lucumi name stands as an embodiment of revolutionary ideals, as a resounding strike against colonialism, and as a modern reminder of the unconquerable spirit of African diaspora. Carlotta and her machete is a reminder during this Woman’s History Month that woman have always stood at the forefront of struggle.

Sources:

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News round up by dopper0189, Black Kos Managing Editor

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In the wake of numerous attacks on Black actors, it’s time to get these racists the hell out of our fandoms. The Root: I Refuse to Let Racists Take Over Sci-Fi/Fantasy

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Every year, San Diego Comic-Con has The Black Panel, where Black artists, actors and writers discuss their projects. It’s one of the most popular events of the weekend, so you have to be in line early to get in. One year, I get there crazy early and I’m first in line. A while later, this white guy shows up and is noticeably upset that he wasn’t first. As the morning goes on, we chat about the con, comics, and movies, but it’s clear this isn’t just a regular conversation. He’s testing me. If you’re a woman or a Black fan, you’re familiar with the phenomenon where white males want you to prove you belong in what they perceive as their world.

So after a couple of minutes, I put my headphones in and ignore him, which further upsets him until another white guy shows up and they bond over white guy stuff, finally leaving me free to read my book. That’s right: a white guy was trying to make a Black woman prove her fandom while waiting for, of all things, The Black Panel. And that, in a nutshell, describes certain fans’ relationship to sci-fi/fantasy/comic book entertainment. It’s theirs and only they get to decide what’s acceptable.

But out here in reality, we know that’s ridiculous. The characters and stories belong to all of us, and I have just as much right to see myself in them as they do. If there are characters like Finn and Reva in the Stars Wars Universe, that doesn’t suddenly lessen your enjoyment of it, it just makes me feel like my favorite piece of entertainment has a place for me. You still have Luke, Han, Obi-Wan, Anakin and countless others.

There’s this idea among racist gatekeepers that including Black actors in certain roles isn’t faithful to the source material. That’s just stupid. When many fantasy novels and comic books were written, it was practically illegal to feature a Black person. However, now it’s 2022, and it’s perfectly reasonable for Black actors to be cast as stormtroopers, jedis, elven warriors, mermaids and medieval pirates.

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The money may come when paying is easier. The Economist: Game developers draw on African stories to create new worlds

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Eyram tawia always wanted to be a superhero. As a boy he was Wuzu, “the Great One”, sketching comic-book stories from his lair in the living room. It was the 1990s and the first video games were reaching Ghana: “beat ’em ups” such as “Mortal Kombat” and “Street Fighter”, which he played on a fake Nintendo console. He recalls waiting eight months to run a demo of “Tomb Raider”, rigging up a computer with parts sent from an uncle in Australia.

Today Mr Tawia creates games and comics himself at his studio, Leti Arts, in Accra, Ghana’s capital. His African characters inhabit their own world, which he compares to the Marvel universe. An assassin from Niger might face off against a witch doctor from Kenya, or the spider god Ananse against Shaka, the mighty Zulu king. His studio’s next game, “Karmzah Run”, follows an archaeologist with cerebral palsy who has superhuman powers.

Dozens of games studios have sprung up in Africa in the past decade. Insiders think African video games are poised to soar, and reel off statistics to support their case. The continent has a billion people under the age of 35 and more smartphones than North America. Mobile internet use is rising by 9% a year. Drawing on local folklore, developers hope to do for gaming what Afrobeats has done for music and Nollywood for film. Games can give new life to “the stories that our grandfathers used to tell us”, says Douglas Ogeto of Ludique Works, a games publisher in Kenya.

Developers let their imaginations run riot. A Cameroonian studio, Kiro’o Games, takes players to a mythical planet, Auriona, where a royal couple fight for their throne. Masseka Game Studio, founded by a Central African entrepreneur, weaves a traditional board game into a story of two kingdoms battling for riches. In “Kukulu”, designed by Qene Games, an Ethiopian outfit, a fugitive chicken leaps over coffee pots to escape a farmer. A Kenyan studio, Mekan Games, has topped the casual gaming charts in America with its app “The President”, inspired by Donald Trump.

Programmers are often self-taught. “The universities weren’t catering to game developers,” says Hugo Obi of Maliyo Games in Nigeria. “Why would they?” In 2020 his studio launched a skills curriculum. It is working with Google to train more than a thousand people this year. “We’re democratising knowledge for gaming,” he says.

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Georgia's Democratic nominee for governor opened up to contributing editor Keith Reed about her political pathway and the power of the Black vote. The Root: 'Democracy Is About What Voting Can Deliver': Stacey Abrams Drops Gems at The Root Institute

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Day One of The Root Institute kicked off in a major way with Stacey Abrams discussing her road to governor during an intimate conversation with The Root’s contributing editor Keith Reed. Keith held nothing back as he asked Abrams about her status in the current Georgia race and how we can address voter suppression that’s happening in Republican-controlled houses throughout the country.

“It begins with being exercised about it,” Abrams said. “We saw that in the 2018 election there was an outrage that was palpable and led to conversations going into 2020 [about voting rights]. This narrative has developed that voter suppression existed but we dealt with it in 2020. In Brian Kemp’s first 4 years as governor, he passed laws that tried to satisfy some of the complaints we raised.

“But when it was effective and amplified voter participation, he said that the laws in Georgia changed and it was not due to any issue with voter integrity but that he was frustrated by the result. That is the textbook definition of voter suppression.”

Abrams also explained that action will always be the best way to change things. “We live in an ecosystem of injustice and every injustice we are concerned about can be addressed at the federal level. We sleep on voter suppression but voter suppression hasn’t gone to sleep. The very short answer to this is [to] vote.”

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The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit has existed for 131 years but has never included a Black man from Tennessee — until now.

According to The Memphis Commercial Appeal, Andre Mathis — who was raised in South Memphis — will be the second Black Tennessean to serve on the circuit court and the first Black man from the state to be appointed following a 48–47 Senate vote on Thursday.

“Memphians can be proud of this appointment and confirmation of the first African American man from Tennessee to serve on the Sixth Circuit,” said Democratic Tennessee Rep. Steve Cohen of Memphis, who made Mathis’ recommendation to President Joe Biden’s administration, The Commercial Appeal reported.

Mathis, a Cecil C. Humphrey’s School of Law graduate, was a partner at Butler Snow in Memphis when he was nominated in 2021. There, he was a part of the Labor and Employment Group, as well as the Commercial Litigation Group.

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WELCOME TO THE FRIDAY PORCH

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