AGENTS OF EMPIRE: THE FRONTIER U.S. ARMY AND THE TRANSITION FROM THE WAR WITH SPAIN TO THE OCCUPATION OF CUBA John R. Rhodes A dissertation submitted to the faculty at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of History in the Graduate School. Chapel Hill 2016 Approved by: Joseph T. Glatthaar Wayne E. Lee Louis A. Pérez Jr. W. Fitzhugh Brundage Alex Roland © 2016 John R. Rhodes ALL RIGHTS RESERVED ii ABSTRACT John R. Rhodes: Agents of Empire: The Frontier U.S. Army and the Transition from the War with Spain to the Occupation of Cuba (Under the direction of Joseph T. Glatthaar) This dissertation examines how the U.S. Army conducted a successful initial occupation of Santiago, Cuba, after the Spanish surrender of eastern Cuba to General William R. Shafter’s Fifth Corps on July 17, 1898. U.S. Army officers replicated and adapted lessons learned from their frontier and Reconstruction experiences to evacuate Spanish prisoners, relieve humanitarian crises, discover the causes of tropical fevers, control the Cuban population, establish a logistical infrastructure, and create a military government. Their actions during the occupation of Santiago became the model for how the U.S. Army conducted the remainder of its occupation of Cuba. Based on both published government records, newspapers, and memoirs; and unpublished personal papers, letters, diaries, and official correspondence collected from three archives, this study shows how the U.S. Army used a blend of coercion and conciliation during the occupation to disband the Cuban Liberation Army and delegitimize the Cuban revolutionary government. With firm control over the Cuban population and the creation of a loyal constabulary, and with no serious political or military challenger, the U.S. Army gave government officials in Washington the time to determine unilaterally the future relationship between Cuba and the United States. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION ……...…………………………………………………………………….......1 Introduction…………………………………………………………………………..……1 Historiography……………………………………………………………………..……...5 Methodology……………………………………………………………………………..22 Organization……………………………………………………………………………...27 CHAPTER 1: THE WAR WITH SPAIN AND THE SANTIAGO CAMPAIGN……………....32 Introduction………………………………………………………….……………….......32 The Cuban War for Independence……………………………………………….............33 The United States Intervenes in Cuba…………………………………………................40 The War Department’s Strategy during the War with Spain…………………….………49 The Santiago Campaign………………………………………………………………….63 The Puerto Rico and Philippine Campaigns…………………..…………………………87 Conclusion………………………………………………………………………..……...89 CHAPTER 2: THE FIRST CRISES: THE U.S. ARMY’S CHANGING RELATIONS WITH THE SPANISH AND CUBAN ARMIES AND THE ORDERLY RETURN OF THE SPANISH PRISONERS BACK TO SPAIN……………….....92 Introduction………………………………………………………………......….….........92 The Deteriorating Relationship between the Cuban and American Allies...……...…......96 The Spanish Army: From Foe to Friend.……………………………………….………109 iv The Managerial War Department and the Evacuation of the Spanish Prisoners…….....121 Conclusion………………………………………………………………………...........142 CHAPTER 3: AN ARMY OF CONVALESCENTS: YELLOW AND MALARIAL FEVER EPIDEMICS AND THE EVACUATION OF THE FIFTH CORPS…………………145 Introduction……………………………………………………………………..………145 The Outbreak of Disease………………..........................................................................147 Dealing with Disease in the Post-Civil War U.S. Army…………………………..........158 Losing the Battle against Epidemic Fevers…………..…………………………............166 The Decline and Evacuation of the Fifth Corps……………………………..…..……...173 Conclusion…………………………………………………………………….………..190 CHAPTER 4: THE HUMANITARIANS: THE U.S. ARMY AND THE RED CROSS PROVIDE RELIEF ACROSS EASTERN CUBA…..……………………….….........196 Introduction………………………………………………………….………………….196 A Legacy of Performing Humanitarian Missions on the American Frontier…….…….201 McKinley and his War for Humanity……………………………………………..........204 Providing Immediate Relief in Santiago de Cuba……………………………….……...208 Extending Humanitarian Assistance to the Surrounding Province……………....……..223 The Army Takes Over the Humanitarian Mission………...……………………………230 Conclusion………………………………………………………………………..…….245 CHAPTER 5: THE U.S. ARMY ESTABLISHES CONTROL IN SANTIAGO……………...248 Introduction……………………………………………………………………..……...248 The Formation of the Department of Santiago……………………………….………...253 Bringing Order to Santiago de Cuba and Ending the State of War…….........................262 Neutralizing the Cuban “Insurgents”…..……………………………………………….275 v Taking Physical Control of the Towns in the Department of Santiago………………...290 Conclusion……………………………………………………………………………...301 CHAPTER 6: POLICING CUBA: USING LOCAL PROXIES TO CONTROL THE BOUNDARIES OF AMERICAN EMPIRE…...