By Elissa B.G. Mullins
A recently cataloged manuscript offers a grim window into the 19th-century slave trade. The account book of the Havana customs house for January-April 1825 (Post-1650 MS 0878) records daily details of Cuba’s imports and exports, including the import of enslaved persons.
I did not immediately register that the abbreviation “escl.” that appears so frequently in these pages stands for “esclavos”; it was chilling to realize what these neat, handwritten rows of figures so indifferently describe—persons as commodities, tallied up among other imports, quantified in batches of 300, 450, 700, individual personhoods erased in the ledger of a dehumanizing bureaucracy. Mere months after the scope of this account book, the Great African Slave Revolt began in Havana on June 15 1825.
The account book is accompanied by two letters that offer insight into yet another critical moment in Cuba’s history. The letters, dated December 19 and December 30, 1900, describe how a David Sofer came by the account book, with references to the United States’ occupation of Cuba:
“In my walk through the oldest prison in the city of Havana built in the 1500[s] I was given this book which was made by a Jim Dandy bookkeeper in 1825 in the Custom House… It was put in this prison for storage and the (US) War Dept. is making some changes in the B[uil]d[in]g and Grounds, they are let[ting] go the old books and papers stored there…” (letter of December 29); “It was given to me by the Civil Engineer of the U.S. Army in charge of the work now going on [in] the De La Fuerza” (letter of December 30).
The second letter describes the Castillo de la Real Fuerza in greater detail, including the “dead man’s alley” where prisoners were executed; it also includes observations about the weather, plants, and people of Havana: “I am not much stuck on the real Cuban man, some are good but they will not average up to form a government soon that the U.S. Congress will approve of…”
Together, these primary sources contain a wealth of information for researchers. In cataloging these materials, chilling as they are, I experienced an increasing sense of curiosity and awe as their full significance gradually emerged; and I know they have much more yet to tell.
