Quince Duncan's Weathered Men and

The Four Mirrors: Two Novels of

Afro-Costa Rican Identity Dorothy E.
Mosby
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 Translated by
Dorothy E. Mosby

W E AT H E R E D
MEN

THE FOUR
MIRRORS
Two Novels of Afro-Costa Rican Identity
 Afro-Latin@ Diasporas

Series Editors
Natasha Gordon-Chipembere
Heredia, Costa Rica

Miriam Jiménez Román

afrolatin@ forum
New York, USA

Edward Paulino
Department of History
John Jay College of Criminal Justice
New York, USA
The Afro-Latin@ Diasporas book series publishes scholarly and crea-
tive writing on the African diasporic experience in Latin America, the
Caribbean, and the United States. The series includes books which
address all aspects of Afro-Latin@ life and cultural expression through-
out the hemisphere, with a strong focus on Afro-Latin@s in the United
States. This series is the first-of-its-kind to combine such a broad range
of topics, including religion, race, transnational identity, history, litera-
ture, music and the arts, social and cultural theory, biography, class and
economic relations, gender, sexuality, sociology, politics, and migration.

More information about this series at

http://www.palgrave.com/gp/series/14759
 Dorothy E. Mosby

Quince Duncan's
Weathered Men
and The Four Mirrors
Two Novels of Afro-Costa Rican
Identity
Dorothy E. Mosby
Department of Spanish, Latina/o and Latin
American Studies
Mount Holyoke College
South Hadley, MA, USA

Translated by Dorothy E. Mosby

Afro-Latin@ Diasporas
ISBN 978-3-319-97534-4 ISBN 978-3-319-97535-1 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-97535-1

Library of Congress Control Number: 2018951044

Translation from the Spanish language edition: Hombres curtidos by Quince Duncan, © Cuadernos de
Arte Popular 1971, and Los cuatro espejos by Quince Duncan, © Editorial Costa Rica 1973. All Rights
Reserved.
© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature
Switzerland AG, part of Springer Nature 2018
This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether
the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse
of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and
transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by
similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed.
The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this
publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt
from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use.
The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this
book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the
authors or the editors give a warranty, express or implied, with respect to the material contained herein
or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to
jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Series logo inspired by “Le Marron Inconnu” by Haitian sculptor Albert Mangones

Cover credit: Stuart Pearce/Alamy Stock Photo

This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature
Switzerland AG
The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland
 A mis ancestras—
a las que siempre llevo en la punta de la lengua
y las ancestras cuyos nombres se desconocen,
pero vibran en mi sangre.
 Acknowledgements

First and foremost, I would like to express my sincere gratitude to Dr.

Quince Duncan for his patience and generosity. I am grateful for his
permission to translate his work and the enormous trust and confidence
placed in me. This translation emerged from a humble request at the
end of 2011, and it is a joy to bring his work to a wider audience of
readers.
I am indebted to Natasha Gordon-Chipembere, whose encourage-
ment and belief in this translation helped make this dream a beauti-
ful reality. I am grateful for her determination to make sure that don
Quince’s work reaches an English-speaking public.
A generous sabbatical leave from Mount Holyoke College during
the Spring 2016 semester enabled me to complete first drafts of both
novels. I also thank my colleague Roberto Márquez for reading an early
and very rough draft of Hombres curtidos, and for his sage advice to a
novice translator. Additionally, I want to acknowledge the work of Dr.
Dellita Martin-Ogunsola who paved the way for me. As don Quince’s
first translator, she did a masterful job translating his short fiction into
English and I am thankful.

vii
viii   Acknowledgements

As always, deep appreciation for my US and Costa Rican fam-

ily, whose support has offered me more than I could ever express
with words, especially my parents, Helen and James Mosby, Sheridan
Wigginton, Franklin Perry, Dlia. McDonald, Gustavo Córdoba
González, and Karla Araya Araya. Thank you to my faithful writing
accountability buddies, Patricia and Madeline, whose words of reas-
surance and inspirational example kept me motivated through the
vicissitudes of department chairing, teaching, advising, promotion,
mid-career malaise, administrative work, and simply being human.
Finally, I would like to share my heartfelt gratitude for my spouse,
Carol Knight-Mosby. Carol has been my Jamaican Creole native
informant for almost twenty years and made sure the bills got paid dur-
ing prolonged sojourns in Central America. In the words of Miss Lou,
“Me darling love, me lickle dove,/Me dumpling, me gizada,/Me sweetie
Sue, I goes fa you/Like how flies goes fa sugar.”
 Contents

Introduction 1

Weathered Men 17
Part I 18
Chapter One: The Return 18
Chapter Two: The Dance 22
Chapter Three: Yesterday 29
Chapter Four: Knowing 40
Chapter Five: The Legacy 43
Chapter Six: The Vine 48
Part II 59
Chapter Seven: Incoherence 59
Chapter Eight: The Question 69
Chapter Nine: Brutus 70
Chapter Ten: In the Beginning 74
Part III 80
Chapter Eleven: The Conquest 80
Chapter Twelve: Something Important 88

ix
x   Contents

The Four Mirrors 91

Part I 92
I 92
II 115
III 135
IV 146
V 158
VI 178
Part II 193
VII 193
VIII 203
IX 213
X 228
XI 234
 Introduction

Reading Quince Duncan’s first two published novels, Weathered Men

and The Four Mirrors, almost fifty years after they were first published
in Spanish, readers may be struck by the timeliness and currency of the
issues raised by the Afro-Costa Rican author and intellectual. The con-
text of Costa Rica in the late 1960s and early 1970s is one that still
holds resonance and relevancy in the twenty-first century for not only
Costa Rica as a nation, but for other parts of the Western Hemisphere
and beyond. Two of the greatest challenges raised in Duncan’s novels are
the forces of migration and coming to terms with exclusionary notions
of national identity. Readers in the United States will be familiar with
debates over the intense political divide over immigration from Latin
America, the Middle East and North Africa, and South Asia, as well as
the fate of undocumented immigrants including the almost 800,000
young people called “Dreamers.”1 These debates have heightened the
anxieties of a segment of the dominant white, Protestant population

1“DACA has shielded nearly 790,000 young unauthorized immigrants from deportation,” Pew
Research Center, http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/09/01/unauthorized-immigrants-
covered-by-daca-face-uncertain-future/.

© The Author(s) 2018 1

D. E. Mosby, Quince Duncan’s Weathered Men and The Four Mirrors,
Afro-Latin@ Diasporas, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-97535-1_1
2   D. E. Mosby

in the United States who are witnessing their privileged status as the
nation’s majority vanish with each passing year. This disquiet has caused
the powerful nation in the North to examine its history of immigra-
tion, its construction of national identity, and how Americanness
includes some but excludes many. Costa Rica, not unlike the United
States, is a nation constructed by a complex history of conquest, col-
onization, exploitation, and immigration.2 After the Spanish conquest
and subsequent extermination of many indigenous peoples, Costa Rica
relied on the labor of oppressed Indians and enslaved Africans. As the
country entered into the global market, it looked to the labor of peo-
ples from elsewhere to build its economy: indentured Chinese immi-
grants, contract laborers from the British West Indies, invited waves of
white Americans and Western Europeans, workers from Nicaragua, El
Salvador, Colombia, Venezuela, Haiti, and the Dominican Republic
who were seeking both peace and prosperity in a new land. Costa Rica
has had to reckon and reconcile with the past as it was once imagined
by the founding national elite with the lived historical experience
of indigenous and Afro-descendant peoples. Quince Duncan’s work has
been quintessential in bringing attention to the exclusionary nature of
national myths of identity and the challenge these narratives pose for a
sense of belonging, particularly for the descendants of Afro-Caribbean
immigrants who helped build the modern nation.
Before the tendency in Costa Rican intellectual circles in the late
1990s and early 2000s to interrogate the national myth, which iden-
tified the country’s whiteness, Europeanness, and absence of a past
history of chattel slavery as paramount to its exceptional economic pro-
gress and stable democratic institutions, Quince Duncan was among
the vanguard of Costa Rican intellectuals who questioned the veracity
of these notions and who engaged in conversations about the power
of narratives of national identity. Beginning in the 1960s, Duncan
asserted his claim to a Costa Rican national identity that also embraced
blackness and West Indian cultural identity with his celebrated works

2“There’s no such thing as a pure Costa Rican,” Tico Times, http://www.ticotimes.net/

