The History of Cuba Volume II Part 14

It is safe to presume that the work of the press established in 1747 produced some good results in spreading information otherwise withheld from the public; for in the year 1776 a royal decree forbade the establishment of any other printing press besides that devoted to governmental work. It is possible, too, that some speculator had attempted to found another printing establishment. For Sr. Saco tells us that in the year 1766 there was in Havana a printing concern under the name of Computo Ecclesiastico and in 1773 another under the direction of D. Blas de los Olivos. But there are no data to show that these concerns existed at the time of the royal decree of 1776.

The establishment of a periodical has usually been deferred to the administration of Governor Las Casas. But there is reason to believe that the note contained in the fourth book of the history of Cuba by Valles rests upon fact; it speaks of a "Gaceta de la Habana" as being in existence in the year 1782. An issue of that _Gaceta_, dated May 16, 1783, was said to contain a report of the festivals with which the Duke of Lancaster was honored in Havana. In that issue the publisher said:

"Since in the preceding _Gaceta_ the arrival in this town of the Infante William Duke of Lancaster, third son of King George of England, could hardly be indicated, we suppressed for one week the circulation of other news, in order to offer to our readers the details of his entry into Havana."

Besides those printing concerns no other is known to have existed in Havana until the opening of that of Bolona, in the year 1792, which is referred to in an advertis.e.m.e.nt in the _Papel Periodico_ of Sunday, August 26th of that year. This advertis.e.m.e.nt read:

"Another negress about 20 or 21 years old, good cook and laundress, healthy and without defects, for three hundred pesos. He who wants her will apply to the printing office of D. Estaven Joseph Bolona, where her master will be found."

That this press was not identical with the government printing establishment is inferred from the fact that in this number of the _Papel Periodico_ as well as other issues are contained many advertis.e.m.e.nts referring to the printing office, where information will be given.

The _Gaceta de la Habana_ was a weekly, which probably contained the government announcements and news of the most important events of the time. The s.p.a.ce of the _Gaceta_ was too limited to admit of the publication of communications from readers on matters concerning the community, hence such effusions, as also the lyrics coming from the pens of poetically inclined dilettanti, were published on separate sheets to be circulated among their admiring friends. But at the time of Governor Las Casas the desire of improving this publication of the government made itself felt; the s.p.a.ce was enlarged and the old time _Gaceta_ seems to have been merged in the _Papel Periodico_, which began to circulate from the twenty-fourth of October, 1790. It appeared once a week and was edited by D. Diego de la Barrera.

This publication was the only medium through which those desirous of knowing something of the current life of the island at the end of the eighteenth and the beginning of the twentieth century could obtain a fair picture of the customs and occupations of that time, described by the individual contributors with the warmth and the florid exuberance then in style and occasionally, when coming from a more critical mind, with a touch of satire. The following extract from the periodical will give an idea of its contents and character. In an issue of the year 1792, the writer speaks of the lamentable ignorance reigning in the country districts of Cuba and hampering the development of agriculture.

He attacks the current opinion that the climate is the source of the Cuban's indifference and indolence, saying that this a.s.sumption would give ground to deny even the possibility of progress. He says:

"Many opine that the laziness of the inhabitants of this country is the effect of the climate. They take it for granted that the la.s.situde of the muscles and tendons is due to the heat and makes the bodies lose their tenseness and hence their capacity for exertion. They also give as cause the excessive evaporation of elements needed for the growth and the strength of the organism, a.s.serting that this loss owing to weak const.i.tution of the stomach cannot be repaired by fatty and abundant food.

"These reasons founded upon the organic mechanism of our bodies seem quite conclusive. There is no doubt that the intense heat which we suffer during the greatest part of the year in the countries near the equator promotes evaporation too much. But I dare to a.s.sert that the excess is being insensibly recovered by the bodies through the particles produced by perspiration. This does not seem chimerical, when we reflect that by our constant respiration the air in which we are living enters and is being constantly renewed in our liquids, and that this air is impregnated with innumerable corpuscles extracted from the solids. The same is true of a fountain, the surplus flows off to fertilize the near forest, while at the same time is restored to its bosom through different means an equal quant.i.ty, which incessant infiltration also supplies from other water sources."

After comparing the physical and intellectual apt.i.tude of the children of the tropics with those of Greenland and the progress made by the French of Hayti in science, agriculture and art, which is in diametrical contrast to that of the Spanish West Indians, he continues:

"Therefore, as indolence or laziness do not proceed from external causes, we must admit that they proceed from ourselves. I find no other source. It is a voluntary habit, or speaking more plainly, a vice propagated like the pestilence and causing incalculable harm to the social structure. But as I propose to combat this enemy, I shall show the most visible injuries it produces in those who yield to its insidious charm.

