THE HISTORY OF THE REBELLION UP-TO-DATE.
The dying Cespedes bequeathed his honours to his friend and henchman,
Don Salvador Cisneros y BA(C)tancourt, Marquez de Santa Lucia, who was
forthwith elected President of the Republic. He displayed exceptional
ability, endeavoured to bring some discipline into the ranks of his more
or less disorderly followers, and succeeded for a time, not only in this
attempt, but also in reviving the dashed spirit of the rebels in the
Eastern Province. At length he wearied of what ultimately proved a
thankless task, and retired to make room for Don Francisco Aquelera, who
became third President of this essentially rural Republic, whose
Parliament was wont to assemble in the heart of a dense forest, or in
some mountain solitude.
Aquelera, although a man of marked ability, was no longer in the prime
of life, and soon grew tired of the roving existence circumstances
compelled him to lead. After his retirement, a new name begins to figure
prominently in Cuban affairs,--that of Maximo Gomez, who was elected
Commander-in-Chief of the rebel forces, _L'Ejercito libertador de la
Republica de Cuba_, some twenty years ago. With a comparatively small
following, he managed, by sheer dint of audacity and profound
strategical knowledge, to keep 20,000 Spaniards at bay. Gomez is a
thorough soldier, one of the best the New World has possessed. I met him
once, and was greatly struck by his martial bearing and his fiery black
eyes, rendered still more conspicuous by his perfectly white hair, and
long moustachios. He was born in 1837. Although afflicted with a
terrible ulcer in his right leg, and unable to sit a horse except in a
side saddle like a woman's, he is an intrepid rider, and knows not the
meaning of the words fear or fatigue.
The other leader of the present rebellion is not less remarkable,
Calixto Garcia IA+-iguez, who began his career as a bank clerk, and who,
therefore, combines with soldierly qualities of a high order,
considerable financial and business knowledge.
The treaty of Zanjou, signed February 10th, 1878, put a stop, for some
years, to anything like rebellion on a serious scale. A good deal of
mystery surrounds this treaty, to which the President of the Republic
and his secretary, only, affixed their signatures, without the formal
consent of the other rebel generals, officers, and deputies. However,
Marshal Martinez Campos, Commander-in-Chief of the Spanish army,
approved it, although the enemies of the Cuban cause describe the
document, somewhat sarcastically, as being more of a deed of
capitulation than a treaty. The clauses proposing that the political
organization of the island should be placed on the same footing as that
of Puerto Rico, that a general amnesty for all political offences should
be forthwith promulgated, that political prisoners should be pardoned,
and that coolies and fugitive slaves who had served in the Cuban army
should be emancipated, met with the approval of SeA+-or Canovas de
Castillo, and the treaty was officially signed and accepted at Madrid.
For some time afterwards, peace nominally existed in almost every part
of the island. The rebels were not, however, wholly inactive.
Notwithstanding the accepted treaty, there was still a President of the
Cuban Republic, Vicente Garcia, and a Parliament, which sat in the
wilderness, at stated periods of the year. In 1879 this "Parliament" was
dissolved, and with its dissolution the period of the "big rebellions"
closes, and that of the little wars, _la guerra chiquita_, opens.
Meanwhile, Maximo Gomez, seeing there was no immediate work for him to
do, betook himself to San Domingo, to bide his time, and to place
himself in active correspondence with the Gran Junta, or principal Cuban
Revolutionary Association, in New York.
And here it may be as well to examine rather closely two matters
connected with Cuban affairs. The first is the assistance afforded to
the Cuban rebels by the United States, and the second, the conditions of
the rebel army, as it stood three years since, when the insurrection
began to assume alarming proportions.
As far back as 1823, John Quincy Adams said: "From a multitude of
considerations, Cuba has become an object of transcendent importance to
the commercial and political interests of our Union. Its commanding
position, ... the nature of its productions and of its wants, furnishing
the supplies and needing the returns of a commerce immensely profitable
and mutually beneficial, give it an importance in the sum of our
national interests with which that of no other foreign territory can be
compared, and little inferior to that which binds the different members
of the Union together."
The reasons which induced Adams to make this statement have not
diminished in late years; far from it, especially since the enormous
development of the Mississippi valley, and of the Gulf Coast. Although
there can be no question that the vast majority of the people of the
United States have expressed an unselfish sympathy for the unfortunate
Cubans, their politicians, and, above all, their financiers, have added
to this sentiment a profound knowledge of the great value which Cuba
must eventually prove to the Union, were she more firmly governed, and
her American interests better protected. Among the advocates for the
annexation of Cuba have been the following Presidents: Jefferson,
Monroe, John Quincy Adams, Jackson, Polk, Fillmore, Pierce, and
Buchanan.
