| Abstrakt: |
This study examines the alliances between Cuban and Southern planters before 1861 as a means of counteracting the rise of abolitionism across the Atlantic. The massive expansion of slavery in Cuba and in the US South in the first half of the nineteenth century led Cuban and Southern planters to perceive new geopolitical cartographies that challenged existing cultural, linguistic, and political borders. These alliances were not solely fashioned to preserve slavery in the southern United States or in Cuba, but rather as a piece of the larger battle between the pro-slavery and abolitionist forces of the Atlantic world in which the future of slavery was at stake. By analyzing essays written by Ambrosio Gonzales, Cristóbal Madan, and John S. Thrasher, I argue that in the mid-nineteenth century, slavery had the capacity to forge hemispheric alliances that transcended cultural and political links, thus helping to imagine alternative futures for the region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] |
