Ada Ferrer F'11
ACLS Fellowship Program 2011
ACLS/SSRC/NEH International and Area Studies
New York University
Cuban Slave Society and the Haitian Revolution
This project explores the encounter between slavery’s destruction in Saint-Domingue (Haiti) and its simultaneous entrenchment in Cuba. In the aftermath of the Haitian Revolution, Cuba became the world’s largest producer of sugar. The study explores the experience of that transformation on the ground, as slaves, masters, and colonial officials witnessed simultaneously the local intensification of African slavery and the proliferation of Haiti’s example of black revolution. It argues that the Haitian Revolution—the circulation of its example and the material consequences of its achievement of emancipation and independence—profoundly shaped the experience of enslavement and colonialism in Cuba. At the same time, the proximity of an ascendant slave regime shaped the course of the Haitian Revolution itself.