Immigrationcr/.
 Introduction    
3

of fiction, collections of essays, and recompilations of Afro-Caribbean

folk tales. The two novels presented in translation in this volume,
Weathered Men and The Four Mirrors, are the first novels published in
Costa Rica—and perhaps even the first in Central America—written
in Spanish by an author of West Indian heritage about the experience
of Jamaican migration to the region and affirmation of Afro-Costa
Rican identity. Together, both of these “novels of identity”3 work to
dismantle the myth that to be a tico de pura cepa (of pure Costa Rican
stock) means being white, of European descent, Spanish-speaking, and
Catholic with a nostalgic affinity for the country’s peasant roots. These
novels also bring to the forefront greater awareness of the contradictions
and idiosyncrasies of exclusionary notions of national belonging when it
comes to blackness, Costa Rican history, and democracy.
Duncan was born in San José, Costa Rica in 1940 to Eunice Duncan
Moodie and Adolfo Robinson and grew up in Estrada, a small town
along the railroad in the Caribbean province of Limón. During an
interview I had with the author in 1997, Duncan jokingly stated that
he was “born twice.”4 This notion of being “born again” is not in ref-
erence to some religious awakening, but rather in reference to the fact
that although he was born to a Costa Rican-born mother, his birth cer-
tificate declared that he was Jamaican because the nation had yet to fully
embrace the possibilities of citizenship for people of Afro-West Indian
heritage. Later, when his mother became a naturalized citizen, he was
then given a birth certificate that recognized him as Costa Rican.
Duncan spent his formative years with his Jamaican immigrant
grandparents, James Duncan and Elvira Moodie, in a household and
a community that valued literacy and education. When granting
interviews or speaking with students, Duncan frequently talks about
how The Gleaner, one of Jamaica’s most revered periodicals, was a fix-
ture in his household growing up and that his grandfather kept a per-
sonal library of classic books under lock and key. His early forays into

3Mosby, “Novels of identity: Hombres curtidos and Los cuatro espejos,” Quince Duncan: Writing
Afro-Costa Rican and Caribbean Identity (2014): 50–103.
4Personal interview with the author. For a more detailed explanation, see ibid., 5–6.
4   D. E. Mosby

storytelling may have been influenced by Anancy stories, which are

tales about the wily trickster spider derived from the traditions of the
Ashanti peoples of West Africa. British slavers imported large numbers
of Ashanti to Jamaica and the stories of how the tiny spider was able
to use his quick wit to outmaneuver larger, more powerful creatures­
provided an essential survival tool for oppressed peoples. Duncan was
also influenced by Miss Rob, one of his neighbors in Estrada who
encouraged Duncan to read as a boy and retell the stories he had read.
Many of those early influences as well as his own witness to Afro-Costa
Rican history and culture in Limón are woven into Duncan’s writing.
Duncan grew up during a significant juncture in Costa Rican history
when the nation was slowly recognizing its black citizens and also strug-
gling with the meaning of blackness. Although there have been peoples
of African descent in Costa Rica since the colonial period, this popula-
tion was already culturally assimilated and their identities, such as the
Afro-descendant population of Guanacaste province, were resignified
as mestizo, cholo, or indigenous.5 A distinctive black culture did not
emerge again until the arrival of thousands of free West Indian work-
ers, primarily from Jamaica, in the late nineteenth and early twentieth
centuries. Like Duncan, many contemporary Afro-Costa Ricans are the
descendants of these West Indian workers who were called to the coun-
try beginning in 1872 to build the railroad that linked the coffee-rich
Central Valley with the Caribbean port city of Puerto Limón. The Costa
Rican government contracted North American railroad builder, Henry
Meiggs and his nephews, Henry Meiggs Keith and Minor Cooper
Keith. After unsuccessful efforts to recruit Costa Rican nationals and
foreign labor from Italy, China, and the United States, Minor Keith
actively sought out English-speaking labor in the West Indies. The
majority of these workers were literate and skilled Jamaican men who
clung to a dream of making enough money to return home and buy

5The Guanacaste province is located in the northwest of Costa Rica and borders Nicaragua.

During the colonial period, this region used enslaved African labor primarily in cattle produc-
tion. Mestizo means “racially-mixed,” generally Spanish and indigenous. Cholo is sometimes
used to describe people from rural areas with darker skin. It is typically seen as a pejorative term
because it is also used to describe individuals or groups as “backward” or “uncultured”.
 Introduction    
5

property, support families, and supply school fees to ensure that their
children had the opportunity to move into the professional class. The
work of constructing the railway through 100 miles of dense rainforest
was arduous and the men were subjected to dangerous working condi-
tions, days of work without pay, and tropical diseases like malaria and
yellow fever.
After nineteen years, the railroad was completed in 1890 at the cost
of the lives of 4000 workers, including that of Henry Meiggs Keith.
Eventually, Minor Keith determined that the transport of coffee and
passengers between the Central Valley and Limón did not render the
profits he expected. He ordered the mass planting of bananas along
the rails and began to export the fruit in large quantities to the United
States. In 1899, Keith merged his Tropical Trading and Transport
Company with the Boston Fruit Company to form the United
Fruit Company. That infamous brand became a defining example
of the modern multinational corporation and as a monopoly wielded
such wide-reaching power that it determined the path of Central
American governments and economies for much of the twentieth cen-
tury. The United Fruit Company encouraged the migration of more
Afro-Caribbean workers to Costa Rica to provide labor for the increas-
ing demands of the banana industry. Among the thousands of men and
women from the West Indies who arrived in Puerto Limón were Marcus
M. Garvey and Duncan’s own grandparents.6 In spite of the challenging
conditions of the tropics, poor sanitation, inequitable pay, and suppres-
sion of workers’ attempts to organize and advocate for themselves, the
West Indians managed to recreate their home cultures in a new envi-
ronment through “English” schools, Protestant churches, mutual aid
­societies, and cultural organizations. Their lives were not only different
from the national population but also geographically isolated from it.

6Marcus M. Garvey (1887–1940) was an important Jamaican visionary. His sojourn in Costa
Rica (1911–1912) was brief but impactful. His denouncement of working conditions in a
self-published tabloid lead to the termination of his employment as a timekeeper for United
Fruit and eventually his expulsion from Costa Rica. However, Garvey’s experience in Costa Rica
provided significant fodder for the founding of the Universal Negro Improvement Association
(UNIA) in 1914. The organization amassed a following in the USA, England, Canada, Jamaica,
Cuba, and Central America.
6   D. E. Mosby

They maintained their communities without much need or desire to

integrate with the Hispanic culture or customs and the white and mestizo
Costa Rican nationals responded similarly to this black, “foreign
element” within their borders. This history played a crucial role in Duncan’s
upbringing and contributed to his vision of Costa Rican society, as well
as the direction of his literary production.
Weathered Men and The Four Mirrors, along with Duncan’s five other
novels, six collections of short stories, and numerous essays, have firmly
cemented his place in Costa Rican literature and culture as a writer
giving voice to the nation’s misunderstood and misinterpreted history
of Afro-Caribbean migration and settlement. Duncan is viewed as the
primary translator of West Indian culture and history for the Spanish-
speaking, white and mestizo-identified national population of Costa
Rica. His work also connects Afro-Costa Ricans of West Indian herit-
age to the cultural landscape of the African Diaspora and engages the
local history of Caribbean migration to Central America as part of
the larger story of the dispersal of peoples of African descent in the
Americas. Prior to Duncan, West Indian characters appeared in texts by
previous generations of Costa Rican writers, such as Joaquín Gutiérrez
and Carlos Luis Fallas; however, these earlier representations of Afro-
Caribbean peoples in Costa Rican literature written in Spanish, largely
reproduced and reinforced anti-black cultural stereotypes. The publi-
cation of Weathered Men introduced a human portrait of the lives and
cultures of the black inhabitants of Limón that put them into relief,
adding great depth and sensitivity to the portrayal of their history and
struggle to be considered as equal citizens. The first generation of Afro-
West Indian immigrants was weathered by adverse conditions but was
not destroyed by them. Those who decided to remain in Costa Rica
rather than return home to their islands of origin are not portrayed as
troublesome foreign elements in Duncan’s work, but rather as men and
women weathered by hardships who persevered to make the Caribbean
lowlands of Limón province a habitable place where they could provide
for their families and hope for a prosperous future for their descendants.
For some readers familiar with the African American texts, such as
Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man, may also see literary resonances in themes
about citizenship, recognition, cultural resistance, and survival, and
 Introduction    
7

