Introduction
In this article, I analyse the national (Cuba) and transatlantic (Spain) discourses on the question of independence for Cuba and, in particular, the question surrounding the abolition of African slavery on the island, which was without question the most delicate consideration regarding the end of the colonial system. I have focused my analysis on the portrayal of the first Cuban war for independence, which lasted ten years from 1868 to 1878 and came to be known as La Guerra de los Diez Años (Ten Years’ War). The war took place three years after the end of the Civil War in the United States (1861–1865), a war that ushered in the end of slavery in the neighbouring country to the north. Opposing views of the war came from the Spanish press, in particular, Barcelona’s La Flaca, and across the Atlantic from the official Havana press that defended the Spanish colonial system in Cuba. Of significant note are the newspapers associated with the renowned caricaturist Victor Patricio Landaluze and include El Moro Muza and Don Junípero. Liberal leaning in its portrayal of the war in Cuba, Barcelona’s La Flaca denounced the reports on the war by Madrid as false and exaggerated, while at the same time giving editorial importance to the question of abolition. The Havana newspapers, on the other hand, promoted the idea of Cuba as an integral part of Spain through the exaltation of Spanish/Cuban unity administratively and militarily. The Cuban press also denounced the factions in the United States that were actively seeking the annexation of Cuba to the US as an alternative to Spain’s colonial rule. A focus of their critique was the Cuban exile community in New York. My analysis of how print media sought to portray the many questions surrounding the Ten Year’s War provides an additional understanding of that war as a seed for the eventual end of Spanish colonialism on the island.
Print media in Spain (Barcelona) and Cuba (Havana)
With the onset of war and dissention intensifying at diplomatic levels, print media on the island of Cuba and on the peninsula focused on the potential impact of an armed conflict: first and foremost on slavery as an economic and social institution, and secondly on the likelihood of intervention by the United States in Cuban affairs. During the decade of the 1860s, weekly newspapers published around the critical period of Cuba’s first war of independence, La Guerra de los Diez Años or Ten Years’ War (1868–1878), established a communicative circuit between the metropolis and the island. Newspapers published in Spain and Cuba resorted to satire in their illustrations and texts in order to influence public opinion. La Flaca, a publication of liberal republican (anti-monarchical) inclination, appeared in Barcelona in 1869. 2 Across the Atlantic, and at the other end of the spectrum, two conservative anti-independence newspapers in Havana echoed the satirical tone of La Flaca, sometimes using very similar types of illustrations (e.g., cynical parades of prominent political figures). Far from the liberal sentiments of its Spanish counterpart, however, El Moro Muza (1859–1877) and Don Junípero (1862–1869) devoted their pages to the diminishment and derision of the Cuban insurrection. Many illustrations were directed to a readership outside the island as both Havana papers mocked the support for the vision of a separate and independent Cuba from Cubans living in exile. 3 In Barcelona, La Flaca portrayed official reports on the war as falsehood and denounced the exclusionary treatment of Cubans of African descent. The Havana print media, although careful to avoid direct references to participation in the war by former slaves, addressed the racial composition of the Ejército Libertador in a series of images questioning revolutionary values. In their illustrations, both journals also derided the aspiration of Cubans living in the United States, and in particular the political movement in favour of annexation. Through the use of the graphic images and short texts that appeared as captions or footers, these publications sought to construct and consolidate public opinion on the idea of independence (for and against) and insert themselves in the larger discussion and vision for the end of colonialism in Cuba.
