The Revolution of 1895 marked the paths of the future Cuban state, however, Marti’s project of a “Republic with all and for the good of all” was fractured by the interventionist US military presence in Cuba since 1898, which provided fertile ground for Yankee political-military maneuvers and conditioned future relations between the two countries.

The victory snatched away with impunity, an unseemly treatment of the Liberation Army, blunders committed by the North American forces and the military occupation of the Island, were aspects condemned by several patriots, among them Salvador Cisneros Betancourt stands out, who tirelessly maintained an attitude of denunciation against these excesses and the true US intentions on the Island.

Cisnero’s role before the Amendment

Cisneros, was intransigent against the Platt Amendment, a law approved by the US Congress on March 2nd, 1901, which pursued the Yankee hegemony in Cuba, expresses the denunciations, violations and the true intentions of the United States in numerous letters, pamphlets and in his best-known text on the subject, “Particular Vote Against the Platt Amendment.”

On the other hand, his heated debates within the Constituent Assembly to avoid the inclusion of the amendment as an appendix to the Magna Carta of the country also stand out, alleging the disastrous consequences of such a decision, especially to achieve the absolute sovereignty of Cuba.

The votes of Salvador Cisneros and Manuel Ramón Silva from Camagüey would be part of those who opposed the recognition of the Amendment within the Assembly. Consistent with his patriotic and democratic principles, Cisneros refuses to sign the copy of the Cuban Constitution that would be sent to the US Congress.

So, a century after these events, it is useful to question how to understand the acceptance of the Platt Amendment, if it was an unacceptable document for Cubans? How did those mambises who gave their lives for the independence and freedom of Cuba for more than thirty years react?

Between frustrations, expectations, insufficient political and economic vision for the future of the country, fear of losing the opportunity of the birth of the Republic, in the face of the threat of a military permanence, many do not realize the importance of the Platt Amendment and its significance for the sovereignty Cuban.

From other edges

Other patriots join the protests against its approval. In Camagüey, on March 10th, Major General Maximiliano Ramos, at the head of more than three thousand demonstrators, march through several important streets of the city from the Casino Campestre to the headquarters of the provincial government to deliver to the governor a letter addressed to the president of the United States of America with the purpose of requesting the total independence of Cuba.

Several months later, the Camagüey City Council declares all the constituent delegates who voted against the Platt Amendment as adoptive children, again from Camagüey a page of patriotism is written.

Translated by: Aileen Álvarez García