Cuba Past and Present
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Title: Cuba Past and Present
Author: Richard Davey
Release date: April 14, 2011 [eBook #35872]
Language: English
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produced from scanned images of public domain material
from the Google Print project.)
CUBA PAST AND PRESENT
[Illustration: _CHRISTOPHORUS COLUMBUS LIGURINDI_.
_ARUM PRIMUS INVENTOR ANNO 1492_
_Qui rate velivola occiduos penetrauit ad indos,
Primus et Americam Nobilitavit humum.
Astrorum consultus et ipso Nobilis ausu,
Christophorus tali fronte columbus erat._
CUBA
PAST AND PRESENT
BY
RICHARD DAVEY
AUTHOR OF "THE SULTAN AND HIS SUBJECTS"
_With Illustrations and Map_.
NEW YORK:
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
1898
PREFACE.
Any contribution to Cuban literature cannot, if so I may call it, but
possess considerable interest at this absorbing moment. The following
pages embody the experience gathered during a visit to Cuba some years
ago, and to this I have added many facts and memoranda bestowed by
friends whose knowledge of the country is more recent than my own, and
information collected from various works upon Cuba and West Indian
subjects. I do not pretend that the book is an authoritative text-book
on Cuban matters--I give it as the result of personal observation, so
far as it goes, supplemented in the manner already indicated; and as
such I believe it will not be found lacking in elements of interest and
entertainment. Certain chapters on Columbus and on the West Indian
Manuscripts in the Colonial Exhibition have been included as an
Appendix.
The description of the youth of Columbus, the "Great Discoverer," has
never, so far as I am aware, been attempted before in the English
tongue. It appeared to me to be appropriate to a work on the island he
was the first to discover, and I have therefore included it in this
book. It is founded on original and authentic documents, discovered in
the Genoese Archives by the late Marchese Staglieno. These I have
carefully examined and verified, and to the facts therein contained I
have added others, which I have myself unearthed in the course of my own
researches in the CittA Superba.
The chapter on the Colonial Exhibition Manuscripts speaks for itself,
and my readers will be struck by the fact that the condition of the
British West Indian Colonies, at the close of the last century,
resembled in many respects not a little that of Cuba at the end of ours.
The chapter on the Bahamas, which closes the volume, has been inserted
to mark an evident contrast, and point a moral, which will hardly escape
the thoughtful reader's eye.
I cannot forbear paying here a tribute to the memory of the very
remarkable American gentleman, the late Mr George Wilkes, in whose
company I first saw the beautiful "Pearl of the Antilles." On the
important paper which he founded, the New York _Spirit of the Times_, I
worked for several very happy years, and I take this opportunity of
expressing to its present editor and to Mr Stephen Fiske, my gratitude
for much and constant courtesy, shown me ever since I left its staff.
RICHARD DAVEY.
CONTENTS.
PAGE
PREFACE v
CHAPTER I. THE ISLAND 1
" II. POPULATION 14
" III. A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE ISLAND 39
" IV. THE BEGINNINGS OF THE REBELLION 65
" V. HISTORY OF REBELLION UP-TO-DATE 93
" VI. HAVANA AND THE HAVANESE 121
" VII. MATANZAS 148
" VIII. CIENFUEGOS 161
" IX. TRINIDAD AND SANTIAGO DE CUBA 173
" X. SOME WEIRD STORIES 193
" XI. PLANTATION LIFE 205
" XII. AN ISLE OF JUNE--A CONTRAST 224
APPENDIX I. THE BOYHOOD OF COLUMBUS 237
" II. SOME UNEDITED DOCUMENTS CONNECTED WITH
THE HISTORY OF THE WEST INDIES 257
ILLUSTRATIONS.
_Portrait of Columbus_ _Frontispiece_
HAVANA _to face_ 121
MATANZAS " 148
SANTIAGO " 173
MAP OF CUBA _at end of Book_
CUBA PAST AND PRESENT
CHAPTER I.
THE ISLAND.
Cuba, "the Pearl of the Antilles" and the key to the Gulf of Mexico, is
not only the largest, but the most important and the wealthiest island
in the West Indian Archipelago. Its curious shape has been aptly
compared to that of a bird's tongue,--a parrot's by preference. From
Point Maisi, at one extremity, to Cape San Antonio, at the other, it
describes a curve of 900 miles, being, at its greatest breadth, only 120
miles from sea to sea. It is traversed throughout its Eastern province
by a range of mountains, which, according to Humboldt, continue under
the Ocean, and emerge thence in British Honduras, to receive the
somewhat unromantic appellation of the Coxcombe Chain,--another proof,
if such were needed, of the fact that, in prehistoric times, this
island, together with its numerous neighbours, formed part of the main
Continent.
The coast of Cuba, on either side beyond the range of the Sierra
Maestra, is singularly indented and irregular; and by reason of its
innumerable tiny bays, capes, peninsulas, shallows, reefs, "cays,"
promontories, and islets, presents, on the map, the appearance of a deep
curtain fringe. The surface measurement of the island is fully 35,000
square miles. In other words, it is a little bigger than Portugal, or
somewhat over a fourth the size of Spain.[1]
The Sierra Maestra range rises from the coast, out of the Ocean, with
grand abruptness, immediately opposite the sister island of Jamaica. It
here presents much the same stately and varied panorama as may be
admired on the Genoese Riviera, and, by a series of irregular terraces,
reaches the Ojo del Toro, or the "Sources of the Bull," where it
suddenly drops towards the centre of the chain, whence it sends up one
exceedingly lofty peak, the Pico Turquino, rising 6900 feet above the
sea. From this point the range diminishes in height again, until it
reaches the valley of the Cauto River, whence it runs in a straight line
to Santiago de Cuba, after which it rapidly declines in height, and
loses itself in the unwholesome Guananamo Marshes. A section of this
range is popularly known, on account of its mineral wealth, as the
Sierra de Cobre, or Copper Chain. Its principal peak, La Gran Piedra, so
called from a huge block of conglomerate perched upon its extreme
summit, is about 5200 feet high. None of the numerous peaks and crags of
the Sierra Maestra and the Cobre Ranges show the least trace of recent
volcanic eruption, although limestone is found high up among the
mountains, and alarming earthquakes are of frequent occurrence, notably
in the province of Santiago. At the eastern extremity of the island are
a number of isolated mountains, linked together by low-lying hills. Two
other ranges of hills exist, in the neighbourhood of Matanzas, and at
the back of Havana, but although they present an imposing appearance
from the seaboard, at no single point do they exceed a height of 1000
feet. The mountain ranges occupy about one-third of the island; the
other two-thirds are more or less spreading and fairly well cultivated
plains and level valleys, but even these fertile regions are broken by
lagoons and marshes, like those in the Campagna.
Until quite late in the last century, coffee and tobacco were the
principal objects of the planter's care and industry, but in 1786 the
French refugees from San Domingo persuaded the Cubans to extend their
sugar plantations, and sugar very soon became the staple cultivation of
the country. Next to sugar, tobacco and coffee are the chief products,
but cotton is also grown, but not very extensively. Cocoa and indigo
have received considerable attention lately, and maize has always been
one of the absolute necessaries of life, and may be described as the
bread of the country; cereals have no place in its husbandry, and are
imported, for the most part, unfortunately, from Spain, which country
holds a monopoly, which has had its share in bringing about the unhappy
civil war of the last three years. As the negroes and the poor whites
have rarely, if ever, tasted wheat flour, its absence is not felt by
them, but it is an absolute necessity to the upper classes and to the
foreigners. Yams, bananas, guavas, oranges, mangoes, and pineapples, are
the chief fruits cultivated for exportation. The decline in the
popularity of mahogany as a furniture wood in America and Europe--a mere
freak of fashion--has been greatly felt. It used to be a most valuable
product, and was exported in great quantities, especially to
England,--the Cuban variety being considered the finest.
The mountain regions of Cuba are extremely picturesque, but very
sparsely populated, and, for the most part, little known. Their slopes
are often covered by forests or jungles, whose rich vegetation,
constantly moistened by innumerable springs, rivulets, and heavy dews,
is rankly luxuriant. Immense mineral wealth is supposed to be hidden in
the heart of these mountains, but, though the copper mines are fairly
well worked, neither gold nor silver have yet been discovered in any
quantity, notwithstanding the ancient and persistent tradition as to
their abundance.
The entire coast of Cuba is protected, in a measure, by coralline and
rocky reefs, "cays," and muddy shallows, which stretch out into the sea
for miles. These are most dangerous, and have often, in stormy weather,
proved fatal to large vessels, as well as to small fishing craft. Some
of these banks are really fair-sized islands, covered with beautiful
vegetation, but, as a rule, they are only inhabited by fishermen, and
that merely at certain seasons of the year. In many localities the sea
is very deep quite close in-shore, and offers excellent harbours and
refuges for vessels plying on the busiest sea-road in the Western
Hemisphere. The most important of the numerous outlying islands is La
Isla dos Pinos, a famous health resort, where, for some unaccountable
reason, the pine-tree of our northern regions flourishes to perfection
amid tropical surroundings.
Every part of Cuba is supplied with fresh water. There are several
fairly broad, though shallow rivers. The Cauto, which takes its rise in
the Sierra Maestra, and flows into the sea at the mouth of Manzanillo
Bay, is about 130 miles in length, and navigable for small craft. The
only other rivers of any importance are the Sagua Grande and the Sagua
Chica. Neither of these is navigable, even for small craft, except for a
week or so at the close of the rainy season. Springs and streams of
exquisitely pure water are to be found in incredible abundance. Indeed,
the island has been described as consisting of a series of vast caverns
rising over huge reservoirs of fresh water, and the number of caves and
grottoes to be found circling over pools of limpid water is really
remarkable. In the mountains there are lovely waterfalls, amongst which
the cascades of the Rosario are the most celebrated. A number of
fair-sized lakes add considerably to the beauty of the scenery in the
interior of the island, and, what is more, they are well stocked with a
variety of fish of delicious flavour.
Cuba is phenomenally free from noxious animals and reptiles. Columbus
only found two quadrupeds of any size on the whole island--a sort of
barkless dog, the guaquinaji, possibly a racoon,[2] and a long-bodied
squirrel. Many imported domestic animals, such as the horse, the pig,
the dog, the cat, and the goat, have in the course of time run wild, and
are to be found in great numbers in the densest parts of the forests in
the interior. Our canine friend has modified himself considerably since
he first landed on Cuban soil. He has dwindled, on the one hand, into
the tiny Havanese toy spaniel, and has developed on the other into the
colossal molasso, which was constantly employed, but a few years back,
in the highly humane sport of slave-hunting. The prehistoric sportsman,
however, must, if he was an amateur of big game, have had a good time of
it in Cuba, for fossils of mastadons, elephants, hippopotami, and other
large and uncanny beasts of the antediluvian world, who have joined the
majority countless ages ago, are still constantly to be found.
Some members of the bat family grow to an enormous size, their wings
measuring from a foot to a foot and a half from tip to tip. I remember
one night, on a plantation near Puerto Principe, one of these most
unpleasant monsters flopped through my bedroom window on to the floor.
For a few moments I was convinced that I had received a visitation
either from Minerva's very own owl or from a dusky cherub.
With the sole exception of a rather long, but not particularly harmful
boa, venomous or dangerous snakes are, I was assured, not to be found
anywhere on the island. This, however, is a popular error, for in most
of the sugar plantations there dwells a small red asp, whose bite is
exceedingly dangerous. The creature may not be indigenous; he may have
come over with the first sugar-canes from San Domingo. According to the
Cubans, imported reptiles, even after a short residence on their native
soil, become innocuous, and it must be confessed that the scorpion,
which is disagreeably prominent in the island, is less hurtful here than
elsewhere. As I happen to have been bitten both by an Italian and a
Cuban scorpion, I am in a position to know something about the matter.
The Italian rascal stung me in the foot, and sent me to bed with a
frightful pain, and a fever which lasted a week. The Cuban gentleman
nipped my finger, caused me awful agony, the arm swelling up to twice
its size; but I had no fever, neither was I obliged to seek my bed. My
Cuban wound, I, remember, was rubbed with a decoction of deceased
scorpions, preserved in oil, which certainly soothed the pain, and,
further, I was plentifully dosed with Kentucky whisky. In a few hours
the suffering passed off, and, after two days of extraordinary numbness
in all parts of the body, I completely recovered. My private opinion is
that the cure was effected by the decoction of defunct scorpions, and
that no difference really exists between the poisonous qualities of the
European and the Cuban reptile.
If Cuba possesses no very obnoxious reptiles, their absence is amply
atoned for by the surprising collection of annoying insects of all sorts
and kinds. The Cuban mosquitoes must be heard, seen, and felt, before
they can be imagined. I had hitherto thought the Venetian _zanzare_
diabolical pests enough in all conscience, but, when compared with their
Cuban brethren, they stand as angels to demons. Then there are
irritating jiggers, ants, giant wasps, infernal little midges, spiders
as big as the crown of your hat, and other disreputable gentry who shall
be nameless, and who, I learn on good authority, were first imported
into our own unsuspecting continent from the West Indies. Alas! they are
with us still! In Cuba they haunt the woods and gardens, secrete
themselves in the turn-up of your trousers, and in the train of your
skirt. They soon let you know their whereabouts, I can assure you! Two
very remarkable insects deserve special mention. One is the large
"vegetable bee," a member of the bee family, condemned by nature to
carry an umbrella-shaped fungus of the _Clavara_ tribe on his back, and
the other, the superb cucullo, a monster fire-fly, who emits rays of
light from two eyes on his back and one in his breast. Three of these
creatures under a glass shade suffice to illumine a moderate-sized room,
and, if it were not for the rhythmical flickering glare produced by the
breathing of the insects, it would be easy to read by their
extraordinary glow.
The Cuban birds are identical with those found in other West Indian
islands. Among the great variety of humming-birds, only one is
recognised as indigenous to the island. All sorts of tropical fish
abound, both in the sea, in the rivers, and the lakes. On the latter,
the rather exciting sport of tortoise-hunting may be enjoyed, and the
sportsman may chance an unpleasant encounter with the dangerous, but
easily avoided cayman. Most Cuban travellers make acquaintance with the
frightful-looking, but perfectly harmless iguana, at some friend's
house, where he occasionally joins the family circle in the capacity of
prime domestic pet. As to the lizards, they are exceedingly well
represented, both in gardens and in woods, from the charming,
bright-eyed little metallic green and blue opidian, to a very large and
ugly brown old lady and gentleman--they usually go abroad in pairs--to
be met with in your walks, and which the uninitiated are apt to mistake
for a couple of miniature crocodiles. But they are simply very large and
harmless lizards, with prodigiously long Latin names. Then, too, there
is the interesting and ever-changing cameleon, and the pretty striped
flying squirrel, and the delightful little dormouse, a long-established
native of the island, well beknown, it would seem, to Christopher
Columbus and his companions, who have condescended to make special
mention of his timid, yet friendly presence.
As to the flora, it is surpassingly beautiful. I shall have occasion to
return to it at greater length, and will only say in this place that it
embraces nearly every variety of plant, flower, and fern known in the
tropical and sub-tropical zones. European fruits, flowers, and
vegetables can be easily and largely cultivated on the highest plateaux
of the Sierra Maestra.
The climate of Cuba is, for the tropics, a very tolerable one, quite
enjoyable indeed from November to the beginning of May, during which
time the heat is rarely oppressive. The summer season is extremely
enervating, and in many parts of the island actually dangerous, on
account of the excessive heat and the incessant torrents of rain, which
together create an unhealthy steaming miasma. The forests, with their
prodigious stratas of decaying vegetation, emit, especially in summer,
unwholesome malarial vapours, and the lagoons and marshes on the broads
are sometimes hidden for days at a time by a dense and deadly but
perfectly white fog. Yellow fever is said not to have made its
appearance till 1761; at any rate it is from that date only that it has
been regarded as a distinct disease indigenous to the island. The deadly
vomito nigro has often appeared in various parts of Cuba in epidemic as
well as isolated form. It rarely if ever attacks the negroes, but has
proved only too fatal to newcomers.[3] I cannot help thinking that it is
mainly due to the filthy habits of a people unacquainted with the
hygienic laws, and who do not object to have their latrines in the
middle of their kitchens, and to a general system of drainage, which,
even in the capital and in the other principal towns, is wretchedly
antiquated. Dysentery annually carries off a great number of European
colonists, especially children, and cholera very frequently decimates
the blacks and Chinese, without doing the slightest injury to the whites
among whom they live. The wholesomest parts of the island are in the
eastern provinces, where yellow fever rarely makes its appearance. This
is simply due to a healthy combination of sea and mountain breezes. The
outlying island of Pinos, already mentioned, is remarkably healthy, no
epidemic ever having been known there, and it is, consequently, a
favourite resort with the wealthier Cubans and European colonists, who
have built charming cottages amongst its fragrant pine-groves.
I am quite persuaded that Cuba could be rendered fairly healthy by
proper irrigation and drainage. The towns are nearly all without proper
drains, and the inhabitants are generally very uncleanly in their
habits, although well-managed public baths abound. Like most members of
the Latin family, the Cubans seem to have a horror of cold water, and
rarely indulge in a "tub." On the other hand, to do them justice, at
certain seasons of the year they seem never out of the sea, which is
often so warm that you can stop in it for hours without getting a chill.
However, whether they wash or not matters little, for even in the best
regulated families their hygienic habits apparently are indescribably
filthy. Add to this state of affairs the still dirtier practices of the
immense negro and coolie population, and a faint idea may be formed of
the real cause of the unhealthiness of the place. I have often wondered
that the pest did not carry off half the population. It _has_
occasionally done so, and Yellow-Jack is always seeking whom he may
devour,--generally some invalid from the United States, who has come out
in search of health, or some over-robust European emigrant. As an
illustration of the rapidity with which this fell disease overcomes its
victims, I will relate an incident which occurred during my first visit
to the island, very many years ago. On board the ship which conveyed us
from New York to Havana was a certain Senator L...., well known in New
York and Washington for his good looks and caustic wit. In his youth he
had been engaged to a lovely Cuban girl, whose parents had sternly
rejected his suit, and had obliged their young daughter to marry a
wealthy planter very much her senior. She had recently become a widow,
and our friend, who had already been to Havana to lay his fortune at her
feet, and had been accepted, was hastening back to claim her as his
bride. On our arrival in Havana we all breakfasted together, the party
including the still very handsome widow DoA+-a Jacinta. In the afternoon
the bridegroom went sketching in the market-place. Yellow-Jack laid his
hand on him, and before morning he was dead! The funeral took place on
the very day appointed for the wedding. I shall never forget the
procession. The whole of Havana turned out to witness it. The church of
the Merced, where the Requiem was sung, was so crowded that several
persons were seriously injured. The floral offerings were of surprising
beauty. All the Donnas in the town, in their thousands, accompanied the
_cortA"ge_ conveying the coffin to the port, where it was placed on an
American steamer to be taken to New York for burial. The local papers
contained many really charming sonnets and poems addressed to the
afflicted DoA+-a Jacinta, who, by the way, some time afterwards followed
her lover's body to New York, and there became a Little Sister of the
Poor.
CHAPTER II.
POPULATION.
There must have been people in Cuba in the very night of time, for some
prehistoric race has left its trace behind. Numerous stone implements of
war and agriculture, closely resembling those so frequently found in
various parts of Europe, have been unearthed, near Bayamo, in the
Eastern Province. Then, again, within the last thirty years, a number of
_caneyes_ or pyramidical mounds, covering human remains, many of them in
a fossilized condition, have been discovered in the same part of the
island. Specimens of rude pottery, bearing traces of painting, have also
been dug up in various places, and I have in my possession a little
terra-cotta figure, representing an animal not unlike an ant eater,
which was found in the neighbourhood of Puerto Principe, and exhibited
in the Colonial Exhibition of 1886. Many small earthenware images of a
god, wearing a kind of cocked hat, and bearing a strong resemblance to
Napoleon I., are often picked up in out-of-the-way places, but we have
no other evidence that the ancient Cubans were blessed with any
conspicuous knowledge of the fine arts. The majority of the friendly
Indians who greeted Columbus on his first landing are believed to have
spoken the same language as the Yucayos of the Bahamas, and the
aboriginal natives of Hayti and Jamaica. Grijalva declares they used a
language similar to that of the natives of Yucatan--at any rate, on his
first expedition into that country, he was accompanied by some Cubans,
who made themselves understood by the inhabitants. Although Columbus
mentions the good looks of the early Cubans with admiration, there is
every reason to believe that the Discoverer flattered them considerably.
