Due South; or, Cuba Past and Present

by Maturin M. Ballou

The royal palm, so often alluded to, grows to the height of seventy feet, more or less. It is singular that it should have no substance in the interior of its trunk, though the outside to the thickness of a couple of inches makes the finest of boards, and when seasoned is so hard as to turn a board-nail at a single stroke of the hammer. It is remarkable also that a palm tree which grows so high has such tiny, thread-like roots, which, however, are innumerable. The top of the palm yields a vegetable which is used as food and when boiled is nutritious and palatable, resembling our cauliflower. Though there are many species of palm in Cuba, one seldom sees the fan-palm, which forms such a distinctive feature in equatorial regions as at Penang and Singapore.

Humboldt thought that the entire island was once a forest of palms, mingled with lime and orange trees. The mulberry tree, if not indigenous, was found here at so early a period that it is a matter of doubt as to its having been imported from other lands. It grows to great perfection, and has led to several attempts in the direction of silk-raising, the silkworm also proving more prolific even than in Japan. Some of the fine, hard fancy woods of Cuba were employed in the finish of apartments in the Escurial palace near Madrid. Ebony, rosewood, fustic, lancewood, mahogany, and other choice woods are very abundant, especially the mahogany, which grows to enormous size. The exportation of them has only taken place where these woods were best located for river transportation to harbors on the coast. The interior of the island is so inaccessible that it has hardly been explored. There are fertile valleys there of two hundred miles in length and thirty in width, with an average temperature of 75°, a maximum of 88°, and a minimum of 52°, thus affording a most perfect and healthful climate, favorable to human and to vegetable life, and it should be remembered that malarial diseases or yellow fever are unknown in the districts removed from the coast, and no one ever heard of sunstroke in Cuba.

It is somewhat remarkable that there should be no poisonous animals or reptiles in the island, but so we were creditably informed. Snakes of various species abound, but are considered entirely harmless, though they are sometimes destructive to domestic fowls. During a pleasant trip between San Antonio and Alquizar in a volante with a hospitable planter of that region, this subject happened to be under discussion, when we saw in the roadway a snake six or eight feet long, and as large round as the middle of one's arm. On pointing it out to our friend, he merely told us its species, and declared that a child might sleep with it unharmed. In the mean time it was a relief to see the innocent creature hasten to secrete itself in a lime hedge close at hand. Lizards, tarantulas, and chameleons are frequently seen, but are considered to be harmless. One often awakes in the morning to see lizards upon his chamber wall, searching for flies and insects, upon which they feed.

The Cuban bloodhound, of which we hear so much, is not a native of the island, but belongs to an imported breed, resembling the English mastiff, though with larger head and limbs. He is by nature a fierce, bloodthirsty animal, but the particular qualities which fit him for tracing the runaway slaves are almost entirely acquired by careful training. This is accomplished by experts in the business, who are sometimes Monteros, and sometimes French overseers of plantations who are out of work or regular engagement. Each estate keeps some of these dogs as a precautionary measure, but they are seldom called into use of late, for so certain is the slave that he will be instantly followed as soon as missed, and inevitably traced by the hounds, that he rarely attempts to escape from his master unless under some peculiarly aggravating cause. It may even be doubted whether a slave would be pursued to-day were he to attempt to escape, because slavery is so very near its last gasp. In one respect this is an advantage to the negroes, since the master, feeling this indifference, grants the blacks more freedom of action. So perfect of scent is the Cuban bloodhound that the master has only to obtain a bit of clothing left behind by the runaway and give it to the hound to smell. The dog will then follow the slave through a whole population of his class, and with his nose to the ground lead straight to his hiding-place.

For three centuries Cuba has been the hotbed of African slavery. Few, if any, have been imported during the last thirty years, that is to say since 1855, during which year some cargoes were successfully run. In 1816, the Spanish government, in a solemn treaty, declared its conviction of the injustice of the slave trade. On the 23d of September, 1817, in consideration of four hundred thousand pounds sterling paid as an equivalent by Great Britain, Spain ratified a treaty proclaiming that the slave trade should cease throughout all the dominions of that country on the 30th day of May, 1820, and that it should not afterwards be lawful for any Spanish subject to purchase slaves. It was further declared by the home government that all blacks brought from Africa subsequent to that date should be at once set free, and the vessel on which they were transported should be confiscated, while the captain, crew, and others concerned should be punished with ten years' penal servitude. Yet, as all the world knows, this was nothing more than a dead letter so far as Cuba was concerned, and so late as 1845, statistics show an arrival of imported slaves from Africa of fifteen thousand negroes annually, for the previous twenty years. Tacon, Governor-General from June, 1834, until April, 1838, like his predecessors and successors made no secret of receiving seventeen dollars per head,—that is one doubloon,—on every slave landed. Other officials spent their fees on themselves or hoarded them for a fortune to be enjoyed on returning home to Spain, but Tacon expended his in beautifying Havana and its environs. That the home government secretly fostered the slave trade, notwithstanding the solemn treaty entered into with Great Britain, no one pretends to deny.

