Yale Univen

SPAIN AND CUBA.

tup:

G E N E V A PA M P H L E T

ON THE RELATION'S BETWEEN

SPAIN AND CUBA

PRECEDED BY AN EXPLANATION OF THE INTEREST
WHIGH THE AMERICAN PEOPLE ITA VE IN THE
SOLUTION OF THE CUBAN DIFFICULTY.

GENEVA, FEBRUARY 8, 1876.

NEW YORK:
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY.
5 49 & 551 BROADWAY.
1876.

O

I

SPAIN AND CUBA.

THE

GENEVA PAMPHLET

ON THE EBLATIONS BETWEEN

SPAIN AND CUBA,

PRECEDED BY AN EXPLANATION OF TEE INTEREST
WEIGH THE AMERICAN PEOPLE HA VE IN TEE
SOLUTION OF TEE CUBAN DIFFICULTY.

Jose SiWe^o, OiirVn y Brazos'- o

GENEVA, FEBRUARY 8, 1878.

NEW YORK:
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY,
549 & 651 BROADWAY,
1876.

—The ' ' Geneva Pamphlet " on the Cuban question, published in an Eng
lish translation by the Appletons, -proposes a new remedy for the Cuban
troubles, with which, could it be carried out, we in this country should cer
tainly have no fault to find. This is a semi-independent colonial govern-j
ment, free from, the abuses which have grown out of the presentjystemj
The new constitution proposed by the author of the pamphlet would com
prise a general guarantee of civil rights and abolition of military tribunals,
as well as decrees of exile, confiscation, embargoes, and other cruel and un
usual means of attaining political ends ; an executive to be appointed by
the Crown, a local colonial assembly, with full power over the taxes, tariff,
the press, the administration of justice, and the adoption of measures for
the " final abolition " of slaveiy. That this plan, ii carried out, would end
in independence as the author in one passage suggests, seems hardly pro
bable : the success of reforms introduced by the mother country would, in
proportion as they pacified the Cuban discontents, be likely to stimulate a
revival of the old loyalty to Spain, rather than a desire to throw off her
protection. The pamphlet is said to have had a semi official origin ; but
whether any such reforms as those proposed in it are seriously contemplated
in Spain we have no means of knowing. Whether, if contemplated, they
would be carried out, is also another serious question. The right of the
Spanish Government to squeeze money out of Cuba, and the right of the
army of constantly ' ' rotated " officials to squeeze fortunes out of the Cubans,
are among the most valued privileges of Iberian sovereignty ; 'and the aban
donment of them would be little short of revolutionary. With regard to
annexation, the writer of the pamphlet seems to be aware that the political
difficulties presented are considered insuperable among intelligent Ameri
cans. The pamphlet will be found to contain a good deal of information
on the subject of recent Cuban history, from the Cuban point of view.

EXPLANATION.

" The scientific and literary progress of Cuba and Porto
Rico, their population and wealth, especially with the former,
the growing extent aud importance of their foreign commerce,
placed them in an exceptional condition, requiring very differ
ent laws from those in observance in other provinces beyond.
the seas." — Canovas del Castillo, Decree, November 25, 1865.
" We can better proceed, in the present situation of things,
without even this friendly intervention.
" A time will come when the good offices of the United
States will be not only useful, but indispensable, in the final
arrangements between Spain and Cuba. We will ascertain
the form in which they can be employed, and confidently
count upon your assistance." — General Prim.
" In this early instruction was expressed the sincere and
unselfish hope of the President that the Government of Spain
would seek some honorable and satisfactory adjustment, based
upon emancipation and self-government, which would restore
peace, and afford a prospect of a return of prosperity to Cuba.
The material interests of trade and of commerce are im
paired to a degree which calls for remonstrance, if not for
another line of conduct, on the part of all commercial nations."
— Hamilton Fish, Note, November 5, 1875.
We beg leave to offer to the American public the transla
tion of a pamphlet published at Geneva last February, on the
present condition of Cuba, which has attracted a good deal of
attention in the Spanish press. It has been said to embody

the sentiments of the prime-minister of Alfonso XII., Senor
Cano vas del Castillo, and coincides to a certain extent with
the views of the Secretary of State of this republic.
Having for many years given great attention to all that
relates to the island of Cuba, we make bold to assert that we
have read no public document, or either public or private
expression of opinion, coming from a distinguished or well-
known statesman, wherein the importance of that island to
this country has been belittled or denied. We have seen it
stated that the acquisition of the Great Antille would necessi
tate a powerful navy to hold it within the Union, while it is
obvious that the long line of low coasts in the South without
guarded ports, and the trade flowing into the Gulf from the
Mississippi, would be paramount motives for keeping a power
ful navy for the defense of the one and the protection of the
other; and those familiar with the subject will remember the
anxiety with which our zealous public men have urged the
principle that Cuba should never be allowed to fall into the
hands of a first-rate naval power. In addition to these vital
considerations there is another which awakens the interest in
our relations with that island : the critical condition in which
it is placed by a civil war of eight years, and the hostility
evinced in the Spanish tariffs and the consequent reduction
of our exports, cannot be looked upon without deep concern.
The imports from Cuba, consisting of sugar, molasses, to
bacco, etc., etc., amount to eighty-five per cent, of all exports
from that island, of which Spain consumes only two per cent.
From the United States official statistics, we know that the
people of this country have bought Cuban products as follows,
during six years :
1868 to 1869  $56,976,491
1869. to 1870  53,777,108
1870 to 1871  57,534,925
1871 to 1872  67,264,315
1872 to 1873  77,077,725
1873 to 1874  85,428,097
Total  $398,05*8,661
During the same period Spain has bought from the United
States :

1868 to 1869  $11,816,020
1869 to 1870  '.  12,879,287
1870 to 1871  13,768,0iO
1871 to 1872  '.  12,960,841
1872 to 1873  15,117,767
1873 to 1874  15,677,716
Total.  $82,219,621
Balance against United States  $315,839,040
This is the more astonishing, that Cuba needs the products
of the United States ; she requires millions of pounds of beef
and pork, which cannot come from Texas or the Northwest in
consequence of the high and differential duties, and so respect
ing other articles.
But Spanish vessels can load at Barcelona with wine, oil,
and manufactures, for the markets of Buenos Ayres, where
they load in exchange with jerked beef for the mass of the
population of Cuba.
If the people of the United States did not purchase the
Cuban exports, we do not see that Spain could easily find a
market in South America for her products, nor Buenos Ayres
a market in Cuba for her beef. The rice of our Southern
States is also repelled from its nearest and natural market in
Cuba by high and differential duties. To supply its place,
this article is bought now at Calcutta or other ports of India,
by Liverpool merchants, and brought to England, discharged
at the bonded warehouses,, and shipped in Spanish vessels to,
Cuba, a transaction which is made possible by the fact that
British legislation does not retaliate the differential duties im
posed on foreign flags on that island.
The basis, therefore, of this commerce, which swells the
carrying-trade of other nations, consists unequivocally in the
purchase of eighty-five per cent, of the exports of the Antille
by the United States. It seems unnatural that even perish
able articles should come across the ocean, from Spain and the
Canary Islands, when they might be obtained more advan
tageously from the nearest, neighbor. It has happened that,
while the flour of America and that of Turkey have gone to
supply the wants of Great Britain, Spain, under her restrictive
system, unable to appear in a foreign market so near to her as

6
the British Isles, has brought her cereals to Cuba, whence the
American producer is repelled.
The dry-goods trade, owing to Spanish fiscal legislation
and American retaliating enactments, together with cheap
European labor, has been absorbed by Catalonia and Great
Britain, some by France and Germany, absolutely nothing by
New England manufacturers.
The difference between what we imported from tropical
countries in 1872 to 1873, as compared with what we sent to
them, was $102,000,000, distributed as follows :
In favor of Cuba  $62,000,000
In favor of Porto Rico  10,000,000
In favor of Brazil  25,000,000
In favor of Manila, East Indies  5,000,000
No one now believes in what was called the balance of
trade as showing a positive loss. Just as an individual who
ships goods receives back the value in some shape or other, the
aggregate number of shippers who make the whole ofthe ex
ports receive in return the value of the same. But .this not
withstanding, it is evident that the consumer of the staple '
articles of any country is the one to stimulate production,
wealth, and general development of said country. Can it be
reasonable that the people of the United States, consuming
in six years nearly $400,000,000 of Cuban products, should
only sell in exchange $82,000,000 of American products?
Have we no good ground to expect and desire that the im
pulse given to the wealth of the nation by investments in cot
ton, cereals, beef, coal, iron, lumber, manufactures, etc., should
also be derived from investments in the tropical products;
and is there any one spot on earth so especially pointed out
by Nature as the island of Cuba for reciprocity and prosper
ous interchange? Without entering into details, the result of
a trade so constrained seems to be the payment of our bal
ances in gold, or bills of exchange, which are equal to gold, and
constituting in London our clearing-house instead of having it
in our own ports.
A gentleman of more ability than his modesty will admit,
who was kind enough to furnish the items herein quoted in his

