“THE NEGROES
“In addition to the white creole population, thirty-two per cent. are black or coloured—using the latter word in its correct signification, of a mixture of the black and white. This black population of Cuba has been as little understood in this country as has been the creole, especially by those who have alleged that in case Cuba should gain her freedom the Island would become a second Haiti. The black and coloured people of the Island as a class are more independent and manly in their bearing than their brethren of the United States, having possessed even before slavery was abolished on the Island the four rights of free marriage, of seeking a new master at their option, of purchasing their freedom by labour, and of acquiring property. While the negro shares with the creole the few local rights possessed by any of the inhabitants, their social privileges are greater than here, although a strong caste feeling exists. Miscegenation has also produced many mulattoes, but race mixture is no more common than in this country.
“The coloured people of Cuba belong to several distinct classes. The majority of them are descendants of slaves imported during the present century, but a large number, like the negroes of Colombia and the maroons of Jamaica, come from a stock which accompanied the earliest Spanish settlers, like Estevan, the negro, who, with the two white companions of Cabeza de Vaca, first crossed the United States from the Gulf of Mexico to California in 1528-36. The amalgamation of this class in the past century with the Spanish stock produced a superior class of free mulattoes of the Antonio Maceo type, unlike any people in this country with which they can be compared.
“The current expressions of fear concerning the future relations of this race in Cuba seem inexplicable. The slaves of the South were never subjected to a more abject servitude than have been the free-born whites of Cuba, for they at least were protected from arbitrary capital punishment, imprisonment, and deportation without form of trial, such as that to which all Cubans are still subjected, and the white race of this or any other country has furnished few more exalted examples of patriotism than the mulattoes Toussaint L’Ouverture or Antonio Maceo.
“The experiences of the past have shown that there is no possibility of Cuba becoming Africanised without constant renewal by immigration. The 520,000 coloured people, one-half of whom are mulattoes, represent the diminished survival of over 1,000,000 African slaves that have been imported. The Spaniards had the utmost difficulty in acclimatising and establishing this race upon the Island. While Jamaica and other West India islands are a most prolific negro-breeding ground, the race could not be made to thrive in Cuba.
“Those persons who undertake to say what the social conditions of Cuba would be under independence should look elsewhere than to Haiti for a comparison. Even were the population of Cuba black, as it is not, the island of Jamaica would afford a much better contrast. This island, only about one-tenth the size of Cuba, is composed of mountainous lands like the least fertile portion of Cuba; has a population wherein the blacks outnumber the whites forty-four to one; yet, under the beneficent influence of the English colonial system, its civilisation is one of which any land might be proud, possessing highways, sanitation, and other public improvements even superior to those of our own country, and such as have never been permitted by Spain in Cuba. Even though Cuba should become a second Haiti, which it could not, there is some satisfaction in knowing, in the light of historic events, that Haiti free, although still grovelling in the savagery which it inherited, is better off than it would have been had Napoleon succeeded in forcing its people back into slavery, as he endeavoured to do.
“Another fact which will stand against the Africanising of Cuba is that it is highly probable that nearly one-half of these five hundred thousand coloured people have been destroyed during the present insurrection. A large number of them had but recently been released from the bonds of slavery, and were naturally the poorer class of the Island, upon which the hardships have mostly fallen, being generally the field hands in the sugar districts of Habana, Matanzas, and Santa Clara, where the death-rate of the terrible Weyler reconcentramiento has been greatest. Three hundred thousand of the five hundred thousand blacks belonged to these provinces, and of this number fully one-half have been starved to death. The population of Cuba has undergone great modification since the collection of the statistics given. What changes the deplorable conflict has wrought can only be surmised. Beyond doubt, however, the population has at least been reduced to a million inhabitants by emigration of non-combatants, destruction in battle, official deportation of suspects and political prisoners, and by the reconcentration.
“The rural population of the four western provinces of Pinar del Rio, Habana, Matanzas, and Santa Clara has been totally obliterated. Estimates of this extermination are all more or less conjectural, but the Bishop of Habana is authority for the statement that more than four hundred thousand people have been buried in the consecrated cemetery.”
Mr. Charles M. Pepper, in one of his newspaper letters, speaking of the negroes in Cuba, cites instances of their industry and thrift, and says:
“These notes are perhaps not conclusive, yet they have established in my own mind that the negro in Cuba is not an idler or a clog on industrial progress. He will do his part in rebuilding the industries of the Island, and no capitalist need fear to engage in enterprises because of an indefinite fear regarding negro labour. In the country, for a time, the black labourers may be in the majority. That is one of the results of the reconcentration. The blacks stood it better than the whites, and relatively a larger number of them are left for the work in the fields. When the present conditions are improved the question will arise over the immigration of labour. No need for discussing it has yet arisen. The leading blacks are opposed to the wholesale negro immigration to Cuba, and the mass of their people apparently agree with them.