IRISH MIGRATION STUDIES IN LATIN AMERICA Society for Irish Latin American Studies Volume 5 – Number 3 November 2007 Guest Editor: Jorge L. Chinea Editors: Edmundo Murray, Claire Healy Associate Editor: Patricia Novillo-Corvalán ISSN 1661-6065 Society for Irish Latin American Studies (SILAS) Smoorbeg, Kill, Co. Waterford, Ireland This journal is available online at SILAS website: www.irlandeses.org Irish Migration Studies in Latin America CONTENTS Jorge L. Chinea (Guest Editor), Ireland and the Caribbean.....................................................................143 Nini Rodgers, The Irish in the Caribbean 1641-1837: An Overview.........................................................145 Patricia Novillo-Corvalán, Literary Migrations: Homer’s Journey through Joyce’s Ireland and Walcott’s Saint Lucia ......................................................................................................................................157 Eileen Anderson, An Alternative View to the Propaganda: The Irish-American Press and the Spanish- American War.................................................................................................................................163 Jorge L. Chinea, Irish Indentured Servants, Papists and Colonists in Spanish Colonial Puerto Rico, ca. 1650-1800 ......................................................................................................................................171 Margaret Brehony, Irish Railroad Workers in Cuba: Towards a Research Agenda ...................................183 Rafael Fernández Moya, The Irish Presence in the History and Place Names of Cuba ..............................189 Gera Burton, Liberty’s Call: Richard Robert Madden’s Voice in the Anti-Slavery Movement ...................199 Orla Power, Beyond Kinship: A Study of the Eighteenth-century Irish Community at Saint Croix, Danish West Indies.......................................................................................................................................207 Thomas Byrne, Banished by Cromwell? John Hooke and the Caribbean.....................................................215 José Antonio Quintana García, John Dynamite: Marine Mambí.............................................................221 Lamia Tewfik, ‘I arise and go with William Butler Yeats’: Cultural Dovetailing in Lorna Goodison’s ‘Country Sligoville’............................................................................................................................225 Carlota Caulfield, A Taste of My Life: Texts and Poems...........................................................................231 Cielo G. Festino, Review of Jonathan Skinner’s ‘Before the Volcano: Reverberations of Identity on Montserrat’.......................................................................................................................................235 Gera Burton, Review of Nini Rodgers’s ‘Ireland, Slavery and Anti-Slavery, 1612-1865’ ...........................241 Karen Racine, Review of Matthew Brown’s ‘Adventuring through Spanish Colonies: Simón Bolívar, Foreign Mercenaries, and the Birth of New Nations’.....................................................................................249 iii Irish Migration Studies in Latin America Ireland and the Caribbean By Jorge L. Chinea Guest Editor The Caribbean was the first American region to representation. The area's present-day come to the attention of sixteenth-century historiography, particularly in relation to the Europeans. It was here that they at first colonial period, mostly focuses on the Spanish, marvelled at the pristine beauty of the New French, British, Danish and Dutch settlers, and World, were puzzled by the 'strange' Arawak their various attempts to gain the upper hand. and Carib natives, lorded it over the indigenous Colonists, fortune-hunters, adventurers, clerics, people and their countryside in the name of voyagers, coerced labourers, prisoners, religious religion, civilisation, and mercantile expansion. dissidents and mercenaries from other parts of They thereby set in motion the largest trans- Europe who also had a role in the demographic, oceanic migratory movement in the history of economic and political evolution of the the world. The pursuit of riches and fame lured Antillean archipelago, are generally marginalised enterprising people from throughout the 'Old or silenced. World,' fascinated by the unique languages, spiritual beliefs, and cultural artefacts of the people of the 'New World'. While it is tempting to describe this process using modern-day multicultural clichés like the 'melting pot' ideology of the United States or 'mestizaje' in Latin America, it must be remembered that intense friction accompanied the post-1492 