THE PEOPLE OF CUBA 99 



skilled in agriculture, and often learned in the arts and pro- 

 fessions. Some dwell in picturesque cities, the largest of 

 which, Havana, with the refinement and gaiety of a Euro- 

 pean capital, has a population numerically equal to that 

 of Washington. Santiago, the eastern city of picturesque 

 villas, is (or was) as populous as Atlanta, Nashville, Lowell, 

 or Fall River. There are many other cities, each with more 

 than twenty-five thousand inhabitants. The remainder 

 live upon over one hundred thousand farms, ranches, and 

 plantations. 



The people of Cuba may be classified into five distinct 

 groups, as follows: white Cubans, black Cubans, colored 

 Cubans, Spaniards, including officials and intransigents, 1 

 and foreigners other than Spanish. The white Cubans are 

 the owners of the soil; the black and colored form the 

 laboring classes ; the Spanish officials, the governing class ; 

 the Spanish intransigents, the commercial class ; while the 

 other foreigners are birds of passage whose interests in the 

 island are purely financial. 



It is difficult to ascertain or even estimate the numerical 

 proportion of these classes to one another. The entire 

 foreign element, exclusive of about thirty thousand Chinese 

 males and the army, probably does not exceed one hundred 

 thousand people. The civilian foreigners, in most cases, 

 are estimable people, the better class of whom are engaged 

 in banking, trade, and sugar-planting. They have no other 

 interest in the welfare of the country than gain of wealth, 

 and have no intention of permanent residence. Hence 

 they should not be considered in any manner as represen- 

 tative of the Cuban people, although their voice has, in 

 recent political events, almost drowned that of the true in- 



1 To the Cubans the foreign Spanish are known as "intransigents," a local 

 word signifying transients. Between the two classes, governors and the gov- 

 erned, owing to the despotism of the former, a bitter hatred lias existed since 

 1812, and has been more strongly accentuated since the surrender of Zanjon, 

 in 1878, when the rebellious Cubans laid down their arms under unfulfilled 

 promises of autonomy and local self-government, similar to schemes lately 

 presented. 