views ofthe development promoted by a great consumer, fixes
numerically the ratio of this growth, contending that the people
of the United States are now supporting something like five
millions of inhabitants outside of the Union, instead of an
equal number within if the conditions of consumption were
reciprocal. We have now briefly adduced motives for very
strong interest in the fate and proper organization of the trade
of the island of Cuba. And in the general prostration of busi
ness and decrease in our shipping, and depreciation of our
city and rural property, can we afford to lose altogether the
trade of that island by the destructive warfare which is devas
tating it ? On this subject l the Hon. Secretary of State, in
note of November 5, 1875, says :
" The United States purchase more largely than other peo
ple of the productions of the island of Cuba, and therefore
more than any other, for this reason (and still more by reason
of its immediate neighborhood), is interested in the arrest of a
' Value of the produce and merchandise exported from Cuba to the
United States, and of .what was imported into Cuba from American ports
. during the fiscal years of 1870 and 1871, according to official data in the
Treasury Department at Washington :
EXPOETED EEOM CUBA.
Sugars  $47,507,417
Melado  9,201,317
Molasses  3,280,630
Tobacco in leaf  3,314,506
Cigars  2,523,704
Fruits  518,805
Other products  1,348,150
Total  $67,694,529
Imported into Cuba.
United States produce and merchandise  $17,600,787
Foreign produce and merchandise in warehouse
in the United States  1,795,789
Total  $19,396,576
These sums would make a general movement of trade of $87,091,105,
but, according to the ex-Intendente Mariano Oancio Villamil, the exports
and imports are no less than $115,000,000 to $125,000,000 ; and the statis
tics corresponding to the year 1874 show $85,000,000 of exports to the
United States, and $15,000,000 of imports from the same.

8
system of wanton destruction which disgraces the age and af
fects every commercial people on the face of the globe."
Apart from the exigencies of immediate neighborhood and
the interchange of commercial relations growing out of this
vicinity, there is the fate of the citizens of the United States
and the destruction of their property substantiated in the note
of Hon. Hamilton Fish, already quoted.
But, coming to more recent events, our citizens have been
grievously injured by the desultory course of taxation im
posed for national objects in utter disregard of the existing or
ganic law1 of municipalities and decree's guaranteeing, justice
in the distribution of burdens. Thus the expedition to Mexi
co, the conquest of San Domingo, the station of Fernando Po,a
the diplomatic legations in this hemisphere, the expenses
caused by the war of the Pacific, the yearly remittances to
Spain from the Havana treasury, the disbursements to carry
on the Carlist War, and, finally,3 the robberies committed by
1 Organic municipal law of July 27, 1859, and financial circulars.
2 Remittances to Spain  $34,172,693 60
Cost of expedition to Mexico and San Do
mingo  18,000,000 00
Cost of the present civil war in Cuba up to
the date of the official document  62,900,000 00
Cost of the support of the station of Fernan
do Po for eighteen years at $289,478. . . 5,210,604 00
Cost of legations and consulates of Spain in
Mexico and the republics of the Pacific. . 53,700 00
The above items from the official budget to the Cortes of October 26,
1871, formed part of the debt referred to in General Concha's decree of
July 10, 1874.
To the same effect Intendente Don Mariano Cnncio Villamil, in official
report, December, 1873, states that the proposition to have the Cuban
debt recognized by Spain had failed, although " it is not possible to take
away from this debt its national character by reason of its origin, as it
proceeds from general obligations created by the Supreme Government in
the military enterprises of Mexico and San Domingo and in the defense of
the integrity of the national territory."
3 The ex-Intendente Mariano Oancio de Villamil, in an exposition dated
December 4, 1874, addressed to the Secretary of the Colonies, says that
"the frauds committed by the officials and merchants of the island are
proved in various ways, and among others because the administrative pa
pers of the dues show unquestionably that goods have been manifested,.
discharged, and entered superior in quantity and quality to those appraised.

9
the financial officials of Spain, have caused a deficit in the fis
cal resources for which American citizens have been taxed
five per cent, on their capital, fifteen percent, on their revenue
in gold, ten per cent, in currency also on their revenue, upon
assessments arbitrarily made, with no heed to sworn statements,
or law and regulations.
This cheerless picture of the position of the American citi
zen in Cuba becomes more galling by the discovery recently
made of a treaty entered into between Germany and Spain on
the 30th of March, 1868.
By Article V. of the same, German subjects are exempted
from extraordinary war-taxes, and its application to Cuba was-
made the subject of an additional treaty entered into on the
16th of July of the same year, Article II. of which enacts :
" The same stipulations of said treaty of 30th of March,
1868, notwithstanding the existing laws and administrative
decrees for Spanish colonial possessions, shall be extended to
Cuba, Porto Rico, and the Philippine Islands."
In the impossibility of disregarding the claims of Ger
many, the authorities of Cuba have privately given orders to-
suspend coactive measures against German subjects without
publishing the origin of such leniency, and it is asserted that
they are preparing the substitution of the several war-taxes,
by one which shall be called unique, and that will not express
the object for which it is imposed.1
and paid for, to the extent that, in only fifty-two entries which have called
for another liquidation, appears a loss to the treasury of $135,272." He
also states that the action of the officials in the abuses committed is more
serious and censurable at these times, because the country is in arms de
fending its integrity, for which it needs all its resources, and has created a
large debt to make up what has been in part unlawfully appropriated. —
Cakcio VniAMiL's Exposition to the Minister of the Colonies.
1 The law of strangers, promulgated by the Spanish Cortes in 1870,
does not cancel the concessions by treaties or previous legislation. So far
from it, by Article XXXIII., foreigners are required to pay "all classes of
taxes which according to the laws, regulations, and tariffs, may correspond
to the industry or commerce which they should practise." .The interpre
tation by the island authorities is to the effect that foreigners are required
to pay all classes of taxes regardless ofthe laws, regulations, and tariffs, in
observance in 1870. Article XXXIV, which does not conflict with the

10
It seems to us that in the several objects herein reported,
which concern the American people, we have adduced strong
and sufficient motives for the publication of the Geneva pam
phlet, which contains the most important facts and antecedents
of the Cuban conflict. Whether the solution proposed therein
be feasible or not, it is not our part to say.
Abolition of Slavery.
A few words on this subject may not be out of place here.
Events transpired in the island of Cuba have demonstrated
as it must have been ascertained, by the diplomatic and con
sular representatives of this nation, that a struggle has existed
for the last forty years on this subject. The Cuban commis
sioners at Madrid expressed their sentiment on this subject :
"Cuba is no longer bent," they said, "on sustaining negro
slavery. . . . Cuba has availed herself of the first opportunity
to protest against the common responsibility between the
country and the African trade. ... A cause," they said,
¦" based on the precedents of slavery, is irretrievably lost at
the tribunal of human conscience ; " and on the 26th of April,
1867, they proposed to the Government to abolish slavery
in a few years, indemnifying the loss through a loan of
$15,000,000, the payment of which should be proportionately
distributed among the expenditures during fifteen years; and,
in order to make the outlays less heavy, they prayed that
the large disbursements incumbent on the nation to pay,
which were unjustly drawn from the Cuban tax-payers, could
and should be excluded from the budget of the colony.
Notwithstanding these facts, men of business everywhere
fall into the natural error of anticipating ruin and devastation
as the unavoidable consequences of emancipation, and they
point to the bloody result of San Domingo as a warning. The
ex-Intendente Villamil says that, " as there exist powerful
reasons to condemn slavery, outlawed as it is, there is no need
preceding, provides that real estate belonging to foreigners should con
tribute with such imports qs gravitate on them.
The expression " gravitate " is intended to convey the idea of generally
and regularly e^ablished imposts which fall' on the objects from their own
weight, as the mortgage based upon a royal order.

