1898: What did Cuba gain and what did it lose?

In our previous work, we gave the floor to several Cuban historians to understand how they interpreted the complex process that led from the war of independence in 1895 to the American intervention in 1898 and the birth of the Republic in 1902. Now we can take a step further.

The question is inevitable: What did Cuba gain and what did it lose in that process? It is not about answering it from a current political stance. Far from it, it should not become a dispute between those who present the United States as a savior and those who see it as solely responsible for the frustration of Cuban independence.

The historical reality is much more complex. 1898 marked the end of more than four centuries of Spanish domination over Cuba. But it also ushered in a period of American military occupation and profound political and institutional transformations. The Cuban War of Independence did not disappear from history with the entry of the United States into the conflict; however, the outcome of the war cannot be understood without American intervention.

Historian Louis A. Pérez Jr., in his study of the 1898 war and its subsequent historiographical interpretation, has emphasized the necessity of reclaiming Cuban participation and critically examining the narratives constructed later about that conflict. His work dedicates specific chapters to the intervention, its intentions, and the ways in which the war has been historically represented.

What changed

During the first U.S. occupation, significant administrative and sanitary transformations occurred, and public institutions were reorganized that would later be part of the republican state. However, it would also be incorrect to present that process as a mere act of selfless modernization.

The occupation was, above all, a foreign military occupation. The United States exercised effective power while Cuba was still not a sovereign Republic. The central question, therefore, cannot be reduced to asking whether useful works were carried out during those years. We must also ask who held the power and under what conditions that power would later be relinquished to the Cubans. Here lies one of the great issues of 1898.

Conditional sovereignty

The birth of the Republic in 1902 was accompanied by the incorporation of the Platt Amendment into the Cuban constitutional framework. This provision established conditions that limited the autonomy of the new Republic, including certain U.S. powers related to intervention and the establishment of naval bases. For a significant part of Cuban historiography, this was the political price of independence.

Emilio Roig de Leuchsenring made this issue one of the focal points of his interpretation of Cuban-American relations. His work "Cuba does not owe its independence to the United States" represents one of the most forceful expressions of that historiographical trend.

But we should not stop there. What about the Cubans? This question is often much more uncomfortable. History was not only written in Washington. Cubans participated in the war, negotiated, disagreed, became politically divided, and made decisions that also influenced the final outcome.

Ramiro Guerra devoted a significant part of his work to studying the historical formation of the Cuban nation and its relations with the United States. Herminio Portell Vilá, for his part, constructed an extensive documentary history of the relationships between Cuba, the United States, and Spain, using abundant diplomatic and political documentation. His work began to be published before 1959 and serves as a fundamental source for studying the long-term nature of those relationships.

This compels us to pose another question: To what extent did the responsibility of the Cubans themselves contribute to the conditions under which the Republic was born?

We cannot attribute every subsequent difficulty in Cuba to a foreign power. Nor can we ignore the conditions imposed from the outside. Between these two extremes lies a much more complex historical reality. So, what did Cuba gain and what did it lose?

It marked the end of Spanish colonial rule. It opened the concrete possibility of establishing a Republic. It underwent administrative and health transformations and an institutional reorganization that would have lasting consequences. However, it lost, or at least saw its sovereign decision-making capacity limited, during the early years of the Republic.

The Republic was born under an external guardianship, which was legally expressed in the Platt Amendment. This contradiction—independence and dependence at the same time—would shape much of Cuba's 20th-century history. This is why the initial question may not have a simple answer.

1898 was not just a liberation. Nor was it solely an occupation. It was a turning point where the Cuban War of Independence, the Spanish defeat, the strategic interests of the United States, the aspirations of the Cubans, and the political divisions of a nation still trying to organize itself as a State converged.

Cuban historians studied this process from different perspectives. And that is precisely where its value lies. We do not need everyone to think alike. We need to read them, compare them, contrast their arguments with the documents, and recognize both what their interpretations explain and what they may have left out.

The history of Cuba does not need a verdict in advance. It needs uncomfortable questions and reliable sources. That is the task that lies ahead of us.