The Project Gutenberg eBook of Cuba and Her People of To-day, by Forbes Lindsay.

AN ACCOUNT OF THE
HISTORY AND PROGRESS OF THE ISLAND
PREVIOUS TO ITS INDEPENDENCE; A DESCRIPTION
OF ITS PHYSICAL FEATURES;
A STUDY OF ITS PEOPLE; AND, IN PARTICULAR,
AN EXAMINATION OF ITS PRESENT
POLITICAL CONDITIONS, ITS INDUSTRIES,
NATURAL RESOURCES, AND PROSPECTS;
TOGETHER WITH INFORMATION
AND SUGGESTIONS DESIGNED TO AID
THE PROSPECTIVE INVESTOR OR SETTLER

BY
FORBES LINDSAY
Author of “Panama and the Canal,” etc.

ILLUSTRATED FROM ORIGINAL AND SELECTED
PHOTOGRAPHS BY THE AUTHOR

BOSTON L. C. PAGE
AND COMPANY MDCCCCXI
{iv}

Copyright, 1911
By L. C. Page & Company
(INCORPORATED)

All rights reserved

First Impression, November, 1911

Electrotyped and Printed by
THE COLONIAL PRESS
C. H. Simonds & Co., Boston, U.S.A.
{v}

TO

Henry M. Flagler, Esquire,

WHOSE INDOMITABLE ENERGY AND SPLENDID ENTERPRISE WILL
SHORTLY BRING CUBA INTO RAILROAD COMMUNICATION
WITH THE UNITED STATES, THIS VOLUME IS
RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED, AS A
SLIGHT TOKEN OF THE
ADMIRATION OF THE
AUTHOR.
{vii} {vi}

PREFACE

So many volumes have been devoted to accounts of the history and descriptions of the physical features of Cuba, that an adequate excuse could hardly be found for an addition to them. On the other hand, the more important considerations of the Island’s natural resources, industrial development and present condition of its people, have had but scanty attention at the hands of writers.

During the past decade there has been a great increase in American emigration to Cuba and in the investment of American money there, with the result that the interest of our people in the country, which was formerly of an abstract character, has become practical and specific. There exists in the United States a wide-spread desire for information regarding the progress, prospects and present-day conditions of Cuba, which it has been my chief design to supply. {viii}

In the following pages the history and geography of the country have been sketched with special reference to their essential influence upon its development. Aside from this necessary introduction to an understanding of Cuban affairs, I have given my attention mainly to the established and prospective industries of the Island and to the fields offered by them to American capital and American settlers.

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

CUBA AND HER PEOPLE
OF TO-DAY

CHAPTER I

THE ISLAND OF CUBA

If a line were drawn directly south from Pittsburg it would almost pass through the middle of Cuba. The Island, which is the largest of the Antillean group, lies about fifty miles distant from Santo Domingo and somewhat more than eighty miles from Jamaica. Its western end nuzzles into the opening between the peninsulas of Florida and Yucatan, Key West being ninety miles from, and the nearest point of Campeche within one hundred and thirty miles of Cape San Antonio. This situation gives to Cuba a commanding position in relation to the Gulf of Mexico, the only passages to that body of water lying on either side of the Island. The strategic advantage of the location is highly important, but of less consid {2} eration than the commercial advantage. Cuba lies directly in the line of the trade routes converging upon the Tehuantepec Railroad and the Panama Canal.

The Island is a narrow strip of land, little more than one hundred miles across in its broadest portion and only about twenty miles at its narrowest. From Cape Maisi to Cape San Antonio the length of the outer coast line is seven hundred and thirty miles. In the absence of a precise survey, figures are uncertain, and estimates vary, but it is probable that the territory of the Republic, which includes the Isle of Pines and a number of outlying cayos , is somewhat less than forty-five thousand square miles in extent; an area slightly greater than that of the State of Pennsylvania.

The upper side of the Island forms a broad converse curve, with a northerly trend. It is broken by few marked irregularities. The southern coast takes a corresponding curve and in general parallels the other shore. It differs, however, in having several pronounced indentations, the largest of which are the Golfo de Buena Esperanza and the Golfo de la Broa. Along this periphery are found four or five of those peculiar pouch-like harbors which,

together with numerous coral reefs and islands of varying dimensions that fringe the shore line, are the most notable features of the Cuban coast. These cayos , or keys, fall into four distinct groups and number about one thousand three hundred. The principal line of these low lying islands extends from the Ensenado de Cardenas to the vicinity of Nuevitas, and includes Cayo Romano, seventy-four miles in length. The second line runs from Bahia Honda to Cape San Antonio. The third, which is the most numerous, forms a scattered group between the Isle of Pines and the mainland. The fourth, known as Cayos de las Doce Leguas, lies off the coast of Camaguey.

The Isle of Pines is distant sixty miles from Batabano, which is the point of communication with the mainland. Its area is about twelve hundred square miles. The northern shores of Cuba are generally characterized by rocky bluffs, which frequently rise to a height of several hundred feet. The littoral of the western bend is low, and this feature prevails along the south to Cape Cruz, with the exception of a rugged stretch of about fifty miles to the east of Cienfuegos. Save for this strip, the shore from Cape San Antonio to the mouth of the {4} Cauto is lined with marsh of varying depth. The protuberant piece of land between the bight of the Broa and Bahia de Cochinos is entirely occupied by the great Zapata swamp, which has an area of more than two hundred square miles. It is an almost impenetrable tropical jungle of the densest vegetation, teeming with animal life. This wilderness has often afforded a safe refuge to defeated and harassed bands of insurrectos. Along the eastern butt of the island the coast is mountainous.

Topographically, the territory of Cuba comprises five distinct divisions, three of them distinctly mountainous, and two in which the surface is low, or of moderate relief. The easternmost of these divisions coincides closely to the boundaries of the Province of Oriente and is for the greater part mountainous. The second, corresponding approximately with the Province of Camaguey, is made up of plains or open rolling country, relieved by occasional hills. The third division includes the mountainous and hilly sections of Santa Clara. The fourth consists of a long stretch of flat or undulating country, accentuated here and there by elevations of several hundred feet; it includes the western portion of Santa Clara Province and {5} the whole of the Provinces of Matanzas and Habana, as well as about one-fourth of the Province of Pinar del Rio at its eastern end. The fifth division takes in the greater part of the last-named Province, and is characterized by a well defined mountain range, with numerous detached hills and mesas. A clearer conception of the surface conformation of Cuba may be gained by a more detailed survey of its mountains and plains, without regard to the natural topographic divisions described.

The Province of Oriente contains a greater mountainous area than is to be found in all the rest of the Island. The system consists of several groups having diverse constructures, but more or less closely connected with one another. Here many peaks exceed five thousand feet and one, Pico Turquino, rises to an altitude of over eight thousand feet. The principal range is the Sierra Maestra, extending from Cape Cruz to Guantanamo Bay. Along its western end, this chain rises abruptly out of the seas, but as it approaches Santiago, recedes somewhat from the shore, leaving a narrow coastal plain. East of Guantanamo there is a range, much less unbroken and uniform than the Sierra Madre, which continues to Cape Maisi and thence along {6} the north coast until it meets the rugged Cuchillas at Baracoa. Extending westward from this mountain mass are strings of high plateaus and mesas, forming the northern wall of the great amphitheatre which drains into Guantanamo Bay. In this northern section the most prominent feature of the system is the range comprising the Sierras Cristal and Nipe, whose general trend is east and west. To the south is a country having the character of a deeply dissected plateau. The broad, flat topped summits of so many elevations in the eastern part of Cuba lead to the belief that all the mountains in this section have been carved from a huge lofty plateau. Considered as a whole, therefore, the mountains of Oriente form two marginal ranges which merge at the east end of the Province and diverge toward the west. Between these divergent ranges lies the broad, undulating expanse famous as the valley of the Cauto, which widens as it stretches westward and ultimately merges with the more extensive plains of Camaguey.

The central mountainous region of Cuba is situated in the Province of Santa Clara. This system consists of four groups having a general direction toward north and south and at

points reaching both coasts. In the area between Cienfuegos, Trinidad and Sancti Spiritus is an extensive cluster of rounded hills, dominated by Potrerillo, nearly three thousand feet high, and interspersed with the most beautiful and fertile valleys.

The Cordillera de los Organos, or Organ Mountains, run almost along the middle line of the Province of Pinar del Rio, paralleling the northern coast. The range commences about twenty miles to the west of the boundary of Habana Province and extends to the estuary of the Colorado, thus traversing three-fourths of Pinar del Rio.

The greater part of the Province of Camaguey is free from hills. The principal elevations are found in the north-eastern portion, where the Sierra de Cubitas is situated.

Aside from the mountains and hills described, the general surface of Cuba is a low, gently undulating plain. The elevations of some of the principal interior cities are as follows: Pinar del Rio, one hundred and three feet above sea level; Cuevitas, ninety-eight feet; Camaguey, three hundred and twenty-four feet; Santa Clara, three hundred and forty feet. {8}

Except in the southeast corner of Oriente, the streams of Cuba all follow a normal course to the coast. Owing to the shape of the Island, therefore, none of them has any considerable length or volume, nor are any navigable with the exception of the Cauto, which permits of the passage of light draft boats to a distance of fifty miles from its mouth.

Cuba is noted for its spacious land-locked harbors. Their extraordinary lake-like formation has been the subject of many more or less fanciful explanations. The following statement of Dr. C. W. Hayes, of the U. S. Geological Survey, seems to fully account for the phenomenon:

“The depressions occupied by the water forming these harbors appear to be due to erosion by streams flowing into the sea during a recent geologic period when the land stood somewhat higher than now. In other words, drowned drainage basins. Their peculiar shape, a narrow seaward channel and a broad landward expansion, is due to the relation of hard and soft rocks which generally prevail along the coast. Wherever the conditions are favorable for the growth of corals, a fringing reef is built upon whatever rocks happen to be {9} at sea level, and as the land rises or sinks this rock reef forms a veneer of varying thickness upon the seaward land surface. The rocks on which this veneer rests are generally limestones and marls, much softer and more easily eroded than coral rock. Hence several small streams, instead of each flowing directly to the sea by its own channel, are diverted to a single narrow channel through the hard coral rock, while they excavate a basin of greater or less extent in the softer rocks back from the coast.

“The fact that the land has recently stood at a sufficiently higher level to enable the streams to excavate such basins is proven by the sandfilled channel in the Habana harbor entrance and by borings made near the mouth of the Rio San Juan at Santiago, showing that the present rock floor lies below the level of the sea. Doubtless similar filled channels would be discovered in the other harbors of this class if they were properly sounded.

“It is interesting to note that along the Cuban coast precisely similar basins are now being excavated which would form pouch-shaped harbors if the land should be slightly depressed. Several such basins were observed eastward from Santiago. If the coast at Ma {10} tanzas were to sink thirty feet or more, a portion of the Yumuri valley would be flooded, forming a broad basin connected with the sea by a narrow entrance, the present Yumuri Gorge.”

The chief harbors of the type in question are those of Habana, Cienfuegos, and Santiago de Cuba. Other important harbors, more or less of the same formation, are Bahia Honda, Nuevitas, Gibara, Nipe Bay and Baracoa. Matanzas and Cardenas are exceptions. By far the greater number of good harbors are on the north coast. On the south, aside from those which have already been mentioned, Guantanamo Bay is the only one of consequence. Other harbors on this side of the Island, such as Manzanillo and Batabano are merely open roadsteads, generally lacking in depth, and securing more or less shelter from outlying keys and reefs.

Cuba was reclaimed from the sea by a great mountain-making movement in late tertiary time. During the Pliocene and Pleistocene epochs the Island underwent a series of subsidences and elevations which affected the coastal borders, and the margin of elevated rock-reef which borders the coast in parts, as

in the vicinities of Habana and Baracoa. So far as its geologic history is known, the Island was never connected with the American mainland, although the contrary assertion has frequently been made.

No thorough geological survey of Cuba has ever been made, but there is every evidence of its containing rich deposits of minerals, including gold, silver, copper, iron, manganese, and asphalt. Traces of minerals are found extensively throughout the Island. Oriente Province is the first in mineral wealth, followed by Camaguey. In Santa Clara, indications of copper are seen on every hand. The ore is commonly turned up by the plow upon the hillsides. Asphalt is found in widely scattered localities all over the Island. The northern coast of the Province of Matanzas appears to be entirely underlaid with it, and the Bay of Cardenas is bottomed by a deposit which used to be worked by vessels anchored over it. The Cuban asphalt is of a high grade, a considerable proportion of it containing as much as seventy per cent. bitumen. Grahamite, a mineral of the same species as asphalt, but classed as pure bitumen, is found in Habana Province and other parts of the Island. The only mineral {12} resource that is at all adequately exploited is iron. The mines of Oriente, which are famous, will be referred to more extensively in a later portion of the book.

Vegetation is superlatively abundant in Cuba. The flora includes three thousand three hundred and fifty native plants, not to mention the considerable number that have been naturalized. The trees embrace a variety of hardwoods. Over thirty species of palm are found in the Island, and the pine of the temperate zone grows in proximity to the mahogany of the tropics. The forest has been recklessly exploited or destroyed, but it is estimated that thirteen million acres of it remain.

Practically all the fruits and vegetables of the tropics flourish in the Island and many of those characteristic of the temperate regions. Various kinds of fodder grasses grow throughout the valley lands.

The only distinctive animal of Cuba is the jutia , a black animal having the appearance of a large rat. It grows to a length of eighteen inches, including the tail. The country people eat this creature, as they do all other animals and reptiles that come in their way.

cover exists. Swine, dogs and cats have become wild and are numerous in that condition. There is a variety of game birds, some migratory, but most permanent denizens of the Island. The principal kinds are wild fowl of different species, pheasants, quail, snipe, turkey, perdiz , tijasas , rabiches , and quanaros . The native birds include many of the most beautiful plumage, but songsters are rare among them.

In swampy localities crocodiles and alligators are found. Diminutive silurians, such as chameleons and small lizards, swarm everywhere, and occasionally iguanas and the larger lizards are seen. It is frequently claimed that no poisonous reptiles or insects exist in Cuba, but this statement admits of some qualifications. There is no doubt that certain scorpions and spiders, as well probably as a few other insects, are venomous. The snakes, of which there are but few varieties, appear to be harmless to mankind. One of these, the maja , which grows to about twelve feet, is almost tame and frequents small villages and farmhouses, its favorite dwelling place being the palm-thatch roofs of abandoned buildings. The climate of Cuba is chiefly characterized by great humidity, {14} abundant rainfall, and comparative uniformity of temperature. The range between the mean of the hottest month and that of the coolest is from 82 degrees to 71 degrees Fahrenheit. While this statement applies precisely to Habana it is approximately true of other parts of the Island. It is a little warmer along the south coast than upon the north, which is swept by the trade winds throughout the year. The mean humidity is 75 degrees and is nearly uniform throughout the year. This makes the climate enervating, especially to foreigners. There is no great difference between the “summer” and the “winter” seasons, but during the latter, which embraces the six months following the first of November, the weather is delightful and the heat seldom oppressive. The mean annual rainfall upon the northern coast is fifty-two inches. Inland and through the southern portion of the Island it is somewhat less. About two-thirds of the precipitation occurs between May and October. During this season intermittent showers fall from about ten o’clock until sunset. The nights are usually cool and clear at all times of the year.

In strict meteorological sense Cuba is not {15} within the hurricane zone, which lies somewhat to the east of it. Nevertheless, the Island has been not infrequently visited by such storms and some of them have occasioned great damage. The worst visitation of this sort happened in 1846, when more than one-fourth of the city of Habana was destroyed and upwards of one thousand persons killed or severely injured. Although in a region subject to severe earthquakes, and itself not infrequently visited by shocks of alarming violence, the Island has never been seriously damaged by seismic disturbances. In winter, when the trades take a southerly sweep, “northers,” bred in the great storms of the United States, are apt to strike the Island, sometimes lowering the temperature suddenly to 50 degrees, or thereabouts. The result is keen, if brief, suffering, for the people make little provision in their clothing or surroundings for such low temperature.

Immense improvement has been made in the health of the cities since the beginning of the American occupation. Yellow fever, at one time endemic, has been eradicated and can never occur again, except in the form of a sporadic outbreak due to importation of the virus. Malaria has been measurably reduced, {16} but much more might be done toward stamping it out, or minimizing it.

The mortality in Habana is 18.80 per thousand, and that of the Island in general, 12.69. The former is considerably lower than the prevalent rates of the large cities of the United States. Of all the countries of the world, Australia is the only one whose death rate (12.60) is lower than that of Cuba. It may be of interest to add the figures of some of the other leading nations; Uruguay 13.40; United States 15.00; Belgium 15.20; Norway and Sweden 15.85; Denmark 16.40; England 17.70; Germany 17.80; Switzerland 18.20; France 20.60; Austria 24.40; Japan 28.80; Italy 29.20; Spain 29.70.

The population of Cuba is a trifle in excess of two millions, giving about forty-five inhabitants to the square mile, a density much greater than that enjoyed by any other Latin-American country. Even though the population should remain chiefly agrarian, as at present, the extent and resources of the country are ample to support three times the existing number of inhabitants in comfort and prosperity. If manufacturing centres of magnitude should grow up in response to conditions favorable to their {17} development, Cuba will easily afford homes and occupation to ten millions of people.

Seventy per cent. of the population live in the country or in centres of fewer than eight thousand inhabitants. The sexes are almost equally divided and, according to the census, the colored race represents no more than one-third of the whole. The national government of the Republic of Cuba is patterned on that of the United States, as is the case in most countries of Latin-America. It is divided into three coördinate branches, the legislative, the executive and judicial. The legislative power is vested in the Congress, consisting of two branches, the House of Representatives and the Senate. The former consists of sixty-four members—one for every twenty-five thousand inhabitants, or fractions thereof—who are elected for four years. The latter is composed of four senators from each province, elected for a period of four years by a board of electors, chosen by popular vote. The Congress has two regular sessions annually, one convening on the first Monday of April and the other on the first Monday of November.

The executive power is vested in the President, who is elected by electors and may not {18} serve more than two consecutive terms. The Chief Executive is assisted by a cabinet, consisting of six members, who are known as the secretaries of the following departments: State; Justice; Public Instruction; Agriculture; Industry and Commerce; and Public Works. These positions are subject to appointment by the President. There is also a Vice-President elected in the same manner and for a like period as the President.

The judicial power is exercised by a supreme court; six superior courts, one for each province; seven courts of the first instance, devoted to civil cases; six courts of instruction, presided over by criminal judges; twenty-six judges of the first instance and instruction; who have a combined jurisdiction; six correctional courts, in which minor civil suits and misdemeanors are tried. There is in each province a governor and a provisional council, elected by direct suffrage. The provinces are divided into municipal districts, each presided over by a mayor, assisted by a council.

The commercial code in force is that of Spain, with some modifications that were effected by the provisional government during the intervention of the United States. The

laws concerning contracts, debts, and other matters of general business, are full and explicit, and give all necessary protection to foreigners dealing with natives of the country. Those relating to land, titles, and taxes, will be more fully noticed elsewhere in this volume.

The regular army of Cuba, known as the “Ejercito Permanente,” consists of three thousand two hundred enlisted men and one hundred and seventy-two commissioned officers. This force comprises infantry, coast artillery, field artillery, and a machine gun corps. Its general headquarters is at Camp Columbia, near Habana.

The maintenance of law and order in the country districts, and safety on the public highways, is entrusted to an exceptionally fine body of mounted police, called the “Rural Guard,” numbering five thousand two hundred and ninety-five men and officers. These men constantly patrol their respective districts and render excellent service.

The so-called Cuban “Navy” consists of a few vessels of revenue cutter type. It must be many years before the Republic can afford even the smallest fleet of war-ships. Without such protection it is difficult to see the value of {20} her army, unless it be in the suppression of revolution and, perhaps, the repression of popular will.

The mail system of the Island is fairly good, the distribution being effected by railroad, coastwise steamers, automobiles and, in remote districts, by horses. In Habana, motor cars are employed in making collections. Deliveries are made by carriers in the same manner as in the cities of the United States. Cuba has postal conventions with the United States, Mexico, the Panama Canal Zone, Hawaii, and the Philippines. The letter rate between Cuba and any one of these countries is two cents and package postage the same as in the States. The Republic has parcel-post treaties with France and Germany only, but it extends to the United States the privileges enjoyed by those countries under their formal agreements.

The Government maintains and operates the telegraph system, which extends throughout its territory. The rates are twenty cents for all messages of ten words or less which traverse no more than three provinces, and two cents for each additional word, the address and signature being charged for. If four provinces are touched in the transmission, the rate is {21} thirty cents, and three cents for each additional word; if five provinces, it is forty cents, and four cents for excess words; and if the telegram is sent from one end of the Island to the other, or enters the limits of the six provinces, the rate is fifty cents, and five cents for each additional word. {22}

CHAPTER II

THE HISTORY OF CUBA

Strangely enough, in view of the number of books that have been written about Cuba, there is no adequate history of the Island in the English language—none that may be justly deemed comprehensive and trustworthy. Many important events in the life of the country have never been properly recorded and much that is of great interest still reposes undisturbed in scattered documents. A candid account could hardly be expected of a Spaniard or a Cuban, but it might be supposed that an American would treat the subject with impartial fairness. None however has done so, thus far. A recent effort by a prominent educator is typical of the books on Cuba which are designed for the use of students in our schools and elsewhere. By the author in question the Spaniards are unstintingly condemned and the Americans unqualifiedly praised. The Cubans are portrayed as heroic embodiments of all the virtues. Our {23} successes in the Spanish American War are described as brilliant victories. In short, the most distorted impression of the facts is conveyed.

This condition is regrettable because a true understanding of any people and their country must be based upon intelligent knowledge of their history, and this is peculiarly so in the case of Cuba and the Cubans.

Even though he had the ability to remedy the defect, the limits and design of the present volume would preclude the writer from making the attempt in its pages. The brief historical sketch given here, must be made entirely secondary to the main purpose of presenting a picture of the Island and its inhabitants as they are to-day, and of taking a survey of the economic conditions affecting them. The following account is restricted mainly to such phases of the country’s history as have had permanent influence on the character, customs and welfare of the people.

Upon discovering the Island of Cuba, Columbus named it Juana, in honor of Prince Juan, the son of Ferdinand and Isabella. On the death of Ferdinand, Velasquez substituted the name Ferdinandina. The Island was subse {24} quently called Santiago, after the patron saint of Spain, and still later, Ave Maria. Through all these changes of official style the natives retained the name Cuba, by which their country had been known before the advent of white men, and the Indian appellation was soon adopted by the aliens.

The Indians whom Columbus found upon the Island were of gentle disposition and peaceful by inclination and practice. The nine divisions of the country were governed without friction by as many caciques , independent of one another and equal in rank. The people rendered them unquestioned obedience and were accustomed to an autocratic rule. Hospitality was an universal trait and the invaders were made free of the land without the slightest opposition. Furthermore, these Indians accepted baptism and the doctrines of Christianity more readily than any others with whom the Spaniards came into contact.

But for one condition, the factors were present for the peaceful subjugation and government of the aborigines. The obstructive element was found in the constitutional aversion of the natives to physical exertion in any unnecessary degree. Their soil responded gen {25} erously to the slightest appeal in the form of casual cultivation, and the materials for their scanty clothing might be gathered without trouble. They had never experienced any need to work and their climate was conducive to careless indolence. No doubt their habit of life had produced weakness and lack of stamina. Thus disinclination grew into disability. Flaccid muscles and unused limbs caused apparently strong and robust men to faint and fall under tasks which we would consider an ordinary day’s labor.

The Spanish adventurers, who found the natives in possession of nuggets of gold and rude ornaments fashioned from the precious metal, set them the onerous task of mining. They perceived the aversion of the Indians to labor, but could not comprehend their inability. El execrable sed d’ore prompted them to the commission of pitiless barbarities in the effort to force the slaves to increased exertion.

Under this treatment the natives died in great numbers. A few feeble attempts at armed resistance hastened the end. In an incredibly short time, if we are to accept the most reliable estimates of the number of the aborig {26} inal population, the male Indians were completely exterminated.

It is impossible to say with any degree of precision how many inhabitants the Island of Cuba contained at the time of its discovery. Las Casas and Peter Martyr are led into exaggeration by their righteous indignation at the cruelties of their countrymen. Their figures are highly improbable. If the native population at the time the Spaniards first settled in the country is estimated at half a million there is little likelihood of undershooting the mark.

Oviado declares that in 1535—less than fifty years after the discovery—there were fewer than five hundred Indians left within the borders of the Island. Among this remnant females were largely in predominence. They had not been subjected to the same extremes of hardships and cruelty as had the males, and many of the Spaniards had taken native women under their protection as concubines. This condition led to the perpetuation of the Indian blood after the last of the pure bred aborigines had disappeared. To-day, one meets, on rare occasions, a Cuban peasant whose appearance suggests Indian ancestry, but the strain practi {27} cally died out long ago, and has left no impression on the Cuban character or customs.

Cases in which the aboriginal stock is suggested are more frequently encountered at the eastern end of the Island than elsewhere, and a plausible explanation might be found in the fact that its wild mountainous recesses would have afforded safe retreat to such of the Indians who may have fled there from the persecutions of the whites. In this way it is possible that a small number of the natives may have survived for a considerable period after official knowledge of their existence had ceased.

Some years ago, at Holguin, a youth was pointed out to me, who exhibited in features, skull formation, and complexion, marked resemblance to an Indian type. The padre , who had drawn my attention to the young man, scoffed at my suggestion of accident, and declared his conviction that it was a pronounced case of atavism.

The first permanent settlement of the Spaniards upon the Island of Cuba was made at Baracoa, in 1512. At its head was Captain Diego Velasquez, who, until his death in 1524, continued to rule Cuba, as Adelantado , under direct responsibility to the Governor and An {28} dencia of Hispaniola, or Santo Domingo. He had five successors in this office. The first governor, appointed by and immediately answerable to the Crown, was Hernando de Soto. The line of captains-general began with Don Gabriel de Lujan, who assumed the post in 1581.

In 1514, Velasquez founded the towns of Trinidad and Santiago, for the purpose of facilitating communication with Jamaica, and established settlements at Remedios, Bayamo, Puerto Principe, Sancti-Spiritus, and San Cristobal de la Habana, the last named being located where the town of Batabano now stands. Five years later, the name of Habana was transferred to a small settlement on the spot where the capital now stands.

Baracoa was the first bishopric and seat of government. In 1522 Santiago became the centre of both civil and ecclesiastical jurisdiction, and in 1552 the capital was established at Habana.

The settlement of Cuba proceeded slowly. During the hundred years following its discovery, only two towns were founded in addition to those which have been mentioned, namely, Guanabacoa and El Cobre. In the seventeenth century but two more of any importance came

into existence, these being Matanzas and Santa Clara. Nine more were created in the course of the next century. At the close of this period the Island contained about two hundred and fifty thousand inhabitants, while the development of its natural resources can scarcely be said to have begun.

The backwardness of the colony was not due to lack of energy on the part of the Spaniards, who in the days of the conquistadores displayed that quality in a remarkable degree. A combination of conditions, some of them entirely beyond the control of the settlers, retarded the development of the Island. A large proportion of the first comers were transients, staying for a while, but responding ultimately to the greater allurements of the mainland. Their object was gold, and in this respect Cuba proved disappointing. After a while the large landed proprietors, who had received royal grants, began to raise cattle and to breed horses. For some time large quantities of meat and mounts for the troops were shipped to Terra Firma. But this source of profit expired toward the close of the sixteenth century, when the continental settlements became able to supply their own needs in these respects. At {30} this period the cultivation of tobacco and sugar-cane was introduced. At the outset these industries suffered from a paucity of labor, and a royal license was obtained for the importation of negroes from Africa. The shipment of the blacks in large numbers to the Island continued until, toward the middle of the nineteenth century, their proportional place in the population became a source of grave anxiety to the authorities. The successful revolt of their race in Haiti and the abolitionary agitation throughout the civilized world created unrest among the slaves in Cuba. Although there was no organized uprising, frequent mutinies occurred in different parts of the Island. The most cruel measures of repression were put into force, with the result of cowing the negroes for a while. It is probable however, that only the growth of the revolutionary movement prevented a general uprising of the blacks in Cuba before their emancipation, which was officially decreed in 1887.

The population of the Island in 1846 was about nine hundred thousand. More than half of the number were negroes, three-fourths of them slaves. According to the latest official figures, less than thirty per cent. of the present {31} population are colored. How has the proportion sunk so greatly in sixty-five years? Where have the negroes gone? What has become of their children?

A writer in a volume on “Cuba,” issued by the United States Bureau of the Census, states: “The diminution of the proportion of colored inhabitants during the last half century is doubtless but another illustration of the inability of the colored race to hold its own in competition with the whites, a truth which is being demonstrated on a much larger scale in the United States.”

This is not at all convincing. The negroes have not been to any appreciable degree subjected to competition in Cuba. The climate and latter-day conditions are altogether favorable to their survival and increase. Two official reports indicate that they held their own under the more arduous life of slavery.

We must look for an explanation elsewhere, and the most plausible seems to be that there is a much greater distribution of negro blood in Cuba than the statistics indicate. The enumerators who took the census under our military occupation acknowledged the difficulty of distinguishing among a people whose prevail {32} ing physical characteristics are dark skin and black hair, and expressed their suspicion that a large number of those who returned themselves as “whites” had negro blood in their veins. Those who have lived long and travelled extensively in Cuba, generally entertain the opinion that the proportion of pure whites in population is considerably less than seventy per cent.

The unqualified terms of condemnation in which most of our writers refer to the Spanish rule of Cuba, can only be accounted for on the assumption of ignorance of the history of the Island and the general conditions of the times. Spain had an admirable code of laws for the government of her colonies. This code, called Las Leyes de Indias , was formulated during the reign of Philip the second. It was designed to insure the humane and equitable treatment of the native subjects and, considering the times, was a highly enlightened measure. The laws were frequently violated by colonial governors, but it was hardly in the power of the home government to prevent such abuses. In those days of long distances and slow communication, it was necessary that viceroys should be invested with practically unlimited powers and undi {33} vided authority. The only alternative would have been the adoption of some form of popular government, which no nation had at that period dreamed of applying to its distant possessions. As a matter of fact, a liberal policy prevailed in Cuba during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Public assemblies of citizens were held to elect the members of municipal corporations; no taxation was permitted without the sanction of these bodies; [1] charges were freely lodged and sustained against governors. During the same period, the British colonies in the West Indies were not so well governed as was Cuba and some of their governors were more flagrantly tyrannical and dishonest than the worst of Cuba’s captains-general. Spain’s chief fault and the cause of her downfall as a colonial power, lay in failure to respond to the growth of sentiment in favor of popular rights. She became more autocratic as other nations became more liberal. In truth, she had ineptitude for colonial government, but her sovereigns generally evinced {34} a sincere concern for the welfare of their foreign subjects.

Cuba entered upon an era of development and prosperity following the restoration of the Island to Spain by the British in 1763. For eighty years following the event it was governed by a line of captains-general, almost all of whom were able and well-intentioned. The first of these, Count O’Reilly, devoted his five-year term of office to the organization of a militia force and the execution of other much needed military measures. Don Antonio Bucarely paid special attention to the administration of justice throughout the Island and redressed many popular grievances. Of him was recorded the unparalleled fact that during his administration not a single complaint against him had reached the Court of Madrid. His successor, the Marques de la Torre, gained the affection and esteem of all classes. The benign and talented Las Casas arrived in 1790, and the period of his governorship is recognized by all Spanish writers as one of the most brilliant in the history of the Island. He effected many public improvements and introduced means for the increase of the industrial and commercial prosperity of Cuba. He it was, who founded {35} the institution of Sociedad Patriotica , which became so important an agency in the promotion of agriculture, trade, education, literature, and the fine arts. The recognition of the popular principle in this institution, and the promotion of liberal ideas by it, have been highly influential factors in the development of the people and their country.

To Las Casas, also, the Island is indebted for the establishment of the Casa de Beneficencia , for its first public library, and its first newspaper.

It is frequently stated that under the rule of Spain education among the natives was discouraged. Such was not the case. The facilities of the masses in the country districts for acquiring such education as their classes usually enjoyed at the same period in Europe was, at least, equally as great. The priests maintained parish schools throughout the Island, and received pupils free without the distinction of classes or color. In the capital the opportunities for learning were unusually good. The Jesuits, Dominicans, and other orders, provided thorough classical education and instruction in foreign languages. Almost every religious institution had some sort of college or {36} attached to it. The University of Habana was established in 1721. It became the object of special favor by Las Casas. He increased the endowment and extended the scope of its utility by creating several new professorial chairs, notably one of medicine. He also lent aid and encouragement to the Jesuits, in improving their colleges.

Following Las Casas came several other benevolent governors, of whom the Conde de Santa Clara, the Marques de Someruelos, and the Espeletas, especially left records of wise and useful administration.

The chief features of the history of the Island previous to the opening of the eighteenth century, were the settlements created by the first governor, the usual repartimientos , or distribution of the territory and its inhabitants among the Spanish adventurers who led the early expeditions of the Indians, the introduction of negro slaves, the attacks by buccaneers, and the capture of Habana by the English. The century closed with a notable advance in commerce and industry, and a period of excellent government. This, though essentially despotic, was benevolent and well adapted to the conditions of the time. Under it the Cubans

enjoyed a fair degree of prosperity, despite the short-sighted commercial policy to which they were subjected. That they were generally contented, and well affected towards the mother country can not be questioned. The French and American revolutions impressed them greatly, but did not shake their loyalty. When the news of the abduction of the royal family of Spain by Napoleon reached Habana, the colonial government declared war against France, and the populace approved the act with enthusiasm. The revolt of the colonies on the mainland, and their disseverance from Spain, left Cuba still attached to the Crown with a constancy that gained for her the sobriquet, “ever faithful.”

The political changes which took place in Spain in the first quarter of the nineteenth century were productive of similar changes in Cuba. What was called a constitutional government was given to the Island. The sudden introduction of a democratic system of rule to a population composed of the most discordant elements, and accustomed to autocracy, could not fail of producing something like the disquieting conditions that followed the premature establishment of ultra-free institutions in the {38} countries which had formerly been dependencies of Spain in America. The masonic societies came into vogue in Cuba, as they did in the peninsula. From the discussion of religious and political matters, these associations soon proceeded to the advocacy of revolution. The radical doctrines which were thus disseminated, readily took root in the minds of the educated, among whom translations of the works of Voltaire, Rousseau, and their Italian disciples, were widely distributed at this time. In 1823 a conspiracy, which extended throughout the Island, was set on foot by a secret society named “the Sotes de Bolivar.” The drastic measures that were adopted for its suppression created deep and widespread resentment against the government.

Upon the restoration of Ferdinand the Seventh, another sudden swing of the pendulum brought the Cubans again under autocratic rule. Extreme means were resorted to with a view to stamping out the growing revolutionary spirit and reducing the people to their former state of ready submission to authority. None of these measures was so ill-judged, or so lasting in its evil effects, as the Royal Order of 1825. This conferred on the captains-gen {39} eral “the whole extent of power which by the royal ordinance is granted to the governors of besieged towns ... most amply and unrestrictedly authorizes Your Excellency not only to remove from the Island such persons, holding offices from government or not, whatever their rank, class, occupation, or situation in life may be, whose residence there you may deem prejudicial, or whose private or public conduct may appear suspicious to you, employing in their stead faithful servants of His Majesty, who shall fully deserve Your Excellency’s confidence; but also to suspend the execution of whatever royal orders or general decrees in all the different branches of the administration, or in any part of them, as Your Excellency may think conducive to the royal service; it being in any case required that these measures be temporary, and that Your Excellency make report of them for His Majesty’s sovereign approval.”

This order was intended to be observed under the most strict responsibility, “ le mas estrecta responsibilidad ,” and to be only temporarily in effect. It remained in force, however, and its terrible powers later became the scourge of the land, although they were not immediately felt. {40} The Captain-General upon whom they were first conferred, General Vives, refrained from exercising them, and under the judicious administration of Count Villanueva, as Intendant, the people had no cause to remember the fearful instrument for oppression which their rulers had at command.

The term of General Tacon (1834-1838) ushered in the era of tyranny, spoliation and incapacity that marked the government of Cuba in the remaining period of Spanish domination, during which the revolutionary spark that was ignited earlier in the century grew into an inextinguishable flame.

Long before this period the Spaniards and Cubans had drifted apart. There was nothing essential in common between the latter and the official class or the soldiers, unless we allow for some degree of common origin. The natives had gradually learned to entertain hatred for the Spaniards, who, in their turn, felt the greatest contempt for the Cubans. Neither side took the least pain to dissemble their feelings, except that in Habana friendly relations were, as a rule, maintained between the two classes, and this even during revolutionary periods. The relations and sentiments of the governing {41} class and the people to one another were much like those which existed between Norman and Saxon in the century following the Conquest.

