Consumption of Tobacco. -- The Delicious Fruits of the
Tropics. -- Individual Characteristics of Cuban Fruits. --
The Royal Palm. -- The Mulberry Tree. -- Silk Culture. -- The
Island once covered by Forests. -- No Poisonous Reptiles. --
The Cuban Bloodhound. -- Hotbed of African Slavery. --
Spain's Disregard of Solemn Treaties. -- The Coolie System of
Slavery. -- Ah-Lee draws a Prize. -- Native African Races. --
Negroes buying their Freedom. -- Laws favoring the Slaves. --
Example of St. Domingo. -- General Emancipation.
The consumption of tobacco in the form of cigars is almost incredibly
large in Cuba, and for the city of Havana alone it has been estimated
to amount to an aggregate cost of five million dollars per annum.
Every man, woman, and child appears to be addicted to the habit. It
strikes a Northerner as rather odd for a lady to sit smoking her
cigarette in her parlor, but this is not at all rare. The men of all
degrees smoke everywhere, in the dwelling-house, in the street, in the
theatre, in the cafés, and in the counting-room; eating, drinking,
and truly it would also seem, sleeping, they smoke, smoke, smoke. At
the tables d'hôte of the hotels it is not unusual to see a Cuban take
a few whiffs of a cigarette between the several courses, and lights
are burning close at hand to enable him to do so. If a party of
gentlemen are invited to dine together, the host so orders that a
packet of the finest cigarettes is frequently passed to his guests,
with a lighted taper, in the course of the meal, and at its close some
favorite brand of the more substantial cigar is furnished to all.
Thus, tobacco is consumed on every occasion, in the council-chamber,
the court, at funerals, in the domestic circles, at feasts, and on the
out-door drive. The slave and his master, the maid and her mistress,
boy and man, all, all smoke. It seems odd that one does not scent
Havana far out at sea before the land is sighted.
We were told that gentlemen who have the means to procure them smoke
on an average what is equivalent to a dozen cigars per day, and those
of the other sex addicted to the habit consume half that quantity. Of
late the larger proportion, however, takes the form of cigarettes,
which are far more subtle in effect when used to excess. The
consequence of this large home consumption, in addition to the export
of the article, is that a very numerous class of the population is
engaged in the manufacture, and little stores devoted solely to this
business are plentifully sprinkled all about the metropolis. The
imperial factory of La Honradez, already described, occupies a whole
city square, and is one of its curiosities, producing from three to
four million cigarettes per diem. This house enjoys special
governmental protection, and makes its annual contribution to the
royal household of Madrid of the best of its manufactured goods. A
snuff-taker is rarely to be met with, and few, if any, chew the weed,
if we except the stevedores and foreign sailors to be seen about the
shore and shipping. Havana has no wharves, properly speaking; vessels
are loaded and discharged by means of lighters or scows. The negroes
become passionately fond of the pipe, inhaling into their lungs the
rich, powerful narcotic and driving it out again at their nostrils in
slow, heavy clouds, half dozing over the dreamy effect. The postilion
who waits for a fare upon the street passes half his time in this way,
dreaming over his pipe of pure Havana, or renewing constantly his
cigarette. The price of manufactured tobacco in Cuba is about one half
that which we pay for the same article in America, either at wholesale
or retail, as shipping expenses, export duty, and import duty must be
added to the price charged to the consumer.
In discussing this habit one naturally looks back about four hundred
years, recalling the amazement of the Spanish discoverers, when they
first landed here, at seeing the Indians smoking a native weed which
was called tobacco. The practice was, at that time, entirely unknown
in Europe, though now indulged in as a luxury by nearly half the
population of the globe.
We have only a partial idea at the North of the true character of
tropical fruits, since only a small portion of them are of such a
nature as to admit of exportation, and such as are forwarded to us
must be gathered in an unripe condition in order to survive a short
sea-voyage. The orange which we eat in Boston or New York, therefore,
is a very different-flavored fruit from the same when partaken of in
Havana or Florida. The former has been picked green and ripened on
shipboard, as a general thing; the latter was perhaps on the tree an
hour before you ate it, ripened under its native skies and upon its
parent stem. So of the banana, one of the most delightful and
nutritious of all West Indian fruits, which grows everywhere in Cuba
with prodigal profuseness,--though we are told that as regards this
fruit it is claimed that, like some varieties of our pear, it ripens
as well off the tree as on it; and the same is the case with some
other fleshy fruits. After the banana has attained its full growth,
the final process of ripening commences, as it were, within itself;
that is to say, the fruit ceases to depend upon the tree for
sustenance or farther development. The pulp becomes gradually
sweetened and softened, chiefly by the change of the starch into more
or less of soluble sugar. When the bananas are shipped to our Northern
markets they are as green as the leaves of the trees on which they
grew. Most of us have seen cartloads of them in this condition landing
at our city wharves. Placed in an even temperature and in darkness
they will ripen and become as yellow as gold in a very few days.
