accident," or they united themselves closely to the European Spaniards and sought to hide their birthmark by unadulterated Spanish principles. The Bourbons indeed introduced a better government into the colonies, and endeavored to restrict the plundering of the Indians and creoles; but the increasing number of official positions brought over an always increasing number of Spanish office seekers just at the time the creoles were awakening from the long spiritual torpor in which they had lain from 1570 to 1720.

The earliest Spanish emigrants must have been an intellectually active set of people. This is an inference from the fact that, as above mentioned, it was for the most part political refugees or malcontents who founded the cities with Spanish names in the countries they conquered and plundered. But we have another proof of the fact in the rich literature of the Conquest. We read with astonishment the reports of plain, common soldiers and merchauts, and find in their presentations clearness of expression and a sharp lookout for everything worth noting. Later there was a reaction, the creoles lived at ease in their city houses or on their haciendas, while ignorance and idleness were forced upon them by the Spaniards. The small attendance at the colleges also speaks for their intellectual indolence at the period mentioned, although their ignorance probably was not so great as would be indicated by a story told by the often quoted Gage, who relates that a prominent creole at Chiapas once asked him if the same sun shone in England as in America. Spanish Americans of the present day defend this mental inactivity of their ancestors by pointing out that they were excluded from all offices, and they were wise to lead an indifferent and idle life rather than pursue studies which would only subject them to the suspicion of the governing caste, as is to-day the case in the Philippines, where the educated natives are regarded as suspicious characters.

The revival in culture and knowledge which the creoles underwent in the eighteenth century is not to be credited to the mother country, but is a consequence of foreign influence. The Spanish Government had taken every precaution to guard its colonies against foreigners, but the force of circumstances proved too strong. The numerous wars which Spain was always carrying on frequently interrupted the relations between the mother country and the colonies; and since the latter, thanks to Spanish colonial policy, had no domestic industries of their own, but were obliged to depend on Spain for many things that might easily have been produced at home, the home government found itself compelled in war times to grant individual colonies permission to relieve their most pressing needs by trading abroad. Although this permission was only granted as cases arose, yet it was sufficient to establish friendly relations between the colonies and other countries, according as Spain was in alliance with England, Holland, or France, and these relations were continued, after normal conditions were resumed, under the form of an extensive smuggling. This smuggling is of importance not only in the history of the trade of Spanish America, but because the creoles, by the intercourse thus established with other countries, came to learn foreign languages (especially English and French), and their intellectual horizon was widened by contact with foreign literatures, and all this happened just at the time when the quality of the officials who were sent to the colonies from Spain was deteriorating. Zabala says of them: "Most of them came from the provinces of Spain with no other property than a coat, a pair of breeches, and three shirts. Many of them could hardly read, and had no other knowledge of the world and affairs than what they had picked up on the voyage.

Many of them believed that there was no other king but the King of Spain, and no other language than Spanish." This description is evidently colored by the hatred of a Mexican for Spaniards, but Spaniards themselves like the Duke of Almodovar, Don Tomas de Comyn, Fray Augustin de Santa María, and the Jesuit P. Vicente Aleman, say even worse things of the King's officials than Zabala. It can now easily be seen how dangerous it must have been for the Spanish régime which was only founded upon authority, when the rich creoles not only regarded the representatives of the motherland with the hatred of the oppressed toward the

oppressors, but also looked down upon them from a consciousness of their own intellectual superiority. Their fate seemed to them all the more pitiful and their lot the more unworthy when they heard the Spaniards boasting of their own superiority and the inferiority of the Americans. The administration of the King's favorite, Godoy, contributed especially to bring the Spanish rule in America into equal hatred and contempt, for this upstart sent to the colonies the worst of all officeholders-men who openly declared with utter cynicism that their own enriching was the only object they had in view in taking office.

