Insurgency Interrupted: Cuban Slaves and the Resistance Movements of 1843-1844

Aisha Finch
Gender Studies and African American Studies
UC Los Angeles

Insurgency Interrupted follows the emergence of a dynamic resistance movement in western Cuba, fashioned by enslaved and free people of color in the early 1840s. Using the virtually unexplored testimonies in the Cuban National Archive, I challenge all previous accounts of a movement that was brutally truncated before its time. This book intervenes in a history that has all but disappeared the contributions of rural black organizers. By positioning non-elite slaves at the center of a larger black political culture, I expand the terms for understanding enslaved people’s collective struggles.