Atlantic Studies

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Ọ̀ṣun becomes Cuban: The nationalist discourse

over the mulata in Cuban popular culture and
religion during the nineteenth century

Henry B. Lovejoy

To cite this article: Henry B. Lovejoy (2019) Ọ̀ṣun becomes Cuban: The nationalist discourse over
the mulata in Cuban popular culture and religion during the nineteenth century, Atlantic Studies,
16:2, 220-235, DOI: 10.1080/14788810.2018.1490991

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/14788810.2018.1490991

Published online: 29 Jun 2018.

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ATLANTIC STUDIES
2019, VOL. 16, NO. 2, 220–235
https://doi.org/10.1080/14788810.2018.1490991

Ọ̀ s un becomes Cuban: The nationalist discourse over the

mulata in Cuban popular culture and religion during the
nineteenth century
Henry B. Lovejoy
History Department, University of Colorado Boulder, Boulder, CO, USA

ABSTRACT KEYWORDS
In Cuba, the goddess of rivers, feminine beauty and motherhood, Yorùbá diaspora; Cuba;
known as Ọ̀ s un, became equated with Cuba’s patron saint, who is Virgen de la Caridad del
portrayed as a mixed-race female known as La Virgen de la Cobre; Ọ̀ s un; mulata stock
Caridad del Cobre. This article explores how Cuban popular character; national identity
culture, specifically surrounding the “mulata” stock character,
entered the lexicon of a West African religion during Cuba’s
independence movements in the second half of the nineteenth
century. The mythology surrounding this West African goddess
transformed in Cuba as a means in which to critique colonial rule
and slavery, as well as contribute to the development of a
national and cultural identity called cubanidad/cubanía.

Venus de bronce, como el bronce mismo,

que dos metales diferentes forman,
dos seres antipáticos la engendran,
dos principios distintos la coloran.

Venus of bronze, like bronze itself,

made from two different metals,
two opposed beings engender her,
two different principles color her.1

Between 1776 and 1825, most of the colonies in Latin America acquired their indepen-
dence, yet Cuba maintained its colonial bond with Spain until the late nineteenth
century. After the 1789 free slave trade decrees and the 1791 revolution in
St. Domingue, Cuba became the world’s leading producer of sugar, and by the mid-nine-
teenth century, the enslaved and free people of color were a majority of the population on
the island.2 After what happened in St. Domingue, the predominately white, slave-owning
class in Cuba, whether born in Europe or Cuba, held onto Spain in fear of being the next
black republic, which Haiti had achieved in 1804. And there were real dangers. Colonial
authorities in Cuba succeeded in suppressing rebellions and conspiracies in the first half
of the nineteenth century, most notably the Aponte Rebellion (1812), the conspiracy of

CONTACT Henry B. Lovejoy hlovejoy@colorado.edu

© 2018 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group
 ATLANTIC STUDIES 221

the masonic lodge of the Soles y Rayos de Bolívar (1823), the conspiracy of the masonic
lodge of the Gran Legión del Águila Negra (1828–1830), and La Escalera conspiracy
(1844), among dozens of localized slave uprisings.3 By the 1850s and 1860s, the Cuban-
born population made their demands increasingly vocal, such as tariff reforms, Cuban rep-
resentation in parliament, judicial equality for Cubans, enforcement of the prohibition of
the transatlantic slave trade, abolition of slavery and eventually labor rights. Shortly after
the last documented slave ships arrived in Cuba from Africa in 1867, the wars of indepen-
dence from Spain lasted over a 34-year period. They included the Ten Years’ War (1868–
1878), the Guerra Chiquita (1879–1880), the abolition of slavery (1886) and the War of
Independence (1895–1898), which bled into the Spanish-American War (1898) and the
US occupation of Cuba until 1902. These wars, rebellions, conspiracies and revolutions
largely consisted of free, enslaved and formally enslaved Africans, as well as their
descendants.4
Cuban independence took place much later than elsewhere in the Americas. Much like
other anticolonial ideologies in the Spanish Americas, an antiracist rhetoric was central to
Cuban independence. Participation in the military offered many free African descendants
professional opportunities and social mobility. After all, people of African descent formed
the majority of Cuba’s National Army of Liberation, which was much more than just masses
of black soldiers and former slaves serving under small groups of white officers. Although
prosperous white men initiated the island’s move toward independence, many people of
African descent rose through the ranks to become captains, colonels and generals. General
Antonio Maceo Grajales, an abolitionist and civil rights advocate, was the son of a Vene-
zuelan farmer and a woman of African descent. His famous statement captures the prin-
cipal ideology found in the anticolonial wars, when he said, “there are no blacks or whites,
only Cubans.”5 Ada Ferrer has argued that the island’s nationalist discourse “made racial
slavery and racial division concomitant with Spain’s colonialism.”6
The dogma of Cuba’s “raceless nationality” was tied into the symbol of a mixed-race
female (mulata), which emerged in popular culture of the nineteenth century. The
mulata stock character developed as a poetic device used to parody race relations in a
colony increasingly preoccupied with a national and cultural identity, called cubanidad/
cubanía.7 As an exotic figure, the socially ambitious mulata navigated socio-racial divisions.
Prominent white men, as well as black lower classes, desired her, even though she was
associated with witches, freaks and prostitutes. According to Vera M. Kutzinski, the
mulata was “representative of the multifarious anxieties, contradictions and imperfections
in the Cuban body politic.”8 By the Ten Years’ War, the mulata was a permanent allegory
for nationhood because she epitomized Cuba’s mixed-race identity born out of a fusion of
indigenous populations, Spanish colonialism, slavery from Africa, and from the mid-nine-
teenth century onward, indentured servants from China.
Another major symbol to emerge during Cuba’s independence movement was the
Virgen de la Caridad del Cobre.9 Since the seventeenth century, her image portrays the
Virgin Mother in yellow robes rising above a tumultuous sea with three men of
different races – indigenous, African and European – praying beneath her in a canoe.
This Catholic iconography symbolizes the mixed-race population in Cuba. By the 1895
war, Cuba’s freedom fighters, collectively known as mambises, sewed images of this
Marian devotion on their military uniforms.10 And by 1916, Pope Benedicto XV named
her the patron saint of the island. Beyond the nationalist take on this Marian devotion,
222 H. B. LOVEJOY

members of the African-Cuban communities known as Lucumí reinvented a Yorùbá deity

