Cuba, Old and NewRobinson, Albert G. (Albert Gardner)
History
Cuba, Old and New
Robinson, Albert G. (Albert Gardner)
Cuba
suffered from oppressive and restrictive trade laws and from burdensome
taxation, from subordination of their interests to the interests of the
people of a mother-country three thousand miles away. Unfortunately for the
Cubans, Spain was better able to enforce its exactions than England
was. Cuba's area was limited, its available harbors few in number, its
population small.
Not until the years immediately preceding the revolutions by which the
United States and Cuba secured their independence, was there any general
demand for definite separation from the mother-country. The desire in both
was a fuller measure of economic and commercial opportunity. One striking
parallel may be noted. The Tories, or "loyalists," in this country have
their counterpart in the Cuban _Autonomistas_. Referring to conditions in
1763, Mr. Channing states that "never had the colonists felt a greater
pride in their connection with the British empire." Among the great figures
of the pre-revolutionary period in this country, none stands out more
clearly than James Otis, of Boston, and Patrick Henry, of Virginia. In an
impassioned address, in 1763, Otis declared that "every British subject in
America is of common right, by acts of Parliament, and by the laws of God
and nature, entitled to all the essential privileges of Britons. What God
in his Providence has united let no man dare attempt to pull asunder."
Thirteen years later, the sundering blow was struck. Patrick Henry's
resolutions submitted to the Virginia House of Burgesses, in 1765, set
that colony afire, but at that time neither he nor his associates desired
separation and independence if their natural rights were recognized. It was
not until the revolution of 1895 that the independence of Cuba became a
national demand, a movement based on realization of the hopelessness of
further dependence upon Spain for the desired economic and fiscal relief.
As in the American colonies there appeared, from time to time, individuals
or isolated groups who demanded drastic action on the part of the
colonists, so were there Cubans who, from time to time, appeared with
similar demands. Nathaniel Bacon headed a formidable revolution in Virginia
in 1676. Massachusetts rebelled against Andros and Dudley in 1689. From the
passage of the Navigation Acts, in the middle of the 17th Century, until
the culmination in 1775, there was an undercurrent of friction and a
succession of protests. The Cuban condition was quite the same excepting
the fact of burdens more grievous and more frequent open outbreaks.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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