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Title
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Cuba - Diary
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Series Heading
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MS283. Cuba
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Geography
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West Indies, Unspecified
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Subject
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Railroad construction workers -- Cuba -- History -- 19th century -- Diaries, Surveys -- Cuba, Slavery -- Cuba, Botany -- Cuba, Animals -- Cuba, West Indies -- History
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Notes
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Edward Huntington (1817-1881) Manuscript diary of a trip to Cuba to survey for a railroad from Puerto Principe to Nuevitas Nov 1836 to June 1837. It was a rugged job hacking through the jungle, exploring alternate routes, sleeping in insect ridden hammocks. He records his trip in this bound journal (6.5" x 7.5", 200 pp) the small villages, the people who give him hospitality. He describes the opportunities the new rail line would present, all without slave labor- oranges, timber, sugar. He describes in detail the process of sugarcane to sugar loaf; the process of cassava, the growing and curing of coffee. He tells of the criminal system (lashes for theft), the Catholic rituals and processions, the bullfight with the one armed matador and the sea serpent (?). He learns to appreciate Cuban food and describes the numerous unfamiliar fruits of the island. The slave trade flourished openly, the government issued passports for coastal travel to new arrivals from Africa. He comments frequently on the slave trade; incidents such as June, 1837, a ship holding over 400 landed near Nuevitas. The British Men of Wars would dump captured slaves on shore and these individuals were treated worse than slaves, becoming "apprentices" (overseers). "I would rather be a slave than an apprentice in Cuba". Huntington talked to an old slaver who went twice to the Guinea Coast returning with several hundred. "I asked him if some of them died on the voyage. He said muchissimo & many killed themselves...He enjoyed a hearty laugh telling about throwing them overboard". A US vessel took a slaver and sent it to Pensacola – The captain and crew are liable to be hanged as pirates. Huntington returned and took charge of a project for widening the Erie Canal and in 1855 became the President of Rome, NY Savings Bank. A lengthy and well written diary giving insights into life in early 19th century Cuba and the slave trade. Housed in box 21., Original digital object name: bei-ms283, This digital resource is provided by the Special Collections department, Hamilton College, Clinton, New York, United States.
