Our War with Spain for Cuba's Freedom

by Trumbull White

CHAPTER III.

SPAIN'S BLACK HISTORICAL RECORD.

Present Men of Prominence Are Types of Those Who Were Infamous
Years Ago—Roman Rule in Spain—Weakness of Spanish Power of
Resistance—Discoveries in America—Horrors of the Inquisition—
Spanish Rule in Holland—Expulsion of the Moors—Loss of American
Colonies—Later History of Spain.

The signal fact that will present itself to the student of Spanish history is that from the earliest times the country has been in a continual state of conflict, internal, with its colonies, and with other nations; and seldom has it been a war of defense. In almost every instance Spain has been the aggressor. The Spaniard has ever been perfidious, avaricious, ferocious. In his veins still flows the blood of Ferdinand, of Torquemada, and of Philip II. Weyler is a prototype of Alva, and in Blanco we find another Antonio de Mendoza. Spain is the China of modern Europe. Her spirit is still the spirit of the inquisition. Her policy is not to conciliate, but to coerce; not to treat justly, but to rob and enslave; and her dependence is the ignorance and superstition of her people.

All reforms wrung from rulers must first be baptized in blood, and it is possible that the end of the present century may see a new nation, built on the ruins of the old, which will be a credit to civilization, instead of a disgrace.

ROMAN RULE IN SPAIN.

Prior to the first war between Rome and Carthage, which ended 241 BC, there is little or no authentic information regarding the history of the country now known to the world as Spain. To the ancients it was a land of mystery and enchantment, the home of the setting sun; and Iberia, as they called it, was but a name for an indefinite extent of territory in the far west, peopled by barbarous Celts and Iberians, with a few Phoenician settlements, for the purposes of trade, on its southern coasts.

At the close of the first Punic war, Hamilcar Barca, at the head of a Carthaginian host, crossed the strait of Gibraltar and commenced the conquest which his son Hannibal completed, and which resulted in the undisputed supremacy of Carthage throughout almost all of Spain. This brings us to 218 B. C. and marks the beginning of the second Punic war, when the Roman legions first entered Spain. After a struggle which lasted for thirteen years the Carthaginians were completely routed, and the country was conquered by the arms of Rome. It was many years, however, before the inhabitants were really subdued, but eventually they became more completely Romanized than any province beyond the limits of Italy. When brought under the iron rule of the Empire they were forced to desist from the intestinal wars in which it had been their habit to indulge, and adopting the language, laws and manners of their conquerors, they devoted themselves to industrial pursuits, and increased remarkably both in wealth and numbers. Their fertile fields formed for a considerable time the granary of Rome, and from the metal-veined mountains an immense amount of gold and silver flowed into Roman coffers. However, these were not voluntary offerings of the natives. They were compelled to labor in the mines for the benefit of strangers, and thus Spain, in the early ages, was the type of Spanish America in the fifteenth and succeeding centuries, with the difference that in the first case the Spaniards were the slaves, and in the second they were the slave-holders.

For more than 300 years Spain remained under Roman rule, until in 409 AD, hordes of barbarians crossed the Pyrenees and swept over the Peninsula. Suevi, Alani and Vandals ravaged with equal fury the cities and the open country, and brought the inhabitants to the lowest depths of misery. They were finally subjugated by a Visigothic host, and in 415, Walia, a war-like and ambitious chief, established the West-Gothic kingdom in Spain, on the ruins of the old Roman province. Walia concluded a treaty with the Emperor Honorius, and, putting himself at the head of the brave Goths, in a three-years' war he destroyed or drove the barbarians from the land. Spain, thus reconquered, was nominally subject to Rome, but soon became really independent, and began to be the seat of a Christian civilization. This West-Gothic kingdom lasted for about three centuries, from 418 to 711, when it fell before the Moorish invasion.

WEAKNESS OF SPANISH POWERS OF RESISTANCE.

Few things in history are more remarkable than the ease with which Spain, a country naturally fitted for defense, was subdued by a mere handful of invaders. The misgovernment of the Visigoths, the internal factions and jealousies, and the discontent of numerous classes, notably the Jews, co-operated to facilitate the conquest and to weaken the power of resistance. These conquerors were of the Mohammedan faith, but while they were united by religion, they were of different races. Besides the Moors there were the Arabs, the Egyptians and the Syrians, and when the task of conquest was achieved, and the need for unity removed, quarrels arose between them. So difficult was it to prevent these quarrels, that it was found necessary to subdivide the conquered territory, and to allot separate settlements to the different tribes.

