WEYLER'S RECONCENTRATION POLICY AND ITS HORRORS.
The Object of the Plan--Slaves of Spain--The Massacre of the
Innocents--Deserted Fields and Farms--A Fearful Mortality--The
Cubans the Oldest Americans of Caucasian Blood--Women and Children
Doomed to Die--An Appeal for Help--Our Manifest Duty.
When General Weyler promulgated his policy of reconcentration he
hypocritically claimed that it was intended to protect the
non-combatant peasantry of the island, but his sole object was to
compel them to put themselves wholly in the power of the Spanish
officials. No one knew better than the "Butcher" that the Cuban
peasant, no matter what he might publicly profess, was bound with
all his heart to the cause of free Cuba, and that he never lost an
opportunity to aid the insurgents by every means in his power. And
when he formulated the plan compelling them to abandon their homes
in the rural districts, and to herd like sheep in the cities and
towns which were still under his rule, it was to prevent them from
giving aid and information to the rebels. He must have known that
the enforcement of this edict meant certain starvation to
thousands of the inoffensive inhabitants, but no thought of the
misery and injustice which he thus wrought upon them deterred him
in his determination to crush the unhappy people, and keep them
still the slaves of Spain.
The order found a very large proportion of the working classes
absolutely destitute of money, and the men, knowing there was no
work for them in the towns, hesitated about going with their
families, while they did not dare to remain in their poor homes,
where, at least, they could be sure of food. The consequence was
that thousands of homes were deserted. The women and children were
sent to the towns to look out for themselves as best they could,
while the men joined the insurgent army. In a number of cases
wives refused to be separated from their husbands, and followed
them into the ranks of the revolutionists, where they fought like
the Amazons of old. Some of them found a melancholy pleasure in
nursing the sick and wounded, others fought side by side with the
men, and the fear of death was not half as strong as the thoughts
of the horrors which awaited them at their homes, or among the
reconcentrados in the towns. Marriages have been solemnized, and
children have been born upon the fields of battle. Spain is
nursing a forlorn hope when she counts on subduing patriots like
these.
WOMEN AND CHILDREN DOOMED TO DIE.
Hon. C. W. Russell, an attache of the Department of Justice of the
United States, went to Cuba shortly after the order for
reconcentration went into effect. It was his purpose to learn by
personal observation how much or how little truth there was in the
reports that had come to this country regarding the terrible
suffering among the reconcentrados. He states the result of his
investigations as follows:
"I spent just two weeks in Cuba, visited Havana, went south to
Jaruco, southwest to Guines, northeast to Matanzas, eastwardly
about two hundred miles through the middle of the country to San
Domingo, Santa Clara and Sagua la Grande. I visited Marianao, a
short distance west of Havana, and saw along the railroad thirty
or forty towns or stations. In Havana I visited the Fossos, the
hospital prison at Aldecoa, where I talked with the father of
Evangelina Cisneros, and a place called the Jacoba. I found
reconcentrados at all three places, and begging everywhere about
the streets of Havana.
"The spectacle at the Fossos and Jacoba houses, of women and
children emaciated to skeletons and suffering from diseases
produced by starvation, was sickening. In Sagua I saw some sick
and emaciated little girls in a children's hospital, started three
days before by charitable Cubans, and saw a crowd of miserable
looking reconcentrados with tin buckets and other receptacles
getting small allowances of food doled out to them in a yard. In
the same city, in an old sugar warehouse, I saw stationed around
the inside walls the remnants of twenty or thirty Cuban families.
"In one case the remnant consisted of two children, seven or eight
years old. In another case, where I talked to the people in broken
Spanish, there were four individuals, a mother, a girl of
fourteen, and two quite small girls. The smallest was then
suffering from malarial fever. The next had the signs on her
hands, with which I had become familiar, of having had that
dreadful disease, the beri-beri. These four were all that order of
concentration had left alive of eleven. At San Domingo, where two
railroads join, the depot was crowded with women and children, one
of the latter, as I remember, being swollen up with the beri-beri,
begging in the most earnest way of the few passengers.
"San Domingo is little more than a railroad station in times of
peace, but at present it has a considerable population, living in
cabins thatched with the tops of royal palm trees, composed of the
survivors of the reconcentrados. The huts are arranged close
together in a little clump, and the concentration order required
and apparently still requires these people to live within a circle
of small block houses, commonly dignified in the dispatches by the
name of forts. They had no work to do, no soil to till, no seed to
plant, and only begging to live on. I do not know the exact
measure of the dead-line circle drawn around them, but there was
certainly nothing within it upon which a human being could
subsist. Practically they were prisoners. At every one of the
numerous stopping places along the road a similar collection of
huts could be seen, and at most of them beggars, often nice
looking women and beautiful children, invaded the cars. Between
the stations, although I traveled always by daylight, as the
trains do not run at night, and I was observing as carefully as
possible, I saw no signs of the reconcentrados going away from the
forts. If they had gone, it takes seed, instruments, land, and
three or four months to raise the vegetable which could be soonest
produced, and nowhere away from the block houses was there any
sign of vegetables growing. Near the larger towns the circle of
concentration seemed to be somewhat larger, and some planting of
vegetables, tobacco, etc., seemed to be going on. At this a very
few persons, possibly some of the reconcentrados, found
employment.
