16 THECUBAREVIEW 



indicating that in 1870 some 1,200 small mills were workmg and were producing some 610,000 

 tons of sugar. Much more accurate data was kept after 1882 in which year an export duty 

 was levied on sugar shipments, thus causing records to be kept by the customs officials of the 

 country. 



The beginning of the Ten Years War in 1868 changed the conditions we have just men- 

 tioned. While the Spanish Government issued an order that all mills were to continue grind- 

 ing just as long as possible, and did all in its power to protect the factories, the poor means 

 of transportation existing at the time rendered them powerless agamst a people who were 

 determined to prevent the results of their work falling into the hands of their oppressors. 

 The Island was swept with fire, frequently set by the hands of the owners of the mills and 

 fields burned, and all except the very best protected mills were destroyed. During this 

 period, all children who had been born of mothers in slavery were proclaimed free; and at the 

 same time in Europe, and as the result of the efforts put forth by Napoleon many years back, 

 the beet sugar industry was forging ahead under the protection of bounties granted by the 

 governments ^^hose subjects produced sugars lor export. In 3880 all slaves in Cuba were set 

 free, their owners being given no remuneration foi the loss of what represented to them prac- 

 tically their entire fortune. Thus we find at this period the sugar planter confronted with the 

 necessity of securing outside free labor in a country where only slaves had done the hard and 

 dirty laboi of the fields and where the idea that contact and work with the soil was undignified 

 and not to be thought of by free men, while, at the same time, all the rural districts were handi- 

 capped by the partialis demoralized conditions caused by the feeling of animosity and desire 

 for freedom and revenge entertained by the Cubans. Yet, notwithstanding these conditions, 

 the sugar industry again asserted itself, the output continually increased, till in 1890 it reached 

 some 625,000 tons, produced, it is reported, by about 470 small mills. Thus it had practically 

 attained again the position which it had occupied in 1870, though it is evident that the capacity 

 of the average mill had greatly increased — in fact, had just about doubled. 



The labor conditions which we have referred to in the preceding lines were one of the 

 causes which have modified entirely the relations existing between the cane grower and the 

 mills. In the early days of the small mills, each cane grower had his own little ox-driven mill, 

 and ground his own cane, making his own sugar; but as labor became scarcer, and upon the 

 liberation of the slaves, many of the small owners were no longer able to obtain the laborers 

 that they required, while many of the larger planters found it necessary to subdivide their 

 lands and rent them to others in small parcels, thus giving rise to the system so prevalent at 

 the present time m Cuba wherein the cane growers have no connection with the grinding of 

 their canes, they merely growing it and selling it to the owners of the mills. Thus has sprung 

 up the "Hacendado" (Mill owner) and "Colono" (cane grower). This separation of grower and 

 planter continued to spread, and the concentration of small mills and estates to be effected, 

 till we have today the giant central purchasing cane often grow^n at a distance of 100 miles from 

 the mill from growers who very probably have never seen the factory that grinds their 

 products. 



This second period of reconstruction and up-building continued with ever-increasing output 

 till the j-ear 1894, in which a production of 1,054,214 tons was obtained, to be followed, how- 

 ever, by the breaking out in 1895 of the "War of Independence," culminating in the Spanish 

 American War and in the final setting free of the Island. This war was the bloochest in the his- 

 tory of Cuba, and the torch was applied so freely and successfully that in 1897 the sugar pro- 

 duction of the Island had fallen to only 212,051 tons, the greater part of the factories had been 

 destroyed, the fields had been burned, and the cattle used for transporting the cane had been 

 killed, while many of the principal railroad lines essential to the transport of cane and sugar 

 were in an unserviceable condition. The losses of this war only added to the reasons for the 

 concentration of estates already mentioned, as many previously prosperous planters emerged 

 from the destruction of the struggle without funds or credit with which to re-establish them- 

 selves in their former lines. Thus the sugar manufacturing business began to fall into the hands 

 of large organizations and corporations, and this tendency continues and doubtless has become 

 firmly fixed and established. This is clearly shown by the record of the number of factories 

 operating in 1906, seven years after the war closed, and after a period of time sufficient to wipe 

 out most of the effects of the struggle. At this time there were in operation in the Island 

 181 mills, 78 belonging to Cubans, 30 to Americans, and 73 to other nationalities. The 

 changes in nationality of owners is shown by the following table: 



