Personal Narrative Of Travels To The Equinoctial Regions Of America During The Years 1799-1804 - Volume 3 - By Alexander Von Humboldt And Aime Bonpland.
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Such Are The
Reasonings Of Cupidity When Man Employs Man As A Beast Of Burden!
It
would be unjust to entertain a doubt that within fifteen years negro
mortality has greatly diminished in the island of Cuba.
Several
proprietors have made laudable efforts to improve the plantation
system.
It has been remarked how much the population of the island of Cuba is
susceptible of being augmented in the lapse of ages. As the native of
a northern country, little favoured by nature, I may observe that the
Mark of Brandebourg, for the most part sandy, contains, under an
administration favourable to the progress of agricultural industry, on
a surface only one-third of that of Cuba, a population nearly double.
The extreme inequality in the distribution of the population, the want
of inhabitants on a great part of the coast, and its immense
development, render the military defence of the whole island
impossible: neither the landing of an enemy nor illicit trade can be
prevented. The Havannah is well defended, and its works rival those of
the most important fortified towns of Europe; the Torreones, and the
fortifications of Cogimar, Jaruco, Matanzas, Mariel, Bahia Honda,
Batabano, Xagua and Trinidad might resist for a considerable time the
assaults of an enemy; but on the other hand two-thirds of the island
are almost without defence, and could scarcely be protected by the
best gun-boats.
Intellectual cultivation is almost entirely limited to the whites, and
is as unequally distributed as the population. The best society of the
Havannah may be compared for easy and polished manners with the
society of Cadiz and with that of the richest commercial towns of
Europe; but on quitting the capital, or the neighbouring plantations,
which are inhabited by rich proprietors, a striking contrast to this
state of partial and local civilization is manifest, in the simplicity
of manners prevailing in the insulated farms and small towns. The
Havaneros or natives of the Havannah were the first among the rich
inhabitants of the Spanish colonies who visited Spain, France and
Italy; and at the Havannah the people were always well informed of the
politics of Europe. This knowledge of events, this prescience of
future chances, have powerfully aided the inhabitants of Cuba to free
themselves from some of the burthens which check the development of
colonial prosperity. In the interval between the peace of Versailles
and the beginning of the revolution of San Domingo, the Havannah
appeared to be ten times nearer to Spain than to Mexico, Caracas and
New Grenada. Fifteen years later, at the period of my visit to the
colonies, this apparent inequality of distance had considerably
diminished; now, when the independence of the continental colonies,
the importation of foreign manufactures and the financial wants of the
new states have multiplied the intercourse between Europe and America;
when the passage is shortened by improvements in navigation; when the
Columbians, the Mexicans and the inhabitants of Guatimala rival each
other in visiting Europe; the ancient Spanish colonies - those at least
that are bathed by the Atlantic - seem alike to have drawn nearer to
the continent.
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