The Cuban independence movement began on October 10, 1868, when Bayamo native Carlos Manuel de Céspedes rose up in arms at his La Demajagua sugar mill, proclaiming independence and freeing his slaves. Under difficult conditions, the independence movement managed to unify, approving the constitution in Guáimaro that created the Republic of Cuba in Arms. The Cuban liberation army, after months of preparation, achieved an offensive capacity that would be demonstrated in the invasion of Guantánamo by General Máximo Gómez and the brilliant actions waged in the Camagüey plains under the command of Ignacio Agramonte.

Cuban military courage reached its peak, first with Máximo Gómez’s campaign in Camagüey and the subsequent invasion of Las Villas by the Mambi troops under the command of the brilliant Dominican general. But the momentous strategic advance was once again disrupted by internal disagreements that, by hindering the arrival of vital reinforcements, allowed the invasion to stall without achieving its objective of moving the war to the western territory of the island.

The exhaustion of the insurgent camp, among other factors, made it possible for a significant sector of the independence movement to accept the proposals of Spanish General Arsenio Martínez Campos. The peace without independence signed at Zanjón (1878) did not obtain the consensus of the mambi forces and was particularly rejected by General Antonio Maceo, commander of the forces in the easternmost part of the island, who had risen to the highest ranks in the Liberation Army through his bravery and combative ability. Although the insurgent military actions could not be sustained for long, the Baraguá Protest, staged by Maceo and his troops, constituted the greatest evidence of the irrevocable will of the Cubans to continue the fight for independence.

In the 1880s, the island underwent a process of major economic and social changes. Slavery, already severely undermined by the Revolution of 1868, was finally abolished by Spain in 1886. This was accompanied by notable transformations in the organization of sugar production, which finally reached an industrial stage.

The independence movement was encouraged primarily by emigrants. The first outbreak, the so-called “Little War” (1879), brought Cubans back to the battlefield in the eastern and Villa Clara territories, but it was crushed after a few months due to its poor organization and weak political coherence.

José Martí Pérez suffered imprisonment and exile during the Ten Years’ War. His work of enlightenment and unification, focused on Cuban émigré groups, primarily in the United States but with widespread repercussions on the island, materialized in 1892 with the drafting of the constitution of the Cuban Revolutionary Party. Conceived as the sole organization of all Cuban independence fighters, the party was to secure the material and human resources for what Martí called the “Necessary War.”

The Necessary War broke out on February 24, 1895. Martí landed in Cuba with Máximo Gómez, leader of the Liberation Army, and fell in combat shortly afterward at the Battle of Dos Ríos. Despite this irreparable loss, the revolution developed in the province of Oriente, where Maceo (who had arrived from Costa Rica) had assumed command of the mambi troops, and soon spread to Camagüey and Las Villas. Meeting in Jimaguayú, the delegates of the Liberation Army drafted the constitution that would govern the Republic in Arms.

Despite the high human cost of this type of conflict, especially due to the concentration of the rural population in the cities, the metropolis was unable to quell the insurrection. Gómez’s campaign in Havana and Maceo’s in Pinar del Río kept the colonialist army in check.

The development of the war in Cuba led both houses of the U.S. Congress to approve the Joint Resolution through which the Washington government intervened in the conflict. Then, in February 1898, the explosion of the battleship Maine in Havana port occurred. Washington used this as a pretext to mobilize public opinion and intervene directly in the war. The United States entered the war with Spain and, with the collaboration of the Mambi forces, landed its troops on the southern coast of eastern Cuba. The actions took place around Santiago de Cuba. The Spanish fleet, blockaded in the port, attempted a sortie, but was annihilated by the superiority of the U.S. naval forces. After the assault on the city’s external defenses by Cuban-American forces, the Spanish command surrendered. The Cuban military commanders, led by Calixto García, were excluded from the surrender ceremony, and their forces were prohibited from entering the city. Months later, according to the Treaty of Paris, Spain would hand over Cuba to the United States without any regard for the representative institutions of the Cuban people.