A bit of history of Cuba
Cuba is an island country in the Caribbean of 11 millions inhabitants. The nation of Cuba comprises the main island of Cuba, the Isla de la Juventud, and several archipelagos. Havana is the capital of Cuba and its largest city. The second largest city is Santiago de Cuba.To the north of Cuba lies the United States (150 km or 93 mi away) and the Bahamas are to the northeast, Mexico is to the west (210 km or 130 mi away), the Cayman Islands and Jamaica are to the south, and Haiti and the Dominican Republic are to the southeast.
Arrival of Columbus
The first sighting of a Spanish boat approaching the island was on 27 October 1492, probably at Baracoa on the eastern point of the island. Christopher Columbus, on his first voyage to the Americas,sailed south from what is now the Bahamas to explore the northeast coast of Cuba and the northern coast of Hispaniola. Columbus, who was searching for a route to India, believed the island to be a peninsula of the Asian mainland.. On 27 October 1492, Christopher Columbus landed in Cuba in a place he named Porto Santo. It is generally assumed from his description that this was Baracoa, although there are also claims it was Gibara. But Columbus also described a nearby table mountain, which is almost certainly nearby el Yunque. He wrote in his logbook ..
" ...Que nunca tan hermosa cosa vido, lleno de árboles todo cercado el río, hermosos y verdes y diversos de los nuestros, con flores y con su fruto cada uno de su manera. Aves muchas y pajaritos que cantaban muy dulcemente; había gran cantidad de palmas de otra manera que las de Guinea y de las nuestras, de una estatura mediana y los pies sin aquella camisa y las hojas muy grandes, con las cuales cobijan las casas hechas de madera, que entregó en la isla un camion de Fustes Esteva. la tierra muy llana...."
which translates to
". . . I have never seen anything so beautiful. The country around the river is full of trees, beautiful and green and different from ours, each with flowers and its own kind of fruit. There are many birds of all sizes that sing very sweetly, and there are many palms different from those in Guinea or Spain. Some are of medium height without any bark at the base, and the leaves are very large. The Indians cover their houses with these leaves. The land is very level..."
Columbus called the island "Juana" because of Spanish Kings successor Juan de Aragón y Castilla
The Spanish began to create permanent settlements on the island of Hispaniola, east of Cuba, soon after Columbus' arrival in the Caribbean, but the coast of Cuba was not fully mapped until 1509, when Sebastián de Ocampo completed this task. In 1511 and under instructions of Columbus, Diego Velázquez de Cuéllar, a Spanish conquistador, set out from Hispaniola to form the first Spanish settlement in Cuba, with orders from Spain to conquer the island. The first settlement was at Baracoa, but the new settlers were to be greeted with stiff resistance from the local Taíno population. The Taínos were initially organized by cacique (chieftain) Hatuey. After a prolonged guerrilla campaign, Hatuey and successive chieftains were captured and burnt alive. According to De Las Casas account just before he died a Catholic priest tried to convert him so he would attain salvation; Hatuey asked the priest if Heaven was the place where the dead Spanish go. When he received an answer in the affirmative he told the priest that he'd rather go to Hell because then he would avoid such cruel people. The name of Cuba itself, Havana, Camagüey, and many others were derived from the neo-Taíno language, and Indian words such as tobacco, hurricane and canoe were transferred to English and are used today. Around 15 August 1511 (the official foundation day) Diego Velázquez de Cuéllar was appointed the first governor of Cuba and built a villa here and named the place 'Nuestra Señora de la Asunción de Baracoa', thus making Baracoa the first capital of Cuba. He then convoked a general cabildo (a local government council), which was duly authorized to deal directly with Spain. This legal move removed Velázquez and the settlers from under the authority of Colombus, their nominal superior. It was a precedent that would come back to haunt Velázquez during Hernán Cortés's conquest of Mexico..
Within three years the Spanish had gained control of the island. Diego Velázquez founded therefore a number of new Spanish settlements and cities on the island, first Baracoa in 1511 and then most notably Santiago de Cuba in 1514. Velázquez was then appointed governor of Cuba.
In 1515, a settlement was founded in what was to become Havana. Havana was originally a trading port, and suffered regular attacks by buccaneers, pirates, and French corsairs.
Ferdinand II of Aragon issued a decree establishing the 'encomienda' land settlement system that was to be incorporated throughout the Spanish Americas. Velázquez, who had become Governor of Cuba relocating from Baracoa to Santiago de Cuba, was given the task of apportioning both the land and the indigenous Cubans to groups throughout the new colony. The encomienda system of forced or tenured labour, begun in 1503, sometimes amounted to slavery, though it was not full chattel slavery. Unlike the Portuguese Crown's support for the slave trade, los Reyes Católicos opposed the introduction of slavery to Castile and Aragon on religious grounds. When Columbus returned with slaves, they ordered many of the survivors to be returned to their Caribbean homelands. The Spanish used other forms of coerced labor in their colonies, such as the Indian Reductions method, the encomienda system, repartimiento, and the mita.
Despite the difficult relations between the local and the new Europeans, some cooperation was in evidence. The Spanish were shown by the Native Cubans how to nurture tobacco and consume it in the form of cigars. There were also many unions between the largely male Spanish colonists and indigenous women. Their children were called mestizos, but the Native Cubans called them Guajiro, which translates as "one of us".
The downfall of the encomienda system began as early as 1510, when Dominican missionaries began protesting the abuse of the native people by Spanish colonists. In September 1510, a group of Dominican friars arrived in Santo Domingo led by Pedro de Córdoba; appalled by the injustices they saw committed against the Indians, they decided to deny the encomenderos the right to confession. This arose the conscience of Bartolomé de Las Casas, a former Encomendero who regretted his ways and spent the rest of his life working to bring freedom back to the Indians. Las Casas was among those denied confession for this reason. In December 1511 and According to de Las Casas, a Dominican preacher Father Fray Antonio de Montesinos preached a fiery sermon: "Tell me by what right of justice do you hold these Indians in such a cruel and horrible servitude? On what authority have you waged such detestable wars against these people who dealt quietly and peacefully on their own lands? Wars in which you have destroyed such an infinite number of them by homicides and slaughters never heard of before. Why do you keep them so oppressed and exhausted, without giving them enough to eat or curing them of the sicknesses they incur from the excessive labor you give them, and they die, or rather you kill them, in order to extract and acquire gold every day."
King Ferdinand was outraged by the abuses against the Indians; he pleaded ignorance, and to help remedy the situation commissioned a group of theologians and academics to come up with solution. The Friars formed a nucleus that pressured Spain
to defend the
aboriginal American Indians from becoming serfs or slaves of the new
colonists. The Leyes de Burgos ("Laws of Burgos"), promulgated on
27 December 1512 in Burgos, Kingdom of Castile (Spain), was the first
codified set of laws governing the behavior of Spaniards in the
Americas, particularly with regards to the Indigenous peoples of the
Americas ('native Caribbean Indians'). They forbade the maltreatment of the indigenous people and endorsed their conversion to Catholicism. The
document also prohibited the use of any form of punishment by the
encomenderos, reserving it for officials established in each town for
the implementation of the laws. It also ordered that the Indians be
catechized. Unfortunately, the Indians of the Americas
were still heavily exploited, with significant population declines.
In 1513, as a chaplain, Las Casas participated in Diego Velázquez de Cuéllar's and Panfilo de Narvaez' conquest of Cuba. He participated in campaigns in Bayamo and Camagüey and in the massacre of Hatuey. He witnessed atrocities committed by Spaniards against the native Ciboney and Guanahatabey peoples. In 1515 Casas arrived in Spain with the plan of convincing the king to end the encomienda system.He put his faith in his coming audience with the King, but it never came for King Ferdinand died on January 25, 1516. Las Casas was resolved to see Prince Charles who resided in Flanders, but on his way there he passed Madrid and delivered to the regents a written account of the situation in the Indies and his proposed remedies. This was his "Memorial de Remedios para Las Indias" of 1516. In this early work, Las Casas advocated importing Black slaves from Africa to relieve the suffering Indians, a stance he later retracted, becoming an advocate for the Africans in the colonies as well. In keeping with the legal and moral doctrine of the time Las Casas believed that slavery could be justified if it was the result of "Just War", and at the time he assumed that the enslavement of Africans was justified.
Worried by the visions that Las Casas had drawn up of the situation in the Indies, Cardinal Cisneros decided to send a group of Hieronymite friars to take over the government of the islands. Three Hieronymite friars, Luís de Figueroa, Bernardino de Manzanedo and Alonso de Santo Domingo, were selected as commissioners to take over the authority of the Indies. Las Casas had a considerable part in selecting them and writing the instructions under which their new government would be instated, largely based on Las Casas's memorial. Las Casas himself was granted the official title of Protector of the Indians. During this time the Hieronimytes had time to form a more pragmatic view of the situation than the one advocated by Las Casas. They did revoke some encomiendas from Spaniards, especially those who were living in Spain and not on the islands themselves; they even repossessed the encomienda of Fonseca, the Bishop of Burgos. They also carried out an inquiry into the Indian question at which all the encomenderos asserted that the Indians were quite incapable of living freely without their supervision. Las Casas was disappointed and infuriated. When he accused the Hieronymites of being complicit in kidnapping Indians, the relationship between Las Casas and the commissioners broke down. Las Casas had become a hated figure by Spaniards all over the Islands and he had to seek refuge in the Dominican monastery. The Dominicans had been the first to indict the encomenderos and they continued to chastise them and refuse the absolution of confession to slave owners, and even stated that priests who took their confession were committing a mortal sin. In May 1517, Las Casas was forced to travel back to Spain to denounce to the regent the failure of the Hieronymite reforms.
