Cuba and the United States: Ties of Singular Intimacy

3. At the Crossroads

At the Crossroads The Ten Years' War marked a transitional point for Cuba in the nineteenth century. After 1878, Spain remedied some of the structural sources of Cuban discontent, with varying degrees of success. Slavery was abolished within a decade. Trade policies were modified . In 1884 and again in 1886, Spain negotiated limited reciprocal trade agreements with the United States, eliminating the differential flag system and abolishing some of the more onerous import duties and taxes. Political concessions began auspiciously enough, and early indications suggested that this time Spain would make good on its commitment to colonial reforms. Certainly many Cubans believed this, especially Creole elites, who immediately after the Pact of Zanjon organized a new Liberal party (Autonomist). Creole elites welcomed the end of the colonial insurrection in 1878, and they welcomed even more the opportunity to seek political leadership in postwar Cuba. Autonomists were committed to the pursuit of reform and self-rule within existing colonial relationships , representation in the Spanish Cortes, and the expansion of free trade. They opposed independence, fearful that separation from Spain would lead to political instabilityand social strife and that both would result in economic ruin. They also endorsed the legitimacyof the colonial regime and the primacy of empire as the central and unchallenged tenets of colonial politics. For Autonomists, reforms were the best guarantee of empire, and empire was the best guarantee against revolution. But also after 1878 some of the more pronounced contradictions of the colonial political economy stood in sharp relief and gave both new form and new direction to the Cuban quest for a separate nationality. The effects of the Ten Years' War continued to influence the course of Cuban internal development and the character of Cuban international relations. The disruption of Cuban sugar production during the 55 3 56 CUBA AND THE UNITED STATES war had encouraged the expansion of sugar elsewhere in the world. Cane production increased in Latin Americaand Asia and beet sugar production expanded in Europe, creatinga major challenge to Cuban primacy in world markets. After the TenYears' War, Cubans not only discovered that they faced new competition and the loss of old markets , but worse yet, a glut in world sugar production depressed the world price of sugar—from 4.6 cents a pound in 1870 to 2.7 cents in 1880.l Crisis was not long in coming. The collapse of sugar prices affected every sector of the local economy and announced calamity for Cuba. By the mid-i88os, the island was in the throes of depression. "Out of the twelve or thirteen hundred planters on the island," the U.S. consul in Havana reported early in 1884, "not a dozen are said to be solvent."2 Seven of the island's largest trading companies failed; business houses closed and banks collapsed. In the first three months of 1884, business failures totaled over $7 million. The postwar economic crisis set the stage for a new round of North American expansion into the colonial economy.For nearly a century, the Cuban economyhad been organizedaround commercial relations with the United States, depending increasingly on North American markets and imports. This connection determined Cuban production strategies, influenced local consumption patterns, and shaped the character of the Cuban political discourse. After 1878, the North American presence in the Cuban economy assumed new forms and functions. Cuban producers were in desperate need of new capital and fresh sources of credit, neither of which was readily available within the existing framework of Spanish colonialism. Increasingly, they turned to the United States, and the consequences were farreaching and permanent. Credit transactionsincreased in value and volume through the i88os and for many staved off bankruptcy. But redemption was short-lived and costly. For many others, economic conditions did not improve, and increasing numbers of Cuban planters failed and lost property to North American creditors. During the last decades of the nineteenth century, North American ownership of property in Cuba expanded, initiallythrough foreclosure and 57 At the Crossroads subsequently by purchases from planters in distress. Many planters survived the crisis of the i88os but at the cost of their traditional supremacy over production. The price of solvency was increasing displacement and eventual dependency. Across the island the Cuban grip over production slipped, announcing the demise of the Creole planter class. Developments in the jurisdiction of Cienfuegos, once a center of the Cuban patriciate, gave dramatic expression to the displacement of...