"Every living body without movement goes into corruption. This is a well established principle and in the hot countries which are usually humid, the effect is quickly seen. We have a sad experience in this city, where the inhabitants are frequently afflicted with dropsy, internal and external tumors, hypochondria, nervous diseases and many other ailments, the origin of which is inaction or want of movement and circulation.

While in this respect indolence conspires against our very existence, the injury is no less when it manifests itself in the vices to which professional idlers are subject. Incessant gambling, excessive sensuality, late hours, unreasonable food and drink and other correlative features are the means by which health is ruined, life is shortened; and he who succeeds in prolonging it, does so at the cost of a variety of aches and pains.

"Prisons and other dismal places are the final abode of idleness. Those liable to get there for theft, debt and other offences curse their unhappy lot; but they will not admit that their laziness is the chief source of their misfortunes. Celibacy, depopulation, the languis.h.i.+ng of commerce, the backwardness of science, art, agriculture, etc., are all the results of idleness.

"When I see on this island a city of so large a population, the greater part of which is living in ill-concealed poverty, while her fertile and beautiful fields around are uncultivated and deserted, painful reflections suggest themselves to me. If this oldest and most wholesome occupation, agriculture, is an inexhaustible source of wealth even in countries less favored for it, how much wealth might not be produced in this country. It is evident that the difference in its favor would be as great as the superiority of our fields which in fertility are unrivalled by those of any other country.

"I therefore conclude by saying that even those living in opulence have no excuse for giving themselves up to shameful inaction. When their riches exempt them from ordinary occupations, they should devote themselves to the cultivation of the mind."

This somewhat predicatory article, published in Nos. 11, 13 and 14 of the _Papel Periodico_, proves how seriously the men at the head of the great intellectual revival of the century's end took their task of rousing the people from their torpor. Nevertheless there is little doc.u.mentary proof that much was produced by the pens of that generation.

The question of promoting agriculture seems to have preoccupied the minds of the readers at that time. In another article the author says:

"I must state that no country can progress unless it produces in abundance fruits for exportation; if it confines itself to the amount used for home consumption, it will never come out of her poverty. The beautiful climate, the fertile soil, and the location of our island offer much richer resources than any other country; but unfortunately we are hampered by various conditions, mainly in the att.i.tude of the people themselves. There are those whose notions do not permit them to take a great part in the community of laborers; these, again, living in poverty, are afraid to change their work, thinking that what they are doing is the best for them. What is needed is to remove some of the prejudices that prevent people from seeing the advantages that would result from their devoting themselves to the cultivation of fruits for exportation.

"There is no doubt that there are in this island physical and moral causes that hamper the progress of agriculture. The physical are: the distribution of the grounds in large portions to individual owners, the condition of the roads, almost impa.s.sable during the rainy season; the lack of bridges, the lack of labor, and lastly the lack of concerted action among the inhabitants. The moral reasons are: insufficient instruction and education of the laboring people, the contempt for farming peculiar to the young, and especially the unmarried landholder; the great number of idlers and the small population."

The measures adopted by the supreme government in 1784 had checked the progress of Cuba and even diminished the population. In that epoch the allowances from Mexico decreased and the authorities of the island found themselves without means to perform the every day business of the island. The evils produced by these new decrees were set forth in a pet.i.tion to the king and were amply discussed in the paper.

The excitement of the authorities and the population is reflected in various articles of the _Papel Periodico_ which have not only the merit of showing the state of the public mind, but also of proving that the authorities in Cuba itself favored reforms. They certainly would not have been published had they not been approved of by Governor Las Casas.

There are interesting communications in the paper from foreigners then visiting in Havana. One of them signing himself "El Europeo imparcial"

gives a very appreciative account of the character and customs of the Havanese. He praises their religion, their piety, their zeal for divine wors.h.i.+p and devotion to the saints; their courteous and affable conduct, the refinement of their leaders, the magnificence of their festivities and a.s.semblies, both sacred and secular, their streets and promenades, where mult.i.tudes of brilliant carriages are to be seen, and other features of public life which in all countries are the first to strike the foreign visitor.

