Chapter V: Part 5

Not until the years immediately preceding the revolutions by which the United States and Cuba secured their independence, was there any general demand for definite separation from the mother-country. The desire in both was a fuller measure of economic and commercial opportunity. One striking parallel may be noted. The Tories, or "loyalists," in this country have their counterpart in the Cuban _Autonomistas_. Referring to conditions in 1763, Mr. Channing states that "never had the colonists felt a greater pride in their connection with the British empire." Among the great figures of the pre-revolutionary period in this country, none stands out more clearly than James Otis, of Boston, and Patrick Henry, of Virginia. In an impassioned address, in 1763, Otis declared that "every British subject in America is of common right, by acts of Parliament, and by the laws of God and nature, entitled to all the essential privileges of Britons. What God in his Providence has united let no man dare attempt to pull asunder." Thirteen years later, the sundering blow was struck. Patrick Henry's resolutions submitted to the Virginia House of Burgesses, in 1765, set that colony afire, but at that time neither he nor his associates desired separation and independence if their natural rights were recognized. It was not until the revolution of 1895 that the independence of Cuba became a national demand, a movement based on realization of the hopelessness of further dependence upon Spain for the desired economic and fiscal relief. As in the American colonies there appeared, from time to time, individuals or isolated groups who demanded drastic action on the part of the colonists, so were there Cubans who, from time to time, appeared with similar demands. Nathaniel Bacon headed a formidable revolution in Virginia in 1676. Massachusetts rebelled against Andros and Dudley in 1689. From the passage of the Navigation Acts, in the middle of the 17th Century, until the culmination in 1775, there was an undercurrent of friction and a succession of protests. The Cuban condition was quite the same excepting the fact of burdens more grievous and more frequent open outbreaks.

The records of many of the disorders are fragmentary. Spain had no desire to give them publicity, and the Cubans had few means for doing so. The _Report on the Census of Cuba_, prepared by the War Department of the United States, in 1899, contains a summary of the various disorders in the island. The first is the rioting in 1717, when Captain-General Roja enforced the decree establishing a government monopoly in tobacco. The disturbances in Haiti and Santo Domingo (1791-1800) resulting in the establishment of independence in Haiti, under Toussaint, excited unimportant uprisings on the part of negroes in Cuba, but they were quickly suppressed. The first movement worthy of note came in 1823. It was a consequence of the general movement that extended throughout Spanish-America and resulted in the independence of all Spain's former colonies, excepting Cuba and Porto Rico. That the influence of so vast a movement should have been felt in Cuba was almost inevitable. As disorder continued throughout much of the time, the period 1820-1830 is best considered collectively. The same influences were active, and the same forces were operative for the greater part of the term. The accounts of it all are greatly confused, and several nations were involved, including Spain, the United States, France, England, Mexico, and Colombia. The slavery question was involved, as was the question of the transfer of the island to some Power other than Spain. Independence was the aim of some, though probably no very great number. Practically all of Cuba's later experiences have their roots in this period. During these ten years, the issue between Cubans who sought a larger national and economic life, and the Spanish element that insisted upon the continuance of Spanish absolutism, had its definite beginning, to remain a cause of almost constant friction for three-quarters of a century. The Spanish Constitution of 1812, abrogated in 1814, was again proclaimed in 1820, and again abrogated in 1823. The effort of Captain-General Vives, acting under orders from Ferdinand VII, to restore absolutism encountered both vigorous opposition and strong support. Secret societies were organized, whose exact purposes do not appear to be well known. Some have asserted that it was a Masonic movement, while others have held that the organizations were more in the nature of the _Carbonari_. One of them, called the _Soles de Bolivar_, in some way gave its name to the immediate activities. It was charged with having planned a rebellion against the government, but the plans were discovered and the leaders were arrested. The movement appears to have been widespread, with its headquarters in Matanzas. An uprising was planned to take place on August 16, 1823, but on that day Jose Francisco Lemus, the leader, and a number of his associates were arrested and imprisoned. Among them was José Maria Heredia, the Cuban poet, who was, for this offence, condemned, in 1824, to perpetual exile for the crime of treason.