They seem to have been men of medium height, broad-shouldered,
brown-skinned, flat-featured, and straight-haired. The women are
described as better looking than the men, and do not appear to have
disfigured themselves by ornamental cheek slashes and other hideous
tattooing. They were, as we have already seen, an amiable set of
savages, quite innocent of cannibal tastes. Their huts were made of palm
branches, and their cooking was performed in the most primitive fashion,
over a wood fire, lighted in the open air. Some of their tribes, more
advanced in civilization than others, wore aprons decorated with shells
or with the seeds of the caruba, strung together in rather pretty
designs.[4]
In order to understand the very complex matter known as the Cuban
question, it is necessary for the reader to know something about the
exceedingly mixed population of the island, whereof "Cubans" form by far
the greater part. The present population, estimated at over 1,600,000,
may be divided into six sections[5]:--The Cubans, the Spaniards, the
Creoles, the foreigners, the coloured folk of African origin, of all
shades, from the deepest ebon to the lightest cream, and the coolies or
Chinese.
For three hundred years Cuba was exclusively inhabited by Spaniards, or
people of Spanish descent. The political and religious conditions of the
country were therefore far more favourable to peace and unity, and the
island was much less difficult to govern, than in these troublous times
of ours.
The "Cubanos" are the descendants of Spanish colonists, who have
inhabited the island for at least two generations. The slightest
admixture of African blood debars the enjoyment of this distinction. The
first Spanish immigration into Cuba began very soon after the conquest
of the island, and consisted mainly of adventurers who had accompanied
the earlier expeditions, and who settled permanently in the country,
after having returned to Spain, and transported their wives, and such
members of their families as were ready to follow them, to their new
homes. Almost all these individuals were either of Castilian or
Andalusian origin. A few years later, emigrants began to come in from
the Basque Provinces, and from Catalonia.
The descendants of these early colonists form the present aristocracy of
Cuba, and many of them bear names which have cast lustre on Spanish
history.[6]
Cuba was governed, for over three centuries, by the laws which bound the
other Hispano-American colonies. These were framed by Philip II., and
are still known as _Las Leyes de Indias_.
The unbending nature, and jealous religious orthodoxy of the Spaniards,
offered scant encouragement to the establishment of settlers of any
other race or faith. The Inquisition soon reigned in the island, in all
its gloomy and mysterious horror. To its merciless pressure, and
frequently cruel action, we may perhaps ascribe the instinctive hatred
of the "powers that be"--so characteristic of the modern Cuban--even as
hereditary memories of the doings of Mary Tudor and her Spaniard husband
have implanted a sullen distrust of the Spanish nation in the breast of
the average Englishman.
From the physical point of view, the Cubans are inferior to their
Spanish forefathers, a fact which may be attributed, perhaps, to the
effect of an enervating climate on successive generations. Still, it has
been remarked that they do not seem to have deteriorated,
intellectually, to the same extent as the descendants of the French and
other European Creoles in the West Indies. They are lithe, active, and
occasionally very good-looking, in spite of their pasty complexions and
somewhat lustreless dark eyes. They are certainly more progressive in
their ideas, and more anxious to educate their sons, at all events, to
the highest possible standard, than are their Spanish cousins. A
remarkable impetus was given to education in Cuba by the celebrated Las
Casas, who governed the island from 1790. He increased the endowment of
the University of Havana, which had been established in 1721, and
greatly extended its sphere of action, by creating several important
professorial chairs, and notably one of medicine. He assisted the
Jesuits in improving their colleges. It should be noted, to the credit
of this much maligned order, that the Fathers provided their pupils with
a thorough classical education, and also instructed them in foreign
languages.
During the great Revolutionary and Napoleonic periods there was
considerable chaos in the island, and the vigilance of the censorship
became so relaxed, that the large towns were flooded with French and
Italian literature of an advanced kind, and the ex-pupils of the Jesuits
devoured the translated works of Voltaire, Rousseau, and Beccaria with
an avidity which must have sorely scandalized their orthodox
instructors. The Voltarian spirit thus introduced amongst the better
class of Cubans has endured to this day, and though they pay every
outward respect to their religion, they are exceedingly sceptical both
in thought and speech. During the last seventy years, again, the country
has been overrun by Americans, who have introduced every form of
Protestantism, from Episcopalianism to Quakerism, and even Shakerism.
This large acquaintance with varied schools of religious thought has had
its effect in broadening the horizon of the Cuban mind. Many young men
are sent to schools and colleges in the United States, in England, in
France, in Germany even, or else to the Jesuits' colleges at Havana and
Santiago. Yet the mother country refused for years to admit even the
best class of Cubans to any share in the administration of the island,
and though within the last two decades this rule has been somewhat
relaxed, the result, politically speaking, has not always been
satisfactory, even to the natives. In the legal and medical professions
they have attained brilliant success, and some very large fortunes have
been made. The majority, however, follow the life of planters, or engage
in mercantile pursuits. Here again there is cause for trouble. In bygone
days the Spanish hidalgos were granted large estates in Cuba, and though
they rarely visit the country, they still retain them, entrusting the
management of their property to agents and overseers. Among these
absentee landlords are the Aldamas, Fernandinas, dos Hermanos,
Santovenios, and the Terres, whose palaces in the Cerro quarter of
Havana have stood uninhabited for years, except, perhaps, for an
occasional and rare winter visit. Still there are, or were, until quite
lately, many wealthy Cuban planters who reside on their plantations,
with their wives and families. A few years ago--I daresay it is so
still, on such estates as have not been devastated by the Rebels or the
Spaniards--the grown-up sons lived with their parents, each attending to
a separate department of the plantation, until the father died. Then one
of them--the eldest, as a rule--took over the whole estate, paying each
of his brothers a proper proportion of his net yearly earnings, and if
sufficient frugality was exercised, he was able to pay them a share of
the original property into the bargain. But even when these events took
place, they did not necessitate the separation of the family.
The Cubans are naturally a domestic and affectionate people, exceedingly
happy in their home relations. In many a Hacienda, from one to four or
five families will live most peaceably, under the same roof. The men, as
a rule, make excellent husbands, and are passionately fond of their
children, whom they are apt to spoil, and often ruin, by allowing the
coloured servants to over-indulge them. In these patriarchal homesteads,
the children, being not a little isolated from other society, become
exceedingly attached to each other. When the girls attain a marriageable
age they are placed in seclusion, under the charge of a governess, or
else sent to one or other of the great convents in the Capital managed
by French and Spanish nuns of the SacrA(C) CA"ur, Assumption, and
Ursuline orders. The results of this system are not always fortunate.
Premature marriages abound. Many a Cuban is a father before he is
eighteen years of age, by a wife a couple of years his junior--a fact
which may account, even more, perhaps, than the much-blamed tropical
climate, for the physical inferiority of the race. Then again, as is
invariably the case in slave countries, a pernicious laxity in morals is
tolerated, and Cuban life, in cities and plantations alike, will not, I
have been assured on good authority, bear too close investigation. If
the ancestors were devoted to their Voltaire and their Jean Jacques, the
modern descendants are equally zealous readers of all the most
suggestive French and Italian novels. The fine literature of the mother
country has never found much favour in Cuba, and the educated islanders
are far more intimately acquainted with Zola, Gaboriau, Gyp, and
Huyssman than with Cervantes, Calderon, Lope, and Fernan Cabalero. They
do not even patronise their own national drama, preferring modern French
and Italian plays. It is a curious fact that even really excellent
Spanish troupes have failed to attract audiences in Havana, whereas
French and Italian companies have done tremendous business during the
few weeks of their stay in the city. I shall have occasion to speak
elsewhere of the great love of music which has long distinguished the
Cubans, whose principal Opera House has been kept up all through the
century to a pitch of excellence worthy of one of the great European
capitals.
The Cuban women, even in the lower classes, are generally far better
looking than the men. Those of the upper ranks are often extremely
fascinating. Their features are small and delicate, their eyes dark and
fine, and their hair magnificent. Their feet and hands are small, and
although they cannot vie in grace with their Andalusian sisters, they
have a distinct and striking charm, peculiar to themselves. They have a
regrettable weakness for plastering their faces with rice powder, to an
extent which sometimes makes them look absolutely ghastly, and, like
most Creoles, they are apt, except on formal occasions, to neglect the
elementary duty of personal neatness. They are fond of lolling about in
their own homes, in wrappers, none of the cleanest, and are much
addicted to swinging in hammocks, coiling themselves up on sofas, and,
above all, rocking lazily to and fro, in low American chairs.
Of society, even in the city of Havana, there is little or none. A few
large parties are given by the wealthier families in the winter season,
but very few people can converse easily on any interesting subject.
Conversation must soon flag, indeed, in a country where the intellectual
pabulum of the fair sex consists, generally speaking, of a singular
combination of the Catholic prayer-book and the worst stamp of French
novel. The usual way of spending the evening in a Cuban house is to
place two long rows of rocking-chairs opposite one another, and sit
chatting, everybody, meanwhile, smoking the inevitable cigarette. In
some of the houses, music of a high order may be heard, and not a few of
the Cuban ladies sing charmingly. During the Carnival, a good many
dances take place in private houses, but even these are extremely dull,
for as soon as a gentleman has danced with a lady, he is expected to
lead her back to her rocking-chair, where she sits smoking in smiling
silence till the arrival of another partner. It would be thought highly
improper for a young man to start a conversation, let alone a
flirtation, with an unmarried girl.
The general want of that association between the sexes, so necessary to
the welfare of each, makes the Cuban women indifferent to the opinion of
the Cuban men. They care for nothing but the most childish chatter and
gossip, have no desire to improve their minds, no ambition beyond that
connected with their own personal comfort and vanity. They marry when
they are mere children, from twelve years of age to about
eighteen,--and if no suitor has appeared upon the scene by that time,
they are looked on as old maids. Belonging to a most prolific race,
those who marry soon have large families about them, and devoted as they
are, in most cases, to their children, they find their happiness in
their domestic circle. The haughty spirit derived from their Spanish
ancestry is not dead in the hearts of the Cuban ladies. Many of them
have proved the fact, of late, by qualities of self-sacrifice, courage,
and splendid heroism, which have gone far to carry the revolutionary
struggle to its present phase. The exceedingly pernicious habit of
bandaging infants in swaddling clothes is still prevalent, even in the
best regulated Cuban families. This may account for the excessive infant
mortality, for though as many as eight or ten children are born to most
parents, they rarely succeed in rearing more than three or four.
There is a saying in Havana that "the church is good enough for the old
maids of both sexes." The women are pious from habit. Nearly all of them
begin the day by going to Mass, and in Holy Week they literally live in
church. But, for all this, religion does not seem to have any deep
influence on their lives. The men make no pretence to piety. Generally
speaking, Catholicism in Cuba has become a mere matter of form and
custom, although there are doubtless many sincerely pious people in the
island, who practise all the Christian virtues, both in public and in
private. Still, I fear the clergy can hardly have done their duty by
their flocks for many generations past. Yet, I am assured, a more
evangelical spirit is stirring among them at the present moment. This
we may fairly ascribe to the vigilance and zeal of the present Pope, Leo
XIII., who has appointed more energetic and able bishops than any of his
predecessors, since the Apostolic age. I am assured that the present
Archbishop of Santiago and Bishop of Havana--the island is divided into
two dioceses--have effected many remarkable reforms, not only among
their clergy, but also among the laity.
To resume: the Cubans are, as I have already indicated, the descendants
of Spaniards born on the island. They form considerably over a third of
the population. The true Spanish population, which is not at all
numerous, includes the absentee grandees, who own at least a fourth of
the island, the numerous officials sent out from Spain, and the very
considerable garrison which has always been kept in Cuba, to maintain
order, and suppress all attempts at open rebellion. The Spaniards keep
very much to themselves, although, of course, many of them are allied
with Cuba by family ties, and are on very friendly terms, in times of
peace, with their own kinsfolk. Still, there is a local feeling against
them, as the representatives of bad government in a sorely-troubled
colony. Their manners and customs are not quite identical with those of
the natives. Their women, for instance, have a far higher sense of
dignity than the native ladies. They are more sincerely pious, and, in
many cases, far more highly educated and accomplished. On the other
hand, the men are extremely overbearing and exclusive. Their manners are
ridiculously elaborate, but their hospitality, though courteously
proffered, is less genuine than that of the native Cubans. When a Cuban
says, "Come and stay," or "Come and dine with me," he means it, and is
hurt, however humble his circumstances may be, if you refuse.
During the last fifty years, a great many Americans have established
themselves in Cuba as planters, merchants, and shopkeepers. They come
from all parts of the United States, and associate very little with the
Spaniards, although they are generally very friendly with the Cubans.
The principal American settlements are at Cardenas, quite a modern town,
and known as "The American City," Havana, Cienfuegos, and Santiago. The
Spaniards, on the other hand, suspect and dislike the Americans. There
are not many English established on the island. The railroads, however,
and some of the best tobacco estates, are mainly in British hands. There
is a small French colony, consisting mainly, I am assured, of persons
who cannot live in their own country. In the old slave times, most of
the overseers were Frenchmen who had been expelled from France, and not
a few were well known as having "served their time." There is also a
small Italian colony, and a very considerable German contingent, who
live their own lives, apart from their neighbours. Until within quite
recent times no religion but the Roman Catholic was tolerated on the
island, but, at the present moment, there is, if anything, greater
freedom of worship than in Spain itself. From all I have heard, Cuba is
the last place in the world where people trouble their heads over
theological or philosophical questions. Life is essentially
materialistic, and the chief aim and struggle of existence is to get as
much comfort as may be, out of an exceedingly uncomfortable climate.
The Jews in Cuba barely number 500, and are mostly of Spanish origin,
and engaged in trade. A great many Jews fled to the West Indies from
Spain, in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, but few remained in
the Spanish possessions. The danger was too great. Five or six of the
Cuban Jewish families are reported wealthy, and are much respected, but
they keep entirely to themselves. We next come to the two last divisions
of the heterogeneous population of the Pearl of the Antilles,--the
coloured race, and the Coolies.
The coloured folk of Cuba, who vary, as I have said, from the deepest
ebony to the lightest cream, form a little over a third of the whole
population. That they are not more numerous in proportion to the whites,
is due to causes which I shall endeavour to explain hereafter. At a very
early date, slaves were introduced into Cuba, to replace the massacred
aborigines. At first the black merchandise was exceedingly dear; in
fact, according to ancient authorities, slaves were "worth their weight
in gold." But, in the seventeenth century, the importation from Africa
began on a great scale, though very few females were at first landed, as
the majority died on the way over. This fact necessitated a system of
constant replenishment of the males, and it was only in the last century
that negresses were brought to Cuba in any great numbers. Their
appearance was followed by the inevitable result--a peaceful invasion of
small niggers. And the dusky Venus found scores of worshippers, among
the haughty Dons. Even worthy Brian Edwards, the pious author of the
_History of the West Indies_, did not neglect to pay tribute to the
charms of the "Sable Aphrodite" in an Ode from which I cannot resist
culling the following lines:--
Her skin excell'd the raven plume,
Her breath the fragrant orange bloom,
Her eye the tropic beam.
Soft was her lip as silken down,
And mild her look as ev'ning sun
That gilds the Cobre stream.
The loveliest limbs her form compose,
Such as her sister Venus chose
In Florence, where she's seen,
But just alike, except the white,
No difference, no--none at night,
The beauteous dames between.
O sable Queen! thy mild domain
I seek, and court thy gentle reign,
So soothing, soft, and sweet,
Where meeting love, sincere delight,
Fond pleasure, ready joys invite,
And unbought raptures meet.
The prating Frank, the Spaniard proud,
The double Scot, Hibernian loud,
And sullen English, own
The pleasing softness of thy sway,
And here, transferr'd allegiance pay,
For gracious is thy throne.
Notwithstanding the nominal abolition of the slave trade, something like
half a million of slaves have been imported into Cuba since the first
treaty between England and France,--for the gradual abolition of slavery
was officially signed in 1856. The traffic continued even as late as
1886, when slavery was at last entirely and finally suppressed. It was
often connived at by the Governor, and other high officials at Havana,
who thus increased their popularity, and their private fortunes. In the
course of 1878 I was told, on good authority, of a cargo of sixty Congo
negroes, which had just been landed in a small port in the neighbourhood
of Havana, and sold to planters in the interior. The first step towards
emancipation was the freeing of all infants born of slave parents, and
of all slaves who had attained their fiftieth year. This was achieved in
1856, with very curious consequences. The infants, being deemed
worthless by their parents' owners, as soon as they realised the fact
that when the children were reared they would have no control over them,
were purposely neglected, and thousands of them perished in their
earliest years. The old folk, on the other hand, were, in most
instances, turned adrift, to enjoy their freedom as best they might, as
vagrants on the highways and byways, or as beggars in the towns. Not a
few died of starvation, and this is one of the main causes which has
reduced the coloured population in Cuba much below its natural
proportion, to that of other countries, where slavery has lately
existed. Many years have elapsed since slaves were publicly sold in the
market-places of Havana and the large cities, but until ten years ago,
advertisements for their sale continued in the principal papers, and I
hold a collection of these, which proves that very little or no
attention was paid to the freedom of infants, even after the passing of
the law in 1856. For the majority of these advertisements refer to
children of twelve and fifteen years of age, who are generally offered
for "private sale," the intending purchaser being asked to "inspect the
goods at the house of the present proprietor." Here is a specimen, dated
April 1885:--"Anyone who requires a nice active little girl of light
colour, aged 12, can inspect her at the house of her mistress. Price to
be settled between the parties privately" (here follows the address).
This is a proof, if proof were needed, of how the slave laws were
regarded in Cuba; and even now, I am assured, in many of the more lonely
plantations, the blacks have not fully realized that they are free, and
continue working gratuitously, as in the old days. On the other hand,
the vast majority, being of opinion that freedom means idleness, have
ceased labour altogether, and, as their requirements are remarkably
modest, a number of them have departed for the woods and wildernesses,
where they lead much the primitive life led by their forebears in their
native Africa. These refugees have proved admirable recruits for the
rebel army, and have, on more than one occasion, found an opportunity of
wreaking their vengeance on their late masters' plantations and
homesteads.
I do not think the slaves were any worse treated in Cuba than in the
Southern States of America before the Abolition, and, indeed, I have
not noticed in Latin slave-owning countries that strong prejudice, on
the part of the whites, against the blacks, which exists all over the
United States, and amounts to a sense of absolute loathing. I am
convinced the free blacks in Cuba are better treated than their
liberated brethren in the Southern States. They are more civilly handled
by the whites, who appear to me to have very little or no prejudice
against them. They mingle freely with the white congregations in the
churches, and are even allowed to walk in the various religious
processions, side by side with their late owners. If the Americans ever
conquer Cuba, they will have to deal with a coloured population which
has long been accustomed to far more courteous treatment than the
Yankees are likely to vouchsafe to it.
The Spanish laws for the protection of the slaves were remarkable for
their humanity. According to the _Leyes de Indias_, all slaves had to be
baptized, and their marriages were to be considered legal. It was
unlawful to separate families. In the towns and villages, judicial
tribunals were instituted, to which any slave could have recourse
against his master. It was illegal to administer more than twenty-five
lashes in a single week on the bare back of any slave, male or female.
It was murder to kill a slave, unless, indeed, it could be proved that
he had attempted to assassinate his master, or strike him, to burn his
house or property, or to violate his wife, daughter, or any other white
female, howsoever humble, in his employ. But these laws, unfortunately,
were rarely observed. It is true that Syndicates, as they were termed,
existed in the capital and in all the larger towns, and were
occasionally useful to the household slaves. But the unfortunate
plantation hands were either utterly ignorant of the existence of these
tribunals, or were unable to reach them. If a bold applicant contrived
to apply to these organizations, his master soon found means to make him
regret his temerity. The slaves were well fed, because they were
considered useful beasts of burden. But during the sugar harvest they
were cruelly overworked, sometimes labouring nineteen or twenty hours
out of the twenty-four, and this for weeks at a stretch, without any
interruption, even on the Sundays. They would often fall down exhausted
from sheer fatigue, only to struggle to their feet again under the
overseer's merciless whip. Personally, I witnessed very few acts of
cruelty, during a visit to the island before the emancipation. Once I
did see a number of blacks in the coffee fields wantonly flipped with
the whip, simply to keep them "spry," as the Yankees say. One horrible
instance, however, took place to my knowledge. A strikingly handsome
mulatto had escaped into the woods. For a week after his recapture he
was daily subjected to the most horrible tortures, the ostensible object
of which was to strike terror into the souls of such of his fellow
slaves who might be tempted to follow his example. They subjected him to
torments too shocking for description, and rubbed his wounds with _agua
ardiente_. The poor wretch, writhing in agony, and shrieking with pain,
was bound hand and foot to the stump of a tree. The strangest part of
it was that the niggers for whom this torture, which eventually ended in
death, was intended as a warning, did not seem impressed by its horror.
