Pioneering in Cuba Part 2

"No," with a shake.

"Can I get a tin dish or an earthen dish or a wooden dish?"

"No," with more shakes.

"Can I buy a tin cup or an earthen mug?"

"No," with a vigorous shake.

"Can I buy a knife, fork, or spoon?"

"No, no," with two quick shakes.

"Can I buy a piece of cloth of any kind?"

"No, sir," stiffly.

"Can I buy an empty box?"

"No, sir, you can't--need 'em all ourselves."

"Is there anything that you have got to sell?" I inquired meekly.

"Well, there is some mosquito netting over there."

I had mosquito netting--but mosquito netting did not make a very good drinking utensil. I left the commissary without inquiring for a plough or a knitting needle.

The population of La Gloria fluctuated greatly during the first week after our advent. Our arrival and the additions of the following day had brought the total population of the camp up to at least three hundred.

The wet and muddy trails, and the backwardness of all improvements, increased enormously the feeling of distrust among the colonists, and some began to loudly question the security of t.i.tles. This alarm, which ultimately proved to be entirely unfounded, kept the camp in a ferment for a day or two. Oceans of discussion were indulged in, Mr. Park was closely and warmly questioned, and there was a general feeling of uneasiness and unrest. The result was that when the last half of the week had begun, La Gloria had suffered a loss of nearly one hundred of its population. Discouraged and disgusted men made their way back to the coast, hoping to get transportation to Nuevitas, and thence back to their respective homes. There was a delay at Port La Gloria, and a few remained there until they had made up their minds to return to the camp.

The others went on to Nuevitas, but were unable to secure transportation at once to the States. The consequence was that nearly or quite one half eventually returned to La Gloria, straggling in from time to time.

As the week drew to a close the town quieted down, the restless spirits having departed. Those of us who remained either had faith in the ultimate success of the project, or were at least disposed to give the enterprise a fair trial. We were not easily stampeded; and we placed some reliance on Senator Park's positive a.s.surance that the deeds would be all right. We saw, of course, that the company's affairs had been badly managed, and that promised improvements had not as yet materialized, but, on the other hand, we had learned from personal observation that the land was good, the timber valuable, the drinking water pure and abundant, and the climate delightful beyond description.

The most of those who returned to the States with harrowing tales either never got as far as La Gloria at all, or else spent less than forty-eight hours in the camp. The majority of the colonists cheerfully stuck by the colony, and laughed at the untruthful and exaggerated newspaper stories as they were sent down to us from the frozen North.

CHAPTER V.

THE ALLOTMENT OF THE LAND.

The chief of the immediate problems which confronted the colonists and the officers of the company was the allotment of the land. The company had purchased it, or secured options on it, in large tracts, some of these tracts containing over ten thousand acres each. The colonists had contracted for it in small holdings, varying from a town lot, 25 x 100 feet in size, to a forty-acre tract of plantation land. No more than forty acres were sold to any one on a single contract. The contracts which could be made were, respectively, as follows: Town lots, three sizes, 25 x 100 feet, 50 x 100, and 50 x 150; plantation land, 2-1/2 acres, 5 acres, 10 acres, 20 acres, and 40 acres. The purchaser paid in full or on monthly instalments, as he preferred, being allowed a discount of ten per cent. for cash. According to the terms of the contracts, he did not purchase the land at all, but bought stock in a cooperative company and the land was a gift to him. However, the cooperative company feature was always in the background in the mind of the colonist, and he felt that he was buying the land and almost invariably so termed the transaction. It was the land he had his eye on, and his present anxiety was to have a good piece promptly allotted to him.

At the company's headquarters in New York, no plan of subdivision had been formulated further than a general promise in advertising circulars to allot the land in the order of the numbers of the contracts. At first glance, this seemed both fair and feasible, but once on the ground at La Gloria, some very formidable difficulties loomed up. Of the four or five thousand persons who had invested up to that time less than three hundred were at La Gloria, and there was not in Cuba even a list of the people who had made contracts with the company, to say nothing of their respective holdings and the status of their payments. No such list could be obtained from New York under several weeks or perhaps months, and when obtained would be of little value for the reason that there could not possibly be land enough surveyed by that time to allot one half of the thousands of investors. Surveying in this dense tropical forest was necessarily slow work, and progress had been impeded by the long-continued rains.

