El baúl de Miss Florence: (Re)imagining the Past; Women’s Travel Literature and the Sweet Tyranny of the Sugar Haciendas in Puerto Rico

This chapter analyzes Ana Lydia Vega’s novella “El baúl de Miss Florence: Fragmentos para un novelón romántico” (1991). Carrasquillo Hernández’s analysis of the text focuses on the transatlantic experiences of Miss Florence Jane, a British governess, who writes a diary describing her voyages in Puerto Rico during 1856–1859 and 1885. In her diary, Vega’s fictional character echoes the many challenges faced by nineteenth-century female travelers. Yet the diary also portrays Miss Florence as a conflicted character who remains oblivious to the injustices committed in the slave-based plantations. Therefore, the text serves as a resource for forging an a posteriori reflection on the colonial legacies within the Caribbean sugar industry while revealing the quest for women’s autonomy in the nineteenth-century female traveling literary tradition.