The 1899 cuban marriage law controversy: Church, state and empire in the crucible of nation

Journal of Social History

Volumn 42, Issue 2, 2008, Pages

  Logan, Enid Lynette ^a,b  

^a UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA   (United States)

^b Department of Sociology ^*  (United States)

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EID: 58149337529     PISSN: 00224529     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1353/jsh.0.0140     Document Type: Article

References (124)

1. The first war of Cuban independence, fought between 1868-1878, ended in a stalemate. The final armed conflict, known as the Cuban Revolution or the Spanish-American War, took place between 1895-1898. Months away from a decisive victory by the Cuban Army, the U.S. military landed on the island and commandeered the war effort. The negotiations in Paris, at which no Cuban representation was permitted, ended with an agreement that Spain would transfer rights to Cuba, Puerto Rico, Guam and the Philippines to the United States. This accord sealed the demise of the Spanish empire, and catapulted the U.S. to a position of international prominence.
2. The Church was solidly defeated in this battle, and the first law of absolute divorce was passed in 1918.
3. This characterization of Cuba's significance to the U.S. after 1898 comes from Jorge Ibarra, Cuba: 1898-1921, Partidos políticos y clases societies (Havana, 1992), p. 18.
4. For such an analysis see Margaret E. Crahan, Journal of Latin American Studies, 17 no. 2 (November 1985): 319-40.
5. I thank Rebecca Scott for urging me to clarify this point.
6. For discussion of the populist, anti-racist dimensions of Martí's vision of the nation, especially see Louis A. Perez Jr., Cuba: Between Reform and Revolution, 2d ed. (New York, 1995) and Ada Ferrer, Insurgent Cuba: Race, Nation and Revolution, 1868-1898 (Chapel Hill, 1999).
7. Louis A. Pérez, Jr. Cuba between empires: 1878-1902 (Pittsburgh, 1983).
8. Rigoberto Segreo Ricardo, De Compostela a Espada : vicisitudes de la Iglesia Católica en Cuba. Havana, 2000. As Segreo writes, in colonial Cuba "the control of education was in the hands of the Church, as well as the principal institutions of charity and healthcare" (2000, p. 63).
9. Civil registries were not established in Cuba until 1885.
10. See Julio A. Carreras, His-toria del estado y el derecho en Cuba (Havana, 1987), p. 135.
11. On church courts, see Mecham 1963, p. 29 and Segreo 2000, p. 61. It is important to note that the church of Cuba received far less financial and political support than its counterparts in the more valued viceroyalties of New Spain and Peru. The chronic underfunding of the Cuban church contributed significantly to its relative weakness as an institution.
12. See Segreo 2000 and Juan Martin Leiseca, Apuntes para la historia eclesiástica de Cuba (Havana, 1938).
13. This is not to say that the interests of crown and church were identical. The monarchy's authority over the Catholic church in the Americas, which derived from a series of rights known as the patronato real, was unprecedented. As Barnadas writes, "The crown of Castile took control of the life of the church to a degree unknown in Europe" (p. 511), generating a series of clashes between prelates and monarchs that took place throughout the colonial era.
14. See Josep Barnadas, "The Catholic church in Spanish America," pp. 511-540 in The Cambridge History of Latin America. Volume 1: Colonial Latin America, edited by Leslie Bethel (Cambridge, 1984).
15. J. Merle Davis, The Cuban Church in a Sugar Economy : A Study of the Economic and Social Basis of the Evangelical Church in Cuba (New York, 1942),
16. and Emilio Röig de Leuchsenring, La Iglesia Católica y la Independencia de Cuba (Havana, 1958).
17. Segreo (2000, p. 5) periodizes colonial Catholic history as follows: 1) The establishment and gestation of the Catholic church in Cuba (1510-1680) 2) The formation and development of a basically creole church (1680-1790) 3) The process of estrangement between the Church and the Creoles (1790-1868) and 4) The Catholic church defends the colonial status (1868-1898).
18. According to Leslie Bethel, the crown-which had the right to appoint ecclesiastical personnel in the colonies-tended to select prelates who displayed exceptional adherence to its mission and interests. See "A Note on the Church and the Independence of Latin America," pp. 229-34 in The Cambridge History of Latin America, Volume III: From Independence to c. 1870, edited by Leslie Bethell (Cambridge, 1985).
19. See also Mecham 1966, p. 22.
20. See discussion in Pérez 1993, pp. 91-100.
21. U.S. Military governor John R. Brooke appointed six Cubans (mostly ex-generals of the Liberation army) to serve as the civil governors of each of the island's provinces.
