Jualynne E. Dodson
Previously published in: Between Race and Empire: African-American and Cuban Relations Before the Cuban Revolution, Lisa Brock co-ed. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: Temple University Press, 1998
Although there have been major and important achievements toward the reclamation of the Africanist presence in the Americas, we are still a long ways from fully understanding the complexities of human relationships created by that presence. This anthology probes one set of encounters created by the African presence in the Atlantic World. My essay intends to examine the dynamics of interaction between the African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church of the U.S. and AfroCubans. Compounding the complexities associated with unraveling relations between AfroCubans and the AME Church are the intersecting realities of colonialism, racism, and economics. Any examination of the relations, significantly, must include the impact of United States military occupation of Cuba (1899 to 1902) as well as the sixty-one years of imperialist influence which followed. Neither can the examination omit the competitive complexity arising from tensions between Protestantism and Catholicism in the Americas. While an examination of African-derived religions in this context would be important as well, these traditions rarely appeared in documents or other data about the AME Church, upon which this essay is based. The narrow frame of this work, threfore, does not include African-derived religions.
From Columbus' first entry into the Americas, the Catholic Church of Rome dominated religious, and most non-religious affairs in Spanish Cuba. With the settling of North America as Protestant territory, the rivalry between the two branches of Christianity crossed the Atlantic. in 1895, when Cubans began a second struggle for national independence, supporters of the rising imperialist strength of the U.S. envisioned a Protestant expansion into the Caribbean and Latin America; lands that had been under the Catholic Church of Rome for more than three hundred years. As the United States publicly considered military intervention into Cuba in 1898, secular and religious newspapers heralded the move as more than a military undertaking. Even President William McKinley, began to transform the operation "into a crusade [that]...rationalized imperialism as a missionary obligation." Among Protestants, Methodists denominations were particularly strident among Protestants, proclaiming that U.S. presence would "destroy 'Romish superstition' in the Spanish West Indies." However, the prevailing imperialist sentiment was not exclusive to Methodists. Most among U.S. religious communities held that intervention was good, it meant the "coming to poor Cuba... [of]Christian civilization;" assuming that Catholicism did not equate with Christian civilization. Although Catholics expressed temporary concern about such blatant attacks on their faith and Church, they also conceded to national, rather than religious, allegiance and joined the imperialist mood. Support for interference into the Cuban War against Spanish colonialism crossed boundaries of Christian traditions.
As the slogan, "The cross will follow the flag," embodied this national sentiment, military occupation moved forward and Protestant missionizing went into Cuba with the U.S. military, just as the slogan had so correctly predicted. It was a time of nationalistic coalescing; patriotism, imperialism, and U.S. Protestantism. Not absent from this complex of events surrounding the Cuban struggle was an independent, black denomination; the African Methodist Episcopal Church. Its ministers too were part of the complexities of 1898; in fact no place were the complexities more revealed than the sacred yet (black) nationalistic organizing of the AME Church in Cuba.
MAKING CONNECTION
The African Methodist Episcopal Church had its origins in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania of 1797 when a small group of free-blacks acted upon their desire for self-determination in religious affairs. The group was clearly protesting white-skin privilege in worship, but they were simultaneously expressing disagreement between their preferred practice of Christianity and the way it was practiced by European Americans. Every African American person in St. George Methodist Church walked out on the famous November Sunday in 1797, and they never returned. After meeting as a mutual aide society for more than a year, some among the protesters formed the Bethel African Methodist Church of Philadelphia and proceeded to legally incorporate the congregation. The members claimed the right to organize independent and apart from the parent, white Methodist, St. George Church. Bethel took its petition for independence to the courts of Pennsylvania and a decision in their favor was issued. The legal precedent made Bethel Church the focal site for organizing African Methodism into a linked connection of independent congregations. In 1816, leaders of such congregations met in Philadelphia and formed the denomination called "The African Methodist Episcopal Church."
