The herald., 1898-12-04
THE COLOR LINE IN CUBA
None Between Natives-Cuban and
Spaniard Unlike in Looks

Manufacturing to Cuba with impress
sions of the battle of Nirden fresh in mind,
one takes an early opportunity to inquire
whether Cubans will mix it up" with the
negroes as we do in the states. Out of a
population of a million and half there were,
according to the last census, one and one
half million blacks. This last census, how
| ever, was not true; it is matter OF common
knowledge that Spain purposely falsited IT.,
so that the numerical strength of the ne
groes should not discourage intending emf
grants from Europe. At present, even al
ter recommendation, and the fact that the
negroes were, as the saying is, the chief
''meat for the cannon in the three years of
war, it is estimated that they constitute
about 40 per cent of the inhabitants of Cuba
In many parts of the island, under free
ballot, they would be in overwhelming con-
troll.
One soon discovers that this does not
| worry the Cubans. 1t is the Spaniards and
the Germans and the Americans who appre-
| hend dstasteful results from an unrestricted
franchise. Between Cubans there is almost
no color line" An extreme and sharp
| talking Massachusetts woman whom know
contends, indeed, that there are no Cubans
except "colored' Cubans. "They are ALL -
! she declares-'what do you call it?'-
touched with the tarbrush? Yes, they are
all touched with the tar brush Where do
they get their dark skins and their horrid
uncleanlness? Not always from Spain.
When Spaniard is dark he is dark like a
lFrenchman, and there is no mulatto look
about him. The difference in appearance
between the usual Cuban native and the
usual Spanish soldier is certainly striking.
There are cafes where the Spanish gather,
and cafes where the Cubans gather; and to
go from one to the other is to see two sets
of persons most unlike. | have never seen
a Cuban who would be mistaken for an
American of Anglo-SaXon descent, but If
| the Spanish officers were to wear American
| clothes they might walk in Commonwealth
avenue and not appear foreign.
They are evidently from Northern Spain,
which was conquered and settled by the
Goths. Dark ones come from the southern
! provinces, where the blood of the Arabs
or Moors, as they are termed in modern
! times-mxing with that of the previous
population, produced the jet-eyed, black
/ haired Spaniard of fiction. Very few Of
these are commanders in the army now
getting ready to evacuate Cuba, but there
are enough of them to illustrate the re-
marks of my friend from Massachusetts, and
| to indicate that something besides Moorish
antecedents has put dusk in the skin and
| deep shadows in the eyes of Cubans. Ac-
| acknowledgement is made of this by Cubans
| themselves, one Of whom told me that he
knew families of white Cubans in which a
cousin or a nephew or an aunt would be
what is known as colored Sometimes this
is due to atavism, and sometimes it has a
cause as direct and immediate as that of
the girl in that powerful but undelectable
story Of southern life by Mr.. Howells. Color
is no bar to the finest Cuban society, pro-
vided the person is on one side descended
from a house of honorable connections. 10
the Spaniard from Catalonia this is as
strange as to us; for his skin is like ours, and
his beard turns gray, and the top of his head
grows bald, and he feels himself different
| from the heavy-crested Creole.
| Up to now the race question has been
struggled with here by the Spaniard. He
regarded the revolution as "nigger revolu-
ton" and it must puzzle him good deal If
he has heard of the battle of Virden, the con-
aicts in Mississippi, and the recent lynch