11
for further legislation about it ; it will be enough to adminis
ter properly the present laws, publishing the gradual progress
of liberation, to satisfy skeptical minds, and do away with pre
texts for opposition at home and criticism abroad of our co
lonial policy." The idea that tropical products would cease
with the abolition of slavery predominates in the judgment
of the above writer, in common with the body of Peninsular
Spaniards. But a few remarks on the difficulties apprehended
in a change of the status of the laborer may possibly show
them to be less than they seem, or that the continuance of
slavery will not remove them.
The slaves are not many in proportion to the whole popu
lation, and in this respect, it is well known, the situation is
much more favorable to freedom in Cuba than it was in any
of the tropical countries at the time of the abolition of slavery.
Emancipation is not now considered as necessarily causing
ruin within the tropics, as was once the honest belief. When
suddenly imposed in the British and French possessions, the
implements and system of agriculture and manufacture were
positively in their infancy. Cheap, abundant, and rough
labor, such as Africa could furnish, was the foundation of
wealth in those regions. The human body, easily replaced
and little valued, was cared for accordingly, and planters
were generally, as usual in slave countries, struggling under
heavy debt, vainly but Over fancying themselves on the eve
of acquiring a fortune. In Cuba, where sugar is the staple
production on estates which really yield profits, the capital
consisting in slaves is comparatively small, and buildings,
complicated machinery, and well-cultivated fields, constitute
at the present day the bulk of the estimated value.
Furthermore, the laborers disseminated over more than
one-half of the island, either voluntarily or reluctantly, have
in great numbers, during the vicissitudes of the rebellion, left
their homes, some returning and others not. Thus the rest
less feeling perceptible in the masses at the commencement of
the outbreak has been augmented. Good policy, therefore, if
not paramount necessity, should teach Spain to adopt a meas
ure calculated to restore quiet, and establish the regular
operations of industry and agriculture, without the exorbitant

12
outlay demanded from private individuals, to protect property
from incendiarism and depredations. It is not unreasonable
to suppose that conservative and enlightened planters, Span
iards among them, would accept a solution of the slavery
question, answering the desire for peace and order, and satis
factory to the cry of liberty for the masses.
In order practically to show that the advantages of reci
procity in the trade with America are far more valuable than
preservation of slavery, we notice, taking as a basis exports be
fore the rebellion, that the estimated 2,600,000 boxes of sugar
imported into the United States bear a weight of taxation and
duties of about four cents per lb., equal to $44,200,000. This
sum is arrived at estimating the box at 425 lbs., and the du
ties on imports as follows :
Export duty in Cuba, including wai'-tax . £ cent per lb.
Import duty in Cuba on articles required for the
production of sugar  J "
Territorial taxes in Cuba equal to ... f "
Mean rate of duty in the United States, 2 c.
Twenty-five per cent, added since last Congress 2-J- "
Total  4 cents.
Without taking into account the remaining one-fifth of
the sugar exports, or molasses, tobacco, etc., the amount of
$44,000,000 in round numbers exceeds by far the $28,000,000
required to pay 200,000 laborers at the rate of twelve dollars
a month which is now performed by slaves.
Fortunately, therefore, the security and productiveness of
rural enterprises can be combined hereafter in Cuba with the
claims of justice and human rights.

SPAIN AND CUBA.

"The motto of all or nothing involves a serious political error."
Miughetti.
" There is a given class of ideas which may be slaughtered but not de
graded." We come once more before the public, to break a silence
of seven years, during which reason and truth could not be
heard because of the excitement of frantic passions. Now, on
the contrary, the Peninsular Spaniards of Cuba seem to enter
a period of comparative quiet ; the wealthy Spaniards of
Havana commence to recover that influence of which they
have been deprived by the turbulent masses ; and captains-
general discharge their duties with no danger of being
shipped away by their subordinates.
We see, on the other hand, that the unstable governments
which during the last five years have ruled over the Peninsula
are superseded by the legitimate monarchy of centuries, with
its national conditions of strength, order, and moderation ; that
the Carlists are on the eve of being vanquished ; that the Cortes
are about to meet; and, lastly, that the time is near at hand
when, with the restoration of peace and harmony throughout
Spain, she may be able to contemplate calmly and impartially
the events which beyond the Atlantic are annihilating her
most valued colony.
Such a state of things inspires confidence ; encourages the
mind to ask for justice, and it even induces the hope that it
may be possible to obtain it. If, unfortunately, we should be

14
mistaken, if the advisers of him who calls himself the king of
all Spaniards should reject our petition, we shall always enjoy
the satisfaction of having discharged a sacred duty.
The most efficient way to eradicate an evil is to remove
the causes from which it arises. We ask, therefore, " What
causes in 1868 produced the insurrection of Cuba? " A few
paragraphs will suffice to make them known.
From the commencement of this century there existed a
strong political bond between the Great Antille and the moth
er-country. The deputies of the former appeared at the Cortes
in 1812, 1820, and 1834, and, although such representation
was of little practical advantage to the island, it signified the
acknowledgment of legitimate right, it maintained the dig
nity of the islanders, and kept alive on the other side of the
ocean the great and fruitful idea of one common country and
nationality. Notwithstanding this, in 1836, doubtless under the influ
ence of a Governor-General of Cuba, who since the day ot
Ayacucho swore everlasting hatred toward everything Ameri
can, the Progresista majority of the Cortes resolved to exclude
and did exclude from the National Congress the deputies from
the Antilles, refusing even to receive the energetic but respect
ful protest of those deputies. Without one definite motive and
with no pretext, however small, Spain broke the political tie
which since the time of Charles V. had bound America to her,
refusing all defense to the victim, and inflicting on her sons
beyond the seas an increasing grievance for which floods of
blood have since been shed. The measure was so violent and
iniquitous, that the same Cortes, either to justify it or from re
morse, voted an additional article to the Constitution of 1837,
to the effect that the colonies should be ruled by special laws.
It is now thirty years since that solemn promise was made,
but, though it was subsequently confirmed by Article LXXX.
of the Constitution of 1845, it is yet unfulfilled. Is there any
one who can characterize this course as either just or noble?
Moreover, Cuba, thus deprived since 1837 of political life
iu Spain, was likewise kept without it on her own soil. By
royal order of 28th of May, 1825, her captain-general had been-
invested with the same powers held by governors of besieged

15
towns, with authority to expatriate from the island every one
whose public or private conduct inspired him with suspicion.
It is easy to imagine the great abuse which must have origi
nated from such unbounded authority ; but it is not our pur
pose to relate the actions of any particular ruler, because a
day will come when history shall judge them all according to
their acts.
Enough to say, that in unhappy Cuba arbitrary and des
potic government has only been checked, by the greater or
lesser intelligence and the better or worse character of the
individuals who, with no responsibility whatever, have at their
own caprice disposed of life and property in the full glare of
the nineteenth century.
And it should be noted that the position of Superior Gov
ernor having been filled habitually by generals in the Spanish
army, their qualifications and antecedents of the soldier have
made them little suited to initiate, direct, and resolve the
numberless complex affairs of an active, wealthy, industrious,
and enlightened people. The chiefs placed at the head of the
several departments and districts into which Cuba is subdi
vided have also been soldiers ; and these authorities, it is
unnecessary to add, being supremely ignorant, have in the
discharge of their subordinate functions gone much beyond
the excesses of which they had the example in their superior
in office. No wonder, therefore, that there should have been a Gov
ernor of Matanzas who, being dissatisfied, in 1854, with the
residence provided by the municipality for those of his class,
by his own exclusive authority imposed on the inhabitants of
his district an extraordinary tax, rasing thereby so large a sum
that he built with it a palace in which his fortunate successors
have since resided. Thus it happens that any brigadier in
the army can do in Cuba what the king dare not do in Spain.
No right to initiate a measure is permitted even to the'
municipalities. The corporation of Matanzas addressed the
governor-general a petition in 1843, complaining of the open
scandal caused by the landing of freshly-imported Africans'
within its boundaries ; but, not only was the corporation re
proved, but the individuals who started the idea were expa-

16
triated and died in exile. This fact, among many others
which might be cited, proves that the Cubans, both individ
ually and in corporate bodies, are deprived of the very first of
political rights, i. e., the right of petition.
Of course, the press, subjected to strict censorship, has not
been able to discuss anything of importance to, that country.
Its rdle has ever been merely that of a clave who is expected
to burn incense in honor of her master, and to palliate to pub
lic opinion the most wanton outrages, witnessing the increase,
since 1838, in the slave-trade, and the incredible venal acts to
which it frequently led. The press was bound to keep silent,
when not compelled to applaud.
From that date Cubans were systematically excluded from
public offices on the island, which by 1840 had become the
patrimony of favorites sent from Spain. These boasted, with
some honorable exceptions, that they had not come to America
to enjoy the air, but to acquire a fortune for themselves, and
so successful were the arts employed that the greater number
obtained that end in the short period allotted before the arrival
of successors who, like themselves, came in search of gold.
Cabinets were changed in Madrid with painful rapidity, and
each one brought on a new remittance oi proteges attached to
its banner. The bureaucratic system was thereby developed,
and, in order to reward a greater number of political ad
herents in the Peninsula, new offices and administrative cen
tres were created in Cuba, which, besides being useless ex
crescences and veritable sinecures, increased the colonial
budget. Who, living in Spain, may not name many functionaries
of high or low degree who, after four or five years' residence
in Cuba, and even a less time, have returned - scandalously
wealthy ? The school of immorality thus established has con
tinued to sink its roots deeper and deeper ; and, moreover,
these Peninsular Spaniards, as a body, are wholly unacquainted
with the nature, habits, and mode of life in the Great Antille,
and, just as they begin to learn the same, their successors in
office appear ; and this incessant novitiate, coupled with the
contemptuous neglect of the opinion of the people among
whom we run the race of a fleeting meteor, has corrupted

