The Ten Years War

MAJOR CHANGES FROM EXISTING VERSION The Ten Years' War (Cuba's first War of Independence) begins when plantation owner Carlos Manuel de Cespedes, accompanied by 37 other planters, proclaims the independence of Cuba in the Grito de Yara issued from his plantation. Cespedes frees and arms his slaves. Two days later the brothers Antonio and Jose Maceo—free blacks—join the rebel ranks. Some Dominican exiles, including Maximo Gomez, help to train the rebels, using their experience from fighting against Spain on nearby Hispaniola. Ignacio Agramonte leads the revolt in Camaguey until he is killed in battle in 1873. Wealthy Cubans establish the Comite Revolucionaria de Bayamo. Carlos Manuel de Cespedes, an early leader, frees and arms his slaves. Some of his compatriots in the slaveowning class disagree with his method, but once manumission is begun it becomes an important tactic. Maximo Gomez, Dominican veteran of the Spanish cavalry and future leader in the Cuban revolution, taught the rebels, known as Mambises, the method of the machete charge. Spanish forces responded with brutal repression, including ethnic cleansing and the most of the 1870s the rebels diverted to guerrilla war from outright insurrection. Hundreds of thousands were killed, and another large scale effort for independence was not attempted until 1895.