An Enlightened Thinker’s Critical Perspectives on Race, Slavery, and Globalization
By Ben Vila

Baron Alexander von Humboldt’s travelogue, The Island of Cuba, is a snap shot of life on Cuba within its international, socio-historical context during the nineteenth century. His descriptive and critical analysis of the island paints the picture of a tropical paradise with a complex social structure that is a byproduct of its diverse population and the external pressure of foreign intervention in domestic politics. A Prussian natural scientist who was world-renowned for his brilliance and scholarship, Humboldt arrived in Cuba in 1800 and applied his scientific methods to describing the social and political atmosphere of the island. He uses both qualitative and quantitative data to describe the geographic location, economy, racial makeup, and political hierarchy that make Cuba a unique colony among all the other Caribbean territories. From his accounts, modern readers can posit Cuba as a nexus of the sweeping changes that the world was undergoing at this time due to European colonization and advances in transportation and communication technologies. What Humboldt was witnessing on Cuba were the very beginnings of what we now know as the modern era. By reading these accounts of Cuba from Humboldt’s perspective, we can see how enlightened early nineteenth century thinkers began to look at their world through an increasingly critical and scientific lens.

Humboldt presents his most compelling descriptions of Cuba in his accounts on the nature of slavery and race on the island. Though he admires the island for its natural beauty and its culture, he denounces slavery as an evil system that permeates and tarnishes Cuba. When questioning how such a horrible practice could continue in Cuba, where educated and civilized white men dominate the power circles, Humboldt suggests that fear of a slave revolt such as the one in Haiti “undoubtedly operates more powerfully upon the minds of men, than do the principles of humanity and justice” (186). Humboldt wonders how such a contradiction could exist in the minds of educated and “enlightened” men and postulates that the issue of slavery will eventually be resolved on its own as a result of sociological forces. Humboldt is optimistic that the atrocity of slavery will one day recede into the depths of Cuban history, but not without significant social action. In one of the most interesting examples of his efforts to translate knowledge as a natural scientist into the language of a social scientist, he notes:

To remedy the evil, to prevent public calamities, and to console the unfortunate beings who belong to an ill-treated race, and who are feared more than acknowledged, it is necessary to probe the sore; for there exists in social, as well as organic bodies, reparative forces, which, when well directed, may triumph over the most inveterate evils (190).

Humboldt compares the society of Cuba to an organic body that is capable of healing itself only if the right action takes place. Here, Humboldt assumes a slightly more activist stance, suggesting that steps should be taken to stop the perpetuation of the status quo on the island.

Humboldt wonders how much longer an educated elite can continue to rule over a large slave population, given the steady advance of technology and ideas . He describes how “intellectual cultivation” is largely centered only in the wealthiest parts of Havana and tends not to spread into the plantation, slave-owning countryside (246). He observes that “the best society of Havana resembles, in its polite forms and urbanity, that of Cadiz and the richest commercial cities of Europe” but that the people of the countryside are still prone to “simple habits and customs” (246). Humboldt sees this changing in the future, since the “diffusion of knowledge” across the Atlantic is always increasing.

The “importation of the products of foreign industry […] has increased the intercourse between Europe and America” and “distance is so much diminished by improvements in navigation […] that those washed by the Atlantic seem to be much nearer to our continent” (246-247).

Humboldt is witnessing what readers today could call the beginnings of globalization. With improvements in transportation and communication, and with the spread of enlightenment ideologies, Humboldt has hope that slavery will one day be eradicated from Cuba in the course of natural social processes.

However, Humboldt also describes what he sees as the negative aspects of globalization, such as the racial mixing of Chinese imported labor and African slaves. Since no female Chinese workers are brought over, Humboldt observes how “they are forced to amalgamate with the slave population, to whom they bring neither honest principles nor good morals” and how “the amalgamation of unequal and dissonant races of men in their most degraded condition, can only be productive of the greatest moral and social evils to the community upon which it is forced” (231). Humboldt’s views, while still considered enlightened for his time, fall far short of modern notions of racial equality in that he views different races as having disparate levels of morality and merit. Even though he is an advocate for the end of slavery, he still has deeply engrained notions about distinct racial boundaries which should not be crossed.

In all of his discourse on the nature of slavery in Cuba and differences in social class among whites, slaves, and free colored individuals, Humboldt fails to remark on any natural intermixing between these racial groups. Perhaps he leaves out narratives of racial intermingling of blacks and whites on purpose or perhaps he simply does not see it happening when he conducts his survey on the cultural climate of the island. Either way, we can still look at Humboldt’s writings and see how an “enlightened” European thinker of his time perceived the changing world around him. The forces of globalization and the spread of ideas and people throughout the world helped define the era that Humboldt lived in, and began to shape traditional racial and political structures in both the Old and New Worlds.

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Bibliography:

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Bruhns, Karl. “Life of Alexander von Humboldt”. Longmans Green and Co. London. 1873. Translated from the German by Jane and Caroline Lassell.

CubaHeritage.org. “Humboldt and the United States Annexation of Cuban Campaign”. http://www.cubaheritage.org/articles.asp?lID=1&artID=122

De Terra, Helmut. “Humboldt: The Life and Times of Alexander von Humboldt”. Octagon Books. New York. 1979.

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