DESERTED FIELDS AND FARMS.
"All along the railroad, as far as could be seen, were stretches
of the most fertile and beautiful country, with very few trees,
even on the low mountains, and most of these royal palms. I saw
many dozens of burned canefields, and one evening, going from
Guines to Havana, saw the sky all lighted up along the road with
fires, principally of the tall grass of the country, but partly of
cane. The whole land was lying perfectly idle, except that I saw
two or three or four sugar mills where cane was growing, but in
all such instances the mill and cane were surrounded by forts,
manned by soldiers, who are paid, I was told, by the owners.
Except in the cities, I saw no indication that any relief whatever
was being afforded to the starving people. Neither in Havana nor
elsewhere did any priest, religious woman or other person seem to
be paying any attention to the wants of the starving, except that
at the Fossos, and some other places, charitable Cubans were
nursing the sick. The Church, being a state institution, was, so
far as I could see, leaving the victims without either bodily or
spiritual relief. In fact, the general air of indifference to
suffering which seemed to prevail everywhere was astonishing.
A FEARFUL MORTALITY.
"As the country was stripped of its population by the order of
concentration, it is easy to believe that 400,000 persons were
gathered behind the forts without being given food, medicine, or
means of any kind to earn a living, except where in the larger
cities some few could find employment in menial offices. Judging
by the orphans I was shown at Jacoba, Aidecoa and elsewhere, and
from all I saw and heard, I believe that half of the 400,000 have
died as the result of starvation. I know from the official
register of the city of Santa Clara, which ordinarily has a
population of about 14,000, that the deaths for November were over
1,000, and the number of deaths for December was over 900, and
showed an increase, considering the loss of the former 1,000, from
its total population. The exact figures for December are 971. At
that city the government was distributing 500 single rations per
day out of a total appropriation for the purpose of $15,000. This
was not relief, but a mere prolongation of the sufferings of a
small part of the reconcentrados of the city.
"So far as any evidence of relief was visible to my eyes or was
even heard of by me in all my talks on the island, the surviving
200,000 people are in the same condition and have the same
prospect of starvation before them as had their kindred who have
died. There is as much need of medicine now as food, and they are
getting neither. The reason given by the Spanish sympathizers in
Cuba is that the troops must be first fed, and it is certain that
many of the soldiers are sick and suffering for want of proper
food. I saw many myself that looked so. I was informed on all
sides that they had not been paid for eight months, and that most
of the civil officials had not been paid for a similar period. It
is, therefore, most probable that Spain is practically unable to
supply the millions which are immediately necessary to prevent the
death of most of the surviving reconcentrados, but this leads to
political questions, which I desire to avoid.
OUR MANIFEST DUTY.
"I wish merely to state in such a way as to be convincing that in
consequence of the concentration of the people, some 200,000
Cubans are daily suffering and dying from diseases produced by a
lack of nourishment, in the midst of what I think must be the most
fertile country in the world, and that something must be done for
them on a large scale, and at once, or a few months will see their
extermination. So far as I could see, they are a patient, amiable,
intelligent set of people, some of them whom I saw begging having
faces like Madonnas. They are Americans, probably the oldest
Americans of European descent. Constant intercourse with the
United States has made them sympathize with and appreciate us, who
are but six hours by boat from them, if we do not sympathize with
or care for them. No order or permission from General Blanco can
save the lives of many of them. Indeed, many are too far gone to
be saved by the best care and treatment.
"There was no indication of a cessation of hostilities by the
insurgents. If they do not voluntarily cease, their tactics are
such that Spain cannot conquer them, if at all, before the
reconcentrados will have had the finishing stroke. But even the
speedy termination of the war would not save many of them. What
they need is instant pecuniary assistance to the extent of $20,000
a day, distributed by our consuls. Private charity, it seems, will
hardly produce the amount. Twenty thousand dollars would be but
ten cents apiece for medicine, clothes and food. When I left
Havana I was informed that Consul General Lee had received $5,000
and some hundreds of cans of condensed milk. As there are about
30,000 sufferers in Havana alone, the inadequacy of such
contributions is manifest. Whether Congress should make an
appropriation, as in the case of the San Domingo refugees and
other cases, it is not for me to say, but I beg the charitable to
believe the statement of facts which I have made, and try to
realize what they mean."
