This sketch of the Twelfth Day Festival, or Day of the Kings, as it is called in Havana was taken by an English visitor to Havana on 6 January 1847, and sent to the Illustrated London News which reports It represents an annual custom--a kind of Saturnalia--permitted by the authorities to the Slaves or Negroes of what they call 'Nacion,' or Nation--that is to say, those born in Africa . . . (p. 148). Note, musical instruments and elaborate costumes, representing different ethnic groups. For a related illustration of this festival, see image Album-8 on this website. For details on Havana's annual El Dia de Reyes festival, see Daniel E. Walker, No More, No More: Slavery and Cultural Resistance in Havana and New Orleans (Univ. of Minnesota Press, 2004).

The Illustrated London News (Jan. 15, 1848), vol. 12, p. 26.

English

Image is in the public domain. Metadata is available under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International.

ILN026

Caribbean--Cuba--Havana

"Festival, Havana, Cuba, 1847 ", Slavery Images: A Visual Record of the African Slave Trade and Slave Life in the Early African Diaspora, accessed March 20, 2023, http://www.slaveryimages.org/s/slaveryimages/item/2801