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 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. 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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.

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 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 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 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 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 entertain 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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:

The attitude of the Peace Commission met with general public approval. Although the insurgents 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 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.

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 majority 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 environment, 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 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 comparative 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 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 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 cascarilla, 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. 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 result 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 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