The History of Cuba, vol. 4
by Willis Fletcher Johnson · English · Gutenberg #33848 · 750,864 chars · public domain (US)
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Title: The History of Cuba, vol. 4
Author: Willis Fletcher Johnson
Release date: October 8, 2010 [eBook #33848]
Language: English
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Produced by Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
[Etext transcriber's note:
The use of Spanish accents in this text varies and has not been altered
(ie. both Senor and Señor [tilde n], Senora and Señora [tilde n], José
[acute accented letter e] and Jose appear; both Nunez and Nuñez [tilde
n], Marti and Martí [acute accented i], Carreno and Carreño appear
[tilde n].)
Several typographical errors have been corrected
(Almandares=>Almendares, Donate=>Donato, etc.).]
[Illustration: JOSÉ MARTÍ
The first great apostle and martyr of the Cuban War of Independence,
José Martí, was born in Havana on January 28, 1853, and fell in battle
at Dos Rios on May 19, 1895. He was a Professor of Literature, Doctor of
Laws, economist, philosopher, essayist, journalist, poet, historian,
statesman, tribune of the people, organizer of the final and triumphant
cause of Cuban freedom. He suffered imprisonment in Spain and exile in
Mexico, Guatemala, and the United States, doing his crowning work in the
last-named country as the vitalizing and energizing head of the Cuban
Junta in New York. His fame must be lasting as the nation which he
founded, wide as the world which he adorned.]
THE
HISTORY OF CUBA
BY
WILLIS FLETCHER JOHNSON
A.M., L.H.D.
Author of "A Century of Expansion," "Four Centuries of
the Panama Canal," "America's Foreign Relations"
Honorary Professor of the History of American Foreign
Relations in New York University
_WITH ILLUSTRATIONS_
VOLUME FOUR
[Illustration]
NEW YORK
B. F. BUCK & COMPANY, INC.
156 FIFTH AVENUE
1920
Copyright, 1920,
BY CENTURY HISTORY CO.
_All rights reserved_
ENTERED AT STATIONERS HALL
LONDON, ENGLAND.
PRINTED IN U. S. A.
CONTENTS
PAGE
CHAPTER I 1
Cuba for the Cubans--Era of the War of Independence--Organization of the
Cuban Revolutionary Party--Vigilance of the Spanish Government--The
Sartorius Uprising--The Abarzuza "Home Rule" Measure--Beginning of the
War of Independence--José Marti, His Genius and His Work--Members of the
Junta in New York--Independence the Aim--Marti's Departure for
Cuba--Association with Maximo Gomez--Death of Marti--His Legacy of
Ideals to Cuba.
CHAPTER II 19
Aims and Methods of the Junta--Efforts to Avoid American
Complications--Filibustering Expeditions--Contraband Messenger
Service--Attitude of the Various Classes of the Cuban People Toward the
Revolution--No Racial nor Partisan Differences--The Spanish Element--The
Mass of the Cuban People United for National Independence.
CHAPTER III 29
The First Uprising--Failure in Havana--Success in Oriente--Response of
the Spanish Authorities--Superior Numbers of the Spanish Forces--Early
Complications with the United States-Seeking Terms with the
Patriots--Grim Reception of an Envoy--Ministerial Crisis at Madrid over
Cuban Affairs--Martinez Campos, "Spain's Greatest Soldier," Sent to
Cuba--His Conciliatory Policy--His Military Preparations--Antonio
Maceo--Uprisings in Many Places--Provisional Government of the
Patriots--Campos's Barricades--Campos Beaten by Maceo.
CHAPTER IV 47
Declaration of Cuban Independence--First Constitutional Convention--The
First Government of Ministers--Founders of the Cuban
Government--Desperate Efforts of Campos--Disadvantages of the
Cubans--Plantation Work Forbidden--Campaigns by Maceo and Gomez--Losses
of the Spaniards at Sea--Reenforcements from Spain Welcomed--Cuban
Headquarters at Las Tunas--Invasion of Matanzas--Defeat and Narrow
Escape of Campos--Action of the Autonomists--Loyalty Pledged to
Campos--State of Siege in Havana--Campos Recalled to Spain.
CHAPTER V 65
General Marin--General Weyler the New Captain-General--His Arrival and
Remorseless Policy--Cuban Elections a Farce--The Trocha--A War of
Ruthless Destruction--Many Filibustering Expeditions--Interest of the
United States Government--Diplomatic Controversies--Efficiency of the
Provisional Government--Strengthening the Trocha--Activity of Maceo--His
Betrayal and Death--Campaigns of Gomez and Others--Calixto Garcia--The
Great Advance Westward--President Cleveland's Significant Message to the
United States Congress.
CHAPTER VI 82
Bad Effects of Maceo's Death--Weyler in the Field Against Gomez--Daring
and Death of Bandera--Dissensions in the Camp of Gomez--Weyler's
Concentration Policy--A Practical Attempt at Extermination--Senator
Proctor's Observations--President McKinley's Message--Crisis in
Spain--Weyler Recalled and Succeeded by Ramon Blanco--Further Attempts
at Reform and Conciliation--Condition of Cuba--The Revolutionists
Uncompromising--The Ruiz-Aranguren Tragedy--Organization of the
Autonomist Government--Attitude of the Spaniards--Visit of the Maine to
Havana--Destruction of the Vessel--The Investigations--Futile Efforts of
the Autonomist Government
CHAPTER VII 103
The Destruction of the Maine not the Cause of American
Intervention--Causes Which Led to the War--Diplomatic
Negotiations--German Intrigue--President McKinley's War Message--His
Attitude Toward the Cuban People--Spanish Resentment--Declaration of
War--American Agents Sent to Cuba--Attitude of Maximo Gomez--Supplies,
not Troops, Wanted--Blockade of the Cuban Coast--Spanish Fleet at
Santiago--Landing of the American Army--Operations at Santiago--Services
of the "Rough Riders"--Naval Battle of Santiago--Surrender of the
Spanish Army--The Armistice.
CHAPTER VIII 118
Departure of the Spanish Forces from Cuba--Treaty of Peace Between the
United States and Spain--Cuba to be Made Independent--The Cuban
Debt--First American Government of Intervention--The Roll of Spanish
Rulers from Velasquez in 1512 to Castellanos in 1899--Relations between
Americans and Cubans--Disbandment of the Provisional Government and
Demobilization of the Cuban Army--A Mutinous Demonstration--Paying Off
the Cuban Soldiers.
CHAPTER IX 139
American Occupation of Cuba--General Wood's Administration at
Santiago--His Antecedents and Preparation for His Great Work--A
Formidable Undertaking--Conquering Pestilence--Organization of the Rural
Guards--American Administration at Havana and Throughout the
Island--Grave Problems Confronting General Brooke--Agricultural and
Industrial Rehabilitation--Reorganizing Local Government--Triumphal
Progress of Maximo Gomez--Unification of Sentiment Among the
People--Finances of the Island--Church and State--Marriage
Reform--Franchises Refused--The Census--Improving the School System.
CHAPTER X 158
General Brooke Succeeded by General Leonard Wood--Favorable Reception of
the Soldier-Statesman--A Cabinet of Cubans--Efficient Attention Paid to
Public Education--Cuban Teachers at Harvard--Caring for Derelict
Children--Public Works--Sanitation--Port
Improvements--Roads--Paving--The Heroic Drama of the Conquest of Yellow
Fever--Work of General Gorgas--A Home of Pestilence Transformed into a
Sanitarium--Reforms in Court Procedure--Cleaning Up the Prisons--The
First Election in Free Cuba--Rise of Political Parties--Taxation and the
Tariff--Increase of Commerce.
CHAPTER XI 185
Preparations for Self-Government--Call for a Constitutional
Convention--The Election--Meeting of the Convention--General Wood's
Address--Organization of the Convention--Framing the
Constitution--Debates over Church and State, and Presidential
Qualifications--Signing of the Constitution--No Americans Present at the
Convention--General Provisions of the Constitution--Relations between
Cuba and the United States--Controversy between the Two
Governments--Origin of the "Platt Amendment"--Attitude of the Cubans
Toward It--Malign Agitation and Misrepresentation--A Mission to
Washington--Final Adoption of the Amendment.
CHAPTER XII 204
Text of the Constitution of the Cuban Republic--The Nation, Its Form of
Government, and the National Territory--Cubans and Foreigners--Bill of
Rights--Sovereignty and Public Powers--The Legislature--The
President--The Vice-President--The Secretaries of State--The Judicial
Power--Provincial and Municipal Governments--Amendments.
CHAPTER XIII 240
Election of the First Cuban Government--Candidates for the
Presidency--Tomas Estrada Palma Chosen by Common Consent--General Maso's
Candidacy--The Election--Close of the American Occupation--A Festal Week
in Havana--Transfer of Authority to the Cuban Government--The Cuban Flag
at Last Raised in Sovereignty of the Island--President Roosevelt's
Estimate of General Wood's Work in Cuba--President Palma's Cabinet--His
First Message--The United States Naval Station--Reciprocity Secured
after Discreditable Delay at Washington.
CHAPTER XIV 259
Admirable Work of the Palma Administration--Rise of Sordid
Factionalism--José Miguel Gomez, Alfredo Zayas and Orestes
Ferrara--Character of the Liberal Party, and of the Conservative
Party--Conspiracy to Discredit an Election--An Abortive
Insurrection--Pino Guerra's Intrigues--The Rebellion of José Miguel
Gomez--President Palma's Unpreparedness and Incredulity--His Faith in
the People--The Crisis--Suggestions of the American
Consul-General--American Intervention sought--Ships and Troops
Sent--Arrival of Mr. Taft--His Negotiations with the Rebels--His
Yielding to Their Threats--Resignation of Estrada Palma--Mr. Taft's
Pardon to the Rebels--Charles E. Magoon Made Provisional
Governor--Estimate of President Palma and His Administration.
CHAPTER XV 283
Mr. Magoon's Administration--Recognition of the Liberals--The Offices
Filled with Liberal Placeholders--Execution of Many Public Works--A New
Census Taken--New Electoral Law--Proportional Representation--New
Elections Held--Split in the Liberal Party--The Presidential
Campaign--Bargain between José Miguel Gomez and Alfredo Zayas--General
Menocal and Dr. Montoro--The Victory of the Liberals--Changes in
Provincial and Municipal Administrations--Revision of Laws--Settling
Church Claims--End of the Second Intervention.
CHAPTER XVI 297
Administration of President José Miguel Gomez--His Cabinet Sketch of His
Career--Sketch of Vice-President Zayas--Army Reorganization--New
Laws--The President's Sensitiveness to Criticism--Officials in
Politics--Charges of Profligacy and Corruption--Clash with the Veterans'
Association--The United States Interested--Quarrels between Gomez and
Zayas--Formidable Negro Revolt Suppressed--Reluctance to Settle
Claims--Outrage Upon an American Diplomat--Amnesty Bill--The Lottery
Established--The "Dragado" Scandal--The Railroad Terminal.
CHAPTER XVII 312
The Fourth Presidential Campaign--Candidacy and Career of Mario G.
Menocal--His Brilliant Work in the War of Independence and in the Sugar
Industry--Sketch of Enrique José Varona--Dr. Rafael Montoro's
Distinguished Career--His Diplomatic Services and Literary
Achievements--President Menocal's Cabinet--His Aims and Plans for His
Administration--First Message to Congress--Factional Obstruction--Paying
Off Old Debts--Trying to Abolish Gambling--The Civil
Service--Controversy Over the Asbert Amnesty Bill--A Small Insurrection.
CHAPTER XVIII 328
Reelection of President Menocal--Features of the Campaign--Liberal
Conspiracy to Invalidate the Election by Revolutionary Means--Disputed
Elections--The Double Treason of José Miguel Gomez--Outbreak of a
Carefully Planned Insurrection--Intrigues of Orestes Ferrara in the
United States--Vigorous Military Action of President Menocal--American
Assistance Wisely Declined--Capture of the Rebel Chieftain--Efforts of
the Insurgents at Devastation--Continuance of the Rebellion by Carlos
Mendieta--Dr. Ferrara Warned by the American Government--Attempts to
Assassinate President Menocal--Clemency Shown to Criminals--Attitude of
the United States Government--Some Plain Talk from Washington.
CHAPTER XIX 346
Cuba's Entry into the War of the Nations--President Menocal's War
Message--Prompt Response of Congress--Sentiments of the Cuban
People--German Propaganda--Attitude of the Church--Liberal Intrigues
with Germans--Seizure of German Ships--Conservation and Increased
Production of Food--Military Services--Generous Subscriptions to Liberty
Loans--Mrs. Menocal's Leadership in Red Cross Work--Noble Activities of
the Women of Cuba--Moral and Spiritual Effect of Cuba's Participation in
the War.
CHAPTER XX 355
Marti's Epigram on the Revolution--How It has been Fulfilled by the
Cuban Republic--The Sense of Responsibility--Progress in Popular
Education as a Criterion--Great Gain in Health--Enormous Growth of the
Sugar Industry--Commerce of the Island--Stable Finances--Sanitary
Efficiency--Military Reorganization--Statesmanship of President
Menocal--Cuba's Unique Situation Among the Countries of the
Globe--Significance of the Record Which She has Made from Velasquez to
Menocal.
ILLUSTRATIONS
FULL PAGE PLATES
José Marti _Frontispiece_
FACING PAGE
The Prado 16
Maximo Gomez 44
José Antonio Maceo 74
Bay and Harbor of Havana 98
Old and New in Havana 134
Leonard Wood 158
University of Havana 164
Carlos J. Finlay 172
The Capitol 204
Tomas Estrada Palma 248
The President's Home 268
The Academy of Arts and Crafts 288
Mario G. Menocal 312
Enrique José Varona 316
Rafael Montoro 320
Senora Menocal 352
Boneato Road, Oriente 358
TEXT EMBELLISHMENTS
Ricardo del Monte 2
Julian del Casal 6
José Ramon Villalon 13
George Reno 21
La Punta Fortress, Havana 33
Aniceto G. Menocal 50
General Weyler 66
William McKinley 87
Antonio Govin 95
Admiral Cervera 110
Admiral Schley 110
Old Fort at El Caney 112
Theodore Roosevelt 113
Monuments on San Juan Hill 114
Admiral Sampson 115
Peace Tree near Santiago 116
Part of Old City Wall of Havana 122
Gonzalez Lanuza 146
Evelio Rodriguez Lendian 162
Antonio Sanchez de Bustamente 165
Almendares River, Havana 167
Old Time Water Mill, Havana Province 169
Street in Vedado, Suburb of Havana 176
Aurelia Castillo de Gonzalez 192
Scene in Villalon Park, Havana 247
Flag of Cuba 250
Coat of Arms of Cuba 251
William H. Taft 276
José Miguel Gomez 298
Dr. Alfredo Zayas 300
Birthplace of Mario G. Menocal 313
Dr. Juan Guiteras 321
General D. Emilio Nuñez 328
José Luis Azcarata 341
Francisco Dominguez Roldan 357
José A. del Cueto 359
Dr. Fernandez Mendez-Capote 360
General José Marti 360
Eugenio Sanchez Agramonte 362
Academy of Sciences, Havana 364
THE HISTORY OF CUBA
CHAPTER I
Cuba for Cuba must be the grateful theme of the present volume. We have
seen the identification of the Queen of the Antilles with the Spanish
discovery and conquest of America. We have traced the development of
widespread international interests in that island, especially
implicating the vital attention of at least four great powers. We have
reviewed the origin and development of a peculiar relationship,
frequently troubled but ultimately beneficent to both, between Cuba and
the United States of America. Now, in the briefest of the four major
epochs into which Cuban history is naturally divided, we shall have the
welcome record of the achievement of Cuba's secure establishment among
the sovereign nations of the world.
The time for the War of Independence was well chosen. That conflict was,
indeed, a necessary and inevitable sequel to the Ten Years' War and its
appendix, the Little War; under the same flag, with the same principles
and issues, and with some of the same leaders. Indeed we may rightly
claim that the organization of the Cuban Republic remained continuous
and unbroken, if not in Cuba itself, at least in the United States,
where, in New York, the Cuban Junta was ever active and resolute. The
Treaty of Zanjon ended field operations for the time. It did not for one
moment or in the least degree quench or diminish the impassioned and
resolute determination of the Cuban people to become a nation.
We have said that the War of Independence was inevitable. That was
manifestly so because of the determination of the Cubans to become
independent. It was also because of the failure of the Spanish
government to fulfil the terms and stipulations of the Treaty of Zanjon,
concerning which we have hitherto spoken. It must remain a matter of
speculation whether that government ever intended to fulfil them. It is
certain that few thoughtful Cubans, capable of judging the probabilities
of the future by the actualities of the past, expected that it would do
so. We may also regard it as certain that even a scrupulous fulfilment
of those terms, while it might have postponed it, would not and could
not permanently have defeated the assertion of Cuban independence.
[Illustration: RICARDO DEL MONTE
Journalist, critic, poet and patriot, Ricardo del Monte was born at
Cimorrones in 1830, and was educated in the United States and Europe. In
Rome he was attached to the Spanish embassy. In Spain he was a
journalist with liberal and democratic tendencies. He returned to Cuba
in 1847 and edited several papers in Havana, including, after the Ten
Years War, _El Triunfo_ and _El Pais_, the organ of the Autonomists. He
was a writer in prose and verse of singular power and grace, his works
ranking in style with the best of modern Spanish literature. He died in
1908.]
The Cuban Revolutionary Party, which as we have said never went out of
existence, was reorganized for renewed activity in New York in April,
1892; from which time we may properly date the beginning of the War of
Independence. Its leader was Jose Marti, of whom we shall have much more
to say hereafter; but he did not accept the official headship of the
Junta. That place was taken by Tomas Estrada Palma, the honored veteran
of the Ten Years' War, who at this time was the principal of an
excellent boys' school at Central Valley, New York. He was the President
of the Junta. The Secretary was Gonzalo de Quesada, worthy bearer of an
honored name; a fervent patriot and an eloquent orator. The Treasurer
was Benjamin Guerra, an approved patriot, and the General Counsel was
Horatio Rubens. This New York Junta, meeting at No. 56 New Street, New
York City, was the real head of the whole movement. But it was
supplemented by many other Cuban clubs elsewhere. There were ten in New
York, 61 at Key West, Florida; 15 at Tampa, two at Ocala, two in
Philadelphia, and one each at New Orleans, Jacksonville, Brooklyn,
Boston, Chicago, Atlanta, and St. Augustine. There were also six in the
island of Jamaica, two in Mexico, and one in Hayti.
The multiplication of these organizations and their increasing activity
did not escape the observation of the Spanish government, which realized
that revolution was in the air, and that it behooved it to do something
to counteract it if it was to avoid losing the last remains of its once
vast American empire. Accordingly early in 1893 the Cortes at Madrid
enacted a bill extending the electoral franchise in Cuba to all men
paying each as much as five pesos tax yearly. The Autonomist party at
first regarded this concession with doubt and suspicion, but finally
decided to give it a trial and participated in the elections held under
the new law. But the result was unsatisfactory; owing, it was openly
charged, to gross intimidation and frauds by the Government. The sequel
was increased activity of the revolutionary organizations.
The Spanish government was vigilant and strenuous. It sent more troops
to Cuba, and it sent a large part of its navy to American waters, to
patrol the Cuban coast, to cruise off the Florida coast, and to guard
the waters between the two, in order to prevent the sending of
filibustering expeditions or cargoes of supplies from the United States
to Cuba. These efforts were so efficient that no important expeditions
got through. But in spite of that fact an insurrection was started in
Cuba in the spring of 1893.
The leaders were two brothers, Manuel and Ricardo Sartorius, of Santiago
de Cuba. On April 24 they put themselves at the head of a band of twenty
men and, at Puernio, near Holguin, they proclaimed a revolution. The
next day they were joined by eighteen more, and by the time they had
marched to Milas, on the north coast, the band was increased to 300,
while other bands, in sympathy with them, were formed at Holguin,
Manzanillo, Guantanamo, and Las Tunas. This movement, however, was
purely a private enterprise of the Sartorius Brothers; in which they
presumably expected to be supported by a general uprising of the Cuban
people. As a matter of fact there was no such uprising. The people
seemed indifferent to it. The juntas and clubs in New York and elsewhere
knew nothing about it. The Executive Committee of the Autonomist Party
in Cuba adopted resolutions condemning it and giving moral support to
the Spanish government, and the Cuban Senators and Deputies in the
Cortes at Madrid took like action.