22. See Mario Riera Hernández, Cuba Política, 1899-1955 (Havana, 1955).
23. The order is found in Report of Major General J. R. Brooke on civil affairs in Cuba. Report of Brig. Gen. Geo. W. Davis on civil affairs in Puerto Rico. Reports of Brig. Gen. Leonard Wood on civil affairs in Santiago and Puerto Principe, Cuba (Washington, D.C., 1900), p. 42.
24. See fot example, "Instrucciones á los Sres. Curas Párrocos sobre el llamado matri-monio civil," January 31, 1887, pp. 14-16,
25. and "Circular del Iltmo. Sr. Gobernador del Obispado, referente al llamado matrimonio civil," June 3, 1887, pp. 35-45, in the Boletín Eclesiástico del Obispado de la Habana.
26. Hernandez writes that even as governor general of the eastern part of the island, Wood "filled most offices with Spaniards and conservative Cubans" (p. 91). José M. Hernandez, Cuba and the United States: Intervention and Militarism, 1868-1933 (Austin, 1993).
27. See also David Healy, The United States inCuba, 1898-1902: Generals, Politicians, and the Search for Policy (Madison, 1963), p. 88, and Philip S. Foner, The Spanish-Cuban-American War and the Birth of American Imperialism (New York, 1972), p. 427.
28. Mendez Capote served as the president of the first constitutional convention of Cuba in 1900, and was elected vice-president of the republic under Tomás Estrada Palma.
29. See for example, the article "Cuban Catholics Protest. Governor General Wood Requested to Repeal Gen. Brooke's Marriage Decree," Washington Post (May 24, 1900), p. 2.
30. José A. González Lanuza, Discursos y trabajos del Dr. José A. González Lanuza en la Cámara de Representantes, precedidos de su biografía (Havana, 1921), pp. 17-18.
31. "Notas Editoriales: Un gran duelo patrio: Lanuza." Cuba Contemporánea (May-August 1917): 291-6. Cited on p. 294.
32. During his brief tenure as the Secretary of Justice and Public Instruction, Lanuza also wrote laws to reform the prison system and established the first Supreme Court of the island. He chose Antonio G. Mendoza as the first Chief Justice. Lanuza was appointed Dean of the University of Havana Law School in 1907, served as the representative of the province of Havana in Congress from 1908-1914,
33. and was the President of the Chamber of Congress from 1912-1914. He died in 1917, at the age of 52.
34. See Röig de Leuchsenring 1958, pp. 78-9, "Notas editoriales" from the June 1917 Cuba contemporanea, pp. 291-7, and pp. 17-20 in Discursos y trabajos del Dr. Jose A. Gonzalez Lanuza.
35. This report appears as "Report of Mr. J. A. González Lanuza, Secretary of Justice and Public Instruction, Island of Cuba. Havana, September 16, 1899," pp. 247-276 in Report of Major General J. R. Brooke on civil affairs in Cuba. Report of Brig. Gen. Geo. W. Davis on civil affairs in Puerto Rico. Reports of Brig. Gen. Leonard Wood on civil affairs in Santiago and Puerto Principe, Cuba (Washington, D.C., 1900).
36. Ibid, p. 258.
37. Lanuza 1900, p. 258.
38. Ibid, p. 261. Lanuza was quoting here from the widely read book La Nuova Fase del Diritto Civile, first published in 1895, by Italian legal scholar Enrico Cimbali.
39. Ibid, pp. 258 and 260.
40. Röig de Leuchsenring, 1958.
41. A close friend of José Martí, Quesada was quite active in the independence struggle from the U.S. In 1900-1901, he served as a delegate to the first Cuban constitutional convention. Letter printed in Röig de Leuchsenring 1958, pp. 78-80.
42. Ibid, p. 79.
43. Ibid, pp. 78-9.
44. Ibid, pp. 79-80.
45. General Valeriano Weyler led the Spanish army during the war of 1895-1898. To deprive the Cuban Army of its base of rural support, Weyler organized a mass evacuation of the Cuban countryside, known as the "reconcentration." Hundreds of thousands of peasants, mainly in the western part of the island, were moved to fortified camps, their fields burned, homes destroyed, and livestock killed. The ravages of disease and hunger in the camps and after resulted in the death of over 300,00 peasants.
46. See Maria Poumier, Apuntes sobre la vida cotidiana en Cubaen 1898 (Havana, 1975)
47. and Maria del Carmen Barcia, Una sociedad en crisis: La Habana a finales del siglo XIX (Havana, 2000).
