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To Cuba and Back

First published: 1859
Pages: 137

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About this book

Richard Henry Dana Jr., already famous for Two Years Before the Mast, made a short winter trip to Cuba in 1859 and turned it into this brisk travel narrative, published that same year. Over a few crowded weeks he takes in Havana's streets and cathedrals, tours the sugar and coffee plantations, sits through an opera and a cockfight, and talks with planters, priests, and colonial officials. As a lawyer with a keen social conscience, Dana looks hard at the island's slave economy and the machinery of Spanish rule, recording what he sees without softening it. The result is a sharp, readable snapshot of Cuba on the eve of enormous change. Free PDF and EPUB editions are available here.

About the author

Richard Henry Dana Jr.

Richard Henry Dana Jr. (1815-1882) was an American author and maritime lawyer from Cambridge, Massachusetts. He interrupted his Harvard studies for the sea voyage that produced his famous memoir, then built a legal career defending sailors and became a committed antislavery advocate in the Free Soil movement.