On October 10, 1868, the first war for independence began in Cuba, before which we can ask ourselves different questions, such as why on October 10? What factors determined that start of the war in Cuba? Who was at the forefront of that movement? Why did Martí always refer to that event as a revolution? What symbolic value does that date have? These and many other questions can generate the commemoration on October 10 for Cubans.
Since before that specific day, there were signs of rejection of Spanish colonial rule, as evidence of a process of nationality formation, of the Cuban who felt different from the Spanish, with his own culture, his own being and, therefore, with the right to have their own national representation, the right to recognition of what is Cuban, in addition to the conflicts caused by the Spanish colonial policy. That was part of a long process of formation of the Cuban, as well as the existence of different interests and, in general, contradictory with those of the metropolis.
The appearance, in the fifties of the nineteenth century, of posters with signs of "Spain Dies" and in the sixties the portrait of the queen stabbed and the map of Spain in the figure of a donkey, in the then Royal and Literary University of Havana was an expression of the environment that was being structured, which had greater significance in the groups that began to conspire with independence purposes in different regions and spaces, with greater force in the center-east of the Island in those sixties. Soon they would begin the search for contacts that would make it possible to articulate possible actions.
When that process was developing inside Cuba, a favorable context was being formed for the movement in formation. Republican ideas spread in Spain and, most importantly, the September or Glorious Revolution broke out in 1868, with its effects of instability, which would lead to the proclamation of the First Republic in 1873. Important events also took place on the American continent : On September 23, the Grito de Lares took place in Puerto Rico for independence; the liberal reforms were developed in many of the Latin American republics, with their multiple contradictions but whose ideas circulated through the area permeating its environment; In this area, the rejection of Spain for its attempts to reconquer the former colonies spread; while in the Anglo-Saxon North the so-called War of Secession was taking place and the triumph of the northern forces, which meant the abolition of slavery, at the time that in 1868 the elections were being prepared where the sure winner was Ulysses Grant, who had fought alongside Abraham Lincoln and, therefore, had criticized the Spanish attitude of supporting the southerners in that conflict, which led to the expectation of a favorable attitude towards the Cuban struggle against the Hispanic metropolis, although the opposite happened later.
In other international aspects, the concentration of European attention on colonial distribution and zones of influence in the world, where the African continent entered, was also positive for a dispute in Cuba. Undoubtedly, a favorable context was created for the possible Cuban struggle to establish its national state.
On the Island the conspiracy was gaining strength, although with differences within it, determined mainly by regional characteristics and by the composition, to a great extent, of landowners and professionals, who were not part of the powerful western slave-owning bourgeoisie where some nuclei, but without high significance. Among the most relevant groups were those from Bayamo, Manzanillo, Camagüey with names such as Carlos Manuel de Céspedes, Francisco Vicente Aguilera, Pedro (Perucho) Figueredo, Salvador Cisneros Betancourt or Ignacio Agramonte, among others, who would reach high symbolism in national history. The coordination efforts, through the meetings that were held, showed the differences in conception, in which the issue of the date of the uprising reached great weight. In this aspect, the sense of the historical moment would be decisive.
The Manzanillo group, of which Céspedes was a central figure, projected itself in favor of immediacy against those who proposed waiting for the harvest to take place; but finally the date of October 14 was reached, which, as is well known, should have been brought forward due to the danger of arresting those involved; Therefore, on October 10, the pronouncement was made at the Demajagua sugar mill, owned by Carlos Manuel de Céspedes. That was a transcendental moment for the Cuban nation: independence was proclaimed and, in a very symbolic gesture, the person who emerged as leader granted freedom to his slaves and called them to fight for the homeland.
A process then began, in a society that had yet to mature in terms of its national sense, that had strong social problems and that needed to adapt its structures to the methods and forms of its time. In the collective memory, October 10 was mistakenly identified with Yara, since the action in that place was on the 11th, but it transcended in the imaginary as the beginning, with what in any case was meant as a fundamental date for the nation.
José Martí, then a teenager, greeted that beginning with the poem “October 10!” where he reflected the feeling that that fact generated in a good part of Cubans. He began by exclaiming:
It's not a dream, it's true: battle cry
The Cuban people launches, enraged;
The town that three centuries has suffered
How much black oppression contains.