A correspondent in Cuba gives an interesting account of a case
that came under his notice among the reconcentrados in the town of
Guadaloupe. It is substantially as follows:
In all misery-ridden Cuba there is no town in which the reign of
misery is so absolute as in Guadaloupe. Even the situation of this
place might be said to be in "the valley of the shadow of death."
It is not upon the earth's surface, but far below, in a broad,
deep hole. The all-surrounding hills are not green, but black. For
these up-sloping fields, upon which many a rich tobacco crop has
been raised, lie now under blackening ashes--the work of insurgent
torches. In this low-lying town 3,000 reconcentrados are naked,
shelterless and starving. That aid has not come to them till now
is because of the ingratitude and treachery of two of their own
number.
As the two guilty ones have just paid the penalty of their crime,
the Red Cross Society will probably have a relief corps in
Guadaloupe by the time this letter is printed.
The tragedy of Guadaloupe, to the denouement of which I was an
eyewitness, shows that the insurgents have learned the art of
butchery as taught by the Spanish, and that a reconcentrado will
sometimes betray the Samaritan who helps him. A faithful mule
carried me into Guadaloupe at 2 o'clock in the afternoon, the
siesta hour. I had come from the coast many miles away, over the
hills. As I rode into the town, I said to the mule: "The next
artist who is given an order to illustrate Dante's 'Inferno' ought
to come here. He could draw from life, pictures more infernal than
a mere human mind could conceive."
Reconcentrados lay everywhere under the broiling sun. The mule
picked his way between human heaps that looked like so many little
mounds of rags. Skeleton legs and arms protruded from out the
heaps. Soft moans of mothers and the wailing of little children
gave evidence of so many living deaths.
ONE KIND-HEARTED SPANIARD.
I presented my credentials to the commandante. He was the most
genial Spanish official I had met between Havana and Guadaloupe.
When he smiled, his face was all kindness. When he spoke of the
reconcentrados, tears welled from his eyes. Yet around his mouth
and chin were the cruel lines of a nature as stern as it was
commiserative. He told me that the hospital was full, always full;
there was room in its wards for only 200 patients, and only one
doctor for all. All who entered that place of sickness came out of
it, not cured, but dead. Three thousand human beings, mostly women
and children, had passed away in that town in three months. Nearly
all had died of starvation and exposure. When the cemetery was
full, they began burying in the still burning tobacco fields on
the hillsides.
But it was the siesta hour. The commandante excused himself,
saying he would rest awhile and advised me to do the same.
The commandante's house was in the center of the town. Round about
was a circle of the houses of those who had owned the tobacco
fields. Beyond these homes of the well-to-do were hundreds of
huts. In these lived the reconcentrados, several families in each,
or as many as could huddle within and not pull the roughly
constructed frame of palm stalks down about their heads. Outside
the circle of huts were the blackened fields and hills. On the
tops of the hills, at intervals of 200 yards, was a circle of
small houses that looked like sentry boxes. They were really
little forts, with four soldiers in each. Beyond the forts were,
heaven only knows how many, insurgent guerillas, lynx-eyed human
watch dogs, always lurking and waiting for a chance to swoop upon
one of the little forts, slay the garrison of four and dash back
into the bushes.
A SOLDIER'S GHASTLY BURDEN.
At this moment not a soldier was in sight. Perhaps all were
sleeping, like the commandante. Or perhaps the soldiers always
remained inside the barricades surrounding their forts, fearing
that to step outside would be to attract the bullets of the
lurking insurgents. For such is warfare in Cuba's hills to-day;
much the same sort of warfare our American forefathers knew when
each man who stepped from his doorway was likely to become a
target for the arrows of the lurking and invisible redskins.
I was making a mental note of this picture of war and misery, when
suddenly I saw a human form on the hilltop over which I had just
come. The peculiar shape of the white hat worn by this apparition
told me it was a soldier. In the middle of the white road he
stopped, lowered a burden from his shoulders to the ground. What
was that soldier doing there and what was the nature of his
apparently heavy burden? From my perch on the balcony I beckoned
to the sentry, who was pacing up and down in front of the
commandante's house. The sentry came up to the balcony, took one
look in the direction of my pointing finger, and then rushed into
the house. The next moment the commandante appeared. With a field
glass he surveyed the figure on the hilltop.
"He is carrying something," I said, as I watched the man in the
distance reshoulder his burden and begin descending the hill.
"A dead man," said the commandante. And he closed the glasses,
thoughtfully. Then he gave me a long black cigar.
We waited. At the end of half an hour the soldier approached the
house. Yes, on his back he was carrying a corpse.