48. The quotes below are taken from the Boletín Eclesiástico of the diocese of Havana, 30 June 1899, pp. 141-157.
49. Ibid, pp. 141-2.
50. See excerpts from several of his sermons condemning the rebels compiled in the Boletín Eclesiástico, March 1896, pp. 77-78. In a July letter directed to the Spanish troops, Santander wrote, "You defend a just cause, a sacred cause, against injustice, and lift up civilization against barbarism." Boletin Eclesiástico, July 31, 1896, p. 233.
51. The church sometimes allowed for a form of divorce which entailed a "separation of wealth and of bodies" but did not place the parties at liberty to remarry. Military Order No. 57, issued on May 12, 1899, decreed that all suits for divorce would henceforth be handled by the civil courts alone. It also anticipated the eventual recognition of "absolute divorce" under Cuban civil law. Interestingly, the divorce decree received very little mention in the debates ovet marriage that took place between 1899 and 1901, perhaps because unhappy couples rarely pursued the option of ecclesiastical divorce.
52. For a discussion of the cemetery issue, see the Havana ecclesiastical bulletin of Octobet 1895 and February 1899. The administration of the cemeteries owned by the Catholic church became a source of major conflict in both Cuba and Puerto Rico after 1898.
53. Ibid, pp. 142 & 156.
54. Röig de Leuchsenring 1958, p. 78.
55. Jones served as Bishop of Puerto Rico from 1902 to 1921.
56. Floyd McCoy, "Bishop William Jones, O.S. A. His background in the United States and Cuba (1865-1906), and his work in Puerto Rico (1907-1921)." PhD. Dissertation (Religious Studies), Catholic University of America, 2000, pp. 59-61.
57. Manuel P. Maza Miquel, "Cuba, Iglesia y Maximo Gómez." Pp. 209-36 in Esclavos, patriotas y poetas a la sombra de la cruz- Cinco ensayos sobre catolicismo e historia cubana. (Santo Domingo, 1999), pp. 220-221.
58. Santiago José de Echavarriá was appointed Archbishop of Santiago de Cuba in 1769. Leiseca 1938, p. 117.
59. Maza Miquel 1999, p. 220. During the colonial era, the right to choose bishops had been vested in the crown. With the ending of Spanish sovereignty in Cuba, this power reverted to Rome.
60. Ibid, p. 223.
61. Ada Ferrer, Insurgent Cuba: Race, Nation and Revolution, 1868-1898 (Chapel Hill, 1999), p. 44. Cisneros also served as president of the revolutionary government during the wars of 1868-1878 and 1895-1898.
62. A similar amendment was introduced by mulatto senator Martín Morúa Delgado. Though neither amendment passed, the final text of the constitution included a much more general reference to God than those in most other Latin American nations. See Diario de Sesiones de la Conventión Constituyente de la lsla de Cuba, January 25, 1901, no. 18, pp. 161-166.
63. Chapelle, who was the Archbishop of New Orleans, was chosen to reptesent the Church's interests in Cuba, Puerto Rico and the Philippines in 1898.
64. Dissidents maintained their opposition to Sbaretti throughout his term of office. In 1901 the Bishop himself requested that he be replaced by a native of the island, and in December, Cuban-born Pedro González Estrada assumed the post (Maza 1999, pp. 230-233). Spaniards continued to dominate the Catholic hierarchy throughout the first decades of the republic, however. In 1925, the Cuban congress passed a law stipulating that all highet clergy must be native-born Cubans. Senator Gonzalo Perez, who proposed the 1925 law, was one of the judges who weighed in against the Bishop's request to overturn Military Order No. 66 in 1900.
65. See the United States National Archives (hereafter USNA) Record Group 59, Records of the Department of State, File 837, Item 404 No. 5, March 26, 1925, and adjacent documents.
66. The petition is housed at the U.S. National Archives, under Record Group 140, Records of the Military Government of Cuba, 1899-1902, Entry 3, File 1900, Item 1671. The Archbishop of Santiago de Cuba followed with a similar petition, containing the signatures of 20 prominent Cubans from his diocese.
67. See "Enclosing further petition in regard to the present marriage law, signed by the citizens of various towns." USNA Record Group 140, Entry 3, File 1900, Item 1671, May 23, 1900.