And it ended:
Thank God that at last with integrity
Cuba breaks the noose that oppressed it
And proud and free raises its head!
From the beginning, who would be the Apostle of the Cubans reflected the great value that gesture had for Cuba that, thus, managed to raise its head; but he appreciated it much more as time passed and that contest that lasted ten years developed, although its initial objectives were not achieved. Certainly, in the course of that process there were contradictions within the independence forces that weakened their possibilities; and that led to the deposition of the Father of the Nation as president, which was the starting point for certain instability in that position, in addition to not filling the position of general in chief after the removal of Manuel de Quesada in 1869.The structure that was created with the Constitution of Guáimaro provoked major conflicts between the Assembly of Representatives and the executive power and the military command, due to different conceptions that Martí summed up when he said of Céspedes: “He had a quick, unique end: independence Of the homeland. The Chamber had another: what will the country be after independence. They were both right; but, at the time of the fight, the House had it second.”
Despite these conflicts, the process that was taking place marked important changes in the lives of the Cubans who were in the Mambisa jungle, such as the issue of slavery. Although the Initiator had granted freedom to his slaves, this issue had its moments of advances and setbacks due to the possible attraction of dissimilar forces to the struggle for independence. In the Constitution approved in Guáimaro, the freedom of all the inhabitants of Cuba was affirmed, which was a capital declaration; but its application was not immediate until, in December 1870, by means of a Céspedes Circular the abolition was decreed in an act of great radicalism.
The leadership, initially in the hands of the central-eastern landowners, was nurtured by a mass of combatants from the middle classes -urban and rural, which included intellectuals-, from peasants and freed slaves in the war zones, who gradually won spaces and impact within the mambisa ranks. In the mambí army corps, whites, blacks and mulattoes joined in common combat and, despite some discriminatory expressions based on skin color, combatants of the so-called "colored" were promoted based on merit in military performance and exercised command over whites who, in many cases, were professionals or higher up the social ladder. Important changes were produced as an expression of the impact of the revolution on those who inhabited the liberated territories, which Martí described, based on new forms of life and action in the areas where the conflict was taking place, where there were also virtues and defects and those years within their own laws “which, in their imperfect form and in their incomplete application, nevertheless hit the ground with everything that existed, and awakened in a large part of the Island hobbies, beliefs, feelings, rights and habits for the region absolutely unknown Westerners.”
After almost ten years of combat, for internal and external reasons, including the weakening of the fighting forces due to differences, seditions and other expressions that destroyed the necessary unity, the signing of peace was reached, in the so-called Zanjón Pact, which Martí evaluated by saying that they had dropped the sword, "tired of the first effort, those least in need of justice." That ending was not accepted by all, because in the Villareña area the combat continued until April 1879, in the so-called Jarao Protest, when they temporarily laid down their arms, while in the East the very symbolic Protest took place on March 15, 1878. of Baraguá led by Antonio Maceo, who claimed the two great objectives of the revolution: independence and the abolition of slavery.
It was not possible to maintain the combat at that time, but the impact of that contest could no longer be erased; As has been affirmed by many, it was the crucible where the Cuban nation was founded.
October 10, therefore, was the beginning of a historical event of great value and symbolism for Cubans, which also provided fundamental experiences for subsequent struggles. As Martí stated on January 25, 1880, when analyzing the causes of the end of that contest with a view to overcoming them for new projects, "Time will no longer be wasted in rehearsing: it will be used in winning." From the knowledge of the mistakes, “The shore in which it failed, is avoided. For the steeds, there is new grass. For its riders, new fruits. The dangers are already known, and they are disdained or avoided. You can see the obstacles coming. Our miseries are already bearing fruit, because mistakes are a very useful seed.”
October 10, 1868 was, therefore, the crucial moment in which, at last, “Cuba broke the noose that oppressed her” and proudly and freely raised her head, beginning an extraordinary revolutionary process that would continue in later years. , as stated in the Montecristi Manifesto: "The independence revolution, started in Yara after glorious and bloody preparation, has entered a new period of war in Cuba, (...)."