Stuart, yes, you are correct that "concentration camps" have a long history in the US from colonial times forward. The difference between the reservations and the reconcentrado camps is that Captain-General Valeriano Weyler rounded up people, segregated them then used an eliminationist approach within the camps, literally starving people if not murdering them outright. I'm not defending the reservation system by any means. I think what I failed to articulate was the fact that the reconcentrados were the beginning of the modern concentration camp model. Photos and documentation from that period will bear out the the differences between reservations and the reconcentrados and the stark similarities between Nazi concentration camps and the reconcentrados in Cuba. They did not call Wyler "The Butcher" without cause.

The photos are disturbing. http://www.latinamericanstudies.org