discrimination in Weathered Men and The Four Mirrors. Duncan’s nov-

els also connect to an Afro-Latin American literary tradition following
in the footsteps of notable figures such as Nelson Estúpiñan Bass and
Luz Argentina Chiriboga (Ecuador), Nicomedes and Virginia Santa
Cruz (Perú), Manuel and Juan Zapata Olivella (Colombia), Virginia
Brindis de Salas (Uruguay), and Nicolás Guillén (Cuba). Duncan’s
generation of Afro-Latin American writers includes Gerardo Maloney,
Carlos Guillermo Wilson, and Melva Lowe de Goodin (Panama),
Nancy Morejón (Cuba), Norberto James and Blas Jiménez (Dominican
Republic), and Lucía Charún Illescas (Peru). This group of writers
emerged after the Latin American literary “boom” that prominently
featured writers like Carlos Fuentes, Mario Vargas Llosa, and Gabriel
García Márquez who engaged with important issues of politics, impe-
rialism, and identity, but also neglected to profoundly engage with the
marginalized populations of the region, most notably indigenous and
Afro-descendant peoples. The post-Boom Afro-Latin American writers
address issues of blackness, identity, history, and the construction of
the nation, while also calling out the erasure and invisibility of Afro-
descendants, the historical impact of slavery and capitalism, neoliberal
economic policies, and imperialism in their creative fiction.
In Quince Duncan’s work, the concept of “Afro-realism” (afrore-
alismo ) is important in telling the stories of Afro-descendant peoples.
Afro-realism is a term he coined to describe how black writers incor-
porate an African-derived sensibility into creative work that high-
lights cultural resistance, the vindication of African symbolic memory
and neo-African belief systems, and challenges the distortion of Afro-
descendant voices by the dominant culture and affirms the concept
of an ancestral community.7 Duncan presents Afro-realism as a con-
trast to magic realism. According to author’s framing, magic realism
calls upon the fantastic as a stylistic element to advance the narrative,
whereas Afro-realism is rooted in Afro-descendant cultures and pur-
posefully incorporates aspects of neo-African belief systems such as

7Quince Duncan, “El afrorealismo: Una dimension nueva de la literatura latinoamericana,” Istmo
(January–June), http://istmo.denison.edu/n10/articulos/afrorealismo.html.
8   D. E. Mosby

those that recognize the spiritual coexistence of the living, the dead,
and the unborn. There are examples of this in both Weathered Men with
the ritual ceremonies of a priestess that recount the Ashanti War and
the powerful conversations between a dying woman and her deceased
father-in-law in The Four Mirrors.
In addition to Afro-realism, Duncan’s fiction also displays several
intertextual connections. In both Weathered Men and The Four Mirrors,
the author includes references to other texts, including Duncan’s own
writing. The Four Mirrors incorporates references to several stories
from Canción en la madrugada (Dawn Song ) and features many of the
same characters we see in Weathered Men, as well as mentions some
of the events that occurred in the novel. There are numerous cita-
tions of Jamaican folk songs, the Bible, the history of Jamaican migra-
tion to Costa Rica, including Marcus Garvey’s Pan-Africanist vision,
the African heritage of the Guanacaste region of the country during the
colonial period, and the legal prohibition of Afro-West Indian labor
from the Pacific coast United Fruit Company plantations. Both novels
are self-referential, especially Weathered Men where the protagonist is
also the author of the text we are reading, which is framed by his return
to the Caribbean town where he grew up.
Weathered Men was originally published in 1971 as Hombres cur-
tidos by a small press in San José, Costa Rica. It tells the story of a
thirty-year-old man who returns to the home he left when he was six-
teen. But this story is so much more than the tale of the “hero’s return,”
it is a story about reconciliation with the past and redemption. The
life of third-generation Afro-Costa Rican Clif Duke is our entry to
learning more about the struggles and triumphs of the earlier genera-
tions of Afro-Caribbean immigrants who labored and eventually settled
in Costa Rica. Central America has a complex social and political his-
tory; however, the history of black migration to the region from places
like Jamaica, Barbados, and St. Kitts is rarely foregrounded. These pat-
terns of Afro-Caribbean migration serve as a critical component to
understanding the labor and economic history of the Americas, as well
as the flow of black cultural capital as Afro-descendant peoples moved
between the West Indies, Central and South America, Cuba, United
States, and England.
 Introduction    
9

In the prologue to the original 1971 edition of Hombres curtidos,

Lia Coronado recognizes that this novel delves into the untold history
of West Indian immigrants who came to Costa Rica. Many of these
workers dreamed of returning home, but over time and after the birth
of another generation, they made the difficult decision to remain in
the host country. Over time, they also had to decide whether to con-
serve their ethnocultural heritage or assimilate the Spanish language and
Costa Rican national culture. Coronado writes, “The weathered skin of
the black people of the Atlantic region masks a drama that we Costa
Ricans still do not know.” She continues to observe in the prologue,
“Quince Duncan is one of those young blacks who has courageously
and enthusiastically stepped forward with the urgent task to make pub-
lic in an intelligent and profound way, the history of this ethnic group
that is soulful and proud of their heritage.” While celebratory and con-
gratulatory, Coronado’s prologue still underscores a notion of the irrec-
oncilability of blackness with Costa Rica’s dominant culture where
the unfolding narrative of Afro-Costa Rican history still remains to be
seamlessly woven into the fabric of the nation. The notion of blacks as
a foreign other is precisely one of the misperceptions the novel attempts
to address by demonstrating the contributions of multiple generations
of Afro-Costa Ricans.
Weathered Men also relates the story of three generations of the Duke
family in Costa Rica, told primarily from the perspective of Clif Duke,
a third-generation Afro-Costa Rican of West Indian descent. The gener-
ations face different challenges and choices. The first generation strives
to make a way in the midst of inclement conditions of the Caribbean
lowlands, as they struggle against floods and harsh work conditions.
This generation must choose whether to persevere in Costa Rica in
spite of their political and economic circumstances and the whims of a
national government that does not welcome their blackness or to return
to the island homes they left behind that are still subject to British colo-
nial rule. The second generation, some born in Costa Rica and others
brought as small children, have their own decisions to make as well.
They have the choice to embrace the nostalgia of the islands of their
parents, demand political autonomy from the Costa Rican state for the
10   D. E. Mosby

largely English-speaking province, or integrate into the national cul-

ture by learning Spanish and adopting some of the cultural practices of
the Costa Rican nationals that their parents rejected. This challenge of
the second generation is depicted in Chapter 6, “The Vine,” through a
conversation between Grace Duke and her boyfriend, Clovis about the
decision their generation must make about their relationship with both
Jamaica and Costa Rica.
Clif Duke represents the condition and hopes of the third genera-
tion of Afro-Costa Ricans. The third generation, which comes of age
shortly after the 1948 Costa Rican civil war and the eventual exten-
sion of the rights of citizenship to Costa Rican-born blacks, has the
difficult task of reconciling their ethnocultural difference with a
nation that identifies with its Spanish heritage, Catholic roots, white-
ness and the foundational myth of ethnic homogeneity. The protagonist
of Weathered Men finds himself in this situation. Clif is in a challenging
space of finding belonging in a nation that has finally recognized the
citizenship of the Afro-West Indians who contributed to its economic
development but also has difficulty accepting their blackness and cul-
tural difference. As he tries to reconcile his Jamaican heritage and his
national identity, Clif struggles to answer the question posed to him by
his grandfather, “Are you Costa Rican? Are you really?” He attempts to
find an answer by returning home to the small town of Estrada in the
Caribbean province of Limón with his family in tow. After leaving the
mainly Afro-descendant coastal region to move to San José, the nation’s
capital located in the mestizo-dominant Central Valley, as a sixteen-
year-old adolescent, Clif Duke makes a return home to his origin as a
thirty-year-old man with his wife and sons to write his Jamaican grand-
father’s history. While staking his claim to his rights as a Costa Rican
citizen, Clif connects to Jake’s memories of Jamaica while also doc-
umenting his grandfather’s struggle to make a home in the new land
for himself and his family. As part of this process of memorializing his
grandfather, Jake, and searching for his identity, Clif remembers conver-
sations he and Jake once had through flashbacks to his childhood.
Although Weathered Men is principally told from Clif ’s third-­
generation perspective, the narrative voices of his Jamaican born great-­
grandfather Jonas, his grandfather Jake (also called Jakel in the novel),
 Introduction    
11

and his mother Grace are woven in a Faulkneresque way, along with
temporal shifts between past and present and stream of consciousness
narration. Duncan’s narrative style uses fragmented language and elab-
orate descriptions to reflect the characters’ emotional or psychological
state. As in some of Duncan’s earlier short stories, the inclement weather
and difficult geography appear almost as adversarial personages in the
novel because of the stake they have in dramatically altering the for-
tunes of the first generation of West Indians who managed to conquer
the land and make it home.
The Four Mirrors, published in 1973 as Los cuatro espejos, is Duncan’s
second novel and also is fundamentally a story of reconciliation,
redemption, and home. However, if Weathered Men tells the story of
three generations of an Afro-West Indian family in Costa Rica, then the
focus of The Four Mirrors is much more personal and internal. It tells
the story of an individual Afro-Costa Rican man and his determina-
tion to reconcile his double-consciousness, or twoness as a black man
of Jamaican heritage with his struggle to understand how he discon-
nected from his West Indian roots and eventually finds belonging in the
nation, as well as in his own skin. The African American intellectual and
sociologist, W. E. B. DuBois observes in his landmark text, The Souls of
Black Folk, that double-consciousness is, “this sense of always looking
at one’s self through the eyes of others, of measuring one’s soul by the
tape of the world that looks on in amused contempt and pity.” DuBois
continues to say, “One ever feels his twoness – an American, a Negro;
two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals
in one dark body.”8 In the case of Charles McForbes, the Afro-Costa
Rican protagonist of The Four Mirrors, his lifetime of looking at himself
through the eyes of others leads to devastating consequences and sends
him on a “heroic” journey to bring the past and the present together.
One morning, the protagonist McForbes wakes up next to his white
wife. He launches into a state of confusion and restlessness after remem-
bering words uttered during a lecture held the night before about the
deficiencies of Afro-Costa Ricans and their culture. When he goes to the

