The most notable outbreak of Cuban insurrectionary forces prior to that of the Ten Years’ war, which began in 1868, was that known as the conspiracy of Lopez.

As early as May, 1847, Narcisso Lopez and a number of his associates who had planned an insurrection in the central part of the island, were pursued to the United States by Spanish agents, who had kept track of their conspiracy.  The Lone Star Society was in close sympathy with these refugees, and to a certain extent the two were co-existent.  Lopez, in 1849, organized a military expedition to invade Cuba.  By the exertions of the officers of the United States government the sailing of the expedition was prevented.  Notwithstanding the activity of the government, however, Lopez, in the following year, got together a force of 600 men outside of the United States, shipped arms and ammunition to them from this country, and on May 19, 1850, made a landing at Cardenas.

The United States authorities had put the Spanish government in Cuba on the alert for this expedition.  President Taylor had issued a proclamation warning all citizens of the United States not to take part in such an expedition or to assist it in any way.  The expedition was driven out to sea from Cardenas a few days after it landed, sailed for Key West, and there disbanded.  Meantime there were a number of uprisings in the island between groups of unhappy natives who had not the wisdom to co-operate in the effort to resist the oppressive hand of the Spaniards.

In August of 1851, Lopez eluded the United States authorities at the port of New Orleans, and sailed out into the Gulf of Mexico with an expedition 450 strong.  His lieutenant on this expedition was a Colonel Crittenden, a native of the State of Kentucky.  They landed near Bahia Honda, about thirty miles west of Havana, and found the government forces waiting for them.  Colonel Crittenden, with a subdivision of 150 men, was compelled to surrender, and the rest were scattered.  Lopez, with fifty others, was captured, taken to Havana, and there executed.

The circumstances attending the Lopez failure, and several Spanish outrages against American citizens and vessels, aroused deep feeling in the United States, and the sentiment was growing rapidly that it was a national duty to our own peace, to do something that would make the troublesome neighbor a pleasant one.  It was fifty years before action was taken, but, once begun, it was well done.

It was in 1848, prior to the Lopez invasion, that President Polk made the first approaches to the Spanish government with a suggestion to purchase the island for $100,000,000, but was refused with scant consideration.  A few years later came the succession of attacks on American merchant vessels by Spanish ships of war, on the pretext that the intercepted craft were in filibuster service.  Some of these were fired on, and the American mail bags opened, the steamships Falcon and Crescent City being in this list.