CHAPTER XVI
Cuba broke out in one of her numerous insurrections in 1895. The island had been nominally quiet since the close of the Ten Years' War, in 1878, but had always been an object of American interest. More than once it had entered into American diplomacy to bring out reiterations of different phases of the Monroe Doctrine. Its purchase by the United States had been desired to extend the slave area, or to control the Caribbean, or to enlarge the fruit and sugar plantation area. The free trade in sugar, which the McKinley Bill had allowed, ended in 1894, and almost immediately thereafter the native population demanded independence.
The revolt of 1895 was defended and justified by a recital of the faults of Spanish colonial government. Caste and monopoly played a large part in Cuban life. The Spanish-born held the offices, enjoyed the profits, and owned or managed the commercial privileges. The western end of the island, most thickly settled and most under the influence of Spain, gave least support to the uprising, but in the east, where the Cubans and negroes raised and ground cane, or grazed their herds, discontent at the system of favoritism and race discrimination was an important political force. Here the insurgents soon gained a foothold in the provinces of Santiago, Puerto Principe, and Santa Clara. From the jungle or the mountains they sent bands of guerrillas against the sugar mills and plantations of the ruling class, and when pursued their troops hid their weapons and became, ostensibly, peaceful farmers. A revolutionary government, sitting safely in New York, directed the revolt, raised money by playing on the American love of freedom, and sent cargoes of arms, munitions, and volunteers to the seat of war. Avoiding pitched battles and living off the country, the patriot forces compelled Spain to put some 200,000 troops in Cuba and to garrison every place that she retained.
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ALASKA, THE PHILIPPINES, AND THE SEAT OF THE SPANISH WAR
Through 1895 and 1896 the war dragged on with no prospect of victory for the authorities and with growing interest on the part of the United States. Public sympathy was with the Cubans, and news from the front was so much desired that enterprising papers sent their correspondents to the scene of action. The reports of these, almost without exception, magnified the character and promise of the native leaders and attacked the policy of the Spanish forces of repression.
The insurgents began, in 1895, a policy of terror, destroying the cane in the fields of loyalists and burning their sugar mills. To protect the loyalists and repress the rebels the Queen Regent sent General Valeriano Weyler to the island in 1896, with orders to end the war. Weyler replied to devastation with concentration. Unable to separate the loyal natives from the disloyal, or to prevent the latter from aiding the rebels, he gathered the suspected population into huge concentration camps, fortified his towns and villages with sentinels and barbed-wire fences, and endeavored to depopulate the area outside his lines. American public opinion, unused for a generation to the sight of war, was shocked by the suffering in the camps and was aroused in moral protest. Sympathy with the insurgents grew in 1896 and 1897, as exaggerated tales of hardship and brutality were circulated by the "yellow" newspapers. The evidence was one-sided and incomplete, and often dishonest, but it was effective in steering a rising public opinion toward ultimate intervention.
The nearness of the contest brought the trouble to the United States Government through the enforcement of the neutrality laws. There was no public war, and Spain was thus unable to seize or examine American vessels until they entered actual Cuban waters. It was easy to run the Spanish blockade and take supplies to the rebel forces, which was a permissible trade. It was easy, too, to organize and send out filibustering parties, which were highly illegal, and which the United States tried to stop. Out of seventy-one known attempts, the United States broke up thirty-three, while other Powers, including Spain, caught only eleven. Enough landed to be a material aid to the natives and to embitter Spain in her criticism of the United States. Cleveland issued proclamations against the unfriendly acts of citizens, and enforced the law as well as he could in a population and with juries sympathizing with the law-breakers. Even in Congress he found little sympathy in his attempt to maintain a sincere neutrality.
Congress felt the popular sympathy with the Cubans and responded to it, as well as to the demands of Americans with investments in Cuba. In the spring of 1896 both houses joined in a resolution favoring the recognition of Cuban belligerency. This Cleveland ignored. In December, 1896, the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations reported a resolution for the recognition of Cuban independence, and individual members of Congress often read from the newspapers accounts of horror, and made impassioned speeches for recognition and intervention. But Cleveland kept his control over the situation until he left office, as Grant had done during the Ten Years' War and the excitement over the Virginius affair. He left the determination of the time and manner of ultimate intervention to his successor.