The United States and Latin America

by John Holladay Latané

(3) Gradual but effectual emancipation of slaves.

(4) Improvement of commercial facilities and the removal of the obstructions then existing in the way of trade and commerce.

In reply to these suggestions Mr. Calderon handed Mr. Cushing a note, dated April 16, 1876, in which he represented that his majesty's government was in full accord with Mr. Fish's suggestions.

This assurance on the part of the Spanish government completely thwarted Mr. Fish's plans, and, together with Lord Derby's reply, put all further attempts at intervention out of the question.

The substance of Mr. Fish's note threatening intervention appeared unofficially in the press of Europe and America in December, 1875, and attracted such general attention that in January the House asked for the correspondence. In reply Mr. Fish submitted to the President for transmission the note of November 5, together with a few carefully chosen extracts from the correspondence between himself and Mr. Cushing,[119] but nothing was given that might indicate that the United States had appealed to the powers of Europe to countenance intervention. As rumors to this effect had, however, appeared in the press, the House called the next day for whatever correspondence had taken place with foreign powers in regard to Cuba. Mr. Fish replied that "no correspondence has taken place during the past year with any European government, other than Spain, in regard to the island of Cuba," but that the note of November 5 had been orally communicated to several European governments by reading the same.[120] This was putting a very strict and a very unusual construction upon the term "correspondence," to say the least. The dispatches, notes, and telegrams that pass between a government and its representatives abroad are the generally recognized means of communicating with foreign powers, and are always spoken of as the correspondence with those powers. The whole affair reveals a curious lack of candor and of courage on the part of Mr. Fish. He was trying to shield either the administration or himself, and did not wish the American public to know that he had reversed the time-honored policy of the state department by appealing to the powers of Europe to intervene in what had been uniformly treated, from the days of John Quincy Adams and Henry Clay, as a purely American question.

This correspondence was suppressed for twenty years. On March 24, 1896, the Senate called for "copies of all dispatches, notes, and telegrams in the department of state, from and after the note from Secretary Fish to Mr. Cushing of November 5, 1875, and including that note, until the pacification of Cuba in 1878, which relate to mediation or intervention by the United States in the affairs of that island, together with all correspondence with foreign governments relating to the same topic." On April 15 President Cleveland transmitted the "correspondence" called for, which forms a document of 137 pages.[121]

The Cuban struggle continued for two years longer. In October, 1877, several leaders surrendered to the Spanish authorities and undertook the task of bringing over the few remaining ones. Some of these paid for their efforts with their lives, being taken and condemned by court-martial by order of the commander of the Cuban forces. Finally, in February, 1878, the terms of pacification were made known. They embraced representation in the Spanish Cortes, oblivion of the past in respect of political offenses committed since the year 1868, and the freedom of slaves in the insurgent ranks.[122] In practice, however, the Cuban deputies were never truly representative, but were men of Spanish birth designated usually by the captain-general. By gradual emancipation slavery ceased to exist in the island in 1885. The powers of the captain-general, the most objectionable feature of Spanish rule, continued uncurtailed.

In February, 1895, the final insurrection against Spanish rule in Cuba began, and soon developed the same features as the "Ten Years' War." The policy of Maximo Gomez, the insurrectionary chief, was to fight no pitched battles but to keep up incessant skirmishes, to destroy sugar plantations and every other source of revenue with the end in view of either exhausting Spain or forcing the intervention of the United States. With the opening of the second year of the struggle, General Weyler arrived in Havana as governor and captain-general, and immediately inaugurated his famous "Reconcentration" policy. The inhabitants of the island were directed by proclamation to assemble within a week in the towns occupied by Spanish troops under penalty, if they refused, of being treated as rebels. The majority of those who obeyed the proclamation were women and children who, as a result of being cooped up in crowded villages under miserable sanitary conditions and without adequate food, died by the thousands.[123] In the province of Havana alone 52,000 perished.

Public opinion in the United States was thoroughly aroused by the execution of policies which not only excited sympathy for the unfortunate inhabitants of Cuba, but which paralyzed the industries of the island and destroyed its commerce. American citizens owned at least fifty millions of property in the island, and American commerce at the beginning of the insurrection amounted to one hundred millions annually. Furthermore, numbers of persons claiming American citizenship were thrown into prison by Weyler's orders. Some of them were native Americans, but the majority were Cubans who had sought naturalization in the United States in order to return to Cuba and claim American protection.

Other Cubans, including many who were still Spanish subjects, established themselves in American ports and furnished the insurgents with arms and supplies. On June 12, 1895, President Cleveland issued a proclamation calling attention to the Cuban insurrection and warning all persons within the jurisdiction of the United States against doing any of the acts prohibited by the American neutrality laws. Notwithstanding all the efforts of the administration, illegal expeditions were continually being fitted out in the United States, and while the great majority of them were stopped by port officials or intercepted by the navy, some of them succeeded in reaching the coasts of Cuba. President Cleveland's proclamation recognized insurgency as a status distinct from belligerency. It merely put into effect the neutrality laws of the United States. It did not recognize a state of belligerency and therefore did not bring into operation any of the rules of neutrality under international law. President Cleveland consistently refused to recognize the Cubans as belligerents. In February, 1896, Congress passed a joint resolution, by a vote of 64 to 6 in the Senate and 246 to 27 in the House, recognizing a state of war in Cuba, and offering Spain the good offices of the United States for the establishment of Cuban independence. Notwithstanding the overwhelming majority which this resolution had received, the President ignored it, for it is a well recognized principle that Congress has no right to force the hand of the President in a matter of this kind. It amounted merely to an expression of opinion by Congress.