Smoking guns: Tobacco farmers's revolts and colonial society, Cuba, 1650--1750

This work explores the early stages of the formation of a distinctive colonial identity in Cuba from the late 1600's throughout the eighteenth century. Not coincidentally, this process parallels the insertion of tobacco in the economy of the island as it grew from a marginal cash crop of poor peasants into the essential industry connecting the colony to the global markets. Source of wealth for the upper classes and self-reliance for everybody else, the characteristics of the Cuban tobacco prompted the emergence of a social consensus that coalesced in a self-consciousness differentiated from that of the metropolis.;Centered in three revolts against the Bourbon monopolistic policies that shook the island from 1717 to 1723--collectively known as the Vegueros Uprisings--the study focuses in the participation of the landholding elite, the farmers, the imperial army, the Church, and (surprisingly) the women, and their collective role in the making of a self-image that went on to define Cuban nationalism. Research in Cuban and Spanish archives of the extensive records on the revolts provided a wealth of information about the inner-workings of the early colonial society.;It is also from those sources that a portray emerges of a community changed by tobacco that went on to redefine the relationship with its colonial masters as the bankrupt finances of Spain became dependant on the Cuban exports. Exploiting the fears of the empire--Cuba long considered the "key" to the gates of Spanish American---creoles were able to link the defense of the island to their tobacco industry to force the hand of the colonial authorities to insure protection for their new source of wealth. With their mounting economic cloud, Cubans furthered their own interests not only against Spain but also against other Spanish colonies---especially powerful Mexico--as they competed for the limited resources of the empire.;The aftermath of the revolts gave Cuba's creoles awareness of their own agency and their ability to control colonial policies. In their fertile lands they did more than growing tobacco; they found a sanctuary against colonial oppression and the roots of their national identity.