In an 1889 letter to a friend, my intellectual mentor José Martí wrote: “[we] need to know what the position of this avaricious neighbor is, who confesses its desire for us before launching what seems an inevitable war, and could be futile because of the quiet determination of the neighbor to again oppose it as a means of leaving the island in a state which enables it to lay hands upon it later . . . And once the United States are in Cuba, who will drive them out?”
Antonio Maceo was one of the greatest military minds of the nineteenth century. Over three wars seeking Cuba’s independence, he won every battle in which he engaged, sustaining seventeen gunshot wounds and four bayonet stabs at the hands of the Spaniards.
In 1890, he was asked his thoughts about the possible annexation of Cuba by the U.S. He responded: “Young man, I believe, although it seems impossible to me that this can be the only outcome, that in such a case I would be on the side of the Spaniards.”
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