Cuban History

Cuba‟s colonial past stretched over a span of almost four centuries and ended as one of the last in Latin America at the turn of the 20^th century. What distinguished Cuba from other Latin American countries was not only its late disengagement from Spanish colonial power, but the constitution of its population as well. The indigenous inhabitants had disappeared quickly as an ethnic group due to the clash between them and the Spaniards, and also due to sickness brought from the European continent. Blacks and whites were almost equally dominant on the island and became unified for fighting the wars of independence (Cuban Economic Research Project, 1965). During the Ten Years War fighting against Spain, the United States remained indifferent towards the elite‟s wish for annexation to the northern neighbor since they believed that it was in their best interest to keep the island with a weak colonial power. Slavery had been abolished gradually by proclaiming laws which conceded freedom to a certain group of slaves, starting in 1868. A royal decree in 1880 abolished the institution of slavery legally, and the system of slaveholding disappeared in 1888 (Friedlaender, 1944). Hence, in the census of 1887, all the inhabitants of the Cuban republic were considered free and equal. This history leads to the hypothesis that living standards between ethnicities were probably affected similarly.

After the first war of independence, Cuba‟s economy was on the verge of collapse. The sugar sector had to suffer the loss of three-quarters of its production centers and was particularly vulnerable (Pérez, 1983). The economic situation of this important industry was not good, due to a combination of various factors. The abolition of slavery without due compensation, frequent droughts, extraordinarily high taxes imposed by Spain on account of the war, and growing competition from European sugar beet presented serious problems. At the same time, the destruction of Cuban agriculture and livestock left the population with a shortage of food supply. The production of dairy products had been difficult throughout the 19^th century, but after the first war of inde-pendence the availability of fresh milk and meat declined even further (Pérez, 1983).

The interwar period was marked by several crisis and economic downturns.² While by the end of the 1880s the Cuban sugar economy had recovered more or less,

2 1884-89, 1890-91: sugar price crisis.

1894: new tariff duty imposed by Spain on sugar entering the United States.

this had only been made possible by access to American markets and investments of the latter. The instable economic conditions had probably a negative impact on the standard of living of the Cuban population.

The second war of independence (1895-98) left Cuba with an American Military Government which ran the island for the following three years. The Peace Treaty signed by Spain and the United States put an end to the Spanish-American War, but did not acknowledge the role played by those Cubans who had fought for independence and their national identity. The treaty provided that Cuba was to establish a permanent government and that it should be able to maintain the order to fulfil international obligations if it wanted to achieve independence. In addition, the infamous Platt Amendment, which the U.S. imposed on the Cuban constitution as the price of Cuban independence, gave them the right to intervene in the affairs of the country should events threaten U.S. life or property. Americans were watching carefully on the fulfilment of their conditions, and saw the need to intervene again from 1906 to 1909.³

Changing dependencies from Spanish colonial power to North American omnipresence was not what Cubans had in mind when they fought for their national identity. However, since Spain hardly showed any interest in the well-being of the population, the overruling by North Americans could have resulted in favorable living conditions for Cubans since investments were made in all kinds of fields (Cuban Economic Research Project, 1965).⁴ In the following, previous assumptions on the development and impacts on the standard of living in Cuba are addressed.

5.3 Methods

Living standards measured by height and body mass indices (BMI) are conveniently applicable in a historical context where heights and BMIs tend to increase when economic conditions improve and decrease when they worsen. Hence, nutritional status, as reflected in height and weight, connects improvements in diets and the surrounding environment to improvements in human physiology, a concept which takes human capital as well as health capital into consideration (Fogel, 2004).

3 The second North American military occupation took place because they saw the peace on the island threatened by independence war veterans.