The banana and plantain differ from each other much as an apple and a
potato differ; the latter should always be cooked before eating, but
the former may be either eaten raw or cooked, according to the taste.
The banana is gathered at three different stages of its growth. At a
quarter of its maturity it is rather milky, and contains much starch.
Roasted in ashes, or boiled in water, it forms a very nourishing food,
and is a good substitute for bread. If eaten at three fourths of its
growth it is less nourishing, but contains more sugar. Lastly, when
perfectly ripe, it develops an acrid principle, both wholesome and
palatable. The fig banana is a favorite species, and forms a universal
dessert in the ripe state with the Creoles. A frequent reference is
made to it in these notes because of its importance. The enormous
productiveness of the plant and its nutritious character assure to the
humble classes an abundant subsistence. People may go freely into the
wild lands and find edible bananas at any time, without money and
without price. In the cities the charge for them is so moderate that a
person must be poor indeed who cannot afford a liberal quantity of
them daily.
Some of the other fruits are the mango, pomegranate, pineapple,
zapota, tamarind, citron, fig, cocoa, lemon, rose-apple, and
breadfruit. Japan, India, and Ceylon afford nothing more fascinating
or strange in their vegetable kingdoms than this favored isle. The
fruits are simply wonderful in variety and perfection. One eats eggs,
custard, and butter off the trees. Though all these fruits are
universally eaten, the orange seems to be the Creole's favorite, and
if he be a person of even ordinary means, he seldom rises in the
morning until he has drunk his cup of coffee and eaten a couple of
oranges, brought fresh and prepared for him by a servant. The practice
is one into which the visitor falls very pleasantly, and finds it no
less refreshing than agreeable. It seems to rain oranges in Havana.
They are scarcely less cheap than the luscious banana.
The rose-apple grows on one of the most symmetrical trees in Cuba,
with strong, oval, glossy leaves. The blossoms are large, white, and
of pleasant odor, followed by a round fruit about as large as a
well-developed California peach, with a smooth skin, cream-colored
within and without. The pulp is as firm as a ripe seckel pear, and the
taste is so strong of otto-of-rose that more than one at a time palls
upon the palate. It is much used among the Cubans as an agreeable
flavoring for soups and puddings. Of the fruit trees the lemon is
perhaps the most attractive to the eye; for though small and dwarfish,
yet it presents the flowers, small green lemons, and the ripe yellow
fruit all together, reminding one of the Eastern alma. The green
leaves when young are nearly as fragrant as the lemon verbena.
The mammee is a curious fruit growing on lofty, umbrageous trees,
appearing as musk-melons would look if seen hanging in elm-trees.
Large and high-flavored, the fruit is solid in texture like the
American quince. The flavor of the mammee resembles our peach, though
not quite so delicate. Its color when ripe is a light yellow.
The mango is nearly as abundant and prolific as the banana, and yet it
came originally from the far East. It grows upon a very handsome tree,
the leaves being long, lanceolate, polished, and hanging in dense
masses of dark-green foliage. In size it is like a full-grown New
England apple tree. The mango is about thrice the size of an egg plum,
and when ripe is yellow in color, and grows in long pendant bunches.
When this fruit is at its best it is very juicy, and may be sucked
away like a grape. The negroes are immoderately fond of it, and when
permitted to do so are apt to make themselves ill by their greediness.
The cocoa-nut tree grows to the height of fifty feet and more,
differing from the royal palm by its drooping nature. At its summit is
a waving tuft of dark green, glossy, pinnate leaves, from ten to
fifteen feet in length, like mammoth plumes, immediately under which
are suspended the nuts in heavy bunches, often weighing three hundred
pounds. When the nut has attained nearly its full size, it is said to
be in the milk, and it then furnishes a delightful, cooling, and
healthful beverage. In taste it is sweetish, and its effect is that of
a slight diuretic.