Meantime the Spanish authorities in the island acted promptly and with
vigor. The Captain-General summoned a council of war on April 27, and
sent troops to the scene of revolt, and directed the fleet to exercise
renewed vigilance to prevent aid from reaching the insurgents from the
United States. The next day martial law was proclaimed throughout the
province of Santiago de Cuba, and four thousand troops, divided into
seven columns, were in hot pursuit of the revolutionists. The numbers of
the latter rapidly dwindled through desertions and in a couple of days
all had vanished save the two brothers and 29 of their followers. On May
2 these all surrendered, on promise of complete pardon, a promise which
was fulfilled, and on May 9 martial law was withdrawn and the abortive
revolt was ended.
This occurrence moved the Spanish government, however, to further
efforts to placate the Cubans, and in 1894 the Minister for the
Colonies, Senor Maura, proposed a bill for the reorganization of the
insular government. The six provincial councils were to be merged into a
single legislature. With this was to be combined an Executive Council,
or Board of Administration, to administer the laws; consisting of the
Governor-General as President, various high civil and military
functionaries, and nine additional members named by Royal decree. This
arrangement was strongly opposed and finally defeated, whereupon Senor
Maura resigned. Later in the same year the Cabinet was reorganized with
him as Minister of Justice and with Senor Abarzuza, a follower of Emilio
Castelar, the Spanish Republican leader, as Minister for the Colonies.
The Prime Minister was Praxedes Sagasta, the leader of the Spanish
Liberals, and a statesman of consummate ability. There was much
complaint by Conservatives that the Captain-General in Cuba, Emilio
Calleja, favored the native Autonomists over the Loyalists or Spanish
party. Despite this, Senor Abarzuza, after taking much counsel with the
Prime Minister and others, planned radical action in behalf of Cuban
autonomy, hoping to establish a new regime which, he fondly hoped, would
allay discontent, abate disaffection, and confirm Cuba in her
traditional status of the "Ever Faithful Isle." Accordingly he entered
into long and earnest consultation with the leaders of the various
political parties in Spain, including the Carlists and Radical
Republicans, and also with representative Loyalists and Home
Rulers--otherwise Spaniards and Autonomists--of Cuba. Never, indeed, was
a more thorough attempt made to secure the judgment of all parties and
thus to frame a measure that would be satisfactory to all. Moreover, an
exceptionally reasonable and conciliatory spirit was shown by all the
leading politicians, of all shades of opinion, so that it seemed for a
time that the resulting bill, framed by Senors Sagasta and Abarzuza,
would be accepted with scarcely a word of criticism and would mark the
opening of a new era in colonial affairs.
[Illustration: JULIAN DEL CASAL
During his brief life, from 1863 to October 21, 1891, Julian del Casal,
invalid and misanthrope though he was, made a brilliant record in the
world of letters, and gave to Cuban poetry its greatest modern impulse.
Most of his life was spent in penury, on the meagre earnings of a hack
journalist, but his memory is cherished as that of one of the foremost
men of letters of his time.]
The bill was drafted. It was in purport a West Indies Home Rule bill.
Its salient feature was the establishment in Cuba of an Insular Council,
which would be the local governing body of the colony. Of it the Spanish
Viceroy, or Captain General, would be the President; and of course he
would continue to be appointed by the Crown. Of the members of the
Council, one half would be appointed by the Crown, from among certain
specified classes of the inhabitants of Cuba; and the other half would
be elected by the suffrages of the Cuban people. This body would have,
subject only to the veto of the Captain-General, control of all insular
affairs, including supervision of provincial and municipal councils. It
would also, subject to the approval of the Madrid government, legislate
for the regulation of immigration, commerce, posts and telegraphs,
revenue, and similar matters. On the face of it the measure promised
great improvement in the government of the island, and the investing of
the people of Cuba with a very large measure of self-government, both
legislative and executive. It was the last and probably the best
voluntary attempt ever made by Spain to give Cuba self-government.
Unfortunately for Spain there were two fatal flaws in the scheme; one
subjective, one objective. The former was the fact that the appointment
of half the members of the Council by the Crown would assure in that
body a constant majority devoted to and subservient to the Crown, and
that circumstance, together with the veto power, would prevent the
possibility of any legislation not entirely pleasing to Madrid. That
made the thing quite unacceptable to all Cubans whose aim was the
independence of the island or even genuine autonomy and home rule. The
other flaw was the fact that while Cuban Loyalists and Autonomists were
called into consultation over the bill, and gave it their approval,
Cuban advocates of Independence were not called; they would not have
entered into conference; and they were irrevocably committed against any
scheme that did not provide for the complete separation of the island
from Spain and the creation of an entirely independent government. The
bill was adopted by the Spanish Chamber of Deputies by a practically
unanimous vote, on February 14, 1895, and was likewise adopted by the
Senate. In Cuba it was regarded by the Autonomists as not satisfactory,
in that it retained too much power for the Crown. As for the party of
Cuban Independence, it looked upon it as unworthy of serious
consideration. Ten days after its passage by the Chamber of Deputies,
the Cuban Revolution was proclaimed.
The reproachful comment has been made by some writers that the Cuban
leaders started the revolution at that date, February 24, 1895, in order
to defeat the beneficent designs of Spain in granting autonomy to the
island, and that if they had not done so, the Abarzuza law would have
been generally accepted and successfully applied, and Cuba would have
remained a colony of Spain, contented, loyal and prosperous. For this
strange theory there is no good foundation. It had been made perfectly
clear for more than two years preceding that no such arrangement--indeed,
that nothing short of complete separation from Spain--would satisfy the
Cuban people. Moreover, preparations had been copiously made for the
revolution, long before the passage of this measure. Cubans in the
United States, of whom there were many, had contributed freely of their
means for the purchase of arms and ammunition. There were considerable
stocks of arms in Cuba which had remained concealed since the Ten Years'
War, and these had been added to by surreptitious shipments from the
United States. It is a matter of record that considerable quantities of
first rate Mauser rifles were obtained from the arsenals of the Spanish
government, being secretly purchased from custodians who were either
corrupt or in sympathy with the revolutionists. Efforts were also made
to land expeditions from the United States. One formidable party was to
have sailed from Fernandina, Florida, a month before the passage of the
Abarzuza law, but it was checked and disbanded by the United States
authorities.
The year 1895 was not inappropriate for the beginning of a war which
should annihilate the Spanish colonial empire and should add a new
member to the world's community of sovereign nations. In almost every
quarter of the globe great things were happening. At the antipodes Japan
was completing her crushing defeat of China and was thus bringing
herself forward as one of the great military and naval powers. The
ancient empire of Siam was establishing an enlightened constitutional
and parliamentary system of government. In Africa the epochal conflict
between Boer and Briton was developing inexorably, and France was about
to achieve the conquest of Madagascar. In Europe, Nicholas II was newly
seated upon the throne of the Czars, and the strange resignation of the
Presidency by Casimir-Perier threw France into such a crisis as she had
scarcely known before since the foundation of the Republic. Nearer home,
Peru and Ecuador were convulsed with revolution, and the controversy
between Venezuela and British Guiana began to loom acute and ominous. In
such a setting was the War of Cuban Independence staged.
The foremost director of that war, its organizer and inspirer, was José
Marti; one of those rare geniuses who have appeared occasionally in the
history of the world to be the incarnation of great ideals of justice
and human right. He was indeed many times a genius: Organizer,
economist, historian, poet, statesman, tribune of the people, apostle of
freedom, above all, Man. In himself he united the virtues, the
enthusiasm and the energising vitality which his countrymen needed to
have aroused in themselves. To his disorganized and disheartened country
he brought a magic personality which won all hearts and inspired them
all with his own irrepressible and indestructible ideal, National
Independence.
Marti was a native Cuban, born in Havana on January 28, 1853. In his
mere boyhood he became an eloquent and inspiring advocate of the ideal
to which he devoted his life and which he did so much to realize; and at
the outbreak of the Ten Years' War, when he was scarcely yet sixteen
years old, the Spanish government recognized in him one of its most
formidable foes and one of the most efficient propagandists of Cuban
independence. For that reason, before he had a chance to enter the ranks
of the patriot army, he was deported from the island and doomed to
exile. He made his way to Mexico, thence to Guatemala, and there, a lad
still in his teens, became Professor of Literature in the National
University of that country--a striking testimonial to his erudition and
culture. After the Treaty of Zanjon he was permitted to return to Cuba,
but he was one of those whom the Spanish government most feared, and he
was therefore kept under the closest of surveillance by the police. It
was not in his nature to dissemble, or to be afraid. He quickly came
before the public in a series of memorable orations, memorable alike for
their sonorous eloquence, their cultured erudition, and their intense
patriotism; in which he set forth the deplorable state in which Cuba
still lay, after her ten years' struggle for better things, and the need
that the work which had been so bravely undertaken by Cespedes and his
associates should be again undertaken and pressed to a successful
conclusion. His orations seemed to have the effect attributed to
Demosthenes in his Philippics: They made his hearers want to take up
arms and fight against their oppressors.
This of course brought upon him the wrath of Spain. He was arrested, and
since he was altogether too dangerous a person to be set free in exile,
he was carried a close prisoner to Spain. But he quickly made his escape
and found asylum in the United States of America; and there his greatest
work for Cuba was achieved. Porfirio Diaz had invited him to make his
home in Mexico, where he might have risen to almost any eminence in the
state, but he declined. "I must go," he said, "to the country where I
can accomplish most for the freedom of Cuba from Spain. I am going to
the United States." In New York City, where he made his home, he engaged
in literary work, and was for some time a member of the staff of the New
York _Sun_. But above all he devoted his time, thought, strength and
means to organizing the Cuban revolution.
He gathered together in the Cuban Revolutionary Party all the surviving
veterans of the Ten Years' War, Cuban political exiles--like
himself--the remnants of Merchan's old "Laborers' Associations," and
welded them into a harmonious and resolute whole. He also traveled about
the United States, in Mexico and Central America, and in Jamaica and
Santo Domingo, wherever Cubans were to be found, rousing them to
patriotic zeal and organizing them into clubs tributary to the central
Junta in New York. In Cuba itself many such clubs were organized, in
secret, which maintained surreptitious correspondence with the New York
headquarters.
We have already mentioned some of those with whom he surrounded himself:
Tomas Estrada Palma, the President of the Junta; Gonzalo de Quesada, its
Secretary, who lived to see the Republic established and to become its
Minister to Germany, where he died; Benjamin F. Guerra, its Treasurer;
and Horatio Rubens, its Counsel, who had been trained in the law office
of Elihu Root. Others of that memorable and devoted company were General
Emilio Nunez, afterward Vice-President of the Cuban Republic; and Dr.
Joaquin Castillo Duany, formerly an eminent physician in the United
States Navy, who had distinguished himself in the relief of the famous
Jeannette Arctic expedition. These two had charge of the filibustering
or supply expeditions which were surreptitiously dispatched from the
United States to Cuba. At first General Nunez had charge of all, but
when Dr. Duany came from Cuba the work was divided, and the former
devoted himself to the coast from Norfolk to the Rio Grande, while the
latter supervised that from Norfolk to Eastport, Maine. Dr. Duany and
his brother had been prominent citizens and officials in Santiago de
Cuba. As soon as the War of Independence began they joined the patriot
forces, and Dr. Duany was made Assistant Secretary of War in the
Provisional Government. As such, he ran the Spanish blockade of the
island, in company with Mr. George Reno, another ardent patriot, and
bore to New York authority from the Provisional Government for the
issuing of $3,000,000 of Cuban bonds. He also carried with him in a
little satchel $90,000 in cash, which had been contributed by various
patriotic residents of Cuba.
Another of Marti's associates in New York was Dr. Lincoln de Zayas, a
brilliant orator, afterward Secretary of Public Instruction of the Cuban
Republic; a man greatly loved by all who knew him. Dr. Enrique
Agramonte, brother of that gallant Ignacio Agramonte who was a leader in
the Ten Years' War and was killed in that conflict, was a member of the
Junta in New York, who inspected and selected all the men who were to
go on filibustering expeditions; a keen judge of the physical, mental
and moral fitness of all the candidates who presented themselves before
him. Colonel José Ramon Villalon was also active in the Junta; and he
has since been Secretary of Public Works at Havana under President Mario
G. Menocal. Nor must Ponce de Leon, a publisher and bookseller, of No.
32 Broadway, New York, be forgotten. His office was frequently the
meeting place of the conspirators, if so we may call the patriots, and
he and his two sons--one a physician, the other in charge of the
archives of the Cuban government--were among the most earnest and
efficient workers for the cause of independence.
[Illustration: JOSE RAMON VILLALON
José Ramon Villalon, Secretary of Public Works, was born at Santiago in
1864. He was sent to Barcelona to be educated and later studied at the
Lehigh University, Bethlehem, Pa., where he graduated as civil engineer
in 1899. On the outbreak of the war he accompanied General Antonio Maceo
on his famous raid in Pinar del Rio province, and was present at the
engagements of Artemisa, Ceja del Negro, Montezuelo, attaining the rank
of lieutenant-colonel of engineers. While serving under Maceo he
designed and constructed the first field dynamite gun, now in the
National Museum in Havana. After the war he was made Secretary of Public
Works under the military government of General Leonard Wood. Col.
Villalon is a member of the American Society of Civil Engineers, the
American Institute of Mining Engineers, the Academy of Sciences
(Havana), and the Cuban Society of Engineers.]
The ideal of Marti and these associates was unequivocally that of Cuban
independence. They had no thought of accepting or even considering mere
autonomy under Spanish sovereignty, or any promises of reforms in the
insular government. They might not have been inexorably opposed to
annexation to the United States, had opportunity for that been offered.
They might have accepted it, in fact, for the sake of getting entirely
away from Spain; for that would at least have meant independence from
Spain. But as a matter of fact, annexation was not considered. It was
never discussed. It formed no part of the programme, not even as an
alternative.
Although a poet and a seer, Marti was one of the most practical of men.
He realized with Cicero that "endless money forms the sinews of war."
One of his first cares, therefore, was to finance the revolution. To
that end he made a direct appeal to Cuban workmen--and women,
too--wherever he could get into contact with them, to give one tenth of
their weekly wages to the cause of Cuban independence. Probably never
before or since in the world's wars has such a system of voluntary
tithing been so successfully conducted. It seemed as though every Cuban
in the United States responded. Wealthy men gave one tenth of their
large incomes, and Cuban girls in cigar factories gave one tenth of
their small wages. In many cases they did more, giving one day's wages
each week. Indeed, this is said to have been the general rule in the
cigar and cigarette factories of the United States. Next to Marti
himself, Lincoln de Zayas was perhaps the most successful money raiser.
Numerous speakers and canvassers went to all parts of the country where
Cubans might be found, soliciting funds. Appeal was also made to
Americans, but not so much for pecuniary aid as for sympathy and moral
aid. But in fact much money was given by liberty loving Americans. John
Jacob Astor, afterward a Colonel in the United States army in the war of
intervention, gave $10,000. William E. D. Stokes, of New York, was also
a large contributor and manifested much interest in the cause,
presumably in part because his wife was a Cuban.
Most of this work of Marti's was done in 1893 and 1894. His original
plan was to launch a vast plan of numerous invasions of the island and
simultaneous uprisings in all the provinces in 1894. He purchased and
equipped three vessels, the _Amadis_, the _Baracoa_ and the _Lagonda_,
only to suffer the mortification and very heavy loss of having them
seized by the American authorities for violation of the neutrality law.
Undaunted and undismayed, he renewed his efforts, and at last had the
satisfaction of seeing the revolution openly begun at Baire, near
Santiago, on February 24, 1895. And then occurred one of the most
lamentable and needless tragedies of the whole war--indeed, of all the
history of Cuba.
It was not in Marti's generous and valiant spirit to remain at the rear
and send others forward to face the fire of the foe. Accordingly, as
soon as the revolution was started, he went from New York to Santo
Domingo to confer with the old war horse of the Ten Years' conflict,
Maximo Gomez, and from that island he issued his manifesto concerning
the purposes and programme of the revolution. Well would it have been
for him and for Cuba had he remained there, or had he returned to New
York, to continue the work which he had been so successfully doing. But
because of a thoughtless clamor in the press and on the part of the
public he was moved to proceed to Cuba with Gomez. They landed in a
frail craft at Playitas on April 11, with about 80 companions, many of
them veterans of the Ten Years' War. They at once joined the cavalry
forces of Perico Perez, and plunged into the thick of the fighting;
Marti showing himself as brave in battle as he had been wise in council.
Meantime a Provisional Government had been formed, by the proclamation
of Antonio Maceo, with Tomas Estrada Palma as Provisional President of
the Cuban Republic, Maximo Gomez as Commander in Chief of the Army, and
José Marti as Secretary General and Diplomatic Agent Abroad. This
appointment was agreeable to Marti, and would have meant the most
advantageous utilization of his masterful talents for the good of Cuba.
But it was not possible for him immediately to begin such duties. He was
with the army in the interior of the island, and his approach to the
coast whence he was to sail on his mission must be effected with
caution.
While Gomez set out for Camaguey, Marti turned toward the southern
coast, intending to go first to Jamaica, whence he could take an English
steamer for New York or any other destination he might select. Marti had
with him an escort of only fifty men, and soon after parting company
with Gomez he was led by a treacherous guide into a ravine where he was
trapped by a Spanish force outnumbering the Cubans twenty to one. The
Cubans fought with desperate valor, Marti himself leading a charge which
nearly succeeded in cutting a way through the Spanish lines. But the
odds were too heavy against them, and without even the satisfaction of
taking two or three Spanish lives for every life they gave, the Cubans
were all slain, Marti himself being among the last to fall. Word of the
conflict reached Gomez, and he came hastening back, just too late to
save his comrade, and was himself wounded in the furious attack which he
made upon the Spaniards in an attempt at least to recover Marti's body.
But his vengeful valor was ineffectual. Marti's body was taken
possession of by the Spaniards, who demonstrated their appreciation of
his greatness, though he was their most formidable foe, by bearing it
reverently to Santiago and there interring it with all the honors of
war.
[Illustration: THE PRADO
Havana's most fashionable residence street and driving thoroughfare
extends from the gloomy Punta fortress along the line of the ancient
city wall, past the Central Park to Colon Park, shaded with laurels and
lined with handsome homes and clubs. In 1907 a hurricane wrecked many of
the great laurels, as well as the royal palms of Colon Park, but in the
genial climate of Cuba the ravages of the elements were rapidly
repaired. The Prado was officially renamed by the Cuban Republic the
Paseo de Marti, in honor of José Marti, but the old name still clings
inseparably to it.]
Thus untimely perished the man who should have lived to be known as the
Father of His Country. But he left a name crowned with imperishable
fame. A Spanish American author has said that the Spanish race in
America has produced only two geniuses, Bolivar and Marti. If that
judgment be too severe in its restriction, at least it is not an
over-estimate of those two transcendent patriots. Marti left, moreover,
an example and an inspiration which never failed his countrymen during
the subsequent years of war. Their loss in his death was irreparable,
but they were not inconsolable; for while he perished, his cause
survived. That cause was well set forth by him in the manifesto which he
issued at Monte Cristi, Hayti, on March 25, 1895, and which read as
follows:
"The war is not against the Spaniard, who, secured by his children and
by loyalty to the country which the latter will establish, shall be able
to enjoy, respected and even loved, that liberty which will sweep away
only the thoughtless who block its path. Nor will the war be the cradle
of disturbances which are alien to the tried moderation of the Cuban
character, nor of tyranny. Those who have fomented it and are still its
sponsors declare in its name to the country its freedom from all hatred,
its fraternal indulgence to the timid Cuban, and its radical respect for
the dignity of man, which constitutes the sinews of battle and the
foundation of the Republic. And they affirm that it will be magnanimous
with the penitent, and inflexible only with vice and inhumanity.
"In the war which has been recommenced in Cuba you will not find a
revolution beside itself with the joy of rash heroism, but a revolution
which comprehends the responsibilities incumbent upon the founders of
nations. Cowardice might seek to profit by another fear under the
pretext of prudence--the senseless fear which has never been justified
in Cuba--the fear of the negro race. The past revolution, with its
generous though subordinate soldiers, indignantly denies, as does the
long trial of exile as well as of the respite in the island, the menace
of a race war, with which our Spanish beneficiaries would like to
inspire a fear of the revolution. The war of emancipation and their
common labor have obliterated the hatred which slavery might have
inspired. The novelty and crudity of social relations consequent to the
sudden change of a man who belonged to another into a man who belonged
to himself, are overshadowed by the sincere esteem of the white Cuban
for the equal soul, and the desire for education, the fervor of a free
man, and the amiable character of his negro compatriot.
