In Studying The History Of The Island We Observe That The Movement Of Colonization Has Been From East To West; And That Here, As Everywhere In The Spanish Colonies, The Places First Peopled Are Now The Most Desert.

The first establishment of the whites was in 1511 when, according to the orders of Don Diego Columbus, together

With the conquistador and poblador Velasquez, he landed at Puerto de Palmas, near Cape Maysi, then called Alfa y Omega, and subdued the cacique Hatuey who, an emigrant and fugitive from Hayti, had withdrawn to the eastern part of the island of Cuba, and had become the chief of a confederation of petty native princes. The building of the town of Baracoa was begun in 1512; and later, Puerto Principe, Trinidad, the Villa de Santo Espiritu, Santiago de Cuba (1514), San Salvador de Bayamo, and San Cristoval de la Havana. This last town was originally founded in 1515 on the southern coast of the island, in the Partido of Guines, and transferred, four years later, to Puerto de Carenas, the position of which at the entrance of the two channels of Bahama (el Viejo y de Nuevo) appears to be much more favourable to commerce than the coast on the south-west of Batabano.* (* A tree is still shown at the Havannah (at Puerto de Carenas) under the shade of which the Spaniards celebrated their first mass. The island, now called officially The ever-faithful island of Cuba, was after its discovery named successively Juana Fernandina, Isla de Santiago, and Isla del Ave Maria. Its arms date from the year 1516.) The progress of civilization since the sixteenth century has had a powerful influence on the relations of the castes with each other; these relations vary in the districts which contain only farms for cattle, and in those where the soil has been long cleared; in the sea-ports and inland towns, in the spots where colonial produce is cultivated, and in such as produce maize, vegetables and forage.

Until the latter part of the eighteenth century the number of female slaves in the sugar plantations of Cuba was extremely limited; and what may appear surprising is that a prejudice, founded on religious scruples, opposed the introduction of women, whose price at the Havannah was generally one-third less than that of men. The slaves were forced to celibacy on the pretext of avoiding moral disorder. The Jesuits and the Bethlemite monks alone renounced that fatal prejudice, and encouraged negresses in their plantations. If the census, no doubt imperfect, of 1775, yielded 15,562 female, and 29,366 male slaves, we must not forget that that enumeration comprehended the totality of the island, and that the sugar plantations occupy even now but a quarter of the slave population. After the year 1795, the Consulado of the Havannah began to be seriously occupied with the project of rendering the increase of the slave population more independent of the variations of the slave-trade. Don Francisco Arango, whose views were ever characterized by wisdom, proposed a tax on the plantations in which the number of slaves was not comprised of one-third females. He also proposed a tax of six piastres on every negro brought into the island, and from which the women (negras bozales) should be exempt. These measures were not adopted because the colonial assembly refused to employ coercive means; but a desire to promote marriages and to improve the condition of the children of slaves has existed since that period, when a cedula real (of the 22nd April, 1804) recommended those objects "to the conscience and humanity of the planters."

The first introduction of negroes into the eastern part of the island of Cuba took place in 1521 and their number did not exceed 300. The Spaniards were then much less eager for slaves than the Portuguese; for, in 1539, there was a sale of 12,000 negroes at Lisbon, as in our days (to the eternal shame of Christian Europe) the trade in Greek slaves is carried on at Constantinople and Smyrna. In the sixteenth century the slave-trade was not free in Spain; the privilege of trading, which was granted by the Court, was purchased in 1586, for all Spanish America, by Gaspar de Peralta; in 1595, by Gomez Reynel; and in 1615, by Antonio Rodriguez de Elvas. The total importation then amounted to only 3500 negroes annually; and the inhabitants of Cuba, who were wholly engaged in rearing cattle, scarcely received any. During the war of succession, French ships were accustomed to stop at the Havannah and to exchange slaves for tobacco. The Asiento treaty with the English in some degree augmented the introduction of negroes; yet in 1763, although the taking of the Havannah and the sojourn of strangers gave rise to new wants, the number of slaves in the jurisdiction of the Havannah did not amount to 25,000; and in the whole island, not to 32,000. The total number of African negroes imported from 1521 to 1763 was probably 60,000; their descendants survive among the free mulattos, who inhabit for the most part the eastern side of the island. From the year 1763 to 1790, when the negro-trade was declared free, the Havannah received 24,875 (by the Compania de Tobacos 4957, from 1763 to 1766; by the contract of the Marquess de Casa Enrile, 14,132, from 1773 to 1779; by the contract of Baker and Dawson, 5786, from 1786 to 1789). If we estimate the introduction of slaves in the eastern part of the island during those twenty-seven years (1763 to 1790) at 6000, we find from the discovery of the island of Cuba, or rather from 1521 to 1790, a total of 90,875. We shall soon see that by the ever-increasing activity of the slave-trade the fifteen years that followed 1790 furnished more slaves than the two centuries and a half which preceded the period of the free trade.

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