“No. Outrages on women are practically unknown here.”
“And how do you account for the difference between Cuba and the Southern States in respect to this class of crime?”
“Well, sir, I’m a Southern man myself, and all I can say is that the nigger here don’t seem to me the same as he is at home. I believe it is partly a real difference of race. [Sidenote: The Pick of the Basket.] You see, most of the slave-ships used to touch at Havana before they went on to Charleston or New Orleans; and the Cuban planters used to make a study of the different races and tribes, and select the best types. The daughter of a very wealthy planter—she’s an old lady now—has told me all about it. They knew precisely the qualities of the different breeds. Some were best fitted for body-servants, some for field-work, some for handling stock, others for educating and making clerks and book-keepers of. So, you see, the Cubans got the pick of the basket, and only the lower class—the mere brawny animals—got to the United States.”
This theory did not strike me as wholly adequate to the case, nor did Mr. Ogden pretend that it was. But there may be something in it, and I commend it to the notice of students of negro ethnology.
“By-the-by,” Mr. Ogden continued, “there is a curious African survival among the negroes here—a sort of semi-religious society called the Ñanigo, which indulges in strange rites of its own, and occasionally in assassination.”
“When you say ‘semi-religious,’ do you mean Christian or pagan?”
“Oh, pagan entirely. The members are generally tattooed or decorated with scars and cicatrices. They come greatly to the front in Carnival time, when they parade the streets, carrying a sort of illuminated pagoda and making strange noises by grating gourds.”
The talk then strayed to politics, and Mr. Ogden gave me a no doubt one-sided, but evidently sincere, view of the situation.
“I take it,” said I, “that Cuba is now peaceful and contented?”
“Oh yes, fairly so,” said Mr. Ogden; “but capital is still shy of coming in, until the political condition is more stable.”
“What was the reason of President Palma’s downfall?”
“The sole reason was that he was too good for them—too honest, too scrupulous. Ninety-five per cent. of those who took active part in the revolution of 1906 were negroes, and the rest were, with very few exceptions, men of no standing whatever, either political or social.