8DuBois, The souls of black folk (New York: Pocket Books, [1903]/2005), 7.
12   D. E. Mosby

mirror, McForbes discovers that he cannot see his face and realizes that
he is either going blind or having a psychological breakdown. This quest
to find the answer to his sudden “blindness” sends McForbes out of the
middle-class comfort of his home in the capital and sends him into the
streets of the city. As he wanders the streets seeking an explanation as
to why he is unable to see his face in the mirror, we learn of McForbes’
two lives. He was once a farmer and pastor in Limón who was married
to his first wife, Lorena. After her death from a mysterious illness, he
fashioned a new life for himself in San José as a man who suppressed his
West Indian origins and whose marriage into a white Costa Rican ­family
supported his meteoric social climb. His physical and psychological jour-
ney takes us from the bustle and coldness of the national capital to the
slow pace and suffocating heat of the Caribbean lowlands of Limón.
Ultimately, it is in Limón where the protagonist is finally able to face his
past, his identity, and make peace with the events that led him to leave
Limón and stifle a significant part of himself.
In The Four Mirrors, the author deepens his experimentation with
narrative style. He uses flashbacks, stream of consciousness, sentence
fragments, staccato phrases, repetition, and conjunctions placed at the
start of sentences to convey McForbes’ mental state as the reader accom-
panies him through the streets of San José and the rural footpaths of
village life in Estrada. Duncan engages with intertextuality as he brings
characters from Weathered Men, such as members the Duke family,
Clovis Lince, and Howard Bowman into the narrative. He also refer-
ences Clif Duke as a writer and playfully includes a scene of Charles
McForbes reading selections from his 1970 collection of short stories,
Canción en la madrugada (Dawn Song). McForbes offers a scathing cri-
tique of the work as something written for “romantic women and their
compliant husbands.” In The Four Mirrors, Duncan also relies on multi-
ple narrative voices to present the perspectives of McForbes’ two wives:
Lorena Sam, the Afro-Costa Rican daughter of a Jamaican obeah man
and Esther Centeno, the privileged daughter of a medical doctor who is
an esteemed member of the Costa Rican elite. Lorena’s slow and painful
death is the thread that links McForbes with the Centeno family, as well
as a moment of transition between his life in the province and his striv-
ings in the capital.
 Introduction    
13

It is a privilege to present the first English translation of Quince

Duncan’s “novels of Afro-Costa Rican identity,” Weathered Men and The
Four Mirrors. First and foremost, Weathered Men and The Four Mirrors,
are works originally written in Spanish about West Indian English and
Creole speakers. The project of translating Weathered Men, in particu-
lar, was indeed a challenging one largely because of the question of
which language (English or English-based Creole) and register to use.
It became a matter of not just the art of translating the nuances of the
author’s words and cultural references into another language, but how
to faithfully transmit the emotions, thoughts, and experiences of charac-
ters who are West Indian English and Creole speakers from a text writ-
ten in Spanish into a type of English widely accessible to a broad base
of English language readers. The earlier drafts of the translation had the
majority of the dialogue written in both Jamaican Creole and Standard
English. Although I felt that the incorporation of Jamaican Creole into
the text gave the first generation characters in the novel a particular cul-
tural authenticity, some early feedback from readers indicated that those
familiar with Jamaican Creole appreciated the earnestness and humor
of the dialogue, for example, the banter between Jake and Walter about
winning Leonor’s affection. However, readers less familiar with the
cadences and Jamaican Creole’s phonetic spelling were challenged to
catch the rhythm and meaning of the dialogue. In this translation of
Weathered Men, I have attempted to use a type of language that follows
some of the patterns of Creole English and some phrases in Jamaican
Creole to indicate not only the cultural roots of the Afro-Costa Rican
population but also to mark the uniqueness of the first generation.
I wanted the language of the second generation, as exemplified in the
exchange between Clovis and Grace, to reflect the Jamaican Standard
English received from their formal education. Clovis and Grace would
have attended schools organized by the various Protestant denomina-
tions (Methodist, Anglican, Baptist, Moravian, and Adventist) that fol-
lowed a rigorous curriculum that adhered to the structure of the British
colonial educational system. While they may have spoken Creole at
home or in informal settings, some members of this generation would
have been encouraged to adopt more British modes of respectabil-
ity and customs that would facilitate their entry into the West Indian
14   D. E. Mosby

professional and colonial administrative class when they returned

“home.” Similarly, Clif would have received an education similar to his
mother Grace, but perhaps also obligated to attend Spanish school by
national authorities.
For Weathered Men, I made the difficult choice to forgo the major-
ity of the Creole, while attempting to conserve some of its patterns
in a more standard form of English and making it accessible to a
wide range of English speakers and readers. In most of the text, I use
Standard American English; however, when contextually appropriate
I try to approximate the voices of the characters with different regis-
ters of speech and colloquial language. Similarly, in The Four Mirrors,
I decided to follow a more standardized form of English with some
attempts to conserve the patterns of Creole-based English during the
flashbacks in Limón. The protagonist’s social distancing from his
Limonese roots and alienation from the Caribbean culture of his rural
village generated this choice.
Additionally, for the sake of clarity, I have included in some footnotes
in both translations. The footnotes in The Four Mirrors are more contex-
tual whereas the notes in Weathered Men contain definitions for some
words that are unique to the English-based Creole spoken in Limón,
also called Limonese Creole, as well as some Costa Rican Spanish words
that appear in the text that I chose not to translate (for example, cholo
and tepezcuintle ). These notes in translations are an effort to convey
aspects of ethnolinguistic difference, while also making the language
accessible for a wide readership.
In The Four Mirrors, I faced another interesting decision point in
translating the word “cursi” into English. In contemporary Costa
Rican Spanish, cursi means “corny,” “cheesy,” “poor taste,” “passé,”
“banal,” “boring,” “trite,” “pretentious,” “obnoxious,” and “worn out.”
Charles McForbes uses the word cursi in the original text as his sig-
nature word. Cursi appears so often in the text that the word almost
becomes a character itself since the protagonist uses it frequently to
describe himself and others. I settled on the word “cliché” because it
seemed to fit the majority of the contexts in which the character says it
and like cursi in Spanish, it has the same type of auditory quality that
seemed to read well in the text.
 Introduction    
15

For both Weathered Men and The Four Mirrors, I decided to use
the “n-word” to convey strongly and powerfully the brutal and unfor-
giving anti-blackness the characters experience. During this process,
I have been mindful that a translation is a work of creative writing
in itself and through the act of translating these two novels, I have
attempted to imagine the characters, the choices they make, the per-
spectives they hold, and how others view them. Through this process,
I had to think about the role of power and how to depict this in trans-
lation. Spanish descriptors are challenging because negro/a, negrito/a,
moreno/a, and morenito/a are all terms that are used to describe Afro-
descendant people and dark skin. On the surface, these words do not
carry the same cultural charge as the English word “nigger.” They can
express affection, especially in the diminutive form, but they can also
be used disparagingly to cause harm or offense. Unlike other areas of
the Spanish-speaking world that have large Afro-descendant popula-
tions like the Caribbean, there is no clear equivalent to the “n-word.”
However, it is important to note that all of these racial appellations,
including negro/a, negrito/a, moreno/a, morenito/a are part of our his-
torical legacy of slavery, but even more profoundly it is the legacy of
over five centuries of a paradigm which has “inscribed blackness as neg-
ative difference.”9 The word “nigger” is harsh and it is ugly. The power
dynamics at play are apparent not only when a white person addresses a
black person with this word, but also when black people use it with one
another. Even in jest the word carries with it a particular history of own-
ership, domination, and the power to name, define, and categorize.10
So, in my translation, I have used the English word “nigger” when the
context has called for it and being cognizant of the dynamics of race,
color, and power in Costa Rican history. For example, in Weathered
Men, when Jake Duke is denied his human dignity when he needs to
use a restroom in a San José neighborhood, he knocks on door after
door and is repeatedly denied, not because of his condition as a man,
but rather because of his condition as a black man. The unwelcome, the

9Jerome Branche, Colonialism and race in Luso-Hispanic literature (2006), 2.