By 1886, the Church was the world's largest denomination of African Americans. It had more than four-hundred thousand members; nearly three thousand ordained ministers; more than three thousand church buildings; and had sent missionaries to Haiti, San Domingo, and Africa. In 1893, the Missionary Department received a letter from Rev. Durmer in the city of Santiago de Cuba. Exactly who was Durmer, how he came to be in Santiago or how he had gained knowledge of the denomination are questions for scholars yet to answer. Nevertheless, Durmer's letter requested that Church leaders consider organizing in Cuba as the country had a large black population. The letter was more than a request for Protestant expansion among the Catholic dominated community for despite their Cuban nationalism, AfroCubans shared historical experiences of economic and social exploitation with other African Americans in the hemisphere. Rev. Durmer's request to the AME Church begin working in Cuba was based on that shared experience. It was, therefore, an African nationalistic request.
By 1898, post-Civil War programs of U.S. Reconstruction had been completely abolished; thousands of ex-enslaved and first generation African American voters were "grand-fathered" and gerrymandered into dis-enfranchised status; economic downfalls and subservient underemployment pushed a majority of the population into abject poverty. The use of intimidating violence against black citizens, in order to insure white supremacy, was overtly sanctioned by national attitudes, practices, as well as legal proclamations. The 1896 Supreme Court decision of Plessy vs. Ferguson had made racial segregation law of the land.
In Cuba, the black population was confronting its own, though different reality. Their societal context also functioned to maintain racial discrimination; their African ancestry too was assigned an ascribed status of inferiority. Despite a high numerical participation in the 1868-1878, first struggles for national independence, and the subsequent outlawing of slavery in 1886, AfroCubans did not experience fair treatment or equality of opportunity. When Rev. Durmer made his 1893 contact with the AME Church, the nineteenth century was in its last years and racial discrimination continued to serious limit economic, political and social advancement by dark-skinned Cubans. It was not the U.S. style institutional segregation that resulted from Plessy vs. Ferguson but racial discrimination against AfroCubans was real and measurable. Dark-skinned Cubans began to place their hopes for equality in an emerging armed struggle against the final vestiges of Spanish colonial rule. It would be a struggle wherein some 40% of the senior commissioned ranks of the Liberation Army were men of color; including the notable "Bronze Titan," Antonio Maceo. AfroCubans --now called Mambises-- again rallied to the call of patriotic nationalism and disproportionately fought in battles of 1895-1898. Their expectation of equality now resided in the fact of their contributions to the success of the war and their earned citizenship in a independent Cuba.
In the United States, although the '96 Supreme Court decision brought radical circumscription to African Americans' aspirations for social and political equality, church membership was rising. Independent black congregations as well as denominations responded to the spiritual as well as unmet social and economic needs of their community. The institutional apparatus of white U.S. society had long ignored the latter. Like others, the AME Church expanded its function into arenas of education, social services, real estate, publication, employment, and politics. Such functioning confirmed that collectively the Black Church, including all denominations and congregations, was a social institution of the African American community.
Successful endeavors in self-determination united with whites' violent racist practices and convinced many African Methodists that race-conscious self-determination, linked with social and spiritual up-lift was also an appropriate strategy for African people outside of the U.S. The Church had not sent missionaries to Cuba in 1893 as Rev. Durmer had requested but it did begin monitoring the social and political climate of the country from a missionary base maintained in San Domingo. As well, in 1895 Rev. C. S. Smith, historiographer and bishop, did "make a cruise of the West Indies, stopping at all the principal places including Cuba, ..." By 1895, Cubans were in armed struggle against Spanish rule and the leadership of General Antonio Maceo was a visible success. Maceo impressed Church officials as did the centrality of AfroCuban contributions to the liberation effort. The AME legislative body unanimously passed a resolution expressing approval of the struggle for self-determination and, with other African American organizations, appealed to the U.S. government to recognize the Cuban freedom fighters.
Dedicated men of the denomination were among the four African American regiments to mobilize and fight in Cuba. At least two were Chaplains and carried authorization from their Church. The combination of military and ecclesiastic duties allowed Rev. H.C.C. Astwood to be officially appointed Superintendent of AME Missions in Cuba in April 1898; it coincided with his assignment as U.S. Consul in the Dominican Republic. To combine ministerial responsibility with military or other employment in a geographical area was not a new strategy for religious organizations. African Methodists relied on it as a way to expand denominational work beyond the limited economic abilities of the Church.
