At the beginning of the nineteenth century the foreign dominions of Spain, although reduced, were still a vast and imperial possession. The colonial territory over which Alfonso XIII. was to have sovereignty at the close of that century, consisted of the Philippines, the richest of the East Indies; Cuba, the richest of the West Indies; Porto Rico, and a few outlying groups of islands of no great value.
Nowhere had the Constitution of 1812 awakened more hope than in Cuba; and from the setting aside of that instrument by Ferdinand VI. dates the existence of an insurgent party in that beautiful but most unhappy island. Ages of spoliation and cruelty and wrong had done their work. The iron of oppression had entered into the soul of the Cuban. There was a deep exasperation which refused to be calmed. From thenceforth annexation to the United States, or else a "Cuba Libre," was the determined, and even desperate aim.
After a ten-years' war, 1868-78, the people yielded to what proved a delusive promise of home-rule. How could Spain bestow upon her colony what she did not possess herself? When in 1881 she tried to pacify Cuba by permitting that island to send six Senators to sit in the Spanish Cortes, it was a phantom of a phantom. There was no outlet for the national will in Spain itself. Her Cortes was not a national assembly, and its members were not the choice of the people. How much less must they be so then in Cuba, where they were only men of straw selected by the home government, for the purpose of defeating—not expressing—the popular will? The emptiness of this gift was soon discovered. Then came a shorter conflict, which was only a prelude to the last.
A handful of ragged revolutionists, ignorant of the arts of war, commenced the final struggle for liberty on February 24, 1895, under the leadership of José Marti. At the end of two years a poorly armed band of guerrilla soldiers had waged a successful contest against 235,000 well-equipped troops, supported by a militia and a navy, and maintained by supplies from Spain; had adopted a Constitution, and were asking for recognition as a free Republic. The Spanish commander Martinez Campos was superseded by General Weyler (1895), and a new and severer method was inaugurated in dealing with the stubborn revolutionists, but with no better success than before. In August, 1897, an insurrection broke out anew in the Philippines, and Spain was in despair.
America calmly resisted all appeals for annexation or for intervention in Cuba. Sympathy for Cuban patriots was strong in the hearts of the people, but the American Government steadfastly maintained an attitude of strict neutrality and impartiality, and with unexampled patience saw a commerce amounting annually to one hundred millions of dollars wiped out of existence, her citizens reduced to want by the destruction of their property,—some of them lying in Spanish dungeons subjected to barbarities which were worthy of the Turkish Janizaries; our fleets used as a coastguard and a police, in the protection of Spanish interests, and more intolerable than all else, our hearts wrung by cries of anguish at our very doors!
But when General Weyler inaugurated a system for the deliberate starvation of thirty thousand "Reconcentrados," an innocent peasantry driven from their homes and herded in cities, there to perish, the limit of patience was reached. It was this touch of human pity—this last and intolerable strain upon our sympathies—which turned the scale.
While a profound feeling of indignation was prevailing on account of these revolting crimes against humanity, the battleship Maine was, by request of Consul General Lee at that place, dispatched to the harbor of Havana to guard American citizens and interests. The sullen reception of the Maine was followed on February 15, 1898, by a tragedy which shocked the world. Whether the destruction of that ship and the death of 266 brave men was from internal or external causes was a very critical question. It was submitted to a court of inquiry which, after long deliberation, rendered the decision that the cause was—external.
It looked dark for lovers of peace! President McKinley exhausted all the resources of diplomacy before he abandoned hope of a peaceful adjustment which would at the same time compel justice to the Cuban people. But on April 25, 1898, it was declared that war existed between Spain and America.
Less than a week after this declaration, in the early morning of May 1, a victory over the Spanish fleet at Manila was achieved by Commodore Dewey, which made him virtual master of the Philippines; and just two months later, July 1 and 2 were made memorable by two engagements in the West Indies, resulting, the one in the defeat of the Spanish land forces at San Juan, and the other in the complete annihilation of Admiral Cervera's fleet in the Bay of Santiago de Cuba—misfortunes so overwhelming that overtures for peace were quickly received at Washington from Madrid; and the Spanish-American War was over.