f troops first to one spot and
then to another in pursuit of enemies accustomed to guerrilla tactics,
determined to stamp it out province by province. To this end he planted
his army firmly in one particular area, prohibited the planting or
harvesting of crops there, and ordered the inhabitants to assemble in
camps which they were not permitted to leave on any pretext whatever.
This was his policy of "reconcentration." Deficient food supply, lack of
sanitary precautions, and absence of moral safeguards made conditions
of life in these camps appalling. Death was a welcome relief.
Reconcentration, combined with executions and deportations, could have
but one result--the "pacification" of Cuba by converting it into a
desert.

Not in the United States alone but in Spain itself the story of these
drastic measures kindled popular indignation to such an extent that, in
1897, the Government was forced to recall the ferocious Weyler and
to send over a new Governor and Captain General, with instructions to
abandon the worst features of his predecessor's policy and to establish
a complete system of autonomy in both Cuba and Porto Rico. Feeling
assured, however, that an ally was at hand who would soon make
their independence certain, the Cuban patriots flatly rejected these
overtures. In their expectations they were not mistaken. By its armed
intervention, in the following year the United States acquired Porto
Rico for itself and compelled Spain to withdraw from Cuba. *

* See "The Path of Empire", by Carl Russell Fish (in "The
Chronicles of America").

The island then became a republic, subject only to such limitations on
its freedom of action as its big guardian might see fit to impose. Not
only was Cuba placed under American rule from 1899 to 1902, but it had
to insert in the Constitution of 1901 certain clauses that could not
fail to be galling to Cuban pride. Among them two were of special
significance. One imposed limitations on the financial powers of the
Government of the new nation, and the other authorized the United
States, at its discretion, to intervene in Cuban affairs for the purpose
of maintaining public order. The Cubans, it would seem, had exchanged a
dependence on Spain for a restricted independence measured by the will
of a country infinitely stronger.

Cuba began its life as a republic in 1902, under a government for which
a form both unitary and federal had been provided. Tomas Estrada Palma,
th