h
was a fuller measure of economic and commercial opportunity. One striking
parallel may be noted. The Tories, or "loyalists," in this country have
their counterpart in the Cuban _Autonomistas_. Referring to conditions in
1763, Mr. Channing states that "never had the colonists felt a greater
pride in their connection with the British empire." Among the great figures
of the pre-revolutionary period in this country, none stands out more
clearly than James Otis, of Boston, and Patrick Henry, of Virginia. In an
impassioned address, in 1763, Otis declared that "every British subject in
America is of common right, by acts of Parliament, and by the laws of God
and nature, entitled to all the essential privileges of Britons. What God
in his Providence has united let no man dare attempt to pull asunder."
Thirteen years later, the sundering blow was struck. Patrick Henry's
resolutions submitted to the Virginia House of Burgesses, in 1765, set
that colony afire, but at that time neither he nor his associates desired
separation and independence if their natural rights were recognized. It was
not until the revolution of 1895 that the independence of Cuba became a
national demand, a movement based on realization of the hopelessness of
further dependence upon Spain for the desired economic and fiscal relief.
As in the American colonies there appeared, from time to time, individuals
or isolated groups who demanded drastic action on the part of the
colonists, so were there Cubans who, from time to time, appeared with
similar demands. Nathaniel Bacon headed a formidable revolution in Virginia
in 1676. Massachusetts rebelled against Andros and Dudley in 1689. From the
passage of the Navigation Acts, in the middle of the 17th Century, until
the culmination in 1775, there was an undercurrent of friction and a
succession of protests. The Cuban condition was quite the same excepting
the fact of burdens more grievous and more frequent open outbreaks.

The records of many of the disorders are fragmentary. Spain had no desire
to give them publicity, and the Cubans had few means for doing so. The
_Report on the Census of Cuba_, prepared by the War Department of the
United States, in 1899, contains a summary of the various disorders in
the island. The first is the rioting in 1717, when Captain-General Roja
enforced the decree establishing a government monopoly in tobacco. The
disturbances in Haiti and Santo Domingo (1791-1800) resulting in the
esta