In Cuba, Rev. Astwood organized a first gathering of African Methodists in the eastern city of Santiago de Cuba on August 17th. From this site, he reported eleven members with two licensed exhorters, sincere teachers of doctrine. In the capital city of Havana, two congregational groups were organized but when Astwood's governmental assignment ended, the denomination was unable to finance a replacement. There was an attempt to sustain the efforts with visits from Bishop Charles S. Smith but AME development on the island would remain weak. Rev. Astwood's appointment marked the beginning of the Church's formal presence in Cuba. The relationship had been founded on a racial consciousness shared by African Americans in the U.S. and in Cuba; a consciousness that had developed through common historical experiences with economic, social, and political oppression. It was a spiritually-centered self-help relationship among African Americans, an alliance for resistance and upward mobility. However, it was not a relationship where Cuban realities informed responses of the AME Church.
For example, although both communities were of African descent, AfroCubans were a Spanish speaking people. The family names for Revs. Durmer and Astwood do not suggest that they were of Spanish-speaking origins and neither do they appear to have been naturalized citizens of Cuba. We shall see later where it is questionable if any of the early AME ministers to Cuba even spoke Spanish. With no facility of language and no relationship to the national identity of the people, the Church's ministers in Cuba were not specifically suited for that work. The denomination accepted the convenience of combining its missionary appointment with the consulate assignment of Rev. Astwood, as capable a man as he was. The linkage between the AME Church and AfroCubans was not headed for a smooth connection.
As the twentieth century approached and there was waning in AME missionary efforts in Cuba, Bishop Henry McNeal Turner became interested in the possibilities for membership growth among Afro-Latinos. The first man born in the South to be elected to the office of Bishop since before the Civil War, he was an ardent nationalist who espoused the freedom and rights of African people internationally. He has been called the last radical leader of the nineteenth century Black Church. It was Henry McNeal Turner who had been responsible for establishing an AME presence in South Africa, and it was from a subsidiary of his Sixth Episcopal District that he had endorsed and supported Rev. Astwood's 1898 appointment to Cuba. As the new century opened, Turner focused his nationalistic vision on blacks in Mexico and Cuba: he took leadership of the Church's missionary effort in those locations. Although he was near the end of his career, he used his Episcopal position to continue pursuing this phase of his nationalistic missionary vision.
Bishop Turner appointed Rev. D.S. Wells to the supervising position of Presiding Elder to Cuba in 1901. Like Rev. Astwood before him, and others who would follow, Wells' work was successful. From Cienfuegos, a city south and east of Havana, Wells was "instrumental in bringing sixty-five native Cubans and Spaniards into the AME Church." But his tenure also was short lived and in 1903, Wells was given an appointment back in the United States. Such brief sojourns point to yet another obstacle AME ministers face in sustaining a relationship with AfroCubans but these short appointments are also indicators of larger, organizational impediments; impediments directly related to the impoverished economic condition of African Americans in the U.S.
Neither the denomination's domestic or international missionary expansion could have occurred without financial support. The base for that financial support was congregants of local churches as well as the broader U.S. African American community. Contributions from these sources were generous; but given the overall economic instability and impoverishment of the black population it was predictable that the Church would have precarious income and financial support. There is clear evidence that leaders were concerned about their Church's active participation in Christian missionary work, and they regularly provided financial resources for such activities. However, finances also appear at the center of many denominational conflicts and organizational preservation was an equal priority in the allocation of Church funds. Even the achievement of a presence in Cuba, Jamaica, and other Caribbean sites, as well as in South Africa, had been accomplished by combining ministers' missionary appointments with employment assignments. The inevitable contradictions of the dilemma often occurred when a minister's employment changed and the denomination had to wrestle, once again, with choices; whether to use limited resources for home missionary work, to sustain its organizational structure, or to engage in international endeavors. Rarely did the decision favor Cuba.