During the period of Moorish domination a number of small independent kingdoms were formed in opposition to Moslem rule. These comprised Castile, Leon, Navarre and Aragon, and sometimes separately, sometimes in combination, they were in constant war with the common enemy. The age of the great crusades came, and all Christendom was absorbed in the struggle against the infidel, both in the East and West. Spain, like Palestine, had its crusading orders, which vied with the Templars and the Hospitallers both in wealth and military distinction. The decisive battle was fought in July, 1212, when the combined forces of Castile, Leon, Navarre, Aragon and Portugal met the Mohammedan army, and gained the most celebrated victory ever obtained by the Christians over their Moslem foes, the latter losing, according to the account transmitted to the pope, 100,000 killed and 50,000 prisoners. The king of Grenada was speedily forced to become a vassal of Castile, and from this period all danger from Moorish rule was over.

Following this time until the different kingdoms became as one, there is nothing in their history deserving a detailed account. The history of Spain as a united state dates from the union of Castile and Aragon by the marriage of Isabella and Ferdinand, the respective rulers of those kingdoms, in 1469. Grenada, the last remaining possession of the Moors, fell before the Spanish forces in 1492, and Navarre was acquired in 1512.

DISCOVERIES IN AMERICA.

The year 1492, during the reign of Ferdinand and Isabella, witnessed the discovery of America. Spain had become consolidated into one empire from the Pyrenees to the strait of Gibraltar, and civil wars were at an end. Maritime exploration was the task of the age, and under the patronage of Isabella, Columbus planted the flag of Spain in the West Indies. This grand achievement led to the opening of a splendid continent, teeming with riches, for Spanish adventure and despoliation. In 1498, Columbus landed on the continent of South America, and in a few years the entire western coast was explored by subsequent adventurers. In 1512, Ponce de Leon discovered Florida, and the following year, Balboa crossed the Isthmus of Darien, and gazed for the first time upon the Pacific.

The history of Spain, in connection with its discovery and settlement of the New World, is one long record of revolting crime. New England was settled by a people who came to turn the wilderness into a city, but the Spanish invaders went to the southern shores to turn the cities of the natives into a wilderness. In Mexico and Peru they found a civilization the equal and in many respects the superior of their own. With cross and sword in hand, in the name of religion, but with the lust for gold in their hearts, their coming was invariably a signal for every kind of attack that malignity could devise or avarice invent. Wherever they went, desolation followed them. They looted the towns, pillaged the cities, murdered the people; they burned alike the hovels of the poor, and the palaces of the rich.

The value of the treasure that Spain secured from Mexico and Peru never can be known accurately; but it is certain that within sixty years from the time of the landing of Columbus she had advanced to the position of the richest and most powerful nation in Europe. Victorious in Africa and Italy, Philip II, who was then the reigning monarch, carried war into France, and ruled in Germany, as well as in those provinces now known as Belgium and Holland. The money necessary to carry on these vast wars of conquest was undoubtedly acquired in the New World. When Cortez approached the palace of Montezuma, the King's messengers met him, bearing presents from their lord. These gifts included 200 pounds of gold for the commander, and two pounds of gold for each of his army. Prescott, in his "Conquest of Peru," says that when the Spanish soldiers captured the capital of that country they spent days in melting down the golden vessels which they found in temples and palaces. On one voyage a single ship carried to Spain $15,500,000 in gold, besides vast treasures of silver and jewels.

THE HORRORS OF THE INQUISITION.

The Inquisition was a tribunal in the Roman Catholic church for the discovery, repression and punishment of heresy and unbelief. It originated in Rome when Christianity was established as the religion of the Empire, but its history in Spain and her dependencies has absorbed almost entirely the real interest in the painful subject.

As an ordinary tribunal, similar to those of other countries, it had existed there from an early period. Its functions, however, in those times were little more than nominal; but early in the reign of Ferdinand and Isabella, on account of the alleged discovery of a plot among the Jews to overthrow the government, an application was made to the Pope to permit its re-organization. But in reviving the tribunal, the Crown assumed to itself the right of appointing the inquisitors, and of controlling their entire action. For this reason Catholic writers regard the Spanish inquisition as a state tribunal, and refer to the bull of the Pope, Sixtus IV., protesting against it. Notwithstanding this protest, however, the Spanish Crown maintained its assumption. Inquisitors were appointed, and in 1483 the tribunal commenced its terrible career, under Thomas de Torquemada.

The inquisition arrested on suspicion, tortured for confession, and then punished with fire. One witness brought the victim to the rack, two to the flames. The prisoner was not confronted with his accuser, nor were their names ever made known to him. The court was held in a gloomy dungeon at midnight, a dim light gleamed from smoking torches, and the grand inquisitor, enveloped in a black robe, glared at his victim through holes cut in the hood. Before the examination, the accused, whether man, maid or matron, was stripped and stretched upon the rack, where tendons could be strained without cracking, bones crushed without breaking and the body tortured without dying.

