How Cuba burned with the ghosts of British slavery:Race, abolition and the Escalera

Jonathan Curry-MachadoPublished in ‘Slavery and Abolition’, 25:1 (April 2004), pp.71-93

In March 1844, one James Thompson made a statement to the Baron von

Ketelhodt, a leading abolitionist resident in the Parish of St Andrews, Jamaica.

The Baron, and other representatives of the Householders of St Andrews, sent a

memorial to Queen Victoria, pleading:

That the cause of humanity generally, and the interests of

those unfortunate persons, equally demand their immediate

restoration to the blessings of freedom, with the option of

their coming to this Island or of proceeding to any other of

your Majesty’s possessions.1

The cause that they were referring to was that of ‘a great number of persons,

born in the Bahamas, and elsewhere in your Majesty’s dominions’, who, despite

being British subjects, were being ‘held in slavery, in the neighbouring Island of

Cuba’.2 James Thompson was one of these unfortunates. Illegitimate son of a

planter from Nassau, he was taken into slavery in Cuba by his father’s family

when he was still little more than a boy. Finally, some thirty years later, he

managed to escape and eventually make his way to Jamaica, with the assistance

of the British Consul in Havana, David Turnbull.3

1 Letter from Joseph Gordon, Baron von Ketelhodt, and William Wemyss Anderson to Lord Elgin & Kincardine, 18 April 1844 (Public Record Office (PRO), CO 137/279).2 Memorial to Queen Victoria from the Householders of the Parish of Saint Andrew, County of Surrey, Jamaica (PRO, CO 137/279).3 Statement of James Thomson, made before Max.Aug. Baron v.Ketelhodt, 22 March 1844 (PRO, CO 137/279).

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That same month saw the beginning of one of the most brutal periods of

repression ever to be inflicted upon the island of Cuba. Throughout the previous

year, there had been increasing instances of slave rebellion, and growing

rumours of a widespread conspiracy for a general uprising. The Governor of the

island, Captain General Leopoldo O’Donnell responded with rapid severity. From

March 1844, investigations began in the province of Matanzas, carried out by a

special Military Commission. The result was the arrest and punishment of a large

proportion of the free coloured population, along with a number of foreign

workers implicated in the affair. It also saw the mass torture of many slaves,

from whom confessions and accusations were extorted using, amongst other

methods, that which gave the ephemeral uprising its name – the Escalera. The

accused were:

… taken to a room which had been white-washed, and

whose sides were besmeared with blood and small pieces of

flesh, from the wretches who had preceded them.... There

stood a bloody ladder [escalera], where the accused were

tied, with their heads downward, and whether free or slave,

if they would not avow what the fiscal officer insinuated,

were whipped to death.... They were scourged with leather

straps, having at the end a small destructive button, made

of fine wire…4

It is the purpose of this paper to show how these two circumstances – the taking

of British West Indians into slavery in Cuba and the repression of a supposed

uprising – were in fact closely connected. The Escalera, while not directly caused 4 Letter from Richard Burleigh Kimball, Knickerbocker, July 1845, cited in Robert L. Paquette, Sugar is Made with Blood : the Conspiracy of La Escalera and the Conflict between Empires over Slavery in Cuba (Middletown, Connecticut: Wesleyan University Press, 1988).

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by the presence of these black British subjects, was nevertheless partly the

result of interrelated events that began with the importation of the latter into

Cuba by white British planters escaping the abolition of slavery and the slave

trade in the British colonies. With Cuba still firmly a slave society, they were

maintained in bondage, along with other black British West Indians who were

kidnapped from their home islands by unscrupulous traders, and sold to Cuban

planters hungry for labourers. Despite the presence in Havana of a Mixed

Commission for the Suppression of the Slave Trade, charged with ensuring that

such breaches of the anti-slave trade treaties did not go unchallenged, many

British representatives in Cuba were themselves implicated in the continuance of

slavery, until the appointment in 1840 of the militant abolitionist David Turnbull

as British Consul and Superintendent of Liberated Africans. Turnbull forcefully

investigated and sought freedom for all those black British subjects who were

being held in slavery in the island. While the Spanish accusations made against

him of conspiring for revolution were probably false, his actions (combined with

the presence in the island of other abolition-minded British migrants, as well as

that of the enslaved black British subjects themselves) had a destabilising effect

upon the Cuban slave system, acting as a catalyst for the unsuccessful uprising

of 1843/44, and the subsequent brutal repression.

British abolition and Cuban slavery

As the British anti-slavery campaign gathered pace in the 1820s, opposition and

forebodings for the future grew in the West Indies. Planters became very

concerned about losing their vested interests when emancipation occurred, and

were unhappy about the reforms that were being introduced to ameliorate the

condition of the slaves.5 Just as had occurred following the Haitian Revolution, 5 The British Parliament passed the Consolidated Slave Act in 1824, which included amongst its measures protection against excessive punishment and the right for slaves to secure their freedom and to own property. However, it took two years and much arm-twisting to force the measure

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with the large scale relocation of slaveholders and their slaves from Hispaniola to

other parts of the Greater Caribbean; many British West Indian slave owners

removed themselves and their workers to the Spanish Antillean colonies, where

it seemed their interests would be secure.6 From around 1821, at least 2,300

slaves (about 20% of the total) were removed from the Bahamas alone, with

many of these ending up in Cuba; and a similar movement occurred from

Jamaica.7 David Turnbull later identified four routes by which this migration was

effected. While many were forcibly removed, ‘sometimes by violence, but more

frequently by fraud’, others were persuaded to sign up, upon their manumission,

as indentured labourers ‘with their previous owners, by which they bound

themselves to serve, without wages’. Still others were removed as servants,

taking advantage of the loophole in the law that permitted a master to travel to

a foreign colony with two domestic slaves. Some were even ‘sold to Spanish

dealers out of the public prison’, having been condemned to ‘banishment from

the colony’.8 As a result of such a range of illicit methods, the number actually

taken was almost certainly much higher than the estimates would suggest.

For British West Indian planters, unhappy with the prospect of losing their

captive workforce, unwilling to attempt to make the necessary adjustment to

free labour, or even to simply improve the conditions of the slaves they had,

Cuba offered the perfect escape. Here they were able to continue pretty much

through the Bahamas Assembly, and even then in a somewhat weakened form. Gail Saunders, Slavery in the Bahamas, 1648-1838 (Nassau: Nassau Guardian, 1985), p.172 & 175. A similar story of opposition from leading members of colonial society could be seen throughout the West Indies.6 Joseph C. Dorsey, ‘Seamy Side of Abolition: Puerto Rico and the Cabotage Slave Trade to Cuba, 1848-73’, Slavery and Abolition, 19/1 (April 1998), pp.106-128. Dorsey identifies 5 illicit movements of slaves around the Caribbean in the first half of the nineteenth century: from Hispaniola following the Haitian Revolution; from Jamaica and the Bahamas to Cuba, in response to abolitionism and eventually emancipation; from the Eastern Caribbean islands to Puerto Rico at the time of British emancipation; Spanish-sponsored movement from the French Antilles to Puerto Rico; and the sale of slaves from the French and Dutch Antilles to Puerto Rico at the time of emancipation there. Many of the slaves who entered Puerto Rico were subsequently transferred to Cuba. 7 Michael Craton & Gail Saunders, Islands in the Stream: a History of the Bahamian people, Vol.1 (Athens & London: University of Georgia Press, 1985), p.224.8 Letter from David Turnbull to Lord Stanley, Nassau, 3 Sep. 1842 (PRO, CO 318/157).

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as they had done before the tide turned against the slave system on their home

islands, out of sight, or so they thought and hoped, of British abolitionism. The

arm of British power might be long, but if there was anywhere that they could

hide from it, then the Cuban countryside, under Spanish rule, appeared to be the

place. Not only was such regional slave movement largely ignored by the British

anti-slave cruisers, which preferred to concentrate on the trans-Atlantic trade;9

but with most usable land already under cultivation in the smaller British West

Indian islands, Cuba was also attractive for those who might want either to

obtain land, or to extend their ownership. Here there were huge tracts of largely

unused and highly fertile land, in particular in the central and eastern parts of

the island, offering a great prospect for whomever had the means to tame them.

