84 100 X THE SECOND YEAR OF OCCUPATION-Continued 157 ΧΙ THE THIRD YEAR OF OCCUPATION XII THE END OF THE INTERVENTION XIII THE CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION XIV THE QUESTION OF "RELATIONS" XV EFFECT OF THE PLATT AMENDMENT ACCEPTANCE OF THE PLATT AMENDMENT. UNIVERSI OF CALIFORNIA CUBA AND THE INTERVENTION CHAPTER I CUBAN DISCONTENT THE Island of Cuba became a Republic as an indirect result of revolt against a system of government which was deemed oppressive, and as a direct result of American intervention in Cuban affairs. It is probable that, without the American intervention, Cuba's revolt of 1895 would have failed as did its predecessors. Contrary to a prevailing belief, Cuba has not been a land of revolutions. Its history offers no parallel with that of Hayti or Santo Domingo, or with that of the Central and South American Republics. Revolts, local in character, have played their part in Cuba's experience, but the history of the Island shows no general or national uprising until that of 1895. The most important and extensive of these revolts was the Ten Years War (1868-1878), entirely an affair of the eastern provinces. The revolt of 1895 was nationalized by what may be called artificial conditions. It is an important fact, though generally overlooked, that repressive economic laws have been in every case the provoking cause of Cuban revolt. Unlike those of her neighbors in Latin America, Cuba's insurrections have never been the outcome of purely political conditions. Nor have they ever been the result of individual ambition. Spain's colonial policy was, in every instance, the cause of Cuban revolt. In that policy, she violated a fundamental principle of government. She assumed that the subject existed solely for the benefit of the sovereign. In establishing her colony she sought only her own financial advantage. Other colonizing countries learned, through experience, the folly of such a policy. Spain never learned it, and has now lost her insular possessions. Three factors have contributed to Cuba's frequent protests and occasional revolts. These are: Second. An arbitrary and unscientific system of taxation; Third. Retention of all government and of political patronage in the hands of Spaniards, to the exclusion of Cubans. To these causes may be traced a large measure of the long-existing Cuban disaffection. To them, also, may be attributed Cuba's failure to attain that position in the world to which, because of her natural resources, her people rightly aspired. At the very beginning of Spain's colonial history, closely restrictive laws were promulgated for the regulation of commerce with and between her colonies. In 1503, a royal ordinance established the Casa de la Contratacion, or House of Commerce, at Seville. This body was empowered to grant licenses, to despatch fleets, and to regulate and control Spanish colonial trade, of which it held an exclusive monopoly. In 1717, the institution was transferred to the port of Cadiz. The colonial trade was thus confined to a single Spanish port. Further restrictions prohibited both intercolonial trade and trade with any country other than Spain. For a period during the seventeenth century, such trade was made an offence punishable by the death of the |