From Haiti to Cuba and Back: Haitians’ Experiences of Migration, Labor, and Return, 1900-1940 by Matthew Casey Bachelor of Arts, University of Texas, 2003 Master of Arts, University of Pittsburgh, 2006 Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of The Department of History in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy University of Pittsburgh 2012 i UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH DIETRICH SCHOOL OF ARTS & SCIENCES This dissertation was presented by Matthew Casey It was defended on April 4, 2012 and approved by George Reid Andrews, Distinguished Professor and Chair, Department of History Lara Putnam, Associate Professor, Department of History Jerome Branche, Associate Professor of Latin American and Cultural Studies, Hispanic Languages and Literatures Dissertation Advisor: Alejandro de la Fuente, UCIS Research Professor, Department of History ii Copyright © by Matthew Casey 2012 iii FROM HAITI TO CUBA AND BACK: HAITIANS’ EXPERIENCES OF MIGRATION, LABOR, AND RETURN, 1900-1940 Matthew Casey, M.A., PhD University of Pittsburgh, 2012 This dissertation is a social history of the approximately 200,000 individuals who migrated seasonally between their homes in rural Haiti and the eastern regions of Cuba during the height of the United States’ military and economic presence in both countries. Existing scholarship explains Haitians’ movements in terms of the United States’ military presence in Haiti (1915- 1934), the country’s rural poverty, and the massive growth of U.S.- and Cuban-owned sugar plantations in Cuba. However, the migrants themselves have not been studied. Instead, previous scholarship puts forth an image of Haitian migrants that is heavily influenced by false, long- standing assumptions about Haiti and the anti-immigrant stereotypes of the early 20th-century Cuban press. They are portrayed as a homogenous group of unskilled laborers who remained at the bottom of labor hierarchies, were isolated from other groups in Cuban society and were dominated by Cuban sugar companies and state officials in both countries. Due to their high rates of illiteracy, the life stories of the migrants are difficult to reconstruct using traditional sources such as letters or diaries. Drawing on research conducted in multiple archives and libraries in Cuba, Haiti, and the United States, my dissertation details migrants’ experiences in both Haiti and Cuba. It joins a rapidly growing body of scholarship on labor, migration, and trans-nationalism in Latin America and the Caribbean that seeks a fuller understanding of workers’ lives by emphasizing economic activities and coping strategies that iv occurred outside of formal wage activities and union mobilization. I show the ways that Haitian men and women navigated the harsh working and living conditions in both Haiti and Cuba by creating and maintaining kinship, commercial, religious, and social networks in sugar plantations, coffee farms, and urban spaces. These links cut across national lines and decisively shaped the conditions under which they moved, labored, and lived in both countries. Reconstructing Haitians’ interactions with other workers outside the gazes of company and state illustrates how those institutions functioned on the ground, questions the extent to which national-level racial ideologies determined local social relationships, and demonstrates how workers’ actions shaped the implementation of migration and trade policies. v TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ....................................................................................................... XI 1.0 INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................................ 1 1.1 RACE, LABOR, MIGRATION AND THE NATION-STATE IN THE CARIBBEAN ........................................................................................................................ 5 1.2 DEPICTIONS OF HAITIAN MIGRANTS: PAST AND PRESENT ............. 9 1.3 NEW DIRECTIONS IN STUDIES OF MIGRATION, LABOR, AND RACE …………………………………………………………………………………..16 1.4 OUTLINE OF THE CURRENT STUDY ........................................................ 20 1.5 A NOTE ON SOURCES ................................................................................... 26 1.6 A NOTE ON NAMES ........................................................................................ 31 2.0 HAITI, CUBA, AND THE ATLANTIC WORLD BEFORE LEGAL MIGRATION, 1804-1912 ........................................................................................................... 33 2.1 THE FLOW OF PEOPLE, GOODS, AND IDEAS BETWEEN HAITI AND CUBA, 1804 TO 1913 ......................................................................................................... 42 2.2 FROM RESTRICTION TO LEGALIZATION, 1902-1912 .......................... 