Our War with Spain for Cuba's Freedom

by Trumbull White

CHAPTER XXIV.

CUBA UNDER THE SCOURGE.

The Civil Guards and Their Crimes—Horrible Murder of Eight
Innocent Men—A Man After Weyler's Own Heart—How the Spanish Gain
"Victories"—Life, Liberty and Property Sacrificed—The War Not a
Race War—Resistance to the Bitter End.

Cuba has been under martial law for over fifty years, and its enforcement by the Civil guards (as the officers appointed by the Spanish government are called) has been responsible for innumerable outrages against the lives and property of the inhabitants. These officials have been guilty of every crime in the calendar, but protected by their positions they have escaped legal punishment, and it has only been on occasions when, driven to desperation, the people have acted as judges and executioners by taking the law into their own hands that any redress has been possible.

If for any reason these guards wish to persecute a man, the fact that he is a non-combatant is no protection to him, nor to his family. They have been the means of adding to the ranks of the insurrectionists, for frequently the man who has seen his relatives and friends shot before his eyes, to satisfy some personal spite, or in order that some officer may get credit for a battle, has left his fields and gone to strike a manly blow for his country and his home.

The story of eight peaceable white men, who were shot without trial, at Campo Florida, near Havana, will serve as an example of the work of these fiends.

These poor fellows were arrested, their arms were tied, and they were taken to the police station. One of them had just completed a coffin for a woman, and he was dragged to the station with a rope about his neck. The next day, without even the pretense of a trial, they were taken two at a time into a ravine near the fort, where a trench had been lately dug, and in spite of the most pitiful pleas for mercy, they were shot down in cold blood by the cruel guards, who seemed to take fiendish delight in their work of blood.

The following statement was seat by Cuban, patriots, with the request that it be given the widest publicity possible, among the people of the United States:

"If the government that unhappily rules the destinies of this unfortunate country should be true to the most rudimentary principles of justice and morality, Colonel Jull, who has been recently appointed Military Governor of Matanzas province, should be in the galleys among criminals. It is but a short time since he was relieved by General Martinez Campos of the military command at Cienfuegos, as he had not once engaged any of the insurgent forces, but vented all his ferocious instincts against innocent and inoffensive peasants.

"In Yaguaramas, a small town near Cienfuegos, he arrested as suspects and spies Mr. Antonio Morejon, an honest and hard-working man, and Mr. Ygnacio Chapi, who is well advanced in years, and almost blind. Not being able to prove the charge against them, as they were innocent, he ordered Major Moreno, of the Barcelona battalion, doing garrison duty at Yaguaramas, to kill them with the machete and have them buried immediately. Major Moreno answered that he was a gentleman, who had come to fight for the integrity of his country, and not to commit murder. This displeased the colonel sorely, but, unfortunately, a volunteer sergeant, with six others, was willing to execute the order of the colonel, and Morejon and Chapi were murdered without pity.

"The order of Jull was executed in the most cruel manner. It horrifies to even think of it. Mr. Chapi, who knew the ways of Colonel Jull, on being awakened at three o'clock in the morning, and notified by the guard that he and Morejon had to go out, suspected what was to come, and told his companion to cry out for help as soon as they were taken out of the fort. They did so, but those who were to execute the order of Jull were neither moved nor weakened in their purpose.

A HORRIBLE SIGHT.

"On the contrary, at the first screams of Chapi and Morejon they threw a lasso over their heads, and pulled at it by the ends. In a few moments they fell to the ground choked to death. They were dragged on the earth, without pity, to the place where they were buried. All this bloody scene was witnessed by Jull from a short distance. Providence had not willed that so much iniquity should remain hidden forever. In the hurry the grave where these two innocent men were buried was not dug deep enough, and part of the rope with which they were choked remained outside. A neighbor, looking for a lost cow, saw the rope, took hold of it, and, on pulling, disinterred the head of one of the victims. He was terror stricken, and immediately gave notice to the judge, who, on ascertaining that the men had been killed by order of Colonel Jull, suspended proceedings.

"The neighbors and all the civil and military authorities know everything that has been related here, but such is the state of affairs on the island that General Weyler has no objection to appointing this monster, Colonel Jull, Military Governor of Matanzas. Such deeds as those enumerated are common. The people of the town of Matanzas, with Jull as Governor, and Arolas at the head of a column, will suffer in consequence of their pernicious and bloody instincts.

