Virginius Affair
The Spanish Butchery
Harper's Weekly 1873 |
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| Date | October 30, 1873- February 7, 1875 |
|---|---|
| Location | Santiago |
| Also known as | The Virginius Incident |
| Participants | United States, Spain, Britain |
| Outcome | Negotiated peace. |
| Deaths | 53 |
| Website | The "Virginius Incident" |
The Virginius Affair (sometimes called the Virginius Incident) was a diplomatic dispute that occurred from October 1873 to February 1875 between the United States, the United Kingdom, and Spain (then in control of Cuba), during the Ten Years' War. Virginius was a fast American ship hired by Cuban insurrectionists to land men and munitions in Cuba to attack the Spanish regime there. It was captured by the Spanish, who wanted to try the men onboard (many of whom were American and British citizens) as pirates and execute them. The Spanish executed 53 of the men but stopped when the British government demanded it. Throughout the ordeal there was loose talk that the U.S. might declare war on Spain. During the lengthy negotiations the Spanish government had undergone several changes in leadership. US consul Caleb Cushing ended the episode by negotiating $80,000 in reparations to be paid to the families of the Americans who were executed. British families were compensated by the Spanish government through negotiation prior to American compensation. The incident was remarkable for the use of international diplomacy for a peaceful settlement implemented by US Secretary of State Hamilton Fish, rather than opting for a costly war between the United States and Spain. The Virginius Affair started a resurgence in the US Navy following the American Civil War; its fleet had been heretofore inferior to the superior warships of Spain.
After the American Civil War, the island country of Cuba under Spanish rule was one of only a few Western Hemisphere countries where the institution of slavery remained legal and was widely practiced. On October 10, 1868 a revolution broke out, known as the Ten Years' War, by Cuban landowners led by Carlos Manual Céspedes. The Spanish, led initially by Francisco Lersundi, used the military to suppress the rebellion. In 1870, Secretary of State Hamilton Fish persuaded President Grant not to recognize Cuban belligerency and the United States maintained an unstable peace with Spain. As the Cuban war continued, international patriotic insurgency began to arise in support of the Cuban rebellion, and war bonds were sold in the U.S. to support the Cuban resistance. One of the U.S. Cuban patriots was John F. Patterson who bought a former Confederate steamer Virgin at the Washington Navy Yard, renaming her Virginius. The legality of Patterson's purchase of Virginius would later come to national and international attention. The Cuban rebellion finally ended in an 1878 armistice after Spanish general Arsenio Martínez-Campos pardoned all Cuban rebels.
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