Prieto’s Disappearance

Shortly after the Lucumí War, a small disturbance in Havana resulted in Prieto’s arrest. This chapter examines how Prieto was wrongly accused of fomenting revolution due to his leadership of the Lucumí cabildo. Following his interrogation and the confiscation of his religious shrines and personal papers, Prieto disappears from the historical record, but not before the context of his arrest circulates around the Atlantic world in the correspondences of high-ranking Spanish and British officials.

Introduction

The introduction outlines the scope of Prieto’s biography, including his testimony recorded through the military court following his arrest in 1835. It examines the key set of sources and methods used to reconstruct this story of an enslaved African, who rose through the ranks of Spain’s military in Cuba, to become a prominent leader of Cuba’s most famous Lucumi cabildo. Key themes are also introduced to the reader surrounding ethnicity, identity, big data and historical imagination. The introduction also provides and overview of the Yoruba diaspora to the Americas in order to situate Prieto within the context of the collapse of Oyo, which overlaps with his cabildo leadership between 1818 and 1835.

New Lucumí from Ọ̀yọ́

During the years Camejo and Prieto led the Lucumí cabildo, warfare in the Bight of Benin hinterland resulted in the collapse of the kingdom of Oyo, which was a major West African slave-trading state. As a result, tens of thousands of Yoruba-speakers arrived to Cuba, including hundreds liberated in British abolition efforts. This chapter examines this migration in relation to Camejo and Prieto’s leadership.

Ṣàngó Tẹ̀ Dún

Once Prieto retired from the military, he and his wife, Maria Francisca Camejo, became the leaders of one Cuba’s most famous cabildos de nación dedicated to Santa Bárbara, aka Ṣàngó. Their leadership lasted between c. 1818 and 1835. In this mutual aid society, Camejo and Prieto organized extensive festivals, and participated in many different types of religions from Africa and Cuba, which are arguably at the root of modern-day Santería.

La Habana

This chapter examines how Prieto’s involuntary residency in Havana helped propel him to lead. After his arrival to Cuba, he would have joined one of two Lucumí cabildos de nación, enlist in the military, marry his wife, Maria Francisca Camejo, and gain literacy.

Badagry

This chapter examines Prieto’s childhood and upbringing in Africa to confront the primitive stereotypes about pre-colonial African societies. Since there is no documentation surrounding Prieto as a child in West Africa, pinpointing the origins of an enslaved African taken to the Americas is challenging. As a result, the focus turns to establishing the significance of Yoruba kinship groups, oral traditions and religious training in Sango. Prieto’s West African childhood influenced Prieto’s leadership in Cuba. The chapter also discusses the likelihood of Prieto’s enslavement surrounding the expansion of the kingdom of Oyo and the destruction of the slave trading port, Badagry.

Conclusion

After summarizing Prieto’s life, the conclusion examines how Prieto holds a prominent place in the oral and documented histories of Santería in Cuba. Although he is not generally remembered by name, Prieto is represented via the institutional legacy of the famous cabildo Ṣàngó Tẹ̀ Dún, especially surrounding the oral traditions associated with bata drums and other cabildos dedicated to Santa Barbara.

Lucumí War

Following Oyo’s collapse, tens of thousands of warriors were sent to Cuba’s plantations. As the leader of a large Lucumí community in Havana, Camejo and Prieto could have predicted that warfare from West African would have carried over to Cuba, especially on sugar and coffee plantations in rural areas. In 1833, a slave uprising erupted 50 miles to the west of Havana, which involved over 300 Yoruba-speaking participants from Oyo and resulted in the destructions of a small town and several plantations. This Lucumí war jeopardized the leadership of Camejo and Prieto in Havana due to the fear of the white, slave owning classes in the context of the Age of Revolutions and the rise of independence states in the Americas.

Batallón de Morenos

Prieto’s military career lasted over two decades from the 1790s into the 1810s. During this time, he was involved in the Aponte Rebellion in Cuba in 1812. After, he was sent to Pensacola Florida, where he witnessed from his garrison the War of 1812 and the Creek War of 1812-1814.

Golden Age

This chapter traces Prieto’s odyssey across the Atlantic from Ouidah to Barbados to Jamaica to Cuba. After the destruction of Badagry, Prieto likely ended up in Ouidah where he was sold to British merchants from Liverpool. Even though Prieto was not documented on board a specific ship, it has been possible to identify the ship named Golden Age as a likely vessel to transport Prieto to the Americas. This chapter examines slave trading at the African coast, the Middle Passage, which involved the inter-Caribbean slave trade because Spain did not trade directly with the Bight of Benin and Cuba when Prieto arrived to the Spanish colony in c. 1784.