Guantánamo (9 page)
Authors: Jonathan M. Hansen
For its time, Jefferson's vision of an inclusive, equal, and reciprocal republic of federated states was generous indeed.
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Enfolded in this union, individuals, including Native Americans, would enjoy the blessings of liberty, security, and property, just as the states, including foreign states, would benefit from reciprocal privileges. But how likely was Jefferson's “pacific system” to usher in the peace, harmony, and liberty that he, Madison, and their fellow Virginian James Monroe envisioned? Suppose Indians rejected the plow. Suppose the new republics of Central and South America, once independent, did not want to become part of the “American system”? How reciprocal was Jefferson's idea of American empire, really?
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Enfolded in this union, individuals, including Native Americans, would enjoy the blessings of liberty, security, and property, just as the states, including foreign states, would benefit from reciprocal privileges. But how likely was Jefferson's “pacific system” to usher in the peace, harmony, and liberty that he, Madison, and their fellow Virginian James Monroe envisioned? Suppose Indians rejected the plow. Suppose the new republics of Central and South America, once independent, did not want to become part of the “American system”? How reciprocal was Jefferson's idea of American empire, really?
The electoral landslide that ushered Jefferson into office in 1801 was not the only “revolution” under way in the “American” colonies at the time. A social and political cataclysm did indeed rock the Western Hemisphere at the end of the eighteenth century, but it wasn't the cousins' war fought on the North American continent and known in local circles as the American Revolution. The true American Revolution began in Saint-Domingue in 1791, when half a million slaves, who outnumbered whites and mulattoes by ten to one, burst their shackles and over the course of the next decade and a half repelled the attempts of England and France to return them to bondage, ultimately declaring an independent Haiti in January 1804. The events of what became known as the Haitian Revolution nearly cured Jefferson of his
abolitionismâ
nearly
, because despite doing everything in his power to undermine the Haitian Republic in its infancy, Jefferson seemed to recognize at heart that the future was with the Haitians.
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abolitionismâ
nearly
, because despite doing everything in his power to undermine the Haitian Republic in its infancy, Jefferson seemed to recognize at heart that the future was with the Haitians.
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It is difficult to exaggerate the portent of a successful slave revolution in Jefferson's and other Americans' eyes. Informally established by French buccaneers at the end of the sixteenth century, who took advantage of Spain's neglect of Hispaniola, Saint-Domingue had become by the late eighteenth century the most valuable colony in the world, not only providing Europe with 60 percent of its coffee and 40 percent of its sugar, but also constituting an essential marketplace for U.S. manufacturers and global slave traders alike. The potential spread of slave revolts beyond Haiti terrified southern planters. Haiti conjured visions of a world turned upside down, with the Atlantic economy in ruins and European and American civilization in retreat.
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In the 1980s and '90s, fears of Haitians contaminated with HIV/ AIDS immigrating to the United States induced U.S. Customs and Immigration officials to set up a refugee camp at Guantánamo Bay, from which most of the Haitians were returned to Haiti. Nearly two centuries earlier, fears of liberal-minded ex-slaves from Haiti washing up on American shores led southern states to adopt laws banning the immigration of Haitians to the United States. In parts of Virginia, and in South Carolina and Georgia, where slaves outnumbered whites, fear of a Saint-Domingue-inspired slave mutiny was hardly an abstraction at the time Jefferson acceded to the presidency. The presidential election of 1800 took place against the backdrop of a foiled slave insurrection in Richmond, Virginia, the previous summer, orchestrated by a slave named Gabriel Prosser, who aimed to capture the local arsenal and arm his fellow bondmen. To slaveholders throughout the South (including Jefferson), Prosser's uprising was a logical extension of developments in the colony still known at that time as Saint-Domingue. Together the two incidents solidified southern opposition to abolitionism, formerly widespread even in the South. What could not be stopped on Saint-Domingue would have to be contained, both by preventing Haitian immigration to the United States and by maintaining an iron grip on slaves, ex-slaves, and all remaining slave societies.
