The History of Cuba, vol. 1

by Willis Fletcher Johnson

Efforts were also made to stimulate increase of population. Married men in Spain were forbidden to go to Cuba without taking their wives with them. Bachelors and widowers in Cuba were not permitted to employ Indians or to hold slaves, while illicit unions with native women were discouraged under penalty. Regular marriages with native women were, however, legitimized, and there were many such which resulted satisfactorily. In spite of these precautions there were, of course, some illegitimate children, and these the government took steps to legitimize, in order that they might, in default of other heirs, inherit their fathers' property and become substantial members of the community.

The population of Cuba was materially increased in another and by no means commendable way. This was by the importation of negro slaves from Africa. The traffic in human beings began in the West Indies at about the time that Velasquez began the conquest and settlement of Cuba; perhaps a little before that time. Naturally, with the settlement of Cuba slave traders visited that island to offer their wares. It must be recorded to the credit of Velasquez that he at first prohibited the entrance of negro slaves into the island, and to the end of his life opposed it though he was forced after a while to permit it. This was partly on the ground of morals, and partly on that of prudence. He did not scruple to enslave to some extent the native Cubans. But that was in order to civilize and Christianize them, and also to afford the colonists protection from them in their wild native state. Such, at least, was the argument with which he justified his policy. Moreover, the Indians were already there, in the island, and had to be dealt with in some fashion. But it was manifestly a very different thing to import savages from some distant land for the express purpose of making slaves of them. The other reason was his fear that if many negroes were imported they and the Indians would so outnumber the whites as to be a grave menace.

Nevertheless the slave trade was established and soon attained considerable proportions. It became so flourishing that presently the Spanish government forbade private parties to conduct it save under special charter from the crown and on payment of a considerable royalty on each negro imported. Ostensibly, this was because it was feared that too many negroes might be imported, so as to endanger the security of the colonists, as Velasquez had suggested; but in fact it was largely for the sake of the revenue which thus accrued to the royal treasury. The popular sentiment in Cuba was generally in favor of slavery. It was held that thus only could sufficient labor be secured for the development of the resources of the island. The number of negroes never was as great as some colonists urged that it should be, to wit, three male and three female slaves for every white householder, but it is probable that before the middle of the century the negro population of the island outnumbered the European.

Treatment of the slaves was on the whole humane. The negroes were forbidden to carry weapons, or to go about in companies of more than four. They were at times subjected to physical punishment by their masters for misdemeanors, though generally such discipline was required to be administered by the authorities. Miscegenation between Europeans and negroes was prohibited under penalty, and as an additional safeguard against it slaves were required to be imported in equal numbers of the sexes, and all were required to be married. It may be doubted if a similar regard for their sexual morals was ever exhibited elsewhere. There was a provision under which it was possible for industrious and faithful slaves to purchase their freedom, and a considerable number of them did so; after which they became members of the community with almost the same legal rights and privileges as the Europeans.

There was, it is pleasant to record, never the prejudice against the negro in Cuba that prevailed in the states of North America. He was a slave, but he was a man. He was a social and political inferior, because of his enslavement; but he was mentally and spiritually the peer of his master. The text "Cursed be Canaan" was never thundered from Cuban pulpits, nor was it ever held that the negro must not be educated nor instructed in religion. On the contrary, it was required by law that the slaves should have the advantages of all the services of the church equally with their masters; and the Spanish aristocrat and his African slaves thus knelt side by side at the same altar. This attitude of the races toward each other had two natural results. One was, that the slaves were generally contented and peaceful, and attempts at insurrection among them, while not unknown, were rare. The other was, that amalgamation of the races became frequent and was recognized as quite legitimate. We have said that miscegenation in illegitimate fashion, between negro slaves and Europeans, was forbidden. But there was no ban against marriage between whites and emancipated negroes, and such unions not infrequently occurred, with satisfactory results.

The importation of negroes naturally increased with the gradual extermination of the native Indians, and it was favored by the very men who most strongly inveighed against the enslavement of the Indians. Even La Casas himself, with all his fervor in behalf of the natives, acquiesced in negro slavery; favored it, indeed, as a means of saving the Indians from such a fate. During the second administration of Guzman, the restrictions which had been placed upon the slave trade were removed, and free importations, without payment of a royalty, were thereafter permitted. Indeed, a further step than this was contemplated. It was urged that if the King wished the Indians to be emancipated, he should supply their places with negroes. This extraordinary argument prevailed, and for at least one year all the King's revenues from Cuba were ordered to be invested in negroes, who were then to be distributed among the colonists of the island in place of the Indians who were set free. These were not, however, to be free gifts, but were to be paid for by the colonists in the course of a term of years. The revenues for that year amounted to about 7,000 pesos, and it was reckoned that at the prices then prevailing in the slave market at least 700 slaves could be purchased. But at the last moment the King, or else the Council for the Indies, reconsidered the matter, and the slaves were never purchased. At the same time the enfranchisement of the Indians was postponed.

