A steady flood of immigration from the mother country maintained this connection down to the recent war. The wealthiest merchants and planters have invariably been of pure Spanish blood, and their contempt for the Cuban Creoles, though many of them are as pure-blooded as themselves, and have no taint whatever of the “tar-brush,” has helped to maintain them as a separate class, regarded as intruders by all of Cuban birth, and hated accordingly. They have of necessity invoked Spanish aid and relied on Spanish authority, and have, for nearly a hundred years, provided the basis for Spanish rule in the island. Many of them made their fortunes and returned home, leaving room for others to follow. Some made Cuba their permanent domicile, but invariably with fatal effects upon their offspring, for Cuban birth is almost synonymous with Cuban sympathies, and, in any rising, the father, who has been on the side of the crown, has witnessed his sons throwing in their lot with the rebels. Ever since the emancipation of the Spanish Main, Cuba has been in a state of political unrest. Various secret societies have been constituted, and have received advice and assistance from Mexicans, Chilians, and others who had already succeeded in throwing off their own fetters. In 1823 the Society of Soles struck a blow for liberty; six years later it was the Company of the Black Eagle which attempted success where its predecessor had failed. Both were essentially Creole risings, and although those who participated in them freely gave expression to their abhorrence of slavery, no assistance was either asked or received from the negroes. For these unfortunates, however, failure meant the tightening of their bonds; and it is not surprising to find that, in 1844, goaded to despair by their sufferings, they tried an insurrection on their own account, though of course it ended disastrously.