Florida International University FIU Digital Commons FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations University Graduate School 11-1-2013 Lucumí (Yoruba) Culture in Cuba: A Reevaluation (1830S -1940s) Miguel Ramos Florida International University, [email protected] DOI: 10.25148/etd.FI13120402 Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.fiu.edu/etd Part of the African History Commons, Cultural History Commons, History of Religion Commons, Latin American History Commons, Oral History Commons, Other Religion Commons, Race, Ethnicity and Post-Colonial Studies Commons, and the Social and Cultural Anthropology Commons Recommended Citation Ramos, Miguel, "Lucumí (Yoruba) Culture in Cuba: A Reevaluation (1830S -1940s)" (2013). FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations. 966. https://digitalcommons.fiu.edu/etd/966 This work is brought to you for free and open access by the University Graduate School at FIU Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of FIU Digital Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. FLORIDA INTERNATIONAL UNIVERSITY Miami, Florida LUCUMÍ (YORUBA) CULTURE IN CUBA: A REEVALUATION (1830s -1940s) A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY in HISTORY by Miguel Ramos 2013 To: Dean Kenneth G. Furton College of Arts and Sciences This dissertation, written by Miguel Ramos, and entitled Lucumí (Yoruba) Culture in Cuba: A Reevaluation (1830s – 1940s), having been approved in respect to style and intellectual content, is referred to you for judgment. We have read this dissertation and recommend that it be approved. ____________________________________ Noble David Cook ____________________________________ María del Mar Logroño ____________________________________ Leslie Northup ____________________________________ Sherry Johnson, Major Professor Date of Defense: November 1, 2013 The dissertation of Miguel Ramos is approved. ____________________________________ Dean Kenneth G. Furton College of Arts and Sciences ____________________________________ Dean Lakshmi N. Reddi University Graduate School Florida International University, 2013 ii © Copyright 2013 by Miguel Ramos All rights reserved. iii DEDICATION A mí adorada madre. Este logro es tan mío como tuyo. (To my beloved mother. This accomplishment is as much mine as it is yours.) iv ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I am most grateful to my committee, Sherry Johnson, Noble David Cook, María del Mar Logroño, and Leslie Northup. Their support was vital. Dr. Johnson was a very significant contributor throughout the numerous hurdles and difficulties. I thank Florida International University’s Department of History and its staff, especially Joseph Patrouch, Brian Peterson, Glen Davies, Emma Sordo, Blanca Premo, and the department’s secretaries, Hayat Kassab, Diana Cox, María Ferrer Young, and Emily Carreras. My gratitude to Florida International University’s Department of History for the support they gave me during all these years. I am indebted to FIU’s Cuban Research Institute, the Ford Foundation, and especially Uva de Aragón, for funding two of my resaech trips to Cuba and use of the center’s Cuba travel license. I am grateful for the generous funding that I received from FIU’s Research and University Graduate School’s Doctoral Evidence Acquisition (DEA) Fellowship. Numerous scholars and friends provided much stimulus. Mercedes Cros Sandoval, Isabel Castellanos, Arturo Lindsay, Orlando Espín, the late Manuel Moreno- Fraginals, Lisandro Pérez, Teresita Pedraza-Moreno, and Nancy Mikelsons provided much guidance throughout these years. Likewise, I must reiterate my gratitude and admiration to a great friend of many years, Kevin Yelvington, who graciously shared his time, provided several Cuban and American archival documents, and suggested a methodological direction. My debts are many: Stephan Palmie and David Brown shared the 1900 regulations manual of the Cabildo Africano Lucumí. Palmie and I discussed Fernando v Ortiz, Fernando Guerra, and issues related to the 1900s contestations. For years, Brown and I have had conversations about Lucumí oral history and have shared ideas regarding our mutual scholarly interests. Reinaldo Román graciously provided a document, Adrián López Denis shared information on Francisco Barrera y Domingo, and Sarah L. Franklin facilitated statistics about African ethnies appearing in Havana newspapers advertisements. The staff at the Archivo Histórico Provincial de Matanzas was invaluable: I am obliged to Graciela Milián Martínez, Caridad Acosta Reyes, Magaly González, and Nancy Gutiérrez Pérez for their continued assistance, professionalism, and friendship. Soo, too, were Eusebio Leal and the Archivo Histórico de la Oficina del