the inhabitants of Cuba do not desire their freedom. The opinion has very
widely prevailed that the Cubans were grievously oppressed by their Spanish
rulers, and that the severity of their oppression alone prevented them from
making some effort to throw it off. The presence of an armed force in their
midst, however small, it was supposed would summon them by thousands to the
standard of revolt, and convert the colony into a free republic. Men high
in office, men who had lived in Cuba and were supposed to be familiar with
the sentiments of its people, have uniformly represented that they were
ripe for revolt, and desired only the presence of a small military band to
serve as a nucleus for their force. Believing that the Cuban population
would aid them, American adventurers enlisted and were ruined. They found
no aid. Not a Cuban joined them. They were treated as pirates and robbers
from the first moment of their landing. Nor could they expect any other
treatment in case of failure. They ceased to be American citizens the
moment they set out, as invaders, for the shores of Cuba."
[Illustration: A SPANISH BLOCK HOUSE]
The excitement of the Lopez incident was passing when it was revived,
in 1854, by the _Black Warrior_ experience, to which reference is made
elsewhere. Another invasion was projected by exuberant and adventurous
Americans. It was to sail from New Orleans under command of General
Quitman, a former Governor of the State of Mississippi. No secret was
made of the expedition, and Quitman openly boasted of his purposes, in
Washington. The reports having reached the White House, President Pierce
issued a proclamation warning "all persons, citizens of the United States
and others residing therein" that the General Government would not fail to
prosecute with due energy all those who presumed to disregard the laws of
the land and our treaty obligations. He charged all officers of the United
States to exert all their lawful power to maintain the authority and
preserve the peace of the country. Quitman was arrested, and put under
bonds to respect the neutrality laws. There was a limited uprising in
Puerto Principe, in 1851, and a conspiracy was revealed, in Pinar del Rio,
in 1852. A few years later the Liberal Club in Havana and the Cuban Junta
in New York were reported as raising money and organizing expeditions. Some
sailed, but they accomplished little, except as the activities appear as a
manifestation of the persistent opposition on the part of what was probably
only a small minority of the Cuban people. For several years, the unrest
and the agitation continued. Spain's blindness to the situation is
puzzling. In his _Cuba and International Relations_, Mr. Callahan says:
"Spain, after squandering a continent, had still clung tenaciously to Cuba;
and the changing governments which had been born (in Spain) only to be
strangled, held her with a taxing hand. While England had allowed her
colonies to rule themselves, Spain had persisted in keeping Cuba in the
same state of tutelage that existed when she was the greatest power in
the world, and when the idea of colonial rights had not developed." In
_Tomorrow in Cuba_, Mr. Pepper notes that "though the conception of
colonial home rule for Cuba was non-existent among the Spanish statesmen of
that day, the perception of it was clear on the part of the thinking
people of the island. The educated and wealthy Cubans who in 1865 formed
themselves into a national party and urged administrative and economic
changes upon Madrid felt the lack of understanding among Spanish statesmen.
The concessions asked were not a broad application of civil liberties. When
their programme was rejected in its entirety they ceased to ask favors.
They inaugurated the Ten Years' War." Regarding this action by the Cubans,
Dr. Enrique José Varona, a distinguished Cuban and a former deputy to the
Cortes, has stated that "before the insurrection of 1868, the reform party
which included the most enlightened, wealthy, and influential Cubans,
exhausted all the resources within their reach to induce Spain to initiate
a healthy change in her Cuban policy. The party started the publication of
periodicals in Madrid and in the island, addressed petitions, maintained a
great agitation throughout the country, and having succeeded in leading the
Spanish Government to make an inquiry into the economic, political, and
social conditions in Cuba, they presented a complete plan of government
which satisfied public requirements as well as the aspirations of the
people. The Spanish Government disdainfully cast aside the proposition as
useless, increased taxation, and proceeded to its exaction with extreme
severity." Here not seek its independence; the object was reform in
oppressive laws and in burdensome taxation, a measure of self-government,
under Spain, and a greater industrial and commercial freedom. It is most
difficult to understand the short-sightedness of the Spanish authorities.