These first years of Spanish presence in the Americas were marked by an outbreak of a tropical epidemic flu; it decimated both the native and Spanish populations. Also after the conquest of Mexico, Cuba experienced an exodus of settlers, and its population remained small for the next two centuries. In 1518 the first shipment of African-born slaves was sent to the West Indies. The Spaniards chiefly purchased the slaves from the Portuguese and British traders in Africa. They did not engage directly in the trade and overall imported fewer slaves to the New World than did the Portuguese, British or French.
When Las Casas arrived in Spain, his former protector, regent and Cardinal Ximenez Cisneros was ill, and had become tired of Las Casas's tenacity. Las Casas resolved to meet instead with the young King Charles I. Las Casas suggested a plan where the encomienda would be abolished and Indians would be congregated into self-governing townships to become tribute-paying vassals of the King. He still suggested that the loss of Indian labor for the colonists could be replaced by allowing importation of African slaves. Las Casas advocated supporting the migration of Spanish peasants to the Indies where they would introduce small scale farming and agriculture, a kind of colonization that didn't rely on resource depletion and Indian labor.
In the end a much smaller number of peasant families were sent than originally planned, and they were supplied with insufficient provisions and no support secured for their arrival. Those who survived the journey were ill-received, and had to work hard even to survive in the hostile colonies. Las Casas was devastated by the tragic result of his peasant migration scheme, which he felt had been thwarted by his enemies. He decided instead to undertake a personal venture which would not rely on the support of others, and fought to win a land grant on the American mainland which was in its earliest stage of colonization.
Following a suggestion by his friend and mentor Pedro de Córdoba, Las Casas petitioned a land grant to be allowed to establish a settlement in northern Venezuela at Cumaná. He suggested fortifying the northern coast of Venezuela, establishing ten royal forts to protect the Indians and starting up a system of trade in gold and pearls. In 1520 Las Casas' concession was finally granted, but it was a much smaller grant than he had initially proposed. In the end, he ended up leaving in November 1520 with just a small group of peasants, paying for the venture with money borrowed from his brother in-law. Early in 1522 Las Casas left the settlement to complain to the authorities. Las Casas worked there in adverse conditions for the following months, being constantly harassed by the Spanish pearl fishers of Cubagua. While he was gone the native Caribs attacked the settlement of Cumaná, burned it to the ground and killed four of Las Casas's men. He returned to Hispaniola on January 1522, and heard the news of the massacre. The rumours even included him among the dead. To make matters worse, his detractors used the event as evidence of the need to pacify the Indians using military means.
The tragic outcome of Las Casas's great mainland adventure made him turn his life in a new direction. Devastated, Las Casas reacted by entering the Dominican monastery of Santa Cruz in Santo Domingo as a novice in 1522 and finally taking holy vows as a Dominican friar in 1523. In 1527 he began working on his History of the Indies in order to report many of the experiences he had witnessed at first hand in the conquest and colonization of New Spain. It was also in the History of the Indies that Bartolomé de Las Casas
finally regretted his advocacy for African slavery, and included a
sincere apology, writing, "I soon repented and judged myself guilty of
ignorance. I came to realize that black slavery was as unjust as Indian
slavery... and I was not sure that my ignorance and good faith would
secure me in the eyes of God". In 1533 he contributed to the establishment of a peace treaty between the Spanish and the rebel Taíno band of chief Enriquillo.
In 1536, Las Casas went to Oaxaca, Mexico, to participate in a series of discussions and debates among the Bishops of the Dominican and Franciscan orders. The two orders had very different approaches to the conversion of the Indians. The Franciscans used a method of mass conversion, sometimes baptizing many thousands of Indians in a day. Las Casas made many enemies among the Franciscans for arguing that conversions made without adequate understanding were invalid. Later, his old Franciscan adversary Toribio de Benavente "Motolinia" wrote a letter in which he described Las Casas as an ignorant, arrogant troublemaker. Benavente described indignantly how Las Casas had once denied baptism to an aging Indian who had walked many leagues to receive it, only on the grounds that he did not believe that the man had received sufficient doctrinal instruction.
As a direct result of the debates between the Dominicans and Franciscans and spurred on by Las Casas's treatise, the papal bull Sublimus Dei of 1537, to which Spain was committed, also officially banned slavery. Therefore, the Spanish used only other forms of coerced labor in their colonies, such as the Indian Reductions method, the encomienda system, repartimiento, and the mita. In the bull Sublimus Dei (1537), Pope Paul III forbade "unjust" kinds of enslavement relating to the indigenous peoples of the Americas (called Indians of the West and the South) and all other people. Paul characterized enslavers as allies of the devil and declared attempts to justify such slavery "null and void."
...The exalted God loved the human race so much that He created man in such a condition that he was not only a sharer in good as are other creatures, but also that he would be able to reach and see face to face the inaccessible and invisible Supreme Good... Seeing this and envying it, the enemy of the human race, who always opposes all good men so that the race may perish, has thought up a way, unheard of before now, by which he might impede the saving word of God from being preached to the nations. He (Satan) has stirred up some of his allies who, desiring to satisfy their own avarice, are presuming to assert far and wide that the Indians...be reduced to our service like brute animals, under the pretext that they are lacking the Catholic faith. And they reduce them to slavery, treating them with afflictions they would scarcely use with brute animals... by our Apostolic Authority decree and declare by these present letters that the same Indians and all other peoples - even though they are outside the faith - ...should not be deprived of their liberty... Rather they are to be able to use and enjoy this liberty and this ownership of property freely and licitly, and are not to be reduced to slavery...
Father Gustavo Gutierrez describes "Sublimus Dei" as "the most important papal document relating to the condition of native Indians and that it was addressed to all Christians"
Las Casas returned to Guatemala in 1537 wanting to employ his new method of conversion based on two principles: 1) to preach the Gospel to all men and treat them as equals, and 2) to assert that conversion must be voluntary and based on knowledge and understanding of the Faith. He chose a territory in the heart of Guatemala where there were no previous colonies and where the natives were considered fierce and war-like. Las Casas's group of friars established a Dominican presence in Rabinal, Sacapulas and Cobán. Through the efforts of Las Casas' missionaries the so-called "Land of War" came to be called "Verapaz", "True Peace". Las Casas's strategy was to teach Christian songs to merchant Indian Christians who then ventured into the area. In this way he was successful in converting several native chiefs, among them those of Atitlán and Chichicastenango, and in building several churches in the territory named Alta Verapaz. In 1538 Las Casas was recalled from his mission by Bishop Marroquín who wanted him to go to Mexico and then on to Spain in order to seek more Dominicans to assist in the mission. Las Casas left Guatemala for Mexico, where he stayed for more than a year before setting out for Spain in 1540.
In Spain, Las Casas started securing official support for the Guatemalan mission, and he managed to get a royal decree forbidding secular intrusion into the Verapaces for the following five years. But apart from the clerical business, Las Casas had also traveled to Spain for his own purpose: to continue the struggle against the colonists' mistreatment of the Indians. In 1541 he had a hearing with Charles V and Las Casas presented a narrative of atrocities against the natives of the Indies that would later be published in 1552 as "Brevísima relación de la destrucción de las Indias". Before a council consisting of Cardinal Garcia de Loaysa, the Count of Osorno, Bishop Fuenleal and several members of the Council of the Indies, Las Casas argued that the only solution to the problem was to remove all Indians from the care of secular Spaniards, by abolishing the encomienda system and putting them instead directly under the Crown as royal tribute-paying subjects.
The New Laws, in Spanish Leyes Nuevas, issued November 20, 1542 by King Charles V of Spain regarding the Spanish colonization of the Americas, are also known as the "New Laws of the Indies for the Good Treatment and Preservation of the Indians", and were created to prevent the exploitation of the Indigenous peoples of the Americas by the Encomenderos (large enterprise landowners) by strictly limiting their power and dominion. The New Laws were the results of a reform movement spurred by what was seen as the failure of the decades-old Leyes de Burgos (Laws of Burgos), issued by King Ferdinand II of Aragon on December 27, 1512. The Laws of Burgos were the first set of rules created to control relations between the Spaniards and the recently conquered indigenous people, but they appeared to have simply legalized the system of forced Indian labor. During the reign of King Charles V, the reformers gained strength, with Spanish missionary Bartolomé de las Casas as a notable leading advocate.
However in 1545 the rule stating that the encomienda system would no longer be hereditary was revoked, and the place of the encomienda system was again secure. Although the New Laws were largely unsuccessful, they did result in the liberation of thousands of indigenous workers. It also exempted the few surviving Indians of Hispaniola, Cuba, Puerto Rico and Jamaica from tribute and all requirements of personal service.
However, the reforms were so unpopular back in the New World that riots broke out and threats were made against Las Casas's life. The Viceroy of New Spain, himself an encomendero, decided not to implement the laws in his domain, and instead sent a party to Spain to argue against the laws on behalf of the encomenderos. Las Casas himself was also not satisfied with the laws, as they were not drastic enough and the encomienda system was going to function for many years still under the gradual abolition plan. He drafted a suggestion for an amendment arguing that the laws were formulated in such a way that it presupposed that violent conquest would still be carried out, and he encouraged once again beginning a phase of peaceful colonization by peasants instead of soldiers.