The first Spanish immigration to Cuba commenced early in the sixteenth century, and consisted mainly of adventurers who accompanied the early expeditions, and who settled permanently in the country, after returning to Spain and transplanting their families. These first settlers were mostly of Castilian or Andalusian origin and their descendants furnished the best native blood of the Island. Shortly after, emigrants from the Basque Provinces and from Catalonia began to come in. These belonged to the peasant class, and from them the guajiro , or poor white, of the country districts has sprung. After the abolition of slavery a number of Galegos came over to seek employment in the houses of the wealthy.

Aside from a handful of French refugees, the white population of the Island was almost exclusively composed of Spaniards or people of Spanish descent until a late day. Under such circumstances of racial, religious and political affinity, a practical government might {42} have maintained peace continuously but for conditions which gradually moulded the Cubans into absolute antagonism to the Spaniards. {43}

CHAPTER III

THE HISTORY OF CUBA (CONTINUED)

From the outset the two chief conditions that militated against the development of Cuba and the prosperity of her people were trade restriction and the appropriation of land.

In the early days of the colony large tracts of land were granted by the Crown to Castilians of noble family. These never made permanent residence on the Island, but entrusted their affairs to an agent. The wealthy land owner often had a palace on the Cerro, and occasionally paid a brief winter visit to the capital, and made a still briefer excursion to his hacienda , where his appearance in all the dignity and state of aristocratic wealth had an irritating effect upon his poor neighbors. The money produced by his sugar plantation or his cattle ranch he dissipated in the fashionable pleasures of Madrid and Paris.

This system of absentee landlordism acted like a blight upon the country until the aboli {44} tion of slavery necessitated the cutting up of large estates, or their transfer to corporations, possessed of the means of paying for the labor necessary to work them.

Not a few of the large properties were in the hands of Cubans, but in these cases the tenure was not so harmful to the country, nor as odious to the common people. The Cuban planters, most of whom were ruined during the protracted period of insurrection, invariably made their homes on the haciendas , where one generation followed another in possession. The sons usually remained with the father, each taking some particular share in the management of the estate. Thus several families were often found living under one roof and generally in perfect amity, for the Cubans are distinctly domestic people, affectionate in disposition and clannish in habit.

There were comparatively few holdings in the hands of peasant proprietors, or small farmers, and this absence of a home and land owning population was an obviously weak element in the foundation of the government.

The greater part of the productive soil was in the hands of a few grandees, and the wealth {45} extracted from it was withheld from general circulation, which had, among other harmful consequences, that of retarding the extension of agriculture and general industrial advancement.

Judged by our present conceptions of justice and policy, the commercial regulations imposed upon Cuba by Spain appear to have been extremely foolish and iniquitous, but we must bear in mind that they were quite consistent with the prevailing idea at that time that the interests of colonies should be made subservient to those of the parent country. In other words, the commercial and industrial restrictions which were imposed on Cuba, while they had the effect of exploiting the Island for the benefit of Spain, originated not so much from disregard of the colony’s welfare as from the peculiar views of political economy generally entertained in that age. Great Britain’s American possessions were subjected to similar treatment. Spain’s fatal error lay in the tenacity with which she clung to her misguided policy. A little judicious reform at the beginning of the last century, when other powers were granting to their colonies a measurable degree of freedom in trade and self-government, would {46} probably have sufficed to keep Cuba under the flag of Spain.

The restrictions on the commerce of the Island began with the royal decree of 1497, which granted to the port of Seville the conclusive privilege of trade with the colonies, these being prohibited from any commercial intercourse with any foreign countries. In 1707 this monopoly was transferred from Seville to the port of Cadiz. While it was the capital of the Island, Santiago was the sole port of entry, and after Habana became the capital, all shipments passed through it. This restricted traffic between Spain and its insular colony was jealously guarded. Trading vessels were required to assemble in flotas , or fleets, and to make the double voyage under the escort of war-ships. This arrangement was designed hardly as much for protection as for the prevention of illicit dealings with the intermediate countries. During certain periods trade with foreigners was prohibited under the most severe penalties, and it was never permissible except by special authorization. Commercial intercourse between the colonies was even forbidden. With the exception of a brief term, during which the English occupied the Island, these hampering

conditions obtained until 1778, when Habana was opened to free trade. The decree authorized traffic between several ports of Cuba. Others were included in this privilege, from time to time, until, in 1803, practically all the ports of the Island enjoyed it.

For two hundred years or more, such action upon the part of the sovereign government was looked upon by all nations as good policy. In 1714 Spain and the Dutch Confederation effected a convention by the terms of which each party was bound to refrain from every form of trade with the American possessions of the other. A similar agreement was reached between England and Spain about fifty years later. Towards the close of the eighteenth century, however, these treaties were abrogated and a royal cedula set forth that no foreign ship should be allowed to enter a Cuban port under any conditions.

The peninsular war reduced the trade of Cuba to such an extent that the Ayuntamiento and the Consulado of Habana seriously debated the expediency of throwing the port entirely open and admitting foreign goods on a parity with those of the home country. In consideration of the emergency the restraints on trade {48} were substantially released during the first decade of the nineteenth century. Shortly afterwards, the Government sought to reëstablish them, but was induced to refrain by the protestations of Captain-General Marques de Someruelos, who made a forcible representation of the economic necessities of the colony and the impossibility of their being met under the restricting policy.

The least concession was wrung from the Council of the Indies with the utmost difficulty. They remained convinced that the limitations of the commerce of the colonies to the mother country was the best course for the latter, at least, and secured a virtual resumption of the condition by indirect means. By excessive duties, discriminating tariffs, and the heavy port dues, foreign trade was placed at such a great disadvantage that the Cubans, although ostensibly free in the matter, found themselves again restricted for the most part to commerce with Spain.

The first tariff of Cuba, enforced in 1818, imposed a duty of forty-three per cent. ad valorem on all foreign merchandise, except agricultural implements and machinery, which were taxed twenty-six and one-half per cent. These {49} rates were somewhat reduced a few years later. Similar importations from Spain were granted a preferential reduction of one-third from these rates. But, as Spain produced a very small proportion of the articles that comprised Cuba’s imports, her merchants secured them from various foreign sources, and, of course, the consumers were compelled to pay higher prices than if they had been allowed to deal directly with the producers under an impartial system of duties.

In 1828 an export tariff was imposed on sugar and coffee, which, by this time, had become important products. Four-fifths of a cent per pound was levied on the former, and two-fifths on the latter. A form of shipping bounty added to the weight of these exactions. In case the exports were carried in foreign bottoms the duty on sugar was doubled and that on coffee increased to one cent a pound.

This tariff was maintained without material change until a reciprocal commercial agreement was effected by the United States and Spain in 1891. For the first time in its history, Cuba found itself in a position to trade on favorable terms with its nearest and best market. As a result the trade of the Island was soon trans {50} ferred, almost in its entirety, to the United States, and its people enjoyed a term of prosperity transcending anything in their former experience. The change was, however, short lived. In 1894 the termination of the agreement and the reëstablishment of the old regulations forced compulsory traffic with Spain upon the Cubans.

But the burdens entailed upon the people by trade restrictions were by no means all that they were called on to bear. A system of heavy and vexatious taxation prevailed during the entire period of Spain’s dominance over the Island. Taxes were levied on all kinds of property and on every form of industry. Every profession and occupation was taxed. Legal papers, petitions and business documents were required to be stamped.

There was a “consumption tax” on the killing of cattle which, of course, increased the price of meat to the consumer. There was an impost of twenty ducats, called the derecho de averia , collected upon every person who arrived on the Island. This was established in the earliest years of the colony and maintained until near the close of the eighteenth century. During the last hundred years of its enforce {51} ment, the amount was increased from sixteen dollars to twenty-two dollars. It is needless to say that this tax seriously impeded immigration of the peasant class most needed by the country.

There was a lottery tax, and a “ cedula ,” or head tax. The latter proved very burdensome to the poorest of the people who, when in arrears of it, were debarred from the exercise of most rights and privileges involving civil and ecclesiastical authorization. Thus, they could not make contracts, enter into marriages, or secure baptism for their children until the overdue tax had been paid.

Obviously such a system of taxation worked the utmost discouragement to the acquisition of property and the pursuit of industries. Had the design of the Peninsular Government been to ruin the Island and to suppress all development, no more effective measures for the purpose could have been devised. None but a country superlatively rich in natural resources could have carried such a burden. Like the other American colonies of Spain, Cuba received contributions, or situados , from Mexico. During the forty years following 1766, these amounted to 108,150,504 pesos fuertes. The {52} worst of it was that the large revenue derived from these heavy impositions upon the people and the trade of Cuba was either absorbed in the excessive cost of administering the Island, or diverted to the royal treasury. Comparatively little of it was spent on local public improvements, unless we should include works of a military nature. Aside from the calzada , or military highway, road-making was neglected. Harbors lacked improvements and cities were deficient in water supply, sewers and paving. In the country districts, public buildings and schoolhouses were far short of the necessities of the population. Even in late years the annual appropriation for educational purposes was no more than two hundred and fifty thousand dollars.

Aside from the riots resulting from the enforcement of the tobacco monopoly, during the term of Captain-General Roja, there was no active opposition to the Government previous to 1823. In that year an abortive insurrection followed the attempt to abrogate the liberal constitution of 1812, and reëstablish the old-time absolutism. Political agitation and revolutionary outbreaks continued from that time, stimulated by the secret societies, whose

branches were scattered all over the country. Under these circumstances the veiled antipathy, which had been growing between the Cubans and Spaniards, rapidly assumed the nature of a wide breach. On the one side were ranged the official class, the clerics, the beneficiaries of monopolies, and persons who derived profit in various ways from connection with the administration. On the other, were the native whites who sought independence, or at least autonomy. The latter had the sympathy and support of practically all the blacks, and of a large proportion of the colored population.

In 1836 the constitution of 1812 was reëstablished in Spain, but Cuba was deprived of the most important privileges that should have been secured to her by the change. The deputies who were sent to the constitutional convention at Madrid from Cuba were arbitrarily excluded. It was announced that the Island should be governed by special laws, but these were never published and, if definitely framed at all, must have been communicated to the officials in a semi-confidential manner.

This totally unjust and fatally unwise action on the part of the Crown stirred the existing discontent to boiling point and thereafter the {54} revolutionary movement assumed a much more menacing aspect. During the succeeding decade a number of uprisings occurred in such widely separated parts of the country as to clearly indicate that the entire Island was disaffected. The lack of connection between these outbreaks and their quick subsidence also showed an absence of organization or concerted plan. In 1847, however, a more serious revolutionary conspiracy, and one which was destined to have far-reaching effect, was set on foot by Narcisco Lopez. The movement was intelligently planned and contemplated the annexation of Cuba to the United States.

The conspiracy was betrayed to the Spanish authorities—no uncommon occurrence in the early revolutionary period—and Lopez, with the chief figures in the affair, fled to America. In 1850 Lopez with six hundred men landed at Cardenas and captured the fortress. Failing, however, to receive expected support, he immediately sailed to Key West. The following year Lopez landed another expedition in Cuba near Bahia Honda. This occasion was memorable on account of the fact that the force included one hundred and fifty men under Colonel Crittenden of Kentucky. {55} Disaster quickly overtook this attempt. The mistake was made of immediately dividing the force after landing. Lopez with one body of men advanced on Las Pozas, leaving Colonel Crittenden, with the remainder, in El Morilla. A detachment of Spanish troops overtook and defeated Lopez, after a gallant fight. The leader was captured, carried to Habana, and promptly garroted. Crittenden and his men attempted to escape by sea but were surrounded and forced to surrender. All were subsequently shot at the Castle of Atares.

This incident aroused among the people of the United States an interest in Cuban affairs, out of which there grew a sympathy for the insurgents that never abated.

Several futile efforts followed the Lopez affair, and then came the revolution of 1868, which had its inception at Yara, in the Province of Camaguey. It is generally referred to by the Cubans as the “Ten Years War,” although no battles were fought. There were, however, many deaths from disease, especially among the Spanish troops, and the cost of the contest was three hundred million dollars, which amount was charged to the Cuban debt.

In February, 1878, the treaty of Zanjon was {56} entered into by the representatives of Spain and those of the independent government which the insurgents had created on paper and had affected to maintain in the field. Under this convention the Crown agreed to substantial civil and political concessions in favor of the people of Cuba. These undertakings, the Cubans declare, were never fulfilled. Spanish officials, on the other hand, maintain that the mother country actually granted more than her obligation demanded of her. The truth will be found in the fact that while laws were promulgated in accordance with the promises given at Zanjon, they were not carried out. Thus although documentary evidence might be adduced to show that the Cubans enjoyed a liberal government after 1878, their condition, in reality, remained virtually unchanged.

The hopes that had been inspired by the treaty of Zanjon quickly waned and the spirit of discontent revived. This was greatly increased by the economic troubles resulting from the depression of the sugar trade, which began in 1884, and the total abolition of slavery in 1887.

Meanwhile Spain continued to regulate the financial affairs of the Island with the old-time {57} reckless mismanagement. From 1893 to 1898 the revenues of Cuba derived from excessive taxation, heavy duties and the Habana lottery, averaged about $25,000,000 per annum. Of this amount, $10,500,000 was appropriated to the payment of the Cuban debt, which by 1897 had swelled to the enormous aggregate of $400,000,000, or $283.54 per capita, a ratio more than three times as great as the per capita debt of Spain. For the support of the army, navy, administration and church in Cuba, $12,000,000 was allotted. The remaining $2,500,000 was allowed for public works, education and general improvements in Cuba, independent of municipal expenditures. It may be added that when, as in better times, the revenues had been very much larger, the demands of the home Government were proportionally increased.

At the close of the eighties, the price of sugar rose to an abnormal height and Cuba entered upon a brief period of prosperity. Political agitation abated and the Island sank into a more peaceful condition than it had known for many years. It was, however, but the lull before the storm. The repeal of the Blaine reciprocity agreement dealt a deadly blow to the Cuban sugar industry. At once conditions {58} changed. Quiescence gave place to agitation. The revolutionary spirit awoke with greater determination than ever, fanned by the thought that Cuba, independent or annexed to the United States could always rely upon a favorable market for her principal product.

Plot and conspiracy soon became rife and received the support of a number of influential men, who had hitherto held aloof, but who now despaired of permanent prosperity for the Island under Spanish rule. Men who had taken part in the Ten Years War began to organize in secret, and several of their former leaders, Gomez, Garcia, Maceo, and others, returned to Cuba from their voluntary exile.

In 1895 was launched the insurrection which culminated in the freedom of Cuba. The leaders of the movement entered upon it with the deliberate design of involving the United States and their success in doing so brought about a result which they could not have attained otherwise.

A friendly feeling for Cuba not unmixed with interest considerations, had existed in the United States for many years. Annexation had been discussed during the presidency of John Quincy Adams, and President Polk made {59} a proposition to the Spanish Government for the purchase of the Island. In 1854, the search of several American merchant ships by Spanish cruisers led to the issuance of the “Ostend Manifesto,” a protest on the part of the United States. In this document it was declared that “the possession of Cuba by a foreign power was a menace to the peace of the United States, and that Spain be offered the alternative of accepting $200,000,000 for her sovereignty over the Island, or having it taken from her by force.” During the Ten Years War President Grant expressed to the Spanish Government his belief that only independence and emancipation could settle the Cuban question, and that intervention might be necessary to end the war. He repeatedly proffered the good offices of the United States in reëstablishing peace. Meanwhile the capture of the Virginius , in 1873, and the summary execution of fifty-three of her passengers and crew, by order of the Spanish authorities, came very near to involving the countries in war.

From the outbreak of the rebellion of 1895, the people of the United States evinced a strong sympathy for the Cubans. This was reflected by the action of Congress in directing President {60} Cleveland to proffer the good offices of the United States to Spain with a view to ending the war and securing the independence of the Island. In 1896 both Republican and Democratic national conventions passed resolutions of sympathy for the Cubans and demanded that the Government should take action.

At the close of the same year, the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations reported a resolution recognizing the republic of Cuba, but it was never taken from the calendar. Meanwhile reports of outrages and indignities to American citizens in Cuba led to official protest and the appointment of Judge William R. Day to investigate conditions. Popular indignation in the United States was further aroused by the press reports of the dreadful effects of General Weyler’s plan of reconcentration.

In May, 1897, Congress voted $50,000 for the purchase of supplies to relieve the needs of the reconcentrados , on the ground that many of them were reported to be American citizens. Shortly afterwards, the United States requested the Spanish Government to put an end to the reconcentration system and to recall Captain General Weyler. Spain received the requests with professed favor, but, after months {61} had elapsed, without any action being taken, the battleship Maine was sent to Habana for the protection of American citizens.

On the night of February 15th, the Maine was blown up and two hundred and sixty-six of her complement lost their lives. President McKinley appointed a board of naval officers to investigate the circumstances. The resultant report, which was submitted to Congress, declared that the ship had been destroyed by an external explosion.

The condition of affairs aroused serious apprehensions on the part of the Spanish Government and at the same time exhilarated the insurgent leaders. Both parties realized that the intervention of the United States was imminent. The former proposed a suspension of hostilities, pending an agreement upon terms of peace, and offered to appropriate $600,000 for the benefit of the reconcentrados . These overtures were promptly rejected by the insurgent leaders.

Early in April, the President sent a message to Congress requesting authority to end the war and to secure in Cuba the establishment of a stable government, capable of fulfilling its international obligations and maintaining {62} peace. This was, in effect, a request to enter upon war with Spain.

A few days later, Congress passed joint resolutions demanding the withdrawal of Spain from Cuba and empowering the President to use the naval and military forces of the United States to carry the resolutions into effect. This was virtually a declaration of war. {63}

CHAPTER IV

CUBA IN TRANSITION

A circumstantial account of the war of liberation would make anything but pleasant reading. Aside from the fact that on one side was a down-trodden people struggling to throw off the yoke of the oppressor, there was little in the conflict to excite admiration, or even interest. Barbarities of the worst kind were practised by the insurgents as well as by the Spaniards, and it would be profitless to enquire where the balance of blame lay when both were so deeply guilty. From the technical point of view the protracted hostilities hardly deserved to be termed war. Until the participation of the United States there was not an engagement which might be justly described as a battle. Neither side displayed any extraordinary military capacity, but the plans and movements of the rebels were characterized by greater intelligence and purpose than those of their opponents. During the entire war one manœuvre {64} alone was of a high order of strategy. That was the brilliant operation in which Antonio Maceo, the mulatto, swept from end to end of the Island, and lighted the flame of rebellion throughout its length. One of the most important features of the war was the prominent part taken in it by the black and colored elements of the population. They formed the backbone of the insurgent army, and furnished several of its most able leaders. As a result the “race of color” has secured a standing and influence in Cuba which it does not enjoy in any other country where the Caucasian is dominant.

On one of the closing days of 1895, the constitutional guarantees were suspended in Cuba by proclamation. The Government had suddenly awakened to the fact that a mine had been quietly laid beneath its feet. For months a wide-spread conspiracy, having its fountainhead in the United States, had been in existence. The Cuban Junta in New York had, during this time, energetically collected money and arms for the purpose of promoting a rebellion with greater determination and upon better organized lines than ever before. With some of the leaders the object entertained was {65} autonomy; with others, complete independence; and with a third element, annexation to the United States. All were united, however, in a burning desire to terminate the rule of Spain over their native land.

For some time previous to the proclamation of the Governor-General, arms and ammunition had been shipped to Cuba from various American ports and were secreted in different parts of the Island. Several local outbreaks had presaged the approaching storm, which burst in March. Before the close of April, the brothers Maceo, Jose Marti, and Maximo Gomez had returned to Cuba and resumed their respective places at the head of the rebel ranks. Close upon their heels arrived Martinez Campos, who had effected the peace at Zanjon, to take the part of Governor-General.

Without delay, the insurgent generals set about carrying out the shrewd design of spreading the rebellion over every part of the Island. Their object was not only to increase the difficulties of the Spaniards, but also to give the uprising as formidable an aspect as possible, in the hope of securing the recognition, if not the intervention, of the United States.

General Campos entered upon his task with {66} the hope of bringing about a cessation of the insurrection by means of conciliatory measures. One of his first acts was to issue a manifesto to the rebels, offering pardon to all such as should lay down their arms and resume their allegiance to the Crown of Spain. In his proclamation of martial law he enjoined upon his troops the observance of the recognized principles of humane warfare.

Within a week of his arrival, General Campos took command of the troops in the field. A period of desultory fighting ensued and, at length, in the middle of July, the first serious action of the war took place. The Spaniards in force met a body of insurgents near Bayamo. Probably there were about three thousand on either side. The insurgents had the better of the engagement, which was hotly contested, and General Campos narrowly escaped the loss of his life.

Followed months of skirmishing, in which the rebels attacked isolated garrisons with considerable success, but avoided encounters with large bodies of troops. Meanwhile, numerous filibustering expeditions disembarked with recruits and munitions of war, greatly strengthening the revolutionary movement. By the end

of the summer, eighty thousand Spanish regulars, besides a number of volunteers and guerrillas , were in the field. The insurgent forces did not exceed twenty thousand men, a considerable proportion of whom were armed only with machetes . But the Spaniards shortly learned to dread this weapon more than the rifle.

Before the close of the year dynamite and the torch were brought into play. The revolutionists began, at first with discrimination, to burn plantations and to blow up bridges. On the other side the Spaniards commenced to execute insurgent chiefs who were captured.

In December the march to the west was vigorously pushed by Gomez and Maceo, whilst Campos employed all his resources in the effort to intercept it. The result was a series of technical movements in which the Spanish troops, although led by generals of experience, were usually worsted. Detached bodies of insurgents harassed the royalist commands, and diverted their attention, while Maceo steadily pushed westward, gathering recruits in his progress and leaving a train of active rebellion in his wake. The trochas , or trenches, strung with fortlets, to which the Spaniards resorted {68} as a means of stemming the tide, proved of little efficacy. The insurgents, in large bodies, crossed them time and again. With one hundred thousand troops at his command, Campos found it impossible to check or circumscribe the rebel movements.

As time went on the insurgents became more and more unrestrained in the destruction of property. Cane-fields, sugar mills, residences, were given to the flames wherever they could be reached. This was done in pursuance of a definite policy which Gomez had repeatedly announced in his proclamations. He declared that the readiest means of inducing the Spaniards to leave the Island was to make it worthless to them. If this theory was somewhat farfetched, there could be no question of the practical effect of the destruction of the sugar crop in curtailing the resources of the administration.

Early in 1896, the insurgents had penetrated within a few miles of Habana and the proclamation of martial law was extended to embrace the whole Island. The Governor-General returned to the capital, which was in a state of turmoil and panic.

Gomez, however, did not for an instant enter {69} tain the idea of so rash an enterprise as an attack upon the City. His purpose was to make a spectacular demonstration for the sake of its moral effect and to concentrate the attention of the Spanish commanders upon himself in order that Maceo might push on to Pinar del Rio with less opposition. In both respects he was eminently successful.

Maceo traversed the entire length of Pinar del Rio, and that Province, in which rebellion had never before reared its head, was soon in open revolt from end to end. During January and February, Maceo ranged through Pinar del Rio and the southern portion of Habana, constantly engaged with one or another of the many detachments that were sent against him. For a brief space he transferred his operations to Matanzas, but returned to Pinar del Rio and for eight months withstood the numerous strong bodies of troops which General Weyler threw against him. Toward the close of the year 1896, Maceo began a march eastward and was killed in a chance encounter with a small force of Spanish soldiers.

In the execution of the plan for the invasion of the western portion of Cuba, which was conceived by Gomez, Antonio Maceo performed a {70} splendid service for the insurgent cause. Although inferior in intellect to his chief and some other rebel leaders, Maceo was the most capable captain of them all, and his prestige among friends and foes was greater than that of any of his associates.

When General Campos returned to Habana, at the close of the year 1895, it was to find popular discontent and political conspiracy directed against him. Already discouraged by the failure of his military campaign, and of his effort to break up the insurrection by conciliation, the disaffection at the capital completely disheartened the old soldier, who had conscientiously endeavored to do his duty according to his lights. He tendered his resignation, and the home Government appointed General Weyler, Marquis of Tenerife, to succeed him.

This man, who amply earned his sobriquet of “Butcher,” was the unwitting instrument of Cuba’s freedom. His atrocious barbarities, rather than the destruction of the Maine , were the cause of the United States declaring war against Spain. Although, at the outset, it appeared as though his succession to Campos was a dire blow to the insurgents, the event proved it to be a blessing in disguise. The retiring {71} General believed that Spain should grant to the Cubans the most liberal administrative and political reforms, even to the extent of autonomy. It is possible that he might have brought the authorities at Madrid to his way of thinking and, in that case, quite probable that the rebellion would have been brought to a peaceful termination.

Weyler lost no time in instituting his concentration system. It was a measure in which he and Canovas, the premier of Spain, had great faith as a means of subduing the insurrection, but it utterly failed in its object and had a result of which its originators little dreamed. They excused it on the ground of military necessity, but it contravened the principles of civilized warfare in important particulars. It involved making prisoners of peaceful noncombatants, and went farther in neglecting to afford them the treatment which the least humane nation concedes to military captives. Indeed its brutality was such as savages would rarely be guilty of.

The people of the country districts, men, women, and children, were segregated within certain restricted bounds, sometimes defined by stockades, or trenches, and always guarded by {72} troops. Sometimes they were permitted to enter neighboring towns, but, even in such cases, their movements were limited by military circumspection.

If this measure had gone no farther it might have been condoned. The British, in the Boer War, resorted to such an expedient, but they made their detention camps as comfortable as possible, they fed and clothed the inmates sufficiently, and afforded them medical attention. Weyler’s wretched reconcentrados were simply herded together and left to their own resources. They were reduced to begging of a people only one degree less impoverished than themselves. The townsman who gave a tortilla to a starving pacifico was usually depriving his own family. Disease, unchecked, ran riot in the concentration camps.

The mortality was fearful and those who survived were unfitted for years, the men to work, the women to bear healthy children. Cuba has not yet passed from the effects of Weyler’s barbaric measure.

After General Weyler’s arrival, Spain continued to send steady reënforcements to Cuba to fill the ranks thinned by disease. He never had fewer than one hundred thousand men {73} under his command. With these he entered upon vigorous military operations, at first concentrating his forces upon Pinar del Rio with the object of crushing Maceo. He endeavored to isolate the leader at the western end of the Island by constructing a trocha , from coast to coast, across its narrowest part. The measure failed in its purpose. Maceo crossed the barrier and met his death near Habana in an otherwise trivial skirmish.

Weyler now directed his efforts against Gomez and Garcia, but his task was even a more difficult one than that of Campos had been. After spreading the rebellion over the entire Island, Gomez changed his tactics. It now became the practice of the insurgents to move stealthily about in the manigua , burning and destroying wherever they could find anything upon which to lay their hands, but avoiding contact with the Spanish troops. Thus Weyler’s soldiers were kept constantly chasing back and forth in endless and futile pursuit of an intangible enemy. By his orders such property as had escaped destruction by the rebels was ruined by the royalists.

By the middle of 1897, the Island was a mass of blackened ruins, an expanse of homeless {74} waste. And the flood of insurrection had not been stayed in the slightest degree. Weyler had failed more utterly than Campos. But he had done more; he had aroused in the public mind of America a realization of the stubborn opposition of the Cubans to Spanish rule and the hopelessness of Spain’s effort to reassert it, combined with indignation at her methods. At length, but all too late, Spain awoke to the futility of longer attempting repression, and the necessity of conceding to the Cubans a liberal measure of justice and independence. Weyler was recalled, and General Blanco came to Cuba, bearing in his hand the olive branch of autonomy. He arrived in November and immediately set about reversing the policy of his predecessor. Amnesty was offered to all revolutionists; harsh decrees were annulled or suspended; political prisoners were released; the rigors of reconcentration were relaxed; the officials appointed by Weyler throughout the Island were removed and Cubans invited to take their places; a cabinet was actually installed at Habana and the machinery of home rule put in motion.

It was all of no avail. The insurgent leaders in the field positively refused to accept any

terms short of independence. In this attitude they were encouraged by the Junta in New York who, by the beginning of 1898, felt confident of the early active interposition of the United States. Such a consummation was rendered more probable by the movement, started at the close of the previous year on the part of the Cuban sugar planters, to secretly apprise the United States of their desire for its intervention.

The first overt act in the war with Spain was the President’s call for volunteers, issued April 23rd, 1898. Four days later, Admiral Dewey left Hongkong for Manila, where, on the first day of May, he captured or destroyed the Spanish fleet stationed there. June 14th, the first detachment of American troops left for Cuba under General Shafter, and landed in the vicinity of Santiago de Cuba. On the first and second days of July the Spaniards were defeated in the engagement of San Juan, and on the third, Admiral Cervera’s ships were totally destroyed by the American fleet under the command of Captain Sampson.

August 12th, a protocol provided for a cessation of hostilities, and on December 10th, a treaty of peace between the United States and {76} Spain was signed at Paris, securing to Cuba absolute freedom on the single condition of establishing “a stable government capable of maintaining order and observing international obligations.”

Thus closed the final war of independence, which cost Cuba at least twelve per cent. of her population and two-thirds of her wealth. She emerged from it weak and impoverished, with political and economic structures shaken to their bases, and helpless but for the supporting hand of the United States.

Under the military government instituted by the United States pending the creation of such conditions as would be favorable to the assumption of full civil rights by the Cubans, many beneficial works were carried out aside from the laying of a political foundation for the future administration of the country. The most extensive reformative measures were vigorously applied to the affairs of the Island. The most thorough sanitation was planned and, to a great extent, carried out; a public school system was instituted; many miles of highway were improved or constructed; agriculture and commerce were resuscitated. A period of prosperity resulted, which was proof alike of the {77} effectiveness of the American administration and of the wonderful recuperative power of the country.

In its relation to the United States, Cuba was in a position different from that of any other Latin-American republic. This unique condition was due to the fact that the Cubans had adopted as a part of their constitution a law enacted by the Congress of the United States and known as the Platt Amendment, which had later been incorporated in a permanent treaty between the countries. This constitution requirement and treaty obligation bound the Republic of Cuba not to enter into any compact with any foreign power which might tend to impair the independence of the Republic: nor to contract any public debt to the service of which it could not properly attend; to lease coaling stations to the United States; and to execute and extend plans for the sanitation of the cities of the Island. It expressed the consent of Cuba to the exercise by the United States of the right to intervene for the preservation of Cuban independence and maintenance of a government capable of protecting life, property and individual liberty, and of discharging such obligations imposed by the {78} Treaty of Paris on the United States as were now to be assumed and undertaken by the Government of Cuba.

Under its first President, Dr. Estrada Palma, the young republic progressed in a manner gratifying to its sponsors, but as the presidential term grew to a close political dissensions arose and, in the middle of 1906, an open revolt against the Government broke out, and uprisings occurred all over the country. The ostensible cause of the disaffection was undue interference with the national elections by administrative officials, but there is no doubt that the majority of the insurrectos were moved by no higher sentiment than a love of disturbance and the hope of loot.

The Government was quite unprepared to cope with the situation. It had no army, very little artillery, and an entirely inadequate force of rural constabulary. Efforts to organize militia met with such poor success that they were soon abandoned.

President Palma appealed to the United States to exercise its right and obligation of intervention, and announced his intention of resigning in order to save the country from anarchy. President Roosevelt desired, and {79} hoped, that the difficulty might be overcome without a resort to extreme measures. He begged the Cuban Chief Executive to retain his post, and despatched Mr. Taft, Secretary of War, and Mr. Bacon, Assistant Secretary of State, to Habana in the capacity of special envoys to render all possible aid in securing an amicable entente between the administrative party and the insurgents.

The commissioners entered upon this extremely difficult task in the middle of September, 1906. They decided that the use of force or even a show of it, would be calculated to precipitate guerrilla warfare, and wisely determined to rely upon diplomacy. Prominent citizens, irrespective of party affiliations, were invited to meet the Commission and to express their views of the situation freely. Many conferences were held with the leaders of the different political parties, and their suggestions for a settlement of the differences were given careful and impartial consideration.

A compromise arrangement, which contemplated the resignation of all the administrative officials, except the President, and the holding of a fresh election, was formulated and presented to the leaders of the three parties, but {80} it failed to meet with the necessary unanimous acceptance. The Liberal party assented to the proposition without reserve. The Independent Nationalists approved of the general plan, but stipulated for certain modifications. The party in power, the Moderates, were irreconcilably opposed to the conditions.

President Palma called a special session of Congress, in order to tender to it his resignation, which was accompanied by that of the Vice President. The Congress accepted the resignations and immediately adjourned without taking further action in the matter, so that the principal executive offices of the Republic were left vacant, and the country was without a government.

At this juncture Secretary Taft issued the following proclamation, establishing the Provisional Government in Cuba:

“To the people of Cuba:

“The failure of Congress to act on the irrevocable resignation of the President of Cuba, or to elect a successor, leaves this country without a government at a time when great disorder prevails, and requires that, pursuant to a request of President Palma, the necessary steps {81} be taken in the name and by the authority of the President of the United States, to restore order, protect life and property in the Island of Cuba and Islands and Keys adjacent thereto, and for this purpose to establish therein a provisional government.

“The provisional government hereby established by direction and in the name of the President of the United States will be retained only long enough to restore order and peace and public confidence, and then to hold such elections as may be necessary to determine those persons upon whom the permanent government of the Republic should be devolved.

“In so far as is consistent with the nature of a provisional government established under the authority of the United States, this will be a Cuban government conforming as far as possible to the Constitution of Cuba.

“I ask all citizens and residents of Cuba to assist in the work of restoring order, tranquillity and public confidence.”

The attitude of the Peace Commission met with general public approval. Although the in {82} surgents had thousands of men under arms, and the only American force landed was a squad of marines to protect the Treasury, the Provisional Government was installed without the faintest show of opposition. A general amnesty was proclaimed, and the disarmament of the insurgents and newly raised militia was carried through without difficulty.

Hon. Charles E. Magoon was appointed Provisional Governor, and officers of the United States army were detailed as advisers to the acting secretaries of the Cuban executive departments.

A new electoral law, recommended by the Provisional Governor, was adopted, and under it a general election was held in November, 1908, without the least disturbance, although it had been preceded by a vigorous political campaign. The Liberal candidates, General Jose Miguel Gomez, for President, and Senor Alfredo Zayas, for Vice-President, were returned by a substantial majority and inaugurated January 28th, 1909.

CHAPTER V

THE PEOPLE OF THE COUNTRY

Notwithstanding the intimacy of our relations with the Cubans for many years past, our people entertain the most hazy and confused ideas about them. It is difficult to make an American understand that there is any essential difference between a Cuban and a Spaniard. He generally imagines that the distinction is nominal, or, if actual, that it rests entirely upon political status. Of the Americans who go to Cuba only a small proportion travel farther from Habana than the caves of Bellamar, and they imagine that they see the typical native in the men and women of the city. In this conclusion they fall very short of the mark. The Habanero is not the best and truest representative of his country. He must be sought in the rural districts and will most readily be found in Camaguey, where the percentage of pure whites is even greater than in the capital. The Cuban is fond of calling himself a Camagueyeno, and {84} this because the purest native blood of the Island has been found in that Province since the old days when it was a famous cattle-raising country.

The Cuban is a Spaniard to the same extent as the American is English, and no more. Although the compositive mixture is greater in one type than in the other, they exhibit equal divergence from the parent stock, both in the matter of physical and mental characteristics. This, without reference to the native who is tinged with negro blood—the mulatto. He may conform closely to the traits and appearance of the creole, but then, again, he may differ from him in the widest degree.

The Spaniard, and especially the peasant of the provinces, from whom the Cuban is most often descended, is usually round-headed, broad-chested, and stocky. The Cuban is lanky, lean and slack limbed. His drooping shoulders, languid air, and listless gait, give the impression of weak physique and lack of energy, an impression which is confirmed by a study of his habits. It might be supposed that, with the advantage of acclimatization, he would be able to hold his own against the foreign settler, but such is very far from being the case. {85}

Immigrants of any race, but particularly those from Spain, appear to have no difficulty in competing successfully with the Cuban upon his native heath. This can not be altogether due to physical weakness and want of energy, and certainly not to deficiency of intelligence. Perhaps the chief reason of the Cuban’s backwardness is to be found in a constitutional absence of ambition. For generations he has had no incentive to effort and the laissez faire state of mind has gradually become ingrained. Whether, with improved opportunity, his character will undergo a change in this respect is beyond the range of safe prediction. The opportunity has not yet been extended to him, despite superficial appearances.

Critics of the Cubans are prone to speak of them contemptuously for the lack of certain qualities which we prize and the possession of certain defects which we despise. The charges are generally true, but the condemnation unjust, nevertheless. No people were ever more handicapped in their formative development. Numerous conditions, over which they had little, if any, control, have affected the Cubans physically, morally, politically, and economically,—and the influences have, in the major {86} ity of instances and in the most respects, been maleficent. Only since yesterday have the Cubans been free agents, and even to-day their freedom is qualified, the conduct of their Government subject to a critical supervision, and their independence liable to sudden interruption. They have had no more control of their making than a child has of its. They have always been treated as irresponsible and incapable beings. They have never had fair scope for initiative, nor a free field for endeavor. There has always been a pressure from above, crushing growth, independence, enterprise, and hope.

