Year of the Lash
Year of the Lash (in Spanish, Año del Cuero) is a term used in Cuba in reference to 29 June 1844, when a firing squad in Havana executed accused leaders of the Conspiración de La Escalera, an alleged slave revolt and movement to abolish slavery in Cuba.
[1] The term "Year of the Lash" refers generally to the harsh response toward the would-be revolt by the Cuban colonial authorities, whereby thousands of Afro-Cubans (both slave and free) were executed, imprisoned, or banished from the island.
[3] Historians have debated over the years whether the Conspiracy of La Escalera was real or whether it was largely an invention of the Spanish authorities to justify a crackdown on abolitionists and the Afro-Cuban population, though at this point there seems to be a consensus that some kind of revolt was planned.
During the summer of 1843, Fermina escaped from Ácana with a group, and there is a possibility that she and another slave organized a smaller rebellion in June.
The woman, named Catalina, said she heard Fermina and another male rebel yelling to other slaves, "telling them 'The whites are escaping .
"[6] Camila Criolla, a field worker on the same estate, testified that Fermina "was shouting to the Triunvirato slaves[,] telling them that the whites were escaping that way; that right away [the witness] observed that Fermina was approaching the plantain grove directing several slaves and telling them 'grab that fat white man and hit him with your machete [dale de machetazos] for he is the one who puts [us in] shackles.
Another fieldworker named Martína said that "with great shouts, [Fermina] requested a large hammer to take off the shackles of the prisoners who were locked up on this estate.
She insisted that those who testified against her must have done so "to place themselves in a good position [buen lugar] and leave her [in a bad one]," and that they must have received some kind of reward.
Magdalena Lucumí testified that Carlota "was talking about having attacked the child Maria de Regla, daughter of the mayoral[,] with a machete.
[6] Following the rebellions near Matanzas, government agents under the orders of the Cuban captain general, Leopoldo O'Donnell, began an investigation.
Before the investigation ended, "thousands of people of color, free and slave, had been executed, banished, or imprisoned, or had simply disappeared.
Officials framed their questions "in terms of who killed, who set fire to buildings, who had weapons (such as machetes), who released people from shackles, who assaulted white employees/employers, who led rebels, and how the witnesses positioned themselves within such events.
[5] Robert L. Paquette's Sugar Is Made with Blood, Pedro Deschamps Chapeaux's El negro en la Economía habanera del siglo XIX, and Aisha Finch's Rethinking Slave Rebellion in Cuba.
[7] The Cuban novelist Gertrudis Gómez de Avellaneda wrote of her dad's desire to return to Spain and settle in Seville, sharing that "this plan was most definite and uppermost in his mind during the last months of his life [1823].
The Royal Censor banned Sab in Cuba because it contained "doctrines subversive to the system of slavery in this island and contrary to morals and good habits.