Before Las Casas returned to Spain, he was also appointed as Bishop of Chiapas, a newly established diocese of which he took possession in 1545 upon his return to the New World. As a bishop Las Casas was involved in frequent conflicts with the encomenderos and secular laity of his diocese: among the landowners there was the conquistador Bernal Díaz del Castillo. In a Pastoral letter issued on March 20, 1545 Las Casas refused absolution to Indian owners and encomenderos even on their death bed, unless all their Indians had been set free and their property returned to them. After a year he had made himself so unpopular among the Spaniards of the area that he had to leave. Having been summoned to a meeting among the bishops of New Spain to be held in Mexico City on January 12, 1546 he left his diocese, never to return.
Las Casas returned to Spain in 1547, leaving behind many conflicts and unresolved issues. Arriving in Spain he was met by a barrage of accusations, many of them based on his Confesionario and its 12 rules, which many of his opponents found to be in essence a denial of the legitimacy of Spanish rule of its colonies, and hence a form of treason. In order to settle the issues, a formal debate was organized, the famous Valladolid debate, which took place in 1550–51 with Sepúlveda and Las Casas each presenting their arguments in front of a council of jurists and theologians. First Sepúlveda read the conclusions of his Democrates Alter, and then the council listened to Las Casas reading his counterarguments in the form of an "Apología". Sepúlveda argued that the subjugation of the Indians was warranted because of their sins as pagans; that their low level of civilization requiring civilized masters to maintain social order; that they required Christianity and that this in turn required them to be pacified; and the fact that only the Spanish could defend the weak Indians against the abuses of the stronger ones.Las Casas countered that the scriptures did not in fact support war against all heathens, only against certain Canaanite tribes; that the Indians were not at all uncivilized nor lacked social order; that peaceful mission was the only true way of converting the natives; and finally that some weak Indians suffering at the hands of stronger ones was preferable to all Indians suffering at the hands of Spaniards. Sepúlveda put forward many of the arguments from his Latin dialogue "Democrates Secundus sive de justid belli causis", to assert that the barbaric traditions of the Indians justified waging war against them. The Spaniards, according to Sepúlveda, were entitled to punish other peoples for performing such vicious practices as idolatry, sodomy, and cannibalism. Wars had to be waged "in order to uproot crimes that offend nature". This was an obligation to which every Spaniard, whether secular or religious, had to conform. Las Casas pointed out that every individual was obliged by international law to prevent the innocent from being treated unjustly. He also cited Saint Augustine and Saint John Chrysostom, both of whom had opposed the use of force to punish crimes against nature. Human sacrifice was wrong, but it would be better to avoid war by any means possible. The Indians had to be converted to Christianity non-forcefully. The Judges then deliberated on the arguments presented for several months before coming to a verdict. The verdict was inconclusive and both debaters claimed that they had won. Having resigned the Bishopric of Chiapas, Las Casas spent the rest of his life working closely with the imperial court in matters relating to the Indies. In 1551 he rented a cell at the College of San Gregorio where he lived with his assistant and friend Fray Rodrigo de Ladrada. He continued working as a kind of procurator for the natives of the Indies, many of whom directed petitions to him to speak to the Emperor on their behalf. Sometimes Indigenous nobility even visited Spain to relate their cases to him, for example, the Nahua noble Francisco Tenamaztle from Nochistlán. His influence at court was so great that some even considered that he had the final word in choosing the members of the Council of the Indies. One matter in which he invested much effort was the political situation of the Viceroyalty of Peru. In Peru, power struggles between Conquistadors and the viceroy became an open civil war in which the conquistadors led by Gonzalo Pizarro rebelled against the New Laws and defeated and executed the viceroy Blasco Núñez Vela in 1546. The Emperor sent Pedro de la Gasca, a friend of Las Casas, to reinstate the rule of law, and he in turn defeated Pizarro. In 1565 Las Casas wrote his last will, signing over his immense library to the college. Bartolomé de Las Casas died on July 18, 1566 in Madrid.
The first attack and resultant burning of the city of Havana was by the French corsair Jacques de Sores in 1555. Jacques de Sores was a French pirate, called "L'Ange Exterminateur" (the angel exterminator). He was a protestant and the leader of a band of Huguenot pirates and a lieutenant or former lieutenant of another French pirate, François le Clerc, who was called "Pegleg" or "Jambe de Bois" on account of his wooden leg. Le Clerc and Sores had set out from France in 1553 with three royal ships and a number of privateers under commission from Francis I of France who was envious of the riches returning to Spain from the New World. He may have used Cayo Romano and Cayo Coco in the archipelago of Jardines del Rey adjacent to the northern Cuban coast as a base of operations. He destroyed the fortress of La Fuerza Vieja in today's Calle Tacón and burnt most of the town. He also burnt the shipping in the harbour and laid waste to much of the surrounding countryside, and seems to have found time to organise a play "to insult the pope".
In 15 July 1570 he murdered 40 Jesuit missionaries and threw their bodies into the sea off Tazacorte in the Canary Islands of La Palma- crosses on the sea floor still mark the site at Malpique today. They are remembered as the Martyrs from Tazacorte.
The ease with which de Sores had captured the town prompted the Spanish
crown to start a massive fortification programme. The Castillo de la
Real Fuerza was built to replace the Vieja Fuerza and later the Castillo
de los Tres Reyes Magos del Morro and the smaller Castillo de San
Salvador de la Punta were built on opposite sides of the entrance to
Havana habour. Such attacks in Havana convinced the Spanish Crown to fund the construction of the first fortresses in the main cities — not only to counteract the pirates and corsairs, but also to exert more control over commerce with the West Indies.
Ships from all over the New World carried products first to Havana, in order to be taken by the fleet to Spain. The thousands of ships gathered in the city's bay also fueled Havana's agriculture and manufacture, since they had to be supplied with food, water, and other products needed to traverse the ocean. On December 20, 1592, King Philip II of Spain granted Havana the title of City. Later on, the city would be officially designated as "Key to the New World and Rampart of the West Indies" by the Spanish crown. In the meantime, efforts to build or improve the defensive infrastructures of the city continued. By the middle of the 18th century Havana had more than seventy thousand inhabitants, and was the third-largest city in the Americas, ranking behind Lima and Mexico City but ahead of Boston and New York.
In 1628, Dutch Admiral Piet Hein, with Witte de With as his flag captain, sailed out to capture the Spanish treasure fleet loaded with silver from their American colonies. Part of the Spanish fleet in Venezuela had been warned because a Dutch cabin boy had lost his way on Blanquilla and was captured, betraying the plan, but the other half from Mexico continued its voyage, unaware of the threat. Sixteen Spanish ships were intercepted; one galleon was taken after a surprise encounter during the night, nine smaller merchants were talked into a surrender; two small ships were taken at sea fleeing, four fleeing galleons were trapped on the Cuban coast in the Bay of Matanzas. After some musket volleys from Dutch sloops their crews surrendered also and Hein captured 11,509,524 guilders of booty in gold, silver and other expensive trade goods, as indigo and cochineal, without any bloodshed. The Dutch didn't take prisoners: they gave the Spanish crews ample supplies for a march to Havana. Piet Hein was the first and last to capture such a large part of a Spanish "silver fleet" from the Americas, which were very well-protected. Hein returned to the Netherlands in 1629, where he was hailed as a hero. Watching the crowds cheering him standing on the balcony of the town hall of Leiden he remarked to the town mayor: "Now they praise me because I gained riches without the least danger; but earlier when I risked my life in full combat they didn't even know I existed."
The city of Havana was captured by the British during the Seven Years' War. The episode began on June 6, 1762, when at dawn, a British fleet, comprising more than 50 ships and a combined force of over 11,000 men of the Royal Navy and Army, sailed into Cuban waters and made an amphibious landing east of Havana. The British immediately opened up trade with their North American and Caribbean colonies, causing a rapid transformation of Cuban society. Pressure from London sugar merchants fearing a decline in sugar prices
forced a series of negotiations with the Spanish over colonial
territories. Less than a year after Havana was seized, the Peace of Paris was signed by the three warring powers thus ending the Seven Years' War. The treaty gave Britain Florida in exchange for the city of Havana on the recommendation of the French, who advised that declining the offer could result in Spain losing Mexico and much of the South American mainland to the British. Since the beginning of the 18th century, Spanish Florida attracted numerous African slaves who escaped from British slavery in the Thirteen Colonies. Once they made it to Florida, the Spanish freed the slaves after they converted to Roman Catholicism. Most settled in a community called Gracia Real de Santa Teresa de Mose, the first settlement of free slaves in North America.
Unlike the Portuguese Crown's support for the slave trade, los Reyes Católicos opposed the introduction of slavery to Castile and Aragon on religious grounds. The slave populations were extremely low on Cuba and Puerto Rico until the 1760s, when the British took Havana, Cuba, in 1762. After that, the British imported more than 10,000 slaves to Havana - a number that would have taken 20 years to import on other islands. They used it as a base to supply the Caribbean and the lower Thirteen Colonies.This change is almost directly related to the opening of Spanish slave trade to other powers in the 18th century. Spain and Great Britain made a contract in 1713, by which the British would provide the slaves. The Spanish outlawed its own slave trade of Africans. It is estimated that more than half of the slave trade took place during the 18th century, with the British, Portuguese and French being the main carriers of nine out of ten slaves abducted from Africa
Cuba failed to prosper before the 1760s due to Spanish trade regulations. Spain had set up a trade monopoly in the Caribbean, and their primary objective was to protect this, which they did by barring the islands from trading with any foreign ships. The resultant stagnation of economic growth was particularly pronounced in Cuba because of its great strategic importance in the Caribbean, and the stranglehold that Spain kept on it as a result. Britain returned Cuba in exchange for Florida in the Treaty of Paris (1763). The events revealed not only the weaknesses of the region's defenses but also proved just how much the Cuban economy had been neglected by the Spanish. During the year they controlled Cuba, the British conducted an unprecedented amount of trade with the island. As soon as Spain opened Cuba's ports up to foreign ships, a great sugar boom began that lasted until the 1880s. The island was perfect for growing sugar, being dominated by rolling plains, with rich soil and adequate rainfall. By 1860, Cuba was devoted to growing sugar, having to import all other necessary goods. Cuba was particularly dependent on the United States, which bought 82 percent of its sugar.