A remarkably interesting article on Cuban Diplomacy from 1795 to 1898
appeared recently in _Harper's Magazine_, in which Professor Albert
Bushnell traces the rise of the sympathy of the American people for
Cuban independence or annexation, and points out very plainly that
"when, as in 1886, slavery was definitely abolished, the Spanish
Government promised other excellent reforms, but, as usual, very soon
things fell back into their old rut. The Captain-General was still
practically absolute; the island was saddled with the debt created to
hold it in subjection; it was still exploited for the benefit of Spain,
and the same wearisome impediments were laid on foreign traders. For
example, in 1880 several vessels were fired upon by Spanish gunboats
outside the jurisdiction of Cuba; in 1881 an American cattle steamer,
subject to a tax of $14.90, was taxed $387.40, because she had some
lumber on board. In 1882 began a long drawn-out correspondence on
overcharges and illegal exactions by Spanish consuls over vexatious
fines for small clerical errors, and over annoying passport regulations.
The most serious trouble arose out of the refusal of the Spanish
authorities, to return estates confiscated during the war to American
citizens of Cuban birth.
"Meanwhile trade between the United States and Cuba was advancing by
leaps and bounds. In 1850 the sum of the Cuban trade into and out of the
United States was $20,000,000; in 1880 $76,000,000; in 1894
$105,000,000. American capital became engaged in sugar and other
industries. The two countries tried to put their tariffs on a better
footing by the Convention of 1884, for the mutual abandonment of
discriminating duties; in 1893 Spain accepted reciprocity under the
tariff of 1890; but the Cuban authorities evaded the privileges thus
conferred, on the ground that they were governed by a special Spanish
translation from the English version of the treaty, and not by the
original Spanish version; and it was three years before the Home
Government could straighten out this petty snarl.
"In 1884-5 came some filibustering expeditions; the United States
exerted itself to stop them, and there was no Cuban insurrection. On the
whole, the years from 1879 to 1894 were freer from diplomatic
controversy than any like period since 1845. Meanwhile the Cubans in the
United States had accumulated a revolution fund of a million dollars."
I have already stated that a network of secret societies has covered
Cuba, ever since the beginning of this century. Branches of these
mysterious associations have been established in nearly every city on
the seaboard of the two Americas, from New York to Buenos Ayres, at
Boston, Savanah, Charlestown, Norfolk, Tampa, Kingston (Jamaica), etc.
Their headquarters have been established, for some five and forty years,
in the American metropolis, and are known as the Gran Junta, or Cuban
Revolutionary Agency.
From this centre, the rebellion has been mainly worked. It is presided
over, at the present time, by SeA+-or Thomaso Estrado Palma, who was born
at Bayamo, some sixty-seven years ago, and who for a short time acted as
President of the Cuban Republic. He was captured by the Spaniards, and
imprisoned for several years. About 1895 he reappeared in New York, as
headmaster of a Hispano-American College, and as one of the leading
members of the Junta. He is not only thoroughly well aquainted with all
the secrets of the rebels, but is also by no means ignorant of the
movements of the Spaniards. He bears an eminently respectable character,
is a man of considerable literary attainments, and, considering his age,
may be described as remarkably active. The New York Junta publishes a
bi-weekly paper, entitled _La Patria_, edited by Don Enrique JosA(C)
Varona, who, if I mistake not, is a brother of that Varona who was shot
during the affair of the "Virginius." The line of Presidents of the
Cuban Republic is still unbroken, and the gentleman who at present fills
the position is a man of considerable culture, and, moreover, a wealthy
planter, whose estates, however, he has neglected for some years, in
order the better to serve his country.
One of the great grievances of the Spaniards is the fashion in which the
American Government has tolerated the existence of this Gran Junta, and
the formation of branch offices, all over the States. And, when you come
to think of it, it does seem somewhat intolerable that a power which
calls itself friendly,--since it has a representative at the court of
Madrid,--should encourage a whole network of conspiracy against a
Government, with which it keeps up a constant interchange of official
courtesies; but at the same time, it should be remembered that these
associations cannot be suppressed, in a free country like America, so
long as the members take care not to go beyond the letter of the law.
Under President Cleveland, matters were otherwise. The United States
Government made some pretence of moderating the zeal of the Juntas, and
spent many million dollars in endeavours to prevent the departure of
filibusters, to join the rebel forces. But notwithstanding the dignified
policy of President Cleveland, which for some years gave the Spaniards a
fair chance of pacifying the distracted island, they utterly failed to
avail themselves of the opportunity.
