Dialogues in Cuban Archaeology

178 / La Rosa Corzo
legal character, which logically re®ects the interest of the slaveowners in caring
for slaves as valuable property. But what the Royal Decrees and Orders speci-
¤ed, and what the hacendados (planters) actually did could be two different
things, as demonstrated in some testimonies from the same time period. Dumont,
a Frenchman who served as a doctor to numerous estate slaves, characterized
their diet as faulty (Dumont 1865:500). During the middle of the
nineteenth century, the Swede Federica Bremer on numerous occasions witnessed
the way slaves were fed and became convinced that while an owner
was forced to feed his slaves, he proceeded “however he wanted,” because
“what law could make him to count?” (Bremer 1980:79). The English consul
Richard Madden described irregularities and violations at different plantations
and quali¤ed slave food as of “very little nutritious matter, of bad taste,
and worse scent” (1964:169). Also, one particular report (coincidentally regarding
a plantation near the sites included in this study) states of¤cially that
the great slave rebellion of 1833 on the Salvador coffee plantation, located between
the north coast and the Sierra del Esperón in the province of Havana,
was likely caused by the hunger that slaves had been experiencing (ANC,
Miscelánea, Leg. 540/B). Given these contradictions, the application of archaeological
methods can shed some light with new data. In the past few years
several archaeological studies have focused their attention on this question
(Ferguson 1992). Some studies conducted on the remains of numerous slave
plantations in Barbados have demonstrated the presence of nutritional stress
(Armstrong 1999:181). Therefore, the study of slave diet, and especially of
cimarrones, should not be limited to descriptions in historical sources. The
complementarity of archaeological methods can provide a new perspective on
this subject.
Using historic documentation, it has also been argued that no signi¤cant
differences existed between the diet of slaves and cimarrones (Laviña
1987:214). However, archaeology can demonstrate otherwise. The variety of
sources of foods rich in protein, and the fresher and more diverse sources of
meat compared to those obtained in the slave quarters, offered the fugitive
slave better advantages than simple freedom. Another item of interest refers
to the argument (again based on documentary evidence) that the cimarrón
diet lacked any African traditional elements (Laviña 1987:214). However, the
apparent consumption of dog meat suggests otherwise.
The evidence and arguments presented here only scratch the surface of the
issues related to the study of cimarrones. In the future, these studies should
be expanded on the basis of new archaeological techniques. For example, the