Challenging assumptions that loyalty to the Spanish empire was the exclusive province of the white Cuban elite, this groundbreaking history brings attention to free and enslaved people of African descent who actively supported colonialism.

Belonging to an empire : race and rights -- Suspicious affinities : loyal subjectivity and the paternalist public -- The will to freedom : Spanish allegiances in the Ten Years' War -- Publicizing loyalty : race and the post-Zanjón public sphere -- "Long live Spain! death to autonomy!" Liberalism and slave emancipation -- The price of integrity : limited loyalties in revolution -- Subject citizens and the tragedy of loyalty.