90 



htjmboldt's cuba. 



"The prognostications which some too lightly 

 make * % f do not seem to me sufficiently conclu- 

 sive. They do not take into consideration the fact 

 ? f £ that the increase of the total population of 

 Cuba, when the importation of negroes from Africa 

 shall have ceased entirely, is based upon elements so 

 complicated, upon such various compensations of 

 effect upon the white, free colored, and slave popu- 

 lation * * * that we should not anticipate such 

 mournful presages, but wait until positive statistical 

 data have been obtained." 



That " the Americans try to make the Cuban whites 

 imitate them in casting off their allegiance to the 

 mother country, because they fear that Spain will 

 imitate us in compelling emancipation," is one of 

 those mis-statements characteristic of European 

 writers upon American questions. The desire of the 

 people of Cuba for liberation from European thral- 

 dom, is purely and entirely of Cuban origin. It was 

 the natural desire of a people for that freedom which 

 they contemplated in the countries around them, 

 and existed long before they turned their hopes to 

 this country for assistance. The conspiracies that, 

 from 1822 to 1828, threatened the existence of the 

 Spanish power in Cuba, were the spontaneous growth 

 of public feeling, as were those of 1835, under Gen. 



