° Havana ° Santiago de Cuba
The 1854 nautical chart or map (below) of the western part of Cuba by the Spanish mapping agency, Direccion Hidrografica. The map was prepared by a party under the command of the Spanish marin, Angel Laborde y Navarro and ordered by Don Ramon Gil de la Cuadra, head of the Direccion Hidrografica. It overs the West India island from Cape San Antonio eastward as far as the Gulf of Cazones. It includes the Isla de Pinos and the city of Havana. The chart offers countless depth soundings as well as notes on the construction of the chart and navigation and some inland detail, identifying a number of important mountains as well as the villages of Guanajayu, San Antonio de los Banos, San Antonio de Bedia, Manajau, and Madruga.
(Click on map image for additional views and details.)
The political significance of the island of Cuba is not only based on its size but also on the fertility of its soil.
The greatest changes in the sugar plantations and sugar processing take place in the period between 1769 and 1800 when superior furnaces for purifying sugar were introduced, and tobacco from Cuba had become famous in all countries of Europe, where the custom of smoking, borrowed from the natives of Haiti, was introduced at the end of the 16th and early 17th century. It was generally hoped that the cultivation of tobacco, once rid of all the restrictions of a hated monopoly, would become a very significant basis of trade for Havana. … The earliest data on the quantity of tobacco supplied by the island of Cuba to the storehouses of the mother country date from 1748. It was estimated that the quantity supplied between 1748 and 1753 amounted to an average of 75.000 arrobas annually. Between 1789 and 1794 the output of the island rose to 250,000 arrobas annually; and it is believed that the overall output of tobacco on the island amounted to 300,000 to 400,000 arrobas between 1822 and 1825.
To work the land, a variety of different ethnic groups were brought to Cuba over the course of hundreds of years, in different proportions at different times. The slave trade from Africa began in the early 1400s. Thousands of Africans were brought to Spain and Portugal, as well as other countries, before they were brought to the Americas. In the early 1500s, at the start of the Spanish conquest and colonization of the Americas, Africans living in Spain were called Ladinos. Ladinos were brought to Cuba at least as early as 1511-1514, some as slaves and some free. Because they knew the Spanish culture and language, they were more able to escape after being brought to the new world as slaves. Slavers decided therefore to begin to import slaves directly from Africa.
The slave trade to Cuba began earlier and lasted longer than in the rest
of the Americas/ Caribbean. While Africans did not arrive in the U.S. until
1619, and Brazil in 1538, they were brought from Africa to Cuba as early as
1521. The trade ended in the U.S. in the 1860s and in Brazil in the 1850s,
but in Cuba lasted until the late 1870s.
The Portuguese began bringing Africans to Cuba and the Spanish followed. For
a long period, the Spanish did not actually run the trade - mostly British,
French, or Dutch slavers were involved since they had settlements early in
Africa.
Where Cuba's slaves were taken from in Africa varied over time. There were
four major ethnic groups that accounted for most of the Africans brought to
Cuba as slaves:
Bantu 400,000
Yoruba 275,000
Ibo/Ibibio/Ijaw 240,000
Ewe/Fon 200,000
Others 185,000
The Independent, Massilon, Ohio
March 10, 1898
HURRYING HOMEWARD.
Cruiser Brooklyn Ordered From West
Indian Waters to Hampton Roads.
Talk of a Flying Squadron—Lighthouse and Revenue Cutters May Be Used.
WASHINGTON, March 9. — The big armored cruiser Brooklyn has started away from La Guyera, under orders from the Navy department, directly for Hampton Roads. She has been making a flying cruise in the West Indies and around the eastern end of Cuba, and it was the original intention to have her go to Colon on the Isthmus, and thence to work northward, along the eastern coast of Central America. The sending of the ship to Hampton Roads, instead of returning her to Key West, whence she came, is taken as an evidence of a change in policy on the part of the naval strategists, who have come to the conclusion that the gathering of the most and best of the vessels of the north Atlantic squadron at Key West is putting too many of our eggs in one basket and unduly exposing the eastern coast. There has also been talk of organizing a flying squadron, composed altogether of fleet cruisers, four in number, and having them ready to go to sea at a moment's notice in pursuit of an enemy's ships, relying upon the big battleships for the home guard. This, however, has not been decided upon.
The Independent, Massilon, Ohio
March 10, 1898
U.S. CRUISER AT HAVANA
Montgomery Reached There Today.
Work of Naval Court
HAVANA, March 9.--The United States cruiser Montgomery arrived here today. Consul General Lee has been very briefly examined by the naval board of inquiry, and also one diver. Considerable time was spent on the wreck. Captain Sampson listened patiently to various theories propounded by newspaper men and others as to the causes of the explosion, and also to statements as to hawsers found in the harbor and iron on the shore. Evidently he attached little importance to any of these stories, but he intimated that he would investigate any that he deemed worth investigation.
The Spanish divers put in a good day's work, examining chiefly the forward part of the wreck on the starboard side. Captain Peral of the Spanish court of inquiry was at the wreck in a boat for some time.
(Click on map image for additional views and details.)
Engraved by Balthasar Ruyter, the above map is an extremely rare and highly unusual 1747 map of Mexico, the Caribbean, the West Indies and Florida. Covers from roughly Michoacán Mexico, west to Surinam, north as far as modern day Virginia and south as far as modern day Ecuador. The cartography exhibited here almost certainly references the important 1698 map of North America attributed to Friar Hennepin. The mouth and course of the Mississippi River are displaced far to the west of their actual location and are shown roughly where Galveston Harbor and Sabine Lake are now. Roughly where the actual mouth of the Mississippi is located, this map suggests a large bay which it calls “Baye de Spirito Sancto”. Florida is misshapen with no trace of the Keys. Further south, the West Indies are fairly well mapped suggesting a relative accurate picture of the islands. Following the lead of Bleau and Hondius, the mainland of Mexico and Central America is wildly exaggerated along the horizontal.
