David Sartorius
University of Maryland, History, Faculty Member
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On first read, specialists in Cuban history may find it pleasantly surprising to discover just how fresh and innovative Gillian McGillivray’s book is. Not so long ago, it was the rare study of Cuba that would not interrogate or assume the... more
On first read, specialists in Cuban history may find it pleasantly surprising to discover just how fresh and innovative Gillian McGillivray’s book is. Not so long ago, it was the rare study of Cuba that would not interrogate or assume the significance of sugar, rural labor, and capitalism to the island’s history. Today, the scholarly landscape looks quite different. Attention to urban life, popular culture, and transnational politics have largely drawn historians away from the countryside, leaving the field of rural history to lie fallow.
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In nineteenth-century Cuba, the increasing and uneven use of passports for maritime travel generated confusion about their authority and encouraged their falsification. This essay explores the forgery and misuse of travel papers alongside... more
In nineteenth-century Cuba, the increasing and uneven use of passports for maritime travel generated confusion about their authority and encouraged their falsification. This essay explores the forgery and misuse of travel papers alongside the fabrications of an official colonial record that concealed the illegal transatlantic slave trade as it implemented documentary procedures for legal travel. Cuban officials pursued individuals who traveled without passports, with other people’s passports, or lacked other papers, with a disproportionate focus on the circulation of free people of African descent. At the same time, the limited reach of government decrees and policies complicated strict determinations of transgression. Rather than taking this as evidence of a broken system, recognizing how various actors created the conditions for a collective susceptibility both to the authority conferred by passports and to plausible falsehoods lets us view borders, individual identity, and Caribb...
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1. Decades of scholarship on the history of African-descended people in colonial Latin America have shown that militia service was a durable marker of status and collective identity. The free black and mulatto colonial subjects who... more
1. Decades of scholarship on the history of African-descended people in colonial Latin America have shown that militia service was a durable marker of status and collective identity. The free black and mulatto colonial subjects who belonged to militia regiments ...
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Page 1. Book Reviews Feature Review História da Vida Privada no Brasil. Edited by fernando a. novais. Volume 2 edited by luiz felipe de alencastro. São Paulo: Companhia das Letras, 1997. Photographs. Illustrations. Maps. Tables. Notes.... more
Page 1. Book Reviews Feature Review História da Vida Privada no Brasil. Edited by fernando a. novais. Volume 2 edited by luiz felipe de alencastro. São Paulo: Companhia das Letras, 1997. Photographs. Illustrations. Maps. Tables. Notes. Appendix. Bibliography. Index. ...