Cuba and Cubans through the Pages of
The New York Times in 1898
by Rafael E. Tarragó
Abstract. – The author has used news articles and editorials published in The New York
Times in 1898 to trace the changes in United States opinion about Cuba and the Cubans
during that year. The resulting chronology becomes a sounding board for his questioning
old verities concerning issues such as the position towards United States intervention in
Cuba of the Cuban generals, and the efficacy of the Teller Amendment to the U.S. Congress Joint Resolution of April 18, 1898 in preventing the annexation of Cuba by the
United States. This article is based on contemporary newspaper articles, documents, and
other printed primary sources.
INTRODUCTION
It is well known that from 1895 to 1898 public opinion in the United
States supported intervention in Cuba to liberate Cubans from the
yoke of Spain. The cause of Cuba’s independence from Spain was
endorsed by the United States Senate as early as February 1896, when
it passed a resolution recognizing the Cuban insurgents as belligerents.1 In May 1895, José Martí, Delegate of the Cuban Revolutionary
Party and prospective President of the Cuban Republic in Arms, wrote
a letter to the New York Herald from Cuba, where he presented the
reasons for the Cuban war of independence, and expressed his hopes
that the Cuban cause would be supported by the freedom loving people of the United States, pointing out that an independent Cuba would
1
French Ensor Chadwick, The Relations of the United States and Spain. Diplomacy
(New York 1909), p. 437.
Jahrbuch für Geschichte Lateinamerikas 39
© Böhlau Verlag Köln/Weimar/Wien 2002
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be open to trade and investment from the Great Republic of the North.2
A long-time resident of the United States, Martí had given from New
York City the order for an uprising in Cuba on February 24, 1895.
What Martí did not say to the Herald was that there was a strong
home-rule movement in Cuba, weary of a struggle for independence
on account of the fragmented nature of Cuban society – Spanish-born,
Cuban-born whites, Cuban-born citizens of African ancestry, and
recently freed Africans – and fearful of provoking United States intervention with that armed struggle. A reform program presented by the
Cuban-born Minister of Overseas Provinces (Ministro de Ultramar)
Buenaventura Abarzuza had been passed by the Spanish cortes (parliament) on February 13. But the uprising of February 24 was used as
an excuse not to implement the Abarzuza reforms until the reestablishment of peace by the conservative government formed after the
crisis that it brought about in Spain. After the death of Martí on May
19, 1895, the insurgent generals Máximo Gómez and Antonio Maceo
declared a scorched-earth war meant to provoke withdrawal of support
for the Spanish monarchy in Cuba, and to deprive the royal government of revenue from Cuban exports.3
The humane General Arsenio Martínez Campos (1831–1900) was
sent to pacify the revolt, but he was defeated by General Antonio
Maceo instead. Unwilling to use the same scorched-earth warfare as
the insurgents, General Martínez Campos resigned, and suggested that
the only officer in the Spanish armed forces capable of dealing in kind
with the brutality of the Cuban insurgents was General Valeriano
Weyler (1838–1930). The “Invasion” (thus called by the insurgents
themselves) of western Cuba by the Cuban Liberation Army from
eastern Cuba was indeed an invasion inasmuch as there was a wider
difference in mentality, wealth, and ethnic composition between East
and West Cuba. These regions also differed in the strength of popular
support for insurgency. According to the journalist George Bronson
2
Horatio Rubens, Liberty. The Story of Cuba (New York 1932), p. 75; José Martí,
“Letter to the New York Herald” (May 2, 1895): José Martí, Política de Nuestra América (Mexico 1979), p. 285.
3
See Nicolás Heredia, Crónicas de la guerra de Cuba. Reproducción de la edición
de El “Fígaro” hecha en 1895 y 1896 en doce cuadernos. Introduction by Dr. Enrique
Gay-Calbo (Havana 1957).
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Rea, the majority in western Cuba were not in favor of war.4 “The Cuban insurgents burned fields and mills on plantations which did not
pay the contribution that they demanded, releasing the oxen, sacking
the shops, and executing those who continued cutting cane or who
worked railroad lines”, Rea reported.5
Violence escalated in Cuba on account of General Weyler’s policy
of participation by the royalist armed forces in the scorched-earth warfare begun by the insurgents, and his policy of forcing the concentration of rural population in cities and villages. Contrary to common
opinion, Weyler did not set up concentration camps like those established by the English in South Africa during the Boer War (1900–
1902) or the United States in the Philippines, nevertheless, the suffering
caused by forced relocation, and the deaths caused by hunger and
disease resulting from it were devastating.6 Needless to say, the withholding of the Abarzuza reforms disillusioned many Cuban loyalists,
and the implementation of government repression gained adherents to
the insurgent cause.7 General Weyler’s policies were successful as far
as they broke the insurgent hold on western Cuba, where some of them
remained, but as bands without the strength to burn towns which they
have had before. The high point of the Weyler offensive was the killing of the Afro-Cuban General Antonio Maceo on December 7, 1896.
Alas, the simultaneous death of Francisco Gómez Toro, son of General Máximo Gómez, sowed inside the latter a blind hatred for Spain
that was going to have fateful consequences for the cause of the Spanish monarchy in Cuba.8 While effective militarily, the brutality of General Weyler’s methods made the royal government odious to those
who suffered from them, and provided the insurgents with greater sup4
George Bronson Rea, Facts and Fakes About Cuba. A Review of the Various Stories Circulated in the United States Concerning the Present Insurrection (New York
1897), p. 38.
5
Ibidem, p. 39–40.
6
Philip S. Foner, The Spanish-Cuban-American War and the Birth of American Imperialism, 1895–1902, vol. I (New York 1972), p. 111; T.R.H. Davenport, South Africa.
A Modern History (4th ed., Toronto 1991), p. 195–196; Brian McAllister Linn, The U.S.
Army and Counterinsurgency in the Philippine War, 1899–1902 (Chapel Hill 1989),
p. 25–27.
7
Bartolomé Masó, “Letter to Gonzalo de Quesada (May 5, 1896)”: Gonzalo de
Quesada, Archivo de Gonzalo de Quesada. Epistolario, vol. II (Havana 1948), p. 67–68.
8
Máximo Gómez, Diario de campaña, 1868–1899, Fernando Rico Galán (ed.)
(Santo Domingo 1975), p. 319.
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port both inside and outside Cuba. Spanish atrocities became the daily fare in United States newspapers, and although General Weyler’s
policies in Cuba were similar to General William Sherman’s policies
in the United States South during the War between the States, they were highly criticized by the United States government and public opinion.9 United States opinion was an important reason for the demand
that General Weyler should resign, made by the Spanish Liberal Party
leader Mateo Práxedes Sagasta (1825–1903) before he agreed to form
a government, after the assassination of the Conservative Prime Minister Antonio Cánovas del Castillo (1828–1897) in August 1897 by an
anarchist sent his way by an agent of the Cuban insurgents in Europe.10
Most New York City newspapers supported Cuban independence
from the beginnings of the insurrection in February 1895, and the
same was true of newspapers in the Midwest of the United States.
Cuban exile clubs and their American sympathizers in southern Florida, and in the Northeast seaboard promoted public support for the
cause of Cuban independence, and financed expeditions that brought
food and ammunition to the Cuban Liberation Army.11 The purpose of
this essay is to analyze United States opinion about the Cuban insurgents and events in Cuba as they were reported on the pages of The
New York Times from October 1897 to October 1898, and to use the
resulting chronology as a sounding board for questioning old verities
concerning issues such as the position towards United States intervention in Cuba of the Cuban generals, and the efficacy of the Teller
Amendment to the U.S. Congress Joint Resolution of April 18, 1898
in preventing the annexation of Cuba by the United States.
