Black Cuban Literati in the Age of Revolution
This chapter discusses Plácido and Manzano’s involvement in the 1844 antislavery movement and it refutes the notion that Manzano was an apolitical author.With few exceptions, critics have claimed that Manzano was bereft of a political project and argued that Plácido’s liberal discourse had no relationship to his racial politics.The final chapter disproves both of these theses.It analyzes the government narrative of black conspiracy and white victimhood side by side with a close reading of Plácido and Manzano’s letters and depositions.Government accounts of uprising legitimize power by deliberately creating silences, speaking in code, and otherwise dissembling the truth.Thus, this chapter deconstructs the official government narrative and Manzano and Plácido’s joint interrogation.It highlights the way that Manzano and Plácido developed different strategies to distance themselves from the 1844 antislavery movement, the notion of anti-white conspiracy, and even from each other.