Degrees of Freedom: Louisiana and Cuba after Slavery

by Scott

As Louisiana and Cuba emerged from slavery in the late nineteenth century, each faced the question of what rights former slaves could claim. Degrees of Freedom compares and contrasts these two societies in which slavery was destroyed by war, and citizenship was redefined through social and political upheaval. Both Louisiana and Cuba were rich in sugar plantations that depended on an enslaved labor force. After abolition, on both sides of the Gulf of Mexico, ordinary people―cane cutters and cigar workers, laundresses and labor organizers―forged alliances to protect and expand the freedoms they had won. But by the beginning of the twentieth century, Louisiana and Cuba diverged sharply in the meanings attributed to race and color in public life, and in the boundaries placed on citizenship.

Louisiana had taken the path of disenfranchisement and state-mandated racial segregation; Cuba had enacted universal manhood suffrage and had seen the emergence of a transracial conception of the nation. What might explain these differences?

Moving through the cane fields, small farms, and cities of Louisiana and Cuba, Rebecca Scott skillfully observes the people, places, legislation, and leadership that shaped how these societies adjusted to the abolition of slavery. The two distinctive worlds also come together, as Cuban exiles take refuge in New Orleans in the 1880s, and black soldiers from Louisiana garrison small towns in eastern Cuba during the 1899 U.S. military occupation.

Crafting her narrative from the words and deeds of the actors themselves, Scott brings to life the historical drama of race and citizenship in postemancipation societies.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Read For School, American History

384 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2005

Reviews

[Brendan Campisi · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fluently written and finely argued comparative history of two interrelated societies in the aftermath of slavery; Scott makes a compelling argument about the underlying social, economic and ideological factors that meant that by the early 20th century, Cuba had consolidated an interracial public sphere while Louisiana had a thoroughly white-supremacist one.
One particularly striking point Scott makes is that even if the ideology of transracial patriotism and equal rights was undermined by social discrimination in practice, it nonetheless became meaningful to Cubans of African descent and provided them with space to make public claims that didn't exist for African Americans after the defeat of Reconstruction.

[Nader]

An excellent comparative history.

[Sean Mccarrey · Rating 3 out of 5]

Three stars is being charitable with this book. Here's why. First off, I was told this was a work of transnationalism, which excited me. This is not. Cuba and Louisiana are both featured in this book, but rarely do the two intertwine, though the author makes several attempts to steer in that direction. Rather, it is binational. This disappoints me because I thought there were far too many connections to possibly ignore between the two entities during that period. I was wrong. Furthermore, the structure of the history was atrocious. It seemed to have several key characters, but was continually floundering all over the place. It included general histories of the geographic entities, agricultural and economic histories, and micro histories in ways that made it thoroughly unreadable. Overall, I felt as though this author took all the current themes and trends in the writing of history and slammed them together in one half assed book. But, on the bright side, this is some fascinating stuff that shouldn't be overlooked. It is really important history and I applaud anybody for making the effort, no matter how poorly it was made.