(òrìs à), called Ọ̀ s un, into this unique tradition. The characteristics of this goddess of fertility
from West Africa were beauty, femininity and sexuality; and of course, the color yellow.
However, Ochún, as her name is spelled in Cuba, diverged from West African beliefs
because the goddess was reconceived as “a beautiful mulata.”11
While much has been written on the Virgen de la Caridad del Cobre and how she came
to personify cubanidad/cubanía, little analysis from an Africanist perspective has examined
how or when Cuban national discourse and identity, entered the lexicon of òrìs à worship.
An analysis of this process requires a discussion on how art, literature, music, theater, reli-
gion and politics on both sides of the Atlantic intersected in colonial Cuba whereby a West
African goddess was reinvented as a mixed-race woman. The transformation of Ọ̀ s un into
Ochún, also known as the Virgen de la Caridad del Cobre, occurred within the anticolonial
discourse of the mulata as expressed in Cuban popular culture of the mid-to-late nine-
teenth century. The use of this stock character coincided with the collapse of the
kingdom of Ọ̀ yọ́ between 1817 and 1836, when many enslaved Yorùbá speakers arrived
to the island. Throughout the struggle for Cuba’s independence, people from the Bight
of Benin hinterland and their descendants disseminated the mulata as a parable for
nationhood via òrìs à mythology.

Ọ̀ s un arrives to Cuba
The source of the Ọ̀ s un river is near the town of Ìgédè in Èkìtì State in modern Nigeria. It
flows southwards through Ọ̀ s un and Ògún states and empties into the waterway between
Lagos and the Lekki lagoons at the coast of the Bight of Benin. One of the major centers of
Ọ̀ s un worship takes place in a sacred forest, called Ọ̀ s un Òs ogbo, just outside the city of
Òs ogbo, which is the capital of Ọ̀ s un state. With the support of local peoples, Suzanne
Wenger, Ulli Beier and Duro Ladipo, co-founders of the New Sacred Art movement,
raised awareness in the 1950s about deforestation, poaching and the looting of statues/
shrines in the sacred grove. In 2005, Ọ̀ s un Òs ogbo became a UNESCO world heritage
site and continues to be a protected parkland along the banks of the river. The revival
of the annual Ọ̀ s un festival now attracts thousands of devotees and observers to
Òs ogbo every August when the river is at its fullest during the rainy season.12 The
goddess Ọ̀ s un is closely connected to the Àtáọ́ja, the traditional ruler at Òs ogbo. The
sacred river flows southward through the Yorùbá kingdoms of Ìjẹ̀s à, Ifẹ̀, Òwu, Ẹ̀gbá and
Ìjẹ̀bú.
In òrìs à mythology, Ọ̀ s un is believed to have been a woman who turned herself into
flowing waters. Along with Ọya (Niger river) and Ọba (Ọba river), she is one of the
many wives and/or sisters of S àngó, a legendary Aláàfin, or the owner of the palace at
Ọ̀ yọ́ , who is a powerful god of thunder and lightning. According to legend, it is said
that S àngó’s three wives accompany him wherever he goes; Ọya is the wind, while
Ọ̀ s un and Ọba carry S àngó’s bow and sword.13 Ọ̀ s un is a symbol of femininity, who
likes to bath in cool waters and pamper herself. Like most òrìs à, Ọ̀ s un has easily identifiable
iconography, especially surrounding the color yellow. Her followers wear jewelry made
from gold, brass, copper and amber, which are made to jingle to replicate the flowing
sound of rivers.14 Ọ̀ s un is said to own the powerful beaded comb (s ẹ̀ẹ̀gẹ̀sí), which she
uses ‘“to part the pathways to human and divine existence.”15 Ọ̀ s un ensures human
 ATLANTIC STUDIES 223

