The History of Cuba Volume II Part 16

Unfortunately in compiling the tables which were published in 1811 no new census was taken, and the increases in population from 1791 to 1811 were merely estimated. These estimates show a population of 600,000--a greater number, it is interesting to note, by many thousands than was shown by the census of 1817, with which we shall deal later. This population was distributed as follows:

_Western Part of the_ _Free_ _Island_. _Whites_ _Colored_ _Slaves_ _Total_ Surrounding Country 118,000 15,000 119,000 252,000 Havana and Suburbs 43,000 27,000 28,000 98,000 ------- ------ ------- ------- 161,000 42,000 147,000 350,000

_Eastern Part of the Island_.

Santiago de Cuba 40,000 38,000 32,000 110,000 Puerto Principe 38,000 14,000 18,000 70,000 Cinco Villas 35,000 20,000 15,000 70,000 ------- ------ ------ ------- 113,000 72,000 65,000 250,000 ------- ------- ------- ------- Totals 274,000 114,000 212,000 600,000

From the above we can see that at this time there were only 62,000 more white people in Cuba than there were slaves, and if we take into consideration the free blacks, then the negroes exceeded the white population by 52,000. This was perhaps inevitable when we consider that there must be labor to develop the plantations and that that labor was almost entirely provided by the slave trade. Nevertheless, the white population of Cuba lived in somewhat the same state of subconscious terror of the possibilities of a black uprising which tormented the planters in portions of the United States. But "that is another story"

of which we shall hear more later.

In 1813 the Spanish Cortes pa.s.sed certain measures, which, together with the necessity for as accurate as possible an enumeration of the population of the island for the purpose of an equitable establishment of electoral juntas of provinces, partidas and parishes, made a new census obligatory. This was taken in 1817. The results of this new census were as follows:

_Districts_ _White_ _Free colored_ _Slaves_ _Western Department:_ Havana 135,177 40,419 112,122 Matanzas 10,617 1,675 9,594 Trinidad (with Sancti Spiritus, Remedios, and Villa Clara) 51,864 16,411 14,497 _Eastern Department:_ Santiago (with Bayamo, Holguin, and Baracoa) 33,733 50,230 46,500 Puerto Principe 25,989 6,955 16,579 ------- ------- ------- 257,380 115,691 199,292 Total 572,363

The census of 1817 was without doubt the most perfect which had up to that time been taken; but, for the reasons before given, it was far from being an accurate enumeration. To these figures, before transmitting them to Spain, the Provincial Deputation added 32,641 transients of various kinds, and 25,967 negroes imported during the year in which the census was taken. These additions made the report read as follows:

Whites 290,021 Free Colored 115,691 Slaves 225,259 ------- Total 630,971

It would seem that these various censuses and the estimate of 1811 show great discrepancies, but on this point we have the sage observations of no less an authority than Baron Humboldt to guide us. He says:

"We shall not be surprised at the partial contradiction found in the tables of population when we taken into consideration all the difficulties that have been encountered in the centres of European civilization, England and France, whenever the great operation of a general census is attempted. No one is ignorant, for example, of the fact that the population of Paris, in 1820, was 714,000, and from the number of deaths, and supposed proportion of births to the total population, it is believed to have been 520,000, at the beginning of the eighteenth century; yet during the administration of M. Necker, the ascertained population was one-sixth less than this number."

The process of census taking even in this twentieth century is an enormous undertaking and not free from error. How much more difficult must it have been in a country where it was to the interest of the intelligent to suppress the facts, where a large proportion of the population was still in slavery, and where means of communication from place to place were far from adequate!

Baron Humboldt after very careful calculation estimated the population at the close of 1825 to be as follows:

Whites 325,000 Free colored 130,000 Slaves 260,000 ------- Total 715,000

This was nearly equal to that of the British Antilles, and about twice that of Jamaica.