It was manifestly impossible to make a general allotment of the land at once, and yet it was essential that the colonists who had actually arrived on the spot should be given their tracts promptly and permitted to go to work upon them. The life of the colony seemed to hinge on action of this sort. Quite early the company had stated that the subdivision would be made about January 1, and when General Van der Voort arrived in New York in the latter part of December, he a.s.sured the colonists who were preparing to sail with him to Cuba that they should have their land by January 15. This promise was carried out to the letter, and was the only rational course of action that could be pursued under the existing circ.u.mstances. It undoubtedly saved the colony at what was a critical stage. During the voyage down, the colonists on board the _Yarmouth_ were greatly exercised over the method of allotment; that is to say, many of them were, while others declared that they would be satisfied if they only got their land promptly. General Van der Voort gave the subject much anxious consideration, seeking to devise a plan which should be at once just and practical. He finally decided that the fairest and best thing to do was to place the matter in the hands of a committee of the colonists, giving them the power to prescribe the method of allotment within certain limitations, subject to the approval of the colonists on the ground. The general described this as the "town-meeting" principle, and his decision gave entire satisfaction to the pioneers.

General Van der Voort arrived in La Gloria Thursday, January 11, having remained behind at Nuevitas to see the baggage of the colonists through the custom house. This accomplished, he took pa.s.sage for La Gloria on board the lighter carrying the trunks, etc. The voyage was not a smooth one. The boat came near being wrecked in the rough sea, and suffered the loss of its rudder. Finally an anchorage was effected about a dozen miles from the La Gloria sh.o.r.e, and General Van der Voort and others were taken off in a small boat. The trunks and other baggage were not landed until nearly a week later, and it was several weeks before much of the luggage reached La Gloria city. The contents of many of the trunks suffered serious damage from water and mould, although in some cases the things came through entirely uninjured.

General Van der Voort rode from Port La Gloria to the camp on horseback, a hard trip, for the road had not improved. The mud and water and debris made it a slow and exhausting journey. He a.s.sumed charge of the company's business in the colony at once. Arrangements were made for a prompt allotment of the land, and a committee of nine colonists, with Dr. W. P. Peirce of Hoopeston, Ill., as chairman, was chosen to devise a plan of distribution. After several prolonged sessions, the committee unanimously reported a scheme by which those present should select their land from the official map in the order of the priority of their purchases. After these, the investors having authorized representatives on the ground, the latter holding powers of attorney, were to have their chance. In this second cla.s.s, also, priority of purchase governed the order of selection. The report further provided that the investor should be allowed a second choice if he found his land to be unsatisfactory.

This plan, which I believed then and believe now was the best that could have been devised, was adopted by the colonists with but a single dissenting vote.

On Sat.u.r.day, January 13, the allotment began, in what was known as headquarters tent. The committee which had formulated the plan of distribution was in charge, a.s.sisted by Chief Engineer Kelly, Architect Neff, and others. The town lots were given out first, and by night nearly all who were ent.i.tled to make selections in these cla.s.ses had been served. The town lot distribution was completed Monday morning, the 15th. The town was one mile square, and had been laid out and surveyed under the supervision of M. A. Custer Neff, civil engineer and architect. It was traversed and counter-traversed by streets and avenues, appropriately named. These were as yet, for the most part, only surveyors' paths cut through the forest, but they were much used as thoroughfares to reach town lots and the plantation lands beyond. They were rough roads, filled with mud, water, stumps, stubble, and roots, but with the advent of the dry season they became more easily pa.s.sable.

The highway running through the centre of the town to and from the coast was known as Central avenue, and the road pa.s.sing through the centre at right angles was called Dewey street. Around the intersecting point, the exact centre of the town, s.p.a.ce had been reserved for a large plaza.

Central avenue and Dewey street were each designed to be one hundred feet wide, and were naturally the paths most used by the colonists. The former actually extended from the rear line of the town northward to the bay, five miles away, while the latter continued from the side lines of the town out into the plantation lands to the east and west. The town site was well chosen. It has a fair elevation above the sea, a firm, hard soil, with steadily rising ground. The front line of the town is about twenty feet above tidewater; the centre about one hundred feet, and the rear line nearly or quite two hundred feet. Around the town was a belt of land a quarter of a mile wide reserved by the company; then came the plantations on every side.