The war soon followed the refusal of these entirely reasonable demands, and
the course of the Cubans is entirely to their credit. An acceptance of the
situation and a further submission would have shown them as contemptible.
The details of a conflict that lasted for ten years are quite impossible
of presentation in a few pages. Nor are they of value or interest to any
except special students who can find them elaborately set forth in many
volumes, some in Spanish and a few in English. Having tried once before to
cover this period as briefly and as adequately as possible, I can do no
better here than to repeat the story as told in an earlier work (_Cuba, and
the Intervention_). On the 10th of October, 1868, Carlos Manuel Cespedes
and his associates raised the cry of Cuban independence at Yara, in the
Province of Puerto Principe (now Camaguey). On the 10th of April, 1869,
there was proclaimed the Constitution of the Cuban Republic. During the
intervening months, there was considerable fighting, though it was largely
in the nature of guerrilla skirmishing. The Spanish Minister of State
asserted in a memorandum issued to Spain's representatives in other
countries, under date of February 3, 1876, that at the outbreak of the
insurrection Spain had 7,500 troops, all told, in Cuba. According to
General Sickels, at that time the American Minister to Spain, this number
was increased by reinforcements of 34,500 within the first year of the war.
The accuracy of this information, however, has been questioned. Prior
to the establishment of the so-called Republic, the affairs of the
insurrection were in the hands of an Assembly of Representatives. On
February 26, this body issued a decree proclaiming the abolition of slavery
throughout the island, and calling upon those who thus received their
freedom to "contribute their efforts to the independence of Cuba." During
the opening days of April, 1869, the Assembly met at Guiamaro. On the tenth
of that month a government was organized, with a president, vice-president,
general-in-chief of the army, secretaries of departments, and a parliament
or congress. Carlos Manuel Cespedes was chosen as President, and Manuel
de Quesada as General-in-Chief. A Constitution was adopted. Señor Morales
Lemus was appointed as minister to the United States, to represent the new
Republic, and to ask official recognition by the American Government. The
government which the United States was asked to recognize was a somewhat
vague institution. The insurrection, or revolution, if it may be so
called, at this time consisted of a nominal central government, chiefly
self-organized and self-elected, and various roving bands, probably
numbering some thousands in their aggregate, of men rudely and
incompetently armed, and showing little or nothing of military organization
or method.
Like all Cuban-Spanish wars and warfare, the destruction of property was a
common procedure. Some of the methods employed for the suppression of the
insurrection were not unlike those adopted by General Weyler in the later
war. At Bayamo, on April 4, 1869, Count Valmaseda, the Spanish Commandant
of that district, issued the following proclamation:
1. Every man, from the age of fifteen years upward, found away from his
place of habitation, who does not prove a justified reason therefor, will
be shot.
2. Every unoccupied habitation will be burned by the troops.
3. Every habitation from which no white flag floats, as a signal that its
occupants desire peace, will be reduced to ashes.
In the summer of 1869, the United States essayed a reconciliation and
an adjustment of the differences between the contestants. To this Spain
replied that the mediation of any nation in a purely domestic question was
wholly incompatible with the honor of Spain, and that the independence of
Cuba was inadmissible as a basis of negotiation. Heavy reinforcements were
sent from Spain, and the strife continued. The commerce of the island
was not greatly disturbed, for the reason that the great producing and
commercial centres lay to the westward, and the military activities were
confined, almost exclusively, to the eastern and central areas. In April,
1874, Mr. Fish, then Secretary of State, reported that "it is now more than
five years since the uprising (in Cuba) and it has been announced with
apparent authority, that Spain has lost upward of 80,000 men, and has
expended upward of $100,000,000, in efforts to suppress it; yet the
insurrection seems today as active and as powerful as it has ever been."