The appearance in Spain of print media openly associated with a particular political ideology can be traced to the Sexenio Democrático. 4 Esther Pallardó Pardo contends that:
El carácter apolítico y literario de la época anterior al Sexenio dio paso a la prensa de partido en la medida en que las restricciones políticas imperantes en la década ominosa dieron paso a mayores cotas de libertad conquistadas con la Revolución. La intencionalidad política de la prensa en la segunda mitad del siglo XIX está servida. La proliferación de las publicaciones coincide con la constitución y el desarrollo de los partidos políticos. [The apolitical and literary character of the period prior to the Sexenio ushered the party-affiliated press since the ominous decade of reigning political restrictions gave way to greater measures of freedom conquered by the Revolution. The political intentionality of the press in the second half of the XIX century is set. The proliferation of publications coincides with the constitution and development of political parties.] (2014: 478). 5
The sharp expansion of freedom of expression gained with the Sexenio’s reforms meant a change in the function of the press during the second half of the nineteenth century. That new function from 1868 onwards was to “generate [political] opinion, changing or consolidating it once it had been formed” (Pallardó Pardo 2014: 478). La Flaca, first published in Barcelona starting in 1869 during the Sexenio Democrático, “representa una etapa dorada para el periodismo satírico en España. Surgen un gran número de nuevos títulos, favorecidos por la recuperada libertad y el cambiante proceso político. [. . .] Se renuevan contenidos, especialmente los gráficos, y todas las tendencias, sobre todo las de oposición, conocen notable auge” [represents a golden period for satirical journalism in Spain. A great number of new titles appear, privileged by the reinstated freedom and changing political process. [. . .] Renewed content, especially in graphics, and all leanings, especially everything to do with the opposition, gain notable popularity] (Checa Godoy 2016).
The shaping of public opinion was fundamental to the Barcelona publication. La Flaca emerged as a counter discursive journal to La Gorda, which had appeared in Madrid in November of 1868. A weekly antiliberal publication of 4 pages, La Gorda ceased publication just two years later. La Flaca was also published in a 4-page format and, as it was directed to a larger public, it appeared in Spanish rather than Catalonian. The cover of the journal disparaged the economic situation in Spain by depicting the country as an emaciated matron and its people – in the image of a lion – in an equally appalling state of destitution (ABC Tecnología 2010). Dogged by the pressures of censorship, the publication of La Flaca suffered from periods of activity followed by sudden closures. In its first period, the publication of the journal under the director of Manuel Angelón lasted from 1869 to1871, when for reasons of censorship on the part of the government, Angelón ceased publication (La Flaca, nº 100, 3 de septiembre de 1871, 4; cited by Gilarranz 2017]. To avoid censorship, in its second period from October 1871 until a year later, under the name of La Carcajada and the direction of Juan Vazquez, a total of thirty-seven issues were published. Due to several suspensions, the journal’s name was again changed to La Risa and La Risotada. In its last resurrection, the journal reappeared under La Nueva Flaca in November of 1872 until its closing a year later (Gilarranz 2017). The inclusion of large graphic images and captions distinguished the journal. As the principal caricaturist of La Flaca, Tomás Padró y Pedret is considered “the paradigm” of the satirical Catalonian draftsman of his time. After studying art in Madrid, newspapers in Barcelona eagerly sought his work. He contributed to journals edited by Inocencio López such as El Cañón Krupp, La Pubilla, Lo Noy de la Mare, Un Tros de Paper and La Campana de Gràcia. His colour lithographs of the middle pages of La Flaca are notorious among his work, and although he may not have been the sole caricaturist of La Flaca, the series of sketches that he published in reference to the political events in Spain from the revolution in September to the death of General Prim is “a very important document for the analysis of that period” (Belaústegui n.d.).
Similar to the Spanish press, much of the print media in Cuba in the late 1860s sought to inform and influence the population of the island in regards to political actions against Spanish colonial rule. As exemplified by two weekly journals published in Havana, some newspapers surpassed the mere expression of unwavering allegiance to Spain to incite the growth of anti-independence sentiment in the western provinces of the island that had not been swayed yet by the uprising in Oriente Province in October 1868. Directed at the elite society of the capital, El Moro Muza and Don Junípero ridiculed and discredited the war effort from the start of the Ten Years’ War. Through their editorials, articles and caricatures, both publications focused their critiques on the mambises 6 and the proponents of separatism for the island, while also targeting the supporters of the annexation of Cuba to the United States and the leadership of the US government. Three strategic subjects of these critiques appeared on the pages of nearly every issue published in 1869 by both newspapers. First, the papers ridiculed the activities of exiled Cubans, many of them bent on destroying the island through annexation to the United States, to meet the financial demands of the war; second, in order to discredit the leadership of the war the papers characterised mambises as incompetent and immoral; and third, the war was portrayed as a radicalised effort at home, one that gave agency to abolition by enlisting enslaved Cubans of African descent in its ranks, although direct description of a multiracial war rarely appeared. These and other pro-Spanish publications on the island promoted the idea of an autonomous nation as a project doomed to failure.