50 2.3 CONCLUSION .................................................................................................. 69 3.0 LEAVING HAITI FOR CUBA: RURAL CONDITIONS, RECRUITMENT, REGULATIONS ......................................................................................................................... 71 vi 3.1 THE REGIONAL PATTERNS AND CAUSES OF HAITIAN EMIGRATION TO CUBA ................................................................................................ 78 3.2 HAITIAN RURAL HOUSEHOLDS AND THE ALTERNATIVES TO MIGRATION TO CUBA ................................................................................................... 98 3.3 THE MECHANICS OF MIGRATION: FROM PRIVATE NETWORKS TO STATE REGULATIONS .......................................................................................... 104 3.4 CONCLUSION ................................................................................................ 117 4.0 HAITIAN LABORERS ON CUBAN SUGAR PLANTATIONS ........................ 119 4.1 HAITIAN LABORERS ON CUBAN SUGAR PLANTATIONS ................ 127 4.2 LEISURE TIME AND INFORMAL ECONOMIC ACTIVITIES ............. 142 4.3 CONCLUSION ................................................................................................ 153 5.0 HAITIAN LABORERS AND COFFEE IN CUBA .............................................. 154 5.1 HAITIAN LABORERS AND COFFEE PRODUCTION ............................ 160 5.2 REGULATING THE BORDER ON COFFEE GROUNDS ....................... 170 5.3 CONCLUSION ................................................................................................ 181 6.0 RELIGIOUS COMMUNITIES AND REPRESSION .......................................... 182 6.1 AFRICAN RELIGIONS IN THE AMERICAS ............................................ 184 6.2 HAITIANS, CUBANS, AND RELIGIOUS PRACTICE IN EASTERN CUBA …………………………………………………………………………………195 6.3 LOCAL DYNAMICS OF RELIGIOUS REPRESSION IN EASTERN CUBA …………………………………………………………………………………204 6.4 CONCLUSION ................................................................................................ 215 7.0 LITERATE HAITIANS IN CUBAN CITIES ....................................................... 217 vii 7.1 RACISM AND WORKING CONDITIONS IN CUBA: DEBATES IN THE HAITIAN PRESS ............................................................................................................. 221 7.2 OF CONSULS AND COURTIERS: HAITIANS’ URBAN-RURAL NETWORKS IN CUBA ................................................................................................... 231 7.3 ROSALVO BOBO IN CUBA ......................................................................... 239 7.4 FROM PATRIOTIQUE TO PATRIOTICA ................................................ 247 7.5 THE ERA OF REPATRIATIONS................................................................. 255 7.6 CONCLUSION ................................................................................................ 258 8.0 RETURN MIGRANTS IN HAITI .......................................................................... 259 8.1 POLITICAL CONFLICT AND ECONOMIC TRANSFORMATION IN HAITI …………………………………………………………………………………265 8.2 RETURN MIGRANTS AND FEARS OF POLITICAL RADICALIZATION …………………………………………………………………………………274 8.3 RETURN MIGRANTS AND RURAL WORK ............................................ 282 8.4 LIFE IN A HAITIAN VILLE: RETURN MIGRANTS IN URBAN SPACES …………………………………………………………………………………290 8.5 CONCLUSION ................................................................................................ 298 9.0 CONCLUSION ......................................................................................................... 300 BIBLIOGRAPHY ..................................................................................................................... 307 viii LIST OF TABLES Table 1: Haitian Immigrant Arrivals in Cuba According to Official Statistics ............................ 52 Table 2: Haitian Passengers in Cuba, 1902-1913 ......................................................................... 55 Table 3: Haitian Immigrants, Net Gain of Passengers, and Unspecified Antilleans, 1902-1913 . 56 Table 4 Haitian Agricultural Workers' Birthplaces and Migration Dates .................................... 81 Table 5 Haitian Commodity Exports (in thousands of metric tons) ........................................... 273 ix LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1 Cuban Prison Record for Haitian-Born Armando Gutierez Salazar .............................. 28 Figure 2 Map of Regional and Temporal Patterns of Haitian Migration to Cuba ........................ 83 Figure 3 Map of areas of rural violence, mass land expulsion, and migration to Cuba ............... 88 Figure 4 Document Permitting Odelon