On 14 November 1904, El Mundo, Havana’s conservative newspaper, reported the “mysterious disappearance of Zoila,” a four-year-old white girl, from her home in El Gabriel, a small town outside of Havana.1 Over the course of a year, the newspaper would devote a great deal of attention to the story. Eduardo Varela Zequiera, the story’s reporter who would eventually build a career based on his reporting on issues of race, publicly surmised, along with his reporting of the facts, that the child had been a victim of brujería. At the same time, El Gabriel’s increasingly alarmed and vocal residents demonstrated before the courthouse and police station, demanding thorough searches of every household in the vicinity until the brujos were found and detained. Suspicion settled on Pablo and Juana Tabares, a black couple living together, and on Domingo Boucourt, a former slave known in the area for his African-derived...
Skip Nav Destination
Article navigation
