Empire Rise: Spain

Chapter 130: Colonial Issues

This cabinet meeting naturally did not only cover the issue of the technical school. The implementation status of the two pieces of legislation promulgated earlier was also within the discussion scope of this cabinet meeting.

Of course, there were also some new issues arising in the colonies, including the construction of railways and so on. In short, the meeting lasted a very long time, and the number of issues discussed reached dozens.

Carlo listened to the entire cabinet government meeting, but rarely expressed his own views. After all, the current cabinet government was still controlled by Prime Minister Primó. He was happy to see Carlo participate in that meeting, but he might not be happy to see Carlo meddling in the government meeting.

Being able to promote reforms in the Spanish Government, Prime Minister Primó certainly had his own plans in mind. Regardless of whether such plans were in line with Spain’s future development, in any case, it was not the time for Carlo to intervene in government reforms.

Only when Carlo gradually masters a certain amount of power in the future would he participate more in government decision-making, and make larger-scale modifications to Prime Minister Primó’s previous reforms and the systems from the earlier Kingdom of Spain government period, ensuring that this great steamship of Spain could advance at a stable speed.

Besides development and reform in Spain domestically, the cabinet meeting discussed the most about some current issues in the colonies.

The Cuban Colony had indeed succeeded in suppressing the rebellion, but the Spanish Government had also made a major concession to the Cuban government for this. The Cuban government currently possessed more power, and a large number of Cubans who hated Spain also made the situation in Cuba not so stable.

Perhaps it could rely on this suppression of rebellion to remain stable for a few years, but Cuba in the future would certainly see new problems arise, and it was not impossible for another rebellion to break out again in a few years.

Compared to Cuba, Carlo was actually more concerned about the South Morocco Colony that Spain had just established.

Although Cuba provided the Spanish Government with annual income dozens of times that of the South Morocco Colony, Cuba internally also had frequent problems. Even if the South Morocco Colony had major issues, because it was close to the Spanish Mainland, the cost of suppressing rebellion was relatively low.

But the Cuban Colony was different. Even if it was just an internal rebellion in Cuba, it required the Spanish Army to cross the ocean and traverse the Atlantic Ocean to suppress the rebellion.

The cost of transporting materials across the ocean alone was enough to give the Spanish Government a headache, not to mention that on the other side of the ocean, there was another country coveting Cuba.

Even just coping with internal rebellions in Cuba was enough to make the Spanish Government waste massive amounts of funds and manpower and materials, which was not a good thing for Spain’s development.

If the Americans also participated, the cost of Spain’s suppression of rebellion would multiply, and the difficulty would grow geometrically.

For Carlo, the Cuban Colony was not a question of whether it could be defended, but whether it was necessary to defend it.

The role of the Cuban Colony for Spain was that it was the only remaining American Colony, and it was also the only colony that could generate positive profits, with income that was not low.

The Cuban Colony had only one pillar industry in its economy, which was the sugar industry. According to the Spanish Government’s control of intelligence on the Cuban Colony, Cuba’s current annual sugar output was approximately 600,000 tons, with more than 2,500 factories specifically engaged in sugar production.

It must be known that Cuba’s total population was only around 1 million, of which the proportion truly belonging to Cuba’s core population, that is, Spaniards and Spanish mixed-race, was only about 55%.

Relying on a population of just a few hundred thousand to support more than 2,000 factories engaged in sugar production was enough to witness how important the sugar industry was to Cuba.

The sugar industry not only created massive wealth for Cuba, but also allowed Spain, as the suzerain of Cuba, to obtain massive financial income every year.

But no matter what, the scale of the Cuban Colony and the scale of its economic pillar industry ultimately had an upper limit.

Moreover, accompanied by the desire for independence among a large number of Cubans, it would become even more difficult for Spain to control Cuba in the future.

Rather than being trapped in such a small place like Cuba, it would be better to find a suitable opportunity to proactively hand over Cuba, while expanding colonial exploitation in Africa as much as possible, carrying out a new round of colonialism.

The era of the Spanish Empire on which the sun never sets was relatively distant, which also made many people unfamiliar with Spain’s colonial policies.

People only knew about the cruel exploitation of African colonies by the European Powers in the 18th and 19th centuries, but did not know that in the 16th and 17th centuries, Spain’s exploitation of the colonies was far more cruel than that of the European Powers at that time.

Although Europeans generally disregarded the lives of indigenous people in the colonies, they would not be cruel to the point of killing indiscriminately.

