2
In Cuba, something seemingly opposite happened. Cuba’s struggle for
independence from Spain was spread over two distinct wars, the Ten Years’ War,
between 1868 and 1878, which failed to win autonomy from Spain, and the War of
Independence, fought in 1895 through 1898, which succeeded in bringing a form of
independence to Cuba. My focus will be on the earlier war and the causes of its failure.
Wealthy landholders, while unhappy about Spain's growing supervision of commerce,
turned away from the movement for independence because they were concerned that
people of color, incited to rebellion by the forces agitating for independence, would never
return to their position of subordination following the establishment of Cuban self-rule.
Elites feared that Cuba's free population of color, which was, in relative terms,
more extensively mobilized than parallel social castes elsewhere in the Spanish empire,
would use national liberation as a starting point to escalate demands for wider
participation in the social project. Cuba was home to a large population of freedmen,
who were established in independent enterprises throughout the island (Klein 1986).
They shared with the creole elite a desire to be free of Spanish political rule and economic
regulation, but unlike the wealthy creole landholders, they also wanted to end slavery.
The Cuban political-economic landscape was unusual because of the great number of free
people of color and the continuing importance of slavery. Slavery was central to the
production of sugar, and sugar growers feared the consequences of emancipation.
Preserving the status hierarchy that protected white elite privilege was a prevailing
concern throughout Spain’s new world colonies. Everywhere, white elites pursued the
break with Spain while avoiding the mobilization of populations of color (Anderson
1991). Creole land-owners reinforced the systems of order that favored the preservation
Convention