Hispanic Caribbean nationalism centered on free European peasantry, excluding enslaved Africans

Evidence

At the broadest level, there are significant differences between the Spanish colonies and the rest of the region. These differences are related to the size of the white Creole population and the latter’s socioeconomic location in the colonial political economy. In Cuba and Puerto Rico, white “mo//o” culture has come to be understood as the “true” nationalist culture. It is contrasted with the Spanish European culture of the upper class and with the “African” culture of the black segment of the lower class. This relates directly to the historical role of white small-scale own-account campesinos (called jibaros in Puerto Rico) eking out a living on small plots in the rural areas in both countries. A racialized distinction is maintained between the black population and the descendents of the latter. This distinction was fashioned by competing claims to the nationalist space. Creole nationalism came to be associated with a free European peasantry that had prior claims to the territory. These claims to the national space were made against the contestations of the descendants, an enslaved African population that had no freehold or usufruct rights to land. — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 3210

Categorization

• XREF: Parallels the Gaelic/Catholic vs Anglo-Irish land-claim battles in Ireland’s constructed national identity, and settler-colonial land-claims logics.
• SEED: An essay angle: how ‘national peasant past’ myths in Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the DR erase African roots while citing indigenous (Taino) descent as prior claim.