Family, “agregados” and slaves: the censuses of Santiago de Cuba (1778-1861)

Abstract

A register or census of city residents conveys to us a moment in life– whether hectic or peaceful – of a neighbourhood, a city, as wellas of its basic unit – the home – in which the most diverse humancharacters cohabited. Nevertheless, economic historians are the oneswho, concerned principally with issues of agricultural and territorialwealth, have made the most use of the hundreds of registers and listsappearing in the censuses from the colonial period. Social or familyhistorians have for the most part avoided the registers or census of namesof residents as an essential source for the study of the Cuba population.For our part, we have also until now approached these sources with thenatural caution that results from a lack of complete familiarity withtheir rich potential. We have also argued that, unless they were studiedin combination with other sources, it would be difficult to perceivethe historical dynamics of the family or group of residents, since ahearth register represents only a moment frozen in time, a snapshotof the family or home where relatives, servants, and slaves cohabited.Although we still advocate the crossing of sources, today we propose acomparison between all the hearth registers / lists of residents collatedacross an entire city: Santiago de Cuba. The intention is to shed light,from the perspective of family typology, not only on demographic andsocioeconomic development, but also on how city residents, and theirfamilies of blood or adoption, chose – or were permitted – to representtheir existences for the historical record.