1728) was given greatly improved facilities, especially of material
equipment, by the American military government, and seems
to have begun an ambitious progress. In 1907 the number of
students was 554. Below the university there are six provincial
institutes, one in each province, in each of which there is a
preparatory department, a department of secondary education,
and (this due to peculiar local conditions) a school of surveying;
and in that of Havana commercial departments in addition.
In Havana, also, there is a school of painting and sculpture,
a school of arts and trades, and a national library, all of which
are supported or subventioned by the national government, as
are also a public library in Matanzas, and the Agricultural
Experiment Station at Santiago de las Vegas. In connexion
with the university is a botanical garden; with the national
sanitary service, a biological laboratory, and special services for
small-pox, glanders and yellow fever. Independent of the
government are various schools and learned societies in Havana
(q.v.). A school was established by the government in Key
West, Florida (U.S.A.), in 1905, for the benefit of the Cuban
colony there. Finally, the government sustains about two score of
penal establishments, reform schools, hospitals, dispensaries and
asylums, which are scattered all over the island,—every town of
any considerable size having one or more of these charities.
Under the colonial rule of Spain the head of government was
a supreme civil-military officer, the governor and captain-general.
His control of the entire administrative life
of the island was practically absolute. OriginallyFormer govern-
ment.
residents at Santiago de Cuba, the captains-general
resided after 1589 at Havana. Because of the isolation
of the eastern part of the island, the dangers from pirates, and
the important considerations which had caused Santiago de
Cuba (q.v.) to be the first capital of the island, Cuba was divided
in 1607 into two departments, and a governor, subordinate in
military matters to the captain-general at Havana, was appointed
to rule the territory east of Puerto Príncipe. In 1801, when the
audiencia—of which the captain-general was ex officio president—began
its functions at that point, the governor of Santiago
became subordinated in political matters as much as in military.
Two chief courts of justice (audiencias) sat at Havana (after
1832) and Puerto Príncipe (1800–1853); appeals could go to
Spain; below the audiencias were “alcaldes mayores” or
district judges and ordinary “alcaldes” or local judges. The
audiencias also held important political powers under the
Laws of the Indies. The captaincy-general of Cuba was not
originally, however, by any means so broad in powers as the
viceroyalties of Mexico and Peru; and by the creation in 1765
of the office of intendant—the delegate of the national treasury—his
faculties were very greatly curtailed. The great powers of
the intendant were, however, merged in those of the governor-general
in 1853; and the captain-general having been given
by royal order in 1825 (several times later explicitly confirmed,
and not revoked until 1870) the absolute powers (to be assumed
at his initiative and discretion) of the governor of a besieged
city, and by a royal order of 1834 the power to banish at will
persons supposed to be inimical to the public peace; and being
by virtue of his office the president and dominator of all the
important administrative boards of the government, held the
government of the island, and in any emergency the liberty and
property of its inhabitants, in his hand. The royal orders following
1825 developed a system of extraordinary and extreme repression.
In 1878, as the result of the Ten Years’ War, various administrative
reforms, of a decentralizing tendency, were introduced.
The six provinces were created, and had governors and assemblies
(“diputaciones”); and a municipal law was provided
that in many ways was a sound basis for local government. But
centralization remained very great. In the municipality the
alcalde (mayor) was appointed by the governor-general, and the
ayuntamiento (council) was controlled by the veto of the provincial
governor and by the assembly of the province. The
deputation was subject in turn to the same veto of the provincial
governor, and he controlled by the governor-general. There was
besides a provincial commission of five lawyers named by the
governor-general from the members of the deputation, who
settled election questions, and questions of eligibility in this
body, gave advice as to laws, acted for the deputation when
it was not sitting, and in general facilitated centralized control
of the administrative system. The character of this body was
altered in 1890, and in 1898, in which latter year its functions
were reduced to the essentially judicial. Despite superficial
decentralization after 1878 any real growth of local self-government
was rendered impossible. Moreover, no great reforms
were made in the abuses naturally incident to the old personal
system. Exile and imprisonment at the will of the government
and without trial were common. Personal liberty, liberty of
conscience, speech, assembly, petition, association, press, liberty
of movement and security of home, were without real guarantee
even within the extremely small limits in which they nominally
existed. Under the constitution of the Republic the sphere of
individual liberty is large and constitutionally protected against
the government.
Finance.—There has been a great change in the budget of Cuba since the advent of the Republic. In 1891–1896 the average annual income was $20,738,930, the annual average expenditure $25,967,139. More than half of the revenue was derived from customs duties (two-thirds of the total being collected at Havana). Of the expenditure more than ten million dollars annually went for the public debt, 5.5 to 6 millions for the army and navy, as much more for civil administration (including more than two millions for purely Peninsular services with which the colony was burdened); and on an average probably one million more went for sinecures. Every Cuban paid about twice as heavy taxes as a Spaniard of the Peninsula. Very little was spent on sanitation, roads, other public works and education. The revenue receipts under the Republic have increased especially over those of the old régime in the item of customs duties; and the expenditure is very differently distributed. Lotteries which were an important source of revenue under Spain were abolished under the Republic. The debt resting on the colony in 1895 (a large part of it as a result of the war of 1868–1878, the entire cost of which was laid upon the island, but a part as the result of Spain’s war adventures in Mexico and San Domingo, home loans, &c.) was officially stated at $168,500,000. The attainment of independence freed the island from this debt, and from enormous contemplated additions to cover the expense incurred by Spain during the last insurrection. The debt of the Republic in April 1908 was $48,146,585, including twenty-seven millions which were assumed in 1902 for the payment of the army of independence, four for agriculture, and four for the payment of revolutionary debts, and $2,196,585, representing obligations assumed by the revolution’s representative in the United States during the War of Independence. United States and British investments, always important in the agriculture and manufactures of the island, greatly increased following 1898, and by 1908 those of each nation were supposed to exceed considerably $100,000,000.
Archaeology.—Archaeological study in Cuba has been limited, and has not produced results of great importance. Almost nothing is actually known of prehistoric Cuba; and a few skulls and implements are the only basis existing for conjecture. Very little also is known as to the natives who inhabited the island at the time of the discovery. They were a tall race of copper hue; fairly intelligent, mild in temperament, who lived in poor huts and practised a limited and primitive agriculture. How numerous they were when the Spaniards first came among them cannot be said; undoubtedly tradition has greatly exaggerated their number. They are supposed to have been practically extinct by 1550. Even in the 19th century reports were spread of communities in which Indian blood was supposedly still plainly dominant; but the conclusion of the competent scientists who have investigated such rumours has been that at least absolutely nothing of the language and traditions of the aborigines has survived.
History.—Cuba was discovered by Columbus in the course of his first voyage, on the 27th of October 1492. He died believing