Impact of press reforms in Cuba
Policies regarding the use of print media instituted by the Spanish colonial administration underwent a series of changes through the nineteenth century. In the early 1800s Spain softened regulations on the press in Cuba “partly due to the decreasing power of Madrid on its distant colonies and partly in response to the political currents flowing from the French Revolution” ( Press Reference n.d.). Most significantly in terms of the anti-independence movement among western Cubans was a supposed relaxation instituted the year after the Grito de Yara in Oriente Province. In January of 1869, just months after Yara, Capitán General of the Cuban colonial government Domingo Dulce y Garay (1808–1869) issued a decree establishing freedom of the press. Dulce y Garay intended to show the proponents of Spanish reforms his willingness to make changes on the island, hoping to gain their support (cited in Ziegler 2008: 112). In the months following this decree, “a series of reform-minded periodicals began publication, of which the most important was El Cubano Libre, appearing on the war’s first day. Other new periodicals included La Estrella Solitaria, El Mambí and El Boletín de la Guerra”, all promoting separatist or revolutionary views and taking advantage of the relaxation of censorship offered by the new decree ( Press Reference n.d.). On the opposite side of the conflict, the year 1869 provoked the publication of caricatures, articles and editorials that unequivocally and aggressively defended the status quo. Contrary to the peacemaking intentions of the decree, Don Junípero and El Moro Muza resisted all forms of reformist campaigns, promoting instead the integration of Spain and Cuba.
The strong integrationist ideology of Don Junípero and El Moro Muza can be explained by the intimate friendship of their publishers, Victor Patricio Landaluze and Juan Martínez Villergas. 7 Born in Bilbao, Landaluze established residence in Havana probably sometime before May 1850, the date in which he joined the ranks of the “Cuerpos de Voluntarios” in defence of Spanish interests and against the insurrection in Cuba (Valdés Díaz 2008; Domingo Acebrón 1996). 8 He began his collaboration with Villergas (also born in Spain) as a humorous writer and illustrator for a weekly publication called La Charanga (1857–1858) and subtitled “periódico literario, joco-serio y casi sentimental, muy pródigo de bromas pero no pesadas . . .” ( La Charanga 1858). In addition to illustrations, Landaluze contributed art reviews and commentary on current events to the pages of La Charanga. A series of cigar labels, Vida y Muerte de la Mulata, produced by the cigar factory of Llaguno y Cía depicted costumbrista-inspired scenes of everyday life in Havana and was illustrated by Villergas in La Charanga ( Pulpnivoria 2009). Despite this joint project with Llaguno y Cía, both publishers went on to publicly oppose the reading of news and literature to cigar factory workers, an idea proposed and promoted by Cuban reformists. In 1862 Landaluze began publishing his own newspaper, Don Junípero. Alongside his editorials, articles, poetry and illustrations for Don Junípero, Landaluze’s humorous sketches and short political satires also appeared on the pages of Villergas’ El Moro Muza. Not content with these two channels of expression, Landaluze unveiled yet another weekly journal entitled Juan Palomo, published for a period of five years (1869–1874) alongside the other two newspapers (Valdés Díaz 2008). 9 On the pages of these publications Landaluze portrayed the most aggressive and disparaging caricatures against the leaders of the Cuban insurrection and against exiles giving aid to the cause of an independent Cuba. His frank and direct commentary with an accompanying graphic image left little doubt regarding its message. The emphasis on caricatures on the pages of the paper could be explained as an attempt to reach a less cultured readership, a strategy that exposed the scant level of literacy in Cuba during the nineteenth century. 10 Landaluze’s sardonic technique with frequent grotesque and deformed figures posited his understanding of the kind of satire popular with the public during his time (Trujillo 1971; Valdés Díaz 2008). His readers included the integrista population of Havana in general and the members of the two most conservative organisations promoting Spanish interests on the island, namely Havana’s Comité Patriótico and the members of Casino Español (Barcia Zequeira 1998).
