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The Record of Desolation and Despair: Spaniards

It will be observed here that the Spaniards and Cubans alike are frightened by the imminent danger of famine, and it is certain to come along with pestilence, if war is the sole occupation of the people. It is a horrible condition of things just at the beginning of the rainy and sickly season. Such is the terror the torch has spread, and the desertion of all productive occupations, that there is no hope in the future, so far as human eyes can penetrate the gloom. Both sides are burning houses, the Spanish are killing horses to deprive the rebels of transportation, and the rebels are killing the domestic animals to get meat, and are ravaging the fields for potatoes and stripping the trees of fruit. There is no safety for any one on the road, and no assurance, if any care to attempt raising corn or garden produce, that he or she who sows or hoes shall reap. The rebels burn the cane and tobacco, and there will be no crops this year at all, and the meaning of this is no money to buy anything with. The fields are to yield weeds, the domestic animals of all kinds are in course of massacre. The Spaniards have ordered the people to the towns, and soon will have multitudes they cannot feed; indeed, there are now many haggard with want. The destruction of houses by Spaniards is to force the rebels, by annihilating shelter, to sleep on the ground, which cannot be endured in the rainy season. The Spanish and Cuban armies are simply engaged in thorough work destroying all the improvement of many generations on the Island and all resources for the production of food. Already there is most dreadful destitution, and the result threatens to be the extermination of the people following their total impoverishment.