Table Of ContentAtlantic Creoles in the Age of Revolutions
ATLANTIC
CREOLES
AGE
IN THE OF
REVOLUTIONS
Jane G. Landers
harvard university press
Cambridge, Massachusetts
London, En gland
2010
Copyright © 2010 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
Library of Congress Cataloging- in- Publication Data
Landers, Jane.
Atlantic Creoles in the age of revolutions / Jane G. Landers.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-674-03591-1 (alk. paper)
1. Blacks—Caribbean Area—History—18th century. 2. Blacks —Caribbean
Area—History—19th century. 3. Creoles—Caribbean Area—History—
18th century. 4. Creoles—Caribbean Area—History—19th century.
5. Revolutions—Caribbean Area—History—18th century. 6. Revolutions—
Caribbean Area—History—19th century. 7. Caribbean Area—History—
To 1810. 8. Caribbean Area—History—1810–1945. I. Title.
F2191.B55L36 2010
305.8960729—dc22 2009026421
Acknowledgments
My debts are many, but this book owes its obvious inspira-
tion to Ira Berlin, whose scholarship and professional generos-
ity set a wonderful example for me and many others. Ira sup-
ported my work in many ways before I ever knew him, and I
am happy to be able to acknowledge him here and to express my
deepest gratitude.
Many other fine scholars and friends have also given me en-
couragement and assistance. Bud Bailyn and Karen Kupperman
encouraged me when the proj ect first took shape as a biogra-
phy of Big Prince Whitten. James Walvin later suggested pull-
ing my diverse Atlantic interests together in a single work. As
the proj ect took on a more complex and wide-r anging form, I
drew on the deeper expertise of historians whose work I have
long admired. Sylvia Frey, Philip Morgan, and Vernon Burton
answered my queries about Revolutionary South Carolina, and
Peter Wood was my original guide to that colony’s rich his-
tory. David Geggus, Madison Smartt Bell, Laurent Dubois, and
Julius Scott generously shared research notes and insights on
Acknowledgments
Saint Domingue. For information on the multiracial his tory of
the Gulf Coast, I am indebted to the scholarship of Gwendolyn
Midlo Hall, Ginger Gould, Andrew McMichael, Daniel Usner,
and my sorely missed friend, Kimberly Hanger. Matt Childs,
Manuel Barcia Paz, and Oscar Grandío Moráguez pointed me
to valuable references in the Cuban archives, and I gained much
from our lively discussions on the African hist ory of colonial
Cuba. Sherry Johnson was typically generous in sharing archi-
val materials on Cuba and Florida that she had microfilmed in
Spain, and Frank Marotti generously shared copies of Patriot
War Claims he had collected. My colleague William Luis loaned
me an important book published in Cuba that I would not have
had access to otherwise. I have also learned much from the
wonderful scholars of precolonial African hist ory I have been
fortunate to meet and query over the years, including Toyin
Falola, Robin Law, Paul Lovejoy, Joseph Miller, James Sweet,
John Thornton, and Donald Wright, as well as the graduate
students now following their paths at York University and Van-
derbilt University. I am indebted to Paul Lovejoy and Joseph
Miller for their professional support over the years. The work
of my longtime colleague Mariza de Carvalho Soares and that
of other scholars working on the his tory of Africans in Brazil,
such as Alberto da Costa e Silva, Silvia Lara, João Reis, Stu-
art Schwartz, Manolo Florentino, and Robert Slenes, have also
been a source of inspiration.
My graduate study at the University of Florida provided me
with the skills I needed to pursue these varied historical trails.
Equally if not more important were my wonderful friends and
2 3
vi
Acknowledgments
colleagues in Florida, on whom I have relied ever since for feed-
back and help on my various books: I gratefully acknowledge
James Cusick, Kathleen Deagan, Michael Gannon, Eugene
Lyon, Susan Parker, and Daniel Schafer. I cannot thank them
enough.
