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Authors: John Paul Rathbone
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in 1877 (but was fittingly rewarded during the Republic with his portrait on Cuba’s 100-peso bill). Bernabé’s eldest son, Bernabécito, also remained in Cuba to join the rebel mambí ranks.
The rebels made steady progress west across the island, singing the rebel anthem, “Hymn to the Invader,” which Loynaz had composed: “Every march will be a victory, the triumph of good over ill.” They gathered support as they marched, especially after General Valeriano Weyler, the Spanish commander in Havana, adopted radical tactics to blunt their advance. Weyler ordered his troops to force huge numbers of Cuban civilians into fortified settlements, where thousands of the reconcentrados died in what were in effect the first concentration camps. Having drained the countryside, Weyler then declared all of Cuba outside the Spanish-held towns a free-fire zone. The rebels responded by burning farms, destroying mills, and slaughtering cattle. Thousands of acres of sugarcane and tobacco went up in flames. Soon much of the population was starving, bitterly angry, and passionate in its support of independence.
Martí never saw these glimmerings of victory. He died five weeks after landing, shot by the Spanish in a surprise skirmish, conspicuous on a white horse, a life of Cicero in his saddlebags. Eager to prove his fighting ability, and against Gómez’s instructions, Martí had rushed forward into the line of fire. Ironically, a raw recruit called Angel de la Guardia, literally guardian angel, rode by his side. Like so many other nineteenth-century Romantic poets, Martí had anticipated his own death. Seven weeks before he was shot, Martí wrote a brief letter to his son: “I leave for Cuba tonight: I leave without you, even though you should be by my side. If I should disappear on the way, find with this letter the watch chain that I used when I lived. Farewell.” José Francisco was then sixteen. Learning of his father’s death, he immediately abandoned school, joined the revolutionary forces, and rose through the ranks to become a captain. It is said that he rode the same white horse from which Martí fell.
Three years later the U.S. Army intervened. It was the culmination of an impulse that had been building almost since the days of the founding fathers. In 1821, after the United States won control of the Florida peninsula, Thomas Jefferson wrote to President James Monroe that he had “ever looked on Cuba as the most interesting addition which could ever be made to our system of States.” The image of Cuba as a ripening fruit that would one day fall into the hands of Uncle Sam had endured ever since. A cartoon published in Puck magazine in 1897 had shown him standing beneath a fruit tree with a basket, staring intently at “Cuba,” a ripe plum hanging from an upper branch. On February 15, 1898, the United States finally gained its pretext when the USS Maine , a battleship on a “friendly” visit to Havana, exploded mysteriously in the harbor. Two months later, encouraged by William Randolph Hearst’s newspapers (“Remember the Maine. To hell with Spain”), the United States declared war on Spain. Ostensibly it was to help the Cuban rebel cause. But at the Spanish surrender only a few months later, the authorities raised the American flag over Havana—not the Cuban. And when Spain and the United States signed the treaty ending the war, the Cubans were not even invited.
Just before he died, Martí wrote a note that his comrades had pinned to a pine board at their campground. “It is my duty to prevent through the independence of Cuba, the USA from spreading over the West Indies and falling with added weight upon other lands in Our America.” If Martí had survived, he would have become Cuba’s first president and history might well have been different. Instead, in dying, he left a figure so disturbingly necessary in Cuban history: the martyr. Judged by his own high standards, Martí’s plans had also
The rebels made steady progress west across the island, singing the rebel anthem, “Hymn to the Invader,” which Loynaz had composed: “Every march will be a victory, the triumph of good over ill.” They gathered support as they marched, especially after General Valeriano Weyler, the Spanish commander in Havana, adopted radical tactics to blunt their advance. Weyler ordered his troops to force huge numbers of Cuban civilians into fortified settlements, where thousands of the reconcentrados died in what were in effect the first concentration camps. Having drained the countryside, Weyler then declared all of Cuba outside the Spanish-held towns a free-fire zone. The rebels responded by burning farms, destroying mills, and slaughtering cattle. Thousands of acres of sugarcane and tobacco went up in flames. Soon much of the population was starving, bitterly angry, and passionate in its support of independence.
Martí never saw these glimmerings of victory. He died five weeks after landing, shot by the Spanish in a surprise skirmish, conspicuous on a white horse, a life of Cicero in his saddlebags. Eager to prove his fighting ability, and against Gómez’s instructions, Martí had rushed forward into the line of fire. Ironically, a raw recruit called Angel de la Guardia, literally guardian angel, rode by his side. Like so many other nineteenth-century Romantic poets, Martí had anticipated his own death. Seven weeks before he was shot, Martí wrote a brief letter to his son: “I leave for Cuba tonight: I leave without you, even though you should be by my side. If I should disappear on the way, find with this letter the watch chain that I used when I lived. Farewell.” José Francisco was then sixteen. Learning of his father’s death, he immediately abandoned school, joined the revolutionary forces, and rose through the ranks to become a captain. It is said that he rode the same white horse from which Martí fell.
Three years later the U.S. Army intervened. It was the culmination of an impulse that had been building almost since the days of the founding fathers. In 1821, after the United States won control of the Florida peninsula, Thomas Jefferson wrote to President James Monroe that he had “ever looked on Cuba as the most interesting addition which could ever be made to our system of States.” The image of Cuba as a ripening fruit that would one day fall into the hands of Uncle Sam had endured ever since. A cartoon published in Puck magazine in 1897 had shown him standing beneath a fruit tree with a basket, staring intently at “Cuba,” a ripe plum hanging from an upper branch. On February 15, 1898, the United States finally gained its pretext when the USS Maine , a battleship on a “friendly” visit to Havana, exploded mysteriously in the harbor. Two months later, encouraged by William Randolph Hearst’s newspapers (“Remember the Maine. To hell with Spain”), the United States declared war on Spain. Ostensibly it was to help the Cuban rebel cause. But at the Spanish surrender only a few months later, the authorities raised the American flag over Havana—not the Cuban. And when Spain and the United States signed the treaty ending the war, the Cubans were not even invited.
Just before he died, Martí wrote a note that his comrades had pinned to a pine board at their campground. “It is my duty to prevent through the independence of Cuba, the USA from spreading over the West Indies and falling with added weight upon other lands in Our America.” If Martí had survived, he would have become Cuba’s first president and history might well have been different. Instead, in dying, he left a figure so disturbingly necessary in Cuban history: the martyr. Judged by his own high standards, Martí’s plans had also
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