The task of restoring order in such an island as Cuba is one demanding
almost superhuman energy and tact, and these are qualities in which the
Spanish race, a naturally excitable one, is absolutely deficient. Yet it
must be allowed that the Cuban civil war resembles none other that has
ever been fought in any part of the world, or at any period of recorded
history. Revolution, as a rule, starts from the large cities, and thence
penetrates by degrees into the villages and rural districts. It is quite
otherwise in Cuba. With the exception of one or two easily quelled riots
in Havana, Cienfuegos, Santiago, and Bayamo, the capital cities and
towns of the island have scarcely participated in the rebellion; their
citizens, although for the most part Cuban born, have apparently
remained aloof,--possibly because the rebellion has proved exceedingly
injurious to their trade and commerce. This accounts for the curious
fact that while we hear so much about the terrible sufferings of the
Cuban people, and their deadly hatred of their Spanish masters, we see
in numberless photographs, reproduced in our illustrated papers, and
representing the departure or arrival of Spanish troops at Havana or
other leading cities, such a display of enthusiasm on the part of the
citizens, as we should have little expected.
The long streets are thronged, the balconies are crowded, Spanish flags
float in all directions, and the troops march along under a shower of
flowers, whilst young ladies are seen rushing forward to offer them
refreshments. Now it must be remembered that at least two-thirds of
these enthusiastic spectators are quite as Cuban as the most ardent of
the rebels; but they are people who have something to lose by the
continuance of the civil war, and a good deal to gain by its cessation,
therefore they eagerly welcome the Spanish soldiers, in the hope that
they may suppress the rebellion, without the intervention of the
Americans, a people who, however well-intentioned they may be, are, from
the Cuban point of view, aliens in race, and even in religion. We should
never lose sight of the fact that the rebels are not the angels some
writers would lead us to believe them. Even enthusiasts, who see their
budding wings, acknowledge that they have destroyed, burnt, pillaged,
and retaliated, quite as barbarously as their Spanish enemies.
I remember hearing, from the lips of one who saw the outrage
perpetrated, a story of some eight or ten Spanish women who, in the war
of 1873, went to the rebel camp to beg the lives of their captured
fathers, brothers, and husbands.
The unhappy women were treated in the most revolting manner, and
subsequently butchered. Hundreds of other stories, just as horrible,
have been told of Maceo, and above all, of Manuel Garcia, the ex-brigand
chief, who joined the rebel army, and boldly styled himself Manuel Ist,
King of the Cuban highwaymen. He surrounded himself with a gang of
picked ruffians, and became the terror of all the peaceful planters of
both parties, from whom he used to levy tribute, and whom he never
hesitated to murder, if they refused to submit to his extortions. This
abominable personage was killed on February 24th, 1895, by the sacristan
of the parish church of Arcos de Canosina.
Last year the rebel army was composed, so far as I have been able to
ascertain, very much as follows: 25,000 infantry without transport;
14,000 cavalry, with 13,000 horses and mules; artillery,--22 guns, 190
mules or horses, and about 800 men; the whole regular and irregular
army, amounting to about 70,000 men, some 10,000 of whom are absolutely
unarmed. During the last two years these numbers have probably been
greatly reduced. The duty of the unarmed men consists in going round the
field after a battle, and gathering up the arms dropped by the wounded
and the dead. Behind this regular army, if so it can be called, is
another, consisting of a horde of civilized and uncivilized adventurers,
recruited from all parts of the island, and indeed from the four
quarters of the globe; among them you will find field hands out of
employment, the riffraff turned out of the neighbouring islands,
Americans, Mexicans, Germans, Italians, and even a few Englishmen. Yet a
third band follows behind this extraordinary mass of heterogenous
humanity,--a mob of ex-slaves, reinforced by coolies, who may be
described as camp followers, and bring their women and children with
them. This formidable and incessantly moving army is divided into
sections, and distributed over various parts of the island, in camps (by
courtesy so called, for their tents are exceedingly few in number, and
the majority have to sleep in the open, unless they have time and skill
to make themselves huts with palm branches). These Cuban rebels, being
acclimatized, have a great advantage over the Spaniards in pursuit of
them, who, as often as not, are trapped by "Yellow Jack." They are less
easily overwhelmed by the deadly miasmas which hang over the desolate
places where, for safety's sake, they are compelled to pitch their
tents.[11] Still thousands of them do perish, for though the _vomito
nigro_ does not attack the blacks, it carries off thousands of whites
and coolies, while other loathsome diseases decimate the uncleanly
negroes and their coolie brethren.