Bishop Turner 's missionary vision had opened the twentieth century. His appointment of a Presiding Elder did improve the Church's encounters in the country. However, economic stops and starts made it difficult to transform such encounters into sustained relationships. Cuba barely appeared in the 1904 report on AME missionary activities, for example. Bishop Turner apparently attached high significance to a policy of sustaining relations in Cuba and committed support from resources available to him, but the legislative body of his Church did not follow his example. Nevertheless, a connection had been made between the two groups of African Americans.
RACE AND PROTESTANT MISSIONS
The U.S. military intervention into Cuba's War of Independence brought a well tested alliance to the island nation; Protestant extension and capitalist growth. The successful duo would persist beyond the 1902 military evacuation and the alliance guaranteed missionary accomplishments for white denominations. Discriminatory practices which African Americans faced in the United States, emboldened by the ideas of biological racism and the 1896 decision that legalized racial segregation, were exported to Cuba through U.S. economic penetration and Protestantism. The importation signaled a further institutionalization of racism in Cuban society. The linkage between racism, imperialism, and Protestantism further complicated relations between African Methodists and AfroCubans.
As capitalism developed its foot hold in Cuba, U.S. businesses supported the missionary activities of white congregations. Local churches aligned with African Methodism, on the other hand, were given no financial or structural support. African Methodist ministers approached businesses for assistance but no evidence has been found to show that companies responded positively. There also is no evidence to link the denomination with the 1902 geographic partitioning of Cuba into missionary fields. In that year, white denominations agreed to confine their proselytizing and missionary work to designated areas. This, it was thought, would eliminate competition between them. Missionaries from the AME Church were not included in the division though they were present on the island. This left black ministers free to meet and work with AfroCubans throughout the country but it also left them without the economic and social support, as well as the social sanction associated with Protestantism's goal to Americanize the country. The AME Church would not be able to capture the flexibility of its outsider position in order to attract AfroCuban converts through the use of it black nationalist focus.
Americanization was one reason white Protestant Churches were successful in their aggressive moves to convert Cuban citizens. This process included adoption of U.S. style norms of religious, social, and racial privilege as well as learning English. Cubans who converted and joined local congregations had access to new job opportunities created by U.S. imperialist business enterprises. They might even attain a position of privilege in Cuba's new political economy. A key requirement in these steps of upward mobility was English. However, local churches associated with white denominations usually offered English language classes as companion to their religious instruction. Cubans converting to Protestantism clearly saw the potential: Association with the religious organizations so closely aligned with the new Cuban economic and political order as well as instruction in the language quickly becoming a prerequisite for the better jobs. The combination was closely linked to upward economic and social mobility.
Protestant membership as well as the number of local congregations increased, particularly among Cuba's working and poorer classes. Most urban centers had several local churches but there were also congregations in less populated areas e.g. Banes, Baracoa, Guines, etc. Protestant schools, whether as independent operations or within church buildings, were well attended. However, the leadership and control of denominational expansion in Cuba remained in the hands of U.S. nationals, with some appointees --not dark-skinned Cuban -- occasionally sharing some functions. The success of Protestant insertion into Catholic Cuba could easily be seen in social and political influence, given the close alignment with U.S. economic capitalist development. However, when compared to the national population of approximately six million, the actual number of Cuban Protestants was minimal, 7,000 to 9,000. In January 1907, a meeting of denominations was called and the following statistics reported. It should be noted that the African Methodist Episcopal Church was not included even as it was active at the time.
THE CHART GOES HERE
please correct numbers i.e. there were only two thousand four hundred and seventy-seven students (2,477)
Americanization and Protestantism were partners in race relations as well. Racial or skin-color discrimination in Cuba was converted from informal patterns of social practices into formal, structured realities. Segregation of dark-skinned Cubans in pubic parks and social clubs was companioned with prohibiting AfroCubans to attend schools operated by Methodist and Presbyterian Churches. These were among the most prestigious schools not under the influence of the Catholic Church and the colonialism it represented. Cubans with strong nationalistic ties, or those concerned with self improvement, were particularly attracted to these Protestant educational arenas, and many 20th century leaders and intellectuals attended the schools. In several locations, Cardenas of Matanzas Province for example, the schools were near large black populations. Nevertheless, they actively dissuaded, if not prohibited dark-skinned Cubans from attending. The informal practice of dissuasion solidified into a formal pattern whereby Protestant education was sequentially structured for the privilege of light-skinned Cubans. Jim Crow practices of the United States had been transplanted, if only 'de-facto,' into Cuban social life.
