Littérature et société à Cuba (1810-1850) : images de la population de couleur

Society and literature in cuba (1810-1850). Images of the coloured population

• Auteur / Autrice : Michèle Guicharnaud-Tollis
• Direction : Joseph Pérez
• Type : Thèse de doctorat
• Discipline(s) : Études latino-américaines
• Date : Soutenance en 1987
• Etablissement(s) : Bordeaux 3

Mots clés

Mots clés contrôlés

Noirs -- dans la littérature cubaine

Thèmes, motifs

19e siècle

Littérature cubaine

Mots clés libres

Etudes latino-americaines

Antilles. Cuba

Litterature

Litterature de voyage

Noir et litterature

Image du noir

Intellectuel

Esclave esclavage

Antiesclavagisme

Résumé

Dans la litterature de voyage etrangere -europeenne et nord-americaine-, et dans la la litterature de fiction autochtone, on a successivement etudie les differentes images proposees de la population de couleur cubaine de la premiere moitie du xixe siecle. Confrontes aux donnees des historiens de l'epoque souvent utilisees, les apports de la premiere permettent de nuancer les informations officielles, mais aussi, a travers la description et l'evocation de la vie coloniale, d'apprehender les visees politiques de l'etranger a l'epoque. Souvenir de villegiature prive, ou compte-rendu de mission scientifique ou politique, la relation de voyage reste toujours critique, parce qu'elle donne la vision du temoin oculaire sensible aux defaillances du systeme colonial espagnol. En contrepoint, et sur la meme question, la litterature autochtone produite par une minorite de creoles eclaires apporte le point de vue interne. En se livrant d'abord a une cubanisation culturelle poussee (de 1837 a 1839), puis en sollicitant les modeles etrangers dans les domaines scientifique, technique et litteraire, les intellectuels cubains de l'epoque affichent une volonte farouche de consommer, effectivement et a des degres divers, le divorce d'avec la metropole. Dans le roman domestico-citadin, comme dans le roman rural, par l'interet qu'ils portent a la population de couleur, et par l'image qu'ils en donnent, -aussi bien dans leurs efforts pour favoriser l'accroissement de la population blanche, que dans leur evocation des horreurs de l'esclavage-, les ecrivains montrent l'emergence d'une pensee antiesclavagiste qui, issue de l'humanisme chretien traditionnel mais corrigee par les premieres convictions evolutionnistes, ne va pas sans nuances ni contradictions. Ainsi l'histoire culturelle cubaine de la premiere moitie du xixe siecle permet d'entrevoir comment le mouvement des idees qui, quelques annees plus tard, devait conduire a l'abolition de l'esclavage et a l'emancipation insulaire, a ete le fait des esprits les plus eclaires du moment.

In foreign literature -european and north american- dealing with travel as in native fiction, the different images of the coloured population of cuba during the first half of the nineteenth century have been successively studied. When placed against the often quoted material from contemporary historians, the contribution made by the former allows us to qualify the official records, but also, through the description and the impressions of the colonial way of life, to isolate the various ambitions, not all of which were desinterested, for cuba at that time. Whether in the form of souvenirs of a private holiday or a report on a scientific or political expedition, such eye-witness accounts are invariably critical, stemming as they do from commentators particularly sensitive to the most glaring weaknesses of the spanish colonial system. To counterbalance this, and on the same subject, the native literature produced by a minority of enlightened creoles gives the inside view. First of all by letting themselves go towards an advanced form of cultural cubanization from 183740, then by turning to foreign models in scientific, technical and literary fields, the cuban intellectuals of that period marked their irrepressible desire, effectively and to varying degrees, to go through with their divorce from the metropolis. Writers of the domestic urban novel, as well as those of the rural one, show the emergence of an anti-slavery line of thought by their keen interest in the coloured population and the image it projects. This is evident as much from their efforts to encourage the growth of the white population as in their evocation of the horrors of slavery. The anti-slavery line of thought, thus sketched, stems from traditional christian humanism, but is corrected by the first evolu- tionist convictions, and is not without its contradictions and qualifications. Thus we can say that the cultural history of cuba, during the first half of the nineteenth century, allows us to grasp the evolution of ideas which, several years later, resulted in the abolition of slavery, and that the emancipation of the island was due to the most enlightened minds of t