During the first half of the nineteenth century three additional censuses were taken:

_Census of 1827_

_Whites_ _Free Colored_ _Slaves_ _Total_ _Department_ _Male_ _Female_ _Male_ _Female_ _Male_ _Female_ Western 89,526 75,532 21,235 24,829 125,388 72,027 408,537 Central 53,447 44,776 13,296 10,950 28,398 13,630 164,497 Eastern 25,680 22,090 17,431 18,753 29,504 17,995 131,353 ------- ------- ------ ------ ------- ------- ------- Total 168,653 142,398 51,962 54,532 183,290 103,652 704,487

_Census of 1841_

_Whites_ _Free Colored_ _Slaves_ _Total_ _Department_ _Male_ _Female_ _Male_ _Female_ _Male_ _Female_ Western 135,079 108,944 32,726 33,737 207,954 113,320 631,760 Central 60,035 53,838 15,525 16,054 34,939 15,217 195,608 Eastern 32,030 28,365 27,452 27,344 38,357 25,708 180,256 ------- ------- ------ ------ ------- ------- --------- Total 227,144 191,147 75,703 77,135 281,250 155,245 1,007,624

_Census for 1846_

_Whites_ _Free Colored_ _Slaves_ _Total_ _Department_ _Male_ _Female_ _Male_ _Female_ _Male_ _Female_ Western 133,968 110,141 28,964 32,730 140,131 87,682 533,617 Central 62,262 52,692 17,041 17,074 32,425 14,560 196,954 Eastern 34,753 31,951 26,646 26,771 28,455 20,506 169,082 ------- ------- ------ ------ ------- ------- ------- Total 230,983 194,784 72,651 76,575 201,011 122,748 898,752

J. S. Thrasher, translator of Baron Humboldt's admirable work on Cuba, and himself an authority of note, offers the following interesting and suggestive discussion of the census of 1846:

"The slightest examination leads to the belief that there is some error in the figures of the census of 1846; and we are inclined to doubt its results, for the following reasons:

"1st--During the period between 1841 and 1846, no great cause, as epidemic, or emigration on a large scale, existed to check the hitherto steady increase of the slave population, and cause a decrease of 112,736 in its numbers, being nearly twenty six per cent. of the returns of 1841; which apparent decrease and the annihilation of former rate of increase (3.7 per cent. yearly), amount together to a loss of 47 per cent., in six years.

"2d.--During this period the material prosperity of the country experienced no decrease, except the loss of part of one crop, consequent upon the hurricane of 1845.

"3d.--During the period from 1842 to 1846, the church returns of christenings and interments were as follows:

_White_ _Colored_ _Total_ Christenings 87,049 74,302 161,349 Interments 51,456 57,762 109,218 ------ ------ ------- Increase 35,591 16,540 52,131

"4th.--And because ... a capitation tax upon house servants was imposed in 1844, and a very general fear existed that it would be extended to other cla.s.ses."

Incorrect as we have seen these various censuses to be, they do furnish us with very interesting means of a.n.a.lysis. We can see by the foregoing tables that the free population (black and white) was nearly two thirds of the entire population of the island; and also that, according to the last census given above, the blacks on the island exceeded the white people by many thousands. The balance of power then lay with the free blacks.

But this was not as dangerous as it may seem--as it often appeared to the Cubans. At this stage of his history the negro was not even one generation removed from his native jungle. He was imitating the white man not so much in his quiet virtues as in his glaring and showy vices.

The negro is naturally sociable and happy-go-lucky. The island of Cuba has not a climate which is conducive to arduous labors.

The natural tendency of the colored freed man was to gravitate away from the plantations, into the cities and villages. This made it necessary constantly to be importing new slaves to take the place of the freed man. Frequently, however, the latter improved in his new surroundings.

His freedom, his increased obligations, his new sense of self-respect, made him desire to throw his fortunes, not with his enslaved black brothers but with the free born white man. This was the more easy of accomplishment because there is no place in the world where people are more democratic in matters of race than in Cuba. A free black man who improved his opportunities was sure of being received as the equal of the white man in the same station of life. This even extended to intermarriage with white women. Miscegenation was very common, but curiously enough, more common in plantation life, on the same basis that the American planter in the southern part of the United States conducted his relations with his women slaves. The tendency of the free colored man, in spite of his new opportunities, was to marry one of his own race.

In 1820 the slave-trade with Africa was legally abolished, and undoubtedly if this law had been enforced the negro population would have diminished rapidly, because the mortality of the negro race in slavery is very high. Even in Cuba, a land where the climate is more similar to that of his own country than that of any part of the United States, the negro is all too frequently a victim of tuberculosis.

Indeed, although in the Custom House between 1811 and 1817, 67,000 negroes were registered as imported, and the real number must have been far greater, in 1817 there were only 13,300 more slaves than in 1811.