Under the circumstances is it to be wondered at that the Cuban is deficient in backbone; that he is vacillating and morally wobbly; that his somewhat effeminate, often handsome, and never coarse features bear a stamp of weakness which the most fiery pair of eyes will not suffice to counteract? Would it not be surprising if he displayed any marked capacity for hard work, or facility for business?

Pleasure loving, inclined to frivolity, cheery, and apparently philosophical, the Cuban yields to difficulties and sinks under reverses. It is his habit, fostered by temperament and envi {87} ronment, to follow the lines of least resistance, and the way leads him ultimately into a cul de sac ,—a slough of stagnation. He has a quick intelligence and a lively imagination. He can plan shrewdly and with nice calculation, but he has neither the force nor the executive ability to carry out his designs. For a full century he has conspired to throw off the galling yoke of Spain, and he would never have done it but for the intervention of the United States.

As a young man he is apt to be foppish, libidinous and indolent, in striking contrast to the sturdy little Spanish apprentice, of Habana. Cuban children are too often spoilt by fond and over indulgent parents. The effect upon the girls is modified by the restricted home life to which they are subjected. In the boys it shows in selfwilfulness, lack of principle and utter absence of respect for things that the Anglo Saxon is apt to reverence.

The Cuban usually marries early, and he makes a good father, if, often, a questionable husband. Despite the fact that he can depend upon the continence of his wife, or, perhaps because of it, he is frequently guilty of infidelity to her. This, if she discovers it, she is likely to treat with a complacency that an American {88} woman could not understand. It is a common boast of Cubans that no Cuban woman ever became a public prostitute. Whether or not this is true, there is a marked difference in the standard of marital virtue maintained by the sexes among them. In this, and other respects, the less said about the Cuban of Habana, the better.

It is not on short acquaintance that a true gauge of the Cuban’s character may be made. His surface air is one of self-respect and geniality, that hides the underlying egotistic selfishness and flaccidity. If educated, he has a courteous manner and polished address, while the poorest peasant displays a certain refinement and decided intelligence. I never remember to have seen a dull or stupid looking Cuban, but, perhaps, that is due less to mental quality than to the universal endowment of remarkably fine eyes.

At first sight, you will like the Cuban, and you may continue to do so after you have learned to know him for a weak-minded brother, without any stable qualities in his composition. He has a subtle attractiveness which you will find it difficult to analyze. Perhaps it is his natural bonhomie and genuine affectionateness

that draws you, and the undercurrent of naïve childishness that blinds you to his faults. Unlike his arrogant cousin, the Spaniard, he is pathetically conscious of his shortcomings. Often a comic assertiveness will thinly cloak an uneasy realization of inferiority.

And withal you will conclude that he is not a bad fellow at the bottom; that with half a chance he might have developed into a very different man. This idea will be strengthened when you come to know the guajiro . Meanwhile you can not fail to speculate with misgiving on the future of the country if its Government is to remain in the hands of the white and parti-colored Cubans. You may base some hope on the recollection that the soil of this Island has bred not a few men of noble character and great talent,—but we will consider the subject more fully later on.

The younger generation of the present upper class of Cubans is a source of hope and may perhaps prove to be the seed-bed of a different race. Their fathers were born to riches and enjoyed lives of ease and pleasure. Reckless extravagance and loss due to war, and the consequent commercial depressions, have reduced most of the wealthy families to ruin, or com {90} parative poverty. It is as much as they can do to afford their sons good educations. After leaving college they are compelled to earn their livelihood. The result of this changed condition is already apparent in the display of more manly qualities and better principles. Of the many Cuban youths in our educational institutions, a large proportion give promise of leading useful lives.

What the Cuban seems to need more than anything else is to develop virility and hard common sense. If he should do this in combination with the better application of some of his natural talents, he will present himself to the world as a very admirable man. Meanwhile, it is always to be remembered that he was freed from his swaddling clothes but yesterday. He never before had a fair chance to grow, to stretch his limbs, to think and act for himself. We do not know what he can do or what he may become until he has been tested through two generations, at least.

The foregoing is written, in the main, with the Cubans of the cities and towns in mind—the men of what are commonly called the “better class.” The guajiro , the white Cuban peasant of the rural districts, is in several respects {91} a different fellow. But, before we proceed to a description of him, let us take a view of la hija del pais , the daughter of the country.

From the time that she first begins to walk, until she is handed over, too often against her inclination, to a husband, the Cuban girl is under surveillance. Whether this close guardianship is prompted by fear of the evil designs of the young men of her acquaintance, by anxiety about her own tendencies to go astray, or both, is not clear. Perhaps the old Spanish custom is unnecessary and is maintained merely because it is an established practice. Be that as it may, the Cuban girl is not allowed any kind of intercourse with the other sex, except for the members of her own family, until she leaves her father’s house for that of her husband, unless it be under supervision. Occasionally lovers contrive to exchange a few words privately through the bars of a ground floor window, but the proceeding is not countenanced by the maiden’s mother, and may entail a penance in expiation of the bold defiance of the laws of etiquette and modesty.

The little Cubana is escorted to school and thence home again. Her little brother goes to a separate institution. It would not be at all {92} proper for boys and girls to read their primers upon the same benches, or even in the same room. Later on, when she has grown to be a big girl and of an age at which an American miss is supposed to take care of herself, the Cuban is still treated as if it were not safe to leave her alone for a moment. She goes to the theatre or plaza with her mother, and young men of her acquaintance cast languishing glances at her from the foyer , or the benches along the walk. One of them may be particularly favored by her parents and he may be permitted to call upon her, but he will never be permitted to see her, except in the presence of a sister, or a less sympathetic dueña . Their courtship is carried on without any of the sweet tête-à-têtes that are as essential to Anglo Saxon love-making as mustard is to ham. I presume, although I have made no precise enquiry on the subject, that most Cuban girls of good families do not kiss the men to whom they are married until after the priestly benediction has been pronounced upon the union.

No nation can boast women more comely than the daughters of Cuba. Often their features are strikingly attractive and sometimes extremely beautiful, despite the disfiguring cas {93} carilla , or powdered egg-shell, which is plastered on the face with ghastly effect. If the Cubana had vivacity, or even expression, she would be irresistibly charming. But her countenance, though not lacking in intelligence, is apt to be placid to the point of dulness. This is the more remarkable because her Spanish grandmother was probably a woman of verve and sparkle, with flashing, big black eyes, which in her descendant are just as big and black, but languid and unresponsive. Though blondes are not extremely rare among the Cuban women, the prevailing type is dark, with blue-black hair in abundant quantity. The cubana matures early and fades correspondingly soon. A fully developed woman at thirteen, she is often married at that age, or shortly after, and is probably the mother of several children before she has passed out of her teens. Her good looks wane and her figure becomes embonpoint , if not corpulent, at an age when the Anglo-Saxon woman still presents the appearance of youth.

One who had only known la senorita might be disposed to think that Cuban women have little character or individuality. It is as mothers that they display their best traits. {94} From the day of her marriage, La Cubana devotes her life to her home and family. She is a willing slave to her husband and children, often with bad effect upon him and them. A little more independence, a little less self-sacrifice, on her part, would be better for all parties concerned. But every Cuban girl is taught that her sole mission in life is to fulfill her duty as wife and mother to the best of her ability. She has been schooled to consider herself the absolute property of her husband and to render him unquestioned obedience.

She is prone to jealousy but slow to resent neglect and unfaithfulness. Sad to say, this devoted creature too often loses the love of her husband with the decline of her beauty. She seldom has the strength of character or the intellectual attractions necessary to hold him when the physical charm has lost its force.

Religion is the only other interest of the Cuban lady, and she has a monopoly of it, for the men of her class are almost universally irreligious. During the revolutionary period, when free-thought doctrines were rife in Europe and America, the Cubans of the cities became addicted to reading the works of Voltaire, Rousseau, and their Italian disciples. The re {95} sult was a deterioration of religious belief, from which the Cubans have never recovered. Although they are sometimes apparently zealous in the observance of the rites and ceremonies of the Church, it is probably more from a love of music and of pageantry than from devotional motives. The most regular attendant of mass is apt to speak lightly of his faith and its representatives and to laugh at the scurrilous cartoons, caricaturing the Church and its ministers, which frequently appear in the newspapers and the shop-windows. No doubt the conduct of some of the clergy in Cuba, as in other Latin-American countries, has done much toward destroying respect for the cloth and devotion to the faith. Then again the fact that the Church was allied with the official oppressors, although many priests sympathized with the natives, had its effect for alienation. Were it not for its female adherents, the Church in Cuba would cease to be a national institution to-morrow. La cubana , however, is a fervent devotée , constant in her attendance at mass and confession.

The Cuban woman is the most conservative of beings and a stickler for the proprieties. She is very matter of fact, very serious, and utterly {96} destitute of humor. Her life is passed in a narrow groove, with little but birth, marriage, and death, to vary it. Her world is contained in the town of which she is resident, and perhaps within a few squares of it. What happens outside these boundaries is nothing to her. She seldom cares for reading, her sole accomplishments are embroidering and piano-playing, her chief diversion, gossiping with her neighbors. She is never taught to take an interest in household work and knows nothing about cooking.

But withal she is womanly, warm-hearted, hospitable, and often extremely charming.

The Cubans are the most democratic of people. The ragged peasant maintains a dignified attitude toward all men, which conveys the impression of a nicely balanced respect for himself and for his fellow. His landlord, or his employer, meets him upon his own ground and the relations between them are frequently characterized by friendly familiarity. The revolutionary period, with its levelling processes and its common interests, tended to make this condition more pronounced. It also had the effect of almost obliterating the color-line, which had previously been but faint. The right of the

black and mulatto to call themselves “ cubanos ” could hardly be disputed in a country which owes its freedom in so great a degree to their efforts.

The lowest Cuban of the country will welcome you with dignified self-possession to the hut in which his naked children are tumbling about among the pigs and the chickens. You will have no difficulty in realizing that you may not pity nor patronize him, however miserable his condition may appear to be. He will be glad to do you a service for pay, and will overcharge you if you permit, but you can not offer him a gratuity without risk of offence. His air of independence is not without a basis of fact for its justification. His simple needs are supplied with little labor. He works when he wants to, and loafs when he pleases.

The guajiro , or white peasant of Cuba, is first cousin to the gibaro of Puerto Rico, whom I have described in a former volume. [2] They are much alike in character and in manner of living, but the former is the better man. He has not had to contend against the hookworm, which has played havoc with the Puerto Rican cam {98} pesino , and he has gained something in fibre and backbone from his hard experience as combatant or reconcentrado in the rebellions of late years.

The ancestors of the guajiro came mainly from Catalonia and Andalusia, and were a good, hardy stock. Time was when he occasionally owned slaves and a fair extent of land, but nowadays he is more often than not a squatter in a little corner of that no-man’s-land which seems to be so extensive in the central and eastern portions of the Island. In comparatively few instances he has title to a few acres, lives in a passably comfortable cabana , possesses a yoke of oxen, a good horse, half a dozen pigs, and plenty of poultry. Much more often he lives in a ramshackle bohio , the one apartment of which affords indifferent shelter to a large family and is fairly shared by a lean hog and a few scrawny chickens. There is nothing deserving the name of furniture in the house, and the clothing of the family is of the scantiest. A nag of some sort, usually a sorry specimen of its kind, is almost always owned by the guajiro , who loves a horse and rides like the gaucho of the Argentine pampas.

The guajiros are handsome, manly fellows. {99} While they have frequently become tinged with African blood, a majority probably have maintained the purity of their origin, and this is conspicuously the case with the peasantry about Cienfuegos. They speak a patois which is a mixture of Spanish and negro dialect, picked up from the blacks, with whom their intercourse has always been more or less close, and with whom they live on the best of terms.

The guajiro is totally lacking ambition and his chief desire is to be left alone to live his life in his own way. If he is frugal, it is from necessity. Of thrift he has no understanding. What he earns to-day he carelessly spends to-morrow. Indeed he knows no reason for earning except to spend. It would be strange if his characteristics were otherwise. He has never had any opportunity to improve his condition, nor any incentive to accumulate property. He has become accustomed to living from hand to mouth with indifferent regard to the future. He works when he must and ceases as soon as he may. In that respect he is merely giving full play to an inclination that is strong in all of us.

The guajiro lives chiefly on bananas and other fruit. Aside from an occasional iguana , {100} or jutea , pork is the only meat he eats. This, contrary to our idea of the fitness of things in the tropics, is a frequent and favorite dish with all classes of Cubans. He sometimes varies his bill of fare with a fish or a bull-frog.

The one trait of his Spanish forefathers which the guajiro retains in undiminished strength, is love of gambling. He is supported through a week of loathsome labor by the prospect of wagering his wages at the cock-pit or bull-ring on Sunday. He enjoys music and dancing with the whole-hearted delight of a child. As most of the observances of the Church have something of a gala character they attract him, and he finds a pious excuse for attending them. Weddings, christenings, funerals, are so many holidays in which it is a religious duty to take part. Of course all the fiestas are holy days and if he worked on all the days which are in no manner signalized by the Church, he would hardly labor half the time.

The guajira does all the chores about the place, except for looking after the cattle. If these and the cooking leave any surplus time it is occupied in attending to the numerous brood of guajiritos , who are to be seen tumbling

about every cabin of the Island in a state of unhampered nature. The guajira is the working member of the family, but she gets her full share of the holidays, for her husband usually takes all his dependents with him when he goes to town to attend mass and patronize the cockfight. Females are debarred from that delectable entertainment and while it is in progress the guajira will foregather with others of her kind outside the village fonda and gossip over a glass of tamarind water.

There used to be more saints’ days than Sundays in the calendar, but the number is not so generally observed as formerly. In fact, the country population seems to be beginning to take a more serious view of life and to regard work as a somewhat essential part of it, rather than a necessary evil of intermittent character. As he has come into closer touch with civilization in latter days, the guajiro has become sensibly discontented with his simple lot and desirous of many things of which he formerly knew nothing or toward which he was indifferent. {102}

CHAPTER VI

THE PEOPLE OF THE COUNTRY (CONTINUED)

Among those best acquainted with Cuba and the Cubans, opinion differs widely as to the negroes. There are those who go so far as to believe that they will be a retarding factor in the development of the country, while others consider them the most promising element of the laboring population. Both these views are extreme, and, as a matter of fact, any prediction as to the future of the Cuban negro must include a great degree of pure surmise. What he has been is not a safe basis for inference of what he will be under entirely different conditions.

Mr. Charles M. Pepper, who has had exceptional opportunities for judging, declares that “the negro of Cuba is not an idler, nor a clog on the industrial progress. He will do his part toward rebuilding the industries of the Island, and no capitalist need fear to engage in enter {103} prises because of an indefinite fear regarding negro labor. In the country, for a time, the black laborers may be in a majority. On its political side the black population of Cuba has its definite status. Social equality does not exist, but there is no color line. Social tolerance prevails.... The part taken in the insurrection by the blacks has undoubtedly strengthened their future influence.... The race has far more than its proportion of criminals. Some tendencies toward retrogression have to be watched.... With common-school education the negro will do better. At present he is doing very well.”

As to this dictum, the Cuban negro may eventually do his fair share toward the industrial development of the Island, but it can only be as a result of a considerable change in his habits and a greatly increased degree of efficiency. At present, extensive employers of labor pronounce him inefficient, unreliable, and difficult of control. It is not to his credit that they should import labor at great trouble and expense in preference to employing him. If capitalists have ceased to be apprehensive regarding the negro of Cuba, which is by no means certain,—it is not because he has sud {104} denly ceased to have a desire for disturbance, with its attendant opportunities for loot, but because they have greater confidence in the ability and inclination of the authorities to suppress outbreaks with promptness, born of the ever-present fear of American intervention, or a demand on the part of foreign property interests for some share in the administration of affairs.

Though individuality is not one of the negro characteristics, the perpetuation of racial traits and temperament are pronouncedly characteristic wherever they may be found and under whatever conditions. The negro may be three centuries removed from his transplanted ancestor, he may have more than one strain of white blood in his composition, he may have adopted the most approved customs of the country in which he lives, and may be to all outward appearances the most highly civilized of beings, but for all that African nature is strong in him. Moreover its promptings are not repressed from principle, but from motives of self-interest. Given the opportunity to indulge them without fear of consequences, and he will follow his inclinations unrestrainedly. For that reason one-third of Cuba’s population {105} must be as great a source of anxiety as is the colored element of our southern States. This is not to say that there are any good grounds for the sometimes expressed fear that Cuba may become a second Haiti, controlled by the blacks, but is intended to convey the belief, that in the negroes of the Island there is a constantly present source of possible trouble.

The majority of Cuban negroes are descendants of slaves imported during the past century, but a large number, like the maroons of Jamaica, come from a stock which accompanied the earliest Spanish adventurers and shared their hardships and dangers in a companionship that often approached a condition of friendship and equality. Such a one was Estavan, the negro who, with Cabeza de Vaca, crossed the continent of North America, from the Gulf of Mexico to California, in the years between 1528 and 1536. From this stock sprang the free mulattoes of the Antonio Maceo type, a class superior to any that our colored population contains.

Although emancipated at a later date, the Cuban negroes are in general more manly and independent than those of the United States. This is due to the social and the political recog {106} nition accorded them, but also to the previous conditions of their servitude. Before the abolition of slavery they were granted freedom of marriage, the right of acquiring property, the privilege of purchasing their release by labor, and license to seek a new master at their option.

The negro of Cuba is much more happy and content than his brother in America. The burdens of life do not press so heavily on him. He has greater opportunity of enjoyment of the three conditions most desirable to the man of African descent, warmth, indolence, and a full stomach. The climate and the physical nature of the country are entirely to his liking. He thrives in Cuba and is more robust than the white native, as well as more prolific, which is saying a great deal. He and his women and children withstood the stress and strain of the reconcentration better than did the guajiro class.

I am fully aware that these statements seem to be contradicted by the census returns, which show a marked diminution of the colored population during the past half century. In the last United States report this is accounted for by “the inability of the colored race to hold its own in competition with the whites.” This {107} does not seem to be sufficient explanation, especially as there has been no competition to speak of between the whites and the blacks in Cuba. Without pretending to any precise knowledge on the subject, I will hazard the suggestion that the apparent discrepancy may be due to the defects in the censuses under Spain, which were notoriously inaccurate, to the latter day tendency of mulattoes to return themselves as “whites,” and to the fact that the colored portion of the population has borne more than its proportional share of the brunt of the later revolutions. Be that as it may, it will be difficult for any one who is familiar with the lives and conditions of the natives of Cuba to believe that “the man of color” is in any but a favorable and congenial environment.

The dance is the favorite amusement of the rural population. As the whites practise it, it is a monotonous movement to monotonous music, entirely lacking the grace and variety of the Spanish dances. The negroes merely writhe and wriggle to the slow beat of a drum. There is always a suggestion of obscenity present, and sometimes religious frenzy transforms the performance from the ludicrous to the weird. On such occasions the dancers and the {108} onlookers chant invocations to the saints in an African dialect.

Certain religio-social societies, called cabildos , appear to have no other purpose than the conduct of these ceremonies. The cabildos are supposed to be the only survival of the nañigo clans, which the authorities claim to have suppressed, although it is very doubtful whether the organizations have been broken up. The nañigos practised all manner of sinister mysteries, witchcraft, voodooism, and the rest, besides active participation in underground politics. No longer ago than the time of the Provisional Administration some of their members were convicted of killing and cutting up two white children in the performance of their secret rites. Roman Catholicism and African demon-worship have become grotesquely mixed in the ceremonies of the negro secret societies. Goats and fowls are sacrificed to the saints of the Church; the Holy Mother is invoked in barbaric terms, accompanied by a symbolism that originated in the wilds of Africa.

Until comparatively recently the sixth of January was observed as “All King’s Day,” when the negroes held high carnival all over the Island. They took possession of Habana

and thronged the streets, dancing, gesticulating, shouting, and beating drums, dressed in fantastic costumes made up of the gaudiest colors, and carrying a variety of transparencies on long poles. The shops were closed, and the whites remained within doors, for not infrequently rival clans came to blows and serious conflicts occurred in the public streets.

After the War most of the Spaniards left Cuba, filled with resentment against Americans. When order and liberal government had been established they began to come back, still filled with resentment against the people who had interfered with their ruinous exploitation of the Island. This feeling has rapidly died down. The Spaniard, who has as keen and critical appreciation as any man of commercial conditions, soon realized that he and his government were distinct gainers by the loss of the Philippines and Cuba. He was no longer called upon to support costly armies in those countries, nor to do his share of service in them. But what impressed him most was that Cuba had become a much more desirable place, on every account, in which to do business than it had ever been before. As a consequence, natives of Spain have been immigrating to the {110} Island in constantly increasing numbers during recent years, and making more money, whether as merchants, shop-keepers or laborers, than they possibly could make at home in the same employments. They are good citizens and capable in their several callings, but most of them are what the Cubans call intransigentes —transients. The bodeguero and the field-hand alike view the country as a field for money-making solely and have no thought of permanently settling in it, much less of becoming naturalized. The shop-keeper looks forward to retiring as soon as he shall have accumulated enough to enable him to live comfortably in some rural district in Spain, and the laborer often goes back between harvests, with his season’s earnings, to his native province, where he has left his family. Of course the proper remedy for this condition is the occupation by Cubans of the positions filled by the Spaniards, but so far the former have displayed neither inclination nor capacity to compete with the foreigners. Under such circumstances the Spanish immigration may be looked upon as a desirable factor in the development of the Island.

The commercial instinct and the qualities {111} that make for success in business are unusually strong in the Spaniard. This fact is not generally realized in America. There must be two hundred thousand Spaniards in Cuba, practically all of whom are steadily engaged in profitable pursuits. It is doubtful if an equal number of native whites are earning money day in and day out through the year, or any definite period of it. Spaniards own large interests in the sugar and tobacco businesses. Throughout the country they control the mercantile lines, wholesale and retail. They are money-lenders in the small districts and furnish the farmers, at exorbitant rates of interest, with the means of raising and marketing their crops.

It is not at all surprising that the Cuban can not compete with his cousin from the mother-country. I am very doubtful whether Americans would be successful in the attempt. The Spanish business man is as keen and shrewd a trader as you may find anywhere, and, moreover, he is as precise in discharging his obligations as a Chinaman. He possesses tremendous energy and pertinacity of purpose. Americans cherish a threadbare and somewhat senseless joke which hinges on the word mañana . It is entirely misapplied when aimed {112} at the Spaniard in Cuba. If he leaves anything of importance until to-morrow it is because to-day is too full of performance to admit of addition. He is the first to rise and the last to close his shutters in the community. Meanwhile he keeps as closely on the trail of the elusive dollar as any New Yorker. But there is this difference; he does his business without needless fuss and friction.

In the city stores, the old-time system of apprenticeship is maintained. The proprietors probably started in the position of the little office boy, with the bloom of Catalonia fresh upon his cheeks, who sweeps out the place when most folks are turning over for a final nap, and spends an hour or more in straightening up after every one else has knocked off for the day. He is a strong, cheerful little chap, content with his lot, and doubtless encouraged by dreams of directing the establishment at some future day. And this is no idle fantasy but a matter well within the bounds of calculable attainment. The system is one of regular advancement. When a partner retires, which he is apt to do at a comparatively early age, the senior clerk takes his place and each of the others moves up a step. As soon as an em {113} ploye is in a position to save something from his salary, he is permitted to invest it in the business.

A sort of family relationship is maintained in the establishment. The heads of it take the greatest interest in the business education and general welfare of their employes, who are generally sons of friends at home. All eat at the same table and all sleep under the same roof. The juniors have to account for their time even after closing hours. Only with permission may they leave the premises. Then they will probably spend their evenings at one or other of the numerous societies which have their headquarters in Habana and branches in other large cities.

These societies are social and beneficial in their functions. They maintain night-schools, pay sick benefits, and provide burial expenses. Some of them have a very large membership and extremely handsome clubhouses. Every Spaniard on landing at Habana joins the society which is composed of natives of his province.

At every cross-roads in Cuba and on every corner in the country towns there is a bodega . It is always a grocery, often a general store. {114} Nine times in ten the proprietor is a Spaniard. His place may be a dingy, dilapidated shack. His stock may consist of little more than a barrel of the inevitable bacalao ,—salt cod,—a few strings of onions, and a dozen bottles of aguadiente . But it is safe to wager that he is making money at a handsome rate of interest on his little investment.

Why is the Chinaman, who is the most inoffensive of beings, disliked more universally than any other? It may be because he is such an unsociable, self-contained, enigmatical fellow. In Cuba, as in the States, he lives in the midst of the community and far apart from it, restricting his intercourse with the natives to the necessities of business. He may have been born in the country, and intend to die in it, but, unless his mother was a native, he will never be anything else than a Chinaman, even though he adopt a frock coat and a silk hat. He works hard, lives frugally, and accumulates money by fair and square methods. His sole indulgences are fan tan and the opium pipe. He figures but seldom in the police records, and then, as likely as not, through the fault of someone else.

In the early part of the last century a number of Chinese were imported under contract as

laborers in the cane-fields. Each one had a metal tag strung round his neck, with a number and the expiry date of the contract on it. Once received on the sugar-estate, the coolie was reduced to a state of slavery, measurably worse than that in which the negroes were held. He had no privileges whatever, was miserably housed, insufficiently fed, and received less consideration than the cattle and horses. When the legal date of his release approached, his identification check was frequently changed to make him appear to be another man with a considerable period of service in prospect.

This condition of things went on for many years, until at length knowledge of it reached the Chinese Government. A commission was sent from China to investigate the matter, with the result that exportation of laborers from the Celestial Kingdom to Cuba was stopped. Nowadays, there is an insular statute against the importation, but they come in, nevertheless, and find their way to the sugar-houses of the interior, apparently without enquiry or interference.

There are more than ten thousand Chinamen in Cuba at present. A considerable number are engaged as merchants and shop-keepers in {116} Habana, and many work truck-farms in the suburbs with much profit.

Perhaps the most remarkable of the many remarkable things about a Chinaman is his adaptability. Any one seeing him ironing shirts in the States might suppose that he was exercising an inherited talent. But he never saw an iron before coming to America and took to the calling because there was an evident unfilled demand for the work. He is not a laundryman in Cuba, because when he arrived the field was already occupied by the negroes. On the other hand, there was a distinctly felt want of market gardeners, and John jumped into the opening without hesitation. He would have acted with the same prompt decision had the need been for burglars or balloonists. He takes up one line of work as readily as another and whatever he attempts he does well. It matters not whether the hole be round or square, his plastic personality will fit in it snugly. When he went to Calcutta, he found that there was no one to make shoes and paint portraits in manner satisfactory to the Englishman. He calmly and confidently undertook to do both. It is quite unnecessary to state that he succeeded. But when you consider the essential {117} differences between European and Chinese art, both in conception and execution, as well as the fact that the Chinese emigrant is not usually deeply versed in either, the result was simply miraculous.

Three favorite occupations of John Chinaman in Cuba are cooking, peddling sweetmeats, and keeping a fruit-stand. In each of these fields he has had to meet native competition, and in his quiet, forceful way he soon overcame it, although in the second he had serious difficulties to master. In short time he had learned to make better dulces than the Cubans had been accustomed to, but when it came to advertising his wares, he found himself hopelessly handicapped by a naturally weak voice when pitted against the Cuban hawker, who has no superior in the world as a street crier. However, with the Chinaman, the next thing to being confronted with an obstacle is to overcome it. John mounted a long red box upon his head and on this drummed continuously with a hardwood stick. In the course of time the Cuban women and children forsook the man who bawled frantically for the silent man who beat a box.

The acclimated, it would be altogether incor {118} rect to say the naturalized, Chinaman in Cuba has been shorn of his pigtail, wears the same free shirt, and pantaloons as the native, and is called José, or Miguel, but if you should go into the back room of his store, you would find a vase of joss sticks burning before the shrine of his repulsive looking deity.

There are very few Chinese women in the country and John is usually a celibate, but occasionally he marries a negress or mulatto. The children are generally bright, and often good-looking. The Chinaman is an excellent husband and father in such cases.

Probably all these sallow-skinned taciturn Celestials yearn for their mother-country while they patiently plod through life in an uncongenial environment. At least they have the satisfaction of knowing that when they die their bones will be shipped back to be buried in the land of their fathers. Meanwhile their numbers are increasing in Cuba and it is easily conceivable that the country may have a Chinese problem to grapple with some day.

Numerically the Americans are not an important element in the foreign population but they represent more wealth and greater business than any other. There are about seven {119} thousand white citizens of the United States, more or less permanently resident on the Island. A large proportion of the sugar and tobacco estates, as well as extensive railroad and mining properties, are in American hands. A few Americans are engaged in wholesale business and a considerable number in fruit culture. I shall have more to say about these in a later portion of the volume.

The first American occupation was the signal for a number of swindlers, loafers, and topers from the United States to take up residence in Habana. They caused endless trouble to the American officials and created a bad impression among the natives. By degrees this class has been almost entirely eradicated and the Cubans long since learned that they were in no sense representative of their countrymen. The American in Cuba to-day is either a responsible business man, or an industrious farmer, whom the people of the country look upon with respect, and with whom they are generally upon the most friendly footing. {120}

CHAPTER VII

THE CONDITION OF CUBA

Here is a country, small in extent, it is true, but as rich proportionally in natural resources as any in the world. It exports over $100,000,000 worth of the products of its soil annually. Yet less than half of its productive area is turned to account, and of its cultivated tracts only a small proportion is subjected to intensive treatment. Bad government and ill-judged commercial policy have retarded the development of the country which, under favorable conditions, might to-day be producing five times its output and supporting a population five times as great as that which it has. It is importing large quantities of foodstuff that ought to be raised upon its lands and paying substantial sums for foreign labor that should be supplied by its own people.

The economic condition of Cuba is as unfavorable as possible to the welfare of its popu {121} lation. Foreigners own practically everything in the country. The Island is exploited for the benefit of everyone but the natives.

Additional capital is constantly coming in. New enterprises are continually being floated. In a way these are beneficial to the community at large, but, with the exception of the official class, they work little good to the natives. In fact, they decrease the Cuban’s chances of ever doing anything for himself. Capital and corporations create wealth, but precious little of it finds its way into the pockets of the guajiro , or the negro. What the country needs, if ever its people are to become prosperous, is a greater diversity of industries with opportunities for the little man, and an increase in the small land-owners. There is a bare possibility of the former condition coming about; the latter is beyond the bounds of hope. There is no public domain for disposal to homesteaders. Practically all the land in the Island is occupied or held for sale at high figures. A very small proportion of the peasant class own their holdings. Many of them are merely squatters and others maintain possession on defective titles.

The country that produces one great staple {122} by the agency of slave labor lays itself under a curse that will be felt long after the conditions are changed. For well-nigh a century sugar-cane has been the one chief source of Cuba’s wealth and it has cast a blight upon everything else. The sugar industry has exercised a detrimental influence upon the material welfare, morals, and health, and the independence of the people in general. But for it, blacks would never have been introduced into the Island in numbers sufficient to affect seriously the general population. But for it, the larger estates, growing out of the system of repartimiento , would long since have been carved into small holdings, the homesteads of peasant proprietors with some ambition and some opportunity to lead a life of manly self-support. The Island might not have been so wealthy, it might not have afforded such rich pasture for the professional politician to browse in, nor have yielded such comfortable profits to American and British stock-holders, but its people would have been happier and in the way of enjoying greater and more stable prosperity than the present prospect holds for them.

But this is an idle speculation. Foreigners own ninety per cent. of all the land in Cuba

that is worth working, and, since this is the case, the more foreign capital that comes in, the better for the country. In other words, the only outlook for the Cuban is to serve as a hired man. If he had any bent toward the mechanical industries and could command a little capital, he might make innumerable openings in new directions for independent enterprises on a small scale.

Cuba should support a variety of manufacturing industries. It has the necessary materials,—wood, fibres, metal, hides, etc. It imports many commodities that are made from raw material exported by it. In many of these cases it would be more profitable for the country to produce the finished article. Before long, no doubt, the many opportunities long latent will attract enterprise, and industrial development along this line will take place. But even so, the Cuban can not hope to play a very prominent or profitable part in the movement. The extension of education and manual training may better fit him for mechanical pursuits but lack of capital will prevent his aspiring to any higher position than that of workman.

There is little doubt about the future pros {124} perity of the Island along the present lines of exploitation. There is good reason for believing that cane sugar will come into its own again, and that before long. Germany is likely to tire soon of coddling the beet cultivators in the face of foreign discrimination against them. Improvements in the cultivation of cane and in the selection of the plant are to be looked for. Labor-saving devices will be introduced into the fields. The invention of a satisfactory cane harvester would revolutionize that branch of industry.

The great future development of the Island will take place at the eastern end. Oriente is the most promising, and probably the richest, section of Cuba. Several large corporations have heavy investments in the Province. Its mineral wealth has hardly been touched. It is an especially favorable region for the cultivation of citrus fruits and coffee. These industries will be extensively prosecuted by Americans, of whom there are already a number located in colonies and individual plantations.

Cuba is growing constantly in favor with Americans as a health resort and, with the extension of roads fit for motoring, pleasure

seekers from the United States will travel on the Island in increasing numbers. There is a tendency among well-to-do Americans to make winter homes in Cuba and to build residences in the capital and suburbs. All this will lead to a better knowledge of the country and a great interest in its industries with consequent additional investment of capital. There appears to be little room for doubting that ultimately American money and American management will dominate the industrial and commercial affairs of the Island.

Only one retarding factor mars the prospect of progress—that is the deficiency of labor supply. Doubtless a large part will be for years to come imported from southern Europe, and this of necessity. If these, or a considerable proportion of them, could be induced to settle in the country they would form a desirable addition to the population. At present, few of them display an inclination to remain, but, on the contrary, make Cuba the means of furnishing them with sufficient money to set up in a small way of business at home.

The most easily available source of supply is the Jamaican negro, but he is not a valuable acquisition. His efficiency is calculated by em {126} ployers as less than half that of the Spaniard, or native of the Canary Islands. Negroes from the United States might seek employment in the Island, but the kind who would be of the most use can always fold work at home at as good a rate of wages as they would receive in Cuba.

It is not to be assumed that the native will never supply the greatest part of the labor employed in his country. He would be available to-day to a greater extent and with greater efficiency if American managers understood him better and accorded him more judicious treatment.

Dr. V. S. Clark, in a government report, makes such an excellent and comprehensive statement regarding the Cuban laborer, that an extensive quotation is justified.

Some of the opinions of Cuban workingmen are given in the following quotations from the remarks by American and English employers of broad experience. It is not possible to have perfect agreement in judgments of this sort, and naturally no attempt has been made to do so. But those sweeping denunciations of Cuba and everything Cuban that come from tactless adventurers and from men who have left their {127} own country because they are chronically out of sorts with the world have been omitted:

A railway manager: “A Cuban seldom has a real conception of what is meant by special qualifications. On railways a man might occupy in succession a dozen different posts, each requiring a special kind of training. We have an instance where the same man has been station agent, telegraph superintendent, and superintendent of locomotive power within a few months’ time.”

A contracting foreman: “In the mechanic trades men are constantly presenting themselves as applicants for any positions to be had, assuring us with the greatest apparent candor that they unite all the qualifications of expert masons, carpenters, painters, plumbers, and gas-fitters. We don’t employ such men any more. A modest range of acquirements is one of the best credentials a mechanic can offer us.”

A government engineer: “The labor cost of all kinds of construction is half as much again as in the United States. But with time and patience intelligent Cuban mechanics can be trained to keep pretty well up with Americans on the same job. They will not do this, however, unless they are paid for it. {128} ”

An English railway manager: “After many years of experience in railway managing in Brazil and other South American countries, I must say that the Cuban labor is the dearest labor I have ever had under my charge.”

A factory superintendent: “We employ only Spaniards. They equal in industry and endurance the American workingman and are more steady and regular in their habits. I have had more than twenty years’ experience in Cuba as factory and plantation manager, and have seldom found Cubans efficient in occupations requiring physical endurance or manual skill. But they make neat and fairly accurate clerks.”

An army officer in charge of twelve hundred men in road construction: “The Cuban laborer is not as strong physically nor as intelligent as the unskilled laborer in the United States. He accomplishes about half as much work in a day as the latter. We bought a number of the iron wheelbarrows commonly used by American contractors for our work here, but the men were not strong enough to handle them successfully, and I had to substitute wooden ones in their stead.”

