eed the lack of any noteworthy achievements, the
reason is not difficult to perceive. As we observed at the beginning of
this volume, Cuba, at the advent of Europeans, was a country without a
civilization and without a past. Mexico, Yucatan and Peru had enjoyed
civilizations not unworthy of comparison with those of Europe and Asia,
the remains of which attracted thither the intellects of Spain, and
inspired them. But Cuba had nothing of the sort. Again, the vast wealth
of Mexico and Peru attracted to those countries many more explorers,
conquerors and colonists than Cuba could draw to herself. And there was
also the partiality which was shown to them by royal favor and in royal
interest. We shall have reviewed the annals of the first Cuban century
to little purpose if we do not perceive that during the greater part of
that time the "Queen of the Antilles," the "Pearl of the West Indies,"
as she was even then occasionally and afterward habitually called, was
the Cinderella of the Spanish Empire; a Cinderella destined, however,
one day to meet her Fairy Prince and thus to be wakened into splendor
not surpassed by the finest of her sisters.

The close of the sixteenth century marked, then, approximately a great
turning point in Cuban history. Thitherto she had been exclusively
identified with Spain. She had developed no individuality and had
exercised no influence upon other lands and their relationships, or
indeed upon the empire of which she was a part. It was left for later
years to make her an important factor in international affairs and to
develop in her an individuality worthy of an independent sovereign among
the nations of the world.

Yet in these very circumstances which we have recounted, and which upon
the face of them appeared to be and indeed were for the time so
unfavorable, there were developed the influences which unerringly led to
the subsequent greatness of the island. The earliest settlers were not
only of Spanish origin but also of Spanish sympathies. They could not be
expected to have any affection for or any pride in the land to which
they had come as to a mere "Tom Tiddler's ground," on which to pick up
silver and gold. They valued Cuba for only what they could get out of
her; many of them glad, after thus gaining wealth, to return to Spain,
or to go to Mexico, Venezuela or Peru, there the better to enjoy it and
to mingle in social pleasures which the primitive life of Cuba did not
yet afford.

T