page_title: Ramón Blanco, 1st Marquess of Peña Plata
section_title: Captain-General of Cuba (1897–1898)
hierarchical_section_title: Ramón Blanco, 1st Marquess of Peña Plata / Captain-General of Cuba (1897–1898)
caption_attribution_description: English: Portrait of Governor of Cuba Ramon Blanco (1833-1906)
context_page_description: Ramón Blanco Erenas Riera y Polo, 1st Marquess of Peña Plata was a Spanish brigadier and colonial administrator. Born in San Sebastián, he was sent to the Caribbean in 1858 and governed Cuba and Santo Domingo. In 1861, he returned to Spain but was then sent to the Philippines.
  Afterwards, he returned to Spain and served in the Third Carlist War, where he attained the rank of brigadier. He served as captain-general of Navarre after taking part in the 1876 offensive in the valley of Baztan; he acquired his marquessate during this time. He was sent to Cuba as captain-general in April 1879, and was involved in the Little War. He returned to Spain in November 1881 and served as Captain General of Catalonia and Extremadura.
context_section_description: However, Blanco's reputation as a conciliatory figure led the government of Práxedes Mateo Sagasta to send him to Cuba, where he replaced the decidedly inflammatory Valeriano Weyler as Captain General of Cuba.  By the end of 1897, Weyler had relocated more than 300,000 Cubans into "reconcentration camps," where he failed to provide for them adequately. Consequently, these areas became cesspools of hunger and disease, where many hundreds of thousands died.
  Blanco was forced to reverse the harsh policy of Weyler towards the Cubans while at the same time defending the island after the outbreak of the Spanish–American War. After the sinking of the Maine on February 15, 1898, Charles Dwight Sigsbee had written that "many Spanish officers, including representatives of General Blanco, now with us to express sympathy." In a cable, the Spanish Minister of Colonies, Segismundo Moret, had advised Blanco "to gather every fact you can to prove the Maine catastrophe cannot be attributed to us." Blanco proposed a joint Spanish-American investigation of the sinking.
  On March 5, 1898, Blanco proposed to Máximo Gómez that the Cuban generalissimo and troops join him and the Spanish army in repelling the United States in the face of the Spanish–American War. Blanco appealed to the shared heritage of the Cubans and Spanish, and promised the island autonomy if the Cubans would help fight the Americans. Blanco had declared: "As Spaniards and Cubans we find ourselves opposed to foreigners of a different race, who are of a grasping nature. ... The supreme moment has come in which we should forget past differences and, with Spaniards and Cubans united for the sake of their own defense, repel the invader. Spain will not forget the noble help of its Cuban sons, and once the foreign enemy is expelled from the island, she will, like an affectionate mother, embrace in her arms a new daughter amongst the nations of the New World, who speaks the same language, practices the same faith, and feels the same noble Spanish blood run through her veins."  Gómez refused to adhere to Blanco's plan.
  Blanco believed it better to fight than surrender to the Americans.  He ordered Pascual Cervera y Topete to break the American blockade, leading to the Battle of Santiago de Cuba.
  During Blanco's governorship, the remains of Christoper Columbus were moved back to the Cathedral of Seville in Spain, where they were placed on an elaborate catafalque.
  Blanco returned to Spain after the end of the Spanish–American War.
caption: Portrait of Governor-General of the Philippines Ramón Blanco y Erenas by Filipino painter Juan Luna.
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