re- settlement of the New World. The newcomers brought with them their centuries-old quarrels, and these were played out in the Antillean archipelago in the shape of inter-imperial competition and warfare. These carry-overs from Old World politics, in turn, would influence the various ethnic, religious, and racial groups that came to be a part of the re-settlement of the Americas. The Caribbean and its surrounding littoral exemplify this legacy. Perennial clashes between Spain, France, England, Denmark and Holland, the five leading European countries whose subjects carved out colonies there, have characterised much the history of this region over the past five Christmas Carnival in Montserrat centuries. Even Sweden, which at one point (Jonathan Skinner, 2000) occupied the tiny island of Saint Bartholomew, The Irishmen and women whose varied was involved in these economic and territorial experiences are featured in this special edition of battles. Irish Migration Studies in Latin America are Although the region-wide violence perpetrated certainly some of them. With the possible by pirates, privateers and armed military exception of the Irish association with the expeditions, who raided, pillage and killed is eastern Caribbean island of Montserrat, they are now largely behind us, it has been replaced by not in the mainstream of academic and popular another type of discord: the politics of discussions of Caribbean Studies. It is hoped that the essays that follow will shed some light Chinea, Jorge L. ‘Ireland and the Caribbean’ 143 Vol. 5, n°3 (November 2007) on their voluntary or compulsory arrival, In some cases, as shown by Power, Irish people successes and failures, misfortunes and strokes took leading mercantile positions in the of luck, virtues and shortcomings, contributions expanding world of transatlantic trade. Others and blunders, in short on their 'lived' escaped from servitude or defected to England's experiences. Catholic rivals, especially France and Spain. In Cuba, Irish railroad workers became part of the Perhaps one of the most revealing findings in plantocracy's unsuccessful 'whitening' scheme, this collection is the fact that the Irish diaspora as described in Brehony's article. Politically, the in the Caribbean was not limited to any one vital roles played by the O'Reilly-O'Daly team in historical period, group of individuals, or revamping defences in the Puerto Rican capital geographical area. Their presence in the region of San Juan, as examined in Chinea's article, or stretched across time, from the indentured John 'Dinamita' O'Brien during the Cuban servants in the 1650s to mercenaries and insurrection of the 1890s, analysed in Quintana's freedom fighters in the early nineteenth-century article, are also acknowledged in this volume. Spanish American wars of independence. Unlike They are but a few examples of a long tradition many other European colonists, who generally of Irish military presence in Spain and its came as single men, one finds both Irish men American colonies. and women among the pioneers. Some, like Byrne's John Hooke, arrived voluntarily; others Finally, the Irish impact in the region went crossed the Atlantic under duress, like the beyond their physical activities as servants, transported and forced labourers studied by planters, merchants and soldiers. Attempts to Rodgers. draw comparisons between the colonial experiences of Ireland and the Caribbean have Most European settlers on the islands confined also sparked the creative energies and themselves to one or another island or group of imagination of writers. Two examples in this islands, hence the modern-day expressions volume are Tewfik's insightful deconstruction of Hispanic Caribbean, French Caribbean, British Lorna Goodison's poem, 'Country Sligoville', Caribbean, and so on. The Irish, on the other and Novillo Corvalán's original search for a hand, looked for and found new homes literary kinship in the works of Derek Walcott wherever opportunities or other circumstances and James Joyce. Their work shows the took them. They resided on practically all of the enduring cultural, linguistic and political cross- islands of the Caribbean and circum-Caribbean pollination resulting from the Irish presence in zone, as demonstrated in the papers by Rodgers, the Caribbean, one that challenges the notion of Anderson, Power and Chinea, among others. discreet colonies or nations evolving in relative Some of them were undoubtedly trans-colonial, isolation. Instead, the authors show how writers multilingual, and highly adaptable to changing in both the Caribbean and Ireland see or have environments. come to grips with their common experiences The Irish also helped to shape the demographic, with servitude, oppression and forms of social,