perpetuation, and according to Andrew Apter, she holds àjé, a word that “denotes the
woman who consumes life.”16 This goddess proposes a complex image of women’s
“real power” where the womb is seen “as a powerful matrix, nurturing myriad
possibilities.”17
The yellow, river goddess is worshipped throughout Yorùbáland and in diaspora. Ọ̀ s un
worship was not exclusive to the area along the river. For example, the goddess appeared
within the royal court at Ọ̀ yọ́ as represented in a royal title, Ìyafin Ọ̀ s un.18 The resettlement
of different Yorùbá-speaking peoples occurred continuously to the Americas during the
era of trans-Atlantic slavery. The course of the Ọ̀ s un River was a major trade route
through the kingdom of Ìjẹ̀bú to the Lekki and Lagos lagoons. Until the late eighteenth
century, most of the slave trade at the Bight of Benin took place at Badagry, Porto Novo
and Ouidah. But by the first decades of the nineteenth century, when the British began
to concentrate their anti-slaving patrols at Ouidah, the slave trade shifted east to
Lagos.19 People leaving the Bight of Benin went to numerous destinations in the Atlantic
world, most especially Brazil, Cuba, and as British anti-slaving blockade became effective
after 1808, to Freetown in Sierra Leone.20
The trade in slaves from areas along the Ọ̀ s un River toward Lagos intensified during the
first third of the nineteenth century. In c. 1807, Dahomey raids on Porto Novo had forced
Ọ̀ yọ́ traders to sell slaves to Ifẹ̀ merchants in the market town of Apòmù located close to
the Ọ̀ s un River. By 1810, Ìjẹ̀bú was raiding Ọ̀ yọ́ traders at Apòmù, and many Ọ̀ s un devotees
were probably among the victims. By c. 1812, Ọ̀ yọ́ sought to suppress raiding in the area,
which provoked a war with Ifẹ̀, and in response, Ọ̀ yọ́ ’s ally, Òwu, subjected a number of
western Ifẹ̀ towns, including Apòmù. Slaves taken to Apòmù were traded to Ìjẹ̀bú mer-
chants, who brought them to the northern side of Lagos lagoon and then to ships
moored off the coast.21
Through the 1820s more Ọ̀ s un devotees entered the trans-Atlantic slave trade. Warfare
along the Ọ̀ s un River continued during Ọ̀ yọ́ ’s collapse. Emanating from the Sokoto Cali-
phate and propagated by Fulani pastoralists and Muslim protagonists, jihād reached the
city of Ìlọrin, the military garrison town of Ọ̀ yọ́ , in 1817. Located some fifty kilometers
north of the Ọ̀ s un River, Ìlọrin became an emirate of Sokoto in 1823 and thereon rep-
resented an alien power which steadily pursued the destruction of Ọ̀ yọ́ . As a result of
the Òwu Wars between c. 1818 and 1822, Ọ̀ yọ́ lost much of its power, including control
of the market at Apòmù, which also led to the rise of Lagos as the main port in the
trans-Atlantic trade. During the Òwu Wars, an Ifẹ̀ and Ìjẹ̀bú alliance shifted the military
balance against Òwu and many people, more of whom would have been Ọ̀ s un devotees,
boarded slave ships via Ìjẹ̀bú trade networks. At the battle of Ogele, Ìlọrin repelled Ọ̀ yọ́ ’s
attempted counterattack. During the Mugba Mugba war, which ended in c. 1825, Ọ̀ yọ́
allied with Nupé, a neighboring ethnic group to the Yorùbá-speaking region. Opposed
to the jihād, this coalition attacked Ìlọrin, but they failed to take the city. Thereafter,
Ọ̀ yọ́ did not attempt another attack on Ìlọrin, primarily because many of its provincial
towns were engaged in civil war. Meanwhile, Ìlọrin pushed further south toward the
Ọ̀ s un river.22
By the late-1820s, migrations of refugees spread away from the Ọ̀ s un river and many
new settlements emerged, most notably at Ìbàdàn and Abẹ̀òkúta. In 1829, refugees
fleeing the war-torn areas in Òwu and Ọ̀ yọ́ , as well as soldiers from Ifẹ̀ and Ìjẹ̀bú, con-
verged at Ìbàdàn, which was originally a war camp. At first, Ifẹ̀ was the most dominant
224 H. B. LOVEJOY

group at Ìbàdàn, but an increase in Ọ̀ yọ́ and Òwu refugees and the subsequent expulsion
of Ifẹ̀ chiefs and their followers transformed Ìbàdàn into a predominately Ọ̀ yọ́ town. By
1830, Ìbàdàn had the responsibility of defending southern Yorùbáland from Ìlọrin, while
the Ìjẹ̀bú and Ifẹ̀ alliance continued to raid Ẹ̀gbá territories west of the Ọ̀ s un River. In
the following decades, Ìbàdàn was at war with Ìlọrin, except for brief periods of truce
and/or stalemate. Due to the Ìjẹ̀bú and Ifẹ̀ pressure, Ẹ̀gbá and Òwu refugees moved
west to found the town of Abẹ́òkúta.23
After c. 1830, the ongoing warfare in the region had less to do with religion, especially
since Islam was popular in Ìbàdàn as well as Ìlọrin, but more to do with the power struggle
for control over the northeastern part of Ọ̀ yọ́ .24 When the Ọ̀ yọ́ capital was abandoned in
c. 1836, Ìbàdàn sought to regain Ọ̀ yọ́ territories previously lost to Ìlọrin. In c. 1838, Ìbàdàn
won a decisive war at Òs ogbo, which became the epicenter of Ọ̀ s un worship. According to
Ọ̀ yọ́ traditions, the victory at Òs ogbo “forms a turning point in Yoruba history. It saved the
Yoruba’s country as such from total absorption by the Fulanis as a tributary state.”25 With
the Òs ogbo War, the southward drive of Ìlọrin was stopped, while Ìbàdàn took control of
towns along the Ọ̀ s un River, including Òs ogbo.26 This turmoil would have resulted in the
flight of many Ọ̀ s un worshipers from places along the Ọ̀ s un River who left the region to
avoid war and enslavement.
It is therefore clear that many Ọ̀ s un devotees were absorbed into the transatlantic slave
trade from the 1810s until the 1860s. Estimates of the trade to Cuba reveal that over
111,000 individuals arrived in Cuba from the Bight of Benin between 1718 and 1863.
However, close to 95% of that total took place after 1816, or when the jihād had
reached Ìlọrin and war ravaged the Ọ̀ s un River corridor.27 According to the recent esti-
mates approximately 34,000 Yorùbá speakers arrived to Cuba between 1826 and 1840
alone, whereby they constituted upwards of 75% of the total migration leaving the
Bight of Benin to Cuba.28 It is possible to assess the ethnolinguistic configuration of the
Bight of Benin migration in Cuba based on surviving documentation collected during
the British anti-slavery activities.
Between 1824 and 1841, 2624 individuals classified as Lucumí arrived from Lagos,
Ouidah and Little Popo and were liberated by Havana’s Slave Trade Mixed Commission
court. After the trial, court clerks documented African names into large bound registers.29
In some cases, names of Yorùbá origin relate to òrìs à worship, and between 1833 and
1839, some names clearly demonstrate the arrival of Ọ̀ s un devotees in Cuba. For
example, “Achunulay” is likely the name Ọ̀ s unnilé, which means “Ọ̀ s un has a house”;
“Ochuro,” or Ọ̀ s unro, translates as “Ọ̀ s un stays strong”; “Ochondelo” or Ọ̀ s underó means
“Ọ̀ s un is peaceful”; “Ochuyimí” or Ọ̀ s unyemi is “Ọ̀ s un befits me”; “Ochunbamecú” or Ọ̀ s un-
bamiku is “Ọ̀ s un is not going to die with me”; “Osurbumy” and “Ochubumy” or Ọ̀ s unbumí
is “Ọ̀ s un blesses me [with this child], this [child] is a gift from Ọ̀ s un”; and “Ozuobuimbo” or
Ọ̀ s unbambo is “Ọ̀ s un comes with me.”30
From 1840 until the end of the trans-Atlantic slave trade to Cuba in 1866, Ọ̀ s un devo-
tees would have continued to arrive to the Spanish colony. After c. 1844, Dahomey main-
tained a continuous campaign against Abẹ́òkúta, where many Ọ̀ s un worshippers had
settled, but was unsuccessful in conquering the town through the early 1850s. Meanwhile,
Ìbàdàn was expanding its control and sent expeditions against Ìjẹ̀s à, another center of
Ọ̀ s un worshippers, whose capital, Iles a, was described in 1858 as “the largest and by far
the most important place [in Yorùbáland] after Ìbàdàn.”31 Before Ìbàdàn captured Ẹdẹ
 ATLANTIC STUDIES 225