The wildest imagination can scarcely conceive a more wonderful scene
than that presented by an encampment of Cuban rebels in one of the
virgin forests which still cover a considerable portion of the island,
or else on those level marsh lands, called Manigua, which bear so strong
a resemblance to the Roman Campagna.
Only those who have been in a tropical forest can form any idea of what
it is like. I remember once being taken by two excellent guides a few
hundred yards into one of these jungles. An English forest generally
consists of one, or, at the most, four or five varieties of tree--the
oak, the pine, the ash, the birch, the beech--with an undergrowth of
wild nuts and bramble, and a still lower one of bracken fern and grass.
In a tropical forest almost every tree and shrub is wholly different
from its neighbour.
The first impression made upon me, as I sauntered into this green maze,
was one of absolute amazement, not unmingled with a certain sense of
terror. The vegetation around me was of such unusual proportions that I
felt myself a mere pigmy, a sort of Jack the Giant-Killer wandering in
quest of the Ogre's Castle. And indeed the thick growth of tree trunk
and palm stems, absolutely leafless for some forty or fifty feet, might
easily be mistaken for the dead walls of some enchanted fortress.
Looking up, however, one beheld, instead of blue sky, an aerial canopy
of the densest foliage, varying in tint from the deepest to the
tenderest green.
These Cuban forests are pathless: to traverse them you must cut or burn
your way; their labyrinths remind you at every turn of the opening lines
to Dante's _Inferno_:
"Nel mezzo de cammin di nostra vita
Mi ritrovai per una selva, oscura
ChA" la diritta via era smarrita."
As you pass along, clouds of winged creatures rise out of the grass,
some of them infamously unkind and pernicious, others beautiful and
harmless. In the openings the most inconceivably lovely flowers bloom,
and humming birds flash hither and thither, sparkling like variegated
jewels in the few rays of sunshine that penetrate the massive canopy of
leaves.
Now and again their passage is barred by the rope-like branches of some
uncanny creeper, that come pouring down from above like the tangled
rigging of a wrecked ship. You draw back in alarm, lest the strange
thing should suddenly come to life, and turn into a chain of angry
serpents. To your surprise you perceive one side of it to be literally
blazing with flame-coloured orchids, red and orange. In the centre of
yonder little open space is a dead tree that some huge parasite has
seized upon, dragged out of earth and imprisoned in a woody cage, every
bar of which is tapestried with the most exquisite orchids. Yonder
growth, which reaches far above your knees, consists of the great
wheel-shaped maiden-hair fern, whose fronds are so exquisite and so
brittle that you feel remorse at trampling so tender and delicate a
carpet under foot. Presently you find yourself ascending a rocky
eminence, crowned by half a dozen soaring cabbage palms, and thence you
plunge into a shrubbery where the exquisite Tabernae-montana, or the
resplendent Calycophyllum, fills the hot moist air with an overpowering
perfume, recalling that of our homely syringa. On and on you go, through
groves of palm trees, tied together by entwined lianas, looking, for all
the world, like motionless boa constrictors, and on which countless tiny
lizards, or harmless little snakes, glisten in the sunlight. Now and
then a flying squirrel flashes past, or a monster bat is disturbed, or
you form the acquaintance of an ugly old iguana, who winks at you with a
knowing eye, and withdraws, as suddenly as he appeared, behind a trap
door of broad glossy leaves. Here are clusters of begonias, there a
veritable cataract of morning glory, the deep blue flowers so thickly
set together that not a green leaf is to be seen, for many yards. When
you least expect it, the wooden walls open, and discover a glimpse of
some placid lake, embedded like a jewel in a frame of dark green orange
trees laden with golden fruit, and covered with every sort of water
lily, varying from the most dazzling white to the deepest crimson and
violet. The heat is so great that you feel an irresistible impulse to
throw off your clothes and jump into the pellucid water; but your guide,
divining your intention, soon makes you alter your mind, assuring you
that the bed of the lakelet swarms with uncanny aquatic snakes, while
perchance that unpleasant individual, the ugly caiman, lurks in the
dark, under yon mass of arum lilies, ready to pounce upon you, and snap
off your leg. Yonder is a turtle scudding along, and round the shores of
an islet, covered with delicate bamboo cane, sails a whole fleet of
gorgeous water fowl. The impulse to push forward and discover new
wonders and beauties for yourself is swiftly checked by your guide, who
warns you that, as the sun begins to drop, noxious vapours presently
will rise,--vapours charged with deadly fevers and incurable agues. And
so you hurry back, thanking heaven, all the time, that you have a guide
with you, for without his friendly aid you might wander round and round
in this maze of luxuriant vegetation, never straying far from the point
whence you started, and sink at last, exhausted, to die of hunger and
thirst, with, it may be, a cluster of tempting poison peaches dripping
luscious but death-dealing syrup just above your parched lips. In
forests such as these, stretching for leagues across the island, do the
Cuban rebels pitch their camps.
