Independence of Cuba

Cuban War of Independence
An estimated 200,000 Cubans died in Spanish concentration camps.
Date February 24, 1895–February 15, 1898 (2 years, 11 months, 3 weeks and 1 day) Location Cuba (Caribbean) Result Cuban victory American Intervention; Expulsion of the Spanish colonial government during Spanish–American War (1898). Treaty of Paris United States Military Government in Cuba Cuban independence
Belligerents
Spain Spanish Cuba Spanish Philippines	Cuba United States
Commanders and leaders
Arsenio Linares Manuel Macías Ramón Blanco Valeriano Weyler Patricio Montojo Pascual Cervera	Máximo Gómez Calixto García José Martí † Antonio Maceo † Nelson A. Miles William Shafter George Dewey William T. Sampson
Strength
196,000	53,774 rebels 28,000–60,000 US regulars and 200,000+ volunteers
Casualties and losses
786 killed in action 8,627 DOW 53,313 dead from disease 900 killed in action (1898)	5,180 Cuban insurgents died in combat 3,437 Cuban insurgents dead from disease 385 US soldiers died in combat 2,061 US soldiers dead from disease
300,000 total Cubans dead (most of them civilian fatalities in the concentration camps)

Cuban victory

Spain

786 killed in action
8,627 DOW
53,313 dead from disease

5,180 Cuban insurgents died in combat
3,437 Cuban insurgents dead from disease

The Cuban War of Independence (Spanish: Guerra de Independencia cubana, 1895–98) was the last of three liberation wars that Cuba fought against Spain, the other two being the Ten Years' War (1868–1878) and the Little War (1879–1880). The final three months of the conflict escalated to become the Spanish–American War, with United States forces being deployed in Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the Philippine Islands against Spain. Historians disagree as to the extent that United States officials were motivated to intervene for humanitarian reasons but agree that yellow journalism exaggerated atrocities attributed to Spanish forces against Cuban civilians.

During the years 1869–1888 of the so-called “Rewarding Truce”, lasting for 17 years from the end of the Ten Years' War in 1878, there were fundamental social changes in Cuban society. With the abolition of slavery in October 1886, freedmen joined the ranks of farmers and the urban working class. The economy could no longer sustain itself with the shift and changes, therefore many wealthy Cubans lost their property, and joined the urban middle class. The number of sugar mills dropped and efficiency increased: only companies, and the most powerful plantation owners, remained in business followed by the Central Board of Artisans in 1879, and many more across the island. After his second deportation to Spain in 1878, José Martí moved to the United States in 1881. There he mobilized the support of the Cuban exile community, especially in Ybor City (Tampa area) and Key West, Florida. His goal was revolution in order to achieve independence from Spain. Martí lobbied against the U.S. annexation of Cuba, which was desired by some politicians in both the U.S. and Cuba.

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