Cuba also had the advantage of proximity, along with an extensive coastline,

surrounded by small islets, or keys, that made it quite easy for people in the

neighbouring islands to find their way in, without necessarily having to go

through the principal ports, or coming under the open gaze of the authorities.

There had been a long history of this, with much of the island’s economy

dependent on contraband. Since the sixteenth century, bays and towns around

the East of Cuba had provided havens for a nationally mixed array of smugglers

and pirates, upon which the local population depended for survival, largely

forgotten about by the Spanish government.10 Just as was occurring throughout

the region, small trading and fishing boats would regularly ply their way across

the narrow stretches of water that separated Cuba from other islands in the

Caribbean, between which there were long standing ties of familiarity that

9 Hugh Thomas, The Slave Trade: the history of the Atlantic Slave Trade, 1440-1870 (London: Picador, 1997); José Luciano Franco, Comercio clandestine de esclavos (Havana: Editorial de Ciencias Sociales, 1996).10 José Luciano Franco, ‘Piratas, corsarios, filibusteros y contrabandistas’, in José Luciano Franco, Ensayos Históricos (Havana: Editorial de Ciencias Sociales, 1974), pp.47-92.

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undermined the official protectionist policies imperfectly enforced by the colonial

powers.11

However, the most attractive reason to draw British West Indian planters to Cuba

was that here the slave system was not merely firmly entrenched, but

flourishing. As the British West Indian colonies began to move towards

emancipation, in Cuba the growing sugar industry was generating a massive

increase in the demand for labour, of which there was a chronic shortage in the

island.12 As a result of this, far from seeing a reduction in the slave trade

following the signing of the Treaty for the Suppression of the Slave Trade by

Spain and Britain in 1817, the period saw an extension of slave trading practices.

The number of slaves in Cuba swelled from 38,879 in 1774, to 286,942 in 1827,

and 436,495 in 1841, by which time they represented 43.3% of the total

population.13 While there was an initial reduction in the number of slaves

imported in the years immediately following implementation of the Treaty, with

an accompanying increase in prices in the Cuban slave market,14 the British

naval cruisers attempting to prevent the transportation of slaves from Africa to

Cuba seem to have been largely unsuccessful. Between 1835 and 1865, a mere

20,000 of the almost 400,000 slaves imported into Cuba were captured in this

11 Lauren Derby, ‘National Identity and the Idea of Value in the Dominican Republic’, in Nancy Priscilla Naro (ed.), Blacks, Coloureds and National Identity in Nineteenth-Century Latin America (London: ILAS, 2003), p.17. Roland Ely describes how it was this contraband trade between the British and Spanish colonies that provided the important stimulus to Cuba’s economy, forcing the Spanish to liberalise its trade policies (Roland T. Ely, Cuando reinaba su majestad el azúcar: Estudio histórico-sociológico de una tragedia latinoamericana: el monocultivo en Cuba. Origen y evolución del proceso (Havana: Imagen Contemporánea, 2001), pp.47-54).12 See, Manuel Moreno Fraginals, El Ingenio, 3 vols (Havana: Editorial de Ciencias Sociales, 1978); Franklin Knight, Slave Society in Cuba during the 19th Century (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1970); Ramiro Guerra y Sánchez, Azúcar y población en las Antillas (Havana: Editorial de Ciencias Sociales, 1970).13 Ramiro Guerra y Sánchez et al. (ed.), Historia de la nación cubana, vol.2 (Havana, 1952), p.78; and Resumen del censo de la población de la isla de Cuba (Havana, 1842), p.19 – cited by Knight, Slave Society in Cuba, p.24.14 Laird W. Bergad, Cuban Rural Society in the Nineteenth Century: the social and economic history of monoculture in Matanzas (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1990), pp.69-76; Laird W. Bergad, Fé Iglesias & María del Carmen Barcia, The Cuban Slave Market (1790-1880) (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995).

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way.15 Even though the cruisers were a perennial inconvenience for the slave

traders, so ineffectual was their presence that far from continuing to force up the

value of slaves in Cuba, their price was actually reduced during the 1830s and

40s.16

Slavery was a far from illicit practice in Cuba. Contemporary commentators

noted how it seemed that everyone was implicated in some way. In 1843, the

British abolitionist Francis Ross Cocking, who had been resident for some time in

Havana and was a close associate of David Turnbull, told the London Anti-Slavery

Convention that:

... in a country such as Cuba, where the whole white

population, foreigners as well as natives, are all either slave-

holders in deed, or slave-holders in principle, no law or laws,

whether for the suppression of the slave-trade, or for the

partial amelioration of the condition of the slaves, can have

any executive principle, inasmuch as those whose duty it is

to give effect to such laws are interested in defeating

them.17

It was a long held complaint of British representatives in Cuba that the very local

authorities charged with overseeing and enforcing the anti-slave trade laws were

themselves benefiting from that trade. Such corruption was seen to begin with

15 Knight, Slave Society in Cuba, p.53; Lloyd, The Navy and the Slave Trade, pp.275-6; Archivo Histórico Nacional, Madrid (AHN), Ultramar, Esclavitud, Legs.3547, 3552, 3553. Slave trade reports sent by British representatives in Cuba to the British government throughout the period are a litany of complaints of the blatant breaches of the Treaty, and show that there was a constant stream of illicit slave landings which they were all but powerless to prevent (PRO, FO 84).16 A number of factors saw prices increasing greatly once again from the late 1840s: repeal of British sugar duties; uncertainty about the future of the slave trade; an increase in international sugar prices leading to increased production; inequality in mechanization between agricultural and industrial phases of sugar production. Laird W. Bergad, ‘Slave Prices in Cuba, 1840-1875’, Hispano American Historical Review, 67/4 (November 1987), pp.631-655; Bergad, Cuban Rural Society; Bergad et al., Cuban Slave Market. 17 British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Reporter (BFASR), vol.4, no.13 (21 June 1843), p.107.

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the Captain General (or Governor) himself, who could expect to receive from half

to one ounce of gold for every slave imported, and worked its way down to local

officials, who would be expected to turn a blind eye to what was going on.18

Even many of the very British officials charged with combating the slave trade in

the island, but who earned their keep through commerce (in some cases

amassing quite sizeable fortunes), were themselves implicated. Charles Tolmé

was relieved of his duties as Consul partly as a result of the accusations of slave

trading made against him;19 and Tolmé’s replacement as Consul, David Turnbull,

entered into a feud with James Kennedy, the British Commissary Judge on the

Havana Mixed Court for the Suppression of the Slave Trade who had provided

evidence against Tolmé, as a result of Kennedy’s personal employment of

slaves.20 All this, of course, helped the British West Indian planters bringing

slaves into Cuba to cover their tracks.

The attempt to suppress the slave trade had another effect that was contrary to

the spirit of the law. Many of the captured slave traders were escorted into

Cuban ports by the naval vessels (generally British) that had detained them.

Here the slaves on board came under the jurisdiction of the local authorities,

while the local Mixed Commission (on which both Britons and Spaniards sat)

deliberated as to whether the human cargo was in breach of the Anti-Slave Trade

treaties or not. This could take a long time, and generally resulted in a deadlock

that left the nominally liberated slaves, known as emancipados, in an often

indefinitely extended limbo. Although no longer anybody’s property, having

been confiscated from the slave traders, they effectively became the property of

the state, which would hire them out to local employers under nominal terms of

18 BFASR, vol.2, no.3 (10 Feb. 1841), pp.34-5.19 Letter from Foreign Office to Charles Tolmé, London, 31 Aug. 1838 and letter from Tolmé to Viscount Palmerston, Havana, 14 July 1838 (PRO, FO 72/513).20 Rhodes House Library (Oxford) (RH), British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society papers (BFASS), MSS Brit Emp s.18, G77; PRO, FO 84/357 and FO 84/358.

