Reconcentration policy

Common card · No. 421042

The reconcentration policy (Spanish: Reconcentración) was a plan implemented by Spanish military officer Valeriano Weyler in 1896 during the Cuban War of Independence to relocate Cuba's rural population into concentration camps. It was originally developed by Weyler's predecessor, Arsenio Martínez Campos, as a method of separating Cuban rebels from the rural populace who often supplied or sheltered them. Under the policy, rural Cubans had eight days to relocate to concentration camps in fortified towns, and all who failed to do so were to be shot. The quality of the camps was abysmal, with the housing being in poor condition and the camp rations insufficient and of poor quality; disease also quickly spread through the camps. By 1898, a third of the Cuban population had been moved into camps where at least 170,000 people died due to either disease or a variety of other causes, resulting in the deaths of at least 10% of all Cubans. The Spanish were eventually defeated in the conflict, and...

Read on Wikipedia · Image U.S. and Cuban journalists between 1896 and 1897., Public domain