4 For example, in the fields of sanitation and infrastructure.

Height and BMI measure different aspects of nutritional status. Stature measures net cumulative nutrition from conception to the time of measurement (in the case of a child) or until the age that adult height was attained. Thereby, the demands of disease are most crucial during early childhood which suggests mortality selection of final adult height among populations. In that sense, scarring is another issue which could reduce final height in case of a very high disease environment in childhood. There is a genetic component to heights within populations, which, however, balances out if one considers mean heights across populations (Deaton, 2007). Conditions during the earliest years of infancy and childhood have the greatest impact on final height. On this account, average height is arranged by birth cohorts to describe living standards in the past.

BMI reflects the net current balance between dietary intakes and claims on those intakes made by maintenance, work, and disease (Steckel and Floud, 1997).⁵ The correlation between height and weight is not very strong at the individual level, but is more appropriate for describing the variation between large groups. Hence, BMI provides significant insights into historical health and nutrition concepts.

Studies on BMI often deal with the questions of overweight and obesity problems of the underlying population to derive health implications from it (see for example Cuff, 1993). In the past, however, these problems are rarely of concern, and being underweight might have been the greater problem in very unequal societies. In this study, the BMI distribution and development is analysed for the first four decades of the 20^th century.

5.4 Data

This study uses data from the Ejército de Cuba which has its origins in the Guardia Rural, a corps of volunteers which was created after the dissolution of the liberation army by the United States. The data were collected at the Archivo Nacional de la Isla de Cuba. A random sample of 1442 individuals was taken, registered between the years 1902-51.⁶ Around one third of the individual height data was measured in pies, pulgadas and líneas; weight was measured in libras accordingly. The English conversion measures were used (see for example Schroeder, 1982). Particularly, the

5 BMI=(weight in kilograms)/(height in meters)²

6 Source: Fondo: Ejército de Cuba, Legajos: 1-70

high influence of North Americans in social, political and economic fields on the island suggests that inches and pounds were applied to measure the height and weight of a soldier.

Since the data stem from individual records from the military department, one has to keep in mind that minimum height requirements could have been an issue. Figure 5.1a-b show that this was indeed the case. For the period from 1902 to 1913, the army imposed several requirements on Cubans who wanted to enter the army voluntarily. The Cuban male had to be physically and mentally healthy, know to read and write the Spanish language, be at least 5 pies and 4 pulgadas (162.56 cm) tall and weigh at least 120 libras (54.4 kilograms). Blacks could join the army just as well, but since most of them did not know to read and write, a smaller portion of the black population was recruited (Uralde Cancio, 2006). Still, the data show that these criteria were not strictly enforced. Blacks are represented quite well in the sample with 32.6 percent. Moreover, the height distribution is not exactly cut at the truncation point, but some below it were accepted as well (Figure 5.1a). From the 1914 recruitment year onwards, minimum height requirements were lowered to 157 cm (Figure 5.1b). Weight requirements seem to have not been altered.⁷

The proportion of whites and blacks in the sample fits the numbers of the percentage distribution of the Cuban population given in the censuses of 1877, 1887, and 1899 (Table 5.1). The percentages in the three censuses of black and white people barely changed, remaining around 32 percent being black and 67 percent being white.

Only in the census years from 1907 to 1931 did the white population increase to 72 percent.

Many of the soldiers were between 21 and 24 years old, but there was also a substantial proportion of people aged 25-31.⁸ The classification of occupations using the Armstrong scheme suggests that around 50 percent were unskilled laborers, and quite a high number of 30 percent exercised skilled occupations, which might be traced back to the requirements mentioned above. The data permitted identification of the place of birth; it seems reasonable to divide the island into the east and west (Figure 5.2). The provinces of Camagüey, Las Villas and Oriente belonged to the eastern part of the island, Matanzas, Habana and Pinar del Río to the western part. The rationale behind

7 Figures available upon request from author.

8 Around 66 percent of the sample was between the ages 21 to 24.

this classification lies in the shift of economic concentration and higher investments in the sugar industry from the west to the east around the time of the North American military occupation. In addition, possible biases arising from small case numbers can be avoided if a smaller disaggregation was used instead.