all, Martí advised against allowing the
United States to join the struggle for
Cuban independence. “Once the United
States is in Cuba,” he warned, “who will
get her out?”
José Martí and the Cuban
War of IndependenceIn 1895 Cuban émigré José Martí decid-
ed the time was right to resume the war
for independence. Among other consid-
erations, he wanted to set Cuba free
before the United States moved to annex
it. That January, under his guidance,
three yachts loaded with munitions
secretly prepared to set sail from Florida
to Cuba, there to join a planned uprising.
Unfortunately for Martí, the plan was
leaked and the ships were seized by
American authorities. Undaunted, Martí
left for the Dominican Republic to pre-
pare for another invasion.
On February 24, 1895, the Cuban
War of Independence (1895–1898) began
with El Grito de Baire, a revolutionary
proclamation in the town of Baire that
prompted an uprising in eastern Cuba. In
April, Martí, along with two other patri-
ot leaders, Máximo Gómez y Báez and
Antonio Maceo, reached Cuba. Although
a brilliant writer and political leader,
Martí was inexperienced as a soldier, and
he survived for little more than a month
in Cuba. On May 19, 1895, he was killed
during a skirmish with Spanish troops at
Dos Rios. He has been honored ever
since as the father of Cuba and a martyr
for his people.
With Gómez as commander in chief
and Maceo as second in command, the
rebels established a provisional govern-
ment in eastern Cuba. Outnumbered and
outgunned by the Spanish army, but sup-
ported by the majority of peasants in the
countryside, they avoided open battle and
instead waged guerrilla war. Raiding out-
posts, ambushing small units, and
destroying railroads and bridges, they
gradually advanced to the west and
neared Havana, the capital. Yellow fever
and other tropical diseases indirectly
aided them by plaguing the new recruits
from Spain more than they did the
native-born guerrillas.
In 1896, in an attempt to reverse its
losses, Spain sent a new military governor,
Valeriano Weyler (1838–1930), a veteran
of the Ten Years’ War. From Havana,
Weyler launched a major offensive
against the eastern provinces. In so doing
he quickly became the most hated man in
Cuban history.A TIME OF TRANSITION 119A cartoon shows American president William McKinley serving up new territories to a
hungry Uncle Sam.(Library of Congress)THE
MEDIA WAR
Reporter Richard Harding Davis
learned the hard way how far his pub-
lisher William Randolph Hearst would
go to sell newspapers. While in Cuba
reporting on the war of independ-
ence in 1896, Davis wrote a story
about how the Spanish subjected a
Cuban woman to being searched on
board an American ship in Havana
harbor. The story ran in Hearst’s New
York Journal with an illustration by
Frederic Remington that showed las-
civious Spanish officers surrounding a
naked girl, and a headline that asked:
“DOES OUR FLAG PROTECT
WOMEN? INDIGNITIES PRACTISED
BY SPANISH OFFICIALS ON BOARD
AMERICAN VESSELS.”
Americans responded with appro-
priate outrage, buying nearly a million
copies of the paper (a record) and
calling for the defense of national and
womanly honor. Only later did the
rival New York World reveal that a
matron, not male officers, had
searched the woman. Davis, whose
accurate reporting had been twisted
by the Journal, swore never to work
for Hearst again.With the poor people of the
earthI want to cast my lot
The brook of the mountains
Gives me more pleasure than
the seaGuantanamera, guajira
Guantanamera—José Martí, “Versos Sencillos
(Simple Verses),” a poem later
adapted as lyrics to the song
“Guantanamera”