"In the Spanish inhabitants of Cuba, instead of the hateful spite of the
first war, the revolution, which does not flatter nor fear, expects to
find such affectionate neutrality or material aid that through them the
war will be shorter, its disasters less, and more easy and friendly the
subsequent peace in which father and son are to live. We Cubans
commenced the war; the Cubans and Spaniards together will terminate it.
If they do not ill treat us, we will not ill treat them. Let them
respect us and we will respect them. Steel will answer to steel, and
friendship to friendship."
It may be that not all the generous and altruistic anticipations of this
exalted utterance were fully realized. It may be confidently declared
that all were sincerely meant by their author; and the world will
testify that seldom if ever was a war begun with nobler ideals than
those thus set forth by Jose Marti.
CHAPTER II
We have said that there was no consideration of annexation to the United
States, on the part of the organizers and directors of the Cuban War of
Independence. Neither was there much if any thought of intervention by
the United States in Cuba's behalf; though that was what ultimately
occurred. No doubt, if ever a fleeting thought of that passed through a
Cuban patriot's mind, he esteemed it "a consummation devoutly to be
wished." But it was not reckoned to be within the limits of reasonable
possibility. Certainly it was never discussed, and it may be said with
even more positiveness that there was never any attempt to bring it
about by surreptitious means. The charge was occasionally made, in
quarters unfriendly to the Cuban cause, that the Junta was endeavoring
to embroil the United States in a war with Spain. That was absolutely
untrue. No such effort was ever made by any responsible or authoritative
Cuban.
It might rather be said that the Junta was solicitous to avoid so far as
possible danger of complications between the United States and Spain.
For example, it did not encourage Americans to enter the Cuban army, but
discouraged them from so doing and often rejected them outright. An
expert ex-Pinkerton detective was employed by the Junta to serve
constantly in its New York office. His duties were in part to detect if
possible any spies or Spanish agents who might come in and want to
enlist with, of course, the intention of betraying the cause. But he
also did his best to dissuade all but Cubans from enlisting. He was
under directions from the Junta to warn all American applicants, of whom
there were many, that they had better not enter the Cuban service:
First, because they did not realize the formidable and desperate
character of the undertaking in which they were seeking to participate;
second, because the Junta could give them no assurance of pay, or even
of food; and third, because they were sure soon to grow tired of the
arduous discouraging, up-hill campaign which was before them. The only
men who were wanted, and the only men who were generally accepted were
Cubans, whose patriotic interest in the island would enable them to
endure cheerfully what would be intolerable to an alien. They were
believed by the Junta to be the only men who would permanently stand the
test.
As a matter of fact only a very few Americans were accepted; probably
not more than forty or fifty all told. They were accepted partly because
they were so insistent and persistent in their desires and demands, and
partly because of some qualifications which made them of special value.
They were chiefly sharpshooters who had formerly served in the United
States army. When they were accepted they were reminded that they were
forfeiting all claim upon the United States government for protection or
rescue, no matter what might befall them. Thus if they were killed or
captured and ill treated in any way by the Spanish they would be
debarred from appealing to the United States, and there would be no
danger of any friction between the United States and Spain on their
account.
The only way in which the Junta deliberately incurred the risk of
causing international trouble was in the organization and dispatching of
filibustering and supply expeditions from the United States to Cuba. Of
course, all such performances were illegal. Spain protested and raged
against them, and the United States government sincerely and
indefatigably strove to prevent them. But it was to no avail. The
expeditions kept going. For two years there was an average of one a
month, carrying men, arms and ammunition, and other supplies.
[Illustration: GEORGE RENO]
Another important traffic between Cuba and the United States was that in
information between the patriots in the island and the Junta in New
York. The chief agent in this perilous but essential work was Mr. George
Reno, who has since served in important capacities under the civil
government of the Cuban Republic. It was his duty periodically to run
the blockade between the little town of Guanaja and Nassau. The former
was a little place of a few hundred inhabitants on the Bay of Sabinal,
on the northern coast of Camaguey; and the latter was the capital of New
Providence Island in the British Bahamas, the favorite resort of
blockade runners during the Civil War in the United States, and since
then the terminus of a cable line running to Jupiter, on the Florida
coast. At Nassau Dr. Indalacio Salas, a Cuban physician, who had lived
there many years, represented the Junta and acted as a sort of Cuban
postmaster; receiving letters and messages from Cuba and forwarding them
to the United States, and vice versa.
This contraband messenger service between Cuba and Nassau was one of the
romantic features of the campaign of which the public knew nothing. The
trips were made in a little sloop-rigged yacht, carrying three or four
men, and while they afforded no spectacle to the public eye and did not
figure in the news as did various filibustering expeditions, they were
often of vital importance to the patriot cause, and they were fraught
with much peril. The passage of several hundred miles was made across
the Great Bahama Bank and the Tongue of Ocean; perilous waters dotted
with reefs and rocks and subject to violent storms, and closely watched
at the south by Spanish cruisers. The portion of the trip nearest the
Cuban coast was generally made at night, to avoid the Spaniards, but the
darkness added to the peril in other respects.
This service was the chief though not the sole means of communication
between the Cuban patriots and the rest of the world. Some
correspondence was smuggled out of Havana on American steamers, but that
was perilous work and was seldom attempted. Some was carried by a Cuban
sailor in a little cat-rigged boat, with which he made trips when
occasion offered between some point on the southern coast of Oriente and
the island of Jamaica. On these trips, both from Nassau and Jamaica,
were carried not only letters and communications of all sorts but also
important supplies of medicines, surgical instruments, and other small
articles which were often of indispensable value. The service was
therefore of the greatest possible value to the Cubans, and it was
arduous and perilous to those who rendered it. It was performed,
however, without remuneration or compensation of any kind, save the
satisfaction of aiding the patriot cause. The Cuban revolution had no
money with which to pay salaries, but all men served for the sake of
Cuba Libre.
The attitude of the people of Cuba toward the revolution, so far as at
this early date they knew what was going on, was varied according to
their occupations, interests and relationships. The professional
classes, the lawyers, physicians, educators, men of letters and others,
for the most part wished for complete separation from Spain, and aided
the cause of independence with their money and their influence. There
were, however, some of them, including not a few of the most estimable
and most patriotic men on the island, whose faith was not able to
forecast victory. They saw on the side of the Cubans lack of money, lack
of arms and ammunition, and lack of that direct connection with the
outer world which was indispensable for support; and on the side of
Spain plenty of money, equipment and communications, and an army of
200,000 trained soldiers thrown into a territory about the size of the
State of Pennsylvania, together with an inflexible resolution never to
surrender the island but to suppress every insurrection at no matter
what cost. It was surely not strange that they regarded such odds as too
formidable to be overcome, by even the most ardent and self-sacrificing
patriotism, and therefore thought that the course of greater wisdom
would be to persuade, compel or otherwise prevail upon Spain to bestow
upon the island a genuine and satisfactory measure of autonomy.
The merchants and commercial classes very largely consisted of
Spaniards, a fact which sufficiently indicates their attitude. They were
not only resolutely committed against the revolution, and indeed against
autonomy, but they were almost incredibly bitter against the Cuban
Independence party. It was from those classes that the notorious "Cuban
Volunteers" had been recruited in the Ten Years' war, men who, though
living in Cuba and enriching themselves from her resources, were "more
Spanish than Spain." They corresponded with the Tories of the American
Revolution, and not merely the Tories who sat in their chairs and railed
against the Revolution, but rather those who took up arms in the
British cause, and who allied themselves with the Red Indians with
tomahawk and scalping knife. The animus of these Spaniards in Cuba was
not, generally speaking, love of Spain, nor yet hatred of the Cubans,
but rather greed of gain. They were not patriotic, but simply sordid.
With Cuba under Spanish domination, they were enabled to amass great
wealth, and they wanted such conditions and such opportunities of
enrichment continued. That was not an exalted attitude, and it was
naturally odious to the Cuban patriots who were serving without pay and
sacrificing their all for the independence of the island and for the
attainment of a degree of material prosperity as well as of civic and
spiritual enfranchisement immeasurably beyond the sordid conceptions of
these selfish time-servers.
The attitude of another important though less numerous and less
demonstrative class, the manufacturers of sugar and tobacco, varied
greatly according to the individual. Some were Spaniards; and they, like
the merchants, were inflexibly opposed to the revolution, for similar
reasons. Some were Autonomists, and they inclined toward compromise.
They did not want their lands to be ravaged and their cane fields and
buildings to be burned in war; not because they would hesitate at any
necessary sacrifice for the welfare of Cuba but because they regarded
such sacrifices as unnecessary. Some were members of the Cuban
Independence party, and they cordially and eagerly supported the
revolution; saying: "Let our fields and buildings be burned. If it is
necessary in order to free the island that our property shall be ruined,
let it be ruined!"
This patriotic attitude of some of the great property-owners, who had
most to lose through the ravages of war but who were ready to risk all,
was finely displayed in the very midst of the conflict. There were in
the Province of Santa Clara two very wealthy Cuban women, sisters. They
were Marta Abreu, who became the wife of the Vice-President of the Cuban
Republic, and who died in France, and Rosalie Abreu, whose home is
preeminently the "show place" of Cuba and is perhaps the most beautiful
residence in all the tropical regions of the world. These women gave
large sums of money for the revolution and made many sacrifices for it,
beside running great risks of utter disaster to their fortunes. They
were both in Paris when news came of the death of Antonio Maceo, the
brilliant and daring commander who had carried the war westward into
Havana and Pinar del Rio and who fell in battle in the former province.
His death was a disaster well calculated to shake the fortitude of the
patriots, if not to strike them with despair. But immediately upon
hearing the news Marta Abreu sent a cable dispatch to Benjamin Guerra,
the Treasurer of the Junta, urging him not to be discouraged but to
"keep the good work going," and adding that she and her sister were each
mailing him a check for $50,000. Such a spirit was indomitable.
The small farmers of the island, or "guajiros," the peasantry and rural
workingmen, were strongly in favor of the revolution, although it meant
unspeakable hardships to them. They sent their families up into the
mountains, where they would be comparatively safe from the actual
fighting, and where the old men, the women and the children could
cultivate little patches of ground, planted with sweet potatoes, yucca
and other food plants, which would supply them with nourishment and also
contribute to the feeding of the patriot army. Then the men joined the
ranks of the revolutionary army. It should be added that among the most
eager recruits were many sons of Autonomists. Their fathers deprecated
the war, but the sons realized its necessity. There were even some sons
of Spanish Loyalists in the patriot army, who fought faithfully for the
Cuban cause against their own fathers.
The priesthood of the island was absolutely against the revolution and
in favor of maintaining the sovereignty of the Spanish crown in Cuba.
There may have been a few exceptions, of priests who not only favored
independence but who actually went into the field with the patriot army
and fought for it. But apart from them the Church was solidly for Spain.
The great majority of the priests had come from Spain, and remained
Spaniards at heart and in political sympathy. They preached from their
pulpits against the revolution, and undoubtedly exerted considerable
influence in that direction. That fact was not forgotten after the war,
and it explained the very general antipathy toward or at least lack of
sympathy with the Church which then and thereafter prevailed among the
men of Cuba. The women, even the most patriotic, largely remained
faithful to the Church and subject to its spiritual influence, but the
men renounced it because of what they regarded as its unfaithfulness to
the cause of Free Cuba.
There were at this time happily no racial nor partisan differences among
the patriots of Cuba. There were white men, there were negroes, and
there were those of mixed blood. But the same spirit of independence
animated them all, and they fought side by side in the field, and sat
side by side in council, with never a thought of prejudice. Antonio
Maceo, one of the most honored and trusted patriot generals, was a
mulatto, but he was regarded as the peer of any of the white commanders,
white men gladly served under him, and we have already seen how his
death was regarded by the Abreu sisters, who were aristocrats of the
purest Creole blood. It was only in later years, after Cuban
independence had been attained, that so much as an attempt was made at
the raising of race issues in Cuba, and then only through the exercise
of the most sinister and unworthy influences for sordid ends.
Nor were there partisan differences. Indeed at this time the Cuban
Independence Party was a harmonious unity. There were no symptoms of any
factional division. The rise of partisanship did not occur until after
the war of independence had been won and, if we may for a moment
anticipate the course of events, until it was realized that the United
States really meant to keep its word and make Cuba an independent
Republic. For, truth to tell, when the United States intervened in the
conflict between Cuba and Spain, in the spring of 1898, while there was
assured confidence throughout the island that the end of Spanish rule
was at hand, there was also a general belief that annexation to the
United States was inevitable. The great majority of the Cuban people
probably did not know of the pledge which was appended to the
Declaration of War, that the United States would withdraw and leave Cuba
to self-government, and they assumed that American intervention meant
American conquest and annexation. The comparatively few who did know
about it had little expectation that it would ever be fulfilled. Even if
the United States made the promise in good faith, something would happen
to prevent its being carried out. When at last it was found that the
United States was in earnest, and that Cuba was indeed to have
independence, just as though she had won it without aid, there was
surprise amounting almost to stupefaction, there was unbounded
exultation, and there was, unhappily, division of the people into
antagonistic parties. Of these we shall hear more hereafter.
Thus was the issue joined. The great mass of the Cuban people was united
and harmonious in its determination at last to achieve that independence
of the island for which so many men during so many years had wished and
worked and suffered. The Spanish party was implacable; and the
Autonomists were largely unsympathetic--not all, for some in time joined
the revolution; but the Cuban Independence party, comprising the large
majority of the population, was resolute and irrepressible in its
course.
CHAPTER III
The war was on. Marti and his comrades had planned to have a
simultaneous uprising in all six provinces on February 24. In each a
leader was appointed, an organization was formed, and such supplies as
could be obtained were provided. But in only three provinces did an
actual insurrection occur. These were Oriente, or Santiago as it was
then called, Santa Clara, and Matanzas; the extreme eastern and the two
central provinces. In Oriente uprisings occurred at two points, under
Henry Brooks at Guantanamo, and at Los Negros under Guillermon Moncada.
In Matanzas there were also two uprisings; one at Aguacate, on the
Havana borderline, under Manuel Garcia, and one at Ybarra. In Santa
Clara the chief demonstration was near Cienfuegos, under General
Matagas. The uprising in Havana was to have been under the leadership of
Julio Sanguilly, but in some way never satisfactorily explained he was
betrayed and arrested and the outbreak did not occur. There were not a
few who at first suspected and even charged that Sanguilly himself had
betrayed the cause, for Spanish money, but his sentence to life
imprisonment by the Spanish authorities seemed abundantly to disprove
this charge.
The insurgents naturally made most headway at first in Oriente. There
were fewer Spanish troops in that province and there were more mountain
fastnesses for refuge in case of enforced retreat, than in the more
densely settled and populated central provinces. We have already seen
that a numerous company of patriots marched from Baire to Santiago to
present to the Spanish commander there, General Jose Lachambre, their
demands for the independence of Cuba. That officer of course rejected
their demands, and on their retirement sent Colonel Perico Perez after
them with 500 troops, to capture or disperse them. But Perez and his men
did neither. Instead, they joined the insurgents under Henry Brooks, and
were among the foremost to do effective work against the Spaniards. Maso
Parra recruited a strong band near Manzanillo, but instead of fighting
there proceeded to Havana Province, accompanied by Enrique Cespedes and
Amador Guerra, in hope of raising the standard of revolution where
Sanguilly had failed. The Spanish forces were so strong there, however,
as to overawe most of the Cubans, or at any rate to make it seem more
expedient to put forward their chief efforts in other places. In
Matanzas the earliest engagements were fought by troops under Antonio
Lopez Coloma and Juan Gualberto Gomez, with indifferent results. Another
sharp conflict occurred at Jaguey Grande, and there were yet others at
Vequita; at Sevilla, where the patriots defeated 1,500 Spanish regulars
commanded by General Lachambre; at Ulloa, at Baire, and at Los Negros. A
belated uprising in Pinar del Rio under General Azcuy came speedily to
grief, as did another near Holguin. By the early days of March the
entire movement seemed to have subsided save in the southern parts of
Oriente.
The Spanish authorities had acted promptly and vigorously. The
revolution began on February 24. The very next day a special meeting of
the Spanish Cabinet was held at Madrid, as a result of which the
Minister for the Colonies, Senor Abarzuza, authorized Captain-General
Callejas to proclaim martial law throughout Cuba. This was in fact done
by Callejas before Abarzuza's order reached him, and he also put into
operation the "Public Order law" which provided for the immediate
punishment of anyone taken in the performance or attempt of a seditious
act. The Captain-General had at his disposal at this time nominally six
regiments of infantry and three of cavalry, two battalions of garrison
artillery and one mountain battery, aggregating about 19,000 men, and
nearly 14,000 local militia, remains of the notorious Volunteers of the
Ten Years' War; a total of nearly 33,000 men. But these figures were
delusive. Callejas himself reported, on his return to Spain two or three
months later, that half of the regular forces existed only on paper, and
that the militia was altogether untrustworthy. He had learned the latter
fact by bitter experience when at the very beginning Perico Perez and
his 500 men had deserted to the Cuban cause. The fact is that the leaven
of patriotism had begun to work even among the old Volunteers and still
more among their sons, and many of them came frankly over to the cause
which they or their fathers had formerly so savagely opposed. Callejas's
forces were very weak in artillery, but that did not greatly matter,
since the revolutionists at this time had none at all. He enjoyed the
great advantage of having possession of all the large towns and cities
along the coast with their fortifications both inland and seaward;
fortifications which were somewhat antiquated but still sufficiently
effective against ill-armed insurgents without artillery. The Spanish
navy in Cuban waters comprised five small cruisers and six gunboats; not
a formidable force, but infinitely superior to that of the
revolutionists, which consisted of nothing at all. It assisted in
protecting the coast towns, and served for the transportation of troops
and supplies, but its chief function was to guard the coast against
filibustering and supply expeditions.
Although the Spanish forces were very considerably superior to the
revolutionists numerically as well as in equipment and abundance of
supplies, Calleja realized that they would not be sufficient to cope
with the patriots on their own ground and in the increasing numbers
which he prudently anticipated would rally to their standard.
Accordingly early in March he sent to Spain an urgent call for large
reenforcements for both army and navy, declaring that he could not hold
his own, much less suppress the revolt, without them, and giving warning
that unless he received them promptly he would not be responsible for
the consequences. In response a battalion of regulars was immediately
transferred to Cuba from Porto Rico, and 7,000 more were sent from
Spain. All the civil prefects throughout the island were replaced with
military officers. In Havana and elsewhere all prominent Cubans
suspected of complicity or even sympathy with the revolution were
arrested and imprisoned. The Morro Castle at Havana was crowded with the
best citizens of the metropolitan province. But this attempt at
repression only added fuel to the flame. The revolution burst out anew
in the Province of Oriente, and when Callejas ordered the local troops
of Havana to proceed thither, they mutinied and refused to go. In such
circumstances Callejas, who at first had affected to regard the outbreak
as mere sporadic brigandage, now openly confessed that it was an
island-wide revolution.
Complications with the United States also speedily arose. The arrest of
Julio Sanguilly and others at Havana has been mentioned. These men had
been in the United States for years, and had become naturalized citizens
of that country, wherefore the United States consul-general at Havana,
Ramon O. Williams, made formal demand that they should be tried before a
civil court and should have the benefit of counsel, instead of being
summarily disposed of by court martial. This was a legitimate demand,
which had to be granted, but it incensed Callejas so much that he asked
the Spanish government to demand Williams's recall; which that
government very prudently did not do. At Santiago, also, two American
sailors, who had landed there in a small boat, and had been arrested as
filibusters, made appeal to the American consul there, who also insisted
that they should have a civil trial; as a result of which they were
acquitted.
[Illustration: LA PUNTA FORTRESS, HAVANA]
While thus careful to protect the rights of its citizens, native or
naturalized, the United States government was equally energetic in its
endeavors to prevent violations of the neutrality law by filibustering
expeditions, and went to great expense and pains therein. It watched and
guarded all Atlantic and Gulf ports to prevent the departure of such
expeditions, and gave hospitality to a Spanish cruiser which lay at Key
West to watch for and intercept them. Hannis Taylor, the American
Minister at Madrid, assured the Spanish government that the United
States would do all that was in its power to prevent such expeditions
from departing from its shores, and that promise was fulfilled with
exceptional efficiency. Indeed, the United States administration
incurred much popular censure for its energy in stopping the sailing of
vessels which were suspected of carrying supplies to Cuba; for it did
stop a number of them, to the very heavy pecuniary loss of the patriots.
