The beginning of the end of the Spanish Spanish Empire in America began after 1825, Spain saw its American possessions reduced to Cuba and Puerto Rico. And although the metropolis made an effort to maintain colonial ties, one would have to ask to what extent it benefited from its colonies. The greatest benefits were obtained by a small group of peninsulars with interests in colonial business and trafficking, together with the large island planters. , since the cost of maintaining the Empire was high. In the second half of the 19th century, the picture of Cuba's and Puerto Rico's trading partners and trade flows had cleared. The importance of the North American market was growing and the American acquisitions of sugar surpassed the peninsular ones. In 1850, Cuba exported 7 million pesos to Spain and 28 million to the United States. In 1890 the situation decided definitively in favor of trade with the United States, where 61 million pesos were sold, against the 7 sold in Spain. North American interests were consolidated in the Cuban economy, while the independence insurrections were seen as a destabilizing factor that threatened investments.
First Insurrections
In 1868 the Ten Years' War began, a serious attempt at emancipation, taking advantage of the bewilderment of the revolution that had broken out in Spain. The war reduced sugar production and the number of mills, but the military weakness of the insurgents and the lack of popular support prevented them from imposing themselves on the Spanish army. The Peace of Zanjón in February 1878, put an end to the war, but there was a lack of imagination and there were plenty of interests to solve the colonial problem and to refound relations between Spaniards and Cubans on a renewed coexistence. Cuban historians interpret the agreement as the beginning of a new era that allowed them to enjoy the formal liberties of a rule of law, freedom of expression, the possibility of forming political parties and the election of city councils and provincial councils. After the peace, some insurrections broke out that did not threaten the stability of the system and between 1878 and 1895 Cuba enjoyed enough freedoms for the colonial relationship to subsist. Under the Peace of Zanjón, the Autonomist Party and the Constitutional Union Party emerged. The failure of the autonomists turned José Martí's Cuban Revolutionary Party into the engine of the rebellion and the one in charge of bringing together the supporters of emancipation. Faced with the Cuban model of confrontation with the metropolis, the Puerto Rican landowners, wishing to obtain autonomy, preferred the moderate path of political pressure on the colonial and metropolitan authorities.
Second War of Independence
The Grito de Baire, on February 24, 1895, started the Second War of Independence . The sugar crisis of 1884 and widespread discontent on the island broadened the social base of the emancipation movement, unlike the Ten Years' War. With popular support and having solved the problem of leadership, the war advanced under the leadership of Generals Antonio Maceo and Máximo Gómez and José Martí. Despite the efforts of Governor General Arsenio Martínez Campos, the rebellion spread and the eastern part of Cuba fell into the hands of the rebels. In ten months the insurrection spread throughout the colony and the Madrid government set out to put an end to it. By the end of 1896 the Spanish army under the command of General Valeriano Weyler had increased to 200,000 men and although the repression hardened, the course of the war could not be reversed. The Spanish policy of scorched earth caused heavy losses among the rebels, but also among the Spanish who had more than 62,000 dead. The United States government, which was ambitious to acquire the island, feared a social revolution that would affect its investors and he was suspicious of the pacifying capacity of the Spanish government. Martí had condemned the annexationist ambitions of the United States, but his death in 1896 prevented him from consolidating his leadership in the independence movement.
Declaration of War by the United States against Spain
The return of the Liberals to power in Madrid allowed, in January 1898, an autonomous government in Havana. The reversal of metropolitan politics led to a new conflict at a time of uncertainty, aggravated by the rejection of the most radical of the Spanish peacemaking proposal. On those same dates, the United States government sent the cruise ship Maine to Havana to protect US interests. On February 15, in a confusing accident, the cruise ship burned and was the pretext for the United States to declare war on Spain and intervened in Cuba, Puerto Rico and the Philippines where it imposed its military superiority, as shown by the naval clashes in Santiago de Cuba and Cavite. Finally Spain lost Cuba and Puerto Rico in the Caribbean and the Philippines and Guam in the Pacific . In Latin America, the events of 1898 were a wake-up call for many intellectuals, concerned about the power of the United States and its harmful effects on the rest of the continent. From Mexico to the Southern Cone, the dangers of North American imperialism and expansionism were warned, although the governments and their diplomacies adopted more cautious positions,
like Argentina, which quickly declared its neutrality in the conflict.
ConsequencesofWar
After the War of 1898, the paths of Cuba and Puerto Rico separated, according to the positions of their dominant groups against independence. The Treaty of Paris made Puerto Rico a North American possession, but the 1898 invasion not only changed the metropolis, but also the economic relations with the rulers. From being under the control of a protectionist metropolis at the end of the 19th century, they passed, at the beginning of the 20th century, into the hands of a great capitalist power, with an open economy and in frank expansion. In Cuba, the political scheme had become complicated, since the economic, military and political domination of the United States was added to the confrontation between the local political parties. The Liberals had supported emancipation, while the Conservatives had been in favor of imperial attachment. The 1900 Constitution, passed by a Liberal-dominated convention, included universal suffrage and minority representation in Parliament.
Cuba's situation
Between January 1, 1899 and May 1902, Cuba had a military administration, which did not please the independence fighters, who saw the United States as a new colonial power. The first president was Tomás Estrada Palma, a moderate Liberal supported by a broad coalition of Liberals and Conservatives. The Platt Amendment, approved by the US Congress in February 1901, and incorporated by US pressure into the constitutional text, granted the United States the possibility of intervening on the island when it deemed it appropriate to protect freedom, individual property and interests. Americans. Starting in 1903, Cuba leased the Guantánamo area to the United States for $200 a year, which is still used today as a naval base. One consequence of the guarantees granted by the Platt amendment to North American capital was the increase in its investments in Cuba, which came to be almost a quarter of North American investments in Latin America and that in 1896 totaled 50 million dollars, 220 in 1913 and 919 million on the eve of the Great Depression, concentrating preferentially on the sugar sector, but also covering other areas, especially in the services sector (commerce, banking, tourism, etc.).
Trade growth
In 1902 a trade agreement was signed between Cuba and the United States, which economically complemented the Platt amendment. The United States reduced customs tariffs by 20% on various Cuban products, including sugar and tobacco, which dominated exports, and Cuba reduced between 20 and 40% tariffs on North American products, preferably manufactures. The growth of Cuban-American trade, which multiplied by five between 1904 and 1928, was a direct consequence of the treaty. Cuban exports accounted for 16.6% of the total sugar consumed in the United States and rose to 28.2% between 1897-1901 and 1932. A more spectacular growth was seen in the production of Puerto Rico, which on the same dates went from 2.1% to 14.7% of the sugar consumed in the United States. The growth of the sugar industry in Puerto Rico was due to strong investments of North American capital, in a very short space of time in land and machinery, becoming a mono-producer of sugar, with the consequent decline in coffee crops (which had known a great expansion in the last two decades of the 19th century) and tobacco.
Puerto Rico Situation
In Puerto Rico, after the division of the Autonomist Party in 1897 and the North American invasion, the political forces were reorganized, which affected the "great Puerto Rican family." Two parties were created:the Federal and the Republican. The Federal represented the interests of the landowners and sought to maintain its social hegemony , while the Republican expressed to the rising urban sectors, who wanted to create a liberal and modern social and political system . For many Puerto Ricans, the 1898 invasion symbolized the arrival of liberalism and modernity after long centuries of colonial domination. Over time, the position against US domination was a factor of political identification and division among Puerto Ricans, who had to choose to remain linked to the United States or continue down the difficult path of independence.