Cuban Independence Struggle of 19th Century

Only in the 19th century did it become a jewel in the crown of the Spanish Empire, the "Ever-Faithful Colony" that did not break away when the mainland possessions did. By the later part of the century, however, a Cuban independence movement emerged, and the island was in a state of near-continuous insurgency from 1868 on. The remainder of this essay will explore the circumstances in which the Cuban independence movement arose, its peculiar fate, and its consequences.

Through the mid-19th century, tensions grew steadily between the Spanish government (itself unstable) and the Creole elite, Cubans of Spanish descent. Spain's monopolistic policies drained off much of the profits of sugar plantations, and the slave owning growers feared that Spain would give in to British pressure to ban slavery. Prior to the United States Civil War, many of the Cuban elite had favored annexation by the United States, whose neighboring southern states shared a slave economy.

After the end of slavery in the United States their sentiment shifted t

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cisively win over Cuban elite opinion from the insurgent cause by lightening the heavy hand of Spain. IV. U.S. Intervention However, as suggested above, a third interpretation is plausible as well. If the situation on the ground favored Spain, the situation on the seas around Cuba increasingly did not. This became manifest in early 1898, when the United States battleship Maine entered Havana harbor on what was billed as a goodwill visit. The Maine was also, however, a reminder of the increasingly dominant weight of American naval power. The events of the Spanish-American war lie outside the scope of this essay, but the war itself was decisive in transferring Cuba from the formal empire of Spain to nominal independence and the informal empire of the United States. What caused the Maine to blow up soon after her arrival in Havana will never be known with total certainty. Two successive American investigations, one at the time and another conducted in 1911, when the Maine's wreck was raised from the bottom of Havana harbor, both reached the politically appropriate conclusion: that the sinking had been triggered by an external device, i.e., a mine. In spite of the two investigations, this claim is no longer taken
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Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page)