Thesuccessor of Rojas was Gonzalo de Guzman, who thus returned for a second term of the governorship. That adroit, masterful and often unscrupulous politician had spent his time in Spain to good advantage. In various ways and through various methods, not altogether dissociated from the golden treasure which he carried thither from the mines of Cuba, he ingratiated himself with a number of influential courtiers, and through them with the royal court itself. Before long he was able to secure a revision of the sentence which Vadillo had passed upon him, and a reversal of its most harsh decrees and a mitigation of others. Thus he was largely vindicated, and was enabled to plume himself upon having received the royal favor. At the same time he conducted, through his faithful retainers, a campaign of intrigue in Hispaniola, with the result that the Admiral, or Vicereine, the widow of Diego Columbus, appointed him back to his old place as governor of Cuba. The appointment was not to be effective, however, until ratified by the King, and such ratification the King for some time delayed to grant.
Guzman was confident, however, of receiving the royal ratification, and so, without waiting for it, he proceeded to Cuba as governor-elect, and began elaborate preparations for resuming office. That was in the midsummer of 1534, more than a year before Rojas was permitted to retire. Indeed, we may well believe that it was the presence and conduct of Guzman that made the island intolerable to Rojas. For Guzman established himself in a fine house, with a retinue of servants, and attracted to himself most of the practical politicians of Cuba, especially those who were inclined to "welcome thecoming, speed the parting, guest." They all knew that Rojas was to retire, and that Guzman was to succeed him; wherefore they paid all possible deference to the former and treated the latter with neglect if not with contempt.
The actual change came, as we have already seen, in October, 1535. Rojas relinquished the governorship, and Guzman resumed it; and a most grievous decline of Cuba began. Guzman promptly set about serving his own personal interests, rewarding his friends, and punishing all of his opponents who were still within reach. Few of them were within reach, however; all who could do so having fled the island, for Jamaica or elsewhere. Cuba was thus deprived of some of its most useful citizens, while its important public offices were filled with self-seeking politicians.
Happily, this unworthy and detrimental administration was short lived; and it was ended through what was nothing less than a peaceful revolution in the political status of Cuba. For some time there had been controversy and litigation between the heirs of Columbus and the Spanish crown, concerning the rights, powers and privileges of the former in the West Indies. The suits came to an end in the spring of 1537, when a settlement was effected, one of the bases of which was the complete renunciation, by the heirs of Columbus, of all right, title or jurisdiction of any kind whatever over the island of Cuba. That of course completely separated Cuba from the jurisdiction of Hispaniola, and made it directly responsible to and dependent upon Spain. It was no longer an adjunct to Hispaniola, but a colony of Spain.
Now thitherto the governor and most of the other officials in Cuba had received their commissions from the Admiral or Vicereine in Hispaniola, or from the Supreme Court there. Such was the case with Guzman, though his Hispaniolan commission had received the ratification of the King. It was therefore logically held that all commissions thus given in Cuba by the Hispaniola government became null and void with the emancipation of Cuba from dependence upon the other and smaller island. In consequence, Guzman's second term in the governorship came to an end in March, 1537.
An interregnum ensued. The King was contemplating further reorganization of his American domains, and consequently forebore for some time to appoint a successor to Guzman, or indeed to any of the important officials whose terms of office had been involuntarily ended. There had just been, as we have seen, widespread investigations and trials of royal functionaries for frauds, and the King was solicitous to find someone who was indubitably trustworthy, before making further appointments. The result was that the affairs of the island, which had been gravely disturbed and damaged by Guzman, went rapidly from bad to worse, and threatened to plunge into utter chaos.
Nor was the solution of this crisis for the advantage of the island. On the contrary, it was to its still further detriment. Once before, in the time of Velasquez, Cuba had been made to suffer greatly because of the development of Mexico and the exodus of many enterprising Cubans to that country. That experience was now to be repeated even more disastrously, in the attempted development of Florida. That country had long been known. It was placed upon the maps as early as 1502, and it was in 1513, at the time when Velasquez was making his first settlements in Cuba, that Juan Ponce de Leon obtained a royal charter to discover and to settle the Island of Bimini, as it was called, on which there was reputed to be a fountain of extraordinary curative powers, capable of restoring to the aged all the vigor of youth. Actual colonization of Florida was not undertaken, however, until 1521, in which enterprise Ponce de Leon himself was wounded in a fight with Indians, and came to Cuba to die. Again in 1527 Panfilo de Narvaez led a large expedition from Cuba to Florida, in which he and all but four of his six hundred men were lost in Indian fighting and in a great Gulf storm.
There next came upon the scene a far more formidable personage than any of these, or indeed than any who had visited Cuba since Columbus with the exception of Cortez.HERNANDO DE SOTOHERNANDO DE SOTOThis was none other than Hernando de Soto. Like many another famous Spanish conquistador, he was an impoverished nobleman of Estremadura, who had been in youth a protégé of the infamous Pedrarias d'Avila, the constructive murderer of Balboa and the scourge of Darien. Through the bounty of d'Avila he had passed through a university; he had gone to Darien with his patron in 1519; and in 1532 he had gone with reenforcements to Pizarro in Peru. There he played a great part, personally seizing the Inca monarch, Atahualpa, and discovering the mountain pass which led to the treasure city of Cuzco. Incidentally he seized for himself a vast fortune, with which he returned to Spain, where he married the daughter of d'Avila and for a time settled down in splendid state.
When, however, Cabeza de Vaca, one of the four survivors of the last expedition of Narvaez, reached Spain with stories of the marvellous wealth of Florida, de Soto's adventurous spirit, or his cupidity, was again aroused. He disposed of part of his estates, purchased and armed four ships, recruited a force of 620 foot soldiers and 120 horsemen, and sought from the King a commission to explore, conquer and colonize Florida. In him the King apparently saw, as he imagined, the solution of the problem, what to do about Cuba. He accordingly joined Florida and Cuba together, politically, making de SotoAdelantado of the former and governor of the latter. With this commission de Soto sailed from Spain in April, 1538, bound first for Cuba and thence for Florida. The expedition called for a time at the Canary Islands, where its members were richly entertained by the Governor of Gomera. There De Soto's wife, the Lady Isabel, engaged the beautiful daughter of the Governor to accompany her as her chief lady-in-waiting, a choice which led to some interesting personal complications, actually affecting the progress of the expedition.