Spain's losses among her troops were not due so much to the casualties of
war as they were to the ravages of disease, especially yellow fever. The
process, in which both parties would appear to be about equally culpable,
of destroying property and taking life when occasion offered, proceedings
which are hardly to be dignified by the name of war, continued until the
beginning of 1878. Throughout the entire period of the war, the American
officials labored diligently for its termination on a basis that would give
fair promise of an enduring peace. Many questions arose concerning the
arrest of American citizens and the destruction of property of American
ownership. Proposals to grant the Cubans the rights of belligerents were
dismissed as not properly warranted by the conditions, and questions
arose regarding the supply of arms and ammunition, from this country, by
filibustering expeditions. References to Cuban affairs appear in many
presidential messages, and the matter was a subject of much discussion and
numerous measures in Congress. Diplomatic communication was constantly
active. In his message of December 7, 1875, President Grant said: "The past
year has furnished no evidence of an approaching termination of the ruinous
conflict which has been raging for seven years in the neighboring island
of Cuba. While conscious that the insurrection has shown a strength and
endurance which make it at least doubtful whether it be in the power of
Spain to subdue it, it seems unquestionable that no such civil organization
exists which may be recognized as an independent government capable of
performing its international obligations and entitled to be treated as one
of the powers of the earth." Nor did he then deem the grant of belligerent
rights to the Cubans as either expedient or properly warranted by the
circumstances.
In 1878, Martinez Campos was Governor-General of Cuba, and Maximo Gomez
was Commander-in-Chief of the Cuban forces. Both parties were weary of
the prolonged hostilities, and neither was able to compel the other to
surrender. Spain, however, professed a willingness to yield an important
part of the demands of her rebellious subjects. Martinez Campos and Gomez
met at Zanjon and, on February 10, 1878, mutually agreed to what has been
variously called a peace pact, a treaty, and a capitulation. The agreement
was based on provisions for a redress of Cuban grievances through greater
civil, political, and administrative privileges for the Cubans, with
forgetfulness of the past and amnesty for all then under sentence for
political offences. Delay in carrying these provisions into effect gave
rise to an attempt to renew the struggle two years later, but the effort
was a failure.
Matters then quieted down for a number of years. The Cubans waited to see
what would be done. The Spanish Governor-General still remained the supreme
power and, aside from the abolition of slavery, the application of the
Spanish Constitution and Spanish laws to Cuba, and Cuban representation
in the Cortes, much of which was rather form than fact, the island gained
little by the new conditions. Discontent and protest continued and, at
last, broke again into open rebellion in 1895.
The story of that experience is told in another chapter. In 1906, there
came one of the most deplorable experiences in the history of the island,
the first and only discreditable revolution. The causes of the experience
are not open to our criticism. Our own records show too much of precisely
the same kind of work, illegal registration, ballot box stuffing, threats
and bribery. The first election in the new Republic was carried with only
a limited and somewhat perfunctory opposition to the candidacy of Estrada
Palma. Before the second election came, in 1905, he allied himself
definitely with an organization then known as the Moderate party. The
opposition was known as the Liberal party. Responsibility for the
disgraceful campaign that followed rests on both, almost equally. The
particular difference lies in the fact that, the principal offices having
been given to adherents of the Moderates, they were able to control both
registration and election proceedings. But the methods employed by the
opposition were no less censurable. Realizing defeat, the Liberals withdrew
from the field, by concerted action, on the day of the election, and the
Moderates elected every one of their candidates. Naturally, a feeling of
bitter resentment was created, and there came, in the spring of 1906,
rumors of armed revolt. In August, an actual insurrection was begun.
Disgruntled political leaders gathered formidable bands in Pinar del Rio
and in Santa Clara provinces. President Palma became seriously alarmed,
even actually frightened. Through the United States Consul-General in
Havana, he sent urgent appeals to Washington for naval and military aid.
Mr. Taft, then Secretary of War, and Mr. Bacon, the Assistant Secretary of
State, were sent to Havana to investigate and report on the situation. They
arrived in Havana on September 19. After ten days of careful and thorough
study, and earnest effort to effect an adjustment, a proclamation was
issued declaring the creation of a provisional government. This was
accepted by both parties and the insurgent bands dispersed. Charles E.
