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displaced from the continent, concentrated its efforts on a single project, keeping Cuba
for Spain.
U.S. intervention could have transformed the momentum of the struggle, as it
would less than twenty-five years later, but the U.S. decided to remain on the sidelines
during the first war of independence. Precisely why the U.S. chose to shun involvement
(and the rich prize of control over Cuban territory) is a subject I will leave aside.
However, it seems that the United States, still shaken by the Civil War and struggling to
incorporate hundreds of thousands of freedmen emancipated by the war into a new social
and economic system, was unwilling to take on the challenge of extending rule over an
additional population of people of color, who, as well, spoke a separate language
2
.
Continued Spanish rule seemed to be the best opportunity to preserve access to the Cuban
market, while avoiding the complex political repercussions and extensive costs that
annexation would bring.
Cubans again took up arms in 1895 to fight for their independence. Many of the
political and economic conditions that provoked the earlier nationalist uprising remained
and, if anything, had become more profoundly relevant. As a colony, much of Cuba’s
economic and political life was regulated by Spain, to a degree not welcomed by Cubans,
while the island’s trade was increasingly tied to the U.S. By the end of Cuba’s first war
of independence, eighty-two percent of Cuba’s exports were going to North America, and
only six percent to Spain (Perez, Jr. 1995, 84). More goods could have been shipped to
the U.S., if not for the steep taxes charged by Spain on goods carried by foreign shippers
to non-Spanish ports (Perez, Jr. 1995).
Convention