I have hitherto spoken only of creoles, and that because the war of independence in all the Spanish colonies was only carried on by white natives, the insurrection of Father Hidalgo excepted. This latter insurrection, of colored men alone, was, however, not successful, nor did the separatist movement meet with a successful issue until the creoles declared their independence of Spain. The Indian farmers of Central America and the region of the Andes were so indolent that they could hardly be induced to take part in the war of independence. They had not, it is true, been too well treated by the creoles, but for the most part they stood to them in much the same relation as the peasants of La Vendée sustained to their seigneurs, and were, therefore, inclined to take the part of their lords, even if they had no very clear idea of the cause of their quarrel. The Spaniards had prepared, it is true, a most admirable code of laws for the protection of the Indians, but the officials paid no attention to legal requirements and simply regarded the Indians as objects of plunder, like that corregidor who compelled the Indians under his authority to buy from him thousands of pairs of spectacles. No reasonable Spaniard could expect love and gratitude from people who had first been robbed of their liberty by his people and then condemned to everlasting servitude. Also, Spanish absolutism caused the Indians to lay all the blame for their sufferings upon the Government, although the creoles were occasionally the immediate cause. In vain had Spain founded her sway upon caste, envy, and the ancient principle divide et impera. At the very moment when this system ought to have withstood the supreme trial it failed completely. The common oppression which was shared by the white, the yellow, the brown, and the black man alike produced a reaction to which the Spanish dominion succumbed.

The negroes (speaking now of the eighteenth century) played only an insignificant part in the war of independence; they only appear in any force in Venezuela. The Spaniards armed them against the rebels, but they finally joined the latter. As they were mostly slaves and freedmen, without education or knowledge, they simply furnished food for powder for both parties. It is different nowadays in Cuba, when a small fraction of the negroes have raised themselves from the condition of laborers by virtue of a certain degree of education, mostly of a political character, which gives them a great influence over their fellows, an influence which is devoted to the dissemination of an unyielding and uncompromising separatist sentiment. These educated negroes, especially the mulattoes and all mixed bloods, said to themselves, as soon as they had eaten of the tree of political knowledge, that they could only attain to influence and position in the land of their birth when the colonies had become independent. In fact, it is hardly conceivable that the European Spaniards, who regard even the creoles as inferiors, would ever have intrusted either high or medium offices to negroes and other people of color, for that would infringe the unwritten law of the Spanish national pride. The Spaniards even regarded it as impossible that the creoles should ever subordinate themselves to colored men, and yet during the war of independence of their colonies on the mainland they lived to see creole nobles under the command of colored generals and chieftains, so powerfully had the hatred of the Spanish oligarchy fostered a spirit of comradeship among the Spanish Americans; and as soon as these colonies became independent States the spectacle was seen of an Indian, Don Benito Juarez, becoming President of the Republic of Mexico. If Mexico had remained a Spanish colony, Juarez could never have

risen above the position of some subordinate office, even if he could have obtained that. From the nature of the Spanish colonial system, and the narrow-mindedness of the Spanish national character, it was the demand of self-respect for intelligent and educated colored men to strive with all their might for the severance of their native land from Spain. The Spaniards can not understand this attitude of the colored races. They complain of their ingratitude, showing how they had brought Christianity and European civilization to the Indians and negroes and always treated them kindly, far differently from the English, who erect an impassable barrier between themselves and the natives and do not concern themselves about either their salvation or education. Foreign writers, too, even those who have lived a long time in Spanish colonies, speak in the same way, and point out that in Cuba, Porto Rico, and the Philippines the colored races live in an idyllic condition compared with the natives of English or Dutch colonies. But all these encomiasts forget that the whole Spanish colonial system signifies a policy which makes great promises and awakens ambition, but does not keep its promises and disappoints the aroused ambition. The man of color in the Antilles who is satisfied with the condition of a peasant and laborer can always enjoy an idyllic existence, but if he betakes himself to study and is ambitious to play a political part in his home, or aspires to a higher office than that of a clerk, he will find his career completely closed. Why do the Spaniards take so much trouble to raise the colored people to the level of their civilization, only to exclude them from office and honors, and even represent them in the press as intellectually deficient? People who are so thrust aside and subjected to such contemptuous treatment can not be expected to exhibit much regard for the Spaniards, for the rule of the latter means for them only humiliation and slavery, a perpetual helotism, which at most is ameliorated by kindly personal relations between the two races.