Through these wild forsaken regions there are neither roads nor paths,
and the enemy has concealed the trace of his footsteps with the utmost
precaution. Every bush may mask an ambuscade, and behind every rock some
danger lurks. Sometimes the Spaniards--to whom experience has taught
many things--may mark the exact position of the rebels by the whirl of
the vultures, circling high above it, watching the time when, after the
camp has broken up, they may make a descent upon the scanty fragments of
victuals left behind, or upon the dead bodies of those who have perished
of wounds, of starvation, perchance, or of some malignant fever.
Overhead is a brazen black-blue sky, through which the sun darts red-hot
rays, or else a black stretch of dense clouds, belching cataracts of
water from week's end to week's end, and frequently torn by the most
terrific storms of thunder and lightning. The marvel of it is that so
many men, and even women, are able to live at all, under such dreadful
conditions, more often than not lacking the veriest necessaries of life,
and depending for their daily food on their knowledge of the qualities,
poisonous or harmless, of the various fruits, berries, and herbs they
find about their path. I wonder if it ever occurs to people who talk so
glibly of Cuban affairs, over their well-spread tables, that at this
very moment there are considerably over a hundred thousand human beings
encamped, under these appalling conditions, in various districts of
Cuba, not to mention the miserable _reconcentrados_, or men out of
employment, whom the towns-people reject, whom the rebel army is not
allowed to absorb into its ranks, and who, between the two camps, have
been systematically starved to death, especially under the merciless and
cruel rule of General Weyler.
In the dry season matters are a trifle better, the fevers diminish, and
it is possible to sleep in the open air without serious risk. The
insects, too, are a trifle less vicious, and the brilliant moonlit
winter's nights are often pleasant enough. Then the bivouac becomes
endurable, and if the enemy is sufficiently distant, a certain element
of gaiety lends a picturesque, even romantic, character to the barbaric
gathering. The negroes twang their banjos, blow their horns, and dance
in rings, and the white adventurers gather round the camp fires, to tell
old-world stories, or dream, perchance, of their childhood, spent under
more temperate skies,--and in their heart of hearts, as their
recollection slips back to home, to regret they ever embarked on such
pitiful adventures as these. Suddenly the alert is called, the trumpet
blows, an order is hoarsely shouted, and the motley crowd moves on
elsewhere, or is commanded to make a descent on some plantation to
demand provisions, and, may be, if the owner does not comply, to fire
his sugar canes. Not unfrequently, to screen their flight, they set
light to the prairie or to the forest, and the grass and the trees burn
on for days and nights on end. Some of these bands have a chaplain with
them--a priest of the sort called in England, before the Reformation, a
"hedge-priest"--who, on Sundays and feast days, celebrates Mass at an
improvised altar, in some forest glade. But, on the other hand, the
negroes, of whom there are thousands, seem, as a result of the free life
they lead, to have reverted, in most cases, by a species of atavism, to
their old savage habits.
I have said elsewhere that in the olden days their Cuban masters only
gave them a veneer of Christianity; they soon relapse into the obscene
and bloody creed of Voudism, the traditions of which they have never
lost. And in almost every rebel camp there are a number of coolies who,
although--to please the Cubans--they prostrate themselves before the
images of Neustra SeA+-ora de Cobre, and of Our Lady of Guadalupe,
secretly practise the lowest forms of Buddhism.