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apprenticeship, or use them themselves for public works. 21 They thus became a

source both of revenue for the local authorities, and cheap labour. One of the

emancipados who came to the attention of the British, Gabino, had been

pronounced free in 1824, yet spent the following sixteen years being transferred

by the government from one patron to another, generating a total of thirty six

ounces of gold for the local authorities. Working as a water carrier, he was

forced to hand over his earnings ‘to the persons to whom he has been

transferred, exactly as a numerous class of slaves in this country are compelled

to do to their owners’.22 As a result, such ‘freed’ slaves found themselves in a

situation that was, if anything, worse than slavery:

Nominally of free condition these unfortunate persons are

even deprived of that imperfect protection which the laws of

the Spanish monarchy extend to the slave.23

While the suppression of the African slave trade by Britain appeared to do little

to limit the importation of slaves into Cuba, it did force Cuban planters to begin

to look towards alternative sources of labour. Despite the large numbers of

slaves still entering the island, there were nevertheless fewer than were required

by the rapid growth of the Cuban sugar industry.24 Some amongst the white

creole elite promoted the immigration of white labourers as an alternative to 21 David R. Murray, Odious Commerce: Britain, Spain and the abolition of the Cuban slave trade (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1980), pp.271-97.22 Letter from David Turnbull to HM Commissioners for the Suppression of the Slave Trade, Havana, 4th January 1841 (PRO, CO 318/153).23 Letter from David Turnbull to Gerónimo Valdés, Havana, 8 March 1841 (PRO, FO 72/584).24 See Moreno Fraginals, El Ingenio; Ely, Cuando reinaba su majestad el azúcar. By 1867, more than 40% of the world’s cane sugar came from Cuba (Alan Dye, Cuban Sugar in the Age of Mass Production: Technology and the Economics of the Sugar Central, 1899-1929 (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1998), p.27). The expansion was not just in terms of the number of plantations cultivating sugar, but also resulted from the many technological improvements that speeded up the grinding and refining processes. Since the labour-intensive field work remained largely unmechanized, this accentuated the need for more labourers. See, for example, Manuel Moreno Fraginals, ‘Plantations in the Caribbean: Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the Dominican Republic in the late Nineteenth Century’, in Manuel Moreno Fraginals, Frank Moya Pons & Stanley L. Engerman (eds), Between Slavery and Free Labor: the Spanish-speaking Caribbean in the Nineteenth Century (Baltimore & London: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1985), pp.3-21.

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slavery – not for especially humanitarian reasons, but rather out of fear of the

growing black population of the island.25 Others began to look towards the

neighbouring islands of the Caribbean as a source of slaves. Acquisition of

slaves through kidnapping, and other illicit means, was long-established in the

Caribbean in response to labour shortages, and there had always been a certain

amount of movement of slaves around the region.26 This became accentuated in

the first half of the nineteenth century in response to the gradual ending of

slavery in the region,27 but attention only began to become drawn to it once the

British had turned their back on slavery, and were keen to force the other

colonies in the region to do likewise. The same conditions that made it relatively

easy for British West Indian planters to carry their slaves into Cuba, and maintain

their anonymity, also made it a simple task for unscrupulous ship captains to

pick up slaves and, after 1834, ex-slaves in Jamaica and elsewhere, and carry

them to deserted parts of the Cuban coast, where the slaves would be offloaded,

taken to a local plantation, and from there enter into the Cuban slave market.

In the late 1830s and 1840s, a number of prominent cases brought these

kidnappings to light. In 1835, Francis James kidnapped a number of young

Jamaican men and boys and carried them on his ship to a remote point in

Eastern Cuba, near Manzanillo, where he sold them to the ‘Guamá’ plantation.

Over the coming years, a number of them were discovered and eventually

released. One of them, referred to by the British Consul David Turnbull as ‘the

unfortunate Wellington’, became the subject of much argument between the

British and Spanish authorities, as the former attempted to locate his

whereabouts, and eventually his release. This was seven years after his original 25 José Antonio Saco was particularly prominent in the promotion of white immigration as both economically and racially necessary (amongst many such writings, see José Antonio Saco, ‘Análisis de una obra sobre el Brasil’, Papeles sobre Cuba, Vol.2 (Havana: Ministerio de Educación, 1960), pp.30-90).26 Derby, ‘National Identity and the Idea of Value’, p.20.27 Dorsey, ‘Seamy Sides of Abolition’.

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capture, and by this time he had passed through several different owners,

making it very difficult not just to trace him, but to also establish his identity. In

the end, two of the other Jamaicans who had been captured with him, and later

released, were brought back to Cuba to help in this investigation.28

It was very easy to hide such kidnapped slaves in Cuba at this time. Many of

those discovered had been given Hispanic slave names, to prevent their

identification as British subjects. One such was William Jones, also kidnapped

from Jamaica in the 1830s, who was renamed by his Cuban owners as ‘Julián

Carabalí No.42’.29 Even when identity was definitely proved, obstacles would still

be placed in the way of achieving their release. When the British Consul

attempted to secure the release of the kidnapped Caribbean, Henry Shirley, it

was the Lieutenant Governor of the province where he was discovered who

asserted that he would be delighted to release Shirley, if it was not for the fact

that he was dead.30 Subsequent enquiries revealed that this was a complete lie.

Not only was Shirley alive, but he also had a wife and daughter likewise held in

slavery, for whom, upon his release, he attempted to secure freedom.31

It was partly thanks to the investigations being pursued by such British officials

as David Turnbull into the presence of kidnapped British subjects in slavery in

Cuba, that the presence of so many black British subjects brought into the island

by British West Indian planters from, in particular, the Bahamas was discovered.

Although elsewhere it has been suggested that there were as few as 200 such

people in Cuba,32 the investigation carried out by David Turnbull suggests that

there were in fact far more. By the time his enquiries were cut short in 1842, he

28 Archivo Nacional de Cuba (ANC), Fondo Gobierno Superior Civil (FGSC), 844/28360.29 ANC, FGSC, 843/28293.30 ANC, FGSC, 844/28360.31 ANC, FGSC, 844/28351.32 Craton & Saunders, Islands in the Stream, p.225.

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had already reached a tally of 431 of slaves, held by 28 different British subjects

from the Bahamas, who had been ‘fraudulently exported from the Bahamas in

contemplation of a general measure of emancipation, and are now, or their

descendents, deprived of their freedom’.33 Although there were cases uncovered

in other districts (in particular around Cárdenas), many of these were

concentrated in the district of Candelaria, near Holguin, in the East of the island.

Such was the extent of their presence here that contemporaries commented on

how the only language that could be heard in that district was English.

However, the total was almost certainly higher than that reported by Turnbull,

given the ease with which such black British subjects could be made to

disappear into the general Cuban slave milieu. The story of James Thompson,

with whom we began, is particularly illustrative – in part, because he was one of

the very few victims of this traffic who subsequently left detailed testimony of

their experience. Thompson was the son of a black slave, and an Irishman

engaged in salt works on Ragged Island. Prior to his death, the latter

manumitted both Thompson and his mother, giving them at the same time a plot

of land for their support. In 1820, while still a child, the husband of his half-

sister, an American called John Norris, kidnapped Thompson. He ‘enticed me

away, giving me some cake, and asking me if I would go on a frolic with him.’

This ‘frolic’ involved taking him on a boat to Gibara in Cuba, where the family

had already decamped with many of their slaves. When Thompson’s sister

discovered what her husband had done, she insisted that he return him to his

mother. This occasioned a violent argument, prompting the sister to leave her

husband, but at the same time leaving Thompson in Norris’s clutches. To avoid

his discovery, Norris sold Thompson to another planter in Holguin. Although an

investigation carried out by the Governor of Holguin revealed the guilt of Norris, 33 PRO, CO 318/157.