The sapotilla is a noble fruit tree, with feathery, glossy leaves. The
blossoms are white and bell-shaped, with an agreeable perfume like an
apple-blossom. The fruit is round, about the size of a peach, the
skin being rough and dark like a russet apple or a potato, but when
fully ripe it is delicious, and melts away in the mouth like a
custard.
The pineapple, that king of fruits, though in itself presenting such a
fine appearance, is the plainest of all in its humble manner of
growth. It is found wild in Cuba, and there are several varieties
cultivated, none quite equal, it seemed to us, to those found in
Singapore and other equatorial islands. Its style of growth is the
same in either hemisphere. It grows singly upon its low stem, reaching
to a height of eighteen or twenty inches above the ground. A single
fruit-stem pushes up from the earth, blossoms, and in about eighteen
months from the planting it matures a single apple, weighing three or
four pounds and upwards; and what a royal fruit it is! A field well
covered with the yellow, ripening apples is a very beautiful sight.
Though the plant produces but one apple at a time, it will continue to
yield an annual crop for three or four years, if cultivated. It is
raised from slips, planted much as our farmers set out young cabbages
or lettuce.
The custard-apple grows wild, but is also cultivated and thereby much
improved. Its color externally is green, and it has a tough skin, is
of a subacid flavor, and as full of little flat black seeds as a shad
is of bones. It is much used in Cuba for flavoring purposes, and is
soft and juicy, each specimen weighing from a pound to a pound and a
half. The star-apple is so called because when cut through
transversely its centre presents the figure of a star. Even when quite
ripe the interior is green in color. Its flavor is exquisite, like
strawberries and cream, and it is eaten with a spoon, the outside
skin forming as it were a shell or cup.
The guava tree is small and resembles our young cherry trees. The
fruit is about the size of the lime, which it much resembles. It is
made little use of in its natural condition, but is in universal
demand as a preserve; the jelly made from it is famous all over the
world. When it is freshly cut, one will scent a whole room for hours
with its distinctive flavor.
The pomegranate, a general favorite in the torrid zone, flourishes in
Cuba, but is seen in much greater perfection in Africa. It is doubtful
if it is indigenous here, though it is now found in such abundance,
and as much depended upon for a food supply as apples are with us.
Doubtless the reader has seen the bush in bearing in our hothouses,
the fruit when cut being full of red seeds glistening like rubies.
The tamarind is a universal and thrifty tree in the island, lofty and
umbrageous, a quick grower and yet long-lived. The fruit is contained
in a pod,--like a full, ripe pea-pod,--covering mahogany-colored
seeds. The pulp when ripe and fresh is as soft as marmalade, and quite
palatable; its flavor is sugared acid. Steeped in water it forms a
delightful and cooling beverage, much used as a drink in the tropics.
The orange, lime, lemon, and citron are too well known to require
detailed description. The wild or bitter orange is much used for
hedges: its deep green glossy foliage and its fragrant blossoms and
its golden fruit make such hedges strikingly effective. The rind of
the bitter orange is used to make a sweetmeat with which we are all
familiar.
More than once the Moorish garden of the Alcazar, at Seville, and the
garden of Hesperides, at Cannes, were recalled in hours of delightful
wanderings among the orange groves of Cuba. Yet these latter are
neglected, or at least not generously cultivated, no such care being
given to them as is bestowed upon the orange orchards of Florida; but
the glowing sun and ardent breath of the tropics ask little aid from
the hand of man in perfecting their products. The fruits and flowers
of the American Archipelago--"air-woven children of light"--are not
only lavishly prolific, but perfect of their kind. No wonder that
scientists and botanists become poetical in their descriptions of
these regions.
The royal palm, so often alluded to, grows to the height of seventy
feet, more or less. It is singular that it should have no substance in
the interior of its trunk, though the outside to the thickness of a
couple of inches makes the finest of boards, and when seasoned is so
hard as to turn a board-nail at a single stroke of the hammer. It is
remarkable also that a palm tree which grows so high has such tiny,
thread-like roots, which, however, are innumerable. The top of the
palm yields a vegetable which is used as food and when boiled is
nutritious and palatable, resembling our cauliflower. Though there are
many species of palm in Cuba, one seldom sees the fan-palm, which
forms such a distinctive feature in equatorial regions as at Penang
and Singapore.