Nevertheless some vessels were successful in eluding the vigilance of
the federal guards, and that fact gave umbrage in Spain; so that while
at home the American government was charged with hostility to the Cuban
cause, in Spain it was charged with too greatly favoring it.
With the receipt of reenforcements, Callejas made renewed efforts to
suppress the revolution; though he had little heart in the matter and
seemed to realize the hopelessness of the task. Practically all the
fighting was in Oriente. Colonel Santocildes made an unsuccessful attack
upon the patriots near Guantanamo on March 10, and a week later Colonel
Bosch had an equally unsatisfactory meeting with them under Brooks and
Perez near Ulloa. So strong were the insurgents becoming in that
province that they began to exercise the functions of civil government,
in the carrying of mails and the collection of taxes. Beside Henry
Brooks and Perico Perez, under whom were the largest forces, Bartolome
Maso, who had returned from Havana, held Manzanillo with a thousand
troops, Jesus Rabi occupied Baire and Jiguani with 1,500, and Quintin
Banderas, Amador Guerra and Esteban Tomayo had among them 2,000 more.
After his repulse at Guantanamo the Spanish Colonel Santocildes went to
Bayamo, where he was attacked and routed with heavy loss. A few days
later, on March 24, a battle was fought at Jaraguana between Amador
Guerra, with 900 Cubans, and Colonel Araoz, with 1,000 Spanish regulars,
in which the latter suffered the heavier losses, though they finally
compelled the Cubans to retire from the field.
At this time an effort was made by both the Captain-General and some
leaders of the Cuban Autonomists to make terms with the revolutionists.
With the assent and cooperation of Callejas a commission of Autonomists,
headed by Juan Bautista Spotorno,--who had once been for a time
President of the Cuban Republic, shortly after the Ten Years'
War,--proceeded to Oriente and sought a conference with Bartolome Maso
at Manzanillo. That sturdy patriot received them grimly. He listened to
their proposals in ominous silence. Then, in a voice all the more
menacing for its repression of passion, he addressed Spotorno:
"You were once President of the Cuban Republic in the Field?"
"Yes, Bartolome; you know that."
"You then as President issued a decree of death against anyone who
should seek to persuade the Cuban government to accept any terms short
of independence?"
"Yes, but...."
"Then, Bautista Spotorno, for this once, go in peace; but go very
quickly, lest I change my mind as you have changed yours. And be assured
that if you or any of your kind ever come hither with such proposals
again, I shall execute upon you or upon them your own decree!"
The next day Jose Marti and Maximo Gomez issued in Hayti the manifesto
which we have already cited, which had the result of assuring all
wavering or doubtful Cubans that the most authoritative leaders of their
nation were directing the revolution, and that it was to be indeed a
struggle to a finish. There was another result. The Spanish
Captain-General, Emilio Callejas, despaired of coping with the steadily
rising storm, and on March 27 he placed his resignation in the hands of
the Queen Regent of Spain. That sovereign immediately summoned a Cabinet
council, herself presiding. It was no longer the Liberal Cabinet of
Praxedes Sagasta. That body had fallen a few days before, in a
political crisis which had arisen in Madrid over a newspaper controversy
about Cuban affairs. An advanced Liberal paper, _El Resúmen_, had
imputed cowardice to army officers who, it said, were always eager to
serve in Cuba in time of peace, but shunned that island whenever there
was fighting going on. At this a mob of officers attacked and wrecked
the offices of the paper, and the next evening attacked the offices of
_El Heraldo_ and _El Globo_, which had denounced their doings. The next
day all the papers of Madrid notified the government that they would
suspend publication unless assured of protection against such outrages.
General Lopez Dominguez approved the conduct of the riotous officers and
demanded that the editors of the papers be delivered to him for trial by
court martial. The Prime Minister, Sagasta, replied that that would not
be legal, since all press offences against the army short of treason
must be tried before civil juries. Then Marshal Martinez Campos, who as
Captain-General had ended the Ten Years' War in Cuba, led a deputation
of army officers to demand of Sagasta that he should suppress _El
Resúmen_ and have more strict press laws enacted. Sagasta refused and,
finding his support in the Cortes untrustworthy in the face of military
bullying, offered the resignation of the Ministry, on March 17. The
Queen Regent invited Campos to form a Ministry, but he declined; though
he announced that all newspaper men attacking the army would be shot,
and he arbitrarily haled before military tribunals a number of editors,
while other journalists fled the country.
The Queen Regent then called upon Canovas del Castillo, the Conservative
leader, to form a cabinet, and on March 25 he did so, despite the fact
that his party was in a minority in the Cortes, and it was this
Conservative cabinet which the sovereign consulted four days later
concerning the resignation of Callejas and affairs in Cuba in general.
It was decided to accept Callejas's resignation, with special thanks for
his loyal services, to appoint Martinez Campos to succeed him, to ask
fresh credits of $120,000,000 for the expenses of the war, to send large
reenforcements to Cuba, and to increase the peace footing of the Spanish
army from 71,000 to 82,000 men. The troops in Cuba were at once to be
increased to 40,000 men, and 40,000 more were to be added, if needed, in
four months. Thus did Spain rouse herself to fight her last fight for
the retention of her last American possession.
It was not, however, until April 15 that Callejas received a message
from the Queen Regent, formally accepting his resignation, thanking him
for "the activity, zeal and ability" with which he had conducted the
military operations against the revolutionists, complimenting all the
forces under his command for their valor, and directing him to return to
Spain by the next steamer that sailed from Havana after the arrival of
his successor. And his successor landed the very next day, at
Guantanamo. There was much adverse comment among Spaniards in Cuba upon
this summary recall of Callejas. The explanation of it was that the
government regarded him as culpable for letting the revolution gain so
great headway, but it did not deem it politic to censure him publicly,
or at all until he was back at Madrid. As for Martinez Campos, he
promised on his acceptance of the appointment that he would quickly
suppress the revolt, as he had done the Ten Years' War; and doubtless he
expected that he would be able to do so.
Indeed, in sending Martinez Campos to Cuba, Spain "played her strongest
card." He had long been known as "Spain's greatest General," and also as
the "King-Maker," since it was he who had restored the Bourbon dynasty
to the throne. He was undoubtedly a soldier of great valor, skill and
resource. He was also a statesman of more than ordinary ability, and had
been for a time Prime Minister of Spain, and for fifteen years had been
making and unmaking ministries at will. Now, at the age of sixty-four he
was still in the prime of his powers and at the height of his popularity
and influence. His departure from Madrid for Cuba was attended with
demonstrations, both official and popular, which could scarcely have
been exceeded for royalty itself. He reached Guantanamo on April 16, and
on the following day assumed his office. It was not until a week later
that he reached Havana. There he was received with unbounded rejoicings
by the Spanish party, and with sincere satisfaction by the Autonomists,
while it must be confessed that many Cuban patriots regarded his coming
with dismay. There could be no doubt that it portended the putting forth
of all the might of Spain against the revolution, under the command of a
great soldier-statesman who had never yet failed in an undertaking.
On the very day after his arrival at Guantanamo the new Captain-General
issued a proclamation to the people of Cuba. In it he pledged himself to
fulfil in good faith all the reforms which had been promised in his own
Treaty of Zanjon and in subsequent legislation by the Spanish Cortes,
provided the loyal parties in Cuba would give him their support; this
admission of dependence upon the people being obviously a bid for
popularity. The parties in question were, of course, the Spaniards, who
were divided into Conservatives and Reformists, and the Autonomists, or
Cuban Home Rulers. They or their leaders at once pledged him their
support, and the Spaniards gave it, for a time. But a number of the
Autonomists were dissatisfied because he would promise nothing more
than the fulfilment of reforms which had never been regarded as
sufficient, and on that account refused him their support. Instead, they
gave it to the revolutionists, and many of them, especially the younger
men, actually joined the revolutionary army, or went to Jamaica or the
United States to assist in the raising of funds and the equipping of
expeditions. It was thus at this time that the disintegration of the
once influential Autonomist party began.
To the revolutionists he tried to be conciliatory. He offered full and
free pardon to all who would lay down their arms, excepting a few of the
leaders, and he doubtless expected that there would be a numerous
response. It does not appear that there was any favorable response
whatever. If any insurgents did surrender themselves--of whom there is
no record--they were outnumbered a hundred to one by the Autonomists who
at that time were transformed into revolutionists.
Campos did not rely, however, upon his proclamation for the suppression
of the insurrection. He set to work at once with all his consummate
military skill and his knowledge of the island and of Cuban methods of
warfare, to organize a military campaign of victory. He made General
Garrich governor of the Province of Oriente, with General Salcedo in
command of the First Division, at Santiago, and General Lachambre of the
Second Division, at Bayamo. He undertook the organization of numerous
bodies of irregular troops, to wage a guerrilla warfare against the
Cubans similar to that which the Cubans themselves waged successfully
against Spanish regulars. When he found his troops from Spain
disinclined toward such work, or unsuited to it, he sought the services
of young Spaniards who had for some years been settled in Cuba, such as
had been so ready to serve in the former war. They generally declined,
whereupon he sought to draft them into the service, and at that they
threatened mutiny. As a last resort he sent for Lolo Benitez, a life
prisoner at Ceuta. This man had been a guerrilla leader, on the Cuban
side, in the Ten Years' War, but had been guilty of cruelties which
caused the Cubans to repudiate him. He had been captured by the
Spaniards and sent to the penal colony in Africa for life. But Campos
brought him back and gave him a free pardon and commission as lieutenant
colonel in the Spanish army, on condition that he would conduct a
guerrilla warfare against his own countrymen. When this was done, and
when under this man were placed numerous criminals released from Cuban
jails, there were vigorous protests from Spanish officers against such
degradation of the Spanish army, and warnings that such unworthy tactics
would surely react against their author.
The official attitude of the Spanish government was at this time set
forth by the Spanish Minister to the United States, Senor Dupuy de Lome.
He belittled the reports of Spanish oppressions and of Cuban uprisings.
"There is very little interest," he said, "being taken in the revolt by
the people of Havana. I think the uprising will speedily be put down.
The arrival of General Martinez Campos has brought order out of chaos.
He has shown clearly to the people that their interests will be
protected, and as a result has caused a feeling of security. He is every
inch a soldier, not a toy fighter. He is loyal to his country, but he is
humane, and as far as possible he will treat his enemies leniently. In
the case of the leaders of the revolt, however, severe justice will be
meted out."
Meantime the revolution was proceeding. The most formidable figure in
its ranks in Cuba was that of Antonio Maceo, the mulatto general who
above most of his colleagues possessed a veritable genius for war, both
in strategy and in direct fighting. He had come of a family of fighters,
and had been born in Santiago in 1849, and had fought in the Ten Years'
War. He was highly gifted with the qualities of leadership among men,
with valor and resolution, with keen foresight and great intelligence.
He was probably the ablest strategist in the War of Independence, and
personally the most popular commander. At the end of March he arrived in
Cuba from Costa Rica with an expedition well equipped with rifles and
small field pieces. With him were his brother Jose Maceo, Flor Crombet,
Dr. Francisco Agramonte, and several other officers. The landing was
made at Baracoa, the Spanish gunboats which were watching the coast
being successfully eluded. Soon after landing the patriots were attacked
by General Lachambre's troops at Duaba, but the latter were repulsed
with considerable loss. A part of the expedition was then sent around by
sea to Manzanillo, on a British schooner. That vessel was wrecked and in
consequence its captain and crew were captured by the Spaniards, who put
the captain to death. Dr. Agramonte was one of several members of the
expedition who were also taken, but he, being an American citizen,
escaped court martial and was more leniently dealt with by a civil
court, on the demand of the American consul at Santiago.
In a short time this masterful leader, Antonio Maceo, had control of
practically all of the Province of Oriente outside of a few fortified
coast cities and camps. The Captain-General, vainly imagining that the
insurrection would be confined to that province, sent thither all
available troops, leaving Havana, Matanzas and the others with scarcely
more than police guard. Thus greatly outnumbered, Maceo wisely resorted
not so much to guerrilla warfare as to what may be called Fabian
tactics. He maintained his army in complete organization and observed
all the rules of civilized warfare. But he also maintained a high degree
of mobility, avoiding any general engagement, and wearing out the morale
of the Spaniards with forced marches, surprise attacks, and all the
bewildering and baffling tactics of which so resourceful and alert a
commander was capable. Early in April he was indeed in much peril, being
almost completely surrounded by superior forces near Guantanamo, and
actually suffering severe losses at Palmerito; but he cut his way out by
desperate fighting in which he also showed himself a master hand. The
most serious loss at that time was the death of the brave revolutionist
Flor Crombet. He was killed not by Spaniards but by a traitor in his own
command, whom Maceo presently detected and hanged. Soon after the affair
at Palmerito, however, Maceo captured El Caney, in the very suburbs of
Santiago, and seized the rich supplies in the Spanish arsenal at that
place.
The sending of so many troops from the other provinces to Oriente
emboldened the patriots of Havana and Matanzas to take up arms, and
uprisings occurred at various places, particularly at Cardenas and the
city of Matanzas. In the city of Havana itself a daring attempt was made
to seize Cabanas and El Morro, liberate the political prisoners, and
destroy the magazines if they could not be held. To encourage these
movements Maceo sent detachments of his forces from Oriente westward,
into Camaguey, then still known as the Province of Puerto Principe.
Jesus Rabi occupied Victoria las Tunas, near the boundary of the latter
province, and soon had bands operating beyond the border. There was an
Autonomist organization at Camaguey, which at first disavowed the
revolution and gave its adherence to the Captain-General, but it became
demoralized upon the approach of the revolutionary forces, and many of
its members were soon serving zealously in Maceo's ranks.
The arrival of Jose Marti and Maximo Gomez in Cuba at the middle of
April, as already related, almost simultaneously with the arrival of
Martinez Campos, was promptly followed by increased activity on the part
of the Cubans. Floriano Gascon organized a force of negro miners at
Juragua, and inflicted a crushing defeat upon a Spanish garrison at
Ramon de las Jaguas; the Spanish commander being afterward tried by
Spanish court martial and condemned to death for inefficiency. At the
end of the month a Spanish force was entrapped and almost destroyed by
Jose Maceo, near Guantanamo. The first half of May was also marked with
much fighting in the southern part of Oriente, in which the
revolutionists were generally successful. Railroads were destroyed to
break Spanish lines of communication, valuable supplies were captured,
and Martinez Campos was made to realize the formidable character of the
insurrection which he had so confidently promised to suppress.
Mention has already been made of the Provisional Government which was
proclaimed by Maceo early in April. On May 18 this was succeeded by
another organization elected by a convention of delegates consisting of
one representative of each 100 revolutionists actually in the field.
Bartolome Maso, who had been in control of the district of Bayamo since
early in March, was unanimously chosen President; Maximo Gomez was
designated as Commander in Chief of the army; and Antonio Maceo was made
Commander of the Division of Oriente. The next day occurred the tragedy
of Marti's death, whereupon Tomas Estrada Palma, who had formerly been
Provisional President, was named to succeed him as the delegate at large
of the Cuban Republic to the United States and other countries; Manuel
Sanguilly being later associated with him at Washington.
All through that summer the strife continued, steadily extending its
area westward into Camaguey and Santa Clara. Campos endeavored to
confine the war to Oriente, by stretching a line of 4,000 Spanish troops
across the island at the western boundary of that province, but on June
2 Maximo Gomez broke through that line, crossed the Jobabo River, and
entered Camaguey. There he was joined by a nephew of Salvador Cisneros,
Marquis of Santa Lucia, with a large force, and by Marcos Garcia, mayor
of Sancti Spiritus, who came across from the Province of Santa Clara.
With these reenforcements Gomez soon had control of all the southern
part of Camaguey, and on June 18 the Captain-General was compelled to
declare that province in a state of siege.
[Illustration: MAXIMO GOMEZ
The foremost military chieftain of the War of Independence, Maximo Gomez
y Baez, was a Cuban by adoption rather than birth, having been born at
Bani, Santo Domingo, in 1838. He was an officer in the last Spanish army
in that island, and went with it thence to Cuba. There he became
disgusted with the brutality of the Spanish officers toward the Cubans,
personally assaulted his superior, General Villar, and quit the Spanish
service, returning to Santo Domingo, where he engaged in business as a
planter. At the beginning of the Ten Years' War he returned to Cuba,
joined the patriots, and did efficient service, rising to the chief
command. After that war he returned to his plantation in Santo Domingo,
but in 1895 joined José Marti in leading the Cuban War of Independence.
Thereafter his story was the story of the Cuban cause. Declining to be
considered a candidate for the Presidency of the Republic, he retired to
private life after the establishment of independence, and died in 1905,
full of years and honor.]
Then Campos attempted a second barricade. He placed a line of troops
across the island from Moron to Jucaro, near the western boundary of
Camaguey, to prevent Gomez from going on into Santa Clara province. This
was the line along which was afterward built a military railroad, and on
which was constructed the famous "Trocha" or barrier of ditches, wire
fences and block houses. It almost coincided with the line of
demarcation between the two ecclesiastical dioceses into which the
island was divided. But this attempt to confine the insurrection was no
more successful than the other. Indeed it was folly to try to shut the
revolution out of Santa Clara when it was already there. Marcos Garcia
had left behind him many fervent patriots at Sancti Spiritus, and
these soon organized a formidable force under the competent lead of
Carlos Ruloff, and took the field, advancing northward and westward as
far as Vega Alta. General Zayas and other patriotic leaders operated in
the southern part of Santa Clara, and soon that province was almost as
fully aflame with revolution as Oriente itself. This was the more
significant, because it was a populous and opulent province, where the
inhabitants had much to lose through the ravages of war. But like the
Romans in the "brave days of old," the Cubans of the revolution "spared
neither lands nor gold, nor limb nor life," for the achievement of their
national independence.
Meantime in Oriente the Cubans were more than holding their own. They
suffered a sore loss in the death of the dashing champion Amador Guerra,
who was treacherously slain in the moment of victory at Palmas Altas,
near Manzanillo. But Henry Brooks landed supplies of artillery and
ammunition at Portillo; Jesus Rabi almost annihilated a strong Spanish
force in a defile near Jiguani and thus frustrated General Salcedo's
plans to surround Maceo's camp at San Jorge; and on July 5 Quintin
Bandera and Victoriano Garzon attacked and dispersed a newly landed
Spanish army and captured its stores of arms and ammunition. These
reverses for his arms exasperated Campos into the issuing of a
proclamation on July 7, in which, while still offering pardon to all who
voluntarily surrendered, he threatened death to all who were captured
under arms, and exile to African prisons to all who were convicted of
conspiring against the sovereignty of Spain.
Following this, Campos, "Spain's greatest soldier," took the field in
person. Of this there was need, for Maceo was besieging Bayamo,
capturing all supplies which were sent thither, and threatening the
Spanish garrison with starvation. Campos hastened to the relief of that
place with General Santocildes and a strong force. But Maceo did not
hesitate to measure strength with Campos. He attacked him openly at
Peralejo, out-manoeuvered him and out-fought him and came very near to
capturing him with his whole headquarters staff. Campos was indeed saved
from capture only by the desperate valor of Santocildes, who lost his
life in defending him: but he did lose his entire ammunition train and
was compelled to retreat with the remnant of his shattered forces into
Bayamo and there undergo the humiliation of being besieged by the
"rebels" whom he had affected to despise. There he remained for a week,
until General Suarez Valdez could come with an army, not to defeat the
Cubans but to help Campos to flee in safety over the road by which he
had come. Then, when the Spaniards had concentrated more than 10,000
troops at Bayamo for a supreme struggle the wily Maceo quietly and
swiftly removed his forces to another scene of action.
Meantime in the far east of the province the patriots besieged the fort
in Sabana and would have forced its surrender had not Spanish
reenforcements arrived from Baracoa for its relief. The fort was
destroyed, however, and the place had to be abandoned by the Spanish.
Also at Baire, where the revolution began, Jesus Rabi captured a Spanish
fort and its garrison. Everywhere throughout Oriente the Spaniards were
on the defensive, while in every other province, even in Pinar del Rio,
the revolution was ominously gaining strength.
CHAPTER IV
It now seemed opportune to effect a more complete organization of the
civil government of the Cuban Republic, and for that purpose a
convention was held in the Valley of the Yara, at which on July 15 a
Declaration of Cuban Independence was proclaimed, and on August 7, near
Camaguey the action of May 18 was confirmed and amplified, Bartolome
Maso being retained as President; Maximo Gomez as Vice-President and
Minister of War; Salvador Cisneros as Minister of the Interior; Gonzalo
Quesada as Secretary for Foreign Affairs, with residence in the United
States; Antonio Maceo as General in Chief of the Army; and Jose Maceo as
Commander of the Army of Oriente.
