Prieto: Yorùbá Kingship in Colonial Cuba During the Age of Revolutions

By Henry B. Lovejoy

Book Overview

This Atlantic world history centers on the life of Juan Nepomuceno Prieto (c. 1773-c. 1835), a member of the West African Yor b people enslaved and taken to Havana during the era of the Atlantic slave trade. Richly situating Prieto's story within the context of colonial Cuba, Henry B. Lovejoy illuminates the vast process by which thousands of Yor b speakers were forced into life-and-death struggles in a strange land. In Havana, Prieto and most of the people of the Yor b diaspora were identified by the colonial authorities as Lucum . Prieto's evolving identity becomes the fascinating fulcrum of the book. Drafted as an enslaved soldier for Spain, Prieto achieved self-manumission while still in the military. Rising steadily in his dangerous new world, he became the religious leader of Havana's most famous Lucum cabildo, where he contributed to the development of the Afro-Cuban religion of Santer a. Then he was arrested on suspicion of fomenting slave rebellion. Trial testimony shows that he fell ill, but his ultimate fate is unknown.

Despite the silences and contradictions that will never be fully resolved, Prieto's life opens a window onto how Africans creatively developed multiple forms of identity and resistance in Cuba and in the Atlantic world more broadly.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1469645394
• ISBN13: 9781469645391
• Release Date: February 2019
• Publisher: University of North Carolina Press
• Length: 240 Pages
• Weight: 0.83 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 6.1" x 9.2"