It was on June 7, 1538, that De Soto arrived at Santiago with probably the most imposing fleet that had ever yet visited that port or the waters of Cuba. It comprised more than a score of vessels, carrying more than a thousand soldiers. This armada comprised the galleonsSan Cristobal,Buena Fortuna,Magdalena,Conception,San Juan,San Antonio, andSanta Barbara; one caravel (a three-masted vessel), two light brigs (two masted), and about a dozen smaller craft. Juan de Anasco was chief pilot of the expedition, and the captains were Nuñez Tobar, Luis Morosco de Alvarado, Andres de Vasconcelas, Arias Tinoco, Alfonso Robo de Cardenosa, Diego Garcia, and Pedro Calderon. Among the commanders of the troops were Carlos Enriques, Micer de Espinola, Dionisio de Paris, Rodrigo Gallego, Francisco del Poso, and Diego Banuelos. Nor was the propagation of the True Faith neglected. It was entrusted to a mission comprising four priests and a number of Dominican friars, under the leadership of the friar Luis de Soto, a cousin of the generalissimo of the expedition. Santiago was naturally selected for the entry to Cuba seeing that it was still the official capital and that De Soto was already commissioned Governor. There was a narrow escape from shipwreck in entering the narrow and somewhat tortuous mouth of the great harbor, after which the Governor was received by the municipal functionaries with all the pomp and dignity of which the capital was capable. Tidings of the coming of the new Governor had spread throughout the Island and people of consequence from all parts had flocked to Santiago to welcome him, to seek to ingratiate themselves with him and to celebrate what they fondly hoped would prove to be the beginning of a new and splendid era in the history of Cuba. It is recorded that the gentlemen of the town sent down to the boat landing a fine roan horse for De Soto to ride and a richly caparisoned mule for Doña Isabel. He and all his company were lodged in the most luxurious quarters the town could afford and were hospitably entertained without cost to themselves. Santiago had at this time about eighty houses which were described as spacious and well appointed. About half of them were of masonry and tile and the remainder of boards and thatch. There were also many attractive country estates surrounding the city.
The day following his landing De Soto formally assumed his authority as Governor, and Bartolome de Ortiz became Alcalde mayor of Santiago. Scarcely had he done this, however, when news came that a French corsair had attacked Havana, ransacked the church, and burned a number of houses; after which he had sailed away. De Soto at once sent Mateo Aceituna to the scene, with a company of soldiers and artisans, with instructions to rebuild the houses and then to begin the construction of a fort which would serve as an adequate defence for the town. Having done this, he sent Lady Isabel, escorted by his nephew Don Carlos, to Havana by sea, with a strong squadron, while he himself with the remainder of his company set out on horseback for a tour of the islands. He first went to Bayamo, and thence to Trinidad, and Puerto Principe. From the latter place he went in a canoe to the great country estate of Vasco Porcallo de Figueroa at Camaguey, there to get news of Lady Isabel's arrival at Havana. Thence he proceeded to Sancti Spiritus, which at that time was a place of only about thirty houses. Half of his company landed there, and half went on to Trinidad, which was a still smallerplace of not more than twenty houses, though it contained a hospital for the poor, the only such institution on the whole Island. Thence he proceeded to Havana without finding another town or settlement of any kind on the entire road.
During his stay in Havana De Soto deprived Nuñez Tobar of his rank as Captain-General and gave it instead to Vasco Porcallo de Figueroa, because Tobar had made love to Doña Isabel's lady-in-waiting, the daughter of the Governor of Gomera, and indeed had seduced her. In spite, or perhaps because of this punishment Tobar thereupon married the girl and afterward joined De Soto's expedition to Florida in a subordinate capacity.
There can be no question that Hernando de Soto came to Cuba with a prestige far surpassing that of any of his predecessors. He was in the prime of manhood and at the height of his fame. He had been the hero of great adventures and of marvellous achievements, and was possessed of great wealth. He was not only governor of Cuba but also Adelantado of Florida, which meant all the lands at the north of the Gulf, from the Atlantic to Mexico, and thus, it was confidently assumed, Cuba would become the chief province and Santiago the capital city, of an empire exceeding in extent and wealth both Mexico and Peru.
These brilliant anticipations were, however, doomed to speedy and most crushing disappointment. It soon became clear that de Soto regarded Cuba as a mere stepping stone to Florida, and that he was not merely willing to sacrifice the island's interests to the gratification of his continental ambitions, but had from the first been intent upon so doing. He paid little attention to the representations which were made to him in behalf of Cuba, or indeed to the duties of his office as governor. Instead, all his thought seemed to be given and all his efforts directed, to preparations for proceeding on his way to the alluring regions beyond the Gulf. Moreover, he tempted into joining him in that enterprise many of the richest andmost forceful men of Cuba. Among these was Vasco de Figueroa, who had been a comrade of Velasquez. He had settled in Camaguey as early as 1514, and had grown very rich. We may say, indeed, that he was the richest and most influential man in all that part of Cuba. He eagerly accepted an invitation to join the expedition, as de Soto's first lieutenant, and he drew along with him many other substantial men from Camaguey and other parts of the island.
Nor was the island thus to suffer for the sake of Florida, merely as a whole. The capital, Santiago, was specially to suffer. Its traditions and its long-established interests were nothing to De Soto, who looked for nothing but to promote his Florida venture. Manifestly, Santiago was no place to serve as a base of operations to the northward, so he presently transferred his headquarters to Havana. That city had been founded in 1514 on the south coast, near what is now Batabano, but a few years later had been transferred by migration of populace and name to its present commanding site at the north. In 1537 it had been raided and partly destroyed by fire, by buccaneers, but at the time of de Soto's coming was rapidly being rebuilt and restored to greater importance than before.
So a few weeks after his arrival at Santiago, in the early part of August, 1538, de Soto ruthlessly closed his mansion at Santiago and removed his whole household to Havana. His household and his foot soldiers were sent thither in his vessels, of which he now had five. He himself with his horsemen travelled overland, Vasco de Figueroa acting as guide. The beauty and riches of the island seem not greatly to have impressed the great adventurer; certainly not enough to withhold him for one moment from his quest. Mountain and plain were alike to him merely the road toward Florida.
It was late in December before all members of the expedition were assembled at Havana. There it was necessary to remain a while, to refit the vessels, gatherprovisions, and prepare for an adventure into an unknown and potentially hostile wilderness. Additional ships were sought, and more men; and recruits came flocking thither eagerly from all parts of the island. Meanwhile, a scouting party of fifty, with one vessel, was sent to the Florida coast, to discover a desirable spot for the landing of the whole expedition. It returned in February, 1539, with the report that no suitable place could be found, and with a recommendation against undertaking the venture. This incensed de Soto, and he made the men hasten back to Florida and not return until they had found that which was the object of their quest. Their second expedition lasted three months. At the end of that time they reappeared at Havana, disembarked, fell upon their knees, and on their knees made their way from the wharf to the church, where they offered thanks for their deliverance. This was their fulfilment of a vow which they had made when they were in imminent danger of death; and they would not so much as speak to the governor or to anyone until the pious act was completed.
They then reported to de Soto that amid great perils they had found a place which would be suitable for his purpose. They had named it the Bay of Espiritu Santo, as it is to this day called, on the West Coast of Florida. To this place accordingly de Soto hastened, at the end of May, 1539, with nine vessels, more than 500 men beside sailors, and half as many horses; leaving his wife at Havana as acting governor in his absence, with Juan de Rojas as her chief assistant. Vasco de Figueroa soon returned, disgusted with Florida, which he described as a land of interminable swamps, but he left his son with de Soto to serve as lieutenant in his stead. Then Gomez Arias, brother of Lady Isabel de Soto, also returned, with glowing reports of the beauty and wealth of Florida, and it was proclaimed throughout all Cuba that the expedition was succeeding beyond all expectation, and that Florida was the garden of the world. The effect wasto excite the Spaniards of Cuba with eagerness to leave their homes in quest of fortunes in this new land.
