Cuban War of Independence

On December 25, 1894, three ships – the Lagonda, the Almadis and the Baracoa – set sail for Cuba from Fernandina Beach, Florida, loaded with soldiers and weapons.^[10] Two of the ships were seized by US authorities in early January, but the proceedings went ahead. Not dissuaded, on March 25, Martí presented the Manifesto of Montecristi, which outlined the policy for Cuba's war of independence:


The insurrection began on February 24, 1895, with uprisings all across the island. In Oriente, the most important ones took place in Santiago, Guantánamo, Jiguaní, El Cobre, El Caney, and Alto Songo. The uprisings in the central part of the island, such as Ibarra, Jagüey Grande, and Aguada, suffered from poor coordination and failed; the leaders were captured, deported or executed. In the province of Havana, the insurrection was discovered before it began, and its leaders were detained. The insurgents further west in Pinar del Río were ordered by rebel leaders to wait.


On April 1 and 11, 1895, the main rebel leaders landed on two expeditions in Oriente: Major General Antonio Maceo along with 22 members near Baracoa, and José Martí, Máximo Gómez and 4 other members in Playitas. Spanish forces in Cuba numbered about 80,000, of which 20,000 were regular troops and 60,000 were Spanish and Cuban volunteer militia. The latter were a locally enlisted force that took care of most of the "guard and police" duties on the island. Wealthy landowners would "volunteer" some of their slaves to serve in this force, which was under local control as militia and not under official military command. By December, Spain had sent 98,412 regular troops to the island, and the colonial government increased the Volunteer Corps to 63,000 men. By the end of 1897, there were 240,000 regulars and 60,000 irregulars on the island. The revolutionaries were far outnumbered.


The rebels were often called mambises. The origin of this term is disputed. Some suggest it may have originated in the name of officer Juan Ethninius Mamby who led rebels in the Dominican fight for independence in 1844. Others, such as Cuban anthropologist Fernando Ortiz, posit it has Bantu origins, particularly from Kikongo^[11] from the word 'mbi', which carried negative connotations including 'outlaw'. In any case, the word appears to have first been used as an insult or slur, which the Cuban rebels adopted with pride.


From the start of the uprising, the Mambises were hampered by the lack of weapons. Possession of weapons by individuals was forbidden after the Ten Years' War. They compensated by using guerrilla fighting, based on quick raids, the element of surprise, mounting their forces on fast horses, and using machetes against regular troops on the march. They acquired most of their weapons and ammunition in raids on the Spaniards. Between June 11, 1895, and November 30, 1897, of 60 attempts to bring weapons and supplies to the rebels from outside the country, only one succeeded. Twenty-eight ships were intercepted within U.S. territory; five were intercepted at sea by the U.S. Navy, and four by the Spanish Navy; two were wrecked; one was driven back to port by storm; the fate of another is unknown.


Martí was killed soon after landing on May 19, 1895, at Dos Rios, but Máximo Gomez and Antonio Maceo fought on, taking the war to all parts of Oriente. By the end of June, all of Camagüey was at war. Based on new research in Cuban sources, historian John Lawrence Tone showed that Gomez and Maceo were the first to force the civilian forces to choose sides. "Either they relocated to the east side of the islands, where the Cubans controlled the mountainous terrain, or they would be accused of supporting the Spanish and be subject to immediate trial and execution."^[12] Continuing west, they were joined by 1868 war veterans, such as Polish internationalist General Carlos Roloff and Serafín Sánchez in Las Villas, who brought weapons, men and experience to the revolutionaries' arsenal.


In mid-September, representatives of the five Liberation Army Corps assembled in Jimaguayú, Camagüey to approve the "Jimaguayú Constitution". They established a central government, which grouped the executive and legislative powers into one entity named "Government Council", headed by Salvador Cisneros and Bartolomé Masó. After some time of consolidation in the three eastern provinces, the liberation armies headed for Camagüey and then Matanzas, outmaneuvering and deceiving the Spanish Army several times. They defeated Spanish Gen. Arsenio Martínez-Campos y Antón, who had gained victory in the Ten-Year War, and killed his most trusted general at Peralejo.


Campos tried the strategy he had used in the Ten Years' War, constructing a broad belt across the island, called the trocha, about 80 km long and 200 m wide. This defense line was to confine rebel activities to the eastern provinces. The belt was developed along a railroad from Jucaro in the south to Morón in the north. Campos built fortifications along this railroad at various points, and at intervals, 12 meters of posts and 400 meters of barbed wire. In addition, booby traps were placed at locations most likely to be attacked.


The rebels believed they had to take the war to the western provinces of Matanzas, Havana and Pinar del Rio, which contained the island's government and wealth. The Ten-Year War had failed because it was confined to the eastern provinces. The revolutionaries mounted a cavalry campaign that overcame the trochas and invaded every province. Surrounding all larger cities and well-fortified towns, they arrived at the westernmost tip of the island on January 22, 1896, exactly three months after the invasion near Baraguá.


Campos was replaced by Gen. Valeriano Weyler. He reacted to the rebels' successes by introducing terror: periodic executions, mass exile of residents, forced concentration of residents in certain cities or areas, and destruction of farms and crops. Weyler's terror reached its height on October 21, 1896, when he ordered all countryside residents and their livestock to gather within eight days in various fortified areas and towns occupied by his troops.


Hundreds of thousands of people had to leave their homes and were subjected to appalling and inhumane conditions in the crowded towns and cities. Using a variety of sources, Tone estimates that 155,000 to 170,000 civilians died, nearly 10% of the population.^[12]


Around this time, Spain also had to fight a growing Philippines independence movement. These two wars burdened Spain's economy. In 1896, Spain turned down secret United States offers to buy Cuba.


Maceo was killed December 7, 1896, in Havana province while returning from the west. The major obstacle to Cuban success was weapons supply. Although weapons and funding were sent by Cuban exiles and supporters in the United States, the supply violated US laws. Of 71 supply missions, only 27 got through; 5 were stopped by the Spanish, and 33 by the U.S. Coast Guard.


In 1897, the liberation army maintained a privileged position in Camagüey and Oriente, where the Spanish controlled only a few cities. Spanish Liberal leader Práxedes Mateo Sagasta admitted in May 1897: "After having sent 200,000 men and shed so much blood, we don't own more land on the island than what our soldiers are stepping on".^[13] The rebel force of 3,000 defeated the Spanish in various encounters, such as the La Reforma Campaign, and forcing the surrender on August 30 of Las Tunas which had been guarded by over 1,000 well-armed and well-supplied men.


As stipulated at the Jimaguayü Assembly two years earlier, a second Constituent Assembly met in La Yaya, Camagüey, on October 10, 1897. The newly adopted constitution provided that military command was to be subordinated to civilian rule. The government was confirmed, naming Bartolomé Masó President and Domingo Méndez Capote Vice President.


Madrid decided to change its policy towards Cuba, and replaced Weyler. It also drew up a colonial constitution for Cuba and Puerto Rico, and installed a new government in Havana. But with half the country out of its control and the other half in arms, the colonial government was powerless and these changes were rejected by the rebels.