In the days of her sovereignty upon the Continent Spain did everything to hinder any mercantile or industrial advance of the colonies by a shortsighted guardianship. The number of ships for the carrying trade between the mother country and the colonies was strictly fixed. So, too, strict rules were established which restricted the free cultivation of all plants which could flourish in the colonies, so that in many regions only certain products could be exported. This was still more true of industries, although it must be said that certain flourishing industries in Spain itself (such as the silk culture of Valencia) were ruined by foolish legislation. The Americans endeavored to recoup themselves for the damages inflicted upon them by the mother country by an extensive system of smuggling with foreign countries. In this way they became accustomed to procure all the products of industry from abroad, and busied themselves only with agriculture and cattle raising. The first Spanish immigrants had brought with them their home industries, but these as well as those of the natives, became disused, not from the indolence of the Americans, but from the force of circumstances, which, in this case, was the colonial system of the Spanish Government.

The smuggling system was fateful for the Spanish rule, for it brought not only wares, but new ideas, into the land, particularly the reflection that the foreigners were wiser and better people than the Spaniards, who had, up to that time, been considered the first nation of the world. The great profits that the plantation owners made by smuggling created the desire to have their external trade regulated by law, and this wish was fulfilled by the really glorious Government of Charles III. Unfortunately, the relief of trade was combined with the introduction of monopolies, the most oppressive of which was that of tobacco, and Humboldt has shown in several places how the tobacco monopoly was one of the measures that extended the discontent with the Spanish rule into circles which would otherwise not have cared whether they were subjects of Spain or citizens of a free state. The restriction of agriculture and free trade by monopolies not only produced discontent in the colonies, but it suggested to England, which was interested in both the legitimate and

the smuggling trade with them, the policy of fomenting this discontent, with a view either to acquire the colonies herself or convert them into free states. The younger Pitt followed this plan, which his successors did not allow to fall into neglect.

The Spanish colonies, therefore, even by the middle of the eighteenth century had become revolutionary in sentiment, but many of the discontented still adhered to the dynasty and were reluctant to sever all the bonds that united them with the mother country, while the radicals were in doubt what should be done with the colonies in case of separation; they thought of creating empires and kingdoms, but could not decide whence to derive the emperors and kings. The revolt of the present United States finally pointed out the way they ought to follow. The treaty between Spain and the Yankees, too, taught them that it could not be an unpardonable sin-a crimen nefandum-for a colony to rebel against the oppressions of the mother country. The example of the English colonies also showed them-and this was the most important lesson of all-the form of government which is best suited for independent colonies. In this way all anxiety as to who should rule in the free states was removed. Spain could still have retained her hold upon her colonies if the constitution of 1812 had remained, but the reaction which Ferdinand VII introduced into Spain upon his restoration in 1814 took away from the Spanish-Americans all confidence in the permanence of the liberties that had been granted them, and they preferred independence to an uncertain future. The Spaniards, however, learned nothing from the rebellion of their continental colonies. The refusal of political rights in Cuba remained, as before, the rule of their colonial policy; political reforms were granted only when they were forcibly extorted by insurrectionsthat is to say, when they were too late-and produced in the minds of the natives the ineradicable conviction of the ill will and envy of the mother country. Among foreigners the separatist sentiment of the Spanish Americans is explained as being due to the plundering of the colonies by Spain, a statement which is only true in a slight degree. In the first place only a few of the colonies have had an excess of income over expenditures, and in the second place even this did not all go to Spain, but was applied to making good the deficit of less fortunate colonies, just as to-day the expenses of the Spanish Guinea islands are defrayed out of the budget for the Philippines. For many decades Spain has had no income from either Cuba or Porto Rico. In the nineteenth century the Spanish colonies have been plundered in the fullest sense of the word, not by Spain, but by Spanish officials. These officials in the two centuries preceding the present were more or less permanent, a condition that has changed since the introduction of the constitutional system in Spain. Every new ministry now dismisses the higher and most of the lower officers of the former régime and replaces them with its own partisans. As ministries change frequently in Spain there is a constant going and coming of officials in the colonies, whereby the interests of the mother country are seriously affected. The officials are consequently induced more than ever to lay up something for a rainy day, and they never have time enough to acquire a thorough knowledge of either the colonial lands or peoples. As the Roman provinces were made to pay the debts of the aristocratic proconsuls and propraetors, so have the Spanish colonies served to provide places for the faithful adherents of the changing parties in Madrid and their parasites. It is this peculiarity of Spanish political life that makes useful reforms so difficult, if not impossible. The noble and conscientious colonial minister, Don Segismundo Moret, was compelled to yield to the storm of odium which he aroused because the reforms which he inaugurated in Cuba were real reforms. The Spanish officials in the colonies are the most extreme reactionaries even when they are the wildest radicals at home, because they know that every reform must check their abuses; so that the maintenance of the old colonial system is for them a question of existence.