They merely laughed and shrieked like so many fiends--possibly they were
accustomed to such scenes, and callous. The excuse given for the
diabolical treatment of this particular slave was that he had escaped
into the forest, where a number of other runaways were in hiding, and
had formed a dangerous association, with the object of pillage and
incendiarism. I afterwards learnt that the master of the plantation on
which the awful crime took place was notorious for his brutality, and
consequently shunned by all his neighbours. A year or so later, he was
arrested on some charge or other connected with the ill-treatment of his
slaves, and after paying a heavy fine, found it to his interest to leave
the island. He came to Paris, where he was well known for his
eccentricity and extravagance, and there died some years ago. Even in
the case of this unfavourable specimen of the Cuban planter the
household slaves were treated with the utmost indulgence, and petted and
pampered to their hearts' content. They were as vicious, idle,
happy-go-lucky a lot as ever existed! I did hear some horrible stories
of fiendish cruelty devised by spiteful mistresses, and inflicted upon
their female servants. One, for instance, which may or may not have been
true, of a lady who, because her own eyes worried her, stabbed out those
of her waiting-maid with pins. Perhaps the worst features of slavery in
Cuba were, as I have already stated, the length of the working hours,
and the fact that the masters considered their religious duty to have
ended with the wholesale administration of baptism. It never entered
their heads to teach the poor wretches any lesson beyond that of
implicit obedience to their own will and caprice. Even the rudiments of
the catechism were absolutely forbidden. Many a worthy priest has found,
to his cost, that any attempt to Christianize the field hands was the
worst possible mistake he could make in their owners' eyes. It not only
involved him in difficulties with the masters, but with his own
ecclesiastical superiors. The Jesuits and Franciscans were persecuted,
and threatened with expulsion over and over again, because they
persisted in their efforts to convert the negroes. The fact is, the
masters were quick to understand that the ethics of Christianity are not
compatible with slavery. Yet many household slaves received a religious
education rather elaborate than otherwise, were obliged to attend
morning and evening prayers, and to say the Rosary, a very favourite
form of devotion at the present time with all Cuban negroes, who will
sit for hours in the glaring sun, telling their beads and smoking
cigarettes, with the oddest imaginable expression of mingled piety and
self-indulgence on their faces. Although the days of slavery are long
since passed,--and they were quite as harmful to the whites as they were
to the negroes,--the condition of the dark population in Cuba has not
greatly improved. On some of the more lonely plantations, as I have
pointed out elsewhere, they still seem unaware that they are
emancipated, but the vast majority have foresworn all regular
employment, and live as best they can, from hand to mouth.
That portion of the coloured population of Cuba which has been free for
several generations, is in better case than the corresponding section in
the United States. The negroes belonging to it earn their living as
labourers, workmen, servants, hackney-coach drivers, messengers, and
even as musicians, in the various towns. Some few are fairly well off.
Whatever their vices may be, they are by no means ambitious, and are
contented with the simplest pleasures. The men love a glass of _agua
ardiente_, and the women delight in any scrap of cast-off finery with
which they can parade the streets, and show themselves off to the
admiration and envy of their neighbours. I fancy that half the old ball
dresses in Europe find their way, after various vicissitudes, to Cuba.
On a Sunday or a feast-day, the ebon ladies sally forth in all their
glory, arrayed in their white sisters' cast-off finery, with low necks
and short sleeves. The matter of underclothing is frequently altogether
overlooked, shoes and stockings never by any chance appear, but a bright
flower is invariably stuck in each woolly pate. Some of the holiday
makers sport a pair of long kid gloves, which have the oddest possible
effect. In church the dusky beauties squat, beads in hand, upon the
floor of the nave, which is reserved for their accommodation, while the
gentlemen darkies stand round in the side aisles. When Mass is over, the
sable congregation pours forth into the sunny streets, each member,
almost without exception, armed with a cigarette. The little negro
children are the sweetest little rascals upon earth, and I can quite
understand the enthusiastic lady who was heard to exclaim "Oh, why can't
we have black babies who turn white when they grow up." These said black
babies are inconceivably quaint, and the older children charming, and
very intelligent, till they reach their twelfth year, when their brains
suddenly appear to cease all development, excepting in the imitative
arts. The Cuban negroes are madly fond of music, and although they
prefer the dreadful tom-tom, and their own barbaric sounds, imported,
doubtless, from Africa, they will crowd the galleries of the Tacon
Theatre to listen to Italian operas. When I was last in Havana, nearly
every darkie you met was whistling the Toreador song from "Carmen," the
favourite opera then being performed, to the accompaniment of an
orchestra largely composed of coloured people,--a peculiarity which
would never be tolerated in the States, where no white conductor would
lead a mixed band, and where half the audience would leave the house on
beholding woolly heads bending over instruments played by sable hands.
Many members of the Tacon orchestra, one of the best in existence, are
full-blooded negroes, and, with their co-operation, not only Italian,
but Wagnerian opera, is successfully performed.
Slavery has unfortunately been replaced, in Cuba, by coolie labour, a
form of the same cruel institution, which, for some occult reason, has
never excited the same amount of horror in Europe, possibly because it
does not bear the actual name of slavery, and because most people
imagine the wretched coolie sells himself, instead of being sold. In
1877 there were 43,000 Chinese workmen on the island, all that remained
out of 100,000, originally imported, of whom not less than 16,000 had
died on their way out from China. At the present moment the coolies
number something like 40,000. These poor wretches do not bring their
female belongings with them, and are consequently reduced to a condition
of enforced celibacy; for so great is the contempt in which these
voluntary slaves are held, not even the lowest negress will have
anything to do with them. Despised by the whites, and detested by the
blacks, they lead a miserable life, and die like flies, in the scorching
climate. The very partial success of the coolie immigration scheme led,
some years ago, to the importation of Mayas from Yucatan, but this has
not been followed by happy results; and what with the depreciation of
tropical produce, the number of estates which have gone out of
cultivation, and the revolutionary movement, the present condition of
the coloured class, and of the coolies, is exceedingly deplorable. They
have swollen the ranks of the malcontents, and form a portion of that
starving multitude of which we have heard so much of late. In a word,
they are workmen out of employment, starving plantation hands, and their
condition seems irremediable, unless, indeed, some wealthy Power should
eventually take the island in hand, and spend countless millions in the
endeavour to lift it, once more, to its former condition of prosperity.
CHAPTER III.
A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE ISLAND.
It was on the morning of Friday, 12th October 1492, that Christopher
Columbus first saw the New World rising on the ocean horizon. The
ardently prayed-for land proved to be an island, called by the natives
GuanahanA", and by the explorer baptized San Salvador, but known to us
now as the chief of the Bahamas group. After making friends with the
gentle natives, and taking in supplies of food and water, Columbus,
though at some loss as to which way he should direct his course, set
sail once more. Such a multitude of islands lay before him, large and
small, "green, level, and fertile," that he grew fairly confused as to
which way to turn. He fancied he was sailing in the Archipelago,
described by Marco Polo as studding the seas which washed the shores of
Chin, or China, a great, great distance from the mainland. These, the
Venetian traveller had declared, numbered some 7000 or 8000--rich in
gold, silver, drugs, spices, and many other precious objects of
commerce. Night obscured the delightful vision, and the verdure-clad
islands faded into the tropical darkness. The next morning Columbus
landed on a pretty islet, the inhabitants of which greeted him in the
most friendly manner, and to which he gave the name of Santa Maria de la
Concepcion. But the extreme simplicity of their costume--they were clad
in all their native innocence--and the absence of all signs of wealth,
led the Discoverer to think that perhaps, after all, he was still far
from that part of the world mentioned by the imaginative Marco. Next, he
landed on a beautiful island, now known as Exuma, to which he gave the
name of Fernandina, in honour of His Most Christian Majesty. Here the
ladies betrayed more native modesty, for, he gravely assures us, "they
wore mantles made of feathers, and cotton aprons." He had disembarked in
a noble harbour, bordered by shady groves, "as fresh and green as in the
month of May in Andalusia." The trees, the fruits, the herbs, the
flowers, the very stones, were, for the most part, as different from
those of Spain as day is to night.
On 19th October he left Fernandina, steering towards another island,
called Saometo, where, as he gathered from the natives, he was to find
rich mines of gold, and a monarch who held sway over all the surrounding
lands. This potentate was said to dwell in a mighty city, and to wear
garments studded with gold and gems. He reached the island in due time,
but neither monarch nor mine found he. It was a delightful spot,
however, blessed with deep lakes of fresh water, and with such swarms of
singing-birds that the explorer felt, so he declared, that he could
"never desire to depart thence. There are flocks of parrots which
obscure the sun, and other brilliant birds of so many kinds and sizes,
and all different from ours, that it is wonderful, and besides, there
are trees of a thousand sorts, each having its particular fruit, and of
marvellous flavour." To this enchanting island he gave the name of
Isabella, after his royal patroness.
Whilst the Discoverer was seeking for healing herbs, and "delighting in
the fragrance of sweet and dainty flowers," and, moreover, "believing
that here were many herbs which would be of great price in Spain for
tinctures and medicines," his followers were clamouring to the natives
concerning the whereabouts of mines of gold and silver, which, we need
hardly say, existed only in their ardent, greedy, and deluded
imaginations. Whether Columbus and his companions mistook the natives'
signs or not, certain it is that, for several days, he was once more
convinced he was in the neighbourhood of the islands of which Marco Polo
had written. The capital of this archipelago was supposed to be a city
called Quinsai, and there Columbus intended personally to deliver the
letter of the Castilian sovereigns to the mysterious Khan. With his mind
full of such airy castles, he set sail from Isabella on the 24th
October, steering, haphazard, west-south-west. After three days'
navigation, in the course of which he touched at a group of small
islands, which he christened Islas de Arena, now supposed to be the
Mucacas, he crossed the Bahama Bank, and hove in sight of Cuba. Lost in
contemplation of the size and grandeur of the new island, its high
soaring mountains, which, he tells us, reminded him of those of Sicily,
its fertile valleys, its long, sweeping, and well-watered plains; its
stately forests, its bold promontories and headlands melting away into
the softest distance, he once more concluded that this, at last, must be
the enchanted country of the Venetian explorer. Landing, he took
possession in the name of Christ, Our Lady, and the Sovereigns of Spain,
and christened the new country Juana, in honour of the Infanta DoA+-a
Juana. The land on which he set foot is believed to have been just to
the west of Nuevitas del Principe, the seaport of the city of Puerto
Principe. The objects which first arrested his attention were a couple
of huts, from which the inmates had fled. Their interiors boasted no
evidences of civilization or wealth. Their sole contents were a few
fishing-nets, hooks, harpoons of bone, and a queer sort of dog (the
breed, alas, is now extinct, I fear!), "which never barks." With the
humane consideration which distinguished the illustrious Italian, though
his Spanish followers can never be said to have followed his good
example, Columbus ordered that nothing should be touched or disturbed in
the two cabins. There was a certain foresight, too, about the order; it
was more advantageous to pose as a demi-god than to run the risk of
being taken for a thief.[7]
The scenery of Cuba is described by Columbus in his usual glowing
language. Then, as now, it was a marvel of tropical beauty. He was
specially impressed by the vivid splendour of the jewelled
humming-birds, which hovered around the innumerable and gorgeous
blossoms clustering every bough. The smaller species of fireflies he had
frequently seen in Italy, but the _luccioli_ of the Old World were as
sparks to lamps beside the meteor-like creatures which, even on the
brightest nights, made a flickering radiance in the Cuban forests. In a
word, Cuba broke upon him like an Elysium. "It is the most beautiful
island that eye of man ever beheld, full of excellent woods and deep
flowing rivers." He was utterly convinced, now, he had reached Cipango,
that wonderful spot which, according to Marco Polo, possessed mountains
of gold, and a shore the sands of which were strewn with oriental
pearls. A worthy native further deluded the already over-credulous
Discoverer by inducing him to believe that the centre of the island, at
a place called Cubanacan, literally glittered with gold. Now Cubanacan
is uncommonly like Cublia-Khan, the name of the Tartar sovereign
mentioned by Polo, and this confusion of names probably led Columbus and
his companions to the conviction that Cuba was not an island, but part
of the main continent.
Suddenly, one day, the weather changed; the sky, hitherto as blue as a
turquoise, grew dark and heavy, torrents of rain began to fall, and
Columbus was obliged to relinquish all further pursuit of adventure in
the heart of the island, and to confine his operations to the coast.
There is nothing more pathetic in the "Journal" of Columbus than those
passages which deal with the discovery of Cuba. Illusion after illusion
fades away. To-day there are reports of gold and silver mines; to-morrow
someone has heard of cinnamon and nutmeg trees, and even of the humble
rhubarb, but, on examination, gold and silver, cinnamon, nutmeg, and
rhubarb, all prove delusions. The Spaniards showed the natives pearls,
at which they merely smiled,--to them they were naught but pretty white
beads. Gold did not impress them as being of any particular value or
beauty; and they were understood to say that, in the more distant parts
of the country, the people wore ornaments made of that precious metal
about their necks, arms, and ankles. Then came an old native who
announced that further on dwelt men who had but one eye, and that below
their shoulders; others who had dogs' heads; and others, again, who were
vampires, and sucked their prisoners' blood until they died of
exhaustion, and thereby confirmed Othello's account of his adventures--
"In lands where dwell cannibals that each other eat,
The Anthropophagi, and men whose heads
Do grow beneath their shoulders."
Everything, in a word, was new and wonderful, and everything tended to
make the Discoverer think he was approaching that object of his dreams,
"the city of the Khan."
In November he was still wandering down the coast of the magnificent
island, which he believed to be part of the Continent,--an error in
which he continued until his death. Yet, had he but sailed three days
further, he would have touched the main coast of Florida. Certain
writers assert that he landed in British Honduras, without, however,
realizing that, by so doing, he had discovered the real Continent of
America.
Here we must take our leave of the illustrious Discoverer and his
adventures. If I have dwelt so long upon them, it has been simply in
order to impress my readers with the fact that, when Columbus reached
Cuba, he discovered a country, the inhabitants of which were evidently
at peace among themselves and their neighbours. Yet, almost from the day
of his arrival to the present time, the unhappy island has been stained
by incessant tragedy. The illustrious Italian firmly believed he had
brought a blessing to the natives. His arrival, alas! only signified the
beginning of their extermination.
The early inhabitants, not only of Cuba, but of all the other islands,
were certainly of common origin, spoke the same language, practised the
same customs, and held similar superstitions. They bore a distinct
resemblance to certain tribes of Indians on the main Continent, to the
Arrowauk in particular. They were well made, of dark brown complexion,
with goodly features and long straight hair. They went by the generic
name of Charaibes or Caribees. Several distinct tribes may have existed,
but the evidence is that they were all of one family, which had in all
probability swarmed out of the great hive of the Mexican empire. Juan de
Grijalva, a Spanish navigator, declared, in 1518, that he found a people
on the coast of Yucatan who spoke the same language as the natives of
the island. According to Las Casas, and to Peter Martyr, who wrote on
the authority of Columbus himself, there were about 1,200,000 souls in
Cuba at the time of its discovery. This was possibly the result of some
rough calculation made upon the large number of people noticed as living
upon the immediate sea-board. It is certain that not Cuba only, but all
the neighbouring islands, were thickly populated at the time of their
discovery, and also that the aborigines were exceedingly gentle in
character. They almost invariably received the European adventurers as
beings of a superior order, who had alighted from some spirit world,
evidently with the intention of doing them good--a conviction
strengthened by the graceful courtesy which still distinguishes their
descendants in Spain and Italy. This conviction was, ere long, to be
cruelly shaken! The islanders, in spite of many virtues, had a moral
code of the loosest description, and, if we may believe Ovando, Europe
owes them its first acquaintance with one of the most terrible penalties
exacted by Nature from the too fervent worshipper of Venus. Labour and
cultivation appear to have been little practised by the Caribbees, who
found the great fertility of their country sufficient to enable them to
lead a life of delightful indolence. Their fashions never changed--since
they had none to change--and their wives' milliner's bills troubled them
not. They spent their time in athletic exercises, in dancing, hunting,
fishing, and in fact, according to contemporary Spanish evidence, the
aboriginal Cubans would seem to have discovered the real secret of
life, and to have been far more philosophical than their restless and
over-ambitious conquerors.
They treated their elders with respect, and their wives with affection;
and they were untainted with cannibalism and other objectionable savage
practices. The discovery of fragments of ancient pottery, by no means
inartistically designed, and other objects indicating a higher
civilization than that for which Columbus gave them credit, would lead
one to believe that the natives were not devoid of a certain degree of
culture. Contemporary testimony is almost universally in favour of their
firm belief in the existence of a personal Deity, who had power to
reward merit and punish vice, a heaven and a hell. Columbus, according
to his own account, seems, between the years 1492-4, to have acquired
sufficient knowledge of the Indian language to understand a good deal of
what was said to him. He had taken two Indians back with him to Spain,
and had studied assiduously with them. However that may be, he declares
that on one occasion, in July 1494, during his second visit, an aged
Cuban made him the following speech as he presented him with a basket of
fruit and flowers: "Whether you are a divinity," said he, "or a mortal
man, we know not. You come into these countries with a force which we
should be mad to resist, even if we were so inclined. We are all,
therefore, at your mercy; but if you and your followers are men like
ourselves, subject to mortality, you cannot be unapprised that after
this life there is another, wherein a very different portion is allotted
to good and bad men. And if you believe you will be rewarded in a
future state, you will do us no harm, for we intend none to you."
The fairy-like opening of the dramatic history of Cuba, with all the
quaint descriptions of its Eden-like beauty bequeathed to us in its
Discoverer's Journal, was soon to degenerate into a horrible tragedy.
Not a generation elapsed before the Spaniards were deep in the very
tactics which have been disgracing their behaviour in Cuba during this
last decade. In the most wanton, senseless, and barbarous fashion, they
fell on the wretched natives, with no other object than that of
extirpating them, so as to usurp their possessions. They even went so
far as to assure the poor wretches that if they would embark with them
on their ships they would take them to certain islands where their
ancestors resided, and where they would enjoy a state of bliss of which
they had no conception. The simple souls listened with wondrous
credulity, and, eager to visit their friends in the happy region
described, followed the Spaniards with the utmost docility. By these
damnable devices over 40,000 human beings were decoyed from their homes
and ruthlessly slaughtered. Las Casas and Peter Martyr relate tales by
the dozen concerning the frightful cruelty of the men whom they had the
misfortune to accompany to the New World. Martyr tells us that some
Spaniards made a vow to hang or burn thirteen natives in honour of the
Saviour and the Twelve Apostles every morning. Certain monsters, more
zealous than the rest, drove their captives into the water, and after
forcibly administering the rite of baptism, cut their throats to prevent
their apostacy. But I will not harrow the reader with further accounts
of the astounding cruelty shown by the Spanish conquerors of Cuba. I
will simply repeat with their own historian, Martyr, "that in the whole
history of the world such enormities have never before been practised."
If any further testimony were needed, we have that of the venerable Las
Casas. Even Oviado, who strives to palliate his countrymen's
barbarities, confesses that in 1535, only forty-three years after the
discovery of the West Indies, and when he himself was on the spot, there
were not above 500 of the original natives left alive in the island of
Hispaniola.[8]
This wholesale massacre may have been carried out with a view to
ensuring the complete Spanish repopulation of the islands. The
destruction of the natives naturally led, in course of time, to the
importation, on a very large scale, of negro slavery, and the unnatural
trade continued until its final abolition, which took place some twelve
years ago. Traces of Indian blood are still evident amongst the
inhabitants of the wild regions in the eastern part of Cuba, who boast
indeed that they are the "Caribbees." The women are especially
beautiful, and remarkable for the extraordinary length of their hair,
which sometimes touches the ground. A female attendant in the house of a
planter whom I visited in this part of the island some years ago, was,
I was assured, of undoubted Caribbean descent. She was rather tall,
copper-coloured, and her hair, when she let it fall loose, nearly
reached her ankles, perfectly straight, and intensely black. She was not
a slave, and was treated with respect and kindness by her employers.
