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Introduction

INTRODUCTION FIRST EVENTS AND EARLY INFLUENCES.

THE Story of Cuba is a tragedy. The beautiful island, when found by civilized man, was peopled by a gentle race, kindly, innocent, indolent, loving; living on fish and fruit, corn and sweet potatoes, under the shade of royal palms, in orchards of pineapples and oranges; the very wilderness brilliant with flowers, and birds of glittering plumage; the guileless tribes happy and harmless as if they were chosen children of God, dwelling apart in Paradise. These dainty savages were seized and held, and perished in servitude to the fierce, remorseless adventurers, who, in the passion of empire and greed for gold, were insensible to the considerations of humanity and the charity of Christianity, and into the bitter gloom of whose selfishness there entered no soft sentiment of mercy and no ray of the enlightenment of good will to men or of the generosities of statesmanship.

Then followed African slavery as a benevolent mitigation of the barbarism that consumed the poor Indians in their tenderness and timidity; and it is a Cuban tradition that the sharks that now swarm on the shores of the Island were introduced by following the slave ships from the waters of Africa to devour the victims that, overcome by torments of the terrible voyages, were flung into the sea.

For a century Cuba was the base of operations of the expedition of the conquering Spaniards in tropical America, and for another century the fleets, with the spoils of the conquest of the West, sailed from her harbors, and then, for a century, the West Indies became the scene of a tremendous contest for naval supremacy by England, France and Spain. After England won the mastery of the ocean, Napoleon, losing the sea power at Trafalgar, attempted to coerce all continental Europe into his schemes of aggrandizement, and Spain, resisting his pretensions, was crushed for a time by his imperial genius, but closed with him in a war to the knife, that endured until the conqueror was conquered; but not until after parcelling out his American possessions, and then the crumbling of Spanish dominion in the New World began.

Before our revolutionary war--it was in 1762--Havana was besieged and captured by the English, and the episode of their occupation of her harbor, and opening it to commerce, stimulated the Cubans to marine enterprise; but though they had been long faithful, and began to prosper after the fall of the French empire, and had a right to share the progress and dignity of Spain, to which they were loyal in affection through her misfortunes, they were swiftly reminded of colonial disabilities; and then came the conflicts that are culminating in the condition of the Island, the richest that the seas encircle, where the Spaniards and their children are carrying on a war of desolation that is ruining both.

The higher class of the public men of our country have always been interested in Cuba, and she has had a charm for our people in proportion to the elevation of their intelligence. The logic of Spanish history is the loss of Cuba. The same causes that cost Spain, Mexico, and Peru, and Chili, and Bolivia, Central America, Venezuela, and the rest, mean also that the long struggle of the Cubans for liberty will close in triumph. With Cuba's destiny in the hands of her own people, she will obey the irresistible attraction of our Union to be one of the United States.

With the advantages of recent personal observation of the situation in Cuba, receiving polite attentions and extensive information from the Spanish authorities, and enjoying the confidence of Cubans, and the candid expression of their interpretation of events, it is with a sense of duty to the veracity of history, that I propose to recite with sincerity the Cuban story of four hundred years.

THE STORY OF CUBA