SPEAKER_00: Hey y'all, I'm Erin Haynes. I'm the editor-at-large for The 19th News, a nonprofit newsroom reporting
on gender, politics, and policy. We look at where our democracy remains unfinished, where
women, people of color, and queer people are still not included. And later this month,
I'll be your host for a brand new podcast from The 19th News and Wonder Media Network called The Amendment. More on that soon. But for now, I'm excited to be your guest host
for this month of Womanica. This Black History Month, we're talking about revolutionaries,
the Black women who led struggles for liberation from violent governments, colonial rulers, and enslavers. These women had the courage to imagine radically different worlds, and
they used their power to try and pull those worlds into view.
On some nights in the humid air of 1840s Cuba, there was a sound drifting on the wind. To
the untrained ear, it sounded like music, the beating of a West African talking drum.
But a trained ear could hear the sound for what it truly was. Those drum beats were a
hidden code. Their rhythms were a way of speaking information about an incoming slave revolution.
And the hands tapping out those rhythms belonged to a woman named Carlotta Lukumi. Carlotta
Lukumi was most likely born somewhere in Yoruba land, a region in West Africa that was home
to the Yoruba ethnic group. She spent her early childhood there, growing up amidst Yoruba
culture and tradition. When Carlotta was about 10 years old, slave traders kidnapped her,
forced her onto a ship, and took her to Cuba. There Carlotta was forced to work on the Trienverato
sugar plantation in the Matanzas province in Cuba. Around the time Carlotta was enslaved
in Cuba, in the early to mid 19th century, the country was one of the biggest sugar producers
in the world and one of the wealthiest colonies in the Caribbean. Britain had already outlawed
the transatlantic slave trade and abolished slavery in all its territories. But Spain, the country that colonized Cuba, was still in the slave trading business. In fact, between 1801 and 1850, more than half a million people were brought to Cuba and enslaved. In rural
Matanzas, where Carlotta was enslaved, Black people made up a majority of the plantation workers. Plantations like the one Carlotta worked on were known for their enormous sugar
harvests and their violent treatment of enslaved people. People like Carlotta were expected
to work long hours on almost no food, sometimes with shackles on their hands, feet, and neck.
In 1843, Carlotta began to organize a rebellion. She worked with other enslaved people, including
another woman named Fermina. All across Cuba, enslaved people were finding ways to meet
and speak in secret. They were building a resistance movement that was entirely underground,
invisible to the Spanish colonizers. They were plotting their rebellion. At one point,
Fermina's plans were discovered by a plantation owner. He had her beaten and sent to prison. But Carlotta continued plotting. She sent coded messages through a talking drum to other enslaved people nearby. Finally, on November 5, 1843, Carlotta's plans came to fruition.
That night, the Trienverata Rebellion began. More than 300 people rose up in rebellion
against their enslavement. Carlotta led the charge with a machete in hand. They burned
the main house where the overseer lived. At one point, Carlotta was said to have attacked
the overseer's daughter with her machete and encouraged those around her to do the same.
Eventually, the revolutionaries moved on to neighboring plantations, killing white colonists they encountered along the way. Over the course of one night, they destroyed five sugar
plantations. But by the morning of November 6, armed Spanish colonial authorities overtook
the revolutionaries at the San Rafael sugar mill and violently ended their uprising. Carlotta was killed in the struggle. 1844, the year following Carlotta's uprising,
was called the Year of the Lash. The Cuban colonial government became even more brutal in their treatment of enslaved people in retaliation against slave revolts. The surviving
participants of the Trienverata Rebellion were imprisoned and eventually publicly executed.
In Cuba, Carlotta's revolutionary spirit lived on. Some academics see her actions as a precursor
to Cuba's 1959 socialist revolution. In 1975, Cuba launched a military attack in support
of Angolan liberation from colonial control. The operation was called Operation Carlotta.
Today, at the site of the former Trienverata plantation, there is a statue of Carlotta, standing tall and strong, wielding a machete. All month, we're talking about revolutionaries.
For more information, you can find us on Facebook and Instagram at Wamanica Podcast.
Special thanks to co-creators Jenny and Liz Kaplan for having me as a guest host. Talk to you tomorrow.