It is now time to turn our attention to an extremely interesting
personage, who, in his day, has given the mother country more trouble,
probably, than any other of the numerous leaders of the rebellion--the
famous Maceo. He was a true son of the revolution, born at Santiago di
Cuba in that great year of universal revolt, 1848. He was not, as has
been so frequently stated in English newspapers, a gentleman of noble
family. As a matter of fact, he began life as a muleteer. Hence his
wonderful knowledge of the Cuban ravines and passes, which has been so
precious both to his followers and to himself. He never made any
pretence of being a "Caballero," but gave himself out for what he was, a
blunt man of the people (egregiously vain, let me add, and astonishingly
ignorant!). Four years ago the following description of Maceo was
written me from Cuba by a friend who knew him well. "This wonderful man,
though short of stature, looks the very incarnation of a Spadassin of
the good old times of Calderon and Lope, and this notwithstanding his
strong evidences of negro blood. True, his features are none too
regular, but his complexion is, to say the best of it, swarthy. His eyes
are splendid, and he has formidable moustachios, which would have roused
the envy of a musketeer. He is scrupulously neat in his dress, and wears
his much belaced gold uniform with a gallant air. His broad-brimmed
white felt hat sets off his face to advantage. On the whole, he at
first impressed me very favourably. Suddenly, however, something annoyed
him, and he turned round on one of his men, and burst into a storm of
oaths. Then he showed his white teeth, shook with nervous fury, and
looked very fierce." For a good many years, Maceo was the hero of the
day. Even in the towns, where interest in the rising is apt to flag,
people liked to talk of his adventures. He bore the marks of twenty-five
wounds,--twenty caused by bullets, and five by sword thrusts. He
possessed a quality of ubiquity which at times seemed almost miraculous.
When the Spaniards were perfectly certain that Maceo and his men were in
the west, they were tolerably certain to turn up in the east. A dozen
times, at least, he was reported killed, but sooner or later he always
reappeared, and in a condition altogether too lively for Spanish taste.
Some persons even now believe he was not shot, as reported, on December
9th, 1895. But there can be but little doubt his adventurous career is
ended, otherwise he would have certainly reappeared ere this, especially
as he is sorely needed, no one having as yet risen up to take his place.
General Gomez and Maceo have been by far the most interesting figures in
the Cuban rebellion. In the time to come he will, I feel sure, be the
hero of a score of novels, as startling and sensational as any of those
of Mayne Reid or Fenimore Cooper.
Far be it from me to disparage the motives of the men who have conducted
this revolt against a distinctly vicious and obsolete government. The
saddest fact connected with the present struggle is that Spain's
punishment has come upon her at a time when she least deserves it, for
during the last ten years, though all too late, a great deal has been
done for the island by the mother country. In the first place, it is not
true that Cubans are not admitted to any official position in the
administration of their country. At this present time at least one-half
of the Government employA(C)s, high and low, are Cubans. There are some
scores of Cuban officers in the Spanish army. Cuba is represented at the
Cortes by thirteen Senators, and thirty Deputies. The University of
Havana is almost entirely in the hands of Cubans; the Rector, Don
Joaquim F. Lastres, and the Vice-Rector, are both of them natives of the
island. All the Deans are Cubans, and out of eighty Professors, sixty
are Spaniards born in the island, _ergo_ Cubans. All the Advocates of
the Supreme Court are Cubans, many belonging to families which have
resided for generations in the island. Still there is widespread and
well-founded discontent. The island is not properly administered.
Everything is in a state of confusion. Red-tapeism--the curse of Spanish
bureaucracy--is rampant, and the system of petty backsheesh is almost as
universal as in Turkey.
There is much truth, too, in Mr Gossip's statement in his article in the
May number of the _Fortnightly Review_, entitled "The Mournful Case of
Cuba," which runs as follows:--
"Spain has placed an almost insuperable barrier in the way of
American merchants, should they attempt to enter her ports with
American products, in the form of a protective tariff, which
resembles in many respects, the policy once pursued by England
against her American colonies, of which the 'Boston tea party' was
the direct result, has proved very detrimental to American
interests. For while the United States purchases, at least, more
than seventy per cent. of everything Cuba has to sell, Cuba in
return buys from the United States less than twenty per cent. of
the articles she imports--chiefly flour, petroleum, and other
non-competitive articles, which Spain is unable to furnish; so that
it is to the land of the Stars and Stripes that Cuba must look,
since, as long as beets are grown in Europe, the product of the
sugar cane will find no market on the European side of the
Atlantic. Thus, the mother country pockets annually, through her
antiquated institutions, the Yankee millions, which, under proper
conditions of trade, would be returned to the people of the United
States in payment for American coal, iron, and manufactured goods,
which are often sent to Spain and then re-shipped to Cuba, as the
only practical method of getting into the latter country. Owing to
the backwardness of Spanish industries, and the inability of Spain
to supply Cuba with the products she requires, the Cubans have to
consume Spanish articles of inferior quality, or pay exorbitant
prices for foreign goods, owing to the prohibitive duties imposed,
which merely place large sums in the Spanish exchequer. Spanish
merchants practise a novel fraud by nationalising foreign products
for importation into Cuba, and thus the senseless commercial policy
of Spain is the cause of inextinguishable discontent.