and later Òs ogbo in 1838, these places were formerly under Ìjẹ̀s à’s sphere of influence.
Although in 1853, Ìjẹ̀s à rejected Ìbàdàn authority, and by 1859, Ìbàdàn had reduced
Iles a to partial submission during the Ìjẹ̀bú Ẹ̀rẹ´ War.32 In the early 1860s, the last slave
ships from the Bight of Benin reached Cuba, although a much smaller contraband slave
trade continued through the Ten Year’s War.

The mulata in Cuban popular culture

While the wars of independence prevailed throughout Spain’s colonies on the American
mainland, Cuba remained a Spanish colony until the turn of the twentieth century.
During this period, the mulata developed into a meaningful device to comment on colo-
nial rule. She reflected processes of creolization – whereby new cultures emerged as white
men exploited sexual relations with African women and whose offspring were neither
black or white, nor European or African; and hence distinctly Cuban. As the arrival of
Yorùbá speakers to Cuba dwindled around the start of the Ten Years’ War, the legacy of
Ọ̀ s un propagated via Cuban-born descendants of Yorùbá speakers, who clearly remem-
bered their West African traditions and customs, yet incorporated socio-political ideologies
into traditional òrìs à mythology.
Europe, and mostly Spain, influenced trends in many facets of Cuban art, literature,
music and theater before the nineteenth century. The zarzuela, for example, was a style
of theater in Spain, which combined blank verse with a variety of musical genres, such
as coplas, tonadas or romances. The zarzuela debuted in Cuba during the reign of Philip
IV (1605–1665) but fell out of vogue due to Philip V’s (1683–1746) preference for Italian
opera. Most zarzuela and opera included one-act vignettes accompanied with music
and dance (sainetes), and/or satirical songs without dance (tonadillas). These short verna-
cular and comedic interludes occurred during intermissions or the end of the more formal-
ized performances. They generally provided comic relief by exhibiting controversial
interactions between upper and lower classes. Thereafter, Cuban theatrical forms, which
emerged after the sugar industry expanded and the island’s enslaved population grew,
were variously called teatro vernáculo, teatro bufo, teatro criollo or teatro de variedades.
These genres largely developed out of the sainete and tonadilla, although there were
other influences from French and North American theater too.33
Stock characters were central to Cuba’s theatrical genres because the brevity of each
scene did not allow much time for character development. They mirrored colonial
Cuba’s social stratifications. At the top of the island’s racialized hierarchy were white,
Spanish-born peninsulares, followed by Cuban-born criollos, who could be blanco
(white), pardo (mixed-race) and moreno/negro (black); and either free or enslaved. At
the bottom were African-born bozales, who were called moreno/negro.34 Based on these
classifications, theatrical stock characters included the Spaniard (gallego), Cuban-born
farmer (guajiro), mixed-race woman (mulata) and black slave (negrito), who was always
played by white actors in blackface. Francisco Covarrubías (1775–1850), who theater his-
torians widely regard as the pioneer of nationalism in Cuban arts, introduced these stock
characters onto the stage as late as 1812.35
Through the 1820s and 1830s, a theatrical and literary movement, called costumbrismo,
took root on the island. This dramaturgical style specifically sought to comment on local
customs and social hierarchies using these stock characters. Initially, costumbrismo
226 H. B. LOVEJOY

