DOCUMENTING THE RECONCENTRATION. CUBA (1895-1898)

I believe it is important, since it is still fashionable among the enemies of Cuba of left and the right to diminish what happened then and this documents the Reconcentration. Cuba (1895-1898) as you undoubtably know, was the unfortunate place from where concentration camps were first named as such. The document, a speech in the US Senate, was always in the public domain. It is also useful to counteract some stuff on the matter coming out of Cuba. Anyway, the material follows this post. In my notes there is a little bit on my family's oral history and some thoughts of the ethnicity of the Guajiros who died in those horrible times.

Larry Daley

There are six provinces in Cuba, each, with the exception of Matanzas, extending the whole width of the island, and having about an equal sea front on the north and south borders. Matanzas touches the Caribbean Sea only at its south-west corner, being separated from it elsewhere by a narrow peninsula of Santa Clara Province. The provinces are named, beginning at the west, Pinar del Rio, Havana, Matanzas, Santa Clara, Puerto Principe and Santiago de Cuba.

My observations were confined to the four western provinces, which constitute about one-half the island. The two eastern ones are practically in the hands of the insurgents, except a few fortified towns. These two large provinces are spoken of today as "Cuba Libre" Havana, the great city and capital of the island, is, in the eyes of the Spaniards and many Cubans, all Cuba, as much as Paris in France. But having visited it in more peaceful times and seen its sights, the tomb of Columbus, the forts of Cabanas and Morro Castle, etc., I did not care to repeat this, preferring trips in the country.

Everything seems to go on much as usual in Havana. Quiet prevails and except for the frequent squads of soldiers marching to guard and police duty and their abounding presence in all public places, one sees little signs of war.

Outside Havana all is changed. It is not peace, nor is it war. It is desolation and distress, misery and starvation. Every town and village is surrounded by a trocha (trench) a sort of rifle pit, but constructed on a plan new to me, the dirt being thrown up on the inside and a barbed wire fence on the outer side of the trench. (Cuba 1895-1898 was one of the first places where modern trench warfare began, L.D.)

These trochas have at every corner, and at frequent intervals along the sides, what are there called forts, but which are really small block-houses, many of them more like a large sentry box, loop-holed for musketry, and with a guard of from two to ten soldiers in each. The purpose of these trochas is to keep reconcentrados in as well as to keep the insurgents out.

From all the surrounding country the people have been driven into these fortified towns and held there to subsist as they can. They are virtually prison yards and not unlike one in general appearance, except that the walls are not so-high and strong, but they suffice, where every point is in range of a soldier's rifle, to keep in the poor reconcentrado women and children.

Every railroad station is within one of these trochas and has an armed guard. Every train has an armored freight car, loop-holed for musketry, and filled with soldiers and with, as I observed usually, and was informed is always the case, a pilot engine a mile or so in advance. There are frequent block-houses enclosed by a trocha and with a guard along the railroad track. With this exception there is no human life or habitation between these fortified towns and villages throughout the whole of the four western provinces, except to a very limited extent among the hills, where the Spaniards have not been able to go and drive the people to the towns and burn their dwellings. (This seems to be a reference to residues of Antonio Maceo's forces still fighting in the Sierra of the Órganos of Pinar del Rio, the most western province on the Island L.D.).

I saw no house or hut in the 400 miles of railroad rides from Pinar del Rio Province in the west across the full width of Havana and Matanzas Provinces, and to Sagua La Grando (La Grande L.D) on the north shore and to Cienfuegos on the south shore of Santa Clara, except within the Spanish trochas. There are no domestic animals or crops on the rich fields and pastures except such as are under guard in the immediate vicinity of the towns.

In other words, the Spaniards hold in these four western provinces just what their army sits on.

Every man, woman and child and every domestic animal, wherever their columns have reached, is under guard and within their so-called fortifications. To describe one place is to describe all. To repeat, it is neither peace nor war.

It is concentration and desolation. This is the "pacified" condition of the four western provinces.

