Cuba, Spain, and the Road to Independence

Cuba, Spain, and the Road to Independence

During the Little War, fought for the independence of Cuba, Spain used propaganda to cast that the war was not a struggle for national independence but one for black supremacy. Spain manipulated the idea of a national war, with the objective to fight colonialism, into a race war with the objective of blacks uprising against whites. Cuban independence activists, therefore, campaigned diligently—mainly through writing—to negate Spain’s representations. Writings of the Ten Years War were conceived as lessons or guidelines to help pave way to a new revolution. Writings also helped reevaluate the image of the black insurgent into one that was more heroic and less threatening than that of the image depicted by Spain. Like their white counterparts, writers of color were critical in constructing these representations, but theirs were more active for black citizenship and therefore, differed from the portrayals of the passive insurgent created by white intellectuals. Whatever the difference in representation however, the writings of the harmless black insurgent as well as the nation’s struggle for independence, where blacks fought alongside with whites in union, invalidated Spain’s arguments about the racial dangers of rebellion and the impossibility of Cuban nationhood.

Essays and memoirs of the Ten Years War were written by authors who saw their works as writings for a new generation of Cubans. They sought to motivate patriotism with stories of courageousness, and achieve new successes through the telling of past mistakes and failures. They wanted to depict the first war in a way that would inspire activists to prepare for the next one, and by doing so, writings of the old war became a medium in which the course of a new revolt would be influenced. Writing then became more then just words on paper; it became a weapon that was fundamental to the strategy of insurgency (115).

Spain, in an attempt to suppress insurgency, was spreading the propaganda that if Cuba revolted, its colored supporters would transform the struggle for an independent republic into a racial domination by blacks. Therefore a strategy was needed to reevaluate the black insurgent who was depicted by Spain as the leader of the dreaded race war and the black republic. Through reexamination, separatist writers were able to neutralize that figure into an acceptable component in the making of the Cuban nation. One transformation is of a slave named Ramon, who went from being the cause of the death of Carlos Cepedes’, the leader of the first insurrection, to a faithful and trustworthy servant.