Partly because of political and social divisions thus revealed, conspiracies being rife in the decade 1820-1830, and partly as preparation for the defence against Mexico and Colombia, who throughout these same years were threatening the island with invasion, the captains-general, in 1825, received the powers above referred to; which became, as time passed, monstrously in disaccord with the general tendencies of colonial government and with increasing liberties in Spain, but continued to be the spiritual basis of Spanish rule in the island. Among the governors of the 19th century Miguel Tacon, governor in 1834-1839, a forceful and high-handed soldier, deserves mention, especially in the annals of Havana; he ruled as a tyrant, made many reforms as regarded law and order, and left Havana, in particular, full of municipal improvements. The good he did was limited to the spheres of public works and police; in other respects his rule was a pernicious influence for Cuba. Politically his rule was marked by the proclamation at Santiago in 1836, without his consent, of the Spanish constitution of 1834; he repressed the movement, and in 1837 the deputies of Cuba to the Cortes of Spain (to which they were admitted in the two earlier constitutional periods) were excluded from that body, and it was declared in the national constitution that Cuba (and Porto Rico) should be governed by “special laws.” The inapplicability of many laws passed for the Peninsula—all of which under a constitutional system would apply to Cuba as to any other province, unless that system be modified—was indeed notorious; and Cuban opinion had repeatedly, through official bodies, protested against laws thus imposed that worked injustice, and had pleaded for special consideration of colonial conditions. The promise of “special laws” based upon such consideration was therefore not, in itself, unjust, nor unwelcome. But as the colony had no voice in the Cortes, while the “special laws” were never passed (Cuba expected special fundamental laws, reforming her government, and the government regarded the old Laws of the Indies as satisfying the obligation of the constitution) the arbitrary rule of the captains-general remained quite supreme, under the will of the crown, and colonial discontent became stronger and stronger. The rule of Leopoldo O’Donnell was marked in 1844 by a cruel and bloody persecution of negroes for a supposed plot of servile war; O’Donnell’s actions being partly due to the inquietude that had prevailed for some years over the supposed machinations of English abolitionists and even of English official residents in the island, and also over the mutual jealousies and supposed annexation ambitions of Great Britain and the United States.
A Cuban international question had arisen before 1820. Spain, the United States, England, France, Colombia and Mexico were all involved in it, the first four continually. In the eighteen-fifties a strong pro-slavery interest in the United States advocated the acquisition of the island. One feature of this was the “Ostend Manifesto” (see Buchanan, James), in which the ministers of the United States at London, Paris and Madrid declared that if Spain refused a money offer for the colony the United States should seize it. Their government gave this document publicity. The Cuban policy of Presidents Pierce and Buchanan (during 1853-1861) was vainly directed to acquiring the island. From 1849 to 1851 there were three abortive filibustering expeditions from the United States, two being under a Spanish general, Narciso Lopez (1798-1851). The domestic problem, the problem of discontent in the island, had become acute by 1850, and from this time on to 1868 the years were full of conflict between liberal and reactionary sentiment in the colony, centreing about the asserted connivance of the captains-general in the illegal slave trade (declared illegal after 1820 by the treaties of 1817 and 1835 between Great Britain and Spain), the notorious immorality and prodigal wastefulness of the government, and the selfish exploitation of the colony by Spaniards and the Spanish government. From early in the 19th century there had always been separatists, reformists and repressionists in the island, but they were individuals rather than groups. The last were peninsulars, the others mainly creoles, and among the wealthy classes of the latter the separatists gradually gained increasing support.