An electric railway manager: “You can not manage the Cubans with a club. The amount

of work you get out of them depends upon the way in which you handle them. We find our men unusually distrustful because they have been so often cheated by their past employers. If their paymaster is a little late they jump at the conclusion that their money is not coming to them. It has taken time to win their confidence in the company. They do not understand how to take care of their own interests. Our unclaimed wage book shows that during the last two years many hundred men have not applied for all the pay due to them. Probably ten per cent. of the whole number of common laborers employed thus fail to collect their full wages. On our fortnightly pay-days fifty or sixty men fail to claim amounts ranging from one or two days’ pay to as high as $20 or $30 silver ($14 or $21 American). Of course such men are often imposed on, and a man who knows or thinks he is being cheated by his employer isn’t going to overexert himself in his service. An intelligent Cuban makes a good mechanic. He learns more rapidly than an American. It has taken me less time here to break in motormen than in the United States. In the last year or two we have trained most of our force of mechanics, repair men, and our {130} armature winders. They are about as efficient as Americans.”

The head of an electrical supply house: “Labor conditions in Cuba have not changed materially since 1890. Cubans make efficient mechanics in our line of business. We also employ them in contracting work, such as bridge construction, so that our monthly pay roll is sometimes over $6,000. They are slower than Americans, but are less independent and work longer hours. In electric fitting we get about as much service for the same wages as in New York. A man who has had long experience with the working people here, and who knows their language and how to treat them, will not have much trouble with his employees, and will find them fairly efficient.”

A railway superintendent: “Spaniards are the future laborers of Cuba. But they will work mostly under the direction of Cubans. The amount you get out of men depends upon how well you pay and feed them. It is worth the money it costs an employer to provide and compel his common laborers to eat a substantial meal before going to work in the morning.”

The variety of opinions here expressed illustrates the fact that the man in practical touch {131} with the labor question in Cuba usually has some aspect of the situation in mind which appeals to him from his own experience. As to labor efficiency, all agree that for manual labor the Spaniard excels the native Cuban. This is true of factory as well as field occupations. Cane-cutting must be excepted from the latter, for here the negro is the best workman; and in the machine shops, and some mechanic trades, where a certain dexterity of mind as well as hand is required, the more nervous and intellectual Cuban is at an advantage. There is practical unanimity in the opinion that the cost of labor is high, the only exceptions being in some trades requiring much skill and intelligence and where the men work under the direct control of their employer.

The emphasis laid upon the fact that the amount to be obtained from employes depends largely upon the way they are treated and the wages they are paid is significant, and it accords fully with the other testimony and with observation in different parts of the Island. At one place a gang of laborers was just completing what appeared even to the casual observer a rather scanty day’s work. The foreman looked up with a half-vexed smile and said: {132}

“Their wages have been lowered 30 per cent., and no driving will get more than two-thirds of the former amount of work out of them. They simply shrug their shoulders and say: ‘ Poco dinero, poco trabajo. ’ Little money, little work.”

Beneath a most unimposing exterior a Cuban laborer generally manages to cherish a considerable sense of personal dignity and he resents deeply, however unperturbed he may appear, the rough way of handling that has come to mean so little to his fellow-laborer in the United States. Perhaps the unexpressed contempt with which he is tolerated by some Americans is resented still more deeply. In any case, the very efforts put forth by employers and representatives to increase the amount of work done by employes often have the reverse effect to that intended. Tactful management is often one of the most expensive assets a foreign enterprise has to acquire in Cuba. Cuba is one of the most democratic countries in the world. Nowhere else does the least considered member of a community aspire to social equality with its most exalted personage. The language, with its conventional phrases of courtesy shared by all classes, the familiar family life {133} of proprietor and servant, master and apprentice, a certain simplicity and universality of manners inherited from pioneer days, and a gentleness of temperament that may be both racial and climatic, which shrinks from giving offence by assuming superiority of rank with others, have all contributed to render class assumptions externally less obvious in Cuba than in other countries where equal differences of race, culture, and fortune exist. The Cuban is naturally self-possessed. It is difficult to fancy him having stage fright. He is so imaginative and Tarasconese that he frequently confounds ideals with realities, and as his ideal of himself is usually an exalted one this disposition does not incline him to diffidence or humility. He is therefore apt to assume an artlessly familiar air with his employer, and to try to put their business relations, so far as their social aspect is concerned, as nearly upon a partnership basis as possible. With his manual services he bestows the gifts of his own discretion and judgment as gratuity, and he is thus enabled to amplify or modify any instructions he may receive to guide him in his work. These personal advances and well intended departures from what are called orders, principally as a {134} matter of courtesy in Cuba, are received quite differently by an American and Cuban employer. The former resents them brusquely, often profanely, and thus sows the first seeds of misunderstanding that result in much concealed resentment and hostility, and unless he master the situation by great force of will and character, may occasion more serious damage to his interests. The Cuban or Spanish employer, understanding his man, contrives to secure his ends more diplomatically; but he never has a really disciplined force of employes. Organization and discipline are two of the most seriously lacking things in Cuban life; and they are lacking because of a certain timidity, a lack of self-assertiveness on the part of the officers of industry toward their men. The Cuban is capable of discipline; but so long as nothing else is required, he naturally prefers discussing politics and local news or comparing notes about their children with his foreman to performing more commonplace duties. His friendliness toward his employer is usually well-meaning, even if unwisely manifested. It is something akin to the easy, inquisitive, but sympathetic familiarity one finds in a New England village. Occasionally it can be turned {135} to good account in securing the loyalty of the men. Two American retail merchants were interviewed in Habana. One was evidently reserved toward his working people. He reported that among several employed he had never had a Cuban he was not obliged to discharge for stealing. Another, who was conducting a larger business, and who had many Cubans in his employ, but who stood on terms of greater intimacy with them, reported that he had no difficulty whatever of this kind. Whether the difference in the experience of the two merchants was due to the reason suggested or not, it is certain that the Cuban is peculiarly susceptible to appeals to ideal motives, whether made directly or only by implication, and that success or failure in dealing with the workmen of the Island often hinges upon an understanding of this trait of character.

One desirable outcome of the aspiration toward social equality on the part of Cubans is their aversion to tips. Employes, who had made some money sacrifice by leaving piece-work to act as guides about a factory, refused, evidently with considerable embarrassment, the offer of gratuity. A poor countryman who had left his field labor for several hours to show a {136} trail through a tract of forest would only accept compensation under protest—and when it was turned into a gift for the children. These same men would have made as shrewd a bargain as possible and would have haggled for hours over centavos in a matter of trade, but for a service of courtesy money was no compensation for their sense of wounded dignity in accepting a gratuity.

With reference to the personal honesty of the Cuban, no unqualified statement is likely to be just. All people possessing great love of approbation and an excessive desire to please are apt to be more or less insincere in social intercourse. Extend the ethics of an afternoon tea to all statements of fact in business relations, and one has an atmosphere of reliability or the reverse about equivalent to that in Cuba. Men tell you things they think you will like to hear. It appears to strike a Cuban as something akin to discourtesy to bring a painful fact to your attention, even though a knowledge of it be quite essential to your business welfare. To save himself the embarrassment of refusing a request, he will often make a promise that he can not keep, and to save you from being disquieted by uncertainty he will give you an {137} assurance as unqualified that ought to be decidedly conditional. His business statements are like his currency, subject to fluctuating discount. As in case of money, this is undoubtedly an inconvenience in conducting a transaction. But, as there is sound money in Cuba, so there are men to be found whose word in business is as good as their bond.

The upper commercial classes of the Island preserve a conservative integrity in their dealings and their methods of conducting business as high as prevails in any country. There are few failures. The representatives of large American houses report that their losses from bad debts are less in Cuba in proportion to the amount of business done than in the United States. In purchasing at retail one has to guard against overcharging. But this is simply a feature of a very ancient and still very common way of doing business. There are no settled prices, and each individual sale is a separate transaction to be settled by independent agreement, and is not prejudiced in the least by the precedent of previous transactions of a similar character. Americans, with little experience outside their own country, frequently bring up this practice as a main argu {138} ment to prove the universal dishonesty of the Cuban. But it is like many other ingenuous arguments of the same sort—“It is not our way, ergo, it is wrong”—that would result in making virtue a decidedly local thing in this world if they were universally applied.

It is sometimes stated that while the Cuban, especially of the middle or lower class, is often lax about keeping his word, he shows quite the opposite disposition with regard to trifles belonging to other persons. The experience of foreigners on the Island doubtless varies in this respect. It is hardly probable that the Cuban has abnormally high regard for the rights of property. But here is the result of a single personal experience covering nearly two years, and divided between Cuba and Porto Rico, where the general moral standards may be assumed to be about the same. Though the person in question travelled most of this time, stopping at boarding-houses and hotels, and a guest in native families where only native servants were employed, though he allowed small articles of personal property to lie about uncared for, with the same freedom as in the United States, and habitually left satchels and other hand-bags unlocked, during these two {139} years not a single thing was stolen. In Cuba umbrellas and unlocked baggage were frequently left unchecked in baggage and waiting rooms at railway stations, wharves, at warehouses, and at hotel offices, and nothing was ever lost in this way. Articles accidentally left behind in travelling, or when making purchases, were returned when opportunity offered. At no time during the two years was any attempt made to pass bad money or incorrect change. He travelled sometimes all night over rough trails and in the remotest parts of the Island, with only native companions, with considerable sums of money upon his person and unarmed, and was never molested.

Large contractors in Cuba report no unusual loss of tools through the peculations of their workingmen. The owners of retail stores, where there is such a multitude of petty sales that no record of such transactions can be kept, entrust practically their whole business to their clerks. Judging from actual experience with people and their way of doing business, there is nothing to indicate but that a fair degree of private and commercial honesty prevails. As a rule, the Cuban has not a passion for acquisition for its own sake. The question {140} of money is an ever present and insistent one with the middle and working classes in Cuba as elsewhere; but when current demands are met, and they are not excessive, the Cuban is usually satisfied. He is not ambitious to accumulate. Men in political life, with uncertain tenure of office, expensive ambitions, and the worst kind of precedents to influence them, are said not to be trustworthy, but Cuba should not be judged by its politicians. Considering only the industrial classes, there is no reason to reproach Cuba with a particularly low standard of commercial and personal integrity. One will not find there conditions equalling those in countries where greater intelligence and social discipline have long prevailed, and where reasonably good government has been habitual; but the moral standards of the people in the respects mentioned are not such as to present a serious bar to the industrial development of the country.

One of the most common and perhaps the most popular charge made against Cuban workmen by Americans is that they are indolent. Disinclination to hard physical labor is a widely disseminated peculiarity of the human race. That is perhaps the reason why it is so confi {141} dently brought up as a defect of one’s neighbors. Foreign immigrants to the United States say that the American likes to do all the bossing and none of the hard work. German and Swiss peasants along the Rhine consider the Frenchman’s great weakness his desire to have clean hands and fine clothes, and that the Italian is a “lazy beggar.” And the Italian borderer will assure you that the Germans and Swiss want to “eat and sleep all the time.” Therefore, in forming a judgment about the working people in Cuba, one has to allow for this national equation. The climate of the Island does not encourage long-continued physical labor apart from all question of race. The American, the Spaniard, the native, and the negro are all subjected to this influence. But a moderate amount of any kind of work can be done by any of these under the right conditions. The immigrant from the North brings with him a fund of physical stamina superior to that of the native, which runs for life and is not bequeathed to his successors born on the Island. No statement that can be made is less likely to be controverted than the oft repeated one that the Spaniard is superior to the Cuban, even of the first generation as a laborer. But {142} the climate which withdraws physical vigor frequently compensates by giving mental alertness. The man of the second and third generation on the Island is often quicker to comprehend any complex matter than his Spanish ancestor. This gives him a penchant toward the professions or the higher mechanic arts. It is not indolence so much as a combination of qualities of temperament that turns him away from manual occupations. He does not lack industry in his new career.

This charge of indolence against the Cuban workman is sometimes justified by the slowness with which they perform their tasks. They are not nearly so expeditious as Americans. But this is due in part to the system of industrial administration. The Cuban bricklayer lays as many bricks as the Englishman in the same trade. Recently in building the new Westinghouse electric plant at Manchester, American supervision raised the average number of brick laid a day by the British bricklayers from less than 400 to 1,800, with a maximum of 2,500 for the plainest work. This illustrates how large a part organization and supervision play in creating industrial efficiency. Employing the same men, the English

contractor got only about twenty per cent. as much work out of them as did the American superintendents. In Cuba a change to American methods and implements, and from oxen to mules as draft animals, has reduced the cost of plowing from $97.50 and $76.50 a caballeria (33 1-3 acres), in two specific instances, to $39.16 and $24 respectively. There is reason to believe that in all industries this factor of supervision and administration counts for as much in Cuba as it does elsewhere. If so, a large part of the relative inefficiency of the Cuban must be charged off to poor management and a wasteful industrial system.

When regularly employed the Cuban works long hours. A chart of the street-railway traffic of Habana shows that during the shorter days of the year the registered number of passengers carried per hour in the whole city is nearly one-half the maximum by 6 A.M. , and that it reaches its maximum at just 6 P.M. Considering only those lines running into the city from suburbs occupied by the working classes, the traffic before 6 A.M. is nearly or quite two-thirds the maximum. For most of these men, therefore, twelve hours, with the noon rest deducted, is the usual term of daily {144} labor. On the plantations the eleven-hour day is still the rule. In riding through the country at earliest dawn one sees workers already in the fields. The independent country laborer usually protracts his noon-day rest until the heat of the day is over, and some of the apparent idleness of Cuba is due to the fact that the hours of work are divided by this interval of repose.

In some trades the men work slowly or short hours in order to limit production. Where payment is by piece-work, as in the cigar factories, they do so at their own expense. But this is usually during the slack season, and the motive is to keep as many men as possible employed.

One weakness of the working people of Cuba may be charged in part to indolence, but it is equally due to their love of pleasure and excitement, and to a feeling of irresponsibility as to the future so characteristic of tropical nations. Unless pressed by necessity, the Cuban takes frequent vacations. This is his form of dissipation, his way of going on a spree. The excitement of strong drink does not appeal to him as much as the gentler attractions of more protracted recreations. He is often a gambler, he {145} delights in music and dances and in the little festivals of his neighborhood; he regards scrupulously all the observances of the Church that give promises of sufficient entertainment, especially those of a gala-day character. Weddings and christenings and funerals are important events in his calendar. By dint of a close and constant study of the situation he can usually find a valid excuse for indulging in the relaxations of leisure whenever it is not absolutely necessary for him to labor for his support.

The Cuban is therefore neither thrifty nor frugal. As a workman he responds only to the incentive of necessity. The Spanish laborer in Cuba usually works with the aim of accumulating a competency; not so the Cuban. The one produces and consumes little; the other produces only what he may consume. The Spanish laborer has few and simple ideals, but they are fixed and permanent; the Cuban stores a new fancy in his head every few days, and forgets it. He becomes impassioned over a carnival mask or a polka-dot tie; a month later it has passed out of his remembrance.

This is one principal reason why employers so greatly prefer the Spaniards in their service; they are not necessarily more honest, more {146} active, or more intelligent, but they can be depended upon.

The Cubans are not criminally inclined. Under Spanish rule there were four times as many Spaniards as native whites in the prisons of Cuba in proportion to the total number of inhabitants of each nation in the Island. The Chinese and Spaniards both showed a larger percentage of criminals than the native Cubans of either race. Among the higher class Cubans, especially in the remoter towns, there are many evidences of physical degeneracy due to close intermarriage. Little scrawny men with big bony hands and almost no head at all, are characteristic of this class. But this type is not usually found among the rural or laboring population. {147}

CHAPTER VIII

THE FUTURE OF CUBA

If the economic development of Cuba holds little promise for the people of the country, they have even less to look for in the political prospect. The period of self-government following freedom from the Spanish yoke has been marked by utter failure to meet the demands and the responsibilities of the situation. The Palma administration, ushered in with the highest hopes and the utmost encouragement, was tainted with corruption and cut short by revolution. The present regime can not boast even that weak element of honesty and ability that its predecessor possessed. To quote La Lucha , of Habana, which was the official organ of the Gomez party, the present condition is characterized by “intranquillity in the country, uneasiness in the towns and cities, hatreds, fears, and absolute lack of confidence in the future.... Our rulers refuse to be convinced that they {148} are not the owners, but simply the administrators of the public wealth.” Insurrection has been staved off on several occasions by means of the strong arm or the greased palm. As the year 1911 approaches its close, the rumblings of revolution are heard in many different parts of the Island at the same time. These are not to be taken as popular indications of resentment against bad government,—the Cubans are used to that. They are the organized preparations of the “outs” to unseat the “ins.” Such disturbances are natural incidents of a situation which is controlled by professional politicians. There are in Cuba no political parties based on principle. Instead there are a number of cliques, each headed by a leader who holds his followers by promises of patronage in case of success. Experience has taught that the bullet is more effective than the ballot in Cuban politics. A few shots fired at the moon displaced the Palma government. To quote again from La Lucha : “In Cuba nothing can resist the slightest armed movement, because the first subversive cry raised in our fields is, and ever will be, the death knell of our political state.” The Administration can not place dependence upon the military forces. The keen {149} est rivalry and the bitterest feeling exist between the rural guard and the regular army. In case of a civil war, these bodies would surely take opposite sides, and neither has any sentiment of loyalty to the flag, or allegiance to the government. The chief influence to which they would be amenable is the will of their respective commanders, who are politicians and aim to employ the forces under them as political instruments. The most effective defence of the President is found in placating his enemies by substantial concessions, but this method has naturally created fresh opponents with an appetite for sops, and the Chief Executive finds himself well-nigh at the end of his resources.

A country may be greatly prosperous and the mass of its people be miserable in the extreme. Mexico is an example in point. Cuba is another.

Throughout the hardships and hazards of the war of independence the insurrectos were supported by the belief that American enlistment in their cause, upon which they counted for success, would be followed by an era of permanent prosperity for the masses. The man who bore the brunt of the fighting, buoyed by these high hopes, realizes now that he was exploited {150} by a handful of his own countrymen and deserted by his expected saviour. The desertion was repeated after the need for protection had been emphasized and the exploitation continues in an aggravated form.

On the guajiro falls most heavily the burden of supporting the most expensive and extravagant government in the world. This because that government dare not bear too hardly with taxation upon the great corporations and wealthy property owners. An important part of the game of finesse which is necessary to the life of any administration in Cuba consists in keeping in the good graces of the money interests, for it is in the power of these to stop the fat grazing in the political pastures by forcing American reoccupation, and even perhaps annexation.

So we have one of the most striking of the many anomalies in the Cuban system of administration,—the customs duties. Here, in a country with no industries to protect, the tariff exaction is at the rate of $12 per head. In the United States it is no more than $3.50, while in other countries it is considerably less. At first hand the importer pays this tax, but, of course, it ultimately falls upon the consumer. And, as

more than half the importations of the Island are foodstuffs or articles of clothing, it necessarily follows that the masses discharge the great bulk of the customs duties. At the same time large tracts of land that are held by their wealthy owners at high figures are exempted from taxation entirely.

Is it any wonder that the peasant groans under the load? It is true that he works intermittently and loafs unnecessarily, but that is no good reason why his last dollar should be squeezed out of him, and, if he earned more, he would probably invite heavier taxation. He has no encouragement to exert himself beyond the needs of the present hour. He is probably occupying land that he may be required to vacate to-morrow. He can find no better market for his produce than the precarious one of the adjacent village. Enterprise is an invitation to the spoilers of the capital and the petty officials of his locality. If you should ask his candid opinion, it would be that conditions are no better than they were under Spain, and perhaps not quite as good. You may attempt to relieve his depression by a reminder of his splendid independence. He will not understand what you are talking about, although he is far from {152} being a dullard. He fought in the wars of independence because he was assured that success would mean a full stomach and perchance the ownership of a scrap of land. It resulted in neither and, unless restrained by scepticism, he would fight again, under any banner, for the same promise. Independence per se is of no more value to him than a cocoanut husk. He can not eat it and it will not buy calico for his woman.

The only class of Cubans that is waxing fat and living in contentment is that composed of the office-holders,—the professional politicians. They toil not, but they reap with prodigious assiduity. They fill easy jobs on extravagant salaries and try to persuade the country that they are performing extremely difficult and important tasks. Their sole interest and concern is to fill their pockets with as little exertion as need be. The welfare of the people is a matter of no consideration to them. The only fly in their ointment is the fact that they can not all be in office at the same time, and so the “ins” are disturbed by the uncomfortable knowledge that the “outs” are constantly scheming to oust them.

The peasant has entirely lost whatever faith {153} he may have had in the politician. The man who pulled the chestnuts out of the fire is growing impatient of supporting a lot of unnecessary office-holders. The peasant is supine to a shameful degree, but there is a limit to his forbearance, and it has almost been reached. He is ripe to serve the purposes of any agitators—any one who will offer a fair prospect of changed conditions.

But, be it well understood, this unrest and dissatisfaction are the outcome of basic causes. They can only be remedied by radical reformation of the economic and political state of the country. And such reformation is not to be expected from any native source. Cuba’s salvation depends upon guidance and aid from without, or, if not that, from the foreign element within her borders. This fact has become so obvious that even the organs of the politicians admit it. All classes, save the numerically smallest, are weary and disgusted with the condition of things. They can find no remedy at the polls. If the present administration is ejected, it is sure to be followed by another as bad, or worse.

When it comes to a consideration of the best means to relieve Cuba’s distress, the factors {154} in the matter are found to be so complex, and the opinions on the subject so diverse, that it is extremely difficult to arrive at any definite conclusion. One point, at least, almost all students of the situation are agreed upon, and that is that the United States fell very short of affording the Cubans the assistance in rehabilitating themselves that they had a right to expect, and that the hasty manner in which they were left to their own resources is mainly responsible for the confusion that has existed ever since.

If the Cuban has not an actual ineptitude for exercising the functions of government, he must be disqualified by utter inexperience. The brief period of autonomy is hardly worth considering in this respect. Before the present century only a very small proportion of the population had ever exercised the elementary political function of voting. Under Spain the affairs of the country were regulated to the smallest detail by the national authority, which extended its paternal supervision to matters affecting the private life of the individual. For instance, regulations for the conduct of the bull-ring and the cock-pit emanated from the captain-general, and under his instructions the petty officers were constituted censors of the {155} morals of private citizens, with power to punish offenders.

Another equally serious disqualification is to be found in the large proportion of illiterates in Cuba. These comprise more than half the total population. The great majority of them are campesinos , rustics. Nevertheless, it is to the country districts that we must look for the best thought and the greatest influence in future political movements. City dwellers are prone to act and think in mass, to be led by the crowd and to be unduly influenced by the press. The guajiro , who owns a little patch of ground, but is utterly lacking in education, is a safer and more valuable political unit than the average citizen of Habana.

Order was established and a workable form of government framed in Cuba by the United States, but its action in leaving this machinery entirely under the control of an inexperienced and immature people was like placing a razor in the hands of a child. The needs of the Island were sacrificed to the political exigencies of its protector. This is a fact that will hardly admit of dispute. The leading Cuban papers and the most representative citizens of the country declared unequivocally that the people were not {156} prepared nor qualified to assume the responsibility of self-government. Governor Magoon, in a report which was suppressed, made similar representations to his superiors in Washington. Nevertheless, thirteen months after the transfer of the Island from Spain to the United States, President Roosevelt ordered that withdrawal should take place one year later and “under no circumstances and for no reason” should our occupancy be extended beyond the date set, which happened to be just before the assembling of the presidential conventions. We committed our first injustice to the country and made our first mistake in the treatment of it by that hasty and premature abandonment. We have already paid a heavy price for the blunder and Cuba has suffered severely from the effects of it. But our responsibility still exists and the task remains to be performed. There is no possibility of avoidance. Sooner or later we must take the work of Cuba’s regeneration in hand seriously and carry it out thoroughly. How this shall be done is difficult of conjecture.

A small number of men in this country, whose opinions on any subject command respect, believe that the best course will be found {157} in leaving Cuba to work out her own difficulties without interference. The advocates of this laissez faire policy point to Mexico, the Argentine, and other Latin-American republics as shining examples of peoples who have independently worked out similar problems and have brought their countries through long periods of misery and disturbance to peaceful prosperity. But there are two strong objections to this policy. In the first place, the United States is pledged to the Cubans and the world at large to maintain order in the Island. No one who is familiar with conditions can believe that the Cubans are capable of carrying on a government for a period of five years without revolutionary eruptions. Is it conceivable that the people of the United States would allow their government to step in periodically to suppress disturbances and to step out promptly as soon as peace should be restored? It is safe to say, that the next occupation of Cuba by the United States, which can not be delayed many years, will last for a considerably longer period than did either of the preceding occupations. Then again, the situation in Cuba contains a very important element which destroys the applicability to it of the examples cited. During {158} their formative stages Mexico, Argentina, and the other Latin-American countries contemplated were undeveloped and comparatively little foreign capital was invested in them. Cuba, on the contrary, is the scene of an advanced economic development. Almost the entire country belongs to aliens, who have billions of their money sunk in it. Is it at all probable that these persons and corporations would submit to the loss or deterioration of their property that would assuredly be involved in an independent government of Cuba by the Cubans? The monied interests form at present the most determined of the classes that look for a radical change in conditions. They know that trouble is constantly in the air and may take definite form at any moment.

What is the prospect of the Cubans working out an orderly and efficient government unaided? Up to the present, notwithstanding ample opportunity, there is not even the nucleus of a stable and rational political party in the country. The best men stand aloof, or find themselves hopelessly excluded from participation in public affairs. They complain, but their plaints are vague and indeterminate. All classes of Cubans, but one, are clamoring for a

change, but no class has put its hopes and wishes into definite utterance. The press is hardly more explicit in its demands and denunciations. The following quotation from the Unión Española , of Habana, affords a typical illustration:

“Political anarchy, by which the country is at present confronted, is daily growing greater. It would seem as though all the political elements had made an agreement to perturb, or rather to dissolve, the nation, for the tendency on all sides is to dissolution. It is time the true patriots sounded the alarm, and that politicians pause in their work of destruction, curbing bits, that the Cuban people may continue the ministering of its destinies and in the possession of self-government. It would be shameful, worse than shameful, criminal, that Cubans, drunk with sordid ambition and in petty strife for self-aggrandisement, should again wreck the republic, turning over this island to the covetous stranger to exploit it and lord over it.”

It is hardly possible to avoid the conviction that Cuba’s ultimate fate will be annexation to the United States, or some very similar state. The United States has on five different occasions emphatically and distinctly declared its {160} intention to preserve the independence of Cuba. These formal and public announcements would make it difficult for any administration to countenance, and much more to take the initiative in, any movement tending to annexation. But several contingencies are conceivable which might make it possible for the United States to take Cuba into the federation with a good grace.

The result may be brought about by one of several causes, or by combination of them.

It is highly probable that abuse of political power, or revolution, will make American intervention again necessary before long. If the next occupation is not permanent, the one succeeding it is likely to be so. The people of America will tire of the trouble and expense of periodical correction of conditions in Cuba.

The property owning class in Cuba, native as well as foreign, is almost unanimously in favor of the annexation of the Island to the United States, and a majority of the resident Spaniards entertain the same sentiment. If this class should unite in action it would be irresistible. Should it form a political party, with annexation as its chief platform, it could overcome the professional politicians and control {161} Congress. A majority of the peasantry would undoubtedly support such a party. The Island might thus pass in a legal manner by vote of the people.

The same result might be brought about by the monied interests deciding to buy the Congressional vote without going to the trouble and expense of creating a genuine majority in the Legislature.

If none of the suggested contingencies should come about, it is highly probable that Cuba will eventually come into the Union by a process somewhat similar to that which brought Hawaii under the flag. American interests and American citizens are constantly increasing in the Island. It is not difficult to imagine a coup d’état , resulting in a government in the hands of Americans.

If the desire of a majority of the Cubans were all that was necessary to bring about annexation, the matter might be accomplished without serious difficulty. There are, however, many obstacles in the way when the question is viewed from the standpoint of the other party to the transaction. The United States would derive important advantages from the possession of Cuba, but in several respects the {162} American people would suffer by the arrangement.

At the outset a difficulty would arise as to the terms of admission. The most enthusiastic advocates of annexation among intelligent Cubans would not be willing to come under the American flag with anything less than the status and rights of a state. This attitude is easy to appreciate. Cuba’s population, wealth, resources, commerce, industries, and strategic position would fully justify her aspirations to the highest rank among America’s possessions. She would not be content with a territorial position, and the proposition, which has been advanced, that she should accept the indefinite status of Puerto Rico and the Philippines, is not worth a moment’s consideration.

Despite official figures to the contrary, it is the conviction of many who have had the best possible opportunities for judging, that a large majority of the native population of Cuba have negro blood in their veins. Practically one hundred per cent. of the people profess the Roman Catholic faith and Spanish is the mother tongue of the same proportion. Would the American nation agree to the construction of a sister state out of such material? {163}

The admission to the United States of Cuba’s products free of duty would constitute a serious menace to Louisiana’s chief industry and to the growing beet sugar industry of our northwestern territory. The fruit growers of California and Florida would suffer from competition with products raised by cheaper labor, and to a less extent the tobacco growers of Virginia and Kentucky would feel the same pressure.

As to the advantages that Cuba would enjoy from annexation, there can be no question. The most obvious and pronounced would be the assurance of good government, perpetual peace within her borders, an incalculably better administration than the present at one-third of its cost, free trade with the United States, and a market there for all her products and purchases.

Perhaps Cuba might approximate closely to the enjoyment of these benefits under an arrangement which could be effected with much less difficulty than annexation. A permanent protectorate, if introduced with the usual methods of soothing and placating the protected, would probably solve Cuba’s difficulties more effectually than any other plan at present prac {164} ticable. Out of such a state, Cuba might at some future date become a member of the Union by a gradual process of evolution. There is, of course, the objection to such an arrangement that it would impair the independence which we have promised to maintain, but when both parties to an agreement are willing to waive its terms there should be no obstruction to cancelling it. Furthermore, if such a protectorate should be established it will no doubt grow out of a presumptively temporary occupation. The process would be something like that which has resulted in England’s established control over Egypt. When the British occupation of that country occurred the administration under Gladstone declared positively that Great Britain would retire as soon as her work should be done. She has now, however, no thought of ever doing so. Her control of the country is undoubtedly a great benefit to the people, and the world at large would regret her relinquishment of it. Our Government is acting in a similar manner in its treatment of the Filipinos. No statesman in the country now contemplates the independence of those people as within the bounds of probability.

Under a protectorate it would be possible for {165} the United States to insure to the Cubans a considerable measure of the benefits that would accrue to them from annexation, without entailing upon this country the disadvantages which would follow the latter measure. {166}

CHAPTER IX

CUBA’S SUGAR INDUSTRY

The one and a half billion inhabitants of the earth consume 32,000,000,000 pounds of sugar yearly. The distribution of this enormous quantity is, however, far from even, some countries accounting for next to none of it, while in several others the average consumption exceeds fifty pounds for every inhabitant. Strangely enough, some of the oldest peoples, to whom the knowledge of manufactured sugar is a matter of immemorial possession, are only now beginning to develop a sweet tooth. This may be said of the Chinese and the various races of the Philippine Archipelago.

The rapid growth in the world’s population naturally accounts for a constant increase in consumption, but it is also greatly enhanced by the increase in individual use. In the United States, for example, the per capita consumption has risen eight pounds in the past few

years. We now dispose of eighty pounds of sugar annually for every soul in our population, while twenty years ago the average was little more than fifty pounds. This consumption takes no account of the large quantity of confections, especially chocolate, imported into the country in a manufactured condition. Only in Great Britain are the figures higher than with us. There they rise to one hundred pounds. Denmark comes next with seventy-five pounds, then Switzerland, with sixty. Thrifty Germany, which produces the largest beet crop in the world, and in fact controls the world’s sugar market, uses very little of the commodity itself. Its per capita consumption is only forty-two pounds, being about the same as that of Holland. Italy, Rumania, Bulgaria, and Servia, each consumes less than ten pounds of sugar per head of its population, the poverty of their peoples doubtless accounting in the main for the small figures.

Sugar in some form has been used by the inhabitants of the globe from the earliest times. Until the fifteenth century before Christ, the chief source of supply was honey. It was at about that time that the value of cultivating the wild sugar cane was discovered in India, {168} and it is probable that the first manufacture of sugar in any manner should be credited to that country. For many centuries, only the raw juice was expressed, until about 700 B.C. the employment of fire in concentrating it came into use. From India the art spread rapidly among the ancient nations, but did not reach Western Europe until several centuries later. Columbus carried sugar cane from the Canary Islands to the West Indies, whence it extended to the mainland, and thus, in a progress of three thousand years, encircled the earth.

The production of sugar in the New World became so great within a century after its introduction, that the importers of Europe turned to it for the supply which they had formerly received from the Orient. Spain, Italy, and Egypt, large producers of sugar at that time, could not meet the competition with the American output, and soon ceased to cultivate cane commercially. Free land and slave labor enabled the planters of the West Indies to sell sugar at lower figures, with larger profit, than could the growers of any other part of the world.

To-day sugar is produced under the most diversified conditions and in the most scattered {169} regions. In many countries, such as India, Malaysia, and the Philippines, cane is raised and sugar manufactured by the crudest processes, with the cheapest labor. The product is low grade and the extraction small. In other countries, such as Hawaii and Cuba, the most improved methods are employed, and skilled labor engaged at high wages.

The competition between cane-producing countries is so great that a moderate advantage gained by one will sometimes destroy the industry of another. Such was the case when our reciprocal tariff arrangement with Cuba resulted in closing the mills of Jamaica. In recent years the keenest rivalry has existed between cane and beet sugar. At first the latter had great difficulty in forcing a place for itself in the world’s markets, but with government subsidies, improvement in cultivation, and economies in manufacture, it gradually became an irresistible competitor of cane. During the past fifteen years beet sugar has come to the front with great strides, and now it divides the world’s consumption with the cane product.

Cuba produces considerably more than one-fourth of the entire cane sugar of the world, {170} devoting two million acres to the crop. More than four-fifths of this area is in the provinces of Santa Clara, Matanzas and Oriente. The Island’s output in recent years has been about 11,500,000 tons a year, yielding somewhat more than 1,000,000 tons of refined sugar. Enormous as is this production, it falls far short of the quantity that could be produced if larger areas of the available suitable land were put under cultivation and if such scientific and intensive methods as prevail in some other countries were employed.

Sugar cane was probably first grown in Cuba some time about the middle of the sixteenth century, under the encouragement of a royal bounty. The industry made but slow progress during the next two and a half centuries. In 1850, the sugar production of the Island had reached approximately 300,000 tons. Since then it has steadily increased, the million mark having been attained in 1894. During the latter half of the nineteenth century a tendency to centralization set in. Previous to that period the crop had been raised on a large number of small plantations, each working entirely independently. In 1880 began the movement toward the establishment of “centrals” for

the performance of the extractive operations. There are now nearly two hundred of these buildings in the Island. At the same time the combination of small plantations resulted in a decrease in numbers with an increase in average size.

The million ton mark gained in 1894 was upheld in the following year, but in 1896 the war was in full blast, and the year’s output was barely more than 225,000 tons.

During the last war of independence the sugar plantations throughout Cuba were either utterly ruined, or severely damaged. Since the war, the industry has been resuscitated by the investment of vast amounts of money, the erection of modern buildings, and the installation of the latest types of machinery. As a considerable proportion of this investment was American money, American methods have been extensively introduced. The result of all this is a complete reformation of the industry in all its branches. There is, nevertheless, room for further improvement, especially in the field. A better quality of cane might be secured by intelligent selection, and the invention of a harvester would result in a great economy.

The latter-day sugar plantation is a very {172} extensive establishment and costs from five hundred thousand dollars to several millions. One of the largest and most complete in Cuba is that called the Central Preston, belonging to the Nipe Bay Company, and situated on Nipe Bay. The factory, according to the latest method, is erected close to the wharves at Punta Tabaco. Thence the cane lands extend inland and along the shore for twenty-five miles.

The present grinding capacity of three thousand eight hundred tons of cane a day is shortly to be increased to five thousand tons, when the factory will be the largest in the world.

The main building, entirely of steel construction, has a frontage of 312 feet and a depth of 234 feet on one side and 330 feet on the other. Separate buildings are devoted to carpenter shops, machine shops, foundry, refrigerating and ice plants.

Besides the usual full equipment of pumps, juice heaters, clarifiers, filter presses, etc., the factory installation includes ten 600 horsepower vertical water tube boilers with bagasse burning furnaces, automatically fed by bagasse carriers and the latest improved type of fur {173} nace feeders; two tandems of 36 inch × 84 inch nine-roll mills, with crushers, each tandem of mills being driven by one 32 inch × 60 inch Corliss engine and each crusher by one 20 inch × 42 inch Corliss engine. Two Lillie Quadruple Effects, each of a capacity to evaporate 600,000 gallons, reversible both as to vapor and liquor. Four 14 inch steel vacuum pans, each equipped with its own vacuum pump and condenser. For the injection water, three-stage direct connected centrifugal pumps are used, one of which is a reserve, throwing 3,500 gallons of water per minute. Twenty-two crystallizers, with an aggregate capacity of 37,400 cubic feet; thirty 40 inch Weston centrifugal machines and the most improved installation of conveyors, and other auxiliary and automatic machinery of practical design for the handling of the finished product. Three molasses storage tanks, of 425,000 gallons capacity each, accommodate the final molasses thrown off by the factory. These are situated near the wharf, and from them shipment in bulk is made directly into deep draught tank steamers.