Others engaged in the conspiracy fled the country. Some were officially deported. But the punishments imposed on these people served to excite the animosity of many more, and a period of agitation followed, marked by occasional outbreaks and rioting. To meet the situation, an army intended to be employed in reconquering some of the colonies that had already declared and established their independence, was retained on the island. In 1825, a royal decree conferred on the Spanish Governor in Cuba a power practically absolute. This excited still further the anger of the Cuban element and led to other manifestations of discontent. There was a combination of political agitation with revolutionary demonstrations. In 1826, there was a local uprising in Puerto Principe, directed more particularly against the Spanish garrison, whose conduct was regarded as highly offensive. A year or two later, Cuban exiles in Mexico and Colombia, with support from the people of those countries, organized a secret society known as the "Black Eagle," having for its purpose a Cuban revolution. Its headquarters were in Mexico, and its activities were fruitless. Many were arrested and tried and sentenced to death or deportation. But Vives realized the folly of adding more fuel to the flames, and the sentences were in all cases either mitigated or revoked. This seems to have brought that particular series of conspiracies to an end. It was a time of active political agitation and conspiracy, with occasional local riots that were quickly suppressed. While much of it was revolutionary in its aims and purposes, none of it may with any fitness be called a revolution, unless a prevalence of a lively spirit of opposition and rebellion is to be so classed. The agitation settled down for a number of years, but broke out in local spasms occasionally. There were riots and disorders, but that is not revolution. It is to be remembered that the cause of all this disturbance was, in the main, an entirely creditable sentiment, quite as creditable as that which led the American colonists to resist the Stamp taxes and to destroy tea. It was a natural and righteous protest against oppression, a movement lasting for seventy-five years, for which Americans, particularly, should award praise rather than blame or carping criticism. Having done, in our own way, very much what the Cubans have done, in their way, we are not free to condemn them. The only real difference is that their methods were, on the whole, a little more strenuous than ours. Cuban blood was stirred by the successful revolutions in Mexico and in Spanish South America, and conditions in the island were contrasted with those in the then somewhat new United States. Something of the part played by this country in the experiences of the time is presented in another chapter, on the relations of the two countries.

The next movement worthy of note came in 1849, if we omit the quarrel, in 1837, between General Tacon and his subordinate, General Lorenzo, and the alleged proposal of the slaves in the neighborhood of Matanzas to rise and slaughter all the whites. Neither of these quite belongs in the revolutionary class. In 1847, a conspiracy was organized in the vicinity of Cienfuegos. Its leader was General Narciso Lopez. The movement was discovered, and some of the participants were imprisoned. Lopez escaped to the United States where he associated himself with a group of Cuban exiles, and opened correspondence with sympathizers in the island. They were joined by a considerable number of adventurous Americans, inspired by a variety of motives. The declared purpose of the enterprise was independence as the alternative of reform in Spanish laws. An expedition was organized, but the plans became known and President Taylor, on August 11, 1849, issued a proclamation in which he declared that "an enterprise to invade the territories of a friendly nation, set on foot and prosecuted within the limits of the United States, is in the highest degree criminal." He therefore warned all citizens of the United States who might participate in such an enterprise that they would be subject to heavy penalties, and would forfeit the protection of their country. He also called on "every officer of this Government, civil or military, to use all efforts in his power to arrest for trial and punishment every such offender against the laws." The party was captured as it was leaving New York. The best evidence of the time is to the effect that there was in Cuba neither demand for nor support of such a movement, but Lopez and his associates, many of them Americans, persisted. A second expedition was arranged, and a party of more than six hundred men, many of them American citizens, assembled on the island of Contoy, off the Yucatan coast, and on May 19, 1850, landed at Cardenas. But there was no uprising on the part of the people. The Spanish authorities, informed of the expedition, sent ships by sea and troops by land. After a sharp skirmish, the invaders fled for their lives. Lopez and those who escaped with him succeeded in reaching Key West. He went to Savannah, where he was arrested but promptly liberated in response to public clamor. But even this did not satisfy the enthusiastic liberator of a people who did not want to be liberated in that way. He tried again in the following year. On August 3, 1851, he sailed from near New Orleans, on the steamer _Pampero_, in command of a force of about four hundred, largely composed of young Americans who had been lured into the enterprise by assurance of thrilling adventure and large pay. They landed near Bahia Honda, about fifty miles west of Havana. Here, again, the Cubans refused to rise and join the invaders. Here, again, they encountered the Spanish forces by whom they were beaten and routed. Many were killed, some were captured, and others escaped into the surrounding country and were captured afterward. Lopez was among the captured. He was taken to Havana, and died by _garrote_ in the little fortress La Punta. His first officer, Colonel Crittenden, and some fifty Americans were captured and taken to Atares, the fortress at the head of Havana harbor, where they were shot. For that somewhat brutal act, the United States could ask no indemnity. In violation of the laws of the United States, they had invaded the territory of a nation with which the country was at peace. In the initial issue of the _New York Times_, on October 18, 1851, there appeared a review of the incident, presenting a contemporaneous opinion of the experience. It was, in part, as follows:

"Nothing can be clearer than the fact that, for the present, at least, 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."