17
public administration in Cuba to its very foundations. And
yet, those who are born, who live and die there ; those who
from a filial love would labor to make the material, intellect
ual, and moral progress of the island permanent — not dazzling
and transient — the Cubans, dare not complain of such egre
gious evils, nor ask a remedy, because they would be instantly
visited with an anathema for being bad Spaniards, or per
chance condemned to perpetual banishment. The fundament
al principle that taxes shall be discussed and voted by those
who pay them, is regarded in Cuba as an abominable heresy.
Taxes are established and increased at the will of the rulers
without ever being submitted previously to the Cubans, who
are never informed of their application, and never even per
mitted, after the Government has fixed the total amount, to
have them collected on articles and by means which, though
not the same as the official ones, would in the end be less bur
densome to the country.
There is one order of ideas which, like the fire ofthe vestal
of old, is kept alive through all time, and everywhere pure
and untouched, because it is held sacred : we mean the admin
istration of justice. Yet Cuba, in the midst of her sufferings,
has not even had that consoling refuge ; but, as this pamphlet
must not be enlarged to the size of a book, and as it is not our
purpose to raise the bandage that covers the ulcers of our con
temporaneous judiciary, we shall restrict ourselves to stating
that one captain-general did in a single day dismiss from the
bench eight judges of the Pligh Court of Appeals of Havana ;
and if this measure, applied to the -highest court on the island,
was unpardonable, the dependent condition of inferior judges
may from this act be inferred.
The picture which we have so rapidly sketched is simply
the reflection of the normal condition of Cuba for half a cen
tury. While enjoying complete peace and quiet, the legal
order of the administration was restricted solely to excluding
the Cubans from political communion with Spain ; to forbid
ding their intervention of whatever kind in the public affairs
of the island ; to gagging their tongues and restraining their
pens; to depriving them, even, of the right to complain or
petition for remedy ; and, lastly, to reducing them to the ab-
2

18
ject condition of a race inferior to their parents, having always
the spectacle of their shame before them, with no other future
for their children than the same sad degradation.
SECOND.
Discontent was general, aud all the deeper was the in
dignation excited because the evil was attributed to an abuse
by Spain of her superior power. The Cubans felt, in silence,
bitter humiliation not without dreading that their patience
under enormous grievances might be regarded as vileness
rather than loyalty. Many an ardent youth sought relief in
absence, and went over to the United States, where they had
opportunities to contrast the lot of their country with that of
a nation overflowing with life, power, and wealth, acquired
through political freedom, through labor, and respect for indi
vidual rights. From the comparison arose the idea of the
annexation of Cuba to the American Union. The time seemed
propitious. The politicians of Mississippi and the two Caro-
linas, who felt their influence waning in consequence of the
admission of the Territory af Kansas as a free State, took up
with pleasure the project of a new and populous slave State
whose deputies and senators would aid them to regain prepon
derance in Congress.
Carried away by illusions ever fostered by strong desires,
the Cuban emigrants endeavored to propagate their hopes,
and obtained the cooperation of the Spanish General Narciso
Lopez. An expedition under his command started for Cuba
in 1850, and landed at Cardenas, of which it took possession
almost without opposition, but after sixty hours was obliged
to leave, because the country lent it no aid, while a strong
government force was approaching.
On their return to New York the same party of discon
tented Cubans gathered fresh means, and in 1851 another ex
pedition, also headed by Lopez, landed on the northern coast
near Bahia Honda, and had sharp encounters with the Spanish
troops, in whicli the Spanish General Enna lost his life. It
advanced into the interior, but without being joined by any
one, and after nineteen days of wandering, broken into small"
parties and suffering from hunger, the chief was taken pris-

19
oner and executed. Almost simultaneously, and probably
mistaking the watchword previously concerted, Don Agustin
Agiiero at Principe, and Don Isidore Armenteros at Trinidad,
rose in arms ; but these leaders, unable to increase the small
number of adherents whom they took to the field, fell into the
hands of the Government and were shot.
The blood, however, which was shed abundantly on this
occasion did not stay the idea of annexation, because an idea
is only destroyed by another of greater vitality. Yet the
scheme framed in Havana, in 1854, for annexing Cuba to the
great Republic, was of a character entirely different from the
one preceding it.
The first was disinterested, generous, and patriotic, whereas
the second, concerted by capitalists and wealthy property-
holders, originated in the egotistical and unchristian idea of
perpetuating slavery in Cuba. The conspiracy concocted for
this purpose collapsed, however; and Don Ramon Pinto, who
was considered by the local government as its head, died on
the scaffold, though the counselor of the captain-general,
Senor Garcia Camba, stated as his legal opinion that the case
lacked the proofs required by the law to declare him guilty.
The strict impartiality which we have adopted as our rule
in writing this paper has made it necessary for us to narrate
these events. But it must have been noticed that they all
appertain to a brief period of four years ; that each one had
only a very brief existence ; that they were energetic explo
sions of rage bursting from a small body of ardent hearts ; and
that the masses of the Cuban population, notwithstanding
their sympathy with the object of the expeditionists, stood
dumb and immovable.
For these reasons, and because the hateful government im
posed by the Peninsula on her colony was anterior by far to
the events just reported, we are justified in repeating what we
before asserted, namely, that Spain organized and perfected a
tyrannical system against Cuba when the island enjoyed the
most profound peace and quiet ; and, also, that said system
was the origin and direct cause of those explosive and des
perate revolutionary efforts.
It was the civil war, so unexpectedly brought on in the

20
United States, which fixed the sentiment of the Cubans. They
at once became aware that, in the giant strife carried on by
the Southern and Northern sections of the republic, nothing
less than the future of the Great Antille was at stake. They
discovered that, under pretense of self-government for each
State, was disguised the real object of the war, which was the
preservation and extension of slavery. In spite of the favor
able result of the first battles for the South, they foresaw the
final triumph of justice over interest based on laws already
undermined by public opinion. And, convinced that the
violent extinction of the involuntary labor of the negroes in
Cuba would surely ruin her, they undertook to avert the dan
ger by such means as were within their reach : their conser
vative and peaceful purposes, however, were stayed by an
insurmountable obstacle.
Before the dawning of this century, as Humboldt tells us
in his " Political Essay on Cuba," her most illustrious sons
wrote against the slave-trade; but the dominant Peninsular
party, for the sake of the fabulous gains to be acquired
through that illicit commerce, charged them with being abo
litionists, and inimical to the mother-country ; thus causing
the local government to exile the most influential of them to
foreign lands, there to expiate their philanthropy. What
occurred at that period in the neighboring republic must have
increased suspicions on the subject, and closed the door to any
national debate. But at last the victory of the North over the
South, in 1864, convinced the most stubborn that the hour of
the freedom of Cuban slaves bad also sounded, and that it was
useless to oppose the torrent of accomplished facts and the
public sentiment of the world. It was known, however, to
the Cuban liberal party, that the local government had con
sidered slavery a useful weapon against its aspirations for
reform; and, for this reason, that party accepted as its own
triumph the results of the American war. But, wise and
patriotic as it was, that party applied itself to find the best
mode of preparing for the impending change in the rural
labor of the island : it did not hesitate to invite the Peninsular
Spaniards having property and family to aid in the study and
solution of the fearful, problem ; and, adopting for its plan the

