La Hacienda Buenavista en Ponce, Puerto Rico 1840

Francisco Oller painted this landscape of ‘La Hacienda Buenavista en Ponce, Puerto Rico’ in the late nineteenth or early twentieth century. The painting invites us to consider the legacy of Spanish colonialism and the plantation system in Puerto Rico. Oller, who was white, depicts the vast, verdant landscape of the plantation, the architecture of the plantation house, and the labor that sustained it. At this time, the Hacienda Buenavista primarily produced coffee, and enslaved labor was crucial to its economic viability until abolition in 1873. While slavery ended during Oller's lifetime, racial hierarchies and economic exploitation persisted. Oller himself was a supporter of abolition, and was committed to representing Puerto Rican life authentically, but his position as a member of the white elite shaped his perspective. This image provides an idealized vision of a deeply unequal social order, eliding the violence and suffering that enabled the plantation's prosperity. How does this image make you feel?