denigrated people of African descent who were not only portrayed comically and intellec-
tually inferior to whites, but also violent and brutal. The negrito characterization served as a
reminder as to what might happen if the enslaved population spiraled out of control,
much like it had done in Haiti. Alternatively called the “black period” (período negro), cos-
tumbrismo forever cemented the mulata and negrito into the island’s popular culture as a
rhetorical device to criticize racial inequalities within society. This period loosely began in
1821 with the publication of a collection of poems by Juan Francisco Manzano (1797–
1854), a Cuban-born slave and ended with the execution of Gabriel de la Concepción
Valdés (1809–1844), the mixed-race poet known as Plácido, for his suspected involvement
in La Escalera conspiracy.36
As reflected in the epigraph of this article, the mulata reflected a highly politicized
symbol of Cuba via common and complex sexual relationships. In what can be considered
a canon of Cuban literature, Cirilo Villaverde exemplified the mulata’s paradox in his
famous tragedy, Cecilia Valdés, ó, la Loma del Angel, which was published in 1839.
Cecilia, who is described as “the little bronze virgin” (la virgencita de bronce), was the ille-
gitimate daughter of Candido de Gamboa, a powerful landowner and slave trader from
Spain. She fell in love with her half-brother, Leonardo de Gamboa, who was their
father’s legitimate son. Meanwhile, José Dolores Pimienta, a poor negrito musician, was
hopelessly in love with Cecilia. After Leonardo abandoned Cecilia for a white upper-
class woman, the negrito José, at Cecilia’s request, assassinated Leonardo. The story
ends when José was executed and Cecilia was sent to jail for conspiring the murder.37
This novel exemplified how colonial authorities perceived the mulata as a threat, not
only for the sexual desires of men, but also as a danger to uphold white supremacy of
the colonial elite.38 Much like Ọ̀ s un mythology in West Africa, the mixed-race woman in
Cuba came to be viewed as a both a nurturing and destructive agent who reveled in intri-
cate and incestuous sexual relationships.
Although Cuban-born artists began writing, acting and producing vernacular theater,
people of African descent were not typically allowed into theaters or could read novels.
However, professional musicians of African descent frequently performed for white
audiences. Musicians were sometimes slaves in affluent families and trained in conser-
vatories, but many more learned music as soldiers in military bands. They were taught
to play European-style music, such as minuets, quadrilles, rigadoons and related
genres.39 By the early 1830s and 1840s, the mulata was inseparable from a popular
musical genre for the lower classes known as the guaracha, which was also performed
in theatrical sainetes and tonadillas. This upbeat and syncopated song used African
rhythms, as well as call and response singing. The lyrics played on sexual humor and
double entendre.40 Most portrayed recipes describing the ingredients required to
make a mulata in reference to Cuba’s cash crop economy.41 According to Susan
Thomas, the guaracha was “a catalyst for discussing the very mestizaje, or racial
mixture, of the Cuban nation.”42
The start of the Ten Years’ War in Cuba in 1868 was tied into the dethroning of Queen
Isabel II and the Glorious Revolution in Spain between 1863 and 1868. This political and
economic crisis was equally matched by a cultural turning point, whereby the bufo
theater developed in the Iberian Peninsula and then transferred to Cuba. This satirical
genre imitated the Bouffes Parisiens, which was founded in France in 1855.43 The teatro
bufo in Cuba ridiculed the monarchy and provoked heated debates surrounding the
 ATLANTIC STUDIES 227

politics of independence. The theatrical stock characters, which had been around since the
1820s, were quickly inserted into the relatively new genre, whereby the mulata continued
to be used to criticize colonial rule.44
The theater-going elite, and urban free and enslaved populations, constantly discussed
sexual interplays across the island in artistic expression. Less formalized and improviza-
tional performance took place on the streets or in prostitution houses. The ubiquitous
image of the mulata also became a prominent fixture in visual works of art. Tobacco wrap-
pers and labels, known as marquillas, depicted her exoticness.45 From the 1860s through
the 1890s, Víctor Patricio de Landaluze, a Spanish-born painter, portrayed the mulata in his
art. In urban centers, people who could not attend the theater or read novels had many
other ways of learning about nationalist thought. Newspaper vendors announced head-
lines and literate people of African descent could inform and explain to non-literate
members meanings surrounding the mulata.46 Even though plantation slaves never had
the opportunity to visit the cities, anticolonial ideologies, especially abolitionism, fre-
quently spread from urban centers to rural areas.

The bronze virgin of fertility

The intricate relationship between race and nationhood as expressed in the mulata stock
character consolidated around the Virgen de la Caridad del Cobre. The story of this Marian
devotion has a long history in Cuba that dates back to the late sixteenth century.47 As the
legend goes, a European, a Native American and an African were fishing in a canoe in the
Bay of Nipe in eastern Cuba.48 Suddenly, a terrible storm happened and their only recourse
was to pray. As the sea miraculously calmed, they discovered floating in the water a
wooden statue of Mary holding the baby Jesus in the one hand and a cross in the
other hand. Attached to this effigy of Mary was a plank of wood with the inscription, “I
am the Virgen de la Caridad del Cobre.” After finding their way back to land, the
fishermen took the statue to a group of Franciscan Monks stationed in the town of El
Cobre, where the shrine’s power and legend solidified into Catholic observations across
the island. The imagery of the Virgen de la Caridad del Cobre raising above a European,
indigenous person and African integrated into the characterizations of a mixed-race
female during Cuba’s independence movement. However, how and why the West
African Ọ̀ s un became associated with this particular Marian devotion requires more
explanation.
There is currently an unexplained gap in the secondary literature related to the period-
ization of processes of creolization related to how and when the Virgen de la Caridad del
Cobre syncretized with a West African river goddess. The tendency has been to overgener-
alize the chronology. For example, Fernando Ortiz alluded to the issue in discussions of
òrìs à worship whereby “African fetishisms entered Cuba with the first negro,” that is in
the sixteenth century.49 In addition to his racist undertones, his oversimplification of the
process of creolization ignores historical change over time and place. By the 1930s, Mel-
ville J. Herskovits argued that “there can be little question that these syncretizations
have developed independently in each region.”50 By the 1970s, Sydney Mintz and
Richard Price determined how “continuities between the Old World and New World
must be established upon an understanding of the basic conditions under which
migrations of Africans occurred.”51 And more recently, Jalane D. Schmidt has effectively
228 H. B. LOVEJOY