AfroCubans who experienced such racist practices could easily have been drawn to an alliance with the independent and race-conscious AME Church. After all, independent organizing for self-help was part of the Cuban landscape of the period. The Agrupacion Independiente de Color was such a self-help effort. It was organized in 1907 to express dark-skinned Cubans' frustration with their absence from government employment and public office of the new Republic. They had participated with more than equal numbers and valor in the War of Independence but it was light-skinned Cubans who received employment opportunities. The initial group of organizers were black war veterans who had been consistently mistreated, even as everyone acknowledged their disproportionate representation and significant contributions to the War. The Agrupacion evolved into a full political party --el Partido Independiente de Color -- with goals to ensure that AfroCubans received full and equitable participation in the post-war expansion of the Republic; an equality sought since the Ten Year War of 1868 but not achieved.
The complaint of racial discrimination was a legitimate one. Aline Helg's 1995 work, Our Rightful Share: The Afro-Cuban Struggle for Equality, 1886-1912 , details the discrimination and events which led to the formation of el Partido. Its presence posed a serious threat to the traditional control of the black electorate by the nation's Liberal Party. Every effort was made to eliminate el Partido Independiente, arrest and harassment of its leaders as well as the 1911 laws prohibiting political parties based on race. In May 1912, el Partido Independiente de Color resorted to armed rebellion. The conflict was mostly in the East, Oriente Province and lasted several months. The potential of another military intervention by the United States, legitimized by the Platt Amendment to the Cuban Constitution, helped compel government officials to a quick and ruthless response to the rebellion. More than a thousand black Cubans were killed in what can only be described as a massacre. Clearly, AfroCubans' were sensitized by the racial inequality in their country and a receptivity to alliances with African Methodism could easily have developed in these first years of the new century.
In November 1916, Frances A. Pearson of Calle Santa Tomas #60 Alto, in the city of Santiago de Cuba, sent a letter to Rev. John. W. Rankin, the new Secretary of Missions for the AME Church. The letter was a request for pastors to come help "Spanish speaking people" and it ended with the Protestant tradition with an appeal for proselytizing; "May it please the A.M.E. Church to assist in evangelizing Cuba." It is not clear if Pearson received a direct response but by 1920, as part of its regular procedures, the Missionary Department received an official quarterly report from a minister assigned to congregations in the Caribbean. The Rev. R.A. Cevestus Duggan reported four centers of AME progress in Cuba with the most important centers listed as: Preston, Nipe Baiha, and Oriente de Cuba. Mr. Henry Ramsay was identified as Circuit Steward in the area, with George Taite and T.E. O'Riley named as local preachers.
At first glance, such activity reflects the Church had overcome many previous obstacles of organizing and was beginning to have success in its encounters in Cuba. However, Rev. Duggan's October 1920 report also spelled out details of the missionary work and discussed encounters which compounded relations between African Americans of Cuba and the United States. Duggan's report stated:
altho' I've been greatly opposed by others of wicked, jealous and covetous mind, by the help of the Lord, I've succeeded in establishing four preaching centers, i.e. Banes, Jacajo, San Jeriner and Preston. As I get no support from any source whatsoever... I cannot run the risk to rent said Hall and have to confine to outdoor services for the present. At Jacajo, the people appreciate the work greatly but the property being that of the United Fruit Co. a Hall can not be obtained.
The "wicked, jealous and covetous mind[ed]" opposition were whites from both the U.S. and Cuba; Catholics as well as Protestants. The absence of "support from any source whatsoever" was a reference to AME officials more than to the Cuban community. Problems of racism and organizational ineffectiveness were yet barriers to effective denominational development. There were no great expectations of Cubans contributing financial support. Everyone was aware of their impoverished nature. On the other hand, based on the tone of Duggan's report, there was an expectation of support from the denomination since it had authorized work in the country. Because there was no support forthcoming, Duggan reports that he was forced "to confine to outdoor services" as he could not "run the risk to rent" a hall for worship. Duggan's reference to the United Fruit Company points to the economic stronghold of U.S. imperialism and it interwoven racism as yet another complexity operating against positive results in the encounters of African Americans from Cuba and the U.S.
