There was a wedding in the old cathedral
the other day, attended by the elite of the city, the bride being the
lovely young daughter of a Cuban planter, the groom a burly Negro.
Nobody to the manor born has ever dreamed of objecting to this
mingling of colors; therefore when some newly arrived foreigner
declares that nobody but those of his own complexion shall eat in a
public dining room, there is likely to be trouble.
THE WAR BEGAN.
When the war began the population of Cuba was a little more than
one-third black; now the proportion is officially reckoned as 525,684
colored, against 1,631,600 white. In 1898 two Negroes were serving as
secretaries in the Autonomist Cabinet. The last regiment that Blanco
formed was of Negro volunteers, to whom he paid--or, rather, promised
to pay, which is quite another matter, considering Blanco's habit--the
unusual hire of $20 a month, showing his appreciation of the colored
man as a soldier. If General Weyler evinced any partiality in Cuba,
it was for the black Creole. During the ten years' war, his cavalry
escort was composed entirely of colored men. Throughout his latest
reign in the island he kept black soldiers constantly on guard at the
gates of the government palace. While the illustrated papers of Spain
were caricaturing: the insurgents as coal-black demons with horns
and forked toe nails, burning canefields and butchering innocent
Spaniards, the Spanish General chose them for his bodyguards.
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