This is the story of the Cuban residents of nineteenth-century Key West, Florida, and their struggle to liberate Cuba, as told by Spanish consuls. Stebbins argues that the consuls' correspondence contained in the Key West Collection - one of the very few primary sources on Key West from 1842 to 1897 - rewrites the island's history. Drawing on official documents, newspapers, coded messages, and informants' reports, Stebbins taps into a wealth of important and detailed information about the role of Key West and its inhabitants in the ongoing struggle between Spain and its colony Cuba, as well as the United States' role along the sidelines. Among the documents are confidential reports describing Cuban insurgents' activities and the secretive network they established to communicate with their coconspirators in Cuba and throughout the Caribbean. Discovered in the archives of the Ministerio de Asuntos Exteriores in Madrid, the collection covers Key West's history from 1842 when the consuls mainly reported on the island's maritime activities, to 1868 as the small island maritime community changed dramatically when thousands of Cubans fled to Key West, through the 1880s when the Cuban emigre colonists controlled the insurgent movement from abroad as they tirelessly plotted the overthrow of the Spanish colonial government in Cuba, and climaxing with the Spanish-American War in 1898.

Translated by: Consuelo E. Stebbins
Series edited by: Gary R. Mormino, Raymond Arsenault