Haitians in Cuba

     In early 18th century Cuba the Spanish Catholic Church created mutual aid societies, known as cabildos, which, in spite of the imposed Catholicism, served simultaneously as institutions of entertainment and venues of their ancestral African religious practices, adapting them to their new environment and to their circumstances as a marginalized, repressed and enslaved group [Velez, p 139]. The cabildos served a diversity of economic, political, and cultural functions. In stark contrast to the experience of African slaves in the United States, Africans in the cabildos of Cuba were afforded an opportunity to congregate with Africans of the same nation or territorial origin and speak in their native languages, which allowed for the retention and reconstruction of musical traditions and the perpetuation of rituals, ancestral expressions of dance and song related to religious belief, and the use of instruments so essential to the performance of those rituals. Lucumi (Yoruba) cabildos, Congo (name given to person of cultural practices of Bantu origin) cabildos and Arara (Fon) cabildos thrived, and were officially recognized during the colonial era and in the first years of the republic. Most offered mutual-aid benefits when members became disabled or sick, and virtually all provided death benefits, helping to defray the expense of funerals for members families [Andrews, p. 69].       

     As the the influence of the church over Cuban society waned in the 1800s (Knight, 1970), and the importation of Africans to Cuba approached all-time highs, the African culture of the cabildos was fortified further to give rise to Afro-Cuban religions: Santeria, Abakuá, and Palo Monte, each of which was formed in the cabildos of their respective peoples: Santeria in the Yoruba (Lucumi) cabildos, Abakua in the Carabali (Calabar coast) cabildos, and Palo Monte in the Congo cabildos. 

     Haitian immigration to Cuba began in 1791 and has continued at various times up to the present day. The early wave of refugees from Saint-Domingue established communities in the Oriente province of Cuba, which then was quite remote. Africans from Haiti were a transculturated mix of Dahomeyan, Congolese, and other groups, who usually spoke creolized French and observed the voodoo religion. 

     Given Haiti's reputation as a dangerous center for subversion, these new arrivals to Cuba avoided describing themselves as haitiano and soon the word francés was universally applied to all the refuges and their distinct array of music and social organizations. These black franceses formed cabildos, where they performed their dances known as tumbas, which derives from the French word for drums, "tambours"; in time these societies became known as tumba francesa, some of which survive to this day. Adorned in clothes modeled on the ballroom costumes of eighteenth-century France, they play almost purely African-derived music on Dahomeyan-style drums, together with dances that imitate the formal dances of the French society of the colonial era, while incorporating African elements. 

     The tumba was hardly limited to the cabildos and was heard on the coffee plantations, in the city slums, and in the palenques, the remote mountain communities of the cimmarones, or runaways. Palenques existed from the beginning of slavery in Cuba and could be found all over the island, but few regions provided more favorable terrain for hiding out than the mountains of Oriente. Soon after the arrival of the Haitian refugees at the beginning of the nineteenth century, a number of franceses joined or formed palenque communities where they practiced voodoo and performed the tumba.   

     Notably, the franceses employed a syncopated rhythmic cell known as the cinquillo (meaning quintuplet), which would prove to be not only the foundation of Haitian meringue and Domincan merengue, but of the Cuban danzón and the bolero. The influence of eighteenth-century France and the practice of voodoo allowed the franceses to provide more depth to Cuban music as distinct regional styles thrived and migrated.

Haiti Roots of the Creole Choir of Cuba

Haitian Roots of the Creole Choir of Cuba

Bibliography

Andrews, G.R., 2004. Afro-Latin America, 1800-2000, Oxford University Press, USA. 
Creole Choir Boasts Roots In Haiti, Fame In Cuba. October 24, 2011. National Public Radio. Available at: http://www.npr.org/2011/10/24/141652174/creole-choir-boasts-roots-in-haiti-fame-in-cuba. 
Knight, F.W., 1970. Slave Society in Cuba During the Nineteenth Century, University of Wisconsin Press.  

Sublette, N., 2007. Cuba and Its Music: From the First Drums to the Mambo, Chicago Review Press. Velez, M., 2000. Drumming For The Gods (Studies In Latin America & Car), Temple University Press.  Velez, M., 2000. Drumming For The Gods (Studies In Latin America & Car), Temple University Press.