Maximo Gómez Wrote to President Cleveland

On February 9 1897, as Cuba waged her 3^rd and final war for separation from Spain, General Maximo Gómez wrote a letter to U.S. President Grover Cleveland asking that he issue a statement against the brutal methods of Spanish General Valeriano Weyler. On the third paragraph Gómez writes: “The wisdom of the American people should alone decide what course of action you should take.”

Today it seems sad that “the wisdom of the American people” has never been invoked in the U.S. government policies towards Cuba. Most Americans do not support the embargo and the fostering of hostilities, or the use of terrorism against their small neighbor.

Gómez would not be happy with the role that the U.S. government continues to play in the history of Cuba, but he would not be surprised. The people of the U.S. have always had a great compassion and support for Cubans over the centuries, recognizing their right to a self-made identity.

So, how is it, then, that the resolve of the “freest people of the world” is so different from the actions of their government?

Further down in the letter Gómez writes: “Is it possible that civilized people will consent to the sacrifice of unarmed and defenseless men?”

And this is how he describes the Spanish empire: “It is logical that such should be the conduct of the nation that expelled the Jews and the Moors; that instituted and built up the terrible Inquisition; that established the tribunals of blood in the Netherlands; that annihilated the Indians and exterminated the first settlers of Cuba; that assassinated thousands of her subjects in the wars of South American independence, and that filled the cup of iniquity in the last war in Cuba.”

Gómez was not only a brilliant war strategist, but a fierce warrior loved and respected by his men. He was also, and this still surprises many, not a Cuban (he was born in Santo Domingo, 1836), and, like Ernesto “Che” Guevara a half-century later, adopted Cuba as the country he would fight for.

The outcome of Cuba’s war for independence was not what Gómez and the Cuban rebels fought for. In his diary of January 8 1899 he writes: “Nothing is more rational and fair than that the owner of the house should be the one to live in it with his family and be the one who furnishes and decorates it as he likes and that he not be forced against his will and inclination to follow norms imposed by his neighbor.”

He adds, “There is so much natural anger and grief throughout the island that the people haven’t really been able to celebrate the triumph of the end of their former rulers’ power.”

Peace.