LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Hoping ‘Portland Gothic House & Cuba Connection Part III’ will directly address slavery
I have enjoyed reading “The Portland Gothic House and Cuba Connection,” but I am waiting to hear Marta Morse directly address the fact that Cuba’s economy was based on slave labor. In 1837, Horatio Fox arrived in one of his uncle’s ships to begin his life as a businessman. A quick look at the Wikipedia article, “Slavery in Cuba,” shows that 123,577 additional human beings were forcibly taken from their homes in Africa and arrived as slaves in Cuba between 1821 and 1853.
Just as Marta provided context in Part I by pointing out the effects of urban renewal, so Anne’s description of the first day of grinding on the sugar plantation should have noted that this labor was being done by slaves. Cuba was one of the last countries in the world to make chattel slavery illegal in 1886.
Our past and present lives are complicated, and I hope Part III will include a more complete picture of the past families in the Gothic House.
-Beth Bussiere, Portland