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_.

ARTICLE II. _All laborers who shall aid the sugar factories--these sources of supplies that we must deprive the enemy of--shall be considered as traitors to their country_.

ARTICLE III. _All who are caught in the act, or whose violation of Article II shall be proven, shall be shot. Let all chiefs of operations of the army of liberty comply with this order, determined to furl triumphantly, even over ruin and ashes, the flag of the Republic of Cuba_.

_In regard to the manner of waging the war, follow the private instructions that I have already given_.

_For the sake of the honor of our arms and your well-known courage and patriotism, it is expected that you will strictly comply with the above orders_.

_(Signed)_ MAXIMO GOMEZ,
General-in-Chief.

To peace-loving souls, all this sounds very brutal, but all war is brutal and barbarous. In our strife in the Philippines, from 1899 to 1902, many of us were proud to be told that we were conducting a "humane war." There is no such thing. The very terms are contradictory. Gomez had declared that if Spain would not give up Cuba to the Cubans, the Cubans would themselves render the island so worthless and desolate a possession that Spain could not afford to hold it. Short of further submission to a rule that was, very rightly, regarded as no longer endurable, no other course was open to them. Another proclamation appeared a few days later.

HEADQUARTERS OF THE ARMY OF
LIBERATION

Sancti Spiritus, November 11 1895.

To HONEST MEN, VICTIMS OF THE TORCH:

_The painful measure made necessary by the revolution of redemption drenched in innocent blood from Hatuey to our own times by cruel and merciless Spain will plunge you in misery. As general-in-chief of the army of liberation, it is my duty to lead it to victory, without permitting myself to be restrained or terrified, by any means necessary to place Cuba in the shortest time in possession of her dearest ideal. I therefore place the responsibility for so great a ruin on those who look on impassively and force us to those extreme measures which they then condemn like dolts and hypocrites as they are. After so many years of supplication, humiliation, contumely, banishment, and death, when this people, of its own will, has arisen in arms, there remains no solution but to triumph, it matters not what means are employed to accomplish it_.

_This people cannot hesitate between the wealth of Spain and the liberty of Cuba. Its greatest crime would be to stain the land with blood without effecting its purposes because of puerile scruples and fears which do not concur with the character of the men who are in the field, challenging the fury of an army which is one of the bravest in the world, but which in this war is without enthusiasm or faith, ill-fed and unpaid. The war did not begin February 24; it is about to begin now_.

_The war had to be organized; it was necessary to calm and lead into the proper channels the revolutionary spirit always exaggerated in the beginning by wild enthusiasm. The struggle ought to begin in obedience to a plan and method more or less studied, as the result of the peculiarities of this war. This has already been done. Let Spain now send her soldiers to rivet the chains on her slaves; the children of this land are in the field, armed with the weapons of liberty. The struggle will be terrible, but success will crown the revolution and the efforts of the oppressed_.

(_Signed_) MAXIMO GOMEZ, General-in-Chief.

Such an address doubtless savors of bombast to many Americans, but in the history of political and military oratory in their own land they can find an endless number of speeches that, in that particular quality, rival if they do not surpass it. The Cuban situation was desperate, and the Cuban attitude was one of fixed determination. Productive industry was generally suppressed, and much property was destroyed, by both Cubans and Spaniards. This necessarily threw many out of employment, and drove them into the insurgent ranks. The Cubans are a peaceful people. All desired relief from oppressive conditions, but many did not want war. While many entered the army from patriotic motives, many others were brought into it only as a consequence of conditions created by the conflict. The measures adopted were severe, but decision of the contest by pitched battles was quite impossible. The quoted figures are somewhat unreliable, but the Spanish forces outnumbered the Cubans by at least five to one, and they could obtain freely the supplies and ammunition that the Cubans could obtain only by filibustering expeditions. The Cubans, therefore, adopted a policy, the only policy that afforded promise of success. Spain poured in fresh troops until, by the close of 1895, its army is reported as numbering 200,000 men.

The Cubans carried the contest westward from Oriente and Camaguey, through Santa Clara, and into the provinces of Matanzas, Havana, and Pinar del Rio.

