Struggle for National Independence
The first war for independence began on October 10, 1868 when the lawyer from Bayamo, Carlos Manuel de Céspedes, one of the principal conspirators. Céspedes, in his property "La Demajagua" proclaimed independence and granted freedom to the slaves, uprised. The uprising, followed shortly after by the conspirators in Camagüey and Las Villas, gained strength in spite of the merciless reaction from the Spaniards. The Spaniards in the cities, organized in voluntary militias, unleashed terror among Cuban families and became an important factor influencing political decisions. At the same time, the Spanish army advanced over the city of Bayamo, capital of the rebels forcing the Cubans to abandon it, for they never surrendered. However, before abandoning the city, the rebels themselves set the city on fire, as a symbol of their revolutionary will. Although the extremely difficult conditions were against the movement, unity was necessary, and legality was conquered through the Constitutional Assembly held in the town of Guáimaro. The legal constitution of the Republic in Arms was passed.
The Cuban Liberation Army, after several months of military learning obtained an impressive offensive capacity that reached its highest point during the invasion of the bountiful Guantánamo region by General Máximo Gómez, and by the brilliant battles in the plateaus of Camagüey by the cavalry commanded by Ignacio Agramonte. However, the military victories were turned in a way into a set back due to political differences among the revolutionaries, which eventually led to Céspedes’ removal from his position as President of the Republic in Arms (1873). At the same time, these differences prevented arrival in Cuba of the needed supplies of armaments and other means being sent by the Cubans emigrants. On the other hand, the hostile policy of the US Government towards the Cuban revolutionaries was also negative. The United States Government decided to abide, by its old policy, that the Cubans should remain under Spanish rule until they fall unfailingly into the control of the North Americans.
Between 1874 and 1875, the Cuban military forces were very successful, first with Máximo Gómez’s campaign in Camagüey, marked by the victories at La Sacra and Palo Seco and the battle at Las Guásimas, where the Cuban army defeated a Spanish column of more than 4 000 soldiers, and afterwards by the invasion of Las Villas by the rebel troops under the command of the outstanding Dominican General. However, internal disagreement and dissension again lessened the importance of such victories and important strategic advances. This, together with the non-arrival of refreshment troops prevented the success of the planned invasion aimed at extending the war to the rich Western region of the Island.
While the revolution weakened, the Spaniards improved their military capabilities, for the restoration of the monarchy in 1875 put an end to the violent events that had characterized thew life in Spain after the so-called "glorious revolution" of 1868 and the establishment of the Republic shortly after. The conditions, unfavorable for the rebel army and the lack of unity forced the rebels to accept the peace proposals made by the Spanish General Arsenio Martínez Campos. In 1878, the Peace Treaty was signed at Zanjón, but independence had not been obtained. Nevertheless, not everybody in the Liberation Army accepted the truce and the peace, particularly General Antonio Maceo, Chief of the Army for the Eastern region. Maceo, a mulatto born in a poor family, had reached the highest positions in the Liberation Army thanks to his courage, his intelligence and his capabilities.
Even though insurgent actions could not be sustained for much longer, the Protestation of Baraguá, headed by Maceo and his troop, who were the most popular sectors of the revolutionary movement, was a proof of the Cubans’ irrevocable will to continue its struggle for independence. In the 1880’s, the Island will traverse a period of great economic and social changes. Spain finally
abolished slavery, much weakened as a result of the Ten Years’ War. This brought notable transformations in the organization of sugar production that reached, at last, the rank of industry. Cuba’s economic dependence from the United States was bound to be practically complete and absolute while US investment capitals was more and more present in several sectors of the economy.
The bourgeoisie in the Island, estranged from their independence aspirations, had formed two major political groups or parties: the Liberal Party, which would later become the Autonomist party, and the Constitutional Union. The first was resuming the old trend of trying to obtain some reforms within the Spanish colonial system, aiming at an eventual home-rule. The latter was the most reactionary expression of the sectors interested in the full integration of Cuba into Spain. Meanwhile, mostly the Cubans that had been forced to emigrate to the United States and other countries were supporting the efforts for independence, more popularly rooted. A first outbreak, the "Guerra Chiquita" (Short War) in 1879, once again sent the Cubans to the battle fields in the Eastern and Central regions, but was easily controlled after a few months due to its lack of organization and political coherence. Several landings, conspiracies and uprisings followed, usually organized by military chiefs of the Ten Years War, but were aborted or suffocated by the Spanish authorities because of the rebels’ incapacity to articulate their actions with a more comprehensive and united movement within the masses. That would be the work of José Martí.
