The History of Cuba, vol. 3

by Willis Fletcher Johnson

"An act accomplished will shortly be the abolition of slavery in Cuba, and the tardy intervention of the United States will only have taken place when its brilliant constellation lights up the vast sepulchre which will cover the bodies of her sons, sacrificed to the black race as a regard for their sympathies with American institutions, and the vast carnage it will cost to punish the African victors. What can be done today, without great sacrifice, to help the Cubans, tomorrow cannot be achieved without the effusion of rivers of blood, and when the few surviving Cubans will curse an intervention which, deaf to their cries, will only be produced by the cold calculations of egotism. Then the struggle will not be with the Spaniards alone. The latter will now accede to all the claims of the cabinet at Washington, by the advice of the ambassadors of France and England, to advance, meanwhile, with surer step to the end—to give time for the solution of the Eastern question, and for France and England to send their squadrons into these waters. Well may they deny the existence of secret treaties; this is very easy for such beings, as it will be when the case of the present treaty comes up, asserting that the treaty was posterior to their negative, or refusing explanations as inconsistent with their dignity. But we witness the realization of our fears, we see the Spanish government imperturbably setting on foot plans which were thought to be the delirium of excited imaginations doing at once what promised to be gradual work; and hear it declared, by distinguished persons who possessed the confidence of General Pezuela, that the existence of the treaty is certain, and that the United States will be told that they should have accepted the offer made to become a party to it, in which case the other two powers could not have adopted the abolition scheme. But supposing this treaty to have no existence, the fact of the abolition of slavery is no less certain. It is only necessary to read the proclamation of the Captain-General, if the last acts of the Government be not sufficiently convincing. The result to the Island of Cuba and the United States is the same, either way. If the latter do not hasten to avert the blow, they will soon find it impossible to remedy the evil. In the Island there is not a reflecting man—foreigner or native, Creole or European—who does not tremble for the future that awaits us, at a period certainly not far remote."

Thus did the Cubans look forward with hope to, and at the same time fear, the future. And meanwhile the tragedy of Lopez was having a wide-spread effect on the feeling of the people, and on political conditions in other countries.

In the United States a profound impression was produced of a triple character. There was, in the first place, the international point of view. It was realized that the United States was being brought uncomfortably near the possibility of a serious controversy, if not of actual war with Spain. The neutrality laws had been evaded, and there was every prospect that such evasions would thereafter be repeated. The whole question of American relations with Cuba was acutely reopened, and both those who favored and those who opposed the acquisition of that island by the United States were made to realize that a momentous decision might be called for at any moment.

There was, in the second place, the point of view of the pro-slavery states of the South, and their leaders, who were generally in control of the national government at Washington. The South strongly favored Cuban annexation, either voluntary or forcible. The island was wanted as Texas and other Mexican territories had been wanted, to provide for the extension of slave territory and for the addition of new slave states to the union to counter-balance the new free states which were about to seek admission at the north. There was also a passionate desire to avoid the calamity of having Cuba made, as the other Spanish-American countries had been made, free soil, thus encircling the slave states with an unbroken ring of anti-slavery territory. Moreover, at this time the spirit of conquest and of expansion was very much abroad in the land. The lust for territory which had prevailed in the Mexican War was by no means satisfied. Men still regarded it as the manifest destiny of the United States to "lick all creation." In the geography of the popular mind, the United States was, or was destined to be, "bounded on the north by the aurora borealis, on the south by the precession of the equinoxes, on the east by primeval chaos, and on the west by the day of judgment." Under such circumstances, the attitude of the people of the United States south of Mason and Dixon's line was unmistakable.

There was also the point of view of the increasingly anti-slavery north. During the Mexican war a strong aversion to territorial expansion by conquest for the sake of slave soil had been manifested, and this feeling was steadily increasing in extent and in influence. It manifested itself by opposition to Cuban annexation. At the same time, the commercial instinct was strong in the great cities of the north, and there was an earnest desire to do nothing which might interfere with the profitable trade which already existed between this country and Cuba, and which it was hoped greatly to expand.

The interest of Great Britain in Cuban affairs was scarcely less than that of Spain or the United States. That country had once, for a time, possessed Cuba, and had never forgotten that fact nor ceased to entertain the desire to renew that possession as a permanent state of affairs. That country also had very important colonial holdings in the West Indies, and on the adjacent mainland; being, indeed, an American power second only to the United States itself. It owned the Bahamas, Jamaica and other islands, and colonies on the South and Central American coast, which latter it was at that very time seeking greatly to extend. It was keenly desirous of enlarging its possessions and forming a great colonial empire in tropical America, and it realized that nothing could conduce to that end more than the acquisition of Cuba. In the prosecution of this policy, a certain "jingo" faction actually went so far as to pretend that upon the acquisition of Cuba depended Great Britain's retention of Canada, if not, indeed, of her entire American holdings. It was represented that if Great Britain did not intervene to prevent it, the slave-holding South was certain to annex Cuba, and that this would provoke the abolitionist North into seizing Canada, in order to provide in that direction free soil to counter-balance the slave soil of Cuba. Thus, with Canada gone, and Cuba in the hands of the United States, the remainder of the British holdings in the western hemisphere would be in deadly jeopardy. Such visions seem at this time fantastic, and it may be that they were then thus regarded by serious statesmen; yet they were cherished and were not without their influence.

Nor was France less deeply and directly interested in Cuba. She, too, had colonies in the West Indies and on the South American coast. She had never forgotten her former vast empire in North America, nor ceased to regret its loss. She was soon to enter upon a campaign of conquest in Mexico. She had at various times, both during and since the Napoleonic era, entertained designs upon peninsular Spain itself, and she had repeatedly made direct overtures for a protectorate over Cuba.

These circumstances caused international relations to be ominously strained in more than one direction, and as soon as news reached the United States of the execution of those companions of Lopez who were members of prominent families in the southern states, there arose a widespread and furious storm of wrath. The center of this was, naturally, at New Orleans, where the majority of Lopez's followers had been recruited and where their families resided, and in that city an infuriated mob stormed and destroyed the Spanish consulate, publicly defaced a portrait of the Spanish queen, and, in some respects worst of all, looted a number of shops owned by Spanish merchants. This was most unfortunate from more than one point of view. It was not only indefensible and inexcusable in itself, but it put the United States so much in the wrong as to deter it from taking any action, or indeed making any protest to Spain on account of the putting to death of the American prisoners.

The American Secretary of State, Daniel Webster, made, however, the best of an unfortunate situation. He took a straightforward course by immediately apologizing to the Spanish government for the New Orleans outrages, and recommended to Congress the voting of an adequate indemnity for the damage which had been done. Having done this, he was enabled to secure the release of some American members of Lopez's expedition who had not yet suffered the death penalty.

Despite this settlement, the Spanish government continued to cherish much resentment against the United States, partly for the participation of so many of that country's citizens in the expeditions of Lopez, and partly because of the outrages in New Orleans, and its Cuban administration thereafter exhibited an increasing degree of animosity against Americans. Numerous harsh impositions were put upon American citizens, for which no redress could be had; and this caused resentment throughout the United States, in the commercial North as well as in the slaveholding and expansionist South, and relations between the two countries steadily drifted from bad to worse.