The _trocha_ across the island, from Jucaro on the south to Moron on the north, originally constructed during the Ten Years' War, was a line of blockhouses, connected by barbed wire tangles, along a railway. This obstructed but did not stop the Cuban advance. The authorities declared martial law in the provinces of Havana and Pinar del Rio on January 2, 1896. Gomez advanced to Marianao, at Havana's very door, and that city was terrified. Maceo was operating immediately beyond him in Pinar del Rio, through the most important part of which he swept with torch and machete. The Spaniards built a _trocha_ there from Mariel southward. Maceo crossed it and continued his work of destruction, in which large numbers of the people of the region joined. He burned and destroyed Spanish property; the Spaniards, in retaliation, burned and destroyed property belonging to Cubans. Along the highway from Marianao to Guanajay, out of many stately country residences, only one was left standing. Villages were destroyed and hamlets were wrecked. On one of his expeditions in December, 1896, Maceo was killed near Punta Brava, within fifteen miles of Havana. Gomez planned this westward sweep, from Oriente, six hundred miles away, but to Antonio Maceo belongs a large part of the credit for its execution. The weakness of the Ten Years' War was that it did not extend beyond the thinly populated region of the east; Gomez and Maceo carried their war to the very gates of the Spanish strongholds. There were occasional conflicts that might well be called battles, but much of it was carried on by the Cubans by sudden and unexpected dashes into Spanish camps or moving columns, brief but sometimes bloody encounters from which the attacking force melted away after inflicting such damage as it could. Guerrilla warfare is not perhaps a respectable method of fighting. It involves much of what is commonly regarded as outlawry, of pillage and of plunder, of destruction and devastation. These results become respectable only when attained through conventional processes, and are in some way supposed to be ennobled by those processes. But they sometimes become the only means by which the weak can meet the strong. Such they seemed to be in the Cuban revolt against the Spaniards, when Maximo Gomez and Antonio Maceo made guerrilla warfare almost a military science. Gomez formulated his plan of campaign, but, with the means at his disposal, its successful execution was possible only by the methods adopted. At all events, it succeeded. The Cubans were not strong enough to drive Spain out of the island by force of arms, but they showed themselves unconquerable by the Spanish troops. They had once carried on a war for ten years in a limited area; by the methods adopted, they could repeat that experience practically throughout the island. They could at least keep insurrection alive until Spain should yield to their terms, or until the United States should be compelled to intervene. No great movements, but constant irritation, and the suspension of all industry, was the policy adopted and pursued for the year 1897.

But there was another side to it all, a different line of activity. Immediately after his arrival on the island, on April 11, 1895, Marti had issued a call for the selection of representatives to form a civil government. He was killed before this was effected. An assembly met, at Jimaguayu, in Camaguey, on September 13, 1895. It consisted of twenty members, representing nearly all parts of the island. Its purpose was the organization of a Cuban Republic. On the 16th, it adopted a Constitution and, on the 18th, elected, as President, Salvador Cisneros Betancourt, and as Vice-President, Bartolomé Maso. Secretaries and sub-secretaries were duly chosen, and all were formally installed. Maximo Gomez was officially appointed as General-in-Chief of the army, with Antonio Maceo as Lieutenant General. Tomas Estrada y Palma was chosen as delegate plenipotentiary and general agent abroad, with headquarters in New York. Both civil and military organizations were, for a time, crude and somewhat incoherent. It could not be otherwise. They were engaged in a movement that could only succeed by success. Arms and money were lacking. The civil government was desirable in a field that the military arm could not cover. Action lay with the military and with the Cuban Junta in the United States. The latter organization immediately became active. Calls were made for financial assistance and liberal responses were made, chiefly by Cubans. In 1896 and 1897, bonds were issued and sold, or were exchanged for supplies and munitions of war. For a number of years scandalous stories were afloat declaring that these bonds were printed by the acre, and issued, purely for speculative purposes, to the extent of millions upon millions of dollars. The truth is that every bond printed, whether issued or unissued, has been fully accounted for, the actual issue being about $2,200,000. Provision was made in Cuba's Constitution for the recognition of this indebtedness, and it has since been discharged, while the plates and the unused bonds have been destroyed. There may have been speculation in the bonds, as there was in the bonds issued by the United States during the Civil War, but Cuba's conduct in the whole matter has been honest and most honorable. In that matter certainly, its detractors have been confounded. The principal difficulty encountered by the _junta_ was the despatch to Cuba of the men and the munitions so greatly needed by those in the field. That, however, is a story that I shall endeavor to tell, in part, in another chapter. It cannot now, if ever, be told in full.

