The forced enslavement of individuals in Cuba began in the early 1500s and continued until 1886. Spanish colonists first enslaved Cuba's indigenous population, and then began forcibly transporting individuals from Africa in the late 1700s as Cuba's sugar industry, which relied heavily on enslaved labor, increased. Throughout the 1800s, amongst international pressure to cease the Atlantic slave trade, Spanish colonists and Cuban plantation owners sought out other systems of forced labor. Cuba did not cease its involvement in the Atlantic slave trade until 1867 and slavery was not officially abolished until 1886. The Collection of Cuban slavery documents ranges from circa 1816-1890s and contains death certificates, labor contracts, identification documents (cédula), enslaved bills of sale, relocation permits, two sets describing emancipation cases, legal documents, correspondence, and governmental reports. Sources: "A fifteen part archive of documents relating to Cuban slavery: labor, administration, runaways, and emancipation." Description by Libros Latinos, February 19, 2016. Hu-Dehart, Evelyn. "Chinese Coolie Labor in Cuba in the Nineteenth Century: Free Labor of Neoslavery." Contributions in Black Studies: A Journal of African and Afro-American Studies 12, article 5 (1994): 38-54. https://scholarworks.umass.edu/cibs/vol12/iss1/5. Scott, Rebecca. Slave Emancipation In Cuba: The Transition to Free Labor, 1860–1899. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2000. Tan, Hai Lun. "Monuments of a Hidden Past: Deconstructing the Historical Narrative of the Chinese in Cuba, 1847-1959." Honors thesis, Wesleyan University, 2018. https://doi.org/10.14418/wes01.1.1474.

The forced enslavement of individuals in Cuba began in the early 1500s and continued until 1886. Spanish colonists first enslaved Cuba's indigenous population, and then began forcibly transporting individuals from Africa in the late 1700s as Cuba's sugar industry, which relied heavily on enslaved labor, increased. Throughout the 1800s, amongst international pressure to cease the Atlantic slave trade, Spanish colonists and Cuban plantation owners sought out other systems of forced labor. These systems essentially continued the same practices and conditions of enslavement but were disguised as contract labor. This included a system in China, where individuals were forcibly, deceptively, and coercively recruited into signing labor contracts and then subsequently transported to Cuba. A system known as patronato also became common. Former enslavers, known as patronos, contracted formerly enslaved individuals, known as patrocinados, into an eight year period of labor, often at the same locations where they had previously worked in bondage. Cuba did not cease its involvement in the Atlantic slave trade until 1867 and slavery was not officially abolished until 1886.

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