Every effort at reform was represented by them as a separatist movement in disguise, so that an unfavorable prejudice against reforms and reformers was created in Spain, and the latter were as much harrassed in their native country as the "dema

gogues" and liberals once were in Germany. It seems never to have occurred to the Spaniards that such proceedings would only intensify anti-Spanish and separatist feelings, else they would never have forced such a loyal people as the natives of the Philippines have always been to an insurrection.

All that is said in the preceding article might be repeated, word for word, in describing the history of Cuba alone in the present century, after enlightenment had become diffused. The intolerable nature of the oppression and contemptuous treatment of the Cubans by the Government officials led to insurrection after insurrection. In 1860 Anthony Trollope remarked that the Cubans had lost all their rights save that of being taxed. Before this century began, or rather before the English occupation of Havana in 1762, there is little of event in the history of Cuba for the present purpose. The population was small, not exceeding 170,000 even as late as the middle of the last century. The attacks of French, Dutch, and English pirates, buccaneers, and naval expeditions against Cuba and Porto Rico continued at intervals from Drake's time down to the end of the last century. The industry and commerce of the islands were of little importance until after the English occupation, after which date the cultivation of sugar, tobacco, and, later, coffee, became sources of wealth, and with free trade there was a general awakening.

In the aristocratic slave holding community arose a growing interest in the intellectual movement in Europe, which was prompted everywhere by the French revolution and its consequences. Cuban literature and culture took a patriotic form, and the leading men in the intellectual movement of the island took a practical part in endeavoring to regenerate a community which had no education for the common people, and where, consequently, a most undesirable and dangerous condi tion of life and morals prevailed.'

HISTORICAL SKETCH OF EDUCATION IN CUBA.

We are able to give an outline of the history of Cuban education from the work of Aurelio Mitjanes upon the development of literature and science in Cuba down to 1868. The work is mainly devoted to the literature and particularly the poetry of the island; but, as the author justly remarks, some account of the state of education of the country is essential to understand the beginnings of its intellectual activity. He divides the history of the intellectual movement in Cuba into two epochs, separated by the mea orable government of Gen. Luis de las Casas, which began in 1790. Before that period there was no constant

Before the strict rule of Governor General Tacon the streets of Havana were very unsafe from highwaymen, who were assassins as well as in the way of business. When one of the preceding governors was appealed to for police protection, he replied, "You should do as I do; never go out after dark."

This author was a wealthy young Cuban gentleman, who, after graduating at the University of Havana, passed several years in Spain, where he devoted himself to literature. He returned to Cuba and died there, of consumption, before reaching his thirtieth year. The present work is posthumous.