The Greater Republic Part 74

THE CHIEF CITY.

Honolulu, the capital city, is to Hawaii what Havana is to Cuba, or better, what Manila is to the Philippine Islands. Here are concentrated the business, political and social forces that control the life and progress of the entire archipelago. This city of 30,000 inhabitants is situated on the south coast of Oahu, and extends up the Nuuanu Valley.

It is well provided with street-car lines--which also run to a bathing resort four miles outside the city--a telephone system, electric lights, numerous stores, churches and schools, a library of over 10,000 volumes, and frequent steam communication with San Francisco. There are papers published in the English, Hawaiian, Portuguese, j.a.panese, and Chinese languages, and a railroad is being built, of which thirty miles along the coast are already completed. Honolulu has also a well-equipped fire department and public water-works. The residence portions of the city are well laid out, the houses, many of which are very handsome, being surrounded by gardens kept green throughout the year. The climate is mild and even, and the city is a delightful and a beautiful place of residence. Hawaii is peculiarly an agricultural country, and Honolulu gains its importance solely as a distributing centre or depot of supplies. Warehouses, lumber yards, and commercial houses abound, but there is a singular absence of mills and factories and productive establishments. There are no metals or minerals, or as yet, textile plants or food plants, whose manufacture is undertaken in this unique city.

[Ill.u.s.tration: SUGAR CANE PLANTATION, HAWAIIAN ISLANDS.

About one-fifth of the entire population is engaged in sugar culture.

The average product is about three tons per acre.]

The Hawaiian Islands are, without question, on the threshold of a great industrial era, fraught with most potent results to the prosperity and development of that land. Its climate is delightful and healthful, and its soil so fertile that it will easily support 5,000,000 people.

[Ill.u.s.tration: SENOR MONTERO RIOS

President of the Spanish Peace Commission whose painful duty required him to sign away his country's colonial possessions.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: GENERAL RAMON BLANCO

Who succeeded Weyler as Captain-General of Cuba in 1897. He was formerly Governor-General of the Philippine Islands.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: ADMIRAL CERVERA

Commander of Spanish Fleet at Santiago.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: SAGASTA

Premier of Spain during the Spanish-American War.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: PROMINENT SPANIARDS IN 1898]

OUR NEW POSSESSIONS (CONTINUED).

CUBA, "THE CHILD OF OUR ADOPTION."

Although Cuba is not a part or a possession of the United States, it has since the war with Spain, in 1898, come under the protection of this government, and is, therefore, ent.i.tled to a place in this volume. In the hand of Providence, this island became the doorway to America. It was here that Columbus landed, October 28, 1492. True, he touched earlier at one of the smaller islands to the north; but it was merely a halting before pus.h.i.+ng on to Cuba. "Juana" Columbus called the island, in honor of Isabella's infant son. Afterward it was successively known as Fernandina, Santiago, and Ave Maria; but the simple natives, who were there to the number of 350,000, called it _Cooba_, and this name prevailed over the Spanish t.i.tles, as the island has finally prevailed over Spanish domination, and it has come under the protection of America with its Indian name, slightly changed to _Cuba_, remaining as the sole and only heritage we have of the simple aborigines who have utterly perished from the face of the earth under Spanish cruelty.

[Ill.u.s.tration: TOMB OF CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS IN THE CATHEDRAL AT HAVANA.

The ashes of the great discoverer were removed from this tomb to Spain in December, 1898.]

In 1494 Columbus visited Cuba a second time, and once again in 1502. In 1511 Diego Columbus, the son of the great discoverer, with a colony of between three and four hundred Spaniards, came, and in 1514 he founded the towns of Santiago and Trinidad. Five years later, in 1519, the present capital Havana, or _Habana_, was founded. The French reduced the city in 1538, practically demolis.h.i.+ng the whole town. Under the governor, De Soto, it was rebuilt and fortified, the famous Morro Castle and the Punta, which are still standing, being built at that early date.

THE ORIGINAL INHABITANTS.

The natives, whom Columbus found in Cuba, were agreeable in feature, and so amiable in disposition that they welcomed the white man with open arms, and, besides contributing food, readily gave up their treasures to please the Spaniards. Unlike the warlike cannibal tribes of the Lesser Antilles, known as the Caribs, they lived in comparative peace with one another, and had a religion which recognized the Supreme Being. Columbus held several conferences with these simple natives, who numbered, according to his estimate, from 350,000 to half a million souls, and his a.s.sociations and dealings with them on his first visit were always friendly and of a mutually pleasing nature. But when he returned to Spain he left soldiers, who brutally maltreated them, until the natives rose in revolt and exterminated every white man. Even Columbus himself, in 1494, had to fight the Indians at the landing-place.