2.1
liberalizing of the colonial system under the Spanish 'flag, it
founded the newspaper named El Siglo, for the diffusion and
defense of its views.
The debate carried on by the press on the most vital ques
tions, the support received from the comparatively liberal
policy of the Duke de la Torre, and General Don Domingo
Dulce, who at that time succeeded one another in command,
and the ups and downs of parties in Spain, led the cabinet of
O'Donnell and Canovas to prepare for the fulfillment of the
promise made to the provinces beyond the sea ; and they
accordingly convened a junta of inquiry constituted by com
missioners elected by the municipalities of Porto Rico and
Cuba, which should report the social, economical, and political
reforms required. This junta held its sessions during the
close of 1866 and commencement of 1867. The commissioners
discharged their duties with that loyalty which belongs to
honest and enlightened men, who love the land of their birth.
Among other objects the Cubans asked for the gradual ex
tinction of slavery, recommending a project which included
indemnification for the property ; and they also asked that
Cuba should be governed through an assembly composed of
members elected by the municipalities and presided over by
the governor-general appointed by the crown.
Under severe penalties complete secrecy was enjoined
touching the labors of the junta; and hence it is that the
results of those labors were deposited in the Ministry of the
•Colonies, where the original reports still lie, as in their grave.
Yet, in spite of these precautions, the proceedings, reports, and
speeches, were printed in New York in a book, the perusal of
¦which we recommend to the public men of Spain who may
desire to be thoroughly informed on the subject, so as to
appreciate the high-minded views, good practical sense, and
moderation of style, of the Cuban commissioners on the occa
sion of that remarkable historic episode.
The ominous reward which they received for their loyal
offorts is well known. On the same day (February 15, 1867,)
when the Government declared the inquiry to be closed, it
issued a decree increasing by ten per cent, the Cuban taxes,,
and it stated in mockery that said action was based on the

22
exposition of the commissioners of the island. It was in
vain that the latter protested against the misconstruction of
the truth. The protest remained unanswered, and, together
with the other antecedents of the matter, now lies in utter
oblivion. These unauspicious tidings crossed the seas with
electric rapid;ty, to spread wonder, consternation, and confu
sion, among men who expected, with chivalrous confidence,
the declaration of those special laws promised thirty years
before. „
Gratuitous sarcasm, jest, and affront, so astounding, were
never before thrust in the face of a whole people. And let it
be noted that the people of Cuba are not a compound of In
dians, negroes, or sepoys, as stated by a Madrid paper, which
boasts of its moderation and culture ; that people is composed
of haughty and courageous men, in whose veins circulates
Castilian blood from old, and who in the capacity for civilized
life yield nothing to those even who, without knowing, deride
them. It was a Cuban who by the side of Daoiz fired on the
2d of May, 1808, the first gun against the hosts of Murat, an
event recorded in a marble slab whiah adorns the house of his
birth at Havana. It was a Cuban who, breaking through
secular prohibitions by which Spain had repelled foreign trader
threw open the splendid .ports of the island to all nations.
Cubans were those who, in their country, constructed railroads
and telegraphic lines, years before Spain dreamed of having
such ; those who introduced the cane from Tahiti, and the
powerful steam-plough, which for material progress should
be there considered as two peaceful revolutions ; those also
were Cubans who proved practically that a sugar-estate
worked by free hands, whether white or colored, was an un
dertaking not only possible, but profitable, in the Great An
tille ; also those who, taught by travels abroad, studies, and
perseverance, have initiated and diffused numberless improve
ments in machinery and agriculture, so far as to double, with
out increasing the hands, the production and wealth of the
country ; those who jointly with the impulse of material
progress consecrated their efforts to moral and intellectual
advance; and to them it is due that, struggling against obsta
cles ever rising in their path, knowledge became so extended

23
that, while the statistics of Spain showed that eighty-two per
cent, of her population knew neither how to write nor to read,
the ratio was only sixty in Cuba in 1869 ; and that while one-
half only of the members of corporations possessed said knowl
edge, it was possessed by the whole of the class in Cuba.
It is therefore easy to understand how deeply sucn-a peo^~
pie must resent the astounding grievance which had just been
inflicted on them. By the laughable solution given by the
Supreme Government to the " Inquiry," the monstrous axiom
that Spaniards did not beget children of their own nationality
was confirmed ; it was as much as to tell the Cubans that the
latter were intended for the exclusive use of their parents, and
that it would be vain to ask for rights never to be obtained.
" Lasciate ogni speranza."
A paroxysm of rage succeeded. No thought was given to
the inequality of the contest ; the adversaries were not count
ed ; the conflict was inevitable, if not for victory, for the
honor of the strife: it was imperative to surrender life, in
homage to the most holy and just of causes.
The honored financial chief (intendente), Don Joaquin
Alba, seems to have foreseen these consequences when, an
nouncing in the official gazette the immediate collection of
the new tax, he said that, although the imposition of heavy
additional taxes was at times the cause of sanguinary oppo
sition, he nourished the conviction that the loyal inhabitants
of the island would obey in peace what the Madrid Govern
ment had ordered.
There is, therefore, no connection whatever, as some im
passioned writers have pretended, between the revolution of
September, in Spain, and the one which broke out in the
Great Antille on the 10th of October, 1868. No ! the " Yara
cry "was a yell of despair; it was the manly protest of a
people who felt that they were treated like a vile herd ; it was
indisputable evidence that the Cubans, worthy descendants
of the conquerors of the New World, had kept unabated the
indomitable pluck of the Iberian race.
An attempt has been made, through wickedness or igno
rance, to stain the names of the parties who started the revo
lution at Bayamo, describing them as ruined adventurers in

u
search of lucre and importance in the commotion of the coun
try. But Cuba in a body knows but too well, and so do her
rulers, that the Aquileras, Cespedes, Agramontes, Arangos,
Varonas, Figueredos. Cisneros, and other leaders, who hoisted
the banner of independence, were the heads ofthe most ancient
and respectable families, and also the wealthiest in 1868 in
the central and eastern departments. Limiting our remarks
to one of the party, because the nature of this paper would
not allow greater detail, we say that it is public and notorious
that Don Francisco Yicente Aguilera Tamayo married Da.
Anna Kindelan, granddaughter of a Spanish general in com
mand in Cuba, and the father of seven sons, was the owner of
two sugar-estates at the time mentioned, also of many houses
in Bayamo, and of the greater part of the vast tract of land
extending from said city to Santiago de Cuba, a tract which
was granted, as a commission for services rendered, to his pro
genitor on the mother's side, Captain Rodrigo Tamayo, one of
the companions of Diego Velasquez, who arrived in Cuba in
the early part of the sixteenth century. We ask, Are bandits
and vagrants thus qualified by their antecedents?
History will record two great truths : that Spain, through
her injustice, provoked the revolution of Cuba ; and that the
men who headed it have been in every respect worthy of the
ideas of which it was the emblem. The seven years which
the contest has lasted, although unexpectedly commenced with
out any arms or military resources whatever, accredit our
second assertion, besides a hundred other considerations which
we omit; and all this has taken place in opposing a disciplined
and tenacious enemy, who has had a strong fleet to watch the
coasts and who has brought successively to the field of battle
120,000 soldiers.
We will not go into details about the insurrection, because
our purpose is to calm, not to exasperate the passions. Per
haps unconsciously to herself, or through her impotency, Spain
has conducted this war in au inhuman and horrible manner.
She was wrong in engrossing the ranks of the volunteers with
men coming from all sources. It was worse to organize troops
with men taken from the penitentiary ; because any civilized
nation takes care always not to stain bv contact with the

25
scum of society the personification of national honor- which
lies in the army. How can we wonder that commanders and
officers who were willing to command soldiers gathered from
jails, should by their cruelties give occasion to the President
of the United States to say with justice, and officially, to his
country and to the whole world, that General Valmaseda and
Commandant Gonzales Boet had committed barbarous deeds
which cause humanity to shudder?
There cannot exist two weights or two measures. Justice
is the same for all parties : while we deplore and condemn the
burning of private estates, which is the means practised by
the insurrection as an instrument of war, we are also bound
to deplore and condemn numberless deeds of those who up
hold the banner of Castile. If there should be in the next
Cortes some deputy, zealous of the nation's good name, who
should desire to be informed of the horrors committed under
the folds of the Spanish flag, let him ask of the Colonial De
partment the communications sent to Madrid since 1868 to
the present time, by the captains-general of that island ; let
him call up, in the Supreme War Court of Justice, the pro
ceedings established for the revisal by the council of officers
which absolved Commandant Gonzales Boet of his crimes ;
let him demand the case instituted against a captain in the
arm}7 who feasted his regimental companions with a dish of
ears cut on the field of battle from the bodies of the dead in
surgents who had fallen in fair strife ; let him ask for the his
tory ofthe case which sent to a criminal penitentiary thirty-
four boys of Havana, and eight more to be shot by a detach
ment of volunteers, for a crime which they had not com
mitted ; lastly, let him read and compare the two proclama
tions issued by Count Yalmaseda in the second and seventh
years ofthe insurrection, and he will find the burning of prop
erty and houses of the insurgents directed under regulations,
and denunciations and murder rewarded.
Certainly the Cuban war and its determining causes have
not been and are not an hdinor to Spain. King Alfonso, his
counselors, the new Cortes, and every one who cherishes the
Spanish name, should hasten to wash away the stain which
has fallen upon her. It is a calumny to say that the insur-

