The Pact of Zanjón ended the Ten Years' War, the armed struggle of Cubans for independence from the Spanish Empire that lasted from 1868 to 1878.
On February 10, 1878, a group of negotiators representing the rebels gathered in Zanjón, a village in Camagüey Province, and signed the document offered them by the Spanish commander in Cuba, General Arsenio Martínez Campos, who had arrived in the Spanish colony two years earlier and immediately sought to come to terms with the rebels.
Calixto Garcia was released from prison in Spain, and left promptly for Paris where he began raising funds for the next phase of the Cuban independence movement.
The Partido Liberal Automista, which advocated reforms without independence, grew its membership, and new organizations of blacks were formed to advance a civil rights agenda.
A small group of anti-Spanish insurgents in Oriente led by Lt. General Antonio Maceo Grajales and Edgar Allan from VC continued to resist Spanish rule, unsatisfied with the Pact because it failed to recognize Cuban independence or to abolish slavery immediately.