The coolie system, which was latterly substituted for that of the importation of Africans, was commenced in 1847, but it was only slavery under another form, being in point of humanity even more objectionable. Fully seventy per cent. of the Chinese coolies died during the eight years they were bound by their contract to serve their masters! Even after that period was completed, unjust laws and schemes were adopted to retain their services whenever the planters desired it; but the truth is, the planters, after a thorough experience, were generally glad to get rid of the Mongolians. All of them were decoyed from home under false pretenses and large promises, and only arrived in Cuba to find themselves virtually slaves. But there was no help for them. They were thousands of miles from China, in a land of whose language they knew nothing, and so they were obliged to submit. If after their term of service expired they succeeded in reaching Havana, or other Cuban cities, and by becoming fruit peddlers or engaging in any other occupation tried to earn sufficient money to carry them back to their native land, they still were brutally treated by all parties, and were ever at the mercy of the venal police. On the plantations they received perhaps a little more consideration than the blacks, simply because they were less tractable and more dangerous on account of their greater degree of intelligence and keener sense of the wrong done them. The planter, always short of laborers, has heretofore been willing to pay the shipping-agencies four hundred dollars for a newly-arrived coolie, whose services he thus secured for eight years, the coolies at the expiration of the period to receive a mere nominal sum, out of which they have mostly been cheated by some means or other. The whole business of coolie importation is vile beyond measure, and must have included in its aggregate over three hundred thousand Chinese. There are still believed to be some sixty thousand left upon the island, most of whom remain because they have no means of returning to their native land. Half of these subsist by begging. Broken in health and spirits, they await the coming of that final liberator who is the last friend of suffering humanity.

The Chinese are best adapted to the work of the cigar factories, where they excel in the occupation of cigar and cigarette making, and many hundreds are thus employed in Havana. But they are totally unfit for plantation labor, under the hardships of which their feeble frames succumb. They prove themselves very good servants in the cities, being very quick to learn, and ready to adapt themselves to any light occupation. A Chinaman is sly, cunning, and, to a certain degree, enterprising; but he must be trusted cautiously. As a house-servant, footman, cook, or waiter he is admirable. Here, in this to him foreign land, he cannot suppress his instinct for gambling; it seems to be born in him, and he will often lose in an hour the hard accumulation of months, or even years. As to the lottery, he is always the purchaser of portions of tickets at every drawing, and occasionally becomes a winner. A thrifty Chinaman, for there are some such even in Havana, bearing the characteristic name of Ah-Lee, connected with a bricabrac store on the Calzada de la Reina, held a lucky number in the lottery drawn during our brief stay at the Hotel Telegrafo. When the prizes were announced, he found that he was entitled to five hundred dollars. The agents tried to pay Ah-Lee in Cuban currency, but he was too smart for them, and showed them their own announcement promising to cash all prizes, with the usual discount, in gold. So Ah-Lee got his prize finally in gold. We were told by one whose experience was extensive, and whose testimony was worthy of respect, that the coolies would lie and steal with such apparent innocence as to deceive the most wary, and that as regards their moral nature it seemed to be totally undeveloped. For our own part we still sympathize with John. He has been so outrageously cheated and abused from the hour when he stepped on board the transport ship which brought him from China up to the present time that he has learned the trick of it. If he is not strong enough to demand his rights, we certainly hope that he may have sufficient cunning to obtain them by outwitting his adversaries.

In their slave condition the Chinese coolies and the negroes were at times so affected by a spirit of superstition as to cause them to commit suicide, the latter actuated, as it seemed, by a feeling of despair, the former through a vindictive spirit towards their masters. Both were also moved by a superstitious conviction that their spirits would at once be returned to their native land, to inhabit a sort of spirit paradise or intermediate state between earth and heaven. It is very strange that so peculiar and so similar a belief should be indigenous in the minds of such distinctive races. At the period when the free importation from Africa was carried on, the most difficult thing the planters had to contend with was a proneness to suicide on the part of those slaves who were newly imported, and who entertained this same remarkable idea.

Though we abhor the entire system of Cuban labor, yet it cannot be denied that the slaves, so far as material comfort goes, are better lodged, fed, and cared for than four fifths of the population of Ireland and India, and, furthermore, this comparison will hold good as regards a large portion of continental Europe. A well-fed, well-kept negro is twice as valuable, twice as serviceable to his master as a neglected one, and no one knows this better than the master who governs his slaves on purely mercenary grounds, and is yet very careful to supply liberally their physical wants. These slaves are descended from various African tribes, whose characteristics are so marked as to be easily discernible even by strangers. The Congoes are small in stature, but very agile and good workers, and in past years they have been a favorite tribe. The Fantees are a larger race of negroes, hard to manage, and possessing a revengeful nature. Those from the Gold Coast are still more powerful in body, but are good-natured and well-liked by planters. The Ebros are less black than those already named, almost mulatto in complexion, and make favorite house servants. The Ashantees are of another prominent tribe, and are also popular as plantation hands, but not numerous.

The tattooed faces, bodies, and limbs of a large portion of the slaves, especially of the hands upon the plantations, shows their African nativity, while the smooth skin and generally greater degree of intelligence of others show them to have been born in slavery upon the island. These latter are mostly sought for service in the cities. They are remarkably healthy when not overworked, and form the most vigorous part of the population. When an epidemic breaks out among the blacks, it seems to carry them off by wholesale, proving much more fatal than among the whites. Cholera, small-pox, and pneumonia sometimes sweep them off at a fearful rate. It is a curious fact that if a negro is really ill, he requires just twice as much medicine to affect him as a white person.