Content note: Caricature of Cuban insurgents as tiny, dark-faced figures carried on a pole and in a basket by Uncle Sam. This object is shown as it was published. Why
El soldado de Cuba: —¡Ven tú, cobarde! (The Soldier of Cuba: 'Come here, you coward!')
A Spanish soldier on a Cuban shore shouts 'Come here, you coward!' across the water at Uncle Sam, who stands before the Capitol holding out a long pole bearing a platter of tiny armed insurgents while a basket beside him is labelled 'Insurrectos vivitos'. The tells are the loaded label 'cobarde' and the diminutive 'vivitos', which cast the United States as craven and the Cuban insurgents as small creatures in its keeping.
- Date
- May 7, 1898
- Period
- Pre-1914
- Made by
- Blanco y Negro (Madrid illustrated weekly); cartoonist Ramón Cilla
- Region
- Western and Central Europe
- Country
- Spain
- Medium
- Cartoon
- Issuer type
- Media
- Regime
- Sagasta Government
- Leader
- Praxedes Mateo Sagasta
- Audience
- Domestic public
- Purpose
- Demonize
- Themes
- War and the military, Empire and colonialism
- Event
- Spanish American War
- Techniques
- Name-calling
- Source
- Identified Openly sourced: the speaker is who they say they are
- Source
- Wikimedia Commons, retrieved September 29, 2026
- Rights
- Public domain (published 1898, before 1931; PD-Art / PD-scan per Wikimedia Commons)
Ramón Cilla, Blanco y Negro (Madrid) no. 366, 7 May 1898, via Wikimedia Commons
Text on the object
LA NUESTRA El soldado de Cuba:—¡Ven tú, cobarde! [label on basket:] INSURRECTOS VIVITOS [signature:] Cilla
OURS The soldier of Cuba: 'Come here, you coward!' [label on basket:] INSURGENTS LITTLE LIVE ONES [signature:] Cilla
