From flag to flag

The first year crept slowly by. We fought a brave fight against odds; sometimes sick at heart and almost discouraged, as petty annoyances rose here and there, thick about us. Our slight knowledge of the language, our utter ignorance of the habits and ways of the country people; the strangeness of the negroes, who feared and distrusted us; the trickery and untruthfulness of the white men we had to employ; the grand hidalgo airs and graces, and hollow professions of friendship, of our few visitors—made us suspicious and timid, bold and self-asserting, by turns. We realized, all the first year, that we were strangers in a strange land, misunderstood and unappreciated. People who said “yes” when they meant “no,” could not understand us who meant what we said. Their mañana (to-morrow) never came, never was intended to come; our mañana came, the bill was paid, the business transacted, or the pledge fulfilled, just as surely as the morrow’s sun rose. The beginning of the second year found us unscathed by the fires of suspicion and distrust, while the mists of doubts and fears slowly vanished from our own minds, for “truth is mighty and will prevail.”

Lamo soon found that the pressing need of more laborers compelled him to visit Havana, in order to secure the only kind available—Chinese coolies.

In his absence, Henry went up the mountain (which we called a steep hill back of the house) to shoot wild dogs, that had been raiding old Cinto’s chicken preserves.

Vegetation is so vigorous and rank, through cane-fields as well as uncultivated land, that animals wandering into the thicket any considerable distance become bewildered. Cane sprouting year after year from the same joint, sends up, with fantastic irregularity, bent and crooked stalks, whose interlacing leaves cover the furrows, so that they are almost obliterated, while the forest-trees are draped with luxuriant vines reaching from tree to tree, and the undergrowth forms an almost impenetrable barrier to human footsteps. Cur-dogs, that abound all over the island, wander into these seclusions, making their beds and rearing their young. In time the woods become infested with these semi-wild animals, that rarely venture outside the fastnesses, except when driven by hunger to the hen-roosts of the clearings. We heard firing here and there for a few hours, and Henry returned, all aglow with the sport, to say that those he did not kill were scared to the woods, and old African Cinto would not have cause to complain again.

Before night there was a visit from el capitan—our district captain, who was stationed at the nearest village. We always knew, when he came clattering up the avenue, armed to the teeth, with a whole staff at his heels, that he “meant business,” which, so far as our experience extended, was the collection of a fine, or fee. In those days (twenty years ago) Cuba was in the merciless grasp of the military. The civil guard, as it was called, promenaded the rural districts in pairs, dressed in striped blue linen with scarlet trimmings. Year in and year out, in fact week in and week out, for I am sure at least four times a month, two guardia civiles crossed our fields in some direction, with no apparent purpose; but they walked past with wonderful regularity, rarely pausing for even a drink of water, or speaking unless spoken to. What they were after, what good they ever did, what good they could have done, I do not know. At every railroad-station—and between us and Havana, stations were almost in sight of each other—when the train halted, a couple of guardia civiles walked through; there was a fiction that their business was to examine the cedulas (passes) of strangers and suspiciously appearing persons—a document that every soul in Cuba was required to procure, and have renewed yearly, paying a round sum every time—but in all my journeyings I never saw the guardias speak to any one, much less ask for a paper. Our capitan had nothing to do with the guardia civiles; his was another branch of the service, whose ramifications, like the octopus, spread and squeezed the life out of the people, and drove them at last to desperation and a sickly revolt. The rural captains were advisers, counselors, exponents of the law, registrars, judges, and executioners, besides being military commanders. Their power was almost absolute; but the pay was so small (I believe it was only two onzas—thirty-four dollars—a month) it could not house and feed the man, much less his wife and children, mother and mother-in-law, sisters and sisters-in-law, and a stray cousin or aunt; for it was not only a disgrace for a woman to earn her own bread, but a stinging reproach upon every male relative, collateral or otherwise she had. It is apparent, therefore, that these poorly paid men had a hard time make ends meet; and they resorted to many devices that in any other country, or with any other people, would have been a disgrace far beyond allowing an able-bodied woman to make her own living. I presume the home government believed, or pretended to believe, that a captain’s salary was all he needed and all he received, but everybody knew that the wealthy planters were black-mailed and unjustly fined to an outrageous extent; and there existed a system of extortion and oppression that no honest government would have countenanced, and to which none but an ignorant, down-trodden people would have submitted.

To resume: before night our capitan came clattering up. Leaving his mounted staff at the door, he entered, and, after depositing sword and pistols very ostentatiously on the parlor table, proceeded to business. “There was firing on this plantation to-day.”—“Yes, Henry shot some wild dogs on the outskirts of the field.” We were then informed, by a recent decree (they had a recent decree every day, and for every emergency under the sun), that no private individual was allowed a gun or pistol. To my startled question, “But, in case of self-defense?” the reply came, “They can have a sword or knife.”—“One can’t hunt wild dogs, that threaten to overrun us, with swords and knives!” He was inexorable: we must deliver to him all the fire-arms on the plantation, to be sent to headquarters at Matanzas. I had a feeling that Mr. Captain’s pretended mission was not his true purpose; but, being disgusted with his way of doing business, womanlike, I acted with more haste than discretion.

Henry stood on the veranda with tearful eyes, and watched the procession gallop down the avenue. “What will papa say when he finds all the guns are gone?” he asked. I was too exasperated to care.