TELL-TALE SCRAP OF PAPER.
He laid his burden down in the road and saluted the commandante. A
group of officers and soldiers had gathered round. The body was
that of a noted insurgent captain. A scrap of paper was produced.
It had been found in the dead man's pocket by the soldier who had
carried the body into town.
The commandante read the paper. His brow contracted. Now he was
all sternness.
"Bring the man, Jose Manual, here," he said to a sergeant.
Five minutes later an old man, all bones and skin, stood before
us. The miserable man trembled as with the palsy.
"Si, senor, I did it. I ran over the hill. I informed. I alone am
to blame."
Evidently the wretch knew of what he was accused. It was also
apparent that he was not the only guilty one.
"Who wrote this for you?" the commandante asked.
"I did, senor; I wrote it."
"The man lies," murmured one of the officers.
"Bring hither the son of Jose Manual," was the next order.
With that, another skeleton, a young one, stepped forward.
"I am here, senor, and I wrote the note. That is all. We two,
senor. I wrote and my father ran. He was stronger, that day, than
even my younger bones."
The commandante compressed his lips. He turned to the sergeant and
said: "At sunset have these two men shot."
The two men merely spat upon the ground. For them death evidently
had no terrors. As they were led away they made the sign of the
cross again and again upon their naked breasts. A hundred starving
wretches followed them in silence.
When we were again alone on the balcony--a broad, square balcony
it was--the commandante noticed my look of inquiry.
"The story can be briefly told," he said. "You are simply the
witness of a tragedy that had its beginning on this very balcony
one month ago. I sent word by the priest to a lady in Havana--an
English lady--that we had 4,000 starving people in this town.
Could she help us? Always generous, beneficent, self-sacrificing,
the lady responded in person. She came by the coast steamer,
landed at broad noon, traversed the two miles over which you came
a few hours ago from the coast, bringing with her seven ox-cart
loads of provisions, clothing and medicine. With her came her
daughter, a young girl just over from England. Their charity was
distributed from this very balcony to the starving people. The
distribution occupied two entire days. Out of 4,000 people, 2,000
were given food and clothing and medicine. She promised the other
half equal relief as soon as she could go to Havana and return
again with the stores. On the night before she was to leave us the
ladies and gentlemen of the leading families here, together with
the officers of my staff, proposed to give the good Samaritans a
banquet. The proposal was accepted. All gathered for the banquet
on this balcony. I draped the front of the house in the Spanish
colors, and hung out all the available lamps. That illumination
was our ruin. Thirty-four sat down to dine. Only thirty lived
through the first course. Of a sudden a hailstorm of bullets was
poured into our midst. A bottle of wine in front of me flew into
bits. Not a whole plate or a whole glass was left. We sprang up
and fled into the house. Not all of us, though. No. Three men--
three of my best officers--had fallen from their chairs, dead. The
other--oh, God!"
ENGLISH SAMARITAN MURDERED.
The commandante could not continue. He made a gesture indicating
that I was to step into the house.
In his room he opened a huge wardrobe and took out a jacket, a
tiny coat, such as might be worn by a soldier boy. The sleeves
were loaded with the gold lace and golden stars of a colonel in
the Spanish army. On the left side of this jacket or coat was a
ragged hole.
"The bullet entered here," the commandante said, sorrowfully. "It
pierced her heart. The poor mother carried her dead back to
Havana. That is all."
I understood. A fatal volley had been poured into that dinner
party by insurgents on the hilltops. The house was in the center
of the town, and the lamps illuminating the Spanish colors had
rendered the balcony the best of targets. These Spanish officers
and an innocent young English girl, a Samaritan, were murdered.
And by whom? By the insurgents, who were guided to the hilltops by
two of the very reconcentrados whom the victims had saved that day
from starvation. One had written a note informing the insurgents
of the circumstance, time, and place of the banquet. The other had
delivered the note to one of the murderers. Father and son were
equally guilty of ingratitude and treachery. The incriminating
note had been found on the dead body of the insurgent captain,
carried into town by the soldier of Spain.
THE SAD FINAL SCENE.
At sunset a squad of twenty men, armed and in charge of a first
lieutenant, filed out of the barracks. In front of the squad
marched the two prisoners, their arms tied together above the
elbows, behind their backs. Behind the soldiers came perhaps a
thousand of the wretched and starving.
No murmuring, no uplifting of arms, nothing but solemn silence. In
front of a wall, lining one of the blackened fields, the prisoners
were made to kneel down. A priest stood over them speaking the
last consoling words.
Out of the squad of twenty soldiers, eight stepped forth and
leveled their rifles at the kneeling father and son.
The eight shots sounded as one, and one of the blackest crimes of
this atrocious war was expiated.