Cuba remained a quiet part of the Spanish empire, at first a jumping off point for further exploration of the continent and also for the posting of military personnel to guard the transport of gold back to Spain. In 1762 the British captured Havana and occupied it for ten months; it was returned to Spain in 1763. This brief occupation opened up the island to international trade.
In the late 1700's, Cuba began to undergo significant changes in the island's economy and society. Cuba's economy began to transform from a mixed economy of ranching and tobacco farming to mainly sugar and coffee plantations. The growth of the sugarcane plantations meant the importing of large numbers of slaves from Africa. Despite the abolition of slavery in Britain in 1802 and the British determination to end the slave trade, Cuba continued to import African slaves. By the 1840's there were well oever four hundred thousand African slaves, a whopping forty-three percent of the island's population, despite the fact that slavery was supposedly abolished on the island in 1820 in an agreement with Great Britain. The plantation owners, seeing the end of the importing of black slaves from Africa, attempted to interest white European workers in coming to Cuba but were unsuccessful.Instead they turned to China to supply their labor needs. The British has been experimenting with exporting Chinese and East Indian laborers to their various colonies as opposition to the black slave trade began to grow in the late 1700's. The Spanish also utilized Chinese labour in their Phillippines colony. This soon came to be known as the "coolie trade" in which Chinese workers - almost exclusively men - were forced to sign an eight-year labour contract. After completing the indenture they were to be given their freedom. From 1847 to 1874 almost one hundred twenty five thousand Chinese labourers were indentured to Cuba.
The experience of Chinese workers was comparable to that of the African slaves; they were often forcibly recruited in China, packed on the same ships used and captained in the African slave trade, auctioned in the same slave auctions, housed in the same quarters that had been used or were being used by black slaves and were brutalized in the same manner. This led to many of them fighting in the Ten Years War for independence from Spain.
Using the real historical characters of Antonio Chuffat, his father, Senor Lam and Chin Lan Pin, an official from China sent to investigate the abuses, Engle constructs a story that describes the plight of the Chinese indentured laborers in Cuba in the 1870's. This story is told in seven parts by multiple narrators, using free verse. The story opens in 1871 when Antonio is twelve years old. Antonio's father, has moved from their small village of Jovellanos to La Habana where Antonio attends el Colegio para Desamparados de la Raza de Color - the School for the Unprotected Ones of the Race of Color so he can learn Spanish. Antonio notes the arrival of "los californios" - Chinese who have fled the violence and persecution in Los Angeles.
Outside of school, Antonio carries messages for Senor Tung Kong Lam, who emigrated from Shanghai to San Francisco but left after only a year due to the riots. These messages are to businessmen, soldiers and diplomats. Antonio overhears his father speaking to Senor Lam about the injustices the indentured Chinese laborers experience when they arrive in Cuba to work on the sugar plantations.
The story jumps ahead to the following year, 1872 with Antonio wanting to leave school to fight in the freedom war. However, he obeys his father and stays in school. When Antonio is invited to dinner at Senor Lam's home, he meets a "californio boy" who delivers vegetables to the Lam house. Antonio learns that Wing is from Los Angeles where his family ran a fruit shop in Chinatown. Their produce was considered "green gold". However, a drought left the cattlemen angry and they turned on the local Chinese, rioting and hanging Wing's older brother Jin along with two dozen men and boys. Wing's family decided to flee California but while travelling the narrow land between North and South America, his mother died from a fever. Antonio is angered by what happened to Wing's family,
"If only I could roar
right out of my human skin
and race all the way
across land and sea, to help Wing
seek vengeance."
In Cuba, although safe from the riots of Los Angeles, their situation is not much better. Wing and his family have traded their adobe home in California for a thatched hut that's flimsy and muddy. His twin sister Fan works in the field all day with Ba, while Wing goes in search of vegetables to buy and resell for a profit. He is hassled by the Spanish soldiers who steal his money.
