1794: The free colored militiaman Pedro Bailly was transferred from Louisiana to a Cuban prison (castillo) to prevent him from spreading seditious principles.

1794: The free colored militiaman Pedro Bailly was transferred from Louisiana to a Cuban prison (castillo) to prevent him from spreading seditious principles. His imprisonment in Havana was part of a broader Spanish strategy to quarantine political prisoners whose ideas threatened the stability of the slave system. Bailly’s incarceration represented the high price paid by those who dared to advocate for racial equality and the “Rights of Man”. Even behind bars, these ideological prisoners served as symbols of the “flame of insubordination” that the state could not fully extinguish. His journey from New Orleans to Cuba followed the same routes used by the revolutionary intelligence he was accused of disseminating.