Cuba Commemorates Start of First War for Independence from Spain

Cuba today commemorates the beginning of the wars for independence from Spanish colonialism, marked by the so-called Grito de Yara (Cry of Yara) led by Carlos Manuel de Céspedes on October 10, 1868.

On that date, at his eastern estate, La Demajagua, the lawyer Céspedes donned the garments of a liberator and began the arduous path that would lead him to become the Father of the Nation. That morning, he gathered other Cuban insurgents, granted freedom to his slaves, and invited them to confront the Spanish army, while reading the Manifesto of the Revolutionary Junta of the Island of Cuba.

“I count on your heroism to achieve independence. With your virtue to consolidate the Republic. You can count on my self-sacrifice,” he declared, thus firing the opening shot of the War of '68, also known as the Ten Years' War for its duration.

His words became a Cuban cry against colonialism, against slavery, and for national liberation.

“When a people reaches the extreme of degradation and misery in which we find ourselves, no one can reproach them for taking up arms to escape a state so full of opprobrium,” he stated following an enumeration of the nation's problems.

The global crisis and its effects on the island, economic disparities between Cuban regions, and Spain's refusal to permit the right to assembly, freedom of the press, the formation of political parties, and the abolition of slavery were among the causes of the uprising.

The Grito de Yara, which found echoes throughout the rest of the country, is considered by historiography as a triumph of pro-independence ideas over Spanish intransigence and the reformist and annexationist currents of the time.

It was the beginning of the first Cuban war of independence against Spain, whose enduring legacy is that it sowed and awakened patriotism, indiscriminately, in slaves, peasants, artisans, professionals, and intellectuals across the country.

However, it was not the only one. After much bloodshed, by 1878 Spain retained control of the island with the support of the slave-owning oligarchy, and the emancipatory purpose of the majority of Cubans remained unfulfilled.

This was followed by the Little War (1879-1880) and the War of Independence or the Necessary War (1895-1898). The latter was organized by the National Hero, José Martí, and its definitive success was frustrated by the intervention of the United States government.

At the end of the 19th century, Cuba passed from the hands of Spain into the tutelage of the United States, beginning another chapter in its history.