Yet in spite of these severe restrictions and heavy burdens, Cuba shows a considerable progress during the first half of the century. It is far from easy to reach fair conclusions from contemporaneous writings. Naturally, Spanish officials and Spanish writers strove to make the best possible case for Spain, its policies and its conduct. The press of the island was either under official control or stood in fear of official reprisals. The Cuban side, naturally partisan, appears to have been presented chiefly by fugitive pamphlets, more or less surreptitiously printed and distributed, usually the product of political extremists. Among these was a man of marked ability and of rare skill in the use of language. He was Don Antonio Saco, known in Cuba as the "Immortal Saco." In a letter written to a friend, in 1846, he says, "The tyranny of our mother-country, today most acute, will have this result—that within a period of time not very remote the Cubans will be compelled to take up arms to banish her." That British observers and most American observers should take the side of the Cubans is altogether natural. Writing in 1854, Mr. M.M. Ballou, in his History of Cuba, says: "The Cubans owe all the blessings they enjoy to Providence alone (so to speak), while the evils which they suffer are directly referable to the oppression of the home government. Nothing short of a military despotism could maintain the connection of such an island with a mother-country more than three thousand miles distant; and accordingly we find the captain-general of Cuba invested with unlimited power. He is, in fact, a viceroy appointed by the crown of Spain, and accountable only to the reigning sovereign for his administration of the colony. His rule is absolute; he has the power of life and death and liberty in his hands. He can, by his arbitrary will, send into exile any person whatever, be his name or rank what it may, whose residence in the island he considers prejudicial to the royal interest, even if he has committed no overt act. He can suspend the operation of the laws and ordinances, if he sees fit to do so; can destroy or confiscate property; and, in short, the island may be said to be perpetually in a state of siege."
The student or the reader may take his choice. On one side are Spanish statements, official and semi-official, and on the other side, Cuban statements no less partisan. The facts appear to support the Cuban argument. In spite of the severe restrictions and the heavy burdens, Cuba shows a notable progress during the 19th Century. Governors came and went, some very good and others very bad. There were a hundred of them from 1512 to 1866, and thirty-six more from 1866 to 1899, the average term of service for the entire number being a little less than three years. On the whole, the most notable of the group of 19th Century incumbents was Don Miguel Tacon, who ruled from June 1, 1834, until April 16, 1838. His record would seem to place him quite decidedly in the "reactionary" class, but he was a man of action who left behind him monuments that remain to his credit even now. One historian, Mr. Kimball, who wrote in 1850, describes him as one in whom short-sightedness, narrow views, and jealous and weak mind, were joined to an uncommon stubbornness of character. Another, Mr. M.M. Ballou, says that "probably of all the governors-general that have filled the post in Cuba none is better known abroad, or has left more monuments to his enterprise, than Tacon. His reputation at Havana (this was written 1854) is of a somewhat doubtful character; for, though he followed out with energy various improvements, yet his modes of procedure were so violent that he was an object of terror to the people generally, rather than of gratitude. He vastly improved the appearance of the capital and its vicinity, built the new prison, rebuilt the governor's palace, constructed a military road to the neighboring forts, erected a spacious theatre and market house, arranged a new public walk, and opened a vast parade ground without the city walls, thus laying the foundation of the new city which has now sprung up in this formerly desolate suburb. He suppressed the gaming houses and rendered the streets, formerly infested with robbers, as secure as those of Boston or New York." Another writer, Mr. Samuel Hazard, in 1870, says: "Of all the governors who have been in command of the island Governor Tacon seems to have been the best, doing the most to improve the island, and particularly Havana; making laws, punishing offences, and establishing some degree of safety for its inhabitants. It is reported of him that he is said, like the great King Alfred, to have promised the Cubans that they should be able to leave their purses of money on the public highway without fear of having them stolen. At all events, his name is cherished by every Cuban for the good he has done, and paseos, theatres, and monuments bear his great name in Havana." The Tacon theatre is now the Nacional, and the Paseo Tacon is now Carlos III. The "new prison" is the Carcel, or jail, at the northern end of the Prado, near the fortress of La Punta. Don Miguel may have been disliked for his methods and his manners, but he certainly did much to make his rule memorable.
