Resumen

BALBOA NAVARRO, Imilcy. Freedmen, vagabonds and outlaws: the regulation of work after the abolition of slavery (Cuba, 1886-1895). Relac. Estud. hist. soc. [online]. 2011, vol.32, n.127, pp.87-116. ISSN 2448-7554.

In 1886, the system of slave labor came to an end on the island of Cuba. Liberalization of the labor market led to the establishment of a new type of relationship between owners and workers, in which the latter were absorbed into the logic of capitalist relations. Contracts and wages -as means of controlling and regulating discipline- had guaranteed the subjection of the work force during the transition, and in the ensuing period the strategies adopted by sugarcane plantation owners were still based on those postulates, but complemented by the judicial campaign against vagrancy and outlawry. The laws against vagrancy allowed owners to control men who refused to accept their working conditions and preferred to stay on the margins of the system and its rules, while wages continued to function as mechanisms of subjection that kept workers tied to the sugar mills. As a result, despite winning their freedom, slaves encountered living and working conditions that were little changed, while still occupying a subordinate place in society.

Palabras llave : Cuba; abolition of slavery; labor relations; sponsorship; vagabonds.

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