Cuba, Old and New | Page 6

no longer tolerated in any civilized country. While some to whom the system itself was a bitter offence have found much to criticize in its operation in Cuba, the general opinion of observers appears to be that it was there notably free from the brutality usually supposed to attend it. The Census Report of 1899, prepared under the auspices of the American authorities, states that "while it was fraught with all the horrors of this nefarious business elsewhere, the laws for the protection of slaves were unusually humane. Almost from the beginning, slaves had a right to purchase their freedom or change their masters, and long before slavery was abolished they could own property and contract marriage. As a result, the proportion of free colored to slaves has always been large." Humboldt, who studied the institution while it was most extensive, states that "the position of the free negroes in Cuba is much better than it is elsewhere, even among those nations which have for ages flattered themselves as being most advanced in civilization." The movement for the abolition of slavery had its beginning in 1815, with the treaty of Vienna, to which Spain was a party. Various acts in the same direction appear in the next fifty years. The Moret law, enacted in 1870 by the Spanish Cortes, provided for gradual abolition in Spain's dominions, and a law of 1880, one of the results of the Ten Years' War, definitely abolished the system. Traces of it remained, however, until about 1887, when it may be regarded as having become extinct forever in Cuba.
For the first two hundred and fifty years of Cuba's history, the city of Havana appears as the special centre of interest. There was growth in other sections, but it was slow, for reasons that will be explained elsewhere. In 1538, Havana was attacked and totally destroyed by a French privateer. Hernando de Soto, then Governor of the island, at once began the construction of defences that are now one of the special points of interest in the city. The first was the Castillo de la Fuerza. In 1552, Havana became the capital city. In 1555, it was again attacked, and practically destroyed, including the new fortress, by French buccaneers. Restoration was effected as rapidly as possible. In 1589, La Fuerza was enlarged, and the construction of the Morro and of La Punta, the fortress at the foot of the Prado, was begun. The old city wall, of which portions still remain, was of a later period. Despite these precautions, the city was repeatedly attacked by pirates and privateers. Some reference to these experiences will be made in a special chapter on the city. The slow progress of the island is shown by the fact that an accepted official report gives the total population in 1775 as 171,620, of whom less than 100,000 were white. The absence of precious metals is doubtless the main reason for the lack of Spanish interest in the development of the country. For a long time after the occupation, the principal industry was cattle raising. Agriculture, the production of sugar, tobacco, coffee, and other crops, on anything properly to be regarded as a commercial scale, was an experience of later years. The reason for this will be found in the mistaken colonial policy of Spain, a policy the application of which, in a far milder manner, cost England its richest colony in the Western Hemisphere, and which, in the first quarter of the 19th Century, cost Spain all of its possessions in this half of the world, with the exception of Cuba and Porto Rico.

II
NEW CUBA
While there is no point in Cuba's history that may be said to mark a definite division between the Old Cuba and the New Cuba, the beginning of the 19th Century may be taken for that purpose. Cuba's development dragged for two hundred and fifty years. The population increased slowly and industry lagged. For this, Spain's colonial policy was responsible. But it was the policy of the time, carried out more or less effectively by all nations having colonies. England wrote it particularly into her Navigation Acts of 1651, 1660, and 1663, and supported it by later Acts. While not rigorously enforced, and frequently evaded by the American colonists, the system at last proved so offensive that the colonists revolted in 1775. Most of Spain's colonies in the Western Hemisphere, for the same reason, declared and maintained their independence in the first quarter of the 19th Century. At the bottom of Cuba's several little uprisings, and at the bottom of its final revolt in 1895, lay the same cause of offence. In those earlier years, it was held that colonies existed solely for the benefit of the mother-country. In 1497, almost at the very beginning of Spain's