The Architecture of Nineteenth-Century Cuban Sugar Mills: Creole Power and African Resistance in Late Colonial Cuba

City University of New York (CUNY) CUNY Academic Works All Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects 9-2015 The Architecture of Nineteenth-Century Cuban Sugar Mills: Creole Power and African Resistance in Late Colonial Cuba Lorena Tezanos Toral The Graduate Center, City University of New York How does access to this work benefit ou?y Let us know! More information about this work at: https://academicworks.cuny.edu/gc_etds/1156 Discover additional works at: https://academicworks.cuny.edu This work is made publicly available by the City University of New York (CUNY). Contact: [email protected] THE ARCHITECTURE OF NINETEENTH-CENTURY CUBAN SUGAR MILLS: CREOLE POWER AND AFRICAN RESISTANCE IN LATE COLONIAL CUBA by LORENA TEZANOS TORAL A dissertation submitted to the Graduate Faculty in Art History in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, The City University of New York 2015 © 2015 LORENA TEZANOS TORAL All rights reserved ii This manuscript has been read and accepted for the Graduate Faculty in Art History in satisfaction of the dissertation requirement for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. _____________ ______________________________ Date Professor Eloise Quiñones Keber Chair of Examining Committee _____________ ______________________________ Date Professor Rachel Kousser Executive Officer Professor Anna Indych-López Professor Katherine Manthorne Professor Edward Sullivan ________ Supervisory Committee THE CITY UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK iii ABSTRACT THE ARCHITECTURE OF NINETEENTH-CENTURY CUBAN SUGAR MILLS: CREOLE POWER AND AFRICAN RESISTANCE IN LATE COLONIAL CUBA by Lorena Tezanos Toral Adviser: Professor Eloise Quiñones Keber By the mid-nineteenth century, Cuba had become the world's leading sugar producer, providing about a third of the world's supply. As a result, sugar mills dominated the Cuban countryside, each one growing into a micro-town, with housing complexes (mansions for owners and slave barracks or bohíos for workers), industrial facilities (mills and boiler houses), and adjoining buildings (kitchens, infirmaries, etc.), all organized around a central, open space, known as a batey. Owned by the Creole elite (New World offspring of Spanish settlers) and worked by African slaves, sugar mills became places of enslavement and subjugation as well as contact, interaction, and mestizaje. My dissertation will provide the first comprehensive and in-depth study of the architecture of nineteenth-century Cuban sugar mills, with a twofold aim: first, to examine how the Creole sugar planters designed and manipulated the architectural forms and spaces to convey order, power, and affluence, and to enforce slavery and racial difference; second, to analyze how African slaves countered Creole power through violent forms of resistance (intentional fires, collective protests) as well as non-violent ones (preservation of native customs, beliefs, music and dance) that involved subversive and transformative uses of architectural spaces. A study of socio-spatial negotiation, this dissertation traces the process by iv which an architectural setting designed for subjugation developed a distinctive architectural language. The first chapter reconstructs the typical plantation scheme adopted by most Cuban planters in the early nineteenth century, analyzing how it combined earlier Spanish models with more contemporaneous Neoclassical ones. The second chapter analyzes the architecture of the industrial naves, along with the beautifully rendered nineteenth-century lithographs of Eduardo Laplante, in the context of the Creoles’ fascination with technology and mechanization. Chapter three explores the ways in which planters used architecture to enforce segregation, full visibility, and panoptic surveillance, while chapter four examines the development of a unique, distinctively Cuban architectural language, clearly manifested in the bohíos and casas de viviendas. The fifth and last chapter investigates how the slaves appropriated and transformed the architectural spaces to undermine Creole power and make their own condition more bearable. v PREFACE Some of my most cherished childhood memories are the summer vacations spent with my family on the coffee plantation of my grandfather in the mountains of Barahona province in the Dominican Republic. The son of Spanish immigrants who fled during the Spanish Civil War, mi abuelo (my grandfather) dedicated his life to the cultivation and manufacture of coffee, and I still remember the spaces of the batey, the cultivated fields, the industrial facilities, and the wonderful hacienda. I also remember his passion for the “motherland” and his predilection for Spanish music, food, and culture. Although