10Ibid.
16   D. E. Mosby

power at work, the dehumanization that Jake experiences—he is treated

as less than human and the utterances of negro and negrito are not out
of affection, but rather out of the purpose of othering, diminishing his
personhood, and displaying the privilege of whiteness.
Duncan has been a champion for the Afro-descendant, indigenous,
and immigrant populations in Costa Rica and beyond. He has been rec-
ognized throughout Central America and Latin America for his exper-
tise in social justice education and cultural activism. For this novice
translator, this project has brought me great joy and I am honored to
share these translations so that Quince Duncan’s work may be able to
access a wider readership beyond those who have been fortunate to read
his work in Spanish. Any errors in the translation are mine.
 Weathered Men

Contents

Part I . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
Chapter One: The Return . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
Chapter Two: The Dance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
Chapter Three: Yesterday . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
Chapter Four: Knowing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
Chapter Five: The Legacy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
Chapter Six: The Vine . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
Part II . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
Chapter Seven: Incoherence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
Chapter Eight: The Question . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
Chapter Nine: Brutus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70
Chapter Ten: In the Beginning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74
Part III . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80
Chapter Eleven: The Conquest . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80
Chapter Twelve: Something Important . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88

© The Author(s) 2018 17

D. E. Mosby, Quince Duncan’s Weathered Men and The Four Mirrors,
Afro-Latin@ Diasporas, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-97535-1_2
18   D. E. Mosby

Part I

Chapter One: The Return

“The act of lifting the suitcase, hoisting the child, and exiting the
train is all one motion…”
My wife timidly follows behind me, trying in vain to hide the con-
tours of her shapely legs. A futile effort. Her hands grip the handbag as
if she’s protecting a stash of precious jewels. I place the suitcases on the
platform. I feel the inescapable emptiness of my pockets and that same
feeling of emptiness creeps into my gut. With a wave of his hand, the
conductor gives the signal to depart. The halting metal machine. I have
returned. The train station is still here, intact, unchanged in fourteen
years. On the other side of the tracks, the town hall, offices, and houses,
all there unchanged except for the SNAA sign that has replaced the
old water tank, which only means that water is now more expensive.1
Nothing has changed. Not even a sign of paint or repairs. Everything
is static. Things just are—decaying, lurching toward self-destruction, or
simply resigned to deterioration. A tenuous state that in its own way
traces the violent and contrasting future. My wife looks at the town in
silence. You could see in her eyes that she’s still uncertain of the reason
for my return. No one, perhaps not even I, knows why. My friends in
the capital will never forgive me for leaving the big city and the fast-
paced life our generation’s artistic elite is trying to create. The lectures
on “ultra-literature,” art, service to humanity, and all the things that
define urban life.
“You’re a writer. You’ve got real promise, so why you going to bury
yourself out there in the bush?” But I am searching for my roots. I’ve
got the revolver I bought in my suitcase after deciding that I’m in dan-
ger of becoming like so many other writers. My wife looks at me again

1SNAA—Servicio Nacional de Acueductos y Alcantarillado (National Service of Aqueducts and

Drainage).
 Weathered Men    
19

with a familiar question in her eyes. I know her doubts, the interruption
to her everyday life, the never-ending arguments about fear, struggle,
and splitting herself into two—one half drawn to middle-class comfort
and routine and the other just as absurd as my own spirit with a view of
the world just as unreal as my own. But, maybe that unrealness is the
only real truth in this world.
“Let’s go my love.” She takes a step.
“Let’s go,” she responds. “Is it far?”
“Five minutes on foot…”
“Alright,” she holds on tight to our eldest son, “Let’s make the most
of our time.”
And she grips him tighter, propelled by a burning instinct that surges
from within and materializes in her way of seeing things almost as an
act of heroism as if it’s necessary to protect the boy from me. But not
really from me, more like that thing inside that sometimes seems to pos-
sess me. I shouldn’t have brought them to all of this, but it’s too late.
We keep walking, over the wooden slats. People greet us along the way.
Everything is the same. They’ve lived seventy plus years like this, with-
out it ever occurring to them to cluster together to create a town center.
All along the rocky and irregular path, people greet us. My wife’s foot-
prints and those of my son form indistinct shapes. The house emerges
from between the fresh leaves of the cacao grove, and the sensation of
returning overwhelms and startles me. I am home. The pent-up nostal-
gia of the years crescendos and frees itself. The memories are violent and
strike relentlessly. Something indiscernible that explodes into a cross-
roads before my uncertain future. But I’m home, and that’s important.
“This is the house.”
“Oh, wow! The outside is lovely.”
“Yes, of course, and big. Comfortable. Be careful on the steps.”
Holding my neck, my youngest son is sound asleep. (Suddenly an
unexpected image assaults him: the child holding the old man’s neck, asking
him to explain the contents of the newspaper.) We get closer to the door,
with an incredible expression of guilt on our faces.
“Goodness, it’s big. Turn on the light.”
“The generator’s out.”
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
 In addition, we recommend a fifth subcommission, to be known
as the subcommission on statistics, in the membership of which
there shall be one representative of each of the above
subcommissions. …

"The committee also suggests that there are certain subjects

of inquiry which appertain equally to all the groups into
which it has recommended that the Commission be segregated.
The subjects of immigration, of education, of combinations and
trusts, and of taxation at once suggest themselves as
belonging in this category. It is therefore recommended that
these subjects, one or more of them, be examined into by the
full Commission pending the organization of the several
subcommissions."

The subject to which the Commission gave earliest attention

was that of "Trusts and Industrial Combinations," on which it
submitted a preliminary report on the 1st of March, 1900.

See (in this volume)

TRUSTS.

{600}

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1898 (June).

Act providing for the arbitration of disputes between
employers and employees in inter-state commerce.

The following are the main sections of a very important Act of

Congress, approved June 1, 1898, which provides for the
arbitration of disputes between railway and other employees
engaged in interstate commerce and the companies or
individuals employing them:

"That the provisions of this Act shall apply to any common

carrier or carriers and their officers, agents, and employees,
except masters of vessels and seamen, … engaged in the
transportation of passengers or property wholly by railroad,
or partly by railroad and partly by water, for a continuous
carriage or shipment, from one State or Territory of the
United States or the District of Columbia, to any other State
or Territory of the United States, or the District of
Columbia, or from any place in the United States to an
adjacent foreign country, or from any place in the United
States through a foreign country to any other place in the
United States. …

"Section 2. That whenever a controversy concerning wages,

hours of labor, or conditions of employment shall arise
between a carrier subject to this Act and the employees of
such carrier, seriously interrupting or threatening to
interrupt the business of said carrier, the chairman of the
Interstate Commerce Commission and the Commissioner of Labor
shall, upon the request of either party to the controversy,
with all practicable expedition, put themselves in
communication with the parties to such controversy, and shall
use their best efforts, by mediation and conciliation, to
amicably settle the same; and if such efforts shall be
unsuccessful, shall at once endeavor to bring about an
arbitration of said controversy in accordance with the
provisions of this Act.

"Section 3. That whenever a controversy shall arise between a

carrier subject to this Act and the employees of such carrier
which can not be settled by mediation and conciliation in the
manner provided in the preceding section, said controversy may
be submitted to the arbitration of a board of three persons,
who shall be chosen in the manner following: One shall be
named by the carrier or employer directly interested; the
other shall be named by the labor organization to which the
employees directly interested belong, or, if they belong to
more than one, by that one of them which specially represents
employees of the same grade and class and engaged in services
of the same nature as said employees so directly interested:
Provided, however, That when a controversy involves and
affects the interests of two or more classes and grades of
employees belonging to different labor organizations, such
arbitrator shall be agreed upon and designated by the
concurrent action of all such labor organizations; and in
cases where the majority of such employees are not members of
any labor organization, said employees may by a majority vote
select a committee of their own number, which committee shall
have the right to select the arbitrator on behalf of said
employees. The two thus chosen shall select the third
commissioner of arbitration; but, in the event of their
failure to name such arbitrator within five days after their
first meeting, the third arbitrator shall be named by the
commissioners named in the preceding section. A majority of
said arbitrators shall be competent to make a valid and
binding award under the provisions hereof. The submission
shall be in writing, shall be signed by the employer and by
the labor organization representing the employees, shall
specify the time and place of meeting of said board of
arbitration, shall state the questions to be decided, and
shall contain appropriate provisions by which the respective
parties shall stipulate, as follows:

"First. That the board of arbitration shall commence their

hearings within ten days from the date of the appointment of
the third arbitrator, and shall find and file their award, as
provided in this section, within thirty days from the date of
the appointment of the third arbitrator; and that pending the
arbitration the status existing immediately prior to the
dispute shall not be changed: Provided, That no employee shall
be compelled to render personal service without his consent.