The question of abolition in Barcelona’s La Flaca
Publications in Spain became the mouthpiece of the opposition to the continuation of Spain’s colonial presence. In the case of La Flaca, the Catalonian journal wanted to discredit Spanish official reports. La Flaca ridiculed and questioned war news reports that portrayed the insurrection as a small and poorly organised group of people, most of them of colour. This was a fact that, in the estimation of such reports, summed up a revolutionary movement that could scarcely be a threat to the power of the metropolis.
“Cuba sin fondo” [Bottomless Cuba] published in La Flaca in April in 1971 (see Figure 1) portrays the inaccuracy of official reports by the Spanish government, on the one hand, while it also underscores the multiracial component of the Cuban war, thus fanning the flames of racism and making a connection between the Haitian Revolution and the movement for a separatist Cuba. In the first cartoon “La insurreccion . . . segun los partes” [The insurrection . . . according to reports] four alzados (insurgents, rebels) meet in a field; only the two central figures carry weapons while the figure on the left holds a poor man’s weapon in the form of a rock sling in his right hand; the fourth figure seated in the ground appears removed from the discussion (see Figure 1). The overall impact of the image is one of a poorly organised and resourced army (as the lack of weapons and the men’s bare legs make evident), fighting in isolation. The note of disparagement and inaction is accentuated in the scenery: they are in the middle of a field and in the heat of the day. This is the “official report” on the war. On the top right is “Los insurrectos . . . segun los muertos” [The insurgents . . . according to the dead] a depiction that serves as a counterpoint to the previous graphic as it shows the numerous bodies of dead men of colour. Official news that the insurrection is almost extinguished is the reference in the middle left cartoon “Apenas queda en la isla un insurgente” [There is hardly left on the island one insurgent], which shows a small family rejoicing at the news of a Spanish victory while the image to the side gives a different account. Finally, the bottom images show the Spanish army massacring defenceless Cubans, as perhaps not indicated by official accounts, while the final image memorialises the writing of the Cuban Constitution at Guáimaro on 10 April 1869, and signed by Carlos Manuel de Céspedes (possibly the central figure) and fourteen others (Constitución de Guáimaro 1869). The magnitude of the movement and its organisation is evident in this image that also portrays some of the newspapers written and published by the independentistas.
La Flaca calls into question Spain’s very gradual strategy leading to the abolition of slavery through images depicting the marginalization of African descendants.
In “Costumbres de Cuba por regla general” [Cuban Traditions by General Rule] published in La Flaca in 1869 (see Figure 2), the image on the left side of a double-sided drawing displays the exclusion of the Cuban population of African descent from the vision for Cuba Libre (see Figure 2). Although the Moret Law was not passed until 28 May 1870, “increasing contradictions within the Cuban economic system” and pressures to abolish slavery in the colonies weighed on Spain from within its borders as well as internationally (Scott 1983: 449). The sequence of events that lead to the final abolition of slavery,
[b]egins with a declaration of emancipation by Cuban insurgents rebelling against Spain in 1868, followed by the passage of the Moret Law by the Spanish Cortes in 1870, then by the establishment of the patronato, or apprenticeship, in 1880, and finally by the termination of the patronato in 1886. [. . .] The legal structure of slavery in Cuba was dismantled piece by piece. Young children and the elderly were legally freed and the use of the whip banned in 1870; meager wages were introduced, but corporal punishment maintained, in 1880; stocks and chains were prohibited in 1883. Social and economic relationships changed as legal ones altered, in turn producing further change, all within a context of warfare, pacification, and economic adaptation (Scott 1983: 449–50).