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and resulted in the confiscation of his property in Cuba, Thompson was not

released, and was sold on first to a French baker in Puerto Príncipe, and finally to

a Cuban coffee planter near Havana. Here he remained in slavery for many

years, with his name changed to Santiago Ignacio Vilá, suffering greatly under

the tyranny of his master’s wife – who, herself mulatta, appears to have felt

particularly threatened by the mulatto Thompson, whose presence no doubt

provided her with an unwelcome reminder of her own slave roots.34

Although Thompson was a house slave, working as cook and coachman, his

experience reveals how even such a privileged slave would be subject to the

arbitrary whims and cruelty of their masters. When Thompson and another slave

expressed their wish to get married, they were cruelly punished:

... we were both seized ... and held by four men, we received

250 lashes each.... Our little stock of goods was burnt

before our eyes, and our poultry and stock taken from us.

After the flogging, a mixture of rum and cayenne pepper

was poured upon the wounds, and we were then sent to the

hospital, where we were confined three months. After this,

we had irons placed on our feet, with a chain connecting

them suspended from the waist. A collar with three hooks

was placed round our necks and a coupling chain secured to

each collar. Thus linked together, we worked in the field for

two years and a half, being every night and during the hours

of rest on the Sundays and festivals, confined in the stocks.

Throughout the whole of this period, the collars and irons

were never once removed.

34 ANC, FGSC, 845/28390.

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Eventually Thompson managed to escape. After a dramatic journey, in which he

narrowly avoided capture on a number of occasions, he finally reached Havana,

and the protection of the British Consul, David Turnbull. Thanks to the latter’s

intervention Thompson was eventually enabled to return first to Nassau, then to

England and finally Jamaica to testify as to his experiences as a free British

subject who spent twenty-one years in slavery in Cuba.35

Turnbull and the Escalera

Three years later, when the Military Commission of Matanzas made its final

report on their investigations into the alleged conspiracy for an uprising, now

known as the Escalera, a serious diplomatic situation was provoked by the

explicit naming of this same, now ex-British Consul, David Turnbull, as having

been ‘the prime mover and focus from which emanated’ the plot, and others like

it to bring about the ‘dislocation’ of Cuba from Spain.36 Throughout the

investigation, his name had continually cropped up in the interrogations of those

who were arrested. The accusations made against him had ranged from the

simple promotion of slave emancipation, through the promising of weapons for

an armed uprising37, to bizarre suggestions, such as that he intended to

intervene militarily in such an uprising, so as to crown himself King of Cuba.38

It has been much questioned whether there ever was any plot for which Turnbull

could be made responsible. Just ten years after the event, a subsequent

Governor of the Island, José Gutiérrez de la Concha, commented that:

The findings of the military commission produced the

execution, confiscation of property, and expulsion from the

35 BFASR, Vol.4, no.9 (3 May 1843); ANC, FGSC, 845/28390; PRO, CO 137/279.36 AHN, Estado, Legajo 8057/1, No.1.37 AHN, Estado, 8057/1 No.2.38 AHN, Estado, 8057/1 No.5.

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island of a great many persons of colour, but it did not find

arms, munitions, documents, or any other incriminating

object which proved that there was such a conspiracy, much

less on such a vast scale.39

At the time of the 1844 trials, one of the British representatives in the island,

James Kennedy, was just as certain ‘that no such conspiracy ever existed’,

suggesting that the authorities had exaggerated the threat in their own

interests.40 While some historians have picked up on such doubts, questioning

whether the conspiracy ever really existed or at least downplaying it in favour of

stressing the Spanish exaggeration of the threat;41 others have defended the

idea that there was indeed an attempted revolution of slaves and free men at

that time.42 However, although research suggests that the British, headed by

Turnbull and his associates, were heavily involved in the events of 1843 and

1844;43 the most compelling interpretation has come from Robert Paquette, who

identifies a number of overlapping, racially-defined conspiracies, partly inspired

(whether directly or indirectly) by British abolitionism. The Spanish authorities,

and Cuban white elite, perceived ‘the resultant unrest as a single conspiracy and

as a real threat to the existing social and imperial arrangements.’44

39 José Gutiérrez de la Concha y de Irigoyen, Marqués de la Habana, Memorias sobre el estado político, gobierno y administración de la isla de Cuba (Madrid, 1853), p.15.40 Letter from Kennedy to Earl of Aberdeen, Havana, 8th July 1844 (PRO, FO 84/509).41 Vidal Morales y Morales, Inicadores y primeros mártires de la revolución cubana (Havana, 1901), pp.129-177; Francisco González del Valle, La Conspiración de la Escalera. I. José de la Luz y Caballero, Havana, 1925; Pedro Deschamps Chapeaux, El negro en la economía habanera del siglo XIX, Havana, 1971; Knight, Slave Society in Cuba.42 José de J. Márquez, ‘Plácido y los conspiradores de 1844’, in Revista Cubana, 20, 1894; Fernando Ortiz, Hampa afro-cubana; los negros esclavos; estudio sociológico y de derecho público (Havana, 1916); José Manuel de Ximeno, ‘Un pobre histrión (Plácido),’ in Primer Congreso Nacional de Historia, Vol.2 (Havana, 1943), pp.371-377; also idem, ‘Apuntes para la historia constitucional de Cuba. Los complicados con Plácido,’, Libertad nacional, 4th May 1944; Gwendolyn Midlo Hall, Social Control in Slave Plantation Societies: A Comparison of St Domingue and Cuba (Baltimore, 1971); Jonathan Curry-Machado, ‘Catalysts in the Crucible: kidnapped Caribbeans, free black British subjects and migrant British machinists in the failed Cuban revolution of 1843,’ in Naro (ed.), Blacks, Coloureds and National Identity, pp.123-42.43 Mario Hernández y Sánchez-Barba, ‘David Turnbull y el problema de la esclavitud en Cuba,’ Anuario de estudios americanos, 14 (1957); Daisy Cué Fernández, ‘Plácido y la conspiración de la Escalera’, Santiago, no.42 (June 1981), pp.145-206; Rodolfo Sarracino, Inglaterra: sus dos caras en la lucha cubana por la abolición (Havana: Editorial Letras Cubanas, 1989).44 Paquette, Sugar is Made with Blood, pp.263-4.

15

Although the full and true extent of Turnbull’s involvement, and that of other

agents of British abolition, continues to be debated, there is no doubt about

Turnbull’s sincere commitment to the cause of abolition of the slave trade, and

slave emancipation – and it is his militant activity in promoting these, and in

particular that of the kidnapped black British subjects, that led the finger of

suspicion to be pointed in his direction. During 1838 and 1839, Turnbull made

an extensive voyage around the Caribbean, including extensive visits to the

Spanish colonies, and in particular Cuba, where, as a guest of the then British

Superintendent of Liberated Africans, Dr Richard Robert Madden, he made a

detailed study of the operation of the slave system in the island.45 Turnbull

published the results of this investigation and journey the following year, and this

brought him to the immediate notice of the British and Foreign Anti-Slavery

Society in London, which, exploiting their close ties to Marlborough’s Whig

government, pushed both the Colonial Secretary (Lord John Russell) and the

Foreign Secretary (Viscount Palmerston) to appoint him, respectively, as

Superintendent of Liberated Africans and British Consul at Havana.46 Turnbull

enthusiastically accepted both positions, and arrived once again in Cuba in

November 1840.47

He began to write almost daily letters of complaint to the Captain General of

Cuba about the treatment of British subjects. Not a professional diplomat, in

these letters he made little attempt to hide his contempt for all those in any way

implicated in slavery. As a result, despite having initially been greeted amicably

by the Spanish authorities, Turnbull rapidly managed to annoy them to such an

45 PRO, FO 72/584.46 David Turnbull, Travels in the West: Cuba; with notices of Porto Rico, and the Slave Trade (London, 1840).47 PRO, FO 72/559.

