CHAPTER XXII. The Tyrannical Rule of Spain. REVICUS to the eighteenth century, the history of the Island PRE of Cuba is mostly occupied with accounts of the settlements commenced by the first Governor, Diego Velasquez; the noble defence of the Cazique Athuei, who was burned alive by order of the former; and the usual repartimientos or distribution of the territory and Indians among the Spanish settlers, which, through excess of labor, hastened the depopulation of the country. During that early period is also noticed the sailing of expeditions to more recently discovered and alluring regions; the beginning of the African slave trade, and the occasional descent and depredations of the buccaneers. The latter were so bold, from the scant population and absence of fortifications, that they carried off at one time the venerable Bishop Cabezas Altanurano, and at another, the very bells of the church and the cannons of the castle at Santiago. Soon after the royal decree of 1530, liberating the native Indians, the remnants of this unfortunate race appeared to have congregated in towns such as Guanabara, Guaisabana, Ovejas, and Caneyesarriba, and to have applied their efforts to simple husbandry and grazing. But the advance of Cuba must have been extremely limited or doubtful, since the Bishop Almendares estimated the population of all the towns and cities in 1612 at 6,700 inhabitants. The truth lies in the fact that, after having exhausted the Índian population, the Island was only held as a military post on the way to the mines of Mexico, with little else to occupy its reduced population than the raising of cattle on lands not appropriated. Till the latter years of the past century, commerce was not only confined to Spanish merchantmen, but to the periodical voyage of the fleet belonging to 1 the privileged India Company. Foreign trade has only been authorized in the present century, when the European wars, forcing the Spanish flag from the seas, and the encroachment of contraband trade, made it impossible to oppose it. In the laws and municipal rights of Cuba, we notice the same independent and liberal spirit which prevailed in all the settlements of Spain among the Moors, or elsewhere, as far as the Spanish settlers and their descendants were concerned. Thus in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, public assemblies of citizens were held to elect the members of the corporations; free and bold charges were made and sustained against governors; and no taxation was permitted which was not sanctioned by these bodies, who exercised the same prerogatives in the Spanish peninsula, during the long suspension of representative government. Peculiar Notions and Prejudices. As to the commercial restrictions which prevented the growth of this beautiful garden of America, they did not originate in any right, expressed or implied, to control the fate of Cuba, on the part of the European provinces, but in the peculiar notions of the age on matters. of political economy. Equally injudicious was the system observed in the internal trade and relations between the several Spanish provinces themselves, whose wealth and physical advance are to this day obstructed by antiquated prejudices. Aside, therefore, from the measures adopted to nationalize the commerce and trade of Cuba, or rather to direct their course by legislation, there was not, until the last twenty years, any serious precedent or open effort to justify a difference between the political rights of the Cubans and the Spaniards on the soil of Cuba. Were the conquest held as the foundation of such difference, the privilege should certainly attach to the descendants of those who shed their blood and used their means in the acquisition of the country-not to the .emigration, much less to the salaried officers of the government. The recognition of the popular principle in the Sociedad Patriotica and Consulado, established near the close of the eighteenth century, and the vast influence derived therefrom, and which, in after times, gave a liberal tinge to the local administration, is especially worthy of notice. Struggling for her own independence, and boldly confronting the ambitious and mighty chieftain of the age, Spain, at the opening of the nineteenth century, appeared in a noble attitude. Actuated by the most sacred impulses of patriotism, and intensely engaged in the wars and policy of Europe, she could not and did not refuse whatever was requested by the Cuban assemblies. Loyalty to the Mother Country. Cuba, on her part, repaid the liberality of the mother-country by an unwavering loyalty. Unseduced by the alluring prospect of independence, and undismayed by repeated invasions from foreign powers, she shut her eyes to the former, and boldly resisted the latter, at the liberal expense of the treasures of the Island, and the lives of the inhabitants. This brings us to a period marked by fluctuations in the political history of Spain and her dependencies, and it is now to be seen what were their effect upon Cuba. The political changes adopted in Spain in 1812 and 1820 were productive of similar changes in the Island; and when in both instances the constitution was proclaimed, the perpetual members of the municipalities were at once deprived of office, and their successors elected by the people. The provincial assembly was called, and held its sessions. The militia was organized; the press made entirely free, the verdict of a jury deciding actions for its abuses; and the same courts of justice were in no instance to decide a case a secnd time. But if the institution of the consulado was very beneficent during Ferdinand's absolute sway, the ultra-popular grants of the constitutional system, which could hardly be exercised with quiet in Spain, were ill-adapted to Cuba, though more advanced in civilization, stained with all those vices that are the legitimate curse of a country 1 long under despotic sway. That system was so democratic that the king was deprived of all political authority. No intermediate house of nobility or senators tempered the enactments of a single elective assembly. This sudden change from an absolute government, with its usual concomitant, a corrupt and debased public sentiment, to the full enjoyment of republican privileges, served only to loosen all the ties of decency and decorum throughout the Spanish community. Infidelity resulted from it; and that veil of respect for the religion of their fathers, which had covered the deformity of such a state of society, was imprudently thrown aside. As the natural consequence of placing the instruments of freedom in the hands of an ignorant multitude, their minds were filled with visions of that chimerical equality which the world has never yet realized. The Rich Arrayed Against the Poor. The rich found themselves deprived of their accustomed influence, and felt that there was little chance of obtaining justice from the common people (in no place so formidable as in Cuba, from the heterogeneous nature of the population), and who were now, in a manner, arrayed against them throughout the land. They, of course, eagerly wished the return of the old system of absolute rule. But the proprietors only asked for the liberal policy which they had enjoyed at the hands of the Spanish monarch; not, most surely, that oppressive and nondescript government which, by separating the interest of the country from that of her nearest rulers, and destroying all means of redress or complaint, thrust the last offspring of Spain into an abyss of bloodshed and ruin, during the disgusting exercise of military rule, in punishing by the most arbitrary and cruel measures, persons suspected of engaging in an apprehended servile insurrection. During the second period of democratic or what was called constitutional government, which commenced in 1820, the masonic societies came into vogue as they did in the mother-country. They adopted different plausible pretexts, though, to speak the truth, they One of were little more than clubs for amusement and revelry. Happily for Cuba, and certainly in consequence of the judicious interference of the United States, which foresaw in the preservation of its tranquillity the advantages of a fruitful commerce, the invasion did not take place. The difficulty of annexation, from the lesser influence the United States then possessed among nations and the controlling importance of the shipping interest in our country, made it unadvisable for Cuba to launch into a revolution unsustained, and in this way to experience a severe scourge, which, at that time, would have proved the principal if not the only fruits of independence to the first generation of its recipients. Under any circumstances the subsequent jealous policy of the Spanish government has been altogether unwarranted. Schemes to Keep Cuba a Dependent Province. A respectable portion of the old Spaniards residing in Cuba, were themselves desirous of upholding the constitutional system in the Island which they saw tottering in Spain. General Vives, who commanded at that time, regarded the circumstance with anxious solicitude, and very reasonably inferred that, if the constitution of 1812 was sustained in Cuba after the king's absolute power was acknowledged in Spain, the consequences would be fatal to its dependence, however rational and honest the views of the constitutionalists might be considered. Hence his strenuous efforts in 1824, after the restoration of Ferdinand, to make the most of the wild and varying schemes which had been proposed in the " Soles de Bolivar," under the democratic institutions, and the relaxation of the reins of government. The greatly reduced Spanish military force at that time in the Island, and the fact that much of it consisted of regular regiments and native militia, are sufficient proof that to the solid good sense of the inhabitants, rather |