This was not, however, a finality. A national Constitutional Convention
was called, at Najasa, near Guiamaro, in the Province of Camaguey, at
which were present regularly elected representatives from all six
provinces of the island. It afterward removed to Anton, in the same
province, where it completed its labors on September 23, when the
Constitution of the Republic of Cuba was completed and promulgated.
Salvador Cisneros y Betancourt, Marquis of Santa Lucia, was chosen by
acclamation to preside over the deliberations of this important body,
and associated with him were the ablest and best minds of the Cuban
nation.
This Constitution provided for the government of Cuba by a Council of
Ministers, until such time as the achievement of independence and the
signing of a treaty of peace with Spain should make it practicable for a
Legislative Assembly to be convoked and to meet for the performance of
its functions. The Council of Ministers was to consist of six members: a
President, Vice-President, and Secretaries of War, Foreign Affairs,
Interior, and Treasury. This Council was to have full governmental
powers, both legislative and administrative, civil and military; to levy
taxes, contract loans, raise and equip armies, declare reprisals against
the enemy when necessary, and in the last resort to control the military
operations of the Commander in Chief. Treaties were to be made by the
President and ratified by the Council. It was provided, however, that
the treaty of peace with Spain, when made, must be ratified not only by
the Council but also by the National Legislative Assembly which was then
to be organized. No decree of the Council was valid unless approved by
four of the six members, including the President. The President had
power to dissolve the Council, in which case a new Council had to be
formed within ten days. It was required that all Cubans should be
obliged to serve the republic personally or with their property, as they
might be able. But all property of foreigners was to be exempt from
taxation or other levy, provided that their governments recognized the
belligerency of Cuba. It was provided that there should be a national
judiciary entirely independent of the legislature and executive.
Under this system the Council was organized as follows: President,
Salvador Cisneros y Betancourt, of Camaguey; Vice-President, Bartolome
Maso, of Manzanillo, Oriente; Secretaries--of War, Carlos Roloff, of
Santa Clara; of Foreign Affairs, Rafael Portuondo, of Santiago; of the
Treasury, Severa Pina, of Sancti Spiritus; of the Interior, Santiago J.
Canizares, of Los Remedios. Each Secretary appointed his own Deputy, who
should have full power when taking his chief's place, as follows: War,
Mario G. Menocal, of Matanzas; Foreign Affairs, Fermin G. Dominguez;
Treasury, Joaquin Castillo Duany, of Santiago; Interior, Carlos Dubois,
of Baracoa. The Commander in Chief was Maximo Gomez; the
Lieutenant-General, or Vice-Commander in Chief was Antonio Maceo, and
the Major Generals were Jose Maceo, Maso Capote, Serafin Sanchez, and
Fuerto Rodriguez. Tomas Estrada Palma was minister plenipotentiary and
diplomatic agent abroad. Later Bartolome Maso and General de Castillo
were made special envoys to the United States.
Salvador Cisneros, the President, has already been frequently mentioned
in this history. He came of distinguished ancestry, the names of
Cisneros and Betancourt frequently occupying honorable places in the
annals of Cuba. Born in 1832, he was by this time past the prime of
life, but he was just as zealous and efficient in the cause of Cuban
freedom as he was when he sacrificed his title of Marquis of Santa
Lucia, and sacrificed his estates, too, which were confiscated by the
Spanish government, when he joined the Ten Years' War, later to succeed
the martyred Cespedes as President. Of Bartolome Maso, too, we have
spoken much. He also was advanced in years, having been born in 1831,
and he, too, had served through the Ten Years' War and had in
consequence of his patriotism lost all his estates.
Carlos Roloff, the Secretary of War, was a Pole, who had come to Cuba in
his youth and settled at Cienfuegos; bringing with him the passionate
love of freedom which had long been characteristic of the Poles. He
fought through the Ten Years' War and gained distinction therein, by his
valor and military skill.
Mario G. Menocal, the Assistant Secretary of War, was a native of Jaguey
Grande, Matanzas, at this time only twenty-nine years old. He came of a
family eminent in Cuban history, and indeed in the history of North
America, since he was a nephew of that A. G. Menocal who was perhaps the
most distinguished and efficient of all the engineers and surveyors for
the Isthmian Canal schemes, both at Nicaragua and Panama. He himself
was, even thus early in life, one of the foremost engineers of Cuba.
[Illustration: ANICETO G. MENOCAL]
Rafael Portuondo y Tamayo, Secretary of Foreign Affairs, was another
young man--born at Santiago in 1867--of distinguished family and high
ability. His Assistant Secretary, Fermin Valdes Dominguez, was one of
the most eminent physicians of Havana, and was one of those students
who, as hitherto related, were falsely accused by the Volunteers of
desecrating an officer's grave. He escaped the fate of shooting, which
was meted out to one in every five of his comrades, but was sent to
life-long penal servitude at Ceuta. After the Treaty of Zanjon he was
released and returned to Havana, where he attained great distinction in
his profession.
Severa Pina, Secretary of the Treasury, belonged to one of the oldest
families of Sancti Spiritus. His Assistant, Dr. Joaquin Castillo Duany,
has already been mentioned as one of the organizers of the Cuban Junta
in New York. He had served on the United States Naval relief expedition
which went to the Arctic regions in quest of the survivors of the
_Jeannette_ exploring expedition.
Santiago J. Canizares, Secretary of the Interior, was one of the
foremost citizens of Los Remedios, and his Assistant, Carlos Dubois,
enjoyed similar rank at Baracoa.
Meantime Martinez Campos was straining every effort to fulfil his
promise of victory. At the middle of July he had nearly 40,000 regular
infantry, more than 2,500 cavalry, more than 1,000 artillery and
engineers, 4,400 civil guards, 2,700 marines, and nearly 1,200
guerrillas. His navy comprised 15 vessels, to which were to be added six
which were approaching completion in Spain and 19 which were being
purchased of other European nations. Thus his troops outnumbered the
Cubans by just about two to one. For the latter aggregated only 24,000,
of whom 12,000 were under Maceo in Oriente, 9,000 in Camaguey under
Gomez, and 3,000 under Roloff and Sanchez in Santa Clara. In August
large reenforcements for Campos arrived from Spain, and they were no
longer, as before, half trained boys, but were the very flower of the
Spanish army. They brought the total that had been sent to Cuba up to
80,000, of whom 60,000 were regular infantry. However, probably between
18,000 and 20,000 must be subtracted from those figures, for killed,
deserted, and died of yellow fever and other diseases. But even if thus
reduced to 60,000, the Spanish were still twice as many as the Cubans,
who had increased their forces to not more than 30,000.
The plans of campaign gave the Cubans, however, a great advantage. Fully
half of the Spaniards had to remain on garrison duty in the cities and
towns, especially along the coast, so that the number free to take the
field against the Cubans was no greater than that of the latter. With
numbers anywhere near equal, the Cubans were almost sure to win, because
of their superior morale and their better knowledge of the country.
The Cubans suffered much, it is true, from lack of supplies, and this
lack became the more marked and grievous as the Spaniards increased
their naval forces and drew tighter and tighter their double cordon of
vessels around the island. Several costly expeditions which were fitted
out in the United States during the year came to grief, being either
restrained from sailing by the United States authorities or intercepted
and captured by the Spanish. One such vessel, fully laden with valuable
supplies, was seized at the mouth of the Delaware River, as it was
setting out for Cuba, and the cargo was confiscated. The company of
Cubans in command of the vessel were arrested and brought to trial, but
were acquitted since the mere exportation of arms and ammunition in an
unarmed merchant vessel was no violation of law. Far different was the
fate of any such who were captured by the Spanish at the other end of
the voyage, as they were approaching the Cuban coast. The mildest fate
they could expect was a term of many years of penal servitude at Ceuta.
Such was the sentence imposed upon sailors who were guilty of nothing
more than smuggling the contraband goods into Cuba. As for Juan
Gualberto Gomez and his comrades in an expedition which presumptively
was intended for fighting as well as smuggling, twenty years at Ceuta
was their sentence.
During the summer of 1895 a severe but necessary order was issued by the
Cuban commander in chief. This, addressed to the people of Camaguey
Province, directed the cessation of all plantation work, save such as
was necessary for the food supply of the families there resident; and
also strictly forbade the supplying of any food to the Spanish garrisons
in the towns and cities. Disobedience to these orders, it was plainly
stated, would mean the destruction of the offending plantation. It was
the purpose of General Gomez to deprive the Spaniards of all local
supplies and make them dependent upon shipments of food, even, from
Spain. This meant, no doubt, much hardship to the Cuban people. But
there was little complaint, and it was seldom that the rule was
violated. Whenever a flagrant violation was detected, the torch was
applied, and canefield and buildings were reduced to ashes. There was
also much destruction of railroads, bridges, telegraph lines and what
not, to deprive the Spanish of means of transport and communication. It
was a fine demonstration of the patriotism of the Cuban people that they
almost universally acquiesced in this plan of campaign, without demur
and without repining, although it of course meant heavy loss and untold
inconvenience and often severe suffering, to them. They realized that
they were at war, and that war was not to be waged with lace fans and
rosewater.
At the end of September, after the close of the Constitutional
Convention, preparations were made for renewing the military campaign
with more aggressive vigor. Jose Maceo was assigned to the command of
the eastern part of Oriente, General Capote and General Sanchez took
respectively the northern and southern parts of the western half, and
General Rodriguez led the advance into Camaguey. Maximo Gomez himself
accompanied Rodriguez's army, and was presently joined by Antonio Maceo,
and together they planned the great campaign of the war, which was
conceived by Gomez and executed by Maceo. This was nothing less than the
extension of the war into every province and indeed every district and
village of the island, by marching westward from Oriente to the further
end of Pinar del Rio.
Early in October Antonio Maceo set out to join Gomez in Camaguey, taking
with him 4,000 infantry and 2,000 cavalry. At San Nicolas he suffered a
setback at the hands of General Aldave and a superior force of
Spaniards, but resolutely continued his progress. Gomez meanwhile pushed
on into Santa Clara, established headquarters near Las Tunas, where he
could be in touch with expeditions from Jamaica, and began the
aggressive against the Spaniards around Sancti Spiritus. Roloff,
meanwhile, was operating at the northern part of the province, at
Vueltas. Martinez Campos himself was in the field near Sancti Spiritus,
but failed to check the Cuban advance. In fact, at almost every point
the campaign was going steadily against the Spanish; so much against
them that Campos feared to let the truth be known to the world.
Accordingly he issued a decree forbidding the publication of any news
concerning the war save that which was officially given out at his
headquarters or by his chief of staff at Havana. Only Spanish and
foreign--no Cuban--correspondents were permitted to accompany the army,
and they only on their compliance with the rules.
Still Campos appeared to cherish the thought that he could end the war
by compromise, through pursuing a policy of leniency toward at least the
rank and file of the insurgents; and in this he had the support of the
Madrid government. That government had staked its all upon him, and was
naturally disposed to give him a free hand and to approve everything
that he did. However, it insisted that the rebellion must be crushed and
that no further reforms for Cuba could be considered until that was
done. It was feeling the strain of the war severely, especially since
its last loan for war funds had to be placed at more than fifty per cent
discount.
October was a disastrous month for the Spanish at sea. One of their
gunboats was wrecked on a key, and another, which had just been
purchased in the United States, was boarded and seized by a party of
revolutionists in the Cauto River, stripped of all its guns and
ammunition, and disabled and scuttled. General Enrique Collazo, who
earlier in the season had several times been baffled in such attempts,
at last got away from Florida with a strong party of Cubans and
Americans and effected a safe landing in Cuba. A little later Carlos
Manuel de Cespedes did the same, bringing a large cargo of arms. Two
expeditions also came from Canada, under General Francisco Carillo and
Colonel Jose Maria Aguirre. The latter, by the way, was an American
citizen who had been arrested in Havana at the very beginning of the
war, along with Julio Sanguilly, but was released at the very urgent
insistence of the United States government. Sanguilly, who was suspected
by some Cubans of having betrayed their cause, was held, tried, and
condemned to life imprisonment; a fact which cleared him of suspicion of
complicity with the Spaniards.
Maceo advanced through Camaguey and on November 12 reached Las Villas
with an army of 8,000 men. Gomez had meanwhile moved northward almost to
the Gulf coast, and was operating with 5,000 men between Los Remedios
and Sagua la Grande, where he joined forces with Sanchez, who had
marched westward, and with Roloff, Suarez, Cespedes and Collazo. He
established headquarters near the Matanzas border, where he was in touch
with Lacret, Matagas and other guerrilla leaders who were actively
engaged in the latter province. In that same month Maceo fought a
pitched battle with General Navarro, near Santa Clara, and a few days
later Gomez similarly fought General Suarez Valdes in the same region.
These were two of the greatest battles of the war, in point of numbers
engaged and losses suffered, and were both handsomely won by the
Cubans.
In view of these losses, Campos welcomed the arrival of 30,000
additional troops from Spain, under General Pando and General Marin. He
also resorted to recruiting troops in some of the South American
countries, particularly in Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay, thinking to
find them hardier and better able to endure the climate and the
hardships of Cuba than men from the Peninsula. Such recruiting was not
regarded with favor in those countries, where sympathy was generally on
the side of the Cubans; but a considerable number of adventurers were
found who were willing to serve for good pay as soldiers of fortune.
More and more, too, the Spanish soldiery indulged in excesses against
the inhabitants of Cuba as well as against the revolutionists in the
field, and the conflict showed symptoms of degenerating into the
savagery which marked it at a later date. It is to be recalled to the
credit of Campos that he resisted all such tendencies, and that he
indeed sent back to Spain two prominent Generals, Bazan and Salcedo,
because of their barbarous methods and their criticisms of his humanity.
General Pando, on arriving with the fresh troops from Spain, was placed
in command at Santiago; General Marin was assigned to Santa Clara;
General Mella operated in Camaguey; and General Arderius was charged
with the hopeless task of guarding Matanzas, Havana and Pinar del Rio
from invasion by the revolutionists.
The Cuban government, of President Cisneros and his colleagues,
established its headquarters at Las Tunas, and there approved another
military proclamation by the Commander in Chief, ordering the burning of
all cane fields and the laying waste of all plantations which were
providing or were likely to provide supplies to the Spaniards, and
threatening with death all persons found giving the Spaniards aid or
comfort. One notable blow was struck at the south, before the final
advance was made toward Havana and the west. This was at the middle of
December. Campos himself was at Cienfuegos, with 20,000 troops, and
Gomez and Maceo decided to give him battle. The redoubtable negro
farmer, Quintin Bandera, from Oriente, who at the age of sixty-three
years had become one of the most agile, daring and successful guerrilla
leaders, raided the Spanish lines and drew out a considerable force,
upon which the Cubans fell at Mal Tiempo, thirty miles north of
Cienfuegos. Only a couple of thousand men were engaged on each side, but
it was one of the most significant battles of the war, because it was
the first in which the Cubans relied upon the machete, and the result of
the experiment made that fearful weapon thereafter their favorite arm,
particularly in cavalry charges, and it struck a terror into the hearts
of the Spanish soldiers such as nothing else could do. The machete was
an enormous knife, as long as a cavalry sabre or longer, with a single
edge as sharp as a razor on a blade almost as heavy as the head of a
woodsman's axe. It had been used on sugar plantations, for cutting cane,
and was so heavy that a single stroke was sufficient to cut through half
a dozen of the thickest canes. Swung by the expert and sinewy arm of a
Cuban soldier, it would sever a man's head from his body, or cut off an
arm or leg, as surely as the blade of a guillotine. At Mal Tiempo a
whole company of Spanish regulars was set upon by Cuban horsemen armed
with nothing but machetes, and every one of them was killed.
Turning swiftly away from Mal Tiempo, where they had both been present,
Gomez and Maceo led their troops swiftly to the northwest and before
Campos realized what their objective was they were raiding and defeating
Spanish troops around Colon, in the east central part of the Province
of Matanzas, between Campos and Havana. The distracted Captain-General
hastened thither and, learning that they were retiring eastward toward
the town of Santo Domingo, in Santa Clara, directed his course thither;
only to find himself outwitted by the Cubans who had really moved
further toward Colon. At last he came into contact with them, and with
Emilio Nunez who had joined them, near the little village of Coliseo,
and there he was badly worsted in the fight, and came near to losing his
life, his adjutant being shot and killed at his side. The coming of
night saved him from further losses. But then the Cubans, pursuing
Fabian tactics, withdrew to Jaguey Grande, in Santa Clara, well content
with their achievement, where they took counsel over plans for the great
drive which was to carry them through Matanzas and Havana clear into
Pinar del Rio.
Campos made the best of his way hastily back to Havana, in a far
different frame of mind from that in which he had come to Cuba eight
months before. He had at that time in the island more than 100,000
troops in active service. Since his appointment as Captain-General
nearly 80,000 men had been sent thither from Spain. In addition there
were the Volunteers, or what was left of them. According to Spanish
authorities at Havana at that time the Volunteers numbered 63,000. True,
they would not take the field. But they were serviceable for police and
garrison duty in cities and towns, thus permitting all the regular army
to be put into the field. The same authorities declared that with the
Volunteers, marines and all other branches, Campos had at his disposal
189,000 men. It is probable that the entire force under Gomez and Maceo
in that first invasion of Matanzas did not exceed 10,000 men. These
things gave "Spain's greatest General" much food for thought; not of
the most agreeable kind.
It gave others food for thought; the Spanish Loyalists of both
Constitutionalist and Reformist predilections, and the dwindling but
still resolute body of Cuban Autonomists. The last-named were at this
desperate conjuncture of affairs Campos's best friends. The
Constitutionalists were hostile to him. They had from the first
disapproved his moderate and humane methods, wishing to return to the
savagery of Valmaseda in the Ten Years' War. The Reformists were
hesitant; they had little faith in Campos, yet they doubted the
expedience of openly repudiating him. The Autonomists, having faith in
his sincerity, respecting his humanity, and deploring the devastation
and ruin which was befalling Cuba, urged that he should be supported
loyally in at least one last effort to pacify the island and abate the
horrors of civil war.
The intellectual and moral power of the Autonomists carried the day. The
Reformists first and then the Constitutionalists agreed to join them in
making a demonstration of loyalty and confidence to the Captain-General,
to cheer and sustain him in the depression--almost despair--which he was
certainly suffering. So the representatives of all three factions
appeared publicly before Campos. For the Constitutionalists, Santos
Guzman spoke; an intense reactionary, who could not altogether conceal
his feelings of disapproval of Campos's liberal course, or his
realization of the desperate plight in which the country was at that
time. But he made an impassioned pledge of the loyalty of his party to
the Captain-General. For the Autonomists, Dr. Rafael Montoro was the
spokesman, one of the foremost orators and scholars of the
Spanish-speaking world. He had been a Cuban Senator in the Spanish
Cortes, and perhaps more than any other man in Cuba commanded the
respect and confidence of all parties, Spanish and Cuban alike. He also
pledged to Campos the unwavering support of the Autonomists in what he
believed sincerely to be the best policy for both Cuba and Spain. A
representative of the Reformists spoke to the same effect. Then Campos
responded with a frank confession that he had meditated resignation,
fearing that he had lost the united confidence of the various parties;
but that after this demonstration of loyalty, he would continue his
military and civil administration with restored hope of success in
pacifying the island.
We have called the Autonomists at this time the best friends of Campos.
It might be possible, however, to argue successfully that they were his
worst friends, or at least badly mistaken friends. It might have been
better, that is to say, for him to have persisted in retirement at that
time, instead of merely postponing the day of wrath. For his renewed
efforts either to crush or to pacify the revolutionists were vain. At
the very moment when he was gratefully listening to those pledges of
loyal support, Gomez and Maceo were pushing unrelentingly forward, not
merely through Matanzas but far into Havana province itself. And like
Israel of old, they were guided or accompanied by a pillar of fire by
night and a pillar of cloud by day. The plantations near the capital
were sources of supply for the Spanish, and they must be destroyed. It
seemed savage to doom canefields and factories to the torch. But it was
more humane to do that and thus make the island uninhabitable for the
Spaniards, than to lose myriads of lives in battle. Moreover, the
destruction of the sugar crop, then ripe for harvest, would do more
than anything else to cripple the financial resources of Spain in the
island. All Spain wanted of Cuba, said Gomez, grimly but truly, was what
she could get out of it. Therefore if she was prevented from getting
anything out of it she would no longer desire it but would let it go.
