SPA 410/MLL 410

Digital Literacy Through Cultural and Literary Topics in Spanish - Fall 2025

Juan Francisco Manzano, Autobiografía de un esclavo (1839)

Juan Francisco Manzano (1797–1854) es una voz única en la Cuba del siglo XIX, y su Autobiografía de un esclavo (1839) es la única autobiografía conocida escrita en español por una persona esclavizada durante el periodo colonial. Nacido en la esclavitud en La Habana, Manzano aprendió a leer y escribir en circunstancias extraordinarias y llegó a convertirse en poeta. Su Autobiografía es un relato desgarrador y elocuente que da cuenta de la crueldad y las complejas relaciones humanas.

Mientras que en inglés contamos con varios relatos en primera persona de individuos que fueron esclavizados (Frederick Douglass, Harriet Jacobs y Olaudah Equiano, entre otros), Manzano representa un caso singular en la tradición hispana. Por ello, y para enriquecer nuestra comprensión, leeremos atentamente el texto de Manzano e intentaremos reconstruir su vida a través de una cronología.

Una edición bilingue del texto puede encontrarse en la biblioteca Richter: Manzano, Juan Francisco. The Autobiography of a Slave = Autobiografía de Un Esclavo. Bilingual ed., Wayne State University Press, 1996.

El texto también está disponible en otras ediciones. Para nuestro ejercicio usaremos: Manzano, Juan Francisco., and William Luis. Autobiografía del esclavo poeta y otros escritos. Iberoamericana Editorial Vervuert, 2007. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/miami/detail.action?docID=6274002 (Ebook Centrat at UM).

Espacio de trabajo

Cada estudiante debe incluir al menos 5 entradas de aproximadamente de aproximadamente 100 palabras: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1H2_Xk3yE1jlzN-5PYeJOOO25FcUmfu0LmMEK5WHjUnQ/edit?usp=sharing

Línea del tiempo

Recursos

“Juan Francisco Manzano” (Wikipedia)
“Autobiografía de un esclavo” (Wikipedia)
Juan Francisco Manzano (Alex Castro), https://juanfranciscomanzano.com/es/
Poesía de Juan Francisco Manzano, esclavo en la isla de Cuba, BNE. Youtube, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ogCj17qkA2M

Welcome to CollectionBuilder-Sheets!

Using the options below you can select demo metadata to explore a pre-built collection, or load your own metadata from the web or your local computer. The configurations are temporarily stored in your browser's session storage, so will remain only until you close this window!

Select one of our example collections

Paste in the full url for a CSV hosted online, such as a published Google Sheet (see below for instructions!)

Select a CSV file from your computer

Metadata Tips

Set up your metadata carefully following the template guidelines. Be especially careful with column names in the first row–they need to exactly match the template, with no spaces and no extra white space at the end of the value. Records without an “objectid” will be skipped.

Note: no information is sent to the server, the metadata and configuration change is only on your computer.

How to Publish Your Google Sheet

In your Google Sheet, ensure that your metadata is the first sheet in the spreadsheet (by default named "Sheet1"). The tabs can be dragged to reorder if necessary.
Click “File”, “Share”, and select “Publish to the Web”.
On the popup modal, use the dropdowns in “Link” tab to select “Entire Document” and “Comma-separated values (.csv)” options, then click “Publish” button.
Copy the link that is provided.
In the "Use Metadata CSV Link" form above, paste the link and click "Submit".

For example, a published link looks like:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/e/2PACX-1vSn7AA-cbsXT3_nNUGftc1ab-CKXOJHMQCIENeR9NHElbyI9_qA99o0-HNZdG04v-M2_N21bUe_krQQ/pub?output=csv

How to Download Your Google Sheet as CSV

On your Google Sheet, switch to the sheet tab that contains your metadata (by default "Sheet1").
Click “File”, “Download”, and select as "Comma Separated Values (.csv)”
The file should download to your computer’s Downloads folder
In the "Use Metadata CSV from your Computer" form above, click “Choose file” and navigate in your file explorer to select the downloaded CSV, then click "Submit".

Other Web CSV

If you have a CSV available anywhere on the web, you can use it by referencing the full URL. However, depending on where your CSV is hosted, you may encounter CORS errors.

For example, to use a CSV hosted in a GitHub repository, use the “raw” link:

https://raw.githubusercontent.com/CollectionBuilder/collectionbuilder-sample-data/main/psychiana_cbdemo_gh.csv

Paste the link into the "Use Metadata CSV Link" form above and click Submit.

To share your work with others, the default template can also load web CSV metadata specified as a parameter in the URL. Add your full metadata link to the end of the CB-Sheets instance’s URL as the “csv” option, like:

https://collectionbuilder.github.io/collectionbuilder-sheets/?csv=<your metadata url here>

For example:

https://collectionbuilder.github.io/collectionbuilder-sheets/?csv=https://raw.githubusercontent.com/CollectionBuilder/collectionbuilder-sample-data/main/psychiana_cbdemo_gh.csv

or

https://collectionbuilder.github.io/collectionbuilder-sheets/?csv=https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/e/2PACX-1vSn7AA-cbsXT3_nNUGftc1ab-CKXOJHMQCIENeR9NHElbyI9_qA99o0-HNZdG04v-M2_N21bUe_krQQ/pub?output=csv

Note: the metadata URL can not have any & (i.e. additional query string parameters). Having a & in the URL will cause the parsing to fail.