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 institution, 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.

The following table shows an importation into the district of Havana alone, for a period of 31 years, of 225,574 Africans:

1790 2,534 1806 4,395 1791 8,498 1807 2,565 1792 8,528 1808 1,607 1793 3,777 1809 1,152 1794 4,164 1810 6,672 1795 5,832 1811 6,349 1796 5,711 1812 6,081 1797 4,552 1813 4,770 1798 2,001 1814 4,321 1799 4,919 1815 9,111 1800 4,145 1816 17,737 1801 1,659 1817 25,841 1802 13,832 1818 19,902 1803 9,671 1819 17,194 1804 8,923 1820 4,122 1805 4,999 ------- Total 225,574

But Havana was not the only port through which slaves entered Cuba, and the recognized channels were not the only ones through which they came. Therefore, to provide for the illicit importations and those made at Trinidad and Santiago these figures should be increased by at least one fourth to cover the importations for the whole island. This gives us the following results:

From 1521 to 1763 60,000 1764 33,409 Havana From 1791 to 1805 91,211 1806 to 1820 131,829 Secret trade and trade in other parts of the island 56,000 ------- 372,499

As we have seen, the trade did not stop when it was made illegal. We have the authority of one of the British commissioners at Havana that in 1821 twenty-six vessels engaged in the slave trade landed 6,415 slaves; and this gentleman also states that only about fifty per cent. of such arrivals ever reached the attention of the commissioners, so that to this number an equal amount should be added to provide for the slaves imported by "underground" methods.

The yearly reports of these British commissioners furnish some food for thought on this subject. They report the following data:

1822, 10 vessels arrived, bringing--estimated--3,000 slaves 1823, 4 vessels arrived, bringing--estimated--1,200 " 1824, 17 vessels arrived, bringing--estimated--5,100 " 1825, 14 vessels arrived, bringing--estimated--4,200 " 1826, 11 vessels arrived, bringing--estimated--3,000 " 1827, 10 vessels arrived, bringing--estimated--3,500 " 1828, 28 vessels arrived, bringing--estimated--7,000 " -------- 27,000 " Adding the estimated one half for the number not reported 13,500 " ------- 40,500 "

In 1838, the British consul at Havana reported to the foreign office in London, regarding slave importations into Cuba for the previous nine years:

1829 8,600 1830 9,800 1831 10,400 1832 8,200 1833 9,000 1834 11,400 1835 14,800 1836 14,200 1837 15,200 ------- Total 101,600 Add 1/5 20,320 ------- 121,920

It will be observed that the consulate adds only one fifth to cover the secret importations during this period.

From 1838 to 1853 the importations, according to records laid before the British House of Commons, were as follows:

1838 10,495 1846 419 1839 10,995 1847 1,450 1840 10,104 1848 1,500 1841 8,893 1849 8,700 1842 3,630 1850 3,500 1843 8,000 1851 5,000 1844 10,000 1852 7,924 1845 1,300 1st half 1853 7,329 ------ 99,239

During the early years of the slave trade, the Spanish masters treated their slaves not so well as they treated their work animals. But gradually they began to realize that after all it was cheaper to keep the slaves that they had in good physical condition than to be continually buying new ones, especially when the trade had fallen off because of legal restrictions.

A greater number of colored women were imported; the moral condition of the negroes, especially as to marriage, became a subject of greater interest to the plantation owners; the negroes were encouraged to marry, and wives were recruited from among the mulattoes as well as those of pure black blood. Some efforts were made for better sanitary conditions toward the middle of the century, and persons were employed on the estates whose business it was to look after the sick slaves and nurse them. In the last analysis, however, the conditions under which the slaves lived on each plantation rested entirely--as it did in the United States--on the kind of overseers under whom they were employed.

There are many touching stories of the devotion of the slaves to their master. This was quite as great as among the old southern families in the United States. The Cuban was naturally a kind master--we wish the Spanish-born planter might always be as well spoken of--and he inspired in his slaves a feeling of real affection. This often developed into a single hearted devotion so great that the slave grew to count his master's enemies as his own.