Although Columbus revisited the island three times before he returned to
Spain, to rest his weary bones in that peace his enemies so persistently
denied him, he died, as I have said, in the full conviction that it
formed part of the Asiatic continent, and it was not until 1508 that, at
the command of Nicola Ovanda, a certain Captain Sebastian
circumnavigated the island, and established the undoubted fact of its
being completely surrounded by water. In 1511, Columbus' son Diego, then
Governor of Hispaniola, otherwise Hayti, sent Diego Velasquez to Cuba,
with full authority to colonize it. This process he performed by
parcelling out the island among his followers and reducing the natives
to slavery. The poor creatures, never having been accustomed to hard
work, rebelled, and were forthwith mercilessly exterminated. Velasquez
founded many towns, among them Baracoa, Bayamo, Trinidad, Puerto
Principe, Santiago de Cuba (in 1515), and San Christobal de Habana
(Havana) (in 1519), this last city not exactly in its present position.
More interesting by far than Velasquez was his lieutenant, Hernando
Cortez, eventually to be known as the intrepid explorer of Mexico. The
lustre of his career in Cuba was stained, however, by his ferocious
treatment of the aborigines, whom he condemned to work in his newly
discovered copper mines, and tortured to death because they refused to
obey their taskmaster. His love affairs, on the other hand, were
romantic, and are still enshrined in the legendary history of the
island. His great, if cruel, name figures in many a folk-lore tale, but
no allusion is ever made to his subsequent adventures on the main
continent. Velasquez, too, is not forgotten. His Governorship had
evidently many features of excellence, and if he bears the shame of
having introduced the curse of negro slavery, he must be given credit
for having planted the first sugar cane in his fair domain.
After his death, in 1524, the history of Cuba is a blank until the year
1538, when Hernando de Soto landed in the island, and fitted out, in the
harbour of Santiago, the celebrated but unfortunate expedition to
Florida, by means of which he hoped to annex that country to the Spanish
territory. The undertaking, one of vast importance to the future welfare
of the New World, was disastrous in many ways. The flower of the Spanish
colonists perished in numerous battles with the natives, Cuba was
drained of her European population, and the progress of the island
lamentably retarded. Meanwhile, the venerable Las Casas had settled
himself in Havana, and started many wise reforms. Thanks to him, the
future enslavement of the natives was rendered impossible. The
benevolent law, unfortunately, came all too late--the great majority had
already perished. Las Casas built several charitable institutions and
hospitals in various parts of the island, notably at Havana and
Santiago, and obtained for Havana the grant of civic rights, as capital
of the island. For a few years Cuba enjoyed a measure of peace and
prosperity, interrupted by fierce occasional raids by French, Dutch, and
English buccaneers and pirates.
The great Buccaneering period in West Indian history, from the second
quarter of the sixteenth century till the end of the seventeenth, is one
of the most romantic and exciting that can be conceived. This celebrated
association of piratical adventurers maintained itself in the Caribbean
seas for over a century, by dint of audacity, bravery, and shrewdness.
It was organized for a systematic series of reprisals on the Spaniards;
but in the course of time all sense of honour disappeared, and its
members indulged in indiscriminate piracy. Its name, singular to relate,
is derived from the Caribbee word _bucan_, a term for preserved meat,
smoked dry in a peculiar manner. From this the French adventurers formed
the verb _bucaner_ and the noun _bucanier_, which was eventually
adopted, oddly enough, by the English, whereas the French preferred the
word _filibustier_, a possible corruption of our "freebooter," still
used to designate a certain portion of the Cuban rebels. The real motive
for the existence of the buccaneers was the universal detestation in
which Spain was held in the West Indian Archipelago. The Spanish
assumption of a divine right to half of the New World, in accordance
with the grant bestowed on them by Pope Alexander VI., and traced in his
own hand on the famous Borgian map, and the diabolical cruelties
practised by them upon all foreign interlopers who chanced to fall into
their hands, led to an association for mutual defence among all
adventurers of other nations, whom the reports of its fabulous wealth
had attracted to this part of the New World. Their policy was war to the
death against all Spaniards. Their code was of the simplest. They lived
in community: locks and bars were proscribed as an insult to their
honesty. Each buccaneer had his comrade, who stood by him when alive,
and succeeded to his property at his death. Their centre of operations
was the island of Tortuga, near San Domingo, where, when not hunting the
Spaniards or being hunted by them in return, they enjoyed peace of a
kind. Their life was wild and terrible, and their history teems with
cruelty and bloodshed, but the lurid page is lighted here and there by
tales of romantic adventure, chivalrous valour, and brilliant
generalship. Cupid, too, occasionally lent his aid to soften the rugged
asperities of the buccaneer's career. Who has not heard how Peter of
Dieppe fell in love with, and carried off, the daughter of the Governor
of Havana? and of how Van Horn lost his life in saving his daughter's
honour? Pre-eminent amongst such names as L'Olonnais, Michael de Busco,
Bartholomeo de Portuguez, and Mansvelt, stands forth that of Henry
Morgan, the Welshman, who organised fleets and armies, besieged rich
cities, reduced strong fortresses, displayed throughout his long career
an absolute genius for command, was finally knighted by Charles II., and
ended his wild and spirited career as Deputy-Governor of Jamaica, a
somewhat tame conclusion! Had he loved gold less, and power more, he
might have died Emperor of the West Indies, but he was content to retire
into comparative obscurity with his enormous fortune, after having made
the western hemisphere, from Jamaica to Rio, ring with his name and
fame. The buccaneers were then, as we see, a thoroughly well organised
association of sea-banditti, consisting mainly of English, French, and
Dutch adventurers, who harassed the coast of Cuba for over a century,
and finally, with the connivance of their respective Governments, laid
hands on Jamaica, Hayti, and others of the islands. In 1528 they even
ventured to attack Havana, set the town on fire, and reduce it to ashes.
There were no fortifications to repel them then, and the straw and
wooden buildings burnt merrily. When the buccaneers evacuated the ruins,
Hernando de Soto, the future discoverer of the Mississippi, hastened
from Santiago, where he was residing, and set himself to work to rebuild
the city in its present position, and surround it by well-designed and
constructed fortresses. So great was the terror inspired by the
buccaneers, that special laws were enacted in Cuba to protect the
seaports from their predatory attacks. People were ordered to keep
within their doors after certain hours of the night. Every man was
commanded to wear his sword, not only by day, but by night, and it was
death to assist any buccaneer who attempted to escape, after falling
into the hands of the Spaniards. In 1556, Jacob Sores, a famous pirate,
whose much-dreaded name was used by the Cuban women to frighten their
unruly children, again attacked Havana, reduced the fortress, and sacked
the church and city. Terrible stories are told of the outrages and
murders which he committed, and of his hair-breadth escape from being
captured, which he owed to a Spanish lady who had fallen desperately in
love with him. After the departure of Sores and his gang, Havana and the
other growing cities of the island were fortified afresh, so that when
Drake arrived in 1555, he thought twice before attacking the capital,
and sailed away without firing a shot. In 1589 Philip II. built two
castles, the Morro and Los tres Reyes (The Three Kings), designed by
Giovanni Batista Antonelli, an Italian architect in his employ. These
exist to this day, though, of course, greatly modified, especially of
late years, by being adapted to modern purposes of warfare. Havana now
had become too strong for the buccaneers, and although they frequently
threatened it, they dared not venture near enough to do much harm. The
town repulsed the persistent attack of the Dutch Admiral, Jolls, who
menaced it from August to September 1628.
During the seventeenth century, Havana and the other large towns of Cuba
were greatly extended, surrounded by walls (portions of which, as well
as the picturesque old gates, were recently standing), and soon became
renowned throughout the West Indies for their wealth and luxury. The
long series of Spanish Governors, or Captains-General, as they were and
are still called, made a point of importing splendid equipages, plate,
china, and even pictures by the great Spanish masters. When His
Excellency went abroad, it was in a gilded coach, not unlike that of our
Lord Mayor, drawn by twelve mules, caparisoned in yellow, red, and
gold, the national colours of the kingdom. A host of slaves of every
tint, wearing gorgeous liveries, followed, some on horseback, others
running by the side of the sumptuous vehicle. Trumpeters preceded, and
men in armour closed the procession. His Excellency's consort, who had
to enact the part of Vice-Queen, was instructed, before leaving Madrid,
in all the formidable etiquette of the Spanish court. Those members of
noble Spanish families who had established themselves, at an early
period, in the colony, continued to bear their titles, and formed an
aristocracy which held aloof from the untitled planters, and attended
the court of the Governor with all the state it could possibly assume.
These magnates, likewise, went abroad in gilded coaches, drawn by four,
six, and even eight richly caparisoned mules, and had their trains of
gaily liveried slaves. Horses were at one time scarce in the island, but
before the end of the seventeenth century they were numerous enough, and
the volante, a picturesque carriage, evidently a modification of a
similar vehicle then in use in the Peninsula, made its first appearance.
Another feature of those days, which has long since disappeared, was the
state barges which served to convey the rich and highly-born across the
harbour, and which, if I may rely on a contemporary engraving now before
me, were richly carved and gilded, and rowed by as many as twenty
oarsmen in gaudy costumes. In another print, dated 1670, representing
the market-place at Havana, a number of ladies are seen wearing the old
Spanish costume, farthingale and mantilla _au grand complet_, as we see
them in the pictures of Velasquez, and attended by slaves carrying
China silk parasols with deep fringes, to shield their mistresses from
the sun. In one corner a slave is being sold, while in another a sacred
image is carried in procession by a number of friars. Half-naked negroes
are running about hawking bananas, oranges, and pineapples. To the left
of the market-place is a church, now no longer in existence, which must,
I presume, have been that of San Domingo, annexed to which were the
prisons of the Holy Office, which undesirable institution was
established early in the 16th century, soon after the foundation of the
colony. It worked in Cuba with as much fierce cruelty as in all the
other Spanish dominions, and _autos da fA(C)_ of heretics and heathens were
a frequent form of entertainment. Early, too, in the 17th century, a
good-sized theatre, where the plays of Calderon and Lope de Vaga were
doubtless performed, was opened in Havana. In Holy Week, _autos_, or
sacred dramas, were given in the open, "weather permitting." In a word,
Havanese life, in those far-off times, was a reflection of life in Spain
as it has been depicted by Cervantes and Lesage, and the Countess
d'Aulnoy.
Very soon after the Conquest, the Church obtained large grants of
valuable property, and down to the first quarter of the present century
a good fifth of the island was Church property. Most of the great
religious orders were represented--including the Benedictines and the
Carthusians. The Franciscan and Dominican friars had a number of
priories in various parts of the island, and were much esteemed by the
people, whom they steadily befriended. To their credit, be it recorded,
the Dominican friars occupied themselves a great deal with the condition
of the slaves, obtained the freedom of many, and redressed the wrongs of
thousands. The Jesuits made their first appearance very soon after the
creation of their celebrated order. They established themselves in
Havana, Santiago, Matanzas, and Puerto Principe, where they opened
Colleges for the education of the sons of the upper classes. There were
also many nunneries, peopled generally by sisters from Europe, who
educated the daughters of the wealthy, and gave primary instruction to
the children of the people. As is usually the case in Catholic
countries, numbers of churches were built, some of them of considerable
architectural pretensions, in the well-known Hispano-American style, of
which many excellent examples are still extant, not only in Havana, but
throughout the whole of South America. Some of the more popular shrines,
like that of Neustra SeA+-ora de Cobre, the Lourdes of Cuba, were, and are
still, rich in _ex votos_, in gold, silver, and even jewels.
The Holy Week ceremonies still remain rather crude reproductions of
those which annually attract so many hundreds of visitors to Seville.
But notwithstanding the existence of many learned and estimable prelates
and priests, the general character of the clergy in Cuba has been
indifferent, and I am afraid the Cubans have ever held the gorgeous
ceremonies of their Church in greater affection than her moral
teachings.
Up till 1788, the Cuban Church was ruled by a single bishop, but in
that year it was divided into two dioceses, each covering about one half
of the island. In 1804, Santiago, the eastern diocese, was raised to the
dignity of an archbishopric. The other, which contains the city of
Havana, still remains a bishopric.
The European revolutions of the end of the last and the beginning of the
present centuries had their effect on Cuba, and a great number of
monasteries and convents were closed, their inmates scattered, and their
property confiscated.
Unfortunately, the Inquisition, which had been implanted at an early
period everywhere in the Spanish colonies, with the object of compelling
the aborigines and the imported slaves to embrace Catholicism, was used
as a means of overawing refractory colonists, who were soon made aware
that either open or covert disapprobation of the proceedings of their
rulers was the most deadly of all heresies. From the middle of the 17th
century until the close of the 18th, the annals of the Havanese
Inquisition contain endless charges of heresy against native-born
Spaniards--charges which were in reality merely expressions of political
displeasure, and had nothing whatever to do with religion.
The palace of the Holy Office and its prisons, which stood close to the
Church of San Domingo, were destroyed many years ago, and are now
replaced by the old market-place of Cristina, once the scene of an
unusual number of _autos da fA(C)_--a favourite form of religious
entertainment in South America, it would appear, for in a curious old
book, dated 1683, which I picked up in Havana for a few pence, the
author complains of the dull times, "nobody, not even a negro, having
been burnt alive for nearly six months." A Havanese _auto da fA(C)_, in the
palmy days of Spanish supremacy, must have been quite a pretty sight,
including, as it did, an allegorical procession to the place of
execution, with children dressed in white as angels, and little nigger
boys as devils, tails and horns complete, dancing before the condemned,
who, of course, wore the traditional _san benito_, a sort of high mitre
and shirt, embellished with demoniacal representations of Satan and his
imps, capering amid flames and forked lightning. Then came the Governor
and his court, the civil and military officials, the clergy, the monks,
and the friars singing the seven penitential psalms--in a word,
everything "_muy grandiose y espectacolos_."
The early years of the 18th century were exceedingly prosperous for
Cuba. The buccaneers and pirates had almost entirely ceased from
troubling. The sugar trade was at its zenith, and although the Spanish
administration was vile, the governors rapacious, and the taxation
preposterous, colossal fortunes were made by the Cuban planters, and the
name of the island was synonymous with the idea of wealth and riotous
living. The Havanese carnival was almost as brilliant in its way as that
of Venice, and public and private gambling was tolerated on a scale
which attracted adventurers from all parts of the southern hemisphere.
Those were halcyon days, disturbed in 1762 by the rather unexpected
appearance, in the port of Havana, of an English war squadron of 32
sail, with 170 transports, bearing a considerable body of troops under
the command of his Grace of Albemarle and Sir George Picknell. This
formidable armament, altogether the largest America had yet seen, laid
siege to the city, which surrendered after an heroic defence of two
months' duration. The British troops were landed and marched on
Guanacaboa, from the heights of which place they fired down upon Morro
Castle and the city proper. The Spaniards made a fatal mistake--blocking
up the harbour by sinking two vessels at its mouth. This they did to
exclude the English and prevent the destruction of the Spanish fleet.
But though they did shut out the English they also imprisoned
themselves, and the enemy, seeing it was impossible for the Dons to
escape, even if they would, directed their whole attention to their land
attack. After a gallant struggle, the Spaniards, who numbered some
27,600 men, surrendered, and were permitted to march out of the city
with the honours of war, the spoil divided by the British amounting to
AL736,000. The English troops next took Matanzas, and remained in
possession of this portion of the island of Cuba for nine months, when,
by the Treaty of Paris, it was restored to Spain, in exchange for
Florida. During the British occupation the trade of the country was
greatly improved by the importation of slaves from other British
possessions and by the newcomers' superior knowledge of agriculture; so
that the invasion proved, on the whole, a distinct benefit to the
country, opening out a new era of prosperity for the Spaniards and
other colonists. It has been said, indeed, that the real prosperity of
the islands dates from our occupation, which ended July 18, 1763.
About 1765 there was a remarkable emigration of Frenchmen, partly from
Martinique and partly from the mother-country into Cuba. The new
colonists brought improved agricultural implements, and not a few of
them opened shops in the chief cities, and did a large trade in French
goods. Some French missionaries also arrived about the same time. These
were mostly Jesuits, who, when they had acquired the language, began to
preach practical sermons, which were greatly relished by the
inhabitants. The French introduced apiculture, a branch of industry
which has flourished ever since, and which has enabled the Cubans to
supply the neighbouring islands with wax candles at a much cheaper rate
than those hitherto imported from Europe. It is curious to notice, in
some of the old log-books still preserved, the numerous entries as to
the importation of wax candles made at Havana, to Jamaica, Trinidad, and
Nassau. In the log-book of the ship "Royal George," which was in the
harbour of Havana on 16th June 1810, I find this entry--"Sent two men
over to the town to purchase wax candles, which are very well made in
this city, and also 20 bars of French bees-wax, and some soap for
friends of mine in the Bahamas."
In 1763, France having ceded Luisiana to Spain, Don Antonio Alloa sailed
for New Orleans, to take possession in the name of Their Catholic
Majesties. He was so ill received as to be obliged to return forthwith
to Havana, where Marshall O'Reilly, an exile of Irish origin, organized
an expedition to Luisiana, and seized the capital, which, however, was
not held for very long.
A very interesting incident took place in 1776. The United States were
struggling for their independence, when their first embassy, headed by
the famous Benjamin Franklin, arrived in Paris in the spring of that
year, and solicited authorization from Louis XVI. to proceed to Madrid,
to implore Don Carlos III. to grant them the aid and protection of
Spain. Two members of the embassy, Messrs Arthur and Charles Lee, were
allowed to present themselves at court, and the king accorded them a
most gracious reception, and cordially promised them his support. His
Majesty permitted Mr John Jay, a prominent representative of the
American Congress, to remain in Madrid to continue negotiations, which
resulted in Spain's affording the Americans truly practical assistance
in the shape of money and men, the Spanish Minister for the Interior,
Conde de Florida-Blanca, making them several grants of money out of the
treasury. Permission was also given them to raise a corps of Spanish
volunteers, who proceeded to Cuba, where they were reinforced by Cubans,
and embarked thence for the States. These services were rewarded by the
Americans with expressions of unbounded gratitude. "The people of
America can never forget the immense benefit they have received from
King Carlos III.," said Washington, and a few years later, in 1780, a
messenger was sent from Congress to the Spanish King, carrying with him
an illuminated address of thanks and a new bill for AL100,000, which
they begged him to accept, "in the name of an everlastingly grateful
people." But even in those days there were doubts cast upon the "lasting
gratitude" of the American people. The Conde d'Aranda, the Ambassador at
Paris, wrote a letter to Florida-Blanca containing these significant
words:--"This American Republic was born a dwarf, but one day she will
become a giant. She will then forget the blessings she received from
France and Spain, and only think of her own aggrandisement."
The administration of Don Luis Las Casas, who arrived as Captain-General
in 1790, was one of the most brilliant epochs of Cuban history. With
indefatigable industry he promoted a number of public works of the first
importance, introduced the culture of indigo, extended the commercial
importance of the island by removing, as far as his authority permitted,
the trammels imposed upon it by the old system of ecclesiastical and
aristocratic privileges, and has left a glorious name in the long list
of Captains-General, only equalled by that of Tacon in our own century.
The great French Revolution produced a prodigious impression throughout
the whole of the West Indies. In many of the neighbouring islands,
especially in Jamaica and San Domingo, the negroes revolted, and the
action of Toussaint L'Ouverture, who had started as a Royalist, but who,
on the emancipation of the slaves in 1794, went over to the Republic,
was a subject of common talk in Havana, where the Spaniards had great
difficulty in suppressing a popular rising on the part of the Cubans,
who were already heartily disgusted with their maladministration. On
many of the plantations the more intelligent negroes, discovering that a
decree for the emancipation of slavery had been passed in the French
colonies, clamoured in vain for a like act of grace from the Spanish
Government, and finally rebelled, escaping into the woods, where they
formed themselves into bands, which soon became a dangerous nuisance,
and were ruthlessly suppressed by the cruel methods which have ever
characterised Spanish rule. Throughout the last quarter of the 18th
century the Cubans, as distinguished from the Spanish, manifested a
strong desire to free themselves from the oppression of the
mother-country, and not a few ardent spirits were made to feel the power
of the Holy Office, their patriotism being skilfully interpreted as
heresy, and punished accordingly. I think I am correct in considering
the year 1766 as the date of the commencement of the Cuban Independence
movement, which has lately culminated in a breach of the prolonged peace
of two continents. But this is a subject which will require another
chapter, and this brief history of Cuba must close, for the present, on
the threshold of the century which has only two more years to run--years
destined, in all probability, to witness the opening of a new era, one,
let us hope, of peace and prosperity for the Pearl of the Antilles.