argued how the Ochún and Virgen de la Caridad del Cobre paradigm is in fact “one local
derivation among many” throughout Cuba’s colonial history.52
Enslaved Yorùbá speakers in Cuba almost certainly did not adopt the iconography of
the Virgen de la Caridad del Cobre in any meaningful way before the rise of the mulata
stock character in Cuban popular culture in the nineteenth century. From early on and
until the present day, the main shrine of the Virgen de la Caridad del Cobre has been
located outside the town of El Cobre, which was founded near some copper mines in
the foothills of the Sierra Maestra in eastern Cuba. Initially, Taíno indigenous groups
extracted and traded the metal throughout the island and the Caribbean. As Spanish colo-
nists arrived and the legend of the Marian devotion emerged, private contractors devel-
oped the copper mine using indigenous and African slave labor until 1670, after which
the Spanish Crown confiscated all mining operations. By the 1730s, El Cobre had grown
into a sizeable village of 1230 inhabitants, of whom 64% were royal slaves, 2% personal
slaves, and 34% free people of color, mostly manumitted descendants or relatives of
earlier generations. To consider Ochún and the Virgen de la Caridad del Cobre fusing
together in Cuba’s early colonial history is ahistorical because few Yorùbá speakers from
the Bight of Benin, if any, could not have inhabited El Cobre before the nineteenth
century.53 Nevertheless, West Central African cultures, such as those surrounding nkisi,
might have creolized much earlier than òrìs à. According to Lydia Cabrera, the river
goddess called Choya in Palo Monte equates with both Ochún and the Virgen de la
Caridad del Cobre.54
When did Ọ̀ s un from West Africa morph into the iconography of a mixed-race female?
Clearly, this process had occurred by the turn of the twentieth century. In 1905, Fernando
Ortiz explained how “Oshún the goddess of a river with the same name [is] … the Virgen
de la Caridad del Cobre.”55 And in 1910, Irene Wright, a Stanford graduate from Lake City,
Colorado, identified Ochún’s characteristics in a shrine “elaborately trimmed with yellow
satin and ribbon, [which] was an altar to the Virgin of Cobre.” She then detailed descrip-
tions of an Ochún initiate wearing “gold and brass bracelets which jingled as she danced
forth … [with] yellow as the color of Our Lady of Cobre.”56 However, these references,
which might be the earliest descriptions of the Virgen de la Caridad del Cobre as
Ochún, surfaced after Cuban independence. Based on this chronology, therefore, it
would seem most likely that Ọ̀ s un from West Africa became the Cuban Ochún during
the popularization of the mulata as an emblem of anticolonial attitudes.
Western Cuba, and in particular the urban centers of Havana and Matanzas, were
central to the development of Santería, which is one of the most widely practiced
African-derived religions on the island. As a major branch of a world religion generalized
into “òrìs à devotion,” Santería refers to the transculturation of Catholic saints with the òrìs à
pantheon.57 David H. Brown, who is one of the leading scholars of Santería, describes how
this “Afro-Cuban religion [is] known variously as La Regla de Ocha, La Regla de Ifá, La Reli-
gión Lucumí, and La Santería (‘The Religion’).”58 According to Roger Bastide, “the cabildo
incontestably forms the starting point for the African Santería of Cuba.”59 The Church sanc-
tioned these socio-religious organizations, which always required a patron saint. Maria del
Carmen Barcia and Israel Moliner Castañeda’s extensive analysis of cabildos in Havana and
Matanzas demonstrate how the Virgen de la Caridad del Cobre never represented a docu-
mented cabildo, Lucumí or otherwise, in two of Cuba’s largest cities at any period in its
colonial history.60 Consequently, the adaptation of the Virgen de la Caridad del Cobre
 ATLANTIC STUDIES 229

as Cuba’s patron saint across the island also corresponds to the rise of the mulata as a
symbol of independence in the late nineteenth century.
The records and deposition of Juan Nepomuceno Prieto, who was the leader of
Havana’s most famous Lucumí cabildo, demonstrate how processes of òrìs à creolization
in Cuba were already underway before Ọ̀ yọ́ ’s collapse. He and his wife, María Francisca
Camejo, led this socio-religious mutual aid society, which has been remembered in oral
traditions as S àngó tẹ̀ dún, between 1818 and 1835. Their leadership overlapped with
the collapse of Ọ̀ yọ́ and early development of the mulata stock character in Cuban
popular culture. After Prieto’s arrest for his suspected involvement in a minor disturbance
in Havana in 1835, colonial authorities seized the cabildo’s shrines and papers. In his depo-
sition, Prieto candidly described his shrines to authorities as “Changó [S àngó], which is the
same as saying King, or Santa Bárbara.”61 Based on this evidence, I have argued elsewhere
that the formation of the Changó and Santa Bárbara paradigm occurred in the midst of the
Bourbon reforms and the militarization of the island following the British occupation of
Havana in 1762 and 1763.62 In addition, Prieto’s personal papers included images for
Santa Bárbara, as well as Nuestra Señora de los Remedios, Nuestra Señora de Monserrate,
and Nuestra Señora del Carmen.63 Except for Santa Bárbara, there are no clear links
between Remedios, Monseratte and Carmen with any particular òrìs à in modern-day prac-
tices. As one of S àngó’s wives, Prieto and Camejo understood Ọ̀ s un mythology, but likely
did not associate her with the Virgen de la Caridad del Cobre before 1835.
The inclination for Cuban scholars to examine how Catholicism influenced African cul-
tures ignores perspectives about how cubanidad/cubanía affected òrìs à worship. The
association of Ọ̀ s un, portrayed as both a mixed-race female and Cuba’s patron saint,
was obviously a foreign concept to òrìs à belief and practice from West Africa. However,
reconstituting òrìs à mythology to oppose hegemony and dynastic claims to kingship is
common. Karin Barber explains how a traditional genre of Yorùbá oral expression,
called oríkì, serve as “one of the principal discursive mediums through which people
apprehend history, society and the spiritual world.”64 In Cuba, therefore, Ọ̀ s un acquired
praise names for the Virgen de la Caridad del Cobre and characteristics of a mixed-race
female, such as (1) la Gran Madre Mulata or mixed-race grandmother; (2) Cachita which
is a Cuban-Spanish diminutive for “charity” and (3) la Virgen mambisa which refers to
Cuba’s freedom fighters of the late nineteenth century.65 Mambises were central agents
in the promotion and the spread of Cuba’s patron saint. This movement clearly connected
the entire island, whereby religious beliefs found near the town of El Cobre, took on new
meanings in the western cities.