Working for independence from early adolescence, José Martí Pérez, (born in Havana, 1853) suffered imprisonment and deportation during the Ten Years War. From his work with later conspiracies and revolutionary movements, he realized that the Cuban Revolution had to have new organizational and programmatic foundations. To this task, he devoted his work and his whole life. Gifted with exquisite poetic sensibility and being a terrific and bright speaker, Martí also possessed a tremendous foresight and a profound political thought, enriched by the experience of the years he lived in Spain, the United States and other Latin American countries. All his work for the union of the Cuban revolutionaries, mainly among the Cuban emigrates in the United Sates, had an important repercussion in Cuba, and became a reality in 1892, when the Cuban Revolutionary Party was founded.
Conceived as the only and unique organization of all the Cubans in favor of independence, the Party had to find the means, both material and human, for the new liberation endeavor. At the same time, it should grant the military chiefs the indispensable political authority to carry out the "necessary war."
The war started on February 24, 1895. Martí landed in Cuba with Máximo Gómez, General in Chief of the Liberation Army, and shortly after was killed in combat at Dos Ríos. Though Martí’s death was a terrible loss for the Revolution, the revolutionary movement became stronger and stronger in the province of Oriente, where Maceo ¾ who had come in an expedition from Costa Rica ¾ had taken command of the mambí troops. Systematically, Maceo extended the actions to the provinces of Camagüey and Las Villas. Delegates of the Liberation Army met in Jimaguayú to draft the constitution that would rule the destiny of the Republic in Arms. The Assembly elected Salvador Cisneros Betancourt, a patrician from Camagüey, for the Presidential post, and appointed Máximo Gómez General in Chief of the Liberation Army. And Maceo was appointed as Lieutenant General. Shortly after, Maceo would set out from Baraguá commanding a column that would carry out the invasion to the Western regions together with the forces under the command of Máximo Gómez, who was waiting for Maceo in Las Villas. After the victories at Mal Tiempo, Coliseo and Calimete, the invading troops entered in the province of La Habana panicking the colonial authorities in the capital. Maceo’s troops arrived in Mantua, the most Western town in Havana. The invasion had met its objectives: the war was making devastating effects in the whole territory, whose main productions dropped dramatically. This time, Spain was prevented from taking out from the Island the necessary resources to fight for her own independence.
To face generalized insurgency, the metropolis appointed Valeriano Weyler General Captain (Governor). Weyler arrived in Cuba with numerous refreshment troops to support his campaign and unleashed a bloody war of extermination. In spite of the high cost this type of war represented ¾ above all because of the reconcentration of the peasant population in towns and cities ¾ Weyler was unable to stop insurgency, and the victories of the Cuban troops. Gómez’s campaign in Havana, and Maceo’s in Pinar del Río would keep the colonial army in a stress. Although the rebel forces also faced difficulties, they would receive with some regularity supplies sent by the Cuban emigrants in the United States and by the Cuban Revolutionary Party. This, together with the armament captured from the enemy would enable the Cuban Liberation Army to maintain its operational capabilities.
In December 1896, Maceo was killed in the battle of San Pedro, and General Calixto García, another brilliant army leader from the time of the Ten Years War is appointed as 2nd Lieutenant and Assistant to the General in Chief of the Liberation Army. At this time, Gómez decides to concentrate against himself, as much as possible, Spanish elite troops and submitted them to a demolishing campaign in the central region of the Island. In this way, he left García free to fight important battles in Oriente and to take important and well fortified places in Las Tunas and Guisa. At the same time, in the Western side of the Island, the Liberation Army is fighting continuous small and medium size actions. The fate of Spanish colonial regime was cast.
The development of the Cuban Revolution, which had been gaining more and more sympathy from the American people, making the US government to take the decision of involving in the conflict in a manner favorable to American interests. Yielding in part to US pressures, Spain hands over grants autonomy to the Cubans, but the step was taken to late to have the desired effect. Then in February 1898 the US battleship Maine was blown in Havana harbor, an event Washington would use as a pretext to mobilize public opinion and involve directly in the war. Formally admitting Cuban independence, but not recognizing its institutions, the United Sates enters in war against Spain and, with the cooperation and help of the rebel troops American troops land in Cuba through the South coast of the Eastern region. Actions will take place in the outskirts of Santiago de Cuba. The Spanish fleet was trapped in the port of Santiago de Cuba, and on trying to sail to the open sea is annihilated by the superiority of the American naval forces. After the assault against the city defenses by Cuban-American troops, the Spanish command has no choice but to surrender. An important event then takes place: Cuban troops, commanded by Calixto García are forbidden to enter in the city. Several months after that, according to the Paris Treaty, Spain will transfer Cuba to the United States control without taking into account the institutions established by the Cuban people.
