Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-dlnhk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-02T19:22:55.441Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Reading through the Veil of Juan Francisco Manzano: From Homoerotic Violence to the Dream of a Homoracial Bond

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 October 2020

Robert Richmond Ellis
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The Autobiografía of the Cuban slave poet Juan Francisco Manzano is the only Spanish American slave narrative written by a person living in slavery. In this text Manzano recounts his corporal punishments in graphic detail but explicitly veils certain key episodes of abuse. I contend that this veil is a marker of sexual assault and that the Autobiografía bears silent testimony to the rape of male slaves. Manzano, however, was not only a victim of homoerotic violence; in one of his poems, “Un sueño” (“A Dream”), he reconfigures homoerotic desire in a way that tentatively reconstitutes his self-integrity and establishes a bond of reciprocity with his enslaved brother. In Manzano's writing, then, homoeroticism is transformed from an instrument of oppression into an act of resistance that challenges the racist and masculinist violence of the colonial slave system.

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 113 , Issue 3 , May 1998 , pp. 422 - 435
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1998

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Works Cited

Barreda, Pedro The Black Protagonist in the Cuban Novel. Trans. Bancroft, Page. Amherst: U of Massachusetts P, 1979.Google Scholar
Bersani, Leo Homos. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1995.Google Scholar
Caruth, Cathy. Introduction American Imago: Studies in Psychoanalysis and Culture 48.1 (1991): 1–12.Google Scholar
Caruth, Cathy Introduction. American Imago: Studies in Psychoanalysis and Culture 48.4 (1991): 417–41.Google Scholar
DeCosta, Miriam “Social Lyricism and the Caribbean Poet/Rebel.” Blacks in Hispanic Literature: Critical Essays. Ed. DeCosta. Port Washington: Kennikat, 1977. 114–11.Google Scholar
del Monte, Domingo Escritos de Domingo del Monte, Vol. 2. Havana: Cultural, 1929. 2 vols.Google Scholar
Foreman, P. Gabrielle “Manifest in Signs: The Politics of Sex and Representation in Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl.” Harriet Jacobs and Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl: New Critical Essays. Ed. Garfield, Deborah M. and Zafar, Rafia. New York: Cambridge UP, 1996. 76–99.10.1017/CBO9780511570414.005CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Foreman, P. Gabrielle “Sentimental Abolition in Douglass's Decade: Revision, Erotic Conversion, and the Politics of Witnessing in ”The Heroic Slave' and My Bondage and My Freedom.“ Criticism and the Color Line: Desegregating American Literary Studies. Ed. Wonham, Henry B. New Brunswick: Rutgers UP, 1996. 191–204.Google Scholar
Foreman, P. Gabrielle “‘This Promiscuous Housekeeping’: Death, Transgression, and Homoeroticism in Uncle Tom's Cabin.” Representations 43 (1993): 51–72.10.2307/2928732CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Foster, Frances “‘In Respect to Females …‘: Differences in the Portrayals of Women by Male and Female Narrators.” Black American Literature Forum 15.2 (1981): 66–70.10.2307/2904084CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Friol, Roberto Suite para Juan Francisco Manzano. Havana: Arte y Literatura, 1977.Google Scholar
Jackson, Richard L Black Writers in Latin America. Albuquerque: U of New Mexico P, 1979.Google Scholar
Jacobs, Harriet A Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl: Written by Herself. Ed. Child, L. Maria and Yellin, Jean Fagan. Introd. Yellin. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1987.Google Scholar
Jiménez, Luis A “Nineteenth Century Autobiography in the Afro-Americas: Frederick Douglass and Juan Francisco Manzano.” Afro-Hispanic Review 14.2 (1995): 47–52.Google Scholar
Klein, Herbert S African Slavery in Latin America and the Caribbean. New York: Oxford UP, 1986.Google Scholar