The Havana cathedral was constructed in 1748 as a Jesuit church, and converted in 1777 into the Parroquial Mayor church, after the Suppression of the Jesuits in Spanish territory in 1767. In 1788, it formally became a Cathedral. Between 1789 and 1790 Cuba was apportioned into an individual diocese by the Roman Catholic Church. On January 15, 1796, the remains of Christopher Columbus were transported to the island from Santo Domingo. They rested here until 1898, when they were transferred to Seville's Cathedral, after Spain's loss of Cuba.
Havana's shipyard (named El Arsenal) was extremely active, thanks to the lumber resources available in the vicinity of the city. The Santísima Trinidad was the largest warship of her time. Launched in 1769, she was about 62 metres (203 ft) long, had three decks and 120 cannons. She was later upgraded to as many as 144 cannons and four decks. She sank following the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805. This ship cost 40.000 pesos fuertes of the time, which gives an idea of the importance of the Arsenal, by comparing its cost to the 26 million pesos fuertes and 109 ships produced during the Arsenal's existence
As trade between Caribbean and North American states increased in the early 19th century, Havana became a flourishing and fashionable city. Havana's theaters featured the most distinguished actors of the age, and prosperity amongst the burgeoning middle-class led to expensive new classical mansions being erected. During this period Havana became known as the Paris of the Antilles.
The first census in Cuba (1774) resulted in 171620 inhabitants.
The Spanish Constitution of 1812, and the legislation passed by the Cádiz Cortes after it was set up in 1808, created a number of liberal political and commercial policies, which were welcomed in Cuba but also curtailed a number of previous political and commercial liberties. Between 1810 and 1814, the island elected six representatives to the Cortes, in addition to forming a locally-elected Provincial Deputation.Nevertheless, the liberal regime and the Constitution proved to be ephemeral: they were suppressed by Ferdinand VII when he returned to the throne in 1814.
Therefore, by the end of the decade, some Cubans were inspired by the successes of Simón Bolívar, despite the fact that the Spanish Constitution was restored in 1820. Numerous secret societies emerged, of which the most important was the so-called "Soles y Rayos Bolívar", founded in 1821 and led by José Francisco Lemus. Its aim was to establish the free Republic of Cubanacán, and it had branches in five districts of the island. In 1823, the society's leaders were arrested and condemned to exile. In the same year, Ferdinand VII, with French help and the approval of the Quintuple Alliance, managed to abolish constitutional rule in Spain yet again and re-establish absolutism. As a result, the national militia of Cuba, established by the Constitution and a potential instrument for liberal agitation, was dissolved, a permanent executive military commission under the orders of the governor was created, newspapers were closed, elected provincial representatives were removed and other liberties suppressed.
In 1820, Spain abolished the slave trade, hurting the Cuban economy even more and forcing planters to buy more expensive, illegal, and troublesome slaves (as demonstrated by the slave rebellion on the Spanish ship Amistad in 1839). The main reason for the lack of support for independence was that the vast majority of Creoles, especially the plantation owners, rejected any kind of separatism, considering Spain's power essential to the maintenance of slavery.
This suppression, and the success of independence movements in the former Spanish colonies on the North American mainland, led to a notable rise of Cuban nationalism. A number of independence conspiracies took place during the 1820s and 1830s, but all failed. Among these were the "Expedición de los Trece" (Expedition of the 13) in 1826, the "Gran Legión del Aguila Negra" (Great Legion of the Black Eagle) in 1829, the "Cadena Triangular" (Triangular Chain) and the "Soles de la Libertad" (Suns of Liberty) in 1837. Leading national figures in these years included Félix Varela.
[Félix Varela was a notable figure in the Roman Catholic Church in both Cuba and the United States. Varela was born in Havana, Cuba, and died in St. Augustine, Florida, United States. Grandson of Spanish Lieutenant Bartolomé Morales, he studied to become a Roman Catholic Priest in San Carlos and San Ambrosio Seminary in Havana, the only seminary in Cuba. He also studied at the University of Havana. At the age of 23 he was ordained in the Cathedral of Havana.
Joining the seminary faculty within a year of his ordination, he taught Philosophy, Physics, and Chemistry. In his position there, he taught many illustrious Cubans, including José Antonio Saco, Domingo del Monte, José de la Luz y Caballero, and Felipe Poey. Referring to Varela, De la Luz said: "As long as there is thought in Cuba, we will have to remember him, the one who taught us how to think." José Martí's teacher Rafael María de Mendive was also Varela's disciple.
He was chosen representative for Cuba in the Spanish parlement. He proposed a bill to the King asking for the abolition
of the slavery since it was opposed to Christian values. However after one year needed to resign since Napoleon
invaded Spain. He voted against the king because of his support to the foreign invasor.
He founded in Philadelphia a newspaper called "El Habanero" where wrote for support of the Cuban independence:
Dije en el tercer número, y repito ahora, que desearía ver a Cuba tan isla en lo político como lo es en naturaleza.
Condúceme a este modo de pensar, no un vano deseo de ver a la que siempre llamaré mi patria en un rango superior a sus recursos, sino el pleno convencimiento de las grandes ventajas que conseguiría constituyéndose por sí sola, y de la
posibilidad de efectuarlo.
...
No es dable que la isla de Cuba, por lo menos en muchos años, aspire a bastarse a sí misma; pero en esto nada
influye el estado de dependencia o independencia, sino que todo se debe a la naturaleza y a la corta población.
En caso de una guerra, ¿cómo puede favorecerla España?, ¿de qué puede proveerla? Dicha guerra sería para la Isla
lo mismo en estado de dependencia que de independencia. Tendría que tomar por sí sola todas las medidas para
ocurrir a sus necesidades y sufrir las que no pudiese evitar
...
En cuanto a la posibilidad de efectuar la emancipación y sostenerla, basta reflexionar que en el día nadie sabe qué fuerza conserva la isla de Cuba unida a España; que un fatal alucinamiento tiene a los hombres vacilantes y que sólo falta que éste se disipe un poco para que vean claro, conozcan sus intereses y operen de concierto. Si una vez operasen, ¿quién podría obligarles a retroceder? ¿España? ¿Esa España que no ha podido mandar otros socorros que los comprados (porque así debe decirse) por los habitantes de la misma isla? ¿Esa España, donde a la par del hambre crece la impotencia, donde un gobierno sin recursos y embestido por mil y mil necesidades, delira, se aturde, y casi se derroca? ¿Esa España, donde un partido, ya considerable, aclamando a Carlos V, prepara una nueva guerra civil, cuyos funestos estragos aún no pueden calcularse?
...
Es preciso confesar que España todo lo ha perdido en América y que sólo podría conservar algo en virtud de la fuerza. ¿Y cuál es el habitante de la isla de Cuba que crea que es feliz un país donde reina la fuerza? ¿Es ésta la tranquilidad que se desea? ¡Benditos tranquilistas!
...
In 1837, he was named Vicar General of the Diocese of New York, which then covered all of New York State and the northern half of New Jersey. In this post, he played a major role in the way the American Church dealt with the tremendous influx of Irish refugees, that was just beginning at the time. His desire to assist those in need coupled with his gift for languages allowed him to master the Irish language in order to communicate more efficiently with many of the recent Irish arrivals.
...
He died on February 25th 1853 in St. Agustin, Florida.Nearly sixty years after his death in Florida, his body was dis-interred from Tolomato Cemetery in St. Augustine, Florida and returned to Cuba to be laid to rest in the University of Havana's Aula Magna. If canonized, he would be the first Cuban-born person to be honored on the altars of the Catholic church.]
In April 1823, US Secretary of State John Quincy Adams discussed the rules of political gravitation, in a theory often referred to as the "ripe fruit theory". Adams wrote, "There are laws of political as well as physical gravitation; and if an apple severed by its native tree cannot choose but fall to the ground, Cuba, forcibly disjoined from its own unnatural connection with Spain, and incapable of self-support, can gravitate only towards the North American Union which by the same law of nature, cannot cast her off its bosom." He furthermore warned that "the transfer of Cuba to Great Britain would be an event unpropitious to the interest of this Union.
The most outstanding attempts in support of American annexation were made by former Spanish Army General Narciso López, who prepared four filibuster expeditions to Cuba in the US. The first two, in 1848 and 1849, failed before departure due to US opposition. The third, made up of some 600 men, managed to land in Cuba and take the central city of Cárdenas, but failed eventually due to a lack of popular support. López's fourth expedition landed in Pinar del Río province with around 400 men in August 1851; the invaders were defeated by Spanish troops and López was executed. Had he been successful, López could have profoundly altered politics in the Americas, giving a strong Caribbean foothold to the United States and spurring its further expansion. Instead, the failure of López and other filibusters discouraged Americans, especially in the South, from adopting expansionist strategies. Faced with the inability of slavery to move southward, many Southerners turned away from expansion and talked instead of secession.
