Date of Award

Spring 1-1-2025

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Department

Spanish and Portuguese

First Advisor

González Pérez, Aníbal

Abstract

Abolition In Color: Oral and Written Narratives of Struggle in Black Latin AmericaKarina Alexandra López Rossó 2025 This dissertation examines the different types of anti-slavery narratives written by people of Afro-descended writers in Cuba and Brazil at the end of the nineteenth century. During this time, literature acted as propaganda to further the spread of abolitionist ideas and ultimately end the abhorrent institution. While scholarship has tended to focus on the texts written by white abolitionists, this study places particular focus on the short stories and novels written by writers of color and points out the ways in which these texts not only contributed to swaying public opinion towards abolition, but also looked towards both the past and future for Afro-descended Cubans and Brazilians. It considers the ways in which these multidirectional works laid a foundation for Black writers and thinkers in the twentieth century, such as Aimé Césaire, James Baldwin, and Toni Morrison at a time when a Black Brazilian, or Black (or Afro) Cuban identity was beginning to be formed. With a careful consideration of the cultural contexts, the history of enslavement and the abolition movements in both Cuba and Brazil, and rooted in a close reading of these texts, the four chapters of this dissertation pay special attention to the ways in which the works of Maria Firmina dos Reis, Martín Morúa Delgado, and Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis critique and condemn the institution of slavery via the rendering of characters that provide a greater dimensionality and voice both to the enslaved Africans who endured its brutality, as well as to the white slaveholders who in many ways were blind to how the slave system also had a corrosive effect on them. The final chapter departs from the written word and ventures into the oral traditions of puya and jongo in Cuba and Brazil, respectively, juxtaposing the narratives of resistance in song with those on the page to craft an analysis that views all the different voices raised against slavery in concert, or, in color. The title of the dissertation is both a nod to the identities of the authors included in this project, but also an invitation to engaged in a synesthetic study of narratives that critiqued the slave system, advocated for liberation and contained visions for the future that continue to resonate today.

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