The "Mulatto" Lawyer Francisco Filomeno: Race, Myth, and the Legal Professions in Early 19th Century Cuba

In 1998, Cuban journalist Marta Rojas published one of her last books “Santa Lujuria” (Holy Lust). Inspired on true events, this piece revived the myth of a black Cuban lawyer in Havana during the early nineteenth century. One of the main characters of this novel is Francisco Filomeno, who was a lawyer and judge in Havana between 1810 and 1830 and the illegitimate son of a local noble of Spanish ancestry. In this story, Rojas follows some sources from the late nineteenth century that refer to Filomeno as mulatto. The analysis of his life, however, does not confirm that he was a mixed-race person and, instead, that his case exemplifies how dubious familial origins in Cuban slave society were associated with the notion of not being exclusively European descendant. In addition, the controversy about Filomeno’s race emerged in the 1810s, when the reduced number of elitist lawyers in Havana sought to control and limit the legal practice with the creation of a Colegio de Abogados (Bar Association). These lawyers wanted to model their organization after the one in Mexico City, which had strict membership requirements such as lineage and blood purity. Moreover, other Cubans contemporary to Filomeno were similarly described as mulattos because of their lack of noble ancestry and wealth, such as Manuel del Socorro Rodríguez de la Victoria, who struggled to pursue an intellectual career in Cuba, but was able to become a successful journalist in Colombia. Therefore, this study examines the life of Francisco Filomeno, and analyzes how race, class and legal professions intersected and clashed in Cuban colonial society to create the myth of a black lawyer in Havana.