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Updated: June 25, 2025
When General Weyler promulgated his policy of reconcentration he hypocritically claimed that it was intended to protect the noncombatant peasantry of the island, but his sole object was to compel them to put themselves wholly in the power of the Spanish officials.
During the summer of 1897 matters grew worse. A large part of the island became a wilderness. The people who had been driven into the towns by order of Captain General Weyler, the "reconcentrados," were dying of starvation, and our countrymen, deeply moved at their suffering, began to send them food and medical aid.
It was not this legislation, however, that rendered the period significant; it was the adoption of a new national policy of expansion, incident to the war with Spain. The Spaniards had been unable to put down the Cuban insurrection. The drastic measures, especially the policy of "reconcentration" adopted by General Weyler, had discredited the Spanish cause.
This event provoked suspicions in the public mind. The thought of the whole nation was instantly directed to Cuba. The fate of the sailors on the Virginius, twenty-five years ago, was recalled. The public curiosity about everything Cuban and Spanish became intense. The Weyler method of warfare became more generally known. The story of our long diplomatic trouble with Spain was recalled.
In his veins still flows the blood of Ferdinand, of Torquemada, and of Philip II. Weyler is a prototype of Alva, and in Blanco we find another Antonio de Mendoza. Spain is the China of modern Europe. Her spirit is still the spirit of the inquisition.
For it was in this place, as Clif knew, that all the torture and cruelty of the Spanish nature had been wreaked upon the unfortunate Cubans or Americans who fell into the hands of Weyler. It was here that Ruiz had been murdered, and hundreds of wretches besides their name and fate being hidden forever by the walls of that horrible place. And Clif was going then under the guidance of Ignacio.
Of all his military operations, this "pacification" of the western towns and provinces was the most conspicuously successful and the one which gave Valeriano Weyler the keenest satisfaction; for nowhere did rebellion lift its head except, perhaps, among the ranks of those disaffected men who hid in the hills, with nothing above them but the open sky.
Like all Cuban-Spanish wars and warfare, the destruction of property was a common procedure. Some of the methods employed for the suppression of the insurrection were not unlike those adopted by General Weyler in the later war. At Bayamo, on April 4, 1869, Count Valmaseda, the Spanish Commandant of that district, issued the following proclamation: 1.
Many of the planters in order to save their fields and centrals from destruction, are unquestionably aiding the insurgents in secret, and though they shout "Viva Espana" in the cities, they pay out cartridges and money at the back door of their plantations. It was because Weyler suspected that they were playing this double game that he issued secret orders that there should be no more grinding.
JOSE MACEO, brother of Antonio, was also a troublesome character to the Spaniards, who were constantly being set upon by him and his men. The American people were indignant at Weyler and were inspired by the conduct of the Insurgents. Public sentiment grew stronger with every fresh report of an Insurgent victory, or a Weyler persecution.
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