Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 05.djvu/751

* CUBA. (i47 CUBAN LITERATURE. holding South by Buchanan, IMason, and Soul6, United States Ministers to Great Britain, France, and Spain, respectively, claimed the right o£ this country to annex Cuba if Spain refused to sell. Various attempts vere made to secure the independence of the island and the abolition of slavery. The insurrections of 1840- ol, under Lopez (q.v.), and of 1854 failed to ac- complish anything, and were suppressed by the most cruel measures. The rebellion of 18G8-78, however, indiu'ed the Spanish Government to promise llie representation of Cuba in the Cortes by her own deputies, 'and a liberal party was formed to secure the fulfillment of this pledge, to encourage white immigration, and to promote free trade. In 1880 the Spanish Cortes passed an act for the abolition of slavery. The general discon- tent remained, however, and in 1895 led to a new and formidable revolt, to suppress which Spain sent General ^Martinez Campos. The insurgents, under Generals Gomez, Maceo, and Garcia, suc- ceeded in keeping the field in spite of every effort to exterminate them; and became so bold as in February, 189G, to approach so near to Havana that the sound of their firing was heard within the capital. In the same month General Campos was recalled by the home Government, and General Weyler, a soldier reputed to be savage in his measures, succeeded him. The revolutionists were able to maintain the semblance of a government, and their conduct, as well as that of Sjjain, aroused for them much sympathy throughout the United States. Before the close of 1897 General Weyler was recalled and superseded by General Blanco. In the United States the criticism of Spanish methods siuldeiily developed into wide- spread and outspoken hostility to Spain upon the mysterious destruction of the American war-ship Maine in the harljor of Havana on T'ebnuirj' 15, 189S. Dii)lomafic relations became strained, and in April, 1898, owing to the apparent success of the insurrection, and justified by that. President McKinley called the attention of Congress to the situation in such words that Congress, on April 1 9, declared that the people of Cuba were "and of right ought to l)e free and independent." War fol- lowed, and by the treaty of December 10, 1808, Spain relinquished all right and sovereignty over Cuba, and the United States took temporary pos- session of the island and assumed all the interna- tional obligations arising from such occupation. For three years thereafter the affairs of the island were administered exelusivelj' by the War De- partment of the United States, and extensive public improvements were effected. In December, 1901. after the people bad adopted a constitu- tion, a President of the Republic was elected, in the person of Estrada Palma. On ilay 20, 1902, the United States formally withdrew from the is- land, and Governor-General Wood Avas replaced by President Palma. See Spain ; United States ; Spanish-American War. BiBLioGRAPHT. Pocy, Geografia fisica y poli- iica de la. isla de Cuba (Havana, 1858) : Sivers, Cuba. Die Pcrte der Antilleii (Leipzig. 1801): Pezuela, Diccionario geogrdfico, estadlstico y Mstoricf) de la isla de Cuba (Madrid, 180.3-07) ; Landeira, Estvdio sohre la geografia de la isla de Ciiha (Saragossa. 1897) ; laizon, Estndio geo- grrifieo de la isla de Ctiha (Toledo. 1897) ; Cabrera, Cvhn and lite Cubans, trans, by Guiteras, revised and edited by Louis E. Levy ( Philadelphia, 1896) ; Rowan and Ramsay, The Island of Cuba (New York, 1S9C) ; Hill, Cuba and Porto Rico (ib., 1898) : ]Iorris, Our Island Empire (Phila- delpliia, 1899) ; Davcy, Cuba, Past and Present (L(mdon, 1898) ; Clark, Comniereial Cuba (Xew York, 1898) : Porter, Industrial Cuba (ib., 1899) ; Jlatthews, The Xcw-Horn Cuba (ib., 1899) ; Canini, Four Centuries of Spanish Rule in Cuba (Cliicago, 1898); Clark, Cuba and the Fight for Freedom (Philadelphia, 1890); Hal- stead, The Story of Cuba (New York, 1898) ; Pepper, To-Morrow in Cuba (ib., 1899) ; Griffin and Phillips, A List of Books Relating to Cuba (Wasiiington. 1S9S). CUBAN FEVER. See Calentuba. CUBAN LITERATURE. "In Cuba every- body versifies," says the eminent critic Jfenendez y Pelayo. It is certainly true that in her composi- tions in verse Cuba has made her most important contributi(m to literature in the Spanish tongue. The earliest poem known to have been written on the island is the Espejo de paciencia (1008) of Silvestre de Ball)oa, a native of the Canaries, but neither the seventeenth nor the first half of the eighteenth century produced any Cuban poet of great merit. Mention may, however, bo made of the names of Jose SurlyAguila ( 1696-1702). who wrote some religious loas; Mariano JosC- de /Uva and Lorenzo JIartfnez de Avileira, authors of glosas and coplas; an imknown poetess of Havana, who indited a little poem on the English invasion of 1762; and the cleric Diego de Campos, wlio commemorated the same event in his cU'eimas. To another cleric of the eighteenth century. Fray Jose Rodriguez (Capaeho), who likewise wrote deeimus on various subjects, has been attributed the earliest dramatic work com- posed in Cuiia, El prineipe jardincro y fingido Cloridano, but the bibliophile Barrera as^iibes the play to one Santiago de Pita. The University of Havana was established in 1721, and at an early date in the century the first printing- press was set up. In 1790 the first newsjjaper. El papel periodico, made its appearance, and had among its most active collaboi-ators such men of force as the teacher of philosophy Jose Agustfn Caballero, the physician Tonuls Romay, and, above all, the poet ilanuel de Zequeira. Quite a number of epigrams are due to the pen of Manuel del Socarro Rodriguez, a journalist who founded several papers elsewhere in S])anish .'Vmerica. The epic was attempted with little success by Count Colombini in his (Jlorias de la Habana. All thus far produced was rather verse than poetiy; the first real poets of Cuba are Manuel de" Zequeira (1700-1840) and ]Manuel Justo de Rubaleava (1709-1805). Zequeira, per- haps the most attractive Cuban poet anterior to Heredia, echoed in the colonies the note of patri- otic fervor called forth in Spain by the stirring events of 1808: in the heroic strains of his liatalla naval de Cortes, of his Dos de Mayo, and his Primer sitio de /jaragoM, he is as much a Spaniard as Quintana and Gallego in their heroic odes (cf. his Poesias, New York, 1829). Rubal- eava, who was bucolic in temperament, trans- lated the Eelogues of Vergil, and composed some original idyls and descriptive poems (cf. the Poe- sias de M. J. Rubaleava, Santiago de Cuba, 1848). But lowering above the countless poetasters of the tinu the greatest of all the poets that Cuba has yet produced was Jose Maria de Heredia (1803-:i9). A patriotic poet, who was exiled from Cuba because of his opposition to Spanish