Magoon was sent down as Provisional Governor. Americans who are disposed to
censure the Cubans for this experience in their history, may perhaps turn
with profit to some little experiences in the history of their own country
in its political infancy, in 1786 and 1794. Those incidents do not relieve
the Cubans of the censure to which they are open, but they make it a
little difficult for us to condemn them with proper grace and dignity. The
provisional government continued until January 28, 1909, when control was
turned over to the duly elected officials, they being the same who withdrew
from the polls, acknowledging defeat, in the election of 1905.
X
_INDEPENDENCE_
Cuba's final movement for independence began on February 24, 1895. Under
the treaty of Zanjon, executed in 1878, Spain agreed to grant to the Cubans
such reforms as would remove their grounds of complaint, long continued.
The Cubans denied that the terms of the agreement had been kept. Those
terms are indicated in a statement submitted by Tomas Estrada y Palma to
Richard Olney, then Secretary of State of the United States. It bore the
date of December 7, 1895. The communication sets forth, from the Cuban
point of view, of course, the causes of the revolution of 1895. It says:
"These causes are substantially the same as those of the former revolution,
lasting from 1868 to 1878, and terminating only on the representation of
the Spanish Government that Cuba would be granted such reforms as
would remove the grounds of complaint on the part of the Cuban people.
Unfortunately the hopes thus held out have never been realized. The
representation which was to be given the Cubans has proved to be absolutely
without character; taxes have been levied anew on everything conceivable;
the offices in the island have increased, but the officers are all
Spaniards; the native Cubans have been left with no public duties
whatsoever to perform, except the payment of taxes to the Government and
blackmail to the officials, without privilege even to move from place to
place in the island except on the permission of government authority.
"Spain has framed laws so that the natives have substantially been deprived
of the right of suffrage. The taxes levied have been almost entirely
devoted to support the army and navy in Cuba, to pay interest on the debt
that Spain has saddled on the island, and to pay the salaries of the vast
number of Spanish office holders, devoting only $746,000 for internal
improvements out of the $26,000,000 collected by tax. No public schools are
in reach of the masses for their education. All the principal industries
of the island are hampered by excessive imposts. Her commerce with every
country but Spain has been crippled in every possible manner, as can
readily be seen by the frequent protests of shipowners and merchants.
"The Cubans have no security of person or property. The judiciary are
instruments of the military authorities. Trial by military tribunals can be
ordered at any time at the will of the Captain-General. There is, besides,
no freedom of speech, press, or religion. In point of fact, the causes of
the Revolution of 1775 in this country were not nearly as grave as those
that have driven the Cuban people to the various insurrections which
culminated in the present revolution."
Spain, of course, denied these charges, and asserted that the agreement had
been kept in good faith. The Spanish Government may have been technically
correct in its claim that all laws necessary to the fulfillment of its
promises had been enacted. But it seems entirely certain that they had not
been made effective. The conditions of the Cubans were in no way improved
and, some time before the outbreak, they began preparations for armed
resistance. In _Cuba and the Intervention_ (published in 1905) I have
already written an outline review of the experience of the revolution, and
I shall here make use of extracts from that volume. The notable leader
and instigator of the movement was José Marti, a patriot, a poet, and a
dreamer, but a man of action. He visited General Maximo Gomez at his home
in Santo Domingo, where that doughty old warrior had betaken himself after
the conclusion of the Ten Years' War. Gomez accepted the command of the
proposed army of Cuban liberation. Antonio Maceo also accepted a command.
He was a mulatto, an able and daring fighter, whose motives were perhaps a
compound of patriotism, hatred of Spain, and a love for the excitement of
warfare. Others whose names are written large in Cuba's history soon joined
the movement. A _junta_, or committee, was organized with headquarters in
New York. After the death of Marti, this was placed in charge of Tomas
Estrada y Palma, who afterward became the first President of the new
Republic. Its work was to raise funds, obtain and forward supplies and
ammunition, and to advance the cause in all possible ways. There were legal
battles to be fought by and through this organization, and Mr. Horatio S.
