The History of Cuba, vol. 4Johnson, Willis Fletcher
History
The History of Cuba, vol. 4
Johnson, Willis Fletcher
Cuba -- Economic conditions; Cuba -- History
were transferred to the Cuban Government, they comprised 15 bodies,
numbering 1,605 officers and men, stationed at 247 different posts.
Meantime American occupation and administration were established
throughout the island. Immediately upon the transfer of sovereignty on
January 1, 1899, John R. Brooke, Major General commanding the Division
of Cuba, and Military Governor, issued a proclamation to the people of
the island. He told them that he came as the representative of the
President, to give protection to the people and security to persons and
property, to restore confidence, to build up waste plantations, to
resume commercial traffic, and to afford full protection in the exercise
of all civil and religious rights. To the attainment of those ends, all
the efforts of the United States would be directed, in the interest and
for the benefit of all the people of Cuba. The legal codes of the
Spanish sovereignty were to be retained in force, with such changes and
modifications as might from time to time be found necessary in the
interest of good government. The people of Cuba, without regard to
previous affiliations, were invited and urged to cooperate in these
objects by the exercise of moderation, conciliation and good-will toward
one another.
The island was divided for administrative purposes into seven
departments, corresponding with the provinces and with the city of
Havana forming the seventh. The commanders of these departments, under
General Brooke, were: Havana City, Gen. William Ludlow; Havana Province,
Gen. Fitzhugh Lee; Pinar del Rio, Gen. George W. Davis; Matanzas, Gen.
James H. Wilson; Santa Clara, Gen. John C. Bates; Camaguey, Gen. L. H.
Carpenter; Oriente, Gen. Leonard Wood. A civil government was organized
on January 12, by the appointment of the following Cubans as Ministers
of State: Secretary of the Department of State and Government, Domingo
Mendez Capote; Secretary of Finance, Pablo Desvernine; Secretary of
Justice and Public Instruction, Jose Antonio Gonzalez Lanuza; Secretary
of Agriculture, Commerce, Industries and Public Works, Adolfo Saenz
Yanez. Later in the spring of that year the provinces of Havana and
Pinar del Rio were united in one department, as were Matanzas and Santa
Clara, and Camaguey and Oriente.
[Illustration: GONZALEZ LANUZA
A distinguished jurist, penologist, and man of letters, Gonzalez Lanuza,
was born in Havana on July 17, 1865. He rose to eminence at the bar and
on the bench, became professor of penal law in the University of Havana,
and was the author of several important works on jurisprudence. He was
an agent of the revolution in Havana in 1895, and Secretary of the Cuban
Delegation in New York. During General Brooke's Governorship he was
Secretary of Justice and Public Instruction, and during President
Menocal's first term was Speaker of the House of Representatives. He was
a delegate to the Pan-American Congress at Rio de Janeiro in 1906.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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