Ten Years' War

A brief history of the Ten Years' War

The Ten Years’ War was a struggle for Cuban independence from Spain. Discontent was caused in Cuba by excessive taxation, trade restrictions, and the virtual exclusion of native Cubans from governmental posts.

In 1868, when the Spanish proposed even more exorbitant taxation, the Cubans, particularily those in the province of Oriente, rose in arms. On October 10, Carlos Manuel de Céspedes issued a declaration of independence, the Grito de Yara, on the plantation of Yara, and within a few weeks he was at the head of ten thousand men, badly armed but determined. By April, 1869, a constitution for a republican form of government was drawn up. It provided for a president, a vice-president, a cabinet and a legislature. It abolished slavery, and under it Cespedes was elected president, Francisco Vicente Aguilera vice president, and a legislature convened. Manuel de Quesada was named commander-in-chief of the army.

Until 1871, the insurgents held their own with a force of about fifty thousand men. They were constantly victorious in engagements, but the Spanish carried out bloody and ruthless reprisals against the patriots, and finally the insurgents were driven into a form of guerrilla warfare which raged furiously in the eastern provinces. Their chief field commanders were Máximo Gómez, Antonio Maceo, and Calixto García.

In 1873, the Virginius affair brought Spanish-American relations to a crisis, but the war dragged on without decisive incident.

By 1876, 145,000 soldiers and Spain's best commanders had been sent to Cuba and had not yet subdued the rebels, who were invincible in the eastern part of the island, although they could takes no cities. Cuban crops had been ruined and Cuban trade decreased. Spain had wasted money and men, losing about eighty thousand of her land forces. Taxes had been trebled. By 1878, both sides were ready for peace, and General Martinez de Campos, who was the Spanish commander at that time, made overtures to the Cubans under Máximo Gómez.

The result was the treaty of El Zanjon, signed on February 10, 1878. This treaty granted a general pardon to all who had taken any part, directly or indirectly, in the revolutionary movement, nominally granted reforms, and gave the Cubans governmental representation, but the promises were not kept and conditions did not improve.

This costly and bitter war was seemingly without result, but it foreshadowed the Cuban war of independence, which broke out in 1895, and the subsequent Spanish-American War.