CHAPTER II

AMERICAN INTEREST IN CUBA

CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS, on his first voyage in 1492, discovered the island of Cuba, over which Spain and the United States four centuries later came to blows. The Spaniards called the island in succession Juana, Fernandina, Santiago, and Ave Maria, but the name by which the Indians knew it before the advent of the Spaniards was the name that survived.

Some Facts about Cuba

The island, with several small islands along its coasts, contains about forty-five thousand It is about seven square miles. hundred and thirty miles long and averages about seventy miles in width. It lies almost due east and west a little to the south of the peninsula of Florida. Havana, the capital, on the north coast, is the principal city. Other cities on the north coast are Bahia Honda, Mariel, Cardenas, Matanzas, and Neuvitas. On the south coast are the cities of Santiago de Cuba, Cienfuegos, and Guantanamo.

Richly blessed with mineral and vegetable products, despite an unhealthy tropical climate, Cuba for many years before it had been laid waste by war was a veritable treasure-house for Spain. Copper mines, forests of mahogany, groves of oranges and coffee plantations, helped swell the coffers of Spanish grandees, and many Cuban families amassed great wealth.

Sugar and tobacco have, however, always been the chief sources of Cuba's wealth. A large proportion of the peasantry found employment in the cane fields. Havana tobacco and Havana cigars became known the world over.

The law of contiguity made it to be expected that the interests of the United States and

Cuba should be closely allied. In many relations the republic and the island were more closely bound together than Cuba was to the mother country. While it took days to reach Cuba's capital from Cadiz, from Key West to Havana was a sail of only a few hours. Many citizens of the United States went to Cuba to engage in trade. Many natives of Cuba became residents of the United States. The United States sent Cuba things to eat and wear; Cuba sent the United States tobacco and sugar. Always jealous of European interference or

Efforts to

purchase

Cuba

influence on this side of the Atlantic, it was only natural that the young republic should early look with covetous eyes toward Cuba. As far back as 1823, when the Holy Alliance threatened to aid Spain in reclaiming her revolted colonies in the Americas, strong declarations were made by the United States. In 1848, when the South was anxious to acquire more slave territory, President Polk offered Spain ten million dollars for Cuba, but Spain refused to part with the island.

Various propositions looking to the purchase of Cuba were thereafter advanced from time to time, the most recent being the offer of an international syndicate, but all of them were without result. The attitude of the United States since the middle of the century can be summarized thus:

The people openly sympathizing and surreptitiously aiding the Cubans in their efforts to gain freedom;

The government, virtually resenting Spain's rule and war in Cuba, but actually endeavoring to prevent filibustering expeditions being fitted out in the United States.

More than one President, while criticising Spain's course in his messages to Congress,

took stern measures to prevent United States. citizens from aiding the Cubans.

Such was the

situation when in 1895 there was begun in Cuba an insurrection, the legitimate outgrowth of a series of efforts on the part of Cuba to follow the example of other Spanish colonies in America.

CHAPTER III

THE REBELLIONS IN CUBA

FOR two centuries and more after Columbus discovered America Spain gradually gained control by conquest of a large portion of the Western Hemisphere, but when the tide turned her American possessions passed from her more rapidly than she had won them. Florida, Mexico, and South America slipped from her grasp, until, in 1898, she held only Cuba and Porto Rico.

Spain's hold on Cuba ever since 1820 had been precarious. When South America's Revolutions Washington, General Bolivar, freed frequent South America, efforts had been made to include Cuba, but unsuccessfully. From that time on every few years, in particular from 1848 to 1854, a revolution was attempted.

A few years before the rebellion in the United States, when the slave States foresaw the need of more votes in Congress, a movement began in the Southern States of the Union, looking toward the annexation of Cuba.