"It is true, also, that Cuba is within the economic orbit of the
United States, and that the commerce of the island is a strong
factor in the Cuban problem, inasmuch as it is the active agent of
civilization everywhere; and sugar is omnipotent from the purely
commercial American point of view. There are certain fixed economic
laws, which are as sure in their operation as gravitation, and must
inevitably affect the ultimate destiny of Cuba."
I do not think sufficient attention has been paid by students of the
Cuban question to facts wholly unconnected with bad government and of a
purely economic nature. First and foremost of these is the depreciation
in the commercial value of local produce, especially the loss on sugar,
which is mainly due to the popularity and cheapness of beetroot sugar on
the continent of Europe. Without undue entering into details, I would
point out that Cuba is in this respect going through precisely the same
financial and commercial crisis as the other and better-governed West
Indian Islands. The tobacco trade, I hear, is less flourishing than it
used to be. It has to contend with the prodigious development which has
recently taken place in the tobacco markets of Asia Minor, Egypt,
Europe, and the United States. In a word, Cuba has been doing very badly
now for over twenty years, and families which were not very long ago
amongst the richest of our period, are now paupers, eager to sell their
few remaining jewels, bric-A -brac, and even their fans, lace, and
brocades, to the passing stranger. To add to the general distress came
the completion of the abolition of slavery, with its usual result--the
negroes refused to work. Coolies were imported, but the climate did not
suit them. White labour has not been tried, for the simple reason that
it is a foredoomed failure. Masters who have had to deal with negroes
all their lives are never able to manage poor whites. Hundreds of
plantations have gone out of cultivation, and thousands of half savage,
coloured folk, have gone to swell in the all-pervading anarchy which the
Spanish Government is not strong enough to suppress.
Meanwhile the rebellion has absorbed an incredible amount of Spanish
capital, and drained the mother country of hundreds of thousands of
young men, the great majority of whom will never see their homes again.
Cuba, in her present condition, is Spain's ruin, and it would have been
well for the Spaniards if they had sold the island half a century ago.
"Cuba," said a Spanish writer the other day, "is a sort of bottomless
waste-paper basket. The women of Cadiz and its neighbourhood hold the
very name of Cuba in execration, they have seen so many of their sons
and sweethearts depart thither, never to return."
I am not one of those who see an angel in every Cuban rebel, and a devil
in every Spaniard; I hold that in this, as in almost every other human
concern, the case, to put it vulgarly, is "six to the one, and half a
dozen to the other." There are grave faults, nay, crimes, on both sides,
and the condition of the island in the present half of the century, and
especially during the last five years, is a disgrace to civilization.
When individual Spaniards have tried to do their best for the Cubans,
their good intentions have not received much response from their
superiors. Take, for instance, Martinez Campos, who was sent out to the
island some years back as Commander-in-Chief; he was an honourable and
humane man, desirous of doing the best he could to reduce bitterness and
evolve peace. But his efforts were frequently baulked by the home
Government, which was for ever pressing him to take active measures. He
knew the island, having been there twenty years before, and under
exceptional circumstances, but he was powerless to plant the olive
branch he had brought with him from Spain, whence he had started amidst
the most enthusiastic expectations, and to which he returned, not unlike
the proverbial rocket that went up in a blaze of glory, to fall a flat,
burnt stick. I cannot forbear thinking that the gravest mistake of the
Spanish Government in the whole of this Cuban business was its
peremptory recall of Martinez Campos, and, above all, the despatch of
such a man as General Weyler, with the strictest orders to put the
rebellion down at any cost.
Weyler, Marquis of Tenerife, is an extraordinary individual. He has been
charged with appalling cruelty, and although, in a recent interview in
the _Daily Telegraph_, he is described as bringing forward some
justification for certain of his acts, still the fact remains, that
since the dreadful days of Alva, the horrors he has perpetrated in Cuba
have rarely been equalled in human history. Indeed, with his Belgian
descent, he seems to have inherited something of the unrelenting nature
of those cruel bigots who transformed the Sablon Square in Brussels into
a sort of permanent furnace, for the roasting of human beings. He might
be Caesar Borgia come to life again, in a modern Spanish uniform. He
conceived it his duty to extinguish the civil war at any cost, and he
used the self-same methods which made the fame (or shame) of Hernando
Cortez and of Alva. I have waded through a mass of evidence against him,
and must confess, even allowing for considerable exaggeration, that he
stands out in unpleasant relief against an ugly background of massacre
and starvation. His desperate struggle to stamp out the revolt seems to
have driven him to frenzy, and the rebels were roused, on their side, to
reprisals of an equally shocking character. But the rebellion was not to
be quelled even by General Weyler's bloody methods. Like some gaunt
skeleton, it rose up again, in its marshes and its forests, and defied
him. The wretched _reconcentrados_ were starved to death, or shot down
by scores, but the undaunted resistance still waved its scarlet and
white striped banner, with the solitary "star of hope" glittering in its
corner. At last, and none too soon, in response to the indignant
outcries of Europe and America, Weyler was recalled. Meanwhile the New
York Junta availed itself of the excitement produced by the harrowing
stories of Weyler's inhuman methods, to work up the easily excited
Americans to the very verge of hysteria.
