Havana's status as a colonial port shaped both its infrastructure needs and the patterns of labor recruitment and coercion used to build it. The port city's initial economic and political orientation was maritime, with capital and labor invested largely in defense and shipbuilding. By the nineteenth century, Cuba had become a plantation colony based on African enslavement, exporting increasing quantities of sugar to Europe and North America. Because the island was relatively underpopulated, workers for infrastructure projects and plantations had to be imported through global circuits of coerced labor, such as the transatlantic slave trade, the transportation of prisoners, and, in the 1800s, indentured workers from Europe, Mexico, or Asia. Cuban elites and colonial officials in charge of transportation projects experimented with different mixes of workers, who labored on the roads and railways under various degrees of coercion, but always within the socio-economic and cultural framework of a society based on the enslavement of people considered racially distinct. Thus, the indenture of white workers became a crucial supplement to other forms of labor coercion in the building of rail lines in the 1830s, but Cuban elites determined that these workers’ whiteness was too great a risk to the racial hierarchy of the Cuban labor market and therefore sought more racially distinct contract workers after 1840.

中文翻译：

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通往甜蜜成功之路：1790-1835 年古巴哈瓦那公路和铁路建设中的自由和不自由劳动力

哈瓦那作为殖民港口的地位塑造了其基础设施需求以及用于建造它的劳动力招募和胁迫模式。港口城市最初的经济和政治定位是海上，资本和劳动力主要投资于国防和造船。到 19 世纪，古巴已成为建立在非洲奴隶制基础上的种植园殖民地，向欧洲和北美出口越来越多的糖。由于该岛人口相对不足，基础设施项目和种植园的工人必须通过全球强制劳工渠道输入，例如跨大西洋奴隶贸易、囚犯运输，以及 1800 年代来自欧洲、墨西哥或亚洲。负责运输项目的古巴精英和殖民官员尝试了不同的工人组合，他们在不同程度的胁迫下在公路和铁路上劳作，但始终在一个基于对人民的奴役的社会的社会经济和文化框架内种族不同。因此，白人工人的契约成为 1830 年代铁路建设中其他形式的劳工胁迫的重要补充，但古巴精英认为这些工人的白人身份对古巴劳动力市场的种族等级构成太大风险因此在 1840 年之后寻求更多种族不同的合同工。但总是在一个以奴役被视为种族不同的人为基础的社会的社会经济和文化框架内。因此，白人工人的契约成为 1830 年代铁路建设中其他形式的劳工胁迫的重要补充，但古巴精英认为这些工人的白人身份对古巴劳动力市场的种族等级构成太大风险因此在 1840 年之后寻求更多种族不同的合同工。但总是在一个以奴役被视为种族不同的人为基础的社会的社会经济和文化框架内。因此，白人工人的契约成为 1830 年代铁路建设中其他形式的劳工胁迫的重要补充，但古巴精英认为这些工人的白人身份对古巴劳动力市场的种族等级构成太大风险因此在 1840 年之后寻求更多种族不同的合同工。