Accordingly, when in February, 1540, Diego Maldonado came from Florida to Havana, to obtain recruits, arms and provisions, there was no lack of response to his call. It seemed as though almost every able-bodied man in Cuba had caught the Florida fever, and went flocking to Maldonado's standard. Eight great ship-loads of men, horses and provisions were quickly obtained, and sailed away for Florida, leaving behind them three classes of people in Cuba. There were those who lamented that there had not been room enough on the ships to take them, too. There were those who lamented that Cuba was thus being stripped and impoverished to enrich another country, if not in a vain and profitless quest. There were also those, the surviving Indian natives, who rejoiced, because the Spaniards were all leaving Cuba, so that the natives could come to their own again. But all three classes were mistaken in their views of the situation.
Maldonado and Gomez Arias sailed away with their eight ships, to meet de Soto at an appointed place on the Florida coast. Months later they returned without having met him or having been able to ascertain any information of his whereabouts. That was in 1541. In 1542 they sailed again to meet him at the same place; with like result. In 1543 they made a third such venture, and explored the entire coast from the southern extremity of Florida to Mexico. They posted messages upon trees, rocks and headlands. They sent Indian runners inland to inquire for the adventurers. They resorted to every effort they could devise to find their missing chief, but all in vain.
Meantime at Havana the Lady Isabel awaited his return, with unfaltering loyalty and unshaken hope. Bartholomew Ortiz, alcalde mayor, by her lord's appointment, relieved her of the technical duties of gubernatorial rule; which was well, for there was much trouble abroadin the island. It was thus left for her to watch and wait for the coming of the ship which never came. At morning and at evening, day after day, she paced the little pathway on the crest of a fort which her husband had begun to build, the beginning of La Fuerza—of which we shall hear much more. Hour by hour she gazed from that parapet northward, not on guard for hostile sail, but to espy the first glimpse of one returning from the Land of Flowers. There is no more touching picture in all the early history of Cuba than that of this devoted woman, scanning the northern horizon in vain for the appearance of one whose restless and adventurous body was sleeping the last sleep in the bed of the Father of Waters.
LA FUERZA
Havana's oldest and most famous fortress and the oldest inhabited building in the Western Hemisphere. The construction of it was prolonged through the administrations of many Governors and was for years the chief issue of political contention in the island. It was long the Governor's residence as well as a fortress; from it Hernando de Soto set out for the exploration of Florida and the discovery of the Mississippi River, and from its ramparts his wife, Doña Isabel, long but vainly maintained her daily vigil for his return.
LA FUERZA
News came at last, to end in grief her agonizing vigil. It was near the end of 1543 that some three hundred weary and worn survivors of de Soto's expedition reached Panuco, on the Mexican coast, with tidings of their leader's death and the destruction of all the rest of the party. They had wandered through what is now the State of Georgia northward as far as the Tennessee Mountains, thence back to Mobile Bay, in Alabama, thence northwest to the Mississippi, and to the Ouachita, or Washita, in Arkansas. While thence descending the Mississippi, in June, 1542, de Soto had died, and his body had been sunk in the great river. The remainder of his company, led by Luis de Alvarado, had continued down the Mississippi River to the Gulf, and thence sailed along the coast to Panuco.
Thus ended the career of one of the most famous of all the Spanish explorers; and thus ended another brief but disastrous chapter in Cuban history. The island had been drained of men, horses, supplies of all kinds; for its population was still so small that the loss of a few hundred of its best men and horses was a serious deprivation. Its own domestic interests had been neglected. Its government had become inefficient. The Indians, taking advantage of the weakness of the Spaniards, had begunto cherish hopes of regaining their old freedom, and in some places had risen forcibly to seek that end, with the effect of enraging the Spaniards against them even to the extreme of resolving upon either their complete enslavement or their extermination.
Indeed, serious trouble arose with the Indians during de Soto's brief stay in the island. Shortly before his arrival there had been an outbreak of the natives at Baracoa, which resulted in the partial destruction of that town by burning. Towns built entirely of sun-dried thatch were easily burned. Hearing of this, de Soto in almost his first official utterance in Cuba authorized the sending of strong expeditions against the natives, to hunt them down and destroy them ruthlessly. The offending Indians were all Cimarrons, or "wild" Indians who had never been under the repartimiento system, and who expected and solicited the "tame" Indians to rise and join them. The latter not only refused to do this, however, but offered to go out and fight and subdue the Cimarrons, provided they were permitted to do so without being accompanied by Spanish troops; to which the authorities unfortunately would not agree.
De Soto sent all available men out against the Indians, and suppressed them, for the time. But as soon as he left Santiago for Havana, taking with him all the fighting men in the eastern end of the island, the Cimarrons sprang to arms again behind him and became more menacing than ever. They again threatened Baracoa, and were active even in the suburbs of Santiago itself. The departure of Vasco de Figueroa from Camaguey was disastrous. He had been vigorous and unsparing in his suppression of even the slightest uprising, and in his absence the Indians were freed from the greatest restraining influence in that part of the island.
The general confusion of affairs was further aggravated by the intrigues of two marplots. One of these was Gonzalo de Guzman, who had remained in the island after his removal from office, and who was never wearyin mischief-making. He kept himself in frequent communication with the government in Spain, and made all sorts of complaints against de Soto and against the Florida enterprise. Doubtless he was right in saying that the taking of so many fighting men out of Cuba for Florida endangered the peace and safety of the island; though we must think that he exaggerated the condition of Cuba when he wrote to the Spanish government that two-thirds of the island had become depopulated, and all of the towns in the central part of it had been or were in imminent danger of being burned.
The other trouble-maker was the new Bishop, Diego Sarmiento, who had succeeded Bishop Ramirez, deceased. He maintained a large establishment of slaves, and continued the political policy of his predecessor. He had arrived in Cuba almost simultaneously with de Soto, and inclined toward the policy of the latter in respect to Florida.
A strong governor might have saved even this unfortunate and unpromising situation. But there was none. Lady Isabel died of grief a few months after learning of her husband's fate, and for a time thereafter there was no actual governor at all. De Soto had been empowered to appoint an alcalde mayor to serve as his substitute while he was out of the island, if he so desired. He did thus appoint Bartholomew Ortiz; a good enough man but aged and infirm, and quite unable to cope with the problems which confronted him. He found himself involved in a vigorous rivalry between Santiago and Havana in the matter of fortifications. De Soto had begun the construction of an earthwork fort at the entrance to Santiago. Then when he went across to Havana he ordered the building of a strong fort there of stone masonry. This of course aroused the jealousy of Santiago, whose indignant citizens pointed out that their city was and always would be the capital of the island, and was therefore at least as well entitled to a stone fort as Havana. The sacking and burning of Havana, andof Carthagena and other places on the continent, alarmed them, lest Santiago should suffer a like fate. Their insistence was finally rewarded in the building of a stone fort near the mouth of the harbor.
BartholomewOrtizwas at last, on his earnest entreaty, relieved of his duties as alcalde mayor in the fall of 1542, and for some time the insular government was again without a head. But in August, 1543, since nothing had been heard from or of de Soto for three years, the crown assumed that he was dead and that his office was vacant. It therefore appointed Juan de Avila to be not alcalde mayor but governor; permitting the title of Adelantado of Florida to fall into desuetude. The new governor was a young lawyer, whose chief recommendation was that he was a member of the de Avila family, a relative of Lady Isabel de Soto and of her father, the formidable Pedrarias d'Avila. He seems to have been doubtful of his own ability to administer the office successfully, and therefore reluctant to assume its duties. However, he finally came to Cuba, arriving at Santiago at the beginning of February, 1544, nearly six months after his appointment. He was, of course, regularly appointed and commissioned by the crown, with the full powers of governor, and for those reasons he was received at Santiago with grateful rejoicings. The people of that city and indeed of all Cuba had become tired of having an absentee governor and an alcalde mayor in his place.
