The morning news., 1897-08-17
A ROMANCE OF CUBA.
A Cavalry Leader Who Avenges the
Wrongs of His Ancestors.

From the New York Sun.
The name of the revolutionary leader
Gen. Jesus Rabi. is mentioned often in
the dispatches from Cuba. AS command
er-in-chief Of the Cuban cavalry forces
in the east he has won renown not only
by his deeds of daring and his skill as a
strategist. but also by his chivalrous spir-
it and his devotion to the cause of lib
erty.
The interest in his career is increased
by a circumstance made known through
a Cuban letter to the Sun that he is one
of the few living descendants of the alb
original race of Indians who inhabited
the island when Columbus discovered it
in 1892. and nearly all of whom were slain
or enslaved by the Spanish conquerers.
il is against the offspring of the race
who destroyed his own ancestors that
Gen. Rabi now wages war with all the
energy of his nature. -Four hundred
years after his people were crushed by
Spain, he appears on the battlefield as
Spain's defiant enemy.
The aboriginal race that inhabited Cuba
in the fifteenth century, when it was in
Vaded by Spain, were known as Ciboneyes,
and they numbered perhaps 40 900. They
belonged to the same stock as that which
then dwelt upon the other islands in the
caribbean sea, and that have always been
spoken of as Indians. The Ciboneyes were
singuarly docile in their character, and
they received the Spaniards in a friendly
manner, but their gentle traits did not
save them from ruin. In a few years
they suffered the doom that awaited the
natives of most of the other American
countries subdued by Spain. The story is
a familiar one. The Spaniards overran
the island, massacred thousands of its
unfortunate inhabitants under circum-
stances of extreme cruelty, burned their
proud chief ate the stake, and reduced to
involuntary servitude those who We're left
alive, assigning to each Spaniard a gang
of Ciboneyes numbering about 300 The
treatment to which the slaves were sub
jected by their masters was so harsh that
nearly all of them were dead within twen-
ty or thirty years. 1t is a black chapter
in the history of Spain.
A few of the people took refuge in the
mountainous region of the east, and a
small number of their posterity may be
found there at this day. They are of a
light copper color, and they intermarry
as do the Jews, so that their blood is
kept distinct from that of the other in
habitants of Cuba.
1t is to this almost extinct race of man.
kind, the race of the ancient Ciboneyes
that Gen. Rabi belongs, though he is less
noted for his docility than for some
other traits. In recent times he has done
his part in causing Spain to suffer for the
wrongs that Spain inflicted upon his an
cestors four centuries ago He is as bit
ter in his hatred of the Spanish tyrant
as he is proud of his descent from the
aboriginal Ciboneyes.
1t was in his youth, nearly thirty years
ago, that this heroic man first took up
arms against Spain. He participated in
the ten-year war, after which he waited
for his next opportunity; it came in the
second month or 1885, His military rec
ord since then has been a brilliant one
and has manifested the finest qualities
of a mind that is inspired by the love
of liberty and justice. He is a man of
broad thought, and he converses about
public affairs like a statesman. Under
his command there are five battalions of
cavalry besides a small force of infantry.
There has been a report that Gen. Rabi
would take part in the projected cam
paign against Havana. If he should do
so, and if it should be his fortune to en-
ter the capital bearing the flag of free
Cuba, the story of the romance of the
hero of the modern Ciboneyes would be
rounded off, to the dishonor of Diego We
lasquez of the year 1911 and to that of
Valeriano Weyler of the year 1897.