The Boundaries and the Bonds of Citizenship: Race, Empire, and Exile in Cuba, 1898-1902

Abstract

This article explores the challenges that Cubans exiled abroad and internally exiled Africans in Cuba posed to the entwined processes of US empire- and Cuban nation-state formation at the turn of the twentieth century. While exiled Cubans made demands on state and empire concerning their rights of citizenship and inclusion, internally exiled Africans made demands on state and imperial officials concerning their rights to self-determination and non-belonging. Both sets of challenges threatened to disrupt the capitalist, white supremacist national/imperial projects of Cuban state- and United States empire-formation. Highlighting these cases while juxtaposing them reveals how exile was used as a preemptive technology of control during empire- and nation-state-building in U.S.-occupied Cuba at the turn of the twentieth century.