The documents displayed in this section contain key accounts, in some cases arguably “foundational” ones, of interrelated events and themes in El Cobre’s history. With the exception of the last text,
they all constitute notable examples of manuscript documents representing “voices” from the past, in this case from the late 17th and 18th centuries. For the most part, they allegedly represent "voices" of enslaved and free subjects of African ancestry that, for differing reasons, are among the hardest to find in colonial archives. The documents speak to the central role that those subjects played in El Cobre's early history. Documents displayed in the Images section represented other "voices" as well. The texts in this section also raise some questions regarding subordinate subjects ability to access the writing machine of the Spanish colonial state and the role of the official archive.
These manuscript texts may look indistinguishable from other documents of the time. And they may sound flat, banal or stilted to the unitiated eye and ear. But once their various layers of incrusted protocol are peeled off and the texts are read closely and attentively, fascinating testimonies and stories begin to emerge (now and then alongside seemingly preposterous ones). Although these texts do not allow us to ascertain how various sectors of society actually “spoke," at least they can suggest how they formulated grievances, claims and aspirations, the discourses and categories utilized, and the identities that were conjured throughout different moments in time. Various subtexts may be found in them too.
All these archival texts come from the Archive of the Indies, the main repository of Spain's colonial records, and a veritable prisonhouse of voices from the past, as it sometimes has been called. The displayed documents were produced after the Spanish Crown confiscated the copper mining jurisdiction of El Cobre in the 1670s and a black pueblo of the former mining slaves--then turned royal slaves--began to emerge in the locality.
The first document points precisely to this transitional juncture. It is a petition of one of the slaves, Captain Juan Moreno, on behalf of the rest reacting to a recent official decision to sell them or transfer them to work in Havana. After withdrawing to the mountains in view of the threat of dispersal the royal slaves drew up this petition attempting to negotiate their stay in the jurisdiction. The text displays some unusual claims and requests. The petition, backed up by the royal slaves' act of fleeing to the mountains, was eventually granted. The latter were able to stay in El Cobre with their families and, more significantly, they became a "pueblo," a significant and highly controversial status particularly in the case of enslaved people. They were also incorporated into the Crown's defense system in the Santiago region as militia troops, as sentinels in the Guaycabon port and as laborers in the fortification projects (see Maps).
The second text is more astonishing, even sensational. It constitutes a notarized witness account of the alleged events regarding the "Apparition" of the Virgin, or rather, of the finding of the Image floating in the waters of Nipe Bay, its trajectory to El Cobre, and its trail of miracles. The notarized text was produced only a few years after the previous petition was negotiated, and roughly during the same period of transition in the jurisdiction and it was the same enslaved subject, Captain Juan Moreno. It is, however, a very different kind, or genre, of document. As a deposition it clearly represents a “voice” responding to questions, in this case posed by ecclesiastical authorities. Yet, paradoxically, the "voice" seems more mediated and formal than in the other documents, and the account more fanciful too.
Because it is a notarized witness report, it has become the foundational account of the shrine in El Cobre. What aspects of the current tradition presented in other sections of this website are sanctioned by that account? In what ways has the story and the tradition shifted from the "original" account?
The third document is an excerpt of a very long petition drawn up by another generation of royal slaves from El Cobre more than half a century after Juan Moreno’s petition in 1677. In this sense, the text provides a follow-up account or an update on how that community fared during the elapsed time. It was produced in 1734 during yet another critical moment of conflict when the royal slaves once more fled to the mountains revolting against local authorities' policies and making claims of their own. If read attentively, the excerpts here reveal some unusual memories, stories, and claims. The petition of the parish priest drawn up in 1799 and displayed in the "Texts as Images" section should be read alongside the texts in this section. It adds another half century to the community's history and suggests some new turns as well as continuities.
The last written text displayed in this section leaps ahead two or three centuries and stands apart from the earlier manuscript texts in obvious ways. Yet they all constitute written documents that purport to represent voices, particularly those of subordinate subjects, and as such they may pose analogous questions. What may some of these be? Reyita’s excerpts also illuminate popular beliefs and practices related to the cult to the Virgin of Charity and alternative traditions from the perspective of a practitioner. How does her account speak to issues raised in the “Marian cults and other tradtions” pages in the Images section?
Recorded accounts and interviews, of course, document voices in their oral mode and with cues and meanings that can be encoded in that auditive dimension. These oral texts, however, are also subject to other kinds of constraints, including the more obvious one related to a technology's existence and availability. What kind of voices and accounts would you find particularly useful if they were or could be recorded (or filmed)? Why? Included here, for instance, is an excerpt from a film documentary on Reyita that contains different interviews and voices. How clearly and distinctly is Reyita's voice represented and documented in this medium? What problems of its own may such an audiovisual piece present compared to the book's written account?
Finally, included almost as an afterthought in this section are selections of vocal music that shift the focus to a very different sort of "voice" from the past and the present. What can these various musicalized "voices" and traditions to the Christian Virgin and to the Afro-Cuban Ochun illustrate, document or speak to? They were performed and recorded in the present yet they purport to be of and from the past. Note that they are rendered as performances thereby adding another layer to questions of "voice."
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