Humboldt thought that the entire island was once a forest of palms,
mingled with lime and orange trees. The mulberry tree, if not
indigenous, was found here at so early a period that it is a matter of
doubt as to its having been imported from other lands. It grows to
great perfection, and has led to several attempts in the direction of
silk-raising, the silkworm also proving more prolific even than in
Japan. Some of the fine, hard fancy woods of Cuba were employed in the
finish of apartments in the Escurial palace near Madrid. Ebony,
rosewood, fustic, lancewood, mahogany, and other choice woods are very
abundant, especially the mahogany, which grows to enormous size. The
exportation of them has only taken place where these woods were best
located for river transportation to harbors on the coast. The interior
of the island is so inaccessible that it has hardly been explored.
There are fertile valleys there of two hundred miles in length and
thirty in width, with an average temperature of 75°, a maximum of 88°,
and a minimum of 52°, thus affording a most perfect and healthful
climate, favorable to human and to vegetable life, and it should be
remembered that malarial diseases or yellow fever are unknown in the
districts removed from the coast, and no one ever heard of sunstroke
in Cuba.
It is somewhat remarkable that there should be no poisonous animals or
reptiles in the island, but so we were creditably informed. Snakes of
various species abound, but are considered entirely harmless, though
they are sometimes destructive to domestic fowls. During a pleasant
trip between San Antonio and Alquizar in a volante with a hospitable
planter of that region, this subject happened to be under discussion,
when we saw in the roadway a snake six or eight feet long, and as
large round as the middle of one's arm. On pointing it out to our
friend, he merely told us its species, and declared that a child might
sleep with it unharmed. In the mean time it was a relief to see the
innocent creature hasten to secrete itself in a lime hedge close at
hand. Lizards, tarantulas, and chameleons are frequently seen, but
are considered to be harmless. One often awakes in the morning to see
lizards upon his chamber wall, searching for flies and insects, upon
which they feed.
The Cuban bloodhound, of which we hear so much, is not a native of the
island, but belongs to an imported breed, resembling the English
mastiff, though with larger head and limbs. He is by nature a fierce,
bloodthirsty animal, but the particular qualities which fit him for
tracing the runaway slaves are almost entirely acquired by careful
training. This is accomplished by experts in the business, who are
sometimes Monteros, and sometimes French overseers of plantations who
are out of work or regular engagement. Each estate keeps some of these
dogs as a precautionary measure, but they are seldom called into use
of late, for so certain is the slave that he will be instantly
followed as soon as missed, and inevitably traced by the hounds, that
he rarely attempts to escape from his master unless under some
peculiarly aggravating cause. It may even be doubted whether a slave
would be pursued to-day were he to attempt to escape, because slavery
is so very near its last gasp. In one respect this is an advantage to
the negroes, since the master, feeling this indifference, grants the
blacks more freedom of action. So perfect of scent is the Cuban
bloodhound that the master has only to obtain a bit of clothing left
behind by the runaway and give it to the hound to smell. The dog will
then follow the slave through a whole population of his class, and
with his nose to the ground lead straight to his hiding-place.
For three centuries Cuba has been the hotbed of African slavery. Few,
if any, have been imported during the last thirty years, that is to
say since 1855, during which year some cargoes were successfully run.
In 1816, the Spanish government, in a solemn treaty, declared its
conviction of the injustice of the slave trade. On the 23d of
September, 1817, in consideration of four hundred thousand pounds
sterling paid as an equivalent by Great Britain, Spain ratified a
treaty proclaiming that the slave trade should cease throughout all
the dominions of that country on the 30th day of May, 1820, and that
it should not afterwards be lawful for any Spanish subject to purchase
slaves. It was further declared by the home government that all blacks
brought from Africa subsequent to that date should be at once set
free, and the vessel on which they were transported should be
confiscated, while the captain, crew, and others concerned should be
punished with ten years' penal servitude. Yet, as all the world knows,
this was nothing more than a dead letter so far as Cuba was concerned,
and so late as 1845, statistics show an arrival of imported slaves
from Africa of fifteen thousand negroes annually, for the previous
twenty years. Tacon, Governor-General from June, 1834, until April,
1838, like his predecessors and successors made no secret of receiving
seventeen dollars per head,--that is one doubloon,--on every slave
landed. Other officials spent their fees on themselves or hoarded them
for a fortune to be enjoyed on returning home to Spain, but Tacon
expended his in beautifying Havana and its environs. That the home
government secretly fostered the slave trade, notwithstanding the
solemn treaty entered into with Great Britain, no one pretends to
deny.