When the committee finished the allotment of town lots on the morning of January 15, it was found that nearly five hundred lots had been taken up out of a total in all cla.s.ses of about three thousand six hundred. The colonists had not been slow in selecting corner lots, and the lots on Central avenue and those facing the plaza on all sides were early preempted. The colonists had faith that a real city would rise on the chosen site. When the demand for town lots had been satisfied, the committee began at once to give out the plantation land. The choice was necessarily restricted to about eight or ten thousand acres to the west, southwest, and northwest of the town, which was all that had been surveyed up to that time. When this condition was discovered by the colonists, the unsurveyed land to the north, south, and east began, naturally enough, to appear far more desirable in the eyes of the investors than that which had been surveyed to the westward, and some refused to make a selection at all, preferring delay to a restricted choice. The great majority, however, mindful that they were privileged to change if the land was not satisfactory, went ahead and made their selections. As a matter of fact, the surveyed tract to the westward was probably as good as any, all of the land held by the company being rich and highly productive.

The first man to choose his plantation was Dr. W. P. Peirce of Hoopeston, Ill., who, it so chanced, was chairman of the committee on allotment. Dr. Peirce's contract was No. 2, and it was dated in January, 1899. But few contracts were made before April of that year. Contract No. 1 was not on the ground, and no one present knew who was the holder. The allotment was well conducted, and went on quite rapidly. It was eagerly watched by a large group of interested spectators, impatiently awaiting their turn. Some tried to extract inside information from the surveyors, who were supposed to know the relative value of every square foot of the land, but the majority either made their choice blindly, with knowledge of nothing save the proximity of the tract to the town, or trusted to the meagre information they had acquired regarding the character of the land in different localities during their tramps in the few days since their arrival.

It was a strange scene. Men of all ages and occupations, coming from nearly every one of the United States, and several other countries, strangers until a few days before, were crowded together in a large tent, each anxious to do the best possible for himself, and yet in few instances discourteous to his neighbor. It was a good-natured, well-behaved crowd, and there was no friction in the proceedings. The colonists were satisfied that the plan of allotment was a fair one; there was no complaint about anything except the restricted choice.

Monday night saw the allotment well advanced, and Tuesday it was finished. Everybody then on the ground who wished to make a selection for himself or those whom he represented had been accommodated, and the committee's duties were at an end. Nearly seven thousand acres of plantation land had been allotted.

[Ill.u.s.tration: ROBERT C. BEAUSEJOUR.

(_One of the Early Colonists._)]

As soon as they had selected their land from the map the colonists scurried out into the surrounding country to find it. The woods were full of men hunting their plantations. It was no easy matter to find them, since there was nothing to go by but the numbered stakes of the surveyors. These were anything but plain guides to the uninitiated, and even the more understanding were sometimes baffled by reason of indistinct figures or missing stakes. The result was that many viewed other people's land for their own, while some, conscious of their helplessness, gave up the search for the time being. The majority, however, found their land with no more difficulty than was inevitable in a long tramp through the rough and muddy paths of a jungle. The mosquitoes kept us company, and the parrots scolded us from overhead, but there were no wild beasts or venomous snakes to be dreaded. Probably there are no tropical forests in the world so safe as those of Cuba; one may sleep in them night after night without fear of death or disease. This is true, at least, of the country within a radius of forty miles from La Gloria, as I can testify from personal experience and observation.

In most cases the colonists were pleased with their land when they found it, and the changes were comparatively few. A little of the lowest land was more or less under water, but even this was rarely given up, the holders discovering that it was very rich, and realizing that it would be all right in the dry season, and that it could be drained for the wet. Some experienced men from Florida showed a decided preference for this land, and later it developed that their judgment was good. This lowest land was of black soil; that slightly higher was apt to be yellow, and the highest red or chocolate. All these different colored soils were embraced in the allotment which had been made, and they all represented good land. The colonists could never agree as to which was the best. Undoubtedly some were superior for certain purposes to others, but all appeared to be fertile and gave promise of being very productive. The black and yellow soils were almost entirely free from stone, while the red and chocolate had some, but seldom enough to do any harm. The colonists set to work with energy clearing their town lots, and a few began work at once on their plantations. The colony was soon a busy hive of industry.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

CHAPTER VI.

THE SUGAR RIOT.

