Industrial Cuba / Being a Study of Present Commercial and Industrial Conditions, with Suggestions as to the Opportunities Presented in the Island for American Capital, Enterprise, and Labour

by Robert P. Porter

The coloured inhabitants of Cuba (mulattoes) are usually the children of black women and white fathers—the cases of a white woman having children with a black father being so rare as to be nearly unknown. In the cities the mulattoes are servants,—not hotel waiters, for they are all Spaniards,—barbers, and occasionally musicians. Mulatto women, though usually very statuesque in appearance, are unprincipled and insolent.

The Cuban negro inherits from his forefathers, the African slaves, a physique and a character strengthened and tempered by the toil of generations. During the sugar season he works steadily, from four in the morning until sunset every day, taking only two hours of rest with his meals. The coloured population shows no inclination to be on terms of equality with the white, and though under General Calleja’s administration negroes and mulattoes were all granted the handle of “Don” (Mr.) to their names, and though the right to be recognised in hotels, theatres, street-cars, etc., on equal terms with the whites has been extended to them, they have not availed themselves of the privilege to any extent.

The savagery of the African negro has, unfortunately, shown itself among his descendants in the Island. Some years ago a secret society called “Ñañigos” was introduced in Havana. These Ñañigos are divided into bands, whose object is to fight and kill each other. They commit all sorts of depredations and crimes. It has often been shown that the police have been in their pay. Some four hundred were banished some time ago to Spanish penitentiaries, together with political suspects, with whom they were chained in couples and marched through the streets of Havana prior to embarking. This is one of the many acts of refined cruelty that the Spaniards committed during the late insurrection; most respectable and honourable men, accused of sympathising in the cause of the rebellion, were chained arm to arm with negroes of the lowest caste, who, besides being convicted for crime, defiled the very atmosphere around them from the filth of their attire. The Ñañigos have lately been returned to Havana and set free, where they have lost no time in renewing their criminal work.

The Chinese element was brought over by contract for working on sugar plantations. They were virtually slaves until the Chinese Government intervened in their behalf.

The following extract from the comprehensive report of Mr. Robert T. Hill, of the United States Geological Survey on the Island of Cuba, may be considered as authority on the subject of population:

THE CUBANS

“Seventy-five percent. of the native population of the Island is found outside of the Spanish capital of Habana, which, being the seat of an unwelcome foreign despotism, is no more representative of Cuban life or character than is the English city of Hong Kong of the rural Chinese. While the Habanese have had the freest communication with the United States during the last three years of the revolution, Americans have had little opportunity to hear from the true white Cuban population. The Cubans are mostly found in the provinces and provincial cities, especially in Pinar del Rio and the eastern provinces of Santa Clara, Puerto Principe, and Santiago. Although of Spanish blood, the Cubans, through adaptation to environment, have become a different class from the people of the mother country, just as the American stock has differentiated from the English. Under the influence of their surroundings, they have developed into a gentle, industrious, and normally peaceable race, not to be judged by the combativeness which they have developed under a tyranny such as has never been imposed upon any other people. The better class of Camagueynos, as the natives are fond of calling themselves, are certainly the finest, the most valiant, and the most independent men of the Island, while the women have the highest type of beauty. It is their boast that no Cuban woman has ever become a prostitute, and crime is certainly almost unknown among them.

“While these people may not possess our local customs and habits, they have strong traits of civilised character, including honesty, family attachment, hospitality, politeness of address, and a respect for the golden rule. While numerically inferior to the annual migration of Poles, Jews, and Italians into the eastern United States, against which no official voice is raised, they are too far superior to these people to justify the abuse that has been heaped upon them by those who have allowed their judgment to be prejudiced by fears that they might by some means be absorbed into our future population.

“Notwithstanding the disadvantages under which the Cubans have laboured, they have contributed many members to the learned professions. To educate their sons and daughters in the institutions of the United States, England, and France has always been the highest ambition of the creoles of Cuba and Porto Rico. The influence of their educated men is felt in many countries, the most distinguished professor of civil engineering, two leading civil engineers of our navy, and the most eminent authority on yellow fever in our country belonging to this class. Thousands of these people, driven from their beloved Island, have settled in Paris, London, New York, Mexico, and the West Indies, where they hold honourable positions in society, and even the exiles of the lower classes, with their superior agricultural arts, have been eagerly welcomed in countries like Jamaica, Mexico, and Florida, which hope to share with Cuba the benefits of its tobacco culture.