The details of a conflict that lasted for ten years are quite impossible of presentation in a few pages. Nor are they of value or interest to any except special students who can find them elaborately set forth in many volumes, some in Spanish and a few in English. Having tried once before to cover this period as briefly and as adequately as possible, I can do no better here than to repeat the story as told in an earlier work (Cuba, and the Intervention). On the 10th of October, 1868, Carlos Manuel Cespedes and his associates raised the cry of Cuban independence at Yara, in the Province of Puerto Principe (now Camaguey). On the 10th of April, 1869, there was proclaimed the Constitution of the Cuban Republic. During the intervening months, there was considerable fighting, though it was largely in the nature of guerrilla skirmishing. The Spanish Minister of State asserted in a memorandum issued to Spain's representatives in other countries, under date of February 3, 1876, that at the outbreak of the insurrection Spain had 7,500 troops, all told, in Cuba. According to General Sickels, at that time the American Minister to Spain, this number was increased by reinforcements of 34,500 within the first year of the war. The accuracy of this information, however, has been questioned. Prior to the establishment of the so-called Republic, the affairs of the insurrection were in the hands of an Assembly of Representatives. On February 26, this body issued a decree proclaiming the abolition of slavery throughout the island, and calling upon those who thus received their freedom to "contribute their efforts to the independence of Cuba." During the opening days of April, 1869, the Assembly met at Guiamaro. On the tenth of that month a government was organized, with a president, vice-president, general-in-chief of the army, secretaries of departments, and a parliament or congress. Carlos Manuel Cespedes was chosen as President, and Manuel de Quesada as General-in-Chief. A Constitution was adopted. Señor Morales Lemus was appointed as minister to the United States, to represent the new Republic, and to ask official recognition by the American Government. The government which the United States was asked to recognize was a somewhat vague institution. The insurrection, or revolution, if it may be so called, at this time consisted of a nominal central government, chiefly self-organized and self-elected, and various roving bands, probably numbering some thousands in their aggregate, of men rudely and incompetently armed, and showing little or nothing of military organization or method.
Like all Cuban-Spanish wars and warfare, the destruction of property was a common procedure. Some of the methods employed for the suppression of the insurrection were not unlike those adopted by General Weyler in the later war. At Bayamo, on April 4, 1869, Count Valmaseda, the Spanish Commandant of that district, issued the following proclamation:
1. Every man, from the age of fifteen years upward, found away from his place of habitation, who does not prove a justified reason therefor, will be shot.
2. Every unoccupied habitation will be burned by the troops.
3. Every habitation from which no white flag floats, as a signal that its occupants desire peace, will be reduced to ashes.
In the summer of 1869, the United States essayed a reconciliation and an adjustment of the differences between the contestants. To this Spain replied that the mediation of any nation in a purely domestic question was wholly incompatible with the honor of Spain, and that the independence of Cuba was inadmissible as a basis of negotiation. Heavy reinforcements were sent from Spain, and the strife continued. The commerce of the island was not greatly disturbed, for the reason that the great producing and commercial centres lay to the westward, and the military activities were confined, almost exclusively, to the eastern and central areas. In April, 1874, Mr. Fish, then Secretary of State, reported that "it is now more than five years since the uprising (in Cuba) and it has been announced with apparent authority, that Spain has lost upward of 80,000 men, and has expended upward of $100,000,000, in efforts to suppress it; yet the insurrection seems today as active and as powerful as it has ever been." Spain's losses among her troops were not due so much to the casualties of war as they were to the ravages of disease, especially yellow fever. The process, in which both parties would appear to be about equally culpable, of destroying property and taking life when occasion offered, proceedings which are hardly to be dignified by the name of war, continued until the beginning of 1878. Throughout the entire period of the war, the American officials labored diligently for its termination on a basis that would give fair promise of an enduring peace. Many questions arose concerning the arrest of American citizens and the destruction of property of American ownership. Proposals to grant the Cubans the rights of belligerents were dismissed as not properly warranted by the conditions, and questions arose regarding the supply of arms and ammunition, from this country, by filibustering expeditions. References to Cuban affairs appear in many presidential messages, and the matter was a subject of much discussion and numerous measures in Congress. Diplomatic communication was constantly active. In his message of December 7, 1875, President Grant said: "The past year has furnished no evidence of an approaching termination of the ruinous conflict which has been raging for seven years in the neighboring island of Cuba. While conscious that the insurrection has shown a strength and endurance which make it at least doubtful whether it be in the power of Spain to subdue it, it seems unquestionable that no such civil organization exists which may be recognized as an independent government capable of performing its international obligations and entitled to be treated as one of the powers of the earth." Nor did he then deem the grant of belligerent rights to the Cubans as either expedient or properly warranted by the circumstances.
