Valeriano Weyler , 1st Duke of Rubí Don Valeriano Weyler y Nicolau , Marquis of Tenerife , Duke of Rubí , Grandee of Spain , ( September 17 , 1838 – October 20 , 1930 ) was a Spanish general , and Governor General of the Philippines and Cuba . He was famous for his Reconcentración policy , which was the first of the similar acts known today as internment , as used later by the United Kingdom ( to the Transvaal Colony ) , the United States ( to Filipinos and General William Tecumseh Sherman ' s campaign ) , Germany ( to Jews ) , and Russia ( to the Japanese ) . Early life and career . Weyler was born in 1838 at Palma , Majorca , Spain . He was educated in his place of birth and in Granada . Weyler decided to enter the Spanish army , being influenced by his father who was a military doctor . He graduated from the Infantry School of Toledo at the age of 16 . By age 20 , Weyler achieved the rank of lieutenant , and was appointed the rank of captain in 1861 . In 1863 , he was transferred to Cuba and his participation in the campaign of Santo Domingo earned him the Laureate Cross of Saint Ferdinand . During the Ten Years ' War that was fought between 1868 - 1878 , he served as a colonel under General Arsenio Martínez - Campos y Antón , but he returned to Spain before the end of the war to fight against Carlists in the Third Carlist War in 1873 . In 1878 , he was made general . Canary Islands and the Philippines . From 1878 to 1883 , Weyler served as captain - general of Canary Islands . In 1888 , Weyler was made Governor General of the Philippines . Weyler granted the petitions of 20 young women of Malolos , Bulacan , to receive education and to have a night school . The women became known as the Women of Malolos . The original petition was denied by the parish priest of Malolos , who argued that women should always stay at home and take care of the family . Weyler happened to visit Malolos after that and he granted the petition on account of the persistence the women displayed for their petition . José Rizal wrote a letter to the women , upon request by Marcelo H . del Pilar , praising their initiative and sensibility on their high hopes for women ' s education and progress . In 1895 , he earned the Grand Cross of Maria Christina for his command of troops in the Philippines , wherein he fought an uprising of the Tagalogs and conduct an offensive against the Moros in Mindanao . Spain . On his return to Spain in 1892 , he was appointed to command the 6th Army Corps in the Basque Provinces and Navarre , where he soon quelled agitations . He was then made captain - general at Barcelona , where he remained until January 1896 . In Catalonia , with a state of siege , he made himself the terror of the anarchists and socialists . Cuba . After Arsenio Martínez Campos had failed to pacify the Cuban rebellion , the Conservative government of Antonio Cánovas del Castillo sent Weyler out to replace him . This selection met the approval of most Spaniards , who thought him the proper man to crush the rebellion . While serving as a Spanish general , he was called " Butcher Weyler " because hundreds of thousands of people died in his concentration camp s . He was made governor of Cuba with full powers to suppress the insurgency ( rebellion was widespread in Cuba ) and restore the island to political order and its sugar production to greater profitability . Initially , Weyler was greatly frustrated by the same factors that had made victory difficult for all generals of traditional standing armies fighting against an insurgency . While the Spanish troops marched in regulation and required substantial supplies , their opponents practiced hit - and - run tactics and lived off the land , blending in with the non - combatant population . He came to the same conclusions as his predecessors as well — that to win Cuba back for Spain , he would have to separate the rebels from the civilians by putting the latter in safe havens , protected by loyal Spanish troops . By the end of 1897 , General Weyler had relocated more than 300 , 000 into such " reconcentration camps . " Weyler learned this tactic from studying General William Tecumseh Sherman ' s campaign while assigned to the post of military attaché in the Spanish Embassy in Washington D . C . However , many mistakenly believe him to be the origin of the tactic after it was later used by the British in the Second Boer War and later evolved into a designation to describe the concentration camps of the 20th century regimes of Hitler and Stalin . Although he was successful in moving vast numbers of people , he failed to provide for them adequately . Consequently , these areas became cesspools of hunger and disease , where many hundreds of thousands died . Weyler ' s " reconcentration " policy had another important effect . While it made Weyler ' s military objectives easier to accomplish , it had devastating political consequences . The Spanish Conservative government supported Weyler ' s tactics wholeheartedly , but the Liberals denounced them vigorously for their toll on the Cuban civilian population . In the propaganda war waged in the United States , Cuban émigrés made much of Weyler ' s inhumanity to their countrymen and won the sympathy of broad groups of the U . S . population to their cause . He was nicknamed " the Butcher " Weyler by yellow journalists like William Randolph Hearst . Weyler ' s strategy also backfired militarily due to the rebellion in the Philippines that required the redeployment of some troops already in Cuba in 1897 . When Prime Minister Antonio Cánovas del Castillo was assassinated in June , Weyler lost his principal supporter in Spain . He resigned his post in late 1897 and returned to Europe . He was replaced in Cuba by the more conciliatory Ramón Blanco y Erenas . Return to Spain . He served as Minister of War three separate times ( 1901 – 1902 , 1905 , 1906 – 1907 ) . After his return to Spain , Weyler ' s reputation as a strong and ambitious soldier made him one of those who , in case of any constitutional disturbance , might be expected to play an important role , and his political position was nationally affected by this consideration ; his appointment in 1900 as captain - general of Madrid resulted indeed in more than one ministerial crisis . He was minister of war for a short time at the end of 1901 , and again in 1905 . At the end of October 1909 he was appointed captain - general at Barcelona , where the disturbances connected with the execution of Francisco Ferrer were quelled by him without bloodshed . He was charged , imprisoned and released for opposing the military dictator Miguel Primo de Rivera in the 1920s . He died in Madrid on 20 October 1930 . He was buried the next day in a simple casket without state ceremony , as he himself requested .