9
See Joseph E. Wisan, The Cuban Crisis as Reflected in the New York Press
(1895–1898) (New York 1965; reprint of Columbia University Press 1934); George W.
Auxier, “Middle Western Newspapers and the Spanish American War, 1895–1898”: The
Mississippi Valley Historical Review 26, 4 (March 1940), p. 523–534; Marcus M. Wilkerson, Public Opinion and the Spanish American War. A Study in War Propaganda (Baton Rouge 1932). For an account of General Sherman’s war tactics in the United States
South which Weyler claimed to have used as a model for his own in Cuba, see Samuel J.
Martin, “Kill-Cavalry”. Sherman’s Merchant of Terror. The Life of Union General Hugh
Judson Kilpatrick (Madison 1996).
10
Hugh Thomas, Cuba. The Pursuit of Freedom (New York 1971), p. 350; see Frank
Fernandez, La sangre de Santa Agueda (Miami 1994).
11
Cristóbal Robles Muñoz, “La oposición al activismo independentista cubano”:
Hispania (Madrid) 48, 168 (January-April 1988), p. 282–288.
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CHANGES OF OPINION ABOUT CUBANS IN THE NEW YORK TIMES
(OCTOBER 1897– OCTOBER 1898)12
Home Rule in Cuba versus Brave and Desperate Men
On October 28, 1897, one month before the Spanish crown issued a
decree granting home rule and universal suffrage to Cuba and Puerto
Rico, The New York Times was declaring that Cuban home rule had
failed. In the editorial “The Spanish Olive Branch”, it dismissed the
still unissued decree as an attempt to pacify United States public opinion. Earlier that month, on October 15, The New York Times had stated
in “What Will Spain Do?” that Spain had herself to blame for the
instant rejection by the Cuban insurgents of her scheme of home rule,
because “they think she will cheat them again as she did 20 years
before”, and it called the insurgents “these brave and desperate men
who will accept no peace except with independence and the withdrawal of the Spanish power from their island.”
The home rule decree issued on November 28 by the Spanish
Queen Regent was accepted as a reality by The New York Times, and
as an honest attempt by the Madrid government to give Cuba everything in the way of local self-government.13 In “Cuban Autonomy”,
published on December 4, however, it warns, “It is in vain that we
may hold that any measure ‘ought’ to pacify Cuba which does not in
fact accomplish that result.” On January 1, 1898 home rule and universal suffrage went into effect in Cuba, and The New York Times
reported “Big Conspiracy in Cuba”. This article asserted that there had
been demonstrations in the Cuban cities of Havana and Matanzas
against the home rule government established only that day. On
January 2, the article “Cuban Cabinet Sworn In” describes the swearing-in ceremony of the provisional Cuban autonomous government at
Havana. Indeed, Cuban it was, because as part of his reconciliation
policy Governor General Blanco appointed only Cuban-born men,
which angered many European-born Spaniards.
12
All references to The New York Times from now on will be given in the text.
See the English text of both decrees in Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations
of the United States with the Annual Message of the President (Washington, D.C. 1898),
p. 617–644.
13
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In “The Riots in Havana”, on the editorial pages of January 15, The
New York Times reports violent protests against the new regime at
Havana on January 12. These disturbances were controlled swiftly by
Governor General Blanco, but The New York Times described them as
a mark of the chronic crisis of Spain, and the failure of home rule in
Cuba. Also in this article it is said that not a single insurgent had surrendered, implicitly denying events reported by this newspaper earlier
concerning the surrender of some insurgents. This article concludes
that the Cuban autonomous government is a farce into which Spanish
rule in Cuba had degenerated, and that it was time to consider “the exigency of further action by the United States before the inhabitants of
the wretched island had completed its devastation or their mutual extermination.” The autonomous government installed on January 2,
1898 was remarkably well-qualified. It was not a group of planters,
but a group of intellectuals, lawyers, and men of affairs, like Francisco Zayas, Laureano Rodríguez, Rafael Montoro, and José María Galvez, however, their high professional and human caliber would never
be guessed from reading The New York Times.
News reports in The New York Times for the month of February
show a thriving new political regime headed by capable men, from
Prime Minister Gálvez down. On the front page of the issue for
February 7, Mr. Gálvez is quoted saying that there is no crisis in his
government, and that it is preparing for elections to be held in order to
constitute a Cuban Chamber of Deputies. In its issue of February 23,
The New York Times reported the appointment by the autonomous
government of Manuel Rafael Angulo as delegate before the United
States government to negotiate a commercial treaty. Negative reports
in an article of February 23, where Mr. Koop, an American entrepreneur recently returned from Cuba, is quoted saying that home rule was
a failure, and that throughout the island business was at a standstill, are
contradicted in the same issue, in the article “Cuba Exporting Tobacco”,
with reports of a recovering Cuban economy.
The Crises of February: Men in a State of Open and Deadly
Hostility
On the front page of The New York Times for January 24 it was
reported that several United States battleships were gathering in Key
West under Admiral Sicard. By that date the battleships New York,
Indiana, Massachusetts, Iowa, and Texas had arrived off the bar; and
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the battleships Montgomery, Detroit, and Maine joined them later.
Claiming to be concerned about the ability of Governor General Blanco to control the riots of January 12 at Havana, United States Consul
General Colonel Fitzhugh Lee wrote to Secretary of State Day on January 13, asking that United States battleships be sent to Havana, and
Mr. Day obliged by having the U.S. Maine sent to Havana on January
24.14 That is how the U.S. Maine arrived unannounced in Havana,
where the embarrassed authorities made up a story about a courtesy
visit to be reciprocated by the Spanish battleship Vizcaya in New
York.
Colonel Lee had gone to Havana as Consul General sent by President Cleveland in April 1896. In a letter of June 13, 1896 to Andrés
Gómez, Don Tomás Estrada Palma, Delegate of the Cuban Revolutionary Party in New York City talks of Colonel Lee as someone who will
send reports to Washington that will promote the Cuban insurgent
cause.15 From the moment of his arrival in Cuba, Lee was in touch
with insurgent leaders, and carried messages for them. He courted the
insurgents and sent to Washington negative reports about the possibilities for success of Cuban home rule under the Spanish monarchy long
before it was proposed by the Spanish government. It is not unjust to
say that he went to Havana as a convinced annexationist. Although he
carried favors for the insurgents – on February 15, 1898 he forwarded
to President McKinley a letter from General Gómez – he always
emphasized in his reports to Washington that all the Spaniards and the
“better class” of Cubans wanted annexation.16 On January 21, 1898,
Colonel Lee sent a letter to Secretary of State Day with a devastating
analysis of the autonomous constitution of Cuba which emphasized its
14
Fitzhugh Lee, “Letter to U.S. Secretary of State Day” (January 13, 1898): United
States Congress. Senate, Message of the President of the United States Transmitting in
Response to the Resolution of the Senate Dated February 14, 1898, Calling for Information in Respect on the Relations of the United States and Spain by Reason of Warfare
in the Island of Cuba (Washington, D.C. 1898), p. 83.
15
Tomás Estrada Palma, “Letter to Andrés Gómez” (June 13, 1896): La Revolución
del 95 según la correspondencia de la Delegación Cubana de Nueva York, vol. IV (Havana 1936), p. 291.
16
Fitzhugh Lee, “Letter to U.S. Secretary of State Day” (November 23, 1897): United States Congress. Senate (note 14), p. 8; James L. Nichols, General Fitzhugh Lee. A
Biography (Lynchburg, VA, 1989), p. 149–172; see Gerald G. Eggert, “Our Man in Havana: Fitzhugh Lee”: Hispanic American Historical Review 47, 4 (November 1967),
p. 463–485.
