Sugar Is Made With Blood: The Conspiracy of LA Escalera and the Conflict Between Empires over Slavery in Cuba

by Robert L. Paquette

Paquette, Robert L.

Genres: History

346 pages, Hardcover

First published May 1, 1988

Reviews

[Dave · Rating 4 out of 5]

Paquette does a good job of setting up the context of La Escalera and then pointing out the viable conclusions readers can draw from the evidence. He's sensitive to the various frames through which La Escalera has been viewed in the past, and he makes extra effort to argue why differences in interpretation may have occurred. This is one history book from the 80s that doesn't feel like it's from 80s (and no, I'm not sure what I mean by that either).

[Dusty · Rating 4 out of 5]

In 1844, which in Cuba is remembered as the "Year of the Lash," the Spanish Captain-General of Cuba authorized the imprisonment and torture of thousands of slaves suspected of organizing a large-scale rebellion and a handful of white liberal intellectuals believed to have inspired them. As time has gone on historians have begun to wonder: Was there in fact a conspiracy? Or was the "conspiracy" a lie invented by the Spanish Empire's Caribbean representatives in order to simultaneously subjugate two boisterous subgroups? Paquette's book, which remains the gold star against which all other accounts of the Escalera Conspiracy must be judged, is a wealth of archival history. Yes, it's dry. But yes, it's fascinating.