Soon after after the Tampa melée, the troops embarked for Cuba. In one way, the outcome of the war was already certain. No one expected Spain to win. But other mysteries loomed large. What would happen when an ever more rigid racial system in the United States encountered in Cuba a popular multiracial mobilization that had consciously challenged racial injustice? And, bluntly, as José Martí had asked a few years earlier, once the Americans arrived, would anyone be able to make them leave?
