Juan Manzano tells many stories of everyday life as a slave in Cuba. At first, his view is a bit different from other slaves, in that, he was a slave that enjoyed privileges not other slaves enjoyed. Manzano was fortunate enough to grow up with a mistress who was very fond of him and appreciated him being around. Manzano was also a more fortunate slave in that he was allowed to live and work within the house of his masters This was a more well off job than those slaves that were doomed to the sugar cane fields. Regardless, Manzano would eventually go through the same struggles any of the other slaves went through. Through Manzano’s book, he is able to tell us his life story that revolves around the dark secrets of slavery, Slaves in Cuba, during their lives, suffered a ‘social death’. Social deaths were that the condition of the slaves were not accepted as fully human by the wider more dominant society.
Manzano, while telling us the account of his life, is concurrently exposing us to his own ‘social death. The autobiography and his social death as a slave go hand in hand, if it weren’t for his experiences as a slave, he may never have written the story of his life for us to read. The events in his life as a slave made him, Manzano, the person who he was. By him telling his personal life story, and also showing meaning to the social death of himself as a slave, it allows us as readers to understand that Manzano was just as human as anybody else. He had feelings, passions, thoughts, and impulses. He loved to write poetry, draw, and paint. The social death Manzano battles contradict his life story because he never really could live his life to the fullest extent, even after his freedom was bought and granted to him.
Manzano never could get over his younger years and how he was treated, there was no way for him to escape his former life, When Manzano grew older it seems he may have formed some sort of Depression even mentioning that he would “cry buckets” and that “ml cannot find a single day that is not marked for me with some tearful incident”. Slaves like Manzano tried to work as hard as they could to avoid punishment Sometimes, their hard work was overshadowed by problems out of their control, and they would be punished even if they had done nothing wrong, “From the age of thirteen or fourteen I have experienced penance, confinement, lashes, and misfortunes.
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So I have decided to describe the most noteworthy events that have occasioned such terrible and harmful opinions of me. I realize that, no matter how much I try to speak of the truth, I will never take my place as a perfect or even honorable man But at least in the eyes of the prudent judgment of impartial men, one will see to what extremes the prejudice of the majority touches the unfortunate being who has become the victim of some weakness. This shows that Manzano realizes that he may be the only person of his time that will ever have the opportunity to write about life as a slave. As Much as Manzano loved to write poetry, there were times he was discouraged from doing such activities since he did live the life of a slave.
However, Manzano still found time and the materials necessary to pursue what he loved “From early childhood, I was in the habit of reading everything legible in my language. And when I walked down the street, I always went along picking up pieces of printed paper, and if it were in verse I would not pray again until i learned it by heart”. Manzano was a human, and his account brings us back to the brutal reality he faced, and nobody else should ever have to suffer through. We cannot be sure but only assume that he may have censored some of his autobiographies, This also contradicts the pursuit of fulfilling his own biography When Manzano talks about how he forgets about pieces in his life, or skips over brutality, this may be where his idea of censoring came in.
He may have censored parts of his life on purpose. Manzano would often say things like “Skipping over several years, I will leave behind a multitude of painful episodes”. This could either be due to the painful fact that he does not want to remember what happened to him, he formed a type of illness that truly erased parts of his memory, or he was afraid the government would punish him for his truthfulness. Juan Manzano’s book is a very important historical account. Although it may be a bit biased, it is the only document that we have today to learn from about people from his time. We cannot blame him for the bias he may or may not have had though, because being put in the situations slaves did at that time are beyond belief. Juan Manzano reveals the social death he suffers in his autobiography, and reminds us that he is only human.