CHAPTER IV.
THE BEGINNINGS OF THE REBELLION.
The difficulties of governing a colony blessed with so heterogeneous a
population as Cuba, are, as may well be conceived, great and manifold.
The ordinary newspaper reader is apt to conclude that his favourite
daily fully instructs him as to the Hispano-Cuban question, and takes
the Spaniards for a set of damnable inquisitors, who harry, torture, and
starve the angelic Cubans out of sheer devilry, precisely as the unlucky
Abd'ul' Hamid is supposed to have given his personal supervision to the
Armenian massacres. The Cuban business, like all other great political
and social questions, is a very complex one, and, in order to gain even
a general idea of its intricacies, some knowledge of its origin must be
obtained.
Spain's greatest mistake has been the persistent obstinacy with which
she has attempted to govern her colonies by the sword and the crozier--a
combination of military and ecclesiastical methods which, successful as
it may have been in the earlier periods of her history, has proved
ominously fatal in our times, and especially so in Cuba, where, since
the end of the last century, education has made considerable strides,
and the better class of colonists have watched, with rising enthusiasm,
the great revolutionary wave which has swept over Europe and America
alike.
The youth of Cuba entered heartily into the spirit of the times. Yet,
when the Great Revolution affected Spain, and spread to her colonies,
which, for the most part, rose in open rebellion against her, Cuba
remained faithful to the mother country,--in spite of her keen sympathy,
expressed and actively testified, for the United States in their late
struggle for independence. At the same time, Cubans were beginning to
realise the fact that they themselves were none too well governed; and
indeed for over a century and a half the Spanish islanders had been
chafing against official exactions, and against the obsolete form of
government established in the island. The famous colonial code, _Las
leyes de Indias_, already mentioned, was still in force, and unmodified,
as yet, to suit the exigencies of a newer civilization. In 1766 there
had been a distinct movement against the then Captain-General,--so the
Governor of the island was called,--who had taken upon himself to levy a
tax on all slaves imported, which tax he was accused of applying to his
own benefit. Then came the incident in the reign of Charles III., when
Spain afforded active assistance to the American insurgents, and a
number of Spanish and Cuban volunteers started from Havana, where they
had assembled, to join the rebellion against Great Britain. The words
"freedom and independence" were thus early rendered familiar to Cuban
ears. A little later, following the example of the great Anglo-Saxon
colony of the North, all the Spanish settlements in South America broke
into open revolt, and clamoured for their liberty. The name of Bolivar
was soon to set men's pulses beating under the Southern Cross, even as
that of Washington had lately stirred all hearts in the Northern
Hemisphere. The Spanish empire in the New World was tottering to its
fall. One by one Spain's colonies were torn from her feeble grasp. The
long-drawn revolution in Mexico, which, after fermenting for nearly half
a century, tossed the unhappy country to and fro from 1810 to 1824, had
a definite effect on the destiny of Cuba, which for over three centuries
had been partially dependent on the government of that once opulent
colony.
In a Catholic country, when priestly influence becomes apparently
paramount, it is frequently opposed by an under-current of surreptitious
free-thought. This condition of things began, in the case of Cuba, quite
early in the present century. A number of secret societies were then
formed, the majority of them affiliated to the great Masonic
Brotherhood, which has worked so mightily to undermine Spanish dominion
in the Southern Americas. For the Cuban lodges, like those of Italy and
France, have always occupied themselves with the religious and political
questions so rigorously avoided by English Masons. Their influence has
always been opposed to that of the clergy, and therefore to that of a
Government which has ever encouraged the interference of the Church in
temporal matters. For many years, Cuba has been covered by a network of
mysterious revolutionary associations, such as the _Rationales
Caballeros_, _Soles de Bolivar_, _Aguila Nigra_, and a host of others,
too numerous to mention. But these, for a considerable time, showed no
prominent activity--a circumstance accounted for by a sudden change in
the fortunes of the island. I have said that, until 1800, Cuba had been
dependent upon the Vice-royalty of Mexico, which was bound to pay all
the expenses of the maintenance of her public institutions, ports, and
roads. As the Spanish power in Mexico declined, the island, as may be
imagined, suffered; her ports soon fell into a deplorable condition,
and, owing to absolute monopolies imposed upon her trade,--held partly
by the Mexican Government, and partly by a chartered company established
at Seville,--the visits of merchantmen to her harbours grew few and far
between. The Revolution, which set a Bonaparte on the Spanish throne,
temporarily removed this incubus, and in 1805 the Cuban ports were
thrown open to general commerce, with the result that, whereas in 1804
less than a dozen ships, all belonging to the Seville company, passed
the Morro Castle at Havana, in 1806 over a thousand vessels from all
parts of the world cast anchor in the harbour. And further, the French
emigrants who had fled, twenty years earlier, from the San Domingo
massacres, had persuaded their Cuban hosts to devote their attention to
the sugar trade. Cane planting had for some years increased, in all
directions, and so rapidly, that travellers declared they scarcely
recognised the country, once so beautiful with its scores of dainty
green coffee plantations,--so exquisitely lovely when the star-like
blossoms scent the air,--now replaced by far-stretching acres of
unsightly cane. Be this as it may, sugar and tobacco were soon grown in
great abundance, and Cuba, with her ports freed from all the mediaeval
trammels which had hitherto shackled her commercial capacities, was soon
able to supply more than half the total amount of sugar then consumed in
Europe. This commerce resulted in an era of exceptional prosperity,
which lasted until 1825. Meanwhile the Cubans proved their passionate
affection for their mother country by refusing to acknowledge the
Napoleonic supremacy, and even by openly joining the enemies of their
deposed sovereigns. Every member of the Cuban National Assembly took the
oath to preserve his country for his former king. Such ardent patriotism
won the island the proud title of "Cuba la sempre Fiel!"--"Cuba the ever
Faithful."
The restoration of the Spanish monarchy, in 1814, was hailed with the
utmost enthusiasm by the colonists. Nevertheless, even at this time,
feuds between the Spaniards and the Cubans were frequent, the latter
lampooning the former as Godas or Goths; and it is even said that when
the Spanish ladies wore their hair long, the Cuban Sen[=o]ras cropped
theirs short--whence the name of pelonas (croppies) given them by their
rivals to this day. Well would it have been for Spain had she availed
herself of this outburst of loyalty in the richest corner still left to
her of her once prodigious empire! But insensate counsels prevailed, and
the mother country, by her ruthless abuse of Cuban confidence, gave
fresh and lamentable proof of her incapacity for colonial government.
It must be admitted that, whether at home or abroad, the Spaniards have
never been an easily governed people. The renowned Guicciardini,
Florentine ambassador to Ferdinand the Catholic, reports a very
interesting conversation with that monarch concerning his subjects.
"Ah!" said the father of our Katherine of Aragon, "the Spaniards were
ever essentially a nation of warriors, and also most undisciplined!
Everybody wants to be at the top of the tree, and nobody consents to
obey. The soldiers are better than their officers. Every Spaniard knows
how to fight, but none knows how to command either himself, or others."
Whereupon the Florentine historian adds, by way of rider--"This, in all
probability, is because discord is natural to the Spaniards,--an
illustrious, but arrogant, irritable, and turbulent, though generous,
race!"
If they were unmanageable in the days of their grandeur, when they had
all the wealth of the Indies at command, we may easily conceive what
they must be now, when they have fallen from the position of the
richest, to that of the poorest, nation in Europe.
The Cubans, the descendants of Spaniards, have inherited the Spanish
tendency to anarchy. When the army in Spain--as was of almost yearly
occurrence, earlier in this present century--made a Pronunciamento,
their Cuban brethren forthwith raised an insurrection, on some pretext
or another, of their own; and, as M. Charles Benoit says in his deeply
interesting work, _L'Espagne, Cuba, et les Etats-Unis_, "this natural
tendency on the part of the Spanish population in Cuba has been, if
anything, augmented by the influx of emigrants from all parts of the
world, who have brought with them all kinds of ideas and theories on the
subjects of morals and politics, and have thereby rendered the existing
confusion tenfold greater than in the good old times, when there were
only Cubans--that is to say, Spanish and negroes--on the island, and
everybody thought more or less alike." For all this, deep in his heart
the Cuban retains an intense love of the mother country,--a passionate
affection, indeed, which, should the Americans be victorious in the
present war, may eventually cause them considerable trouble.
In spite of the high sounding but empty title of "Faithful Cuba,"
bestowed on her generous island sons, Spain subtly reverted to her old
methods, and used their country as a sort of conquered El Dorado, the
quickly developed resources of which she was determined to turn to her
selfish account, regardless of possible consequences. The Cubans,
however, who had learnt many things since the opening of the century,
soon showed a distinct disinclination to submit to this process. The era
of prosperity already alluded to had attracted numbers of emigrants to
the island, from every quarter of the world,--more especially from the
United States; and constant contact with different races and varied
religions, added to the influence of the secret societies previously
mentioned (which had by this time become both wealthy and flourishing),
soon made their impression upon the better educated and more intelligent
classes, and therefore upon the masses, who, losing that extreme respect
for religious authority, ordinarily so characteristic of the Spanish
race, learnt to despise a feeble Government, which openly used its
clergy for its own ends and purposes.
Fortunately for Spain, and also for her Cuban subjects, the island was
administered, during the early years of the nineteenth century, by
Tacon, a man of exceptional ability and energy, who recognised the
immense capabilities of the country, and did his utmost to develop them.
He passed many laws of a beneficent and useful nature, and, in a word,
covered himself with honour, his name being even yet synonymous,
throughout the island, with ideas of justice and good government. Even
in his days some feeble attempts at insurrection were made, and a
certain Lorenzo placed himself at the head of some 3000 rebels, mostly
escaped negroes. Tacon had not much difficulty in routing him and his
ill-disciplined troops. The Havana of that period was by no means a safe
place of residence. It had become the gambling hell of the Americas, and
it was dangerous to walk its darksome streets at night, without a
considerable escort. Tacon availed himself of the opportunity created by
the great fire of 1802 (April 25-26) to rebuild the quarter of the city
then destroyed in a more regular style, and prohibited the future
erection of wooden houses, as dangerous to the public safety. He lighted
the city, suppressed the gambling saloons, prohibited the national game
of _Monte_, and established a well-organized police force and a fire
department. To sum it up, he proved, even in those far-off times, that
under a firm hand and common-sense administration, Cuba can be as well
and as easily governed as any other country under the sun. The great
Governor was guilty, however, of one dark deed: he encouraged the slave
trade. Hands were needed all over the Colony, on account of the
marvellous impetus which had been given to the sugar industries, and the
unfortunate Africans were used, so to speak, to pay the piper. In less
than ten years, over a hundred thousand negroes were imported into Cuba;
and as the masters never seriously attempted to civilize their field
hands, the present descendants of these slaves have added not a little
to the general anarchy now existing in the troubled island.
In 1812, the Cubans, still faithful to Spain, notwithstanding her many
sins of omission and commission, assisted in putting down a revolt among
the slaves in the neighbourhood of Bayamo, captured Aponte, the rebel
chief, and hanged him, together with eight of his associates. Hundreds
of negroes were massacred, or else driven into the forest, to die of
want.
The era of prosperity, which for nearly a quarter of a century, staved
off open revolt, began to decline between 1822 to 1837. The United
States had consolidated, and their increasing trade interfered
considerably with that of the whole West Indian Archipelago. Spain,
meanwhile, had gradually settled back into her old mediaeval
ways--enlivened by palace scandals and military _Pronunciamentos_. The
series of governors who succeeded Tacon were, with but few exceptions, a
worthless set, and the crowd of minor officials who accompanied them
were mere leeches, whose sole object was to seize every possible
opportunity, legitimate or illegitimate, for lining their own pockets.
Ridiculous taxes, unreasonable dues and fees, were invented and imposed.
When the unfortunate Cubans raised an outcry against this wholesale
robbery, they were treated as rebels, and not a few,--chiefly members of
the various secret societies,--were arrested and imprisoned, and even
executed, without trial.[9]
In 1835 the Cubans claimed to have their interests represented in the
National Cortes by native members. The request was treated with a
contempt that will never be forgotten nor forgiven. From that day, a
feeling of bitter hatred and distrust has utterly severed the Cuban
population from its Spanish brethren. Ties of blood have been torn
asunder, and the sad truth that a family feud exceeds all others in
bitterness, has received fresh and inevitable confirmation. The earlier
insurrections of the century were invariably accompanied by the same
cruel reprisals on both sides. But they brought about no permanent
improvement in the condition of the people. Spain continued her obsolete
and selfish policy; Cuba never ceased to rebel.
The revolutionary period of 1848 did not, as may well be imagined, pass
without leaving its mark on the island. Strange as it may seem, the
starting point of the fresh series of rebellions was the pretty
Filarmonia Theatre, at Santiago de Cuba, where, some forty years ago,
the fascinating Adelina Patti made her dA(C)but. In the winter of 1850
General Lopez led a filibustering expedition from the United States,
with the object of seizing Cuba, and proclaiming her independence. That
his attempt was favoured, and even financially assisted, by many
Americans, is an undoubted fact; but, unfortunately for its promoters,
it was a signal failure. A number of hot-headed young men,--some of them
belonging to the best families in the island--suspected of favouring
Lopez and his companions, were arrested, and several were shot, without
form of trial. As may well be imagined, the impression produced in the
ancient capital of the Eastern Province, and indeed throughout the
island, by this violent action on the part of the Spanish authorities,
was profound, and the feeling soon reached such a pitch that no
native-born Cuban would be seen speaking to a Spaniard. The Carnival
gaieties were suspended, and the city was thrown into deep mourning.
The Spaniards, resolved to mark their contempt for the islanders, gave
a ball at the Filarmonia. Groups of young Cubans forced their way
through the terrified dancers, and proceeded to insult and disfigure a
portrait of Queen Isabella II. The confusion was terrible, and many
ladies were severely hurt. Yet the incident was allowed to pass without
any attempt being made to discover and punish the offenders, who,
by-the-way, were masked. A few weeks afterwards, a Cuban lady of high
rank and great wealth, hoping to cast oil on troubled waters, hired the
same hall, and sent out invitations for a _tertullia_, to which she bade
representatives of both the belligerent parties. The consequences were
ghastly. The Spanish officers and the Cuban _jeunesse dorA(C)e_ found
themselves, suddenly and unexpectedly, face to face. An unlucky jest, at
the expense of an old Spanish officer, fired the mine, and in a moment
the ball-room was in an uproar, and the scene of gaiety changed to one
of combat. Ladies fainted, and were trampled under foot, chandeliers
fell smashing to the ground, and the most awful and horrible confusion
ensued. Five or six people were killed--amongst them a Spanish lady of
distinction--and nearly a hundred persons were seriously hurt. As to the
luckless hostess, she betook herself to Europe at the earliest possible
opportunity, and there remained; but from that day to this the incidents
at the Filarmonia Ball have never been forgotten in Cuba. Some of the
young brawlers were arrested, and certain of them,--youths belonging to
the richest families in the city,--were imprisoned in the Morro Castle,
and thence transported to Ceuta, the Spanish penal station in Morocco,
whence they never returned.
For some years after this gloomy event, Cuba went from bad to worse, _de
mal em peyor_. But it would be useless, and, indeed, merely confusing,
at this date, to enter into the details of what is, after all, merely
the local history of a bye-gone time. The weak Government of Queen
Isabella, which lacked even the faintest sense of providence, continued
to exploit Cuba in every possible manner, and to send out needy
generals, and pauper nobles, to act as Governors. In the meantime, as it
may be interesting, at this juncture, to recall, the United States had
already cast longing eyes on the fair Queen of the Antilles. An almost
forgotten episode of this period was brought to light, but the other
day, in the pages of the _Fortnightly Review_. In a most interesting
article, Mme. Colmache, the venerable and distinguished widow of
Talleyrand's last secretary, gives a terse and singularly interesting
account of an intrigue, all the details of which are in her personal
recollection. It seems that fifty years ago, Louis Philippe, seized with
a desire for territorial aggrandisement, took advantage of Spain's
poverty to make overtures for the purchase, not only of Cuba, but of
Puerto Rico and the Philippines. As a matter of fact, the deal would
have been actually concluded, but for the French monarch's parsimony.
Queen Christina's representative in Paris, SeA+-or Campanuzo, was
instructed to ask 30,000,000 reals for Cuba, and 10,000,000 for Puerto
Rico and the Philippines. The terms for the purchase of Cuba and Puerto
Rico having been agreed, the treaty was to have been signed at the
Tuileries. But at the last moment, the Bourgeois King demanded that the
Philippines should be thrown in free; and so firmly did he insist, that
the Spanish representative could only declare that the treaty had better
be thrown into the fire. This course was actually pursued.
Twenty years later another offer for the purchase of Cuba, and a far
more offensive one, was made by the United States. In the year 1860,
President Buchanan greatly alarmed the Spanish Government, by a message
as threatening in its nature as that recently despatched by President
M'Kinley to the advisers of Queen Christina, at Madrid. Its purport may
be expressed as follows, although, to be sure, the matter was not quite
so plainly couched, but the inference could not be misunderstood.
"Circumstances and destiny absolutely require that the United States
should be masters of the island of Cuba. That we should take it by
filibustering or violence is not in accordance with our national genius.
It will suit our character and honesty much better to obtain it by
purchase. Let us therefore offer a fair price for it. If that fair
price[10] shall be refused, we, of course, shall have a _casus belli_.
Spain will have injured us, and we may declare war. Under these
circumstances, we should probably obtain the place without purchase, but
we will hope for better things."
This domineering proposal to annex Cuba by purchase was indignantly
refused at Madrid; but Mr Anthony Trollope, who happened to be in the
island at the time the proposition was made, tells us it elicited the
greatest possible enthusiasm there. "The plea," he writes, "under which
Mr Buchanan proposes to quarrel with Spain, if she will not sell that
which America wishes to buy, is the plea under which Ahab quarrelled
with Naboth. A man is individually disgusted that a President of the
United States should have made such an utterance. But looking at the
question from a broader point of view, one can hardly refrain from
rejoicing at any event which will tend to bring about that which in
itself is so desirable." After all, California had been purchased from
Spain by the United States, and Texas had been annexed by filibustering
incursions. There can be no question that both these States, though
peopled by Spaniards, precisely as Cuba was, had flourished exceedingly
under the star-spangled banner. Mr Trollope gives us a picture of the
public mind in Cuba in 1860, which convinces us the local opinion has
undergone very little change since his day. That which he wrote
thirty-eight years ago reads exactly as if it had been penned yesterday.
He says--"From such information as I could obtain, I am of opinion that
the Cubans themselves would be glad enough to see the transfer well
effected. How, indeed, can it be otherwise? At present they have no
national privilege, except that of undergoing taxation. Every office is
held by a Spaniard. Every soldier in the island--and they say there are
25,000--must be a Spaniard. The ships of war are commanded and manned by
Spaniards. All that is shown before their eyes of brilliance, and
power, and high place, is purely Spanish. No Cuban has any voice in his
own country. He can never have the consolation of thinking that his
tyrant is his countryman, or reflect that, under altered circumstances,
it might possibly have been his fortune to tyrannize. What love can he
have for Spain? He cannot even have the poor pride of being slave to a
great lord. He is the lackey of a reduced gentleman, and lives on the
vails of those who despise his manners. Of course the transfer would be
grateful to him."
"But no Cuban will himself do anything to bring it about. To wish is one
thing, to act is another. A man standing behind his counter may feel
that his hand is restricted on every side, and his taxes alone
unrestricted, but he must have other than Hispano-Creole blood in his
veins if he do more than stand and feel. Indeed, wishing is too strong a
word to be fairly applicable to his state of mind. He would gladly
consent that Cuba should be American, but he would prefer that he
himself should lie in a dormant state while the dangerous transfer is
going on."