A salubrious climate, a fertile soil, and simple wants rendered it unnecessary for the native to do hard work; and although it is well proven that he did mine copper and traded in it with the mound builders of Florida, yet the native was not accustomed to arduous toil, and rebelled against it. This, perhaps, was unfortunate, for the perpetuity of his race at that time depended upon this very quality. The Spanish "friend" who came to the island was incapable of work. He neither would nor could, under his ethics of self-respect, abase himself to labor, so he proceeded to enslave the native to labor for him. The Cuban rebelled, and fled before the superior Spanish weapons from the coasts to the mountain fastnesses of the interior.

EXTERMINATION OF THE NATIVES.

Then began that cruel and long-continued war of extermination, of which history has recorded the most shocking details. The conquest was begun under Diego Columbus, the son of the great discoverer. The merciless Velasquez was his general, and the frightful cruelties which he inaugurated upon the simple natives have been continued for nearly four hundred years by his successors in the island, though the annihilation of the aboriginal tribes themselves was a brief and b.l.o.o.d.y work.

Velasquez rode them down and trampled them--regardless of age or s.e.x--under the iron hoofs of his war-horses, slashed them with swords, devastated their villages, and bore them away into slavery. The Cuban had no weapons; the mountain fastnesses could not hide him from his relentless pursuer. African slaves, who were brought to the island in Spanish s.h.i.+ps, were armed and forced by their masters to chase the natives, and not a forest or mountain top was a place of refuge for these doomed children of the soil. One historian declares: "There is little doubt that before 1560 the whole of this native population had disappeared from the island. They were so completely exterminated that it is doubtful if the blood of their race was even remotely preserved in the mixed cla.s.ses who followed African and Chinese introduction."

[Ill.u.s.tration: MAGNIFICENT INDIAN STATUE IN THE PRADO, HAVANA, CUBA.]

A PERIOD OF REST.

For nearly two hundred years after the extermination of the natives, Cuba rested without a struggle in the arms of Spain. The early settlers engaged almost wholly in pastoral pursuits. Tobacco was indigenous to the soil, and in 1580 the Cuban planters began its culture. Later, sugar-cane was imported from the Canaries, and found to be a fruitful and profitable crop. The beginning of the culture of sugar demanded more laborers, and the importation of additional slaves was the result. In 1717, Spain attempted to make a monopoly of the tobacco culture, and the first Cuban revolt occurred. In 1723 a second uprising took place, because of an oppressive government; but these early revolts against tyranny were insignificant as compared with those of the last half-century.

In 1762, the city of Havana was captured by the English, with an expedition commanded by Lord Albemarle, but his fighting troops were princ.i.p.ally Americans under the immediate command of Generals Phineas Lyman and Israel Putnam of Revolutionary fame. The story of Putnam's command in this war is thrilling and sad. After first suffering s.h.i.+pwreck and many hards.h.i.+ps in reaching the island, they lay before Havana, where Spanish bullets and fever almost annihilated the whole command. Scarcely more than one in fifty lived to return to America. By the Treaty of Paris, 1763, Cuba was unfortunately restored to Spain, and it was afterward that her troubles with the "Mother Country," as Spain affectionately called herself to all her provinces, began. The hand of oppression for one and a quarter centuries relaxed not its grasp, and year by year grew heavier and more galling.

DISCONTENT AND INSURRECTIONS.

Some of the most prolific seeds of modern revolutions may be said to have been sown when the African slave trade a.s.sumed important proportions, in 1791. About the same time began a large importation of Chinese coolies, for which Cuba paid a bounty of $400 apiece to the importer. These coolies bound themselves to the Spaniards for eight years, for which they were paid $4.00 per month as wages. The new influx of labor and the coming of Las Casas as Captain-General to Cuba, in 1790, mark the beginning of Cuba's great period of prosperity. This enterprising ruler introduced numerous public improvements, established botanical gardens and schools of agriculture, with a view to developing and increasing Cuba's resources and commercial importance. Owing to his wise administration, Cuba prospered and remained undisturbed for a long while. An insurrection occurred among the slaves in 1812, which was promptly put down with characteristic cruelty, and the blacks remained "good n.i.g.g.e.rs" for a third of a century. By the year 1844, the slave trade with Cuba had grown to enormous proportions. In that year alone, statistics tell us, 10,000 slaves were landed from Africa upon the island. Another wild and fanatical insurrection occurred the same year among them, which, as before, ended in failure. Seventy-eight of the rebels were shot, and many otherwise punished. By 1850, the slaves had so multiplied and the importation had been so large that the census showed there were nearly 500,000 on the island.