All the country people in the four western provinces, about 400,000 (at least 50% or 200,000 see below would die of starvation and disease L.D) in number, remaining outside the fortified towns when Weyler's (Valeriano Weyler, the brutal Capitan General or Spanish Governent of Cuba, who replaced Martinez Campos. Martinez Campos who is supposed to have said that the only way to stop the Cuban insurgent's, the Mambi, rebellion was through such a reconcentration and that since this would cause so terrible a death-toll that he was not prepared to do it and resigned. Weyler was once an officer in the forces of the brutal Count of Valmaseda in the 1868-1878 Ten Year War. L.D) order was made, were driven into these towns, and these are the reconcentrados. They were the peasantry (really Guajiros will a strong presence of Taino blood line L.D.), many of them farmers, some land-owners, others renting lands and owning more or less stock, others working on estates and cultivating small patches, and even a small patch in that fruitful clime will support a family.

(For those interested in parallels to more recent history, it is logical to conclude that Castro's suppression of the small farmers especially in Las Villas provinces where the 1960s risings against him were most intense, and the collective farming practices of the present Cuban government have much to do with the present (1990s) situation of hunger in Cuba. L.D.)

It is but fair to say that the normal condition of these people was very different from that which prevails in this country. Their standard of comfort and prosperity was not high, measured by our own, but according to their standards and require-ments, their conditions of life were satisfactory.

They lived mostly in cabins (Taino "bohios" or "caneys") made of palm or in wooden houses. Some of them had houses of stone, the blackened walls of which are all that remains to show that the country was ever inhabited. The first clause of Weyler's order reads as follows: "I order and command:

"First-All the inhabitants of the country now outside of the line of fortifications of the towns shall within the period of eight days concentrate (Here is the word "concentrate" that will perpetuate itself in chapters of death first in South Africa and then through out the world in the horrors of Nazi Holocaust, the Gulags of Stalin, the Killing fields of Cambodia, and the Sudan etc. It is sadly interesting that the slaughter of the Armenians -of whom Hitler is supposed to have said "who remembers the Armenians" as he planned his own crimes- occupies a large section of this book by Clara Barton) themselves in the town so occupied by the troops. Any individual who after the expiration of this period is found in the uninhabited parts will be considered a rebel and tried as such (that is hung L.D)." (It seems that hanging men and adolescent males found in areas where there was a Mambi Cuban insurgent presence was a standard practice by Spanish troops even before this proclamation. Family tradition maintains that Grandfather Calixto (Garcia-Iñiguez) Enamorado was caught and was about to be hung, when a Spanish Officer seeing that he was so young let him go. This has to be before Weyler was Capitan General, since Grandfather was among Maceo's troops who defeated and nearly killed Martínez Campos the previous "Capitán General" at the battle of Peralejo. For reference on this battle (July 13 th 1895) from a Spanish point of view see Severo Gómez Nuñez "La Acción de Peralejo" Published by Lit. & Imp. de Ruis, Amistad 410 Havana ? August 10, 1895. A winners first hand version of the battle can be found in José Miro Argenter "Cronicas de la Guerra" reprinted by Editorial Letras Cubanas,. Havana 1981,)

The other three sections forbid the transportation of provisions from one town to another without permission of the military authority, direct the owners of cattle to bring them into the towns, prescribe that the eight days shall be counted from the publication of the proclamation to the head town of the municipal districts, and state that if news is furnished of the enemy which can be made use of it will serve as a " recommendation."

Many doubtless did not learn of this order. Others failed to grasp Its terrible meaning. Its execution was left largely to the guerillas (Not the Cuban Mambi but Spanish Government irregular troops L.D.) to drive in all that had not obeyed, and I was informed that in many cases a torch was applied to their homes with no notice, and the inmates fled with such clothing as they might have on, their stock and their belongings being appropriated by the guerillas.(In Grandfather's book "Persecucion" Calixto Enamorado La Ramba Press Havana 1917) states that many of the guerillas were common criminals recruited from the jails by the Spanish administration L.D.)

When they reached the town they were allowed to build huts of palm leaves in the suburbs and vacant places within the trochas, and were left to live if they could. Their huts (from the illustrations these are much degraded froms of the Taino Bohios which other wise than this instance can be a relatively comfortable dwellings L.D,) are about ten by fifteen feet in size; and for want of space are usually crowded together very closely. They have no floor but the ground, and no furniture, and after a year's wear but little clothing, except such stray substitutes as they can extemporize.

With large families or with more than one in this little space, the commonest sanitary provisions are impossible. Conditions are unmentionable in this respect.

Torn from their homes, with foul earth, foul air, foul water and foul food, or none, what wonder that one-half have died and that one-quarter of the living are so diseased that they cannot be saved. A form of dropsy is a common disorder resulting from these conditions. Little children are still walking about with arms and chests terribly emaciated, eyes swollen and abdomen bloated to three times the natural size. The physicians say these cases are hopeless.