Juan de Avila's first official act of importance was to make the usual examination of his predecessor's affairs. This was a slight task, because of the short time in which de Soto had actually administered the governorship, and nothing wrong appears to have been found. The affairs of all other officials were likewise in good order. He then turned his attention to the question of the Indians; after which, the deluge.
The royal government had for the time acquiesced in the ruthless policy of de Soto. At least it had not vetoed nor opposed it. But now it had reconsidered the matter, and had resumed its former and better policy, of treating the natives justly and kindly, and giving them their freedom. Perhaps it was moved to do this partly through horror at what Pedrarias d'Avila had done at Darien, in all but exterminating an entire race, and was minded to make atonement by requiring the young kinsman of that "Timour of the Indies" to do the opposite in Cuba. At any rate orders were sent to Cuba that there should be no more enslavement of the natives in gold mining. In fact, they were not to be employed in mining at all. Now as mining was practically the only work in which the Indians were engaged, the effect of that order, if enforced, would have been very marked. It would have stopped gold mining, and would have left the natives in idleness. In fact, it was not enforced. The governor received it, and transmitted it to the various local officials for promulgation and enforcement; and they ignored it. Presently the governor wanted to know why the order had not been obeyed, and was curtly told that it would have been disastrous to the industries and interests of the island. This he reported to the crown, asking for further directions.
The reply was a reminder that the new Bishop, Sarmiento, was Protector of the Indians, and that the governor and he should cooperate for their welfare and for the enforcement of the decrees in their behalf. But the people were no readier to listen to the bishop than to the governor; particularly since that ecclesiastic was himself a slave-holder. Indeed, the municipal council of Santiago formally protested against his appointment as Protector of the Indians and refused to recognize his authority. There were some actual conflicts with force and arms between the two factions, in which the followers of the local government appear to have triumphed over the fewer adherents of the Bishop, and from which no profitnor advantage of any kind accrued to the unhappy objects of the strife.
When these things were reported to the King and his advisers, there was much indignation, and new and peremptory orders were sent to the governor, that involuntary service by the Indians was immediately to be abolished, and that the natives were to be free to work for whom they pleased, or not to work at all. Moreover, they were to be treated in all respects as well as the Spaniards themselves. This radical decree seems to have impressed the governor and bishop as going a little too far, and an appeal was made by common consent to the Council for the Indies, in Spain. That body was divided in opinion, but the majority of it inclined to a modification of the order, to which the King agreed. The governor and the bishop were directed to act together for the welfare of the natives, with a view to granting them ultimately entire liberty and equal rights. There was to be no more slavery. All the Indian slaves who had been brought to Cuba from other islands or from the mainland were to be released and returned to their homes. To hold such slaves, or to engage in the slave trade, was made a grave penal offense. The native Cubans who were held under the repartimiento system were not immediately to be released, but they were not to be transferred from one master to another, and upon the death of their master they were not to be bequeathed as chattels to his heirs, but were to be released. Moreover, if any of the proprietors were proved to be cruel to their native workmen, or neglectful of their interests, the natives were to be released from their authority and set at liberty. In all cases, the natives were to receive fair wages for their labor, and were not to be compelled to do any kind of work for which they were not suited or to which they objected. Finally, it was forbidden for the governor, the bishop, or any other functionary of state or church to hold native Cuban Indians in bondage, though negro slavery was apparently still permitted.
These regulations, put forward by the King and the Council for the Indies, were actually more far-reaching than the order of the crown which had been disputed, though they would not take effect so abruptly. The governor received them, and himself had them publicly proclaimed throughout the island; with prodigious effect. The whole island rose against them. Municipal councils and others officials, as well as planters and gold miners, protested against them, and pleaded for at least postponement of their enforcement until they could have an opportunity to appeal to the crown and to the Council for the Indies against them. To this plea for delay, De Avila acceded; to his own subsequent undoing, as we shall presently see. His own brother, Alfonso de Avila, turned against him, and went to Spain as the chief spokesman of the opponents of the new rules.
While the question of the Indians was thus held in suspension, De Avila turned his attention to other matters, largely matrimonial and domestic. On coming to Cuba, a young bachelor, he made his home in the house of the wealthy widow of Pedro de Paz. This lady, who had otherwise been much married, and who was by birth a member of the formidable Guzman family, whose name she now bore, was past fifty years old, or about twice the age of the young governor. Indeed, she had sons and daughters of about De Avila's age. It was therefore assumed to be quite permissible for the governor to live in her house. The arrangement proved in the end, however, to be disastrous. It was probably the lady's intention from the beginning to take the young man for her husband—her fourth or fifth. At any rate, his domestic association with her, while it could not compromise her reputation, did so compromise his that he could get none of the eligible young women of Cuba to marry him, although he sought the hands of several of them. So after a time, despairing of any other bride, and doubtless much impressed by the wealth of his mature hostess, he married her; and thereafter was her slave.
SAN LAZARO WATCH TOWER, HAVANA Built 1536SAN LAZARO WATCH TOWER, HAVANABuilt 1536
For the remainder of the ill-starred administration the lady was the real governor. A large part of her fortune was in Indian slaves, or in enterprises dependent upon their labor. Therefore it was she who was foremost in opposing the enforcement of the decrees for their emancipation. It was owing to her influence that De Avila acquiesced in their suspension. Then, when the matter was being appealed, it was she who constrained De Avila to leave Santiago for a tour of the island, ostensibly for inspection, but in reality to get away from Santiago, where the social atmosphere was not agreeable, and to settle in some more advantageous place.
That new place was found at Havana. Since the burning of it by French buccaneers that city had been rebuilt in a much more attractive style than Santiago, andsociety there was more hospitable to the governor's wife. A plausible excuse for settling there was, moreover, readily found. It was necessary, for the protection of the place against another French attack, that the valiant governor should remain there in person. For the furtherance of this purpose, he procured the free granting to him of a choice tract of land, and also the free gift of materials for building him a fine mansion. Whether the citizens of Havana gave the materials willingly, for the sake of having the governor of the island living among them, or under some sort of compulsion, may not certainly be declared. Two traditions have been extant. One was, that they gave the materials under compulsion, and that for that reason the governor's mansion was called the "House of Fear." The other was, that they gave them willingly, even eagerly, because of actual dread of another French descent; thinking that if the governor himself lived there, he would take all possible measures for the defence of the place; and that it was for that reason that it was called the "House of Fear."
After completing the house and living there for some time, however, De Avila deemed it politic to return to Santiago. His absence from the latter place had given rise to great dissatisfaction there and throughout all the eastern part of the island, where of course the majority of the population, of wealth and of political and other influence were still to be found. Indeed, protests had been lodged with the crown against what was described as the governor's abandonment of the lawful seat of government of the island. Suspicions of his unworthiness had already strongly arisen at court, and orders were sent for the Supreme Court of Hispaniola, which still had jurisdiction in Cuba, to investigate his conduct. The report was unfavorable, and in consequence the crown summarily appointed Antonio Chaves to succeed him as governor; directing Chaves to conduct a searching inquest into De Avila's administration without regard tothe report already made by the agent of the supreme court of Hispaniola.
