Dos Rios Camp, May 18, 1895
Mr Manuel Mercado
My dearest brother: Now I can write, now I
can tell you how tenderly and gratefully and
respectfully I love you and that home which
I consider my pride and responsibility. I am
in daily danger of giving my life for my
country and duty for I understand that duty
and have the courage to carry it out-the
duty of preventing the United States from
spreading through the Antilles as Cuba gains
its independence, and from empowering with
that additional strength our lands of
America. All I have done so far, and all I
will do, is for this purpose. I have had to
work quietly and somewhat indirectly,
because to achieve certain objectives, they
must be kept under cover; to proclaim them
for what they are would raise such
difficulties that the objectives could not
be attained.
The same general and lesser duties of these
nations-nations such as yours and mine that
are most vitally concerned with preventing
the opening in Cuba(by annexation on the
part of the imperialist from there and the
Spaniards) of the road that is to be closed,
and is being closed with our blood, annexing
our American nations to be brutal and
turbulent North which despises
them-prevented their apparent adherence and
obvious assistance to this sacrifice made
for their immediate benefit.
I have lived in the monster and I know its
entrails; my sling is David's. At this very
moment-well, some days ago-amid the cheers
of victory with which the Cuban saluted our
free departure from the mountains where the
six men of our expedition walked for
fourteen days, a correspondent from the
Herald, who tore me out the hammock in my
hut, told me about the annexationist
movement. He claimed it was less to be
feared because of the unrealistic approach
of its aspirants, undisciplined or
uncreative men of a legalistic turn of mind,
who in the comfortable disguise of their
complacency or their submission to Spain,
half-heartedly ask it for Cuba's autonomy.
They are satisfied merely that there be a
master- Yankee or Spanish- to support them
or reward their services as go-betweens with
positions of power, enabling them to scorn
the hardworking masses-the country's
half-breeds, skilled and pathetic, the
intelligent and creative hordes of Negroes
and white men.
And that Herald correspondent, Eugene
Bryson, told me more: about a Yankee
syndicate, endorsed by the customs authority
who are too closely associated with the
rapacious Spanish banks to be involved with
those of the North, a syndicate fortunately
unable, because of its sinewy and complex
political structure, to undertake or support
the idea as a government project. And Bryson
continue talking, although the truth of his
reports could be understood only by a person
with firsthand knowledge of the
determination with which we have mustered
the revolution, of the disorganization,
indifference, and poor pay of the untried
Spanish army, and of Spain´s inability to
gather, in or out of Cuba, the resources to
be used against the war, resources which it
had obtained the time before from Cuba
alone. Bryson recounted his conversation
with Martinez Campos at the end of which
Martinez Campos gave to understand that at
the proper time, Spain would doubtless
prefer to come to terms with the United
States than hand the island to the Cubans.
And Bryson had still more to tell me: about
an acquaintance of ours whom the North is
grooming as a candidate from the United
States for the presidency of Mexico when the
term of the president now in office expires.
I am doing my duty here. The Cuban war, a
reality of higher priority than the vague
and scattered desires of the Cuban and
Spanish annexationists, whose alliance with
the Spanish government would only give them
the relative power, has come to America in
time to prevent Cuba's annexation to the
United States, even against all those freely
used forces. The United States will never
accept from a country at war, nor can it
occur, the hateful and absurd commitment of
discouraging, on its account and with its
weapons, an American war of independence,
for the war will not accept annexation.
And Mexico, will it not find a wise,
effective, and immediate way of helping, in
due time, its own defender? It will indeed,
or I shall find one for it. This is a
life-and death matter, and there is no room
for error. The prudent way is the only way
to worth considering. I would have founded
and proposed it. But I must have more
authority placed in me, or know who has it,
before acting or advising. I have just
arrived. The formation of our utilitarian
yet simple government can still take two
more months, if it is to be stable and
realistic. Our spirit is one, the will of
the country, and I know it. But these things
are always a matter of communication,
influence and accommodation. In my capacity
as representative, I do not want to do
anything that my appear to be a capricious
extension of it. I arrived in a boat with
General Máximo Gómez and four others. I was
in charge of the lead oar during a storm and
we landed at an unknown quarry on one of our
beaches. For fourteen days I carried my
rifle and knapsack, marching through bramble
patches and over hills. We gather people
along the way. In the benevolence men's
souls I feel the root of my affection for
their suffering, and my just desire to
eliminate it. The countryside is
unquestionably ours to the extent that in a
single month I could hear but one blast of
gunfire. And at the gates cities we either
won a victory, or reviewed 3 000 troops in
the face of enthusiasm resembling religious
fervour. We continue on our way to the
center of the island where, in the presence
of the revolution which I instigated, I laid
aside the authority given me by the
settlements abroad and acknowledged by the
island, and which an assembly of delegates
form the Cuban people-revolutionaries in
arms-must replace in accord with the new
conditions. The revolution desires complete
freedom in the army, without the obstacles
previously raised by a Chamber without real
sanction, without the distrust of its
republicanism by a suspicious faction of the
young, and without the jealousy and fears,
which could become too great a threat in the
future, of a punctilious or prophetic
leader. But at the same time the revolution
is eager for a concise and respectable
republican representation-the same decent
spirit of humanity, filled with a desire for
individual dignity in representing the
republic, as that which encourages and
maintains the revolutionaries in this war.
As for me, I realise that a nation can not
be led counter to or without the spirit that
motivates it; I know how human hearts are
inspired, and how to make use of a confident
and impassionate state of mind to keep
enthusiasm at a constant pitch and ready for
the attack. But with respect to forms, many
ideas are possible, and in matters of men,
there are men to carry them out. You know
me. In my case, I defend only what I
consider a guarantee of, or a service to,
the revolution. I know how to disappear. But
my thoughts will never disappear, nor will
my obscurity leave me embittered. The moment
we take shape, we will proceed; trust this
to me and the others.
And now, having dealt with national
interests, I will talk about myself, since
only the emotion of this duty could raise
from a much-desired death the man who, now
that Nájera does not live where you can see
him better and cherishes as his heart's
delight that friendship with which you fill
him with pride.
I know his silent gestures of annoyance,
after my voyage. And however much we told
him, from the bottom of our hearts, there
was no response! What a fraud he is, and how
callous that soul of his, that the honor and
tribute of our affection has not moved him
to write one more letter on the paper of the
maps or newspapers that fill our day!
There are affections of such fragile
honesty.
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Later source:
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