This is not extraordinary when we consider that the African, torn from his own home and family ties and transported to a strange country, among a strange people, took the name of his master and became a part of the big household, identified not only with the working life but also with the social life of the little community represented by the plantation. Fierce as he may have been in his native surroundings, he was naturally affectionate and clung eagerly to the one who, holding the slave's whole destiny in his hand, yet was kind to him. The women slaves, especially those of mixed blood, were bound to their masters often by ties of consanguinity. They attended the master's wife when her children were born, nursed the babies at their own breasts, and served and waited upon the second generation as foster mothers. They were like grown up children. The places where they lived, the food that they ate and the clothing that they wore were all under the control of the one whom they served. When he fell ill, they were devoted nurses, and when he died, they buried him, and manifested their grief in their own primitive fashion.

The slave owner who treated his slaves well, until other factors began to enter the situation, had little to fear from them. But masters were not always kindly. There were as many different varieties of human disposition in those days as in these. The negro can hate as fiercely as he can love, and gradually, as he acquired more knowledge and understanding, on the estates where kindness was not the law, there grew up mutterings of discontent and hatred, and hints of possible uprisings.

It was the excessive mortality among the black population which first, perhaps, influenced their owners to favor better laws and more natural and healthful conditions for them. Curiously enough, up to the opening of the nineteenth century there were "religious scruples" against the introduction of female slaves on the plantations, although the colored women were much less expensive to purchase than the men. The colored men were condemned to celibacy, as Baron Humboldt told us, "under the pretext that vicious habits were thus avoided." They were worked in the day time, and locked in at night to avoid their having any chance for female companionship. And yet, in spite of the fact that these "scruples" were "religious," we find the paradoxical situation that the Jesuit and Bethlehemite friars were the only planters who encouraged the importation of women slaves.

Don Francisco de Arango, being a clear sighted man, endeavored to bring about the imposition of a tax upon such plantations as did not have at least one third as many women as men among their slaves. He also tried to have a duty of $6 levied upon every male negro imported from Africa. In both of these efforts he was defeated, but they had the excellent effect of stirring public opinion. While the juntas were opposed, as always, to enacting any such drastic measures, yet there began to be a disposition to encourage the mating of the slaves, to increase the number of marriages, to give each negro a little cabin of his own that he might call home, and, when children came, to see that they were properly cared for. Then, too, efforts were made to insure lighter work for the women during pregnancy, with a total relief as the time for the birth of the coming child grew nearer.

How much of this came about because the slave owners were forced to see that a continuation of the early conditions would compass their own ruin, and how much because they were naturally inclined to be humane when their duty was brought home to them, it is difficult to determine; but judging from the Cuban's naturally kindly disposition, we are inclined to believe that in many instances the master was glad to treat his slaves as well as he could, when he began to realize that after all they were not merely property--cheap labor--but human beings with emotions and longings very much like his own. Under these bettered conditions the rate of negro mortality fell as low as from eight to six per cent. on the best plantations.

Another element, however, which was not conducive to the betterment of the conditions of the negroes was the introduction of thousands of Chinese laborers. They contracted to work for a number of years at prices far below those usually estimated as fair, on the island. They were the very lowest type of Chinese, and brought with them many vicious influences and practices. No Chinese women were imported, and the Chinese men mingled freely with the negro women. The very worst kind of miscegenation was thus promoted, and the effect on the morals of the negroes on the estates where these Chinese were employed was very bad indeed.

In no other of the foreign colonies in America did the free negro so predominate as in Cuba. It was not at all a difficult matter for a black to gain freedom, since almost no real obstacles were placed in his way. Every slave who did not like his "condition of servitude" had a right to seek a new master, or to purchase his liberty, on payment only of the price paid for him.

Then, too, the religious education of the slaves came to be recognized as a matter of great importance. Religion played an important part in the life of the Spanish colonies in general. It was therefore only natural that they should employ every available means to convert the African slave from his "false heathen superstitions" to their own "true faith." Besides, it had long been the theory of tyrants that if men were imbued with religious fervor and taught self-immolation, they were thus rendered more docile under oppression. The slave code accordingly required every master to instruct his slaves in religion.