The sequel was the greatest public scandal that had thus far marred the history of Cuba. It was at the beginning of October, 1545, that Antonio Chaves was commissioned to be governor of Cuba, and it was at the beginning of June in the following year that he arrived at Santiago and entered upon the duties of his office. The first task was to investigate his predecessor, and this he performed with a thoroughness which seemed ferocious and which certainly suggests either some personal hatred of De Avila or a natural desire to be cruel and ruthless. He charged De Avila with having committed malfeasance of office for the furtherance of his wife's interests; with having engaged in commercial and industrial enterprises himself, to the detriment of public interests; with having established monopolies for enriching himself or his wife; with having both given and accepted bribes; with having intimidated local officials and the people; and with having, largely at the instance of his wife, neglected to enforce the order of the King for the emancipation of the natives.
It is quite probable that De Avila was guilty of most of these charges, particularly of those in which his wife was concerned. Certain it is that Antonio Chaves set about trying to prove them with a strenuous zeal which had never before been displayed. One of his first acts was to seize and search the governor's house; not merely in its public or semi-public offices but in its most private parts. The wardrobe of the governor's wife was ransacked, the furniture examined, the walls and floors sounded and even broken in quest of concealed treasure. To some of these proceedings the governor, or ex-governor, and his wife, too, attempted to offer physical resistance, but they were overpowered and bound while the search went on. Their servants, or slaves, were questioned and even, it is said, threatened with torture if theydid not tell all they knew. Under such compulsion they told of bars of gold hidden underneath the floor of a country house; which were found.
Chaves went so far as to order De Avila to be chained fast to a post in the market place, where fugitive slaves had formerly been chained, and the former governor was actually subjected to this indignity, though he had not yet been convicted and sentenced by a court of justice. But this was carrying prosecution too far. It was regarded as not prosecution but persecution. There was a reaction of popular sentiment in favor of De Avila, and he was assisted to escape from his bonds and to find sanctuary in the Franciscan monastery. After a time he undertook to get away, to Spain, but was quickly detected and recaptured by Chaves. After some further controversy, Chaves discreetly agreed that De Avila might go to Spain, to defend himself if he could before the Council for the Indies; doubtless expecting that such defence would be in vain because of De Avila's offences against that Council's decrees.
So De Avila departed for Spain, with his advocates and his accusers on the same ship. Most fortunately for him, his wife also went, carrying with her an ample store of gold and gems which had escaped the search and confiscation of Chaves. Her conduct in this emergency indicates that she had a sincere devotion to her young husband, in addition, of course, to a desire to protect her own material fortune. Certain it is that she constituted herself his chief and most effective champion, freely expending in his behalf the gold which she had taken to Spain. She testified that all the property which he was accused of having unlawfully acquired was in fact hers and not his, possessed by her before she was married to him, and that if he had in any sense acquired it, it was solely through having married her; and there was no law against a governor's marrying a rich wife.
Her argument prevailed. The litigation in Spain lasted for several years, during part of which time DeAvila was in prison. But in the end he was released; the heavy fines which had been levied against him were remitted; and the sentence of perpetual banishment from Cuba was revoked. Thereupon the devoted couple returned in triumph to Cuba, with a great retinue of servants, and reestablished themselves at Santiago. They held aloof from political affairs, and gave their attention to an exceedingly profitable commerce between Cuba and other West India Islands and Spain; which happy state of affairs lasted until De Avila's death, a dozen years later. He left behind him the reputation of being one of the worst of Cuban governors, not so much because of any inherent viciousness as because of his weakness of character and his complete subservience to the often sordid and sometimes unscrupulous doings of his wife.
That there was any gain for Cuba in the substitution of Antonio Chaves for Juan de Avila is scarcely, however, to be maintained. On the contrary, there was probably some loss. It was a substitution of King Stork for King Log. De Avila had been weak and passive. Chaves was strong and aggressive; as his campaign against his predecessor demonstrated. In point of morals there was probably little to choose between them. So far as enforcement of the laws concerning the natives was concerned, Chaves was worse than De Avila. For De Avila personally wished to enforce them, but was dissuaded from so doing by the influence of his wife and the almost unanimous demands of the officials and people. Chaves, on the other hand, appears to have been personally opposed to all emancipation laws, and inclined to subject the natives to ruthless slavery. Although he had savagely attacked De Avila for acquiescing in the suspension or postponement of the royal decrees, Chaves himself went even further in the same direction. He declined to enforce the laws, protested against them, and petitioned for their repeal on the ground that they would be ruinous to the material welfare of the island. The rule against employment ofnatives in the mines was especially obnoxious to him, and he advised the crown that unless it were repealed, together with all other such measures, the island would soon be "possessed of the devil."
Seeing that Chaves was now doing the very thing that he had condemned his predecessor for doing, the King was disgusted with him, and sent him the sharpest kind of a reprimand, reminding him of his gross inconsistency and bidding him to enforce the law without further ado. Chaves pretended to obey. In fact, he promptly replied that he was obeying. But he obeyed only in pretence. He did not scruple to declare—in Cuba—that he was opposed to giving the natives their freedom. He did not consider them fit for it. Why? Because they were not Christians, and if set free they would not become Christians, and therefore would infallibly be damned eternally. Therefore to save their souls from hell fire, their bodies must be enslaved, so that they could find salvation through being physically compelled to conform with the external practices of Christianity. Particularly necessary was it, he argued, for this system of spiritual salvation through corporeal bondage to prevail in the provinces of Trinidad, Sancti Spiritus and Puerto del Principe, because they had no agricultural interests but were dependent upon mining, and if they could not compel the Indians to work in the mines, they would be ruined.
This logic, more ingenious than ingenuous, did not favorably impress the King, nor was he better pleased with Chaves's proposal that the Indians should be made free in name only, and that while traffic in them as chattels should be forbidden, they should in fact remain in involuntary domestic servitude. Another sharp reprimand was accordingly sent to Chaves, with an intimation that something worse might follow; to which warning the governor was blind and deaf. Accordingly, the blow soon fell.
We have hitherto heard much of Lopez Hurtado, the crabbed, surly and cantankerous old royal treasurer, with his impregnable honesty. It was quite impossible that he should countenance even passively such conduct as that of Chaves. So at the end of 1548 he sent to the King an appalling indictment of the governor, charging him with all manner of public crimes and private vices. He declared that Chaves was enriching himself at the expense of the people, and that he was neglecting public business for private enterprises, that he was permitting his subordinates to practice extortion and oppression, that he was ill-treating and persecuting honest men, and that he was corrupting the women of the island; all of which was probably true.