Historiador de la Ciudad de La Habana; Alicia Flores at the Biblioteca Nacional José Martí; the Instituto de Lingüística y Literatura’s director Nuria Gregori’s priceless help, and Ada de la Cantera’s guidance while I sorted through the Fernando Ortiz Collection. My appreciation to University of Havana’s Miriam Rodríguez; Casa de Africa’s Elvira Pardo Cruz and Alberto Granados; Xiomara Martínez Mata, Archivo de Guanabacoa; Museo de Regla’s Pedro Cosme Baños, Teresa de Jesús Díaz Peña, and Luís Alberto Pedroso Hernández; Regla’s cemetery staff, Fania Molina Martínez and Fernando “Popeye” Arencibia De’Angelo; Cementerio Colón’s Idamia Rodríguez Ortega; Cementerio de San Carlos’ Caridad Hernández; and Havana’s Archdiocese’s Monseigneur Ramón Suárez Polcari. In Oriente, Maruchi Berbes and Olga Portuondo were very helpful. Portuondo gave me access to her personal archives and library. I value the generous assistance I received during my research in Spain from José J. Hernández Palomo and the Escuela de Estudios Hispano-Americanos. Helpful as well vi was the staff at the Archivo General de Indias, Archivo Histórico Nacional, the Archivo de Toledo, and the Biblioteca Nacional. FIU’s Special Collections and Interlibrary Loan deserve much recognition, as does Adam Zimmerman who was very helpful with the statistics components of the research. Also, the Library of Congress’ Arlene Balkansky’s and her staff’s patience while I consulted Cuban newspapers (and the mess I created daily given the age and delicate state of these); the U.S. National Archive in Maryland; Northwestern University and the Melville J. Herskovits Papers collection; and Esperanza de Varona and Lesbia Varona, University of Miami’s Lydia Cabrera Collection. One of my greatest supporters was my friend Jeff González who contributed in many ways to help accomplish the goal. Craig Clark and Greg Everitt also helped with editing my Hispanicized English, as did Shawn Shadow, Stacy Corrado, and David Kole. I am grateful to all my godchildren for their support. My wife Nilda, and my son Caesar, who also contributed in more ways than they know, and were very tolerant of my constant traveling, especially during the holidays and Caesar’s birthday, December 24. In Cuba, I also had many assistants, and I am sure that I will forget some names; however, none of my partners in this endeavor will ever be forgotten as their memories fill and grace the pages this dissertation. Modupué Jorge Renier Brito, María Galván Herrera, Hugo Cárdenas, Gretter Méndez, Sergia Martínez, José Gorordo, Taimí Álvarez, Teresa Álvarez Nebot, Milagros Palma Zequeira, Paula Palma, Ángel de León, Leonardo González, Dora Oliva, Pedro Galup, Bárbaro Cansino, Alexander Cansino, Mery Mestre, Alfredo Calvo, Tina Gallagher, Jorge Luís Sánchez, Roberto Góngora, and all of those vii “repositories” who directly or indirectly provided the oral testimonies that honor this endeavor. viii ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION LUCUMÍ (YORUBA) CULTURE IN CUBA: A REEVALUATION (1830s – 1940s) by Miguel Ramos Florida International University, 2013 Miami, Florida Professor Sherry Johnson, Major Professor The status, roles, and interactions of three dominant African ethnic groups and their descendants in Cuba significantly influenced the island’s cubanidad (national identity): the Lucumís (Yoruba), the Congos (Bantú speakers from Central West Africa), and the Carabalís (from the region of Calabar). These three groups, enslaved on the island, coexisted, each group confronting obstacles that threatened their way of life and cultural identities. Through covert resistance, cultural appropriation, and accommodation, all three, but especially the Lucumís, laid deep roots in the nineteenth century that came to fruition in the twentieth. During the early 1900s, Cuba confronted numerous pressures, internal and external. Under the pretense of a quest for national identity and modernity, Afro-Cubans and African cultures and religion came under political, social, and intellectual attack. Race was an undeniable element in these conflicts. While all three groups were oppressed equally, only the Lucumís fought back, contesting accusations of backwardness, human sacrifice, cannibalism, and brujería (witchcraft), exaggerated by the sensationalistic media, often with the police’s and legal system’s complicity. Unlike the covert character ix of earlier epochs’ responses to oppression, in the twentieth century Lucumí resistance was overt and outspoken, publically refuting the accusations levied against African religions. Although these struggles had unintended consequences for the Lucumís, they gave birth to cubanidad’s African component. With the help of Fernando Ortiz, the Lucumí were situated at the