The United States, whose hands were soon busied by the outbreak of their
own Civil War, dropped the Cuban proposal, and the whole question
remained in abeyance for some considerable time. Meanwhile matters had
reached an unendurable pitch. It was almost impossible for a Cuban to
obtain justice, and the Governor and his Spanish satellites continued
their systematic methods of bribery and corruption. Yet money was
plentiful in the island, where the commercial class had been immensely
swelled by numerous American and English fortune-hunters, who had
purchased large estates from impoverished Cubans, and had started sugar
and tobacco-growing on an improved system in various parts of the
island. In 1865, the Cubans, driven to despair by the vexatious
treatment of their rulers, addressed a petition to Queen Isabella II.,
which bore not less than 20,000 signatures, and implored Her Majesty to
consider the pitiable condition into which Spain's most splendid
possession had fallen, and to send out a Commission to inquire into the
abuses which rendered their lives unendurable, and prevented them from
earning an honest living for themselves and their children. Not the
least of these abuses were capricious and questionable management of the
Banca Espan[=o]l, the only bank in the island. In answer to this
petition, the Junta created a body of twenty-two Cuban commissioners and
twenty-two Spanish, which original number, however, was unjustly
increased by the admission of a perfect army of Spanish nobles and
officials. The Cuban members, thus left in a minority, were not very
hopeful of obtaining much benefit from the Commission. They made a
sensible proposal for the gradual diminution of the taxes, especially
those connected with the export trade, and submitted a plan for the
gradual emancipation of the slaves. One of their principal schemes for
diminishing taxation,--by the substitution of a direct tax on the total
revenue, instead of the existing vexatious system of indefinite and
capricious taxes on the export and import trades,--was rejected, or
rather it was turned against their real interests. The Custom House
duties were cunningly diminished, and the tax on the total revenue of
the island raised from five to ten per cent,--a clear case of robbing
Peter to pay Paul, which exasperated the island population beyond
measure. The arrangement of the question of the abolition of negro
slavery was also eminently unsatisfactory. A decree provided that
newly-born slave children should be considered free, and that all slaves
over fifty years of age should be immediately emancipated. I have
elsewhere pointed out the unfortunate results of this system. The slave
trade continued in Cuba up till 1886, and during that time,
notwithstanding all the treaties signed between England and Spain,
several hundred thousand African negroes are said to have been imported
into Cuba, and sold with the connivance of the officials, who levied a
private tax of a gold doubloon, or about AL3, on every woolly head so
purchased. To quote Mr Trollope once more--"The bribery and corruption
that goes on in Cuba is known to everyone, and best known to the
Government of Spain. Under these circumstances, who can feel sympathy
with Spain, or wish that she should retain her colonies? Does she not
daily show she is unfit to hold them? There must be some stage in
misgovernment which will justify the interference of bystanding nations,
in the name of humanity. That rule in life which forbids a man to come
between a husband and wife is a good rule. But, nevertheless, who can
stand by quiescent, and see a brute half murder the poor woman whom he
should protect?"
At last the insurrection broke out in earnest at Yara, in the Eastern
District. A number of determined men, assisted, undoubtedly, by the
secret societies to which I have drawn attention in an earlier part of
this chapter, commenced a systematic propagation of the theory that
unless force were used, and the assistance of the United States and of
the already emancipated States of South America secured, there was no
chance of justice for Cuba. At the head of the movement was a man of
very remarkable character, Carlos Manuel Cespedes. He was no penniless
adventurer, but a Cuban gentleman of large means,--one of the wealthiest
planters in the island. He was not at first inclined to sever the island
from the mother-country, for he was, by nature, essentially loyal. Even
before embarking upon his undertaking he warned the Spanish Government
of his intention, and of the danger it ran by persisting in its old
methods. A sincere Catholic, he refused to join in any of the overt
anti-religious propaganda then so greatly in vogue among revolutionists.
He desired to remain on friendly terms with the clergy of the island,
but at the same time he hoped that, under a more liberal form of
government, the Cuban clergy would administer the Catholic Church in the
same progressive spirit which has made her so respected and powerful in
the United States. To these fine qualities of heart and head Cespedes
added the advantages of a noble presence and of an extraordinary
oratorical talent.
In the beginning of 1865--the year of the petition to Queen
Isabella,--Cespedes' plans were nearly matured, but for various reasons
he did not intend the rebellion should break out before the autumn
season. Unfortunately, the individual to whom the funds destined for the
insurrection had been entrusted made off with the money, and betrayed
the secrets of the organization to the Spaniards on condition that he
was allowed to keep his booty. This act of treachery forced Cespedes'
hand, and he was obliged to move earlier than he had originally
intended. He found himself, not only without funds, but without arms.
When his troops inquired what weapons they were to use in the coming
struggle, he replied, with something of the spirit of an ancient Roman:
"With those of our enemies" ("_Con las de nos enemigos_.") The few guns
in his possession were distributed among his followers, and he, with his
band of some 500 men of all degrees and, indeed, of all colours, started
for Puerto de Buniatos, in the vicinity of Santiago. On the way they
seized all the fire-arms they could find in every plantation they came
across. For two months they remained encamped outside the city walls
without being attacked by the handful of Spanish troops which composed
the garrison. As a matter of fact, there were exceedingly few Spanish
troops in Cuba at that moment--barely enough to keep order in the
island. At the end of December, however, 30,000 troops were landed, and
presently augmented by a body of volunteers collected from various parts
of the island, among them a number of Catalan Cubans, who shortly proved
themselves absolute savages. A number of Spanish warships also arrived
in the ports of Havana and Santiago. Orders were sent from Madrid to use
the sternest measures for the immediate suppression of the
insurrection. The first step taken in this direction was the burning of
the vast plantation owned by Cespedes himself. This was the signal for a
series of massacres and reprisals all over the island. As if by magic,
the absentee Spanish grandees' great plantations were set ablaze. Then
the Spaniards fired the Cuban plantations, and in a few weeks a quarter
of the island lay in ashes, and thousands of slaves and workmen wandered
about idle, homeless, and starving. The insurgents, who were almost
without arms, were obliged to take refuge in the interior of the island,
where they raised the Cuban flag--the American stripes with one solitary
star--and were soon joined by men, women, children, and slaves, all
flying before the Spanish soldiery. The rebels installed themselves in
the city of Bayamo, which for several weeks they contrived to hold
against the enemy. A conspiracy on the part of certain Catalans, who had
joined their forces, being discovered, the traitors were put to death.
On learning this the Spaniards, who had encamped some miles from the
city, suddenly appeared before its walls. Seeing resistance was
hopeless, Cespedes, with the consent of the inhabitants, set the city on
fire, rather than see it fall into the hands of the enemy. An awful
massacre ensued, in which the Spanish soldiers spared neither man,
woman, nor child. On the other hand, the rebels, it must be confessed,
were guilty of the most horrible atrocities. In vain did Cespedes and
his lieutenant, Ignacio Agramonte, implore their followers to remember
that those who fought for liberty and progress must set the example of
mercy. The rebel bands were not men like unto their leaders, gently
born and carefully educated, but a horde gathered together out of every
social class and every race, indeed, for thousands of plantation hands
had fled their burning hovels, and taken up arms in a cause which they
believed would lead them to liberty. Words fail to describe the scenes
of horror which ensued. The dogs of war were let loose upon the unhappy
island. Up and down it, from one end to the other, the plantations
flamed. Towns and villages were laid in ruins, and to add to the terrors
of the situation, famine and pestilence stalked the land, even as at the
present moment. Hundreds of young Cubans, suspected of favouring the
revolution, were arrested on the most flimsy pretexts. A jest, the
wearing of a certain coloured flower, the whistling of a popular tune,
were sufficient to work a man's ruin. The prisoners were shot in dozens,
and shipped off by hundreds into penal servitude. By the end of 1868,
the Spanish garrison consisted of not less than 80,000 men, all well
armed, and whose officers, in their mad desire to stamp out the
rebellion which had now assumed formidable proportions, laid no
restraint on their subordinates' licence. In April of the following year
a proclamation was issued by the Spanish Commander-in-Chief at Bayamo,
which decreed that any individual over fifteen years of age found beyond
the limits of his property and unable to give an account of himself,
should be forthwith shot. All deserted houses, or all houses over which
a white flag of truce did not float, in sign of peace and devotion to
the Government, were to be immediately reduced to ashes. This order
only increased the horrors of the situation. Scores of planters who were
ignorant of its existence, and who were going peaceably on business
intent between their plantations and the neighbouring towns, were shot
by the soldiers, who were only too delighted to display their zeal and
rob their victims, and hundreds of houses were pillaged.
At this juncture Cuban affairs began once more to attract universal
attention in the United States. The interest taken in the rebellion and
the rebels by our American cousins was not, in all probability,
exclusively platonic. Whether this was the case or not, they contrived
to supply the insurgents, not with money only, but with men and arms, so
that the insurgent army rose in a short time to 55,000 well-armed men,
mainly entrenched in the mountainous districts, whence they were able to
make successful raids. On the 10th of April 1869, at the city of
Guaimaro, in the very heart of the island, the first Cuban Chamber of
Deputies was opened by Cespedes, and the new assembly forthwith
proclaimed Cuban independence and the establishment of a republic.
General Cespedes was unanimously elected President, and his
brother-in-law, Manuel de Quesada, who had served under Juarez, of
Mexican fame, assumed the name of commander-in-chief of the Cuban army.
Slavery was formally abolished. Freedom of worship was established, and
equality of all in the eyes of the law affirmed. The young Republic even
ventured to send envoys to the three countries which had shown her most
sympathy,--England, France, and the United States. The Envoy
Extraordinary of Cuba to the United States of America, Morales Lumus,
was, however, received with great coolness by General Grant, who
steadfastly refused to recognise the new Government. As a matter of
fact, whilst Cuba had been fighting for her independence, Spain had
dethroned the kindly Queen Isabella, and replaced General Prim at the
head of the Iberian Republic. The great Republic of the New World had
naturally hailed the chief of a revolution which had driven Isabella II.
from one of the oldest thrones in the Old World; while Prim, who was
anything but the visionary he is generally supposed to have been, had
arrived at the conclusion that Cuba cost the mother country far more
than she was worth, and had actually proposed--through Hamilton Fish,
then Secretary of State--the sale of the island of Cuba to the United
States Government for a sum of 100,000,000 pesetas! It is only fair to
add that, by the suggested agreement, America was to grant the island
its independence, abolish slavery, and proclaim an armistice, pending
the proclamation of peace. Poor Lumus' heart sank within him, for he
knew the Spanish character by heart, and was perfectly well aware of
what Prim was driving at. If he himself remained in power, the United
States would be allowed to do with Cuba pretty much as they thought fit.
Otherwise, if the ex-Queen or her son were restored, the Marshal hinted
an intention of securing the island for himself. With a heart like lead,
Lumus returned to Cespedes. The outlook was of the darkest, for the fate
of the mother country as well as that of the newly-born island Republic
hung in the balance.
General Sickles proceeded at once to Madrid, with full powers from the
United States Government, to conclude the proposed sale of Cuba to the
American Republic. The negotiations proved much more difficult than
President Grant had believed possible, Prim placing a thousand obstacles
in the way of the final conclusion of the bargain. Many believed that he
had been won over to the pro-slavery party. After a wearisome and
fruitless mission, Sickles was recalled. Later on an incident
occurred--that of the _Virginius_--too lengthy to recapitulate here,
which resulted in the capture by the Spaniards of that filibustering
vessel, which was proceeding from the United States to assist the rebels
with arms, ammunition, and men. The _Virginius_ was taken to Havana, and
sixty-one prisoners, including several Englishmen and twenty-two
Americans, were ultimately shot. On November 5th, 1869, the leaders of
the adventure, Navaro, Ryan, Jesus del Sol, and Pedro Cespedes--the
President's brothers--were put to death by the Spaniards, and their
heads carried in triumph through the streets. All this is far-off
history nowadays,--interesting, nevertheless, if only as a record. The
indignation excited throughout the United States by the _Virginius_
business was indescribable, and very nearly ended in a declaration of
war. Spain eventually thought it wise to make, through SeA+-or Castelar,
an abject apology, and granted an indemnity to the families of the
unfortunate men who had been executed. The _Virginius_ was formally
handed back to the Americans, but the luckless vessel, which had been
severely damaged, began to leak, and sank on her way home from Bahia de
Honda to New York. This closed, and somewhat tamely, an incident which
was within an ace of bringing about, some thirty years earlier, the
events now taking place.
Whilst the negotiations for the release of the disabled _Virginius_ were
dragging their slow length along--they were conducted by the Spaniards
with all the dilatoriness which distinguish them--that nation underwent
a weird series of political changes and intrigues. The Republican party,
although flattered by Prim, who wished in his heart to be the first
President of the Iberian Republic, was evidently distasteful to the
majority of Spaniards, accustomed to the pageantry of the solemnest and
most stately of European Courts. It was therefore deemed necessary to
establish an interregnum with Marshall Serano as Regent, and to cast
about for some Catholic prince to place upon the vacant throne of the
Bourbons. Choice fell upon Prince Leopold of Hohenzollern Sigmaringen--a
most luckless selection, since, by offending the susceptibilities of
France, it led to the Franco-Prussian war. King Victor Emmanuel's son,
Amedeo, was now offered the crown of Spain, and accepted it, swearing to
observe the Constitution over the body of Prim, who had been
assassinated on December 28, 1870, by an unknown hand. How Amedeo failed
to satisfy his new subjects, and finally was compelled to resign his
ill-fitting crown and return-to Italy; how an abortive attempt to
establish a Republic failed, and degenerated into anarchy; how Don
Carlos and his followers caused useless shedding of blood in the
Northern Provinces; and how, finally, Queen Isabella's son was restored
in 1874, under the title of Alfonzo XII., are matters of history
doubtless well-known to every reader of this book, and therefore only
need to be recorded as reflecting upon Cuban affairs. When the Cespedes'
Republic fell, the victorious Monarchy reappeared. But rebellion, overt
and covert, still disturbed the distracted island until 1874, when the
tragic death of Cespedes broke down the revolutionary spirit and brought
about a temporary lull.
The adherents of Cespedes had by this time dwindled to a mere handful;
and, driven desperate by hunger and despair, the forlorn but still
bold-spirited band took refuge in a fastness on the Eastern coast,
whence they hoped to escape to Jamaica. A slave betrayed their
hiding-place to the Spaniards. A fierce hand-to-hand fight ensued.
Cespedes fought like a lion against overwhelming odds. His friends fell
dead or wounded at his feet; but still he battled on, slaying seven of
his opponents with his own hand, and wounding many others. At last,
seeing all hope was lost, he fought his way through the Spaniards, and,
mortally wounded as he was, flung himself over the rocks, and thus
escaped his hated captors. His mangled body was recovered, carried to
Santiago, and there secretly buried. The dead man was mourned, and is
mourned even to this day, by all true Cubans. The stage on which he
played his part was, it may be said, a little one. His life and doings
may be forgotten beyond the limits of the country he strove to serve.
But such qualities of head and heart, such fervour of self-sacrifice and
steadiness of purpose, as marked the career of Carlos Manuel Cespedes,
must surely entitle him to an honoured place on the golden roll of the
world's true heroes. May he rest in peace!
CHAPTER V.
THE HISTORY OF THE REBELLION UP-TO-DATE.
The dying Cespedes bequeathed his honours to his friend and henchman,
Don Salvador Cisneros y BA(C)tancourt, Marquez de Santa Lucia, who was
forthwith elected President of the Republic. He displayed exceptional
ability, endeavoured to bring some discipline into the ranks of his more
or less disorderly followers, and succeeded for a time, not only in this
attempt, but also in reviving the dashed spirit of the rebels in the
Eastern Province. At length he wearied of what ultimately proved a
thankless task, and retired to make room for Don Francisco Aquelera, who
became third President of this essentially rural Republic, whose
Parliament was wont to assemble in the heart of a dense forest, or in
some mountain solitude.
Aquelera, although a man of marked ability, was no longer in the prime
of life, and soon grew tired of the roving existence circumstances
compelled him to lead. After his retirement, a new name begins to figure
prominently in Cuban affairs,--that of Maximo Gomez, who was elected
Commander-in-Chief of the rebel forces, _L'Ejercito libertador de la
Republica de Cuba_, some twenty years ago. With a comparatively small
following, he managed, by sheer dint of audacity and profound
strategical knowledge, to keep 20,000 Spaniards at bay. Gomez is a
thorough soldier, one of the best the New World has possessed. I met him
once, and was greatly struck by his martial bearing and his fiery black
eyes, rendered still more conspicuous by his perfectly white hair, and
long moustachios. He was born in 1837. Although afflicted with a
terrible ulcer in his right leg, and unable to sit a horse except in a
side saddle like a woman's, he is an intrepid rider, and knows not the
meaning of the words fear or fatigue.
The other leader of the present rebellion is not less remarkable,
Calixto Garcia IA+-iguez, who began his career as a bank clerk, and who,
therefore, combines with soldierly qualities of a high order,
considerable financial and business knowledge.
The treaty of Zanjou, signed February 10th, 1878, put a stop, for some
years, to anything like rebellion on a serious scale. A good deal of
mystery surrounds this treaty, to which the President of the Republic
and his secretary, only, affixed their signatures, without the formal
consent of the other rebel generals, officers, and deputies. However,
Marshal Martinez Campos, Commander-in-Chief of the Spanish army,
approved it, although the enemies of the Cuban cause describe the
document, somewhat sarcastically, as being more of a deed of
capitulation than a treaty. The clauses proposing that the political
organization of the island should be placed on the same footing as that
of Puerto Rico, that a general amnesty for all political offences should
be forthwith promulgated, that political prisoners should be pardoned,
and that coolies and fugitive slaves who had served in the Cuban army
should be emancipated, met with the approval of SeA+-or Canovas de
Castillo, and the treaty was officially signed and accepted at Madrid.
For some time afterwards, peace nominally existed in almost every part
of the island. The rebels were not, however, wholly inactive.
Notwithstanding the accepted treaty, there was still a President of the
Cuban Republic, Vicente Garcia, and a Parliament, which sat in the
wilderness, at stated periods of the year. In 1879 this "Parliament" was
dissolved, and with its dissolution the period of the "big rebellions"
closes, and that of the little wars, _la guerra chiquita_, opens.
Meanwhile, Maximo Gomez, seeing there was no immediate work for him to
do, betook himself to San Domingo, to bide his time, and to place
himself in active correspondence with the Gran Junta, or principal Cuban
Revolutionary Association, in New York.
And here it may be as well to examine rather closely two matters
connected with Cuban affairs. The first is the assistance afforded to
the Cuban rebels by the United States, and the second, the conditions of
the rebel army, as it stood three years since, when the insurrection
began to assume alarming proportions.
As far back as 1823, John Quincy Adams said: "From a multitude of
considerations, Cuba has become an object of transcendent importance to
the commercial and political interests of our Union. Its commanding
position, ... the nature of its productions and of its wants, furnishing
the supplies and needing the returns of a commerce immensely profitable
and mutually beneficial, give it an importance in the sum of our
national interests with which that of no other foreign territory can be
compared, and little inferior to that which binds the different members
of the Union together."
The reasons which induced Adams to make this statement have not
diminished in late years; far from it, especially since the enormous
development of the Mississippi valley, and of the Gulf Coast. Although
there can be no question that the vast majority of the people of the
United States have expressed an unselfish sympathy for the unfortunate
Cubans, their politicians, and, above all, their financiers, have added
to this sentiment a profound knowledge of the great value which Cuba
must eventually prove to the Union, were she more firmly governed, and
her American interests better protected. Among the advocates for the
annexation of Cuba have been the following Presidents: Jefferson,
Monroe, John Quincy Adams, Jackson, Polk, Fillmore, Pierce, and
Buchanan.
A remarkably interesting article on Cuban Diplomacy from 1795 to 1898
appeared recently in _Harper's Magazine_, in which Professor Albert
Bushnell traces the rise of the sympathy of the American people for
Cuban independence or annexation, and points out very plainly that
"when, as in 1886, slavery was definitely abolished, the Spanish
Government promised other excellent reforms, but, as usual, very soon
things fell back into their old rut. The Captain-General was still
practically absolute; the island was saddled with the debt created to
hold it in subjection; it was still exploited for the benefit of Spain,
and the same wearisome impediments were laid on foreign traders. For
example, in 1880 several vessels were fired upon by Spanish gunboats
outside the jurisdiction of Cuba; in 1881 an American cattle steamer,
subject to a tax of $14.90, was taxed $387.40, because she had some
lumber on board. In 1882 began a long drawn-out correspondence on
overcharges and illegal exactions by Spanish consuls over vexatious
fines for small clerical errors, and over annoying passport regulations.