The King acted promptly. Chaves had been appointed governor in October, 1545, for a term of four years, at a salary of a thousand ducats a year. He had now, at the end of 1548, been in office three years and more; though he claimed that his term ran for four years from June, 1546, when he actually took office. However, there was no tenure of office law to keep him in his place beyond the royal pleasure; certainly not to protect him from removal for cause. So the supreme court of Hispaniola was directed to investigate him, and Gonzalo Perez de Angulo was appointed governor in his stead. The court of Hispaniola sent Geronimo de Aguayo to Cuba to make a private investigation of the governor's doings; Hurtado agreeing to pay the expenses out of his own pocket. Aguayo came to Santiago in April, 1549, while Chaves was absent at Havana, planning to remove the seat of government to that city. Three months were spent in the investigation, and then Aguayo reported to the court a docket of about three hundred charges against Chaves, some of which were serious enough but many of which were altogether trifling. The court decided to take no action upon them, but to hold them for the new governor, Angulo, to use as the basisof the investigation which he, according to law and precedent, would at once make into his predecessor's administration.
Gonzalo de Angulo had been appointed at the beginning of September, 1548, but did not at once come to the West Indies. He reached Hispaniola in the summer of 1549, shortly after Aguayo had made his report, and he remained there for some time, considering the report and conferring with the members of the supreme court. Finally, at the beginning of November, he proceeded to Santiago and assumed the governorship. He entered upon the investigation, using Aguayo's three hundred charges as the basis of it, despite the protest of Chaves that Aguayo had been a prejudiced investigator, moved by political and even pecuniary considerations and intent not upon discovering the truth but merely upon defaming him (Chaves) to the fullest possible extent.
The result of the new governor's inquest was that at the beginning of July, 1550, Chaves was arrested and sent as a prisoner to Spain, for trial there upon a multitude of accusations. These were partly grave and partly—mostly—frivolous. In the former category was the charge that Chaves had refused or at least failed to enforce royal decrees for the enfranchisement of the natives. That was a very serious matter, apparently, and there was no question that it was true. Indeed, Chaves admitted it. But, he said, some of these decrees had been suspended, there had been pleas for the suspension of others, officials had failed to proclaim some, and the Hispaniola court had interfered with others; so that the whole business was in a hopeless tangle and he really could not determine what he ought to do. This argument impressed the Spanish authorities, and they consequently dismissed that and other like charges against him.
But when it came to other charges, they could not be got rid of so easily. Thus, he had refused to pay an apothecary for a dose of medicine. He had called Hurtado's nephew a Jew! He had called certain citizens"conspirators" because they were forming some sort of a secret organization. He had arrested a priest for acting disrespectfully toward him. These were indeed serious matters; particularly when the irate Hurtado produced voluminous affidavits, from parents, physicians, clergy, and whom not, to prove that his nephew like himself was a good Christian. So for these things Chaves was thrown into prison, and even, it is said, bound with heavy fetters, until he should pay the fines which were imposed upon him.
It must be recorded in Chaves's favor that he was unable to pay these fines. Indeed, he seems not to have had means sufficient to employ a lawyer to defend him, wherefore he was compelled to conduct his own case; which he was quite competent to do, being a licentiate of the bar. There was, then, of course no thought of his being able to influence the course of justice by the use of money, as De Avila was supposed to have done. Whether he was actually so poor, or whether his fortune had been so invested in Cuba that he was unable at once to realize upon it, does not appear. In charity we may accept the former theory, as the more creditable to him. At any rate, after two years of litigation and imprisonment, he secured a final reduction of the fines levied against him to a little more than 100,000 maravedi, which he was required to pay within a year. This trifling amount he contrived to raise and so regained his freedom; going thereafter back to Cuba to settle up his personal affairs there, and thence to Peru, to engage no more in Cuban politics.
Apart from his prosecution of Chaves, the first act of Gonzalo de Angulo on assuming the governorship was to attempt a radical solution of the Indian problem. This he did by proclaiming the full and universal emancipation of all natives, however and by whomsoever held. Seeing how strenuously and vociferously similar action had been resisted only a few years before, as sure to be ruinous to the island, it is worthy of remark that thisprovoked no remonstrances and caused no economic disturbance. The explanation is simple. The former proposals for emancipation included slaves who had been brought to Cuba from other lands, while this one applied only to natives. Now the latter, through disease, fighting, and other causes, had been steadily decreasing in numbers, until they were now practically a negligible quantity. They probably numbered not more than twenty-five hundred in the entire island. It really mattered little, from an industrial point of view, whether they were enslaved or free. They were in fact set free, in good faith, and then practically disappeared. They did not relapse into primitive barbarism, but they lived in squalor, most of them, and gradually died out.
Not all of them, however, suffered such a fate. Some settled on lands near if not actually among the Spanish colonists, adopted the ways of civilization, and prospered. They acquired freehold of land and houses, kept herds of cattle, built ships and engaged in commerce. Some of them intermarried with Spanish families, and the offspring of such unions often rose to honorable rank in society and the state.
The question of slavery was not by any means disposed of by this emancipation of the native Indians. There was a much larger number of slaves in the island who had been brought thither from other countries, including both insular and continental Indians and African negroes. Governor Angulo was directed to order their emancipation and repatriation at the same time with the others. But he withheld the decree. These foreign slaves were far more numerous than the natives and were consequently more important to industry and commerce. They had not been simply "assigned" to owners, like the Cuban Indians, but had been purchased outright for cash, like any other merchandise, and were legally as much the property of their owners as land, houses or cattle. In view of this circumstance, Angulo declined to proclaim their emancipation.
Theadministration of Gonzalo Perez de Angulo marked the lowest point in the early history of Cuba. That was not because of the character of his administration, which was indeed better than some of its predecessors, but because various processes militating against the progress and prosperity of the island then reached their culmination. Foremost among these was the migration to Florida, Mexico, Peru and other lands, which were richer, or were reputed to be richer, than the Pearl of the Antilles. Cuba contained no such cities and treasures as those of Mexico and Peru; no such traditions as that of Florida's Fountain of Youth pertained to her. The island had been explored from end to end, and its resources were known; though by no means appreciated. The adventurers of those days were not inclined to engage in agriculture, even in so fertile a land as Cuba, when the gold and gems of the Incas were within reach. With the decline and practical disappearance of the Indians, and the increasing difficulties of the African or other slave trade, the scarcity of labor disinclined the Spanish settlers even to raise cattle. The middle of the sixteenth century saw, therefore, a menacing emigration from Cuba to other lands which threatened to leave the island uninhabited.
Statistics of those days are scanty and not altogether trustworthy. It was the custom to report merely the number of householders or land-owners or heads of families in a place, leaving it to be estimated how many members each family contained. An exact census of the island in Angulo's time would astonish the reader of to-day with the meagreness of the settlements which had been effected in the course of forty years.
Of the seven cities which Velasquez had founded—they were called cities, and we must through courtesy retain the name—Santiago was still the largest, and was the capital. It probably contained at the period of which we are writing fewer than five hundred Spaniards and other Europeans. De Avila saw only two hundred assembled to welcome him on his arrival as Governor. The number of houses and other buildings was less than a hundred. The first town hall and church which were built there were structures of logs and thatch, which were burned by a fire which destroyed most of the place in 1528. Four years later the Franciscan monastery and other buildings shared a like fate. The Spanish government then urged the erection of buildings of stone with tiled roofs, and a few such were erected. At the end of Guzman's second administration there were perhaps a dozen such, of which Guzman himself owned two. The harbor boasted a single wharf or pier, of logs and earth, near which for protection two small cannon were placed behind an earthwork.
