Margarita’s La Habana : colonial ports and Black ecologies in early nineteenth-century Havana

2025/09/29 by Guadalupe García · 1 voice
Social Sciences · #Asian American and Pacific Histories #Colonialism, slavery, and trade #Cuban History and Society

paper · pdf · doi:10.1017/s0963926825100205

openalex publication_date 2025/09/29 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/05/21

Abstract

Abstract This article re-examines the geography of late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century Havana through the gendered lens of Black freedom and enslavement. The author uses fragmentary evidence surrounding the disappearance of Margarita, a young, enslaved girl in 1820s Havana, to suggest how the city’s African and African-descended residents navigated urban space in opposition to colonial design and function. In the process, the author suggests the ways in which the interventions of Black residents, influenced by the ecologies internal to the port, were pivotal to the production of urban space and the geographies of slavery.

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• 📝 Guadalupe García, 'Margarita’s La Habana: colonial ports and Black ecologies in early nineteenth-century Havana' 🔗 doi.org/10.1017/S096... 📝 @mgoebel.bsky.social and @xingezhai.bsky.social, 'Con [bsky, 1 points, 0 comments]

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