68. Donatus, Bishop of Havana to His Excellency the Governor of Cuba, Major General Leonard Wood, U.S.A. Obispado de la Habana, March 13, 1900. "Submits an argument as to the necessity for the repealing of the Marriage Decree of March 31, 1899." USNA Record Group 140, Entry 3, File 1900, Item 1671.
69. Donatus, Bishop of Havana, to His Excellency, General Wood, U.S.A., Military Governor of Cuba. Havana, Cuba, May 23, 1900.
70. "Enclosing petition that the decree of May 31, 1899, as to CIVIL MARRIAGES, be abrogated and the Church allowed to make valid marriages as heretofore." USNA Record Group 140, Entry 3, File 1900, Item 1671.
71. Wood to Root, June 18, 1900. Elihu Root Papers, Library of Congress, Washington D.C. Special correspondence with Leonard Wood. Box 168.
72. All of these letters are housed in the U.S. National Archives under Record Group 140, Entry 3, File 1900, Item 1671. For the purposes of brevity, individual letters will be cited below using their date, header, and name of sender only.
73. Betancourt led the rebel army in the province of Matanzas in the war of 1895-1898. In addition to serving as civil governor of Matanzas, he was a delegate to the constitutional convention of 1900-1901, and one of the first senators of the republic.
74. Antonio González de Mendoza, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the Island of Cuba, June 22, 1900.
75. See opinions expressed in the letters of Judge Felipe Sanchez of the Pilar District, June 5, 1900,
76. the Audiencia of Havana, June 9, 1900, and Judge Armando Gobel, June 8, 1900.
77. Armando Gobel, Judge pro-tem of Instruction, Colón Matanzas, June 8, 1900.
78. "Adverse option to the granting of the request of the Bishop of Havana, that a change in the marriage law be made."
79. Juan Federico Edelmann, Judge of 1st Instance of the Jesus Maria District, Havana, June 6, 1900. "Adverse opinion to the tequest made by the Bishop."
80. Gustavo F. Arocha, Judge of 1st Instance of Pinar del Rio, June 12, 1900."Adverse option to the request made by the Bishop that the marriage law by changed."
81. "Copy of the resolution adopted by the Ayuntamiento of Guantánamo in relation to the change in the Civil Marriage Law, asked for by the Bishop of Havana, whereby the said corporation declares that it is adverse to any change at present." Remitted by F. Figueredo, Acting Secretary of State and Government, August 14, 1900. Resolution dated August 4, 1900.
82. P.G. Betancourt, Civil Governor, Matanzas, June 2, 1900. "Adverse option of the request of the Bishop of Havana in relation to change in the Marriage Law."
83. Audiencia of Santa Clara, June 20,1900. "Opinions of the aforementioned members of the said Superior Court, who are unanimously against the granting of the request of the Bishop of Havana for a change in the Civil Marriage Law." This point was also made by José Miguel Gómez, then Civil Governor of Santa Clara, in his letter dated June 13, 1900, on the behalf of the lawyer's council of Cienfuegos.
84. Gobel, June 8, 1900.
85. Audiencia of Havana, June 9, 1900; Supreme Court of Cuba, June 22, 1900.
86. Julio C. Fuentes, Judge of 1st Instance and Instruction, San Antonio de los Banos, Pinar del Rio, June 7, 1900.
87. Audiencia of Havana, June 9, 1900.
88. Fernando Salcedo, Judge of 1st Instance of the Palacio District, Matanzas, June 4, 1900. "Adverse option to the granting of the request of the Bishop of Havana, that a change in the marriage law be made."
89. Mariano Vila, Judge of 1st Instance, Bayamo, Oriente, June 12,1900. "Adverse opinion to the request made by the Bishop."
90. Gobel, Judge pro-tem of Instruction, Colon Matanzas, June 8, 1900.
91. Audiencia of Havana, June 9, 1900.
92. Ibid.
93. Gobel, Judge pro-tem of Instruction, Colón Matanzas, June 8, 1900.
94. See also sentiment expressed by Gustavo Arocha, Judge of 1st Instance of Pinar del Rio, in letter dated June 12, 1900.
95. Wood to Root, June 18, 1900. Elihu Root Papers. Special correspondence with Leonard Wood. Box 168.
96. Foner 1972, p. 454.
97. Pérez 1983, p. 274.
98. Fitzgibbon 1964, p. 24.
99. Pérez 1983, p. 277.
100. Wood to McKinley, April 12, 1900.
101. American sanitary commissioner in Santiago de Cuba, Major George Barbour, cited in Perez 1983, p.272.
102. Roosevelt was shortly to be chosen as McKinley's vice president. When McKinley was assassinated in September 1901, Roosevelt became, at 42, the youngest person ever to assume the office of the presidency.
