Meanwhile of a once vast colonial empire but Cuba and Porto Rico remained. What were the forces at work which there prevented secession?
The political economist Mr. R. J. Root, to whom and to whose work on this subject we are already much indebted, states that the conditions were different. The predominant feature of the islands was negro slavery, whereas the wealth of the Spanish-American colonist lay in lands which, if subject to alienation, were at least impossible of removal. The Cuban planter reckoned as his most precious possession the flesh and blood attached to his estates, and the very words “freedom” and “independence” stank in his nostrils. Whatever inconvenience, therefore, he suffered from his political connection with an effete monarchy and a decaying or decayed empire, he at least felt that, while he clung to it, it would afford him protection for his property.
A steady flood of immigration from the mother country maintained this connection down to the recent war. The wealthiest merchants and planters have invariably been of pure Spanish blood, and their contempt for the Cuban Creoles, though many of them are as pure-blooded as themselves, and have no taint whatever of the “tar-brush,” has helped to maintain them as a separate class, regarded as intruders by all of Cuban birth, and hated accordingly. They have of necessity invoked Spanish aid and relied on Spanish authority, and have, for nearly a hundred years, provided the basis for Spanish rule in the island. Many of them made their fortunes and returned home, leaving room for others to follow. Some made Cuba their permanent domicile, but invariably with fatal effects upon their offspring, for Cuban birth is almost synonymous with Cuban sympathies, and, in any rising, the father, who has been on the side of the crown, has witnessed his sons throwing in their lot with the rebels.
Ever since the emancipation of the Spanish Main, Cuba has been in a state of political unrest. Various secret societies have been constituted, and have received advice and assistance from Mexicans, Chilians, and others who had already succeeded in throwing off their own fetters. In 1823 the Society of Soles struck a blow for liberty; six years later it was the Company of the Black Eagle which attempted success where its predecessor had failed. Both were essentially Creole risings, and although those who participated in them freely gave expression to their abhorrence of slavery, no assistance was either asked or received from the negroes. For these unfortunates, however, failure meant the tightening of their bonds; and it is not surprising to find that, in 1844, goaded to despair by their sufferings, they tried an insurrection on their own account, though of course it ended disastrously.
These outbreaks were all more or less localized, and it was not until 1868 that a revolution broke out, destined to involve the entire island, and to occupy long and weary years in suppressing, if, indeed, the smoking embers can be said ever to have been quenched. It was undoubtedly instigated by the American Civil War, which had ended in the uncompromising abolition of slavery, and so raised the hopes of the friends of liberty in Cuba. Though the planters and slave-owners ranged themselves, as was natural, on the side of law and order, their enthusiasm was no longer of the keenest. They realized that the institution to which they clung so tenaciously was doomed, and it became a question with them of doing the best they could for themselves. Emancipation in the British West Indies had for a time added enormously to their prosperity, until the value of slaves underwent so great an appreciation that it no longer became profitable to purchase them, and only actual owners derived any benefit. For, it must be remembered, there was a distinct difference between the slave-trade and slavery, and long after public opinion revolted against, and prohibited the kidnapping and traffic in human flesh, it continued to tolerate its ownership, and recognized natural increase as legitimate property. That African negroes were smuggled into Cuba is tolerably certain; nevertheless, the numbers were too small to prevent the gradual increase in value of an able-bodied male slave from $250 to something like $1,750 or $2,000. This was the surest means of eventual abolition; for while this high price set upon the black made him valuable property, and insured his better treatment, it tended to make the luxury too costly, and one that could eventually no longer be indulged in, as the point must be reached where free labor would become cheaper.
About the time of the rebellion, the number of slaves in Cuba was between 350,000 and 400,000, and their value on paper was simply enormous. The $100,000,000 voted by the British Parliament as compensation to the disinherited slave-owners in the British West Indies would have been but a drop in the ocean in any scheme for Cuban emancipation by purchase. Indeed, to do the planters justice, they never expected anything of the sort, and all the more practical of them asked, was to be let down gently. This was effected by the proclamation of what was known as the Moret Law in 1870, which at once declared free all slaves over sixty years of age, and decreed that every child born after that year should be free likewise. In the first instance, the planters registered a distinct gain, as they got rid of a number of old and decrepit dependants no longer fit for work; but this was offset by the compulsory maintenance, until their eighteenth year, of all the free offspring of their slaves. Under this law, the odious institution perished in something like twenty years, because its burdens gradually outweighed its benefits, until the low wage for which the free negro is willing to work became the more economical method of production.
Thus the strongest tie between Spain and Cuba was snapped, and the party of independence gained force, as many planters found no longer any advantage in supporting the authority of the crown. The rebellion dragged on; the Spanish troops continually poured in having to encounter the guerrilla warfare, for which the division of the island afforded so many opportunities. For, considerable though the population is, two-thirds of it has always been concentrated in the western corner, of which Havana is the capital, the remaining districts being very sparsely peopled. It is in these rebellion always throve; and the policy adopted by General Weyler, when in supreme command, was to make them a desert by destroying all sustenance, and forcibly removing the inhabitants, who, under the name of Reconcentrados, aroused so much sympathy.
Though the outbreak of 1868 was eventually suppressed, it left a legacy of bitter memories and still bitterer exactions. For, true to its policy of four centuries, Spain determined that it at least would not be a loser, and saddled the entire cost of the military operations, and nobody knows what else besides, on the unfortunate island, in the form of a debt amounting to about four hundred million dollars. Even this might have been tolerated had any attempt been made to establish an equitable system of government, because an era of prosperity set in which culminated in 1891, when the total exports were valued at no less than $100,000,000, and there was ample margin for interest on an inflated debt. But the rapacity of Catalan manufacturers, no less than of government officials, upset everything; and from the captain-general down to the humblest trader in Barcelona, all expected to pocket something out of the spoils of Cuba. Nor was the plunder limited to Spaniards. Despite the restrictions against trading by foreigners, adventurers of all nationalities managed to get a foothold in Havana, and corruption preyed on corruption. No one, in fact, was expected to be honest, and a stranger remarking upon the rascality prevailing in high places, would as likely as not be met with a shrug of the shoulders and the reply, Robamos todos, “We are all thieves.”
CHAPTER XI
THE PHILIPPINES
THE FIRST JOURNEY ROUND THE WORLD—FERDINAND MAGELLAN—THE MOLUCCAS—THE ISLANDS OF THE PAINTED FACES—MANILA AND THE CHINESE—THE BRITISH INVASION—SPANISH RULE