The reconcentration policy was a plan implemented by Spanish military officer Valeriano Weyler during the Cuban War of Independence to relocate Cuba's rural population into concentration camps.

It was originally developed by Weyler's predecessor, Arsenio Martínez Campos, as a method of separating Cuban rebels from the rural populace which often supplied or sheltered them.

[4][5] Rebel army leaders Máximo Gómez and Antonio Maceo Grajales instituted a strategy of guerrilla warfare in the countryside, often only engaging in hit-and-run attacks and destroying sugar plantations owned by the country's elite.

By 1896, the rebels had begun an offensive on the prosperous western end of the island destroying sugar plantations and causing severe damage to Spain's economy.

[6] Weyler had previously studied the conflict in Cuba and was a staunch supporter to the idea that the rural population must be relocated for Spain to be victorious.

[7] The collapse of the reconcentration policy was caused by two events: the assassination of Spanish Prime Minister Antonio Cánovas del Castillo by the Italian anarchist Michele Angiolillo and media reports about the tragic situation in Cuba.