26
gents deserve the penalty due to professional evil-doers. There
is nothing glorious to be gained by misleading for a moment
public opinion, or by laying infamy upon adversaries with
whom one battles. The men who have sacrificed life, prop
erty, friends, and family, in noble fight, or who ascended the
scaffold with heroic courage and the immovable serenity
shown in the days of Charles V., Padilla, Bravo, and Mal
donado, have merited and will ever deserve respect at the
hands of their greatest enemies.
The bloody character impressed by the Spanish Govern
ment on the war of Cuba, and the hatred ostentatiously pro
claimed against the islanders by some leading men who fill
high political posts, contrast with the course followed respect
ing Carlists. Several Madrid papers, carried away either by re
sentment or through other motives, stigmatize as bandits, incen
diaries, and false sons of a country which has never been a true
country to them, those fighting in America for their rights
as free-men, while they regard the followers of Don Carlos
merely as deluded and deceived. Although the latter in real
ity are stronger opponents to the union ofthe nation than the
Cubans, if they should lay down their arms they would find an
immediate cordial reception ; the past would be wholly for
gotten, and they would be rewarded even by the recognition
of the military grades obtained in the service of the faction !
On the contrary, for the Cubans there is no alternative except
death on the battle-field, or death on the plea of suspicion
when taken suddenly from their quiet and defenseless homes.
And yet, what an enormous difference between the two
causes, all in favor of the natives of Cuba, if we consider
the justice of each case, and its results as they may affect
Spain !
To the national life of the Peninsula the Cubans and the
Basques constitute two exceptions : the former, because they
do not participate absolutely in any political right ; the latter,
because they enjoy many more than the rest of their country
men. The Basques have enjoyed and do enjoy every legal
way to offer complaints and to obtain redress, while the in
habitants of Cuba, restrained within an iron circle forged by
the law-maker, have only had to look for remedy to a desper-

27
ate appeal to arms. The Carlist War has caused the ruin of
numerous families ; has cost Spain as much or more blood
than that of Cuba ; it has brought her down to the painful
necessity of defaulting in the discharge of engagements, both
national and foreign ; and, however impossible it may be, were
the Basques to succeed through their secession sentiment,
Spain would become so dismembered that she would recede
to the state of a simple geographical name, more so than was
once said of Italy under similar circumstances.
Cuba, on the contrary, separated from the mother-country
by the ocean, is not indispensable to the existence of the
Peninsula as a nation ; and we have heard it so affirmed by
eminent Spaniards now filling high official posts. And, last
ly, the history of the Cuban insurrection does not record one
single act similar to those perpetrated by Carlists, reviewing
those committed by the curate of Santa Cruz down to the last
massacre at Estella.
Why, then, that animosity against the islanders ?
Why are they not dealt with as the Carlists are ? Can it
be because their war-cry has been, " Death to Spain ? " But
does that cry mean else than death to arbitrary rule, death
to despotism, and to the official corruption of the colony ?
Is not that cry the reproduction of the words addressed to
the Cortes by Salustiano Olozaga — " It is time that Spain
should learn to be mother and not step-mother of the Cubans ? "
Is not that war-cry an echo of the terrible anathema hurled
by the great orator Castellar from the elevated standpoint of
the Spanish Congress ? " If it be so," he said, " that the genius
of Spain is to be always represented in America by a perma
nent state of siege, by the boot of the captain-general, by the
Babylon of sugar-estates, and, far in the distant horizon, by
the black sail loaded with human flesh, oh, then, gentlemen,
say with me, accursed be the genius of our country ! "
A truce, then, to falsehood and insult. If, as it has been
said, Spaniards have been able to make everything in America
excepting Spaniards of their sons, let us study the causes of
so frightful an aberration which is so repugnant to Nature,
and it will be found that the former have been constantly at
work to reduce the latter to the condition of an inferior race,

28
only adapted to be wretched instruments of their monopolies
and speculations.
It behooves the present Spanish monarchy to put an end
at once, by one great act of justice, to the calamities of Cuba,
if it desires not to be accused by civilized nations of being a
willing accomplice in the political oppression now ruling there.
It is time that there should be light, and we shall be the
gainers thereby. A noble example to imitate is offered to
the political men of Spain in the generous course of Lord
Chatham when the War of Independence was started in the
United States ; and let it not be forgotten that the country
men of that distinguished patriot who lived in his day named
him the most English of all Englishmen, and that the epithet
has been confirmed by posterity.
The financial crisis which, as a consequence of the war,1
weighs on Cuba ; the reduction of her wealth by the destruc
tion of all kinds of estates ; the enormous debt resting on the
colonial treasury ; the deficit of the budgets ; the difficulties
ever increasing in the collection of taxes, because their sum
would very soon absorb the reduced proceeds of all property ;
the unhinged condition of all branches of the public admin
istration, which, owing to its corruption, has been fitly called
by a Madrid paper the " Augean stable ; " the change in the
attitude of the Anglo-American Republic, which, having been
a listless spectator of the seven years' contest, now invites the
great European powers to interfere in the matter, so that she
may be left free to act by herself if their concurrent aid be
refused — all this imposing array of facts and circumstances
calls for the quick solution of the problem, before Spain shall
be reduced to the sad alternative of accepting or repelling
open intervention ; before she may be forced to grant, per
haps with dishonor, what she should now concede from her
own self-respect, as the Journal dies Debats, of Paris, has just
asserted. There is no use in. being fed with fancies. The Cuban J
insurrection should not be ended with bayonets, but with jus
tice. A deadly tropical climate, the impenetrable fastnesses of-
her virgin forests, and, more than all, the war carried on with-'
out quarter, are the powerful allies of the rebels. The ulti-

29
mate triumph' of Spain would add no glory to her flag, as the
resources of both belligerents are so unequal ; yet were she
vanquished, which would be most difficult, but not impossible,"
in the long-run, she would be covered with shame.
Spain should reject the wicked course forced on her by
those uncompromising Spaniards of Cuba ; she should draw
the Cubans out of the wretched condition in which they sim
ply vegetate ; let her allow them to have a country with the
rights of citizens; let her fulfill her repeated promises with
good faith, and this alone will cause the insurgents to throw
down their arms— yes, provided the complete suspension of
hostilities by Spanish troops should be simultaneously de
creed ; provided the embargoes and confiscations of estates be
raised, and amnesty be extended to all rebels, without except
ing one of the leaders.
We belong to no political party, either on this or the other
side of the Atlantic ; but our travels and our social relations
have placed us in contact with many of the important men of
the Cuban war-party. We have heard from their lips that,
while determined with stoic firmness to reduce to ashes their
country rather than allow it to continue to be a machine for
speculation for Spain, they reject annexation to the United
States, because in that event the African race would soon pre
dominate; and for the very same reason they consider that
her separation from Spain, or her independence now, would
be ominous for Cuba.
With the knowledge of what has been stated above, will
the Madrid Government obstinately continue to exterminate
the insurgents, while the latter carry the incendiary torch into
the fields and cities of that island ? Would it not be more
sagacious, expedient, and magnanimous, to forget the past, to
throw wide open the doors of peace, harmony, and justice ?
Spain, being the most powerful, can afford to be generous,
without losing prestige and authority. The Cubans are anx
ious to live like a high-minded and free people under the flag
planted in America by her ancestors ; and there is no reason
whatever to refuse or defer longer their legitimate aspirations.
No effort of fancy is needed to foreshadow the consequences
of so munificent a national act. By the suspension of-hos-

30
tilities the expenditures of the war estimates are at once
lessened ; the host of emigrants wandering in foreign countries
will return to their native soil; confidence will be renewed ;,
millions of dollars which had disappeared from the island,
looking for security, will come back like gushing torrents;
the now exorbitant premium on gold will fall ; exchange will
become regular ; enterprise will be aroused to numberless ob
jects which call for its action, and the two proud factions here
tofore in opposition, feeling now that the blood spilt and the
bitterness endured have ended in fraternity, the more sincere
since it would be based on the honor of all, will dedicate their
efforts to building up a splendid future for Cuba — not like the
Bible colossus, whose golden head contrasted with feet of clay,
but like a vast temple, built of solid and undecaying granite.
God forbid that we should gratuitously offend Spain, suppos
ing that, after the numberless hecatombs of children, men, and
women, sacrificed through the failure of the "Inquiry" of
1867, she should seek to repeat the same solution under forms
more or less disguised ! We refuse to believe that Spain in
tends to deceive the civilized world by a Machiavelic interpre
tation ofthe spirit which inspired the promise of special laws
to govern Cuba. By studying the records of the sessions of
the Cortes prior to the adoption of the decree of the Constitu
tion of 1836 and 1845, it will be seen that by that declaration
the legislators intended to reserve to themselves the power, to
grant self-government to Cuba. The decree issued in 1866,
for the well-known commission of inquiry, by the cabinet of
O'Donnell and Cano vas, in its text will unfold the paramount
idea of organizing a complete political life in the West Indies.
Let it ,be recalled that, three months after the uprising at
Yara, and when General Lersundi was in command, eighty
distinguished citizens went to the palace to confirm what has
been stated here, one half of whom were Cubans and the
other half Spaniards, among the latter some who a little later
filled the first official posts ofthe nation.
Let it be remembered, lastly, that under Lersundi's suc
cessor, and while many Peninsular and native Spaniards in
sisted on the same views, meetings were held, authorized by
the Government, where the scheme of a political constitution

