Cuba: A History - Sergio Guerra-Vilaboy

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appendages of the North American continent…. There are laws of political as well as physical gravitation. And if an apple, severed by the tempest from its native tree, cannot choose but to fall to the ground, Cuba, forcibly disjoined from its own unnatural connection with Spain, and incapable of self support, can gravitate only toward the North American Union, which by the same law of nature cannot cast her off from her bosom.”

      —John Quincy Adams, US Secretary of State, 1823

      The harsh rule by the Spaniards and the maturing of a national feeling fired the Cubans’ struggle against the colonial authorities. Rebellions developed in the central and eastern parts of the island led by prominent landowners not linked to the plantation system, who were supported by revolutionary intellectuals and also the campesinos, both black and white. Carlos Manuel de Céspedes, a landowner and lawyer, began an uprising at La Demajagua, in eastern Cuba, on October 10, 1868, which spread rapidly and became known as the Ten Years’ War. The main leaders of this rebellion were Ignacio Agramonte, Francisco Vicente Aguilera, Pedro Figueredo, Salvador Cisneros, Máximo Gómez and Antonio Maceo. The original revolutionary program, drawn up by Céspedes, was outlined in the October 10 Manifesto.

      Using the tactic of surprise attacks, the rebel forces managed to survive, and several groups of armed men (called mambís) met in Guáimaro on April 10 and 11, 1869, and drew up a constitution that established the Republic of Cuba, applying the classical bourgeois division of government into three parts—executive, legislative and judicial—with a military apparatus subordinated to the first. The civilians were not happy with this structure, for they feared it would lead to a system of caudillismo that prevailed in the rest of the continent.

      Céspedes was elected president of the republic, and a House of Representatives set about drawing up a body of laws to replace the traditional Spanish legislation. After some lukewarm efforts at conciliation, Madrid—experiencing problems arising from the September 1868 revolution in Spain—adopted a policy of “war to the death” from April 1869, reviving the old Corps of Volunteers and making any negotiation between the two belligerents impossible.

      With practically no help from abroad, the Cuban rebels gradually gained military experience and confidence in their own strength. Their main historic objectives were to achieve national independence and to abolish slavery. Slavery had apparently been abolished in the Guáimaro constitution of 1869, but was not finally eliminated until December 1870. The struggle against Spain in the countryside made it possible to progressively reduce the gap between black and white Cubans and move toward national integration. In adverse conditions, around 5,000 mambís confronted nearly 100,000 Spaniards in an area of 25,000 square miles. The Cubans liberated the rural areas, but Spain retained control in the towns and cities.

      The relations between the Cuban executive and legislature turned bitter, especially after Manuel de Quesada was removed as general-in-chief in December 1869. Quesada, the president’s brother-in-law, was removed by the House of Representatives when he requested greater freedom for the military apparatus, and his post was never filled. Subsequently, each general began to act independently, taking whatever measures he thought necessary in his region. The Cubans living in the United States, who were weakened by internal squabbles, sent very little help to the mambís. Céspedes sent Quesada north as his personal emissary, and the émigrés split into two groups: those in favor of Quesada (the Quesadistas) and those who followed the Havana plantation owner Miguel Aldama (the Aldamistas). Even the arrival of Cuba’s Vice-President, Francisco Vicente Aguilera, failed to settle the quarrel.

      Several Latin American nations expressed their support for the Republic of Cuba. Even though the region’s limited economic development restricted its expression in material form, many young Latin Americans came to Cuba to fight for its freedom. They included Juan Rius Rivera, from Puerto Rico, and José Rogelio Castillo, from Colombia, both of whom rose to the rank of general.

      In line with the United States’ traditional interest in Cuba, US President Ulysses S. Grant did not recognize the Cubans’ struggle for independence and hindered their patriotic work in the United States. He denounced the Cuban war in his annual messages to Congress; and helped Spain by passing on all the information available to him. In 1874, Secretary Hamilton Fish blocked an excellent Colombian plan that proposed purchasing Cuba’s independence from Madrid with contributions from all the other Latin American nations. Throughout the war, the United States supported leaving Cuba in Spanish hands until it could acquire the island for itself.

      Several events during the first five years of the war were key. First, Máximo Gómez advanced his troops into the Guantánamo region in 1871; then, the same year, the Spaniards put eight Havana medical students before a firing squad, having falsely accused them of desecrating a Spaniard’s tomb. Ignacio Agramonte died in 1873 and Céspedes was removed as president, due to differences with the House of Representatives; he died the following year. General Calixto García was captured and several major battles took place in 1874 led by Máximo Gómez, the top-ranking mambí general, at Naranjo, Mojacasabe and Las Guásimas, in the Camagüey area. To a certain extent, the vicissitudes in Spain’s domestic political scene—the monarchy, republicanism and the restoration of Alfonso XII—facilitated the rebels’ achievements.

      Early in 1875, with fewer than 2,000 men, Máximo Gómez, the rebel military chief in Camagüey and Las Villas provinces, began to move westward as a first step toward extending the war. The mambís crossed the Trocha—a string of Spanish military fortifications from Júcaro to Morón that divided Cuba in two—and burned many sugar mills and farms, applying a scorched-earth policy. At the same time, they freed all the slaves they encountered. The colonial power in Cuba began to crumble. Internal problems, however, prevented the rebels from continuing the campaign.

      Gómez had asked the House of Representatives to send reinforcements as he began to move his troops west. When the time came, these reinforcements were called to a meeting at Lagunas de Varona (in what is now Las Tunas province), by supporters of General Vicente García and his friends, relatives of Céspedes (who had been removed as president). The soldiers were reluctant to leave their own provinces and go to Las Villas and they demanded, among other things, that the civilian leadership replace President Cisneros, modify the constitution and hold an election.

      The weakness of the executive and legislative branches of the government was shown by their failure to take drastic measures against this sedition. Instead, they asked Gómez to meet with General García. During their meeting, Gómez and García agreed to appoint Juan Bautista Spotorno as interim president. The presidency was then assumed by Tomás Estrada Palma in 1876. The unity among the revolutionaries was shattered, and the troops’ advance toward the west was halted. This betrayal was a factor in the death of the head of the vanguard, a US citizen named Henry Reeve, who was called “El Inglesito,” or “the little Englishman.”

      Regionalism, which had historically characterized Cuban life and politics throughout the colonial period, had taken root in the combatants from Las Villas to such an extent that, in October 1876, speaking on behalf of the Las Villas officers, Carlos Roloff, a Pole, asked Máximo Gómez to step down as head of the region. This deeply upset Gómez, and he returned to Camagüey at a moment when revolutionary unity was crucial, in view of appointment of Arsenio Martínez Campos as the new Spanish captain-general.

      Martínez Campos was known in Spain as “the Pacifier” because of his successful intervention in that country’s serious political and military disputes. He had graduated from a military academy and had already taken part in the Cuban war, introducing both military and nonmilitary tactics. For example, he proposed returning the goods seized from the large Cuban landowners; he guaranteed that mambís who surrendered would not be killed and, if necessary, gave them some money; he did away with deportations; he distributed food to starving combatants; and generally he succeeded in destroying the rebels’ power base throughout Cuba. At that critical point in the war, this policy brought excellent results.

      The mambí government tried to solve the crisis by appointing General Vicente García to take command

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