A most ambitious and for the time extraordinary work appeared in the year 1787. It was a book by D. Antonio Parra on the fish and crustacea of the island, ill.u.s.trated by the Cuban Baez. It was the first scientific work written and published in Cuba, and seems for some time to have remained the only one. For until the end of the century the literature produced had a distinctly dilettante character. The fable, epigram and satire occasionally relieved the flood of lyric verse. Most of this appeared anonymously; or the writers used pseudonyms or signed their names in anagrams. P. Jose Rodriguez, the author of "The Prince Gardener," the comedy popular in Havana at that time, wrote under the pen-name "Capucho" a number of gay decimas, poems in the Spanish form of ten lines of eight syllables each. But none of these works were of a quality to call for serious criticism and had no merits that insured for them a permanent place in what was ultimately to be known as Cuban literature; for this literature dates only from the nineteenth century.

CHAPTER XV

"Cuba; America: America; Cuba. The two names are inseparable." So we said at the beginning of our history of the "Pearl of the Antilles." So we must say at the beginning of a new era, the third, in these annals.

At the beginning the connection was between Cuba and America as a whole--the continents of the western hemisphere. In this second case it is between Cuba and America in the more restricted meaning of the United States. There was a significant and to some degree influential forecast of this relations.h.i.+p in the preceding era, in which Cuba was in contact with England and with the rising British power in the New World. For what was afterward to become the United States was then a group of British colonies, and it was inevitable that relations begun in Colonial times should be inherited by the independent nation which succeeded.

Moreover, Cuba was in those days brought to the attention of the future United States in a peculiarly forcible manner by the very important partic.i.p.ation of Colonial troops, particularly from Connecticut and New Jersey, in that British conquest of Havana which we have recorded in preceding chapters.

It was nearly half a century, however, after the establishment of American independence that any practical interest began to be taken in Cuba by the great continental republic at the north. The purchase of the Louisiana territory and the opening to unrestrained American commerce of that Mississippi River which a former Governor of Cuba had discovered and partially explored, had greatly increased American interest in the Gulf of Mexico and had created some commercial interest in the great Island which forms its southern boundary. Later the acquisition of Florida called attention acutely to the pa.s.sing away of Spain's American Empire and to the concern which the United States might well feel in the disposition of its remaining fragments. Already, in the case of Florida in 1811 the United States Government had enunciated the principle that it could not permit the transfer of an adjacent colony from one European power to another. It will be pertinent to this narrative to recall that action in fuller detail. The time was in the later Napoleonic wars, when Spain was almost at the mercy of any despoiler. There was imminent danger that Spain would transfer Florida to some other power, as she had done a few years before with the Louisiana territory, or that it would be taken from her. In these circ.u.mstances the Congress of the United States on January 15, 1811, adopted a joint resolution in these terms:

"Taking into view the peculiar situation of Spain, and of her American provinces; and considering the influence which the destiny of the territory adjoining the southern border of the United States may have upon their security, tranquility and commerce,

"Be it Resolved: That the United States, under the peculiar circ.u.mstances of the existing crisis, cannot without serious inquietude see any part of the said territory pa.s.s into the hands of any foreign power; and that a due regard for their own safety compels them to provide under certain contingencies for the temporary occupation of the said territory; they at the same time declaring that the said territory shall, in their hands, remain subject to future negotiations."

Then the same Congress enacted a law authorizing the President to take possession of Florida or of any part of it, in case of any attempt of a European power other than Spain herself to occupy it, and to use to that end the Army and Navy of the United States. Nothing of the sort needed to be done at that time, though a little later, during the War of 1812, Florida was invaded by a British force and immediately thereafter was occupied by an American army.

The enunciation of this principle by Congress marked an epoch in American foreign policy, leading directly to the Monroe Doctrine a dozen years later. It also marked an epoch in the history of Cuba, especially so far as the relations of the Island with the United States were concerned. For while this declaration by Congress applied only to Florida, because Florida ab.u.t.ted directly upon the United States, the logic of events presently compelled it to be extended to Cuba. This was done a little more than a dozen years after the declaration concerning Florida. By this time Florida had been annexed to the United States and Mexico, Central America and South America had revolted against Spain and declared their independence. Only the "Ever Faithful Isle," as Cuba then began to be called, and Porto Rico remained to Spain of an empire which once nominally comprised the entire western hemisphere. Cuba was not like Florida geographically, ab.u.t.ting upon the United States. But it lay almost within sight from the coast of Florida and commanded the southern side of the Florida channel through which all American commerce from the Mississippi River and the Gulf of Mexico to the Atlantic Ocean must pa.s.s, and thus it was invested with peculiar importance to the United States. Nor was it lacking in importance to Great Britain and France.

Those powers possessed extensive and valuable holdings in the West Indies and they were rivals for the reversionary t.i.tle to these remaining Spanish Islands, Cuba and Porto Rico. Each of them realized that whichever of them should secure those two great Islands would, by virtue of that circ.u.mstance, become the dominant power in the West Indies. Moreover they both felt sure that Spain would soon have to relinquish her hold upon them. This latter belief prevailed widely also in the United States, and was by no means absent from Cuba itself.

