Cuban consulates are situated in the United States and its possessions as follows: Atlanta, Ga.; Baltimore, Md.; Boston, Mass.; Brunswick, Ga.; Chattanooga, Tenn.; Chicago, Ill.; Cincinnati, Ohio.; Detroit, Mich.; Fernandina, Fla.; Galveston, Tex.; Gulfport, Miss.; Jacksonville, Fla.; Kansas City, Mo.; Key West, Fla.; Los Angeles, Cal.; Louisville, Ky.; Mobile, Ala.; New Orleans, La.; New York; Newport News, Va.; Norfolk, Va.; Pascagoula, Miss.; Pensacola, Fla.; Philadelphia, Penn.; San Francisco, Cal.; Savannah, Ga.; St. Louis, Mo.; Tampa, Fla.; Washington, D. C.; and Aguadilla, Arecibo, Mayagues, Ponce, and San Juan, Porto Rico.
CHAPTER XXXVI
AMERICAN COLONIES IN CUBA
AMERICAN soldiers returning to the United States at the conclusion of her little war with Spain, in the summer of 1898, brought wonderful stories of Cuba, with glowing accounts of her climate, her rainfall, her rich soil and natural advantages. Schemes for the colonization of the Island were immediately formed and some of them put into effect during the early days of the Government of Intervention.
Unfortunately, most of these enterprises originated with speculators, and so-called land-sharks, who sought only to secure large tracts of territory, at the smallest possible cost, and with the assistance of attractive literature place them on the market in the United States, at prices which would enable them, even when sold on the installment plan to make a thousand percent or more profit on the capital invested.
This method of settling up the country would not have been so objectionable had the promoters of the schemes taken the pains to locate their colonies in those sections of the Island where transportation facilities, if not immediately available, could at least be reasonably sure in the near future.
Up to the present, a logical, common sense plan in the colonization in this Island has in no instance been carried out. On the contrary, every American colony that has yet been established in Cuba, and her adjacent Islands, has been located with disregard to the first essentials of success. These hapless experiments have met with a fate that was inevitable and in most instances can be described with one word “Failure.”
The first American Colony in Cuba was started on Broadway, New York City, by a land speculator, who, through correspondence, learned of a large property that could be had in Cuba with a small cash payment, at what seemed to be a ridiculously low price; in other words at about 80 cents an acre. An option was secured on several thousand acres, the larger part of which, perhaps, was available for general agricultural purposes. But the location with reference to transportation facilities was one of the most unfortunate that could have been selected. This colony was called La Gloria, and while La Gloria has not been a failure, nothing in the world has saved it but the pluck, and persistent and intelligent effort of a courageous and most commendable community of Americans.
Some 800 of these, not knowing where they were going, other than that it was somewhere in Cuba, were dumped by a chartered steamer in the harbor of Nuevitas, 40 miles from their destination. This they afterwards reached with the aid of light draft schooners, or shallow, flat-bottom boats, pushed through a muddy ditch some three or four miles, and as many more over sand shoals, where the passengers were compelled to get out and wade. Worse than all, when finally landed on the south shore of Guajaba Bay, they were obliged to wade through a swamp for another five miles, in mud knee-deep, or more, in order to reach the high ground on which they were to make their future homes in a foreign land.
Many of these colonists, disappointed and deceived, failed to stand the strain, and those who had the necessary funds, or could borrow, returned disgusted to their homes in the United States. Others, after studying the soil and noting the splendid growth of forest and vegetation, lulled into resignation by soft, cool breezes from the Atlantic Ocean, and the bright sunshine that seldom missed a day, made up their minds to stick to the game and to see it out, which they did.
Their efforts in the end were crowned with a certain degree of success, and the near future holds out to them the promise of fairly satisfactory transportation for their fruit, vegetables and other products, to profitable markets, both in Cuba and the United States.