The United Fruit Company, like most agricultural enterprises in Cuba during the period, had built a successful business based on labor patterns developed during slavery. Similar race related patterns of labor exploitation had existed throughout the Americas. Such companies owned the land, factories, houses, churches, and local business, thus binding the economic survival of a community to the company. These businesses created an image of social responsibility through charitable donations and other subsidies to organized religion. The donations and the image, in turn, contributed to maintaining a company's position of power and control in a community. The imbedded racism of these corporate structures and functions also served to discriminate against corporate philanthropy to black congregations in Cuba, particularly those associated with the independent and nationalistic AME Church. And if an excuse or rationalization was needed for excluding local churches with such alliances, businesses could point to contributions they made to congregations composed of their employees; churches with no hint or history of organizing social protest. Such churches consistently were aligned with white denominations and/or composed of immigrant workers, usually Jamaican or other West Indians.
Rev. Duggan was referring to these complexities when he sent his report in October of 1920. He was deeply intertwined in the economic controls of United Fruit Company; he was experiencing the racism of exclusion from their patterns of religious philanthropy; and he was expressing the difficulties to be encountered without the Company's active or tacit support. If there was hope, Duggan saw it in the Cuban people as he said; "the people appreciate the work greatly." This was attested to in December by Rev. Thomas H. Spencer, an additional missionary in Cuba, as he submitted his quarterly report from Boquerou of Guantanamo Bay, also located in Oriente Province. He was holding AME meetings with his reported thirty pupils in a church building that had been constructed twelve years before and was located close to the U.S. naval base. Despite an abundance of difficulties, the nationalistic message of African Methodism resonated with dark-skinned people in Cuba.
It is not mere conjecture to acknowledge the significance of African ancestry as a force in the work of these and other AME ministers. These encounters in the Cuban portion of the African Atlantic World were viewed as connections between long separated family members and missionary reports to the AME Church referred directly to an organizing strategy of uniting those of African heritage. A decade after the 1920s reports had come from the eastern province, for example, Rev. W.H. Mayhew was just so direct.
Mayhew was the Superintendent in charge of Caribbean work and "contributing editor for West India Islands" for the denominational newspaper, Voice of Mission. Like others in his Church, he knew that the racial discrimination against African Americans in the U.S. accompanied economic and other U.S. led development in Cuba. The presence of African American missionaries in the country had startled many Cubans, particularly AfroCubans. As Mayhew reminded his U.S. based colleagues, "we should be acquainted with the fact that Africa Methodism is in its stage of infancy as yet in these lands. a phenomenon where Negro ministry is yet a popular surprise." In January 1930, Rev. Mayhew spoke directly to the point of race consciousness as an organizing strategy. He suggested that there soon should be great progress for African Methodism and to achieve such advancement all that was needed was to "arouse racial consciousness among the citizens" of the Caribbean. His assessment was that the Church could expect encounters and connections with AfroCubans to be solidified by "arousing racial consciousness."
In 1938, the geographic center for African Methodist work in Cuba had shifted to the west and to the capital city of Havana. Mr. John Deveaux, an enterprising West Indian but not an AME, had contacted the denomination and offered his organizing services as well as those of "[o]ur Knights of Phyhias in Cuba." Deveaux had returned to Havana from Florida and was working as a modern-day "community organizer" through Cuban fraternal organizations or 'logias.' He expressed praise for African Methodism and enumerated development opportunities for the Church in Cuba. Bishop Reverdy Ransom, who had succeeded Bishop Turner as radical leader of the denomination, received Deveaux' correspondence and prepared an official AME Cuba Commission to make a visit. The Commission was to determine the desire of the population to organize self-supporting AME congregations
Although its numerical presence was small and ignored by most white denominations, the AME Church had connected with the black population in Cuba by the 1930s and had established a foundation for its organizing effort. Principles which undergirded such organizing activities were those that had brought success in the United States; build church organizations from advocating and supporting social up-lift and racial-consciousness activities in local communities. Denominational accomplishments spoke to the success of the strategy. However, the black population was also Cuban, with an identity formed from socio-historical realities of blackness as well as patriotism to their country born from struggles for national independence. Although the Church was effectively using racial consciousness as a mechanism for organizing AfroCubans, few in the denomination had given attention to particularities of national patriotism which also informed their identity.
