The Politics of Intervention

The August Revolution 75

tobacco, and rotting fruit mixed with the cries of the bumboat

merchants. Along the Malecon, strollers looked out curiously

at the United States Navy.

The day before the gunboat "Marietta," Commander William

F. Fullam in command, arrived in Cienfuegos. The "Marietta"

was fresh from Commodore W. H. H. Southerland's squadron

in Dominican waters where it had been carrying government

troops and showing the flag in threatened ports. By coinci­

dence, Commander Fullam was a leading advocate of using

sailors as ships' landing parties and of abolishing the Marine

Corps; there was a touch of eagerness in his reports to prove

his sailors' fighting qualities. Immediately upon anchoring,

Fullam was besieged by American planters begging protec­

tion. If the sailors did not come ashore, the planters told

Fullam, the insurgents would put their centrales to the torch.

Under the instructions wired him by Secretary Bonaparte on

September 12, he could use his own discretion about landing

sailors to protect American property.

(^59) Assuming in the
absence of further instructions that he could act in "case of
necessity," Fullam decided on September 14 to land men to
protect Hormiguero, Constancia, and Soledad centrales.^60 He
then put a force of four officers, seventy men, and two
machine guns ashore and called for reinforcements, with the
ecstatic approval of the sugar planters. He personally doubted
that the rebels would resist since they seemed to welcome
intervention.^61
Fullam might have been chagrined if he had known of
events in Havana. The day before his men went ashore
at Cienfuegos, another landing party had disembarked at
Havana and then, under direct orders from Roosevelt, gone
back to the "Denver." Shortly after his ship's arrival on
September 12, Commander J. C. Colwell, "Denver's" captain,
visited Estrada Palma. The President, Colwell discovered,
was delighted by "Denver's" appearance, which he said
strengthened his government.^62 The city, Colwell learned,
was rife with rumors of treason, massacre, race war, looting,
and arson. As a result of a conference with Estrada Palma,
Sleeper, and Steinhart, Colwell ordered a battalion of sailors