The History of Cuba, vol. 2

by Willis Fletcher Johnson

"The slavery question met with political difficulties of an even graver character in the rapid progress made by the ideas of the abolitionists, which inflamed and inspired those foreign nations who had filled their own colonies with slaves. Imprudent exaltation of the republican ideals of France finally led the children of Hayti to rise in a horrible revolution. A race of men that had come to the coasts of America not in royal vessels and clad in steel to plant standards with the sign of Redemption, but locked up in the stench of a closed hold, the body naked and in chains, to irrigate with their sweat and blood the land of slavery, rose in defence of the natural laws, demolished the banner at the sight of which the most powerful nations of Europe had trembled, and conquered the outraged rights of humanity. One should think that the beam of light which radiated through all the sea of the Antilles would have dissuaded the Cubans and the government from promoting African colonization on the island of Cuba; nevertheless a lamentable error, though based upon the best intentions, caused Cuba to invite that evil and Spain filled the island with African slaves."

It may seem incongruous that a man of D. Francisco de Arango's liberal ideas should have been instrumental in securing for Cuba from the court at Madrid a privilege which the enlightened humane viewpoint of his time began to consider a disgrace. But as pointed out in a previous chapter, this measure was resorted to by Arango only as a temporary expediency. As soon as the immediate shortage of hands was relieved, he himself recommended the substitution of free white labor for negro slavery. For the enormous influx of negroes as compared with the very minimum increase of white inhabitants began even then to fill with vague apprehensions for the future of Cuba's population those most earnestly concerned with the welfare of the island. To the Spaniards of Florida the great percentage of negroes was repulsive. More than five hundred Floridians, who in 1763 had come to Cuba to escape British rule, returned to their old home in 1784. When after the reign of terror in Santo Domingo French refugees settled in Cuba, they, too, were opponents of the slave traffic and their influence contributed no little towards changing the attitude of the Spaniards towards negro slavery.

One of the disturbing features in this large negro population was the small proportion of women. Planters refused to invest in the latter, because they considered them unfit for the hard labor required. The result was such a surplus of male slaves that in some communities there were five hundred men to one negro woman. At first the negro slaves were employed mostly in the mines, where the native Indians had proved inefficient. Later they entered also domestic service. But with the development of agriculture, they began to be largely employed in the fields and on the plantations. Edward Gaylord Bourne says in his work on "Spain in America," the third volume in the historical series "The American Nation," in the chapter on Negro Slaves (p. 272):

"The development of the sugar industry and the growth of slavery were dependent upon each other, especially after the mines of the Antilles gave out. Each trapiche, or sugar-mill, run by horses or mules, required thirty or forty negroes, and each water-mill eight at the least. Had the commerce of the islands been reasonably free, plantation slavery on a large scale would have rapidly developed, and the history of Hayti and the English islands would have been anticipated a century by the Spaniards."

While Howard, Wilberforce, Judge Sewall and the Quakers are usually considered the pioneers of the abolition of slavery, the first voice raised against this institution came from Peru and was that of a Jesuit, Alfonso Sandoval, a native of Seville, but a resident of Peru, where his father held an important position in the royal administration. Sandoval wrote a work on negro slavery entitled "De Instauranda Aethiopum Salute," which was published in Madrid in 1647 and contains valuable data concerning the traffic, frequently quoted by historians. Nor can it be denied that the Spaniards knew better how to treat the negroes than either the French or the British. Evidences to the contrary suggest that whatever may have been the wrongs under which the negro slaves of the Spanish colonies suffered, they were not as much due to the cruelty of the masters, as to their ignorance and carelessness.

The humane attitude of the Spaniard towards the negro slave made the Royal Cedula issued by King Carlos III. in 1789 a unique document. For in this royal decree are set forth the rights of the slaves with a precision which in an eventual dispute with the masters could admit of no doubt. By that decree the Spanish king earned for himself a niche in the gallery of human benefactors. For the individual paragraphs as compared with the civic code of Spain show little or no discrimination between the black and the white elements of the colonial population. These laws agreed perfectly with the spirit of the period which had produced Howard, Wilberforce, Sewall and others. They were conceived in a remarkable spirit of equity, whatever violations and abuses may have occurred in individual practice. According to this cedula, a slave, if ill-treated, had the right to choose another master, provided he could induce this new master to buy him. He could buy his liberty at the lowest market-price. He could buy wife and children and marry the wife of his choice. If he suffered cruel treatment, he could appeal to the courts and in some instances might be set free. If negroes were in doubt about the lawfulness of their enslavement, they also had the right to bring their case to the notice of the courts. By that same cedula negro slaves were granted the right to hold property which opened for them opportunities for eventual emancipation. Moreover that law declared that fugitive slaves who by righteous means had gained their freedom were not to be returned to their masters.

In accordance with these humane slave laws, the colored population of Cuba enjoyed greater latitude than in many other colonies. Although converted to Catholicism, they were known to revert to their heathen practices at certain times and to have chanted invocations to the saints in the African dialect of their forefathers. Numerous clans existed among them, which were supposed to have for their aim the perpetuation of their ancestral customs. Among them was the manigo, which was frequently the source of grave apprehension on the part of the authorities and, surviving in the cabildos, societies, which are both religious and social, had in a later period to be suppressed. The rites of these organizations were a grotesquely uncanny mixture of Roman Catholicism and African paganism. One day in the year the negroes of the island had almost unlimited liberty to celebrate in their barbaric fashion. It was the sixth of January or All Kings' Day, and was the occasion for a spectacle as weirdly fascinating as any carnival. That day belonged to the negroes. Dressed in the gaudiest costumes, carrying huge poles with mysterious transparencies, they paraded through the streets to the beat of drums, shouting and gesticulating, or singing as they went along. At the squares they stopped and indulged in a dance. Melodious as were their songs, the rhythms betrayed the African origin. The dances, too, even after several generations, retained their African characteristics. As the day progressed, hilarity became more and more boisterous, and the holiday frequently ended in riotous demonstrations and street brawls. The white population of Havana and other towns, in which this day was celebrated by the blacks, remained indoors, and even suspended business for fear of disturbances.

There is no doubt that the important service which negro labor performed for the agriculture of the country induced the Cubans to allow the negroes this great amount of freedom. For without them, as D. Francisco de Arango and others knew only too well, the fields and the plantations of the island could never have yielded that abundance of products upon which depended the wealth of Cuba.

CHAPTER XIII

The prosperity of a new country and the happiness of the people depend largely upon a just apportionment of the land of that country and the opportunity to exploit the resources of the soil and sell the products thereof at the greatest possible profit to the producer. Had this simple truth been recognized as the cornerstone of Cuban colonization the island would have been spared centuries of hard up-hill struggle for healthy economic conditions.