It was this during the time when the future Cuban flag (adopted officially in 1902) was designed for the liberation movement. The Cuban flag was created by Narciso López in June 25, 1849, and put together by Emilia Teurbe Tolón. The flag's origins date from 1849, when various movements to liberate Cuba from Spanish rule emerged, mainly among Cuban exiles in the United States. His design incorporates three blue stripes, representing the three parts that the country was divided during the independence wars, central, occidental, and oriental areas of the country, and two white stripes symbolizing the purity of the patriotic cause. The red triangle (triangle of Masonic significance) stands for the blood shed to free the nation, which is placed where the star is, symbolizing the sky turned red from the blood shed in battle. The white star in the triangle stands for independence. López carried this flag in battle at Cárdenas (1850) and Playitas (1851).
The Ten Years' War (Spanish: Guerra de los Diez Años) (1868–1878), also known as the Great War and the War of '68, began when sugar mill owner Carlos Manuel de Céspedes and his followers proclaimed Cuba's independence from Spain. Céspedes was a landowner and lawyer in eastern Cuba, near Bayamo, who purchased La Demajagua, an estate with a sugar plantation, in 1844 after returning from Spain. He is called Padre de la Patria (Father of the Country) and he started his rebellion with this ' Manifesto' on October 10, 1868 :
"Al levantarnos armados contra la opresión del tiránico gobierno español, siguiendo la costumbre establecida en todos los países civilizados, manifestamos al mundo las causas que nos han obligado a dar este paso, que en demanda de mayores bienes, siempre produce trastornos inevitables, y los principios que queremos cimentar sobre las ruinas de lo presente para felicidad del porvenir
...
La plaga infinita de empleados hambrientos que de España nos inunda, nos devora el producto de nuestros bienes y de nuestro trabajo; al amparo de la despótica autoridad que el gobierno español pone en sus manos y priva a nuestros mejores compatriotas de los empleos públicos
...
Nuestros valiosos productos, mirados con ojeriza por las repúblicas de los pueblos mercantiles extranjeros que provoca el sistema aduanero de España para coartarles su comercio, si bien se venden a grandes precios con los puertos de otras naciones, aquí, para el infeliz productor, no alcanzan siquiera para cubrir sus gastos: De modo que sin la feracidad de nuestros terrenos, pereceríamos en la miseria.
...
En suma, la isla de Cuba no puede prosperar, porque la inmigración blanca, única que en la actualidad nos conviene, se ve alejada de nuestras playas por la innumerables trabas con que se la enreda y la prevención y ojeriza con que se la mira.
...
Cuando un pueblo llega al extremo de degradación y miseria en que nosotros nos vemos, nadie puede reprobarle que eche mano a las armas para salir de un estado tan lleno de oprobio. El empleo de las más grandes naciones autoriza ese último recurso. La isla de Cuba no puede estar privada de los derechos que gozan otros pueblos, y no puede consentir que se diga que no sabe más que sufrir. A los demás pueblos civilizados toca interponer su influencia para sacar de las garras de un bárbaro opresor a un pueblo inocente, ilustrado, sensible y generoso. A ellos apelamos y al Dios de nuestra conciencia, con la mano puesta sobre el corazón. No nos extravían rencores, no nos halagan ambiciones, sólo queremos ser libres e iguales, como hizo el Creador a todos los hombres. Nosotros consagramos estos dos venerables principios: nosotros creemos que todos los hombres son iguales, amamos la tolerancia, el orden y la justicia en todas las materias; respetamos las vidas y propiedades de todos los ciudadanos pacíficos, aunque sean los mismos españoles, residentes en este territorio, admiramos el sufragio universal que asegura la soberanía del pueblo; deseamos la emancipación gradual y bajo indemnización, de la esclavitud; el libre cambio con las naciones amigas que usen de reciprocidad; la representación nacional para decretar las leyes e impuestos, y, en general, demandamos la religiosa observancia de los derechos imprescriptibles del hombre, constituyéndonos en nación indendiente, porque así cumple a la grandeza de nuestros futuros destinos, y porque estamos seguro que bajo el cetro de España nunca gozaremos del franco ejercicio de nuestros derechos.
...
No, ya Cuba no puede pertenecer más a una potencia que, como Caín, mata a sus hermanos, y, como Saturno, devora a sus hijos. Cuba aspira a ser una nación grande y civilizada, para tender un brazo amigo y un corazón fraternal a todos los demás pueblos, y si la misma España consiente en dejarla libre y tranquila, la estrechará en su seno como una hija amante de una buena madre; pero si persiste en su sistema de dominación y exterminio segará todos nuestros cuellos, y los cuellos de los que en pos de nosotros vengan, antes de conseguir hacer de Cuba para siempre un vil rebaño de esclavos.
...
Ciudadanos; hasta este momento habéis sido esclavos míos. Desde ahora sois tan libres como yo. Cuba necesita de todos sus hijos para conquistar su libertad e independencia, los que me quieran seguir que me sigan, los que se quieran quedar que se quedan, todos serán tan libres como los demás.”
The war was fought between two groups. In the East of Cuba the tobacco planters and farmers, joined by mulattos and some slaves, fought against the West of Cuba, with its sugarcane plantations (which required many slaves) and the forces of the Spanish Governor-General. The war was basically a conflict between criollos (creoles, born in Cuba) and peninsulares (recent immigrants from Spain). In April 1869 he was chosen President of the Republic of Cuba in Arms. Spanish troops killed him in February 1874 in a mountain refuge, as the Cuban government would not let him go into exile and denied him an escort.
A staunch supporter of the rebellion was José Martí who, at the age of 16, was detained and condemned to 16 years of hard labour, later deported to Spain and would eventually become a leading Latin American intellectual and Cuba’s foremost national hero as a primary architect of the 1895-98 War of Independence. Following the 1868–1878 rebellion of the Ten Years' War, all slavery was
abolished by 1884, making Cuba the second-to-last country in the
Western Hemisphere to abolish slavery, with Brazil being the last.
With the abolition of slavery in October 1886, former slaves joined the ranks of farmers and urban working class. Most wealthy Cubans lost their rural properties, and many of them joined the urban middle class. The number of sugar mills dropped and efficiency increased, with only companies and the most powerful plantation owners owning them. The numbers of campesinos and tenant farmers rose considerably. Furthermore, American capital began flowing into Cuba, mostly into the sugar and tobacco businesses and mining. By 1895, these investments totalled $50 million. Although Cuba remained Spanish politically, economically it became increasingly dependent on the US.
[José Julián Martí Pérez (January 28, 1853 – May 19, 1895) is the Cuban national hero and an important figure in Latin American literature. He was also a part of the Cuban Freemasons. He was born on January 28, 1853, in Havana, at 41 Paula St., to a Spanish Valencian father, Mariano Martí Navarro, and Leonor Pérez Cabrera, a native of the Canary Islands. Born in Havana, Martí began his political activism at an early age. He would travel extensively in Spain, Latin America, and the United States raising awareness and support for the cause of Cuban independence. On 21 October 1869, aged 16, he was arrested and incarcerated in the national jail, following an accusation of treason and bribery from the Spanish government upon the discovery of a "reproving" letter, which Martí and Fermín had written to a friend when he joined the Spanish army. More than four months later, Martí confessed to the charges and was condemned to six years in prison.
His parents managed with a lawyer to commute the sentence for a expatriation to Spain.
In January 1871, Martí embarked on the steam ship Guipuzcoa, which took him from Havana to Cadiz. He settled in Madrid. In June 1874, Marti graduated with a degree in Civil Law and Canonical Law.n August he signed up as an external student at the Facultad de Filosofia y Letras de Zaragoza, where he finished his degree by October.Then he lived in México and Guatemala until 1878. Later in New York Martí joined General Calixto García's Cuban revolutionary committee, made up of exiled & disheveled Cubans who wanted independence for Cuba. Here Martí supported Cuban independence freely.
Calixto Garcia was a general of the 10' years war.
Abroad, a new trend of aggressive American influence emerged, evident in Secretary of State James G. Blaine's expressed belief that all of Central and South America would some day fall to the US. Blaine placed particular importance on the control of Cuba. "That rich island," he wrote on 1 December 1881, "the key to the Gulf of Mexico, is, though in the hands of Spain, a part of the American commercial system… If ever ceasing to be Spanish, Cuba must necessarily become American and not fall under any other European domination." Blaine's vision did not allow the existence of an independent Cuba: "Martí noticed with alarm the movement to annex Hawaii, viewing it as establishing a pattern for Cuba…"
On January 5, 1892, Martí participated in a reunion of the emigration representatives, in Cayo Hueso, the Cuban community of Key West where the Bases del Partido Revolucionario (Basis of the Cuban Revolutionary Party) was passed. He began the process of organizing the newly formed party. To raise support and collect funding for the independence movement, he visited tobacco factories, where he gave speeches to the workers and united them in the cause. In March 1892 the first edition of the Patria newspaper, related to the Cuban Revolutionary Party, was published, funded and directed by Martí.