indirectly, this experience certainly guided my attraction to the plantation subject and its Spanish heritage. The choosing of an architectural study comes as no surprise since I was trained as an architect during my undergraduate studies at the Universidad Iberoamericana (UNIBE), in Santo Domingo. My fascination with spaces, floor plans, and drawings are the result of those early years of my education. However, many have asked me, why Cuba? Beyond the fact that my in-laws are Cuban, I discovered Cuba’s impressive architectural patrimony when I researched a paper for professor Katherine Manthorne’s class on “Sugar Fortunes.” Her class mostly revolved around the subject of the artistic result of the manufacture and commerce of sugar on the nineteenth century and the consequent accumulation of several fortunes both in the Caribbean and the US. Looking for a topic for my paper, I came across the beautiful remnants of the Manaca Iznaga sugar mill in Trinidad —now a touristic site— and afterwards with the valuable books of Alicia García Santana. My fate was sealed when I had in my hands the mesmerizing lithographs of Eduardo Laplante and the astonishing 1857 book Los Ingenios, written by the planter Justo Germán Cantero. This art masterpiece, along with the many travel vi narratives of American visitors to the ingenios, were material enough to start this research journey toward the “reconstruction” of Cuban nineteenth-century sugar mill architecture. From those first moments on, this research has been filled with wonderful discoveries, arduous journeys, exciting excursions, and stimulating findings. On my trips to Cuba —an island until 2014 unknown to me— I had to explore intensely the countryside, going across sometimes deteriorated roads, asking the locals for directions, until finding the remnants of astonishing ruins or simple piles of stones. Most of these once majestic complexes with impressive mansions and huge installations are now in ruins or in terrible shape, longing for restoration and safeguarding. Cuban scholars such as Alberto Perret Ballester and Alicia García Santana have dedicated their lives to unveiling this patrimony. I hope my work can contribute to divulging the importance and monumentality of Cuban architectural patrimony, in this case the imposing architecture of nineteenth-century Cuban sugar mills. vii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This research and all my graduate education would have not been possible without the guidance, funding, and help of many people and institutions. First and foremost, I’m greatly grateful to my advisor Professor Eloise Quiñones Keber for her guidance and unwavering support all these years. I took my first class with Professor Quiñones Keber in 2007, and from that moment she not only wakened my interest in Colonial Latin American art and architecture, but also became my mentor to the academic world, guiding me through coursework, grant applications, dissertation proposals, and academic writing. Her insightful advice, research recommendations, and meticulous revisions have shaped my academic abilities and writing skills, while her constant support and encouragement have been extremely valuable and cherished. My years at the Graduate Center were intellectually invigorating thanks to many professors who taught brilliant classes, guiding and forming my academic career. I especially appreciate Professor John Maciuika and Professor Anna Indych-López for their guidance and insightful comments from the early proposal stage of my dissertation until the final phases. Also, I am grateful to Professor Katherine Manthorne for her enlightening classes on Latin American colonial art, especially her class on “Sugar Fortunes” that motivated my first contact and research paper on Cuban ingenios. Also instrumental for this research was Professor Laird Bergad, director of the Center for Latin American, Caribbean, and Latino Studies at the Graduate Center, who inspired me to move forward on my research, sharing with me valuable material and advice, but most importantly for anecdotes regarding his own research experience and stay in Cuba when writing his book, Cuban Rural Society in the Nineteenth Century. His class on Latin American and Caribbean history revealed to me critical historical, social, and viii economic studies regarding nineteenth-century Cuba that were instrumental for my thesis. Finally, I express my gratitude to Professor Edward Sullivan, from New York University, who served as my “outside” dissertation reader and whose recommendations and advice were incredibly relevant and useful. This dissertation would have not been possible without the funding assistance of the CUNY Graduate Center MAGNET Dissertation Fellowship, a Doctoral Student Research Grant and the inaugural Colonial Latin American

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