The company’s railroad is thirty-five miles in length, of standard gauge, laid in 60-pound rails, and furnished with cars completely made {174} of steel and having each a capacity of twenty tons.

When it is considered that the entire tonnage of many thousand acres must be transported within a certain period to a central point, and that the supply of cane to the factory must be equal and continuous to avoid the losses that result from retardation or stoppage of the mill, the great importance of the transportation system on a plantation may be appreciated.

The modern method of the large central with its immense sphere of influence, necessitates that the railroad be thoroughly equipped and efficiently managed. The old practice of carrying the cane from field to factory in an ox cart has passed into disuse along with the small mill, and has been superseded by the present railroad, with standard gauge roadbeds, heavy rails, steel cars, powerful locomotives, and schedule running, the whole being under the direction of a practical railroad man, as train despatcher. Although the standard gauge is often used, the narrow gauge is generally employed. On estates which are a considerable distance from any trunk line or public road, the latter is preferable on account of the lower cost with correspondingly smaller car capacity; {175} while on large estates, where the cars have a capacity of twenty tons or over, it is necessary to lay the standard gauge road for the greater efficiency and smaller cost of maintenance.

Opinions vary as to the most convenient and economical size of car to be used on small and large plantations. It is, however, beginning to be generally admitted that the larger the car, having in mind the weight of the rail, the better the results. Experienced constructors are now recommending a steel frame car, mounted on strong trucks, with automatic couplers and air brake attachments. A steel car has been found by carefully observed experience to have a longer life than a wooden one, since it is in the field the year round, and if it is well painted the deterioration is much less than with the other style.

Recently, plantation operators have learned that it is a mistake to use light locomotives with heavy loads. The result is an abnormal deterioration, while when a locomotive of sufficient power and weight is used, less trouble is experienced in hauling the train and the wear and tear is minimized. Up-to-date plantations are furnished with an adequate round-house, where the engines can be under the eye of an {176} experienced mechanic, and where repairs can conveniently be made.

Closely connected with the railroad is the telephone system, which is of great service to the train despatcher, in many instances avoiding serious delays at the mill. The telephone is also, of course, in constant use by all branches of the operation.

The method of discharging cane from the cars is very different from the old slow process, which was akin to that of unloading a hay wagon with pitchforks. Nowadays an electric overhead travelling crane lifts the cane from the car, weighs it automatically in suspension, and then drops it into the cane hopper and elevator.

The tendency of late years has been towards the construction of large centrals, either by the consolidation of a number of the smaller and older ones, or by the erection of new sugar houses, thus effecting vast economies in field transportation and factory labor, and bringing the cost of maintenance and manufacture to a minimum.

Large centrals necessarily employ a large number of laborers during the crop season, as well as in the dead season, and in order to make

them contented and break their former habit of moving from one locality to another at the prompting of a whim, it has been found advantageous to provide them with comfortable homes and sanitary surroundings. This latter-day development is well exemplified in the village of Preston, attached to the plantation under consideration. The streets are wide and regular, and each is lined with model dwelling-houses. The sanitary arrangements are in charge of a specially organized corps of experienced men. A large and well-equipped school is maintained; there are two churches of different denominations, besides a well-stocked store, where goods are sold at cost. The company operates a modern hotel in the village, where meals are dispensed at small cost to those who prefer not to cook in their houses.

As each succeeding generation receives educational advantages, it follows that there is a constantly increasing desire to live on a better plane and under improved conditions. Therefore the provision of proper accommodations becomes an economic necessity upon large centrals, where the supply of labor must be dependable, and can be best made so by encouraging it to become permanently resident. This {178} system will go a long way toward tending to solve the labor problem for large corporations, and deserves the serious attention of all employers of labor in considerable numbers.

The present method of sugar production distinctly separates the operations of cane growing and sugar manufacture. The latter involves by far the greater expense and yields proportionally greater profit. Much the greater proportion of the skill called into play by the industry is also applied to the factory operations. It is still the case that some large estates control and work entire plantations, but there are more centrals that have nothing to do with the cane until it is cut and delivered to their cars. In such cases, a number of plantations, large and small, the average size being about 1500 acres, lie in the vicinity of the central and furnish its material under contract. The usual arrangement is to give the cane planter five per cent. of the sugar produced from his supply.

The workings, costs, and returns, of a moderate-sized mill are shown in the following statement which was recently formulated by a thoroughly practical and experienced sugar manufacturer of Cuba. {179}

A mill designed to handle 100,000 bags of sugar in a crop season will require about $1,000,000 investment, including $150,000 for running expenses. The area of cane necessary to supply such a mill is 6,000 acres. This, if owned and worked by the mill, would call for an additional $500,000 investment. As has been said, however, the tendency is to secure the supply from independent growers, under contract, in the same way as the beet-sugar mills of our western country deal with the neighboring farmers. In this case, the planters receive five per cent. of the cane in sugar, or its equivalent in money. Sugar cane in Cuba contains from ten to twelve per cent. of sugar, of which the mill retains five or seven per cent. Plantation and mill management are generally separated, in few cases combined.

The calculation of returns is based on the very conservative rates of ten per cent. extraction and a price of 2.75 cents per pound. The {180} price of sugar is subject to great and frequent fluctuations, but there are mills in Cuba that produce a twelve per cent. average constantly.

The 6,000 acres (180 caballerias) presupposed will produce 325,000,000 pounds of cane, and from this will be extracted 32,500,000 pounds of sugar, or the equivalent of 100,000 bags of 325 pounds each.

The beet-sugar competition of late years, and particularly that of the German product which is supported by a bounty, has had a very depressing effect upon the Cuban industry. This was considerably relieved by the countervailing duty placed upon bounty sugar by the Dingley Bill of 1894. The effect of this was {181} to place the latter products on exactly the same footing, so far as the United States market is concerned, as though they did not enjoy the advantage of a bounty. The competition is still severe, however, on account of the vast quantity of Germany’s production and the lower cost of it. This is due, not to cheaper labor, but to more scientific and intensive methods. In fact, the future value of Cuban sugar is dependent not upon the cost of producing it so much, as upon the cost of production in Germany, and the extent to which the commodity may be admitted duty free into the United States from Hawaii, the Philippines and Puerto Rico.

“With new capital and skill the average cost of production in Cuba can be reduced, and with either free sugars or a uniform rate of duty in the United States, assessed upon all sugar (a countervailing duty to offset foreign bounties being always maintained), she can hold her own and recover her prestige as a sugar-producing country, but the margin of profit in sugar manufacture is so small, and the world’s capacity for production so great, that Cuba {182} cannot recover her prosperity in the face of any advantage to be given to sugars from other countries entering the United States. At current prices in Cuba, cane is worth to the planter the equivalent of $2 to $2.50 per ton net, out of which price he must pay for his planting and cultivation, cutting and delivery to the nearest factory or railroad point. As the cost of cane production consists almost entirely of labor, and wages in Cuba, for some years previous to the insurrection, ranged about the same in Spanish gold as similar work commanded in the United States, the profits in this branch of the business have not been great, and have been dependent upon skill in management, quality of lands, and proximity to the factories.

“The supply of labor and rates of wages in the future are now most serious questions to the sugar producer in Cuba, and present the greatest obstacle to reduction of cost. For supplies of cane the manufacturer must depend either upon his own resources, or upon large planters. Factories to be operated at a profit must be kept running day and night, and cane, owing to its nature, must be ground immediately it is cut. The grinding season in Cuba

is limited to about one hundred and twenty working days, and small farmers, while they can generally find a market for their cane, cannot be depended on for a constant regular supply. Had Cuba the power to dictate her own prices, she could maintain sufficient margin to overcome local difficulties, but that power has long since passed and future profits must be dependent upon her economies. The price of cane to her planters is dependent upon the price at which her manufacturers can sell their sugar, and this price in turn is dependent upon the price at which other sugar-producing countries, especially Germany, the great factor in the world’s sugar trade, can place her goods, duty paid, in New York. If Cuba in the future should have to compete to any extent, in the United States, with free sugar from other countries, while a duty was exacted from Cuban sugar, her case would seem to be hopeless.”

So great is Cuba’s reliance upon her sugar industry that a rise or falling off in it means depression or elation in every part of the Island. In 1906, the United States paid to Cuba $72,650,000 for 1,092,180 tons of sugar, and the prices ranged from 3½ cents to 5¼ {184} cents per pound. The result was general prosperity and contentment. Since then the prices have risen and fallen through frequent changes and a wide range, and they are once more high enough to make the planter and manufacturer happy. But the average price and profit for any series of recent years have not been such as to encourage investment in the industry, and those engaged in it are only too conscious of the fact that their prosperity rests upon a very unstable basis. There are those who look for relief of Cuba’s difficulties in the cessation of the European bounties, and a complete solution of them in annexation to the United States, but either contingency is a slender dependence. {185}

CHAPTER X

CUBA’S TOBACCO INDUSTRY

Cuba’s tobacco has a great advantage over her sugar in the facts that it can always command a good price and is beyond the reach of competition in the matter of quality. Every likely soil and climate in the world has been tried in the effort to produce a leaf similar to that grown in the fields of the celebrated Vuelta Abajo. Even though seeds from the best Cuban plants have been used, the results have never approached the object sought. What is commonly known as “Havana” tobacco stands alone without a rival or any satisfactory substitute.

One of the peculiarities of the tobacco plant is that a very slight change in the conditions under which it is grown will effect a considerable change in the character of the leaf produced. Plants raised in soils composed of precisely the same chemical ingredients will yield quite different tobacco when those ingredients happen to be present in varying proportions. {186} In Cuba, as elsewhere, it is no uncommon thing to find tobacco of the highest grade upon a piece of land within a stone’s throw of another field where only the poorest quality of leaf can be produced. This is a fact that should be remembered by prospective purchasers of advertised Cuban lands. Promotion companies and agents frequently offer tobacco acreage at high prices, which they justify by statements of the production of adjacent vegas . Often the purchaser finds himself in possession of a worthless tract lying alongside of one which is yielding handsome profits to its owner. There is very little land in the tobacco districts of Pinar del Rio which has not been tried out and it is not safe to buy anything unless it is actually in cultivation. In Oriente there is plenty of good tobacco land available, but up to the present it has not been made to produce a grade of leaf equal to what is termed partidos .

Tobacco is raised in the most widely separated parts of the earth and in the most diversified climates. The world’s annual crop of the leaf approximates 2,000,000,000 pounds with a value in the raw state of about $225,000,000. Of this volume, Cuba produces no

more than 60,000,000 pounds in a good year, but receives for it about $20,000,000. These figures clearly indicate the comparatively high price which the Cuban leaf commands. Fully three-fourths of the total crop comes from Pinar del Rio, the remainder mainly from Habana and Santa Clara. Oriente is fast coming to the fore as a tobacco producing province.

A very small proportion of the product of Pinar del Rio, and probably none of the output of other parts of the Island, is true “Cuban tobacco.” After the Ten Years’ War, foreign seeds, chiefly that of Mexican tobacco, were used extensively to revive the ruined vegas . These exotic varieties throve and almost entirely usurped the place of the original plant. Greatly improved by the Cuban environment, the greater part of the Island’s output is, nevertheless, Mexican tobacco.

It is often claimed that the Cuban tobacco grower possesses some peculiar or mystical skill, but the truth doubtless is that his success is mainly due to the combination of soil, water, and air, that his plants enjoy. If it were otherwise the superiority in product which the Vuelta Abajo has maintained for three centuries would have been contested by other sec {188} tions. The famous “Lower Valley” lies in the shadow of the Organ Mountains, to the southwest of Habana. The district is about one hundred miles in length by ten in width. The earliest plantations of the Spaniards were set out in the Vuelta Abajo at the close of the sixteenth century. It is the flavor only of the leaf from this district that creates the extraordinary demand for it. The partidos varieties, as the best leaf from other parts of the Island is called, is larger and has a better texture.

An average year’s output of Vuelta Abajo leaf will be about 260,000 bales, or 28,600,000 pounds. Somewhat more than half of this is converted into first-class cigars and cigarettes by the manufacturers of Habana, and the remainder is exported to the United States and Europe. The Province of Habana produces about one-fourth as much as Pinar del Rio, say 65,000 bales. This is called partido leaf. About 15,000 bales of it are consumed in the Cuban factories and the rest shipped to Key West, New York, and Europe. Of the 125,000 bales of what is called Remedios leaf, which Santa Clara produces annually, one-fifth is used locally and the balance sent to the United States. Oriente has a production somewhat {189} less than that of Santa Clara, and consumes about the same proportion locally. This tobacco is generally termed Mayari. It is a coarse leaf, too low-grade for the American market, but acceptable at a low price to the smokers of Spain, Italy, and Austria, whither it is shipped. The Provinces of Matanzas and Puerto Principe do not produce enough tobacco to make an effect upon the market.

Tobacco factories are operated in most of the cities and large towns of Cuba. They give employment to a large number of men and women. A considerable proportion of this labor is skilled and high-priced. Many workmen receive five dollars or more as the daily wage. The best paid employes are those called “selectors,” who have the faculty of correctly grading tobacco leaves by a quick touch and rapid glance. In other branches of the manufacture, such as wrapping and sorting, experts will earn as much by piece work. The finished product of the factories amounts to upwards of 200,000,000 cigars and nearly 15,000,000 packages of cigarettes yearly.

Some of the finest buildings in Habana are devoted to the manufacture of tobacco. The factories are numerous and include many in {190} which no more than twenty hands are engaged, but the bulk of the business is centred in a few companies that each employ thousands of workmen. There has been considerable reorganization among the large manufacturing concerns in recent years, involving the introduction of a large amount of additional capital and the extension of American interests. More than 25,000 persons gain a livelihood in the tobacco business in Habana alone. Not less than ninety-five per cent. of the exports of manufactured tobacco are from Habana. A large proportion of the factory output of interior towns is accounted for by domestic consumption.

The Cuban veguero possesses a skill in tobacco growing which is the result of the accumulated experience and practice of generations. In his hands the cultivation of the narcotic plant is a highly developed art, but it has not been reduced to a science. The most successful Cuban planter can not tell you definitely how he produces his results, nor why certain processes insure desired consequences. He has no fixed formulas, and some of his most cherished practices are based on sheer superstition. As a rule, he is working ground that {191} his father and grandfather worked before him. Through their experience and his own he has gained an intimate knowledge of its needs, capacity, and peculiarities. He can produce results from it that Europeans and Americans have never succeeded in equalling without his aid. Nevertheless, it is doubtful if the Cuban is securing from his tobacco land the utmost yield in quality or quantity of which it is capable. In the cultivation he clings to many crudities; his irrigation is haphazard and often misjudged; he does not avail himself of the mechanical appliances at his command. Where the best leaf is grown, traditional methods are most firmly entrenched. There have, however, been introduced great improvements in the treatment of lands controlled by large corporations. The chief and most effective of these is the cultivation of the leaf under cover. In order to encourage this development of the industry, the duty on cheese cloth, which ranged from fifteen to fifty cents per kilogram, was repealed in 1902. Since then the area under cover has steadily increased and the results achieved justify the belief that Cuba will soon rival Sumatra in the production of fine wrappers. {192}

Tobacco seed is sown in carefully prepared beds during the month of September. About sixty days later the young plants are set out in the field with eighteen inches of space between each. Constant pruning and weeding are necessary in order to insure a healthy and vigorous growth. At the same time the tobacco worm and leaf slug must be picked off as fast as they appear on the plant.

In January the plants are cut and the leaves hung to dry. When thoroughly dried, the leaves are petuned, or sprinkled with a solution of tobacco water until fermentation has taken place. The leaves are then roughly sorted with regard to size and quality, assembled in bunches, or hands, and packed in bales, each weighing about 125 pounds.

It is estimated that over one hundred thousand persons in Cuba are engaged in the tobacco industry, and that eighty thousand of these are employed in the commercial cultivation of the leaf. One man is generally able to properly look after two acres, which will contain 15,000 plants.

The cost of cultivation varies considerably in different parts of the Island and under different conditions. In the Province of Pinar {193} del Rio the cost of preparing the ground, fertilizing, planting, care, rent, and general services, will approximate $8,000 for one caballeria , or 33½ acres. The yield from such a tract will average 211 tercios , or bales, with a value of $50 each; 54 arrobas (1,350 pounds) of seed, worth $216; and about $20 worth of stems. So that the output would fetch approximately $10,800, leaving $2,800 profit to the grower.

Mr. Gustavo Bock, an owner and manufacturer of the greatest experience, puts the matter in a different form. His statement, as quoted in Industrial Cuba , follows:

“To produce 100 bales of tobacco, of 50 kilos each, a farmer would rent one caballeria of land, one half of which he would employ for tobacco cultivation and the remainder for vegetables.

“So that a planter would have to sell each 50 kilos of tobacco at $47.27 to cover the cost of production. The foregoing figures show clearly that the production of tobacco in the Island of Cuba is more expensive than that in any other part of the world, especial attention being necessary to its raising from the day it is planted to the cutting of the leaf, besides the subsequent treatment necessary in order to obtain good leaf; which goes on day and night if a good quality is desired.”

The use of cover, of course, entails additional expenses, but it also produces greater results and larger profits. The cloth awning, which is stretched over the field at a height of six or eight feet, has the effect of tempering the strength of the sun’s rays, moderating the force of the wind and diminishing its detrimental action on the leaves, keeping the soil moist, and excluding the insects that prey upon the plant. Thus, aside from the improvement in the product produced by the use of cover, there is a substantial saving in labor secured.

According to an official statement relating to cultivation under cover in Pinar del Rio, 212 hectares (a hectare is 2.47 acres), in which

6,776,000 seedlings were set, gave plants, according as they were budded or not, varying in height from 1.78 to 2.10 meters, with 14 to 18 leaves on each plant, with a yield of 14 per cent. for plants weighing 40 pounds and 60 per cent. of first-class wrapper leaves. The average cost per hectare in the Province was $736.44.

On the other hand, two well-known and experienced planters of that Province state that tobacco grown under cover will yield 330 bales to the caballeria , instead of 150 produced by the ordinary method, giving leaves from 28 to 32 inches long by 14 to 16 inches wide in the proportion of 7 per cent. This is an enormous increase in yield over that ordinarily obtained, but it may not be accepted as representative of the results generally secured.

The average annual exports of Cuban tobacco are valued at about $27,000,000. This sum is less than half the value of the average sugar output. The relative importance of the two industries must not be gauged by these figures. Although tobacco culture and manufacture are mainly carried on in a comparatively small section of the Island, their beneficial influence upon the community is wide {196} spread and greater than the Cubans in general suspect it to be. The prospects for the development of the tobacco industry and the possibilities of its economic improvement are much better than in the case of sugar. The former entails fewer hazards and larger profits than the latter. There is greatly less possibility of concentrated control in the production of tobacco than there is in the growing of sugar-cane. More than in all this, however, the beneficial character of the tobacco industry lies in its especial availability to the small capitalist and the individual planter; its demand for skilled and intelligent labor; and its extensive employment of artisans. The vegueros of Cuba and the employes of the Habana cigar factories are the most intelligent and best paid classes among the working people of the Island.

At the close of the last war of independence the Cuban tobacco industry was practically destroyed. In this insurrection fighting was carried on, for the first time, in the Province of Pinar del Rio. Most of the plantations were wiped out and the cattle, upon which they depended for draft animals, were either killed or carried off. Worse still, the population of the {197} Province was reduced from thirty-six thousand to barely one-sixth of that number. The first crop after the restoration of peace yielded no more than one-tenth of the former average production. The outlook of the industry was extremely black when an American syndicate supplied the capital necessary to give it a fresh start. Since then the process of resuscitation has progressed steadily. There is, however, room for a much greater development. Increase in the labor supply will permit of extension of the area of cultivation, and improvement in methods will result in greater yield and better quality. It is certain that under the stimulus of foreign capital and foreign management tobacco cultivation in Cuba will soon far surpass the production of its palmiest days.

The prospect for the manufacturing branch of the industry, which has never been conducted to its best advantage, is equally good. The introduction of extensive American interests has put new life into the business, and the amalgamation of several large independent factories has been followed by excellent results to the corporations immediately concerned, as well as to the business at large. {198}

The import tariff imposed on Cuban cigars by the McKinley Act was a great blow to the manufacturers of Cuba. Many of them moved their factories to the United States, where, being able to import the raw material on favorable terms, they found themselves in a position to make and sell cigars of Cuban tobacco at a profit. The effect of this movement was to greatly decrease the exportation of manufactured tobacco from Cuba and to increase proportionally the shipment of leaf. At the same time the production of cigars in the United States expanded greatly and reached the enormous quantity of 5,000,000,000 per annum.

As a remedy to this condition of affairs, the Cuban Government removed the export duty on cigars and cigarettes, whilst maintaining that on leaf tobacco and increasing it on the higher grades. The justice and wisdom of this step are illustrated by the following statement by Mr. Bock:

“To manufacture in the United States 1,000 cigars, weighing 12 pounds, sold in Habana, unstemmed, 25 pounds of filler, and 5 pounds of wrapper, we should arrive at the following results:

The tobacco interests, like the sugar planters and manufacturers, are hoping for a turn of the political wheel that will bring about free trade or complete reciprocity between the United States and Cuba. The need of relief is not so great, however, with the former as with the latter. Cuba’s tobacco industry is in a fair way, with every likelihood of improvement in its favor. {200}

CHAPTER XI

CUBA’S MINERAL RESOURCES

The possession of gold ornaments by the natives of Cuba at the time of Columbus’ discovery of the Island gave it a reputation for mineral wealth which was maintained for centuries on a somewhat slender basis. The precious metals have never been found in considerable quantities, and it was only in comparatively recent years that any serious mining enterprises were established. The Spanish Government, for some incomprehensible reason, discouraged the exploitation and even the investigation of the mineral resources of Cuba, and practically nothing was definitely known about them until the United States Geological Survey made a geological reconnaissance shortly after the Spanish-American War.

With the exception of asphalt, which is produced on a commercial scale in the provinces of Habana, Matanzas, Santa Clara, and Puerto {201} Principe, the mineral development, and perhaps the mineral resources of Cuba are restricted to the mountainous region at the eastern end of the Island, occupied mainly by the Province of Oriente. There is no doubt but that this region is extremely rich in many valuable minerals. The present development is insignificant as compared with the future possibilities. Lack of labor is a bar to the extension of mining, and several deposits of ascertained value are not worked on account of the absence of transportation facilities. With improvement in these conditions it is certain that the mineral output of the Island will take an important place in its commerce.

To the east and west of Santiago de Cuba are many deposits of iron ore, most of them denounced, but none of them developed. Among these is a group of mines, chief of which is the Camaroncids, fifty-six miles from Santiago de Cuba, the ore of which is said to average sixty-eight per cent. iron.

In part, it is widely believed that iron ore of the finest quality abounds throughout the Sierra Maestra region. A mining engineer of experience is responsible for the statement that, in the vicinity of Mayari, near Nipe Bay, de {202} posits of high grade ore have been discovered “of sufficient extent to supply the demands of the whole world for the next century.”

Iron is the chief mineral product of Cuba. The first “denouncement” of an iron mine in the Island was made in the year 1861, but it was not until 1883 that the investment of capital made the exploitation of the deposits of the Sierra Maestra possible. In the following year, the Juragua Iron Company, an American concern, made the first shipment of iron ore from the Island. At this time the Spanish authorities granted a number of concessions favorable to foreign corporations engaged in mining. Under this encouragement the pioneer company extended its operations and a few years later the Spanish-American Iron Company, organized in the United States, entered the field. The Sigua Iron Company and the Cuban Steel Ore Company followed. The operations of all these concerns were carried on in the vicinity of Santiago de Cuba until a few years ago, when the Spanish-American Iron Company established a large plant at Felton, in the Nipe Bay district.

The most important recent development in the industry is the acquisition by the Bethle {203} hem Steel Company of an iron ore deposit occupying an area of about 900 acres, lying twelve miles to the east of Santiago. This is regarded by experts as one of the most important mineral discoveries ever made in Cuba. Measurements by mining engineers give the contents of the ore-beds as 75,000,000 tons.

The ore obtained from the Sierra Maestra is both hematite and magnetite, rich in iron and low in phosphorus and sulphur. It is especially adapted to the Bessemer process of manufacture. An average analysis shows more than sixty-two per cent. metallic iron.

These properties are not mines in the strict sense of the word. The ore is found in small irregular bodies, near the tops of the hills, and it is extracted by quarrying, so that the workings are entirely exposed to view. Explosives and steam shovels are used in taking out the ore, which is unusually hard. As it does not lie in seams, with definite walls, one of the chief difficulties of operation consists in sorting it from the ordinary rock.

The first shipment of iron ore from Cuba, made by the Juragua Iron Company in 1884, amounted to somewhat more than 25,000 tons. {204} Since that time there has been an almost steady increase in the output of Oriente. The annual production is now in excess of a million tons, approximating $5,000,000 in value. It is probable that the American investments in iron mines in Cuba amount to at least $20,000,000. The large operating companies, with one exception, originated in Philadelphia, and have now affiliated interests.

The labor problem has been a constant difficulty with the mining companies. They find the native whites quite unequal to the arduous work of the mines, and the blacks are not satisfactory on account of their irregularity and difficulty of control. Despite the cost, the greater part of the labor employed is imported from the provinces of Spain. These men are strong, steady workers, and orderly. The companies take great pains to secure their comfort and health, with the result that there are practically no desertions and little difficulty in recruiting the force.

In this connection it will be of interest to describe the measures by which the Spanish-American Mining Company has almost banished malaria from its settlement at Daiquiri, especially as their experience should be sig {205} nificant and suggestive to every corporation largely employing labor in Cuba.

An outbreak of yellow fever in 1908 led to the thorough sanitation of Daiquiri by the United States Army Medical Corps. The Company fully appreciated the condition in which the camps were left, and decided to maintain it. A sanitary department was organized and has been since kept up at a monthly expense of a thousand or more dollars. A corps of experienced men make frequent inspections of the dwellings, see that they are kept clean and that all water barrels are covered with netting. A determined and systematic campaign has been waged against the anopheles, or malaria mosquito. As a result, malaria, which Cubans look upon as a necessary evil, has been reduced to a negligible quantity, and the general efficiency of the force has been greatly increased.

The total number of malaria cases in the year 1909 were 234. For the last five months of the year the number was only 48, and on December 31, there was not a single case in the hospital. The improvement has been maintained. The following table shows how the present condition compares with that of former years: {206}

In 1909, with 1,391 men on the pay roll, the average number of patients in the hospital daily was fourteen. In other words, there was only one per cent. of the force on the sick list.

The men themselves, who at first looked upon the sanitary campaign as a combination of joke and nuisance, now fully appreciate the effects of it, and lend their hearty aid to the sanitary corps in their efforts.

The work of the sanitary force consists of the daily collection and burning of all household rubbish, the care and cleaning of the barracks, a house to house inspection of sanitary conditions, care of water tanks and water barrels in the mine cuts, petrolization of standing water, general cleaning of the villages and camps, and constant war on the mosquitoes. The villages, camps, and settlements under the Company’s control are free from mosquitoes, and the diseases which they transmit have no {207} chance of propagation. Care is taken to inspect all newcomers and any found to be malarial are sent away.

The cost of the sanitary work for a year is about $12,000, but the full value of it can not be estimated in figures. Its chief benefits are contingent, and appear in general cleanliness, health, cheerfulness, and efficiency. Whilst these results would warrant the expenditure, if there were no financial return for it whatever, the fact is that the outlay is fully justified if measured solely on the basis of dollars and cents. Under present conditions there are at least ten men fewer in hospital each day than there were formerly. Instead of being a charge on the work, these ten men produce during the year 8,000 to 9,000 tons of ore, which far more than repay the expense of sanitation.

Manganese, a material essential to the manufacture of Bessemer steel, is found in large quantities in the mountain range running between Santiago de Cuba and Manzanillo. Attention was first called to the deposits shortly before the Spanish-American War, and several companies were formed to exploit them. One of these, the Ponupo Mining and Transportation Company, is responsible for by far the {208} greater part of the operations in this mineral. It has its headquarters in Santiago de Cuba, but is controlled by American capital. The equipment of this company includes a sixteen-mile railroad, enabling it to ship its product to Santiago. The output of the Ponupo Company’s mines averages forty-seven per cent. metallic manganese.

Several other companies are in possession of good yielding properties and are well equipped for operation, but the development of the business seems to have been checked. The reason for this is not apparent. Conditions appear to be favorable to profitable operation. The demand in the United States is constant at prices that should be satisfactory to the miners. To quote Mr. Robert P. Porter: “Whatever conditions of taxation, duties, and other expenses on the production of manganese existed previously have been changed by the war, and entirely new conditions are presented now for the continuance of the work. It is believed that the mines are practically inexhaustible, and that the metal, while varying considerably in quantity, is in the main high grade and can be mined and shipped at prices that will extend the industry until the United States steel

manufacturers will get their entire manganese supply from this nearest known manganese district.”

On the other hand, the report of the geological survey, referred to above, presents an entirely different view of the matter. From this report it is gathered that the manganese deposits of Cuba usually occur in limestone and sandstone, associated with a secondary silica, called jasper. The ore is not in large bodies, but in small pockets, irregularly scattered, deposits varying in size from a pebble to masses that weigh several hundred tons. Manganese is also found in the form of wash dirt, which is the result of decomposition of the original ore-bearing rock. Most of the Cuban ore is in this form.

“The concensus of opinion of various experts who have looked into the matter seems to be that the Cuban deposits of manganese ore are not likely to be very valuable, as they are too scattered, too irregular, too small, and too inaccessible to be profitably worked. The fact that there is undoubtedly a considerable quantity of manganese in the Province of Santiago de Cuba seems to be more than offset by the peculiarities of its occurrence. If, however, the {210} world’s supply of manganese should run short, these deposits would undoubtedly be thought considerable and important. With the new facilities for concentration that have recently been installed in the plants already in operation, some of the deposits may, indeed, be very profitably worked.”

The first mines worked in the Island of Cuba were at the place now called El Cobre, situated about twelve miles west of the City of Santiago de Cuba, and celebrated for its shrine and miracle-working image of the Virgin. These mines were opened in the year 1530, and were worked as Crown property for more than two centuries, and then abandoned. Following a century of disuse, the mines were re-opened by a British corporation, exactly five hundred years after work was first started in them. The venture proved highly successful. The official records show that between fifty and sixty million dollars’ worth of ore was taken from El Cobre between the years 1830 and 1868. About the close of this period the mine-owners encountered various difficulties. They became involved in a long and costly lawsuit, which they lost, with the railroad upon which they were dependent for the transportation of their {211} product. This was followed by a fall in the price of copper, and unsettled political conditions. As a result, the mines were shut down, and in the succeeding wars the plant was destroyed and the workings flooded to such an extent that it was not even possible to inspect them.

After the last war, an American company, styled the San José Copper Mining Company, took over the property and revived it. This concern and a few others are now actively at work in the El Cobre district, with good prospects of success.

Previous to the year 1830, the only copper properties in Cuba that were developed were those at El Cobre. But about that time, deposits were discovered in numerous parts of the Provinces of Puerto Principe, Santa Clara, and Matanzas. The most notable of these that were worked in days past are near the town of Las Minas, which is about twenty-seven miles east of the City of Puerto Principe, on the Puerto Principe and Nuevitas Railroad. Some of the many old shafts at this place show signs of considerable productiveness at one time. About ten years ago these properties were taken in hand by an American corporation, {212} called the Cuban Copper Company, which in 1909 exported 59,430 tons of copper.

It seems to be the general opinion of experts, who have investigated the conditions, that Cuba will never produce gold in large quantities, although her silver mines may be profitably developed to a considerable extent. Nevertheless, gold mining enterprises are started every few years in the Island. The sole basis for these appears to be the traditions and questionable records of the past production of the old mine at Holguin, in the Province of Oriente. The group of workings at this point are said to have been known since the discovery of the Island. They were operated by a native in 1856, and it is claimed that one shaft produced ore bearing sixty-seven ounces of gold and twenty-three ounces of silver per ton of 2,000 pounds, making a value of $1,407 a ton at the time. In the same district, a native is said to have discovered a pocket that yielded $15,000 in fifteen days, the ore being worth one thousand dollars for every hundred pounds of mineral. Samples taken from the same place, and expertly assayed, showed a maximum of thirty-two ounces of gold to the ton of 2,240 pounds, and four ounces of silver. {213}

Frequent rumors of rich finds in Cuba reach New York and London, but at present there is not a gold or silver mine in profitable operation in the Island.

Bituminous deposits are found in every province of Cuba. They vary from a clear translucent oil resembling petroleum to hard grahamite and substances that closely resemble lignite coal. The report of the Geological Survey’s reconnaissance says: “Every sugar planter claims to have an asphalt property on his estate, and every other man knows where there is one in which is a fortune for his friend. Many of these deposits have been worked, more or less extensively, in past years. Oil has been found in Cuba which has been successfully refined in the island and used as a luminant, also as a fuel; asphalt is mined there which is being employed as an enricher in the manufacture of gas, and is also doing duty as a material for roofing and street paving; grahamite and pitch are found there, which sell in this country and abroad to manufacturers of varnish and paint; and on at least one plantation a substance is being mined which performs the functions of coal in the kitchen brasero , although experts have frequently declared that {214} there is no coal in Cuba. Whatever the exact and proper titles for these various forms of bitumen, their uses would seem to be sufficiently varied and the deposits extensive enough to be of some commercial interest. There is, however, only a limited demand for the kind of bitumens most frequently found in Cuba, the class which is most suitable for varnishes; and, on the other hand, no convincing evidence has been offered that great supplies exist of the asphalt suitable for roofing and paving, the uses to which the largest quantities of asphalt are applied. By large supplies we mean supplies similar to those of the asphalt lake in Trinidad. It should be remembered, however, that the asphalt deposits of Cuba have not yet been scientifically exploited, and it is impossible for anyone to say definitely that the supply is not sufficient to be commercially important.”

One of the greatest needs of Cuba’s industrial development is a domestic fuel supply. The discovery of a coal mine might be more profitable than that of a gold mine. This fact has led to extensive prospecting and to frequent declarations of the presence of coal, which turned out to be lignite or grahamite.

The British Consul at Santiago de Cuba, in 1895, reported the discovery of a coal deposit within fifty miles of that City. The analyses claimed for samples seemed to indicate commercial possibilities, but no operation of the deposit has followed.

The extent and richness of the deposits of iron ore in Cuba are beyond question, and, although their operation has become an important industry, development in that direction has hardly more than commenced. As to other mineral resources, there is a decided probability of their proving great in the future. At present little is definitely known about the matter. With the exception of the geological reconnaissance to which reference has been made, and which was necessarily somewhat cursory, no scientific investigation of the Island’s mineral wealth has ever been made. The Government might profitably devote some of the money which it is wasting on needless consulates abroad to such a useful purpose. {216}

CHAPTER XII

LATENT AGRICULTURAL WEALTH

Cuba is, first and last, an agricultural country. The climate, soil, and proximity to favorable markets, create unusually favorable conditions. The recent extensions of the railroad system, and the additions to the calsadas , or government highways, of which one thousand miles were built in the last year, have greatly improved the facilities for interior transportation. The Government has established experiment stations, and in other ways encouraged farming and stock raising; railroad and development companies have extended generous aid in the same direction. Millions have been sunk, during late years, in organized efforts to promote agricultural industries in different parts of the Island, aside from the investments in sugar and tobacco. But, notwithstanding, agriculture has not advanced in Cuba at anything like the rate that should have been experienced. {217}

Before the last war there were upwards of one hundred thousand plantations, ranches, and farms in the country, of which the value was not less than $200,000,000. Very few of these properties were made to yield adequately. Among the sugar and tobacco estates, good management was the exception, rather than the rule. Despite the natural advantages that he enjoyed, or perhaps because of them, the Cuban farmer hardly ever made the most of his opportunities, nor displayed a respectable degree of enterprise. It is true that he labored under heavy handicaps in the political and economic conditions, but since these drawbacks have been removed he has not shown any marked improvement. Nor has any great advance in agricultural development followed the introduction of American capital and American settlers, save in the sugar and tobacco industries. The former has often been misapplied, and the latter do not appear to have gained a grasp of the situation.

That something is radically wrong in the state of Cuban agriculture is made glaringly apparent by the fact that the country imports annually $25,000,000 worth of foodstuffs that it might produce. Not only that, but several {218} of the items that make up this aggregate represent products that might be raised in Cuba to an extent sufficient to supply the domestic demand and leave a considerable surplus for exportation. It is not to be supposed, however, that under present conditions any such results are possible. The Cubans might do much more than they are doing to make their country productive, but until the population is greatly increased no approximation to the utmost agricultural possibilities can be attained. Estimates differ widely as to the extent of the area under cultivation, but it is certainly a very small proportion of that adapted to agriculture.

