Women at Sea
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Women at Sea Travel Writing and the Margins of Caribbean Discourse Edited by Lizabeth Paravisini- Gebert and Ivette Romero-Cesareo Palgrave
WOMEN AT SEA Copyright Lizabeth Paravisini-Gebert and Ivette Romero-Cesareo, 2001. Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2001 978-0-312-21996-3 All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. First published 2001 by PALGRAVE 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010 and Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire, England RG21 6XS. Companies and representatives throughout the world. PALGRAVE is the new global publishing imprint of St. Martin's Press LLC Scholarly and Reference Division and Palgrave Publishers Ltd (formerly Macmillan Press Ltd). ISBN 978-1-349-62130-9 DOI 10.1007/978-1-137-08515-3 ISBN 978-1-137-08515-3 (ebook) Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publishing Data Women at sea : travel writing and the margins of Caribbean discourse / edited by Lizabeth Paravisini-Gebert and Ivette Romero-Cesareo. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Women travelers-caribbean Area. 2. Travelers writings Caribbean Area. I. Paravisini-Gebert, Lizabeth. II., Romero Cesareo, Ivette. G155.C35W65 2000 917.2904'082-dc21 99-37439 CIP A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Design by Westchester Book Composition First edition: January, 2001 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
To The memory of my godmother Maria Magdalena Paravisini de Vila And my aunt Angelina Paravisini de Baerga -LP To The memory of my grandmother Evarista Cáceres And to my mother Victoria Martínez Cáceres -IR
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Contents Acknowledgments Permissions 1x v1 Introduction 1 Chapter 1: Itinerant Prophetesses of Transatlantic Discourse 9 jose Piedra Chapter 2: Violence and Awe: The Foundations of Government in Aphra Behn's New World Settings 41 Richard Frohock Chapter 3: Cross-Dressing on The Margins of Empire: Women Pirates and the Narrative of the Caribbean 59 Lizabeth Paravisini- Gebert Chapter 4: When the Subaltern Travels: Slave Narrative and Testimonial Erasure in the Contact Zone Mario Cesareo Chapter 5: Women Adrift: Madwomen, Matriarchs, and the Caribbean Ivette Romero- Cesareo Chapter 6: A "Valiant Symbol of Industrial Progress"?: Cuban Women Travelers and the United States Luisa Campuzano 99 135 161
viii Contents Chapter 7: Colonizing the Self: Gender, Politics, and Race in the Countess Of Merlin's La Havane Claire Emilie Martin 183 Chapter 8: Travels and Identities in the Chronicles of Three Nineteenth-Century Caribbean Women 203 Aileen Schmidt Chapter 9: Journeys and Warnings: Nancy Prince's Travels as Cautionary Tales for Mrican American Readers 225 Cheryl Fish Chapter 10: Decolonizing Ethnography: Zora Neale Hurston in the Caribbean 245 Kevin Meehan Epilogue Chapter 11: Haiti's Unquiet Past: Katherine Dunham, Modern Dancer, and Her Enchanted Island Joan Dayan 281 Contributors Index 293 297
Acknowledgments As a collaborative effort, this book would not have been possible without the generosity, inspiration, and patience of all the scholars whose essays appear on its pages, and to them go our most sincere and heartfelt thanks and admiration. Kristi Long and Donna Cherry, our editors at Palgrave, have been models of patience and graciousness, for which they have our enduring thanks. LP&IR I must thank, first and foremost, my relentless and most resourceful research assistants, Malian Lahey and Jennifer Romero, for an extraordinary effort and for the joy and enthusiasm they have brought to my projects in the last two years. Among the friends and colleagues who generously assisted with their expertise and support in the completion of the work, I must single out Joan Dayan, Consuela Lopez Springfield, Elaine Savory, Margarite Fernandez Olmos, and Carmen Esteves. My young friend Aryeh Palmer-Gold shared with me his collection of pirate books and enthusiasm for piratical lore. Ivette Romero was, as always, a wonderful collaborator and friend. To her, and to little Mario Sur, who very patiently waited through many a long telephone call, my most affectionate gratitude. My stepdaughters, Carrie and D' Arcy-who were present when we first envisioned the project during a leisurely chat at a riverside Oxford pub during a family vacation several years ago-have in the intervening years gone off to college and to travels of their own. I miss them-and although I know they must sally forth, I wish they were home.
x Acknowledgments And to my two Gordons-husband and son-as always, my deepest love. LP Many thanks to "Odysseus" for his travels, and for bringing me the gifts of warmth, laughter, and music. My warmest gratitude to Irma Blanco Casey for her editorial skills and enthusiastic encouragement; to Rose De Angelis for her incisive comments on the subdeties of the English language, her supreme patience, and her lirnidess energy; to Lizabeth Paravisini-Gebert for being supportive and equanimous, even in the most stressful times, and for being a model of a hard-working scholar with a zest for life; to Mario Cesareo for his comradeship and continued support. Thank you all for the splendorous gift of your friendship. And all my love to my son Mario Sur, the star that guides my travels. IR
Permissions Illustrations of Mary Read and Anne Bonny National Maritime Museum, London. Special thanks to Mr. David Taylor, Picture Library, Centre for Maritime Research. Captain Abdul's Pirate School 1994 Colin McNaughton. Reproduced by permission of the publisher Walker Books Ltd., London. Illustration from The Ballad cif the Pirate Queens by Jane Yolen, Illustrations copyright 1995 by David Shannon, reproduced with permission from Harcourt, Inc. Excerpt from The Ballad cif the Pirate Queens, copyright 1995 by Jane Yolen, reprinted by permission of Harcourt, Inc. First published in The Ballad of the Pirate Queens, published by Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. Reprinted by permission of Curtis Brown, Ltd.
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Women at Sea