The coolie system, which was latterly substituted for that of the
importation of Africans, was commenced in 1847, but it was only
slavery under another form, being in point of humanity even more
objectionable. Fully seventy per cent. of the Chinese coolies died
during the eight years they were bound by their contract to serve
their masters! Even after that period was completed, unjust laws and
schemes were adopted to retain their services whenever the planters
desired it; but the truth is, the planters, after a thorough
experience, were generally glad to get rid of the Mongolians. All of
them were decoyed from home under false pretenses and large promises,
and only arrived in Cuba to find themselves virtually slaves. But
there was no help for them. They were thousands of miles from China,
in a land of whose language they knew nothing, and so they were
obliged to submit. If after their term of service expired they
succeeded in reaching Havana, or other Cuban cities, and by becoming
fruit peddlers or engaging in any other occupation tried to earn
sufficient money to carry them back to their native land, they still
were brutally treated by all parties, and were ever at the mercy of
the venal police. On the plantations they received perhaps a little
more consideration than the blacks, simply because they were less
tractable and more dangerous on account of their greater degree of
intelligence and keener sense of the wrong done them. The planter,
always short of laborers, has heretofore been willing to pay the
shipping-agencies four hundred dollars for a newly-arrived coolie,
whose services he thus secured for eight years, the coolies at the
expiration of the period to receive a mere nominal sum, out of which
they have mostly been cheated by some means or other. The whole
business of coolie importation is vile beyond measure, and must have
included in its aggregate over three hundred thousand Chinese. There
are still believed to be some sixty thousand left upon the island,
most of whom remain because they have no means of returning to their
native land. Half of these subsist by begging. Broken in health and
spirits, they await the coming of that final liberator who is the last
friend of suffering humanity.
The Chinese are best adapted to the work of the cigar factories, where
they excel in the occupation of cigar and cigarette making, and many
hundreds are thus employed in Havana. But they are totally unfit for
plantation labor, under the hardships of which their feeble frames
succumb. They prove themselves very good servants in the cities, being
very quick to learn, and ready to adapt themselves to any light
occupation. A Chinaman is sly, cunning, and, to a certain degree,
enterprising; but he must be trusted cautiously. As a house-servant,
footman, cook, or waiter he is admirable. Here, in this to him foreign
land, he cannot suppress his instinct for gambling; it seems to be
born in him, and he will often lose in an hour the hard accumulation
of months, or even years. As to the lottery, he is always the
purchaser of portions of tickets at every drawing, and occasionally
becomes a winner. A thrifty Chinaman, for there are some such even in
Havana, bearing the characteristic name of Ah-Lee, connected with a
bricabrac store on the Calzada de la Reina, held a lucky number in the
lottery drawn during our brief stay at the Hotel Telegrafo. When the
prizes were announced, he found that he was entitled to five hundred
dollars. The agents tried to pay Ah-Lee in Cuban currency, but he was
too smart for them, and showed them their own announcement promising
to cash all prizes, with the usual discount, in gold. So Ah-Lee got
his prize finally in gold. We were told by one whose experience was
extensive, and whose testimony was worthy of respect, that the coolies
would lie and steal with such apparent innocence as to deceive the
most wary, and that as regards their moral nature it seemed to be
totally undeveloped. For our own part we still sympathize with John.
He has been so outrageously cheated and abused from the hour when he
stepped on board the transport ship which brought him from China up to
the present time that he has learned the trick of it. If he is not
strong enough to demand his rights, we certainly hope that he may have
sufficient cunning to obtain them by outwitting his adversaries.
In their slave condition the Chinese coolies and the negroes were at
times so affected by a spirit of superstition as to cause them to
commit suicide, the latter actuated, as it seemed, by a feeling of
despair, the former through a vindictive spirit towards their masters.
