After it became clear that Cuba’s Ten Years’ War against Spain had failed to achieve lasting reforms, new hostilities broke out and achieved great success in Cuba’s Oriente province. The savage fighting of the new revolt would combine with Spain’s repressive reaction to bring the United States into the conflict and lead to the Spanish-American War.
The Treaty of Zanjón
Lithograph sold in the United States in support of the Cuban nationalist movement.
Cuban
On February 24, 1895, revolts broke out in the countryside of at least three provinces. The first clash occurred between Cuban and Spanish forces at Los Negros on March 10. The Spanish defeat there resulted in the dispatching of some thirty thousand reinforcements from Spain and Puerto Rico
Cuban president Tomás Estrada Palma with his cabinet in 1902.
Martí, who in many ways was the voice and inspiration of the revolution, was surprised and killed at Dos Rios on May 19, and his men were slaughtered. As more recruits joined the rebellion and volunteers kept trickling into Cuba, Spanish captain-general Arsenio Martínez
Weyler y Nicolau set about with the ruthless resolve that earned him the sobriquet of “butcher” in the American press. Maceo and Gómez
After proclaiming martial law and bolstering the number of troops patroling the trochas, Weyler y Nicolau sought to destroy the rebel power base by ordering the entire populations of certain target regions into concentration camps. This reconcentrado policy was initially successful in hampering rebel operations, though Maceo’s forces remained very active. In the long term the brutality of Weyler y Nicolau’s policy drew sharp attack from William Randolph Hearst’s
New York Morning Journal and New York Evening Journal, Joseph Pulitzer’s New York World
Weyler y Nicolau’s heavy-handed methods slowly ground down or impeded rebel resistance in the western and central regions, and a relentless campaign of maneuver, terror, and retaliation raged in the rebellion’s Oriente province stronghold between Weyler y Nicolau and García Íñiguez. Known now as “the fox,” García Íñiguez proved an elusive and resourceful opponent, slipping away from royalist forces to capture Jiguani (March 13, 1897) and Victoria de las Tunas (August 30).
The inauguration of William McKinley
García Íñiguez’s army resumed its aggressive campaigning. On November 28, 1897, the rebels had forced the surrender of the Spanish garrison at Guisa, and 1898 saw the capitulation of the fortresses at Bayamo, Holguin (García Íñiguez’s birthplace), and Gibara. García Íñiguez’s troops had triumphed in a pitched battle at Rejondon de Baguanos (February 1, 1898) as well. The Cuban War of Independence was then absorbed in (some might even assert, overshadowed by) the U.S. declaration of war against Spain on April 22, 1898, and the swift, decisive conflict known as the Spanish-American War.
Although the United States made short work of the underequipped and demoralized Spanish forces, the Cuban War of Independence, in which the guerrillas had more than held their own against vastly superior numbers, had given the Cubans such a sense of pride and independence that any prior inclinations favoring annexation by the United States had been cast aside.
Recognizing the reality posed by Cuban nationalist sentiment, the Congress of the United States had passed the Teller Amendment (1898) disclaiming any intentions by the United States to make Cuba a colonial possession. After an interim period of U.S. military governance, Cuba became an independent republic in 1902, with Tomás Estrada Palma as its first president.
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Belnap, Jeffrey, and Raul Fernandez. Jose Marti’s “Our America”: From National to Hemispheric Cultural Studies. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 1998. A collection of essays that attempt to shed light on the mercurial and dynamic genius who was the visionary behind the Cuban rebellion. -
Ferrer, Ada. Insurgent Cuba: Race, Nation, and Revolution, 1868-1898. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1999. Focuses on the multicultural factors involved in the Cuban revolt, which is depicted as running against the conventional late nineteenth century attitudes on race. -
Foner, Philip S. Antonio Maceo: The Bronze Titan of Cuba’s Struggle for Independence. New York: Monthly Review Press, 1977. An engrossing biography of one of the pivotal guerrilla chieftains, arguably the most formidable rebel leader, during the early phases of the Cuban War for Independence. -
Rubens, Horatio S. Liberty: The Story of Cuba. 1932. Reprint. New York: Arno Press, 1970. Extols the virtues and strengths of the Cuban guerrilla fighters to legendary proportions. However, the work is still useful. -
Schmidt-Nowara, Christopher. Empire and Antislavery: Spain, Cuba, and Puerto Rico, 1833-1874. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1999. Traces the development of revolutionary ideology in nineteenth century Cuba within the broader context of Spanish (and Puerto Rican) abolitionism and politics. -
Thomas, Hugh. Cuba: The Pursuit of Freedom. New York: Harper & Row, 1971. As in all works by the prolific historian Thomas, this work is meticulously written, and presents facts with great detail. A definitive chronicle of the Cuban ordeal. -
Turton, Peter. Jose Marti: Architect of Cuba’s Freedom. London: Zed Books, 1986. A definitive and complimentary portrayal of Martí as a near-mystical figure.
Cuba’s Ten Years’ War
Rise of Yellow Journalism
Spanish-American War
Philippine Insurrection
Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla; Isabella II; William McKinley; José Martí; Joseph Pulitzer.