So night after night "the midnight sky was red" with the glow of blazing
canefields and factories, and day after day the tropic sun was half
obscured by rolling clouds of smoke from the same conflagrations; while
behind them the advancing armies left a broad swath of blackened
desolation, above which gaunt, tall chimneys towered solitary, above
twisted and ruined machinery, grim monuments of the passing of the
destroyer. Day after day the inexorable terror rolled toward the
capital. On the last day of the year the vanguard of the patriot army
was at Marianao, only ten miles from Havana, and every railroad leading
out of the city was either cut or had suspended operations. Two days
later Campos proclaimed martial law and a state of siege in the
Provinces of Havana and Pinar del Rio. Thus the new year opened with the
entire island involved in the War of Independence. Nor was it merely a
nominal state of war. Already Pinar del Rio was overrun by bands of
Cuban irregulars, who destroyed the cane fields of Spanish Loyalists and
ravaged the tobacco plantations of the famous Vuelta Abajo. But this was
not enough. On January 5, 1896, Gomez, leaving Maceo and Quintin Bandera
to hold Campos in check at Havana, drove straight at the centre of the
Spanish line which strove to bar his progress westward, broke through
it, and marched his whole army into Pinar del Rio.
That was the beginning of the end for Campos. In desperation he flung
all available troops in a line across the western part of Havana
Province vainly hoping, since he had not been able thus to keep him out
of Pinar del Rio, that thus he could keep Gomez shut up in that
province, deprived of supplies or succor. Meantime he sent three of his
ablest generals, Luque, Navarro and Valdez, into the western province,
in hope of capturing Gomez. But the wily Cuban chieftain played with
them, marching and countermarching at will and wearing them out, until
he had completed his work there. Then as if to show his scorn at
Campos's military barriers, he burst out of Pinar del Rio and reentered
Havana, sweeping like a besom of wrath through the southern part of that
province, and defeating the army of Suarez Valdez near Batabano. Then,
while all the Spanish columns were in full cry after Gomez, Maceo
crossed the border into Pinar del Rio at the north, and marched along
the coast as far as Cabanas, destroying several towns on his way.
From Batabano the Cubans under Gomez and Angel Guerra turned northward
again, and by January 12 were at Managuas, in the outskirts of Havana,
from which the sound of firing could be heard in the capital itself. The
railroads had been stopped before, and now all telegraph communication
with Havana was cut, save that by submarine cable. The city was not
merely in a technical state of siege but was actually besieged, and if
Jose Maceo and Jesus Rabi, who were on the eastern border of the
province, had been able promptly to join Gomez and Bandera, Havana would
probably have been captured. In this state of affairs the Spanish
inhabitants of the city were frantic with fear, and with faultfinding
against Campos for his inability to protect them from the
revolutionists. The Volunteers mutinied outright refusing to serve
longer under his orders unless he would alter his policy to one of
extreme severity. The Spanish political leaders openly inveighed against
him.
In these circumstances Campos invited the leaders of the various
parties, the very men who shortly before had pledged their support to
him, to meet him again for a conference. They came, but in a different
spirit from before. Santos Guzman was first to speak. He declared that
the Constitutionalists had lost confidence in the Captain-General and
did not approve his policy, and that they could no longer support him.
The spokesman of the Reformists was less violent of phrase but no less
hostile in intent and purport. From neither of the factions of the
Spanish party could Campos hope for further support. There remained the
Cuban Autonomists, and with a constancy which would have been sublime if
only it had been exercised in a better cause, they reaffirmed their
loyalty to Campos and to his policy and renewed their pledges of
support. But this was in vain. Campos realized that a Spanish
Captain-General who had not the support and confidence of the Spanish
party would be an impossible anomaly. He would not resign, but he
reported to Madrid the state of affairs, and placed himself, like a good
soldier, at the commands of the government; excepting that he would not
change his policy for one of ruthless severity. If he was to remain in
Cuba, his policy of conciliation, in cooperation with the Autonomists,
must be maintained.
The answer was not delayed. On January 17 a message came from Madrid,
directing Campos to turn over his authority to General Sabas Marin, who
would exercise it until a permanent successor could be appointed and
could arrive; and to return forthwith to Spain. Of course there was
nothing for him to do but to obey. In relinquishing his office to his
temporary successor he spoke strongly in defence of the policy which he
had pursued. Later, out of office, he talked with much bitterness of the
political conspiracies which had been formed against him by the
Spaniards of Cuba, of their moral treason to the cause of Spain, and of
the sordid tyranny which they exercised. He declared that Spain herself
was at fault for the Cuban revolution, which never would have occurred
if the island had been treated as an integral province of Spain and not
as a subject and enslaved country; and he prophesied that the verdict of
history would be, as it had been in the case of Central and South
America, that Spain had lost her American empire through the perverse
faults of the Spaniards themselves. "My successor," he added, "will
fail." Three days later he sailed for Spain.
CHAPTER V
The administration of General Marin lasted only a few weeks, but it was
marked with strenuous doings. His first effort was to do what Campos had
failed to do, namely, to maintain an impassable barrier between Pinar
del Rio and Havana. He massed troops on the line between Havana and
Batabano, and took command himself at the centre, hoping to draw Maceo
into a general engagement. But Maceo sent Perico Diaz with 1,400 men
from Artemisia to create a diversion just north of the centre, which was
done very effectively, Diaz and General Jil drawing a large Spanish
force into a trap and inflicting terrible slaughter with a cavalry
machete charge. Taking advantage of this, Maceo with a small detachment
easily crossed the trocha at the south. At once the Spanish forces all
rushed in that direction, to head off Maceo and to prevent him from
joining Gomez, whereupon the remainder of Maceo's troops crossed the
trocha at the centre and north. After raiding Havana Province at will,
and capturing fresh supplies, Maceo returned to Pinar del Rio, fought
and won a pitched battle at Paso Real, won another at Candelaria, where
the Spanish General Cornell was killed, and captured the city of Jaruco
and its forts with 80 guns.
By this time the new Captain-General had arrived. This was General
Valeriano Weyler y Nicolau; the man most of all desired--and indeed
earnestly asked for--by the Volunteers and other extremists among the
Spanish party in Cuba, the man most undesired by the Autonomists, and
the man most hated by the Cuban revolutionists. He had made himself
unspeakably odious in the Ten Years' War as the chief aid of Valmaseda
in his savage outrages, and he was confidently expected to renew in Cuba
the horrors of that campaign; as he did. Upon the announcement of his
appointment the Autonomists largely abandoned hope of any amicable
arrangement, and those of them who were mayors or other officers
promptly resigned their places, being unwilling to serve under him. Many
of them left Cuba altogether, dreading the horrors which they knew were
impending. As for the masses of the Cuban people, they flocked to the
standard of the revolution in greater numbers than before. Within a
month after Weyler's arrival at Havana, more than 15,000 fresh recruits
were following the banners of Gomez and Maceo.
[Illustration: GENERAL WEYLER]
It was on February 10 that Weyler landed in Cuba. He promptly issued a
number of decrees addressed to both the Spanish Loyalists and the Cuban
Revolutionists. He chided the former for their indifference and fears,
warned them that they must expect to make sacrifices and endure
sufferings, and demanded of them that they should themselves undertake
the guardianship of their cities and towns so as to release all his
troops for service in the field. The latter he threatened with all
possible pains and penalties if they persisted in their contumacy. Death
or life imprisonment was to be the fate of all who circulated news
unfavorable to the government, who interfered with the operation of
railroads, telegraphs or telephones, who by word of mouth disparaged
Spain or Spanish soldiers or praised the enemy, who aided the enemy in
any way, or who failed to help the government and to injure the
revolutionists at every opportunity. All inhabitants of Oriente,
Camaguey and the district of Sancti Spiritus in Santa Clara were
required to register at military headquarters and receive permits to go
about their business. Later he ordered all persons living in rural
districts to move into fortified towns, and confiscated the property of
all who were absent from their homes without leave. It should be added
that at the beginning of his administration he sought to curb and even
reproved and punished the cruelties of his subordinates.
In spite of the repudiation of Campos and his policy of pacification,
and the accession of Weyler and his policy of severity, the Spanish
Prime Minister, Canovas del Castillo, determined to make another attempt
at amicable settlement. Elections for a new Cortes were to be held, and
he directed that they should be held in Cuba as well as in the
Peninsula. To that end it was desirable to raise the state of siege in
at least the three western provinces, and on March 8 Weyler issued an
order which he hoped would conduce to that end. The civil guard, or
rural military police, was to be restored to duty, amnesty was offered
to all insurgents who surrendered within fifteen days and who had not
been guilty of burning or confiscating property, and all others were to
be treated as bandits, to be put summarily to death. All loyal
inhabitants were required actively to assist in repairing railroads,
telegraph lines, etc. A similar proclamation was issued for the other
provinces.
The elections were set for April 12, and were then held. The Reformist
faction of Spaniards refused to take part in them, not approving the
policy of Weyler. The Cuban Autonomists also refused to vote, or to
nominate candidates, excepting for Deputies from the University of
Havana and the Economical Society of Havana. They did this at great risk
to themselves, because Weyler after trying persuasions resorted to the
most ominous threats against them if they would not take part in the
elections, and there really was much danger that at least their leaders
would be arrested and imprisoned for treason. The outcome was that only
Constitutionalists voted, and only their candidates were elected;
representing an insignificant fraction of the Cuban people.
Meantime the war raged unceasingly. Having failed to keep the Cubans
from invading Pinar del Rio, and then from emerging from that province,
Weyler again formed a trocha from Havana to Batabano to prevent them
from moving further east. But both Gomez and Maceo broke through, the
former marching into the heart of Matanzas and playing havoc with the
sugar plantations, and the latter going southward to the Cienaga de
Zapata and thence into Santa Clara, where he received strong
reenforcements from Oriente and Camaguey. Then, when Weyler was massing
his troops in Santa Clara, Maceo with 10,000 men swept back to the very
gates of Havana. With the adoption of Weyler's policy as announced in
his proclamations, the war became a campaign of destruction on both
sides, each burning towns in order that they might not be occupied by
the other. In this fashion in a few weeks there were burned or laid in
ruins in Pinar del Rio the towns of Cabanaz, Cayajabos, Vinales,
Palacios, San Juan Martinez, Montezuelo, Los Arroyos, Cuano, San Diego,
Nunez, Bahia Honda, Hacha and Quiobra; in Havana there perished La
Catalina, San Nicolas, Nueva Paz, Bejucal, Jaruco, Wajay, Melena and
Bainoa; in Matanzas, Los Ramos, Macagua, Roque, San Jose and Torriente;
and in Santa Clara, Amaro, Flora, Mata, Maltiempo, Ranchuelo, Salamanca
and San Juan. Many other towns were partially destroyed. On March 13
Maceo attacked Batabano, one of the most strongly defended Spanish coast
towns, took 50 guns and much ammunition, and destroyed the town. Nine
days later Gomez sent troops into the city of Santa Clara, and captured
240,000 rounds of ammunition. He established his headquarters so near
Las Cruces that General Pando fled from that place to Cienfuegos; for
which cowardice he was recalled to Spain, as were several other
generals. Maceo, after his exploit at Batabano, returned to Pinar del
Rio, routed General Linares at Candelaria and another Spanish army at
Cayajibaos, and destroyed part of the town of Pinar del Rio.
Filibustering was now rife. In spite of the vigilance of the United
States government and of the Spanish navy, numerous expeditions carried
men and arms to the Cuban patriots. Those which were successful were
little heard of by the public, while those which failed often attracted
much attention. General Calixto Garcia, one of the most resolute and
daring veterans of the Ten Years' War, sent one on the steamer
_Hawkins_, which was lost at sea. He organized another on the British
steamer _Bermuda_, which was detained by the United States authorities
on February 24, and he was arrested and tried for "organizing a military
expedition," but was acquitted. A little later he reorganized the
expedition and reached Cuba with it in safety. Enrique Collazo and
others sent an expedition from Cedar Keys on the _Stephen R. Mallory_,
which was detained, for a time, but finally got off and landed most of
the cargo in Matanzas. The Danish steamer _Horsa_ was seized by the
United States authorities for carrying a military expedition. The
_Commodore_ carried a cargo of arms safely from Charleston, S. C. The
_Bermuda_ took another expedition from Jacksonville under Col. Vidal and
Col. Torres, but was attacked by a Spanish gunboat before all the cargo
was landed, and took to flight, throwing the rest of the cargo
overboard. Other successful expeditions in the early part of 1896 were
five on the steamer _Three Friends_, one of which was led by Julian
Zarraga and one by Dr. Joaquin Castillo Duany; three on the _Laurada_,
of which one was led by Juan Fernandez Ruiz and one by Rafael Portuondo;
several led by Rafael Cabrera, one by General Carlos Roloff, and one by
Juan Ruiz Rivera. One came from France, under Fernando Freyre y Andrade,
bringing 5,000 rifles and 1,000,000 cartridges. President Cleveland
issued a warning, that all violators of the United States neutrality
laws would be prosecuted and severely punished, and General Weyler
offered large rewards for information leading to the capture of such
expeditions, but the chief effect was to stimulate Cuban patriots to
greater efforts, if also to increased precautions.
Much attention was meanwhile paid to Cuban affairs by the United States
government, not only in trying to check filibustering but also in
looking after the rights--and wrongs--of American citizens, and also in
seeking an ending of a war which was commercially ruinous and humanely
most distressing. Several joint resolutions were introduced in the
Congress at Washington, for recognizing the Cubans as belligerents, for
inquiry into the state and conditions of the war, for intervention, and
for recognizing the independence of the Cuban Republic. There were
finally adopted on April 6 resolutions favoring recognition of Cuban
belligerency and the tender of good offices for the settlement of the
war on the basis of Cuban independence. It was of course necessarily
left to the discretion of the President to execute these designs. He did
not deem it expedient to recognize Cuban belligerence, but he did
promptly, on April 9, direct the American Minister at Madrid to make the
tender of good offices for ending the war on the basis of reforms which
would be satisfactory to the Cuban people. True, it had been made clear
that the great mass of the Cuban people would accept nothing short of
independence; but the American Secretary of State, Mr. Olney, believed
that if a genuine measure of Home Rule were granted and put into effect,
the Cubans and their friends in the United States would withdraw their
support from the revolution and thus constrain the revolutionists to
yield and accept the compromise. To this overture of the United States
government Spain made no reply; nor did it to a similar suggestion
offered by the Pope. But Tomas Estrada Palma, speaking for the Cuban
Junta in New York and for Cubans and Cuban sympathizers throughout the
United States, declared that they were not at all interested in any such
scheme, and that they would consider nothing short of absolute
independence.
The Spanish government did, indeed, consider a scheme of so-called
autonomy, somewhat resembling that of Senor Abarzuza at the beginning of
the war; but in the speech from the throne at the opening of the Cortes
on May 11 it was frankly recognized that the revolutionists would accept
nothing short of independence, and that therefore it would be expedient
to attempt any such reforms until the insurrection had been subdued by
force of arms; which was, of course, General Weyler's policy.
There were numerous diplomatic controversies between Spain and the
United States over Cuban affairs. The American Consul-General at Havana,
Ramon O. Williams, intervened in behalf of numerous American citizens
who had been arrested for complicity in the revolution, insisting upon
their trial by civil and not by military courts. In the case of five
American sailors taken on a filibustering expedition, death by shooting
was ordered by Weyler, but the Spanish government quashed the sentence
and ordered a civil trial on Mr. Williams's threat to close the
Consulate and thus suspend relations. Antagonism between the consul and
the Captain-General became so intense that Mr. Williams offered to
resign his office, but the President requested him to remain. However he
finally retired, at his own volition, and was succeeded on June 3 by
Fitzhugh Lee; who proved equally resolute in his protection of American
interests.
Meantime, what of the revolutionary civil government of the Republic of
Cuba? At the beginning it was a fugitive in the mountain fastnesses of
the Sierra Maestra, in the southern part of Oriente, between Santiago
and Manzanillo. Thence it removed to Las Tunas, in the same province.
But after the great eastward drive by Gomez and Maceo it established
itself permanently in the Sierra de Cubitas, in the Province of
Camaguey, midway between the city of Camaguey and the north coast of
Cuba. There it remained, in a practically impregnable stronghold, and
there it surrounded itself with such military industries as it was
capable of conducting--largely the manufacture of dynamite, machetes,
and of clothing. From that capital it directed an efficient
administration of the major part of the island. It levied and collected
taxes, and gave to about two-thirds of the island a mail service at
least as efficient as that of the Spanish government had ever been. A
complete judicial and police system was maintained, and was more
respected by the people than that of Spain. In brief it was
substantially true, as President Cisneros declared, that the island was
peaceful, law-abiding and well-governed, excepting in those places where
the Spanish invaders were making trouble!
But the Spanish did make trouble. Weyler once more strove to place an
impassable barrier between Pinar del Rio and Havana, to keep Maceo shut
up in the former province. He constructed it so strongly, with ditches,
block houses, barbed wire fences, artillery and what not as to make it
almost impossible of passage. Then he put 10,000 of his best troops west
of it, to fight Maceo, and distributed 28,000 more along the trocha to
keep Maceo from breaking out. The result was most unfortunate for the
Spanish troops west of the trocha. They were there to hunt down Maceo.
Instead, Maceo hunted them. If they ventured to attack him, he repulsed
them. More often he attacked them, and almost invariably routed them. At
Lechuza he cut to pieces Colonel Debos's column and drove its survivors
to the shelter of a gunboat at the shore. At Bahia Honda and Punta Brava
the Spanish were badly beaten. In the Rubi Hills a Spanish force was all
but annihilated, and the commanders began to clamor for reenforcements;
though Maceo had only 11,000 men, and the Spanish had 50,000 along the
trocha to keep him from crossing it. During the summer the campaign
slackened a little, though Maceo won several spirited engagements and
maintained his control of practically all the province excepting parts
of the coast. In the early fall, with his army increased to 20,000 he
resumed the aggressive; using for the first time a dynamite gun which
thoroughly demoralized the Spaniards. Near Pinar del Rio city, at Las
Tumbas Torino, at San Francisco, at Guayabitos and at Vinales, he
defeated the enemy and inflicted heavy losses. The same record was made
early in October at San Felipe, at Tunibar del Torillo, at Manaja, at
Ceja del Negro, and Guamo. A solitary Spanish victory was won at
Guayabitos.
Like the general government at Cubitas, Maceo had headquarters in the
mountains, and there guarded effectively a large and fertile region,
where supplies ample for feeding his army could be produced. He also
conducted workshops for the manufacture of arms and ammunition. Against
this position, in his rage and desperation, Weyler himself in November
led an army of 36,000 picked troops, with six Generals. For several days
attack after attack was made, every one being repulsed by Maceo with
heavy loss to the Spaniards, until at last, with a third of his army
destroyed, Weyler abandoned the attempt and retreated. Unfortunately, on
December 4 Maceo with his staff and a small force decided to undertake a
secret expedition to seek a conference with leaders in Havana Province.
They accordingly crossed the Bay of Mariel in a small boat and thus
reached the eastern side of the trocha. Messages were sent to
revolutionary chiefs in Havana and Matanzas, asking them to come to a
council of war at a designated point near Punta Brava, familiar to them
all as secure rendezvous. A few came promptly, but in some way the
secret of the meeting became known to the Spanish. In consequence, on
December 7, while he was expecting the arrival of more of his friends,
Maceo heard the sound of firing at the outposts of his camp. Riding to
the scene, he found Spanish troops attacking him. He rallied his troops
and under his directions they were soon mastering the enemy, when a shot
struck Maceo and he fell mortally wounded; his last words, referring to
the progress of the skirmish, being, "It goes well."
[Illustration: JOSÉ ANTONIO MACEO
Born at Santiago de Cuba in 1849, of a family of patriots and brave
fighters, and dying in battle at Punta Brava, near Havana, on December
7, 1896, José Antonio Maceo was one of the most gallant soldiers in the
Ten Years' War and one of the very foremost chieftains of the War of
Independence. Gifted with military genius and with leadership of men, he
was the greatest strategist and the most popular commander in the
Liberating Army, and the greatest terror to the foe. Partly of Negro
blood, he was an equal honor to both races, and finely typified in
himself their union in the cause of Cuban independence. A monument to
his imperishable memory crowns Cacagual Hill, where his remains were
buried.]
