The Revolt That Never Was 179somely to change sides. As a result of his change of allegiance,
he became one of the most hated men in Cuba; he returned
Cuban hostility full measure with a notorious book, Masso
Parra contra Cuba. He often said, his father reported, that
nothing would please him more than to fight Cubans again.^40
Masso Parra made his headquarters after 1898 on the island
of Curacao. He boasted that both Colombia and Venezuela
paid him not to ply his trade within their borders. Twice he
tried to return to Cuba, but General Wood and Estrada
Palma refused to let him land. In late July, 1907, inexplicably,
he was allowed to return to Cuba, where he immediately
began to behave like an active conspirator.^41
Apparently rebuffed by the Liberal factions, Masso Parra
turned to individual radicals with no apparent common inter
est except political conspiracy per se. One was Juan Ducasse,
the only Negro general linked with the conservatives; he was
former colono who had lost his land for debts to the Cuban
Land and Leaf Tobacco Company, a subsidiary of the Ameri
can Tobacco Company.^42 Masso Parra also enlisted Jose
Lara Miret, white, a Liberal, a veteran, and a former Rural
Guard officer dismissed for defecting to the Constitutional
Army in 1906. Since then Lara Miret, a protege of Loynaz del
Castillo, had been active in organizing the subrosa Consti*
tutional Militia.^43
During August Masso Parra met with leaders of almost
every identifiable political group in Cuba. The theme of his
interviews apparently was that the Cubans should attack the
Americans and destroy foreign-owned property. Among those
he approached with this appeal were the Zayistas (who
defended him in the press), the Miguelistas (who denounced
him), Evaristo Estenoz of the Negro movement, Spaniards,
conservative planters, local jefes of every affiliation, and
foreign businessmen.
44
To complicate matters for the Provi
sional Government, which was trying to sort out the con
spiracy, the Bureau of Insular Affairs forwarded a bulky file
implicating Masso Parra with the civil war in the Dominican
Republic. Magoon, however, was convinced that Cuba was