The History of Cuba, vol. 2

by Willis Fletcher Johnson

The breath of freedom which seemed to sweep across the world during these last decades of the eighteenth century, might well have filled the sovereigns of Europe with fear for their possessions and prerogatives. Although Carlos III. was the most liberal monarch that Spain had had in a long time, he still clung to a rigorous paternal regime in the relations of the court to the colonies, the population of which began to resent the rule of officials sent to them from Madrid, and rarely concerned with their welfare. He had had more cause than other European sovereigns to dread the consequences which the American Revolution might bring in its wake. For an insurrection, headed by Tupac-Amaru, who called himself an Inca, had broken out in Peru, and was directed against the exactions of the corregidores; and though it was suppressed by the year 1782, incipient revolt seemed everywhere to be ready to break out. As Garcia Calderon says of that period in his book on Latin America:

"The revolution was not merely an economic pretext; it nourished concrete social ambitions. An equalizing movement, it aimed at destruction of privileges, of the arbitrary Spanish hierarchy, and finally, when its levelling instinct was aroused and irritated, the destruction of authority to the profit of anarchy. The Creoles, deprived of all political function, revolted; in matters of economics they condemned excessive taxation and monopoly; in matters of politics they attacked slavery, the Inquisition, and moral tutelage. Charles III. had recognized, in 1783, in spite of the counsels of his minister Aranda, the independence of the United States, which were to serve his own colonies as precedent, and he expelled the Jesuits from America, the defense of the Indians against the oppression of Spanish governors. The corruption of the courts, the sale of offices, and the tyranny of the viceroys, all added to the causes of discontent, disturbance and poverty."

The insurrection in Peru was but the tocsin sounding the alarm. It was to be followed by a number of revolts that shook the very foundations of Spain's colonial empire in America.

Cuba for some time to come remained untouched by the high tide of insurrection. It enjoyed a period of peace, which promoted the welfare of the people and insured their content. D. Luis de Unzaga, who entered upon his office as governor of the island in December, 1783, distinguished himself by his strenuous prosecution of officials, whose honesty he had reason to doubt. One of these was the administrator of the Factoria or tobacco factory, D. Manuel Garcia Barrieres, whose disposal and trial he ordered. This factory, which monopolized the tobacco crop of the island for the benefit of the royal government, received a subvention from Spain which at this time was increased to fifty thousand pesos annually. Unzaga also took steps to limit the number of inexperienced and unscrupulous lawyers, against whom some of his predecessors had already inaugurated a campaign, by refusing to issue new diplomas to barristers, there being at that time two hundred practicing in the island. A royal decree of the year 1784 was directed towards the same evil, but lawyers still remained too numerous in proportion to the population for in 1792 the island had one hundred and six, and Havana seventy two. Governor Unzaga had also some trouble with the governor of Santiago de Cuba, D. Nicolas Arredondo. D. Arredondo, who is remembered in history of the island as the founder of the first "Sociedad Patriotica," in which he had such fellow-members as D. Francisco Lozo de la Torre, D. Pedro Valiente, and D. Francisco Grinan, was accused of participating in contraband trade and was temporarily deposed. Ultimately it was discovered that the real offenders were two aldermen, the brothers Creaght. After a protracted trial the innocence of Arredondo was established and he was reinstated in office.

The greater the natural wealth of a country, the more are its inhabitants inclined to indulge in thoughtless or deliberate waste of resources which would be carefully husbanded in country less favored by nature. Cuba was wasteful of her forest wealth. The governors of the island had so far paid little or no heed to the wanton destruction of the forests by people who exploited them for their timber. In a proclamation issued soon after he was inaugurated, Governor Unzaga made a serious attempt at checking this criminal waste of the island's wealth. He prohibited the use of cedar for building purposes; he designated the land where the people could procure their supply of that valuable wood, and ordered that for each log cut the arsenal should receive two "knees." The state had for years looked with indifference upon the devastation of the forests, and, conceding to private individuals the absolute dominion over those that shaded favored territory, wanted to monopolize them for the use of the Navy. Not only the sugar refineries were using unreasonable quantities of that wood, but especially the shipyard. This enterprise, which received an annual subvention from the Spanish government of seven hundred thousand pesos, and was more active than those of the mother country, because negro labor was cheaper than white, used enormous quantities of cedar.