The image on the right side of “Costumbres de Cuba por regla general” shows Spanish officers and envoys drinking the life out of the island. The viewer notices the exclusive participation of both military and non-military Spanish personnel. The uniforms and formality of the participants contrast with the scant clothing of the two men on the margins, relegated to the role of voyeurs. They also appear without the necessary tools (straws) to partake of the feast. The abundant fumes from the factories on both sides of the picture draw attention to the economic boom of the island as a producer of sugar and to the plantation economy sustained by slave labour, reminiscent of many mid-century portrayals of the island.The officials are sitting on a kind of glorieta or rotunda, submerged in the sea, while the island itself is represented by a large tub containing, it seems, not guarapo (sugar-cane juice), but rather the blood of the nation spilling through. On the periphery of the roundtable and not taking part in either discourse or consumption is the African population. The caption “Mira, compare, no van á dejá guarapo a pobe neguito” [Look, bro, they are not leaving guarapo for this poor negrito], together with the sugar-cane factory and palm trees in the background, situates the dialogue on Caribbean soil. There is manifest ambivalence present in these images regarding the role of Black Cubans. The viewer must consider that while, on the one hand, “Cuba sin Fondo” shows their involvement in the war, particularly in the images in the left columns that portray women and children poised to take part in the insurrection, the images in “Costumbres de Cuba” marginalise the same group of people. That is to say, the viewer is invited to decide what precisely is the role of Cuba’s African descendants in the quest for independence. Are they in fact participants in a war that has promised freedom but keeps them in pseudo-bondage, or are they, more to the point, spectators in among powerful interests that decide their fate but exclude them from the space of negotiation? Despite the liberal political message, racism is present in Padró’s illustrations, not just at the level of the image but equally so in the choice of language. The Cuban Spanish spoken by the African figures in “Costumbres de Cuba” merits analysis. The footer to the illustration could certainly be read first as a disparagement of the language as spoken on the island by a particular sector of the population, and secondly, as a more specific reference to the Spanish spoken by recent immigrants of Haitian descent. The latter association would emphatically negate the liberal leanings of La Flaca since the association of the Haitian Revolution with the Cuban revolution would play right into the hands of those who promoted a racialised war as a dissent tactic. Even as it supported abolition, La Flaca did not abstain from a representation of the racial fear surrounding the war in Cuba in Spanish and Cuban circles alike.
Print media and the political status quo in Havana’s newspapers
The contrast between La Flaca and Spanish sanctioned print media on the island could not be more pronounced. In Havana, El Moro Muza and Don Junípero dedicated many of their pages and cover illustrations to glorifying the colonial project in Cuba. Both newspapers frequently utilised images that presented the unwavering support of the residents of Havana for the preservation of the status quo in Cuba. The western populations of the island, in particular its wealthy land-owning sugarocracy, had not embraced the revolution that emerged in the eastern part of the island. Instead, they aligned their welfare with that of the metropolis. Benitez Rojo reminds us that “in spite of the existence of serious contradictions between the colony and the mother country, the creole sugarocracy . . . would teeter for years between the extremes of independentist sentiment and fear of the ruin that must accompany the slaves’ emancipation, since the thousands of Negroes who worked the plantations would surely be needed to defeat the Spaniards”; the economic disparity between the less wealthy eastern criollos and the western land-owning class explains why it was only the criollos “living in the eastern and central provinces who would participate in the struggles for independence” (Benitez Rojo 1995: 79). The island’s white population in the west (Havana, Pinar del Rio) feared their ruin at the hands of revolutionaries, even if those who espoused abolition were, admittedly, reluctant.
In texts and illustrations, El Moro Muza manipulated the sentiments of its readership by glorifying the unwavering support of the metropolis for the status quo in Cuba and against the destabilisation of the plantation economy. In “Festejos a los voluntarios catalanes” [Festivities for the Catalonian voluntarios], 11 the image exalts the arrival of troops from Catalonia to bring order to the island (see Figure 3).
It is somewhat surprising, despite the subject matter which honours troops from Barcelona, to find two captions on the upper area of the illustration written in Catalan. Certainly, this could be read as a friendly gesture to the troops in question, although regular readers in the city of Havana would have found the language curious. Perhaps a desire to reach across the Atlantic to a readership back at home might also explain the language choice (particularly since La Flaca had chosen not to publish in Catalan). In the first caption, the call to war against the insurgents is direct.
