In Rethinking Slave Rebellion in Cuba: La Escalera and the Insurgencies of 1841-1844, Aisha Finch traces the emergence of a dynamic resistance movement of slaves and free people of color in nineteenth-century Cuba. Drawing from the largely unexplored testimonies in the Cuban National Archive, this book focuses attention on the hundreds of enslaved people who forged a radical, alternative vision of freedom in Cuba’s plantation countryside. Demonstrating that black slave women and non-elite slaves were critical to shaping and organizing this movement, Rethinking Slave Rebellion in Cuba offers new ways to think about slave mobilizations, black political struggles, and histories of rebellion.

Respondents: George Lipsitz, UC Santa Barbara, Department of Black Studies Ula Taylor, UC Berkeley, Department of African American Studies Lisa Brock, Kalamazoo College, Department of History Co-sponsored by: The Departments of African American Studies and Gender Studies