Although the soil is distinctly suitable to such treatment, intensive cultivation and scientific methods are practised only in a few places, and by foreigners, the usual proceeding is to plant over an extended tract, burning the fields in the dry season and leaving the ashes on the ground. When the rains have sufficiently moistened the earth, holes are made in it with a pointed stick, called a jan , and into the holes are dropped the seed or root from which the crop is to be derived. This method continuously robs the soil of the elements in {219} which its fertility consists and at length it becomes “tired,” as the natives say. It is then necessary to fertilize the ground, or to abandon its cultivation. The farmer usually adopts the latter alternative and, moving into the forest, clears another tract and starts a fresh finca , to be treated by the same process. This is what the scientific agriculturalist Liebeg termed “a system of cultivation by expoliation.”

The great difficulty in Cuba is that, in proportion to the land available, there is little labor, and less capital. The most complete and effective remedy will, of course, be found in an increase of the population, but in the meanwhile conditions would be greatly improved if the Cubans could be taught to handle their lands more intelligently and with greater energy. There is no man on earth more susceptible to an object lesson than the Cuban. Abstruse theories are slow to penetrate his mind, but he readily grasps the significance of a visible exposition. For this reason it is believed that the experiment stations, of which there are now half a dozen or more in the Island, will not be without effect in promoting better farming. {220}

Nearly all the crops of northern latitudes may be raised satisfactorily upon the uplands of Cuba. It is questionable, however, whether wheat, barley, and oats, would be as profitable crops as some others to which the ground might be devoted. Corn of an indifferent quality is widely grown and fed to stock. There seems to be no reason why the very best varieties of this grain should not be produced on Cuban soil, and efforts are being made to induce farmers to use selected seed and better methods in the cultivation. Two crops a year are secured and, unfortunately, the ground is often sown continuously in corn for long periods. Rotation is something that the Cuban farmer has yet to appreciate. On the lands about the coast, a great deal of rice is raised, but the domestic consumption of this cereal is very large and there is no surplus for export. This is, however, one of the crops which might be increased without any extraordinary effort, and the United States market would be open to the importation of all the excess product.

Another instance of neglected opportunity is found in the potato. The Cuban tuber, which has only recently been introduced to the United States, is of excellent quality and might be {221} made a serious rival of the famous Bermuda potato. Two crops a year, with an enormous yield to the acre, are harvested, but the output is far from reaching the quantity that could be profitably marketed. At the present time the United States is sending yearly to Cuba potatoes to more than twice the value of all the vegetables received from the Island, and the quality of the imported article is far from as good as that of the domestic product. Cuba also buys beans annually to the value of more than two hundred thousand dollars, despite the fact that every variety of this vegetable grows abundantly in almost any part of the Island, and with little cultivation. The natives consume large quantities of beans, and should not only grow all that they eat, but also ship considerable amounts to the ready markets which are open for them. An excellent quality of sweet potato will grow almost anywhere in the Island, with a large yield to the acre. The yam, a large variety of sweet potato, abounds everywhere, and with a little cultivation the quality could be improved to the point of creating an export demand.

There is very little cultivation of beets, but where they are raised the quality is so unusu {222} ally good and the yield so great, that it is believed beet culture might with ordinary effort be made one of the leading agricultural industries of the Island. In fact, the question of beet-sugar production has been raised more than once, but naturally enough it has not met with encouragement in a country where the beet is anathema.

It has been demonstrated that two crops a year of the highest grade of peanuts can be raised in Cuba. It is claimed that the largest recorded production to the acre of the nut has been secured by a Cuban planter. There are great possibilities in this industry, but it does not appear to be systematically carried on anywhere in the Island, and the peanut has no place in the statistics of exports. Mention has been made elsewhere of Cuba’s great need of comparatively small manufacturing enterprises and the benefits that might be expected to accrue from them. The peanut affords an opportunity in this direction. It is practically certain that several factories for the extraction of the oil and the manufacture of the butter could be run in the Island with profit, especially if the factories maintained their own plantations for the supply of the raw material. {223}

None of the vegetables are cultivated to the extent which they might be with profit. Cuba should export fresh vegetables in large quantities to the New York market, where the winter and spring demands are insatiable. Cucumbers, radishes, onions, lettuce, and other table delicacies grow all the year round in the Island. And instead of producing and shipping them, as she should, Cuba is even importing cabbage. The Chinese truck-gardeners are the only people in the Island who appear to have any understanding of intensive and careful cultivation, if we except a few foreigners who have not yet had sufficient experience to produce the results which they are aiming at, and which they will doubtless achieve in time.

All classes of Cubans eat quantities of plantain. The vegetable is rarely absent from the table, where it appears in all manner of forms,—dried and fried, baked and boiled. The banana is also consumed in large quantities and in various forms. There are a great number of varieties of the fruit, the best known being the “Manzano” and the “Johnson.” The latter is the variety that is cultivated most extensively for export. The banana industry is an important factor in Cuba’s commerce, {224} but its development is due entirely to the fact of the cultivation having been taken in hand by foreign capital and conducted under foreign direction. The demand for bananas might have continued until Doomsday without the Cubans having taken advantage of the obvious opportunity afforded by it. The United States takes one million dollars’ worth or more of bananas from Cuba every year.

Commercial fruit culture in Cuba was only commenced in late years and, if the banana business be left out of consideration, is still in a backward state of development. The several colony enterprises of American and Canadian land companies have had for their principal objects the sale and cultivation of fruit lands. On the whole these projects have been unsuccessful viewed from the standpoint of the settler. This has been due to a variety of causes which will be considered in the following chapter. Although various marketable fruits have grown wild in Cuba for centuries the natives made little or no effort to turn them to commercial account.

In the past few years pineapples have been systematically raised with profit. The Cuban product is particularly hardy and of an excellent

quality. The piña blanca is the sweetest variety, but it does not keep well and is therefore not adapted to exportation. The piña morada is smaller, more scaly, and less juicy than the former. It has, however, greater resisting qualities and represents almost the entire export of this fruit, whilst the piña blanca meets the domestic demand. The United States market takes several hundred thousand dollars’ worth of pineapples annually from Cuba.

When the industry was first started, the fruit fetched one dollar per dozen in Habana, for export. The price has now fallen to about one-fourth of that figure on account of the increase in production of several countries, but even at present rates the pineapple can be raised in Cuba at a very fair profit. Little labor is involved in the cultivation, preparation for shipment is simple, and the yield is very great. One caballeria of land devoted to pineapples will cost about $4,000 to keep up during the five years that the plant bears. In that period it will give five crops of 18,000 dozen pineapples each. The last crop, however, will be too small for use except in the manufacture of preserves, and the full market price can only be counted on for the yield of the first three {226} years. But, even at that, if 54,000 dozens of the fruit are marketed at twenty-five cents per dozen, there is a balance of $9,800, after paying expenses, in addition to the profit to be secured from the last two crops.

From this it would seem that pineapple culture is well worth while to the man of comparatively small capital, especially as the necessary ground can be bought in hundreds of places at less than ten dollars an acre.

It must be admitted, however, that practical growers scout these statements of profits, which are derived from official sources. The owners of pineapple plantations, Americans and Spaniards for the most part, declare that they are actually shipping at a loss. But for some inscrutable reason they continue to raise the fruit with a constantly increasing output.

One of the chief difficulties experienced by the investigator in Cuba lies in the proneness of all classes of planters to deny that there is any money in their business. They declare that the transportation companies and commission merchants are absorbing all the profits. On the other hand, a railroad manager will take paper and pencil and demonstrate convincingly that

It is probable that the Cuban growers may find the canning business profitable, as those of Hawaii have done. If the Government would lend its encouragement to such an enterprise by reducing or removing the high duty on sheet tin and cans, there is no doubt but that a cannery could be successfully conducted in western Cuba, where the greater part of the pineapple cultivation is carried on.

Although, for lack of proper cultivation, Cuba has long produced an orange of second rate quality, it has been demonstrated by actual accomplishment in several instances that the fruit can be grown in the Island to equal any in the world. But this result can only be attained by the expenditure of considerable money, the application of considerable knowledge, and the exercise of considerable patience. Without either of these necessary factors, hundreds of Americans have entered upon orange growing, and thousands have invested in orange lands during the past ten years or so. The citrus fruit boom was launched on a very unstable basis and its decline was as rapid as its growth. {228}

There is as little ground for the statement frequently made nowadays that there is nothing in orange culture in Cuba, as there was for the former claim that a fortune was easily to be made out of it in ten years. The simple fact is that the man who has the means to buy suitable ground, to plant and tend and fertilize it properly, and maintain himself until the grove yields, may depend upon a satisfactory return from his investment. At present the margin is small, owing mainly to the expenses incurred in marketing the product, but there is every reason to believe that this burden will be considerably lightened in the next few years.

Many growers have abandoned their orange groves in Cuba. Others have turned to grape-fruit, which appears to promise a greater prospect of profit, although there is some danger of over-production injuring the business. In Cuba the grape fruit grows to perfection. The cost of its production and shipment is no greater than that of the orange, and it stands carriage a great deal better. The prices at present obtained for it leave a considerably higher margin than can be secured from oranges.

for what may be called fancy fruits, such as the mango, guava, and alligator pear,—which perhaps would more properly be classed as a vegetable,—is constantly expanding in the United States. Cuba produces a number of delicious fruits which are quite unknown to Americans at home, but which they soon learn to enjoy when resident in the Island. It is altogether probable that a persistent effort to introduce some of these to the United States market would result in a permanent demand at profitable prices. There is a large class of New York consumers of delicacies who are ever ready to pay for the pleasure of having their palates tickled.

In the middle of the nineteenth century there were upwards of two thousand coffee plantations in Cuba, and the annual output amounted to more than two million arrobas of the berry. During the latter half of the century the industry rapidly declined under the severe competition of South America, until it became almost extinct before the war. There is little doubt, however, but that the product of the Island might have withstood the competition in question had a more rational system of cultivation and preparation been in vogue. {230}

In the past few years there have been signs of a revival of the coffee industry, especially in Oriente, where the tree can be cultivated to the best advantage. All classes of Cubans drink the beverage freely and about two million dollars’ worth of the berries are imported yearly. It will probably not be long before native plantations are taking care of the entire domestic demand, after which they may be able to make an entrance to some of the foreign markets.

Efforts are being made in several directions to revive the old-time cotton industry in Cuba, whence upwards of one million arrobas of the fibre were shipped in the year 1842. The Upland and Sea Island varieties grow well in many parts of the Island and recently several small plantations have been set out under the direction of Americans of experience.

Ramie and henequen grow well in Cuba and seem to deserve greater attention than is at present being paid to their cultivation. As these plants thrive in what is generally classed as barren land, there is a distinct economy involved in their culture.

CHAPTER XIII

FUTURE FARMING IN CUBA

The possibilities latent in Cuba’s splendid agricultural resources are incalculably great. It is practically certain that at some day, not distant as the lives of nations go, this Island will be completely covered with plantations and farms, scientifically worked by intensive methods, and sustained by the capital of many large corporations. There is hardly room to doubt this conclusion. The demands of America and the great manufacturing countries of Europe for food supplies are constantly on the increase and must grow ever greater with the increase of their populations and the further development of their mechanical industries. There are few agricultural regions better situated and conditioned to take advantage of this demand. But before this can be done a complete reformation in the agricultural methods of Cuba must be brought about. Capital must be attracted, not in independent driblets, scattered {232} the country, but in large sums, concentrated upon particular districts and devoted to definite developments. In a word, the arable lands of Cuba, now lying idle, or being wasted by a ruinous method of cultivation, must be subjected to a process of exploitation similar to that which has brought the sugar and tobacco industries to their present conditions of high development. Such a movement must necessarily tend to the uplift and prosperity of the individual farmer. It must influence his methods and his product for the better. It must open new markets to him and afford him increased facilities for transportation. Organized enterprise, with ample capital, could make Cuba a great exporter of food stuffs. Under good management the investments in such enterprises would undoubtedly be safe and profitable. Coincident with a movement of this kind a national agricultural bank should be established, and conducted somewhat after the manner of the Egyptian Agricultural Bank, which has a counterpart in the Philippines. In Cuba, almost more than anywhere else, the small farmer needs loans and credit on moderate terms. At present, if he can borrow at all, he must pay an exorbitant rate of interest. {233}

Cuba is now importing annually forty millions of dollars’ worth of food supplies. More than half of the commodities making up this purchase, enormous for an agricultural population of two millions, might be raised in the country, at lower cost and of better quality.

There is here an excellent opportunity for foreign capital. One or two such companies as have successfully developed new tracts in our Western States would find a profitable enterprise in the business of supplying Cuba’s food demands from the product of Cuban soil. This statement is made on the assumption that such concerns would avoid the errors into which several colonization companies, which otherwise had good prospects, have fallen. No such project should be started, except with well defined plans, plenty of capital to carry them through, and, above all, a management familiar with Cuban soils and conditions.

To begin with, the acquisition of one thousand acres of the best arable land, well situated for the transportation of produce, will require the investment of one hundred thousand dollars, which would, however, cover the cost of buildings, water supply, and other necessary permanent accessories. Each acre would then {234} call for the further investment of one hundred dollars, which would include all expenses until the first crop should be secured. The expense of cultivation would average about fifty dollars an acre, and an average return of one hundred dollars could be looked for. This estimate of fifty dollars gross profit per acre will appear excessive, and doubtless most Cuban farmers would call it ridiculous. Nevertheless, there are directors of experimental stations in Cuba, who are prepared to demonstrate the feasibility of accomplishing it with ordinary staple crops, and several experts, familiar with local conditions, who endorse it. If it is possible to produce thirty, or even fifteen per cent. net profit from the cultivation of Cuban farm lands, then the fact is the most striking evidence of the shortcomings of the present methods of agriculture. Of course, a large proportion of the estimated results would accrue from the economies in production which a well-capitalized corporation could effect by the employment of labor-saving mechanical devices, and the economies which would naturally arise from shipping in great bulk.

In Hawaii, Mexico, and other tropical countries, the agricultural development has been

effected mainly by large corporations, and in the majority of cases the enterprises have enjoyed financial success. All things considered, the prospect for such a project would be unusually good in Cuba. One such undertaking would be a revelation to the Cubans, and to the world at large. It would attract additional capital to the same field and otherwise work such benefit to the country that the Government and the railroad which would be immediately affected by it might reasonably be expected to lend substantial aid in its establishment and operation.

It is to be feared that capitalists who have considered such an enterprise, have been deterred from entering upon it by knowledge of the failures of some of the ill-judged colony projects. Several of these were doomed to failure from the outset. In some cases the promoters had bought poor land at low figures, which they sold to inexperienced settlers at high prices. Not infrequently these were invalids, or men looking for a life of ease, to whom it was represented that anyone might make a comfortable livelihood, if not a fortune, from Cuban land, with little effort and the investment of a trifling amount. The principal {236} object of such companies is to dispose of their property as quickly as possible. They do little, or nothing, for the community which they create. The natural result of such a combination of unfavorable conditions is failure in its worst form. Cuba has suffered incalculable harm from the effects of dishonest and ignorant exploitation by American and Canadian land companies. But the fact remains that there are few more inviting fields for effort in agriculture, if intelligently undertaken with sufficient means.

The future development of Cuba must be along agricultural lines and it must depend mainly upon foreigners, of whom the greater proportion will unquestionably be Americans. The colony, or community system, is the best means of promoting this development, and there are a number of large companies engaged in it under admirable methods. These corporations are affording every possible aid to the settlements for which they are responsible, and are encouraging none to take up their lands without the means of profitably working them.

One of the greatest present requirements of Cuba is a revival of its old-time stock industry. The annual imports of cattle, horses, and mules

are large, and would be much larger if the peasants had the means of buying the animals that they sorely need. There is probably a shortage of not less than half a million head of various kinds of stock in the Island. The demand is constant and great. Horses and mules are everywhere employed as beasts of burden, and the ox is the universal draft animal. A sugar plantation of fifteen hundred acres will need about three hundred oxen, besides perhaps fifty horses and mules, and will slaughter twenty-five or more head of cattle monthly for meat.

There is no doubt but that several large cattle ranches and establishments for breeding horses and mules might be run on American lines with profit to the owners. As in the case of farm products, the first object to be aimed at should be the supply of the domestic demand. After that has been accomplished, there should be no difficulty in finding markets for all the surplus cattle that Cuba can raise. Europe is in need of constantly increasing meat supplies, and the United States will soon be a heavy importer of animal foods. Provided that the industry is conducted upon modern methods and the breed improved, as it may be {238} without difficulty, Cuba should be able to compete with any of the foremost cattle raising countries.

In this connection attention may be called to the neglect of alfalfa in Cuba. It has been ascertained that the plant can be grown in the Island with the best results. It is well known to be a powerful soil fertilizer and an excellent crop with which to rotate. The abundance of fattening grasses and the quantity of refuse from the sugar mills available, make it improbable that alfalfa could be profitably used as fodder on Cuban farms. There is no doubt however, about its ready sale in the place of the hay which is now imported to the extent of several hundred thousand dollars annually, and at a cost of forty dollars a ton. The market for alfalfa hay could be greatly enlarged by supplying the small towns to which the Cuban farmers carry pack-horse loads of grass, to be sold in the streets at five cents for two armfuls.

One of the first steps in the improvement of Cuban farming must be the attainment of greater yield and better crops from the land. Let us take corn as an illustration of present conditions and future possibilities. For long {239} past, Cuba has been importing this grain in constantly increasing quantities and at present is paying two million dollars a year for it. This is one of the most glaring instances of neglect. The Island should produce every ear of corn that is consumed in it and much more. As it is, a comparatively small area is devoted to this crop, which is deficient in both yield and quality. This is fully accounted for by the haphazard method of cultivation. In very rare cases is any other cause responsible for the poor results.

Tests, made at one of the experiment stations, of several parcels of the seeds usually bought for planting, showed that from forty to sixty per cent. were sterile, whilst the remainder were far from uniform in size and vitality. By using such seeds the farmer is wasting half the ground planted and paying six dollars per hundred pounds for the half that germinates. Under such circumstances he can hardly raise a crop from rented ground that will sell at a profit. Instead of attempting to do so, he grows enough to feed his few head of stock and takes no note of the cost.

The use of good seed is one of the urgent needs in Cuban farming, but so long as de {240} pendence is had upon imported seeds, which invariably degenerate in the new environment, no appreciable improvement can be looked for. Nor would a campaign of education in seed selection, such as has been carried on in various parts of the United States, be economically feasible. The most direct and effective remedy will be found in the establishment of one or more seed farms, run on modern methods, with modern machinery. Such enterprises would not fail to return large profits on the money invested in them.

The national and other experiment stations have not been established long enough to permit of wide effect from their efforts. In their immediate vicinities the improvement in farming due to their influence is marked and there is every reason to count upon its extension. The most interesting of these stations is that maintained by the Cuba Railroad, under the direction of Dr. Paul Karutz. It covers about six acres of land, immediately contiguous to the Hotel Camaguey.

Here may be seen an acre of cotton, all the plants healthy and vigorous, and most of them bearing more than one hundred and twenty pounds each. A model citrus fruit grove, with

mulched trees, and velvet beans growing between, will encourage those who still have faith in the citrus fruit industry of Cuba. An acre of peanuts, in remarkably good condition, yields a crop of fourteen hundred pounds. Broomcorn, cassava, arrowroot, jute, and many other commercial plants, may be seen in different stages of growth and development.

Experiments with corn are constantly in progress, with the object of producing a serviceable seed by crossing Cuban, United States, and Argentine varieties. Three new varieties have been secured, each having long ears, large kernels, and thin cobs. The station is distributing small parcels of this seed-corn to such farmers as show an inclination to improve their crops.

Failure has fallen upon the efforts of a large proportion of the thousands of Americans who have taken up farming in Cuba. This has been due to a variety of causes. The chief of these has been insufficient money to make a fair start. Too often the settler comes out with little more than enough to pay for his land, build a modest dwelling, and buy a few pounds of seed. He is forced to depend upon his own labor solely, with inadequate mechanical equipment, and the {242} land must support him from the first crop, or he is faced by starvation. In other cases, where the immigrant has money enough to buy good land and proper farm equipment, he approaches the task in complete ignorance of the peculiar conditions of agriculture in Cuba, and often with the additional handicap of preconceived ideas that are entirely wrong. He plunges into the cultivation of certain crops without any previous study or experience, and regardless of shipping and market conditions. Sooner or later he awakes to his mistake, but seldom before the loss of time and money has seriously crippled his resources. Many failures are to be attributed to the widespread tendency among American settlers in Cuba to take to fancy farming. They are fired with the desire to do something out of the ordinary and to produce something that no one else is growing. It is usually the pure amateur who is afflicted with this mania, which always costs him dearly. He generally ends as a man whose sole possession is a theory.

There is no question about the assured success of the man who may undertake farming in Cuba with the proper equipment. He must have ample capital,—that is to say, enough {243} for all calculable requirements and a little over. He must defer serious work until he has made a thorough study of the conditions. He should then devote his efforts to the production of the surest crops, those entailing the least hazard in cultivation, and for which there is a permanent market with a steady demand. If, furthermore, he uses intelligent methods in the cultivation of his land, he can not fail of success.

After all, so much depends upon the character of the individual. One man will force success under conditions which completely crush another. Here you will find a flourishing farm, due to the natural aptitude of the owner for his work. On the other side of the fence, a misguided individual, with better opportunities than his neighbor, is making a miserable mess of it, because he is entirely unsuited to the job. The literature of certain land companies is responsible for the presence of many amateur farmers in Cuba. One of these pamphlets assures the reader that he may safely embark in farming in Cuba without experience or knowledge, and after the first year the land may be depended upon to yield him a handsome income. This statement is supported by figures showing profits realized from the {244} cultivation of certain staples, but no mention is made of the fact that these results were produced by corporations operating with advantages from which the individual farmer is precluded.

It is difficult to hold the publicity man down to a consistently honest story. He must be an enthusiast to serve his employers well and, with perhaps the best intentions in the world, he shuts his eyes to the disadvantages which pertain to farming in Cuba as well as to farming in any part of the world, and expends his eloquence solely on the roseate aspects of the situation. The literature of the best of the land companies is deceptive inasmuch as it draws a picture of the results attainable under the most favorable conditions, and not those which the average settler will experience. On the other hand, if the officials of such companies are approached, or even the publicity man himself, a fair and honest statement can usually be obtained.

It is not intended that anything in the foregoing should convey the impression that all, or even a majority, of the land companies in Cuba are untrustworthy. Many of them are fulfilling their obligations to the utmost and several {245} are exceeding them, with a generosity that must meet with deserved reward in time. No matter how reliable the company, however, the prospective settler will do well not to purchase land until after he has seen it and had a chance to compare its situation and other conditions with property offering elsewhere. The man who can not spare the time and money to look round before making his investment has not sufficient means to justify his embarking in the contemplated enterprise. The information to be gained on the spot, although it must be accepted with discrimination, is worth more than a cart-load of literature.

Unless the intending settler has the capital and experience to justify his “going it alone,” he had better attach himself to a colony. This will give him social and economic advantages which he might not be able to secure otherwise. There is a string of colonies from one end of the Island to the other. A leisurely tour through these could not but largely repay an observant man, and would qualify him to make intelligent selection of a location for his own venture. He would gain much useful information regarding crops and methods of cultivation. He would learn from instances of failure {246} what to avoid, and from instances of success would get examples to be followed. Too much stress can not be laid upon the advantage of this plan of “projecking around,” as Uncle Remus calls it, before settling down. Several American farmers, whom the writer has met, attribute their prosperity largely to having proceeded in this manner.

Without assuming the responsibility of giving advice, it may be said that the opinion is quite widespread, and apparently well-grounded, that Oriente will be the seat of the greatest agricultural development in Cuba. There are in this Province a number of flourishing colonies, under the direction of well-capitalized and well-managed companies. Whether or not a settler takes up land in one of these developments, he will be wise to look them over before making a decision as to his ultimate location.

The prices of land in Cuba vary according to the character of the soil, the location, the size of the tract, its situation, and the terms of purchase. Thus, land may be had at from three to one hundred dollars an acre.

There is room for a great deal of deception in selling land to persons at a distance and

some agents and colony promoters take the fullest advantage of this fact. A prospective purchaser should, unless he is dealing with a corporation whose reliability is beyond question, have the titles to the land offered examined by a capable attorney, and should get a certificate from the registrar of property in the district in which the property is situated as to the encumbrances that may exist against it. This precaution should always be taken before making a payment. The cost will be but a few dollars, but the outlay may save a great deal of subsequent worry and trouble. Verbal assurances on these points can only be accepted with hazard. A promise made to remove a cloud upon a title is often avoided after payment has been made. Trouble may be obviated by depositing the required sum in a bank to be paid over to the seller when the purchaser’s lawyer has declared his satisfaction with the transaction. On no account should quit-claim deeds be accepted, nor payments made on lands in Cuba, without the execution of the proper legal documents. At least as much care should be exercised in buying Cuban property as would be considered necessary to a similar transaction at home. {248}

It is extremely hazardous to make deposits and undertake obligations on the strength of a simple paper promising to convey property after the completion of a certain number of instalment payments. There are concerns offering Cuban lands for sale which have defective titles, only an equity interest, or perhaps no more than an option.

Land titles in Cuba are generally good and no money need be lost on account of them if proper care is taken in the preliminaries of purchase. A transfer costs more than it does in the States, but there is absolute security in it when properly executed. No real estate agent whose intentions are honest will object to a full investigation of the title he offers. There are many reputable agents in Habana and other cities, who have spent years in the study of Cuban properties. It will generally be better for the inexperienced purchaser to deal with one of these, and pay him his legitimate commission, than to do business directly with the owner. The real estate agent can often give valuable information and advice. In this matter, as in that of location, the important point is to investigate first and be sure of connecting with a desirable man.

CHAPTER XIV

THE CAPITAL OF CUBA

The full name of the capital of Cuba is San Cristobal de la Habana. In 1634 a royal decree conferred upon the City the sounding title: “ Llave del Nuevo Mundo y Antemural de las Indias Occidentales ,” which signifies: Key of the New World and Bulwark of the West Indies. In emphasis, the coat of arms of the municipality bears a symbolic key and representations of the fortresses of Morro, Punta and Fuerza.

Habana is one of the several towns founded by the governor Diego Velasquez. He placed it upon the south coast, where the town of Batabano now stands. It was shortly removed to its present position and rapidly grew to be the chief centre of the Island and one of the most important places in the New World. The first century of its history was uneventful, save for the attacks of buccaneers, who twice sacked {250} it during that period. To guard against the danger from this source, La Fuerza, the oldest fortification in the City, was erected, near the close of the sixteenth century. Shortly afterwards, Philip the Second of Spain ordered the construction of the Punta and Morro forts, for the protection of the harbor, and at about the same time the official residence of the governor of the Island was transferred from Santiago de Cuba to Habana.

In 1650, the population of Habana was hardly more than three thousand, but in the following two or three decades it doubled, owing to a large immigration of Spaniards from Jamaica. During this period, the City rose to be the commercial centre of the Spanish-American possessions and the principal rendezvous of the royal fleets that carried on the trade monopoly between Spain and America. The walls enclosing the City were commenced in 1671 and finished thirty years later. The City was frequently threatened by English squadrons, and actually captured in 1762. At the close of the Seven Years’ War Habana was restored to Spain in exchange for the Floridas. The short period of the British occupation, during which the port was thrown open, greatly

stimulated the trade of the City and the general commerce of the Island. The modern history of Habana dates from this event.

A map of the City at the beginning of the nineteenth century strikingly illustrates its rapid growth. Then the residences were almost all intramuras , or within the walls. Large estancias and huertas occupied ground which is now intersected by paved streets and covered with substantial buildings. Even in the past decade a marked change has taken place, amounting to complete transformation in certain sections. The improvements have in many instances been at the expense of picturesqueness and have entailed the loss of several historic landmarks. But the gain in sanitation and convenience has been great. Habana, which under Spanish rule had a death rate exceeding thirty to the thousand, now boasts a lower mortality than that of New York.

The first impression made upon the visitor is by the massive character of the architecture. This characteristic is more pronounced than in any other Latin-American city. The building material generally used is a conglomerate of marine material, which hardens on exposure to the air. It is hewn into great blocks and so {252} used in construction. Walls are usually covered with stucco, or plaster, and colored in a variety of tints. Roofs are either flat, or built of the old Spanish red tiles. The effect, which is enhanced by the presence almost everywhere of trees and shrubs, is pleasing in the extreme.

In the city proper the houses are mostly two stories in height. A plain front is the fashion nowadays, but in former times the dwellings of the wealthy presented ornate facades and elaborate balconies. Large windows,—they are doors in appearance,—heavily grated and closed with lattices, give light and air. Large double doorways open upon the central patio . The houses are built close together and on a level with the narrow pavement. The thick walls and the narrow streets tend to mitigate the heat. In former times, when all but the lowest classes went about in carriages, the two-foot sidewalks, which receive the drippings of balconies, met the requirements of the population, but now the inconvenience of walking in Habana is severely felt.

People in Habana live in the public view to an extent that surprises the stranger from the North. Passing along the street one may plainly see the family at meals in the dining {253} room, or resting in the cool of the evening among the plants of the patio . From one flat roof may be witnessed the doings on the neighboring azoteas . From this it might be inferred that the domestic circle of the Habanero may be easily invaded. Such is not, however, the case. He is hospitable, and a genial host, but the stranger is not admitted to his home as readily as is the case with us.

The people of Habana are fond of the outdoor life of the parks and the cafés. In the evening thousands gather about the bandstand in Central Park, or sit at the tables of the hotels and restaurants upon its edge, eating ice cream or drinking harmless liquids. They are a pleasure-loving people, and this characteristic has earned for Habana the name of the “Paris of the West.” There is little about the City, however, to remind one of the capital of France. The theatres are numerous and well patronized. The best travelling companies have always found it profitable to include Habana in their itinerary.

The most interesting portion of Habana is that which formerly lay within the walls. The houses here have for the most part been converted to business purposes, but a few persons {254} still cling to their old homes. The old wall, of which very little remains, followed the line of what is now Montserrat Avenue. The seaward end of it commenced at the Puerta de la Punta and ended at the narrowest part of the harbor, just east of the Arsenal. This refers to the interior section of the wall, which was continued completely round the shore from the points mentioned.

To-day the neighborhood of Central Park is the heart of the City. Formerly, social and official life of the capital revolved about the Plaza de Armas, which is close to the waterfront. The old-time palace of the governors, now the residence of the presidents, is a long, low building, occupying the entire west face of the square. The oldest church of the City was torn down to make room for the palace, which was erected in 1834, during the administration of Tacon.

On the opposite side of the Plaza stands El Templete, a little edifice venerated by all good citizens of Habana. It marks the site of the mass which was celebrated in connection with the founding of the City. The building has the appearance of a chapel and perhaps was at first intended to serve the purpose of one. Its

sole contents are three historical paintings by Escobar. El Templete is opened only on the 16th day of November, which is the anniversary of the City’s birth. On that day all Habana walks solemnly down to the little building and gazes upon the pictures, one of which depicts the event that the temple is designed to commemorate.

“Each and every street south of the Plaza de Armas is interesting, in itself as it is now, and for details of its previous history. Here, at Oficios 94, lived the bishop of the diocese, D. Pedro Agustin Morel de Santa Cruz, who used to take his daily promenade up Obispo, and thereby gave that avenue its name (Bishop Street); it has since been rechristened Pi y Margall, for a Cuban patriot, but nobody heeds the change. On the corner of Mercaderes and Obrapia (Pious Act Street) is the house (its handsome high entrance with coat of arms above it, its stairways, its corridors, its quiet patio, retaining in decay the aristocratic bearing of better days), income from which the owner, D. Martin Calvo de Arrieta, willed, in 1679, to be divided into dowries for five orphan girls yearly; the city is executor and in this capacity still launches five brides per annum {256} so dowered by Don Martin. Lamparilla is the ‘Little Lamp Street’ (in commemoration of a light a devotee of All Souls’ kept burning in the corner of this and Habana in years when there was no public illumination). Here, too, on the corner of Mercaderes and Amagura, is ‘The Corner of the Green Cross.’ The cross is there, and it is green; no painter, furbishing up the house it marks, would venture to give it any other color, though why it should be green nobody knows. It was one of the stations when, before religious processions were prohibited in the streets, good Catholics used to travel the Via Crucis along Amargua (Bitterness) Street from Cristo Plaza at its head to San Francisco Convent at the other end. In the house walls along the way one can distinguish yet where other stations were. Damas is Ladies Street, because of the number of pretty women who at one time made its balconies attractive. Inquisidor was so called because a Commissary of the Inquisition once resided in a house facing upon it, which now the Spanish legation owns and occupies. Refugio (Refuge) got its name because once General Rocafort was caught in a storm and found refuge in the house of a widow named Mendez, {257} who lived there. Here, and in other districts throughout town, not only the streets had names—Empedrado, because it was the first paved; Tejadillo (Little Tile), because a house upon it was the first to have a tiled roof; Blanco (Target), because the artillery school practised there when it was well outside the walled city,—but many corners and crossings had their own particular titles. The corner of Habana and Empedrado was called ‘the Corner of the Little Lamp,’ because in a tobacco shop there shone steadily the only street light of the district. The corner of Compostela and Jesus Maria was ‘Snake Corner,’ because of the picture of a serpent painted on a house wall there. Sol and Aguacate was ‘Sun Corner,’ for a similar reason, and the facade decoration there probably named the whole of Sol (Sun) Street. The block on Amargura between Compostela and Villegas was known as the ‘Square of Pious Women,’ because two very religious ladies lived near, and because, too, of the particular station of the cross located on Amargura at this point.” [3]

Just off the Plaza de Armas is la Fuerza, that quaint fortress constructed by the order {258} of De Soto in 1538. This, which is probably the oldest building of any kind in the City, attracts the greatest amount of attention from visitors. For a long period the fort was the official residence of the governors of the Island, who embellished its interior with handsome furniture, statuary and paintings. As the City grew and more formidable works usurped the protective office which La Fuerza had so capably filled in earlier days, the building was utilized as barracks, storehouse and even jail. The moat was filled in and a high wall raised in its place. During the American occupation the fortress was restored to something like its original form by the replacement of the moat and drawbridge and the restoration of the bastions. At present the building is used as a depository for the national archives.

An excellent view of the harbor may be had from the tower of La Fuerza. The bell in this old tower bears the date 1706. Formerly it sounded the hours throughout the day and night, and was used to give the alarm in time of danger. The guns of the fort have repelled more than one attack, and so highly was the importance of La Fuerza held in the infant period of the colony, that a royal decree

required all war vessels entering the harbor to salute the fortification. La Fuerza failed, however, to stop the French pirate De Sores, who captured and partially destroyed it, before firing and sacking the City.

The Cathedral, a short stone’s throw from La Fuerza, is not the largest, nor the most beautiful, nor even the oldest church in Habana, but it has a special interest for the tourist because the bones of Christopher Columbus reposed there until the Spaniards evacuated Cuba, when they carried the relic with them and deposited it in the Cathedral of Seville.

The Cathedral was erected close to the waterfront, in what was then the centre of the City. Originally a Jesuit convent, the building was remodelled and devoted to its present purpose in 1789.

In an official map of Habana published in 1800, there are thirty-two notations referring to the most important points and buildings of the City. Of these references, seventeen apply to religious institutions. Whilst far from maintaining the same proportion, the ecclesiastical structures are very numerous. The oldest of these is the Convent of San Francisco, which stands upon the waterfront, adjoining the plaza {260} of the same name. The Dominican Convent, near by, is almost as aged; both were completed before the close of the sixteenth century. The latter has for some years past been occupied by business offices and storerooms. These are but a few of the most interesting among at least a score of churches and convents within the limits of the walled portion of the City.

The fortifications of Habana have perhaps been more extensively described than any other buildings of the City. They are not, however, very remarkable, nor, with a few exceptions, are there historic incidents of unusual interest associated with them. La Punta is, of course, the most prominent object on the Malecon and constantly within the view of the guest at the Miramar Hotel. With the exception of the heroic defence against the attack of the British, Morro Castle can not boast of any romantic episode in its history. Atares Castle, at the extreme southern end of the City, was the scene of the confinement and death of Colonel Crittenden and his companions. It has a chamber of horrors, containing an assortment of instruments of torture, from which visitors derive novel entertainment. {261}

The two busiest, and perhaps best known, streets of Habana are O’Reilly and Obispo, running from the sea wall, through the Plaza de Armas, to Central Park, where they meet the Prado at right angles. The two streets in question might be compared to the shopping section of Broadway, and the Prado to Fifth Avenue. This splendid boulevard was shorn of much of its glory by the cyclone which a few years ago wrecked the magnificent laurels that lined its central promenade. The finest residences of Habana are upon the Prado, but boarding houses, and even business establishments, are beginning to invade the street. It is still a fashionable promenade and drive, although it no longer has the exclusive attraction that it once enjoyed.