At his fall his troops were panic stricken and gave way, so that the
Spaniards occupied the field and plundered and stripped the dead. It was
said that they did not know that it was Maceo whom they had killed until
a native guide who was with them recognized his body. While they were
still plundering the dead Cuban reenforcements under Pedro Diaz came up,
furious at the loss of their peerless chief, and a desperate fight
ensued, which ended in the rout of the Spaniards and the recovery of
Maceo's body by the Cubans. When the defeated Spaniards got back to
headquarters and reported that they had slain Maceo, they were not
believed. It was not considered possible that he had crossed the trocha.
But a little later convincing confirmation came to them from a Cuban
source. This was furnished when Dr. Maximo Zertucha, who had been
Maceo's surgeon-general and who was the only member of his staff who had
survived the disastrous fight at Punta Brava, came to Spanish
headquarters and surrendered himself. He explained that he did so
because he had seen Maceo killed, and he regarded the loss of that
leader as certainly fatal to the cause of the Cuban revolution. The
Spanish authorities accepted his surrender and granted him full amnesty,
a circumstance which caused many Cubans to suspect that he had betrayed
his chief, by sending word of his whereabouts to the Spanish commander.
Of this there appears, however, to have been no proof. Thus perished
Antonio Maceo, who would have been the generalissimo of the Cuban forces
but for the prudent fear that maligners might then have spread
successfully the damaging libel that the revolution was nothing but a
negro insurrection; a fear which he himself felt, and on account of
which he insisted that Maximo Gomez should be the Commander in Chief of
the Cuban Revolutionary armies. Thus perished Antonio Maceo, a soldier
and a man without a superior in either of the contending armies, and a
commander, indeed, who, in personal valor, in strategic skill, in
resource, in resolution, in knowledge of the art of war, and in all the
elements of military greatness, was worthy to be ranked among the great
captains of all lands and of all time. The loss of him was irreparable.
But it was not fatal to the Cuban cause. Thereafter the effort of every
Cuban soldier and patriot was to increase his own efficiency to some
degree, so that the aggregate would atone for the loss that had been
sustained.
While Maceo was thus baffling the Spanish in the far west of the island,
Gomez and his lieutenants were more than holding their own in the other
five provinces. Jose Maceo in April marched from Oriente all the way to
the western side of Havana, where he was joined by Serafin Sanchez,
Rodriguez, Lacret, Maso, Aguirre and others, until nearly 20,000 Cubans
were gathered there. Gomez remained in Santa Clara, where the Spaniards
had a precarious foothold at Cienfuegos, protected by their fleet.
Colonel Gonzalez, commanding in the district of Remedios, routed the
forces of General Oliver. Then, the Spanish power in the three great
eastern provinces having been rendered negligible, a general movement
westward was undertaken, following in the trail of the two Maceos. Gomez
himself took supreme command, and Collazo, Calixto Garcia and others
marched their forces to join him. Calixto Garcia, after only Maximo
Gomez and Antonio Maceo, was the foremost chieftain of the patriots, and
not unworthy to rank with them in a trinity of military prowess. He was
now advanced in years, having been born in 1839, at Holguin, Oriente.
From childhood a fervent patriot, at the outbreak of the Ten Years' War
he took the field under Donato Marmol. His native bent for military
achievement assured him advancement, and at Santa Rita and Baire he was
a Brigadier General under Gomez. In 1871 he besieged Guisa and Holguin,
and then, when Gomez marched westward into Camaguey, thence to force
passage of the trocha between Jucaro and Moron, Garcia was left in
supreme command in Oriente. In that capacity he was active, triumphing
at Santa Maria, Holguin, Chaparra, the siege and capture of Manzanillo,
and at Ojo de Agua de los Melones. Then came the incident which for the
time ended his military career and which gave him that scar in the
centre of his forehead which was ever after so conspicuous a feature. At
San Antonio de Baja he and only twenty of his men were surprised and
surrounded by a large force of Spaniards. Seeing that escape was
impossible, and having vowed never to fall alive into the hands of
Spain, he put the muzzle of a pistol beneath his chin and fired. The
bullet passed through the tongue, the roof of his mouth, behind his
nose, and out at the centre of his forehead. But not thus was he to die.
The Spaniards took him to a hospital at Santiago, where he recovered,
and then sent him to prison in Spain; whence he returned to Cuba after
the Treaty of Zanjon. He was a leader in the "Little War"; then,
enjoying the respect and friendship of Martinez Campos, he went back to
Spain and for a time was a bank clerk at Madrid. Thus he was engaged
when the War of Independence began. Suspected and watched, he was not
able to escape until a year later. But on March 24, 1896, he landed at
Baracoa with an important expedition, and thereafter he was a raging and
consuming flame of war.
The westward march was marked with victory. On May 14 Colonel Segura's
whole battalion was captured. On June 9 and 10 near Najasa General
Jiminez Castellanos was soundly beaten and forced to retreat to
Camaguey. Then, hoping to bar the Cubans from Santa Clara, the Spanish
reconstructed the eastern trocha, from Jucaro to Moron, and sent forces
inland from Santiago and other coast towns to create a back fire in
Oriente. Calixto Garcia turned upon these latter, and routed them on the
Cauto River, at Venta de Casanova, and near Bayamo, and captured great
stores of supplies. At Santa Ana several stubbornly contested battles
occurred between Garcia and General Linares, in which the latter was
finally worsted. At Loma del Gato on July 5 the Cubans under Jose Maceo
and Perequito Perez defeated the forces of General Albert and Colonel
Vara del Rey, but at the heavy cost of Maceo's death. Meanwhile Juan B.
Zayas, Lacret and others penetrated Havana Province at will, in
guerrilla warfare; but Zayas was finally killed in an engagement near
Gabriel.
During the rainy season there was comparatively little activity, but in
the fall the advance westward began in earnest. Garcia captured
Guaimaro, and Gomez pushed on to Camaguey, but left the place to be
dealt with by Garcia and hastened on, with Rodriguez, Rabi, Bandera and
Carrillo. He crossed the trocha with ease, penetrated Santa Clara, and
was soon in Matanzas, where Aguirre joined them with 3,200 men. He put
an end to sugar making throughout most of the province, and then
encamped in the Cienaga de Zapata, leaving a number of active guerrilla
bands to harass and menace Havana. In the latter province at the
beginning of December Raoul Arango and Nicolas Valencia attacked the
town of Guanabacoa, only five miles from Havana, and seized great
stores of supplies. Beyond the western trocha Ruiz Rivera succeeded
Antonio Maceo in command, and carried on his work with much success.
Thus the second year of the war drew to a close with the patriots
despite some heavy losses decidedly in the ascendant, and the Spanish
campaign of ruthless severity no more successful than that of moderation
and conciliation had been.
One other incident of the year 1896 was highly significant. At the
beginning of December the President of the United States, Mr. Cleveland,
in his annual message to Congress, discussed the Cuban problem very
fully and frankly. He practically reasserted the historic policy toward
that island first enunciated by John Quincy Adams, as quoted in a
preceding volume of this history. He reasserted the Monroe Doctrine. He
made it clear that the United States had special interests in Cuba,
which not only all other nations but also Spain herself must recognize
and acknowledge. Concerning the war he said, most justly:
"The spectacle of the utter ruin of an adjoining country, by nature one
of the most fertile and charming on the globe, would engage the serious
attention of the government and people of the United States in any
circumstances. In point of fact, they have a concern with it which is by
no means of a wholly sentimental or philanthropic character. It lies so
near us as to be hardly separated from our territory. Our actual
pecuniary interest in it is second only to that of the people and
government of Spain. It is reasonably estimated that at least from
$30,000,000 to $50,000,000 of American capital are invested in
plantations and in railroad, mining and other business enterprises on
the island. The volume of trade between the United States and Cuba,
which in 1889 amounted to about $64,000,000, rose in 1893 to about
$103,000,000, and in 1894, the year before the present insurrection
broke out, amounted to nearly $96,000,000. Beside this large pecuniary
stake in the fortunes of Cuba, the United States, finds itself
inextricably involved in the present contest in other ways both
vexatious and costly."
Then he added, in words the purport of which was unmistakable:
"When the inability of Spain to deal successfully with the insurrection
has become manifest, and it is demonstrated that her sovereignty is
extinct in Cuba for all purposes of its rightful existence, and when a
hopeless struggle for its reestablishment has degenerated into a strife
which means nothing more than the useless sacrifice of human life and
the utter destruction of the very subject-matter of the conflict, a
situation will be presented in which our obligations to the sovereignty
of Spain will be superseded by higher obligations, which we can hardly
hesitate to recognize and discharge."
To those who knew Mr. Cleveland, and who appreciated the care with which
he selected every word in all important addresses, this could have but
one meaning. It meant that American intervention was inevitable. Note
that he did not say "_If_ the inability of Spain _should_ ... a
situation _would_ ..." as though the thing were still problematic. No;
but he said plumply "When the inability of Spain _has_ become manifest
... a situation _will_ be presented...." In his mind the thing was
certain to come. It had already come, and only awaited disclosure and
recognition. Remember, too, that of all men of his time Mr. Cleveland
was one of the most opposed to "jingoism," and meddling with the affairs
of other lands; while to any suggestion of conquest and annexation of
Cuba to the United States he would have offered the most resolute
opposition of which he was capable. In view of those facts, that
utterance in his message was of epochal import. It foreshadowed
precisely what did occur less than a year and a half later. It was in
effect a declaration of intervention and of war with Spain in behalf of
Cuban independence, made more than a year before the steamer _Maine_
entered Havana harbor.
CHAPTER VI
We have said that the death of Antonio Maceo moved Cuban patriots to
redouble their efforts to atone for the grievous loss which their cause
had thus suffered. Unfortunately not all of them were capable of so
doing, while those who did so were unable to make devotion and zeal take
the place of consummate military genius. In consequence, despite the
utmost efforts of Gomez and his colleagues matters went badly for the
revolution through most of the following year. Gomez himself indeed felt
that he had lost his right arm. He was at La Reforma, near Sancti
Spiritus, at the beginning of 1897, and he summoned the other
revolutionary leaders to meet him there, to concentrate their forces,
and to plan a new campaign. They came promptly and eagerly, some of them
unfortunately thus leaving without protection important strategic points
and centers of revolutionist industry, which were pounced upon and
captured by the Spanish. When the patriot forces were thus gathered it
was expected that there would be immediately undertaken a general
advance westward, into Matanzas and Havana; for which it was believed
the Cuban army was strong enough, and which the Spanish were not
believed to be able to resist.
Instead, Gomez decided first to effect the reduction of Arroyo Blanco.
This was a small and unimportant town in the Province of Camaguey, near
the Santa Clara border; containing a Spanish garrison under Captain
Escobar. Gomez first summoned Escobar to surrender, in order to avoid
the destruction which would be caused by the bombardment of the place
with a dynamite gun, which he threatened to begin forthwith. Escobar
defied him, and the bombardment was undertaken, but proved ineffective,
and before Gomez could capture the place strong Spanish reenforcements
arrived and the attempt had to be abandoned. Thereafter Gomez contented
himself with sending several strong bands westward, to conduct guerrilla
warfare against the Spaniards wherever they could, while he himself
remained near Sancti Spiritus, also engaging in irregular operations.
There he was presently menaced by Weyler himself. That formidable foe
had practically achieved the conquest of Pinar del Rio. After Maceo's
death the Cuban forces in that province had largely dispersed, some
abandoning the struggle altogether as hopeless, and others going to the
east, to join themselves with Gomez, Garcia or other surviving leaders.
Only a few roving bands remained. Accordingly Weyler announced that the
western province was pacified. That was sufficiently true; but it was
conspicuously true in the sense expressed by Tacitus, and Byron. They
had made a solitude, and called it peace. Seldom had any comparable
region been so thoroughly devastated and desolated. Then Weyler felt
himself free to lead his army elsewhere.
He set out from Havana with an imposing array of troops, and marched
through the heart of the province and of Matanzas, into Santa Clara. On
the way there was little fighting to do, not even to beat off guerrilla
bands. His attention was given, therefore, to devastating the country,
and to driving the inhabitants into "concentration camps," where they
were doomed to starve to death by thousands. By the end of February he
was triumphantly encamped at the foot of the Guamuhaya Mountains,
between Santa Clara and Trinidad, and had the satisfaction of having
wrought vast destruction upon the property of Cubans and upon the
essential supplies of the Cuban army.
A few weeks later Quintin Bandera with a small force came from Camaguey
and, by wading through the shallow water of the Bay of Sabanabamar, got
around the trocha and joined Gomez. The latter directed him to continue
westward, and to harass the Spaniards with guerrilla attacks. This was
done, and Bandera proceeded as far as Trinidad. Then failing to receive
necessary support he turned back, and on July 4 was killed in a skirmish
at Pelayo. East of the trocha Calixto Garcia continued his formidable
career against such Spanish forces as remained in that region. He
captured Las Tunas after forty-eight hours of almost incessant fighting.
In Matanzas and Havana the revolutionary bands were badly broken up by
the Spaniards, and they seemed to lack efficient leadership. Their
leader, General Lacret, fell into an unfortunate controversy with Gomez
over his treatment of Cubans who disregarded government orders,
especially in their attitude toward the Spaniards. Gomez, remorseless,
would have had them shot as traitors, but Lacret insisted upon more
lenient treatment of them, realizing that they were almost literally
"between the devil and the deep sea" and were therefore entitled to
sympathetic consideration. The outcome was that Gomez relieved Lacret of
his command and appointed Alexander Rodriguez in his place, in Matanzas.
That officer failed to command the loyalty of his troops, and the result
was that the latter generally deserted and dispersed. Mayia Rodriguez
was then ordered to the scene, but was unable to collect a sufficient
force, and remained in Santa Clara, hemmed in by the Spanish. General
Jose Maria Aguirre, who died in December, 1896, was succeeded in command
in the Province of Havana by Nestor Aranguren, who performed some
creditable minor operations, particularly against Spanish railroad
communications, but achieved nothing of real importance. His lieutenant,
General Adolfo Castillo, in the southern part of the province, was
killed in battle, in September, and was succeeded by Juan Delgado. The
Spanish General Parrado in October marched without opposition as far as
Los Palos, and there received the surrender of a small Cuban band; and
in November General Pando with a powerful army made his way without
serious opposition from Havana to the western part of Oriente.
It was during this year that Weyler's ever infamous "concentration"
policy, which was really a policy of extermination, reached its infernal
climax and was then repudiated and abandoned. This system, as already
related, was decreed on October 21, 1896. It required all Cubans, men,
women and children, to leave their homes in the rural regions and enter
concentration camps. These were simply huge pens, enclosed with fences
and barbed wire and guarded by Spanish soldiers. There the hapless
prisoners were huddled together, without shelter from the elements, and
with little or no food save such as could be procured by stealth. There
was none to be had within the enclosures, of course, and the prisoners
could not go out to get any, even if any was to be found in the
devastated country around them. Their friends outside seldom dared
approach the camps to bring them food, because as they had not
themselves surrendered as commanded by Weyler, they were liable to be
shot at sight.
Elsewhere Cubans by thousands were driven into towns and cities which
were still under Spanish control, and were there kept prisoners within
the Spanish lines. They were not quite so badly off as those in the
concentration camps, though the difference was not great. They had no
means of obtaining food, save as the municipal authorities, more
merciful than Weyler, opened "soup kitchens" and thus in charity kept
some of them from starvation. As it was the mortality from starvation,
disease and exposure was appalling. As it was reported that many of
these sufferers were American citizens, the President of the United
States asked Congress to appropriate $50,000 for their relief. This was
done, and the sum was sent to the Consul-General at Havana. He was,
however, able to reach only a small proportion of the sufferers, and
thus was presently compelled to report that he had been unable to expend
more than a fraction of the sum at his disposal. This monstrous policy
of waging war against non-combatants, including women and children, did
more perhaps than anything else to crystallize public opinion throughout
the United States against Weyler and against the Spanish government
which he represented and which was responsible for him, and to
strengthen the demand that was being made for intervention in behalf of
humanity.
This demand was made not merely by the "yellow press," which was
inspired by sordid and sinister motives, but also by the most
thoughtful, disinterested and upright men of America. Fitzhugh Lee, the
highly competent and trustworthy consul-general at Havana, officially
reported in December, 1897, that in the Province of Havana alone there
had been 101,000 of the "reconcentrados," of which more than half had
died. About 400,000 innocent and unoffending persons, chiefly women and
children, had been transformed into imprisoned paupers, to be sustained
by charity or to die of disease and famine. Senator Proctor, of Vermont,
one of the foremost members of the United States Senate, made a personal
tour of investigation in such parts of the island as were accessible,
and reported to his colleagues that "It is not peace, nor is it war; it
is desolation and distress, misery and starvation." The people of the
United States thus came to the conclusion that the Spanish were unable
to subdue the Cubans, and that the Cubans were unable to expel the
Spanish, and that the war was therefore nothing but a campaign of
destruction and extermination, which would end only when one side was
exhausted or extirpated. It was impossible that a civilized and humane
nation should regard such a spectacle at its very doors with
indifference. We have hitherto quoted the significant remarks of
President Cleveland on the subject in his message of December, 1896,
clearly foreshadowing intervention. His successor, President McKinley,
in his message of just a year later, in December, 1897, expressed in
slightly different language the identical convictions and purposes. He
said:
[Illustration: WILLIAM MCKINLEY]
"The near future will demonstrate whether the indispensable conditions
of a righteous peace, just alike to the Cubans and to Spain, as well as
equitable to all our interests so intimately involved in the welfare of
Cuba, is likely to be attained. If not, the exigency of further and
other action by the United States will remain to be taken. When that
time comes, that action will be determined in the line of indisputable
right and duty.... If it shall hereafter appear to be a duty imposed by
our obligations to ourselves, to civilization, and to humanity, to
intervene with force, it shall be without fault on our part, and only
because the necessity for such action will be so clear as to command the
support and approval of the civilized world."
If McKinley, a less aggressive and more conciliatory man than Cleveland,
spoke a little less positively than his predecessor, in that he employed
the hypothetical form, the purport of his words was the same. The one a
Democratic President, the other a Republican President, long before that
incident of the _Maine_ which has incorrectly been regarded by some as
the cause of the American war with Spain, openly and in the most
explicit manner contemplated the prospect of forcible intervention in
Cuba and of consequent war.
Meantime Spain herself passed through a political crisis, which made a
change in her Cuban administration. Loud protests were made there
against the ruthless and inhuman policy of Weyler, but the Prime
Minister, Canovas del Castillo, was deaf to them and persisted in
retaining Weyler in command. But on August 8 Canovas was assassinated by
an Anarchist, and was succeeded by General Azcarraga, Minister of War,
who continued his policy unchanged. But on September 29 the whole
Cabinet resigned, and on October 4 Sagasta, the Liberal leader, became
Prime Minister. He promptly recalled Weyler and appointed General Ramon
Blanco to be Captain-General of Cuba in his stead. Weyler departed,
breathing wrath and hatred against Cuba and against America, and
predicting failure for his successor, even as Campos had predicted it
for Weyler himself.
Blanco arrived at Havana on November 1, 1897, with the purpose, as he
had announced before sailing, of putting sincerely into effect the
reforms which Sagasta had outlined, reforms which would, he believed, be
acceptable to the Cuban people. He found the condition of affairs in the
island to be far worse than it had been reported, or than he had
expected. The "reconcentrados" had been dying and were still dying by
tens of thousands. The soldiers had not been paid for months and in
consequence were disaffected and mutinous, and were looting to obtain
food which they had no money to buy. Both the Spanish and the Cuban
Autonomists were profoundly dissatisfied; while the Revolutionists,
though making no progress, were as implacable as ever. He at once
ordered the concentration camps to be abolished, saying that he would
not make war upon women and children, and he secured a credit of
$100,000 from the Spanish government to assist the Cuban peasantry in
the rehabilitation of their ruined farms. All American citizens were
released from prison, as were also many Cubans who were under sentence
of death. Cuban refugees and exiles were invited to return home, and
every facility possible was afforded for the resumption of sugar making
and agriculture. He then undertook to put into effect a system of home
rule which he fondly hoped would satisfy the Autonomists and would bring
the masses of the Cuban people over to the side of that party.