Meantime, in 1823 and 1827, insurrections were attempted on the part of the Creoles (descendants of Spanish and French settlers) and other free Cubans. They failed, and the blood of the martyrs was seed in the ground. Revolutionist and enslaved insurrectionist gradually drifted together. They had a common cause--to struggle for freedom against oppression. The bondsman was little or no worse off than the Creoles, Chinese coolies, and free negroes--all native-born Cubans were shut out from the enjoyment of true citizens.h.i.+p. They must do the work and pay the tribute, but Spaniards, born in Spain, were alone allowed to hold office of profit or trust under the government; and they looked with inexpressible contempt upon the rest of the population, and, with the backing of the army, preserved their domination in spite of their inferior numbers. The governor-general was appointed from Spain and held office from three to five years, and was expected to steal or extort himself rich in that time. It is said not one governor-general ever failed to do so.

[Ill.u.s.tration: DARING ATTACK BY THE PATRIOTS OF CUBA UPON A FORT NEAR VUELTAS.]

THE TEN YEARS' WAR.

The first long and determined struggle of the oppressed people of Cuba for liberty began in 1868. In that year a revolution broke out in Spain, and the patriots seized the opportunity, while the mother country was occupied at home, for an heroic effort to liberate themselves. They rose first at Yara, in the district of Bayamo, and on October 10th of that year made a declaration of independence. Eight days later the city of Bayamo was taken by the patriots, and early in November they defeated a force sent against them from Santiago. The majority of the South American republics hastened to recognize the Cubans as belligerents; but--though they held their own in guerrilla warfare against the Spanish forces for ten years, fighting in the forests and bravely resisting all the efforts of Spain to subdue them--there was not one great power in the world willing to extend to the patriots the recognition of belligerent rights. The cruelty of the Spaniards toward the soldiers they captured, and to all inhabitants who sympathized with the patriots'

cause, was equaled only by the courage, fort.i.tude, and exalted patriotism which animated their victims. The following instances, selected from scores that might be cited, are given in the Spaniards'

own words, translated, _verbatim_, into English:

SPANISH TESTIMONY OF HORRORS PRACTICED.

Jacob Rivocoba, under date of September 4, 1896, writes:

"We captured seventeen, thirteen of whom were shot outright; on dying they shouted, 'Hurrah for free Cuba! hurrah for independence!' A mulatto said, 'Hurrah for Cespedes!' On the following day we killed a Cuban officer and another man. Among the thirteen that we shot the first day were found three sons and their father; the father witnessed the execution of his sons without even changing color, and when his turn came he said he died for the independence of his country. On coming back we brought along with us three carts filled with women and children, the families of those we had shot; and they asked us to shoot them, because they would rather die than live among Spaniards."

Pedro Fardon, another officer, who entered entirely into the spirit of the service he honored, writes on September 22, 1869:

"Not a single Cuban will remain in this island, because we shoot all those we find in the fields, on the farms, and in every hovel."

And, again, on the same day, the same officer sends the following good news to his old father:

"We do not leave a creature alive where we pa.s.s, be it man or animal.

If we find cows, we kill them; if horses, ditto; if hogs, ditto; men, women, or children, ditto; as to the houses, we burn them: so every one receives his due--the men in b.a.l.l.s, the animals in bayonet-thrusts. The island will remain a desert."

These atrocities were perpetrated not alone by the common soldier. In fact, the above reports come from men who were officers in the Spanish army, and they show that such actions were approved by the highest authority. A well-authenticated account a.s.sures us that General Count Balmaceda himself went on one occasion to the home of a patriot family, Mora by name, to arrest or kill the patriots he had heard were stopping there; but, finding the men all absent, he wreaked his vengeance and thirst for blood by butchering the two Mora sisters and burning the house over their bodies.