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flaws and did not take into account that it was a vast improvement
over what the status of the island had been until then.17 It is possible
that the source that gave those accounts of a failed Cuban autonomous
government to The New York Times was the man who at that time was
supposed to be the American best informed about Cuba, United States
Consul General Colonel Fitzhugh Lee.
On February 8, 1898, the New York Journal published a private letter written by the Spanish minister to the United States, Enrique Dupuy de Lome, to his friend Antonio Canalejas, in Havana. This letter
almost caused a rupture of diplomatic relations between the United
States and Spain, because in it Mr. Dupuy de Lome called President
McKinley a low politician, and intimated that the Sagasta government
was not sincere in its relations with the Cuban autonomous government or the United States. This affair made the front page of The New
York Times on February 9. In “De Lome on the President”, it reproduced the contents of the letter, and told that it probably had been stolen
from Mr. Canalejas by a Cuban agent while he was in Havana, and
that the Delegation of the Cuban Revolutionary Party in New York had
given it to the Journal. In the editorial pages of February 15 this newspaper endorsed the action of the Cuban insurgents, “men in a state of
open and deadly hostility”.
Mr. Dupuy de Lome resigned, and the Spanish government apologized for his behavior, assuring the United States government that it
meant to implement the statutes of home rule granted to Cuba. Thus
the publication of the Dupuy de Lome letter did not cause the crisis
that the Cuban insurgents in the United States wanted. But within a
week a greater disaster occurred. On February 15 the U.S. Maine blew
up in Havana harbor. A crisis was prevented after the Dupuy de Lome
letter affair, but the explosion of the Maine became a casus belli, even
when it was never proved that a Spaniard had blown it. On February
16 The New York Times had on its front page the article, “The Maine
Blown Up”, where it reported the terrible explosion, concluding that
none of the wounded men were able to give an explanation.
Could it be a coincidence that these two incidents happened so close
the one to the other? The attempt by Cuban insurgents to provoke a
conflict between the United States and Spain on February 8 failed.
17
Ibidem (January 21, 1898), p. 20–23.
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Could it be that the Cuban insurgents were behind the events of
February 15? That was suggested in 1898, and General Máximo
Gómez was quick to label the accusation “one more proof of Spanish
perfidy”. Exactly one hundred years after the explosion of the U.S.
Maine, the Spanish edition of The Miami Herald published an article
by the Cuban journalist Carlos Alberto Montaner, where he asks “Who
benefitted from the explosion of the ‘Maine’?” And to him it is selfevident that it was the Cuban insurgents, who wanted the United
States to intervene on their side in their struggle with the royal army in
Cuba.18 The historian Guillermo G. Calleja has arrived at the same
conclusion. His thesis (derived from the work of Jorge Navarro Custin) is that the Cuban insurgents placed in the Maine a mine designed
by the engineer Federico Blume, who had contacted the Cuban agent
Arístides Agüero in Peru.19 Calleja points out that Captain Sigsbee, of
the U.S. Maine, reported to have heard two explosions the night of the
event, which supports the thesis of an external explosion which
brought about a second one that blew up the magazine of the battleship. According to Calleja, the Cuban magnate Julio Lobo had in his
manuscript collection sworn statements by some of the Cuban insurgents who blew up the Maine.20
After a Spanish request for a joint investigation was declined, two
investigating commissions were established: one conducted by the
U.S. Navy, and the other by authorities in Havana. The Havana commission concluded that the explosion had been caused by internal
combustion. The U.S. Navy commission reported on March 21 that
there were two explosions: the explosion of a mine beneath the hull
that blew the keel upward, and the resulting detonation of the powder
stored above. The Spanish government proposed to submit both
18
Carlos Alberto Montaner, “La explosión que cambió a Estados Unidos”: El Nuevo
Herald (February 15, 1998), p. 30A.
19
Guillermo G. Calleja Leal, “La voladura del Maine”: Historia 16 15, 176 (December 1990), p. 24–25.
20
Ibidem, p. 27–30.
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reports to an arbitration commission, but the United States government refused. After the explosion of the U.S. Maine the intervention of
the United States in Cuba was assured.21
The Road to Armed Intervention by the U.S. in Cuba: “Beggars
Should not be Choosers”
In spite of the threat by generals Gómez and García Cuban insurgents
continued defecting. On March 15, The New York Times reported in
the article “Cubans Kill False Leaders” that Cuban insurgent leaders
Cayito, Álvarez, and Núñez, had been killed by other insurgents while
on their way to tender their submission to the Cuban autonomous
government. But most insurgent generals did not pact with the autonomous government after the explosion of the Maine because of the
prospect of United States intervention in Cuba, surmised from the
appropriation by the United States Congress of $50 million on March
9 for the President to take care of “the national defense”. They were
encouraged to assume that the Cuban Republic in Arms would be
recognized and that the Cuban Liberation Army would be considered
a “belligerent” by the official declarations made by the United States
21
See Louis A. Perez, Jr., “The Meaning of the ‘Maine’. Causation and the Historiography of the Spanish American War”: Pacific Historical Review 58, 3 (August
1989), p. 293–322. There are many histories of this war between the United States and
Spain precipitated by the explosion of the U.S. Maine, but too many are apologetic
(when not triumphalistic) epics in praise of the military and civic virtues of the United
States. As far as the events leading to this war, the well-documented monograph by John
L. Offner, An Unwanted War. The Diplomacy of the United States and Spain over Cuba,
1895–1898 (Chapel Hill 1992), has an excellent bibliography, but I dare say that the conclusions of French Ensor Chadwick’s The Relations of the United States and Spain. Diplomacy (New York 1909), are the most realistic. Two recent studies of this war in its
full international scope worth of note are Joseph Smith’s work of synthesis, The SpanishAmerican War. Conflict in the Caribbean and the Pacific, 1895–1902 (London 1994),
and Sebastian Balfour’s myth-shattering The End of the Spanish Empire, 1898–1923
(Oxford 1997). Also important are Julius W. Pratt’s Expansionists of 1898. The Acquisition of Hawaii and the Spanish Islands (Baltimore, 1936), which analyzes this war as
part of complex developments inside and outside the United States, and Elbert J. Berton’s International Law and Diplomacy of the Spanish American War (Baltimore 1908),
one of the earliest scholarly criticisms of this war as an imperialistic venture, whose analysis of the role that Cuban exiles in the United States had in bringing it about sounds familiar one hundred years later. In Spanish, a recent monograph worth notice is Julián
Company Monclus’, De la explosión del Maine a la ruptura de relaciones diplomáticas
entre los Estados Unidos y España, 1898 (Lleida 1988). The uneven edited volume, La
nación soñada: Cuba, Puerto Rico y Filipinas ante el 98 (Madrid 1996), contains some
thought-provoking contributions about the antecedents and the consequences of this war.
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government, and by the apparent support of their cause by the people
of the United States. On March 28 The New York Times reported, “It
can be stated upon high authority that there has been no abatement of
the President’s intention to see that the war is terminated upon terms
that will render the Cuban people practically free. It is not believed
that they will accept anything less, nor that the Americans will be
satisfied if we should encourage a settlement that would not be acceptable to the Cubans.”