Thus the order of Governor Unzaga, while ultimately benefiting the island, caused for the moment no little heated discussion and unpleasant tension.

Among the foreigners of high rank that visited Cuba immediately after peace had been signed was the son of George III., William of Lancaster, who had served as midshipman in Rodney's squadron. According to Alcazar, he was most graciously received, being sumptuously lodged by Governor Unzaga, who in honor of his presence arranged many brilliant festivities, in which the aristocracy of the island had opportunity to show itself resplendent in all its wealth. So pleased seemed the prince with his stay that he might have prolonged it, had not the admiral reprimanded him, and insisting upon his immediate return on board, threatened to leave without him. Knowing Rodney's severity, the prince obeyed, although it must have been difficult for him to tear away from that gay life. The visit cost the Cubans great sums of money, officials and civilians having vied with one another in offering entertainment. The mess at which the General of the Marine, D. Solano, had treated him, is reported by Valdes to have cost four thousand pesos. A gold peso being about the value of three dollars, it was a handsome sum to spend on the son of the king who had been Spain's enemy in the war just concluded.

One of the most serious mistakes which Spain had always made in the administration of her American colonies was the appointment of men who were mostly natives of the mother country and not as familiar with the conditions and the needs of the territory they governed as those who had been born in the colonies. The short period of some administrations also greatly hindered a well-ordered systematic management of the different departments of the government. Earlier periods of the history of Cuba had such frequent changes of governorship; and the latter part of the eighteenth century was to undergo the same experience. When Unzaga retired on the eighth of February, 1785, he was succeeded by a man whose previous career had given him a reputation which recommended him to the Cubans; D. Bernardo Galvez, who had distinguished himself in the last expedition against Pensacola, and as former governor of Louisiana was thoroughly in touch with colonial life in Spanish America. Galvez was a native of Malaga, Knight Commander of the order of Calatrava and endowed with the title of Conde de Galvez. But the hopes of the island were much disappointed when only two months later he was transferred to the vice-regency of Mexico and was on the fifth of April temporarily replaced by the King's Lieutenant-teniente de Rey, and Field Marshal D. Bernardo Troncoso. He had been governor of Guatemala, and when he had barely become acquainted with Cuban conditions, was appointed governor of Vera Cruz. But during his brief administration he showed no little initiative and firmness of purpose and among other things succeeded in repressing the bakers' guild which had become very troublesome.

At this time the Spanish colonies of the continent, Louisiana and Florida, became aware of the hostility with which they were regarded by certain elements of the United States, that tried to foment disturbances along their northern boundaries. In June of that year Troncoso received news from Louisiana that a corps of two thousand three hundred Americans were organizing in the state of Georgia for the purpose of taking the fortifications of Natchez, which they alleged were on ground of their demarcation. Troncoso accordingly dispatched from Havana a few pickets of infantry and a company of dragoons, with the aid of which the governor of Louisiana could mobilize a column of twelve hundred regular troops to check the project.

With the inauguration of Brigadier D. José de Espoleto on the first of December, 1785, a little more stability came into the government of the island. One of the first official acts was the formation of the Regiment of Cuba, in which he was ably assisted by the Inspector D. Domingo Cabello. Espoleto entered upon the functions of his office in the spirit of the Marques de la Torre, to whose wise administration Havana was indebted for all the improvements and reforms that made her worthy of being the metropolis of the Spanish West Indies. Espoleto continued the work on the piers, hastened the completion of the buildings for the government and the Intendencia, inaugurated a system of water supply and street cleaning and established a public market for the convenience of the producers in the outlying districts and the city dwellers relying upon them for their supplies in dairy and garden products. He also introduced some reforms in the police department of Havana. But what was most important for that commonwealth was his settling upon it of a sum which was to be devoted to the permanent lighting of the city.