Just look at the barretinas
Make the tarot rebels [insurgents] fall:
They are all like this bumblebee
People who flee and murder (El Moro Muza, 25 April 1868; trans. Dan Hubbard).
The reference to barretinas denotes the Catalonian caps worn by the voluntarios. The footer means to diminish the cause of Cuba Libre in its portrayal of the rebels as figures from a deck of tarot cards and as furious insects engaged in a deadly game; the association of the insurgents in the caption with witchcraft (tarot cards) denotes mistrust, on the one hand, and cowardice on the other (murder and flight). The juxtaposition of banners from Spanish regions among Cuban cities and provinces is meant to underscore the identity of the island as an extension of Spain: the first banner after the Spanish flag (centre left) proudly belongs to Cuba Española (Spanish Cuba). On the right side of the graphic the banners for Cuban cities (Matanzas, Santiago de Cuba, Puerto Príncipe, Manzanillo) are followed (far right) by a banner for Puerto Rico, the other remaining Spanish territory in the Caribbean. Here the graphic asserts the sense of community between Spain and its sole remaining colonies from its former Latin American empire. On the upper right side of the illustration depicting a large banquet hall, the caption reads: “Banquete dado por la commision de obsequios, en la Quinta de los Molinos, à la Oficialidad del Batallon de Voluntarios Catalanes” [Banquet given by the gifts commission, in the Quinta de los Molinos, to the Catalonian Volunteers Battalion officials], in reference to the famed residence of Cuba’s Captain Generals during the decades of 1850–1870 ( Quinta de los Molinos n.d.), thus emphasising the high legitimacy of the banquet. Just underneath the banquet scene is a mural showing the statue of Juan Prim on horseback with a swag announcing “La Dominica a los voluntarios catalanes” [God’s day to the Catalonian volunteers]. An overall atmosphere of jubilation and pride permeates the design. The cartoon with the female figure (centre), the second caption written in Catalan, refers to one of the concerns of the white upper classes on the island. This caption reads:
Such odd hair
Must be closely cropped
Making all such barber’s work
The volunteer’s duty (El Moro Muza, 25 April 1868; trans. Dan Hubbard).
The female image and caption reference the momentary freedom Cuban women experienced during these years of war. Cuban women had embraced participation in the war through clubs and political societies, an activity that had ushered in a moment of extraordinary freedom of action and deportment as inferred in the loose hair of the female figure. The attack on Cuban women who were engaged in subversive activities in support of the insurrection became a way to avoid direct comment on the participation in the war of Cubans of African descent. Like white Cuban women who expressed the hope that a free nation would include their release from societal oppression, the war “signified an extraordinary opportunity for women from diverse racial backgrounds and social classes to become actors in the work of the insurgency” (Chichester 2014: 3). While the Spanish newspaper addresses the racial question directly, the island papers seldom portray the participation in the war of the former enslaved population. The Havana newspapers were sensitive and cautious on this point. Cubans of African descent appear in very few cartoons as to avoid references to the racial composition of the mambises entirely. The subject remained at the heart of the thirty years of war between Cuba and Spain. Scholarship on US depictions of Cuban rebels around the time of the last War of Independence in 1895, reveals that the US press also feared the subject:
From the highest levels of government to the arena of popular myth, pervaded a fear among supporters and opponents alike that the Cuban Revolution would be in large measure racially ‘black’ – a re-imaging of Toussaint L’Ouverture’s Haitian overthrow of colonial mastery a century earlier, but now in a place ninety miles off the southern tip of Jim Crow America (Beidler 2013: 89).
The solution was to overplay the white racial composition of the mambises. Cuban fighters “striking military poses with at least rudimentary uniforms and weaponry tend to be European looking [in US representations]. On occasion, certain figures in support roles may have Afro-Caribbean features. When white and black figures intermingle, those in leadership positions are invariably white-hispanic […], criollo, or, at the very most mestizo” (Beidler 2013: 92).