Such was the Cuban capital in 1550. Three years later, in 1553, a French privateer entered the harbor, silenced the two cannon, and landed a company of four hundred men, who outnumbered the entire population of the place. These freebooters took possession of Santiago and lived there at their ease, at the expense of the people, during the whole month of July. Then, having exacted from the inhabitants a ransom of what would be about $80,000 in modern currency, they departed, leaving the place uninjured save for the depletion of its people's purses. Following this visitation there was a numerous exodus of the inhabitants, to Bayamo and other places; some leaving the island altogether.
Havana was at this time the second city of the island, and was steadily rising toward first place. It had been the last of the seven cities to be founded by Velasquez, and was now occupying its third and final site. It was first planted in July, 1515, near the mouth of the Guinesor Mayabeque River, on the south shore of Cuba; that shore then being the favorite part of the island for the sake of trade with Jamaica and the South American continent. But the location was unhealthful, the swarms of mosquitoes particularly being intolerable, and two years later the city was transferred almost directly across the island to the north shore. This second site was near the mouth of the Almendares River, near the present town of Vedado, and was found to be vastly preferable to the former one. It was impossible, however, that the superb harbor on which the city now fronts should be neglected. It had been discovered in 1508 by Sebastian de Ocampo, while circumnavigating the island, and had been called Carenas. Accordingly in 1519 the young city of Havana, bearing the Indian name of that province of the island, was transported thither.
Credible tradition has it that the first meeting of the Municipal Council was held under a huge ceiba tree, and that Mass was first celebrated at the same sylvan spot, the site of the tree now being marked by the building known as the Templete, in the heart of the great city. Two fine historical paintings by the artist Escobar, representing the two gatherings named, hang upon the walls of that building. In De Soto's time Havana became marked as the coming capital and metropolis of the island, partly because of its unsurpassed situation, and partly for a reason similar to that which caused it first to be founded on the south coast, namely, for the sake of trade with Mexico and Florida. De Soto during his brief sojourn there began the erection of the fortification known as La Fuerza, which has long been noted as the oldest inhabited building in the western hemisphere which was built by Europeans. By the time of Governor Angulo, Havana had grown into—or been reduced to—a community of about two hundred Europeans, and perhaps three hundred Indians and negro slaves.
Santa Maria del Puerto Principe was originally founded in 1515 on the north coast, but a dozen yearslater was removed inland for security against the rovers of the sea, and became known by its present name of Camaguey. For many years Vasco Porcallo de Figueroa was its chief man; a man of wealth and great force of character, who lived like a prince upon a vast estate with a great retinue of servants and slaves. All the rest of Camaguey was tributary to him; with a total population of fewer than five hundred souls.
Baracoa, originally Nuestra Senora de la Asuncion, was the first permanent settlement in Cuba. Shut off from the rest of the island by a mountain wall, and visited by several disastrous epidemics, it was all but obliterated, and in the time of De Soto and Angulo contained fewer than a dozen European families. As for Trinidad, on the south coast, it fared even worse, for every Spanish or other European settler deserted it, chiefly for Sancti Spiritus, leaving there only a score of Indians. But that did not mean any great accession to Sancti Spiritus, which place had only about two hundred Europeans, and perhaps as many more Indians and negro slaves. Bayamo was another city which was moved inland from its original site. It had in Angulo's time fewer than a hundred Spaniards and perhaps twice as many Indians and negroes.
Thus after forty years of settlement and colonization, all Cuba had not more than 1,200 inhabitants of European origin, and perhaps twice that number of Indians and negroes. The great majority of the former were, of course, Spaniards. Even at this early date, however, there was a sprinkling of other nationalities. Some Portuguese came hither in the second quarter of the century, and engaged in vine growing and agriculture. Indeed, by the middle of the century most of the profitable and commercial agriculture of the island was in their hands. The value of such colonists was appreciated by the Spanish, who were glad to have others engage in the agriculture for which they themselves had little taste or aptitude. Accordingly Portuguese settlers were encouraged to come to Cuba, and legislation was enacted in their favor. Their naturalization as Spanish subjects was facilitated, and free homesteads were given to them, of choice agricultural lands.
Some Italians also came to Cuba in those early years, partly as soldiers of fortune, to enlist in the forces of the island or to seek further adventures of exploration and conquest, and partly to become horticulturists and agriculturists, after the manner of the Portuguese. Even a few Arabs and Moors visited the island, and some German artisans. French and English there were none, because of the generally prevailing hostilities between them and Spain.
The Spanish government was chiefly intent upon encouraging conquests in the great treasure-yielding lands of Mexico and Central and South America. Yet it was not blind to the potential value of Cuba, nor altogether neglectful of that island's interests. Various attempts were made to stimulate immigration and permanent settlement, and even to prevent settlers, once there, from leaving the island. Some of these measures were, indeed, so stringent as probably to react against their own purpose. Thus it was required that merchants and ship-masters sailing from Cuba for trade with other lands should give bonds for their return, while the death penalty, with confiscation of estate, was actually prescribed for many years for all persons leaving the island without permission from the authorities. The effect of this extraordinary measure was what might have been expected. Knowing that once in Cuba it would be difficult and perhaps impossible for them to get away again, prudent people were reluctant to go thither.
Efforts were also made to stimulate increase of population. Married men in Spain were forbidden to go to Cuba without taking their wives with them. Bachelors and widowers in Cuba were not permitted to employ Indians or to hold slaves, while illicit unions with native women were discouraged under penalty. Regular marriages with native women were, however, legitimized, and there were many such which resulted satisfactorily. In spite of these precautions there were, of course, some illegitimate children, and these the government took steps to legitimize, in order that they might, in default of other heirs, inherit their fathers' property and become substantial members of the community.
The population of Cuba was materially increased in another and by no means commendable way. This was by the importation of negro slaves from Africa. The traffic in human beings began in the West Indies at about the time that Velasquez began the conquest and settlement of Cuba; perhaps a little before that time. Naturally, with the settlement of Cuba slave traders visited that island to offer their wares. It must be recorded to the credit of Velasquez that he at first prohibited the entrance of negro slaves into the island, and to the end of his life opposed it though he was forced after a while to permit it. This was partly on the ground of morals, and partly on that of prudence. He did not scruple to enslave to some extent the native Cubans. But that was in order to civilize and Christianize them, and also to afford the colonists protection from them in their wild native state. Such, at least, was the argument with which he justified his policy. Moreover, the Indians were already there, in the island, and had to be dealt with in some fashion. But it was manifestly a very different thing to import savages from some distant land for the express purpose of making slaves of them. The other reason was his fear that if many negroes were imported they and the Indians would so outnumber the whites as to be a grave menace.
Nevertheless the slave trade was established and soon attained considerable proportions. It became so flourishing that presently the Spanish government forbade private parties to conduct it save under special charter from the crown and on payment of a considerable royalty on each negro imported. Ostensibly, this was because itwas feared that too many negroes might be imported, so as to endanger the security of the colonists, as Velasquez had suggested; but in fact it was largely for the sake of the revenue which thus accrued to the royal treasury. The popular sentiment in Cuba was generally in favor of slavery. It was held that thus only could sufficient labor be secured for the development of the resources of the island. The number of negroes never was as great as some colonists urged that it should be, to wit, three male and three female slaves for every white householder, but it is probable that before the middle of the century the negro population of the island outnumbered the European.
