S. W. Kellogg.
CUBA.
"If," wrote Franklin, "you wish a separation to be always possible, take the utmost pains that the colonies shall never be incorporated with the mother-country. Do not let them share your liberties. Make use of their commerce, regulate their industry, tax them at your will, and spend at your caprice the wealth thus drawn from them, which costs you nothing. Take care to invest the general in charge of them with despotic power, and at the same time give him immunity from all colonial control. If the colonists protest, do not listen to them, but reply by charges of high treason and rebellion. Say that all such complaints are the invention of certain demagogues, and that if one could catch and hang these wretched fellows all would go well. If need be, arrest and hang them. By continuing such a policy you will infallibly arrive at your goal, and to a certainty be in a brief time disembarrassed of your colonies."
The above, wrote an accomplished Spaniard a few years ago, applies as exactly to the Spanish colonies to-day as it did to those of England at the time of our struggle with her. In fact, the misrule in Cuba has been fifty times worse than the worst Anglo-Saxon misrule ever known. The island has been used by Spain simply as a gold-mine.[J] So far as those toiling in it are concerned, she has displayed an indifference similar to that which resulted in the destruction of her West Indian population three centuries ago. The Cubans have been taxed without representation, shot down if they remonstrated, and mocked by acts of the Cortes, granting relief which it was never intended to afford to them, but which for a time served in some degree to throw dust in the eyes of Europe.
And thus it came to pass that on the 10th of October, 1868, the Cubans, recognizing the truth of the poetic axiom, that
Who would be free, themselves must strike the blow,
and that Spain's difficulty should be Cuba's opportunity, issued a Declaration of Independence. The document, dated from Manzanillo, thus stated the case: "In arming ourselves against the tyrannical government of Spain, we must, according to precedent in all civilized countries, proclaim before the world the cause that impels us to take this step, which, though likely to entail considerable disturbance now, will ensure future happiness. It is well known that Spain governs this island with an iron and blood-stained hand, holding its inhabitants deprived of political, civil and religious liberty. Hence the unfortunate Cubans, illegally prosecuted, sent into exile and executed in time of peace by military commissions. Hence their being prohibited from attending public meetings, and forbidden to speak or write on affairs of state. Hence their remonstrances against the evils that afflict them being regarded as the proceedings of rebels, from the fact that they are expected to keep silent and obey. Hence the never-ending plague of hungry officials from Spain to devour the product of their industry and labor. Hence the restrictions to which public instruction with them is subjected, in order to keep them so ignorant as to render them unable to know and enforce their rights in any shape or form. Hence the navy and standing army kept in and about their country at an enormous expense (paid out of taxes levied on Cuba), to make them submit to the terrible yoke imposed....
"As we are in danger of losing our property, our lives and our honor under further Spanish domination; as we have reached a depth of degradation revolting to manhood; as great nations have sprung from revolt against a similar disgrace after exhausted pleadings for relief; as we despair of justice from Spain through reasoning, and cannot longer live deprived of the rights which other people enjoy,—we are constrained to appeal to arms, to assert our rights in the battle-field, cherishing the hope that our grievances will be a sufficient excuse for this last resort to redress them and secure our future welfare."
Ten days later the Cuban insurgent general Cespedes asked our own government to recognize the belligerent rights of his party, in a letter which detailed the rapid success of the movement. On the 27th of December, 1868, Cespedes issued a proclamation of emancipation. In January, 1869, it would appear that Spain, herself in a very critical condition under a provisional government, thought that a sop must be thrown to Cuba, and accordingly the captain-general of Cuba issued one of those highflown addresses which come with such readiness from Spanish bureaus. Said this gallant and noble-minded governor: "I will brave every danger, accept every responsibility, for your welfare. The revolution has swept away the Bourbon dynasty, tearing up by the roots a plant so poisonous that it putrefied the air we breathe. To the citizen shall be returned his rights, to man his dignity." [An admission, by the way, that they had been bereft of both.] "You will receive all the reforms which you require. Cubans and Spaniards are all brothers. From this day Cuba will be considered as a province of Spain. Freedom of the press, the right of meeting in public, and representation in the national Cortes—the three fundamental principles of true liberty—are granted you. Speaking in the name of our mother, Spain, I adjure you to forget the past, hope for the future and establish union and fraternity."