TMECUBAREVIEW 23 



THE WHITE RACE IN THE TROPICS 



By Dr. Juan Guiteras, Director of Health in Havana 



An important article by this distinguished Cuban doctor appeared in Sanidad and 

 Beneficencia for August, 1913, the official organ of the Department of Health in Havana. 

 The subject is treated from the aspect of a physician who has spent years in tropical 

 lands. Dr. Guiteras's article will be read with interest and profit by the profession as 

 well as by the general reader and student who is interested in development work in a 

 section hitherto believed fatal to the white man. 



Some arguments he presents support the thesis that the tropical climate is compatible 

 with the best manifestations of human activity, and that the acclimatement of the white 

 race in the Tropics has been successfully accomplished. 



The niain argument advanced against these views is the high rate of mortality affecting 

 the white race when it has attempted to colonize in the Tropics; a rate of mortality tha't 

 lias culminated in the extinction of large groups of papulation. 



The examples that are brought forward are numerous. First among these, perhaps, 

 is the disastrous failure of the French in Panama and in the Guayanas; the Dutch in the 

 same region and other failures in other places. But, I ask, has not the Spaniard estab- 

 lished himself permanently in Panama? We shall see more about this when we take up 

 the subject in connection with the white people of Cuba. 



The use of the word "natives," without a proper understanding of what it might 

 signify under varying conditions has also led to confusion. In publications on tropical 

 questions, the word "native" is generally employed to denote the negro race or the Indian ; 

 and the existence of some millions of white natives of tropical countries is overlooked. 

 The amusing remark is frequently made by visitors from the North when speaking with 

 an educated Cuban: "But you are not a native, are you?" And the expression of dis- 

 appointment is quite evident when we answer that we certainly are. 



The table of death rates in the Republic of Cuba for the years from 1902 to 1911 

 certainly does not represent the death rate of a dying population, but rather of one that 

 is very much alive. The general death rate reaches very low figures that may be com- 

 pared advantageously with those of the best organized countries in any latitude. In the 

 year 1912, the general death rate per 1,000 of population was 13.55. 



We should remember that the elevation of the land in Cuba is nowhere sufficiently 

 high to bring about the conditions that belong to the temperate or even the subtropical 

 zone. 



Returning now to a more direct examinaton of our problem of the adaptation of the 

 white race to the Tropics, Dr. Guiteras states that the colored population of Cuba, as 

 compared with the whites, is slowly diminishing. There are no Indian aborigines nor 

 halfbreeds of this race. 



There is, he finds, a slight increase from one census year to the other of the white 

 population over the colored. This is in part due to the higher death rate of the latter. 

 It cannot be said, therefore, that the low death rate existing in Cuba is due to the 

 presence there of blacks and mulattos who might be considered as better adapted to the 

 supposed inclemencies of the torrid climate. 



The ratio of the number of deaths of the colored to the number of deaths of the 

 whites shows a smaller proportional difference than the ratios of the respective popula- 

 tions. This ratio of deaths of colored to whites, in the census year of 1907, was as 

 1:1.86; in the year 1912 is was as 1:2.01. Almost exactly one-third of the deaths in 

 this year belong to the colored, whereas the colored population is less than one-third of 

 the whole population. These features are brought out because the contention is made 

 that the success of the implantation of the white race in certain regions of the Tropics 

 is only apparent ; that the struggle of the whites against the adverse climatic conditions 

 can only be w-aged successfully through either the intermarriage of the whites with the 

 native Indian or the African colored population or by the frequent introduction of fresh 

 white elements from the temperate zone. 



In Cuba we can advance very strong argument against either of these suppositions, as 

 follows : The highest proportion of whites in this country is to be found in the province 

 of Camaguey. According to the census of 1907, the ratio of blacks to whites in that 

 province was as 1 :4.46. 



Camaguey consists mostly of extensive plains favorable to stock raising. The sugar 

 cane fields and the coffee plantations with their necessary accompaniment of negro slave 

 labor were generally kept out of the province. On the other hand, the absence of sea- 

 port towns of importance along the coast of this province, and its isolation from the 



