Ambivalence and the Postcolonial Subject: The Strategic Alliance of Juan Francisco Manzano and Richard Robert Madden
2005; Volume: 24; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês
ISSN
2327-9648
Autores Tópico(s)Cuban History and Society
ResumoGera C. Burton. Ambivalence and Postcolonial Subject: The Strategic Alliance of Juan Francisco and Richard Robert Madden. Latin American Interdisciplinary Studies, Vol. 10. New York: Peter Lang Publishing, 2004. 144pp. The vogue of postcolonial studies provides Gera C. Burton a framework in which to contextualize unequivocal counter-discourse of two unlikely colonial subjects: freed and literate Cuban slave Juan Francisco (1797?-1853) and talented yet ambivalent Irish-Catholic servant to British Crown Richard Robert Madden (1798-1886). Their unique alliance, which began shortly after Madden's tenure as superintendent of Liberated Africans on Mixed Court of Arbitration in Cuba, and Manzano's manumission in 1836, resulted in Madden translating Manzano's autobiography in 1840 under title of Poems by a Slave in Island of Cuba, Recently Liberated ... with History of Early Life of Negro Poet, Written by Himself. Published to coincide with London's first antislavery convention, account-later translated into French-reached an international audience and set stage for Madden's subsequent political and literary rise, notably as author of The United irishmen: Their Lives and Times (1842-1846), a polemical corrective history of Republican events. Madden distilled his Cuban experiences into several tomes, where he described (1) cultural and political tensions between Ireland and Britain (The Connexion between Kingdom of Ireland and Crown of England (1845), (2) paradox of his personal history as a loyal servant to British politics, forever to remain a second-class citizen because of his birthplace (The Memoirs (Chiefly Autobiographical) from 1798-1886 of Richard Robert Madden and, (3) slavery and injustice (Address on Slavery in Cuba, Presented to General Anti-Slavery Convention, 1840), The Island of Cuba: Its Resources, Progress and Prospects (1849), and A Twelve Month's Residence in West Indies during Transition from Slavery to Apprenticeship (1835). While Madden's career blossomed, Manzano's was cut short after he was imprisoned for alleged involvement in an antislavery scheme, a fact that enhances value of Burton's study of the only extant slave narrative in Spanish language (2). When Manzano, who had previously labored under a master-slave relationship, defied prohibition to write, he segued into an even more ambiguous relationship when literacy became his master in a white colonial society that excluded his participation. Despite his self-proclaimed status as a mulatto among blacks within confines of Cuban society, his personal odyssey would have taken him from physical servitude to possible literary anonymity had it not been for Madden's timely interest in his work. The latter, in turn, used literary and personal friend' ship with to examine ambivalence of his own marginalization as an Irish subject, considered not European but rather Other or non White. In this first chapter Burton endeavors to apply postcolonial theory within an Irish context, which she concedes is contentious because of Ireland's so-called complicity in British imperial project. Yet aim to recover, to write back and to fill in gaps of historical record by establishing a connection in voices of Madden and Manzano, rescuing both writers from anonymity, creates a space and a voice for Burton to challenge canonical assumptions about application of literary theory. Chapter Two, Manzano and Madden: Historical Context, follows a trajectory from founding of colonies in two Americas to aftermath of French and North American revolutions, through Haiti under French rule, United Irishmen Rebellion (1798), Society of Friends' abolitionist activities, and Great Britain's Act of Union (1800), by which Ireland was united with Crown. It is against this backdrop that Madden and were born, circumscribing a significant alliance formed to resist colonial domination (14). …
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