Let us review briefly the state of Cuba at this epochal time, the ending
of 1897 and the beginning of 1898, the ultimate climax of four centuries
of Cuban history. The War of Independence had been in progress less than
three years. Five successively unsuccessful Captains-General had striven
to conquer a brave people resolved to be free. No fewer than 52,000
Spanish soldiers had lost their lives in battle or from disease, 47,000
had been returned to Spain disabled, 42,000 were in hospitals unfit for
duty, and 70,000 regulars and 16,000 irregulars still kept up the
fatuous struggle. The infamies of Weyler had destroyed by starvation and
disease 250,000 Cubans, the majority of them women and children,
reducing the population of the island to 1,100,000 Cubans intent on
independence and 150,000 Spaniards opposed to their having it. The Cuban
army consisted of 25,000 infantry and 3,000 cavalry, fairly well armed,
with some artillery. Maximo Gomez was Commander in Chief. Major-General
Calixto Garcia commanded in Camaguey and Oriente, with Pedro Perez,
Jesus Rabi and Mario G. Menocal as his lieutenants. Major-General
Francisco Carrillo commanded in Santa Clara, aided by Jose Rodriguez,
Hijino Esquerra, Jose Miguel Gomez and Jose Gonzales. In the western
three provinces Major-General Jose Maria Rodriguez commanded, with Pedro
Betancourt, Alexandra Rodriguez, Pedro Vias and Juan Lorente as his
chief aids. The civil government of the Republic had been changed
somewhat, Bartolome Maso being President, Domingo Mendez Capote
Vice-President and Secretary of War, Andreas Moreno Secretary of Foreign
Affairs, Ernesto Fonts-Sterling Secretary of Finance, and Manuel Silva
Secretary of the Interior. This organization, with its provincial and
municipal subordinates, was performing the functions of government under
great difficulties, yet much more efficiently and to a much wider extent
throughout the island, than the Spanish administration.
The uncompromising attitude of the Revolutionists, and the hopelessness
of any attempt at amicable adjustment of affairs, was at this time
strikingly shown in a tragic incident. It was in December, 1897. There
was in Havana a young Spanish officer named Joaquin Ruiz, who had
formerly served as a civil engineer, and had been intimately associated
with Nestor Aranguren, another young engineer who had become a leader of
the Revolutionists and had made himself particularly active and annoying
to the Spanish in the Province of Havana. The two were close friends,
and were both men of charming personality. The Spanish authorities in
Havana determined to use this friendship in an attempt to seduce
Aranguren into betraying or at least deserting the patriot cause. So
Ruiz was directed to open a correspondence with Aranguren, with a view
to securing a personal interview with him. Aranguren wrote to Ruiz that
he would be glad to meet him personally, but could not do so if he came
on any political errand; and he warned him that for him to come to the
Cuban camp with any proposal of Cuban surrender or acceptance of
autonomy would subject him to the penalty of death, which would
infallibly be carried out. Despite this warning, and presumably against
his own better judgment, Ruiz obeyed the orders of his superiors, and
undertook the errand. He had no safe conduct. He bore no flag of truce.
He went through no agreement between the commanding officers of the
respective sides. He went in the circumstances and manner of a spy; and
his purpose was to persuade, if possible, a Cuban officer to betray his
trust and become a traitor to his own cause.
When in these circumstances Ruiz reached Aranguren, the latter was so
distressed that it is said he burst into tears and, embracing his old
friend, exclaimed, "Why have you come? It will mean your certain death!
I cannot save you!" And such indeed was the case. Aranguren was devoted
to his friend, but still more to Cuba. Ruiz was taken before a court
martial. He made no defence. He admitted the character and purpose of
his errand. And he received the sentence of death with the fortitude of
a brave man. An attempt was made by the Spanish authorities to exploit
Ruiz as a martyr to Cuban savagery, but it recoiled upon their own
heads. It was shown that they had unworthily employed a brave and
devoted soldier in a discreditable errand, and that he had been dealt
with according to the stern but just rules of war. It was also
demonstrated that Cuban patriots were not thus to be corrupted. By a
strange turn of fate, only a few weeks later Nestor Aranguren was killed
by the Spanish during one of his daring raids against Havana. It was
said that he was betrayed by a Spaniard who had become one of his
followers for the purpose of avenging Ruiz. His body fell into the hands
of the Spanish, and, despite their former assumed wrath over the
execution of Ruiz, they treated it with all respect and interred it in
the Columbus Cemetery at Havana, close to the grave of Ruiz.
This was not the only incident of the sort. Only a few weeks after the
death of Ruiz a civilian named Morales went to the camp of Pedro Ruiz,
in the Province of Pinar del Rio, with proposals for compromise on the
basis of autonomy. He was promptly taken before a court martial, tried,
condemned, and put to death. Whether Blanco himself was responsible for
this policy of sending emissaries to the Cuban camp with proposals which
he would not venture to make openly in an accredited manner to the Cuban
government, did not appear. The presumption, because of his known
character, is that he was not, and indeed that he was not aware that
they were being made. There is even reason for thinking that after the
Morales case was brought to his attention, he prohibited any more such
clandestine and illegal enterprises. Tragic as the incidents were, and
especially regrettable as was the sacrifice of such a man as Ruiz, it
was well to have it made unmistakably clear that the Cubans were not
inclined to end the war by surrender or by compromise, but were intent
upon fighting it out to the end.
In such circumstances Blanco strove for the last time to defeat the
Cuban national desire for independence. He probably realized in advance
the certainty of failure. He had been Captain-General before, succeeding
Campos after the Ten Years' War and during the Little War, and he must
have known the temper of the Cuban people and the unwillingness of the
great majority of them to accept the delusive scheme of autonomy which
Spain was fitfully offering, and in which he himself never had any real
faith and which, indeed, he had never favored. But he was a loyal
Spanish soldier, of the better type, and he was personally as little
odious to the Cubans as any Spanish Captain General could be, for he had
never been notably tyrannical or cruel. The decree of autonomy was
adopted by the Spanish government on November 25, 1897, largely because
of the urgings--to use no stronger term--of the United States, and was
promulgated by Blanco in Cuba early in December. The scheme provided for
universal suffrage; a bi-cameral Legislature consisting of a Council of
eighteen elected members and seventeen appointed by the crown, and a
House containing one elected member for each 25,000 inhabitants. To this
Legislature were nominally committed most of the functions of
government. But it was provided that "The supreme government of the
colony shall be exercised by a Governor-General." That was the crux of
the whole matter. That made the Captain-General, or Governor-General as
he was thereafter to be called, the practical dictator of the island.
To this entirely illusive and delusive scheme, the remnant of the
Autonomist party gave adherence with a devotion worthy of a better
cause. The Reformist faction of the Spanish party also, though not so
readily, approved it. The intransigent Constitutionalists would have
none of it. Tenuous and futile as were its apparent concessions to the
Cubans, they were far too much for these insular Bourbons to be willing
to grant. They socially ostracised Blanco, and before the system was to
go into effect they called a convention at Havana to protest and to
foment against it. The president of the party, the Cuban-born Marquis de
Apezteguia, was indeed in favor of giving autonomy a trial. But he could
not control the party whose other members were almost unanimously
against it. They had defeated and expelled Campos. Now they resolved to
do the same with Blanco. At the convention Apezteguia was rebuked and
repudiated, though left in office. A telegram of sympathy was sent to
Weyler. Speeches were made denouncing the United States, its President
and its Congress. A resolution was adopted condemning and opposing
autonomy, and another declaring that Constitutionalists would not vote
nor take any part in public affairs.
[Illustration: ANTONIO GOVIN
Antonio Govin, born at Matanzas in 1849 and deceased in Havana in 1914,
was a jurist, publicist, orator and patriot of distinction. He was
Professor of Administrative Law at the University of Havana, and was the
author of a number of volumes on law and on Colonial history. He was one
of the founders and strong advocates of the Autonomist party and a
member of the Autonomist cabinet.]
In the face of these circumstances, Blanco organized his Autonomist
Cabinet. The date was January 1, 1898. The place was the historic throne
room of the Captain-General's palace. There were present beside the
Cabinet the various foreign consuls and the dignitaries of the Roman
Catholic Church. A small crowd of the people gathered outside, but the
public in general paid little attention to the event. Yet the Cabinet
which then came into brief existence was a body of men that in other
circumstances would have commanded most favorable attention. The nominal
head, President of the Cabinet without portfolio, was José Maria Galvez,
a lawyer and orator, the author of the Autonomist manifestoes of 1879
and 1895. The real head, the most forceful and influential member, not
only, indeed, of the Cabinet but of the whole Autonomist party, was Dr.
Rafael Montoro, the "Cuban Castelar" as his friends used to call him. He
had long been an advocate of real autonomy, he had been the chief
founder of the Autonomist party, he had been a Cuban Deputy to the
Spanish Cortes, he had signed the Autonomist manifestoes of 1879 and
1895, and he had approved the insular reforms proposed by Canovas del
Castillo. As lawyer, orator, scholar, writer, he had no superior if
indeed a peer in Cuba. It was the inscrutable tragedy of a great career
that he identified himself with the Autonomist movement. He was Minister
of Finance. The Minister of Justice was Antonio Govin, also one of the
original Autonomists, a man of great courage and ability, who on the
failure of the Autonomist regime left Cuba and settled in the United
States. Francisco Zayas, an accomplished educator, was made Minister of
Instruction. Laureano Rodriguez, a Peninsular Spaniard, was Minister of
Agriculture, Labor and Commerce. Eduardo Dolz, a Reformist, was also a
member, who was supposed to be the special representative of the Spanish
crown. Two other men, not Ministers but high in Autonomist councils,
Senors Amblard and Giberga, were regarded by the Spanish party as
traitors who were really in league with the Revolutionists. Blanco swore
in these Ministers, addressed them with an exhortation to support
autonomy and to suppress the revolution, and gave them as the watchword
of their administration "Long live Cuba, forever Spanish!"
For a few days the glamor and the illusion lasted. Some inconspicuous
revolutionists yielded to Spanish blandishments and surrendered; to whom
the honest and chivalrous Blanco granted in good faith the amnesty which
he had promised. Some Cuban refugees returned from the United States.
The Autonomists--the few who still remained; for the majority had by
this time joined the Revolutionists, gone into exile, or been
imprisoned--declared their adherence to the new order of affairs and
professed satisfaction with it. Apparently they accepted at face value
the explanations which were voluminously put forth by the government, to
the effect that the system was practically identical with that of
Canada, under which that country had long been contented, loyal and
prosperous. Technically, no doubt, there was a tolerably close analogy
between the two. It was quite true that the powers reserved to the
Spanish crown in Cuba through the Governor-General were similar to those
reserved to the British crown in Canada through the Viceroy. But the
decisive factor in the case, which the Autonomists apparently ignored,
was this, that while in Canada it was an unwritten but unbroken law
that the crown did not exercise its powers save in accordance with the
will of the people, it was morally certain that in Cuba the Spanish
crown would exercise its powers to the full, whether the people liked it
or not. The Cuban Autonomists in the United States, where many of them
deemed it prudent to remain, did not suffer from the illusions of their
compatriots in Cuba, and generally expressed dissatisfaction with the
scheme, or at least reserved their judgment upon it.
The Spanish Reformists in Cuba also approved the scheme. They had
deserted and betrayed Campos, and had been ignored by Weyler. Now they
struggled to return to public recognition and influence. True, they had
never before wanted or approved autonomy. But they saw that now they
must do so or remain in retirement. So they joined hands with the Cuban
Autonomists, congratulated the Spanish government, and pledged their
loyalty to Blanco. This gave the Spanish government ground for its
exultant belief that these two parties had united in its support, and
would probably control the island in behalf of autonomy.
But there were still the Constitutionalists to be reckoned with. They
were implacable. They had shown in their convention a few weeks before
their hostility to autonomy. They had ostracised Blanco. Now they
proceeded to further extremes. They organized riotous disturbances in
Havana, and made violent demonstrations against Blanco and, which was in
some respects more serious, against the American government and the
American citizens in Cuba. So ominous did these disturbances become at
the middle of January that the Consul-General, Fitzhugh Lee, was driven
to request the sending of a war ship to Havana harbor for the protection
of American citizens. In consequence, on January 24 the cruiser _Maine_
was sent to Havana. This action was taken after consultation with the
Spanish government, in which that government expressed great pleasure at
the prospect of thus having a friendly visit of the American vessel to
Cuban waters, and arranged to have its own cruiser the _Vizcaya_ make a
return visit to New York.
This was not satisfactory, however, to the Spanish Minister at
Washington, Senor Dupuy de Lome, who having failed to bring President
McKinley to his own point of view of Cuban affairs, showed plainly his
animosity against that gentleman, and wrote a letter to a personal
friend characterizing the President as a vacillating and time-serving
politician. This letter through some clandestine means was placed in the
hands of the United States Secretary of State, who at once sent for the
Minister and asked him plumply if he had written it. The latter of
course acknowledged that he had. Thereupon the Secretary cabled to the
American Minister at Madrid to request the Spanish government to recall
the offending envoy. This the Spanish government would doubtless have
done, but for the fact that De Lome forestalled such action by cabling
his resignation an hour before the dispatch of the Secretary of State
reached Madrid. The Spanish government then sent Senor Polo y Bernabe to
be its Minister at Washington.
[Illustration: THE BAY AND HARBOR OF HAVANA
The capital of Cuba is seated upon the shore of a spacious and beautiful
bay, the entrance to which is between the two bold headlines crowned
respectively by the Morro Castle and La Punta fortress, while the domes
and spires of the great city have for a background the central mountain
range of the island. The harbor of Havana is one of the most secure and
commodious in the world, and in commercial importance, measured by
tonnage of shipping, ranks among the foremost in the Western
Hemisphere.]
There next occurred the greatest and most mysterious tragedy of the
entire revolutionary period. On the evening of February 15, at twenty
minutes before ten o'clock, a violent explosion occurred under or in the
forward portion of the _Maine_ as she lay in Havana harbor, sufficient
to lift the hull some distance above its normal level. A few seconds
later another and more violent explosion followed, which so completely
destroyed the forward part of the ship that most of it could never
be found. The remainder of the vessel almost immediately sank, in about
six fathoms of water. Of the complement of 360, two officers and 264 men
were killed, and of the remainder 60 were wounded. Captain Sigsbee,
commander of the _Maine_, telegraphed to Washington that all judgment
upon the matter should be suspended until after full investigation.
Blanco telegraphed to Madrid that the catastrophe was doubtless due to
an accident within the ship, and the Madrid government promptly
expressed regret and sympathy.
In the United States there was a great outburst of grief and rage. Even
the most restrained and conservative could not help a degree of
suspicion of foul play, though of course not on the part of the Spanish
government. A semi-criminal faction, in the "yellow" press, clamored
furiously for war, charging Spaniards, even the Spanish government, with
direct and malicious responsibility for the tragedy, and even publishing
the grossest of falsehoods for the sake of inflaming popular sentiment.
Too large a proportion of the nation was swayed by these latter sordid
and sinister influences. But at least the government kept its head, and
acted with admirable discretion; though for so doing the President
incurred the virulent animosity of the chief clamorer for war, an
animosity which was persistently maintained until it culminated in the
incitement of a criminal Anarchist to assassinate the President.
When the explosion occurred, and Blanco learned what it was, it is said
that he shed tears and exclaimed, "This is the beginning of the end!"
Despite his message to his government, he probably feared that there had
been foul play, and he realized what effect, in any case, the incident
would have upon Spanish-American relations. As for the Cuban
revolutionists, both in Cuba and in the United States, they were almost
stunned by two emotions. The hideous atrocity of the thing was
overwhelming, and they grieved at the loss of the American sailors as
though they themselves had been Americans. At the same time they could
not be blind nor insensible to the almost certain sequel. They felt
that, as Blanco said, it was the beginning of the end, and that now
American intervention was practically assured.
The Spanish government proposed a joint investigation into the disaster,
but the United States government declined and conducted a thorough
investigation of its own, through a board of eminent official experts.
The report was that the loss of the ship was not due to any accident or
to any negligence on the part of the officers and crew. The first
explosion was external to the hull, as if caused by a torpedo or mine,
and it caused the second explosion, which was that of the ship's
magazines. The Spanish government then conducted an investigation of its
own, resulting in a report that both explosions were within the ship and
were presumably purely accidental. It may be added that a final
examination in after years, when a cofferdam was built about the hulk
and it was floated and then taken out to sea and sunk in deep water,
fully confirmed the report of the American investigating board.
It is to be recalled that Ramon O. Williams, who had only a little while
before retired from the office of American Consul-General at Havana, and
was particularly well informed and judicious, earnestly warned the
United States government against sending a ship to Havana, because the
harbor was very elaborately mined, and there was a bitter and truculent
feeling among the Spaniards against the United States; wherefore the
danger of some untoward occurrence was too great to be incurred without
a more pressing necessity than was then apparent. But despite his
warning the _Maine_ was sent. She was conducted by a Spanish official
pilot to her anchorage at a buoy between Regla and the old custom house.
Whether a mine was attached to that buoy or not is unknown, though Mr.
Williams was confident that one was. His theory was that some malignant
Spanish officer, who had access to the keyboard of the mines, perhaps
through connivance with some other fanatic, watched to see the tide
swing the ship directly over the mine and then touched the key and
caused the explosion. That would account for the enormous hole which was
blown in the side of the ship, and which could not have been caused by
any little mine or torpedo which might have been floated to the side of
the ship, but must have been produced by a very large mine planted deep
beneath the hull.
The findings of the American board of investigation were reported
officially to the Spanish government, and the President in a message to
Congress expressed confidence that Spain would act in the matter
according to the dictates of justice, honor and friendship. The Spanish
government replied that it would certainly do so, and it presently
proposed to submit the whole subject to investigation by impartial
experts, and to determination by arbitration. But this proposal was not
made until April 10, when so much else had occurred to strain relations
between the two countries that it could not be entertained by the United
States.
Meantime the Autonomist government in Cuba, with a devotion that was
pathetic to behold, persisted in its efforts to justify its existence.
An electoral census was taken, though of course it could not cover more
than a small fraction of the island, and on March 27 an "election" of
Cuban Deputies to the Cortes was held. In fact there was no popular
voting at all. A list was prepared of eligible candidates, twenty of
them being Autonomists and Reformists, or supporters of the government,
and ten representing the Constitutionalist opposition. The list was
submitted to the Governor-General and approved by him, and the
candidates were declared to have been duly elected. Jose Maria Galvez,
the president of the Autonomist cabinet, reported to the President of
the United States that the new government was satisfactorily performing
its functions, and entreated him to give no encouragement to the
revolutionists which would militate against its success. In April there
was another "election" for members of the two houses of the Insular
Legislature. On May 4 that Legislature met, chose Fernando del Casco as
President of the Assembly, and confirmed the Autonomist cabinet in its
place; and it continued patiently and valiantly to hold sessions, make
laws, and act as though it were a real government, exercising real
authority over the island, all through the period of the American war
with Spain and the practical siege of the island by the American navy.
When the Spanish forces yielded and a protocol for peace was signed, on
August 12, the Legislature held its last meeting, and was declared
dissolved by Blanco in October. The Autonomist Cabinet continued to
exercise its functions, at least nominally, until the end of Spanish
sovereignty in Cuba.
CHAPTER VII
There could be no greater mistake than that which has been too often and
too persistently made, in regarding the destruction of the _Maine_ as
the cause of American, intervention in Cuba. The declarations of policy
which we have already quoted from the messages of President Cleveland
and President McKinley, the former fourteen months and the latter two
months before that vessel went to Havana, are ample indications of the
purpose of the American government to intervene unless there were a
satisfactory amelioration of Cuban affairs. But there was no such
amelioration, and therefore war was declared. It unquestionably would
have been declared just the same, perhaps at a later and perhaps at an
earlier date, if there had been no _Maine_ at all.
Beginning before the destruction of the _Maine_, and accelerated after
that event, both sides were preparing for war. Nevertheless diplomatic
negotiations continued, chiefly conducted by the American Minister,
Stewart L. Woodford, at Madrid. In order to facilitate such
negotiations, President McKinley withheld the report on the _Maine_ from
Congress for a time. Spain asked that the pacification of Cuba, which
the United States was urging, be left to the Autonomist Legislature,
which was to meet on May 4. The United States, declaring that it did not
want Cuba but did want peace in Cuba, proposed an armistice to begin at
once and to last until October 1, itself meantime to act as mediator
between the Cubans and Spain. Spain replied that an armistice would be
granted, to last at the pleasure of the Spanish commander, if the Cubans
would ask for it themselves; and that already General Blanco had
abandoned the "concentration" system. This was of course regarded as
entirely unsatisfactory to the United States, but the peace-loving
President McKinley hesitated to report to Congress his dissatisfaction
with it.
Meantime the Pope semi-officially expressed to both governments his
earnest desire for the maintenance of peac
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