There is no reliable information that shows the progress of the island during the 19th Century. Even the census figures are questioned. A reported 432,000 total population in 1804 is evidently no more than an estimate, yet it is very likely not far from the actual. Concerning their distribution throughout the island, and the number engaged in different occupations, there are no records. There are no acceptable figures regarding the respective numbers of whites and blacks. Nor is there any record of the population in 1895, the year of the war for independence. From the definite tabulation, under American auspices, in 1899, showing 1,576,797, it has been estimated that the number in 1895, was a little less than 1,800,000, the difference being represented by the disasters of the war, by the result of reconcentration, and by departures during the disturbance. The general result seems to be that the population was practically quadrupled. A somewhat rough approximation would show the blacks as multiplied by three, to an 1899 total of 505,000, with the whites multiplied by four, to a total of 1,067,000. Nor are there figures of trade that afford any proper clue to the growth of industry and commerce. There are records of imports and exports from about 1850 onward, but before that time the matter of contraband trade introduces an element of uncertainty. An American official pamphlet on Cuban trade carries the statement, "the ascertainment of full and exact details of the commerce of Cuba prior to the close of Spanish dominion in the island is an impossibility. The Spanish authorities, as a rule, published no complete returns of Cuban trade, either foreign or domestic. Except with regard to Spain and the United States, most of the existing commercial statistics of Cuba, prior to 1899, are fragmentary and merely approximative. Spain and the United States have always kept a separate and distinct trade account with Cuba; but the United Kingdom, France, Germany, and other European countries excepting Spain, formerly merged their statistics of trade with Cuba in one general item embracing Cuba and Porto Rico, under the heading of "Spanish West Indies." Since 1899, however, all the Powers have kept separate accounts with Cuba, and the statistics of the Cuban Republic have been reasonably full and accurate."
IRON GRILLE GATEWAY
El Vedado, Suburb of Havana
Cuba's recorded imports in 1894 show a total value of $90,800,000, and exports show a value of $102,000,000. Writing about the year 1825, Humboldt says: "It is more than probable that the imports of the whole island, licit and contraband, estimated at the actual value of the goods and the slaves, amount, at the present time, to fifteen or sixteen millions of dollars, of which barely three or four millions are re-exported." The same authority gives the probable exports of that time as about $12,500,000. The trade at the beginning of the century must have been far below this. The official figures for 1851 show total imports amounting to $34,000,000, and exports to $33,000,000, but the accuracy of the figures is open to question. The more important fact is that of a very large gain in population and in production. The coffee industry, that assumed important proportions during a part of the first half of the century, gradually declined for the reason that sugar became a much more profitable crop. Now, Cuba imports most of its coffee from Porto Rico. Because of its convenience as a contraband article, there are no reliable figures of the tobacco output. Prior to 1817, the commodity was, for much of the time, a crown monopoly and, for the remainder of the time, a monopoly concession to private companies. In that year, cultivation and trade became free, subject to a tax on each planter of one-twentieth of his production.
As we shall see, in another chapter, Cuba at last wearied of Spanish exactions and revolted as did the United States, weary of British rule and British exactions and restrictions, more than a hundred years earlier.
[III]
THE COUNTRY
Description of the physical features of a country seldom makes highly entertaining reading, but it seems a necessary part of a book of this kind. Some readers may find interest if not entertainment in such a review. The total area of the island, including a thousand or more adjacent islands, islets, and keys, is given as 44,164 square miles, a little less than the area of Pennsylvania and a little more than that of Ohio or Tennessee. Illustration of its shape by some familiar object is difficult, although various comparisons have been attempted. Some old Spanish geographers gave the island the name of La Lengua de Pajaro, "the bird's tongue." Mr. M.M. Ballou likened it to "the blade of a Turkish scimitar slightly curved back, or approaching the form of a long, narrow, crescent." Mr. Robert T. Hill holds that it "resembles a great hammer-headed shark, the head of which forms the straight, south coast of the east end of the island, from which the sinuous body extends westward. This analogy is made still more striking by two long, finlike strings of keys, or islets, which extend backward along the opposite coasts, parallel to the main body of the island." But all such comparisons call for a lively imagination. It might be likened to the curving handles of a plow attached to a share, or to any one of a dozen things that it does not at all clearly resemble. Regarding the Oriente coast, from Cape Cruz to Cape Maisi, as a base, from that springs a long and comparatively slender arm that runs northwesterly for five hundred miles to the vicinity of Havana. There, the arm, somewhat narrowed, turns downward in a generally southwestern direction for about two hundred miles. The total length of the island, from Cape Maisi on the east to Cape San Antonio on the west, is about seven hundred and thirty miles. Its width varies from a maximum, in Oriente Province, of about one hundred and sixty miles, to a minimum, in Havana Province, of about twenty-two miles. It has a general coast line of about twenty-two hundred miles, or, following all its sinuosities, of about seven thousand miles. Its north coast is, for much of its length, steep and rocky. Throughout the greater part of the middle provinces, there is a border of coral reefs and small islands. At the western end, the north coast is low, rising gradually to the eastward. At the eastern end, the northern coast is abrupt and rugged, rising in a series of hills to the elevations in the interior. Westward from Cape Maisi to Cape Cruz, on the south coast, and immediately along the shore line, runs a mountain range. From here westward, broken by an occasional hill or bluff, the coast is low and marshy.