31
best adapted to the special circumstances .of Cuba was dis
cussed, although the fruitful work of concord had to be sus
pended, in view of the threatening aspect manifested in those
days by the press, and the uncompromising, turbulent Spanish
masses of Havana.
Thus it is that what was always promised to the Great
Antille, what it desires now, what in a complete state of peace
was petitioned for by the colonial commissioners, and in 1868
and 1869 was approved by the conservative Hispano-Cuban
party, consists in the government of the country by itself
under the banner of the lions and the castles.
To grant only deputies to the Cortes, to establish a con-
sultive council at Madrid for colonial objects, an idea which
has been favored by some, or any half-way solution imported
or badly copied from the system applied by France to her
small colonies, besides being an anachronism, would leave alive
active germs of renewed and more sanguinary future out
breaks to come, inasmuch as every day there are, and will be,
born a greater number of Cubans.
Sefior Canovas said in the preamble of the royal decree
of November 25, 1865, referring to the "Inquiry," that the
scientific and literary progress of Cuba and Porto Rico, their
population and wealth, especially of the former, the grow
ing extent and importance of their foreign commerce, placed
them in an exceptional condition requiring very different laws
from those in observance in other provinces beyond the seas.
The same Sefior Canovas was empowered as minister,
under the above-named decree, to interrogate the members of
the " Junta of Inquiry," and ascertain whether it was expedi
ent that " all political rights established for the benefit of the
' inhabitants of the Peninsula and adjacent islands should be
applied to the two sister Antilles, or whether they should be
to a certain extent modified."
The idea of the Government in 1865 went as far as the
political assimilation of Cuba and Spain; and never could
there be less reason than at present to deviate from a measure
so fruitful if moulded into self-government, demanded as it is
by the claims of family, of history, and of intrinsic justice, if
the permanent pacification of the island is wished for in good

32
faith. Let the embrace between Cubans and Spaniards be
brotherly and sincere, and, while quickly rising from the heavy
burdens laid on her shoulders by the war, let Cuba be able to
change without disturbance the social condition of her rustic
laborers, thereby conciliating respect toward a holy principle
with the preservation of the work of civilization.
To come down to details about the future constitution of
Cuba would be out of time and place here; yet we think it
proper to say a few words on the subject.
Its first chapter should secure the inherent rights of every
civilized man ; those which are so identified with his existence
that, without them, even were the Cubans to obtain every
political franchise, their condition would offer slight change.
It is imperative that the islanders should be secured against
arrest, imprisonment, or exile from their country; against hav
ing their homes invaded, excepting in the cases and through
the forms prescribed by law ; they should only be accountable
for their acts before the ordinary courts of justice ; they should
be permitted to express freely their ideas by word or writing,
and to meet peacefully to discuss public affairs ; exceptional
courts should be suppressed, as well as permanent councils of
war, unbounded and dictatorial authority, embargoes, and con
fiscation of property, and whatever else tends to outrage the
dignity of man. With a view that these franchises be not
frustrated, they must be guaranteed through a political organi
zation reflecting, with some variations, the one in force in Spain,
just as the light of a satellite is the reflection of that which
comes from the centre of its orbit.
Therefore, the executive power with its logical functions
should be exercised by the superior governor of the island, ap
pointed by the crown, who should never control the military
and naval forces.
The legislative power should be vested in a Colonial Assem
bly constituted of members elected by the municipalities of
Cuba, possessing the requirements of the electoral law. Said
Assembly should have authority to initiate, discuss, and resolve
all public matters of the island ; it should fix the system of
taxation, pass laws for the protection of the press, regulate
elections as well as the rights of assembly ; it should diffuse

33
education among all classes, organize the administration of
justice, and introduce into the codes now in force such changes
as the island may require ; it should propose to the home gov
ernment postal and commercial treaties that may be conven
ient to enter into with foreign nations ; it should authorize the
construction of railroads, telegraph-lines, and other works
of public improvements ; it should patronize and promote agri
culture, and the industry of the country; it should subdivide
the cattle-estates now held in common by their owners ; it should
establish civil registration of the population, and the territorial
census ; it should determine the character of all officials in the
island, their salaries and responsibilities ; and, lastly, it should
sanction or disapprove of the annual budget which it should
be the duty ofthe governor -general of the colony to present.^
The above-named Assembly (we especially invite intention
to this point) should have the exclusive authority to determine
measures intended for the final abolition of slavery. Cuba, who
is the one to bear the immediate injuries following that serious
event, and the Cubans who during half a century have been
earnestly asking for it, should be permitted the honor of sub
scribing this great act of justice. It behooves the prestige of
Spain not to refuse to grant that authority ; and under its
shield the property-holders of Cuba will cause to disappear
forever an institution which, corrupting whatever it touches,
is stigmatized by the sentiment of the whole world.
The advocates of the status quo in Cuba will doubtless
raise a hue and cry at this suggestion, asserting that our re
quest points to independence in a period more or less remote.
Yes, that is the truth ; but is there a way of avoiding it ?
How can the natural evolution be escaped which turns the
child into a youth, and the youth into a full-grown man ? Is
there aught eternal in the life of individuals or of races ?
Parties who, while united, bear a life of satisfaction and
contentment, never separate from one another, excepting-at
the latest possible day. Does Canada claim independence
now, although forty years ago she fought for it as Cuba does
at present ? No, and once more we say no, for the obvious
reason that England, at the same time that she generously
acknowledged her errors, granted the Canadians the power to

34
govern themselves, and from ardent rebels she turned them
into grateful subjects, faithful to the British crown. Has
any one dared to qualify as degrading or weak this magnani
mous act of the British nation ?
What would be Cuba's object in seceding from Spain, if
the latter, by giving precedence to the dictates of justice and
national honor, over the egotistical interest of a party, were to
grant them, on a liberal political organization, solid foundation
for a quiet and prosperous future? The relations between
Cuba and her mother-land would then grow wonderfully.
Immigration by whites, which the Cubans have at all times
endeavored to promote, and which has been ever thwarted by
the colonial government, would be much developed. The
current of laborers, which from Catalonia and the Biscayan
coast now runs to South America, would change its course
and reach Cuba, in the certainty of being well received and of
finding proper reward for their industry in the extraordinary
fertility of the soil. Their children, Cubans like ourselves,
would feel precisely the same anxieties and desire for the well-
being ofthe island as their parents, and all would sing praises
to Spain, as a common mother dispensing such blessings.
This change appears to us so simple and natural, that we are
at a loss to understand that it should be condemned as fanciful
or impracticable, unless by uncompromising partisans of one
or the other ofthe opposing parties.
Yes, a day will at last dawn when future generations will
find Cuba with a population of four or five millions of white
inhabitants, desirous to exercise sovereign power, and to com
pletely secede from Spain. But this will take place causing
neither fears, nor blood to be shed, and the well-ripened fruit
will then show the richness and robustness ofthe branch from
which Cuba sprung.
Two arguments have heretofore been employed with success
by the advocates of the status quo in the Great Antille : the
one is the inexpediency of abolishing the system of rule whicli
has brought on Cuba unexampled prosperity ; the other, the
danger of innovations, in view of the persistent desire of the
American Union to take possession of that colony. This last
assertion is a mistake, and the first we call specious sophistry.