Short comings in the organizing strategy could be seen in the fact that until the 1930s, AME missionaries had yet to report significant numbers of Cuban nationals among its converts. In communities of AME success, the majority of residents, and specifically residents who aligned with African Methodism, were immigrants to Cuba, usually English speaking West Indians. These immigrants, though of African ancestry, were experiencing discrimination and resentment because they were black and because they were not Cuban but working in the country. An important cause of the absence of Cuban nationals aligned with the Church was the inappropriateness of ministers for missionary work in Cuba. Not only were these ministers inadequately funded with insufficient resources but they were not Cuban citizens and indications are that only Rev. Mayhew had facility with Spanish. The AME Church was physically in Cuba but it had no spokespersons "of" the people it sought for membership. If encounters between the two groups of African Americans were to be transformed into lasting, relationships, a different and more integrated type of connection was necessary .
THE FINAL PUSH
African Methodism had experienced growth in communities of the eastern province, even if those numbers did not include substantial participation from AfroCuban nationals. An important indicator of the AfroCuban challenge to recruitment efforts is the absence, in 1930s Church correspondence, of use of "congregation" to describe activities in the East. It is an important omission because congregations are the smallest, independent, self-supporting unit of AME polity. Without congregations, a location did not truly have official denominational status or recognition. One reason for the absence could be that correspondence of this period was mostly from Mr. John Deveaux and he was not African Methodist, not Methodist, maybe not even a practicing Christian. It also could have been that Mr. Deveaux was not familiar with details of activities that occurred in the East; the foundations of his work, after all, were in Havana. Whatever the reasons for no references to congregations, correspondence between John Deveaux and Bishop Reverdy Ransom was filled with plans for an impending visit from the AME Cuba Commission.
The Commission was planning its visit during a very different period of Cuban reality than those that preceded. This was a time of serious political transition. Since the 1898 War of Independence, the nation had functioned under a Constitution but there had been little political stability and external interventions from the U.S. continued to dominate most affairs. The 1912 suppression of AfroCubans' protest against racism was followed yet again in 1917 with a military intervention and this one say military presence in the eastern region through 1922. The political climate was volatile even as the 1920s had brought a relative resurgence to Cuba's economy. With the increased benefits to Cuban nationals, as opposed to immigrants and foreigners during the earlier period, they also experienced an increase political influence as well as a resurgence of nationalism. were now more the beneficiaries. Economic up-turns, political flexibility, and renewed nationalism produced an unprecedented consolidation of organizing activities. Workers united their various organizations, writers and artists consolidated their groups, trade groups and groups of laborers combined. AfroCubans were among the leadership in much of this organizing and consolidation. The nationalistic unifying would require a new type of work for the AME Church as well.
The Church's Commission to Cuba would need to prove the integrity of its desire to expand in Cuba if it did not want a serious assault from Cuban nationalism. Mr. Deveaux' proposition was timely. His presence in Havana and offer to organize with the denomination through "Our Knights of Phythias in Cuba" could provide the initial integrity need to begin. In addition, the delegation of outsiders would also need approval from the military authorities in charge at the time. There had been several disruptions in the stability of Cuban military command but in the mid-1930s, Fulgencio Batista had achieved an overthrow of yet another governmental regime.
As part of the preparation for a 1938 visit, Bishop Reverdy Ransom wrote John Deveaux about the purpose and intent of the AME Commission. He outlined the Church's focus as a nationalistic one, appealing to Cubans of African ancestry. The Bishop was equally clear in articulating the Church's "absolute" support for African people's right to freedom and equality in all arenas of social life. Ransom wrote the following:
Our chief plea shall be to Negroid people to organize under the auspices of the African Methodist Church. As you know, we stand for absolute Equality and Manhood of dark skinned people throughout the world.
