The History of Cuba, vol. 3

by Willis Fletcher Johnson

CHAPTER X

CUBAN independence was proclaimed on October 10, 1868, at the Yara plantation. That was the natal date and that was the natal place of the Republic of Cuba. The event was made known to the world in a Declaration of Independence, which was issued at Manzanillo, and which was as follows:

"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 liable to entail considerable disturbances upon the present, will insure the happiness of the future.

"It is well known that Spain governs the Island of Cuba with an iron and blood-stained hand. The former holds the latter deprived of political, civil, and religious liberty. Hence, the unfortunate Cubans being illegally prosecuted and thrown into exile or executed by military commissions in times of peace. Hence, their being kept from public meetings, and forbidden to speak or write on affairs of state; hence, their remonstrances against the evils that afflict them being looked upon as the proceedings of rebels, from the fact that they are bound to keep silence and obey. Hence, the never-ending plague of hungry officials from Spain to devour the product of their industry and labor. Hence, their exclusion from public stations and want of opportunity to skill themselves in the art of government. Hence, the restrictions to which public instructions with them is subjected, in order to keep them so ignorant as not to be able to know and enforce their rights in any shape or form whatever. Hence, the navy and standing army, which are kept upon their country at an enormous expenditure from their own wealth to make them bend their knees and submit their necks to the iron yoke that disgraces them. Hence, the grinding taxation under which they labor, and which would make them all perish in misery but for the marvelous fertility of the soil.

"On the other hand, Cuba cannot prosper as she ought to, because white immigration that suits her best is artfully kept from her shores by the Spanish Government, and as Spain has many a time promised us Cubans to respect our rights without having hitherto fulfilled her promise, as she continues to tax us heavily and by so doing is likely to destroy our wealth; 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 utterly 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 and 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 to secure our future welfare.

"To the God of our conscience, and to all civilized nations, we submit the sincerity of our purpose. Vengeance does not mislead us, not is ambition our guide. We only want to be free and to see all men with us equally free, as the Creator intended all mankind to be. Our earnest belief is that all men are brethren. Hence our love of toleration, order and justice in every respect. We desire the gradual abolition of slavery, with indemnification; we admire universal suffrage, as it insures the sovereignty of the people; we demand a religious regard for the inalienable rights of men as the basis of freedom and nation greatness."

Following the Declaration of Independence, the provisional government of the Republic of Cuba was organized at Bayamo. The most prominent figure in the organization of the Cuban revolutionists and the first really constructive leader of the Cuban insurrection was Carlos Manuel Cespedes, a native of Bayamo. At this time he was in the prime of life, being forty nine years of age, a man of brilliant intellect and of fine culture, for he had been educated at the University of Havana, and had, in 1842, received his degree and license in law from the University of Barcelona, in Spain.

Cespedes's openly expressed zeal for the emancipation of the oppressed Cubans, and the earnest efforts which he had long exerted in their behalf, had won for him such widespread recognition as a patriot that he was, without a dissenting voice, chosen for the head of the provisional government. By nature and training he was admirably suited for the position, for from boyhood he had been not only enthusiastically devoted to the cause of Cuban independence, but he had more than once, under circumstances where his outspoken advocacy of his principles actually placed his life in jeopardy, proved himself a worthy champion of freedom, not only for his fellow citizens, but for Spanish subjects wherever they were being trodden beneath the iron heel of Spanish oppression. His love of liberty was not a mere enthusiasm, something superficial and acquired, but it was inborn, a fundamental part of his character, firmly knit into the very fibre of his life and its activities.

While a student in Spain, he had joined the forces of General Prim, during the latter's first attempt to establish a republic in that country, and because of his complicity in that revolt, Cespedes had been banished from Spain. Returning to Cuba, in 1844, he settled at Bayamo, and took up the practice of law, where his skill as an advocate soon won him recognition as one of the foremost lawyers of the Island. But again his hatred of tyranny thrust him forth from the peaceful occupation of amassing a fortune in the pursuit of jurisprudence. He could not tranquilly pursue his daily course when he saw injustice and misrule rampant around him, and so, in 1852, he made a speech, fervidly denouncing Spain, and calling on high Heaven to aid the independence of Cuba, which was considered by the authorities to be so incendiary that he was arrested as a dangerous character, and subsequently suffered a five months' imprisonment in Morro Castle, at Havana.

Opportunity soon came to Cespedes to give actual proof that his principles were not abstract but concrete. The acid test was to be applied and he was not to be found wanting, for immediately upon the declaration by the Cuban republic of its principles of freedom and equal rights for all men, he voluntarily exemplified their operation, so far as lay in his individual power, by emancipating all the slaves on his own estate.