Both were also moved by a superstitious conviction that their spirits
would at once be returned to their native land, to inhabit a sort of
spirit paradise or intermediate state between earth and heaven. It is
very strange that so peculiar and so similar a belief should be
indigenous in the minds of such distinctive races. At the period when
the free importation from Africa was carried on, the most difficult
thing the planters had to contend with was a proneness to suicide on
the part of those slaves who were newly imported, and who entertained
this same remarkable idea.
Though we abhor the entire system of Cuban labor, yet it cannot be
denied that the slaves, so far as material comfort goes, are better
lodged, fed, and cared for than four fifths of the population of
Ireland and India, and, furthermore, this comparison will hold good as
regards a large portion of continental Europe. A well-fed, well-kept
negro is twice as valuable, twice as serviceable to his master as a
neglected one, and no one knows this better than the master who
governs his slaves on purely mercenary grounds, and is yet very
careful to supply liberally their physical wants. These slaves are
descended from various African tribes, whose characteristics are so
marked as to be easily discernible even by strangers. The Congoes are
small in stature, but very agile and good workers, and in past years
they have been a favorite tribe. The Fantees are a larger race of
negroes, hard to manage, and possessing a revengeful nature. Those
from the Gold Coast are still more powerful in body, but are
good-natured and well-liked by planters. The Ebros are less black than
those already named, almost mulatto in complexion, and make favorite
house servants. The Ashantees are of another prominent tribe, and are
also popular as plantation hands, but not numerous.
The tattooed faces, bodies, and limbs of a large portion of the
slaves, especially of the hands upon the plantations, shows their
African nativity, while the smooth skin and generally greater degree
of intelligence of others show them to have been born in slavery upon
the island. These latter are mostly sought for service in the cities.
They are remarkably healthy when not overworked, and form the most
vigorous part of the population. When an epidemic breaks out among
the blacks, it seems to carry them off by wholesale, proving much more
fatal than among the whites. Cholera, small-pox, and pneumonia
sometimes sweep them off at a fearful rate. It is a curious fact that
if a negro is really ill, he requires just twice as much medicine to
affect him as a white person.
There are said to be three hundred thousand free negroes on the
island, of whom comparatively few are found inland upon the
plantations; they are all inclined to congregate in the cities and
large towns, where, truth compels us to say, they prove to be an idle
and vicious class, and as a body useless both to themselves and to the
public. There are believed to be at present in Cuba about one hundred
and forty thousand male and about sixty thousand female slaves. To
carry on the great industry of the island as systematized by the
planters, this number of hands is entirely inadequate. It is sometimes
asked how there came to be so many free negroes in the island. It
should be clearly understood that the laws which govern Cuba are made
by the home government, not by the planters or natives of Cuba, and
that indirectly these laws have long favored emancipation of the
blacks. For many years any slave has enjoyed the right to go to a
magistrate and have himself appraised, and upon paying the price thus
set upon himself he can receive his free papers. The valuation is made
by three persons, of whom the master appoints one, and the magistrate
two. The slave may pay by installments of fifty dollars at a time, but
he owes his full service to his master until the last and entire
payment is made. If the valuation be twelve hundred dollars, after the
slave has paid one hundred he owns one twelfth of himself, and the
master eleven twelfths, and so on. Until all is paid, however, the
master's dominion over the slave is complete. There has also long been
another peculiar law in operation. A slave may on the same valuation
compel his master to transfer him to any person who will pay the money
in full, and this has often been done where slave and master disagree.
This law, as will be seen, must have operated as it was designed to
do, as a check upon masters, and as an inducement for them to remove
special causes of complaint and dissatisfaction. It has also enabled
slaveholders of the better class, in the case of ill-usage of blacks,
to relieve them by paying down their appraised value and appropriating
their services to themselves. All this relates to the past rather than
the present, since, as we have explained, the relationship of slave
and master is now so nearly at an end as to render such arrangements
inoperative.
There was a law promulgated in 1870,--the outgrowth of the revolution
of 1868, which dethroned Isabella II.,--declaring every slave in Cuba
to be free after reaching the age of sixty, and also freeing the
children of all slaves born subsequent to that year. But that law has
been ignored altogether, and was not permitted even to be announced
officially upon the island. In the first place, few hard worked slaves
survive to the age of sixty; and in the second place, the children
have no one to look after or to enforce their rights. Spain never yet
kept troth with her subjects, or with anybody else, and the passage of
the law referred to was simply a piece of political finesse, designed
for the eye of the European states, and more particularly to soothe
England, which country had lately showed considerable feeling and
restlessness touching the disregard of all treaties between herself
and Spain.
