Carlota Lucumi's Slavery Rebellion

In 1843, an enslaved woman named Carlota Lucumí helped lead a slavery rebellion at the Triumvirato sugar mill in the Matanzas Province of Cuba. Carlota was one of three leaders of the rebellion. She was kidnapped as a child from her Yoruba or Lucumí people of Nigeria in western Africa, brought in chains to Cuba and forced into slavery in the territory of Matanzas, where she worked to harvest and process sugar cane under very cruel and inhumane conditions. Matanzas was the scene of many confrontations between enslaved Africans and the cruel regime in Cuba during 1843 and 1844. During the early 1840s, a widespread resistance movement emerged among enslaved and free black people in western Cuba. The uprising at the Triumvirato sugar estate under the leadership of Carlota had a great impact both in Cuba and in other parts of the Caribbean.
Background information about Carlota is very limited, but it is likely that she worked in the fields. The rebellions at Triumvirato and Ácana were launched when two slaves in a Matanzas plantation killed a
The rebellion led by Carlota revealed the fact that women were also willing to fight for their freedom from enslavement. Women not only promoted their role in the effort to recruit other women, but also used this as a tactic to influence “machismo” or manly men to fight, by asking them to revolt when many women in their lives had already done so. Another impact of the rebellion led by Carlota occurred many years after it took place. Carlota’s name became a symbol of the operation that resulted in the Cuban military mission in Angola in 1980 one hundred and fifty years after her execution. The naming of the mission, and the emphasis on slaves overcoming their colonial masters exemplifies the emotional significance of Carlota’s rebellion as a rallying point. A monument to Carlota and the rebellion she led was erected on the spot of the Triumvirato sugar mill in