On April 2 (p. 2), The New York Times reported in the article
“Appeal of Autonomists”, an appeal by the Cuban autonomous government to President McKinley, where the Cuban premier is quoted saying, “There are Cubans who accept home rule [...] The Cuban people
has the right to have its own government, according to its own wishes
and aspirations.” In an editorial (p. 8) on that same day, Spain and the
Cuban government were insulted. In “Her Time Is Up” (p. 8: 1), the
editors of The New York Times say, “Spain does not act as if she meant
to fight”, and they labeled the appeal of the autonomous government
to President McKinley “a comic piece of impudence, which nobody
but a Spaniard who was a solemn dunce or a very great wag could
have perpetrated.” On April 7, the article “Junta Members Excited”
quoted Mr. Rubens, the legal advisor of the leadership of the Cuban
Revolutionary Party in New York, saying, “The action of the United
States, if it should declare that the Cubans are not in a position to be
independent after having a week ago notified Spain that she must
recognize the independence of the Cubans as a prerequisite to any further negotiations would place the United States government in a peculiar light.” Mr. Rubens said that the government of the Cuban Republic,
and the Cuban Liberation Army, would reject the intervention of the
United States in Cuba unless it should be preceded by a recognition of
the independence of that Republic. But Don Tomás Estrada Palma,
and his second-in-command, Gonzalo de Quesada, denied Mr. Rubens’
statement. Afterwards Mr. Rubens explained himself. He said that his
statement of the previous day meant that the Cuban Liberation Army
would fight against United States annexation, but that as far as he was
concerned, if Cubans opted for annexation once free from Spain, it
was “all well and good”. On the same day Mr. Quesada reversed himself as well, now threatening that if the United States intervened without recognizing Cuba’s independence it would be making a virtual
declaration of war against the insurgents as well as against Spain. But
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the author of the article “The Junta Members Excited” had judged well
the situation concluding that article with the words “beggars should
not be choosers”.
In an editorial, “The President’s Reply”, on April 8, President
McKinley’s reply to a note from the European powers about United
States relations with Spain is described. President McKinley had said
that the chronic condition in Cuba concerned the United States: there
was no government in Cuba, and the United States felt that this deeply
injured its interests, that it menaced the tranquility of the United States,
and that the carnage in the island shocked the sentiments of humanity.
On the front page of its April 10 issue, The New York Times reported
that the Spanish government had declared an unilateral armistice in
Cuba. Indeed, concerned about a message by President McKinley in
early April, the Spanish government declared on April 11 an unilateral
armistice in Cuba claiming that it was doing so at the request of the
pope. This action delayed hostilities with the United States, but emboldened the insurgents in Cuba, who by this time seem to have decided to
rely on an alliance with the United States in order to obtain their goal
of independence. On April 17 The New York Times published an article
that contradicted the reply by President McKinley to the note of the
foreign powers. In the article “Premier Gálvez Replies to Lee”, Mr.
Gálvez argues that all the official and trade organizations, and all the
leading societies in Havana offered their adhesion to the Cuban autonomous government. There were 1,400,000 inhabitants of Cuba who
preferred home rule to an insurgent government.
On April 11, President McKinley addressed a message to Congress
concluding that United States intervention in Cuba had become necessary, and asked for the authorization to take measures to end the war
in the island, and on April 12 The New York Times reported that while
opinions differed on this message as a whole, a majority of those questioned by the paper said that the people of Cuba ought to be free. A resolution was voted jointly by the United States Congress on April 18,
1898 stating that the Cuban people ought to be free and independent;
that the United States and its government demanded the immediate
renunciation by Spain of sovereignty over Cuba and the immediate
evacuation of the Spanish government and its armed forces from the
island; it gave authority to the President of the United States to use
armed force in order to implement the above; and it declared that the
United States had no desire or intent of attaining sovereignty in Cuba,
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except for its pacification, and expressed the intent, once that goal had
been achieved, to grant sovereignty and governance over Cuba to her
people.22 On 20 April President McKinley signed this joint resolution,
and sent an ultimatum to the Spanish government.
The last clause in the joint resolution of the United States Congress
was an amendment made through the offices of Senator Teller of
Colorado. Cuban insurgents in the United States and in the island
made a lot out of it, but it did not recognize the Cuban Republic in
Arms or the Cuban Liberation Army. As a matter of fact, this renunciation did not set any deadline for granting sovereignty over Cuba to
her people. Horatio Rubens claimed later that Teller had proposed the
amendment at his urging.23 According to John L. Offner, the lobbyist
for the Cuban insurgents Janney and McCook received $2 million in
6 percent Cuban bonds for securing this dubious guarantee of Cuban
independence.24 Hugh Thomas suggests that Teller was acting on behalf of Midwestern beet-sugar interests concerned about competition
from Cuban cane-sugar if Cuba became a United States territory and
her products could enter the continental United States free of duty.25
The McKinley administration’s initial hostility to the final form of the
Joint Resolution gave way to approval as it realized that, because it did
not recognize the Cuban Republic or the belligerency of the Cuban
Liberation Army, the Teller Amendment did not commit the United
States to grant Cuba independence in their time.26
For months the McKinley administration had kept an active diplomacy with the Spanish government. As soon as one demand was
accepted by the Madrid government, Washington showed dissatisfaction and espoused a new one. An editorial in The New York Times on
April 16 gives an explanation to what Spanish diplomats found puzzling. In “Keep Up the Pressure”, the editors of this newspaper state that
all concessions to Cubans had been concessions to the United States,
and that pressure upon Spain had to continue until she left Cuba. By
April 1898, The New York Times was endorsing armed intervention by
the United States in Cuba, but its opinion about Cuban independence
22
23
24
25
26
Chadwick, The Relations (note 1), p. 584–585.
Rubens, Liberty (note 2), p. 342.
John L. Offner, An Unwanted War (note 21), p. 189.
Thomas, Cuba (note 10), p. 376.
Louis A. Perez, Jr., Cuba Between Empires, 1878–1902 (Pittsburgh 1983), p. 187.
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was not as clear as it had been on November 15, 1897, when in its editorial pages it had called the Cuban insurgents “brave and desperate
men seeking the independence of their island”. In the editorial “Recognition”, on April 19, The New York Times expresses its opinion that
the United States government ought to intervene with force if necessary for the purpose of ending the war in Cuba; but whether the Cuban
Republic should be recognized, it believed to be “a question there is a
wide difference of opinion”.
The U.S. and the Cuban Insurgents: “One Race, Humankind [...]
Only Good Nations and Bad”
On May 6 The New York Times reported the opening in Havana on the
previous day of the Cuban autonomous parliament. This article
describes the solemn oath taken by the deputies to defend the sovereignty of the Spanish crown in Cuba, the promise of further concessions to the Cubans made by Governor General Ramón Blanco, and
the participation in these ceremonies by the hereto anti-home rule
paramilitary corps known as voluntarios. On May 8 The New York
Times reported also the definite organization of the Cuban Chamber of
Deputies, and five days later it reported in the article “Cuban Congress
at Work” that the first political step taken by the Cuban Congress after
it was constituted had been to appoint a commission to send – through
the Spanish government – to the European powers a protest against the
intervention of the United States in Cuban affairs. The Cuban Senate
was constituted also, and Mr. José Bruzón was elected as its president.
The article “The Outlook in Havana”, published in The New York
Times on April 22 ended with another report of the refusal of the
Cuban insurgents to confer with a delegation of the Cuban autonomous government. This delegation was empowered to treat with them
for peace on the basis of a broader form of home rule, but The New
York Times editors suggested that it was not accepted because the
insurgents had set their hopes of victory as allies of the United States
intervening forces. One month later, on May 23, The New York Times
reported news that corroborated that assumption. In the article “Ambitions of the Cubans”, Domingo Méndez Capote, vice-president of the
Cuban Republic in Arms, is quoted saying, “We feel immensely grateful to the United States for its aid [...] We know the American plans
must be wise and certain in the end to have the result striven for.” Mr.
Méndez Capote pledged that the property rights of Spaniards would be
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respected by the Cuban Republic, where there would be justice for all,
but not all insurgent leaders were so magnanimous. On May 23, The
New York Times published the text of a declaration by Bartolomé
Masó, president of the Cuban Republic in Arms, where he urged
Cuban supporters of home rule and the Cuban forces in the royalist
army and guerrillas, to join the Cuban insurgents, assuring them that
with the assistance of the United States a decisive blow to Spain
would be struck. He warned those who would not accept his entreaties
to seek homes in some other country.