In 1878, Martinez Campos was Governor-General of Cuba, and Maximo Gomez was Commander-in-Chief of the Cuban forces. Both parties were weary of the prolonged hostilities, and neither was able to compel the other to surrender. Spain, however, professed a willingness to yield an important part of the demands of her rebellious subjects. Martinez Campos and Gomez met at Zanjon and, on February 10, 1878, mutually agreed to what has been variously called a peace pact, a treaty, and a capitulation. The agreement was based on provisions for a redress of Cuban grievances through greater civil, political, and administrative privileges for the Cubans, with forgetfulness of the past and amnesty for all then under sentence for political offences. Delay in carrying these provisions into effect gave rise to an attempt to renew the struggle two years later, but the effort was a failure.
Matters then quieted down for a number of years. The Cubans waited to see what would be done. The Spanish Governor-General still remained the supreme power and, aside from the abolition of slavery, the application of the Spanish Constitution and Spanish laws to Cuba, and Cuban representation in the Cortes, much of which was rather form than fact, the island gained little by the new conditions. Discontent and protest continued and, at last, broke again into open rebellion in 1895.
The story of that experience is told in another chapter. In 1906, there came one of the most deplorable experiences in the history of the island, the first and only discreditable revolution. The causes of the experience are not open to our criticism. Our own records show too much of precisely the same kind of work, illegal registration, ballot box stuffing, threats and bribery. The first election in the new Republic was carried with only a limited and somewhat perfunctory opposition to the candidacy of Estrada Palma. Before the second election came, in 1905, he allied himself definitely with an organization then known as the Moderate party. The opposition was known as the Liberal party. Responsibility for the disgraceful campaign that followed rests on both, almost equally. The particular difference lies in the fact that, the principal offices having been given to adherents of the Moderates, they were able to control both registration and election proceedings. But the methods employed by the opposition were no less censurable. Realizing defeat, the Liberals withdrew from the field, by concerted action, on the day of the election, and the Moderates elected every one of their candidates. Naturally, a feeling of bitter resentment was created, and there came, in the spring of 1906, rumors of armed revolt. In August, an actual insurrection was begun. Disgruntled political leaders gathered formidable bands in Pinar del Rio and in Santa Clara provinces. President Palma became seriously alarmed, even actually frightened. Through the United States Consul-General in Havana, he sent urgent appeals to Washington for naval and military aid. Mr. Taft, then Secretary of War, and Mr. Bacon, the Assistant Secretary of State, were sent to Havana to investigate and report on the situation. They arrived in Havana on September 19. After ten days of careful and thorough study, and earnest effort to effect an adjustment, a proclamation was issued declaring the creation of a provisional government. This was accepted by both parties and the insurgent bands dispersed. Charles E. Magoon was sent down as Provisional Governor. Americans who are disposed to censure the Cubans for this experience in their history, may perhaps turn with profit to some little experiences in the history of their own country in its political infancy, in 1786 and 1794. Those incidents do not relieve the Cubans of the censure to which they are open, but they make it a little difficult for us to condemn them with proper grace and dignity. The provisional government continued until January 28, 1909, when control was turned over to the duly elected officials, they being the same who withdrew from the polls, acknowledging defeat, in the election of 1905.