"Second. That the award and the papers and proceedings,

including the testimony relating thereto certified under the
hands of the arbitrators and which shall have the force and
effect of a bill of exceptions, shall be filed in the clerk's
office of the circuit court of the United States for the
district wherein the controversy arises or the arbitration is
entered into, and shall be final and conclusive upon both
parties, unless set aside for error of law apparent on the
record.

"Third. That the respective parties to the award will each

faithfully execute the same, and that the same may be
specifically enforced in equity so far as the powers of a
court of equity permit: Provided, That no injunction or other
legal process shall be issued which shall compel the
performance by any laborer against his will of a contract for
personal labor or service.

"Fourth. That employees dissatisfied with the award shall not

by reason of such dissatisfaction quit the service of the
employer before the expiration of three months from and after
the making of such award without giving thirty days' notice in
writing of their intention so to quit. Nor shall the employer
dissatisfied with such award dismiss any employee or employees
on account of such dissatisfaction before the expiration of three
months from and after the making of such award without giving
thirty days' notice in writing of his intention so to
discharge.

"Fifth. That said award shall continue in force as between the

parties thereto for the period of one year after the same
shall go into practical operation, and no new arbitration upon
the same subject between the same employer and the same class
of employees shall be had until the expiration of said one
year if the award is not set aside as provided in section
four. That as to individual employees not belonging to the
labor organization or organizations which shall enter into the
arbitration, the said arbitration and the award made therein
shall not be binding, unless the said individual employees
shall give assent in writing to become parties to said
arbitration. …
 "Section 7. That during the pendency of arbitration under this
Act it shall not be lawful for the employer, party to such
arbitration, to discharge the employees, parties thereto,
except for inefficiency, violation of law, or neglect of duty;
nor for the organization representing such employees to order,
nor for the employees to unite in, aid, or abet, strikes
against said employer; nor, during a period of three months
after an award under such an arbitration, for such an employer
to discharge any such employees, except for the causes
aforesaid, without giving thirty days' written notice of an
intent so to discharge; nor for any of such employees, during
a like period, to quit the service of said employer without
just cause, without giving to said employer thirty days'
written notice of an intent so to do; nor for such
organization representing such employees to order, counsel, or
advise otherwise.
{601}
Any violation of this section shall subject the offending
party to liability for damages; Provided, that nothing herein
contained shall be construed to prevent any employer, party to
such arbitration, from reducing the number of its or his
employees whenever in its or his judgment business necessities
require such reduction. …

"Section 10. That any employer subject to the provisions of

this Act and any officer, agent, or receiver of such employer
who shall require any employee, or any person seeking
employment, as a condition of such employment, to enter into
an agreement, either written or verbal, not to become or
remain a member of any labor corporation, association, or
organization; or shall threaten any employee with loss of
employment, or shall unjustly discriminate against any
employee because of his membership in such a labor
corporation, association, or organization; or who shall
require any employee or any person seeking employment, as a
condition of such employment, to enter into a contract whereby
 such employee or applicant for employment shall agree to
contribute to any fund for charitable, social or beneficial
purposes; to release such employer from legal liability for
any personal injury by reason of any benefit received from
such fund beyond the proportion of the benefit arising from
the employer's contribution to such fund; or who shall, after
having discharged an employee, attempt or conspire to prevent
such employee from obtaining employment, or who shall, after
the quitting of an employee, attempt or conspire to prevent
such employee from obtaining employment, is hereby declared to
be guilty of a misdemeanor, and, upon conviction thereof in
any court of the United States of competent jurisdiction in
the district in which such offense was committed, shall be
punished for each offense by a fine of not less than one
hundred dollars and not more than one thousand dollars."

United States Statutes at Large,

volume 30, page 424.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1898 (June).

The War with Spain.
Seizure of the island of Guam.

The following order, dated May 10, 1898, was addressed by the
Secretary of the Navy to the Commander of the U. S. S.
'Charleston':

"Upon the receipt of this order, which is forwarded by the

steamship 'City of Pekin' to you at Honolulu, you will proceed
with the 'Charleston' and 'City of Pekin' in company, to
Manila, Philippine Islands. On your way, you are hereby
directed to stop at the Spanish Island of Guam. You will use
such force as may be necessary to capture the port of Guam,
making prisoners of the governor and other officials and any
armed force that may be there. You will also destroy any
fortifications on said island and any Spanish naval vessels
that may be there, or in the immediate vicinity. These
operations at the Island of Guam should be very brief, and
should not occupy more than one or two days. Should you find
any coal at the Island of Guam, you will make such use of it
as you consider desirable. It is left to your discretion
whether or not you destroy it. From the Island of Guam,
proceed to Manila and report to Rear-Admiral George Dewey, U.
S. N., for duty in the squadron under his command."

In a despatch dated June 24, Captain Glass, of the

"Charleston," reported the execution of these orders as
follows: "I have the honor to report that in obedience to the
Department's telegraphic order of May 24, 1898, this ship
sailed from Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands, on the 4th instant for
Manila with the transports 'City of Pekin,' 'Australia,' and
'City of Sydney' under convoy. When clear of land, I opened
the confidential order of May 10, 1898, and changed course for
the Island of Guam, next day informing Commander Gibson, in
charge of transports, and Brigadier-General Anderson,
commanding expeditionary force, of the change in my orders and
that the transports would accompany the 'Charleston.' Arriving
off the north end of the island at daylight, June 20, I first
visited the port of Agana, the capital of Guam, and of the
Mariana group, and finding no vessels there of any kind,
proceeded to San Luis D'Apra, where it was expected that a
Spanish gunboat and a military force would be found, a rumor
to that effect having reached me while at Honolulu. Arriving
off the port at 8.30 a. m., it was found that Fort Santiago,
on Oroté Point, was abandoned and in ruins, and I steamed
directly into the harbor, having ordered the transports to
take a safe position outside and await instructions. A few
shots were fired from the secondary battery at Fort Santa Cruz
to get the range and ascertain if it was occupied. Getting no
response, ceased firing and came to anchor in a position to
control the harbor, and it was then found that this fort also
was abandoned. The only vessel in port was a small Japanese
trading vessel from Yokohama. An officer had just shoved off
from the ship to board the Japanese vessel, and obtain
 information as to the condition of affairs on shore, when a
boat was seen approaching the ship, through the reefs at the
head of the harbor, flying the Spanish flag and bringing two
officers, the captain of the port, a lieutenant-commander in
the Spanish navy, and the health officer, a surgeon of the
Spanish army. These officers came on board, and, in answer to
my questions, told me they did not know that war had been
declared between the United States and Spain, their last news
having been from Manila, under date of April 14. I informed
them that war existed and that they must consider themselves
as prisoners. As they stated that no resistance could be made
by the force on the island, I released them on parole for the
day, to proceed to Agana and inform the governor that I
desired him to come on board ship at once, they assuring me
that he would do so as soon as he could reach the port. While
awaiting the return of these officers, an examination was made
of the harbor, the only dangers to navigation were buoyed, and
the transports came in during the afternoon.

"At 5 p. m. the governor's secretary, a captain in the Spanish

army, came on board, bringing me a letter from the governor,
in which he stated that he was not allowed by law to go on
board a foreign vessel and requested me to meet him on shore
for a conference. This letter is appended, marked A. As it was
then too late to land a party, from the state of the tide on
the reef between the ship and the landing place, I directed
the secretary to return and say to the governor that I would
send an officer ashore with a communication for him early next
day.
{602}
… At 8.30 a. m. on June 21 Lieutenant William Braunersreuther
was sent ashore, under flag of truce, with a written demand
for the immediate surrender of the defenses of the Island of
Guam and all officials and persons in the military service of
Spain. Mr. Braunersreuther was directed to wait half an hour
only for a reply, to bring the governor and other officials on
board as prisoners of war in case of surrender, or in case of
 refusal or delay beyond the time given, to return and take
command of the landing force, which he would find in
readiness, and proceed to Agaña. At 12.15 p. m. Mr.
Braunersreuther returned to the ship, bringing off the
governor and three other officers, his staff, and handed me a
letter from the governor acceding fully to my demand. Having
received the surrender of the Island of Guam, I took formal
possession at 2.45 p. m., hoisting the American flag on Fort
Santa Cruz and saluting it with 21 guns from the 'Charleston.'
From a personal examination of Fort Santa Cruz, I decided that
it was entirely useless as a defensive work, with no guns and
in a partly ruinous condition, and that it was not necessary
to expend any mines in blowing it up. The forts at Agaña, San
Luis D'Apra, and Umata are of no value and no guns remain in
the island except four small cast-iron guns of obsolete
pattern at Agaña, formerly used for saluting, but now
condemned as unsafe even for that purpose. No Spanish vessel
of war has visited Guam during the last eighteen months. No
coal was found on the island."