Reading The New York Times for 1898 one receives the impression
that the Cuban insurgents welcomed United States intervention in Cuba. Except for the demand that the United States recognize the Cuban
Republic in Arms before it intervened made by Mr. Rubens in New
York, all the Cuban leaders accepted United States intervention
unconditionally. As a matter of fact, General Máximo Gómez had sent
a letter to President McKinley on February 9, 1897, asking him to
employ the weight of his authority to stop Spain.27 He had a similar
letter forwarded to McKinley by Consul Lee on February 15, 1898.28
In the past half century it has become common opinion that the Cuban
insurgents were winning in their struggle against the royalist forces
and loyalist Cubans, but reading the war diaries of General Máximo
Gómez one gets a different impression. General Máximo Gómez
admits his desperate situation on February 28 to the pages of his diary
– after the desertion of seventeen men, his force had been reduced to
thirty men. On 1 March his force was taken by surprise and barely
escaped capture.29
Proponents of the theory that a conquering Cuban Army of Liberation was cheated of victory by United States intervention will admit
that a few insurgents were in favor of intervention, but only among
those in exile, and some will add that those were former Autonomists.
Nevertheless, the fact is that the propaganda activities of the New York
delegation of the Cuban Revolutionary Party (the New York Junta)
27
Máximo Gómez, “Letter to Grover Cleveland” (sent to President McKinley on
February 9, 1897): Florencio García Cisneros, Máximo Gómez ¿Caudillo o dictador?
(Miami 1986), p. 183–185.
28
United States Congress, Senate (note 14), p. 25–26.
29
Gómez, Diario de campaña (note 8), p. 348.
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helped precipitate a war between the United States and Spain.30 Horatio Rubens was scolded by the Cubans at the headquarters of the Junta in New York after he declared to The New York Times that the Cuban insurgents would oppose armed intervention by the United States
in Cuba unless it recognized the independence of the Cuban Republic.31 But it was not only Cubans in the United States who wanted the
United States to intervene in Cuba. Insurgent Cubans on the island did
too, and they had their reasons. General Gómez was not winning battles and holding towns on May 2, 1898, when he sent a message asking
for assistance to General Sampson through the offices of the United
States vice-consul in Sagua; and on May 17 he was unable to take the
town of Jicotea after it was abandoned by government troops, because
he was out of ammunition and waiting to receive some from „the chief
of the allied army“.32 On May 21 he wrote in his diary: “if reinforcements from Oriente do not arrive, it is doubtful the campaign will be
successful here.”33
Bartolomé Masó and the government of the Cuban Republic in
Arms supported the intervention unconditionally as early as April 28,
1898.34 On May 1, 1898 General García received a delegation from the
United States Army, one of whose members carried a telegram from
Don Tomás Estrada Palma, the Delegate of the Cuban Revolutionary
Party in New York, and because of that telegram, and because he consulted the Cuban civil government, it has been argued that General
García cooperated with the United States armed forces following orders of the government of the Cuban Republic in Arms.35 But before
the Americans went to him with the telegram of introduction from
Don Tomás Estrada Palma, General García had expressed his desire to
cooperate unconditionally with them in a note dated April 18, 1898.36
30
See George W. Auxier, “The Propaganda Activities of the Cuban Junta in Precipitating the Spanish American War, 1895–1898”: Hispanic American Historical Review
19, 3 (August 1939), p. 286–305.
31
Rubens, Liberty (note 2), p. 339–340.
32
Gómez, Diario de campaña (note 8), p. 355–358.
33
Ibidem, p. 358.
34
Rufino Pérez Landa, Bartolomé Masó y Marqués (Havana 1947), p. 234.
35
Cosme de la Torriente y Peraza, Calixto García cooperó con las fuerzas armadas
de los Estados Unidos en 1898 cumpliendo ordenes del gobierno cubano (Havana
1952), p. 16–23.
36
Enrique Collazo, Los americanos en Cuba (Havana 1972; reprint of Havana,
1905), p. 94.
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This decision may have been motivated by General García’s perception of the Cuban autonomous government as far superior to that of
the Cuban Republic in Arms as a civil working government, and therefore more likely to be courted by the Americans once the latter had
forced the Spanish crown to cede its sovereignty over Cuba.37
In a letter of May 1, 1898 to vice-president Méndez Capote, General García announced his taking Bayamo, and claimed that other cities
in Oriente were going to fall soon, but he did not answer desperate
calls for help from General Gómez three weeks later, on May 21.38 In
a letter dated June 12 to the United States Secretary of the Navy,
General Sampson refers to a letter from General García to the American General Miles assuring that officer that he regarded his wishes and
suggestions as orders.39 It seems that Enrique Collazo made a fair assessment of the conduct in 1898 of the New York Delegation, the civil
government of the Cuban Republic in Arms, and of the two major
leaders of the Cuban Liberation Army, when he wrote in 1905 that
“delivered to the United States by the civil government and the Delegation of the Cuban Revolutionary Party abroad, Cubans did not
expect liberty to come from the efforts of their army but from the
whim or will of the President of the United States.”40
General Collazo criticizes in his work Los americanos en Cuba
(1905) the civil government of the Cuban Republic in Arms and the
commanders-in-chief of the Cuban Liberation Army for not negotiating with the Spanish authorities in Cuba and the Cuban autonomous
government after the unilateral Spanish cease fire of April 11, and
instead giving their unconditional support to the United States government that refused to acknowledge them.41 In his campaign diary
Máximo Gómez records at least three attempts by Governor General
Blanco to win him over. Unrecorded in Gómez’s diary is a letter from
General Blanco dated April 22 which Horatio Rubens translated
together with Gómez’s answer in his memoir Liberty. The Story of
37
Ibidem, p. 95–98.
Gómez, Diario de campaña (note 8), p. 358.
39
Antonio Maceo, “Letter to Colonel Federico Pérez Carbó” (July 14, 1896): Antonio Maceo, El pensamiento vivo de Maceo, José Antonio Portuondo (ed.) (Havana
1971), p. 133.
40
Collazo, Los americanos (note 36), p. 233–236.
41
Ibidem, p. 76–77.
38
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Cuba (1932).42 In this letter Governor General Blanco warned the
insurgent general that Americans were of a different ethnic origin and
wanted to exterminate Cubans because of their Spanish blood with
their blockade of the island, which was damaging to both Cubans and
Spaniards and would finish the human destruction that mutual depredations during the war of independence had begun. He proposed an
alliance of both armies at Santa Clara, where the Cuban insurgents
would receive arms from the royal army to fight the Americans, suggesting that once the war was over Spain would welcome Cuba as a
new Spanish-speaking nation of the same religion, and the same Spanish blood. General Máximo Gómez answered, indignant, that Cubans
and Spaniards could never live in peace together on Cuban soil, and
that he knew of only one race, humankind; that for him there were
only good nations and bad, and up till then he had reasons for admiring the United States. He concluded saying, “I have written President
McKinley and General Miles thanking them for the American intervention in Cuba.”