My colleagues at Vanderbilt University have also provided
scholarly support and friendship that carried me through some
rough times; I would like to thank Michael Bess, Richard Black-
ett, Marshall Eakin, Celso Castilho, Joel Harrington, J. León
Helguera, Frank Robinson, and Eddie Wright- Rios in particu-
lar. A special debt is owed to my friend Paula Covington, Van-
derbilt’s Latin American bibliographer. Paula helped me track
dif fi cult sources, read my work, and became a valued mem-
ber of my Ecclesiastical Sources for Slave Societies team in
Cuba. I would also like to acknowledge the friendship and sup-
port I have received from Mona Frederick, Executive Director
of Vanderbilt’s Robert Penn Warren Center for the Humani-
ties, who has generously funded the interdisciplinary Circum-
Atlantic Studies Working Group that I direct, as well as our an-
nual Black Atlantic History Lecture Series. I also thank Sean
Goudie, with whom I launched these programs, the colleagues
who have formed part of this group over the years, and our
stimulating guest speakers, all of whose interesting work has
enriched my own.
I have been fortunate to train some excellent graduate stu-
dents at Vanderbilt, and three of them in particular helped me
with this book. Barry Robinson, David Wheat, and Pablo
Gómez provided valuable research assistance, technical exper-
2 3
vii
Acknowledgments
tise, and critical editorial feedback when I needed it. I learned
from them all and am very proud of the scholars they have be-
come.
This book rests on extensive work in assorted archives in
Spain, Cuba, and the United States. In Spain I extend my grati-
tude to the staffs of the Archivo General de Indias in Seville
and the Archivo Histórico Nacional in Madrid. I also thank my
mentor and friend, Jim Amelang, for his hospitality in Madrid.
In Cuba I would like to thank Coralia Alonso, who since my
first days as a graduate researcher in the Archivo Nacional de
la República de Cuba has treated me with great warmth and
hospitality. Monseñor Ramón Suárez Polcari, Chancellor of the
Archdiocese of Havana and a historian of the church in Cuba,
has also welcomed me and my research teams to work in his
wonderful archive. The staff at the Archivo Histórico Provin-
cial and at the Cathedral of San Carlos de Borromeo in Matan-
zas have been equally welcoming over the years. I am grateful
for the ef fi cient and friendly assistance I received at the Na-
tional Archives and Records Administration and at the Library
of Congress Manuscript Division on various research trips. In
Florida, the staffs of the Special and Area Studies Collections
of the George A. Smathers Libraries at the University of Flor-
ida welcomed me each summer, and I give special thanks to Jim
Cusick, Bruce Chappell, Carl Van Ness, Richard Phillips, Paul
Losch, and Keith Manuel. The staff at the St. Augustine His-
torical Society Research Library, and in particular Charles Tin-
gley, have been most helpful. I received additional research help
at the State Archives of Florida in Tallahassee, the Amelia Is-
land Museum of History, the Bryan- Lang Historical Library
2 3
viii
Acknowledgments
in Woodbine, Georgia, and from Deborah Hase, mayor of St.
Marys, Georgia.
I also owe thanks to many who helped me locate and repro-
duce the illustrations in the book. Of particular note is Jerome
Handler, Senior Scholar at the Virginia Foundation for the Hu-
manities, who provided images from The Atlantic Slave Trade
and Slave Life in the Americas website. I would also like to
thank Neal Adam Watson of the State Archives of Florida,
Darcie MacMahon of the Florida Museum of Natural History,
Nicole Joniec of the Library Company of Philadelphia, Es-
peranza B. de Varona, Lesbia O. Varona, and Annie Sansone
Martínez of the Cuban Heritage Collection at the University of
Miami Libraries. Jim Cusick of the P. K. Yonge Library of
Florida History not only provided important archival help but
also pointed me to the image that became this book’s cover por-
trait. My talented husband, Jim Landers, created the maps in
the book. I am grateful each day for the support of the won-
derful administrative staff of my hist ory department, Brenda
Hummel, Jane Anderson, and Heidi Welch.
Some material from this book appeared in an earlier version
in my first book, Black Society in Spanish Florida. Since then I
have welcomed the chance to present my developing proj ect
at various international conferences and at invited seminars at
Johns Hopkins University, Harvard University, New York Uni-
versity, the Wilberforce Institute for the Study of Slavery and
Emancipation, University of Hull, the Harriet Tubman Insti-
tute for Research on the Global Migrations of African Peo-
ples, York University, The Huntington Library, the Centro de
Estudos Afro-O rientais, the Universidade Federal Fluminense,
2 3
ix
Description:Sailing the tide of a tumultuous era of Atlantic revolutions, a remarkable group of African-born and African-descended individuals transformed themselves from slaves into active agents of their lives and times. Big Prince Whitten, the black Seminole Abraham, and General Georges Biassou were “Atlan