The slaves who still remain upon the plantations appear in all outward
circumstances to be thoughtless and comparatively content; their light
and cheerful nature seems to lift them above the influence of brutal
treatment when it is encountered. That they have been called upon to
suffer much by being overtasked and cruelly punished in the past,
there is no doubt whatever, but it may be safely stated that their
condition has been greatly improved of late. The owners are obliged by
law to instruct the slaves in the Catholic faith, but this has never
been heeded to any extent by the planters, though all the children are
baptized in infancy. The law relative to the treatment of the negroes
also prescribes a certain quantity and quality of food to be regularly
furnished to them, but the masters are generally liberal in this
respect, and exceed the requirements of the law, as their mercenary
interest is obviously in that direction. The masters know by
experience that slaves will not work well unless well fed. With no
education or culture whatever, their intelligence remains at the
lowest ebb. "With plenty of food and sleep," said an owner to us,
"they are as easily managed as any other domestic animals."
Until latterly the slaves have been carefully watched at night, but
nearly all these precautions against their escaping from servitude
seem to have been dropped. They are no longer locked up in corral,
their special night quarters. Of course they are kept within certain
bounds, but the rigorous surveillance under which they have always
lived is no longer in force. The two sexes are nominally separated,
but as there is no strict recognition of the marital relation, and
free intercommunication between them really exists, the state of
morality may be imagined. It has always been customary for mothers to
receive certain consideration and partial relief from hard labor
during a reasonable period prior to and subsequent to their
confinement, with encouraging gifts from the masters, which has caused
them generally to covet the condition of maternity. Still the
proportion of female slaves on the plantations has always been so
small, compared with that of the other sex, that not nearly so many
children are born as would be supposed. Female slaves have generally
been sent to town service, even when born on the plantations.
It has always been clearly understood that the births on the part of
the negroes in Cuba have not nearly kept pace with the number of
deaths among them, even under apparently favorable circumstances. One
has not far to look for the reason of this. Promiscuous intercourse is
undoubtedly the predisposing cause, which is always an outgrowth of a
largely unequal division of the sexes. On the plantations the male
negroes outnumber the females ten to one. In the cities the males are
as five to one. When the slave trade was carried on between Africa and
the island, the plan was to bring over males only, but it was hardly
practicable to adhere strictly to the rule, so women were not declined
when a cargo was being made up and nearly completed. Thus a disparity
was inaugurated which has continued to the present day, with only a
slight equalizing tendency.
The present plan of freeing the slaves recommends itself to all
persons who fully understand the position, and if it be honestly
carried out will soon obliterate the crime of enforced labor upon the
island. A sudden freeing of the blacks, that is, all at once, would
have been attended with much risk to all parties, although justice and
humanity demand their liberation. France tried the experiment in St.
Domingo, and the result was a terrible state of anarchy. Not only did
she lose possession of the island, but the people settled down by
degrees into all the horrors of African savagery, even to cannibalism.
England followed, and generously paid the British planters of Jamaica
for all their slaves, giving the latter unconditional freedom. Of
course this ruined the island commercially, but it was strict justice,
nevertheless. Extreme measures are open to objection even in behalf of
justice. It was hoped that the freed negroes of Jamaica would become
thrifty and industrious, earning fair wages, and that crops would
still be remunerative, but it was not so. The negro of the tropics
will only work when he is compelled, and in the West Indies he has
scarcely more to do, as it regards sustaining life, than to pluck of
the wild fruits and to eat. The sugar plantations of Jamaica have
simply ceased to exist.
Every reasonable Cuban has long realized that the freedom of the
blacks was but a question of time, and that it must soon be brought
about, but how this could be accomplished without rendering them
liable to the terrible consequences which befell St. Domingo was a
serious problem. The commercial wreck of Jamaica had less terror for
them as an example, since of late their own condition could in that
respect hardly be worse. Therefore, the manumitting of one slave in
every four annually, so organized that all shall be free on January 1,
1888, is considered with great favor by the people generally, except
the most radical of old Spaniards. All are thus prepared for the
change, which is so gradually brought about as to cause no great
shock. It is not unreasonable to believe that the instantaneous
freeing of all the slaves would have led to mutual destruction of
whites and blacks all over the island.