In his narrative of the United States’ war with Spain, Trumbull
White mentions this exchange between Blanco and Gómez, and commends the insurgent general for his fine sentiments. This American
author has nothing but praise for General Máximo Gómez, and
expresses his belief that General Blanco’s appeal showed the Spaniard
to be incapable of appreciating the sentiments which prompted
Cubans to maintain their struggle for freedom. He condemns the Spaniard for attempting to stir up within Gómez’s breast racial and religious prejudices, and eulogizes the Dominican for the sentiments
expressed in the words, “I only believe in one race, mankind”, the sentiments of a patriot, and a clean-cut American.43
The New York Times Illustrated Magazine of June 5, 1898 had wide
coverage on the United States armed forces going to Cuba. The writeup on the United States Colored Regulars (p. 4) is interesting. Stationed in Tampa, according to the reporter for The New York Times, they
had convinced the people of the South that there is a vast difference
between classes of non-whites. Tampians had learned to keep their
42
Rubens, Liberty (note 2), p. 346–347.
Trumbull White, United States in War With Spain and the History of Cuba (Chicago 1898), p. 411–413.
43
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hands off them – even if they did not respect them – although they never
lost a chance either by word of mouth or through the columns of the
local newspapers to vent their spleen against those African-Americans
in uniform. According to the reporter who wrote this article, at that time
white southerners would call any African-American a “nigger”, no matter whether he be a college graduate, a soldier, or a roustabout on a
steamboat. It is ironic that these African-Americans were going to liberate the people in a country where universal (male) suffrage was being
exercised, and where a twenty-year old struggle for civil rights had been
capped with the granting to Afro-Cubans of the right to bear the honorific “don” before their names.44 It seems that General Blanco – the
Spanish bigot – knew something which Mr. White the clean-cut American – did not know about his own country. Antonio Maceo, the AfroCuban second in command of the Cuban Liberation Army at the beginning of the insurrection in 1895 had opposed United States intervention
in Cuba.45 During a visit to Cuba in 1890, he had rebuked a man at a
banquet in his honor who had toasted to the annexation of Cuba to the
United States, saying that would be the day when he might be on the
side of the Spaniards.46 Because Maceo was killed in battle on December 7, 1896, we will never know if he would have welcomed United
States intervention in Cuba in 1898, like Gómez and García.
The United States in Cuba: “Cuba’s Independence [...] from Spain”
It seems puzzling that a war to liberate Cubans from Spanish
oppression began in the Philippines, but the destruction of the Spanish
fleet at Cavite on May 1, 1898 was the first engagement in this war
between the United States and Spain. Like in Cuba, there was an independence movement in the Philippines, and on April 24, 1898 the
Filipino leader, Emilio Aguinaldo, had conversations with the United
States consul in Singapore. On May 19 Aguinaldo joined Commodore
Dewey, commander of the United States fleet in Manila Bay. He established his headquarters at Cavite, assumed dictatorial powers, and began operations against the armed forces of the Spanish government.47
44
Manuel Moreno Fraginals, Cuba/España. España/Cuba. Historia común (Barcelona 1995), p. 161–163.
45
Antonio Maceo, “Letter to Colonel Federico Pérez Carbó” (July 14, 1896):
Maceo, El pensamiento (note 39), p. 133.
46
Philip Foner, Antonio Maceo (New York 1977), p. 185.
47
Joseph Smith, The Spanish American War (note 21), p. 178.
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It is likely that Aguinaldo was given verbal statements of support for
the independence of the Philippines by the United States consul in
Singapore, E. Spencer Pratt, and by Commodore Dewey.48 On June 12
Aguinaldo declared the independence of the Philippines, and on June
23 he decreed the establishment of a provisional government with
himself as president. Unlike General García in Cuba, he made no offer to place himself under American orders.49
When war broke out in April 1898, the immediate action of the
United States naval squadrons stationed at Key West since February
was to blockade Cuban harbors. On the front page of The New York
Times on May 7 the capture on the previous evening of the French
steamer Lafayette off Havana harbor while trying to run this blockade
was reported. The United states did not begin military operations in
Cuba, however, until June 1898, a month after it began them in Asia.
On June 2 General Miles sent a message from Tampa to General
Calixto García, second-in-command of the Cuban army, in charge of
forces in eastern Cuba, and within a week the Cuban insurgent general
replied from his base near Bayamo that his forces would actively
assist the landing of the United States army, and that he regarded
Miles’ “wishes and suggestions as orders”. No formal agreement had
been proposed or was ever entered into between Miles and García, but
the latter’s response implied that he was voluntarily placing himself
and his troops under American direction and control.50 There was a
landing of United States marines in Guantanamo Bay, near the city of
that name, but the landing of a 17,000 man expeditionary force of the
United States army for the taking of Santiago de Cuba did not begin to
take place till June 22, 1898, in Daikiri, after a meeting between García and U.S. Army commander General William R. Shafter on June
20. It had the assistance of the Cuban Liberation Army, who had also
carried out a diversion at Cabañas. In addition, the mere presence of
local insurgent forces acted as a constraint upon the movement of
royalist troops throughout the military division of Santiago de Cuba.51
48
See Emilio Aguinaldo and Vincente Albano Pacis, A Second Look at America
(New York 1957).
49
Smith, The Spanish American War (note 21), p. 183.
50
Ibidem, p. 119–120.
51
Ibidem, p. 128.
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The Cuban Liberation Army made important contributions to the
Santiago campaign, but United States troops soon developed an attitude of contempt for their nominal allies. In his war account, The
Rough Riders (1899), Colonel Theodore Roosevelt says, “There was a
Cuban guide at the head of the column, but he ran away as soon as the
fighting began – two American reporters there were two men who did
not run away.”52 This dismissal of Cubans as cowardly is one of many
negative comments about the courage and fighting caliber of the
insurgents the United States had gone to war for in Mr. Roosevelt’s
memoirs. In his account of fighting at El Caney he describes Cubans
“scattering like guinea pigs”.53 Roosevelt was particularly unimpressed by the appearance of the Cuban Liberation Army at the moment he
landed in Cuba, when, he says, “At Daikiri we found hundreds of
Cuban insurgents, a crew as utter tatterdemalions as human eyes ever
looked on, armed with every kind of rifle in all stages of dilapidation.
It was evident at a glance, that they would be no use in serious
fighting, but it was hoped that they might be of service in scouting.
From a variety of causes, however, they turned out to be nearly useless, even for this purpose, so far as the Santiago campaign was concerned.”54 Ironically, Colonel Roosevelt praises the “Spanish guerrillas”, unaware that this force in the royal army in Cuba was overwhelmingly Cuban-born.55
Mr. Roosevelt was not the only American in Cuba who thought poorly of the Cuban insurgents. George Kennan wrote in 1899 that opinion
among United States officers differed about the Cuban insurgents who
had joined the United States marines in Guantanamo.56 He was not impressed favorably by the appearance of 1.500 insurgents under General García in Siboney – “fully four-fifths of them were mulattoes or
blacks; the number of half-grown boys was very large; there was hardly a suggestion of a uniform in the whole command, most of them
52
Theodore Roosevelt, The Rough Riders, The Works of Theodore Roosevelt, 11
(New York 1926), p. 56.
53
Ibidem, p. 76.
54
Ibidem, p. 49.
55
Ibidem, p. 81; Donald Barr Chidsey, The Spanish American War. A Behind-theScenes Account of the War in Cuba (New York 1971), p. 40.
56
George Kennan, Campaigning in Cuba (New York 1899), p. 73.
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being barefoot [...] they looked worse than the clothes that a New England farmer hangs on a couple of sticks to scare away the crows.”57 But
while Mr. Kennan did not mean to say that those “ragamuffins” were
not brave men and good soldiers, General S.B.M. Young said, “The insurgents are a lot of degenerates, absolutely devoid of honor and gratitude. They are no more capable of self-government than the savages
of Africa.”58 The poor impression given by the physical appearance of
the Cubans seemed confirmed by the failure of General García’s
insurgents to prevent the entrance of reinforcements from Holguin into Santiago, and General Shafter reported this failure of the Cuban to
Washington.59 General García continued cooperating with the United
States Army commander, but relations between the two men deteriorated after that incident.