The question of Cuban annexation to the United States
While direct references to race rarely appear in El Moro Muza and Don Junípero, much more persistent is the subject of intervention in Cuban affairs by the United States. The pages of the newspapers contain graphics critical of powerful factions among Cuban exiles, in particular those who believed and worked to promote the annexation of the island to the United States. Fear of an alliance between the United States and Spain to arrange the sale of the island pervades images and captions in Cuban newspapers. Under the simple title of “El 4 de Marzo de 1869”, the anticipated date for the inauguration of Ulysses S. Grant as the 18th president of the United States, El Moro Muza published a presumed audience between President Grant and three anexionistas. In this image, Grant opposes intervention in Cuba’s war against Spain and issues his government’s position on intervention in Cuba’s war at the start of his presidency: “la espada que venció á los separatistas de Richmond, no podria defender á los de Yara, por mas que lo diga El Herard, [sic] – no os hagais mas ilusiones” [the sword that conquered the Richmond separatists, could not defend Yara’s, no matter what The Herard says – don’t fall for more pipedreams] (El Moro Muza 1869a: 5). Trapped in a net, the female image of the insurrection reveals the political reality: after winning an exhausting civil war and ending slavery in the southern states (the defeat of the southern army was signed in Richmond, Virginia), there was little appetite in the United States for the annexation of a slave-owning island. Indeed, it was not a question of defending Cuba against Spain; the American response to the Cuban rebellion often had more to do with the internal political situation in the United States than with Cuba or Spain. Occurring within the context of the aftermath of the Civil War, American statesmen viewed the Cuban rebellion through a lens tinted by Reconstruction, the meaning of the Civil War, and an evolving and contested idea of national mission (Sexton 2006: 339).
The angst over possible American intervention in Cuba is clear in the aggressively satirical Don Junípero, as for example in the large illustration entitled “La independencia, o la anexión y la libertad de cultos” [Independence, or annexation and cult freedom], published in Havana in Don Junípero in 1869 (see Figure 4).
The illustration is a complex series of fourteen vignettes, each one with a short caption and arranged side by side in three rows. Each row develops a theme according to the title. The footers below the uppermost series of images offer puns on the meaning of “independencia”. Thoughts on the future of the island due to the effects of war appear in the portrayal of a family of beggars in the first image on the upper left row. Its commentary reads:
La independencia ofrece un halagüeño porvenir.
Después que los libertadores se hayan devorado los unos à los otros, sus
descendientes gozarán del espectáculo de la naturaleza en toda su esplendidez.
[Independence offers a beguiling future.
After the liberators finish devouring each other, their
descendants will enjoy the spectacle of nature in all its splendor].
The reference to cannibalism and destruction along with the depiction of an impoverished family are echoed elsewhere on the page, as in the case of an exiled Cuban sweeping the streets of New York (middle centre). Other images draw associations of the word “independencia” with the lack of feelings or family values. Thus, the insolence of a son toward his suffering mother and a husband’s infidelity and abandonment are portrayed as examples of desires for independence. In the second image on the top left, two Cubans of African origin are depicted within this commentary on independence. Here the image directly addresses the loss of manual labour as the result of the insurrection. The caption reads, “El problema del trabajo está resuelto” [The issue of work has been resolved], a clear reference to the number of mambises of African origin who had joined the war on the eastern part of the island. The central frame addresses annexation of the island to the United States. Hyperbolic language is typical of Don Junípero. For example, the first left-hand side image and caption introduces the theme of annexation:
La anexion.
Un laborante, 12 soñando: ¡oh! la anexion, la anexion!
¡que felices seriamos con la anexion!
Un voluntario, muy despierto. No te apures, que ya te
daremos una anexion de palo de naranjo. 13
[Annexation.
A laborante, dreaming: oh, annexation, annexation!
how happy we would be with annexation!
A voluntario, wide awake. Don’t worry, we will
give you annexation with a stupid stick]
(Don Junípero, 26 Sept 1869: 4; original spelling).