We do not desire to segregate ourselves, but in the face of racial segregation and antagonism on account of the Colored race, we are compelled to take our stand for absolute political, social, economic and religious Freedom and Equality. If the people of Cuba whom we shall meet desire to subscribe to this position, we shall be glad to welcome them into our brotherhood and fellowship.
Although the correspondence may have been shared with the military authority, the Bishop composed another letter. The agency to whom he wrote was the Constitutional Army of Cuba and Colonel Fulgencio Batista was the official to whom Ransom made the request. However, the Bishop was more diplomatic and much less candid about the nationalistic independence of African Methodism. In December he wrote Colonel Batista the following:
Our mission is not to attempt to proselyte or supplant in any way other religious denominations. We simply seek our brethren of like faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and of common interest in the welfare of our people in the Americas.
Approval to travel throughout the country was issued on December 21st.
In January 1939, an AME Episcopal Commission of eight bishops, five other denominational leaders, and two women of the Church toured Cuba. The inclusion of women in the delegation did not represent an endorsement or plan for organizing Cuban women but reflected a health condition of a Dr. John R. Hawkins that would require the assistance of his daughter, Mrs. Ester Wilson. Consistent with the social gender mores of the time, the delegation would need another woman to accompany Mrs. Wilson. The delegation toured six cities; Havana, Matanzas, Pinar del Rio, Santa Clara, Camaguey, and Santiago de Cuba. The visit was considered a success for it identified other than West Indian Cubans interested in Church membership. In Santiago de Cuba, four-hundred and fifty persons were reported to have expressed written desire to join the denomination. On the bases of reports from this visit and the list of potential new members, the Church's national body gave its strongest support to the work in Cuba.
The Council of Bishops approved $800 of financing "to assist in opening at once churches in Cuba." They allocated $100 per month ministerial allotment for work from July 1939 through May 1940 and an additional $50 a month for Rev. Jose W. Jarvis to serve as Superintendent of the AME Church in Cuba, in addition to his ministerial duties. Not only was the denomination providing finances for Rev. Jarvis' work, but his name suggested association with a Latin American heritage, he spoke Spanish, and he would be the first minister designated to work specifically in Cuba. Finally, the Church appeared serious about expansion among AfroCubans.
In July 1939, Bishop Ransom returned to Cuba with Rev. Jarvis where they organized a school and several congregations. Ransom's report to the Missionary Department was enthusiastic as he wrote:
In round numbers, there are two thousand people in Santiago who desire to be received into the church at once. They say they can start us off with five hundred children in the school in that connection. Our job is to secure a building and open it for church purposes and open a school in connection with it. This done, they say they can carry themselves almost at once with very little future aid.
A significant fact about the work in Santiago was that recorded documents from the organizing meeting reflected the names of Cuban nationals. When interviews were conducted in 1990 with relatives and descendants of these organizers, they all were dark-skinned, AfroCubans. In 1939, therefore, the AME Church had established connections with Cuban nationals of African ancestry.
Protestant denominations of Cuba organized themselves into the Cuban Council of Evangelical Churches in 1940 and the AME Church was a charter member of the Council. Rev. Jarvis, legitimate ministerial member of the Church and official spokesperson in Cuba represented the denomination. There were not an abundance of local churches and missionary affiliates but congregations were now reported to be throughout the island. However, the confident tone of Bishop Ransom's 1939 report was an overstatement of the Cuban picture. There were cultural misunderstandings and words of the Bishop's document foretold the misunderstanding that would prove self-defeating for the Church.
EXPECTATIONS, CONTRADICTIONS, AND END OF AME PRESENCE
Commonly held expectations about congregational membership in the AME Church did not coincide with expectations of the Cuban population which agreed to affiliate with the denomination. The parent Church supposed that local Cuban congregations, like those of the U.S., would not only be self-supporting but they would make regular contributions to the denomination for support of the larger, organization and its international work. AfroCubans, on the other hand, were more impoverished than the U.S. black population and they expected AME affiliation to aide their struggle for educational, economic, and social opportunities. The different perceptions contributed to the eventual failure of AME activities in Cuba.