Document
containing the bases for putting an end to the Hundred Years War (1868-1878),
signed by part of the Cuban political and military leaders, without the
attainment of the two main objectives of the war being guaranteed, to wit:
achieving independence and abolishing slavery.
Therefore, it was actually an act of surrender.
The
loss of unity was the main cause of the tragic outcome of that long and bloody
war, which was influenced by economic, social and political and military factors.
The seed of discord was present in the revolutionary process from the
beginning, due to a marked regionalism, influenced by the socioeconomic
characteristics of the territory where the war was waged .
The
collapse of the bourgeois-landowning leadership of the revolution was speeded up
when the political and military offensive of the Spanish colonial regime was
added to the discouragement, disconcertion, and indiscipline existing in the
Cuban side. Under these
circumstances, the revolutionary forces were split into two tendencies: the
vacillating landowning class which was willing to surrender and a newly emerging
radical vanguard led by leaders from the people’s ranks.
It
was precisely the most standing of those commanders, Antonio
Maceo, who transformed the Zanjón capitulation into a fruitful truce
through his immortal Baragua
Protest.
In
reference to the Zanjón Pact, Commander-in-Chief Fidel Castro said; “The Ten
Years War was lost not because the enemy wrenched the sword from our hand, but
because we let the sword fall.”
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