The connection between annexation and the exile community is subtly presented in the double image of a caballero: the first resting in a rocking chair and dreaming of citizenship in the United States; the second frame showing the result of such a dream as the ragged and once illustrious Cuban becomes a streetsweeper in New York City. The reality of exile, the caption warns, means a definite fall from social grace into an undignified status and assured destitution. Sexualised images of annexation follow in the last two illustrations on the centre right, one depicting a courtship and the second an irate father figure. Finally, the images in the last row allude to the difficult position of the anexionistas as having to avoid the wrath of the mambí and of a Spanish voluntario. The message is clear as the representation of annexionism oscillates between these two possibilities: on the one hand, the colonialist status quo and, on the other hand, Cuban independence. The overall theme of aggression present in some of the images is repeated on the bottom row in the vignette between a street thug (wearing the Catalonian barretina) and a presumed American diplomat:
La escena pasa en Madrid
Es verdad, que V. ha venido á proponer la compra de la isla de Cuba?
—No señor.
—Pues siga V. su camino.
[The scene takes place in Madrid
Is it true that you have come to propose the purchase of the island of Cuba?
—No, sir.
—Then go on your way].
Talks regarding the future of Cuba between the Spanish government under Juan Prim and United States president Ulysses Grant began as early as 1869. President Grant organised an effort to acquire the island of Cuba from the Spanish government through his ambassador in Madrid, Daniel E. Sickles. Despite negotiations throughout 1869–1870 between US Secretary of State Hamilton Fish, ambassador Sickles, and President Prim, the talks failed (Cuervo Alvarez 2016: 80–1), likely due to Spain’s determination to keep the island as an extension of its national territory. The abolitionist ideology of Cuba’s northern neighbour ushered in a fear for Spain that the United States “might launch an active abolitionist policy in the Caribbean, endangering Spain’s grip on the Antilles [which] led to abolitionist cries in the Cortes and this in turn to the more effective law of 1866 against the slave trade” (Smith 1960: 216). The outbreak of revolutionary sentiments in both Spain and Cuba ushered in a crisis during 1868–1973. For Spain
abolitionism was now inextricably mixed with revolutionary movements, war policies and American diplomacy. In the Peninsula, the long chain of reactionary and semi-reactionary ministries under the fat and fussy Isabel, the Bourbon queen, came to a sudden end in the Glorious Revolution of September 18, 1868. Promises were now made by the revolutionaries, some of whom were abolitionists, to bring political reforms to the Antilles and to consider some gradual measure for the solution of the slave problem (Smith 1960: 216).
The threat of intervention in the Cuban conflict from US diplomats caused concern in Spain and in colonial Cuba. Initially, “American diplomacy expressed an ostensibly humanitarian interest in ending the conflict through Spanish cession of the island to the Cubans” (Smith 1960: 217). Spain’s refusal to grant independence led to pressure from the US for Spain to adopt a reform programme that included the abolition of slavery. “Behind this diplomacy was the latent threat to recognize the belligerent rights of the Cuban rebels, and the implication that the Grant Administration might have to intervene openly in the struggle” (Smith 1960: 217). As the image in “La independencia, o la anexión y la libertad de cultos” makes clear, El Moro Muza and Don Junípero sought a readership well beyond the island.
Conclusion
The illustrations reviewed expose the tensions at home and abroad during very specific moments in time in the early years of the Ten Years’ War. We see a counterpoint between the Spanish press and the officially sanctioned Havana print media. The armed conflict within the island, activism on the part of exiled Cubans, and the fear of intervention from the United States, led to the aggressive portrayal of separatist sentiments in the pages of El Moro Muza, Don Junípero, and similar publications in Cuba. A reading public accepting of the status quo for the island guaranteed the success of both Havana publications: in the case of El Moro Muza until 1877, almost throughout the entirety of the Ten Years’ War. Spain, on the other hand, struggled through its own period of turmoil leading to the Glorious Revolution of 1868. Republican ideas that opposed the monarchy and favoured reform at home and in Spanish territories assured that a paper such as La Flaca, could find a readership that joined in their reproach of ambivalent Spanish diplomacy and obsolete attitudes on the question of slavery. However, we find that on the question of racial fear, the discursive practices of these publications perhaps were not in opposition to the same degree.