Indeed a party was organized in Cuba in the spring of 1822, for the express purpose of seeking annexation to the United States, and in September of that year did make direct overtures to that end to the American Government. The President of the United States, James Monroe, received these overtures in a cautious and non-committal manner. He sent a confidential agent to Cuba to examine into conditions there and to report upon them, but gave no direct encouragement to the annexation movement.

At about this time the direction of the foreign affairs of Great Britain came into the hands of George Canning, a statesman of exceptional vision and aggressive patriotism, and one specially concerned with the welfare of British interests in the New World. He was well aware of the condition and trend of affairs in Cuba, and felt that the transfer of that Island from Spain to any other power would be unfortunate for British interests in the West Indies. When he learned of the Cuban overtures for annexation to the United States, therefore, in December, 1822, he brought the matter to the careful consideration of the British Cabinet and suggested to his colleagues that such annexation of Cuba by the United States would be a very serious detriment to the British Empire in the western hemisphere. He made no diplomatic representation upon the subject either to Spain or to the United States, but he did send a considerable naval force to the coastal waters of Cuba and Porto Rico, apparently with the purpose of preventing, if necessary, any such change in the sovereignty and occupancy of those Islands.

[Ill.u.s.tration: GEORGE CANNING]

In this Canning was probably over-anxious, since there is no indication whatever that the American Government contemplated any such step or that it would have attempted to take possession of Cuba if the Island had been left unguarded. On the other hand, this action of Canning's very naturally aroused American concern and provoked the suspicion that England was planning the seizure or purchase of the Island. The result was the formal application to Cuba of the principle which had already been enunciated by Congress in respect to Florida. It was the legislative branch of the United States Government that took that action toward Florida. It was the executive and diplomatic branch which took the action toward Cuba. This was done in a memorable state doc.u.ment which formed a land-mark in the history of American foreign policy.

The American Secretary of State, John Quincy Adams, on April 28, 1823, wrote an official letter to Hugh Nelson, who at the beginning of that year had become American minister to Spain. This letter contained official instructions to Nelson concerning his conduct in the war which was impending between Spain and France, because of the latter power's intervention in Spanish affairs in behalf of King Ferdinand VII. It then turned to the subject of Cuba and continued as follows:

[Ill.u.s.tration: JOHN QUINCY ADAMS]

"Whatever may be the issue of this war, it may be taken for granted that the dominion of Spain upon the American continents, north and south, is irrevocably gone. But the islands of Cuba and Porto Rico still remain nominally, and so far really, dependent upon her, that she yet possesses the power of transferring her own dominion over them, together with the possession of them, to others. These islands are natural appendages to the North American continent, and one of them almost in sight of our sh.o.r.es, from a mult.i.tude of considerations has become an object of transcendent importance to the commercial and political interests of our Union. Its commanding position with reference to the Gulf of Mexico and the West Indian seas, its situation midway between our southern coast and the island of San Domingo, its safe and capacious harbor of the Havana, fronting a long line of our sh.o.r.es dest.i.tute of the same advantages, the nature of its production and of its wants, furnis.h.i.+ng the supplies and needing the returns of a commerce immensely profitable and mutually beneficial give it an importance in the sum of our national interests with which that of no other foreign territory can be compared, and little inferior to that which binds the different members of this Union together. Such indeed are, between the interests of that island and of this country, the geographical, commercial, moral and political relations formed by nature, gathering in the process of time, and even now verging to maturity, that in looking forward to the probable course of events for the short period of half a century, it is scarcely possible to resist the conviction that the annexation of Cuba to our Federal Republic will be indispensable to the continuance and integrity of the Union itself.... There are laws of political as well as of physical gravitation. And if an apple, severed by the tempest from its native tree, cannot choose but to fall to the ground, Cuba, forcibly disjoined from its own unnatural connection with Spain, and incapable of self-support, can gravitate only toward the North American Union, which, by the same law of nature cannot cast her off from her bosom. The transfer of Cuba to Great Britain would be an event unpropitious to the interests of this Union.... The question both of our right and of our power to prevent it, if necessary, by force, already obtrudes itself upon our councils, and the Administration is called upon, in the performance of its duties to the nation, at least, to use all the means within its competency to guard against and forefend it."

That was the beginning of the policy of the United States toward Cuba.