"That the readers may know in part who General Arolas is, it may be well to relate what has happened in the Mercedes estate, near Colon. It having come to his knowledge that a small body of rebels was encamped on the sugar estate Mercedes, of Mr. Carrillo, General Arolas went to engage them, but the rebels, who were few in numbers, retreated. Much vexed at not being able to discharge one shot at them, he made prisoners of three workmen who were out in the field herding the animals of the estate and without any formality of trial shot them. When the bodies were taken to the Central they were recognized, and to cover his responsibility somewhat, General Arolas said that when he challenged them they ran off, and at the first discharge of musketry they fell dead."

LIFE, LIBERTY AND PROPERTY SACRIFICED.

Life, liberty and property have all been sacrificed by these determined patriots for the sake of the cause they love. Their towns have been burned, their homes pillaged, their wives and children starved, and in many sections of the island nothing but ruin and waste meets the eye. Even their sick and wounded are not safe from the oppressor's sword, and wherever the insurgents have a hospital, they have a garrison to protect it. Each of the six provinces has an insurgent hospital, with a staff of physicians and nurses, and a detachment of the army.

The largest of these lies in that part of Santa Clara called the Isthmus of Zapata. It is a wild, swampy region, through which the natives alone can distinguish those precarious tracks, where the slightest deviation means being engulfed in the treacherous morass.

A DETERMINED RESISTANCE.

A prominent Cuban, who may be said to speak for his entire race, makes this declaration:

"The population of the island is, in round numbers, 1,600,000, of which less than 200,000 are Spaniards, some 500,000 are colored Cubans, and over 800,000 white Cubans. Of the Spaniards, a small but not inconsiderable fraction, although not taking an active part in the defense of our cause, sympathize with, and are supporting it in various ways. Of the Cubans, whether colored or white, all are in sympathy with the revolution, with the exception of a few scattered individuals who hold positions under the Spanish government or are engaged in enterprises which cannot thrive without it. All of the Cubans who have had the means and the opportunity to join the revolutionary army have done so, while those who have been compelled for one reason or another to remain in the cities are co-operating to the best of their abilities. If the people of the small section of the western part of the island, which yet remains quiet, were supplied with arms and ammunition they would rise, to a man, within twenty-four hours.

"This revolution of the whole Cuban people against the government of Spain is what the Spanish officials are pleased to describe as a disturbance caused by a few adventurers, robbers, bandits, and assassins! But they have a purpose in so characterizing it, and it is no other than to justify, in some way, the war of extermination which the Prime Minister of Spain himself has declared will be waged by his government against the Cuban people. They are not yet satisfied with the rivers of human blood with which in times past they inundated the fields of Italy, of the Low Countries, of our continent of America, and only a few years ago, of Cuba itself. The Spanish newspaper of Havana, 'El Pueblo,' urges the Spanish soldiers to give no quarter, to spare no one, to kill all, all without exception, until they shall have torrents of Cuban blood in which to bathe themselves. It is well. The Cubans accept the challenge, but they will not imitate their tyrants and cover themselves with infamy by waging a savage war. The Cubans respect the lives of their Spanish prisoners, they do not attack hospitals, and they cure and assist with the same care and solicitude with which they cure and assist their own, the wounded Spaniards who may fall into their hands. They have done so from the beginning of the war, and they will not change their humane policy.

"The Spanish officials have also attempted to convince you that the Cuban war is a war of races. Of what races? Of the black against the white? It is not true, and the facts plainly show that there is nothing of the kind. Nor is the war waged by Cubans against the Spaniards as such. No. The war is waged against the government of Spain, and only against the government of Spain and the officials and a few monopolists, who, under it, live and thrive upon the substance of the Cubans. We have no ill feeling against the thousands of Spaniards who industriously and honestly make their living in Cuba.

"But with the Spanish government we will make no peace, and we will make no compromise. Under its rule there will be nothing for our people but oppression and misery. For years and years the Cuban people have patiently suffered, and in the interests of the colony, as well as in the interests of the metropolis, have earnestly prayed for reforms. Spain has not only turned a deaf ear to the prayers, but instead of reforming the most glaring abuses, has allowed them to increase and flourish, until such a point has been reached that the continuation of Spanish rule means for the Cuban people utter destruction."