ABSTRACT
On January 1, 1899, U.S. Army General John R. Brooke became the first U.S. Military Governor of Cuba. The last Spanish Captain-General of Cuba, Adolfo Jiménez Castellanos, in a short and terse speech, transferred the sovereignty of Cuba to the custody of the United States. Even if the U.S. authorities had understood Spanish, they would not have been able to hear Jiménez’s speech, on account of the noise made by an American regimental band playing patriotic tunes outside the building.