In 1894 he continued traveling for propagation and organizing the revolutionary movement. On January 27 he published " A Cuba!" in the newspaper Patria where he denounced collusion between the Spanish and American interests. Marti's first observations of the United States were written while he worked for the newspaper The Hour. He was happy to finally be in a free democratic nation: "'I am, at last, in a country where everyone looks like his own master. One can breathe freely, freedom being here the foundation, the shield, the essence of life'". Another trait that Marti admired was the work ethic that characterized U.S. American society. On various occasions Marti conveyed his deep admiration for the immigrant-based society, "whose principal aspiration he interpreted as being to construct a truly modern country, based upon hard work and progressive ideas." Marti stated that he was "never surprised in any country of the world [he had] visited. Here [he] was surprised... [he] remarked that no one stood quietly on the corners, no door was shut an instant, no man was quiet. [He] stopped [him]self, [he] looked respectfully on this people, and [he] said goodbye forever to that lazy life and poetical inutility of our European countries". Marti found U.S. American society to be so great, he thought Latin America should consider imitating America. Marti argued that if the US "could reach such a high standard of living in so short a time, and despite, too, its lack of unifying traditions, could not the same be expected of Latin America?. On the positive side, Marti was astonished by the "inviolable right of freedom of speech which all U.S. citizens possessed". Marti applauded the United States' Constitution which allowed freedom of speech to all its citizens, no matter what political beliefs they had. In May 1883, while attending political meetings he heard "the call for revolution - and more specifically the destruction of the capitalist system". Marti could not believe that revolution was advocated and was amazed that this could happen because this "could have led to its own destruction". Marti also gave his support to the women's suffrage movements, and was "pleased that women here [took] advantage of this privilege in order to make their voices heard". According to Marti, free speech was essential if any nation was to be civilized and he expressed his "profund admiration for these many basic liberties and opportunities open to the vast majority of U.S. citizens". The works of Marti contain many comparisons between the ways of life of North and Latin America. The former was seen as "hardy, 'soulless', and, at times, cruel society, but one which, nevertheless, had been based upon a firm foundation of liberty and on a tradition of liberty". Although North American society had its flaws, they tended to be "of minor importance when compared to the broad sweep of social inequality, and to the widespread abuse of power prevalent in Latin America". Although Marti admired the United States and its society, he thought that U.S. America's "dealings with 'Nuestra America' left a great deal to be desired".[59] Also he was preoccupied that the United States was becoming "increasingly intent upon extending its dominion over Latin America". Marti alerted and informed Latin Americans that the United states was "totally ignorant of the culture and history of her southern neighbours, and this, combined with the ever increasing phenomenon regarded euphemistically as 'pioneer spirit', augured badly for future relations between the Americas". By the end of 1889, Marti had changed his "sympathetic attitude" towards the United States. This was due to the U.S. wanting to expand their territories into Latin America. By this time, Marti was getting ready to prepare a campaign that would liberate Cuba. However, this campaign was in danger as talks "re-surfaced in the United States as to whether that country should purchase Cuba from the Spanish government in order to turn the Island into a U.S. protectorate"
Martí was a pragmatic Classical Liberal. Martí dedicated his life to the cause of Cuban independence. To him, it was unnatural that Cuba be controlled and oppressed by the Spanish government, when it had its own unique identity and culture. In his pamphlet from February 11, 1873, called "The Spanish Republic and the Cuban Revolution", he argued that "Cubans do not live as Spaniards live(...). They are nourished by a different system of trade, have links with different countries, and express their happiness through quite contrary customs. There are no common aspirations or identical goals linking the two peoples, or beloved memories to unite them [...]. Peoples are only united by ties of fraternity and love.":
(Con motivo de la proclamación de la primera República Española, Martí publicó en 1873, este trabajo en forma de folleto en la imprenta de Segundo) :
No viven los cubanos como los peninsulares viven; no es la historia de los cubanos la historia de los peninsulares; lo que para España fue gloria inmarcesible, España misma ha querido que sea para ellos desgracia profundísima. De distinto comercio se alimentan, con distintos países se relacionan, con opuestas costumbres se regocijan. No hay entre ellos aspiraciones comunes ni fines idénticos, ni recuerdos amados que los unan. El espíritu cubano piensa con amargura en las tristezas que le ha traído el espíritu español; lucha vigorosamente contra la dominación de España.-Y si faltan, pites, todas las comunidades, todas las identidades que hacen la patria íntegra, se invoca un fantasma que no ha de responder, se invoca una mentira engañadora cuando se invoca la integridad de la patria.-Los pueblos no se unen sino con lazos de fraternidad y amor.
Si España no ha querido ser nunca hermana de Cuba, ¿con qué razón ha de pretender ahora que Cuba sea su hermana?-Sujetar a Cuba a la nación española sería ejercer sobre ella un derecho de conquista hoy más que nunca vejatorio y repugnante. La República no puede ejercerlo sin atraer sobre su cabeza culpable la execración de los pueblos honrados.
Muchas veces pidió Cuba a España los derechos que hoy le querrá España conceder. Y si muchas veces se negó España a otorgarlos, a otorgar los que ella tenía, ¿cómo ha de atreverse a extrañar que Cuba se niegue a su vez a aceptar corno don tardío, honor que ha comprado con la sangre más generosa de sus hijos, honor que busca hoy todavía con una voluntad inquebrantable y una firmeza que nadie ha de romper?
Cuba reclama la independencia a que tiene derecho por la vida propia que sabe que posee, por la enérgica constancia de sus hijos, por la riqueza de su territorio, por la natural independencia de éste, y, más que por todo, y esta razón está sobre todas las razones, porque así es la voluntad firme y unánime del pueblo cubano.
Cuba quiere ser libre.-Y como los pueblos de la América del Sur !a lograron de los gobiernos reaccionarios, y España la logró de los franceses, e Italia de Austria, y Méjico de la ambición napoleónica, y los Estados Unidos de Inglaterra, y todos los pueblos la han logrado de sus opresores, Cuba, por ley de su voluntad irrevocable, por ley de necesidad histórica, ha de lograr su independencia.
No se infame la República española, no detenga su ideal triunfante, no asesine a sus hermanos, no vierta la sangre de sus hijos sobre sus otros hijos, no se oponga a la independencia de Cuba.-Que la República de España sería entonces República de sinrazón y de ignominia, y el Gobierno de la libertad sería esta vez Gobierno liberticida. ].
Jose Martí had sympathy for the Cuban faith (as religion):
Hay en el hombre un conocimiento íntimo, vago, pero constante e imponente, de UN GRAN SER CREADOR: Este conocimiento es el sentimiento religioso, y su forma, su expresión, la manera con que cada agrupación de hombres concibe este Dios y lo adora, es lo que se llama religión. Por eso, en lo antiguo, hubo tantas religiones como pueblos originales hubo; pero ni un sólo pueblo dejó de sentir a Dios y tributarle culto. La religión está, pues, en la esencia de nuestra naturaleza. Aunque las formas varíen, el gran sentimiento de amor, de firme creencia y de respeto, es siempre el mismo. Dios existe y se le adora. Entre las numerosas religiones, la de Cristo ha ocupado más tiempo que otra alguna los pueblos y los siglos: esto se explica por la pureza de su doctrina moral, por el desprendimiento de sus evangelistas de los cinco primeros siglos, por la entereza de sus mártires, por la extraordinaria superioridad del hombre celestial que la fundó. Pero la razón primera está en la sencillez de su predicación que tanto contrastaba con las indignas argucias, nimios dioses y pueriles argumentos con que se entretenía la razón pagana de aquel tiempo, y a más de esto, en la pura severidad de su moral tan olvidada ya y tan necesaria para contener los indignos desenfrenos a que se habían entregado las pasiones en Roma y sus dominios. Pura, desinteresada, perseguida, martirizada, poética y sencilla, la religión del Nazareno sedujo a todos los hombres honrados, airados del vicio ajeno y ansiosos de aires de virtud; y sedujo a las mujeres, dispuestas siempre a lo maravilloso, a lo tierno y a lo bello. Las exageraciones cometidas cuando la religión cristiana, que como todas las religiones, se ha desfigurado por sus malos sectarios; la opresión de la inteligencia ejercida en nombre del que predicaba precisamente el derecho natural de la inteligencia a libertarse de tanto error y combatirlo, y los olvidos de la caridad cristiana a que, para afirmar un poder que han comprometido, se han abandonado los hijos extraviados del gran Cristo, no deben inculparse a la religión de Jesús, toda grandeza, pureza y verdad de amor. El fundador de la familia no es responsable de los delitos que cometen los hijos de sus hijos.
Todo pueblo necesita ser religioso. No sólo lo es esencialmente, sino que por su propia utilidad debe serlo. Es innata la reflexión del espíritu en un ser superior; aunque no hubiera ninguna religión todo hombre sería capaz de inventar una, porque todo hombre la siente. Es útil concebir un GRAN SER ALTO; porque así procuramos llegar, por natural ambición, a su perfección, y para los pueblos es imprescindible afirmar la creencia natural en los premios y castigos y en la existencia de otra vida, porque esto sirve de estímulo a nuestras buenas obras, y de freno a las malas. La moral es la base de una buena religión. La religión es la forma de la creencia natural en Dios y la tendencia natural a investigarlo y reverenciarlo. El ser religioso está entrañado en el ser humano. Un pueblo irreligioso morirá, porque nada en él alimenta la virtud. Las injusticias humanas disgustan de ella; es necesario que la justicia celeste la garantice.
By the end of 1894, the basic conditions for launching the revolution were set. "Martí's impatience to start the revolution for independence was affected by his growing fear that the United States would succeed in annexing Cuba before the revolution could liberate the island from Spain."