Conclusion
The making of Cuba’s Ochún – that is the re-birth of Ọ̀ s un into a mulata – took place at
a critical time in Cuban history during unprecedented economic expansion, the rise of
abolitionism and the island’s separation from colonialism. The reimagining of this West
African goddess as a mixed-race female occurred following Ọ̀ yọ́ ’s collapse when the
mulata emerged as Cuba’s national symbol in popular culture. By examining disparate
bodies of literature from òrìs à mythology, Catholic tradition and Cuban stock characters,
this essay provides a revised framework in which scholars concerned with comparable
trans-Atlantic processes can adopt to unravel other processes of creolization beyond
230 H. B. LOVEJOY

migrations from the Bight of Benin to Cuba. To add to Herskovits, Mintz, Price and
Schmidt, cross-cultural derivations are both regional and multiple, but they also
occur through the intersection of multiple influences at different periods of time.
Demonstrating how S àngó and Santa Bárbara fused together in the mid-to-late eight-
eenth century, while Ọ̀ s un and the Virgen de la Caridad del Cobre did so in the mid-to-
late nineteenth century, illustrates how different socio-political landscapes and popular
culture influence cultural change. This theoretical interpretation raises other questions,
especially surrounding the influences of communities of enslaved Africans and their
descendants from West Central Africa around the town of El Cobre since the early
seventeenth century.
Ọ̀ s un recast as a mulata reflect the anticolonial period in which Cuba became a self-
determining nation. The caricature of the “little bronze virgin” not only exposes racial
and gender inequalities, but also reveals how the intersection of many different
peoples created and transformed different languages, religions and artistic forms into
complex, multifaceted identities in the Spanish Caribbean and beyond. The essence
of cubanidad/cubanía derived from social commentary found in the island’s nine-
teenth-century art, literature, music and theater. Ọ̀ s un’s predispositions for all material
objects which are yellow and the Virgen de la Caridad del Cobre’s association with
copper mines oversimplifies the historical process of creolization. In Cuba’s case,
Ochún became a mulata as a critique of colonial rule and slavery among òrìs à devotees
on the island. A stock character therefore had an impact on Catholic beliefs and òrìs à
traditions because the mulata symbolized the paradox of a virgin mother nurturing
myriad possibilities found within a multicultural slave society. Processes of creolization
in Cuba were complex and through countless combinations of undocumented inter-
actions, thousands of diverse peoples contributed to the development of Cuba’s
national identity.
Among those who worship òrìs à around the world, Ochún recast as the “little bronze
virgin” revised òrìs à mythologies from West Africa to incorporate the struggle to oppose
Spain’s dynastic claims on Cuba as an independent nation. As exemplified in the jihād
and civil wars in the Bight of Benin hinterland during the early-nineteenth century,
J. D. Y. Peel argued that òrìs à worship historically involved “inculturation” of other religions,
including Christianity and Islam, “into local systems of meaning.”66 As people from the
Ọ̀ s un River corridor boarded slave ships at the coast of the Bight of Benin, they brought
complex meaning associated with òrìs à belief and practices with them across the Atlantic.
The reinterpretation of Ọ̀ s un tradition to the changing political landscape of the Atlantic
world therefore demonstrates the integral role that transformations to òrìs à worship in
Cuba have had on a global, pan-Yorùbá identity.

Notes
1. Muñoz del Monte, “La Mulata,” 196. Translation from Kutzinski, Sugar’s Secrets, 25.
2. Bergad Garcia, and del Carmen Barcia, Cuban Slave Market; Fraginals, El ingenio; Kiple, Blacks in
Colonial Cuba; Knight, Slave Society.
3. Barcia, Seeds of Insurrection; Childs, Aponte Rebellion; Finch, Rethinking Slave Rebellion; Foner,
History of Cuba; Paquette, Sugar Is Made with Blood; Sartorius, Ever Faithful.
4. Ferrer, Insurgent Cuba; Scott, Slave Emancipation.
5. Ibarra, Ideología mambisa, 52.
 ATLANTIC STUDIES 231