Deaths in the streets have not been uncommon. I was told by one of our consuls that people have been found dead about the markets in the morning where they had crawled hoping to get some stray bits of food from the early hucksters, and that there had been cases where they had dropped dead inside the market, surrounded by food.

(US Military reports state that in late 1898 Havana even after the Spanish were defeated at Santiago, reconcentrados continued to die ignored by the Spanish until US troops were able to reach them. (from Gen. Ludlow's report sorry reference in bindary) . I would seen that the Spanish had a massive repopulation program in which "loyal" Spanish immigrants were brought in to replace dying Cubans. This circumstance leads less informed authors --e.g. James W. Hammond Jr. Proceedings of the U.S. Naval Institute. August 1998 pp 60-65-- to erroneously confuse recently imported Spanish imigrants with Cubans and greatly over estimate popular support for Spain in Cuba L.D.)

These people were independent and self-supporting before Weyer's order. They are not beggars even now. There are plenty of professional beggars in every town among the regular residents, but these country people, the reconcentrados, have not learned the art. Rarely is a hand held out to you for alms when going among their huts, but the sight of them makes an appeal stronger than words. The hospitals-of these I need not speak; others have described their condition far better than I can.

(The senator continues to emphasis that these horrors are not, as many historians not familiar with Cuban history believe, even today, an exageration (L.D.). It is not within the narrow limits of my vocabulary to portray it. I went to Cuba with a strong conviction that the picture had been overdrawn; that a few cases of starvation and suffering had inspired and stimulated the press correspondents, and that they had given free play to a strong, natural and highly cultivated imagination.

I could not believe that out of a population of one million six hundred thousand, 200,000 had died within these Spanish forts, practically prison walls, within a few months past, from actual starvation and disease caused by insufficient and improper food. (In my opinion, this resulted in yet another destruction of the Taino blood line. This is because these unfortunates were mostly Guajiros many of whom had ancestry going back to the time of the Spanish Conquest of Cuba. At the time of the Spanish Conquest Spanish immigration was almost all male and thus most of those born at that time descended from Taino women L.D.)

(The Senator continues L.D.) My inquiries were entirely outside of sensational sources. They were made by our medical officers, of our consuls, of city alcaldes (mayors), of relief commi-tees, of leading merchants and bankers, physicians and lawyers. Several of my informants were Spanish born, but every time came the answer that the case had not been overstated.

What I saw I cannot tell so that others can see it. It must be seen with one's own eyes to be realized.

The Los Posos Hospital, in Havana, has been recently described by one of my collagues, Senator Gallinger, and I cannot say that his picture was overdrawn, for even his fertile pen could not do more. He visited it after Dr. Lesser, one of Miss Barton's very able and efficient assistants, had renovated it and put in cots. I saw it when 400 women and children were lying on the stone floors in an indescribable state of emaciation and disease, many with the scantiest covering of rags, and such rags ! and sick children, naked as they came into the world. And the conditions in the other cities are even worse.

Miss Barton and her work need no indorsement from me. I had known and esteemed her for many years, but had not half appreciated her capability and devotion to her work. I especially looked into her business methods, fearing there would be the greatest danger of mistake, that there might be want of system, waste and extravagance, but found she could teach me on these points.

In short, I saw nothing to criticize, but everything to commend, The American people may be assured that the bounty will reach the sufferers with the least possible cost and in the best manner, in every respect.

And if our people could see a small fraction of the need, they would pour more "freely from their liberal store" than ever before for any cause.

When will the need for this help end? Not until peace comes and the reconcentrados can go back to their country, rebuild their homes, reclaim their tillage plots, which quickly run up to brush in that wonderful soil and clime, and until they can be free from danger of molestation in so doing.

Until then the American people must, in the meantime, care for them. It is true that the alcaldes, other authorities and relief committees are now trying to do something, and desire, I believe, to do the best they can. But the problem is beyond their means and capacity and the work is one to which they are not accustomed.

General Blanco's (General Blanco replaced Weyler after the worldwide outcry forced the Spanish Government to replace the "Butcher" as Weyler was called L.D) order of November 13 last somewhat modifies the Weyler order, but it is of little or no practical benefit. Its application is limited to farms "properly defended," and the owners are obliged to build "centres of defense."

END

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