Antonio tells Wing about his father's plan to help runaway "chinos" or Chinese by hiding them within the cuadrillas - paid work gangs who are hired during the harvest season. Each cuadrilla is paid as a unit for working one season only, meaning they are not indentured or slaves and they receive decent meals and lodging. Antonio enlists the help of Fan who is now working as a singer and Wing to secret runaway chinos off the island. Meanwhile the Spanish soldiers continue to intimidate and kill Cubans leading Senor Lam to send letters to the editors of newspapers in China telling about the abuses that the Chinese are experiencing in Cuba.
As Antonio grows into a young man he experiences his first love, begins to help runaway chinos escape Cuba and helps the Chinese royal emmisary, Chin Lan Pin as he travels throughout Cuba with scribes recording the spoken stories of men and women indentured for life. These stories will be considered "official petitions for freedom from the bizarre system of eight-year-contract slavery." But will their words have the power to change the laws and end the indentured labor of the Chinese in Cuba?
Discussion
This short novel uses free verse to tell the story of Antonio Chuffat who is half Chinese and half African. The story begins with Antonio as a messenger boy who carries words for Senor Lam.As he runs through La Habana he notices there are different types of men differentiated by the symbols on their garments; Peking military leaders who wear "sleek golden lions", soldiers have tigers, panthers or leopards on their uniforms, but diplomats have silk robes with "shimmering peacocks." Antonio wonders whether he will be a "roaring lion soldier or a calmly speaking diplomat bird?" He notices that the soldiers always yield to the diplomats - the men who fight with words.
Senor Lam writes letters to the editors of newspapers in China in the hopes that the government there will listen and do something about the plight of indentured chinos in Cuba. But Antonio wonders,
"Who will speak up for the africanos
by writing letters to editors in Madrid?"
Antonio hopes some day to speak up for the africanos who are enslaved. But when eight young Cuban medical students are executed for vandalizing the tomb of a Spanish soldier, Antonio doubts the power of Senor Lam's words to move the "educated peacock men in Shanghai or Peking". He asks,
"Where is the POWER in words that aren't heard?"
However, Senor Lam's words are successful as Chin Lan Pin, an investigative emissary from China with a shimmering peacock feather embroidered on his robes, arrives to hear the stories of the chino workers. Antonio, now fifteen recognizes the power of the Chinese emissary who has these stories transcribed as "official petitions for freedom". Antonio's duty is to travel from farm to farm inviting each man to participate and tell his story. These words, he believes, will have power.
"Voices grow fangs.
Stories have claws."
Circumventing the Spanish planters by lying to them about their true purpose of the visit, Antonio and his father and the Chinese emissary listen to the stories. Antonio discovers that rather than being a lion soldier he can help in a better more powerful way.
"Stories, letters, translations.
Reports, articles, petitions.
These are the most POWERFUL ways
for me to help
slaves."
When the powerful words of the indentured Chinese workers results in their freedom years later, Antonio begins working on freeing his mother's people- the africanos- from slavery too.
"Men from Nigeria
Women from the Congo.
Children of the Carabali, Mandinga,
and every other tribe
deserve
liberty."
Lion's Island is short, to the point, highlighting the abuse of workers in colonial Cuba, and the importance of fighting against injustice not only with weapons, but with words. It's message of tolerance and understanding is an important one for today, while also providing an interesting look into a small part of the history of Cuba.
Lion's Island is the final novel in a series of novels about Cuba by author Margarita Engle whose mother is Cuban and father is American. Engle has been able to visit Cuba in recent years and has based her novels on detailed research that often includes primary sources. Included at the back of the novel is an interesting Historical Note on the history of Cuba and Antonio Chuffat, as well as a list of references and a few suggestions for further reading for younger readers.
Book Details:
Lion Island: Cuba's Warrior of Words by Margarita Engle
New York: Atheneum Books For Young Readers 2016
pp. 163
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