usimperialismhistory

[usimperialismhistory]

This one’s a real cool mf...

Lt. General Antonio ‘El Titan de Bronce’ Maceo (1845-1896)

2nd in Command of the Cuban Army of Independence

An esteemed veteran of the first two Cuban attempts at independence, ‘the Bronze Titan’ was a hero amongst nationalist Cubans. Having been convinced by Martí reigniting of fight for independence, Maceo became 2nd in Command under General Gomez in 1895.

Maceo was a physically big guy, mixed race at a time when that was a huge deal, and an all round badass. He was very cautious of the encroaching USA, and argued, in his own words:

‘better to rise or fall without help than to contract debts of gratitude with such a powerful neighbour.’

However, he was not there to witness the US betrayal of the Cubans and hijacking of their independence. Maceo was caught unawares by a Spanish Column in December 1986 on his way to meet General Gómez, and was shot twice. Unable to carry him away due to his size, all but one of his escort fled, with Gómez’ son, Lt. Francisco Gómez, the only one to stay by his side. The two were shot and hacked to death with Spanish machetes.

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First-hand account of The ‘Reconcentrado’ Policy by employee of the USDoJ C. W. Russell:

"I spent just two weeks in Cuba, visited Havana, went south to Jaruco, southwest to Guines, northeast to Matanzas, eastwardly about two hundred miles through the middle of the country to San Domingo, Santa Clara and Sagua la Grande. I visited Marianao, a short distance west of Havana, and saw along the railroad thirty or forty towns or stations. In Havana I visited the Fossos, the hospital prison at Aldecoa, where I talked with the father of Evangelina Cisneros, and a place called the Jacoba. I found reconcentrados at all three places, and begging everywhere about the streets of Havana.

"The spectacle at the Fossos and Jacoba houses, of women and children emaciated to skeletons and suffering from diseases produced by starvation, was sickening. In Sagua I saw some sick and emaciated little girls in a children's hospital, started three days before by charitable Cubans, and saw a crowd of miserable looking reconcentrados with tin buckets and other receptacles getting small allowances of food doled out to them in a yard. In the same city, in an old sugar warehouse, I saw stationed around the inside walls the remnants of twenty or thirty Cuban families.

"In one case the remnant consisted of two children, seven or eight years old. In another case, where I talked to the people in broken Spanish, there were four individuals, a mother, a girl of fourteen, and two quite small girls. The smallest was then suffering from malarial fever. The next had the signs on her hands, with which I had become familiar, of having had that dreadful disease, the beri-beri. These four were all that order of concentration had left alive of eleven...

... "As the country was stripped of its population by the order of concentration, it is easy to believe that 400,000 persons were gathered behind the forts without being given food, medicine, or means of any kind to earn a living, except where in the larger cities some few could find employment in menial offices. Judging by the orphans I was shown at Jacoba, Aidecoa and elsewhere, and from all I saw and heard, I believe that half of the 400,000 have died as the result of starvation.

[usimperialismhistory]

The ‘Reconcentrado’ Policy Ctd.

Just a bit more on the ‘Cuban Holocaust’ as it has since been called...

As both examples show, the firebrand US press latched onto the policy’s atrocities as a way of whipping up public opinion against the Spanish. Political cartoons and literature of condemnation were commonplace in this period, and contributed to anti-Spanish sentiment in the run up to war.

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The first of many unpleasant things I gotta describe on this page...

The ‘Reconcentrado’ Policy

This was the strategy adopted by Spanish General Valeriano Weyler in an attempt to suppress the 3rd Cuban Rebellion. Inspired by Weyler’s studies of US General William T. Sherman’s campaigns against in ‘The Indian Wars,’ the policy served to weaken the guerrillas by separating them from the rural communities that provided them shelter and disguise.

It effectively reorganised the island of Cuba into a number of different sectors (for security purposes) and oversaw the forced relocation of many Cubans into fortified towns. Outside of these towns, much of the Cuban countryside became official ‘free-fire zones.’ Numbers vary, but by the end of 1897 it’s estimated that over 300,000 Cubans had been relocated.

Inevitably, this led to neglect, mistreatment and malnutrition of Cubans in these settlements, and, as the pictures above show, conditions quickly became reminiscent of Auschwitz, or some Soviet gulag. Although numbers vary, evidence shows that thousands died.

However, these conditions sparked mass controversy, amongst Cubans, Spanish Liberals, and most importantly, the US public opinion. Práxedes Sagasta, a Spanish Liberal, became PM and tried to de-escalate the situation by removing Weyler and speaking to the USA, but by then it was too late...

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General Valeriano Weyler, 1st Duke of Rubí, 1st Marquess of Tenerife (1838-1930)

Governor General of Cuba

Weyler was made GG of Cuba in 1896, to deal with the 3rd Cuban Rebellion. His tactics to achieve this were radical and harsh, involving the reorganisation of Cuba into new security divisions, enforced movement of over 300,000 Cuban civilians into fortified camps to separate them from rebels, and the declaration of much of the countryside to be free-fire zones (all tactics he’d adopted from studying US general William T. Sherman.)

These brutal tactics saw thousands of innocent deaths, and led to international notoriety. The firebrand US press latched onto Weyler, as the cartoon shows; their inflammatory reports and negative portrayals made him hated by the US public, and ultimately contributed to mass support for the American-Spanish War.

Liberal Spanish Prime Minister Práxedes Sagasta removed him from office in 1897, as part of his desperate attempts to de-escalate the Cuban situation.

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José Julián Martí (1853-1895)

Cuban nationalist revolutionary, lawyer, diplomat, poet, and essayist.

Martí was arguably the chief organiser of the third Cuban uprising against the Spanish Empire in Spring 1895. It was this same uprising that would be hijacked by the US in 1898, and would lead to a Cuba that, for decades, was under US control (Directly & indirectly.) Martí was shot dead by the Spanish whilst riding at the head of a nationalist military column at the 1895 Battle of Dos Ríos .

In an act of historic foreshadowing, however, his last unfinished letter was put on display by comrades at the rebel camp. It urged that ,following independence, Cubans could not allow the US to spread it’s influence over the island, or the rest of the West Indies...

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‘The War on Wealth’ Poster from 1895

The period during and after ‘The Panic of 1893’ saw great economic unrest in the USA. Whilst the US economy had grown, this was only concentrated amongst a few thousand Americans. Outside of this elite few, a sixth of the population was unemployed, even more were on subsistence wages, and farmers in particular were struggling with falling prices. This led to widespread unrest, with strikes across the country, and the growth of radical left-wing mass movements.

It was out of this chaotic setting that the USA moved to expand beyond its borders, so as to access foreign markets to sell US goods. Thus, the era of US Imperialism and intervention began.

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L- R: State Treasurer John G. Carlisle (1834-1910) & Senator for Indiana Albert J. Beveridge (1862-1927)

Both men were amongst the many prominent US politicians & businessmen who argued that US expansionism & forcible access to foreign markets would serve as a solution to ‘The Panic of 1893’ and America’s wider economic unrest in 1890s.

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Captain Alfred Thayer Mahan (1840-1914)

Director of the US Naval War College

Major pioneer of US Imperialism; his 1890 book ‘The Influence of Sea Power upon History’ argued that success relied upon control of a foreign market, through the maintenance of a strong navy, a network of bases in surrounding territories and the creation of a canal across Central America.

Theories proved very popular, and inspired other US imperialists, such as Senator Henry Cabot Lodge, and Theodore Roosevelt himself.