Cuban War of Independence - The War

The War

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. Two of the ships were seized by US authorities in early January, but the proceedings went ahead. Not to be dissuaded, on March 25, Martí presented the Proclamation of Montecristi, which outlined the policy for Cuba’s war of independence:

• the war was to be waged by blacks and whites alike;
• participation of all blacks was crucial for victory;
• Spaniards who did not object to the war effort should be spared,
• private rural properties should not be damaged; and
• the revolution should bring new economic life to Cuba.

The insurrection began on 24 February 1895 with uprisings all across the island. In Oriente, the most important ones took place in Santiago, Guantánamo, Jiguaní, San Luis, El Cobre, El Caney, Alto Songo, Bayate and Baire. The uprisings in the central part of the island, such as Ibarra, Jagüey Grande and Aguada suffered from poor co-ordination and failed; the leaders were captured, some of them deported and some executed. In the province of Havana, the insurrection was discovered before it got off and the leaders were detained. Thus, the insurgents further west in Pinar del Río were ordered to wait.

On April 1 and 11, 1895, the main Mambi leaders landed on two expeditions in Oriente: Major General Antonio Maceo along with 22 members near Baracoa, and José Martí, Máximo Gomez and 4 other members in Playitas. Around that time, Spanish forces in Cuba numbered about 80,000,of which, 20,000 were regular troops, and 60,000 were Spanish and Cuban volunteers. 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” a number of their slaves to serve in this force, which was under local control and not under official military command. By December, 98,412 regular troops had been sent to the island, and the number of volunteers increased 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 Mambises were named after the Negro Spanish officer, Juan Ethninius Mamby who joined the Dominicans in the fight for independence in 1844. The Spanish soldiers referred to the insurgents as “the men of Mamby”, and “Mambies”. When Cuba’s first war of independence broke out in 1868, some of the same soldiers were assigned to the island, importing what had, by then, become a derogatory Spanish slur. The Cubans adopted the name with pride.

After the Ten Year War, possession of weapons by private individuals had been prohibited. Thus, from the very beginning of the war, one of the most serious problems for the rebels was the acquisition of suitable weapons. This lack of arms led to the guerrilla-style war, using the environment, the element of surprise, a fast horse and a machete. Most of their weapons were acquired in raids on the Spaniards. Between June 11, 1895 and November 30, 1897, out of sixty attempts to bring weapons and supplies to the rebels from outside the country, only one succeeded through the protection of the British. Twenty-eight ships were intercepted within US territory; 5 were intercepted by the US Navy, 4 by the Spanish Navy; 2 were wrecked; one was driven back to port by storm; the fate of another is unknown.

Martí was killed only shortly after his 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. Continuing west, they were met by 1868 war veterans, such as Polish internationalist General Carlos Roloff and Serafín Sánchez in Las Villas, adding 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”, establishing 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, outmanoeuvring and deceiving the Spanish Army several times, defeating Spanish General Arsenio Martínez Campos, himself the victor of the Ten Year War, and killing his most trusted general at Peralejo.

Campos tried the same strategy he had employed in the Ten-Year War, constructing a broad belt across the island, called the “trocha”, about 80 km long and 200m wide. This defence line was to limit rebel activities to the eastern provinces. The belt consisted of a railroad from Jucaro in the south to Morón in the north. There were 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.

For the rebels, it was essential to take the war to the western provinces Matanzas, Havana and Pinar del Rio, where the island's government and wealth were located. The Ten-Year War failed because it had not managed to proceed beyond the eastern provinces.

In a successful cavalry campaign overcoming the trochas, the revolutionaries 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 3 months after the invasion near Baraguá.

Campos was replaced by General Valeriano Weyler Nicolau who reacted to these successes by introducing terror methods: periodic executions, mass exile, destruction of farms and crops. Weyler's methods reached their height on October 21, 1896, when he ordered all countryside residents and their livestock to gather in various fortified areas and towns occupied by his troops within 8 days. Hundreds of thousands of people had to leave their homes, creating appalling and inhumane conditions in the crowded towns and cities. It is estimated that this measure caused the death of at least one third of Cuba’s rural population.

Starting in the early 1880s, Spain had also suppressed an independence movement in the Philippines, which was intensifying, and Spain was now fighting two wars, which were putting a heavy burden on its economy. But it turned down offers in secret negotiations by the US in 1896, which was closely following the war, to buy Cuba from Spain.

Maceo was killed December 7, 1896, in Havana province while returning from the west. As the war went on, the major obstacle to Cuban success was weapons supply. Although weapons and funding came from within the US, the supply operation violated American laws, which were enforced by the US Coast Guard; of 71 attempted re-supply missions, only 27 got through, 5 were stopped by the Spanish, but 33 were stopped by the US Coast Guard.

In 1897, the liberation army maintained a privileged position in Camagüey and Oriente, where the Spanish only controlled a few cities. Spanish Liberal leader Praxedes 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”. The rebel force of 3,000 defeated the Spanish in various encounters, such as the Battle of La Reforma, or the surrender of Las Tunas on August 30, and the Spaniards were kept on the defensive. Las Tunas 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 allowed for military command subordinated to civilian rule. The government was confirmed, naming Bartolomé Masó President and Dr. Domingo Méndez Capote Vice President.

Madrid decided to change its policy towards Cuba, replaced Weyler, 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, it was powerless and rejected by the rebels.