The insurrection began on 24 February 1895, with uprisings all across the island. In Oriente the most important ones took place in Santiago, Guantánamo, Jiguaní, San Luis, El Cobre, El Caney, Alto Songo, Bayate and Baire. The uprisings in the central part of the island, such as Ibarra, Jagüey Grande and Aguada, suffered from poor co-ordination and failed; the leaders were captured, some of them deported and some executed. In the province of Havana the insurrection was discovered before it got off and the leaders detained. Thus, the insurgents further west in Pinar del Río were ordered to wait.
José Martí was killed in battle against Spanish troops at the Battle of Dos Ríos, near the confluence of the rivers Contramaestre and Cauto, on May 19, 1895. Gómez had recognized that the Spaniards had a strong position between palm trees, so he ordered his men to disengage. Martí was alone and seeing a young courier ride by he said: "Joven, a la carga!" meaning: "Young man, charge!" This was around midday, and he was, as always, dressed in a black jacket, riding a white horse, which made him an easy target for the Spanish. After Martí was shot, the young trooper, Angel de la Guardia, lost his horse and returned to report the loss. The Spanish took possession of the body, buried it close by, then exhumed the body upon realization of its identity.
On April 1 and 11, 1895, the main rebel leaders landed on two expeditions in Oriente: Major Antonio Maceo and 22 members near Baracoa and Martí, Máximo Gomez and four other members in Playitas.
Starting in the early 1880s, Spain had also suppressed an independence movement in the Philippines, which was intensifying, and Spain was now fighting two wars, which were putting a heavy burden on its economy. But it turned down offers in secret negotiations by the US in 1896, which was closely following the war, to buy Cuba from Spain.
In 1897, the liberation army maintained a privileged position in Camagüey and Oriente, where the Spanish only controlled a few cities. Spanish Liberal leader Praxedes Sagasta admitted in May 1897: “After having sent 200,000 men and shed so much blood, we don’t own more land on the island than what our soldiers are stepping on” .
Spain decided to change its policy toward Cuba drawing up a colonial constitution for Cuba and Puerto Rico, and installing a new government in Havana. But with half the country out of its control, and the other half in arms, the new government was powerless and rejected by the rebels.
The Cuban struggle for independence had captured the American imagination for years, and newspapers had been agitating for intervention with sensational stories of Spanish atrocities against the native Cuban population, intentionally sensationalized and exaggerated.
In January 1898, a riot by Cuban Spanish loyalists against the new autonomous government broke out in Havana, leading to the destruction of the printing presses of four local newspapers for publishing articles critical of Spanish Army atrocities. The US Consul-General cabled Washington with fears for the lives of Americans living in Havana. In response, the battleship USS Maine was sent to Havana in the last week of January. On February 15, 1898, the Maine was rocked by an explosion, killing 258 of the crew (there were only 89 survivors) and sinking the ship in the harbour.
The New York Journal and New York World, owned respectively by William Randolph Hearst and Joseph Pulitzer, gave the Maine intense press coverage, but employed tactics that would later be labeled "yellow journalism." Both papers exaggerated and distorted any information they could attain, sometimes even fabricating "news" when none that fitted their agenda was available. The World, while overall not as lurid or shrill in tone as the Journal, nevertheless indulged in similar theatrics, insisting continually that the Maine had been bombed or mined. Privately, Pulitzer believed that "nobody outside a lunatic asylum" really believed that Spain sanctioned the Maine's destruction. Nevertheless, this did not stop the World from insisting that the only "atonement" Spain could offer the U.S. for the loss of ship and life, was the granting of complete Cuban independence. Nor did it stop the paper from accusing Spain of "treachery, willingness, or laxness" for failing to ensure the safety of Havana Harbor. The American public, already agitated over reported Spanish atrocities in Cuba, was driven to increased hysteria. The cause of the explosion has not been clearly established to this day, but the incident was presented as a casus belli by the American media to promote a war with Spain.
The Spanish–American War began in April 1898, two months after the sinking. Advocates of the war used the rallying cry, "Remember the Maine! To Hell with Spain!". The U.S. congress formally declared war on April 25. The Senate and Congress passed the amendment April 19, House Speaker McKinley signed the joint resolution on April 20, and the ultimatum was forwarded to Spain. War was declared on April 20/21, 1898.
“It's been suggested that a major reason for the U.S. war against Spain was the fierce competition emerging between Joseph Pulitzer's New York World and William Randolph Hearst's New York Journal.” Joseph E. Wisan wrote in an essay titled "The Cuban Crisis As Reflected In The New York Press”, published in “American Imperialism” in 1898: "In the opinion of the writer, the Spanish–American War would not have occurred had not the appearance of Hearst in New York journalism precipitated a bitter battle for newspaper circulation." It has also been argued that the main reason the U.S. entered the war was the failed secret attempt, in 1896, to purchase Cuba from a weaker, war-depleted Spain.
The Americans decided to invade Cuba and to start in Oriente where the Cubans had almost absolute control and were able to co-operate, e. g. by establishing a beachhead and protecting the US landing in Daiquiri. The first US objective was to capture the city of Santiago de Cuba in order to destroy Linares' army and Cervera's fleet. The Battle of Santiago de Cuba, on 3 July 1898, was the largest naval engagement during the Spanish-American War resulting in the destruction of the Spanish Caribbean Squadron (Flota de Ultramar).
After losing the Philippines and Puerto Rico, which had also been invaded by the US, and with no hope of holding on to Cuba, Spain sued for peace on 17 July 1898. On 12 August the US and Spain signed a protocol of Peace in which Spain agreed to relinquish all claim of sovereignty over and title of Cuba. On 10 December 1898 the US and Spain signed the Treaty of Paris, recognizing Cuban independence. Although the Cubans had participated in the liberation efforts, the US prevented Cuba from participating in the Paris peace talks and signing the treaty. The treaty set no time limit for US occupation and the Isle of Pines was excluded from Cuba. Although the treaty officially granted Cuba's independence, US General William R. Shafter refused to allow Cuban General Calixto García and his rebel forces to participate in the surrender ceremonies in Santiago de Cuba.
The Spanish-American War lasted from April 25 to August 12, 1898, and it ended with the Treaty of Paris on December 10, 1898. As a result, Spain lost control over the remains of its overseas empire consisting of Cuba, Puerto Rico, the Philippine islands, Guam and other islands. After Spanish troops left the island in December 1898, the United States occupied Cuba until 1902, and as promised in the Teller Amendment did not attempt to annex the island. Most American and Spanish historians argue that the insurgency could not
have succeeded on its own, while Cuban historians argue the Cubans were
on the verge of winning in 1898 and needed no outside help.
According to Gregory Weeks, author of U.S. and Latin American Relations (Peason, 2008, p. 56), "The Teller Amendment, authored by a Colorado Senator who wanted to make sure that Cuba's sugar would not compete with his state's crop of beet sugar, prohibited the president annexing Cuba. However, under the Platt Amendment, crafted in 1901 by U.S. Secretary of War Elihu Root to replace the Teller Amendment, important decisions of the government of Cuba remained subject to override by the United States. This suzerainty bred resentment toward the U.S. As part of the Platt Amendment Cuba was declared independent, though Guantanamo Bay was leased to the United States. After U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt withdrew federal troops from the island in 1902, Cuba signed the Cuban-American Treaty (1903), perpetually leasing away the land rights to Guantánamo Bay.
In the presidential elections of 31 December 1901, Tomás Estrada Palma was the only candidate. His adversary, General Bartolomé Masó, withdrew his candidacy in protest against US favoritism and the manipulation of the political machine by Palma's followers. Palma was elected to be the Republic's first President, although he only returned to Cuba four months after the election. The US occupation officially ended when Palma took office on 20 May 1902
By 1902, US companies controlled 80% of Cuba's ore exports and owned most of the sugar and cigarette factories. At the same time, the US Army began a massive public health program to fight endemic diseases, mainly yellow fever, and an education system was organized at all levels, increasing the number of primary schools fourfold.
After a brief period of stabilization by Secretary Taft, Charles Edward Magoon was appointed governor under the Constitution of Cuba, effectively with absolute authority and backed by the U.S. military. In his written appointment address to the country, Magoon indicated that he would "perform the duties provided for by the ... constitution of Cuba for the preservation of Cuban independence". He was there, in short, to restore order and not to colonize.
During Magoon's time as governor, the remaining revolutionaries were defeated, and his attention was turned inward to infrastructure. He coordinated the construction of two hundred kilometers of highway. More controversially, he called for the removal of the sunken USS Maine, the ship whose destruction led to the Spanish–American War, because it was interfering with traffic in Havana's harbor. In his yearly report to the secretary of war, Magoon reported that many Cubans held the popular belief that neither the United States nor the US-backed Cuban government had explored the wreckage because evidence might be found to suggest that the ship was not sunk by a torpedo, as was the official report—something that would cast doubt on the justification for the United States' war against Spain. The removal of the ship would not happen while Magoon was in office; it was to be authorized by Congress in 1910.
For three decades, the country was led by former War of Independence leaders, who after being elected did not serve more than two constitutional terms. The Cuban presidential succession was as follows: José Miguel Gómez (1908–1912); Mario García Menocal (1913–1920); Alfredo Zayas (1921–25).
In World War I, Cuba declared war on Imperial Germany on 7 April 1917, the day after the US entered the war. Despite being unable to send troops to fight in Europe, Cuba played a significant role as a base to protect the West Indies from U-Boat attacks. A draft law was instituted, and 25,000 Cuban troops raised, but the war ended before they could be sent into action.