Annual Reports of the Navy Department, 1898,

volume 2, pages 151-3.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1898 (June-July).

War with Spain.
Expedition of the army under General Shafter
against Santiago de Cuba.
Battles of El Caney and San Juan Hill.

To co-operate with the navy in operations for the capture of

Santiago de Cuba, and of the Spanish fleet blockaded in the
harbor of that town, orders were issued from Washington on the
31st of May, by Major-General Miles, Commanding the Army,
"with the approval of the Secretary of War," which directed
General Shafter, commanding the forces assembled at Tampa,
Florida, to place them on transports and proceed with them,
under convoy of the navy, to Santiago. Owing to an extreme
lack of both railway and harbor facilities at Tampa, an entire
week was consumed in the embarkation of the troops and
supplies. When on shipboard, the expedition was delayed
another week by false reports of the appearance of Spanish
cruisers on the Cuban coast, which seemed to the Washington
authorities to call for a stronger naval convoy to guard the
transport fleet. It was not until the 14th of June that the
fleet was permitted to sail, with 16,000 men. It arrived off
Guantanamo, near Santiago, on the morning of the 20th.

Meantime, the blockading fleet had bombarded the forts at

Santiago twice, on the 6th and on the 16th, and had silenced
them, for the time being, on both occasions, but apparently
with no permanent effect. With more success, two vessels from
the fleet had entered the harbor of Guantanamo on the 7th and
taken possession of the lower bay, where a marine battalion
was landed on the 10th and established in camp, to hold ground
until the army arrived. Meantime, also, communication with
General Garcia, commanding Cuban forces, had been opened, and
arrangements made, the results of which were subsequently
acknowledged by General Miles, in his annual report, as
follows:

"General Garcia regarded my requests as his orders, and

promptly took steps to execute the plan of operations. He sent
3,000 men to check any movement of the 12,000 Spaniards
stationed at Holguín. A portion of this latter force started
to the relief of the garrison at Santiago, but was
successfully checked and turned back by the Cuban forces under
General Feria. General Garcia also sent 2,000 men, under
Perez, to oppose the 6,000 Spaniards at Guantánamo, and they
were successful in their object. He also sent 1,000 men, under
General Ríos, against the 6,000 men at Manzanillo. Of this
garrison, 3,500 started to reenforce the garrison at Santiago,
and were engaged in no less than thirty combats with the
Cubans on their way before reaching Santiago. … With an
additional force of 5,000 men General Garcia besieged the
 garrison of Santiago, taking up a strong position on the west
side and in close proximity to the harbor, and he afterwards
received General Shafter and Admiral Sampson at his camp near
that place. He had troops in the rear, as well as on both
sides of the garrison at Santiago before the arrival of our
troops."

Annual Reports of the War Department, 1898,

volume 1, part 2, page 16.

The troops from Tampa, under General Shafter, arriving on the

20th, were disembarked on the 22d, 23d and 24th, at Daiquiri,
and advanced to Siboney. The first resistance encountered was
at La Guasima, three miles from Siboney, on the Santiago road,
where the Spaniards were driven from strong entrenchments by a
part of Young's brigade of General Wheeler's cavalry division
(dismounted). The brigade thus first in the fighting was
composed of the 1st and 10th regiments of regular cavalry and
the 1st United States Volunteer cavalry, commonly called the
"Rough Riders." After the engagement at La Guasima, six days
were occupied in concentrating the army (including the Cuban
auxiliaries of General Garcia), mostly at Sevilla, a short
distance beyond La Guasima, on the same road, and in
overcoming great difficulties of transportation for supplies.

On June 30, General Shafter reconnoitered the country around

Santiago and made his plan of attack. "From a high hill," says
his subsequent report, "from which the city was in plain view,
I could see the San Juan Hill and the country about El Caney. The
roads were very poor, and, indeed, little better than
bridlepaths, until the San Juan River and El Caney were
reached. The position of El Caney, to the northeast of
Santiago, was of great importance to the enemy as holding the
Guantanamo road, as well as furnishing shelter for a strong
outpost that might be used to assail the right flank and rear
of any force operating against San Juan Hill. In view of this
I decided to begin the attack next day at El Caney with one
 division, while sending two divisions on the direct road to
Santiago, passing by El Poso House, and, as a diversion, to
direct a small force against Aguadores from Siboney along the
railroad by the sea, with a view of attracting the attention
of the Spaniards in the latter direction and of preventing
them from attacking our left flank.

"During the afternoon I assembled the division commanders and

explained to them my general plan of battle. Lawton's division
[composed of Chaffee's, Miles' and Ludlow's brigades],
assisted by Capron's light battery, was ordered to move out
during the afternoon toward El Caney, to begin the attack
there early the next morning.

{603}
Map Illustrating the Santiago Campaign…

{604}

After carrying El Caney, Lawton was to move by the Caney road

toward Santiago and take position on the right of the line.
Wheeler's division of dismounted cavalry [embracing Sumner's
brigade—3d, 6th and 9th regular cavalry, and Young's brigade
mentioned above] and Kent's division of infantry [Wikoft's,
Hawkins's and Pearson's brigades] were directed on the
Santiago road, the head of the column resting near El Poso,
toward which heights Grimes's battery moved on the afternoon
of the 30th, with orders to take position thereon early the
next morning and at the proper time prepare the way for the
advance of Wheeler and Kent on San Juan Hill. The attack at
this point was to be delayed until Lawton's guns were heard
at El Caney and his infantry fire showed he had become well
engaged.

"The remainder of the afternoon and night was devoted to

cutting out and repairing the roads and to other necessary
preparations for battle. These preparations were far from what
I desired them to be; but we were in a sickly climate; our
supplies had to be brought forward by a narrow wagon road,
which the rains might at any time render impassable; fear was
entertained that a storm might drive the vessels containing
our stores to sea, thus separating us from our base of
supplies; and lastly, it was reported that General Pando, with
8,000 reenforcements for the enemy, was en route from
Manzanillo and might be expected in a few days. Under those
conditions I determined to give battle without delay.

"Early on the morning of July 1, Lawton was in position around

El Caney, Chaffee's brigade [7th, 12th, and 13th U. S.
Infantry] on the right, across the Guantanamo road; Miles's
brigade [1st, 4th, and 25th U. S. Infantry] in the center, and
Ludlow's [8th and 22d U. S. Infantry and 2d Microcassettes
Volunteers] on the left. The duty of cutting off the enemy's
retreat along the Santiago road was assigned to the latter
brigade. The artillery opened on the town at 6.15 A. M. The
battle here soon became general and was hotly contested. The
enemy's position was naturally strong and was rendered more so
by blockhouses, a stone fort, and entrenchments cut in solid
rock, and the loopholing of a solidly built stone church. The
opposition offered by the enemy was greater than had been
anticipated, and prevented Lawton from joining the right of
the main line during the day, as had been intended.

"After the battle had continued for some time Bates's brigade
of two regiments (3d and 20th United States Infantry] reached
my headquarters from Siboney. I directed him to move near El
Caney, to give assistance, if necessary. He did so and was put
in position between Miles and Chaffee. The battle continued
with varying intensity during most of the day and until the
place was carried by assault, about 4.30 p. m. As the
Spaniards endeavored to retreat along the Santiago road,
Ludlow's position enabled him to do very effective work and to
practically cut off all retreat in that direction.

