ABSTRACT
Henry Adams in The Education of Henry Adams, wrote in 1905, more than a century ago, that "double standards are inspiration to men of letters, but they are apt to be fatal to politicians". Despite the importance and drama of the Spanish-American War, 1902 is a better starting date for this narrative than 1898 because it was only after the four years of American colonial hegemony that Cuba could begin to define its status as an independent nation. Cuba has never been the master of its own fate in its independence struggles. Without minimizing the bitterness of the Cuban popular classes against Spanish colonial rule the plain fact of the matter is that the United States and Spain set the terms of Cuban independence. The problem for Cuba, after securing its independence, was the ambiguity of the outcome. It achieved a result that it desired without devising a method for accomplishing it.
