68 CUBA AND PORTO HICO 



used less effectively to quel] the revoll of L895-98. Hardly 

 had the insurgents returned to their homes when Spain, 

 unmindful of her promises, resumed her tyrannical 

 methods of administration and of oppression of the native 



people; and soon the latter had lost all the prestige gained 

 by arms. By 1894, the year before the latest revolution 

 began, the despotism of the Spanish officials had become 

 more unendurable than ever. During this year of tran- 

 quillity the writer, while visiting the island, witnessed with 

 amazement the operations of Spain's colonial government, 

 administered by a horde of carpet-bag officials upheld by 

 vigorous military law, without one thought for the welfare 

 of the natives or the improvement of the island. 



The American who undertakes to investigate the history 

 of the Spanish government in Cuba inevitably finds the 

 details too revolting to be described. Greed, injustice, 

 bribery, and cruelty have been practised with such fre- 

 quency that volumes could be filled with their horrible de- 

 tails. Above all these, however, stands the fact of Spain's 

 endeavors to wipe out by butchery and starvation the entire 

 native population. The first of these attempts, practised 

 in former centuries upon the aborigines, was successful. 



In 1844 over 3000 people were executed. During the 

 ten years' war it is estimated that fully 20,000 people suf- 

 fered a similar fate. The official records show that 4672 

 people were executed during the first half of that war. 

 Women were similarly treated. During the ten years' 

 war Captain- General Valamaseda wrote: "Not a single 

 Cuban will remain on this island, because we shoot all 

 those we find in the fields, on their farms, and in every 

 hovel. . . . We do not leave a creature alive where we 

 pass, be it man or animal. If we find cows, we kill them ; 

 if horses, ditto ; if hogs, ditto ; men, women, or children, 

 ditto. As to the houses, we burn them. So every one 

 receives what he deserves the men with bullets, the 

 animals with the bayonet. The island will remain a 

 desert." The intentions of this officer were only foiled by 



