In accordance with these humane slave laws, the colored population of Cuba enjoyed greater latitude than in many other colonies. Although converted to Catholicism, they were known to revert to their heathen practices at certain times and to have chanted invocations to the saints in the African dialect of their forefathers. Numerous clans existed among them, which were supposed to have for their aim the perpetuation of their ancestral customs. Among them was the _manigo_, which was frequently the source of grave apprehension on the part of the authorities and, surviving in the _cabildos_, societies, which are both religious and social, had in a later period to be suppressed. The rites of these organizations were a grotesquely uncanny mixture of Roman Catholicism and African paganism. One day in the year the negroes of the island had almost unlimited liberty to celebrate in their barbaric fashion. It was the sixth of January or All Kings' Day, and was the occasion for a spectacle as weirdly fascinating as any carnival. That day belonged to the negroes. Dressed in the gaudiest costumes, carrying huge poles with mysterious transparencies, they paraded through the streets to the beat of drums, shouting and gesticulating, or singing as they went along. At the squares they stopped and indulged in a dance. Melodious as were their songs, the rhythms betrayed the African origin. The dances, too, even after several generations, retained their African characteristics. As the day progressed, hilarity became more and more boisterous, and the holiday frequently ended in riotous demonstrations and street brawls. The white population of Havana and other towns, in which this day was celebrated by the blacks, remained indoors, and even suspended business for fear of disturbances. There is no doubt that the important service which negro labor performed for the agriculture of the country induced the Cubans to allow the negroes this great amount of freedom. For without them, as D. Francisco de Arango and others knew only too well, the fields and the plantations of the island could never have yielded that abundance of products upon which depended the wealth of Cuba. CHAPTER XIII The prosperity of a new country and the happiness of the people depend largely upon a just apportionment of the land of that country and the opportunity to exploit the resources of the soil and sell the products thereof at the greatest possible profit to the producer. Had this simple truth been recognized as the cornerstone of Cuban colonization the island would have been spared centuries of hard up-hill struggle for healthy economic conditions.