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Which is where Cuba and ultimately Guantánamo come in. With
Saint-Domingue ruined for U.S. commerce and the African slave and sugar trades, Cuba emerged as the world's leading sugar producer and the most valuable market for African slavesâdriven to a large extent by U.S. investment.
Saint-Domingue ruined for U.S. commerce and the African slave and sugar trades, Cuba emerged as the world's leading sugar producer and the most valuable market for African slavesâdriven to a large extent by U.S. investment.
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The Mopox Commission was by no means the last high-level call to populate and develop Guantánamo Bay. Continuing waves of white and mulatto refugees from Haiti bearing horror stories of black murder and rapine combined with eastern Cuba's mounting slave population to keep the subject of white settlement in the east on everybody's mind.
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Well into the nineteenth century, government officials continued to produce census surveys of the bay and basin, while offering generous naturalization terms and other incentives to white foreigners willing to settle in the area. Paradoxically, one of the most attractive incentives, abundant slaves at affordable rates, only exacerbated the perceived racial imbalance in the region. The specter of racial conflagration in Cuba would continue to haunt white planters in Guantánamo and indeed throughout Cuba well into the twentieth century.
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Well into the nineteenth century, government officials continued to produce census surveys of the bay and basin, while offering generous naturalization terms and other incentives to white foreigners willing to settle in the area. Paradoxically, one of the most attractive incentives, abundant slaves at affordable rates, only exacerbated the perceived racial imbalance in the region. The specter of racial conflagration in Cuba would continue to haunt white planters in Guantánamo and indeed throughout Cuba well into the twentieth century.
French immigrants fit right in, then, in seeing the world in terms of black and white. But their propensity to work, plant, and farm, rather than simply to endorse development schemes, finally set the eastern economy in motion. Unlike their Spanish counterparts, French refugees from Haiti had no social or political connections in Cuba and hence nowhere else to go. The first several waves of French refugees included farmers experienced in coffee production, who helped spur Cuban coffee to an eightfold increase between 1792 and 1804.
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At Guantánamo, French coffee farmers brought previously ignored land into cultivation, for the first time producing on a scale that exceeded local consumption. Though Spanish politics remained unstable and Crown policies in flux through mid-century, on the whole the French refugees from Haiti benefited from the generous settlement terms and more liberal trade and tax policies adopted by the Bourbons. By the second quarter of the nineteenth century, a real market had emerged in the Guantánamo Basin, not only in coffee and sugar, but in cotton, cocoa, and indigo besides.
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At Guantánamo, French coffee farmers brought previously ignored land into cultivation, for the first time producing on a scale that exceeded local consumption. Though Spanish politics remained unstable and Crown policies in flux through mid-century, on the whole the French refugees from Haiti benefited from the generous settlement terms and more liberal trade and tax policies adopted by the Bourbons. By the second quarter of the nineteenth century, a real market had emerged in the Guantánamo Basin, not only in coffee and sugar, but in cotton, cocoa, and indigo besides.
Not until 1858 would Guantánamo Bay get a port, at Caimanera, worthy of the name. Until then, any farmers with surplus to trade had to make do with primitive wharf facilities at Matabajo, a site up the Guantánamo River near where the British disembarked in 1741, or at Cerro Guayabo, located on the shore of the inner harbor, farther from the sea. Once afloat, the farmers had to take their goods to Santiago to be traded, as up until 1822, Guantánamo Bay lacked even the fourth-class port status that qualified it for the coasting trade.
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The establishment of a real port at Caimanera at mid-century confirmed the growing importance of Oriente province as a producer of not only coffee but now sugar. In 1846, eleven primitive mills produced raw sugar mostly for local consumption in the Guantánamo region. By 1852 the region's sugar exports began to grow, doubling by 1858. By 1862, Santiago and Guantánamo together produced 15 percent of Cuban sugar, roughly double what they contributed in 1827.