16

extent that high-level calls began to be sent to London to have him removed.48

Although the British Government continued to protect him for a while,

reprimands were sent to him complaining that:

You write with so much bitterness of feeling; with so much of

sneer and irony, that you excite a suspicion that you are

actuated by some personal or vindictive motives as much as

by a sense of duty.... Moreover, you constantly exaggerate

things, which require no exaggeration, and thus you defeat

your own purpose...49

But while his manner of pursuing his goals was objected to, it was the goals

themselves that were most onerous to the Spanish authorities in Cuba. Turnbull

had been instructed by the Foreign Office to ‘take all steps which may be

necessary for finding out all British subjects in Cuba who are illegally detained in

Bondage’.50 On his arrival in Havana, he inherited a number of such cases from

the previous Consul, Charles Tolmé, including the previously mentioned cases of

Wellington and Henry Shirley.51 Unlike either Tolmé or the British Commissary

Judge of the Mixed Court for the Suppression of the Slave Trade in Havana,

James Kennedy, Turnbull set out vigorously to pursue not just these, but all cases

that came to his attention relating to the plight of any British subject in the

island, but above all of those who had been kidnapped or otherwise brought into

slavery in Cuba. Such concern on his part also led him into confrontations with

other resident British representatives, who felt that he was overstepping his

authority. Not only did Turnbull attack James Kennedy, the Judge on the Mixed

48 Letter from Luis de Florez (Encargado de Negocios en Londres) to Earl of Aberdeen, London 22 Sep. 1841 (AHN, Estado 8054/1).49 Letter from Palmerston to Turnbull, 2 Aug. 1841 (PRO, FO 84/358).50 Letter from Palmerston to Turnbull, 26 Aug. 1841 (PRO, FO 84/358).51 Letter from Tolmé to Turnbull, 9 Nov. 1840 (PRO, FO 72/559).

17

Court, for being implicated in the slave system he was supposed to combat, but

Kennedy in turn objected bitterly to Turnbull meddling in what was rightfully his

jurisdiction. 52

The Spanish authorities became especially displeased when Turnbull, not content

to remain in Havana waiting for cases to be brought to him, set out in search of

evidence. One of the first instances to be brought to his attention of British West

Indian planters from the Bahamas continuing their slave practices in Cuba, was

that of William Henry Forbes, who had established a coffee plantation near

Cárdenas.53 In November 1841, Turnbull travelled to Matanzas with the intention

of investigating the claims that rightfully free black British subjects had been

kept in slavery by Forbes. From his room in the Hotel de Comercio, he

summoned into his presence a number of such people, so as to provide him with

statements as to their condition and history.54 This immediately came to the

attention of the local authorities who, suspecting him to be engaged in more

nefarious anti-slavery agitations, refused him permission to continue to

Cárdenas, and he was instructed to return at once to his post in Havana.55

The campaign against Turnbull was eventually successful in securing his removal

from the office of British Consul.56 With the arrival of his replacement, Joseph

Crawford, in June 1842,57 Turnbull (still nominally holding the office of

Superintendent of Liberated Africans, a position to which there was much moral,

but very little real power attached) felt it to be too dangerous for him to continue

on shore, due to the mounting threats against his life by pro-slavery elements, 52 The result was a vitriolic exchange of letters between both men and the British government. The latter eventually had to verbally knock their heads together, since the conflict was in danger of becoming a serious embarrassment to the British state (PRO, FO 84/357 & 358).53 Letter from Turnbull to Lord Stanley, 22 Dec. 1842 (PRO, CO 318/157).54 ANC, Comisión Militar (CM), 51/1, pp.566-567.55 ANC, FGSC, 843/28310, 844/28329 and AHN, Estado, 8054/1.56 Aberdeen to Turnbull, 10 Feb. 1842 (PRO, FO 72/608).57 Crawford to Aberdeen, 24 June 1842 (PRO, FO 72/609).

18

and he sought refuge on board the British hulk, HMS Romney, that was stationed

in Havana harbour to house freed slaves prior to their removal from the island.58

He did not pass his confinement on board the Romney in idleness, and continued

to send long missives back to the British government not just concerning the

plight of the emancipados and kidnapped British West Indians, but on all manner

of pet projects, from details of the developing conspiracy on the island, to the

education and habits of the black soldiers stationed on the ship and proposals for

the establishment of a colony of freed slaves in Africa.59 However, frustrated at

his inability to effectively pursue his objectives, and pleading the ill health of his

wife Eleanor, he set off for England August 1842, by way of Nassau.

Finding himself in the Bahamas, Turnbull began to make enquiries into the full

extent of this illicit trade, with the full cooperation of the local functionaries and

community.60 In Cuba he had succeeded in ascertaining the presence of ‘several

hundreds of …British born subjects illegally removed from this Colony’, and in

Nassau ‘not a single day has elapsed …without bringing me fresh accessions to

my List of Candidates for Freedom.’ His presence seems to have caused

something of a stir, prompting many people to come forward with news of

relatives who had been taken into slavery in Cuba. After travelling to the Out

Islands, ‘from which it is known that abductions have taken place’, he chartered

a boat, and returned to Cuba.61 Although he was arrested upon his arrival, he

managed to trick the Spanish officer accompanying him into allowing him to visit

one of the plantations containing a number of the Bahamian slaves. Before his

captor realised what was taking place, he was able to tell them that they were

entitled to their freedom, before being finally taken, under much closer custody,

58 Turnbull to Aberdeen, 14 June 1842 (PRO, FO 72/608); Turnbull to Lord Stanley, 14 June 1842 (PRO, CO 318/157).59 PRO, CO 318/157.60 Various letters from Turnbull to Lord Stanley from Nassau, Sept. & Oct. 1842 (PRO, CO 318/157).61 Letter from Turnbull to Lord Stanley, Nassau, 3rd September 1842 (PRO, CO 318/157).

19

to Havana. After a trial from which he was lucky to escape with his life, he was

expelled from the island, with the warning that if he ever dared to return, not

just to Cuba but to any Spanish colony, he would be summarily dealt with.62

The months that followed saw an increase in slave rebellion in Cuba. Already

slave resistance of both an active and passive kind had weakened the control of

the Creole elite and the Spanish authorities in the countryside; and the white

population was becoming increasingly hysterical about the blacks, the British,

and the possibility of an uprising.63 Just such an uprising broke out on 26 March

1843, on the Alcancía plantation, near Bemba (now Jovellanos): one of the

largest sugar estates in one of the principal sugar producing districts. The revolt

began with the killing of the mill engineer and two other white employees, and

much destruction of property. They then progressed to a neighbouring estate,

and ‘destroyed the place leaving only untouched the sugar house’, before

moving on to the Luisa plantation, which suffered the same fate. In all,

insurrection occurred that night on five of the estates in the district, three of

which were set fire to. 64

Fearing that the slaves working on the railways would join the revolt, the owners

of the Cárdenas – Júcaro line took two hundred of their slaves to Cárdenas,

where they ‘were shut up in a wooden building and on the night they managed

to scape [sic] & went to join the Mutineers.’ By the time they had covered the

distance of about twenty kilometres that separated Bemba from Cárdenas, the

62 Extracts of statements sent by Captain General Valdés to First Secretary of State in Madrid, 5 Nov. 1842 (AHN, Estado, 8054/2); Crawford to John Bidwell, 6 Nov. 1842 (PRO, FO 72/609); Turnbull to the Lieutenant Governor of the Bahamas, 22 Oct. 1842 (PRO, CO 23/113); H Leapern to Secretary of the British & Foreign Anti-Slavery Society, Nassau, 5 Nov. 1842 (RH, BFASS, MSS Brit Emp s.18, C14/141).63 Paquette, Sugar is Made with Blood, pp.78 & 180.64 Letter from J M Morales to Henry A Coit, Havana, 1 April 1843 (Biblioteca Nacional ‘José Martí’, Havana (BNJM), C.M.Lobo 113, No.1, File 2; Paquette, Sugar is Made with Blood, p.177; Letter from Crawford to Aberdeen, 18 April 1843 (PRO, FO 72/634).