An ineffective and extremely corrupt administration, a grave economic condition, new and heavy taxes, military repression, recurring heavy deficits in the budget, adding to a debt (about $150,000,000 in 1868) already very large and burdensome, and the complete fiasco of the junta of inquiry of Cuban and Porto Rican representatives which met in Madrid in 1866-1867—all were important influences favouring the outbreak of the Ten Years’ War. Among those who waged the war were men who fought to compel reforms, others who fought for annexation to the United States, others who fought for independence. The reformists demanded, besides the correction of the above evils, action against slavery, assimilation of rights between peninsulars and creoles and the practical recognition of equality, e.g. in the matter of office-holding, a grievance centuries old in Cuba as in other Spanish colonies, and guarantees of personal liberties. The separatists, headed by Carlos Manuel de Céspedes (1819-1874), a wealthy planter who proclaimed the revolution at Yara on the 10th of October, demanded the same reforms, including gradual emancipation of the slaves with indemnity to owners, and the grant of free and universal suffrage. War was confined throughout the ten years almost wholly to the E. provinces. The policy of successive captains-general was alternately uncompromisingly repressive and conciliatory. The Spanish volunteers committed horrible excesses in Havana and other places; the rebels also burned and killed indiscriminatingly, and the war became increasingly cruel and sanguinary. Intervention by the United States seemed probable, but did not come, and after alternations in the fortunes of war, Martinez Campos in January 1878 secured the acceptance by the rebels of the convention (pacto) of Zanjón, which promised amnesty for the war, liberty to slaves in the rebel ranks, the abolition of slavery, reforms in government, and colonial autonomy. A small rising after peace (the “Little War” of 1879-1880) was easily repressed. Gradual abolition of slavery was declared by a law of the 13th of February 1880; definitive abolition in 1886; and in 1893 the equal civil status of blacks and whites in all respects was proclaimed by General Calleja. There is no more evidence to warrant the wholly erroneous statement sometimes made that emancipation was an economic set-back to Cuba than could be gathered to support a similar statement regarding the United States. Coolie importation from China had been stopped in 1871.
As for autonomy and political reforms it has already been remarked that the change from the old régime was only superficial. The Spanish constitution of 1876 was proclaimed in Cuba in 1881. In 1878-1895 political parties had a complex development. The Liberal party was of growing radicalism, the Union Constitutional party of growing conservatism; and after 1893 a Reformist party was launched that drew the compromisers and the waverers. The demands of the Liberals were as in 1868; those for personal and property rights were much more definitely stated, and among explicit reforms demanded were the separation of civil and military power, general recognition of administrative responsibility under a colonial autonomous constitutional régime; also among economic matters, customs reforms and reciprocity with the United States were demanded. As for the representation accorded Cuba in the Spanish Cortes, as a rule about a quarter of her deputies were Cuban-born, and the choice of only a few autonomists was allowed by those who controlled the elections. Reciprocity with the United States was in force from 1891 to 1894 and was extremely beneficial to Cuba. Its cessation greatly increased disaffection.
Discontent grew, and another war was prepared for. On the 23rd of February 1895 General Calleja suspended the constitutional guarantees. The leading chiefs of the Ten Years’ War took the field again—Máximo Gómez, Antonio Macéo, Jose Martí, Calixto García and others. Unlike that war, this was carried to the western provinces, and indeed was fiercest there. Among the military means adopted by the Spaniards to isolate their foe were “trochas” (i.e. entrenchments, barbwire fences, and lines of block-houses) across the narrow parts of the island, and “reconcentracion” of non-combatants in camps guarded by the Spanish forces. The latter measure produced extreme suffering and much starvation (as the reconcentrados were largely thrown upon the charity of the beggared communities in which they were huddled). In October 1897 the Spanish premier, P. M. Sagasta, announced the policy of autonomy, and the new dispensation was proclaimed in Cuba in December. But again all final authority was reserved to the captain-general. The system was never to have a practical trial, although a full government was quickly organized under it. The American people had sent food to the reconcentrados; President McKinley, while opposing recognition of the rebels, affirmed the possibility of intervention; Spain resented this attitude; and finally, in February 1898, the United States battleship “Maine” was blown up—by whom will probably never be known—in the harbour of Havana.
