One of the most ancient of the many ecclesiastical edifices in Havana, built in 1575 and rebuilt in 1731, and presenting a singularly perfect and characteristic example of ancient Spanish architecture. In late years it was used by the Government for a custom house, and post office. The illustration presents it in its earlier aspect with its former surroundings restored.
CHAPTER XIX
It would be easy for the reflective historian to engage in many interesting and pertinent observations concerning the time in which Captain Francisco Carreño became governor of Cuba. It was the year 1577. That was the year in which the sixth religious war in France began, a struggle which made inevitable the still greater religious wars which followed, in which not merely two factions in France but the two great powers of Spain and England were the chief belligerents. That was the year, too, in which Sir Francis Drake began his voyage around the world, which was perhaps the most momentous since that of Columbus in 1492, since it led directly to the strife between Spain and England in America, the English conquest of Cuba, the foundation of the English colonies in North America, and the subsequent development of the United States; all having the most direct and important bearing upon the fortunes of Cuba.
Albeit he was a native of that city of Cadiz in the harbor of which Drake performed one of his most daring and most famous feats, Carreño probably entered upon his governorship with no premonitions of what was in store. While Drake was furrowing the strange expanses of the South Sea, it was French privateers that chiefly troubled the Spanish Main and menaced the ports of Cuba. Their favorite cruising ground was in the waters between Cuba and Jamaica, and between Cuba and Hispaniola, and their menace to Cuba was chiefly to the ports between Cape Maysi and Cape Cruz, and in the Gulf of Guacanabo. The chief sufferers, as also the chief gainers from contraband trade, were Santiago, Manzanillo, and the settlements at the mouth of the Guantanamo River. The people of those places were never sure whether an approaching French vessel was bent on contraband trade or war and plunder; and indeed the Frenchman himself sometimes left that question to be answered after he had landed and viewed the place. He then decided which would be the more profitable, to trade with the people or to plunder them. At times, too, it must be confessed, the Spaniards were in similar uncertainty whether to receive the French as traders or to slay them—if they could—as enemies.
Carreño was the first governor of Cuba to die in office, his death occurring on April 27, 1579. His administration thus lasted only two years; but they were years filled with hard work on his part and with much progress for the island. The sugar industry which had been founded in the preceding administration prospered and expanded, and caused a considerable increase in slave-holding. Negro slaves were the favorite workmen on the plantations and at the mills, and a large number of them was needed at each establishment. The increase in the number of slaves caused, however, some anxiety lest there should be servile insurrections, such as had occurred on the Isthmus of Panama, in Mexico and elsewhere; so that in 1579 the government refused to permit any more to be imported, even though they were wanted by the governor himself. It is recorded that his personal request for a thousand negroes to work at copper mining was refused by the King, or by the Council for the Indies.
Anxiety was caused, also, by the increasing number of free negroes, and of slaves who were practically free. Most of the entirely free negroes had been slaves but had bought their freedom from their masters for cash. This was not particularly difficult, since the market value of the best negro slaves at that time was only from fifty to sixty pesos. Those practically free were slaves who were permitted by their owners to live where they pleased and work as they pleased, on condition of paying their masters certain royalties every week or month. In Carreño's time there were hundreds of negroes of these classes in and about Havana, and probably still more of them in the eastern end of the island. The anxiety concerning them arose from two causes. One was, the fear that they might incite the slaves to insurrection, placing themselves at the head of the movement; a fear which was not at that time realized. The other was, the fear that they would build up objectionable communities. Thus in Havana they occupied a quarter of the town by themselves, in which their wooden cabins were huddled closely together; the sanitary conditions were bad; and the danger of fire which might imperil the whole town was obviously imminent. There was in Carreño's time a movement to procure their deportation to Florida or elsewhere, and to forbid the residence of free negroes in Cuba; but it did not become effective.
It is agreeable to remember that in spite of the obviously objectionable nature of the institution of slavery, and in spite of the fears and anxieties which have been mentioned, negro slavery in Cuba in those early days was not marked with the distressing features which it has elsewhere borne. It was probably more humane than it was two and a half centuries later in the United States. The slaves were seldom sold by one master to another, and never in circumstances which separated husband and wife, or parents and young children. Severe physical punishments were prohibited. Their masters were compelled to feed them well, and to provide them with decent and comfortable clothes. There was no personal or social prejudice against them, but they were permitted to attend church and to frequent all public places on equal terms with the Spaniards. Ordinarily they were not permitted to carry weapons; but those who occupation seemed to make it desirable for them to be armed, such as cattle-rangers, and messengers travelling from one part of the island to another, were permitted to bear arms just as white men would have done. Moreover, the free negroes were called upon equally with the whites to serve as sentinels on the water fronts of cities, and were of course provided with arms. There are no authentic records of intermarriage between Spaniards and negroes, yet neither is there any proof that it did not occasionally occur. We have already seen that amalgamation with the Indians was not unknown, and in other Spanish colonies of those and later days there were some fusions with African blood.