20

number of insurgents had reached almost one thousand. Since damage was also

caused to the railway that night, there was some suspicion that they received

assistance from some of the white carters and muleteers, whose business was

threatened by the new trains. Troops were quickly mobilised from Matanzas,

and, combined with the efforts of the local white population, the rebellious slaves

were driven into the hills. It was later reported that while only five whites were

killed that night, ‘more than half the 950 engaged in the outbreak have perished,

chiefly by their own hands, the woods being filled with hanging victims.’ 65

Throughout 1843, even where open rebellion didn’t take place, generally higher

levels of slave insubordination were reported, even amongst the normally

trustworthy house slaves. The maroon leader, José Dolores, became something

of a legend amongst plantation slaves throughout Western Cuba, leading

guerilla-style raids on plantations, and seeking to free the slaves imprisoned

following the Alcancía uprising. In April, rumours abounded in Havana of other

insurrectionary attempts, both near Güines and Cárdenas, although ‘it is said

they did not get to be of very serious moment.’ In May, the slaves rebelled on

the Santa Rosa and Majagua plantations near Sabanilla, both owned by Domingo

Aldama, one of the wealthiest and most influential of the Creole landowners. In

July, another such uprising occurred on the Arratía estate, near Corral Falso.66

On 5th November there occurred what has been described as ‘the biggest

rebellion ever seen in the island.’67 Slaves on the Triumvirato sugar estate rose

up and went to the neighbouring Acana plantation, where there were still slaves

being kept in shackles following an earlier rebellion. Here they killed six whites, 65 Morales to Coit, 1 April 1843 (BNJM, Lobo 113/1/2); Crawford to Aberdeen, 18 April 1843 (PRO, FO 72/634); Paquette, Sugar is Made with Blood, p.210.66 Paquette, Sugar is Made with Blood, pp.178 & 210; Crawford to Aberdeen, 18 April 1843 (PRO, FO 72/634).67 Manuel Barcia Paz, ‘Entre amenazas y quejas: un acercamiento al papel jugado por los diplomáticos ingleses en Cuba durante la conspiración de la Escalera, 1844’, Colonial Latin America Historical Review , 10/1 (Winter 2001), pp.1-25 – my translation.

21

and wounded several others, before the troops from Matanzas could arrive to

drive them off. Far from being put down, the rebellion continued to spread to

other plantations in the vicinity. A small slave army of some three hundred was

ambushed by the troops on the San Rafael estate, and the rebels fled after a

battle that lasted several hours.68

What might have been dismissed as a spontaneous uprising took on a more

sinister meaning when one of the slave women of the Santísima Trinidad estate,

not far from the Triumvirato and Acana, denounced the existence of a conspiracy

amongst the slaves to bring about a general uprising. Her evidence, with which

she obtained her own freedom, led to the immediate arrest of hundreds of slaves

from the plantations in the area, sixteen of whom were executed.69 In January

1844, a conspiracy was allegedly discovered on the Andrea estate, near

Macurijes – very close to where the March 1843 uprising had broken out. It now

seemed that the plot, which was becoming increasingly generalised and

exaggerated in the popular mind, had involved not just slaves, but also free

people of colour. The following month, rumours were circulating that a deposit

of arms and munitions had been discovered near Güines; and a visiting North

American commented that the slaves had become very restive, and that

conditions were ‘not very pleasant.’ White racial paranoia now began to run out

of control, with rumours of attempts to poison them spreading panic.70 Over the

coming months, the Military Commission in Matanzas uncovered what they

claimed to have been a highly organised conspiracy of free blacks and slaves,

68 Paquette, Sugar is Made with Blood, pp.209-10.69 María del Carmen Barcia & Manuel Barcia Paz, ‘La Conspiración de la Escalera: el precio de una traición’, Catauro: revista cubana de antropología, No.3 (2001), pp.199-204; Paquette, Sugar is Made with Blood, p.215.70 Letter from José del Castillo to John Scoble, Havana, 14 Feb. 1844 (RH, BFASS, MSS Brit Emp s.18, C 15/10); William Norwood Diary, 18 Feb. 1844 (Virginia Historical Society); Paquette, Sugar is Made with Blood, pp.217 & 222-3.

22

instigated by British abolitionists. It was said that a government in waiting had

even been established, with agents spread throughout the island.71

From the start Turnbull was considered to be profoundly implicated in these

occurrences, and a sentence was passed against him en absentia by the Military

Commission, claiming that he was the ‘author and prime mover of the

conspiracy’.72 Although Turnbull strenuously denied not just any knowledge of

the plot, but of having even the slightest contact with inhabitants of the island

since his expulsion almost two years previously,73 there is some evidence that his

activities had gone beyond just representing the interests of British subjects. In

March or April 1843, his replacement as Consul, Joseph Crawford, was called

upon by Juan Rodríguez, a leading member of the committee of free blacks that

had been established to coordinate the planned uprising. He told Crawford that

they now required the arms and munitions that Turnbull had promised them the

year before.74 A few years later such active involvement in conspiracy was

confirmed by evidence given by Francis Ross Cocking, who had served as

Turnbull’s aide while the latter was in Cuba. Cocking gave a detailed account of

how, partly at the behest of Turnbull, he had acted as something of an

intermediary between the two racially divided committees that were organising

the uprising; and had also travelled to Jamaica with the express purpose of

building support there for the rebellion.75 Turnbull himself boasted of his

intimate relationship with Cuban supporters of independence and abolition,

claiming that ‘no other Englishman in the Island enjoys equal opportunities with

myself of arriving at correct information, as to the wishes, intentions, and

71 Sentence (12a) pronounced by Military Commission, Matanzas (AHN, Estado, 8057/1, No.1).72 ANC, CM, 51/1, pp.591-2.73 Turnbull to Aberdeen, 21 Aug. 1844 (PRO, FO 84/516); and Turnbull to Earl of Elgin, 21 Aug. 1844 (PRO, CO 137/280).74 Crawford to Aberdeen, 18 April 1843 (PRO, FO 72/634).75 PRO, FO 72/709.

23

movements of the creole party.’76 The case against him appeared to become all

the more compelling with the discovery that one of Cuba’s leading opponents of

the slave trade, and influential member of the growing Cuban nationalist

movement, Domingo del Monte, had maintained an extensive correspondence

with the North American diplomat, Alexander Everett. In his letters, Del Monte

denounced the existence of a conspiracy, and the prominent role played by

Turnbull, and through him the British.77

Catalysts

Nevertheless, it is unlikely that Turnbull was really guilty of being the chief

instigator of the planned uprising. Although there is no doubt that he was in

close contact with many of those allegedly involved, it is hard to sustain the

suggestion that the conspiracy was the direct result of his efforts, at the behest

of the British government and the British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society.78 Not

only is it questionable that there ever was a concerted attempt to organise a

rebellion, beyond the optimistic projections of a few and the paranoid fantasies

of the Spanish authorities and Cuban planters; but nothing has been found in the

correspondence between Turnbull and the British government and Anti-Slavery

Society that provides proof that he was acting under orders from either. In fact,

quite the contrary, since he always went to great pains to reassure the

government that such charges made against him were quite groundless;79 and

the minutes of the Anti-Slavery Society, despite being kept informed of events in

Cuba by both Turnbull and Cocking, show a total absence of awareness, let alone

involvement, in any conspiracy.80 Of course, he may have been acting on his

76 Turnbull to Lord Stanley, 31 July 1842 (PRO, CO 318/157).77 Sarracino, Inglaterra.78 Sarracino, Inglaterra, pp.132-5.79 See, for example, Turnbull to Aberdeen, Havana, 30 Oct. 1841 (PRO, FO 84/358).80 BFASS Minute Book No.2 (RH, MSS Brit Emp s.20, E 2/7).

24

own initiative, as Cocking’s ‘confession’ would appear to suggest.81 However, in

his letters from the Romney, while he revealed the extent to which he was

personally familiar with, and sympathetic to, the discontented elements on the

island and urged the British government to declare its support for any separatist

attempt, his principal concern continued to be full realization of the suppression

of the slave trade.82 In fact, if it was not for the subsequent uprisings and

conspiracy trials, all Turnbull’s concrete movements and actions in Cuba can

readily be accounted for purely in terms of his pursuit of freedom for black

British subjects in slavery. The belief by some conspirators that he had promised

a supply of weapons can also be seen in such a light, and may easily have

stemmed from Turnbull too readily reassuring them that, in the event of a

rebellion, the British state was sure to come to their assistance. Thus resulted

the misunderstanding that Turnbull spoke in all matters with the full authority of

the British state, rather than his own personal opinion as to what that British

state should do.