Habana is famous for its parks, chief of which is the Parque Central. The surrounding blocks are occupied by hotels, clubs, cafés, theatres, and restaurants. When, on a concert night, the lights of these are added to the electric illumination of the park, the scene is a striking one.

The installation of a good electric car system has made suburban life popular, and a large proportion of the population of Habana now {262} enjoy breathing space and elbow room such as the former inhabitants never dreamed of. The newest and most attractive of the residence suburbs is Vedado by the sea. Here are handsome homes facing broad avenues and standing in gardens of beautiful plants and flowers. The greater number of resident Americans live out at Vedado.

The modern streets beyond the old walls are laid out on liberal lines and with regularity. Habana, which used to be one of the most filthy cities on the earth, can now boast with justice of being among the cleanest centres in the Americas. It has a good water supply and is efficiently policed. One of the effects of this improvement has been to attract American tourists in constantly increasing numbers, until Habana has taken a prominent place among our winter resorts. {263}

CHAPTER XV

THE PROVINCES OF CUBA

The extensive railroad system of Cuba makes it possible to reach almost any part of the Island with little trouble. The Provinces of Habana and Matanzas, in particular, are completely covered by the ramifications of the United Railways of Habana. The majority of tourists confine their excursions from Habana to points which may be reached by this line. There are, however, on the Cuba railroad many cities and districts that will well repay a visit, whether the object be merely sightseeing, or a study of the resources and development of the country.

It is a short run from the capital to Hoyo Colorado, the route traversing a rich tobacco district and the centre of the pineapple culture. Ten miles out, the line reaches the Playa of Marianao, Habana’s fashionable bathing resort and the headquarters of the yacht club. Mari {264} anao is to Habana what Waikiki Beach is to Honolulu.

The trip to Guines is beginning to rival in popularity with tourists the excursion to the famous caves of Bellamar. The railroad is one of the oldest in the world, having been opened to traffic in 1837. The picturesque little town occupies a beautiful situation in an extensive valley, almost entirely surrounded by mountains. It is in the centre of a rich sugar district, but the lands in the immediate vicinity are devoted to truck farming, in which a number of Americans are engaged with marked success. Near by is the village of Madruga, famed long ago for the curative quality of its sulphur baths and mineral waters. Centuries ago, solitary invalids performed the tedious journey to the spot and sojourned in the peasants’ huts, whilst undergoing the cure. Nowadays Madruga is much frequented and has comfortable hotels, as well as several well-appointed bathing establishments.

The most recent railroad to be opened in Cuba is the Habana Central, running from the capital to the great Providencia Sugar Mill, situated thirty-five miles to the southwest. This line has the distinction of being operated en {265} tirely by electricity. Thousands of tourists last year visited the plantation and factory at the terminus of the road. As the crop season is from the beginning of December to the first or second week of May it coincides with the tourist season, and thus visitors have an exceptionally good opportunity to see one of the most up-to-date mills of Cuba in full operation, with little trouble and in a few hours’ time.

Batabano, situated on the coast almost directly to the south of Habana, is an unattractive place, but a port of considerable importance. An extensive sponge industry is carried on in the neighboring waters and great numbers of turtles are shipped from here to the United States.

Batabano is the port from which the traveller takes steamer to the Isle of Pines. The value and importance of the Isle of Pines have only been realized in recent years. It was at one time a rendezvous of pirates and Henry Morgan once planned to assemble his men there and make a raid upon Habana by way of Batabano. In the hands of Spain the Isle was turned to account only to the extent of working its marble quarries. After the last war of independence an American colony settled there {266} and has since become numerous and prosperous. The Island is now practically owned by citizens of the United States, who represent a majority of the population. Several land companies have been in operation for the past ten years, and have established many thriving towns and settlements. The soil of the island is adapted to all kinds of farming and the climate has been famous for its salubrity during the past hundred years.

Pinar del Rio is best known for the possession of the finest tobacco lands in the world. Tobacco is, however, by no means the only industry of the Province. Along its north coast are extensive sugar lands and a number of large mills; also numerous plantations owned by Americans and Canadians. The Province is singularly deficient in harbors. The best of the few which it has is Bahia Honda. A coaling station in this bay was ceded to the United States by Cuba, but it has not been used as yet.

The most pronounced physical feature of the Province is the group, rather than range, of mountains called the Organo. Their verdant sides form the background of the view from almost every point. The soil in the valleys {267} between the numerous spurs is exceedingly fertile. These lands were peaceably tilled through all the disturbances previous to the last war, but then Maceo carried the conflict into the far west, and Pinar del Rio will not recover from its effects for many a year to come. On the north and on the south the Organo Mountains slope down to undulating plains. That on the southern side is the more extensive and in it the celebrated Vuelta Abajo tobacco district lies.

For two centuries the Spaniards looked upon the Province of Matanzas as a hotbed of rebellion. The Cubans style it “ El Suelo natal de Independencia ,” meaning the birthplace of independence. Though, after Habana, the smallest of the provinces of Cuba, it is one of the richest sections of the country. In the beginning it was a great cattle grazing region, but long since its fertile plains were extensively planted with sugar-cane. Before the War there were five hundred stock farms in the Province, nearly as many sugar estates, and at least three thousand plantations of various other kinds. During the rebellion all this industrial wealth was practically destroyed. Its rich lands insured a revival, however, and the {268} Province has again taken its place in the forefront of sugar-producing sections of Cuba.

The favorite excursion of visitors to Habana is to the Valley of the Yumuri, which Humboldt characterized as the “loveliest valley in the world.” It has been described by many pens, as have the caverns of Bellamar, with their numerous chambers filled with stalactite and stalagmite crystals.

The City of Matanzas is one of the most attractive in Cuba. It contains several beautiful parks and boulevards and, in the newest portion, some of the finest residences in the Island.

Not far from Matanzas is Cardenas, a centre of about twenty-five thousand inhabitants. It ranks third among the sugar shipping ports of Cuba, handling most of the output of the Province. Cardenas is beautifully situated and enjoys a delightful climate. It is sometimes spoken of as an “American city,” on account of the number of persons of that nationality resident there. Cardenas appears to be justified in its boast that it is the most progressive city in Cuba. No more than seventy years old, it is far in advance of every other city of its size in the matter of public utilities, whilst its

buildings are as handsome and substantial as any to be found outside of Habana. The harbor of Cardenas will be remembered as the scene of the tragedy in which the little torpedo boat “Winslow” and Ensign Bagley figured.

Although sugar-cane is by far the chief product of Santa Clara Province, its tobacco and cattle industries are of considerable importance. There is some ground for the belief that it possesses latent mineral resources of great value. Gold and silver have been found in the Province, and the output of asphalt has reached as much as ten thousand tons in a year.

The City of Santa Clara is situated at a considerable elevation above sea level. It is well laid out, with unusually wide streets, considering the age of the town, which was founded in the seventeenth century. Santa Clara has long been noted for its healthfulness and its exceptionally beautiful women. Although the capital of the Province, its population of somewhat less than seventeen thousand is only about half that of Cienfuegos.

Cienfuegos, on the south coast, has one of the peculiar pouch-like harbors found on several points of the Cuban shore. Centuries ago Las Casas pronounced this harbor to be the most {270} magnificent in the world, an opinion which many naval experts of to-day support. The City, which is comparatively modern, occupies a beautiful site in the lap of a group of hills, backed by rugged mountains. It is one of the most progressive centres of Cuba, with an extensive and constantly growing business.

Trinidad is, after Baracoa, the oldest city of Cuba. It was founded by Velasquez in 1514. It is situated upon the side of a mountain, at an elevation of nearly one thousand feet. Trinidad was at one time a port of considerably more importance than it is at present. The locality seems to possess some peculiar health-giving properties, for the town has long held the reputation of being the most healthful in the Island and is resorted to by sufferers from nervous and pulmonary complaints.

The Province of Camaguey, or Puerto Principe, as it was called under Spanish dominion, is very rich in natural resources, but far less developed than the divisions to the west of it. This, because cattle raising was almost its sole industry until recent years, and because it has only lately enjoyed the advantage of railroad communication. Its area is broken by mountains, between which lie deep valleys and broad

mesas. Extensive forests occupy the former, whilst the latter are covered with nutritious grasses, upon which cattle thrive. Before the War at least half a million steers grazed upon these table-lands, and fifty thousand head a year were shipped to the Habana market. There is every promise of a great revival for this industry. Only a small proportion of the lands of this Province are cultivated, and those are devoted mainly to the production of tobacco and sugar.

The City of Camaguey is a picturesque old place, laid out on a very irregular plan, or rather on no plan at all. Its buildings are quaint and suggestive of their great age, many of them having stood for two or more centuries. The City is the outgrowth of one of the earliest settlements in the Island. Previous to the inception of the railroad era it ranked next to Habana in population, but gradually fell into fifth place, thereafter. In late years it has had a revival, due to the extension eastward of the railway system. The Hotel Camaguey, converted from a barrack into a delightful hostelry of a unique character, has become famous under the management of the railroad. There is probably no other place in Cuba affording {272} such restful conditions and charming surroundings.

In the vicinity are a number of cattle ranches conducted by Americans. The lands adjacent to the railroad are, however, becoming too valuable to be used as grazing grounds. Their soil is extremely rich and they will soon be devoted to the cultivation of fruit, tobacco, and other high-priced crops. There are already several colonies in the Province, including “La Gloria,” one of the oldest and most prosperous American settlements.

The Province of Oriente, formerly called Santiago de Cuba, is the section of Cuba in which the greatest future development is to be looked for. This development will be fortunately along greatly diversified lines. Its mountain regions are extremely rich in minerals and virgin forests of hardwoods. Its elevated valleys contain the best soil and have the most suitable climate for the culture of coffee. On its lower levels fruits of various kinds grow in abundance and of good quality, whilst its coast lands are admirably adapted to the production of sugar-cane. The Valley of Guantanamo contains some of the largest and most prosperous sugar plantations in the

Island. A busy mining district lies to the west, from which a large output of iron ore is produced annually.

The City of Santiago de Cuba, situated among hills at the head of one of the most remarkable harbors in the world, has a population of about fifty thousand. Behind the City lies the great plateau of Oriente, composed of stretches of the richest agricultural land, with here and there a range of hills, or a belt of forest. This section must in time become the seat of an extensive agricultural development.

Manzanillo is situated on the coast and at the edge of a great level plain of extraordinary fertility. Years ago a railroad was started from this point to Bayamo, but after a few miles had been laid, construction was stopped, for some reason which is not easy to surmise. There is the greatest need for such means of communication, and few railroad projects in Cuba could be as promising. The region between Manzanillo and Bayamo contains soil as rich as any to be found in Cuba, and there is no doubt but that the construction of a railroad would be followed by a thorough development of the section through which it would pass. {274}

The Nipe Bay district is the seat of the greatest progress being made to-day in Cuba, a progress typical of the development that has in different parts of the Island followed the introduction of American capital and the application of American business methods. The Bay itself is equalled by few in the world. It is completely sheltered, with a narrow entrance, a depth of fifteen miles, and a width of about ten. The mountains sweep southward at Nipe Bay, and thence far to the west extends a broad plain of fertile land. On the northwest side of the Bay is the model town of Antilla, a creation of the Cuba Railroad, with which it is connected by a branch line. Antilla has a rapidly growing trade and regular steamship connections with the United States and Jamaica. All the country round about is in cultivation. Along the banks of the Mayari River tobacco is grown, and has been for centuries. Its quality is indifferent, but efforts are being made, with every promise of success, to improve it.

The development of this section is due to five great corporations, operating with American money, except for the last named, which is mainly supported by British capital. These

corporations are the United Fruit Company, the Nipe Bay Company, the Spanish-American Iron Company, the Dumois-Nipe Company, and the Cuba Railroad Company.

The United Fruit Company’s property extends for more than twenty miles between Dumois and Banes, its shipping point. The plantation, which was formerly devoted to bananas, is now occupied by sugar-cane to the extent of 25,000 acres. The product is consumed by the Central Boston, one of the largest mills in Cuba. The extent of the Fruit Company’s property here is probably nearly 100,000 acres. Five thousand head of stock and the numerous buildings require a large proportion of it.

The Cuba Railroad’s interest is in the port of Antilla, where it has established a flourishing little town, and built extensive docks and warehouses. These are much in excess of present needs, but the railroad management is confident that this will become the principal shipping point of the eastern end of the Island, a conclusion that seems to be founded on logical grounds.

At Preston, the Nipe Bay Company, a corporation controlled by the United Fruit Com {276} pany, operates a sugar plantation considerably more than one hundred thousand acres in area, and what is claimed to be the most complete and up-to-date mill in existence. This factory is in course of enlargement, so that it will consume five thousand tons of cane daily. The plantation, mill, and village of Preston are more fully described in the chapter on “Cuba’s Sugar Industry.”

The Dumois-Nipe Company owns about fifty thousand acres of land in the vicinity of Saetia. This is devoted to various products. The largest area, about one thousand acres, is planted in sugar-cane, somewhat more than half as much land in bananas, and a considerable acreage in pineapples. Oranges and grape-fruit occupy several hundred acres.

The Spanish-American Iron Company, which controls extensive mining properties at Daiquiri and elsewhere in the Province, has its latest and most extensive operation at Felton in the Nipe Bay district. The ore deposit here is more than twenty miles in length and from ten to sixteen in breadth. In depth the workings average about twenty feet. Steam shovels are employed in taking the material out. In its ultimate form the ore is shipped in small {277} pellets upon the Company’s steamers, which dock in immediate contact with the plant.

Nothing could be surer than the future great development of Oriente, with a continuance of the present trend. American capital is constantly looking for new investments in the Province. Its mineral deposits and its fertile valleys will be exploited by Americans. The American influence is already prominent in every part of it. American methods prevail in all its industries and American money is the universal currency. Oriente will advance by leaps and bounds into the position of the most productive province in Cuba.

APPENDICES

I

COMMERCIAL CONVENTION BETWEEN THE UNITED STATES AND CUBA

Whereas a Convention between the United States of America and the Republic of Cuba to facilitate their commercial intercourse by improving the conditions of trade between the two {282} countries, was concluded and signed by their respective plenipotentiaries at the City of Havana on the eleventh day of December, 1902, the original of which Convention, being in the English and Spanish languages, is, as amended by the Senate of the United States, word for word as follows:

The President of the United States of America and the President of the Republic of Cuba, animated by the desire to strengthen the bonds of friendship between the two countries, and to facilitate their commercial intercourse by improving the conditions of trade between them, have resolved to enter into a convention for that purpose, and have appointed their respective Plenipotentiaries, to wit:—

The President of the United States of America, the Honorable General Tasker H. Bliss;

The President of the Republic of Cuba, the Honorable Carlos de Zaldo y Beurmann, Secretary of State and Justice, and the Honorable José M. Garcia y Montes, Secretary of the Treasury;

who, after an exchange of their full powers found to be in good and due form, have, in consideration of and in compensation for the respective concessions and engagements made by {283} each to the other as hereinafter recited, agreed and do hereby agree upon the following Articles for the regulation and government of their reciprocal trade, namely:—

Article I

During the term of this convention, all articles of merchandise being the product of the soil or industry of the United States which are now imported into the Republic of Cuba free of duty, and all articles of merchandise being the product of the soil or industry of the Republic of Cuba which are now imported into the United States free of duty, shall continue to be so admitted by the respective countries free of duty.

Article II

During the term of this convention, all articles of merchandise not included in the foregoing Article I and being the product of the soil or industry of the Republic of Cuba imported into the United States shall be admitted at a reduction of twenty per centum of the rates of duty thereon as provided by the Tariff Act of the United States approved July 24, 1897, {284} or as may be provided by any tariff law of the United States subsequently enacted.

Article III

During the term of this convention, all articles of merchandise not included in the foregoing Article I and not hereinafter enumerated, being the product of the soil or industry of the United States, imported into the Republic of Cuba shall be admitted at a reduction of twenty per centum of the rates of duty thereon as now provided or as may hereafter be provided in the Customs Tariff of said Republic of Cuba.

Article IV

During the term of this convention, the following articles of merchandise as enumerated and described in the existing Customs Tariff of the Republic of Cuba, being the product of the soil or industry of the United States imported into Cuba shall be admitted at the following respective reductions of the rates of duty thereon as now provided or as may hereafter be provided in the Customs Tariff of the Republic of Cuba: {285} —

Schedule A

Machinery and apparatus of copper or its alloys or machines and apparatus in which copper or its alloys enter as the component of chief value; cast iron, wrought iron and steel, and manufactures thereof; articles of crystal and glass, except window glass; ships and water borne vessels of all kinds, of iron or steel; whiskies and brandies; fish, salted, pickled, smoked or marinated; fish or shell-fish, preserved in oil or otherwise in tins; articles of pottery or earthenware now classified under Paragraphs 21 and 22 of the Customs Tariff of the Republic of Cuba.

Schedule B

Butter; flour of wheat; corn; flour of corn or corn meal; chemical and pharmaceutical products and simple drugs; malt liquors in bottles; non-alcoholic beverages; cider; mineral waters; colors and dyes; window glass; complete or partly made up articles of hemp, {286} flax, pita, jute, henequen, ramie, and other vegetable fibres now classified under the paragraphs of Group 2, Class V, of the Customs Tariff of the Republic of Cuba; musical instruments; writing and printing paper, except for newspapers; cotton and manufactures thereof, except knitted goods (see Schedule C); all articles of cutlery; boots, shoes and slippers, now classified under Paragraphs 197 and 198 of the Customs Tariff of the Republic of Cuba; gold and silver plated ware; drawings, photographs, engravings, lithographs, cromolithographs, oleographs, etc., printed from stone, zinc, aluminium, or other material, used as labels, flaps, bands and wrappers for tobacco or other purposes, and all the other papers (except paper for cigarettes, and excepting maps and charts), pasteboard and manufactures thereof, now classified under Paragraphs 157 to 164 inclusive of the Customs Tariff of the Republic of Cuba; common or ordinary soaps, now classified under Paragraph 105, letters “A” and “B,” of the Customs Tariff of the Republic of Cuba; vegetables, pickled or preserved in any manner; all wines, except those now classified under Paragraph 279 (a) of the Customs Tariff of the Republic of Cuba. {287}

Schedule C

Manufactures of cotton, knitted, and all manufactures of cotton not included in the preceding schedules; cheese; fruits, preserved; paper pulp; perfumery and essences; articles of pottery and earthenware now classified under Paragraph 20 of the Customs Tariff of the Republic of Cuba; porcelain; soaps, other than common, now classified under Paragraph 105 of the Customs Tariff of the Republic of Cuba; umbrellas and parasols; dextrine and glucose; watches; wool and manufactures thereof; silk and manufactures thereof; rice, cattle.

Article V

It is understood and agreed that the laws and regulations adopted, or that may be adopted, by the United States and by the Republic of Cuba, to protect their revenues and prevent fraud in the declarations and proofs that the articles of merchandise to which this convention may apply are the product or manufacture of the United States and the Republic of Cuba, respectively, shall not impose any additional {288} charge or fees therefor on the articles imported, excepting the consular fees established, or which may be established, by either of the two countries for issuing shipping documents, which fees shall not be higher than those charged on the shipments of similar merchandise from any other nation whatsoever.

Article VI

It is agreed that the tobacco, in any form, of the United States or of any of its insular possessions, shall not enjoy the benefit of any concession or rebate of duty when imported into the Republic of Cuba.

Article VII

It is agreed that similar articles of both countries shall receive equal treatment on their importation into the ports of the United States and of the Republic of Cuba, respectively.

Article VIII

The rates of duty herein granted by the United States to the Republic of Cuba are and shall continue during the term of this convention preferential in respect to all like imports from other countries, and, in return for said {289} preferential rates of duty granted to the Republic of Cuba by the United States, it is agreed that the concession herein granted on the part of the said Republic of Cuba to the products of the United States shall likewise be, and shall continue, during the term of this convention, preferential in respect to all like imports from other countries. Provided, That while this convention is in force, no sugar imported from the Republic of Cuba, and being the product of the soil or industry of the Republic of Cuba, shall be admitted into the United States at a reduction of duty greater than twenty per centum of the rates of duty thereon as provided by the tariff act of the United States approved July 24, 1897, and no sugar, the product of any other foreign country, shall be admitted by treaty or convention into the United States, while this convention is in force, at a lower rate of duty than that provided by the tariff act of the United States approved July 24, 1897.

Article IX

In order to maintain the mutual advantages granted in the present convention by the United States to the Republic of Cuba and by {290} the Republic of Cuba to the United States, it is understood and agreed that any tax or charge that may be imposed by the national or local authorities of either of the two countries upon the articles of merchandise embraced in the provisions of this convention, subsequent to importation and prior to their entering into consumption in the respective countries, shall be imposed and collected without discrimination upon like articles whencesoever imported.

Article X

It is hereby understood and agreed that in case of changes in the tariff of either country which deprive the other of the advantage which is represented by the percentages herein agreed upon, on the actual rates of the tariffs now in force, the country so deprived of this protection reserves the right to terminate its obligations under this convention after six months’ notice to the other of its intention to arrest the operations thereof.

And it is further understood and agreed that if, at any time during the term of this convention, after the expiration of the first year, the protection herein granted to the products and {291} manufactures of the United States on the basis of the actual rates of the tariff of the Republic of Cuba now in force, should appear to the government of the said Republic to be excessive in view of a new tariff law that may be adopted by it after this convention becomes operative, then the said Republic of Cuba may reopen negotiations with a view to securing modifications as may appear proper to both contracting parties.

Article XI

The present convention shall be ratified by the appropriate authorities of the respective countries, and the ratifications shall be exchanged at Washington, District of Columbia, United States of America, as soon as may be before the thirty-first day of January, 1903, and the convention shall go into effect on the tenth day after the exchange of ratifications, and shall continue in force for the term of five (5) years from date of going into effect, and from year to year thereafter until the expiration of one year from the day when either of the contracting parties shall give notice to the other of its intention to terminate the same.

This convention shall not take effect until {292} the same shall have been approved by the Congress.

In witness whereof we, the respective Plenipotentiaries, have signed the same in duplicate, in English and Spanish, and have affixed our respective seals, at Havana, Cuba, this eleventh day of December, in the year one thousand nine hundred and two.

And whereas by the terms of the said Convention it is provided that the ratifications thereof should be exchanged at the City of Washington as soon as may be before the thirty-first day of January, 1903, which period was by a Supplementary Convention signed by the respective plenipotentiaries of the two countries on January 26, 1903, extended to the thirty-first day of March, 1903;

And whereas the said Convention of December 11, 1902, as amended by the Senate of the United States, and the said Supplementary Convention of January 26, 1903, have been duly ratified on both parts and the ratifications of the two Governments were exchanged in the {293} City of Washington on the thirty-first day of March, 1903;

And whereas by its resolution of March 19, 1903, the Senate of the United States added at the end of Article XI of the said Convention of December 11, 1902, the following amendment:

“This Convention shall not take effect until the same shall have been approved by the Congress”;

And whereas the Congress gave its approval to the said Convention by an Act approved December 17, 1903, entitled “An Act To carry into effect a convention between the United States and the Republic of Cuba, signed on the eleventh day of December, in the year nineteen hundred and two,” which Act is word for word as follows:

“Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That whenever the President of the United States shall receive satisfactory evidence that the Republic of Cuba has made provision to give full effect to the Articles of the convention between the United States and the Republic of Cuba, signed on the eleventh day of December, in the year nineteen hundred and two, he is hereby author {294} ized to issue his proclamation declaring that he has received such evidence, and thereupon on the tenth day after exchange of ratifications of such convention between the United States and the Republic of Cuba, and so long as the said convention shall remain in force, all articles of merchandise being the product of the soil or industry of the Republic of Cuba, which are now imported into the United States free of duty, shall continue to be so admitted free of duty, and all other articles of merchandise being the product of the soil or industry of the Republic of Cuba imported into the United States shall be admitted at a reduction of twenty per centum of the rates of duty thereon, as provided by the tariff Act of the United States, approved July twenty-fourth, eighteen hundred and ninety-seven, or as may be provided by any tariff law of the United States subsequently enacted. The rates of duty herein granted by the United States to the Republic of Cuba are and shall continue during the term of said convention preferential in respect to all like imports from other countries: Provided , That while said convention is in force no sugar imported from the Republic of Cuba, and being the product of the soil or {295} industry of the Republic of Cuba, shall be admitted into the United States at a reduction of duty greater than twenty per centum of the rates of duty thereon, as provided by the tariff Act of the United States, approved July twenty-fourth, eighteen hundred and ninety-seven, and no sugar the product of any other foreign country shall be admitted by treaty or convention into the United States while this convention is in force at a lower rate of duty than that provided by the tariff Act of the United States approved July twenty-fourth, eighteen hundred and ninety-seven: And provided further , That nothing herein contained shall be held or construed as an admission on the part of the House of Representatives that customs duties can be charged otherwise than by an Act of Congress, originating in said House.

“ Sec. 2. That so long as said convention shall remain in force, the laws and regulations adopted, or that may be adopted by the United States to protect the revenues and prevent fraud in the declarations and proofs, that the articles of merchandise to which said convention may apply are the product or manufacture of the Republic of Cuba, shall not impose any {296} additional charge or fees therefor on the articles imported, excepting the consular fees established, or which may be established, by the United States for issuing shipping documents, which fees shall not be higher than those charged on the shipments of similar merchandise from any other nation whatsoever; that articles of the Republic of Cuba shall receive, on their importation into the ports of the United States, treatment equal to that which similar articles of the United States shall receive on their importation into the ports of the Republic of Cuba; that any tax or charge that may be imposed by the national or local authorities of the United States upon the articles of merchandise of the Republic of Cuba, embraced in the provisions of said convention, subsequent to importation and prior to their entering into consumption into the United States, shall be imposed and collected without discrimination upon like articles whencesoever imported.”

And whereas satisfactory evidence has been received by the President of the United States that the Republic of Cuba has made provision to give full effect to the articles of the said convention; {297} Now, therefore, be it known that I, Theodore Roosevelt, President of the United States of America, in conformity with the said Act of Congress, do hereby declare and proclaim the said Convention, as amended by the Senate of the United States, to be in effect on the tenth day from the date of this my proclamation.

Wherefore I have caused the said Convention, as amended by the Senate of the United States, to be made public to the end that the same and every clause thereof, as amended, may be observed and fulfilled with good faith by the United States and the citizens thereof.

In testimony whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the Seal of the United States of America to be affixed.

Done at the City of Washington, this 17th day of December in the year of our Lord one thousand nine hundred and three and of the Independence of the United States the one hundred and twenty-eighth.

The Secretary of State is officially advised by a note from the Minister of Cuba at Washington, dated December 18, 1903, that by proclamation of the President of Cuba on December 17, 1903, the reciprocal commercial convention between the United States and Cuba, signed December 11, 1902, is to go into effect in Cuba on the same day as in the United States.

II

TREATY BETWEEN THE UNITED STATES AND CUBA

Embodying the provisions defining the future relations of the United States with Cuba contained in the Act of Congress, approved March 2, 1901, making appropriations for the Army.

Whereas a Treaty between the United States of America and the Republic of Cuba embody {300} ing the provisions defining the future relations of the United States with Cuba contained in the Act of Congress approved March 2, 1901, was concluded and signed by their respective Plenipotentiaries at Habana on the twenty-second day of May, one thousand nine hundred and four, the original of which Treaty, being in the English and Spanish languages is word for word as follows:

Whereas the Congress of the United States of America, by an Act approved March 2, 1901, provided as follows:

Provided further , That in fulfillment of the declaration contained in the joint resolution approved April twentieth, eighteen hundred and ninety-eight, entitled, “For the recognition of the independence of the people of Cuba, demanding that the Government of Spain relinquish its authority and government in the island of Cuba, and to withdraw its land and naval forces from Cuba and Cuban waters, and directing the President of the United States to use the land and naval forces of the United States to carry these resolutions into effect,” the President is hereby authorized to “leave the government and control of the island of Cuba to its people” so soon as a {301} government shall have been established in said island under a constitution which, either as a part thereof or in an ordinance appended thereto, shall define the future relations of the United States with Cuba, substantially as follows:

“I. That the government of Cuba shall never enter into any treaty or other compact with any foreign power or powers which will impair or tend to impair the independence of Cuba, nor in any manner authorize or permit any foreign power or powers to obtain by colonization or for military or naval purposes or otherwise, lodgment in or control over any portion of said island.”

“II. That said government shall not assume or contract any public debt, to pay the interest upon which, and to make reasonable sinking fund provision for the ultimate discharge of which, the ordinary revenues of the island, after defraying the current expenses of government shall be inadequate.”

“III. That the government of Cuba consents that the United States may exercise the right to intervene for the preservation of Cuban independence, the maintenance of a government adequate for the protection of life, {302} property, and individual liberty, and for discharging the obligations with respect to Cuba imposed by the treaty of Paris on the United States, now to be assumed and undertaken by the government of Cuba.”

“IV. That all Acts of the United States in Cuba during its military occupancy thereof are ratified and validated, and all lawful rights acquired thereunder shall be maintained and protected.”

“V. That the government of Cuba will execute, and as far as necessary extend, the plans already devised or other plans to be mutually agreed upon, for the sanitation of the cities of the island, to the end that a recurrence of epidemic and infectious diseases may be prevented thereby assuring protection to the people and commerce of Cuba, as well as to the commerce of the southern ports of the United States and the people residing therein.”

“VI. That the Isle of Pines shall be omitted from the proposed constitutional boundaries of Cuba, the title thereto being left to future adjustment by treaty.”

“VII. That to enable the United States to maintain the independence of Cuba, and to pro {303} tect the people thereof, as well as for its own defense, the government of Cuba will sell or lease to the United States lands necessary for coaling or naval stations at certain specified points to be agreed upon with the President of the United States.”

“VIII. That by way of further assurance the government of Cuba will embody the foregoing provisions in a permanent treaty with the United States.”

Whereas the Constitutional Convention of Cuba, on June twelfth, 1901, adopted a Resolution adding to the Constitution of the Republic of Cuba which was adopted on the twenty-first of February, 1901, an appendix in the words and letters of the eight enumerated articles of the above cited act of the Congress of the United States;

And whereas, by the establishment of the independent and sovereign government of the Republic of Cuba, under the constitution promulgated on the 20th of May, 1902, which embraced the foregoing conditions, and by the withdrawal of the Government of the United States as an intervening power, on the same date, it becomes necessary to embody the above cited provisions in a permanent treaty between {304} the United States of America and the Republic of Cuba;

The United States of America and the Republic of Cuba, being desirous to carry out the foregoing conditions, have for that purpose appointed as their plenipotentiaries to conclude a treaty to that end,

The President of the United States of America, Herbert G. Squiers, Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary at Havana,

And the President of the Republic of Cuba, Carlos de Zaldo y Beurmann, Secretary of State and Justice,—who after communicating to each other their full powers found in good and due form, have agreed upon the following articles:

Article I

The Government of Cuba shall never enter into any treaty or other compact with any foreign power or powers which will impair or tend to impair the independence of Cuba, nor in any manner authorize or permit any foreign power or powers to obtain by colonization or for military or naval purposes, or otherwise, lodgment in or control over any portion of said island. {305}

Article II

The Government of Cuba shall not assume or contract any public debt to pay the interest upon which, and to make reasonable sinking-fund provision for the ultimate discharge of which, the ordinary revenues of the Island of Cuba, after defraying the current expenses of the Government, shall be inadequate.

Article III

The Government of Cuba consents that the United States may exercise the right to intervene for the preservation of Cuban independence, the maintenance of a government adequate for the protection of life, property, and individual liberty, and for discharging the obligations with respect to Cuba imposed by the Treaty of Paris on the United States, now to be assumed and undertaken by the Government of Cuba.

Article IV

All acts of the United States in Cuba during its military occupancy thereof are ratified and validated, and all lawful rights acquired thereunder shall be maintained and protected. {306}

Article V

The Government of Cuba will execute, and, as far as necessary, extend the plans already devised, or other plans to be mutually agreed upon, for the sanitation of the cities of the island, to the end that a recurrence of epidemic and infectious diseases may be prevented, thereby assuring protection to the people and commerce of Cuba, as well as to the commerce of the Southern ports of the United States and the people residing therein.

Article VI

The Island of Pines shall be omitted from the boundaries of Cuba specified in the Constitution, the title thereto being left to future adjustment by treaty.

Article VII

To enable the United States to maintain the independence of Cuba, and to protect the people thereof, as well as for its own defense, the Government of Cuba will sell or lease to the United States lands necessary for coaling or naval stations, at certain specified points, to {307} be agreed upon with the President of the United States.

Article VIII

The present Convention shall be ratified by each party in conformity with the respective Constitutions of the two countries, and the ratifications shall be exchanged in the City of Washington within eight months from this date.

In witness whereof, we the respective Plenipotentiaries, have signed the same in duplicate, in English and Spanish, and have affixed our respective seals at Havana, Cuba, this twenty-second day of May, in the year nineteen hundred and three.

And whereas the said Treaty has been duly ratified on both parts, and the ratifications of the two governments were exchanged in the City of Washington, on the first day of July, one thousand nine hundred and four;

Now, therefore, be it known that I, Theodore Roosevelt, President of the United States of America, have caused the said Treaty to be {308} made public, to the end that the same and every article and clause thereof may be observed and fulfilled with good faith by the United States and the citizens thereof.

In testimony whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United States of America to be affixed.

Done at the City of Washington, this second day of July, in the year of our Lord one thousand nine hundred and four, and of the Independence of the United States of America the one hundred and twenty-eighth.

III

FINANCIAL AND COMMERCIAL STATISTICS OF CUBA

The total government revenues for the year 1910 amounted to $41,614,694.10, and the expenditures to $40,593,392.21. These figures show a surplus of $1,021,301.89.

According to the message of the President, Sr. Don José Miguel Gomez, presented to the National Congress on April 3, 1911, the public debt of Cuba amounted to $62,083,100, as follows:—

The total foreign commerce of Cuba for the year 1910, according to the Bulletin of the Chamber of Commerce, Industry, and Navigation of Habana, amounted to $254,584,601. The imports were $103,675,581, and the exports $150,909,020. In 1909 the imports were $91,447,581, and the exports $124,711,069. There was therefore an increase for the year 1910, as compared with the preceding year, of $12,228,000 in imports and $26,197,951 in exports, or a total increase of $38,425,951. The imports and exports of specie, which are not included in above totals, were for the year 1910: imports, $4,283,617; and exports, $361,538.

The following table gives the imports, by articles or classes of articles, for the years 1908, 1909, 1910:—

The following table shows the value of the principal articles exported from Cuba during the last three years:—

IV

RAILWAYS

At the end of 1910 the extent of railways in the Republic was 3,416 kilometers (2,123 miles). This makes Cuba, in proportion to its size, one of the best served countries in America in respect to railroad transportation.

Cuba was one of the very first countries to build a railway, for there was a line put into operation in 1837, twelve years in advance of Spain, the mother country. There are four great systems, which have stretched their lines almost from one extremity of the Island to the other. Through trains run daily between Habana and Santiago, but over tracks belonging to three different systems, and many branch lines from this main trunk connect the principal ports on both the north and south coasts with the interior.

The four systems in Cuba are: The United Railways of Habana, the Cuba Railway, the Cuban Central Railway, and the Western Railway of Habana. The first and last named have terminal stations in Habana.

The United Railways of Habana offer the {315} first section of this through route, which extends as far as Santa Clara. It has also branch lines north and south, one of which runs to Batabano, where it connects with regular steamship service to the Isle of Pines. Other ports reached by this system are Matanzas and Cardenas on the north, and the road is extended to within a few miles of Encarnacion, on the Bay of Cienfuegos.

The Cuba Railroad is the eastern system of the Habana-Santiago route running between the last named point and Santa Clara. It serves an immense and relatively new territory in the Island, among the principal ports being Antilla, on Nipe Bay, which is becoming the centre for American activity of all kinds.

The Cuban Central Railroad runs from the ports of Concha and Caibarien on the north coast, and connects these two ports with Cienfuegos on the south coast. A portion of this system is used to form part of the through line from Habana to Santiago.

The main line of the Western Railway of Habana serves the famous tobacco district of Vuelta Abajo and extends through the Province of Pinar del Rio.

The Habana Central is an electric suburban {316} line extending from Habana to Guines and Guanajay, each about thirty miles from the capital.

All the railroads of the Republic are owned and operated by private companies, but the first railway above mentioned was originally projected by the Government. Although all the lines try to establish direct connections with Habana, the capital, yet that is not the centre of railway activity, because the tendency is becoming more pronounced to connect the main trunk line and distributing areas of the interior of the Island with the nearest seaport. In this way the increasing production of Cuba can reach the consuming markets in the quickest possible manner, and passengers as well as importations can be brought with the least inconvenience from foreign shores.

