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 Guanahanè, 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 Doña 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.