One of the first and most marked results of this encouragement of religious feeling was quite different from what had been expected or intended. That was, to arouse a strong and increasing repugnance to the legal continuance of the institution of slavery. This prevailed among the better class of owners as well as among the slaves themselves. More and more frequent became the custom of providing by will for the emancipation of slaves at the death of their masters. The natural affection, also, to which we have referred, which arose between slaves who acted as domestic or body servants and the owners who enjoyed such faithful service, conduced to the same end. The natural inclination of the humane master was to grant such servitors their freedom.

Despite these palliating circumstances, slavery was odious, and persistent negro insurrections began to cause serious concern to the white population. In hope of checking them by kindness, new laws were enacted. Legal restrictions were placed upon the hours of labor. It was decreed that except under certain stated conditions a master should not work his slaves more than nine or ten hours a day. When the exigencies of the season required greater efforts, sixteen hours were prescribed as the extreme limit, and the master was required to give extra pay for the extra time. But these regulations were difficult if not impossible to enforce. Indeed, we must assume that they were not meant to be enforced. They were for show and nothing more; and they remained practically a dead letter.

Religious scruples could not and of course did not prevent the performance of much labor on Sundays, and the needs of agriculture often made work necessary on holidays. There were routine duties to be performed every day. For these, two hours were regarded as sufficient, and to such time the code restricted the labor of Sundays and holidays. There was also a general provision under which slaves were granted the right to labor on their own account, paying a certain part of their wages to the masters and retaining the remainder from which they might, if they desired, create a fund looking toward their own eventual freedom.

One cannot escape the conclusion that during the periods of slavery, either in the United States or the Spanish colonies, the African negro was never really regarded--no matter how close and friendly his relations with his master--in the last analysis, as anything more than a sort of higher animal or at best a child. Men do not thrash their employes for disobedience, when there is any pretence of equality between master and servant. Animals are whipped to teach them obedience, and a child is chastised when he is naughty. The last was ever the corrective which the white master wielded against his disobedient or lazy slaves. It is true that nominally the laws of Cuba did not permit its brutal misuse. The slave code limited the amount of punishment for any offense to twenty-five lashes. Any more severe measures, if known, were the subject of careful judicial investigation, and the penalty for them on conviction was a fine of from $20 to $200. Unfortunately, however, these laws were not effective. It is obvious that a strong man can do much damage to a human being with 25 lashes. Infractions of the law were seldom reported. The frightened African, subject to his master, feared the results of reporting a violation of the law. He would have to stand trial before a jury, not of his peers but of white men, one of whose number was the aggressor. The other slaves--his witnesses--were far too afraid of what might befall them if they upheld the testimony of the complainant. Even the sluggish brain of the slave could picture, with dreadful anticipation, the anger of the master, and the subsequent retribution, much more severe than the original beating, should by any extraordinary chance the slave be triumphant and his master be compelled to pay a fine.

And so, in spite of the fact that in none of the colonies was the condition of the black freedman better than in Cuba,--far better than in Martinique, where free negroes were prohibited from receiving gifts from white people, and where they might be apprehended and returned to servitude if they could be convicted of the very natural act of aiding any of their less fortunate brothers to escape--and in spite of the laws which might, if not dead letters, have safeguarded the interests of the slaves, a feeling of dissatisfaction and unrest among the blacks was seething beneath the surface. The more knowledge they gained, and, curiously enough, the more concessions there were granted them, the stronger it grew, breeding trouble and bad blood between the white owners and the blacks, both enslaved and free, destroying mutual confidence and engendering a spirit of fear and distrust which was presently to break forth into open revolt.

The negroes hated the Spanish authorities, too, because they recognized them to be cowards and hypocrites, pretending one thing and doing another; oppressing the weak for their own gain, and siding with the powerful because it served their interests to do so. In such circumstances the drift toward slave insurrections was inevitable.