For example, the King of Belgium who later obtained Congo, due to his cruel colonial policy in Congo, ultimately under the intervention of the great powers, Congo changed from the private territory of the King of Belgium to a colony controlled by the Belgium government, finally ending the cruel colonialism of King Leopold II.

Spain’s rule over the American Colonies was similar to Leopold II’s rule in Congo, basically only doing four things: mining, running plantations, capturing slaves, and genocide.

The original inhabitants of Cuba were Indigenous people, but up to now, Spaniards, Spanish mixed-race, and black people were the three major ethnic groups in Cuba, and even further back there were Asians, with the original indigenous population of Indigenous people ranking last.

Making the original indigenous population of Indigenous people become one of the smallest ethnic groups in Cuba was inseparable from Spain’s cruel colonial policy during its rule over Cuba.

Spain carried out ethnic genocide in Cuba, massacring the vast majority of Indigenous people, forcibly making white people the main ethnic group in Cuba.

As for why there were so many black people, actually most of these black people were plantation slaves; they had no human rights, just like livestock raised by white people.

Although the Spanish Government had already promulgated decrees and regulations concerning the abolition of slavery as early as the provisional government period, that is, in

But Spain’s decrees could not affect the colonies; slavery still existed in the Cuban Colony, and the vast majority of black people were slaves of white people, with only a small number of black people possessing freedom rights.

However, this did not mean that black people with freedom rights could become normal Cuban citizens. Whether in colonies like Cuba or in Europe, black people, regardless of whether they had so-called freedom rights, would suffer discrimination from white people.

This phenomenon also existed in the United States and was very common. Although the United States abolished slavery through the Civil War and liberated black people, the human rights of black people did not receive effective improvement in practice.

Black people in the United States only obtained legal freedom, but in politics, economy, and society, they remained the lowest stratum in the United States.

The so-called black citizens in the United States faced extremely strict restrictions on voting rights and the right to be elected, which also made it very difficult for the United States to have an official of black bloodline.

And those easy positions in factories and enterprises basically did not hire black people; the jobs that black people could apply for were all those that were hard, tiring, and with low income.

Besides these, black people and their children also faced significant restrictions in education and medical treatment.

Although they were equally citizens of the United States, it was fundamentally impossible for black people and their children to go to school with white people; they could only crowd into black people schools with worse conditions, and even completing elementary school fully was difficult.

A large number of black people were restricted within certain areas and could not move freely in the United States. These areas where black people gathered also gradually evolved into slums in the United States, with order in the slums being quite chaotic and crime incidents occurring from time to time.

In fact, even in posterity, the United States still had the existence of black people slums. Plus, because the United States did not ban guns, the slums not only had frequent various criminal events, but even often involved murder cases.

And in this current era, white people’s discrimination against black people was unprecedented. Because most police in the United States were served by white people, this led to when black people encountered white police, their life and death could only be decided by that police.

However, white police generally would not go to areas where black people gathered, after all, that group of black people, when pushed to desperation, could do anything.

But if it was discovered that a black person had left the gathering area without authorization, what awaited the black person might be an emptied magazine.

Returning to the situation of Spain’s colonies.

Actually, compared to the African colonies, Cuba and Puerto Rico, including Mexico, Argentina, etc., which became independent earlier, had more white people population, and they were all Spaniards or of Spanish descent.

But because of the cruel exploitation of the colonies by the Spanish Government, these colonies had strong desires for independence, and many Spanish mixed-race had little fondness for Spain.

The ones who truly still loved this country were those with pure bloodlines who had not been in the colonies for long.

But these people themselves being able to immigrate abroad proved that they could not survive on the Spanish Mainland, or that there were higher incomes and opportunities abroad.

Wanting them to return to Spain was very difficult, at least impossible in the short term. Since too much population could not be absorbed from Latin America, it would be better to focus currently on the assimilation of the Moroccan population.

Moroccans were also white people, and their appearance was relatively similar to Spaniards.

The biggest difference between Spaniards and Moroccans was in language and religion, but these differences could be eliminated through long-term assimilation.

Compared to the Cuban Colony far away in America, Morocco, separated from the Spanish Mainland by only one strait, was obviously the better choice.

No matter what, Morocco’s development potential was still greater than Cuba’s. Morocco’s population was several times that of Cuba, and its land area was more than ten times that of Cuba.

Although current Cuba could create economic value that Morocco was far from matching, if it came to future influence and role on Spain, perhaps two Cubas could not compare to one Morocco.

Happy National Day to everyone, happy birthday to the motherland!