Rubens, a New York lawyer, was placed in charge of that department. The
twenty-fourth of February was set for the beginning of activities, but arms
were lacking, and while the movement was actually begun on that day, the
operations of the first six weeks or so were limited to numerous local
uprisings of little moment. But the local authorities became alarmed, and
martial law was proclaimed in Santa Clara and Matanzas provinces on the
27th. Spain became alarmed also, and immediately despatched General
Martinez Campos as Governor-General of the island, to succeed General
Calleja. He assumed command on April 16. Maceo and his associates, among
them his brother José, also a fighter of note, landed from Costa Rica
on April 1. Marti, Gomez, and others, reached the island on the 11th.
Meanwhile, Bartolomé Maso, an influential planter in Oriente, had been in
command of the forces in his vicinity. Many joined, and others stood ready
to join as soon as they could be equipped. Engagements with the Spanish
troops soon became a matter of daily occurrence, and Martinez Campos
realized that a formidable movement was on. Spain hurried thousands of
soldiers to the island.
For the first five months, the insurgents kept their opponents busy with an
almost uninterrupted series of little engagements, a guerrilla warfare. In
one of these, on May 19, José Marti was killed. His death was a severe blow
to the patriots, but it served rather to inspire a greater activity than
to check the movement. His death came in the effort of a small band of
insurgents to pass the Spanish cordon designed to confine activities to
Oriente Province. Immediately after the death of Marti, Maximo Gomez
crossed that barrier and organized an army in Camaguey. The first
engagement properly to be regarded as a battle occurred at Peralejo, near
Bayamo, in Oriente, about the middle of July. The respective leaders were
Antonio Maceo and General Martinez Campos, in person. The victory fell to
Maceo, and Martinez Campos barely eluded capture. The engagements of the
Ten Years' War were confined to the then sparsely settled eastern half of
the island. Those of the revolution of 1895 covered the greater part of the
island, sweeping gradually but steadily from east to west. During my first
visit to Cuba, I was frequently puzzled by references to "the invasion."
"What invasion?" I asked, "Who invaded the country?" I found that it meant
the westward sweep of the liberating army under Gomez and Maceo. It
covered a period of more than two years of frequent fighting and general
destruction of property. Early in the operations Gomez issued the following
proclamation:
GENERAL HEADQUARTERS OF THE ARMY OF LIBERATION
Najasa, Camaguey, July 1, 1895.
To THE PLANTERS AND OWNERS OF CATTLE RANCHES:
_In accord with the great interests of the revolution for the independence
of the country, and for which we are in arms_:
WHEREAS, _all exploitations of any product whatsoever are aids and
resources to the Government that we are fighting, it is resolved by the
general-in-chief to issue this general order throughout the island, that
the introduction of articles of commerce, as well as beef and cattle,
into the towns occupied by the enemy, is absolutely prohibited. The sugar
plantations will stop their labors, and those who shall attempt to grind
the crop notwithstanding this order, will have their cane burned and their
buildings demolished. The person who, disobeying this order, shall try to
profit from the present situation of affairs, will show by his conduct
little respect for the rights of the revolution of redemption, and
therefore shall be considered as an enemy, treated as a traitor, and tried
as such in case of his capture_.
(_Signed_) MAXIMO GOMEZ,
The General-in-Chief.
This proved only partially effective, and it was followed by a circular to
commanding officers, a few months later, reading thus:
HEADQUARTERS OF THE ARMY OF LIBERATION
Territory of Sancti Spiritus, November 6, 1895.
_Animated by the spirit of unchangeable resolution in defence of the rights
of the revolution of redemption of this country of colonists, humiliated
and despised by Spain, and in harmony with what has been decreed concerning
the subject in the circular dated the 1st of July, I have ordered the
following_:
ARTICLE I. _That all plantations shall be totally destroyed, their cane and
outbuildings burned, and railroad connections destroyed_.