There was much active construction work on the railroads during the past year, and a number of new concessions were granted. The branch lines of the Cuba Railroad from Marti to Bayamo and Manzanillo, and from San Luis to Bayamo, a total of one hundred and thirty-six miles, were opened to traffic, thus putting the port of Manzanillo into railroad communication with the rest of the Island and opening {317} up a large section of the country in the extreme southwestern part. By the decree signed by the President in August, 1910, Casilda, on the south coast, and Trinidad, further inland, will also be placed in touch with the other cities in Cuba, as a new corporation is to take over the old Trinidad Railway and improve it, making a connection at Placetas del Sur with the main line of the Cuba Railroad. Decrees were also signed for the construction of lines from Sagua la Grande to Coralillo, by way of Rancho Veloz, and from Cifuentes to La Esperanza via San Diego del Valle.

Preliminary steps were taken during the year, and the plans have since been approved, for the construction of a great railway station in the City of Habana to cost about $3,000,000. This is to be built at the upper end of the bay, and three new wharves, to cost $1,000,000, will be constructed. The building, which is to be constructed of American terra cotta, will be two hundred and forty feet long. The main waiting-room will be seventy-two by one hundred and twenty-eight feet and will be finished in Italian marble with mosaic floor. When completed, it will be one of the finest structures in the Republic. {318}

Electricity is used as the motive power for the street railways in Habana, Santiago, and Camaguey, and an electric line is under construction in the City of Cienfuegos. The Habana Central lines and a section of the United Railways are also operated by the same power. The Cienfuegos, Palmira and Cruces Railway and Power Co. has commenced work on an electric railroad and power enterprise which is to connect a number of the cities in the Province of Santa Clara and furnish power for electric light and other purposes, using the water power of a number of mountain streams. It is building the street railway in Cienfuegos, and will construct about three hundred and fifty miles of railroad altogether. {319}

V

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Note. The following references are confined to publications printed since 1905. The student of Cuban history will find several books of earlier date valuable and interesting.

Baedeker, Karl , firm, publishers, Leipzig . The United States, with excursions to Mexico, Cuba, Porto Rico, and Alaska.

4th rev. ed.

New York: C. Scribner’s Sons, 1909. 724 pp.

Berchon, Charles : A travers Cuba, récit de voyage descriptive et économique.

Sceaux: Imprimerie Charaire, 1910. 203 pp.

Collazo, Enrique : Los americanos en Cuba.

Habana: Impr. C. Martinez y comp., 1905. 2 v.

Philbrick, Francis S. : Cuba. (In Encyclopædia Britannica, 11th ed., v. 7. New York, 1910. pp. 594-606.)

Weyler , General : Mi mando en Cuba (10 Febrero de 1896 a 31 de Octubre de 1897). Tomo 1.

Madrid: Felipe Gonzalez Rojas, 1910.

Weyler, James H. : Free Trade with Cuba.

Wood, Leonard : Cuba. (In Browne, G. Waldo, ed. The New America and the Far East, v. 6. Boston, 1907. pp. 1217-1253.)

Wright, Irene A. : Cuba.

New York: The Macmillan Co., 1910. 512 pp.

Guide to the Material for American History in Cuban Archives (Publication No. 83, Papers of the Dept. of Historical Research [The Administration of Cuba, pp. 32-33]).

Washington: Carnegie Institute, 1907. 142 pp.

The Organic Municipal Law of Cuba May 29, 1908.

Havana: Rambla and Bouza, printers. 1908. 130 pp.

Customs Tariff of the Republic of Cuba. (From the monthly summary of commerce and finance for May, 1905.)

Washington: Government Printing Office, 1905. 3995-4020 pp.

Oficina del censo. Censo de la Republica de Cuba bajo la administracion provisional de los Estados Unidos, 1907. {320}

Washington: Oficina del censo de los Estados Unidos, 1908. 707 pp.

Cuba: Population, History and Resources, 1907.

Washington: United States Bureau of Census, 1909. 275 pp.

Provisional Governor , 1906-1909 ( C. E. Magoon ): Report of Provisional Administration from Oct. 13, 1906, to Dec. 1, 1908.

Havana: Rambla and Bouza, 1908-09. 2 v.

Government of Cuba. Supplemental report, with accompanying papers, for the period from Dec. 1, 1908, to Jan. 28, 1909.

Washington: Government Printing Office, 1909. 32 pp. (U. S. 61st Cong. 1st sess. Senate. Doc. 80.)

Cuba: Secretaria de agricultura, industria y comercio . Boletin oficial.

Habana, 1906-date. Monthly.

Secretaria de hacienda. Estadistica general. Comercio exterior. Habana, 1902-1907. 6 v.

International Bureau of American Republics, Washington, D.C. Cuba. General descriptive data.

Washington Government Printing Office, 1909. 16 pp.

International Bureau of the American Republics, Washington, D.C. Municipal organizations in Latin America. Havana, Cuba. (Reprint from the Monthly Bulletin of the International Bureau of American Republics, April, 1909.)

Ortiz, Fernando : Hampa afro-cubana. Los negros brujos (apuntes para un estudio de etnologia criminal).

Madrid: Libraria de F. Fe, 1906. 432 pp.

Quesado, Gonzalo de : Cuba.

Washington: Government Printing Office, 1905. 541 pp. “Books Relating to Cuba.” 315-512 pp.

Los derechos de Cuba, a la Isla de Pinos.

Habana: Impr. de Rambla y Bouza, 1909. 31 pp.

Rogalla von Bieberstein : Die Intervention der Vereinigten Staaten auf Kuba. (In Historische politische Blaetter , v. 139, 1907, pp. 614-627.) This vol. not in L. C.

United States Army. Army of Cuban Pacification. Annual Report.

Havana, 1907-1909.

Bureau of Insular Affairs. Acts of Congress, treaties, proclamations, decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States, and opinions of the attorney-general relating to noncontiguous territory, Cuba and Santa Domingo and to {321} military affairs. 59th Congress—March 4, 1905, to March 3, 1907. Supreme Court cases—Jan. 1, 1907, to June 1, 1909. Opinions of attorney-general—Jan. 1, 1898, to June 17, 1908.

Washington: Government Printing Office, 1909. 442 pp.

Bureau of Statistics ( Department of Commerce and Labor ). Commercial Cuba in 1905. (From the monthly summary of commerce and finance for May, 1905.)

Washington: Government Printing Office, 1905. 3899-4095 pp.

Congress. Senate. Committee on Foreign Relations. Adjustment of title to Isle of Pines. Report (to accompany Executive J, 58th Cong. 2d sess.).

Washington: Government Printing Office, 1906. 277 pp. (59th Cong. 1st sess. Senate. Doc. 205.)

Department of Commerce and Labor. Report on Trade Conditions in Cuba.

Washington: Government Printing Office, 1909. 45 pp. (Issued in 1906 as Senate Doc. 439, 59th Cong. 1st sess., and also in a “Bureau Edition.”)

United States. General Staff. Second section. Road Notes, Cuba. 1909.

Washington: Government Printing Office, 1909. 610 pp. (Its publication No. 16.)

Wilson, James H. : Free Trade with Cuba.

Washington: Government Printing Office, 1909. 19 pp. (U. S. 61st Cong. 1st sess. Senate. Doc. 17.)

1906. Robinson, Albert G. : The Causes of Unrest in Cuba and Porto Rico. Independent , March 15, 1906, v. 60: 612-615.

Aldama, M. Carillo : The Cuban Government’s Side. Independent , Sept. 20, 1906, v. 61: 663.

1906. Hale, Henry : The Cuban Sugar Situation. Moody’s Magazine , Sept., 1906, v. 2: 380-386.

1906. Puente, Faustino G. : Causes of the Cuban Insurrection. North American Review , Sept. 21, 1906, v. 183: 538-540.

1906. Herrick, E. P. : Cuban Marriage Customs. Southern Workman , Sept., 1906, v. 147: 292-297.

1906. Foster, John W. : The Annexation of Cuba. Independent , Oct. 25, 1906, v. 61: 965-968.

Howland, Harold J. : Saving a People from Themselves: Im {322} pressions of Cuba under American Intervention. Outlook , Oct. 27, 1906, v. 84: 455-464.

1906. Dennison, Edgar W. : Transportation in Cuba. World To-day , Oct., 1906, v. 11: 1071-1076.

1906. Inglis, William : The Future in Cuba. North American Review , Nov. 16, 1906, v. 183: 1037-1040.

1906. Willey, Day Allen : Sugar Making in Cuba. Scientific American , Nov. 3, 1906, v. 95: 321-322.

1906. Earle, F. S. : Agricultural Cuba. World To-day , Nov., 1906, v. 11: 1175-1184.

1906. Shepardson, Francis W. : American Guardianship of Cuba. 2. Rockwood, John G. : Rescuing Cuba from the Cubans. World To-day , Nov., 1906, v. 11: 1197-1203.

1906. Adams, Frederick U. : Cuba, its Condition and Outlook. World’s Work , Nov., 1906, v. 13: 8237-8242.

1906. Adams, Frederick U. : Cuba, its Condition and Outlook. World’s Work and Play , Nov., 1906, v. 8: 531-543.

1906. Fernow, B. E. , and Norman Taylor : The High Sierra Maestra (of Cuba). Forestry Quarterly , Dec., 1906, v. 4: 239-273.

1907. Cespedes, José M. : Problemas de la politica cubana. Nuestro Tiempo , Jan., 1907, v. 7: 139-144.

1907. Bellet, Daniel : Les Richesses forestières de Cuba. Société de géographie commerciale de Paris , April, 1907, v. 29: 229-238.

1907. Conant, Charles A. : Our Duty in Cuba. North American Review , May 17, 1907, v. 185: 141-146.

1907. Buchanan, Lloyd : The Sure Eventual Fate of Cuba. Lippincott’s Monthly Magazine , June, 1907, v. 79: 813-815.

1907. Ledeganck, H. F. : Bilder aus Cuba. Deutsche Monatsschrift , Sept., 1907, v. 12: 762-771.

1907. Bullard, R. L. : How Cubans Differ from Us. North American Review , Nov., 1907, v. 186: 416-421.

1908. Forbes-Lindsay, C. H. : Our Colonial Empire: Cuba: The Land of Promise. World To-day , Feb., 1908, v. 14: 141-150.

1908. Iron Mining in Cuba. Iron Age , April 9, 1908, v. 81: 1149-1157.

1908. Figueras, Francisco : Patriot’s Appeal for his Country. Journal of American History , July-Sept., 1908, v. 2: 409-440.

1908. Atkins, Edwin F. : Tariff Relations with Cuba. Ameri {323} can Academy of Political and Social Science. Annals , Sept., 1908, v. 32: 57-65.

1909. Gannett, H. : Conditions in Cuba as Revealed by the Census. National Geographic Magazine , Feb., 1909, v. 20: 200-202.

Du Pay, William A. : Road Building by the United States in Cuba. Scientific American , Feb. 13, 1909, v. 100: 136-138.

1909. Johnston, H. : Scenery of Cuba. Geographical Journal , June, 1909, v. 33: 629-668.

1909. Austin, H. A. : Cuba’s Future. North American Review , June, 1909, v. 189: 857-863.

1909. Barrett, John : Cuba, Hayti, and the Dominican Republic. Independent , Aug. 26, 1909, v. 67: 464-470.

1909. Dennison, Edgar W. : Cuban Development. International Bureau of American Republics. Bulletin , Aug., 1909, v. 29: 365-371.

1909. Johnston , Sir Harry : The Scenery of Cuba, Hayti, and Dominican Republic. International Bureau of American Republics. Bulletin , Sept., 1909, v. 29: 582-599.

1909. Johnston , Sir Harry : An Englishman’s Impression of American Rule in Cuba. McClure’s Magazine , Sept., 1909, v. 33: 496-504.

1909. Quesada, G. de : Cuba’s Claim to the Isle of Pines. North American Review , Nov., 1909, v. 190: 594-604.

1910. Welliver, Judson C. : The Annexation of Cuba by the Sugar Trust. Hampton’s Magazine , March, 1910, v. 24: 375-388.

1910. Bullard, R. L. : Education in Cuba. Educational Review , April, 1910, v. 39: 378-384.

1910. Wright, I. A. : Citrus Fruit Culture in Cuba. International Bureau of American Republics. Bulletin , June, 1910, v. 30: 961-975.

1910. Cuba. International Bureau of American Republics. Bulletin , July, 1910, v. 31: 135-151.

1910. Brooks, Sydney : Cuba. Fortnightly Review , Nov., 1910, v. 94: 798-806. Reprinted in Living Age , Dec. 10, 1910, v. 267: 653-661. {325} {324}

INDEX

Aborigines, 24-27 .
Adams, President John Quincy, 58 .
Agricultural industries, 216-248 ;
native method of cultivation, 218-219 ;
neglected opportunities, 220 et seq. ;
fruit culture, 224-229 ;
coffee, 229 , 230 ;
future farming, 231 et seq. ;
stock, 236-238 ;
corn, 238-240 ;
American farmers, 241-242 ;
hints to settlers, 241 , 248 .
Americans in Cuba, 118 , 119 , 241 , 242 .
Annexation, 156-165 .
Antilla, 274 , 275 , 315 .
Arrieta, D. Martin Calvo de, 255-256 .
Atkins, E. F., 181-183 .

Bacon, Assistant Secretary, 79 .
Bagley, Ensign, 269 .
Bahia de Cochinos, 4 .
Bahia Honda, 3 , 10 , 54 , 266 .
Banes, 275 .
Baracoa, 6 , 10 , 11 , 27 , 28 , 270 .
Batabano, 3 , 10 , 29 , 249 , 265 , 315 .
Bayamo, 28 , 66 , 273 , 316 .
Bellamar, Caves of, 83 , 264 , 268 .
Bituminous deposits, 213-215 .
Blaine, James G., 57 .
Blanco, General, 74 .
Bliss, General Tasker H., 282 .
Bock, Gustavo, 193-194 , 198 .
Bucarely, Don Antonio, 34 .

Caibarien, 315 .
Camaguey, 7 , 271-272 , 318 ;
Hotel, 240 , 271-272 .
Camaguey, Province of, 3 , 4 , 6 , 7 , 11 , 55 , 82-83 , 189 , 200 , 211 , 270-272 .
Camaroncids Mine, 201 .
Camp Columbia, 19 .
Campos, Martinez, 65-71 , 73 , 74 .
Canovas, 71 .
Cape Cruz, 3 , 5 .
Cape Maisi, 2 , 5 .
Cape San Antonio, 2 , 3 .
Cardenas, 3 , 10 , 11 , 54 , 268-269 , 315 .
Casilda, 317 .
Cauto River, 4 , 6 , 8 .
Central Boston, 275 .
Central Preston, 172-174 , 177 , 276 .
Cerro, The, 43 .
Cervera, Admiral, 75 .
Chinamen, 114-118 .
Cienfuegos, 3 , 7 , 10 , 99 , 269-270 , 318 .
Cienfuegos, Bay of, 315 .
{326} Cifuentes, 317 .
Clark, Dr. V. S., 126 .
Cleveland, President, 60 .
Climate, 13-15 .
Colorado River, 7 .
Columbus, Christopher, 23 , 24 , 168 , 200 , 259 .
Concha, 315 .
Commerce, 34 , 46-50 , 310-313 .
Commercial Code, 18 , 19 .
Commercial Convention between United States and Cuba, 281-298 .
Conditions of to-day, 120 et seq.
Copper, 210-212 .
Coralillo, 317 .
Cordillera de los Organos. See Organ Mountains.
Crittenden, Colonel, 54-55 , 260 .
Cuban laborer, various opinions of the, 126-146 .
Cubans, 80-101 ;
whites of the cities, 83-90 ;
Cuban women, 91-96 ;
peasantry, 96-101 ;
negroes, 102-109 .
Cuchillas Mountains, 6 .
Cuevitas, 7 .

Daiquiri, 204-206 , 276 .
Day, William R., 60 .
Dewey, Admiral, 75 .
Dumois, 275 .

El Cobre, 28 , 210-211 .
El Morilla, 55 .
Encarnacion, 315 .
Espeletas, The, 36 .
Estavan, 105 .
Exports and imports, 310-313 .

Fauna, 12 , 13 .
Felton, 202 , 276 .
Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain, 23 .
Ferdinand VII, 38 .
Finances, 57 and Appendix .
Flora, 12 .
Fruit Culture, 224-229 .

Garcia, 58 , 73 .
Garcia y Montes, José M., 282 .
Gibara, 10 .
Gold, 212 , 213 .
Golfo de Buena Esperanza, 2 .
Golfo de la Broa, 2 , 4 .
Gomez, Jose Miguel, 82 , 147 , 309 .
Gomez, Maximo, 58 , 65 , 67-70 , 73 .
Government, 17 , 18 .
Grant, President, 59 .
Guajiro, 97-101 .
Guanabacoa, 29 .
Guanajay, 316 .
Guantanamo, 5 .
Guantanamo Bay, 5 , 6 , 10 .
Guantanamo, Valley of, 272-273 .
Guines, 264 , 316 .

Habana, 9 , 10 , 11 , 14 , 15 , 16 , 20 , 28 , 36 , 37 , 40 , 43 , 46 , 47 , 55 , 68-69 , 70 , 73 , 74 , 79 , 83 , 87 , 88 , 108-109 , 113 , 116 , 119 , 135 , 143 , 147 , 155 , 159 , 188 , 189-190 , 248 , 249-262 , 263 , 264 , 265 , 268 , 269 , 271 , 281 , 282 , 314 , 315 , 316 , 317 , 318 ;
Arsenal, 254 ;
Atares Castle, 55 , 260 ;
Cathedral, 259 ;
Central Park, 253 , 254 , 261 ;
Convent of San Francisco, 259 ;
Dominican Convent, 260 ;
El Templete, 254-255 ;
La Fuerza, 249 , 250 , 257-259 ;
La Punta, 249 , 250 , 260 ;
Malecon, 260 ;
Miramar Hotel, 260 ;
Morro Castle, 249 , 250 , 260 ;
New Railway Station, 317 ;
{327} Plaza de Armas, 254-255 , 257-261 ;
Puerta de la Punta, 254 ;
Streets and Avenues, 254-257 , 261-262 .
Habana, Province of, 5 , 7 , 11 , 69 , 187 , 188 , 200 , 263 , 267 .
Hay, John, 287 .
Hayes, Dr. C. W., 8-10 .
History, 22-62 ;
discovery of the Island, 22-26 ;
extermination of aborigines, 24-27 ;
Conquistadores, 27 , 28 ;
early settlements, 27 , 28 ;
introduction of slavery, 30 ;
colonial laws, 32 , 33 ;
beginnings of prosperity, 34-37 ;
education, 35-36 ;
good government, 34-36 , 40-42 ;
revolutionary beginnings, 37-39 ;
Spanish immigration, 41-42 ;
land tenure, 43-45 ;
commercial conditions, 34 , 46-50 ;
taxation, 50-52 ;
growth of revolutionary spirit, 52-56 ;
Lopez conspiracy, 54 , 55 ;
Treaty of Zanjon, 55 , 56 ;
War of Independence, 57-76 ;
interest of United States in Cuban affairs, 58-62 , 64 , 65 , 75 , 76 ;
occupation of the Island by the United States, 76-82 ;
Palma administration, 78-80 .
Holguin, 27 , 212 .
Hoyo Colorado, 263 .
Humboldt, 268 .

Iron ore, 201-204 , 215 .
Isle of Pines, 2 , 3 , 265-266 , 302 , 315 .

Judiciary, 18 .

Karutz, Dr. Paul, 240 .

Labor in Cuba, 125-146 .
La Esperanza, 317 .
La Gloria, 272 .
Las Casas, 26 , 34-36 , 269 .
Las Doce Leguas Islands, 3 .
Las Minas, 211 .
Las Pozas, 55 .
La Torre, Marques de, 34 .
Liebeg, 219 .
Lopez, Narcisco, 54-55 .
Lujan, Gabriel de, 28 .

Maceo, Antonio, 58 , 64 , 65 , 67 , 69-70 , 73 , 105 , 267 .
Madruga, 264 .
Magoon, Charles E., 82 , 156 .
Maine , The, 61 , 70 .
Manganese, 207-210 .
Manila Bay, Battle of, 75 .
Manzanillo, 10 , 207 , 273 , 316 .
Marianao, 263-264 .
Marti, 316 .
Marti, Jose, 65 .
Matanzas, 10 , 29 , 268 , 315 .
Matanzas, Province of, 5 , 11 , 69 , 170 , 189 , 200 , 211 , 262 , 267-269 .
Mayari, 201 .
Mayari River, 274 .
McKinley, President, 61-62 , 75 .
Mechanical industries, 123 , 124 .
Military, 19 , 20 .
Minerals, 11 , 12 , 200-215 .
Morgan, Henry, 265 .

Napoleon I, 37 .
Negroes, 30-32 , 102-109 .
Nipe Bay, 10 , 172 , 201 , 202 , 274-277 , 315 .
Nuevitas, 3 , 10 .

O’Reilly, Count, 34 .
{328} Organ Mountains, 7 , 188 , 266-267 .
Oriente, Province of, 4 , 5 , 6 , 8 , 11 , 12 , 124 , 170 , 186 , 187 , 188-189 , 201 , 204 , 209 , 212 , 230 , 246 , 272-278 .
Oviado, 26 .

Palma, Dr. Estrada, 78-80 , 147 , 148 , 282 .
Pepper, Charles M., 102 .
Peter Martyr, 26 .
Philip II, 32 .
Physical features, 1-10 ;
geographical and strategical position, 1-2 ;
dimensions and formation, 2 , 3 ;
political divisions, 4-6 ;
mountain system, 4-7 ;
harbors, 8-10 .
Pinar del Rio, 7 .
Pinar del Rio, Province of, 5 , 7 , 69 , 73 , 186 , 187 , 188 , 192 , 194-196 , 266-267 , 315 .
Placentas del Sur, 317 .
Platt Amendment, 77 , 78 and Appendix .
Polk, President, 58 .
Population, 16 , 17 ;
negroes, 30-32 , 102-109 ;
Cubans, 80-101 ;
Spaniards, 109-114 ;
Chinamen, 114-118 ;
Americans, 118 , 119 .
Porter, Robert P., 208-209 .
Postal Service, 20 .
Potrerillo, Mount, 7 .
Preston, 177 , 275-276 .
Providencia Sugar Mill, 264 .
Provinces, 4-6 , 263-277 ;
Habana, 263-265 ;
Pinar del Rio, 266 , 267 ;
Matanzas, 267-269 ;
Santa Clara, 269 , 270 ;
Camaguey, 270-272 ;
Oriente, 272-277 .
Puerto Principe, 28 , 211 .
Puerto Principe, Province of. See Camaguey, Province of.
Punta Tabaco, 172 .

Railways, 314-318 .
Rancho Veloz, 317 .
Remedios, 28 .
Reptilia, 13 .
Roja, Captain-General, 52 .
Romano, Isle of, 3 .
Roosevelt, President, 78-79 , 156 , 297 .
Rousseau, 38 , 94 .

Saetia, 276 .
Sagua la Grande, 317 .
Sampson, Captain, 75 .
Sancti Spiritus, 7 , 28 .
San Diego del Valle, 317 .
Sanitation, 15 , 16 , 204-207 .
San Juan, Battle of, 75 .
San Juan River, 9 .
San Luis, 316 .
Santa Clara, 7 , 29 , 269 , 315 .
Santa Clara, Conde de, 36 .
Santa Clara, Province of, 4 , 6 , 11 , 170 , 187 , 188 , 189 , 200 , 211 , 269-270 , 318 .
Santa Cruz, 255 .
Santiago de Cuba, 5 , 9 , 10 , 28 , 46 , 75 , 201 , 202 , 203 , 207 , 208 , 210 , 215 , 250 , 273 , 314 , 315 , 318 .
Santiago de Cuba, Province of. See Oriente, Province of.
Shafter, General, 75 .
Settlers, Hints to intending, 241-248 .
Sierra Cristal, 6 .
Sierra de Cubitas, 7 .
Sierra Madre, 5 .
Sierra Maestra, 5 , 201 , 202 , 203 .
Sierra Nipe, 6 .
Someruelos, Marques de, 36 , 48 .
Sores, De, 259 .
“Sotes de Boliver,” 38 .
Soto, Hernando de, 28 , 258 .
{329} Spanish Residents, 109-114 .
Squiers, Herbert G., 304 .
Sugar, 57 , 166-184 ;
growth of the industry, 169-171 ;
description of a sugar estate, 171-177 ;
costs and returns in sugar operation, 178-180 ;
prospects of the industry, 181-184 .

Tacon, General, 40 , 254 .
Taft, William H., 79-82 .
Taxation, 50-52 , 150 , 151 .
Telegraph, 20 , 21 .
Tobacco industry, 185-199 ;
tobacco districts, 187-189 ;
manufacture, 189-190 ;
methods of culture, 190-192 ;
costs and returns of cultivation, 192-195 ;
prospects of the industry, 195-197 , 199 .
Trinidad, 7 , 28 , 270 , 317 .
Treaty between United States and Cuba, 299-308 .
Turquino, Mount, 5 .

Vaca, Cabeza de, 105 .
Vedado, 262 .
Velasquez, Diego, 23 , 27 , 28 , 249 , 270 .
Villanueva, Count, 33 , 40 .
Vives, General, 40 .
Voltaire, 38 , 94 .
Vuelta Abajo, 185 , 187-188 , 267 , 315 .

Weyler, General, 60 , 65 , 69 , 70-74 .

Yara, 55 .
Yumuri Gorge, 10 , 268 .

Zaldo y Beurmann, Carlos de, 282 , 304 .
Zanjon, Treaty of, 55-56 , 65 .
Zapata Swamp, 4 .
Zayas, Alfredo, 82 .

FOOTNOTES:

[1] It was not until the administration of Villanueva (’18) as intendant , an office which at that time eclipsed that of captain-general and dominated all public bodies, that taxes were for the first time imposed without the consent of those to be affected by them.

[2] America’s Insular Possessions, Philadelphia, 1906, vol. 1, pp. 98-101.

[3] Cuba, by I. A. Wright, New York, 1910.

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Panama and the Canal	$3.00
By Forbes Lindsay
Cuba and Her People of To-day	3.00
By Forbes Lindsay
Brazil and Her People of To-day	3.00
By Nevin O. Winter
Guatemala and Her People of To-day	3.00
By Nevin O. Winter
Mexico and Her People of To-day	3.00
By Nevin O. Winter
Argentina and Her People of To-day	3.00
By Nevin O. Winter
Bohemia and the Čechs	3.00
By Will S. Monroe
In Viking Land. Norway: Its Peoples, Its Fjords and Its Fjelds	3.00
By Will S. Monroe
Turkey and the Turks	3.00
By Will S. Monroe
Sicily, the Garden of the Mediterranean	3.00
By Will S. Monroe
In Wildest Africa	3.00
By Peter MacQueen

L. C. PAGE & COMPANY 53 Beacon Street, Boston, Mass.

Price of sugar at mill	per 325-pound bag	$10.27
Railroad freight	“ “ “	.56
Wharf expense	“ “ “	.025
Ocean freight	“ “ “	.39
Landing	“ “ “	.055
Duty per pound 1.36 cents	“ “ “	4.42
Expense per bag		$15.72

32,500,000 pounds of sugar at 2.75 cents	$893,750
Due the planters, 5% of total	446,875

CHARGEABLE TO THE PLANTERS
Expenses per year about	$110,000
5% interest on $500,000	25,000
Cutting and hauling	185,000
Loss on transportation, etc.	6,375
Profit for plantation	120,000
	$446,375

CHARGEABLE TO MILL
20% expense of yield	$180,000
5% interest on $1,000,000	50,000
Net profit	216,875
	$446,875

Rent of land per year	$300
250,000 plants at $1.50 per thousand	375
6,250 pounds of Peruvian fertilizer	250
Hiring of oxen	102
Wages and maintenance of 12 men at $25 per month each	3,000
Yaguas , Majaguas , and expenses	300
Taxes, physician’s bills and medicines, and living expenses of the planter and his family	400
Total	$4,727

For export duty on the leaf in Cuba, 30 pounds of leaf at $12 per 100 kilos	$3.60
Import duty in the United States on 25 pounds of filler at 35 cents each	8.75
Import duty in the United States on 5 pounds of wrapper at $2 each	10.00
Total	$22.35
The same 1,000 cigars imported from Cuba, weighing 12 pounds at $4.50 per pound	$54.00
Export duty, 25%, ad valorem, valued at $60 per thousand	15.00
Total	$69.00

CHAPTER		PAGE
	Preface	vii
I.	The Island of Cuba	1
II.	The History of Cuba	22
III.	The History of Cuba ( Continued )	43
IV.	Cuba in Transition	63
V.	The People of the Country	83
VI.	The People of the Country ( Continued )	102
VII.	The Condition of Cuba	120
VIII.	The Future of Cuba	147
IX.	Cuba’s Sugar Industry	166
X.	Cuba’s Tobacco Industry	185
XI.	Cuba’s Mineral Resources	200
XII.	Latent Agricultural Wealth	216
XIII.	Future Farming in Cuba	231
XIV.	The Capital of Cuba	249
XV.	The Provinces of Cuba	263
	Appendices	279
	Index	325

	PAGE
A Cuban Courtship ( See page 92 )	Frontispiece
Map of Cuba	1
River Scene, Isle of Pines	2
The Famous Palms of Camaguey	7
A Street in Santiago de Cuba	10
“Over thirty species of palm are found in the Island”	12
President’s Palace, Habana	18
Bayamo	28
The Prado, Habana	36
The Water-front, Habana	46
Mountain Road in the Province of Oriente	52
View of Baire, near Bayamo, from the Cuban Trenches	66
Street Scene, Santiago de Cuba	75
Morro Castle from Central Park, Habana	83
Country Homes of Wealthy Cubans	89
“Her world is contained in the town of which she is resident”	96
Young Cane-field, with Banana Grove in the Distance	100
A Narrow Street, Habana	109
A Cuban Milkman	114
Sugar-cane ready for Cutting	122
An Ideal Road for the Motorist	124 {xii}
An Avenue of Palms	128
Street Scene, Habana	143
A Guajiro’s Shack	150
General View of Jiguani	158
Harvesting the Cane	166
Central Providencia	170
Transferring Cane and Automatically Weighing It	176
Grinding Sugar-cane	183
Well-developed Tobacco Plants	186
Hundreds of Acres of Tobacco under Cover	194
A Tobacco Field after Harvesting	198
Santiago de Cuba	208
A Street in Jiguani	214
Gathering Cocoanuts	224
Pineapple Field	226
Breadfruit	229
Hemp Field above Matanzas	230
Orange Tree	234
“A sugar plantation of fifteen hundred acres will need about three hundred oxen”	237
Hotel Camaguey	240
A Road in the Province of Oriente	246
Map of the City of Habana	249
La Fuerza, Habana	250
Obispo Street, Habana	255
The Cathedral, Habana	259
Fort San Severino, Matanzas	268
Parlor, Hotel Camaguey	271
Manzanillo	273
The Docks and Warehouses of Antilla	275

Year	Average number on pay roll	Total cases of malaria	Percentage of labor force sick with malaria at some time of the year
1901	920	1,131	123
1902	1,312	1,362	104
1903	1,348	1,116	83
1904	858	394	46
1905	941	436	46
1906	1,309	746	57
1907	1,315	689	52
1908	1,292	632	49
1909	1,391	234	17

Tasker H. Bliss	[SEAL.]
Carlos de Zaldo	[SEAL.]
José M. Garcia Montes	[SEAL.]

Custom-house receipts	$24,838,030.27
Loan taxes	3,570,176.50
Internal revenues	1,020,196.15
Communications	990,440.69
Consular fees	424,152.45
National lottery	3,652,400.51

Legislative Branch	840,170.32
Judicial Branch	156,629.76
Executive Branch	1,766,228.33
Department of State	714,515.26
Department of Justice	202,620.85
Department of Government	10,168,201.85
Department of Treasury	2,724,987.98
Department of Public Instruction	4,319,998.83
Department of Public Works	3,572,155.20
Department of Agriculture, Labor, and Commerce	659,188.88
Department of Health and Charities	4,137,469.89
On account of interior debt	737,172.50
Interest and expenses on account of loan	2,933,732.56

Bonds of the revolution, 1896, 6 per cent	$2,196,585
Redeemed	1,464,585
		$732,000
{310} Interior debt, 5 per cent.	$10,871,100
Interior debt, 1906, 4½ per cent.	16,500,000
		$27,371,100
Loan of 1904, 5 per cent	$35,000,000
Amortization	1,020,000
		33,980,000
Total debt		$62,083,100

Countries	1908	1909	1910
United States	$41,576,980	$46,339,198	$54,569,393
United Kingdom	11,724,029	12,260,414	12,292,219
Spain	7,454,933	8,019,893	8,680,256
Germany	7,172,358	6,587,538	6,542,760
France	5,029,492	5,303,478	5,514,939
Other American countries	7,287,368	7,127,168	8,319,929
Other European countries	3,486,142	3,892,876	5,532,357
All other countries	1,487,293	1,917,016	2,223,728
Total	$85,218,593	$91,447,581	$103,675,581

	1908	1909	1910
Earths, stones, and manufactures of:
Stones and earth	$1,001,981	$737,563	$989,249
Shale, bitumen, etc.	1,010,110	1,069,502	1,088,759
Glass and crystal ware	1,426,799	1,115,089	1,138,711
Earthen ware and porcelain	665,355	768,106	695,051
Metals and manufactures of:
Gold, silver, and platinum	902,197	450,533	338,053
Iron and steel	4,767,384	5,284,761	6,163,754
Copper	566,473	626,279	809,127
All other metals	252,003	245,077	289,294
Chemicals, drugs, dyes, and perfumeries:
Natural products	434,885	395,830	468,350
Colors, paints, etc.	474,234	593,676	672,781
Chemical products	1,635,905	2,146,797	2,780,939
Essences, oils, etc.	1,770,468	1,886,200	1,896,900
Fibres and manufactures of:
Cotton	8,993,815	9,815,695	8,527,821
Other vegetable fibre	2,930,809	3,579,710	3,562,301
Wool, hair, etc.	1,022,319	1,041,286	1,088,225
Silk	780,947	771,376	619,704
Paper and manufacture of:
Paper and pasteboard	1,329,790	1,467,069	1,498,369
Books and prints	300,902	304,360	314,904
Wood and other vegetable substances:
Wood	2,060,134	2,287,655	2,506,090
All other	141,681	141,683	190,026
Animals and animal products:
Animals	690,508	360,314	341,112
Hides and skins	371,890	483,934	573,059
Manufactures	3,429,361	4,249,507	4,453,299
Instruments, machinery, and apparatus:
Instruments	$217,150	$218,013	$263,271
Machinery	3,959,624	5,601,387	8,381,763
Apparatus	1,612,699	1,677,992	2,821,968
Foods and drinks:
Meats	8,318,094	9,892,104	11,476,815
Fish	1,194,282	1,137,024	1,310,144
Breadstuff	11,566,465	12,063,000	13,358,362
Fruits	580,958	549,866	672,674

	1908	1909	1910
United States	$78,868,490	$109,407,613	$129,328,517
United Kingdom	4,775,966	5,013,676	10,696,289
Germany	4,711,164	4,053,960	3,646,398
Spain	958,207	865,519	727,297
France	1,401,997	1,216,275	1,549,080
Other American countries	2,257,077	2,660,971	3,391,216
Other European countries	978,084	1,081,241	915,175
All other countries	652,339	411,814	655,058
Total	$94,603,324	$124,745,304	$150,909,020

	1908	1909	1910
Animals and animal products:
Live animals	$21,149	$38,580	$14,623
Hides and skins	906,980	1,482,108	1,894,738
Products	94,873	72,757	108,280
Sugar and molasses:
Sugar	52,166,812	79,130,181	108,762,632
Molasses	870,836	1,556,695	1,477,756
Confectionery	42,721	47,194	44,007
Fruits, grains, and vegetables:
Fruits	2,085,771	2,359,397	2,098,089
Grains and vegetables	493,125	674,850	453,083
Fishery products:
Tortoise shells	51,009	64,843	36,828
Sponges	280,537	271,596	354,855
Mineral products:
Asphaltum	31,144	47,586	13,499
Iron and copper ores	2,098,460	3,362,289	4,330,476
Old metals	121,324	82,751	2,299
Forest products:
Vegetable fibres	79,773	74,891	37,431
Wood	1,356,282	1,516,356	1,663,398
Dyes and tanning material		5	40
Tobacco:
Unmanufactured	19,557,107	19,084,704	15,450,943
Manufactures of	12,771,915	12,900,490	12,423,007
Miscellaneous:
Bee products	743,386	985,952	703,680
Distilled products	339,205	359,655	356,037
Other articles	429,011	326,718	216,668
Re-exportation	61,904	271,471	436,651
Total	$94,603,324	$124,711,069	$150,909,020