The Spanish charges against Turnbull were clearly exaggerated, and simply an

example of their scapegoating of external agents rather than facing up to the

very real internal forces that were pushing towards an explosion over

emancipation and independence. To suggest that he might have been the

principal organiser and promoter of rebellion is to denigrate the capabilities of

the Cubans themselves to formulate and seek to put into practice their own

struggles. Turnbull himself had no illusions in this respect, stating that ‘those

who would be free themselves must strike the blow.’83 However, he may well 81 PRO, FO 72/709. Although Cocking goes into great detail as to the workings of the committees organising the uprising, and the plans they had, it is highly probable that he exaggerated the significance both of these, and of his own and Turnbull’s involvement. At the time of writing his confessional letters, he was almost destitute in Caracas, and was desperately seeking through his letters to curry favour with the British government. They were none too impressed with his heroic claims, however, and clearly felt that there were no grounds on which to reward him.82 Turnbull to Lord Stanley, HMS Romney, 31 July 1842 (PRO, CO 318/157).83 Turnbull to Lord Stanley, HMS Romney, 31 July 1842 (PRO, CO 318/157).

25

have remained informed of developments in the island, despite his protestations

to the contrary. He was based in Jamaica from 1843, and throughout that year

there were widespread rumours in Cuba that an expedition was planned against

Cuba from Jamaica, in support of both the slaves and independence forces.84

There had been a long-held fear in Cuba of the influence of abolitionists in the

island, and of the abolition campaign coming out of Jamaica.85 Evidence was

given in the course of the investigation into the Escalera that journeys had been

made by conspirators to Jamaica to receive training, make contact with co-

conspirators, and to bring back arms for their struggle.86 Given his previous

tenacity, it seems unlikely that Turnbull would have just given up all interest

when the situation in Cuba was coming to such a head.

But it is questionable that there ever really was such a direct threat from

Jamaica. In 1843, in response to the rumours, the Captain General of Cuba,

Gerónimo Valdés, sent agents to the neighbouring island to investigate the

claims. Their report unequivocally stated that ‘there is not the least indication

that here they are conspiring, or have recently conspired, against the tranquillity’

of Cuba.87 Valdés reported to the Spanish government that such evidence:

… makes me suspect that the suggested revolution is no

more than the efforts of the slave traders poorly reconciled

to the dispositions of the Superior Government and to my

decision to comply with these and with the applicable

treaties.88

84 Charles Clarke to Aberdeen, 2 June 1843 (PRO, FO 72/634); also PRO, CO 137/275.85 AHN, Estado, 8038/3. 86 AHN, Estado, 8057/1.87 ANC, Asuntos Políticos (AP), 41/52 – my translation.88 ANC, AP, 41/51 – my translation.

26

The failure of Valdés to accept at face value the rumours of a conspiracy and

impending rebellion, which were being spread by those implicated in the slave

trade, and his insistence in trying to put into full effect the Anti-Slave Trade

treaties, led to pressure being placed on the Spanish government to replace him.

Thus in October 1843, he lost his job as Governor to Leopoldo O’Donnell, who

arrived predisposed to take seriously the conspiratorial stories, and who put into

effect the extreme repression of the following year.89 This puts the otherwise

condemning disclosures of Del Monte in an entirely different light. It would seem

that he, and other abolitionist-minded members of the white Creole elite, were

themselves terrified by the rumours of impending social upheaval. Del Monte

was a member of one of the wealthiest, and most powerful, Cuban planter

families: the Aldamas, who owned plantations directly affected by the slave

uprisings of 1843. For all that he was opposed to the slave trade, this was for

largely economic reasons; and neither he nor other liberally-minded whites were

prepared to continue to support a bid for independence if this would entail Cuba

becoming another Haiti.90 Del Monte’s communications with Everett formed an

important part of the renewed negotiations between the Cuban elite and the

United States for possible annexation of the island.91 However, by tarring

Turnbull and the British with the brush of black rebellion, they simply succeeded

in providing Spain with an excuse for the reassertion of their dominion over

Cuba.

Instead of seeking to prove or disprove Turnbull’s guilt, it would be more

appropriate to take a rather more subtle approach to the question of his 89 José Luciano Franco, ‘La conjura de los negreros’, in Franco, Ensayos Históricos, pp.193-200.90 See Sarracino, Inglaterra, pp.135-6.91 Clarke to Russell, 20 Nov. 1840 (PRO, CO 318/149); Turnbull to Stanley, 31 July 1842 (PRO, CO 318/157); Turnbull to Palmerston, 15 Dec. 1840 (PRO, FO 72/559); Turnbull to Palmerston, 27 Jan. 1841 (PRO, FO 72/584); Crawford to Aberdeen, 12 Aug. 1842 (PRO, FO 72/609). For a full history of the imperial machinations of the United States in Cuba, and the rivalry with Britain, see Luis Martínez-Fernández, Torn between Empires: economy, society and patterns of political thought in the Hispanic Caribbean, 1840-1878 (Athens & London: University of Georgia Press, 1994).

27

involvement in the events of the Escalera. Opposition in Cuba to the slave trade,

slavery and Spanish dominion predated, and was in no way reliant upon his

presence in the island. However, the ardently abolitionist activities of Turnbull

can be seen to have acted as a catalyst in the development of not just Cuban

abolitionism, but also of slave uprisings. By daring to speak the unspeakable, he

not only gave courage to opponents of slavery; but also planted the idea in the

heads of slaves, and not just those with some claim to British subject-hood, that

they were entitled to freedom, and that the British would come to their defence.

Turnbull, and his associate Cocking, may also have played an important part not

so much in the instigation of a conspiracy, either amongst white Creoles or their

black counterparts, but in the recognition that if the conspirators were to be at

all successful then they would need to overcome their racial differences. Since

they had the ear of both sides, they were able to form a communication bridge

between the two, racially-defined insurrectionary committees. However, as Del

Monte’s correspondence with Everett reveals, Cuba was still not ready for such a

cross-racial harmony of interests, and such a project was doomed to failure.92

Turnbull may have helped plant the seed of such unity, but it was entirely

beyond his power to bring about its growth. Ironically, the very words and

actions that helped stimulate slave uprisings, also led to exposure of the

‘conspiracy’, and the repression that followed.

92 Race continued to be the principal stumbling block for a successful Cuban national project throughout the nineteenth century. Racial differences played a large part in the failure of the first war of independence (the Ten Years War, 1868-78); and largely defined the limits of support for Maceo’s continued rebellion (1878-79). It was not until José Martí succeeded in building a cross-race, cross-class national coalition of forces in the 1890s that Cuba finally succeeded in ridding itself of Spanish control. However, racial differences continued to be at the heart of contested visions of what the Cuban nation should be well into the twentieth century. See Aline Helg, Our Rightful Share: the Afro-Cuban Struggle for Equality, 1886-1912 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1995); Alejandro de la Fuente, Race, Inequality, and Politics in Twentieth-Century Cuba (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2001); Pedro Pérez Sarduy & Jean Stubbs (eds), AfroCuba: An anthology of writing on race, politics and culture (Melbourne: Ocean Press, 1993).

