Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley door pickup 10am - 7pm 3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611

  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
Prieto: Yorùbá Kingship in Colonial Cuba During the Age of Revolutions

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

Lovejoy, Henry B.

Hardcover

Series: Envisioning Cuba

Historical FiguresCaribbean HistoryCentral American History

ISBN10: 1469645386
ISBN13: 9781469645384
Publisher: University of North Carolina Press
Published: Feb 4 2019
Pages: 240
Weight: 1.21
Height: 0.69 Width: 6.14 Depth: 9.21
Language: English
This Atlantic world history centers on the life of Juan Nepomuceno Prieto (c. 1773-c. 1835), a member of the West African Yorùbá 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 Yorùbá speakers were forced into life-and-death struggles in a strange land. In Havana, Prieto and most of the people of the Yorùbá diaspora were identified by the colonial authorities as Lucumí. 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 Lucumí cabildo, where he contributed to the development of the Afro-Cuban religion of Santería. 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.

Also in

Central American History

View All