{"id":8,"count":6,"description":"Cuban slavery and independence are recurrent themes in Vig\u00d4\u00f6\u00a3\u252c\u00eda\u2019s handmade books. \r\n\r\nPl\u00e1cido, a widely read Afro-Cuban poet, was accused of leading an alleged slave revolt. He was executed by a firing squad in 1844 along with thousands of other Afro-Cubans, both slave and free. The book\u2019s cover is tied by a handkerchief covering eyes replicating Pl\u00e1cido\u2019s facing the firing squad. These events follow the earlier executions during the Aponte slave rebellion (1812) depicted in the concurrent exhibit \u201cVisionary Aponte\u201d at Cohen Hall at Vanderbilt. Slavery was not abolished in Cuba until 1886.\r\n\r\nJos\u00e9 Mart\u00d4\u00f6\u00a3\u252c\u00ed, Cuba\u2019s hero and symbol of Cuban independence, led the country\u2019s fight for independence from Spain. A leading nineteenth-century Latin American intellectual, Mart\u00d4\u00f6\u00a3\u252c\u00ed's image often appears on the cover of their journal and his writings - both poetry and political - are frequently reproduced by Vig\u00d4\u00f6\u00a3\u252c\u00eda. He is depicted with the symbolic oil lamp, the press\u2019s logo. He traveled often to the United States, Latin America and Spain to promote independence; support from the Cubans who had emigrated to the US was key to Cuba\u2019s success in the war for Cuban independence against Spain. \r\n","link":"https:\/\/exhibitions.library.vanderbilt.edu\/vigia\/section\/slavery-independence\/","name":"Slavery and Independence","slug":"slavery-independence","taxonomy":"section","parent":0,"meta":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/exhibitions.library.vanderbilt.edu\/vigia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/section\/8","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/exhibitions.library.vanderbilt.edu\/vigia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/section"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/exhibitions.library.vanderbilt.edu\/vigia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/taxonomies\/section"}],"wp:post_type":[{"href":"https:\/\/exhibitions.library.vanderbilt.edu\/vigia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/item?section=8"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}