When the prisoner was found guilty, his tongue was cut out, so that he could neither speak nor swallow. On the morning of the execution a breakfast of rare delicacies was placed before the sufferer, and with ironical invitation he was urged to enjoy his last repast. Then the prisoner was led to the funeral pyre, where an address was given, lauding the inquisition, condemning heresy, and commanding obedience to the Pope and the Emperor. Then, while hymns were sung, blazing fagots were piled about the victim, until his body was reduced to a heap of ashes.

Some conception of the appalling cruelty of the inquisition under Torquemada may be formed from the statement that during the sixteen years of his tenure of office nearly 10,000 persons were condemned to the flames, and the property of 97,000 others was confiscated.

SPANISH RULE IN HOLLAND.

Horrible as the atrocities of the inquisition were in the mother country, it is doubtful if they ever reached the acme of savage cruelty that they attained during the period when Spain was seeking to strengthen the fetters with which she nominally held Holland in her grasp. The Spanish government, from the time when it first acquired a place among nations, has never been satisfied with a reasonable tribute from its dependencies. Its plan ever has been to exact all, and leave nothing to supply more than a miserable existence. So it was in the middle of the sixteenth century, when Philip II., greedy of the treasures of Holland, determined to spoil them of their wealth, and planned to establish the inquisition among them by the sword.

The duke of Alva, already famous for his harshness and bigotry, was named commander of the forces, with almost unlimited powers. He entered the Netherlands with about 20,000 tried troops, ready for cruelties, and all hopes of peace or mercy fled before them. There was a great and desperate exodus of the inhabitants; thousands took refuge in England, Denmark and Germany, and despair and helplessness alone remained to greet the cold Spaniard and his train of orthodox executioners. The Council of Troubles—the "Blood-tribunal"—was immediately established, and the land was filled with blood. In a short time he totally annihilated every privilege of the people, and with unrelenting cruelty put multitudes of them to death.

The more the peasants rebelled, the crueler were the methods of Alva. Men were tortured, beheaded, roasted before slow fires, pinched to death with hot tongs, broken on the wheel, flayed alive. On one occasion the skins of leaders were stripped from their living bodies, and stretched upon drums for beating the funeral march of brethren to the gallows. During the course of six years Alva brought charges of heresy and treason against 30,000 inhabitants, and made the infamous boast that, in addition to the multitudes killed in battle and massacred after victory, he had consigned 18,000 persons to the executioner.

This unholy war with the Netherlands lasted with occasional cessations of hostilities for eighty years, and during its progress Spain buried 350,000 of her sons and allies in Holland, spent untold millions in the attempted destruction of freedom, and sunk from the first power in Europe, an empire whose proud boast it had been that upon her possessions the sun never set, to the level of a fourth-rate country, cruel in government, superstitious in religion, and ever an enemy to progress.

EXPULSION OF THE MOORS.

In addition to the terrible drain upon the country from losses in war, the expulsion of the Jews and the Moors was productive of the direst results. In 1609 all the Moriscoes were ordered to depart from the Peninsula within three days. The penalty of death was declared against all who failed to obey, and against any Christians who should shelter the recalcitrant. The edict was obeyed, but it was a blow from which Spain never recovered. The Moriscoes were the back-bone of the industrial population, not only in trade and manufactures, but also in agriculture. The haughty and indolent Spaniards had willingly left what they considered degrading employment to their inferiors. The Moors had introduced into Spain the cultivation of sugar, cotton, rice and silk. In manufactures and commerce they had shown superiority to the Christian inhabitants, and many of their products were eagerly sought for by other countries. All these advantages were sacrificed to an insane desire for religious unity.

The reigns of Philip III. and Philip IV. witnessed a fearful acceleration in the decline of Spain by the contests with the Dutch and with the German Protestants in the Thirty Years' War, the wars with France, and the rebellion of Portugal in 1640, which had been united to Spain by Philip II. The reign of Charles II. was still more unfortunate, and his death was the occasion of the war of the Spanish succession.

Under Charles III. (1759-1788), a wise and enlightened prince, the second great revival of the country commenced, and trade and commerce began to show signs of returning activity. Previous to his accession to the throne, Spain appeared to be a corpse, over which the powers of Europe could contend at will. Suddenly men were astounded to see that country rise with renewed vigor to play once more an important part on the international stage. Commerce and agriculture were developed, native manufactures were encouraged in every way possible, and an attempt was made to remove all prejudices against trade, among the nobles. Meritorious as these reforms were, it would give a false impression to represent them as wholly successful. The regeneration of Spain was by no means accomplished, and many of the abuses which had been growing for centuries, survived the attempt to effect their annihilation. One of the chief causes of this failure was the corruption and ignorance of the lower officials; and a large portion of the population remained, to a great extent, sunk in sloth and superstition, in spite of all that was done in their behalf.