Treatment of the slaves was on the whole humane. The negroes were forbidden to carry weapons, or to go about in companies of more than four. They were at times subjected to physical punishment by their masters for misdemeanors, though generally such discipline was required to be administered by the authorities. Miscegenation between Europeans and negroes was prohibited under penalty, and as an additional safeguard against it slaves were required to be imported in equal numbers of the sexes, and all were required to be married. It may be doubted if a similar regard for their sexual morals was ever exhibited elsewhere. There was a provision under which it was possible for industrious and faithful slaves to purchase their freedom, and a considerable number of them did so; after which they became members of the community with almost the same legal rights and privileges as the Europeans.
There was, it is pleasant to record, never the prejudice against the negro in Cuba that prevailed in the states of North America. He was a slave, but he was a man. He was a social and political inferior, because of his enslavement; but he was mentally and spiritually the peer of his master. The text "Cursed be Canaan" was never thundered from Cuban pulpits, nor was it ever held that the negro must not be educated nor instructed in religion.On the contrary, it was required by law that the slaves should have the advantages of all the services of the church equally with their masters; and the Spanish aristocrat and his African slaves thus knelt side by side at the same altar. This attitude of the races toward each other had two natural results. One was, that the slaves were generally contented and peaceful, and attempts at insurrection among them, while not unknown, were rare. The other was, that amalgamation of the races became frequent and was recognized as quite legitimate. We have said that miscegenation in illegitimate fashion, between negro slaves and Europeans, was forbidden. But there was no ban against marriage between whites and emancipated negroes, and such unions not infrequently occurred, with satisfactory results.
The importation of negroes naturally increased with the gradual extermination of the native Indians, and it was favored by the very men who most strongly inveighed against the enslavement of the Indians. Even La Casas himself, with all his fervor in behalf of the natives, acquiesced in negro slavery; favored it, indeed, as a means of saving the Indians from such a fate. During the second administration of Guzman, the restrictions which had been placed upon the slave trade were removed, and free importations, without payment of a royalty, were thereafter permitted. Indeed, a further step than this was contemplated. It was urged that if the King wished the Indians to be emancipated, he should supply their places with negroes. This extraordinary argument prevailed, and for at least one year all the King's revenues from Cuba were ordered to be invested in negroes, who were then to be distributed among the colonists of the island in place of the Indians who were set free. These were not, however, to be free gifts, but were to be paid for by the colonists in the course of a term of years. The revenues for that year amounted to about 7,000 pesos, and it was reckoned that at the prices then prevailing in the slave market at least 700 slaves could be purchased.But at the last moment the King, or else the Council for the Indies, reconsidered the matter, and the slaves were never purchased. At the same time the enfranchisement of the Indians was postponed.
The early industries of Cuba were, in the order of their importance, gold mining, stock raising, and agriculture. The last named was practised by the Spanish settlers only to an extent sufficient to supply their own needs for food. Stock raising, both horses and cattle, was engaged in much more extensively, not only to supply local needs but also to supply the needs of Spanish explorers and gold-seekers in Mexico and Central and South America, who had no time nor opportunity in their strenuous quest there to attend to such matters. But the first thought of the first settlers in Cuba was for gold, and for many years the mining of that metal was the most profitable occupation. Within the first twenty years of Spanish settlement more than 500,000 pesos in gold were secured. Indeed in a single year, 1531, the mines at Cuyeba produced 50,000 pesos. There were paying mines at Savanna, at Savanna de Guaimaro, at Puerto Principe, at Portillo, and elsewhere throughout the central districts of the island; some of them being ore veins in the mountains and some placers in the river beds. But in the course of twenty-five years the mines began to fail and new ones were not discovered, so that by De Soto's time the output of gold had become insignificant. This was doubtless one of the strong contributing causes of the migration of so many settlers from the island, the eagerness of men to seek new fields in Florida, and the general decline which Cuba then suffered.
There was some compensation for the decline of gold mining in the discovery of rich copper mines, though the full value of them was not at first realized. It was during the first administration of Guzman that copper was discovered at Cobre, near Santiago. (This was the place where, as formerly related, Alonzo de Ojeda, in gratitude for his restoration to health, presented a statueof the Holy Virgin to the native chief, Comendador, who had been his host and nurse and who had embraced Christianity. The statue was long famous as Our Lady of Cobre.) There is reason for believing that the Cuban natives had formerly worked those mines to a considerable extent, for traffic with other lands, though they themselves apparently did not make use of the metal in their own arts. The governor, Guzman, learning of the discovery, urged the development of the mines as the property of the discoverers, while the royal treasurer claimed that they should belong to the crown. A controversy was maintained for some time, with the result that the crown, lightly esteeming the value of the find, permitted private exploitation of the mines on a basis of ten per cent royalty. An assayer was sent from Spain to superintend the refining of the copper from the ore, and suitable works were erected. But little or nothing was done for several years. Then, after the administration of De Soto, and while the alcalde mayor, Ortiz, was acting governor, a great demand for copper arose, for the casting of cannon, in Spain, and interest in the mines was revived. A German engineer made an agreement with the local authorities to extract the copper and did so with great success. The ore was found to be very rich in copper and also to contain so much gold and silver that it would be worth working for those metals entirely apart from the copper. Under this expert management the mines became highly profitable.
In the administration of Angulo the German engineer had two mines assigned to him as his own, in return for which he instructed all comers—chiefly slaves who were sent to him for the purpose by the settlers—in the art of smelting and refining copper. Large quantities of the copper were at that time sent to Spain, and the first cannon mounted on La Fuerza, in Havana, were made of it, being cast at the royal foundry at Seville. It is related that one of these cannon, a small falconet, burst in the casting, and so badly injured the superintendent of theworks that he had to be taken to a hospital, where he expressed a bad opinion of Cuban copper. This was the origin of the really unfounded belief which long prevailed, and which was recorded in technological works, that Cuban copper had some peculiar quality which rendered it difficult and even dangerous to work.
The first essays toward the growing of sugar, which has become one of the greatest industries of the island and in which Cuba surpasses any other equal area of the earth's surface, were made as already related in the closing years of Velasquez's administration. They did not at that time prove important, and nothing more was done until the first administration of Guzman. That enterprising governor, always ready to do anything to enrich himself, asked permission to import negro slaves free of royalty, in order to establish the sugar industry, promising under penalty to begin the construction of a sugar mill within two years and to complete it within four years. The crown considered that too long a time, and refused to waive the royalty on slaves for his benefit, whereupon he abandoned the scheme. Then Hernando de Castro made a similar proposal, reducing the time of completion of the mill to three years. The crown was more favorably impressed by his offer, and agreed to it, only to have him withdraw it. Juan de Avila and his brother Alfonso reported strongly in favor of establishing the industry in Cuba, and asked for a loan of capital from the royal treasury to finance the undertaking; but nothing was done. Chaves and Angulo also successively reported that Cuba was admirably adapted to the industry, and it was known that at that very time sugar growing was enormously successful in Hispaniola, Porto Rico and other islands. Yet by some strange fatality nothing practical was done, and the actual establishment of the great industry was postponed until near the end of the century.