On 10 October 1868, sugar mill owner Carlos Manuel de Céspedes and his followers proclaimed independence, beginning the conflict.

The abolitionist cause gained strength, favoring a gradual emancipation of slaves with financial compensation from the Government for slaveholders.

[12] The Spanish Parliament at the time was changing; gaining much influence were reactionary, traditionalist politicians who intended to eliminate all liberal reforms.

[13] The failure of the latest efforts by the reformist movements, the demise of the "Information Board," and another economic crisis in 1866/67 heightened social tensions on the island.

[citation needed] The European Spaniards (known as peninsulares) concentrated a good deal of the island's wealth through their paramount role in Cuban trade.

[14] In July 1867, the "Revolutionary Committee of Bayamo" was founded under the leadership of Cuba's wealthiest plantation owner, Francisco Vicente Aguilera.

The conspiracy rapidly spread to Oriente's larger towns, most of all Manzanillo, where Carlos Manuel de Céspedes became the main protagonist of the uprising in 1868.

[citation needed] That same month, Máximo Gómez taught the Cuban forces what would be their most lethal tactic: the machete charge.

In the event, as with the Haitian Revolution, the European forces suffered the most fatalities due to yellow fever because the Spanish-born troops had no acquired immunity to this endemic tropical disease of the island.

We sincerely profess a policy of brotherhood, tolerance, and justice, and to consider all men equal, and to not exclude anyone from these benefits, not even Spaniards, if they choose to remain and live peacefully among us.

When Cuba is free, it will have a constitutional government created in an enlightened manner.After three days of combat, the rebels seized the important city of Bayamo.

In the enthusiasm of this victory, poet and musician Perucho Figueredo composed Cuba's national anthem, "La Bayamesa”.

Eventually he developed as a leading Latin American intellectual and Cuba's foremost national hero, its primary architect of the 1895–98 Cuban War of Independence.

Apart from the regular army, the government relied on the Voluntary Corps, a militia created in 1855 a few years earlier to face the announced invasion by John A. Quitman in collaboration with Ramón Pintó.

Starting on 4 November, its forces executed 53 persons, including the captain, most of the crew, and a number of Cuban insurgents on board.

[26] In the so-called "Creciente de Valmaseda" incident, the corps captured farmers (Guajiros) and the families of Mambises, killing them immediately or sending them en masse to concentration camps on the island.

[citation needed] The Mambises fought using guerrilla tactics and were more effective on the eastern side of the island than in the west, where they lacked supplies.

A neutral force initially, as ordered by Otto von Bismarck in a telegram to consul Luis Will, they were considered to favor the government.

Agramonte had realized that his dream Constitution and government were ill-suited to the Cuban Republic in Arms, which was the reason he quit as secretary and assumed command of the Camaguey region.

The new Cuban government had left him with only one escort and denied permission to leave Cuba for the US, from where he intended to help prepare and send armed expeditions.

Gómez began an invasion of Western Cuba in 1875, but the vast majority of slaves and wealthy sugar producers in the region did not join the revolt.

[29] The deep divisions among insurgents regarding their organisation of government and the military became more pronounced after the Assembly of Guáimaro, as resulting in the dismissal of Céspedes and Quesada in 1873.

The Spanish exploited regional divisions, as well as fears that the slaves of Matanzas would break the weak existing balance between whites and blacks.

The Mambises did not prevail for a variety of reasons: lack of organization and resources; lower participation by whites; internal racist sabotage (against Maceo and the goals of the Liberating Army); the inability to bring the war to the western provinces (Havana in particular); and opposition by the US government to Cuban independence.

[30][dubious – discuss] Tomás Estrada Palma succeeded Juan Bautista Spotorno as president of the Republic in Arms.

As a result of successive misfortunes, on 8 February 1878, the constitutional organs of the Cuban government were dissolved; the remaining leaders among the insurgents started negotiating for peace in Zanjón, Puerto Príncipe.

The Ten Years' War came to an end, except for the resistance of a small group in Oriente led by General Garcia and Antonio Maceo Grajales, who protested in Los Mangos de Baraguá on 15 March.

[citation needed] Together with a severe economic depression throughout the island, the war devastated the coffee industry, and American tariffs badly damaged Cuban exports.