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 na?igo clans, which the authorities claim to have suppressed, although it is very doubtful whether the organizations have been broken up. the na?igos 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
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a narrow street, habana.
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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 ma?ana. 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
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a cuban milkman.
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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.