28

Although there is no evidence that kidnapped Caribbeans played an active part

in the slave uprisings, or in the conspiracy,93 and they were relatively few in

number, their mere presence on the island would have been provocative, and

might have likewise had a catalytic effect. They contributed to an increasingly

generalised atmosphere of subversion of the slave system, ranging from

everyday acts of resistance and assertions of freedom, to open rebellion.94

Having come from recently emancipated islands, they made liberty a reality for

the Cuban slaves. Ephemeral as freedom had proved to be for them as

individuals, their experience may have galvanised the latter in their own

struggle, revealing by example just how precarious the boundary between

slavery and freedom was.95 Certainly the kidnapped Caribbeans did not create

the conditions that led to an open challenge being made by slaves to the system

that had enslaved them. Those conditions were already present in abundance;

and their numbers were probably not sufficient in themselves to cause an

uprising. Nevertheless, they can be seen to have played an important part in the

igniting of the Cuban slaves in the events of 1843. The Spanish authorities were

clearly aware of this. Despite their annoyance at the investigations of Turnbull,

once it was definitively proved that a slave was in fact a British subject, they

generally acted quite quickly to not just free the individual, but to make sure

they were promptly removed from the island. This unwillingness to have in their

midst free black British subjects was illustrated in the months following the

uncovering of the Escalera conspiracy, when all such were summarily deported.96

93 While no kidnapped Caribbeans were directly accused of complicity in the plot, some black British subjects were arrested. Amongst them was Joseph Kelly, a freeborn native of the Bahamas. He arrived in Cuba in 1823, working as a carpenter in the vicinity of Matanzas. Although he was not the only British worker to be caught up in the trials, unlike the white workers who were all eventually released, he was found guilty and sentenced to ten years of hard labour in the Ceuta penal colony (PRO, FO 72/664; PRO, CO 23/118; PRO, FO 84/520). Six years later diplomatic pressures were continuing in an attempt to secure his release (PRO, FO 72/771).94 See Rebecca J Scott, Slave Emancipation in Cuba: the Transition to Free Labour, 1860-1895 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1985).95 Curry-Machado, ‘Catalysts in the Crucible’. 96 PRO, FO 72/664. Free blacks in general were seen as a threat to the established white order in Cuba throughout the nineteenth century (see Jean Stubbs, ‘Race, Gender and National Identity in Nineteenth Century Cuba: Mariana Grajales and the Revolutionary Free Browns of Cuba,’ in Naro

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Conclusion

In 1812, events occurred that were remarkably similar to those of the Escalera,

albeit on a somewhat smaller scale. Then too, a series of slave uprisings

culminated in the uncovering of a conspiracy to bring about a general rebellion.

As in the Escalera, it was alleged that the leader of the plot – the free, black

carpenter, José Antonio Aponte – had promised his followers external military

assistance: not from Britain, in this case, but from the newly independent black

republic of Haiti.97 Poorly guarded words and rumour of impending emancipation

played a crucial part in fuelling unrest, and Aponte and his co-conspirators were

arrested and executed to set a brutal example.98

The Haitian Revolution had long-lasting effects upon the entire Caribbean

region.99 Towards the end of the nineteenth century, Frederick Douglass

recognised that despite the positive role played by the North American and

British abolitionists, ‘we owe incomparably more to Haiti than to them all’. Haiti

was ‘the original pioneer emancipator of the nineteenth century’;100 and along

with the Aponte conspiracy it continued to provide an inspiration, both positive

and negative, in the period of the Escalera. While free blacks and slaves could

(ed.), Blacks, Coloureds and National Identity, pp.95-122). It was they who bore the brunt of the repression that followed the Escalera.97 Matt D. Childs, ‘The Aponte Rebellion of 1812 and the Transformation of Cuban Society: race, slavery and freedom in the Atlantic World’, PhD diss., University of Texas at Austin, 2001; Matt D. Childs, ‘”A Black French General arrived to conquer the Island”: images of the Haitian Revolution in Cuba’s 1812 Aponte Rebellion’, in David Geggus (ed.), The Impact of the Haitian Revolution in the Atlantic World (Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press, 2001), pp.135-56; José Luciano Franco, ‘La Conspiración de Aponte, 1812’, in Franco, Ensayos Históricos, pp.127-90.98 Rumours that emancipation had been decreed in Spain, but denied by local authorities in Cuba, fuelled slave uprisings at the time both of the Aponte and Escalera conspiracies. See David Murray, ‘The Slave Trade, Slavery and Cuban Independence’, Slavery & Abolition, 20/3 (Dec. 1999), pp.112-13. Similar events occurred in Jamaica in 1831, sparking unrest there (see Michael Craton, Testing the Chains: Resistance to slavery in the British West Indies (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1982), pp.291-321).99 David Barry Gaspar & David Patrick Geggus (eds), A Turbulent Time: the French Revolution and the Greater Caribbean (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1997); Geggus, Impact of the Haitian Revolution.100 Frederick Douglass, ‘Lecture on Haiti’, in Philip S. Foner (ed.), The Life and Writings of Frederick Douglass (New York: International Publishers, 1950-75), Vol.4, pp.484-6.

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take heart from the example of the neighbouring island, as they could from that

of the recent emancipation in the British West Indies, the white Cuban elite was

able to use the same example to warn the Spanish of the effects of any

concession on either slavery or the slave trade.101 In a striking parallel with the

Aponte conspiracy, in 1844 the Military Commission investigating the Escalera

conspiracy took very seriously the rumours that Haitian agents were operating in

Cuba alongside the British, and were preparing an armed intervention.102

Such a suspicion was almost certainly as spurious as that which painted Turnbull

as the chief instigator of the planned rebellion; yet it is every bit as illustrative

both of the catalytic effect that such events and individuals can have, and of the

importance played in the history of Cuba by the informal networks of

communication that underlay the official politics of the island. News of the

Haitian Revolution had been rapidly spread about the Caribbean, without respect

for geographical, national, linguistic or ethnic boundaries, disseminated along

unofficial trade routes by a motley crew of sailors, privateers, refugees, migrant

labour and slaves.103 Likewise, Cuban slaves could not be kept ignorant of the

progress of emancipation in the region, and would have been fully apprised of

the emancipation of British slaves in the 1830s.

For all that the Spanish sought to assert the isolation of their prized sugar colony,

and the Cubans gradually developed a sense of distinct nationhood, Cuban

society and politics existed and developed in the interstices of such trans-

national networks.104 That Turnbull, as British Consul, was suspected of 101 Murray, ‘Slave Trade, Slavery and Cuban Independence’, p.113.102 ANC, CM, 51/1.103 Julius S Scott III, ‘The Common Wind: Currents of Afro-American communication in the era of the Haitian Revolution’, PhD dissertation (Duke University, 1986).104 Jonathan Curry-Machado, ‘Beneath and Beyond the Nation: Cuba at the interstices of nineteenth century trans-national networks’, Paper given at Workshop ‘Beyond the Nation: new directions in the study of nineteenth century Latin America’, Institute of Latin American Studies, London, 13 June 2003.

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spreading dissent was not far-fetched at a time when most European and North

American Consuls acted as agents for the penetration of their countries’ imperial

interests.105 This was compounded by the knowledge that Turnbull was not just

an active abolitionist, but also had close links with the Baptist, and other

Protestant missionary networks that were not simply seeking to extend their

religious influence in the region, but had played a significant part in the abolition

and emancipation campaigns (including uprisings) in the British West Indies.106

All this occurred alongside the ongoing migration around the Caribbean of

individuals, both free and enslaved, whose example ensured that the ending of

slavery in one location would have repercussions throughout the region.

Thus the process by which slavery came to an end in the British colonies, while it

continued in Cuba, led to the surreptitious importation of black British

Caribbeans, both brought by their white British Caribbean owners and kidnapped

by slave traders to feed the hungry Cuban labour market. In many cases they

remained hidden in Cuba for many years, phantasmagoric reminders of British

slavery and catalysts in the growing discontent in Cuba. Their presence

stimulated British abolitionist agitation, which in turn helped provoke the

uprisings and conspiracy, while at the same time helping to weaken the

revolutionary attempt by permitting the Spanish authorities to label it as the

result of foreign intervention, so leading to the repression that followed being all

the more fierce.

Hence it was not really such a coincidence that James Thompson made his

declarations about his kidnapping into slavery in Cuba at the same time that

105 Philip D. Curtin, Cross Cultural Trade in World History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984), p.246.106 Mary Turner, Slaves and Missionaries: the disintegration of Jamaican slave society, 1787-1834 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1982); Catherine Hall, Civilising Subjects: metropole and colony in the English Imagination, 1830-1867 (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2002).

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Cuba was burning under the extremities of the repression provoked by the

reality of a year of slave uprisings, and the rumour of a far reaching conspiracy

to end slavery and Spanish dominion in the island. The two events were closely

linked. The very presence in Cuba of such ghosts of British slavery, their

discovery and the campaigns to secure their release, contributed to the

conditions that ignited the powder keg that Cuba had become.

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