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The Destiny of Cuba: Havana

The anxiety to join Cuba to our imperial estate just then was to maintain the latest idea of Southern statesmanship before the fatal spectre of secession arose--the balance of power between the North and South recognized as the primary, fundamental, and unavoidable grand divisions of our republic. When I landed in Havana my mind was not clear as to what there was of evil remaining from the lately abolished institution of slavery or what was the extent of the racial differences. Of course, the white and black races in Cuba had not been arrayed in parties opposing each other for, owing to the overshadowing power of Spain, the government was that substantially of martial law, suppressing all native contentions. The question seemed open whether the majority of Cubans were black or white, and the story of the burning of cane fields, the lurid sky south of Havana, the daring march of Maceo--the heavens glowing--the broad and smoking paths of the rebel raiders--made a strong suspicion that this might be another San Domingo.

There was and there is something fascinating in behalf of Spain in the romance as well as the history of her relations with the Americas. Cortez and Pizarro and De Soto are the early heroes of the continent that appeal with the greatest charm to the imagination; and if Spain has been cruel in shooting and slaying the redman, so were our fathers from New England to Michigan and Kentucky. Spain has made war horrible and is not able to separate it from cruelties. More than once she has shown herself friendly in her diplomacy. The United States recognized the confederates as belligerents before the Spaniards did; and notwithstanding the just resentment of Spain aroused by the meeting of Buchanan, Mason and Soule at Ostend and their proceedings there, where it was proposed to use the opportunity of the preoccupation of Europe in the Crimean war to capture Cuba--notwithstanding the singular arrogance with which our diplomats insisted while Spain herself was shaken by revolution, that she should yield to money or to force the Pearl of the Antilles to us--after all this--Spain surrendered to us the Virginius, and General Prim was not pyrotechnic with impassioned pride, but courteous in response to the pointed suggestion by President Grant, that the independence of Cuba should be recognized.

The sum of this to my mind was, that after all, there had been a good deal of friendly reasonableness in the course of Spain toward ourselves. So far as I could comprehend the irregular and confused news from Cuba for some months after the declaration of the war that is in progress, the character and course of it did not much differ from the familiar experience of the ten years. There had been rumors of bribery connected with the adjustment arranged by Campos, that closed the hostilities, and also of reform, and it did not seem to be altogether improbable that there might be another settlement, on the basis of bribery, an influence to which persistent report refers many of the shifts in the affairs of Cuba. There was not visible to the naked eye of the average citizen any striking fact warranting disbelief in the power of Martinez Campos, when he arrived in Havana with imposing pomp, to combine force of arms with persuasion, and the arrival of General Pando, with 30,000 men, reinforced the prevalent opinion that the Spaniards would win again and go on in the old way.