Cuba: Its Past, Present, and Future

by A. D. Hall

In a proclamation by Gomez, he ordered his lieutenants to burn the sugar plantations, but he did not tell them to destroy the mills, because he did not wish, in case of his succeeding in his purpose of liberating Cuba, to lay the producers flat upon their backs, from which position they could never, or, only with the utmost difficulty, arise.

The destruction of the sugar cane was a necessity of war. It must be remembered that from the sugar crop Spain has received her largest revenue from Cuba, and to cut off this source of revenue is to cripple Spain and take away from her a large sum of money with which she might otherwise wage warfare.

To show that the damage wrought is by no means irreparable, we cannot do better than quote Baron Antomarchi, a Frenchman who lived for a long time in Cuba, was there during the early part of the present insurrection, and knows of what he is speaking:

"Since the suppression of slavery, and as a result of the high price of labor the work of sugar making had been modified. In former times a sugar planter considered his plantation his most necessary possession. After the process of manufacture was modified, it was his sugar mill upon which he depended; his plantation was less important. So in burning the sugar crop, Gomez did not strike a death-blow at the producer. It is a well known fact that when the cane growth is cut by fire and the fields are burnt close to the ground, the yield of the following season is increased and improved; so we see that Gomez did not ruin the country when he burned the plantations. True, the fields have been burned, but they will spring up with a more vigorous luxuriance after the rest which was one of the conditions imposed upon the first agricultural community of which we have any reliable record, and if the mills which Gomez has left intact are not destroyed by some authority equally potent, when the country is reorganized, the sugar industry may flourish to a degree undreamed of before the Cuban war for liberty."

Besides depriving Spain of her revenue, Gomez had another though a lesser reason, for burning the sugar cane. He knew that those who were thrown out of employment would flock to his standard, and his forces thereby be greatly augmented.

On the whole, we do not see that the criticism and blame which have been given to the insurgents for destroying the crops and for the time being laying waste the land, are deserved. It was a measure of war, and one, which it seems to us, under the circumstances, was thoroughly justified.

Now let us contrast, for a moment, the different methods of the Spaniards and the Cubans in waging warfare.

In the first place, we do not mean to affirm that the insurgents have not committed actions, which, in the light of civilization, are indefensible, but they are few and far between, and they were forced upon them. After all the horrors to which they were subjected, they would have been less than human if they had not retaliated.

The Cubans, both in the Ten Years' War and in the present one, have been merciful to those of the enemy who fell into their hands. The latter have been almost invariably treated with kindness and allowed to go free and unmolested.

But the Spaniards never reciprocated. It has been their invariable policy not to exchange prisoners, a notable instance of this being their recent refusal to exchange the gallant Hobson and his comrades. To be sure, according to international law they are not compelled to do this, but it is doubtful if there is another civilized nation (by the way, it is an undeserved compliment to intimate that Spain is civilized), which would have acted as the country which boasts of its chivalry has done.