Hello Alva:

I found an article that will be of interest to researchers focused on the Spanish Caribbean and pre and post colonial America. Historians continue to debate slavery under various countries. Alejandro de la Fuente's article "Slave Law and Claims-Making in Cuba: The Tannenbaum Debate Revisited" is very revealing.
He doesn't dispute the cruelty of slavery, but rather he points out that Spanish law in Cuba gave slaves an opportunity for self-freedom. These laws applied to Afro-Caribbeans on both sides of the Gulf of Mexico.

Unfortunately many of his critics who still view history through the prism of the English slave system in the Upper South, miss the point.

Click on the url below to read Fuente's article in full.