35
Let us begin by remembering that the prosperity of Cuba
is eminently wicked, since those do not partake of it who con
tribute to produce the same by the sweat of their brows. Let
us add that such prosperity is the more precarious, because
slavery has no other refuge than Cuban in the civilized world.
Inasmuch as the customs produce much more in Cuba than
in all the Peninsula, and the items of statistics and balance of
trade show a greater movement in the colony than in Spain,
it is easy to understand that the latter should be overflowing
in commendation of the "Pearl of the Antilles" as a pros
perous land. But, if we compare foreign colonies, possessing
analogous conditions of feracity and cultivated by free hands,
we shall notice a very remarkable difference.
Referring to the labors of the Commission of Inquiry of
1867, deposited in the archives of the Colonial Secretary, and
which the Government ought to have printed in full with no
delay, we find that the quantity of sugar drawn in Cuba, from
cane harvested from a given area, is one-half the amount ob
tained at the Reunion, Jamaica, or Bengal, and one-third of
the quantity obtained at Barbadoes and English Guiana.
After nearly four centuries elapsed since the discovery and
colonization, Cuba has scarcely opened and cultivated a fourth
of its area.
On its surface, which is almost the same as that of Eng
land proper, the population does not exceed 1,400,000 inhab
itants, while in the former it exceeds 14,000,000 according to
the last census. Australia, which thirty years ago was used
as a station for the confinement of a certain class of criminals,
counts now 2,300,000 souls, and shows a commercial move
ment of £90,000,000 in exports and imports, and Cuba only
shows £40,000,000 from the same source, or one-half ; it being
worthy of notice that the growth of Australia is not chiefly
based on its gold products, but on the cattle and wool trade,
the value of which goes far beyond the gains from the mines.
It is but just, therefore, that the old-fashioned exaggera
tions of the progress of Cuba should be given up, because,
taking into account th'e gifts which she owes to Nature, we
must admit in truth that she is in her infancy.
The historical day has come when Spaniards and Cubans

36
should be frank, in order to overcome easily, for the weal of
all, the mountain of obstacles which have been described as in
superable heretofore. The material development of Cuba, in
spite of the worst of governments and the cancer of slavery, is
chiefly due to its proximity to the United States.
From the latter she has acquired the impulse to act, and
the fever of enterprise. She has obtained at a small cost, on
account of the nearness of the coasts, the numberless me
chanical implements to reduce the laborers in the manufac
tories of sugar, and to convey it quickly to the coast. The
people of America have been and still are the great — and we
were going to say the exclusive — consumers of the sugar and
tobacco of the Antilles. Without that market of thirty mill
ions of people, Cuba's production would have remained
wretchedly small, and her opulence would never have been
decried because not more than two hundred thousand boxes,
ont of the three millions, of sugar produced by the island, are
taken to Spain, whereas the American Union purchases more
than two millions.
Consequently, whatever be the station that Cuba holds, she
holds it through her powerful republican neighbor, and the
thermometer that fixes the value of her produce is to be
found not in Madrid but in New York ; her well-being is not
altered through Spain's disturbances, but by the pecuniary
circumstances of Anglo-American merchants; and whenever,
by, reason of war or any extraordinary emergency, the ports of
that nation should be closed to us, want and appalling misery
would be spread all over the island. Such is the naked truth,
told in plain language, and with no exaggeration.
Yet more fragile is the second argument of the advocates
of colonial status quo, wben they assert that our neighbors
are anxious to possess Cuba.
It is a fact that during the last thirty years, and during
the six months preceding presidential elections, the press of
one or another party published articles on annexation for the
purpose of aiding the prospects of their respective candidates.
It is also true that some excited groups have at times at
tempted to accomplish the idea with insignificant means.
J3ut all these doings, however alarming and inexplicable

37
they may seem to people who breathe the atmosphere of po
litical death, are unavoidable in a country where freedom is
untrammeled, and it can in no wise be charged to the Gov
ernment. _^
The idea of taking possession of Cuba has never been en
tertained at Washington. Let it be remembered that, when
the South American republics obtained independence, they
thought it dangerous to their future existence that Spain
should continue to possess the key of the Gulf of Mexico.
Let it be remembered that, in order to avert the danger, Boli
var assembled a congress at Panama, and prepared an expedi
tion under command of General Baez, which he had to give
up because of strenuous opposition shown by the United States.
Let it be taken into account that it was while the Democratic
party lodged its President at the White House, that, under
its aggressive policy and advocacy of the " Monroe doctrine,"
California was conquered and the Florida and Texas annexa
tions took place, and withal the idea of acquiring Cuba was
not even then seriously encouraged by the high functionaries
of the Government.
These traditions of national views have become the acting
policy since the Republican party has held power.
No opportunity could have been more favorable for the
expulsion of Spain from her colony than the rising at Yara.
To have acknowledged the belligerency ofthe rebels from the
beginning would have been more than enough, yet the Gov
ernment of the United States has abstained from the act.
The views expressed in the Congress of Washington, by Gen
eral Banks and his friends, inimical to Spain, drew forth a
contrary sentiment from an immense majority accepting the
reply by the great orator Sumner, who rejected the annexa
tion of Cuba to the republic. Our argument is fully demon
strated by the peaceful solution of the rugged question of the
Yirginius, and most emphatically so by the fact that the Stars-
and-Stripes are not waving over the battlements and castles
of Havana. Spain, therefore, has nothing to fear from the
United States, excepting in the event of hostilities; the Ibe
rians would then show their traditional valor, but their an
tagonists would unquestionably obtain the ultimate triumph.

38
This contingency excepted, Spain's rights over Cuba will
be respected, because the United States do not wish that the
latter should be possessed by another and more powerful na
tion ; and because, if they rule over the island, they would be
obliged to keep in active service a considerable naval force to
guard six hundred leagues of coast from the attack which, in
case of war, might come from England or another great naval
power taking advantage of that weak flank for the purpose.
Moreover, it is known that the United States would see with
repugnance even the peaceful acquisition of Cuba, because at
present the nation is undergoing the painful work of eocial
reconstruction, by assimilating to its numbers four millions
of ignorant slaves,. suddenly made free, who will be unable, at
least until a second generation passes, to fulfill the new duties
of free citizens.
However, for their honor and in obedience to the call of
civilization, the United States will insist, perhaps with greater
perseverance, smarting under the probable indifference of pre
judiced Europe to Mr. Fish's note, on requiring from Spain the
fulfillment of her promises to Cuba. They see in these prom
ises the end of the horrors of war, and of the injury inflicted
on American citizens. With their fulfillment the United
States will expect to see Cuba freed from untold monopolies
now weighing her down, and adding wondrously to her prod
ucts, thereby offering to American capitalists and enterprise
a field of trade and commerce much larger than that which is
open' there to-day.
We are about to close our remarks. To require the ter
mination of the rebellion to take place, so as to grant to Cuba
a new political organization, is to set down the results before
the causes from which the former are derived ; and, to do so,
is to willfully prolong the shedding of blood.
The policy of forcible repression, so generally enhanced
now, degenerates into parricide when coldly applied to civil
wars. It is proper not to forget that the war in Cuba is a
terrible expiation of a multitude of errors — an expiation which
falls on all without exception, and leaves none untouched —
one wherein no one will venture to throw the first stone, be

39
he ruler or ruled. It is important, therefore, and impera-,
tive, to put aside means of coercion, to forget the past, to gain
the good-will, to make men of one mind, and be guided not so
much by the head, and more by the impulses ofthe heart.
An eminent Spanish writer says that, " when political pas
sions result in blows and in the clash of arms, the victor will
give the law at his will, and the subjected, though not van
quished, will take the first chance to try its fate once more ;
and quiet and peace are not to be reached until mutual conces
sions are made, and bonds and pledges are given in advance."
The Madrid Epoca, whose opinions cannot be suspected
as partial, has also said that a spirit of compromise marks
everywhere the sentiment of temperate men, and that to pre
serve, to progress, and to compromise, are the three important
traits of a great administration.
Never was there a more fitting opportunity to apply these
salutary maxims : Let the beginning be not to pardon, whicli
is an offensive epithet, but to grant full amnesty to the insur
gents, and to whoever has been exiled by government orders ;
let the embargoes and confiscations be raised ; let Cuba be
authorized to govern herself, and by this peaceful, reasonable,1
and just means, the war will at once come to an end, and the
principle of national integrity will be reconciled with the
legitimate right of the Cubans, with no slight to Spain's high
authority, nor derogatory capitulations from either party.
This is the only mode in which it behooves the young Don
Alfonso to inaugurate a great and glorious reign.
It remains for the writer of these lines to explain why
they are not subscribed with his name.
The state of things produced in Cuba by war and pas
sions does not allow Cubans, even those who have resided
many years in Europe, to state what takes place and what is
wanted there, without incurring responsibilities which affect
not solely the writer, but beloved beings dependent upon
him. This is the reason why, for the first time in our life
(and would to God it were the last !), we have taken refuge in an
' Martinez de la Kosa, " Historical Sketch of the Policy of Spain from
the Time of the Catholic Kings down to our Days."— Epoca, March 18,
1871.

40
anonymous writing. But we are bound to add that, intimate
ly connected as we are with Spanish society through the af
fectionate ties of friendship and family, it required no effort
on our part to exclude from this paper words of hatred and
sentiments of vengeance which our heart never nourished.
Our task is ended : would to Heaven that our words may
find echo in Spain's public men, in whose hands are placed at
present the destinies of Cuba ! Should it not be so, a day will
come when posterity will call them to account, just as the
civilized sentiment of the world does now, for so flagrant a
denial to the demands of justice !
Geneva, February 8, 1876.