The author of this work is certainly “motivated by a positive fascination for his subject,” which James Lockhart in a recent article found an indispensable characteristic of the social historian in our day. Nicasio Silverio Sainz partakes, however, in equally full measure of the “moral outrage of the developmentalists” so identified in the same article. In concrete terms, this means that in this book telling detail, apt quotation, and striking illustration are lovingly assembled, and joined to a running commentary concerning the human condition. This appears in asides in the text as well as in quotes at the top of the chapters, and the story of colonial Cuba under the Hapsburgs is one of withering after promising beginnings that resulted from the “lack of sap” in the trunk of the Hapsburg Empire. The author does not aim at novel conclusions, or a revision of the known story, rather he believes that a close look at detail might lead to a keener sense and a more profound vision of the blood, tears, pain, rage and injustice (in Cuba’s past) which historians and poets have neglected.
The body of the work is by and large an illustration of familiar concepts. Some are general (for example, chapter three entitled “El primer paso es siempre el mas difícil”), some of the colonial system (chapter six, “El César propone y los demás disponen”), and some tied to a local situation (chapter ten, “El oidor Cáceres hurga en el pasado y construye el porvenir”). Much of Cuba’s story must, of course, be seen against the background of European diplomacy and war, and of the Reformation. This problem is solved by asides in the text except for one discursive chapter called “Divagaciones al margen.” With the other perennial problem of what to do about the rest of the Caribbean while telling the story of Cuba, the author is more successful. Chapter five, which deals with the de Soto expedition to Florida and its effects upon the fragile economy and fledgling administration of the colony is especially satisfying. Though Drake’s name appears twice in a chapter heading, the subjects are in fact the aqueduct of Havana and the fortress of El Morro. This makes heroes of the Alcalde Quinones, the captain Tejada and the engineer Juan Bautista Antonelli. Their work in behalf of the population leads to an acquaintance with soldiers and sailors, artisans, Indian and Negro laborers, and the latter’s skills or lack of them, their possessions, trade goods and properties. Accounts of their families and ambitions fill in a lively picture of the Cuban community. The usual conflicts of secular and Church authorities are based on legal documents and correspondence while notarial records reveal something of the men and women in their private lives. A strong impression which comes across is the small demographic base for the whole story.
The book has no footnotes and its ample quotes—one of over five pages verbatim—are generously acknowledged but inefficiently identified. Eleven appended documents cited from the Archivo General de Indias can be found printed in the Colección de documentos inéditos relativos al descubrimiento . . . ultramar listed in the bibliography. The latter, it is probable, the author had no opportunity to order or proofread. There is no index.
This book will scarcely serve research, though it represents an eminently civilized and partly justified lament resulting from one man’s search for the past. He shows us history, as it were, case by case, and judges in compassion and disillusion. The question the book raises is whether scholars today can afford to read thus leisurely and indirectly for a keener sense of perception of the past, or conversely, whether they can afford not to.
