Part 67 (1/2)
The natural consequence was that a rush set in for the Klondike, which is the name of a tributary of the Yukon, and flows through the richest gold fields, where the mining days of early California were repeated.
Dawson City was founded at the mouth of the Klondike, and in a short time had a population of 5,000. Before the year closed, 500 claims were located, with more taken up daily. As was inevitable, there was much suffering, for the Yukon is closed by ice during the greater part of the year, and the winter climate is of Arctic severity. The most productive fields were found to be not in Alaska, but in the British provinces known as the Northwest Territories. While many gathered fortunes in the Klondike, the majority, after great hards.h.i.+ps and suffering, returned to their homes poorer than when they left them.
[Ill.u.s.tration: READY FOR THE TRAIL.]
SPAIN'S MISRULE IN CUBA.
The administration of McKinley occupies a prominent place in American history because of our brief and decisive war with Spain. A full account is given in the pages that follow, but it is proper in this chapter to set forth some historical facts, that will serve to clear the way to a proper understanding of the story of the war itself.
Spain may best ill.u.s.trate the certain decline of the Latin race and the rise of the Anglo-Saxon. When America was discovered, she was the leading maritime power of the world, but she was corrupt, rapacious, ferocious, and totally devoid of what is best expressed by the term ”common sense.” So lacking indeed was she in this prime requisite that she alienated, when it was just as easy to attract, the weaker nations and colonies with which she came in contact. It has been shown in the earlier chapters of this work that when her exploring expeditions into the interior of America were obliged to depend for their own existence upon the good-will of the natives, and when they could readily gain and retain that good-will, they roused the hatred of the simple-minded natives by their frightful cruelties. The chief amus.e.m.e.nt of the early Spaniards was killing Indians. They did it from the innate brutality of their nature, when they could have gained tenfold more by justice and kindness.
The treatment of those poor people was precisely what on a larger scale has been shown to her colonies. England wins and holds her dependencies through her liberality and justice; Spain repels hers through her treachery, falsehoods, and injustice. As a consequence, England has become one of the mightiest nations in the world, while Spain has steadily declined to a fourth-rate power. With the example of the results of her idiocy, to say nothing of its dishonor, ever before her, she has persisted in that idiocy, never learning from experience, but always selfish, short-sighted, cruel, treacherous, and unjust.
The steadiness with which Cuba clung to the mother country won for her the t.i.tle of the ”Ever Faithful Isle.” Had she received any consideration at all, she still would have held fast. She poured princely revenues into the lap of Spain; when other colonies revolted, she refused to be moved. It required long years of outrage, robbery, and injustice to turn her affection into hate, but Spain persisted until the time came when human nature could stand no more. The crushed worm turned at last.
When Napoleon Bonaparte deposed the Bourbon King, Ferdinand VII., in 1808, and placed his brother Joseph on the throne of Spain, Cuba declared her loyalty to the old dynasty, and the king made many promises of what he would do to prove his grat.i.tude when he should come to his own. This took place five years later, whereupon the king violated every pledge he had made.
The truth gradually worked its way into the Cuban mind that the only thing a Spaniard could be depended upon to do is to violate his most solemn promises. Secret societies began a.s.suming form in the island, whose plotting and aim were to wrest their country from Spain, on the ground of the non-fulfillment of the pledges made by Ferdinand VII. of what he would do when he came to the throne.
Preparations were made for a revolt, whose avowed object was the establishment of a Cuban republic. A certain night in 1823 was fixed upon for a general uprising, but there were traitors in the councils, who notified the authorities, and, before the date named, the leaders were arrested and the revolt quenched ere a blow could be struck.
These severe measures could not quell the spirit of liberty that was abroad. It was not long before the Black Eagle Society was formed. It included many hundred members, had its headquarters in Mexico, and boldly secured recruits in the United States. But again the cause was betrayed by its members, the leaders were arrested and imprisoned, and Spain was secure for a time in the control of the island.
As an ill.u.s.tration of that country's course against suspected citizens, it may be said that in 1844 a rumor spread that large numbers of the slaves on the plantations near Matanzas were making secret preparations to rise and slay their masters. Investigation failed to establish the truth of these charges, but many were put to the torture to compel them to confess, and nearly a hundred were condemned and shot in cold blood.
