The History of Cuba, vol. 2

by Willis Fletcher Johnson

Turnbull, the English consul, fancied that he saw in these slave insurrections a chance to advance the interests of his country. It is claimed that he also had visions of a republic in which the blacks ruled with himself as president. He was persona non grata with the aristocracy of the island, and is supposed to have been actuated in part by a desire to avenge social slights. He was charged with planning to effect a huge black uprising, to seize and execute enough of the white population to cow the rest and then to set up his black republic. But it is impossible to determine the truth or falsity of these accusations. Turnbull had many enemies who were only too glad to charge him with any crime.

In 1842 there was an insurrection in Martiaro, and it was with difficulty suppressed. Then evidence began to be seen everywhere of a systematic propaganda among the slaves on plantations scattered in widely separated parts of the island. A negro mason accidentally dropped an incendiary proclamation from his pocket, and it finally reached the hands of the captain of the district. The negro was tortured, but would not divulge the source of the paper. An itinerant monk went through the country ostensibly begging alms for the church, but in reality prophesying to the blacks that in July, 1842, they would, on St. John's Day, rise and obtain their freedom. The wholesale insurrection did not occur, but there were uprisings in July in various parts of the island, and the slaves of an estate near Bemba murdered their master and a neighbor, and were only subdued when the militia had been called. In January, 1843, an official of the government was murdered by the blacks. A colored man secretly gave evidence against the slayers and in some manner fell under their suspicion, and soon after was assassinated by one of his own people, who afterward was tried for the crime, but committed suicide in jail, before he could pay the death penalty. In March, 1843, near Bemba five hundred negroes rose against their white masters, and it was only after considerable bloodshed that they were subdued. No sooner was this trouble quieted than there was another uprising on a plantation in the neighborhood, and still a third one the same year, the exact details of which are lacking. Then followed, at the close of 1843, the most serious trouble of all, when, in November, the negroes near Matanzas revolted and went on an orgy of murder and rape, ravishing and killing women, and murdering white men. Turnbull was accused of being the brains behind these troubles, but it was impossible to fix the guilt on him. If he was guilty he was not a good organizer, for none of the revolts had any national effect. They were all local in character, and all unsuccessful in attaining any lasting results.

After the insurrection of November, 1843, a meeting of planters was called in Matanzas, and the government was asked to take steps to make further revolts impossible. But in 1844, near Matanzas, occurred another serious insurrection, and it was reported that the negroes on all the plantations in the neighborhood were organized and were planning a wholesale revolt, which would bring about the realizations of Turnbull's dreams. It was then that the government decided to act ruthlessly, and methods which would have done credit to the old Spanish Inquisition were promptly introduced.

In March, 1844, the Captain-General, O'Donnell, addressed a letter to General Salas, who was the head of the military tribunal, in which he counseled drastic and violent measures against any insurgent blacks. He suggested that all blacks, slave or free, who were suspected of treason to their masters, should be apprehended, and if they refused to give information as to the extent of the organization and their associations, the knowledge must be wrung from them by torture. The slaves were to be tried in the district where they were taken. The officer in charge of each district was promptly given full power to apprehend and punish the plotters as he saw fit. The Spanish officers were often cruel and brutal men, who exercised their authority in the most revolting manner. The hue and cry went from hut to cabin and no black man was safe at his own hearth. Opportunity was taken in some cases to work out a personal grudge and gain freedom from an enemy. No one, not even a white man, dared publicly to raise his voice to expostulate, for he was promptly dubbed an abolitionist and thrown into prison. If a negro had a little money saved to buy his freedom, or, if he was a freedman, to obtain a little business, he stood a better chance of his life. He might buy his tormentors off, but all too frequently when he had paid, he was murdered lest he might tell of the man whom he had bribed.

One tender hearted Spanish judge, Don Ramon Gonzales, is reported to have condemned his victims to be taken to a room, the walls of which were already dripping with the blood and shredded flesh of previous victims. There they were tied head down to a ladder, and flogged by two Africans until they were dead. To make their torture the more excruciating, the thongs with which they were scourged had on the ends small buttons made of fine wire, which bit into the flesh. When several freedmen had been executed in this pleasant fashion, and when public opinion dared feebly to protest at such atrocities, death certificates were made out by unscrupulous physicians, reporting death from some simple disease, and under this authority the murdered negroes were quickly buried.

A second kind judge seized on some pretext a freeborn negro, an old man, who was gentle and inoffensive, but who had incurred the judicial displeasure, and had him tied to the ladder and flogged on three separate occasions, without even going to the trouble to bring an indictment against him or divulge the nature of his offense. Another free negro was taken by this same official, hung by his hands from the ceiling of the torture chamber, and left there all night, while he was at intervals whipped. At length this poor victim succumbed to the treatment and gave information of a comrade, who was promptly taken out and shot without a trial.

Another officer, Don Juan Costa, had a record of ninety-six negroes killed by the lash, of whom fifty-four were slaves and forty-two freedmen. The record shows the following entries, which gives an inkling of the colored man's powers of endurance and of what each must have suffered: "Lorenzo Sanchez, imprisoned on the first of April, died on the fourth. Joseph Cavallero, imprisoned on the fourth, died on the sixth. John Austin Molino, imprisoned on the ninth, died on the twelfth." There were similar laconic entries for the whole ninety-six. Don José del Piso, a fiscal officer, was responsible for the flogging to death of a negro a hundred and ten years of age, too old and infirm to be an active conspirator. This was within the walls of the Matanzas jail. The poor victim was so lacerated that he was hardly recognizable as a human being. This del Piso had a pleasant form of afternoon sport which he conducted to the great edification of his brother inquisitioners. He would have his victims tied to the high limb of a tree, and then cut the rope and watch them writhe when they fell. Don Ferdinand Percher fell slightly below the record of his colleague, Don Juan Costa, for he could boast of only seventy-two deaths to his credit.

Then there occurred to these just men and true a new and exceedingly fine way of adding to their revenue. Don Miguel Ballo de la Rore extorted from the negroes on a certain estate, in the absence of their owners, affidavits accusing their master of treason; and the latter was notified through his overseer that unless he paid two hundred ounces of gold forthwith he was a condemned man. However, the correspondence fell into the hands of General Salas who had the grace to put an end to the matter.

But not only the blacks were victims. A white man who had incurred the displeasure of the minions of the government was never safe. One Spanish officer had a grudge against a young Englishman and accused him of inciting the negroes on an estate to poison their master; and the Englishman paid the forfeit of his life for a crime of which he was entirely guiltless. The fiscal officers ranged the island, looking for chances to murder, obtaining false testimony, seizing property, cattle, furniture, horses, the property of freed blacks, which they sold, converting the proceeds to their own use. This record seems incredible, but it is vouched for beyond question. Furthermore, at this time no comely colored woman was safe. If she happened to attract the lustful eyes of a Spanish general, her husband or father or brothers were seized, and she herself was delivered up to be ravished and then slain. One of the episodes of this campaign was a largely attended ball, at which no white woman was present, and at which all the colored women were obliged to appear in the garb of Eve before the Fall.