The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1899-09-14
IN THE CENTRE OF CUBA.
Everyday Scenes In a City of
the Interior.
A MULTI-COLORED POPULATION
A Visit to the Lepers of San LazcrO-A
Municipal Hospital in a Shameful
Condition.

Looking at Une DlaCk races WHICH
crowd the streets of Santa Clara and
remembering their preponderance in
the lately-disbanded Cuban army,
one finds it easy to believe the at first
discredited statement that more than
half the population of Cuba is col
ored. A great number of negros
drifted into this interior town dur
ing the war, from estates i'll the out
lying provinces, and yet lack energy
or motive for going away. This is the
heart of the best sugar-producing sec
ton of the island, and each of the
larger estates used to employ from
three to five thousand negros. All
these suddenly found themselves
adrift, without homes or occupation,
While the ablebodied males, to man,
Joined the patriot army, the old and
feeble, with the women and children,
crowded into the already Over-crOWd-
ed city and subsisted, heaven knows
how, through those months of de
spair. By the grisly route of starva-
tion threefourths of them passed
that bourne whence, happily, there
is no returning, and it is small wonder
that the diseased and enfeebled rem
nant have not yet developed much
ambition to labor. Weyler's edict of
recommendation fell even more heav-
lily in the interior than upon the sea
coast towns, because here was no pos
sible chance for outside help. Within
an area of five miles surrounding
Santa Clara, called the ''zona de cul-
two" (why SO named none can say,
since nothing was cultivated), upward
of $4,000 utterly destitute reconcen-
tradOs were corraled, white, black
and parti-colored, huddled together
more hOpelessly mixed than ever
when again turned loose upon an un-
welcoming world. Fortunately, per-
haps, the place of their detention was
comparatively high ground, and
though the death rate was appalling
it was smaller than in Matanzas and
Havana.
The eX-plantation laborers are, as
might be expected, an uneducated
and brutal lot, entirely untitled for
self-government and much less for
holding Governmental positions; but
many of them are now growing omi-
nously because some sugar plums
among the fruits of reconstruction
are not dropping into their eager
mouths. They say-with some show
of truth-"We did the fighting and
are entitled to our share of the re-
wards.' The Cubans laugh at the
idea of negro problem in the
island, and refuse to consider race
question in any light. They believe
that the blacks will go back to the
cane fields as soon as the planters are
ready for them, and that they will
always remain, as their fathers did,
patient and unconsidered beasts of
burden, targets for rifles when there
is war and the bone and sinew" in
times of peace. To disinterested out
siders this is by no means certain,
remembering history, in Santo Dom
lingo, Haiti and other nearby islands.
There is a note of warning in the air
that may portend a mighty storm
when American protection is with
drawn.
Another political complication, by
no means confined to Santa Clara,
but particularly noticeable here, arises
from the fact that nearly all the larg-
est property owners are Spaniards.
Into their hands, during recent years,
the finest Cuban estates have fallen,
through contiscation or the poverty
of their original owners, brought on
by Spanish persecution. The mere
suggestion that Cubans may soon
govern Cuba fills them with we'll
grounded apprehension of reckon
a. DCOIOo vi UilClu dIt tO-udN
in Santa Clara, striving to drum up
petitions to the United States for an
nexation, and they are more than
willing to ally themselves with the
negros, or with any other disaffected
class or faction which promises to
keep out of the vengeful hands of the
Cubans. Meanwhile the merchants
and substantial citizens generally,
long stunned by their sorrows and
losses, are slowly awakening, trying
to grasp the Epresent situation with
mental fingers that are all thumbs,
and to adjust themselves to changed
conditions.
In company with Miss Barton,
under the ciceronage of United States
Surgeon Jennings and Quartermaster
Bean, with the inevitable army am
bulance, | recently spent day among