The most serious trouble arose out of the refusal of the Spanish
authorities, to return estates confiscated during the war to American
citizens of Cuban birth.
"Meanwhile trade between the United States and Cuba was advancing by
leaps and bounds. In 1850 the sum of the Cuban trade into and out of the
United States was $20,000,000; in 1880 $76,000,000; in 1894
$105,000,000. American capital became engaged in sugar and other
industries. The two countries tried to put their tariffs on a better
footing by the Convention of 1884, for the mutual abandonment of
discriminating duties; in 1893 Spain accepted reciprocity under the
tariff of 1890; but the Cuban authorities evaded the privileges thus
conferred, on the ground that they were governed by a special Spanish
translation from the English version of the treaty, and not by the
original Spanish version; and it was three years before the Home
Government could straighten out this petty snarl.
"In 1884-5 came some filibustering expeditions; the United States
exerted itself to stop them, and there was no Cuban insurrection. On the
whole, the years from 1879 to 1894 were freer from diplomatic
controversy than any like period since 1845. Meanwhile the Cubans in the
United States had accumulated a revolution fund of a million dollars."
I have already stated that a network of secret societies has covered
Cuba, ever since the beginning of this century. Branches of these
mysterious associations have been established in nearly every city on
the seaboard of the two Americas, from New York to Buenos Ayres, at
Boston, Savanah, Charlestown, Norfolk, Tampa, Kingston (Jamaica), etc.
Their headquarters have been established, for some five and forty years,
in the American metropolis, and are known as the Gran Junta, or Cuban
Revolutionary Agency.
From this centre, the rebellion has been mainly worked. It is presided
over, at the present time, by SeA+-or Thomaso Estrado Palma, who was born
at Bayamo, some sixty-seven years ago, and who for a short time acted as
President of the Cuban Republic. He was captured by the Spaniards, and
imprisoned for several years. About 1895 he reappeared in New York, as
headmaster of a Hispano-American College, and as one of the leading
members of the Junta. He is not only thoroughly well aquainted with all
the secrets of the rebels, but is also by no means ignorant of the
movements of the Spaniards. He bears an eminently respectable character,
is a man of considerable literary attainments, and, considering his age,
may be described as remarkably active. The New York Junta publishes a
bi-weekly paper, entitled _La Patria_, edited by Don Enrique JosA(C)
Varona, who, if I mistake not, is a brother of that Varona who was shot
during the affair of the "Virginius." The line of Presidents of the
Cuban Republic is still unbroken, and the gentleman who at present fills
the position is a man of considerable culture, and, moreover, a wealthy
planter, whose estates, however, he has neglected for some years, in
order the better to serve his country.
One of the great grievances of the Spaniards is the fashion in which the
American Government has tolerated the existence of this Gran Junta, and
the formation of branch offices, all over the States. And, when you come
to think of it, it does seem somewhat intolerable that a power which
calls itself friendly,--since it has a representative at the court of
Madrid,--should encourage a whole network of conspiracy against a
Government, with which it keeps up a constant interchange of official
courtesies; but at the same time, it should be remembered that these
associations cannot be suppressed, in a free country like America, so
long as the members take care not to go beyond the letter of the law.
Under President Cleveland, matters were otherwise. The United States
Government made some pretence of moderating the zeal of the Juntas, and
spent many million dollars in endeavours to prevent the departure of
filibusters, to join the rebel forces. But notwithstanding the dignified
policy of President Cleveland, which for some years gave the Spaniards a
fair chance of pacifying the distracted island, they utterly failed to
avail themselves of the opportunity.
The task of restoring order in such an island as Cuba is one demanding
almost superhuman energy and tact, and these are qualities in which the
Spanish race, a naturally excitable one, is absolutely deficient. Yet it
must be allowed that the Cuban civil war resembles none other that has
ever been fought in any part of the world, or at any period of recorded
history. Revolution, as a rule, starts from the large cities, and thence
penetrates by degrees into the villages and rural districts. It is quite
otherwise in Cuba. With the exception of one or two easily quelled riots
in Havana, Cienfuegos, Santiago, and Bayamo, the capital cities and
towns of the island have scarcely participated in the rebellion; their
citizens, although for the most part Cuban born, have apparently
remained aloof,--possibly because the rebellion has proved exceedingly
injurious to their trade and commerce. This accounts for the curious
fact that while we hear so much about the terrible sufferings of the
Cuban people, and their deadly hatred of their Spanish masters, we see
in numberless photographs, reproduced in our illustrated papers, and
representing the departure or arrival of Spanish troops at Havana or
other leading cities, such a display of enthusiasm on the part of the
citizens, as we should have little expected.
The long streets are thronged, the balconies are crowded, Spanish flags
float in all directions, and the troops march along under a shower of
flowers, whilst young ladies are seen rushing forward to offer them
refreshments. Now it must be remembered that at least two-thirds of
these enthusiastic spectators are quite as Cuban as the most ardent of
the rebels; but they are people who have something to lose by the
continuance of the civil war, and a good deal to gain by its cessation,
therefore they eagerly welcome the Spanish soldiers, in the hope that
they may suppress the rebellion, without the intervention of the
Americans, a people who, however well-intentioned they may be, are, from
the Cuban point of view, aliens in race, and even in religion. We should
never lose sight of the fact that the rebels are not the angels some
writers would lead us to believe them. Even enthusiasts, who see their
budding wings, acknowledge that they have destroyed, burnt, pillaged,
and retaliated, quite as barbarously as their Spanish enemies.
I remember hearing, from the lips of one who saw the outrage
perpetrated, a story of some eight or ten Spanish women who, in the war
of 1873, went to the rebel camp to beg the lives of their captured
fathers, brothers, and husbands.
The unhappy women were treated in the most revolting manner, and
subsequently butchered. Hundreds of other stories, just as horrible,
have been told of Maceo, and above all, of Manuel Garcia, the ex-brigand
chief, who joined the rebel army, and boldly styled himself Manuel Ist,
King of the Cuban highwaymen. He surrounded himself with a gang of
picked ruffians, and became the terror of all the peaceful planters of
both parties, from whom he used to levy tribute, and whom he never
hesitated to murder, if they refused to submit to his extortions. This
abominable personage was killed on February 24th, 1895, by the sacristan
of the parish church of Arcos de Canosina.
Last year the rebel army was composed, so far as I have been able to
ascertain, very much as follows: 25,000 infantry without transport;
14,000 cavalry, with 13,000 horses and mules; artillery,--22 guns, 190
mules or horses, and about 800 men; the whole regular and irregular
army, amounting to about 70,000 men, some 10,000 of whom are absolutely
unarmed. During the last two years these numbers have probably been
greatly reduced. The duty of the unarmed men consists in going round the
field after a battle, and gathering up the arms dropped by the wounded
and the dead. Behind this regular army, if so it can be called, is
another, consisting of a horde of civilized and uncivilized adventurers,
recruited from all parts of the island, and indeed from the four
quarters of the globe; among them you will find field hands out of
employment, the riffraff turned out of the neighbouring islands,
Americans, Mexicans, Germans, Italians, and even a few Englishmen. Yet a
third band follows behind this extraordinary mass of heterogenous
humanity,--a mob of ex-slaves, reinforced by coolies, who may be
described as camp followers, and bring their women and children with
them. This formidable and incessantly moving army is divided into
sections, and distributed over various parts of the island, in camps (by
courtesy so called, for their tents are exceedingly few in number, and
the majority have to sleep in the open, unless they have time and skill
to make themselves huts with palm branches). These Cuban rebels, being
acclimatized, have a great advantage over the Spaniards in pursuit of
them, who, as often as not, are trapped by "Yellow Jack." They are less
easily overwhelmed by the deadly miasmas which hang over the desolate
places where, for safety's sake, they are compelled to pitch their
tents.[11] Still thousands of them do perish, for though the _vomito
nigro_ does not attack the blacks, it carries off thousands of whites
and coolies, while other loathsome diseases decimate the uncleanly
negroes and their coolie brethren.
The wildest imagination can scarcely conceive a more wonderful scene
than that presented by an encampment of Cuban rebels in one of the
virgin forests which still cover a considerable portion of the island,
or else on those level marsh lands, called Manigua, which bear so strong
a resemblance to the Roman Campagna.
Only those who have been in a tropical forest can form any idea of what
it is like. I remember once being taken by two excellent guides a few
hundred yards into one of these jungles. An English forest generally
consists of one, or, at the most, four or five varieties of tree--the
oak, the pine, the ash, the birch, the beech--with an undergrowth of
wild nuts and bramble, and a still lower one of bracken fern and grass.
In a tropical forest almost every tree and shrub is wholly different
from its neighbour.
The first impression made upon me, as I sauntered into this green maze,
was one of absolute amazement, not unmingled with a certain sense of
terror. The vegetation around me was of such unusual proportions that I
felt myself a mere pigmy, a sort of Jack the Giant-Killer wandering in
quest of the Ogre's Castle. And indeed the thick growth of tree trunk
and palm stems, absolutely leafless for some forty or fifty feet, might
easily be mistaken for the dead walls of some enchanted fortress.
Looking up, however, one beheld, instead of blue sky, an aerial canopy
of the densest foliage, varying in tint from the deepest to the
tenderest green.
These Cuban forests are pathless: to traverse them you must cut or burn
your way; their labyrinths remind you at every turn of the opening lines
to Dante's _Inferno_:
"Nel mezzo de cammin di nostra vita
Mi ritrovai per una selva, oscura
ChA" la diritta via era smarrita."
As you pass along, clouds of winged creatures rise out of the grass,
some of them infamously unkind and pernicious, others beautiful and
harmless. In the openings the most inconceivably lovely flowers bloom,
and humming birds flash hither and thither, sparkling like variegated
jewels in the few rays of sunshine that penetrate the massive canopy of
leaves.
Now and again their passage is barred by the rope-like branches of some
uncanny creeper, that come pouring down from above like the tangled
rigging of a wrecked ship. You draw back in alarm, lest the strange
thing should suddenly come to life, and turn into a chain of angry
serpents. To your surprise you perceive one side of it to be literally
blazing with flame-coloured orchids, red and orange. In the centre of
yonder little open space is a dead tree that some huge parasite has
seized upon, dragged out of earth and imprisoned in a woody cage, every
bar of which is tapestried with the most exquisite orchids. Yonder
growth, which reaches far above your knees, consists of the great
wheel-shaped maiden-hair fern, whose fronds are so exquisite and so
brittle that you feel remorse at trampling so tender and delicate a
carpet under foot. Presently you find yourself ascending a rocky
eminence, crowned by half a dozen soaring cabbage palms, and thence you
plunge into a shrubbery where the exquisite Tabernae-montana, or the
resplendent Calycophyllum, fills the hot moist air with an overpowering
perfume, recalling that of our homely syringa. On and on you go, through
groves of palm trees, tied together by entwined lianas, looking, for all
the world, like motionless boa constrictors, and on which countless tiny
lizards, or harmless little snakes, glisten in the sunlight. Now and
then a flying squirrel flashes past, or a monster bat is disturbed, or
you form the acquaintance of an ugly old iguana, who winks at you with a
knowing eye, and withdraws, as suddenly as he appeared, behind a trap
door of broad glossy leaves. Here are clusters of begonias, there a
veritable cataract of morning glory, the deep blue flowers so thickly
set together that not a green leaf is to be seen, for many yards. When
you least expect it, the wooden walls open, and discover a glimpse of
some placid lake, embedded like a jewel in a frame of dark green orange
trees laden with golden fruit, and covered with every sort of water
lily, varying from the most dazzling white to the deepest crimson and
violet. The heat is so great that you feel an irresistible impulse to
throw off your clothes and jump into the pellucid water; but your guide,
divining your intention, soon makes you alter your mind, assuring you
that the bed of the lakelet swarms with uncanny aquatic snakes, while
perchance that unpleasant individual, the ugly caiman, lurks in the
dark, under yon mass of arum lilies, ready to pounce upon you, and snap
off your leg. Yonder is a turtle scudding along, and round the shores of
an islet, covered with delicate bamboo cane, sails a whole fleet of
gorgeous water fowl. The impulse to push forward and discover new
wonders and beauties for yourself is swiftly checked by your guide, who
warns you that, as the sun begins to drop, noxious vapours presently
will rise,--vapours charged with deadly fevers and incurable agues. And
so you hurry back, thanking heaven, all the time, that you have a guide
with you, for without his friendly aid you might wander round and round
in this maze of luxuriant vegetation, never straying far from the point
whence you started, and sink at last, exhausted, to die of hunger and
thirst, with, it may be, a cluster of tempting poison peaches dripping
luscious but death-dealing syrup just above your parched lips. In
forests such as these, stretching for leagues across the island, do the
Cuban rebels pitch their camps.
Through these wild forsaken regions there are neither roads nor paths,
and the enemy has concealed the trace of his footsteps with the utmost
precaution. Every bush may mask an ambuscade, and behind every rock some
danger lurks. Sometimes the Spaniards--to whom experience has taught
many things--may mark the exact position of the rebels by the whirl of
the vultures, circling high above it, watching the time when, after the
camp has broken up, they may make a descent upon the scanty fragments of
victuals left behind, or upon the dead bodies of those who have perished
of wounds, of starvation, perchance, or of some malignant fever.
Overhead is a brazen black-blue sky, through which the sun darts red-hot
rays, or else a black stretch of dense clouds, belching cataracts of
water from week's end to week's end, and frequently torn by the most
terrific storms of thunder and lightning. The marvel of it is that so
many men, and even women, are able to live at all, under such dreadful
conditions, more often than not lacking the veriest necessaries of life,
and depending for their daily food on their knowledge of the qualities,
poisonous or harmless, of the various fruits, berries, and herbs they
find about their path. I wonder if it ever occurs to people who talk so
glibly of Cuban affairs, over their well-spread tables, that at this
very moment there are considerably over a hundred thousand human beings
encamped, under these appalling conditions, in various districts of
Cuba, not to mention the miserable _reconcentrados_, or men out of
employment, whom the towns-people reject, whom the rebel army is not
allowed to absorb into its ranks, and who, between the two camps, have
been systematically starved to death, especially under the merciless and
cruel rule of General Weyler.
In the dry season matters are a trifle better, the fevers diminish, and
it is possible to sleep in the open air without serious risk. The
insects, too, are a trifle less vicious, and the brilliant moonlit
winter's nights are often pleasant enough. Then the bivouac becomes
endurable, and if the enemy is sufficiently distant, a certain element
of gaiety lends a picturesque, even romantic, character to the barbaric
gathering. The negroes twang their banjos, blow their horns, and dance
in rings, and the white adventurers gather round the camp fires, to tell
old-world stories, or dream, perchance, of their childhood, spent under
more temperate skies,--and in their heart of hearts, as their
recollection slips back to home, to regret they ever embarked on such
pitiful adventures as these. Suddenly the alert is called, the trumpet
blows, an order is hoarsely shouted, and the motley crowd moves on
elsewhere, or is commanded to make a descent on some plantation to
demand provisions, and, may be, if the owner does not comply, to fire
his sugar canes. Not unfrequently, to screen their flight, they set
light to the prairie or to the forest, and the grass and the trees burn
on for days and nights on end. Some of these bands have a chaplain with
them--a priest of the sort called in England, before the Reformation, a
"hedge-priest"--who, on Sundays and feast days, celebrates Mass at an
improvised altar, in some forest glade. But, on the other hand, the
negroes, of whom there are thousands, seem, as a result of the free life
they lead, to have reverted, in most cases, by a species of atavism, to
their old savage habits.
I have said elsewhere that in the olden days their Cuban masters only
gave them a veneer of Christianity; they soon relapse into the obscene
and bloody creed of Voudism, the traditions of which they have never
lost. And in almost every rebel camp there are a number of coolies who,
although--to please the Cubans--they prostrate themselves before the
images of Neustra SeA+-ora de Cobre, and of Our Lady of Guadalupe,
secretly practise the lowest forms of Buddhism.
It is now time to turn our attention to an extremely interesting
personage, who, in his day, has given the mother country more trouble,
probably, than any other of the numerous leaders of the rebellion--the
famous Maceo. He was a true son of the revolution, born at Santiago di
Cuba in that great year of universal revolt, 1848. He was not, as has
been so frequently stated in English newspapers, a gentleman of noble
family. As a matter of fact, he began life as a muleteer. Hence his
wonderful knowledge of the Cuban ravines and passes, which has been so
precious both to his followers and to himself. He never made any
pretence of being a "Caballero," but gave himself out for what he was, a
blunt man of the people (egregiously vain, let me add, and astonishingly
ignorant!). Four years ago the following description of Maceo was
written me from Cuba by a friend who knew him well. "This wonderful man,
though short of stature, looks the very incarnation of a Spadassin of
the good old times of Calderon and Lope, and this notwithstanding his
strong evidences of negro blood. True, his features are none too
regular, but his complexion is, to say the best of it, swarthy. His eyes
are splendid, and he has formidable moustachios, which would have roused
the envy of a musketeer. He is scrupulously neat in his dress, and wears
his much belaced gold uniform with a gallant air. His broad-brimmed
white felt hat sets off his face to advantage. On the whole, he at
first impressed me very favourably. Suddenly, however, something annoyed
him, and he turned round on one of his men, and burst into a storm of
oaths. Then he showed his white teeth, shook with nervous fury, and
looked very fierce." For a good many years, Maceo was the hero of the
day. Even in the towns, where interest in the rising is apt to flag,
people liked to talk of his adventures. He bore the marks of twenty-five
wounds,--twenty caused by bullets, and five by sword thrusts. He
possessed a quality of ubiquity which at times seemed almost miraculous.
When the Spaniards were perfectly certain that Maceo and his men were in
the west, they were tolerably certain to turn up in the east. A dozen
times, at least, he was reported killed, but sooner or later he always
reappeared, and in a condition altogether too lively for Spanish taste.
Some persons even now believe he was not shot, as reported, on December
9th, 1895. But there can be but little doubt his adventurous career is
ended, otherwise he would have certainly reappeared ere this, especially
as he is sorely needed, no one having as yet risen up to take his place.
General Gomez and Maceo have been by far the most interesting figures in
the Cuban rebellion. In the time to come he will, I feel sure, be the
hero of a score of novels, as startling and sensational as any of those
of Mayne Reid or Fenimore Cooper.
Far be it from me to disparage the motives of the men who have conducted
this revolt against a distinctly vicious and obsolete government. The
saddest fact connected with the present struggle is that Spain's
punishment has come upon her at a time when she least deserves it, for
during the last ten years, though all too late, a great deal has been
done for the island by the mother country. In the first place, it is not
true that Cubans are not admitted to any official position in the
administration of their country. At this present time at least one-half
of the Government employA(C)s, high and low, are Cubans. There are some
scores of Cuban officers in the Spanish army. Cuba is represented at the
Cortes by thirteen Senators, and thirty Deputies. The University of
Havana is almost entirely in the hands of Cubans; the Rector, Don
Joaquim F. Lastres, and the Vice-Rector, are both of them natives of the
island. All the Deans are Cubans, and out of eighty Professors, sixty
are Spaniards born in the island, _ergo_ Cubans. All the Advocates of
the Supreme Court are Cubans, many belonging to families which have
resided for generations in the island. Still there is widespread and
well-founded discontent. The island is not properly administered.
Everything is in a state of confusion. Red-tapeism--the curse of Spanish
bureaucracy--is rampant, and the system of petty backsheesh is almost as
universal as in Turkey.
There is much truth, too, in Mr Gossip's statement in his article in the
May number of the _Fortnightly Review_, entitled "The Mournful Case of
Cuba," which runs as follows:--
"Spain has placed an almost insuperable barrier in the way of
American merchants, should they attempt to enter her ports with
American products, in the form of a protective tariff, which
resembles in many respects, the policy once pursued by England
against her American colonies, of which the 'Boston tea party' was
the direct result, has proved very detrimental to American
interests. For while the United States purchases, at least, more
than seventy per cent. of everything Cuba has to sell, Cuba in
return buys from the United States less than twenty per cent. of
the articles she imports--chiefly flour, petroleum, and other
non-competitive articles, which Spain is unable to furnish; so that
it is to the land of the Stars and Stripes that Cuba must look,
since, as long as beets are grown in Europe, the product of the
sugar cane will find no market on the European side of the
Atlantic. Thus, the mother country pockets annually, through her
antiquated institutions, the Yankee millions, which, under proper
conditions of trade, would be returned to the people of the United
States in payment for American coal, iron, and manufactured goods,
which are often sent to Spain and then re-shipped to Cuba, as the
only practical method of getting into the latter country. Owing to
the backwardness of Spanish industries, and the inability of Spain
to supply Cuba with the products she requires, the Cubans have to
consume Spanish articles of inferior quality, or pay exorbitant
prices for foreign goods, owing to the prohibitive duties imposed,
which merely place large sums in the Spanish exchequer. Spanish
merchants practise a novel fraud by nationalising foreign products
for importation into Cuba, and thus the senseless commercial policy
of Spain is the cause of inextinguishable discontent.
