A conference last week on the 100th anniversary of the Treaty of Paris -- which ended the Spanish-American War and changed the face of the New World forever -- underscores Miami's status as the mecca for Cuban studies.

More than 125 scholars from around the world and local history buffs gathered for discussions at the University of Miami Thursday and Florida International University Friday. Topics included the tradition of violence in Cuban politics and the possibility that Cuba's leaders of a century ago rejected an approach to government that could have avoided much of the human tragedy Cuba has experienced.

The conference, presented jointly by Cuban studies programs at FIU and UM, is one of four being conducted around the world on the 100th anniversary of the events that ended the Spanish Empire. Most of the sessions here were conducted in Spanish.

In a different world, the University of Havana, not Miami's two relatively young universities, would have been the natural venue for such events.

``This revisionist movement is taking place outside Cuba,'' said Graciella Cruz-Taura, an associate professor of history at Florida Atlantic University, who participated in Friday's panel discussions.

Since the Cuban revolution of 1959, the only versions of history -- and other study of culture and society -- authorized in Cuban institutions are those that support Fidel Castro's Marxist ideology, she said.

FIU and UM are playing vital research roles that ordinarily would be fulfilled by Cuban universities, such as maintaining vast collections of Cuban archives for scholars from around the world to study, and serving as home base for a growing cadre of Cuban researchers.

Visiting scholars attracted by the conference included Georgetown University historian Jose Manuel Hernandez, one of the nation's leading scholars of Cuban history.

The roots of violence

Hernandez said Cuba's tradition of violence in politics is a legacy of its 19th Century wars of independence and was reinforced by American intervention in Cuba after the Treaty of Paris.

Cubans began fighting for independence in the mid 19th Century. The last war for independence, which began in 1895, was ``absolutely devastating,'' Hernandez said.

Between 1895 and 1898, Cuba lost as much as a fifth of its population, Hernandez said, and a long-term imprint of violence remained on Cuban politics after the war ended.

The fact that many generals became Cuba's political leaders has been a factor. And the United States unwittingly encouraged the violence with its intervention in the island nation, Hernandez said.

The United States went to war with Spain in 1898 after the battleship Maine was blown up in Havana harbor. In the Treaty of Paris, Spain ceded Cuba, Puerto Rico, the Philippines and other holdings to the United States.

The U.S. factor

The United States occupied Cuba for four years and granted it independence in 1902. But the United States retained the right to intervene in Cuba at will until 1934.

Hernandez said the threat of U.S. intervention was a factor in the massacre of black Cubans involved in insurrection in 1912. U.S. sugar companies were worried about their new refineries in eastern Cuba, he said, so the Cuban government ruthlessly suppressed the rebellion to stabilize Cuba and keep the United States from sending in the Marines.

Cruz-Taura said that historians are increasingly interested in the issue of whether Cuba could have avoided much of its tragic history by taking a different view of independence.

After the Cuban independence war of 1895-98 began, Spain adopted a policy of ``autonomy'' for colonies. In theory, the arrangement would have been similar to the British Commonwealth that was formed as Great Britain granted independence to its colonies in this century.

What might have been

Cuban historians traditionally have argued that Spain's economic interests in Cuba would have prevented it from fulfilling its autonomy pledge, she said. But Friday, several panelists presented findings that Spain had begun to implement democratic reforms in Cuba and that the approach might have worked. If so, Cuba could have avoided much of the bloodshed of the past century, Cruz-Taura said.

``It's one of the great `ifs,' '' Cruz-Taura said, but it's not idle talk.

With the exodus from Cuba since Castro took power, the question of what Cuban nationalism means has become acute, she said.

``We're still a nation looking for a definition,'' Cruz-Taura said. ``What does it mean to be ethnically Cuban? How do we define this nation state?''

FIU's role

FIU has been a center for investigation of such issues for years. In 1991, a variety of FIU professors studying Cuban issues organized the FIU Cuban Research Institute, headed by sociology professor Lisandro Perez. Last January, Perez became editor of Cuban Studies, an academic journal published yearly by the University of Pittsburgh Press. This semester, the institute opened a certificate program in Cuban and Cuban-American Studies to give students access to a well-designed curriculum.

At UM, the Richter Library houses one of the world's major collections of Cuban archives. UM graduate students formed the Cuban Studies Association two years ago, and UM is developing its own Institute for Cuban and Cuban American Studies.

The Dante B. Fascell North-South Center is another UM institution with interests in hemispheric issues. It was one of the sponsors of the conference.