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The precipitous rise of the Guantánamo region's agricultural productivity raised eyebrows in the United States, where Francis Badell, the U.S. consular agent in Santiago, noted the fact in his annual report.
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The establishment of a real port at Caimanera at mid-century confirmed the growing importance of Oriente province as a producer of not only coffee but now sugar. In 1846, eleven primitive mills produced raw sugar mostly for local consumption in the Guantánamo region. By 1852 the region's sugar exports began to grow, doubling by 1858. By 1862, Santiago and Guantánamo together produced 15 percent of Cuban sugar, roughly double what they contributed in 1827.
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The precipitous rise of the Guantánamo region's agricultural productivity raised eyebrows in the United States, where Francis Badell, the U.S. consular agent in Santiago, noted the fact in his annual report.
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The Guantánamo region would finally receive its long-sought town not as a result of a royal commission or the plunking down of a settler population onto an imaginary grid. Rather, over the course of the first few decades of the nineteenth century, a group of French, Catalan, and Creole farmers began to concentrate their commercial and, increasingly, their social activity around an old and important crossroads midway up the Guantánamo Basin between the bay and the fertile valleys to the north, east, and west.
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What emerged as a humble village of mud (and several brick) houses and a few stores and bakeries in 1820 became, within a generation, an established town of nearly a thousand inhabitants, roughly a third of whom were white. In 1847, Santa Catalina was the center of a regional population estimated at nearly eight thousand, in which slaves and free people of color outnumbered whites approximately seven to one. Successful in launching a city, the French, Catalan, and Creole planters had failed to secure their racial dominance.
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What emerged as a humble village of mud (and several brick) houses and a few stores and bakeries in 1820 became, within a generation, an established town of nearly a thousand inhabitants, roughly a third of whom were white. In 1847, Santa Catalina was the center of a regional population estimated at nearly eight thousand, in which slaves and free people of color outnumbered whites approximately seven to one. Successful in launching a city, the French, Catalan, and Creole planters had failed to secure their racial dominance.
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Over the next several decades Santa Catalina continued to grow, its importance magnified by the establishment of a rail link between the town and the bay in 1856 and the opening of the bay to free trade
two years later, which coincided with the construction of the port of Caimanera. But for all its commercial success, the populating and development of the Guantánamo Basin was no more successful in ridding the region of contraband traffic than it was in rectifying the racial imbalance. In 1817, Spain signed a treaty with England, pledging to bring its slave trade to a halt within three years. Yet between 1816 and 1867 nearly six hundred thousand new slaves arrived in Cuba, many of them carried aboard American ships.
two years later, which coincided with the construction of the port of Caimanera. But for all its commercial success, the populating and development of the Guantánamo Basin was no more successful in ridding the region of contraband traffic than it was in rectifying the racial imbalance. In 1817, Spain signed a treaty with England, pledging to bring its slave trade to a halt within three years. Yet between 1816 and 1867 nearly six hundred thousand new slaves arrived in Cuba, many of them carried aboard American ships.
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While the Guantánamo region made halting steps toward commercial viability, U.S. leaders were busy charting the young nation's foreign policy. Revolutionary Haiti was only the first in a long line of aspiring American republics to experience the chasm separating Jefferson's and others' noble republican rhetoric from political and economic reality. One can detect the fate awaiting future American republics in Jefferson's comments about recalcitrant Indians from his Second Inaugural Address.
Here was a people “endowed with the faculties and the rights of men, breathing an ardent love of liberty and independence, and occupying a country which left them no desire to be undisturbed.” However gallant, they were defenseless in the face of “the stream of overflowing population from other regions,” and so ended up “within limits too narrow for the hunter's state.” And yet some resist the “liberal” policy adopted by the United States to train them in the skills of husbandry and to furnish them with the necessary tools. Residing among the Indians, Jefferson told the assembled nation, were “interested and crafty individuals ⦠who feel themselves something in the present order of things and fear to become nothing in any other,” and who, therefore, “inculcate a sanctimonious reverence for the customs of their ancestors.” Adverse to reason and afraid of knowledge, such “antiphilosophists” take comfort in their ignorance, exerting “all their faculties to maintain the ascendancy of habit over the duty of improving our reason and obeying its mandates.” Jefferson's political heirs would adopt similar language to describe Cubans who resisted American meddling in Cuban affairs.
