The History of Cuba, vol. 2

by Willis Fletcher Johnson

The blacks were naturally not satisfied with slavery. In their association with their masters they acquired just enough information and knowledge to make them dangerous. And at this time the blacks, free and slave, were a large majority of the population. The negro race in captivity was always difficult to manage. They were affectionate and responsive to good treatment but when their rage was aroused by hard and unjust treatment they reverted to habits of the jungle. The Spanish planters believed that the way to keep the negroes quiet was to keep them under with a strong hand and consequently overseers were frequently brutal.

There began to be a strong undercurrent of unrest among the negro population, and an equally strong fear of them among the whites. Sporadic uprisings occurred, which were like the overflowing of a boiling caldron, not organized, and not well prepared, and therefore easily put down by the authorities. A description of a typical uprising of this character is contained in a work called "The Slaves in the Spanish Colonies" by the Countess Merlin, published about 1840. It relates the experiences of one Don Rafael with a mutiny of his slaves.

"The slaves lately imported from Africa were mostly of the Luccommee tribe, and therefore excellent workmen, but of a violent and unwieldly temper, and always ready to hang themselves at the slightest opposition to their way.

"It was just after the bell had struck five, and the dawn of morning was scarcely visible. Don Rafael had gone over to another of his estates, within half an hour before, leaving behind him, and still in tranquil slumbers, his four children and his wife, who was in a state of pregnancy. Of a sudden the latter awaked, terrified by hideous cries and the sound of hurried steps. She jumped affrighted from her bed, and observed that all the negroes of the estate were making their way to the house. She was instantly surrounded by her children, weeping and crying at her side. Being attended solely by slaves, she thought herself inevitably lost; but scarcely had she time to canvass these ideas in her distracted mind, when one of her negro girls came in, saying, 'Child, your bounty need have no fears; we have fastened all the doors, and Michael is gone for the master.' Her companions placed themselves on all sides of their female owners, while the rebels advanced, tossing from hand to hand among themselves a bloody corpse, with cries as awful as the hissing of a serpent. The negro girls exclaimed, 'That's the overseer's body!' The rebels were already at the door, when Pepilla (this is the name of the lady) saw the carriage of her husband coming at full speed. That sweet soul, who, until that moment, had valiantly awaited death, was now overpowered at the sight of her husband coming unarmed toward the infuriated mob, and she fainted. In the mean time, Rafael descended from the vehicle, placed himself in front of them, and with only one severe look, and a single sign of the hand, designated the purging house for them to go to. The slaves suddenly became silent, abandoned the dead body of their overseer, and, with downcast faces, still holding their field-swords in their hands, they turned round and entered where they had been ordered. Well might it be said, that they beheld in the man who stood before them the exterminating angel.

"Although the movement had for a moment subsided, Rafael, who was not aware of its cause, and feared the results, selected the opportunity to hurry his family away from the danger. The quitrin or vehicle of the country could not hold more than two persons, and it would have been imprudent to wait till more conveyances were in readiness. Pepilla and the children were placed in it in the best possible manner; and they were on the point of starting, when a man, covered with wounds, with a haggard, deathlike look, approached the wheels of the quitrin, as if he meant to climb in by them. In his pale face the marks of despair and the symptoms of death could be traced, and fear and bitter anguish were the feelings which agitated his soul in the last moments of his life. He was the white accountant, who had been nearly murdered by the blacks, and having escaped from their ferocious hold, was making the last efforts to save a mere breath of life. His cries, his prayers, were calculated to make the heart faint. Rafael found himself in the cruel alternative of being deaf to the request of a dying man, or throwing his bloody and expiring corpse over his children: his pity conquered; the accountant was placed in the carriage as well as might be, and it moved away from the spot.

"While this was passing on the estate of Rafael, the Marquis of Cardenas, Pepilla's brother, whose plantations were two leagues off, who had been apprised through a slave of the danger with which his sister was threatened, hastened to her aid. On reaching the spot, he noticed a number of rebels who, impelled by a remnant of rage, or fear of punishment, were directing their course to the Savannas—large open plains, the last abodes resorted to by runaway slaves. The Marquis of Cardenas, whose sense of the danger of his sister had induced him to fly to her, had brought with him, in the hurry of the moment, no one to guard his person except a single slave. Scarcely had the fugitive band perceived a white man, when they went towards him. The marquis stopped his course and prepared to meet them; it was useless temerity in him against such odds. Turning his master's horse by the bridle, his own slave addressed him thus: 'My master, let your bounty get away from here; let me come to an understanding with them.' And he then whipped his master's horse, which went off at a gallop.

"The valiant José, for his name is worthy of being remembered as that of a hero, went on toward the savage mob, so as to gain time for his master to fly, and fell a victim to his devotedness, after receiving thirty-six sword-blows. This rising, which had not been premediated, had no other consequences. It had originated in a severe chastisement inflicted by the overseer, which had prompted the rebels to march toward the owner's dwelling to expound their complaint. They begged Rafael's pardon, which was granted, with the exception of two or three, who were delivered over to the tribunals."

This specimen of the fine writing of the period has hidden within it two truths which stand out in the history of the difficulties between the blacks and the whites on the island of Cuba. First, although we must discount a bit the Countess's account of Rafael's valor, and the ease with which he subdued the uprising, by taking into account the fact that he was her cousin, and that therefore she naturally looked at him with over-favorable eyes, nevertheless the fact remains that the blacks were usually amenable to the commands of their owners, unless aroused to an unusual pitch of ferocity, and were, through fear or respect, not difficult to reduce to control.

In the second place, it has been the history of the relations between the blacks and whites in every country that with anything like fair treatment those who worked about the house, or acted as body servants, became personally attached to their masters—to whom it is true there was often a tie of consanguinity—and showed the same spirit of loyalty which was displayed by Pepilla's women slaves.

Shortly after this insurrection, reported by the Countess Merlin, there was another near Aguacate, which was more formidable and more difficult to subdue. Meanwhile, the government was handling the matter of slave insurrections in a vacillating manner. Laws were made which granted the slaves a right to assemble and to establish societies, even to form military bodies for the public defense; actually giving them greater rights than white laborers; and this went hand in hand with such cruel injustice as public whipping posts. The white population, on the other hand, even in localities where there was a great preponderance of blacks, could not form a militia.