6. Ferrer, Insurgent Cuba, 3.

7. For information about the mulata imagery as a symbol for Cuban nationhood, see Ferrer, Insur-
gent Cuba; Kutzinski, Sugar’s Secrets; Moore, Nationalizing Blackness.
8. Kutzinski, Sugar’s Secrets, 40.
9. Arrom, “La Virgen del Cobre”; Brown, Santería Enthroned; Díaz, “Rethinking Tradition”; Díaz,
Royal Slaves of El Cobre; Dillon, “La Virgen de la Caridad del Cobre”; Lachatañeré, “La religión
santera”; Matos Arévalo, “La Virgen de la Caridad del Cobre”; Ortiz, “La semi luna”; Ortiz and
Matos Arévalo, La Virgen de la Caridad del Cobre; Portuondo Zúñiga, La Virgen de la Caridad
del Cobre; Wright, “Our Lady.”
10. Murphy, “Yéyé Cachita,” 90; Prados-Torreira, Mambisas, 1–2. The origin of Mambí remains
unclear. One theory assumes the term is a deformation of mbe, a prefix in Yorùbá. The
Spanish army, unaccustomed to the letter combination, came up with the word Mambí to
refer pejoratively to Cuban rebels. The term alluded to the presence of high number of
black fighters among the insurgents. The name was widely used throughout the anticolonial
wars.
11. Bolívar Aróstegui, Los Orishas, 116; Brown, Santería Enthroned, 224; Murphy and Sanford, Òsun
Across the Waters.
12. Beier, “Oshun Festival”; Odesola, “Osun Osogbo.”
13. Burton, Abeokuta, 30 n. 2; Ellis, Yorùbá-Speaking Peoples, 48; Frobenius, Mythologie de l’Atlan-
tide, 216; Lucas, Religion of the Yorùbás, 65; Farrow, Faith, Fancies and Fetich, 65.
14. Burton, Abeokuta, 107; Ellis, Yorùbá-Speaking Peoples, 76; Lucas, Religion of the Yorùbás, 65; and,
Farrow, Faith, Fancies and Fetich, 65.
15. Badejo, Ọ̀ s un S ẹ̀ẹ̀gẹ̀sí, 1.
16. The term àjé is a contraction from ìyá je, or “mother eats.” It was recorded by Samuel Ajayi
Crowther in 1843. See Apter, “Embodiment of Paradox,” 222; Apter, “Blood of Mothers,” 94 n. 5.
17. Badejo, Ọ̀ s un S ẹ̀ẹ̀gẹ̀sí, 78–80.
18. Johnson, History of the Yorùbás, 64.
19. Eltis, “Diaspora of Yorùbá Speakers”; Mann, Lagos, Chap. 1.
20. Eltis, “Diaspora of Yorùbá Speakers.”
21. Law, Ọ̀ yọ́ Empire, 219–224.
22. Law, Ọ̀ yọ́ Empire, Chap. 14.
23. Akintoye, Revolution and Power Politics, 34; Falola, Ìbàdàn, 337–340.
24. Falola, Ìbàdàn, 337.
25. Johnson, History of the Yorùbás, 288.
26. Awe, “Ajele System”; Law, Ọ̀ yọ́ Empire, 272 n. 69; Falola, Ìbàdàn, 337–340.
27. Eltis et al., Voyages.
28. For recent estimates of Yorùbá speakers arriving to Cuba refer to Lovejoy, Prieto, chap. 6.
29. Lovejoy, “Registers of Liberated Africans.”
30. “Registers of Liberated Africans of the Havana Slave Trade Commission, 1824–1841.” National
Archives: Colonial Office, 313/56–62. The interpretations and translations of Yorùbá names
were made with the help of Olatunji Ojo, personal communication, 13 September 2014.
31. Awe, “Ajele System,” 47; Akintoye, Revolution and Power Politics.
32. Johnson, History of the Yorùbás, 309–313.
33. Thomas, Cuban Zarzuela, Chap. 1.
34. Knight, Slave Society, 64–68.
35. Kutzinski, Sugar’s Secrets, 24; Lane, Blackface Cuba; Lane, “Blackface Nationalism”; Leal, La selva
oscura; Moore, Nationalizing Blackness, 42; Robreño, Historia del teatro; Thomas, Cuban Zar-
zuela, 82–83. Covarrubias and his troupe used blackface in Havana occurred some thirty
years before American minstrel shows, which was a trend in Cuba that lasted well into the
twentieth century.
36. Thomas, Cuban Zarzuela, 13–14 and 193 n. 11; Lane, Blackface Cuba, 20–28.
37. Villaverde, Cecilia.
38. González, Contradanzas y latigazos; Kutzinski, Sugar’s Secrets.
39. Carpentier, La música, Chap. 7; Moore, Nationalizing Blackness, 18–19.
232 H. B. LOVEJOY

40. Moore, Nationalizing Blackness, 49 and 54.

41. For songs about the mulata refer to Hallorans, Guarachas cubanas.
42. Thomas, Cuban Zarzuela, 45.
43. Thomas, Cuban Zarzuela, 14.
44. Robreño, Teatro Popular, 23–24; Leal, Selva oscura, vol. II, 26; Lane, Blackface Cuba, 93–101.
45. Nunez Jimenez, Cuba en las marquillas cigarreras.
46. Ferrer, Insurgent Cuba, 115–116.
47. For a transcription of the “Declaración del capitán Juan Moreno, Negro Natural del Cobre de 85
Años, 1687,” see Portuondo Zúñiga, Virgen de la Caridad, 298.
48. Many variations of this story are re-told in the extensive literature cited above in footnote 10.
Sometimes these traditions vary between two Native Americans and one African slave, or
indeed, two African slaves and one Native American.
49. Ortiz, Hampa, 42.
50. Herskovits, “African Gods,” 643.
51. Mintz and Price, Anthropological, 43.
52. Schmidt, Cachita’s Streets, 48.
53. Diaz, Royal Slaves of El Cobre, 8–10.
54. Cabrera, Regla Kimbisa, 14.
55. Ortiz, Hampa, 62. It should be noted that the earliest references to Ochún are not mentioned in
early accounts such as Bremer’s Homes of the New World or other documentation associated
with the famous Lucumí cabildo leader, Juan Nepomuceno Prieto.
56. Wright, Cuba 147–149.
57. Herskovits, “African Gods.”
58. Brown, Santería, 3.
59. Bastide, Civilizations, 95.
60. Carmen Barcia, Ilustres; Moliner Castañeda, Cabildos.
61. “Declaración de Juan Prieto,” 18 July 1835. Archivo Nacional de Cuba (hereafter ANC): Comi-
sión Militar (hereafter CM), 11/1, f. 225v (emphasis in original).
62. Lovejoy, Prieto, conclusion.
63. “Nuestra Señora de los Remedios,” “Nuestra Señora de Monserrate,” and “Nuestra Señora del
Carmen,” n.d., loose folios. ANC: CM, 11/1. These images printed at the imprenta de Boloña on
Calle Obrapía, no. 37.
64. Barber, I Could Speak, 4.
65. Diaz, Royal Slaves of El Cobre, 21–22; Prados-Torreira, Mambisas, 91; Portuondo Zúñiga, Virgen
de la Caridad.
66. Peel, Religious, 23 and 189.

Acknowledgements
To Julie Salverson for providing comments on an earlier draft of this paper.

Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor
Henry B. Lovejoy is an assistant professor at the University of Colorado Boulder. He specializes in the
history of Africa and the African Diaspora in the Atlantic World during the era of the transatlantic
slave trade. He is author of Prieto: Yorùbá Kingship in Colonial Cuba during the Age of Revolutions (Uni-
versity of North Carolina Press, 2018). He created Liberated Africans (liberatedafricans.org) and directs
Slavery Images (slaveryimages.org).
 ATLANTIC STUDIES 233

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