On July 4, the small Spanish fleet, which had been trapped inside
Santiago’s bottle-necked harbor, attempted to escape, and was sunk in
the effort. The city of Santiago would not capitulate unconditionally
though, and negotiations began between the Spanish commander of
the city, José Toral, and United States Army commander General Shafter. The latter feared that taking Santiago would be very costly in human lives, and also that a long siege would allow the spread of tropical diseases among his unacclimated men.60 On July 14 General Toral
formally surrendered the troops of his army in the city as well as all
government troops and divisions in the eastern province of Cuba. The
United States made the commitment to repatriate all the soldiers from
Spain who would want to return.61 The terms of surrender stipulated
that incumbent civil officers and local constabulary authorities were to
be ratified in their positions, and that all residents of the province passed directly under the authority and protection of the United States.62
In the article “Santiago and After”, The New York Times on July 17,
1898 encouraged the conquest of Puerto Rico because “no better time
would be chosen for that capture than the moment at which the Span57
Ibidem, p. 92.
Walter Millis, The Martial Spirit (Cambridge, MA 1931), p. 362.
59
Major General Shafter, “Letter to the Adjutant General” (July 4, 1898): United
States Adjutant-General’s Office, Correspondence Relating to the War with Spain, vol. I
(Washington, D.C. 1902), p. 87.
60
Ibidem (13 July 1898), p. 133.
61
Ibidem, p. 151–152.
62
Perez, Cuba Between Empires (note 26), p. 208.
58
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ish Minister of War is talking of the retention of that island as an
indispensable condition of peace.” It concluded that “the intolerable
nuisance which the war was undertaken to abate cannot be perpetuated in Puerto Rico”, and that “Spanish rule must be banished completely and unconditionally from our hemisphere.” These words echo
what Theodore Roosevelt said later in his The Rough Riders: “I
preached with all the fervor and zeal I possessed, our duty to intervene
in Cuba, and to take this opportunity of driving the Spanish from the
Western World.”63 But in Santiago de Cuba the United States regulars
fraternized with their erstwhile enemies, the Spaniards. Officers and
privates in the United States Army and Navy could be seen in the city
together with Spaniards of their own rank. A lieutenant in the United
States army later reminisced, “I met many of the Spanish officers in
the restaurants of the city, and I must admit that they were, as a rule,
capital fellows, kindly disposed, hospitable, and very gentlemanly.”64
The Spaniards reciprocated the feelings of the Americans for them.
Before departing for Europe, the Spanish private Pedro López de
Castillo wrote a letter of appreciation to the American Army which
was signed by 11,000 Spanish soldiers. The Spanish soldiers wished
the Americans “all happiness and health in this land which will no longer belong to our dear Spain, but will be yours, who have conquered it
by force and watered it with your blood”; and concluded, “these people are not able to exercise or enjoy their liberty, for they will find it a
burden to comply with the laws which govern civilized communities.”65
General Shafter excluded General García from the peace negotiations, and the insurgent army from capitulation ceremonies. On July
14 García learned that his forces would neither share in the municipal
administration of Santiago nor receive control of Cuban territory. He
demanded from Shafter a clarification of the status of Santiago and
learned that the Cuban Liberation Army would not be permitted into
the city. He refused the personal invitation to attend the capitulation
63
Roosevelt, The Rough Riders (note 52), p. 3.
Frederick Everett Pierce, Reminiscences of the Experiences of Comp. L. Second
Reg. Massachusetts Infantry, U.S.V. in the Spanish American War (Greenfield, MA
1900), p. 67.
65
Pedro López de Castillo, “Letter to the Soldiers of the American Army” (August
21, 1898): United States Adjutant-General’s Office, Correspondence Relating to the War
with Spain, vol. I (note 59), p. 249–250.
64
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ceremonies at Santiago extended to him by Shafter, and after breaking
publicly with the Americans, he forwarded to General Máximo Gómez
a formal protest of American actions accompanied by his resignation.66
General Shafter answered General García’s protest, and reminded him
that the war was between the United States and Spain.67 On July 26
The New York Times reported in the article “The Cuban Complaints”
the circumstances surrounding the differences between General García and General Shafter at Santiago. This article concludes with the
words, “in our view there is at present no government of Cuba, but
there is a municipal government of Santiago de Cuba”, and “to keep
Cuban troops out was a necessity”, because “when our men are compelled to shell our allies in order to induce them to desist from killing
prisoners, we have had sufficient notice of what would be the result of
letting them lose upon a captive town.”68 In the same issue the article
“The Future of Cuba” ponders that the joint resolution of Congress
declared it to be its intention to leave the government and control of
the island to its people, but that it might be that the Cubans wished to
exercise their right of control to become United States citizens.
Hostilities between the United States and Spain ended formally on
August 12 – although the capture of Manila by United States forces
was staged on August 13. Since the Cuban insurgents were not signatories to the peace protocol, insurgent armies continued operations,
and the United States appealed to the Delegation of the Cuban Revolutionary Party in New York to call them to order. Don Tomás Estrada
Palma, the Delegate, accepted the peace protocol, and his decision was
subsequently accepted by the civil government of the Cuban Republic
in Arms.69 Talk of renewing the war against the United States went on
among the Cuban insurgent armed bands, but they had neither weapons nor supplies; nor the means to purchase them, because those came
to the insurgents through the Cuban Revolutionary Party juntas in the
66
Perez, Cuba Between Empires (note 26), p. 208–209.
Major General Shafter, “Letter to the Hon. R. A. Alger” (July 29, 1898): United
States Adjutant-General’s Office, Correspondence Related to the War with Spain, vol. I
(note 59), p. 185.
68
The dispatch reporting that Cuban insurgents had killed prisoners placed under
their charge was declared false by Major General Shafter in a letter of July 17, 1898 to
the United States Secretary of War, ibidem, p. 101.
69
Perez, Cuba Between Empires (note 26), p. 210.
67
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United States.70 On August 13 General García was dismissed by the
civil government of the Cuban Republic in Arms for establishing a
military dictatorship in eastern Cuba, and in early September it authorized the disbandment of the entire eastern army. In late September it
called for a National Assembly to meet at Santa Cruz del Sur, and on
October 23 it formally dissolved itself and invested the Santa Cruz del
Sur Assembly as the provisional supreme authority of the Republic of
Cuba.71
General H. L. Lawton replaced General Shafter as provincial
governor in eastern Cuba, and upon his arrival in Cuba he had a conference with General García, where he convinced the Cubans that the
United States intended to honor the terms of the Joint Resolution, but
that Cuban cooperation was essential to the success of the congressional pledge. By September 27, García was giving his support to the
Americans because he despised the Santa Cruz Assembly more. His
denunciation of the provisional government and his endorsement of
United States authorities in Cuba served to legitimize the refusal by
the latter to recognize the authority of the Santa Cruz Assembly.72 On
October 1, 1898, The New York Times reported that while former United States Consul General at Havana Fitzhugh Lee avowed that Cuba
would secure its independence and be fitted for it under a “not long
guardianship [...]”, this seemed a somewhat premature confidence.
In the article “An Envoy in Disguise” on October 9, The New York
Times chastised Cuban supporters of the Cuban autonomous government, because Mr. Rivero, editor of the senior Havana daily El diario
de la Marina, was in New York seeking a rapprochement between
Cuban supporters of home rule under the Spanish crown and Cuban
exiles in New York who supported Cuban independence. The New
York Times wondered how much credence the Cubans in New York
would give to “the myth that the Autonomists are anything else than a
group of Spaniards who for years have been the worse of foes to the
real patriots of the island”. This article concludes that the pretense of
an autonomous Cuban government had been revived for the plain purpose of embarrassing the pending negotiations between the United
States and Spain, and that the disguised royalists were posing as the
70
71
Ibidem, p. 226–231.
