The Ten Years' War was a ten-year conflict which was fought from 10 October 1868 to 28 May 1878 when Cuba launched its first attempt to win its independence from Spanish colonial rule. Cuban-born planters and other wealthy natives led the uprising, with sugar mill owner Carlos Manuel de Cespedes proclaiming independence at the start of the conflict. After ten years, the Spanish and Cubans agreed to the Pact of Zanjon, which promised to apply the 1876 Spanish Constitution to Cuba and allow for Cuba to be represented in the Cortes, but which thwarted independence. Dissatisfaction with the pact, and breaches of the terms, led to the Little War of 1879-1880 and the Cuban War of Independence of 1895-1898, the last of which resulted in Cuban independence.
Background[]
During the mid-19th century, tensions between the Spanish government and its colony of Cuba in the Caribbean grew for various reasnos. From 1856 to 1860, lax enforcement on the ban on slave trading resulted in the illegal importation of 90,000 African slaves, occurring despite a strong abolitionist movement on the island. Ironically, slave owners opposed the influx of new slaves, as new farming techniques and technologies made large numbers of slaves unnecessary and prohibitively expensive, causing numerous plantations and sugar refineries to fail during an economic crisis in 1857. Additionally, many planters started to hire Chinese indentured workers as an alternative to slavery. In May 1865, the criollo elites of Cuba demanded tariff reform, Cuban representation in the Cortes, judicial equality with the Spaniards, and full enforcement of the slave trade ban. However, the Spanish government was, at the time, being taken over by reactionary and traditionalist politicians who sought to get rid of all liberal reforms. Another economic crisis from 1866-1867 heightened social tensions on the island, and many Cubans grew aware of the fact that the Spaniards, representing 8% of the island's population, appropriated over 90% of the island's wealth.
In July 1867, the Revolutionary Committee of Bayamo was founded under the leadership of Cuba's wealthiest plantation owner, Francisco Vicente Aguilera. The conspiracy spread to other eastern Cuban towns such as Manzanillo, where Carlos Manuel de Cespedes came to be in favor of a nationalist uprising. The Spanish tried to force him into submission by imprisoning his son, but Cespedes refused, and the Spanish had his son executed. Cespedes planned for a national revolt to begin on 14 October 1868.
War[]
The planned uprising was moved four days forwards after the Spanish discovered the plan, and, on 10 October 1868, Cespedes issued a manifesto at La Demajagua which represented a cry for independence and a signal for an all-out military uprising against the Spanish. During the first few days, the uprising almost failed, but the uprising of Yara was supported in various regions of eastern Cuba, and the rebels were in control of eight towns by 13 October, and they had enlisted 12,000 volunteers by the month's end. That same month, Maximo Gomez introduced the machete charge to the Cuban rebels, and they learned to combine the use of firearms with machetes.
After three days of combat, the rebels seized the important city of Bayamo, and Perucho Figueredo composed the national anthem "La Bayamesa". Camaguey rose up in arms on 4 November 1868, and Las Villas followed in February 1869. On 12 January 1869, the Spanish recaptured Bayamo, but the fighting had burned it to the ground. The uprising was not supported in the westernmost provinces of Pinar del Rio, Havana, and Matanzas, and, with a few exceptions, resistance was clandestine. In 1868, Cespedes appointed the former Confederate general Thomas Jordan as the new commander of the Cuban army, but his reliance on regular tactics left the families of the Cuban rebels far too vulnerable to the ethnic cleansing tactics of Spanish general Blas Villate. After Jordan returned to the United States, Cespedes returned Gomez to command, and a new generation of battle-tested Cuban commanders rose from the ranks. On 10 April 1869, a constitutional assembly took place in Camaguey, but, that same year, Spain decided to wage a war of extermination against the Cuban rebels. The government used the Voluntary Corps to commit harsh and bloody acts against the Cuban rebels, and the Spanish atrocities fuelled the growth of insurgent forces in eastern Cuba; however, they failed to export the revolution to the west. On 11 May 1873, Ignacio Agramonte was killed a stay bullet; Cespedes was surprised and killed on 27 February 1874. Activities in the war peaked in 1872 and 1873, but after Agramonte and Cespedes were killed, Cuban operations were limited to Camaguey and Oriente. Gomez began an invasion of western Cuba, but the vast majority of slaves and plantation owners refused to join the uprising. After the American admiral Henry Reeve was killed in 1876, Gomez ended his campaign. By that year, the Spanish government had deployed more than 250,000 troops to Cuba, as the end of the Third Carlist War had freed up Spanish soldiers for the suppression of the revolt.
On 10 February 1878, General Arsenio Martinez Campos negotiated the Pact of Zanjon with the Cuban rebels, and the rebel general Antonio Maceo's surrender on 28 May ended the war. The pact promised the manumission of all slaves who had fought for Spain during the war, and slavery was legally abolished in 1880. However, dissatisfaction with the peace treaty led to the Little War of 1879-1880.