Read Online In Black and White: The Life of Sammy Davis Junior by Wil Haygood - Free Book Online

fact-finding mission following constant reports of Cubans being abused by the Spanish. A little less than a month before the explosion, the Spanish military in Cuba destroyed the offices of four newspapers criticizing its presence. The attacks sparked rioting, which alerted American diplomatic officials on the island.
    Spain had upward of 500,000 troops serving in the Philippines, Puerto Rico, and Cuba in a desperate attempt to keep its imperialist grip on the region. The infamous Alfonso Guards of Spain—who fancied wide-brimmed white sombreros—easily outdid the Cuban insurgents, and over the years, every rebellion was put down. There were times when the Alfonso Guards would line captured rebels up alongside a fort wall on bended knee—faces toward the wall, hands tied behind them—and raise their heavy rifles. The snap-crack of shots would fill the air, blood would color the dirt, and revolution would be stayed for a while longer.
    When Christopher Columbus discovered the Caribbean in 1492, its lush vistas must have dazzled his senses. It was Diego Velázquez, however, who would, in 1511, conquer the island for Spain and launch the Spanish Conquest. In 1526, African slaves were brought into Cuba to work the coffee and sugar plantations. Throughout the decades there would be slave and Indian uprisings. The islands of Cuba intrigued antiabolitionists during the American Civil War. They had a peculiar dream of annexing it and turning it into a slave-holding state. Disease eventually vanquished the Indians of Cuba. (Sammy’s maternal grandmother, Luisa Sanchez—née Aguiar—was still, as a centenarian, reminding family members: “I am Cuban—and Indian.”) With the Indian gone—though still coursing through their blood—blacks and Hispanics made up the Cuban populace. The Spanish delighted in pitting darker-skinned Cubans against lighter-skinned Cubans, and in the Spanish press, there often appeared reports of dark-skinned Cubans plotting uprisings. It became known as
miedo al negro
(“fear of the black”). Light-skinned Cubans considered themselves members of the ruling class, and it was from that class that Enrique Aguiar, father of Luisa, hailed.
    Spanish officials denied involvement in the bombing of the
Maine
. In the blast’s aftermath, President William McKinley urged caution, but Theodore Roosevelt, his assistant secretary of the navy, did not. The hyperactive Roosevelt browbeat administration officials into readying for war. He sent cables, made speeches, and harangued those close to McKinley. The Hearst newspapers urged war. William Randolph Hearst had been lucky: Richard Harding Davis, a star American reporter, was in Havana when the
Maine
was hit. Davis wrote feverishly, and Hearst ran emotional headlines that all but urged America to action.
    Hearst’s headlines were one thing, the words of Vermont senator Redfield Proctor quite another. Politicians of both stripes respected Proctor. He was not a man to idly commit American forces to foreign soil. On March 17, Proctor—who was a close McKinley ally—addressed the Senate to report on his thoughts following a trip to Cuba in the explosion’s aftermath. He talked of the presence of concentration camps in Cuba that were filled with thousands. He said the loss of the
Maine
was tragic enough, but went on to say that if any appeal were made for war, it must be made because of “the spectacle of a million and a half of people, the entire native population of Cuba, struggling for freedom and deliverance from the worst misgovernment of which I ever had knowledge.” It was simple yet stunning oratory coming from a man of Proctor’s revered caution. And it set loose whoops of war talk.
    “Cuba Libre,”
went one cry.
    “Remember the
Maine
/ To hell with Spain!” went another.
    As screaming headlines merged with patriotic fervor, it was becoming clearthat Americans now wanted the Spanish out of Cuba. Battleships were prepared, though the month of March