During the inglorious reign of Charles IV. (1788-1808), who left the management, of affairs in the hands of the incapable Godoy, (at once the queen's lover and the king's prime minister), a war broke out with Britain, which was productive of nothing but disaster to the Spaniards. Charles finally abdicated in favor of his son, the Prince of Asturias, who ascended the throne as Ferdinand VII. Forced by Napoleon to resign all claims to the Spanish crown, Ferdinand became the prisoner of the French in the year of his accession, and in the same year, Joseph, the brother of the French emperor, was declared King of Spain, and set out for Madrid to assume the kingdom thus assigned him. But Spanish loyalty was too profound to be daunted even by the awe-inspiring power of the great Napoleon. For the first time he found himself confronted, not by terrified and selfish rulers, but by an infuriated people. The rising on Spain commenced the popular movement which ultimately proved fatal to his power.

In July, 1808, England, on solicitation, made peace with Spain, recognized Ferdinand VII. as king, and sent an army to aid the Spanish insurrection. Joseph invaded the country on July 9, defeated the Spaniards at Rio Seco, and entered Madrid on the 20th. But the defeat of Dupont at Baylen by the veteran Spanish general Castanos somewhat altered the position of affairs, and Joseph, after a residence of ten days in his capital, was compelled to evacuate it.

Meanwhile Sir Arthur Wellesley, afterwards Duke of Wellington, at the head of the British auxiliary force, had landed at Mondego bay, and began the Peninsular war by defeating the French at Roliza and Vimiero. In November, 1808, Napoleon, who had been preceded by Ney with 100,000 men, entered Spain and assumed the command. For a time his armies were completely successful. In less than a week the Spanish forces were broken through and scattered, and Joseph was returned to Madrid. The victory was a short-lived one, however, for, in April, 1809, General Wellesley arrived in Portugal and at once commenced operations. By dint of masterly generalship and bold enterprise he finally succeeded in driving the French from the country. Napoleon, loth to lose his hold in the Peninsula, sent Soult, his most trusted general, to stop the ingress of the British into France, but the battles of the Pyrenees, (24th July 1st August, 1813), and of the Nivelle, Orthez, and Toulouse, in the beginning of 1814, brought to a victorious conclusion this long and obstinate contest.

LOSS OF AMERICAN COLONIES.

After the convulsions it had endured, Spain required a period of firm but conciliatory government, but the ill fate of the country gave the throne at this crisis one of her worst rulers. Ferdinand VII. had no conception of the duties of a sovereign; his public conduct was regulated by pride and superstition, and his private life was stained by the grossest dissipations.

For six years Spain groaned under a "Reign of terror," and isolated revolts only served as the occasion for fresh cruelties. The finances were squandered in futile expeditions to recover the South American colonies, which had taken advantage of Napoleon's conquest of Spain to establish their independence. In his straits for money, Ferdinand ventured to outrage national sentiment by selling Florida to the United States in 1819. Louisiana had been ceded to France in 1803, and when Mexico gained her independence in 1822, the last of the territory under Spanish rule in North America was lost to her.

The reign of Ferdinand's daughter, Isabella II., was disturbed by the Carlist rebellion in 1834-1839, in which England aided the Queen with an army commanded by Sir De Lacy Evans. Spain, under Isabella II., presents a dismal picture of faction and intrigue. Policies of state had forced her into a distasteful marriage with her cousin, Francis of Assisi, and she sought compensation in sensual indulgences, endeavoring to cover the dissoluteness of her private life by a superstitious devotion to religion. She had to contend with continual revolts, and was finally compelled, in 1868, to abdicate the throne and fly to France for her life.

A provisional government was formed with Serrano as President, and a new constitution was formed, by which an hereditary king was to rule, in conjunction with a senate and a popular chamber. The throne was offered to Amadeus of Aosta, the second son of Victor Emmanuel, in 1870, and he made an honest effort to discharge the difficult duties of the office. But he found the task too hard, and too distasteful, and resigned in 1873. A provisional republic was then formed, of which Castelar was the guiding spirit. But the Spaniards, trained to regard monarchy with superstitious reverence, had no sympathy with republican institutions. Don Carlos seized the opportunity to revive the claim of inalienable male succession, and raised the standard of revolt. Castelar finally threw up the office in disgust, and the administration was undertaken by a committee of officers. Anarchy was suppressed with a strong hand, but it was obvious that order could only be restored by reviving the monarchy. Foreign princes were no longer thought of, and Alfonso XII., the young son of the exiled Isabella, was restored to the throne in 1874. His first task was to terminate the Carlist war, which still continued in the North, and this was successfully accomplished in 1876. He died in 1885, and the regency was entrusted to his widow, Christina of Austria. On May 17th, 1886, a posthumous son was born, who is now the titular King of Spain.