On the 20th of April the United States demanded the withdrawal of Spanish troops from the island. War followed immediately. A fine Spanish squadron seeking to escape from Santiago harbour was utterly destroyed by the American blockading force on the 3rd of July; Santiago was invested by land forces, and on the 15th of July the city surrendered. Other operations in Cuba were slight. By the treaty of Paris, signed on the 10th of December, Spain “relinquished” the island to the United States in trust for its inhabitants; the temporary character of American occupation being recognized throughout the treaty, in accord with the terms of the American declaration of war, in which the United States disclaimed any intention to control the island except for its pacification, and expressed the determination to leave the island thereupon to the control of its people. Spanish authority ceased on the 1st of January 1899, and was followed by American “military” rule (January 1, 1899-May 20, 1902). During these three years the great majority of offices were filled by Cubans, and the government was made as different as possible from the military control to which the colony had been accustomed. Very much was done for public works, sanitation, the reform of administration, civil service and education. Most notable of all, yellow fever was eradicated where it had been endemic for centuries. A constitutional convention sat at Havana from the 5th of November 1900 to the 21st of February 1901. The provisions of the document thus formed have already been referred to. In the determination of the relations that should subsist between the new republic and the United States certain definite conditions known as the Platt Amendment were finally imposed by the United States, and accepted by Cuba (12th of June 1901) as a part of her constitution. By these Cuba was bound not to incur debts her current revenues will not bear; to continue the sanitary administration undertaken by the military government of intervention; to lease naval stations (since located at Bahía Honda and Guantánamo) to the United States; and finally, the right of the United States to intervene, if necessary, in the affairs of the island was explicitly affirmed in the provision, “That the government of Cuba consents that the United States may exercise the right to intervene for the protection of Cuban independence, the maintenance of a government adequate for the protection of life, property and individual liberty, and for discharging the obligations with respect to Cuba imposed by the treaty of Paris on the United States, now to be assumed and undertaken by the government of Cuba.” The status thus created is very exceptional in the history of international relations. The status of the Isle of Pines was left an open question by the treaty of Paris, but a decision of the Supreme Court of the United States has declared it (in a question of customs duties) to be a part of Cuba, and though a treaty to the same end did not secure ratification (1908) by the United States Senate, repeated efforts by American residents thereon to secure annexation to the United States were ignored by the United States government.
The first Cuban congress met on the 5th of May 1902, prepared to take over the government from the American military authorities, which it did on the 20th of May. Tomas Estrada Palma (1835-1908) became the first president of the Republic. In material prosperity the progress of the island from 1902 to 1906 was very great; but in its politics, various social and economic elements, and political habits and examples of Spanish provenience that ill befit a democracy, led once more to revolution. Congress neglected to pass certain laws which were required by the constitution, and which, as regards municipal autonomy, independence of the judiciary, and congressional representation of minority parties, were intended to make impossible the abuses of centralized government that had characterized Spanish administration. Political parties were forming without very evident basis for differences outside questions of political patronage and the good or ill use of power; and, in the absence of the laws just mentioned, the Moderates, being in power, used every instrument of government to strengthen their hold on office. The preliminaries of the elections of December 1905 and March 1906 being marked by frauds and injustice, the Liberals deserted the polls at those elections, and instead of appealing to judicial tribunals controlled by the Moderates, issued a manifesto of revolution on the 28th of July 1906.[3] This insurrection rapidly assumed large proportions. The government was weak and lacked moral support in the whole island. After repeated petitions from President Palma for intervention by the United States, commissioners (William H. Taft, Secretary of War, and Robert Bacon, Acting Secretary of State) were sent from Washington to act as peace mediators.
All possible efforts to secure a compromise that would preserve the Republic failed. The president resigned (on the 28th of September), Congress dispersed without choosing a successor, and as an alternative to anarchy the United States was compelled to proclaim on the 29th of September 1906 a provisional government,—to last “long enough to restore order and peace and public confidence,” and hold new elections. The insurrectionists promptly disbanded. Government was maintained under the Cuban flag,—the diplomatic and consular relations with even the United States remaining in outward forms unchanged; and the regular forms of the constitution were scrupulously maintained so far as possible. No use was made of American military force save as a passive background to the government. The government of intervention at first directed its main effort simply to holding the country together, without undertaking much that could divide public opinion or seem of unpalatably foreign impulse; and later to the establishment of a few fundamental laws which, when intervention ceased, should give greater simplicity, strength and stability to a new native government. These laws strictly defined the powers of the president; more clearly separated the executive departments, so as to lessen friction and jealousies; reformed the courts; reformed administrative routine; and increased the strength of the provinces at the expense of the municipalities. On the 28th of January 1909 the American administration ceased, and the Republic was a second time inaugurated, with General José Miguel Gomez (b. 1856), the leader of the Miguelista faction of the Liberal party, as president, and Alfredo Zayas, the leader of the Zayista faction of the same party, as vice-president. The last American troops were withdrawn from the island on the 1st of April 1909.
Authorities.—General Description.—There is no trustworthy recent description. The best books are E. Pechardo, Geografía de la isla de Cuba (4 tom., Havana, 1854); M. Rodriguez-Ferrer, Naturaleza y civilización de ... Cuba, vol. i. (Madrid, 1876). See also United States Geological Survey, Bulletin 192 (1902), H. Gannett, “A Gazetteer of Cuba.” Of general descriptions in English, in addition to travels cited below, may be cited R. T. Hill, Cuba and Porto Rico with the other West Indies (New York, 1898).