"It is true, also, that Cuba is within the economic orbit of the
United States, and that the commerce of the island is a strong
factor in the Cuban problem, inasmuch as it is the active agent of
civilization everywhere; and sugar is omnipotent from the purely
commercial American point of view. There are certain fixed economic
laws, which are as sure in their operation as gravitation, and must
inevitably affect the ultimate destiny of Cuba."
I do not think sufficient attention has been paid by students of the
Cuban question to facts wholly unconnected with bad government and of a
purely economic nature. First and foremost of these is the depreciation
in the commercial value of local produce, especially the loss on sugar,
which is mainly due to the popularity and cheapness of beetroot sugar on
the continent of Europe. Without undue entering into details, I would
point out that Cuba is in this respect going through precisely the same
financial and commercial crisis as the other and better-governed West
Indian Islands. The tobacco trade, I hear, is less flourishing than it
used to be. It has to contend with the prodigious development which has
recently taken place in the tobacco markets of Asia Minor, Egypt,
Europe, and the United States. In a word, Cuba has been doing very badly
now for over twenty years, and families which were not very long ago
amongst the richest of our period, are now paupers, eager to sell their
few remaining jewels, bric-A -brac, and even their fans, lace, and
brocades, to the passing stranger. To add to the general distress came
the completion of the abolition of slavery, with its usual result--the
negroes refused to work. Coolies were imported, but the climate did not
suit them. White labour has not been tried, for the simple reason that
it is a foredoomed failure. Masters who have had to deal with negroes
all their lives are never able to manage poor whites. Hundreds of
plantations have gone out of cultivation, and thousands of half savage,
coloured folk, have gone to swell in the all-pervading anarchy which the
Spanish Government is not strong enough to suppress.
Meanwhile the rebellion has absorbed an incredible amount of Spanish
capital, and drained the mother country of hundreds of thousands of
young men, the great majority of whom will never see their homes again.
Cuba, in her present condition, is Spain's ruin, and it would have been
well for the Spaniards if they had sold the island half a century ago.
"Cuba," said a Spanish writer the other day, "is a sort of bottomless
waste-paper basket. The women of Cadiz and its neighbourhood hold the
very name of Cuba in execration, they have seen so many of their sons
and sweethearts depart thither, never to return."
I am not one of those who see an angel in every Cuban rebel, and a devil
in every Spaniard; I hold that in this, as in almost every other human
concern, the case, to put it vulgarly, is "six to the one, and half a
dozen to the other." There are grave faults, nay, crimes, on both sides,
and the condition of the island in the present half of the century, and
especially during the last five years, is a disgrace to civilization.
When individual Spaniards have tried to do their best for the Cubans,
their good intentions have not received much response from their
superiors. Take, for instance, Martinez Campos, who was sent out to the
island some years back as Commander-in-Chief; he was an honourable and
humane man, desirous of doing the best he could to reduce bitterness and
evolve peace. But his efforts were frequently baulked by the home
Government, which was for ever pressing him to take active measures. He
knew the island, having been there twenty years before, and under
exceptional circumstances, but he was powerless to plant the olive
branch he had brought with him from Spain, whence he had started amidst
the most enthusiastic expectations, and to which he returned, not unlike
the proverbial rocket that went up in a blaze of glory, to fall a flat,
burnt stick. I cannot forbear thinking that the gravest mistake of the
Spanish Government in the whole of this Cuban business was its
peremptory recall of Martinez Campos, and, above all, the despatch of
such a man as General Weyler, with the strictest orders to put the
rebellion down at any cost.
Weyler, Marquis of Tenerife, is an extraordinary individual. He has been
charged with appalling cruelty, and although, in a recent interview in
the _Daily Telegraph_, he is described as bringing forward some
justification for certain of his acts, still the fact remains, that
since the dreadful days of Alva, the horrors he has perpetrated in Cuba
have rarely been equalled in human history. Indeed, with his Belgian
descent, he seems to have inherited something of the unrelenting nature
of those cruel bigots who transformed the Sablon Square in Brussels into
a sort of permanent furnace, for the roasting of human beings. He might
be Caesar Borgia come to life again, in a modern Spanish uniform. He
conceived it his duty to extinguish the civil war at any cost, and he
used the self-same methods which made the fame (or shame) of Hernando
Cortez and of Alva. I have waded through a mass of evidence against him,
and must confess, even allowing for considerable exaggeration, that he
stands out in unpleasant relief against an ugly background of massacre
and starvation. His desperate struggle to stamp out the revolt seems to
have driven him to frenzy, and the rebels were roused, on their side, to
reprisals of an equally shocking character. But the rebellion was not to
be quelled even by General Weyler's bloody methods. Like some gaunt
skeleton, it rose up again, in its marshes and its forests, and defied
him. The wretched _reconcentrados_ were starved to death, or shot down
by scores, but the undaunted resistance still waved its scarlet and
white striped banner, with the solitary "star of hope" glittering in its
corner. At last, and none too soon, in response to the indignant
outcries of Europe and America, Weyler was recalled. Meanwhile the New
York Junta availed itself of the excitement produced by the harrowing
stories of Weyler's inhuman methods, to work up the easily excited
Americans to the very verge of hysteria.
An incident occurred in Havana some little while back, which, although
trivial enough when reduced to its true proportions, has had a vast
influence in bringing about the present war. Miss Evangelina Cisneros, a
daughter of that Marquis de Santa Lucia who was second President of the
Cuban Republic, effected her escape from a Cuban prison under
exceptional circumstances. We are assured that she is exceedingly
lovely, and, judging by her numerous photographs, she certainly must be
very pretty. Her aged father has been in a State prison at Havana for
some years. His dutiful daughter, hearing that his health was breaking
down under the prolonged confinement, went one day to the governor of
the prison, Colonel Berriz, and throwing herself upon her knees before
him, implored him to use his influence to obtain her parent's
liberation. If we are to believe Miss Evangelina Cisneros' account of
the affair, the colonel offered her the same vile conditions that the
Count de Luna suggests to Leonora (in _Il Trovatore_), when that
operatic heroine begs him to release Manrico. The fair Evangelina
scorned the proposal, and, in a whirlwind of indignation, fled from her
insulter's presence. According to the Colonel, there is not a word of
truth in the whole story; he vows he is the victim of an hysterical
girl, who had been caught carrying letters to the rebel army. Be this as
it may, SeA+-orita Cisneros was arrested and sent to prison, and to what
seems to have been a very undesirable one, in which she was given scanty
fare, and forced to associate with the very lowest females. Here she
remained for many months, in the greatest agony of mind, until she
managed, one fine day, to communicate with Mrs Lee, the wife of the
United States Consul, by means of a few words scratched on a bit of
paper with a pin, dipped in her own blood. Mrs Lee contrived to visit
her, and does not seem, to tell the truth, to have had much difficulty
in obtaining admission to her cell. The sad story was soon afterwards
published broadcast all over the United States and England, thanks
mainly to the arch-millionaire journalist, Mr W. E. Hearst, who,
perceiving that Evangelina's adventures would make excellent copy for
his paper, and considerably help the Cuban cause, commissioned Mr
Deckar, a young gentleman connected with his staff, to go to Cuba and
effect her release, which exploit was duly performed with splendid
courage and skill. The fair Evangelina was enabled, thanks to Mr
Deckar's intervention, to stupefy her companions with sweetmeats infused
with laudanum, and, whilst they lay in a profound slumber, to squeeze
herself through the bars of her cell window, to cross a ladder stretched
from roof to roof, and finally, after many hairbreadth perils and
dangers, to effect her escape from Cuba like another Rosalind, in the
disguise of a boy--all of which tends to prove that the Cuban prisons
are not particularly well guarded.
Meanwhile, a petition to the Queen of Spain, signed by hundreds of
American ladies, headed by the President's mother, was sent from New
York to Madrid, and yet another to the same purpose was forwarded from
London, where two ladies, famed for their instinctive horror of anything
approaching self-advertisement--Mrs Ormiston Chant and the fair author
of _The Sorrows of Satan_--warmly espoused the fate of the hapless
Evangelina, whose adventures, in spite of a monster reception in Madison
Square, attended by not less than 250,000 persons, with appropriate
banners, flowers, and bands of music, fell rather flat in New York. Her
gallant rescuer being a married man, Evangelina remains to this day in
"maiden meditation, fancy free."
But the sensation produced by this interesting case was immense.
Portraits of Mlle. Cisneros were sold by the thousand, and from New York
to San Francisco execration of the Spaniards rose to fever heat.
Soon afterwards occurred the terrible "Maine" disaster, which, coming on
the top of the Cisneros business, drove the American masses, egged on by
the clamours of the "yellow press," to force the reluctant President
into a strangely sudden declaration of war,--a struggle, the fate of
which, even as I write, yet hangs in the balance.
* * *
_P.S._--Even as these pages go to press, a telegram announces the
marriage of "Miss Evangelina Cisneros to one of her rescuers."
[Illustration: HAVANA.]
CHAPTER VI. HAVANA AND THE HAVANESE.[12]
Notwithstanding the mosquito nuisance and indifferent drainage, the
traveller's first impression of Havana is distinctly agreeable, and the
pleasing illusion is never completely destroyed. The harbour is
wonderfully picturesque. Opposite the entrance stands the Morro Castle,
built by Philip II. of Spain in 1573. It was formerly almost a
_facsimile_ of that curious little castellated Moorish fortress which
faces the beautiful Monastery and Church of Belem, at Lisbon, but has
been considerably altered of late years in the process of adaptation to
uses of modern warfare. Then comes in view the other historical
fortress, La Punta, also erected by our Queen Mary's sinister consort.
To the left are two rather sharp promontories, crested by several fine
churches, one "Los Angeles," fully two hundred years old--an age in the
New World corresponding to hoar antiquity in the Old. Beyond these, upon
a number of low-lying hills, rises the city, an irregular mass of
one-storied dwellings, painted a vivid ochre, and interspersed with
church domes and towers, with here and there tall, lank cocoa palms, or
a tuff of banana leaves waving over some garden wall. Vessels from every
part of the world, feluccas, with their swallow-shaped sails, some
dazzling white, others a deep-red brown, fill up the foreground--whilst
canoe-like market boats, laden with tropical fruits, fish, vegetables,
and flowers, and rowed by negroes naked to the waist, scud in all
directions over the deep-blue waters.
Arriving, as I did, from New York, which I had left deep in snow, this
summer scene was most exhilarating, and the exceeding transparency of
the Cuban atmosphere added considerably to its beauty. Everything seemed
unusual, novel, and, above all, utterly unlike what I expected. The
impress of the mother-country, Spain, is felt and seen everywhere, and
modern American influences are barely perceptible as yet. From the sea,
Havana might be Malaga or Cadiz, but when you land, memories of Pompeii
immediately crowd upon you. What we should call the city proper, the
commercial quarter of the Cuban capital, consists of a labyrinth of
narrow lanes, traversed by one or two broadish streets, the two
principal of which are known all over Southern America and the West
Indies as Calle O'Reilly and Calle O'Bisbo, and run from the Governor's
Palace right out to the walls of the city. Few of the houses which line
these lanes and alleys are more than one storey high, but that one
storey is so exceedingly lofty that it would make three in an average
London dwelling. The lower half of every house is painted either a deep
darkish blue, a deep Egyptian red, or a vivid yellow ochre; the upper
part is always a dazzling white. As in Pompeii, you notice rows of
stucco columns, painted half one colour half another. Peeping through
the ever-open doorways you may, as you pass along, obtain something more
than a mere casual glimpse of the interior of the dwellings. If you are
early enough, you may behold the family at its toilet, for there is very
little privacy anywhere in Cuba, every act, from entry into life to its
final exit, from baptism to burial, being serenely performed in the
utmost publicity. The lower windows, overlooking the street, are
protected by heavy iron bars, and behind these you may, in certain
quarters of the town, see lively groups of Havanese Geishas, their faces
thickly powdered with rice flour, their long black hair plaited, and
their opulent charms displayed to liberal advantage--"sono donne che
fano all'amore!"
The frequent curious overhanging windows, with their iron bars, would
give the place a prison-like appearance, were they not painted in the
most brilliant colours--orange, scarlet, and pea-green. More frequently
than not, the fragrance of the family dinner falls pleasantly on your
olfactory nerve, and you may even catch a glimpse of the cook, a
negress, invariably presiding over the charcoal stove in the kitchen,
turban on head, a long calico skirt streaming behind her, and in her
mouth the inevitable cigarette, without which no Cuban coloured lady can
be happy.
There is no West End, so to speak, in Havana, the mansions of the
wealthy being scattered through every part of the city. Some of the
better sort of houses are exceedingly handsome, but they are all built
on one plan, in the classical style, with an inner courtyard, surrounded
by handsome marble or stucco columns. I imagine them to be designed much
on the same plan as the villas of ancient Rome. You first look into a
fine hall--generally either built of white marble or else stuccoed to
look like it. Here the family Victoria or old-fashioned Volante is
usually stowed away. Here also stands, rather for ornament than use, a
sedan-chair, which is, more often than not, richly painted and gilded.
Beyond this hall is the Pateo, in the centre of which there is usually a
garden rich in tropical vegetation, shading either a fountain or a large
gilded aviary full of brilliant parrots and parrakeets. In some houses
there is a picture or statue of the Virgin, or some Saint, with a lamp
burning before it day and night. In the Pateo, the family assembles of
an evening, the ladies in full dress; and as it is generally brilliantly
illuminated, the pleasant domestic scene adds greatly to the gay
appearance of the streets, which fill with loungers in the cool of the
evening.
The Havanese shops are plentifully supplied with European and native
goods, but, as in almost all tropical countries, very few of them have
windows, and the wares are exposed in the open, as in an Eastern
bazaar. Only a few years ago the jewellers' and goldsmiths' shops were
renowned throughout the Western world, but now, unfortunately, they are
entirely ruined. Even in 1878, when the shoe first began to pinch in
Cuba, many fine jewels, and some beautiful specimens of old Spanish
silver, Louis XV. fans, snuff-boxes, and bric-A -brac of all kinds, were
offered for sale. Often a negress would come to the hotel bearing a
coffer full of things for inspection; the mistress who sent the good
woman must have had implicit trust in her servant, for she frequently
sold her wares for very considerable sums. Few of the Havanese magnates
and rich planters have anything worth selling left them nowadays, but
only a few years ago Havana was a happy hunting-ground for bargain
seekers.
The handsomest street in Havana is the Cerro, a long thoroughfare
running up a hill at the back of the town, bordered on either side by
enormous old villas, in the midst of magnificent gardens. The finest of
these mansions belongs to the very old Hernandez family, and is built of
white marble in the usual classical style. The adjacent villa,
Santoveneo, has a lovely garden, and used to be famous for its
collection of orchids, the late Countess de Santoveneo, a very wealthy
lady, being a great collector. She was a clever, agreeable woman, well
known in Paris, where she usually spent the summer and autumn. In the
midst of a perfect forest of cocoa palms stands the former summer villa
of the Bishops of Havana, now a private residence.
Then, one after the other, follow the handsome dwellings of the
Havanese aristocracy--of the Marquese dos Hermanos, of the Duque de
Fernandina, of the Conde Penalver, of the Marqueza d'Aldama, etc. The
cacti in these villa gardens are of amazing size and shape, some showing
leaves thick and strong enough to bear the weight of a full-grown man.
In the gardens of the Conde de Penalver there is a glorious mangoe
grass, the first I ever saw, and the finest. Unfortunately, these Havana
Edens are infested all the year round by swarms of mosquitos. The
residents seem skin-proof, and do not appear to suffer from the insects'
attacks. But woe waits on the unwary new-comer who tempts fate by
lingering in these lovely gardens!
There are several delightful public promenades in the city and its
suburbs, the Paseo de Isabel for instance, with its wide pavement and
its stately central avenue of flowering trees. Here stands an
exceedingly imposing monument, the Fontana de India, which would put our
all too notorious "shaving-brushes" in Trafalgar Square to shame. On the
summit of a snow-white marble pedestal is a fine statue of the Antilles,
represented by an Indian maiden airily attired in robes of nihil, and
adorned with beads and a head-dress of plumes. Cornucopias full of
tropical fruits and flowers rest at her feet, and four monstrous
dolphins cast down volumes of foaming water into a spacious marble
basin. Forming a background to this remarkable work of art are the
public gardens of La Glorietta, with their oleander groves and towering
palm trees. In the great pond the Victoria Regia floats its colossal
silver cups. Hard by is the Campo de Marte, or Mars' field, where the
soldiers drill, and beyond which stands the splendid palace of the
Aldama family, in the midst of a glorious tropical garden.
The Calzada de la Reina is another wide street, running from the Campo
de Marte, to the Calzada Belancion and the Paseo de Tacon. This is the
fashionable shopping street, and, as a rule, crowded with carriages in
the early morning hours, when the Cuban ladies make their purchases. No
Havanese lady ever condescends to leave her victoria to enter a
shop--the shopman invariably brings out his wares for her inspection,
and the bargaining takes place in the open street, and is often very
animated and amusing.
The Paseo de Tacon is, however, by far the finest promenade in the city,
and quite worthy of any capital in the world. A very broad drive passes
between a double row of splendid acacias of the "peacock" variety--so
called on account of their huge tufts of crimson and yellow flowers. The
Paseo dates back to 1802, and is adorned by several handsome statues and
memorial columns. Of an evening it blazes with electric light, and,
moreover, boasts an interminable switchback railway, a great source of
amusement to the young fry of Havana. At the extreme end of Tacon,
which, by the way, is sometimes as animated with carriages and
pedestrians as the Champs ElyseA(C)s, are the Botanical Gardens, which are
surprisingly fine. Imagine all the conservatories of Kew and the Crystal
Palace without their glass roofs, and you may then form a vague notion
of the glories of these gardens. There is an avenue of cocoa palms here
which is of almost unearthly beauty. I remember seeing these Gardens
illuminated for a _fiesta_ with myriads of coloured lights, and
surpassing in fairylike beauty any transformation scene ever devised at
dear old Drury. The stems of the palm trees, "all set in a stately row,"
seemed converted into pillars of gold, and, far above, a good hundred
feet and more, scintillated clusters of tiny lamps, like jewels among
their waving fronds.
Of an early winter morning--a winter morning in Cuba is like an ideal
one in late May in our latitudes, Tacon Gardens are delightful, they are
so well arranged and so full of interest. In the centre is the Quinta,
or summer-house, which you reach by a very long verdant tunnel, formed
of Pacific roses and the clustering yellow banksia. Here also I first
made the acquaintance of the duck plant, or _Aristolochia pelicana_ of
which more anon, and of the divinely beautiful Cuban morning glory,
_convolvulus major_--with its immense bunches of the deepest blue
flowers. In the evening the moon-flower opens its colossal white disks,
and the night-blooming cerus is also a perennial attraction to those who
have never seen it burst into glory at a given hour, and shed around an
almost too powerful odour of attar of roses.
Take Havana for all in all, in times of peace it is by far and away the
pleasantest city in the Southern Hemisphere--the most resourceful, for
it has capital public libraries, museums, clubs, and theatres. Of an
evening it is quite charming. Then the streets are thronged with people
until early morning. The bands play selections from the latest
operas--even Wagnerian airs--the seA+-oras and seA+-oritas parade up and
down with their attendant cabaleros, and mostly in evening, nay, full
ball dress, with only a lace veil over their heads. A brilliant double
line of equipages fills the central drive, and very smart many of them
are--as well turned out as any in Hyde Park or the Bois. The cafA(C)s, and
there are hundreds of them, are dazzling with electric and incandescent
light, and packed by a motley crowd as picturesque as it is animated.
Negresses, in gaudy cast-off finery, offer you _dulce_ or sweetmeats,
and coloured boys cry "limonata" and ice water. Everybody has a
cigarette between their lips or their fingers. Banjos twang and
mandolines tinkle in all directi
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