[Ill.u.s.tration: GENERAL CALIXTO GARCIA.
Hero of three wars for Cuba's freedom. Died of pneumonia in Was.h.i.+ngton, D.C., December, 1898.]
Naturally the affairs of Cuba from its proximity were always of great interest to the United States, and a number of filibustering expeditions landed on the island and aided the Cubans in their futile revolts against Spain. These attempts at their best could only keep the island in a turmoil, and give Spain the pretext for using the most brutal measures of repression.
In 1868 a revolution occurred in Spain itself, and Queen Isabella, one of the worst rulers that sorely accursed country ever had, was driven into exile. Cuba had not forgotten the lesson of the opening of the century, and, instead of proclaiming her loyalty to the deposed dynasty, she seized what promised to be a favorable opportunity for gaining her own independence.
One of the fairest and most impartial publications anywhere is the _Edinburgh Review_, which used the following language in giving the reasons for the Cuban revolt of 1868:
”Spain governs the island of Cuba with an iron and blood-stained hand. The former holds the latter deprived of political, civil, and religious liberties. Hence the unfortunate Cubans being illegally prosecuted and sent into exile, or executed by military commissions, in times of peace; hence their being kept from public meetings, and forbidden to speak or write on affairs of State; hence their remonstrances against the evils that afflicted them being looked upon as the proceedings of rebels, from the fact that they are obliged 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 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 all perish in misery but for the marvelous fertility of their soil.”
The opportunity was a golden one for Spain to win back the affection of Cuba by generosity and justice. What steps did she take to do so?
Although the Cubans were ground to the very dust by taxation, levied in all cases by Spaniards, and not by their own officials, Spain proposed, in 1868, to add to the burden. In October of that year Carlos M. de Cespedes, a lawyer of Bayamo, raised the standard of revolt, placed himself at the head of a handful of patriots, which were soon joined by thousands, and in April, 1869, a republican const.i.tution was adopted, slavery declared abolished, Cespedes was elected president, Francisco Aguilero vice-president, and a legislature was called together.
There never was hope of this insurrection securing the independence of Cuba. The patriots were too few in number, too badly armed and equipped, and not handled so as to be effective. But they caused great suffering and ruin throughout the island. They inst.i.tuted a guerrilla system of warfare, and cost Spain many valuable lives. The wet and rainy seasons came and went, and still the savage fighting continued, until at last the rebels as well as the Spaniards were ready to welcome peace.
Martinez Campos was the Spanish commander, and he promised General Maximo Gomez, leader of the insurgents, that the reforms for which he and his comrades were contending should be granted on condition that they laid down their arms. The pledge was a sacred one, and no doubt Campos meant honestly to keep it. Unfortunately, however, there were higher powers than he behind him. Gomez accepted the promises of a brother soldier, and on February 10, 1878, the treaty of El Zanjon was signed.
This treaty guaranteed representation to the Cubans in the Spanish Cortes, and all who took part in the insurrection were pardoned.
Now the lesson of all this was so plain that the wayfaring man, though a fool, had no excuse for erring. Spain had bitterly learned the temper of the Cubans. She could not fail to see that but one possible way existed for her to retain control of them, and, of course, that was the very way she avoided. The Madrid authorities thought they did a wise thing when they secured control of the polls, and made sure that the delegates elected were their own. Schools, sewerage, roads, everything that could help the island were neglected and taxation increased. The reforms promised to the insurgents upon condition of laying down their arms proved a delusion and a snare. Thus the ”captain-general” had his name changed to ”governor-general,” but his tyrannical powers remained the same as before. The right of banishment was formally repealed, but the outrages continued under another law that was equally effective, and so on to the end of the chapter. Once again the Cubans had been fooled by trusting to Spanish honor. They resolved that as soon as arrangements could be effected, they would set another insurrection on foot, which would be fought out to the death or until independence was secured.
[Ill.u.s.tration: GENERAL MAXIMO GOMEZ.
_The Was.h.i.+ngton of Cuba_ is the t.i.tle applied to this hero, who, as Commander-in-Chief of the patriot army, made Cuban liberty possible.]