After the middle of January and the beginning of the allotment of the land, the population of La Gloria began to "pick up" somewhat. Colonists who had been lingering at Nuevitas, and some new ones who had come down from the States by the Munson line, would straggle in from time to time.

People were coming and going almost every day, but the balance was in favor of the colony and the population slowly but surely increased.

Among the new arrivals were quite a number of women and children. About January 20 the advance guard of the colonists who had come on the second excursion of the _Yarmouth_ made its appearance. On this trip the _Yarmouth_ brought about sixty pa.s.sengers, the majority of whom finally got up to La Gloria. More would have come if Nuevitas at that time had not been a hotbed of misrepresentation regarding conditions in the new colony. All the unfavorable features were grossly and ridiculously exaggerated, while stories of starvation, sickness, and death were poured into the ears of new arrivals until many an intending colonist became convinced that it would be taking his life in his hand for him to make even the briefest visit to La Gloria. Such is the tendency of human nature to exaggerate, and to build a big sensation out of a small nucleus.

People who had never seen La Gloria were the ones whose representations seemed to be most credited in the States and by the new arrivals therefrom. I saw a letter received by one of the company's officials at La Gloria from a woman in Asbury Park, N. J., who was nearly crazed by anxiety for her youngest son, who was then in the colony. She had heard frequently from her oldest son, who had been in La Gloria with the survey corps for several months, and he had always written very favorably of the place, so she said, but she had lately seen an Asbury Park man who had returned from Nuevitas and he had told a terrible story of suffering and danger in the colony. The woman's letter showed clearly that she discredited the accounts of her son and accepted those of the man who had brought back a harrowing tale. Why she credited the story of a man who never got further than Nuevitas in preference to that of her own son, who had been at La Gloria for months, I never could understand, especially as the latter was an intelligent and apparently perfectly reliable young man. Doubtless mortals are predisposed to believe the worst. I looked up the woman's youngest son, and found him well and happy, and ready to join with his brother in speaking favorably of La Gloria.

[Ill.u.s.tration: LA GLORIA, CUBA, LOOKING NORTH.

_Photograph by V. K. Van De Venter, Jan. 23, 1900._]

Meanwhile, we were living contentedly in La Gloria, enjoying excellent health and suffering no serious discomfort, and laughing in uproarious glee over the sensational articles which appeared in many of the newspapers of the States. With no little surprise we learned from the great newspapers of the United States that we were "marooned in a Cuban swamp," suffering from "malaria and starvation," and "dying of yellow fever and smallpox." As a matter of fact, at that time there had not been a single death or one case of serious sickness. The health of the colonists remained good through the winter, the spring, and even the following summer.

Indeed, the colonists had but few grievances, so few that they would sometimes manufacture them out of trifles. Of such was the "sugar riot"

with its laughable and harmonious ending. One day in the latter part of January, when the arrival of provisions was barely keeping pace with the arrival of colonists, a small invoice of sugar was brought into La Gloria over the bad road from the port. Scarcely had it been unloaded at the commissary when the head of the engineer corps took possession of about half of it for the surveyors and the boarders at their table, and gave orders that the other half should be turned over to the Cuban workmen of the company. The carrying out of this order aroused great indignation among the colonists who were boarding themselves and had run out of sugar, as most of them had. This action of the amateur "sugar trust" caused certain of the colonists to sour, so to speak, on all of the officers and chief employes of the company, for the time being, at least, and mutterings, "not loud but deep," were heard all about the camp. Not that there was danger of a sanguinary conflict, but a war of words seemed imminent. The "era of good feeling" was threatened.

A day or two later, on the evening of Sat.u.r.day, January 27, a meeting of the colonists was held preparatory to the organization of a pioneer a.s.sociation, and it was arranged among some of the leading spirits in the sugar agitation that at the close of this session the saccharine grievance should be publicly aired. The gathering was held around a camp-fire in the open air, in front of headquarters tent. The regularly called meeting adjourned early, with a feeling of excited expectancy in the air. Something was about to happen. The officers of the company on the ground, it was understood, were to be raked over the coals for favoring the Cubans and thus perpetrating an outrage on the colonists.

The colonists whose tempers had been kept sweet by a sufficiency of sugar lingered around in the pleasant antic.i.p.ation of witnessing an _opera bouffe_.