Meanwhile, a complicated political situation developed. The story is too long and too complicated for review in detail. It may be given in general outline. The Peace of 1878 was followed by the organization of political parties, the Liberal and the Union Constitutional. At first, there was comparatively little difference in the essence of their respective platforms, but the lines diverged as the situation developed. The Liberal party became, and remained, the Cuban party, and the Union Constitutional became the Spanish party. Later on, the Liberals became the Autonomists. Their object, for twenty years, was reform in conditions under the rule of Spain. There was no independence party. That was organized, in 1895, by Marti, Gomez, Maceo, Maso, and their associates. It had only one plank in its platform--_Cuba Libre y Independiente_--whatever the cost to the island and its people. "The Autonomist group," says Mr. Pepper, in his _Tomorrow in Cuba_, "became as much a political party as it could become under Spanish institutions." It grew in strength and influence, and continued its agitation persistently and stubbornly. The Spanish Cortes busied itself with discussion of Cuban affairs, but reached no conclusions, produced no results. In 1893, there came the definite organization of the Reformist party, with aims not differing greatly from those of the _Autonomistas_. But Spain delayed until Marti and his followers struck their blow. Official efforts to placate them failed utterly, as did efforts to intimidate them or to conquer them. The Autonomists declared their support of the existing Government, and rebuked the insurgents in a _manifesto_ issued on April 4, 1895, six weeks after the outbreak. They only succeeded in antagonizing both sides, the Spanish authorities and the revolutionists. Spain, greatly alarmed, recalled Martinez Campos and sent out Weyler to succeed him. Had Spain followed the advice of Martinez Campos, the failure of the insurrection would have been little short of certain. It sent out Weyler, on whom the Cubans, twenty years earlier, had conferred the title of "Butcher." This step threw to the side of the insurgents the great mass of the middle class Cubans who had previously wavered in uncertainty, questioning the success of revolution while adhering to its general object. Weyler instituted the brutal policy that came to be known as reconcentration. It may be said, in a way, that the Cuban forces themselves instituted this policy. To clear the country in which they were operating, they had ordered all Spaniards and Spanish sympathizers to betake themselves to the cities and towns occupied by Spanish garrisons. This was inconvenient for its victims, but its purpose was humane. Gomez also sought to concentrate the Cubans, particularly the women and children, in the recesses of the hills where they would be less exposed to danger than they would be in their homes. This also was a humane purpose.

Weyler's application of this policy was utterly brutal. The people of the country were herded in prison camps, in settlements surrounded by stockades or trenches beyond which they might not pass. No provision was made for their food or maintenance. The victims were non-combatants, women, and children. In his message of December, 1897, President McKinley said of this system, as applied by Weyler, "It was not civilized warfare; it was extermination. The only peace it could beget was that of the wilderness and the grave." In my experience as a campaign correspondent in several conflicts, I have necessarily seen more or less of gruesome sights, the result of disease and wounds, but I have seen nothing in any way comparable, in horror and pitifulness, to the victims of this abominable system. To describe their condition in detail would be little short of offensive, those groups of hopeless, helpless sufferers who lingered only until death came and kindly put them out of their misery and pain. But by this time, two forces had come into active operation, dire alarm in Spain and wrath and indignation in the United States. Weyler had failed as Martinez Campos, when leaving the island, predicted. He was recalled, and was succeeded, on October 31, 1897, by General Blanco. The new incumbent tried conciliation, but it failed. The work had gone too far. The party in the field had become the dominant party, not to be suppressed either by force of arms or by promises of political and economic reform. At last, Spain yielded. Outside pressure on Madrid, chiefly from the United States, prevailed. A scheme for Cuban autonomy was devised and, on January 1, 1898, was put into effect. But it came too late. It was welcomed by many non-participants in the war, and a form of government was organized under it. But the party then dominant, the army in the field, distrusted the arrangement and would have none of it. All overtures were rejected and the struggle continued. On February 15, 1898, came the disaster to the battleship _Maine_, in the harbor of Havana. On April 11th, President McKinley's historic message went to Congress, declaring that "the only hope of relief and repose from a condition which can no longer be endured is the enforced pacification of Cuba," and asking for power and authority to use the military and naval forces of the United States to effect a termination of the strife in Cuba. Such, in the briefest possible outline, is the record of this eventful period, eventful alike for Cuba and for the United States.