+- Lincoln Discussion Symposium (https://rogerjnorton.com/LincolnDiscussionSymposium)
+-- Forum: Lincoln Discussion Symposium (/forum-1.html)
+--- Forum: Assassination (/forum-5.html)
+--- Thread: Lincoln in revolutionary Cuba (/thread-3131.html)
Lincoln in revolutionary Cuba - Don1946 - 09-06-2016 03:00 PM
For a book on the international impact of Lincoln's assasination (and the Union victory) I have been doing research on Cuba during and after the American Civil War. This from an American who lived in Cuba since the 1850s and in 1868 witnessed the republican rebellion against Spanish rule, in which the rebels promised freedom to slaves who would join them in arms:
Avidavit of William C. Tinker: I found that the slaves had all been liberated within this district. They were as free as any white citizens, to choose what they would do, or where they would go. Large numbers of them were in the army, and proved to be very good soldiers. I talked with numbers of them. They understood that they were free, and that their freedom had been given to them by the republic of Cuba and their former masters, and they understood that their freedom had resulted in some way from the emancipation of slaves in the United States.They had pictures of Abraham Lincoln, and spoke of him familiarly as the emancipador, or emancipator. I have seen them fight, under the command of white officers and under the command of black officers, and one black man, named Cintra, particularly distinguished himself in the action at La Cruz and Aurora.
(From: Correspondence Between the Department of State and the United States Minister at Madrid, and the Consular Representatives of the United States in the Island of Cuba,and Other Papers Relating to Cuban Affairs, Transmitted to the House of Representatives in Obedience to a Resolution, (Washington: GPO, 1870), p. 175 )