Latest / The Atlantic Slave Trade: Empire Built on Human Suffering — Fexingo History / Cuba's Sugar Boom: The Last Wave of the Atlantic Slave Trade
Transcript
- Lucas: So we've talked a lot about the slave trade in the earlier centuries — the 17th and 18th centuries — but today I want to focus on the last big surge, the final chapter of the Atlantic slave trade. And that story is really tied to one place: Cuba. Luna: Cuba? I thought by the 19th century the British had banned the trade and the US had too. Lucas: Officially, yes. Britain banned the trade in 1807, the US in 1808. But the demand for sugar was exploding, and Cuba was perfectly positioned to supply it. The Haitian Revolution had wiped out the world's leading sugar producer — Saint-Domingue. So planters in Cuba saw an opening. And the Spanish colonial government was more than happy to let the trade continue, even after Spain itself signed treaties banning it. Luna: So they just ignored the treaties? Lucas: Pretty much. Between 1791 and 1867, Cuba imported around 600,000 enslaved Africans — more than any other Caribbean island in that period. The peak was between 1800 and 1850, when sugar production went through the roof. The key figure here is Francisco de Arango y Parreño, a Cuban planter and intellectual who basically wrote the blueprint for Cuba's sugar boom. He argued that Cuba needed unlimited access to enslaved labor to compete, and he lobbied the Spanish crown to keep the trade open. Luna: And the crown went along with it? Lucas: Yes, because sugar was incredibly profitable. The Spanish monarchy got a cut of the revenue. So even after Spain signed the 1817 treaty with Britain agreeing to abolish the slave trade north of the equator, Cuba kept importing enslaved people, often under the flag of other countries or through smuggling. The British Navy did try to intercept ships, but they couldn't patrol every route. Lucas: And the conditions on the sugar plantations — the ingenios — were brutal. The work was year-round, not seasonal like tobacco or coffee. Cutting cane, feeding the mills, boiling the juice — it was nonstop. The mortality rate was high, and the birth rate among enslaved women was low because of overwork and malnutrition. So planters needed a constant supply of new captives just to maintain the workforce. Luna: That's a horrible cycle. Lucas: It was. And it drove the illegal trade even after 1820, when Spain officially abolished the slave trade entirely. The British put pressure on Spain, but Cuban planters found ways around it. They used fast ships, false papers, and landing points in remote coves. The trade moved to places like the Bight of Benin and the Congo River, areas that hadn't been as heavily tapped before. Luna: What about the British? They had the Royal Navy's West Africa Squadron. Didn't they try to stop it? Lucas: They did. And they had some successes. But the squadron was stretched thin. There's a fascinating figure here — David Turnbull, a British abolitionist who was appointed consul in Havana in 1840. He made it his mission to enforce the anti-slave trade treaties, and he even worked with free people of color and enslaved informants to gather evidence. The planters hated him. They accused him of fomenting rebellion, and eventually the Spanish government expelled him in 1842 after a revolt in Matanzas that they blamed on him. Luna: Was he involved in the revolt? Lucas: Probably not directly, but his presence gave enslaved people hope that Britain might support their freedom. The revolt itself, known as La Escalera — 'the Ladder' — was brutally suppressed. Hundreds were executed or tortured. It was a warning to anyone who thought about rebelling. Lucas: Despite all that, the trade continued. It actually hit a new peak in the 1850s, right before the US Civil War. That's when Cuba was supplying about a third of the world's sugar. The planters even tried to get the US to annex Cuba, to protect slavery there. But the Civil War changed things. After the Union victory, the US pushed harder for abolition in Cuba. Luna: So when did slavery actually end in Cuba? Lucas: Officially, 1886. But there were steps along the way. The Moret Law of 1870 freed children born to enslaved women and slaves over 60. Then in 1880, a system called the Patronato was introduced — a kind of apprenticeship that was supposed to transition to freedom by 1888. But the planters resisted, and it wasn't until 1886 that full abolition came, partly because of pressure from the independence movement. Figures like Antonio Maceo, a mixed-race general, argued that fighting for independence while keeping slavery was hypocritical. Luna: And the people who were already free — the free people of color — what was their role? Lucas: Free people of color were a significant part of Cuban society. They had more rights than in the US — they could own property, even own slaves themselves in some cases — but they still faced discrimination. They formed mutual aid societies called cabildos de nación, which preserved African ethnic identities and religious traditions. Those cabildos were crucial in the development of Santería, the Afro-Cuban religion that blends Yoruba beliefs with Catholicism. Luna: So that's where Santería comes from? Lucas: Exactly. The Yoruba people, who were brought in large numbers from what is now Nigeria and Benin, called themselves Lucumí in Cuba. Their orishas became saints, and their rituals adapted to the new environment. It's a direct link to the last wave of the slave trade. Lucas: One more thing I want to highlight: the system of coartación. That was a process by which enslaved people could buy their own freedom in installments. It was unique to Cuba and Spanish America. An enslaved person could negotiate a price with their owner, then pay it off over time, often by hiring themselves out. It wasn't easy, but it gave some people a path to freedom. Luna: Did many succeed? Lucas: A significant number did. By the 1850s, about 20% of the black population in Cuba was free. That's much higher than in the US South. But it also created a kind of hierarchy — free people of color sometimes distanced themselves from the enslaved, and the system didn't challenge slavery as a whole. Lucas: So the Cuban story is really the story of the slave trade's last gasp. It's a reminder that abolition wasn't a single event but a long, contested process, and that the demand for sugar drove massive human suffering right up to the late 19th century. Luna: And it's a part of the trade we don't often think about — the illegal phase. Lucas: Exactly. The illegal trade was arguably more brutal because ships had to avoid patrols, so they packed people even tighter. And the numbers are staggering. Scholars estimate that about 1.3 million Africans were forcibly taken to Cuba and Brazil after 1820, when the trade was supposedly illegal. So the 'abolition' era was really just a relocation of the trade. Luna: Hmm. That's a sobering thought. Lucas: It is. But understanding that helps us see how deeply entrenched slavery was — and how economic forces could override moral laws. Luna: So where do we go from here? Any recommendations for further reading? Lucas: I'd recommend 'Slave Empire: How Slavery Built Modern Britain' or 'The Cuba Reader'. But for now, maybe just sit with the idea that the last slave ship to cross the Atlantic arrived in Cuba in 1867. That's barely 150 years ago. Luna: That's not that long ago at all. Lucas: No. And it's a reminder that history is never as far away as we think.