Spain and the Abolition of Slavery in Cuba, 1817–1886

Corwin, Arthur F., Spain and the Abolition of Slavery in Cuba, 1817–1886, Austin: University of Texas Press, 1968.

Reviewed by Roger T. Anstey in Race & Class , Volume 10 (4): 538.

Reviewed in The Journal of Economic History September 1968.

From the book cover:

This book explores the abolition of Negro slavery in Spanish Cuba 1817–1886 - from the first Anglo-Spanish agreement to abolish the slave trade until the removal from Cuba of the last vestige of black servitude. Making extensive use of heretofore untapped research sources from the Spanish archives, the author has developed new perspectives on nineteenth century Spanish policy in Cuba. He skillfully interrelates the problem of slavery with international politics, with Cuban conservative and liberal movements, and with political and economic developments in Spain itself. Professor Corwin finds that the study of this problem falls naturally into two phases, the first of which, 1817 - 1860, traces the gradual reduction of African traffic to the Spanish Antilles, and constitutes in effect a study in anglo-Spanish diplomacy. (...) The American Civil War, which destroyed the greatest bulwark of Negro slavery in the New World, marked the opening of a new phase, 1860 - 1886. The author strongly emphasizes here such influences as the rise of the Creole reform movement in Cuba and Puerto Rico, which, reading the signs of the times, gave the initial impulse to a Spanish abolitionist movement and contributed to closing the Cuban slave trade in 1866...