In making that declaration Adams had general support and little or no opposition. A few weeks afterward the ex-President, Thomas Jefferson, writing to Monroe, expressed in part the same view, though he coupled it with the suggestion of an alliance with Great Britain. He wrote:

"Cuba alone seems at present to hold up a speck of war to us. Its possession by Great Britain would indeed be a great calamity to us.

Could we induce her to join us in guaranteeing its independence against all the world, except Spain, it would be nearly as valuable as if it were our own. But should she take it, I would not immediately go to war for it; because the first war on other accounts will give it to us, or the island will give herself to us when able to do so."

Two years later, in 1825, Henry Clay, then Secretary of State in the Cabinet of President John Quincy Adams, instructed the American ministers at the chief European capitals to make it known that the United States for itself desired no change in the political condition of Cuba; that it was satisfied to have it remain open to American commerce; but that it "could not with indifference see it pa.s.sing from Spain to any other European power." A little later he added, referring to Cuba and Porto Rico, that "we could not consent to the occupation of those islands by any other European power than Spain, under any contingency whatever."

This att.i.tude of the American Government was sufficient to accomplish the purpose desired. Although the power of Spain continued to decline, no attempt was made by either France or England to acquire possession of Cuba by either conquest or purchase. But in August, 1825, the British Government laid before the American minister in London a proposal that the United States should unite with Great Britain and France in a tripart.i.te agreement for the protection of Spain in her possession of Cuba to the effect that none of the three would take Cuba for itself or would acquiesce in the taking of it by either of the others. The American minister reported this to the President, who promptly and emphatically declined it. It was then that Henry Clay made the p.r.o.nouncement already quoted, that the United States could not consent to the occupation of Cuba by any other European power than Spain, under any contingency whatever.

A little later in the same year American interest in Cuba was again appealed to from another source. Several of the former Spanish colonies which had declared their independence, particularly Mexico and Colombia, expressed much dissatisfaction that Cuba and Porto Rico should remain in the possession of Spain. They desired to see the Spanish power entirely expelled from the western hemisphere. They therefore began intriguing for revolutions in those islands, and failing that prepared themselves to take forcible possession of them. These plans encountered the serious disapproval of the United States government, and on December 20, 1825, Henry Clay wrote to the representatives of the Mexican and Colombian governments urgently requesting them to refrain from sending the military expeditions to Cuba which were being prepared; a request with which they complied, Colombia readily but Mexico more reluctantly. Those two countries had been specially moved to their proposed action by the declaration of the famous Panama Congress, then in session, in favor of "the freeing of the islands of Porto Rico and Cuba from the Spanish yoke." It is interesting to recall, too, that in his instructions to the United States delegates to that Congress, who unfortunately did not arrive in time to partic.i.p.ate in its deliberations, Clay declared that "even Spain has not such a deep interest in the future fate of Cuba as the United States."

Justice requires us, unfortunately, in concluding our consideration of this early phase of Cuban-American relations, to confess that the motives of the United States were not at that time altogether of the highest character. To put it very plainly, there was much opposition to the extension of Mexican or Colombian influence to Cuba because that would have meant the abolition of human slavery in the island, and that would have been offensive to the slave states of the southern United States. Also some of the earliest movements in the United States toward the annexation of Cuba were inspired by the wish to maintain the inst.i.tution of slavery in that island and to add it to the slave holding area of the United States. It was on such ground that Senator Hayne and others declared in the American Congress that the United States "would not permit Mexico or Colombia to take or to revolutionize Cuba." James Buchanan declared that under the control of one of those countries Cuba would become a dangerous explosive magazine for the southern slave States because Mexico and Colombia were free countries and "always conquered by proclaiming liberty to the slave."

We have recalled these facts and circ.u.mstances in this place somewhat in advance of their strict chronological order, by way of introduction to the history of Cuba in the Nineteenth Century, because they really dominate in spirit the whole story. It will be necessary to recur to them again, briefly, in their proper place. But it is essential to bear them in mind from the beginning, even through this antic.i.p.atory review of them. Every page and line and letter of Cuban history in the Nineteenth Century is colored by the Declaration of Independence of 1776, by the fact that the United States of America had arisen as the foremost power in the Western Hemisphere. Through the inspiration which it gave to the French Revolution, the United States was chiefly responsible, as an alien force, for the complete collapse of Spain as a great European power. Through its example and potential influence as a protector it was responsible for the revolt and independence of the Spanish colonies in Central and South America. Then through its a.s.sertion of special interests in Cuba, because of propinquity, and through the tangible influence of commercial and social intercourse, together with a constantly increasing and formidable, though generally concealed, political sway, it determined the future destinies of the Queen of the Antilles.