“Blood, fire, and freedom”

This chapter examines the role of enslaved women and rebellion in nineteenth-century Cuba. In particular, Carlota Lucumí is considered one of the most important figures in the history of Cuban slave revolt. Historical records document her leadership role in the uprising on the Triunvirato sugar mill and in fomenting revolt on neighboring plantations that formed the 1843 Conspiracy of La Escalera. She raised a machete to break the chains of the slave quarters, shouting “Blood, Fire, and Freedom” to rally those around her to destroy slavery. The Cuban government paid homage to these acts of resistance by naming their 1975 intervention in Angola “Operation Carlota,” and her efforts to oppose enslavement were immortalized in 2015 in the public memory through UNESCO’s Slave Route Project monument located at the site of the uprisings. Nevertheless, women of African descent remain underrepresented in the scholarship on slave revolts. I argue that despite the multiple inequalities they suffered based on race and gender, enslaved women were active, albeit disparate, participants in the La Escalera revolts to abolish slavery and Spanish colonialism. A closer examination of the role of Carlota Lucumí and other enslaved women as insurgents reveals how they claimed power for themselves and how their behavior, networks, and sociocultural understandings influenced rebellion and colonial retribution in nineteenth-century Cuba.