Dialogues in Cuban Archaeology

190 / Singleton
majority of the artifacts date between 1800 and 1860, a time range consistent
with the years when the site was operating as a coffee plantation.
INTERPRETING SLAVERY AT CAFETAL DEL PADRE
All of the primary written sources associated with the cafetal are public records,
found primarily in notarial and probate archives. Many of these records
date from after the death of Ignacio O’Farrill, when the plantation
was frequently described as being in “a ruinous state.” Unfortunately, no personal
records kept by O’Farrill have surfaced. Therefore, to gain insights into
the plantation’s more prosperous times, we must rely on inferences drawn
from the archaeological record in combination with these and other written
sources. My approach to understanding these sources is guided by Allison
Wylie’s notion of “conjoint use of evidence,” which neither privileges nor
treats an evidential resource as a given nor assumes one source has epistemic
priority over another (1999:29). Rather, it is the working back and forth with
multiple sources that has permitted me to offer the following interpretation
of slavery at the cafetal.
The Slave Population
Information on the enslaved labor force at the cafetal comes from the plantation
inventories. In 1838, there were 77 enslaved men, women, and children
living on the plantation. According to the manager of the cafetal, the dotación
consisted of 81 enslaved persons prior to taking the inventory, but four of
them ran away after Ignacio O’Farrill’s death (ANC, Galletti, legajo 245, 1).
The inventory provides a list of the names, ages, and naciones (ethnic af¤liation
or place of birth) of each of the enslaved laborers. Of the total number 53
were enslaved men and 24 were women. This sex ratio of 2:1 is comparable to
that found on other coffee plantations studied in Matanzas Province (González
Fernández 1991:171). Sex imbalances favoring men over women could be even
more pronounced on sugar plantations, and dotaciones comprised entirely of
slave men are known to have existed (Moreno Fraginals 1978:2:39; Paquette
1988:60). Only ¤ve children are listed, two boys and three girls, all under the
age of ¤ve years. The small number of children is consistent with analyses
indicating Cuban slave populations did not increase through natural reproduction,
making chronic importation of African laborers necessary to sustain
the slave population (Bergad et al. 1995:36).
The term nación refers to the ethnic or cultural af¤liation of an African-