Ibidem, p. 234–235.
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Rafael E. Tarragó
representatives of a phase of Cuban sentiment. The fact is that, despite
the predictions of The New York Times since October 1897, the Cuban
autonomous government continued functioning after the war of the
United States with Spain began. On June 22 (p. 1: 5), in the article
“Galvez Hopes for Spain”, The New York Times reported an address of
the Cuban Prime Minister, where he said that he rather saw heavens
fall than an invasion of Cuba by a foreign army. At the Cuban Chamber of Deputies, Mr. Gálvez had repeatedly said that home rule was
not a regime to benefit the Cuban-born Creole, nor the European-born
only, but for all the inhabitants of the island of Cuba. It is puzzling that
one of the better informed newspapers in the United States did not
know that the Cuban autonomous government continued operating
outside of eastern Cuba after the capitulation of Santiago in July, and
the cessation of hostilities between Spain and the United States in
August. It existed until the end of Spanish sovereignty in Cuba on
December 31, 1898.73 Whatever individual former Autonomists may
have said or done after 1898, the fact is that the Cuban Liberal (home
rule) Party was the only Cuban political group opposed to United
States intervention in Cuba in that fateful year.
Contrary to the opinion of The New York Times, the Autonomists
were not a group of Spaniards, but Cubans who remained loyal to the
Spanish crown during the war of Cuban independence, and undertook
the task of organizing a government when home rule was attained by
Cuba in 1898.74 The New York Times itself had reported in April 1898
the elections being held in Cuba for deputies to the insular parliament,
and the support given to that government by all the influential institutions at Havana. Far from being posers or job-seekers, the members of
the Cuban autonomous government were well known professionals,
scholars, and men of integrity, highly commended by the last Governor General of Cuba, Adolfo Jiménez-Castellanos, for their willingness to remain at their post and continue the administration of the twothirds of Cuba not under United States military administration at a
72
Ibidem, p. 245–246.
J.C.M. Ogelsby, “The Cuban Autonomist Movement’s Perception of Canada,
1865–1898. Its Implications”: The Americas 48, 4 (April 1992), p. 460.
74
Orville H. Platt, “Our Relation to the People of Cuba and Puerto Rico”: Annals of
the American Academy of Political and Social Science 18 (July-December 1901), p. 152.
73
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time when serving under the Spanish flag could endanger the future of
anyone planning to remain in Cuba.75 This author is not the only one
who thinks that an autonomous Cuban state offered the best hope for
a peaceful solution of the problems of Cuba, and might have preserved
the island and its people from the disconcerting and ambiguous experiences of the intervention and the military occupation of Cuba by the
United States of America.76
By November 1898 the United States authorities in Cuba had become arbiters of contending factions among the Cuban insurgents. In
that month the Santa Cruz Assembly sent a commission to Washington, D.C., and General García traveled also to the United States in
order to present a case for its dissolution. On December 29 General
Gómez broke what had been a long silence to address the remains of
the Cuban Liberation Army, appealing for reconciliation and unity.
Calixto García had died that month in the United States, and Don
Tomás Estrada Palma suggested to the United States authorities to give
Gómez some official attention. In January 1899 President McKinley
sent a special representative to General Máximo Gómez, who accepted to cooperate in disbanding the Cuban Liberation Army, and distributing $3 million to the insurgent soldiers.77 Soon after, the Santa Cruz
Assembly denounced Gómez’s actions, and threatened to deprive him
of the moral authority necessary to implement the dissolution of the
Liberation Army. But the United States Military Governor of Cuba,
Brooke, dissolved the Assembly by decree, and General Gómez, acting under the authority of the United States government, disbanded the
Cuban Liberation Army.78 These events made it clear that with United
States intervention the Cuban war of independence had become a
Spanish American War.79
75
Melchor Fernández Almagro, Historia política de la España contemporánea, II
(Madrid 1959), p. 234.
76
Thomas, Cuba (note 10), p. 413; Ogelsby, “The Cuban Autonomist” (note 73),
p. 461.
77
Perez, Cuba Between Empires (note 26), p. 255–261.
78
Ibidem, p. 264.
79
Smith, The Spanish-American War (note 21), p. 217.
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Rafael E. Tarragó
CONCLUSION
Cuban historian Emilio Roig de Leuchsenring debunked the myth that
Cubans received independence from the United States in his monograph Cuba no debe su independencia a los Estados Unidos (1950),
but in this work he devised his own myth of a Cuban Liberation Army
on the road to victory.80 He was instrumental in bringing about an
official proclamation of the Cuban Academy of History designating
the War of the United States with Spain a “Spanish-Cuban-American
War”, a concept that, in my opinion, ignores the fact that the United
States government never granted belligerent status to the Cuban Liberation Army, that the United States armed forces marginalized the
Cuban army as soon as they were established in Cuba (never treating
the Cuban insurgents as allies), and that, for all practical purposes, the
intervention of the United States in Cuba in 1898 was part of a war of
the United States with Spain which began at Manila Bay in April
1898. The way things seem to have actually been is best described by
General Shafter’s answer to General García’s protest. Shafter said,
“This war, as you well know, is between the United States and Spain
alone.”81 It is likely that without United States armed intervention in
1898 home rule would have become established in Cuba, and eventually Cuba would have become independent peacefully. But instead of
a peace between Cubans, a peace treaty between the United States and
Spain was signed in Paris on December 10, 1898.82 Emilio Roig de
Leuchsenring was correct, however, denying that the United States
had gone to war with Spain in order to aid the Cuban Republic in
Arms. This is confirmed by contemporary sources such as The New
York Times.
From October 1897 to October 1898 the opinions expressed in the
editorials and in the reporting of The New York Times about Cuba and
the Cubans changed considerably. In 1897 this newspaper applauded
the reluctance of the Cuban insurgents to accept anything less than in-
80
See Emilio Roig de Leuchsenring, Cuba no debe su independencia a los Estados
Unidos (Buenos Aires 1965).
81
Torriente y Peraza, Calixto Garcia (note 35), p. 55.
82
“Tratado de paz entre los Estados Unidos y España”: Rafael E. Tarragó, Experiencias políticas de los cubanos en la Cuba española, 1512–1898 (Barcelona 1996),
p. 247–253.
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dependence from Spain. Throughout the year 1898 the negative opinion that The New York Times held of Spain did not change, and its editorials on the Cuban autonomous government were consistently pessimistic (concerning articles about the Cuban autonomous government,
though it is remarkable the contrast between the consistent condemnation from before its inception in editorials with the factual news
articles from its reporters in Cuba, who consistently described a working government with support from Cuban society). But in 1898 there
was a considerable change in opinion about Cubans and Cuban independence. By April Cuban insurgents demanding a commitment to
Cuban independence from the United States as it threatened intervention in Cuba were reminded by The New York Times that beggars
should not be choosers. On 26 July, this newspaper expressed doubts
about the capability of Cubans for self-government, and suggested that
Cubans might want to become United States citizens.
The articles in The New York Times in 1898 mentioned above refer
directly or indirectly to two subjects that became important in the relations of the United States with Cubans after its war with Spain: annexationism (collaborationism), and the development of Cuba by United States capital and entrepreneurs (economic dependence). On these
issues the posture of The New York Times after the war contrasts with
what this newspaper wrote when the hegemonic power in Cuba was
Spain. Under Spain it demanded freedom for Cubans, while under the
United States it showed alarm at the enfranchisement of all the male
adult population in the island. Under Spain it encouraged the Cuban
insurgents to intransigence – as brave men –, but under the United
States it encouraged them to acquiesce to become wards.
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