Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 05.djvu/750

* CUBA. 646 CUBA. ing as well as the enrollment increased with an extraordinary rapidity, so that by the middle of 1!)0 the number of schools was 3550 and the enrollment over 14.3,000. Cuba has a university at Havana. The po])ulation is Roman Catholic. The island forms one archiepiscopal diocese. Population. The population of Cuba at each census beginning with 1774 was as follows: 1774, 172,020; 1702, 272,301; 1817, 553,628; 1827, 704.487; 1841, 1,007.624; 1861, 1,396,530; 1887, 1,631,687; 1899, 1,572,797. The rate of increase varied from 34 per cent, for the period 1792-1817, to 5 per cent, for the period 1861-71. The decrease of poi)ulation on account of the war must have amounted to about 270,000. The density of popu- lation ranges from 153 per square mile in the Province of Havana to 8 in the Province of Puerto Principe, Besides being the most densely popiihited province of the island, Havana has also the largest urban population, amounting to 77,4 per cent., against 47,1 per cent, for the entire ishmd. According to race, the jjopulation is divided as follows : whites, 67.9 per cent. ( 57.8 per cent, natives) ; negroes, mixed elements, and Chinese, 32.1 per cent. The males constitute 54.1 per cent, among the white and 47.0 per cent among the colored population. According to oc- cupation the population was distributed as fol- lows: 48.1 per cent, in agriculture, fisheries, and mining; 22.8 per cent, in domestic and personal service; 14.9 percent, in manufacturing and me- chanical pursuits; 12.8 per cent, in trade and transportation; and 1.4 per cent, in professional service. Havana is the capital of Cuba. Following is the list of the provinces of the island; PROVINCES .irea, square miles Population in 1899 Population per square mile 2.265 6,145 3,,506 7.624 7.429 10,125 424,804 173,064 202,444 356,536 88,234 327,716 187 34 58 47 12 Santiago dt* Cuba 32 Total 35,994 1,572,797 44 History. The "Pearl.' or 'Queen of the -An- tilles,' the 'Ever-Faithful Isle,' as the Spaniards used to terra Cuba ( from the attitude of the Cu- bans at the lime of theNapoleonic overthrow of the Spanish Bourbons ), was discovered by Columbus during his first voyage, on October 28, 1492. He landed, it is supposed, on the north coast, near Nuevitas, by the river M;'iximo. and believed it to be a part of the mainland, until assured by the natives that it was an island; but in 1494. on his second trip, he reiterated his previous belief and called the land Juana. after Juan, the son of Fer- dinand and Isabella. Subsequently he changed the name to Fernandina, in honor of Ferdinand, and still later to Santiago, the name of the patron saint of Spain, and finally to Ave Maria, in recognition of the kind otlices of the Virgin Mary ; but the aboriginal name of Cuba clung to the island, and was never supplanted. A pe.<ft;eable race of In- dians, calling themselves Ciboneyes, were its in- habitants, living under nine independent caciques, and holding to a belief in a supreme being and the immortality of the soul. In 1502 Columbus visited Cuba a third time, and in 1511 his son. Diego Columbus, fitted out a colonizing expedi- tion of 300 men, under Diego Velasquez, who made thei.- first settlement at Baracoa, and in 1514 founded Santiago and Trinidad, and also a place on the southern coa.st called San Cristobal de la Habana, a name soon transferred to another settlement, on the northern coast, and in 1519 to the present locality. The natives, reduced to slavery by tliese adventurers, and employed in the cultivation of sugar-cane and other crops, v.'cre so cruelly treated, that by 1553 their race was almost extinct, notwithstanding the appeals of Las Casas, the Roman Catholic apostle to the Indians, to the home Government in their behalf. This humane missionary having observed in Santo Domingo that the negroes seemed to pos- sess a capacity for endurance superior to that of the Indians, in order to save the latter, went so far as to suggest that negroes should be im- ported to take their places in the mines and cane- flelds. The colonists were not slow to act upon this suggestion, and thus negro slavery gained a foothold in the Western world. The Indians of Cuba, however, did not escape the e.xtennination which Las Casas was so anxious to avert, while the negroes were subjected to ei-uelties that checked their natural increase and made it neces- sary to recruit their numbers by constant im- port^Ttions. In 1537 Diego Columbus relinquislied to the Crown his right to appoint a governor for the island, and Hernando de Soto was ap- pointed, under the title of Captain-General. Havana was destroyed by the French in 1538, and again in 1554, and for a century and a half the people of the island were in almost continual fear of invasion by the French, Dutch, or Eng- lish, or the pirates infesting the adjacent waters, ilany laws were also made in Spain that were exceedingly disastrous to the prosperity of the island — e.g. a law prohibiting all foreigners, even Spaniards not native Castilians, from trading with or settling in the island. This led to smug- gling, which was carried on largely, especially after the English captured Jamaica in 1655. 'liatever importance and prosperity Cuba has attained seems to date from the Treaty of Paris, 1763, which ended the Seven A'ears' War during which the English had captured Havana, The island was restored to Spain, and for the rest of the century it enjoyed unusual ])rosperity. Las Casas, appointed Captain-General in 1790, was especially indefatigable in his efforts for the public good, removing many restrictions from commerce and promoting many useful public works. During the nineteenth century the island was ruled by a succession of Captains-General possessing almost absolute power, some of whom deser'e praise for efforts to discharge their duties faithfully, while others can only be classed as oppressors, and whatever progress was made during their administrations was in spite of all obstacles mismanagement could invent — e.g. the royal decree of the Omnimodas, issued in 1825, which empowered Captains-General to rule at all times as if the island were in a state of siege. The Cnited States made repeated etTorts to pur- chase the island. In 1848 President Polk au- thorized the American ifinister at Madrid to ofl'cr .$100,000,000, and in 1858 a proposal was made in the Senate to authorize an offer of $30.- 000.000, but this was finally withdrawn. In 1854 what is known as the 'Ostend Manifesto' ( q.v. ), dra^•n up in the interest of the slave-