Another reason, too, would have contributed very quickly to the diminis.h.i.+ng of the negro population. Spain, always greedy for the main chance, never far-seeing in her relations with her American possessions, had urged the importation of male slaves in preference to females. Of course this meant a preponderance of laborers, but it also militated against the increase of the race in Cuba by natural means. There was far from being a sufficient number of young women of child-bearing age. On the plantations the proportion of women to men was one to four; in the cities the rate was better, 1 to 1.4; in Havana 1 to 1.2; and in the island considered as a whole 1 to 1.7. For a normal and proper birth rate there must be a preponderance of women over men.

But, although the laws forbade the slave traffic, by illicit means it continued to be carried on. Between 1811 and 1825 no fewer than 185,000 African negroes were imported into Cuba; 60,000 of these subsequent to the pa.s.sage of the measure of 1820.

The ratio of population to the square league is a very interesting and illuminating study. On this point J. S. Thrasher gives us some excellent deductions:

"Supposing the population to be 715,000 (which I believe to be within the minimum number) the ratio of population in Cuba, in 1825, was 197 individuals to the square league, and, consequently, nearly twice less than that of San Domingo, and four times smaller than that of Jamaica.

If Cuba were as well cultivated as the latter island, or, more properly speaking, if the density of population were the same, it would contain 3,515 x 974, or 3,159,000 inhabitants."

In 1811, at the time the population was estimated, we find the negroes to have been distributed as follows; the figures indicating percentages:

_Western Department_ _Free_ _Slave_ _Total_ In towns 11 11-1/2 22-1/2 In rural districts 1-1/2 34 35-1/2 _Eastern Department_ In towns 11 9-1/2 20-1/2 In rural districts 11 10-1/2 21-1/2 -------- -------- -------- 34-1/2 65-1/2 100

The foregoing indicates that sixty per cent. of the black population at this period lived in the district of Havana, and that there were about equal numbers of freedmen and slaves, that the total black population in that portion of the island was distributed between towns and country in the ratio of two to three, while in the eastern part of the island the distribution between towns and country was about equal. We shall find the foregoing compilations of inestimable value in consideration of the problem which was such a source of concern to the white population and which played so large a part in this period of the history of Cuba; namely, slavery.

CHAPTER XVIII

The first records of the slave trade in Cuba--so far as the eastern part of the island is concerned--were in 1521. Curiously enough it was begun by Portuguese rather than Spanish settlers. It was a well recognized inst.i.tution, licensed by the government. The first license was held by one Gasper Peralta, and covered the trade with the entire Spanish America. Later French traders visited Havana and took tobacco in trade for their slaves. The English, during their possession of the island, far from frowning on the traffic, encouraged it; yet in the latter part of the eighteenth century the number of slaves in Cuba was estimated not to exceed 32,000. This was previous to 1790. Of these 32,000, 25,000 were in the district of Havana.

Baron Humboldt is authority for some interesting figures on the traffic.

"The number of Africans imported from 1521 to 1763 was probably 60,000, whose descendants exist" (he writes in 1856) "among the free mulattoes, the greater part of which inhabit the eastern part of the island. From 1763 to 1790 when the trade in negroes was thrown open, Havana received 24,875 (by the Tobacco Company, 4,957 from 1763 to 1766; by the contract with the Marquis de Casa Enrile, 14,132, from 1773 to 1779; by the contract with Baker and Dawson, 5,786 from 1786 to 1789). If we estimate the importation of slaves in the eastern part of the island during these twenty-seven years (1763 to 1790) at 6,000, we have a total importation of 80,875 from the time of the discovery of Cuba, or more properly speaking, from 1521 to 1790."

It was in the period of which we are writing, particularly in the very early years of the nineteenth century, that the slave trade most flourished in Cuba. It is estimated that more slaves were bought and sold from 1790 to 1820 than in all the preceding history of the Spanish possession of the island.

England, possibly seeing what an enormous power for developing the natural wealth of the island an influx of free labor would give to Spain, entered into an arrangement with Ferdinand VII.--whose sole animating motive in dealing with his foreign possessions seems to have been to grab the reward in hand and let the future take care of itself--whereby, upon the payment by England to the king of four hundred thousand pounds sterling, to compensate for the estimated loss which the cessation of the slave trade would mean to the colonies, Ferdinand agreed that the slave trade north of the equator should be restricted from November 22, 1817, and totally abolished on May 30, 1820. Ferdinand accepted the money, but as we have seen he did not fulfil his contract and winked at the continuation of the importation of labor from Africa.