I have been greatly interested in the fate of Juan Placido, the black
revolutionist of Cuba, who was executed in Havana, as the alleged
instigator and leader of an attempted revolt on the part of the slaves in
that city and its neighborhood.
Juan Placido was born a slave on the estate of Don Terribio de Castro.
His father was an African, his mother a mulatto. His mistress treated
him with great kindness, and taught him to read. When he was twelve
years of age she died, and he fell into other and less compassionate
hands. At the age of eighteen, on seeing his mother struck with a heavy
whip, he for the first time turned upon his tormentors. To use his own
words, "I felt the blow in my heart. To utter a loud cry, and from a
downcast boy, with the timidity of one weak as a lamb, to become all at
office like a raging lion, was a thing of a moment." He was, however,
subdued, and the next morning, together with his mother, a tenderly
nurtured and delicate woman, severely scourged. On seeing his mother
rudely stripped and thrown down upon the ground, he at first with tears
implored the overseer to spare her; but at the sound of the first blow,
as it cut into her naked flesh, he sprang once more upon the ruffian,
who, having superior strength, beat him until he was nearer dead than
alive.
After suffering all the vicissitudes of slavery,--hunger, nakedness,
stripes; after bravely and nobly bearing up against that slow, dreadful
process which reduces the man to a thing, the image of God to a piece of
merchandise, until he had reached his thirty-eighth year, he was
unexpectedly released from his bonds. Some literary gentlemen in Havana,
into whose hands two or three pieces of his composition had fallen,
struck with the vigor, spirit, and natural grace which they manifested,
sought out the author, and raised a subscription to purchase his freedom.
He came to Havana, and maintained himself by house-painting, and such
other employments as his ingenuity and talents placed within his reach.
He wrote several poems, which have been published in Spanish at Havana,
and translated by Dr. Madden, under the title of _Poems by a Slave_.
It is not too much to say of these poems that they will bear a comparison
with most of the productions of modern Spanish literature. The style is
bold, free, energetic. Some of the pieces are sportive and graceful;
such is the address to _The Cucuya_, or Cuban firefly. This beautiful
insect is sometimes fastened in tiny nets to the light dresses of the
Cuban ladies, a custom to which the writer gallantly alludes in the
following lines:--
"Ah!--still as one looks on such brightness and bloom,
On such beauty as hers, one might envy the doom
Of a captive Cucuya that's destined, like this,
To be touched by her hand and revived by her kiss!
In the cage which her delicate hand has prepared,
The beautiful prisoner nestles unscared,
O'er her fair forehead shining serenely and bright,
In beauty's own bondage revealing its light!
And when the light dance and the revel are done,
She bears it away to her alcove alone,
Where, fed by her hand from the cane that's most choice,
In secret it gleans at the sound of her voice!
O beautiful maiden! may Heaven accord
Thy care of the captive a fitting reward,
And never may fortune the fetters remove
Of a heart that is thine in the bondage of love!"
In his Dream, a fragment of some length, Placido dwells in a touching
manner upon the scenes of his early years. It is addressed to his
brother Florence, who was a slave near Matanzas, while the author was in
the same condition at Havana. There is a plaintive and melancholy
sweetness in these lines, a natural pathos, which finds its way to the
heart:--
"Thou knowest, dear Florence, my sufferings of old,
The struggles maintained with oppression for years;
We shared them together, and each was consoled
With the love which was nurtured by sorrow and tears.
"But now far apart, the sad pleasure is gone,
We mingle our sighs and our sorrows no more;
The course is a new one which each has to run,
And dreary for each is the pathway before.
"But in slumber our spirits at least shall commune,
We will meet as of old in the visions of sleep,
In dreams which call back early days, when at noon
We stole to the shade of the palm-tree to weep!
"For solitude pining, in anguish of late
The heights of Quintana I sought for repose;
And there, in the cool and the silence, the weight
Of my cares was forgotten, I felt not any woes.
"Exhausted and weary, the spell of the place
Sank down on my eyelids, and soft slumber stole
So sweetly upon me, it left not a trace
Of sorrow o'ercasting the light of the soul."
The writer then imagines himself borne lightly through the air to the
place of his birth. The valley of Matanzas lies beneath him, hallowed by
the graves of his parents. He proceeds:--
"I gazed on that spot where together we played,
Our innocent pastimes came fresh to my mind,
Our mother's caress, and the fondness displayed
In each word and each look of a parent so kind.
"I looked on the mountain, whose fastnesses wild
The fugitives seek from the rifle and hound;
Below were the fields where they suffered and toiled,
And there the low graves of their comrades are found.
"The mill-house was there, and the turmoil of old;
But sick of these scenes, for too well were they known,
I looked for the stream where in childhood I strolled
When a moment of quiet and peace was my own.
"With mingled emotions of pleasure and pain,
Dear Florence, I sighed to behold thee once more;
I sought thee, my brother, embraced thee again,
But I found thee a slave as I left thee before!"
Some of his devotional pieces evince the fervor and true feeling of the
Christian poet. His _Ode to Religion_ contains many admirable lines.
Speaking of the martyrs of the early days of Christianity, he says
finely:--
"Still in that cradle, purpled with their blood,
The infant Faith waxed stronger day by day."