…………………………………………303 Introduction……………………………………………………………………………..303 Frontier Legacy of Policing…………………………………………………..…...........306 Cubans Policing Santiago……………………………………………..…………..........309 The U.S. Army’s Long Tradition of Using Native Scouts………………………..........313 The Rural Guard………………………………………………………………………..316 Operational Mobility: The U.S. Army’s Need for Mounted Soldiers…………….........322 Policing Cuba…………………………………………………….……………………..329 Conclusion……………………………………………………………………………...336 CHAPTER 7: SUSTAINING THE OCCUPATION: COLLECTING REVENUES, BUILDING INFRASTRUCTURE, AND SANITATION……………………………………..338 Introduction…………………………………………………………………….……….338 Financing the Occupation………………….…………………………………..….........339 Building Military Infrastructure and Establishing Lines of Communication...…….......349 Sanitation: Controlling Disease in the American Encampments and Barracks…...........370 Preparing Cuba for the U.S. Army’s Arrival…………………………………………...381 CHAPTER 8: AMERICANIZING CUBA: GOVERNING THE DEPARTMENT OF SANTIAGO………..…………………………………………………………….…..……..389 Introduction………………………………………………………………….………….389 A Troubled Legacy of Military Government…………………………………..….........392 Establishing Civil Governance in Santiago…………………………..…………….......394 vi Progressive Reforms and the Americanization of Santiago………………………........405 American Governance During the Formal Occupation and its Impact on Cubans……..430 CONCLUSION ……………………………...…………………………………………………442 BIBLIOGRAPHY……………………………...………………………………………..….......452 vii INTRODUCTION Introduction When General José Toral surrendered the Spanish army defending the city of Santiago de Cuba and the surrounding province to the United States on July 17, 1898, the U.S. Army encountered a host of problems. The veteran Fifth Corps, composed of the Army’s regulars and a few of its best volunteer units, had done all the fighting in Santiago, but had become paralyzed as a sizable portion of it fell victim to fevers and dysentery. The War Department needed to evacuate the entire corps to a healthier climate, leaving behind a small cadre of regular officers to administer the province, aided by a few regiments of newly recruited volunteers. Simultaneously, the Army assumed responsibility for the care and safeguarding of 24,000 Spanish prisoners from potentially vengeful Cubans until the War Department could transport them back to Spain. The biggest problem that the U.S. Army faced, however, was occupying much of eastern Cuba, an area ravaged by three years of civil war. Not only were hundreds of Cubans dying each day from disease and starvation, but the fighting had also destroyed the island’s infrastructure, farms, and livestock, preventing any hope of a rapid economic recovery. Because neither the McKinley administration nor the War Department provided satisfactory long-term policy directives during the initial occupation, the U.S. Army’s officers relied on both their past experiences as a constabulary on the American frontier and familiar institutional norms to improvise the occupation of Santiago without a long-term understanding of the future relationship between Cuba and the United States. 1 This dissertation will examine the conduct of the U.S. Army during the initial occupation of Santiago until the beginning of the complete occupation of Cuba on January 1, 1899. It is primarily a study of how the U.S. Army transitioned out of a conventional war to become an army of occupation charged with conducting what we would call “nation building” today, and of the challenges the officers and soldiers faced in the process of making that transition. This work also attempts to reveal the complex array of experiential, institutional, and practical military factors that interacted to shape the U.S. Army’s behavior in Cuba. This work argues that the Department of Santiago was effectively a testing ground. During the initial occupation, American officers employed methods that became the model for how the U.S. Army conducted the remainder of its occupation of Cuba. After thirty years of acting as the “multipurpose army” for the federal government, U.S. Army officers had the skills and experience necessary to deal with the Cuban population and enforce American policy.1 Drawing upon past practices on the frontier, they instinctively improvised an effective occupation strategy that consisted of disbanding the Cuban Army, establishing a monopoly of military force, controlling the Cubans by garrisoning forces in Cuban population centers, administering the island’s revenues, and creating a functioning military government. Besides President William McKinley’s limited guidance and accepted