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The Record of Desolation and Despair: Casanova

Pedro Casanova, who has recently related his unhappy experience with Spanish troops, is vouched for as an American citizen and a man well known and educated and respected. The Herald representative in Havana has interviewed him--and it is absolutely reliable--of this I can vouch from direct personal information, and this gruesome story is an example of the blood-thirsty madness that spreads and blights like some contagious disease. Casanova owned at San Miguel de Jaruca, in addition to his residence, buildings and machinery, all belonging to the estate, a large, unfinished structure on a hill, built by Casanova's father and intended for a public school or church. Opposite the railway station was a drug store, which is now closed. Casanova lived at a distance of four city blocks from the station, and the rebels had passed many times without molesting him. This seemed to constitute the grievances of the Spanish troops.

The regiment stationed near-by had won the title of undertakers, on account of their methods, as wherever they passed they left death. This regiment is in command of Major Fondeviela, whose officers say he instructed them that whenever shots were fired from a house their soldiers should kill all the occupants, including men, women and children. They obeyed the order to the letter.

Casanova's family consists of his wife, three children,--the oldest a girl of five, the youngest a babe in arms--and a nephew, Julio Vidal, a young man and a nativeborn American. Casanova's story is as follows: "I have suffered great outrages at the hands of the Spanish soldiers. The soldiers recently passed on the road, and my wife called my attention to the fact that they had broken into a vacant house where valuable property was stored, and were pulling things in pieces. Just then I saw two officers coming toward the house. I was very glad, and went out to meet them, and invited them to enter the house and refresh themselves. They accepted, and said they liked coffee. While they were drinking, one or two soldiers came and spoke to the captain, who asked me, 'Who are the men in the sugar house?' "`My employees,' I replied, `including one engineer. The others are engaged in repairs.' The captain said: "`I hear rebels are hidden there. I must take the men before the major for examination; the major himself will be here to-morrow.' "After he left, I found the door of the house on the hill broken open. A quantity of bottled beer had been taken, also my saddles and bridles, and many other things. Gloves and other articles of woman's apparel were tossed in the yard. I went to the station. The drug store looked as if it had been visited by a mad bull. All the shelves and drawers were thrown out and smashed. An empty store opposite was in the same condition. The counter was thrown down and the door posts hacked by machetes. The large coffee mill was broken, and all was in disorder. An account of this work was what the soldiers had whispered to the captain. The officer had remarked to me with a sneer: 'The insurgents are very kind to you, as no harm has been done here.' "I was surprised on the following Wednesday morning to hear shots as of several volleys of musketry. About three hundred soldiers--infantry and cavalry--were, in fact, outside, having surrounded my house. More soon appeared under command of Captain Cerezo Martinez. In most brutal and vulgar terms he ordered all in the house to go outside. The soldiers rushed in and dragged me out by the coat collar. My wife, with her baby, was taken out, a rifle being pointed at her breast. Eleutrie Zanabria, a negro servant, who was badly frightened, tried to hide. He was pulled to the front, and before my eyes a soldier struck him a heavy blow with his machete, cutting him deep in the head and arm, leaving a pool of blood on the floor. The wound was serious. "An order was then given to take into custody all the men on the estate. Near a tree beyond the hill, one hundred yards from the house, I stopped, about forty paces from the others, to talk to the captain, who had been at the house the week before. At that moment a young negro, Manuel Febels, made a dash to escape. Some cavalrymen rushed after him, firing. He fell, and they mutilated his body, taking out his eyes. The officer, enraged at the negro's flight, pulled out his sabre, and shouted to the others of the party, 'Get down on your knees!' They obeyed, and he had them bound and kept in that position a quarter of an hour. "While I was talking to the captain, my wife and five-year-old child were begging for mercy for me. The cavalrymen helped themselves to corn for their horses, and finally started. The officers told me that my nephew's life and my own were only spared because we were Americans, and they did not want to get into trouble with the United States. They then ordered me to leave San Miguel without waiting a moment. "Their explanation of the raid was that the rebels had fired upon the troops, and that they saw one man run, as he fired, into my house, and that under the major's instructions the whole family should have been killed. My wife and children were in agony while I was away. My employees were all taken away by the troops. Their names are Tomas Linares, Ceriaco Linares, Eleuterie Zanabria, Felex Cardenas, Juan Duarte and Florencio Rodriguez. "An officer of high rank in the Spanish army passed my place after I left, came to me here, and said: 'I know what happened. The man in command is unfit to be an officer of Spain.' I heard that my men had been taken to the Spanish camp, and shot while eating breakfast."

In his report to Consul-General Williams, Casanova says that what was done could only have been conceived in madness or intoxication. In view of the crisis in Cuba and the recent developments of an epidemic of murder there, in which laboring men are shot down on the roads and in the fields of the plantations where they are employed, it seems fit this chapter should close with some leaves from that extraordinary publication, the "Book of Blood," whose statistical horrors are so excessive as to challenge reason; but this unparalleled record is in course of confirmation, and the production of this feature has pertinence.

This book gives a list of martyrs, 4,672 in number, under the head: "The Martyrs of Liberty in Cuba--Political Prisoners Executed Since the Commencement of the War with Cuba." The date of publication was 1873--half way through the ten years' war--and it is chiefly compiled from Spanish authorities. We select four pages as examples, showing the system upon which the book was prepared. The figures at the top of page 323--1,749--are the number of "rebels" accounted for in the former pages. At the bottom of page 327 the figures 2,094 show the aggregate to that point. 1,749 27 Siguanea. Capt. Alejo Cantero, Capt. Felix Yurubide and thirteen more 15 D 6 Dec. 28 Pto. Principe. Cristobal Mendoza 1 D 8 Dec. 29 Hatico. Com. Manuel Torres, Pref. Emilio Tellez, Subpref. Macias, and some other officers 8 D 11 Dec.