Democratic Sentinel, Volume 19, Number 42, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 25 October 1895 — THE ISLAND OF CUBA. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

THE ISLAND OF CUBA.

LAND WHOSE PEOPLE STRUGGLE FOR FREEDOM. n* i mmense Mineral and Agricult■ral Resource* that Await Bevel•pment—The Black Record of Spanish Cruelty and Oppression. Rich in Resources. The civil war in Cuba will probably ■erve still further to devastate an isl*nd which the Spaniards during past (years have done all they could to ruin.

St Is a pity, for tropical America does Bot contain a fairer land than that over .■which the flames of civil war are now spreading. No matter what may be the result of the war, it will leave the Island ta a condition to recover from which many years of prosperity will be reunited. There are thousands of men bow living who vividly remember the •tatus of the Southern and border States of this country after the civil war, and when such desolation is possible in a land where war Is conducted With some regard to civilized methods, She question may well be asked, What train will not be wrought when the con filet is waged with the savagery peculiar to the Spanish forces? The general physical characteristics •f Cuba are too well known to need description, but few, even of better Informed readers, are aware of the resources of the Island or of the extent to which it is blessed by nature in the matter of climate and vegetable productions. We are accustomed to think of Cuba as a hot country, situated as it is under the tropics, and the common impression is correct to the extent that the mean average temperature of the year is higher than in countries further aorth, but the climate is more equable, there are not those sudden variations that in many parts of the United States are so severe on the human constitution. In Havana, for example, the average temperature of the hottest month Is 84 degrees, of the coldest, 72. In Santiago de Cuba, a city often mentioned in the war dispatches, the average of the year is 80; of the hottest month, 84; of the coolest, 73. These are high figures, but not very high for an Island lying in equatorial regions and •urrounded by water that is warm to the hand all the year round. To a stranger from a dry country a feature more objectionable than the steady beat is the tremendous rainfall. The geographical and topographical situation of Cuba provides two seasons only, the wet and the dry. During the lat-

ter, rains are not frequent, being atoned for, however, by the abundance of the dew, but In the rainy season Jupiter Pluvlus sebms to turn himself loose to excel- all previous efforts, and from 125 to 140 inches of rain are not uncomman, there being about 102 days when toe rain comes down, not in drops, but In sheets, in masses, In tubfuls, at a time, as though the windows of the

lieavens were opened and the floods of •he great aerial deep had broken loose, ft* abundant is the rainfall, In fact, that, *s a recent traveler remarks, the wonder Is that any island remains; that toe whole is not dissolved and carried «ff into the sea. But In Cuba no one naiads the rain, save only to go In when It rains, the necessary knowledge to accomplish thli feat being common alike toSpanlsh resident and native Inhabitant. Owing to the curse of Spanish misrule, the natural resources of the island are not even completely ■otbing of being developed. Enough baa been ascertained, howevpr, to justify the statement that inmost dvery metal and mineral used in the arts and •deuces is to be found on the island. Gold has been discovered' th /overa! rivers; silver in four or five of the mountain ranges; copper. exists In abundance in a hundred different localities; quicOlver, lead, antimony, nine. Iron ore, magnesia, ochre, alum and several different varieties of mar-

ble, some little inferior to the best Italian, have been found In different sections of the island. None of these natural resources, however, have been developed as they should be, for the policy of Spain has been rather to repress than to encourage the progress of the Island and its people, and the consequence is Jhat the native wealth of Cuba, while known to be immense and varied, is, as yet, largely a matter of speculation. Such is not the case, however, with regard to those products, which, by the labor of man, the arable soli may be compelled to yield. The topography of Cuba is so varied, composed, as the island is, of plains almost at the level of the sea. of pla-

teaux many hundreds of feet higher, and of mountain ranges, some of which attain an altitude of 8,000 feet, that any product of the tropical, subtropical or temperate regions may be raised, and from the banana of Mexico to the barley of Norway, all are at the command of the Cuban farmer. As might be expected, however, by far the greater portion of the Cuban field products are such as are appropriate to the geographical situation of the Island, and tobacco, bananas, oranges, pineapples, other tropical fruits and vegetables, with cotton and sugar, are the leading staples. No pen, however gifted, can