Klein, Herbert S Slavery in the Americas: A Comparative Study of Virginia and Cuba. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1967.Google Scholar
Knight, Franklin W Slave Society in Cuba during the Nineteenth Century. Madison: U of Wisconsin P, 1970.Google Scholar
Kutzinski, Vera M Sugar's Secrets: Race and the Erotics of Cuban Nationalism. Charlottesville: UP of Virginia, 1993.Google Scholar
Leante, César “Dos obras antiesclavistas cubanas.” Cuadernos americanos 207.4 (1976): 175–17.Google Scholar
Luis, William Literary Bondage: Slavery in Cuban Narrative. Austin: U of Texas P, 1990.Google Scholar
Lumsden, Ian Machos, Maricones, and Gays: Cuba and Homosexuality. Philadelphia: Temple UP, 1996.Google Scholar
Manzano, Juan Francisco Autobiografía, cartas y versos de Juan Fco. Manzano. Ed. Franco, José L. Havana: Municipio de La Habana, 1937.Google Scholar
Manzano, Juan Francisco The Autobiography of a Slave / Autobiografía de un esclavo. Ed. and introd. Schulman, Ivan A. Trans. Garfield, Evelyn Picon. Detroit: Wayne State UP, 1996.Google Scholar
Manzano, Juan Francisco Poems by a Slave in the Island of Cuba, Recently Liberated; Translated from the Spanish, by R. R. Madden, M.D., with the History of the Early Life of the Negro Poet, Written by Himself; to Which Are Prefixed Two Pieces Descriptive of Cuban Slavery and the Slave-Traffic. London: Ward, 1840.Google Scholar
McDowell, Deborah E “In the First Place: Making Frederick Douglass and the Afro-American Narrative Tradition.” Critical Essays on Frederick Douglass. Ed. Andrews, William L. Boston: Hall, 1991. 192–214.Google Scholar
Molloy, Sylvia At Face Value: Autobiographical Writing in Spanish America. New York: Cambridge UP, 1991.10.1017/CBO9780511553844CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Moreno Fraginals, Manuel “Cultural Contributions and Deculturation.” Africa in Latin America: Essays on History, Culture, and Socialization. Ed. Fraginals, Moreno. Trans. Blum, Leonor. New York: Holmes, 1984. 5–22.Google Scholar
Moreno Fraginals, Manuel “Peculiaridades de la esclavitud en Cuba.” Islas 85 (1986): 3–12.Google Scholar
Olney, James “The Founding Fathers—Frederick Douglass and Booker T. Washington.” Slavery and the Literary Imagination. Ed. McDowell, Deborah E. and Rampersad, Arnold. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 1989. 1–24.Google Scholar
Paquette, Robert L Sugar Is Made with Blood: The Conspiracy of La Escalera and the Conflict between Empires over Slavery in Cuba. Middletown: Wesleyan UP, 1988.Google Scholar
Piedra, José “Literary Whiteness and the Afro-Hispanic Difference.” New Literary History 18 (1987): 303–30.10.2307/468731CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Piedra, José “Nationalizing Sissies.” ¿Entiendes?: Queer Readings, Hispanic Writings. Ed. Bergmann, Emilie L. and Smith, Paul Julian. Durham: Duke UP, 1995. 370–409.Google Scholar
Schulman, Ivan A Introduction. Manzano, Autobiography 5–38.Google Scholar
Scott, Rebecca J “Explaining Abolition: Contradiction, Adaptation, and Challenge in Cuban Slave Society, 1860-1886.” Between Slavery and Free Labor: The Spanish-Speaking Caribbean in the Nineteenth Century. Ed. Fraginals, Manuel Moreno, Pons, Frank Moya, and Engerman, Stanley L. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 1985. 25–53.Google Scholar
Stinchcombe, Arthur L Sugar Island Slavery in the Age of Enlightenment: The Political Economy of the Caribbean World. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1995.Google Scholar
Suárez y Romero, Anselmo Francisco: El ingenio, o Las delicias del campo. Cuadernos de cultura 8.1. Ed. Mario Cabrera Saqui. Havana: Ministerio de Educación, Dirección de Cultura, 1947.Google Scholar
Williams, Lorna Valerie The Representation of Slavery in Cuban Fiction. Columbia: U of Missouri P, 1994.Google Scholar
Willis, Susan “Crushed Geraniums: Juan Francisco Manzano and the Language of Slavery.” The Slave's Narrative. Ed. Davis, Charles T. and Gates, Henry Louis Jr. New York: Oxford UP, 1985. 199–224.Google Scholar