The history of Cuba was from this time on, until rebellion finally flamed into the war in which, with the aid of the United States, she gained her independence, one of petty persecutions, and retaliation by continuous uprisings, small in character but indicative of the smouldering fire. These were frequently aided by filibustering expeditions sent by the Cuban Junta in New York. In 1885 a revolt took place in the provinces of Santa Clara and Santiago, always the hotbed of rebellion. The rebellion was quickly suppressed, but its leaders, and a large number of other Cubans, who were merely under suspicion of complicity, were executed without trial. One of the leaders, General Vidal, was banished from Cuba, but, when he was about to leave for Jamaica, under an arrangement made with the Spanish authorities, he was brutally murdered by hired assassins. Meanwhile the administration of justice in Cuba would have been almost ludicrous if it had not been tragic. The Spaniards openly practiced the most egregious frauds at the polls, and by all the chicanery known to corrupt politics kept the Creoles from the participation in the government which Spain had so glibly promised them. One of the interesting methods to prevent the voting of the poor in Cuba was the prohibition under a law passed on December 12, 1892, of bona fide citizens from exercising the right of suffrage unless they paid the sum of five dollars in taxes. This law applied to black and white alike, and was prohibitive so far as the greater number of the former were concerned. Meanwhile those Cubans who desired better things for their children than the nightmare in which they themselves lived were eager for education for their families, but for the most part education was a privilege which belonged only to the wealthy. It was not until 1883 that there existed schools of learning similar to high schools. It was not Spain's game to educate the masses, for if an autocracy is to survive, too much learning is a dangerous thing to be allowed to spread among the common people. In 1887 the Spanish authorities decided, justly, that the treasury of Spain was being deprived of revenues by the evasion of taxes, and that this was being done by the connivance of the custom house officials. The Governor-General therefore ordered the seizure of the custom house by Spanish troops, and the wharfs and warehouses were placed under heavy guard. After an investigation had been started a number of merchants whose business was importing confessed that they had been doing business in a way which deprived the government of certain revenues and asked permission to change their entries. They were granted three days to do this. The result was an enormous increase in revenue from the custom house. The Governor-General proceeded from that time forth to keep a strict watch on custom house matters, with the result that evasions of the law were the exception.