give an idea, however, of the luxuriance I of vegetation on a Cuban plantation. The sugar cane grows to a size equal- | ed only by that of the most favored situations In Louisiana, while a field of i pineapples, with their thorny leaves and spiny fruit, Is a sight, once seen, never to be forgotten. But even the glory of the pineapple is excelled by that of the banana plantation, with its great leaved trees and enormous bunches of fruit so large as to occasion the suspicion in the mind of a Spanish ecclesiastic that the bunches of grapes mentioned as borne between two men, when the Hebrew spies returned from their Inspection of the land of Canaan, were not really grapes, but bananas. The abundance with which this remarkable plant yields Its fruit and the little care required for Its cultivation after a plantation has once been made, have not proved an unmixed blessing to the dwellers In tropical regions. An acre of banana plants, with little or no attention, will produce more than a hundred times as much food as an acre planted In wheat, and so long as a man has food for himself and family to be had for the trouble of picking it, there is little Incentive to labor. The excellence of the tobacco grown in Cuba has become a proverb the world over, for alike to smokers and to those who regard the weed as a rank poison, the fragrant Havana is typical of the habit. Not every quarter of the island, how-

ever, produces the tobacco whose flavor Is so highly regarded. Only a few river valleys, whose soil contains elements peculiarly favorable to the de-

velopment of the aromatic qualities es the leaf, can be relied on for the genuine Havana product, while much of the tobacco of the island is little superior to that grown elsewhere. In any other country, and with rea-

sonably fair opportunities for development, the mineral and agricultural resources of Cuba would render that island one of the richest regions of the globe, but the curse of Spanish rule is alike on the farmer and planter, on the merchant and miner and the same merciless taxation alike prevents all from attaining any measure of success or prosperity. The history of Cuba has been one uniform record of Spanish depravity, I spoliation and oppression. Spanish rule began with the destruction of the entire native population. At the discovery | of the island by Christopher Columbus, 1 it was peopled with a race of gentle, i inoffensive Indians, whose worst fault was their laziness. Tfip discovery was : made in 1492, the island was completely overrun by the Spaniards in 1511, the natives were enslaved, and so great was the barbarity with which they were treated, that, in 1534, the colonists petitioned the Crown to be allowed to import African slaves at once, that I they might be inuured to toil in the fields before all the Indians perished. African slavery began shortly after, ; and formed the second black spot on the ' Spanish record. The third, and perhaps the most detestable of all, has been the : treatment of the native Cubans. In their own country they have been sub- , jected to every form of political and . social oppression that the ingenuity of the Spaniards could devise. Thg latter, i from the captain general down to the meanest custom house clerk, have generally regarded their positions as given them for the purpose of enabling them to enrich themselves, and have carried out this idea to the fullest possible extent. The people have been robbed, legally and Illegally, plundered and taxed to death, so that the industrial growth of the island under the circumstances is something quite marvelous. ■ As a class, the native Cubans are far ’ superior to the Spanish tyrants who have dominated the island, and their restiveness under the control of the foreign element is easily understood and appreciated. Time and again have they risen in insurrection, but the lack of arms and the overwhelming forces that on the first appearance of trouble were poured into the island have up to the present prevented success. Stories of Spanish atrocities are of almost daily occurrence in the newspapers

now, but every attempt of the.Qubans to gain their liberty has been attended by barbarities similar to those now being perpetrated on captured Cubans. They have been hung and shot by dozens. they have been sent In strings to the garrote, to the galleys, to the prisons for lifelong sentences; they have seen their wives and children murdered before their eyes; they have witnessed the destruction of their property, and yet. in spite of the knowledge that certain death In its most terrible forms awaits them if unsuccessful, the exasperation of Spanish rule goads them to renewed revolt, and they prefer to see their land in ruins if only it may be free of foreign control. Under American control or protection, the advancement of Cuba would be rapid. Havana, with its mediaeval cathedrals and canopied streets, some of which look as though they might have been imported from Barcelona or Seville, would soon become a bustling American town, where the cowboy would jostle the millionaire, and the office building take the place of the prison-like palace that seems designed for no other purpose than to serve as the scene of an opera. The old “Buccaneers’ Castle” that, tradition says, saw service when the bold Viking of the South Seas rode triumphant over the Spanish main, would be converted into a museum for preserving the handcuffs and branding irons, the manacles, stakes, thumb screws and other instruments of Spanish cruelty, and the pretty Cuban girls in the cigarette factories would learn enough English to respond to the ardent advances of lovers from the States. That the day of Cuban freedom may be delayed is possible, for the island is too rich a plum for the Spaniards to relinquish willingly,) but that it will always remain under' the oppressive rule of a nation whose administration of civil affairs is somewhat better than that of Dahomey, and somewhat worse than that of Turkey, is not for a moment to be believed.

THE GREAT CATHEDRAL IN HAVANA.

IN A CIGARETTE FACTORY.

WHERE THE PINEAPPLES GROW.

THE BUCCANEERS’ FORT.

THE PRADO, HAVANA.