Not a Hoax: New Evidence in the New York Journal's Rescue of Evangelina Cisneros

Abstract

This article offers compelling new evidence about the unprecedented case of “jailbreaking journalism”—the New York Journal's rescue in October 1897 of Evangelina Cossio y Cisneros, an eighteen-year-old Cuban imprisoned in Havana during the rebellion against Spanish colonial rule. The article challenges the persistent view that the escape of Cisneros was a hoax, or what one critic called a “magnificent farce.“In arguing otherwise, the article presents detailed evidence that the rescue was the result of an intricate plan in which Cuba-based U.S. diplomatic personnel and associates took critical roles—roles that have remained obscure for more than one hundred years. In presenting the first detailed account of their participation, the article concludes that it would have been implausible for U.S. diplomatic personnel to have taken the risks they took had the rescue been a sham. Instead, their involvement represents powerful and telling corroboration that the escape was not a hoax.