BY: Natasha Gregg

THE AFRICAN SLAVE REVOLT OF 1825 –

By 1825, the Spanish Empire in the Americas had all but collapsed. At the same time, the colonists and planter class in Cuba were heavily involved in transforming the island into the most prolific sugar colony in the Atlantic. With knowledge of slavery resistance in other Caribbean islands and abolition movements in Europe, enslaved Africans with knowledge of combat resisted their enslavement through incredibly organized widespread rebellions. On June 15, 1825, approximately 200 slaves, led by three African males in the jurisdiction of Matanzas led a coordinated revolt that spread to approximately Barcia’s book tells the story of a slave rebellion that occurred in the jurisdiction of Matanzas, a region rapidly developing into the centre of plantation slavery in Cuba. Beginning o25 plantations and left about 15 whites dead. This uprising began a cycle of resistance that was “Africanized” in nature, meaning they were led by African born men (not creoles or coloreds) and ended in the mid 1840s with the conspiracy of La Escalera, a large movement organized by free colored men.