THE CUBA REVIEW 



AND BULLETIN 



"ALL ABOUT CUBA" 



Copjrright, 1907, by the Munson Steamship Line. 



Volume V. MAY, 1907 Number 6 



THE PRESENT STATUS OF PROPERTIES IN LAND IN EASTERN 

 CUBA. CUBAN LAND TITLES ABSOLUTELY GOOD.* 



BY G. E. HARR.\H, HOLGUIN, CUBA 



Picking up any local newspaper in eastern Cuba to-day, one may read an 

 advertisement such as the following: 



"Se venden ciento y seis pesos de posesion en el area de , fundada ea 



el camino real de Bayamo. El que se interese puede dirigirse a la calle > 



numero 69, casa de Francisco ." 



This may be rendered: "For sale, 126 dollars of possession in the hacienda 



of , located on the Baj^amo road. Inquiries may be made at the house o£ 



Francisco — — — , number 69, street." 



And the reader versed in the agrarian history of Cuba recognizes in the lines 

 the "swan song" of the institution known as the "hacienda comunera," or the com- 

 munal ownership of land, which was established in the island by the Spaniards- 

 during the first half of the sixteenth century. Soon the phrase, "dollars of 

 possession," will be spoken of only as a curiosity in legal nomenclature. 



To make clear the peculiar status, at the present time, of properties in land 

 in the province of Santiago de Cuba, there is here presented a brief sketch of 

 Cuban agrarian history, with an outline of the legislation effecting the emancipa- 

 tion of the agriculturist from medieval customs of landholding which have throttled, 

 advancement. In the treatment of the subject, as given here, many details, in- 

 teresting in themselves as picturing practices of by-gone days, and rewarding 

 the student in his labor of research, are necessarily omitted. 



Following upon the occupation of the country by the conquerors came the 

 appropriation of the lands, which in their luxuriance of tropical vegetation tempted 

 even the soldier to agricultural pursuits. It was the policy of the government 

 to encourage settlement; hence the "mercedes," or grants, issued by sovereigns, 

 viceroys and "cabildos"- — the ayuntamientos or town councils in the pueblos (the 

 political system and modus operandi of the mother country furnishing the model 

 for colonial administration). But it would appear that these grants, while made 

 to individuals, entitled the beneficiaries, at first, to the use, only, of the land, the 

 specified purposes being for the raising of cattle and making plantings. The gov- 

 ernment retained the proprietary right to its rich patrimony. 



Within fifty years from the time of the appearance of Juana, as the island was 

 called by Columbus, on the maps of the new Spanish empire, disputes over titles, 

 growing out of questions of occupancy and from the ill-feeling engendered by 

 the conflicting interests of herders who did not always respect boundaries more 

 or less arbitrarily fixed, forced the government to take some steps towards rem- 

 edying existing abuses. Its solution of the problem, satisfactory, perhaps, at 

 the time, but a source of vexatious complications in the future, was a law which 

 made the "pastos, montes, aguas y terminos" communal property. Henceforth those 

 occupying the territory specified in a "merced" were to regard pasture, wood- 

 land, and streams within the recognized boundary as the property of all, to the 

 use of which all were entitled. 



Thus originated the "hacienda comunera" in the first phase of its existence, the 

 community system of occupation of land. The word "occupation" is used some- 

 what guardedly, for as yet ownership, as domain, does not seem to have been 



* In view of the fact that Juan Galberto Gomez has petitioned Gov. Magoon to have the system of 

 Hacienda Ckimunera abolished, this article will prove extremely informmg. — Editor CUBA REVIEW. 



