C o p y r i g h t , 1899
b y
AMOS K ID D E R FISK E
TObe Tknicfcetbocber presa, Wew ffiorb
P R E F A C E
THE events of the past year have begotten, at
least in the United States, a new and keener
interest, not only in Cuba and Puerto Rico, but in all
of that great group of American islands which still remain
so largely under European control. T h e y are
looked upon and thought about from a new point of
view, in consequence of the sudden facing of the
nation in a new direction; and, in order to satisfy
the freshly awakened interest, information about
them needs to be presented with an arrangement
and perspective, and in a proportion as to detail,
adapted to a changed situation.
Apart from this consideration of a novel requirement,
in all the literature about the West Indies that
has appeared in the past it is hard to find a systematic
account, good even for its time, of all the islands
regarded as a whole and in their relation to each
other. It is not too much to say that such an account,
at once full and compact, authoritative and
popular, and calculated to give a satisfactory view
of the whole subject, does not exist. T h e older histories,
like Cok e ’s, Southey ’ s, and Edwards’s, are not
only out of date, but were written from an English