An incident occurred in Havana some little while back, which, although
trivial enough when reduced to its true proportions, has had a vast
influence in bringing about the present war. Miss Evangelina Cisneros, a
daughter of that Marquis de Santa Lucia who was second President of the
Cuban Republic, effected her escape from a Cuban prison under
exceptional circumstances. We are assured that she is exceedingly
lovely, and, judging by her numerous photographs, she certainly must be
very pretty. Her aged father has been in a State prison at Havana for
some years. His dutiful daughter, hearing that his health was breaking
down under the prolonged confinement, went one day to the governor of
the prison, Colonel Berriz, and throwing herself upon her knees before
him, implored him to use his influence to obtain her parent's
liberation. If we are to believe Miss Evangelina Cisneros' account of
the affair, the colonel offered her the same vile conditions that the
Count de Luna suggests to Leonora (in _Il Trovatore_), when that
operatic heroine begs him to release Manrico. The fair Evangelina
scorned the proposal, and, in a whirlwind of indignation, fled from her
insulter's presence. According to the Colonel, there is not a word of
truth in the whole story; he vows he is the victim of an hysterical
girl, who had been caught carrying letters to the rebel army. Be this as
it may, SeA+-orita Cisneros was arrested and sent to prison, and to what
seems to have been a very undesirable one, in which she was given scanty
fare, and forced to associate with the very lowest females. Here she
remained for many months, in the greatest agony of mind, until she
managed, one fine day, to communicate with Mrs Lee, the wife of the
United States Consul, by means of a few words scratched on a bit of
paper with a pin, dipped in her own blood. Mrs Lee contrived to visit
her, and does not seem, to tell the truth, to have had much difficulty
in obtaining admission to her cell. The sad story was soon afterwards
published broadcast all over the United States and England, thanks
mainly to the arch-millionaire journalist, Mr W. E. Hearst, who,
perceiving that Evangelina's adventures would make excellent copy for
his paper, and considerably help the Cuban cause, commissioned Mr
Deckar, a young gentleman connected with his staff, to go to Cuba and
effect her release, which exploit was duly performed with splendid
courage and skill. The fair Evangelina was enabled, thanks to Mr
Deckar's intervention, to stupefy her companions with sweetmeats infused
with laudanum, and, whilst they lay in a profound slumber, to squeeze
herself through the bars of her cell window, to cross a ladder stretched
from roof to roof, and finally, after many hairbreadth perils and
dangers, to effect her escape from Cuba like another Rosalind, in the
disguise of a boy--all of which tends to prove that the Cuban prisons
are not particularly well guarded.
Meanwhile, a petition to the Queen of Spain, signed by hundreds of
American ladies, headed by the President's mother, was sent from New
York to Madrid, and yet another to the same purpose was forwarded from
London, where two ladies, famed for their instinctive horror of anything
approaching self-advertisement--Mrs Ormiston Chant and the fair author
of _The Sorrows of Satan_--warmly espoused the fate of the hapless
Evangelina, whose adventures, in spite of a monster reception in Madison
Square, attended by not less than 250,000 persons, with appropriate
banners, flowers, and bands of music, fell rather flat in New York. Her
gallant rescuer being a married man, Evangelina remains to this day in
"maiden meditation, fancy free."
But the sensation produced by this interesting case was immense.
Portraits of Mlle. Cisneros were sold by the thousand, and from New York
to San Francisco execration of the Spaniards rose to fever heat.
Soon afterwards occurred the terrible "Maine" disaster, which, coming on
the top of the Cisneros business, drove the American masses, egged on by
the clamours of the "yellow press," to force the reluctant President
into a strangely sudden declaration of war,--a struggle, the fate of
which, even as I write, yet hangs in the balance.
* * *
_P.S._--Even as these pages go to press, a telegram announces the
marriage of "Miss Evangelina Cisneros to one of her rescuers."
[Illustration: HAVANA.]