The early industries of Cuba were, in the order of their importance, gold mining, stock raising, and agriculture. The last named was practised by the Spanish settlers only to an extent sufficient to supply their own needs for food. Stock raising, both horses and cattle, was engaged in much more extensively, not only to supply local needs but also to supply the needs of Spanish explorers and gold-seekers in Mexico and Central and South America, who had no time nor opportunity in their strenuous quest there to attend to such matters. But the first thought of the first settlers in Cuba was for gold, and for many years the mining of that metal was the most profitable occupation. Within the first twenty years of Spanish settlement more than 500,000 pesos in gold were secured. Indeed in a single year, 1531, the mines at Cuyeba produced 50,000 pesos. There were paying mines at Savanna, at Savanna de Guaimaro, at Puerto Principe, at Portillo, and elsewhere throughout the central districts of the island; some of them being ore veins in the mountains and some placers in the river beds. But in the course of twenty-five years the mines began to fail and new ones were not discovered, so that by De Soto's time the output of gold had become insignificant. This was doubtless one of the strong contributing causes of the migration of so many settlers from the island, the eagerness of men to seek new fields in Florida, and the general decline which Cuba then suffered.

There was some compensation for the decline of gold mining in the discovery of rich copper mines, though the full value of them was not at first realized. It was during the first administration of Guzman that copper was discovered at Cobre, near Santiago. (This was the place where, as formerly related, Alonzo de Ojeda, in gratitude for his restoration to health, presented a statue of the Holy Virgin to the native chief, Comendador, who had been his host and nurse and who had embraced Christianity. The statue was long famous as Our Lady of Cobre.) There is reason for believing that the Cuban natives had formerly worked those mines to a considerable extent, for traffic with other lands, though they themselves apparently did not make use of the metal in their own arts. The governor, Guzman, learning of the discovery, urged the development of the mines as the property of the discoverers, while the royal treasurer claimed that they should belong to the crown. A controversy was maintained for some time, with the result that the crown, lightly esteeming the value of the find, permitted private exploitation of the mines on a basis of ten per cent royalty. An assayer was sent from Spain to superintend the refining of the copper from the ore, and suitable works were erected. But little or nothing was done for several years. Then, after the administration of De Soto, and while the alcalde mayor, Ortiz, was acting governor, a great demand for copper arose, for the casting of cannon, in Spain, and interest in the mines was revived. A German engineer made an agreement with the local authorities to extract the copper and did so with great success. The ore was found to be very rich in copper and also to contain so much gold and silver that it would be worth working for those metals entirely apart from the copper. Under this expert management the mines became highly profitable.

In the administration of Angulo the German engineer had two mines assigned to him as his own, in return for which he instructed all comers—chiefly slaves who were sent to him for the purpose by the settlers—in the art of smelting and refining copper. Large quantities of the copper were at that time sent to Spain, and the first cannon mounted on La Fuerza, in Havana, were made of it, being cast at the royal foundry at Seville. It is related that one of these cannon, a small falconet, burst in the casting, and so badly injured the superintendent of the works that he had to be taken to a hospital, where he expressed a bad opinion of Cuban copper. This was the origin of the really unfounded belief which long prevailed, and which was recorded in technological works, that Cuban copper had some peculiar quality which rendered it difficult and even dangerous to work.

The first essays toward the growing of sugar, which has become one of the greatest industries of the island and in which Cuba surpasses any other equal area of the earth's surface, were made as already related in the closing years of Velasquez's administration. They did not at that time prove important, and nothing more was done until the first administration of Guzman. That enterprising governor, always ready to do anything to enrich himself, asked permission to import negro slaves free of royalty, in order to establish the sugar industry, promising under penalty to begin the construction of a sugar mill within two years and to complete it within four years. The crown considered that too long a time, and refused to waive the royalty on slaves for his benefit, whereupon he abandoned the scheme. Then Hernando de Castro made a similar proposal, reducing the time of completion of the mill to three years. The crown was more favorably impressed by his offer, and agreed to it, only to have him withdraw it. Juan de Avila and his brother Alfonso reported strongly in favor of establishing the industry in Cuba, and asked for a loan of capital from the royal treasury to finance the undertaking; but nothing was done. Chaves and Angulo also successively reported that Cuba was admirably adapted to the industry, and it was known that at that very time sugar growing was enormously successful in Hispaniola, Porto Rico and other islands. Yet by some strange fatality nothing practical was done, and the actual establishment of the great industry was postponed until near the end of the century.