Baracoa, which is on the northern coast only a few
miles from Cape Maisi. It is on the Puerto Santo
of Columbus, but though it had an early and favourable
start it was not well located for growth,
and at the age of nearly four hundred years it has
little more than 5000 inhabitants, mostly engaged
in selling cocoa and bananas, so far as they have
anything to do. Near by are the wonderful stalactite
caves containing human fossils, and the road
from Baracoa to Santiago over the crests of the
Cuchillas is described as one of the most romantic
and picturesque conceivable. There is a monument
of the olden time in the ruins of Velasquez’s house
at Baracoa.
C H A P T E R X V
SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC CONDITIONS IN CUBA
TH E industrial and commercial development of
Cuba has been almost wholly a matter of the
present century. T h e first census was taken in 1774,
and gave the population as 171,620, fully one half
of which consisted of negro slaves. In 1791 it had
increased to only 272,000, but by 1811 it had leaped
to 600,000. U nder the policy by which Spain strove
to monopolise the trade of her colonies and draw
their resources to herself, there was no chance for
healthy growth. Even the negroes did not thrive,
and the slaves were constantly recruited by importation
to prevent their dying out. T he plantations
were in the hands of a few owners, and the peasant
colonists increased slowly. The first real impulse
came with the French immigrants and the introduction
of coffee culture. Though there was a beginning
of this near the middle of the last century,
especially just after the English occupation, its main
volume followed the disturbances in Haiti consequent
upon the French Revolution. Still more
beneficial was knocking off the shackles of trade
when Napoleon overturned the Bourbon dynasty of
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