explain the belief held by aguinaldo when he rebelled against spain.

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Between 1895 and 1898 Cuba and the Philippine Islands revolted against Spain. The Cubans gained independence, but the Filipinos did not. In both instances the intervention of the United States was the culminating event.

In 1895 the Cuban patriot and revolutionary, José Martí, resumed the Cuban struggle for freedom that had failed during the Ten Years' War (1868-1878). Cuban juntas provided leadership and funds for the military operations conducted in Cuba. Spain possessed superior numbers of troops, forcing the Cuban generals Máximo Gómez and Antonio Maceo, to wage guerrilla warfare in the hope of exhausting the enemy. Operations began in southeastern Cuba but soon spread westward. The Spanish Conservative Party, led by Antonio Cánovas y Castillo, vowed to suppress the insurrectos, but failed to do so.

The Cuban cause gained increasing support in the United States, leading President Grover Cleveland to press for a settlement, but instead Spain sent General Valeriano Weyler to pacify Cuba. His stern methods, including reconcentration of the civilian population to deny the guerrillas support in the countryside, strengthened U.S. sympathy for the Cubans. President William McKinley then increased pressure on Spain to end the affair, dispatching a new minister to Spain for this purpose. At this juncture an anarchist assassinated Cánovas, and his successor, the leader of the Liberal Party Práxedes Mateo Sagasta, decided to make a grant of autonomy to Cuba and Puerto Rico. The Cuban leadership resisted this measure, convinced that continued armed resistance would lead to independence