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Origin and Conduct of Cuban Wars: Cespedes

The standard of revolt was at length raised by Carlos Manuel de Cespedes, on his estate of Demajagua, at a short distance from the town of Yara, in the eastern department. Cespedes was known as an able lawyer and wealthy planter, and he was not slow in attracting to himself a respectable following. At first he found himself at the head of but a small number of patriots, and all his more trustworthy slaves, the latter of whom he liberated on the spot. He was soon joined by his friend, Aguilera, and the two then decided that they would never abandon the cause until they had freed the Island from Spanish rule, and rendered it independent. Their army was small and ill-provided; at first it consisted of but 147 men, with but forty-five fowling-pieces, four rifles, a few pistols and the long country knives, or machetes, as their sole armament. In three days the districts of Bayamo, Manzanillo, Jiguani, and Las Tunas joined the insurrection, and Cespedes's army was increased to the number of four thousand men; at the end of the month it numbered over nine thousand. The first steps of Cespedes had been to seize the town of Yara. On the 13th, three days after the outbreak, the insurgents came into collision with the government troops, and got the best of the encounter. On the 15th they prepared to attack Bayamo, an important town of ten thousand inhabitants. On the 18th the town fell into their hands, and Cespedes established in it the revolutionary government. The leaders had published at Manzanillo, with the date of October 10th, a Declaration of Independence, which document runs as follows:

In arming ourselves against the tyrannical government of Spain, we must, according to precedent in all civilized countries, proclaim before the world the cause that impels us to take this step, which, though likely to entail considerable disturbances upon the present, will ensure the happiness of the future.

It is well known that Spain governs the island of Cuba with an iron and blood-stained hand. The former holds the latter deprived of political, civil, and religious liberty. Hence the unfortunate Cubans being illegally prosecuted and sent into exile, or executed by military commissions in time of peace; hence their being kept from public meeting, and forbidden to speak or write on affairs of State: hence their remonstrances against the evils that afflict them being looked upon as the proceedings of rebels, from the fact that they are bound to keep silence and obey; hence the never-ending plague of hungry officials from Spain to devour the product of their industry and labor; hence their exclusion from public stations, and want of opportunity to fit themselves for the art of government; hence the restrictions to which public instruction with them is subjected, in order to keep them so ignorant as not to be able to know and enforce their rights in any shape or form whatever; hence the navy and the standing army, which are kept in their country at an enormous expenditure from their own wealth, to make them bend their knees and submit their necks to the iron yoke that disgraces them; hence the grinding taxation under which they labor, and which would make them all perish in misery but for the marvelous fertility of their soil.