103. On the reforms carried out in Cuba under Wood see James H. Hitchman, Leonard Wood and Cuban Independence, 1898-1902 (The Hague, 1971). As David F. Healy reminds us, "the Americanization of Cuba was one of the governor's basic goals⋯. and is visible in the background of many of his reforms."
104. See for example Wood's February 23, 1900 letter to Root, in which he employs each of these terms. Wood also sometimes used the term "worst classes" to refer collectively to the illiterate and uneducated, blacks and mulattos, revolutionaries, radicals, "rascals," "agitators" and all others who would seek to stir up opposition to the American occupation.
105. See for example Wood to McKinley, August 31, 1900. Both letters found in Leonard Wood Papers, Library of Congress, Washington D.C. General Correspondence. Box 28.
106. Foner 1972, pp. 454-6, Pérez 1983, p. 281.
107. Pérez, 1983, p. 281.
108. Foner 1972, p. 457.
109. Jules Robert Benjamin, The United States & Cuba: Hegemony and Dependent Development, 1880-1934 (Pittsburgh, 1977), p. 7.
110. Leonard Wood Papers. General correspondence. Box 27, folder 3.
111. Horatio S. Rubens to Root, December 13, 1899. Elihu Root Papers. General Correspondence. Box 5.
112. Wood to Platt, December 6, 1900. Leonard Wood Papers. General correspondence. Box 28.
113. Wood to Root, February 23, 1900. Leonard Wood Papers. General Correspondence. Box 28.
114. Rebecca J. Scott, Degrees of Freedom: Louisiana and Cuba after Slavery (Cambridge, 2005), p. 201.
115. The drastic restriction in suffrage led to immediate protests throughout the island. "For many Cubans," Pérez writes, "American actions represented an abridgement of a key separatist ideal-the commitment to universal manhood suffrage" (1983, p. 310). In spite of the franchise restriction, Cuban nationalists were overwhelmingly successful at the polls-an outcome Wood had specifically hoped to thwart (Scott 2005, p. 202, and Benjamin 1977, p. 7).
116. Benjamin describes Cuban nationalism as an "irritant" for U.S. administrators (1977, p. 7). According to Foner, "To be in favor of Cuban nationalism was a crime in Wood's eyes" (p. 462).
117. For a discussion of the religious component of U.S. imperialism in Cuba, see Louis A. Pérez Jr., "Protestant Missionaries in Cuba: Archival Records, Manuscript Collections, and Research Prospects," Latin American Research Review, 27, no. 1 (1992): 105-120.
118. Enclosure: Donatus, Bishop of Havana, to Father Daly. Episcopal Residence, Havana Cuba, June 26, 1900. "Papers referred by the President to the Secretary of War relative to the marriage laws in Cuba; also the Secretary's replies to Mr. Cortelyon and Governor Roosevelt." WS. Coursey, Private Secretary. Washington, D.C., July 26, 1900. USNA Record Group 140, Entry 3, File 1900, Item 1671.
119. Enclosure: W.J.B. Daly to Frank Travers. St. Patrick's Cathedral, New York, July 11, 1900, Ibid.
120. Enclosure: Frank C. Travers to the Honorable T. Roosevelt. Travers Brothers Co., New York, July 13, 1900, Ibid.
121. Enclosure: Theodore Roosevelt to William McKinley. Oyster Bay, New York, July 14, 1900, Ibid.
122. Roosevelt to Wood, August 3, 1900. Elihu Root Papers. Special Correspondence with Leonard Wood. Box 168.
123. "No. 307. Headquarters Division of Cuba. Havana, August 8, 1900." Pp. 687-8 in Civil Report of Major General Leonard Wood, Military Governor of Cuba, for the petiod from December 20, 1899 to December 31, 1900. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1900. The provisions of the 2-page Military Order No. .307, as well as other information on the requirements for civil and religious marriages, were compiled into a much longer, 27-page law, known as Military Order No. 140, which was issued on May 28, 1901. Military Order No. 140 was the marriage law in force upon the inauguration of the republic on May 20, 1902. A copy of the order is filed under USNA Record Group 140, Entry 3, File 1901, Item 1206.
124. All quotes below are from the 1900 Civil Report, p. 81. See U.S. War Department, Civil Report of Major General Leonard Wood, Military Governor of Cuba, for the period from December 20, 1899 to December 31, 1900, 12 vols. Washington, D.C., 1900.