"After the battle at El Caney was well opened and the sound of
the small-arms fire caused us to believe that Lawton was
driving the enemy before him, I directed Grimes's battery to
open fire from the heights of El Poso on the San Juan'
blockhouse, which could be seen situated in the enemy's
entrenchments extending along the crest of San Juan Hill. This
fire was effective and the enemy could be seen running away
from the vicinity of the blockhouse. The artillery fire from
El Poso was soon returned by the enemy's artillery. They
evidently had the range of this hill, and their first shells
killed and wounded several men. As the Spaniards used
smokeless powder it was very difficult to locate the positions
of their pieces, while, on the contrary, the smoke caused by our
black powder plainly indicated the position of our battery.
"At this time the cavalry division [of General Wheeler] under
General Sumner (commanding temporarily in consequence of the
illness of General Wheeler, who returned to duty that day],
which was lying concealed in the general vicinity of the El
Poso House, was ordered forward, with directions to cross the
San Juan River and deploy to the right on the Santiago side,
while Kent's division was to follow closely in its rear and
deploy to the left. These troops moved forward in compliance
with orders, but the road was so narrow as to render it
impracticable to retain the column of fours formation at all
points, while the undergrowth on either side was so dense as
to preclude the possibility of deploying skirmishers. It
naturally resulted that the progress made was slow, and the
long range rifles of the enemy's infantry killed and wounded a
number of our men while marching along this road and before
there was any opportunity to return this fire. At this time
Generals Kent and Sumner were ordered to push forward with all
possible haste and place their troops in position to engage the
enemy. General Kent, with this end in view, forced the head of
his column alongside of the cavalry column as far as the
narrow trail permitted, and thus hurried his arrival at the
San Juan and the formation beyond that stream. A few hundred
yards before reaching the San Juan the road forks, a fact that
was discovered by Lieutenant-Colonel Derby, of my staff, who
had approached well to the front in a war balloon. This
information he furnished to the troops, resulting in Sumner
moving on the right-hand road, while Kent was enabled to
utilize the road to the left. … After crossing the stream, the
cavalry moved to the right with a view of connecting with
Lawton's left when he should come up, and with their left
resting near the Santiago road. In the meanwhile Kent's
division, with the exception of two regiments of Hawkins's
brigade, being thus uncovered, moved rapidly to the front from
the forks previously mentioned in the road, utilizing both
trails, but more especially the one to the left, and crossing
the creek formed for attack in the front of San Juan Hill."
 Annual Reports of the War Department, 1898,
volume 1, part 2, page 147.

"The particulars of this gallant attack, which won the hill

and decided the fate of Santiago, are given with more
clearness in the report of General Kent, who commanded the
division which had most of the fighting to do, than in that of
General Shafter. Wikoff's 'heroic brigade,' writes General
Kent, 'consisting of the 13th, 9th, and 24th United States
Infantry, speedily crossed the stream and were quickly
deployed to the left of the lower ford.
{605}
While personally superintending this movement Colonel Wikoff
was killed, the command of the brigade then devolving upon
Lieutenant-Colonel Worth, 13th Infantry, who immediately fell
severely wounded, and then upon Lieutenant-Colonel Liscum,
24th Infantry, who, five minutes later, also fell under the
withering fire of the enemy. The command of the brigade then
devolved upon Lieutenant-Colonel E. P. Ewers, 9th Infantry.
Meanwhile I had again sent a staff officer to hurry forward
the second brigade [Pearson's] which was bringing up the rear.
The 10th and 2d Infantry, soon arriving at the forks, were
deflected to the left to follow the Third Brigade [Wikoff's],
while the 21st was directed along the main road to support
Hawkins [whose brigade was composed of the 6th and 16th U. S.
Infantry and the 71st New York Volunteers].

"Crossing the lower ford a few minutes later, the 10th and 2d
moved forward in column in good order toward the green knoll …
on the left. Approaching the knoll the regiments deployed,
passed over the knoll, and ascended the high ridge beyond,
driving back the enemy in the direction of his trenches. I
observed this movement from the Fort San Juan Hill. … Prior to
this advance of the second brigade, the third, connecting with
Hawkins's gallant troops on the right, had moved toward Fort
San Juan, sweeping through a zone of most destructive fire,
scaling a steep and difficult hill, and assisting in capturing
the enemy's strong position (Fort San Juan) at 1.30 p. m. This
crest was about 125 feet above the general level and was
defended by deep trenches and a loopholed brick fort
surrounded by barbed-wire entanglements. General Hawkins, some
time after I reached the crest, reported that the 6th and 16th
Infantry had captured the hill, which I now consider
incorrect. Credit is almost equally due the 6th, 9th, 13th,
16th, and 24th regiments of infantry. … The Thirteenth
Infantry captured the enemy's colors waving over the fort, but
unfortunately destroyed them. …

"The greatest credit is due to the officers of my command,

whether company, battalion, regimental, or brigade commanders,
who so admirably directed the formation of their troops,
unavoidably intermixed in the dense thicket, and made the
desperate rush for the distant and strongly defended crest, I
have already mentioned the circumstances of my third brigade's
advance across the ford, where, in the brief space of ten
minutes, it lost its brave commander (killed) and the next two
ranking officers by disabling wounds; yet in spite of these
confusing conditions the formations were effected without
hesitation, although under a stinging fire, companies acting
singly in some instances and by battalions and regiments in
others, rushing through the jungle, across the stream, waist
deep, and over the wide bottom thickly set with barbed-wire
entanglements. …

"The enemy having retired to a second line of rifle pits, I

directed my line to hold their positions and intrench. At ten
minutes past 3 p. m. I received almost simultaneously two
requests—one from Colonel Wood, commanding a cavalry brigade,
and one from General Sumner—asking for assistance for the
cavalry on my right, 'as they were hard pressed.' I
immediately sent to their aid the 13th Infantry, who promptly
went on this further mission, despite the heavy losses they
had already sustained. Great credit is due to the gallant
officer and gentleman, Brigadier General H. S. Hawkins, who,
placing himself between the two regiments, leading his
brigade, the 6th and 16th Infantry, urged and led them by
voice and bugle calls to the attack so successfully
accomplished."

Annual Reports of the War Department, 1898,

volume 1, part 2, page 164.

The part borne by the dismounted cavalry division in the

capture of the Spanish intrenchments on San Juan Hill is
described as follows in the report of General Sumner,
temporarily in command:

"After crossing the creek with sufficient strength to hold it

and protect the crossing, I received verbal orders to move by
the right flank to connect with Lawton's left. During the
execution of this movement a balloon, under command of Colonel
Derby, came up the road, forcing open Wood's Brigade and
cutting it in two, thereby delaying the movement. The
artillery fire of the enemy opened upon the balloon and
continued for more than an hour, thereby subjecting part of my
command massed and the rest moving by the flank to long
shrapnel fire. Many officers and men were wounded here by
exploding shells and small arms' firing of the enemy. After
completing the deployment the command was so much committed to
battle that it became necessary either to advance or else
retreat under fire.

"Lieutenant Miley, representing General Shafter, authorized an

advance, which was ordered, Carroll's brigade taking the
advance, reinforced on the right by Roosevelt's regiment and
supported by the 1st and 10th Cavalry of Wood's Brigade. The
advance was made under heavy infantry fire through open flat
ground, cut up by wire fences, to the creek, dIstant about 600
yards. The advance was made in good order, the enemy's fire
being returned only under favorable opportunities. In crossing
 the flat one officer (Captain O'Neil) and several men were
killed and several officers and men wounded. Both sides of the
creek are heavily wooded for about 200 yards. The creek was
swollen, and the crossing through this space and the creek was
made with great difficulty. After passing through the thick
woods the ground was entirely open and fenced by wire. From
this line it was necessary to storm the hill, upon the top of
which is a house loopholed, etc., for defense. The slope of
the hill is very difficult, but the assault was made with
great gallantry and with much loss to the enemy. In this
assault Colonel Hamilton, Lieutenants Smith and Shipp were
killed; Colonel Carroll, Lieutenants Thayer and Myer were
wounded. A number of casualties occurred among the enlisted
men. After taking this hill the front line advanced to take
the Fort San Juan Hill under fire from strong force of the
enemy in trenches and house known as 'Blockhouse.' … The
assault was successful, the line storming the trenches and
blockhouse with conspicuous gallantry and coolness, capturing
three prisoners, wounding and killing many of the enemy. …
Connected with my left, Hawkins's brigade of Kent's division
carried everything in front of it and captured the house and
hill known as 'Fort San Juan' proper."

Annual Reports of the War Department, 1898,

volume 1, part 2. page 370.

{606}

Lieutenant Colonel Roosevelt, who commanded the Rough Riders

regiment that day, while Colonel Wood commanded the brigade,
tells the story of the fight, and what followed, very tersely,
in his report: "After crossing the river at the ford," says
the Lieutenant-Colonel, "we were moved along and up its light
bank under fire, and were held in reserve at a sunken road.
Here we lost a good many men, including Captain O'Neil,
killed, and Lieutenant Haskell, wounded. We then received your
order to advance and support the regular cavalry in the attack