The History of Cuba, vol. 2

by Willis Fletcher Johnson

ALEJANDRO RAMIREZ

An economist and statesman of three countries, Alejandro Ramirez was born in Spain in 1777. He began his career in Guatemala as an agricultural reformer and promoter; thence in 1813 went to Puerto Rico as Intendente and saved that island from bankruptcy. In 1816 he became Intendente of Cuba, where he effected great reforms in land-holding and in education. Despite his excellent services he was bitterly attacked, and largely because of grief over the ungrateful injustice thus shown him he sickened and died on May 20, 1821.

The entire policing forces of Havana were revolutionized and put under new rules. We are told that his most unpopular move was to have the streets of that city lighted at night, and that this was "thoroughly resented." Just why such a move should be resented is not told us, but it certainly might be the subject of fruitful and romantic conjecture. His action is said to have caused "consternation."

A second measure was even more distasteful to the Cubans, and they regarded it as an infringement of personal liberty. Cienfuegos ordered that, as soon as the public services in the churches in the evenings were over, all public thoroughfares be closed. Now this was the time of day when all Cuba was most bent on amusement and enjoyment, and this decree of the Captain-General made it impossible for any man to stray far from his own door with hope of returning the same night. The populace was up in arms with indignation. Cienfuegos had intended the command to have a quieting effect, but its result was exactly the reverse. It gave rise to the very disturbances which the Captain-General was endeavoring to restrain.

It would be hard to conjecture what might have been the result of a continuance of Cienfuegos's arbitrary methods. They certainly boded no good for the peace of Cuba. Fortunately before he could resort to any more of what the Cubans termed "these outrages against liberty," he fell ill, and thereupon the administration of the government fell into the hands of Don Juan Maria Echeverria, as a temporary substitute. This officer had no time to formulate new rules for the government of the Cubans, being kept very busy laboring against the troubles caused by his predecessor's doings. Then, too, his stay was short, for on August 29, 1819, the Spanish ship of war Sabrina brought Cuba a new Captain-General, Don Juan Manuel Cagigal.

In "Cuba and the Cubans," published in 1850, we are told that "The political changes adopted in Spain in 1812 and 1820 were productive of similar changes in the island: and when in both instances the constitution was proclaimed, the perpetual members of the municipalities were at once deprived of office, and their successors elected by the people. The provincial assembly was called, and held its sessions. The militia was organized; the press made entirely free, the verdict of a jury deciding actions for its abuses; and the same courts of justice were in no instance to decide a case a second time. But if the institution of the consulate was very beneficial during Ferdinand's absolute sway, the ultra-popular grants of the constitutional system, which could hardly be exercised with quiet in Spain, were ill-adapted to Cuba, though more advanced in civilization, stained with all those vices that are the legitimate curse of a country long under despotic sway. That system was so democratic that the king was deprived of all political authority. No intermediate house of nobility or senators tempered the enactments of a single elective assembly. This sudden change from an absolute government, with its usual concomitant, a corrupt and debased public sentiment, to the full enjoyment of republican privileges, served only to loosen the ties of decency and decorum throughout the Spanish community. Infidelity resulted from it; and that veil of respect for the religion of their fathers, which had covered the deformity of such a state of society, was imprudently thrown aside. As the natural consequence of placing the instruments of freedom in the hands of an ignorant multitude, their minds were filled with visions of that chimerical equality which the world is never to realize. The rich found themselves deprived of their accustomed influence, and felt that there was little chance of obtaining justice from the common people (in no place so formidable as in Cuba, from the heterogeneous nature of the population), and who were now, in a manner, arrayed against them throughout the land. They, of course, eagerly wished the return of the old system of absolute rule. But the proprietors only asked for the liberal policy which they had enjoyed at the hands of the Spanish monarch; not, most surely, that oppressive and nondescript government, which, by separating the interest of the country from that of her nearest rulers, and destroying all means of redress or complaint, thrust the last offspring of Spain into an abyss of bloodshed and ruin, during the recent disgusting exercise of military rule, in publishing by the most arbitrary and cruel measures, persons suspected of engaging in an apprehended servile insurrection."

This not altogether coherent statement gives an idea of how the rule of the Spanish Captains-General of this period, and how the so-called reforms which were instituted during the early part of the nineteenth century, were regarded thirty-five or forty years afterward.

Senor Cagigal was accompanied by troops, ostensibly to supply the local garrison, and it would be strange if they were not also imported to fill the native hearts with respect for the government and to help in quelling any threatened uprisings. History furnishes strange paradoxes, and so in 1820 we have the spectacle of Cagigal's own troops rising in revolt against him and compelling him to proclaim the constitution of 1812. It is true that he soon quelled this rebellion, set aside his proclamation, and restored the old order, but that does not detract from the grim humor of the situation in which he for a time found himself.

But Cagigal was a diplomat of a high order, and he did make efforts to accomplish well the difficult task of governing Cuba. His decisions and decrees were generally impartial. He had a charming social manner, and a delightfully conciliatory way; always suave, affable and approachable. He placated trouble makers, and dispensed justice in an endeavor to give universal satisfaction. He was accordingly held in the highest esteem by the majority of the Cubans. And Cuba apparently found favor in his eyes. He grew to love the beautiful island, and perhaps his heart was touched by her patience under the galling Spanish yoke. At any rate, he applied to the crown for special permission to spend the rest of his life in Cuba. This request was granted and he made for himself a home at Guanabacoa, where he lived until his death, some years later.

Cagigal was succeeded in 1821 by Nicholas Mahy, an old man, of a distrustful and arbitrary disposition, who was entirely out of sympathy with the liberal movement in Cuba. He could see no way of retaining her for Spain except by keeping her people in subjection under an absolute despotism. He proceeded to carry out his ideas with a high hand, and it is a matter of speculation to what lengths he might have gone, had not death speedily cut short his career. He ruled for only a single year, after which no new Captain-General was sent out from Spain but Sebastian Kindelan, Mahy's subordinate, took command. He was a sterner disciplinarian than even his former master. His sole object seemed to be to reunite the military and civil power in the hands of the Captain-General. He was willing to stoop to any means to accomplish his purpose, and he was backed up by a large body of troops imported from Spain. Feeling ran high between these—as the Cubans termed them—"interlopers and troublemakers" and the local militia, and serious trouble was with difficulty avoided. Then in 1823 Ferdinand VII. was again in power in Spain; weak, crafty, scheming, malicious, and grasping; and it is needless to say that Cuba was visited with new oppression.