isaffected as well, until both the aggrieved factions began to plot
rebellion. Spain, too, sent over a crowd of officials who could not
adjust themselves to local conditions. The failure of the mother country
to allow the Dominicans representation in the Spanish Cortes and
its readiness to levy taxes stirred up resentment that soon ended
in revolution. Unable to check this new trouble, and awed by the
threatening attitude of the United States, Spain decided to withdraw
in 1865. The Dominicans thus were left with their independence and
a chance--which they promptly seized--to renew their commotions. So
serious did these disturbances become that in 1869 the President of
the reconstituted republic sought annexation to the United States but
without success. American efforts, on the other hand, were equally
futile to restore peace and order in the troubled country until many
years later.

The intervention of Spain in Santo Domingo and its subsequent withdrawal
could not fail to have disastrous consequences in its colony of Cuba,
the "Pearl of the Antilles" as it was proudly called. Here abundant
crops of sugar and tobacco had brought wealth and luxury, but not many
immigrants because of the havoc made by epidemics of yellow fever.
Nearly a third of the insular population was still composed of negro
slaves, who could hardly relish the thought that, while the mother
country had tolerated the suppression of the hateful institution in
Santo Domingo, she still maintained it in Cuba. A bureaucracy, also,
prone to corruption owing to the temptations of loose accounting at the
custom house, governed in routinary, if not in arbitrary, fashion.
Under these circumstances dislike for the suspicious and repressive
administration of Spain grew apace, and secret societies renewed their
agitation for its overthrow. The symptoms of unrest were aggravated by
the forced retirement of Spain from Santo Domingo. If the Dominicans
had succeeded so well, it ought not to be difficult for a prolonged
rebellion to wear Spain out and compel it to abandon Cuba also. At this
critical moment news was brought of a Spanish revolution across the
seas.

Just as the plight of Spain in 1808, and again in 1820, had afforded a
favorable opportunity for its colonies on the continents of America to
win their independence, so now in 1868 the tidings that Queen Isabella
had been dethroned by a liberal uprising aroused the Cubans to action
under their devoted leader