For three hundred years Cuba was exclusively inhabited by Spaniards, or people of Spanish descent. The political and religious conditions of the country were therefore far more favourable to peace and unity, and the island was much less difficult to govern, than in these troublous times of ours. The "Cubanos" are the descendants of Spanish colonists, who have inhabited the island for at least two generations. The slightest admixture of African blood debars the enjoyment of this distinction. The first Spanish immigration into Cuba began very soon after the conquest of the island, and consisted mainly of adventurers who had accompanied the earlier expeditions, and who settled permanently in the country, after having returned to Spain, and transported their wives, and such members of their families as were ready to follow them, to their new homes. Almost all these individuals were either of Castilian or Andalusian origin. A few years later, emigrants began to come in from the Basque Provinces, and from Catalonia. The descendants of these early colonists form the present aristocracy of Cuba, and many of them bear names which have cast lustre on Spanish history.[6] Cuba was governed, for over three centuries, by the laws which bound the other Hispano-American colonies. These were framed by Philip II., and are still known as _Las Leyes de Indias_. The unbending nature, and jealous religious orthodoxy of the Spaniards, offered scant encouragement to the establishment of settlers of any other race or faith. The Inquisition soon reigned in the island, in all its gloomy and mysterious horror. To its merciless pressure, and frequently cruel action, we may perhaps ascribe the instinctive hatred of the "powers that be"--so characteristic of the modern Cuban--even as hereditary memories of the doings of Mary Tudor and her Spaniard husband have implanted a sullen distrust of the Spanish nation in the breast of the average Englishman.