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Jefferson assumed a unitary worldview. Though he admired many
Native American characteristics, when it came time to apportion a continent, Native American characteristics would have to yield to the supposedly universal liberal characteristics on which human progress depended. In a speech to Native American tribes a few years later, Jefferson anticipated the late-nineteenth-century idea of the melting pot with all its cultural presuppositions, assuring the tribes that he looked forward to a day when “your blood and ours united will spread again over the great island.”
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Aware of their “present numbers,” Jefferson understood that it would be the Native Americans who did the melting. “Peace and agriculture will raise you up to be what your forefathers were,” he assured them, “will prepare you to possess property, to wish to live under regular laws.”
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Native American characteristics, when it came time to apportion a continent, Native American characteristics would have to yield to the supposedly universal liberal characteristics on which human progress depended. In a speech to Native American tribes a few years later, Jefferson anticipated the late-nineteenth-century idea of the melting pot with all its cultural presuppositions, assuring the tribes that he looked forward to a day when “your blood and ours united will spread again over the great island.”
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Aware of their “present numbers,” Jefferson understood that it would be the Native Americans who did the melting. “Peace and agriculture will raise you up to be what your forefathers were,” he assured them, “will prepare you to possess property, to wish to live under regular laws.”
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On the one hand, then, private property, regular laws, blood lost in our blood, progress; on the other hand, antiphilosophists with a sanctimonious reverence for their ancestors' customs, atavism itself. Here Jefferson expresses the leitmotif of Americans' interaction with other peoples and countries over the course of the past two-hundred-plus years. In the name of liberty and equality and in a spirit of reciprocity, we invite you to join us. If you decline our invitation, we will
make
you join us, though it will be harder for us both. Language first used in addressing Native Americans would be easily adapted to address foreign peoples and nations.
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make
you join us, though it will be harder for us both. Language first used in addressing Native Americans would be easily adapted to address foreign peoples and nations.
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Most Americans of Jefferson's generation could not fathom that a new despotism born and raised in the United States might one day replace the old. Supremely confident that the United States was on God's and history's side, they saw no contradiction in prescribing self-government to others, or in declaring themselves leader of a federated republic of equal states. John Quincy Adams was among the few doubters. Adams had opposed Jefferson's arbitrary takeover of the former French colony of Louisiana.
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He worried that expansionism was getting out of hand. He was skeptical of calls for U.S. intervention in the Latin American revolutions. And he feared lest America become the “dictatress of the world” (and thereby “no longer be the ruler of her own spirit”).
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But there were two John Quincy Adamses vying for influence in this era: the skeptic and the ardent nationalist. The 1820s belonged to the nationalistsâto men such as Jefferson, then nearing
the end of his life, and to Jefferson's colleague and fellow Virginian, the young president James Monroe.
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He worried that expansionism was getting out of hand. He was skeptical of calls for U.S. intervention in the Latin American revolutions. And he feared lest America become the “dictatress of the world” (and thereby “no longer be the ruler of her own spirit”).
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But there were two John Quincy Adamses vying for influence in this era: the skeptic and the ardent nationalist. The 1820s belonged to the nationalistsâto men such as Jefferson, then nearing
the end of his life, and to Jefferson's colleague and fellow Virginian, the young president James Monroe.
On May 4, 1822, a year and a half before announcing the “doctrine” that would forever bear his name, President Monroe delivered a speech to Congress in which he addressed some of the contradictions posed by the empire for liberty, though notably not the question of U.S. imperium over Latin American states. Monroe began by reiterating Jefferson's and Madison's arguments about the benefits of territorial expansion, especially for states. For state governments, Monroe argued, expansion was the means to freedom and security, ensuring both the availability of resources and the room for population growth.
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