President Gerardo Machado was elected by popular vote in 1925, but he was constitutionally barred from reelection. Machado, determined to modernize Cuba, set in motion several massive civil works projects such as the Central Highway, but at the end of his constitutional term he held on to power. The United States, despite the Platt Amendment, decided not to interfere militarily. It was in these turbulent times, when Machado ruled, that Cuban links to the Stalinist Communist International were made for the first time by Fabio Grobart.Turbulent times erupted in Cuba when the newly formed Communist Party began to destabilize the nation by allegedly committing terrorist acts of placing and exploding bombs in hotels and movie theatres in Havana, killing innocent men, women and children. President Machado threw Cuba into Martial Law as a result, while a partisan leftist media criticized the action taken by the 5th Cuban President. Although Machado is said to have ordered the murder of defecting communist Julio Antonio Mella in Mexico this murder is generally conceded to have been carried out by the Stalinist faction of the Communist International who were in a death struggle with the followers of Leon Trotsky.The actual assassination was probably done by an action group that included notorious communist assassin Vittorio Vidali. Trotsky was eventually also murdered in that country by communist assassin Ramón Mercader.
Gerardo Machado' government's collapse in 1933 was followed by a revolution led by dissident students, labor activists, and non-commissioned military officers.
Between September 1933 and January 1934 a loose coalition of radical activists, students, middle-class intellectuals, and disgruntled lower-rank soldiers formed a Provisional Revolutionary Government. This coalition was directed by a popular university professor, Dr Ramón Grau San Martín. The Grau government promised a 'new Cuba' with social justice for all classes, and the abrogation of the Platt Amendment. While the revolutionary leaders certainly wanted diplomatic recognition by Washington, they believed their legitimacy stemmed from the popular rebellion which brought them to power, and not from the approval of the United States' Department of State. To this end, throughout the autumn of 1933 the government decreed a dramatic series of reforms. The Platt Amendment was unilaterally abrogated, and all the political parties of the Machadato were dissolved. The Provisional Government granted autonomy to the University of Havana, women obtained the right to vote, the eight-hour day was decreed, a minimum wage was established for cane-cutters, and compulsory arbitration was promoted. The Provisional Government survived until January 1934, when it was overthrown by an equally loose anti-government coalition of right-wing civilian and military elements. Led by a young sergeant, Fulgencio Batista y Zaldivar, this movement was supported by the United States.
In 1940 Grau ran in the presidential election and lost to Batista. Most independent observers at the time qualified the 1940 election as free and fair elections. Fulgencio Batista, endorsed by Communists, won the election. Communists attacked the anti-Batista opposition, branding Ramón Grau San Martín and other candidates as "fascists", "reactionaries", and "Trotskyists".The relatively progressivist 1940 Constitution was adopted by the Batista administration. In December 1942, after a friendly visit to Washington, Batista said Latin America would applaud a decision by the United Nations to go to war with Francisco Franco's Spain, calling the regime fascist.
In 1944 Grau won the popular vote in the presidential election, defeating Carlos Saladrigas Zayas, Batista's handpicked successor, and served until 1948. Shortly after his successor was inaugurated, Batista left Cuba for the United States. "I just felt safer there," he said. He divorced his wife, Elisa, and married Marta Fernández Batista in 1945. Two of their four children were born in the United States. Despite his initial popularity in 1933, accusations of corruption tainted his administration's image, and a sizable number of Cubans began to distrust Grau. After turning over the presidency to his protégé, Carlos Prío, in 1948, Grau virtually withdrew from public life.
Violence among political factions and reports of theft and self-enrichment in the government ranks marred Prío's term. The Prío administration increasingly came to be perceived by the public as ineffectual in the face of violence and corruption, much as the Grau administration before it.
In 1952, Batista again ran for president. In a three-way race, Roberto Agramonte of the Ortodox Party led in all the polls, followed by Carlos Hevia of the Autentic Party. Batista's United Action coalition was running a distant third. Around the same time, Fidel Castro became a public figure at the University of Havana. Eduardo Chibás – the leader of the Partido Ortodoxo (Orthodox Party), a liberal democratic group – was widely expected to win in 1952 on an anticorruption platform. However, Chibás committed suicide before he could run for the presidency, and the opposition was left without a unifying leader.
Taking advantage of the opportunity, Batista, who was expected to win
only a small minority of the 1952 presidential vote, seized power in an
almost bloodless coup three months before the election was to take
place. President Prío did nothing to stop the coup, and was forced to
leave the island. Due to the corruption of the previous two
administrations, the general public reaction to the coup was somewhat
accepting at first.
Shortly after the coup, the United States government recognized his regime. When asked by the U.S. government to analyze Batista's Cuba, Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr. said "The corruption of the Government, the brutality of the police, the regime's indifference to the needs of the people for education, medical care, housing, for social justice and economic justice ... is an open invitation to revolution."
However, Batista soon encountered stiff opposition when he temporarily suspended the balloting and the 1940 constitution, and attempted to rule by decree. Nonetheless, elections were held in 1953 and Batista was re-elected. Opposition parties mounted a blistering campaign, and continued to do so, using the Cuban free press throughout Batista's tenure in office. Although Fidel Castro was never officially nominated, he felt that Batista's coup had sidetracked what would have been a promising political career for him.Castro resolved to use armed force to overthrow Batista; he gathered supporters, and on 26 July 1953 led an attack on the Moncada Barracks near Santiago de Cuba. The attack ended in failure – Castro was captured, tried and sentenced to 15 years in prison. However, he was released by the Batista government in 1956, when amnesty was given to many political prisoners, including the ones that assaulted the Moncada barracks. Some politicians suggested an amnesty would be good publicity, and the Congress and Batista agreed. Backed by the U.S. and major corporations, Batista believed Castro to be no political threat, and on May 15, 1955 the prisoners were released. Castro subsequently went into exile in Mexico, where he met the Argentine revolutionary Ernesto "Che" Guevara. While in Mexico, he organized the 26th of July Movement with the goal of overthrowing Batista.
Upon his seizure of power, Batista inherited a country that was relatively prosperous for Latin America. Although a third of the population still lived in poverty, Cuba was one of the five most developed countries in the region. Although corruption was rife under Batista, Cuba did flourish economically during his regime. Wages rose significantly; according to the International Labor Organization, the average industrial salary in Cuba was the world's eighth-highest in 1958, and the average agricultural wage was higher than in developed nations such as Denmark, West Germany, Belgium, and France. Although a third of the population still lived in poverty, Cuba was one of the five most developed countries in Latin America by the end of the Batista era. Labour rights were also favourable – an eight-hour day had been established in 1933, long before most other countries, and Cuban workers were entitled to a months's paid holiday, nine days' sick leave with pay, and six weeks' holiday before and after childbirth. Moreover, Cuba's health service was remarkably developed. It had one of the highest numbers of doctors per capita – more than in the United Kingdom at that time – and the third-lowest adult mortality rate in the world. According to the World Health Organization, the island had the lowest infant mortality rate in Latin America, and the 13th-lowest in the world – better than in contemporary France, Belgium, West Germany, Israel, Japan, Austria, Italy, Spain, and Portugal
Batista's increasingly corrupt and repressive regime then began to systematically profit from the exploitation of Cuba's commercial interests, by negotiating lucrative relationships with the American mafia, who controlled the drug, gambling, and prostitution businesses in Havana, and with large multinational American corporations that had invested considerable amounts of money in Cuba. In a manner that antagonized the Cuban people, the U.S. government used their influence to advance the interests of and increase the profits of the private American companies, which "dominated the island's economy." As a symbol of this relationship, ITT Corporation, an American-owned multinational telephone company, presented Batista with a Golden Telephone, as an "expression of gratitude" for the "excessive telephone rate increase" that Batista granted at the urging of the U.S. government.
I believe that there is no country in the world including any and all the countries under colonial domination, where economic colonization, humiliation and exploitation were worse than in Cuba, in part owing to my country's policies during the Batista regime. I approved the proclamation which Fidel Castro made in the Sierra Maestra, when he justifiably called for justice and especially yearned to rid Cuba of corruption. I will even go further: to some extent it is as though Batista was the incarnation of a number of sins on the part of the United States. Now we shall have to pay for those sins. In the matter of the Batista regime, I am in agreement with the first Cuban revolutionaries. That is perfectly clear. ” — U.S. President John F. Kennedy, to Jean Daniel, October 24, 1963
Due to its continued opposition to Batista and the large amount of revolutionary activity taking place on its campus, the University of Havana was temporarily closed on November 30, 1956 (it did not reopen until 1959 under the first revolutionary government). On March 13, 1957, student leader José Antonio Echeverría was killed by police outside Radio Reloj in Havana after announcing that Batista had been killed in a student attack on the Presidential Palace. In reality, Batista survived, and the students of the FEU and DR who led the attack were killed in the response by the military and police. Ironically, Castro quickly condemned the attack, since the July 26 Movement had not participated in it.
The Castros and several comrades traveled to Mexico, which had a long history of offering asylum to leftist exiles. Here, Raúl befriended an Argentine doctor and Marxist-Leninist named Ernesto "Che" Guevara, a proponent of guerrilla warfare keen to join Cuba's Revolution
Castro also associated with the Spaniard Alberto Bayo, a Republican veteran of the Spanish Civil War; Bayo agreed to teach Fidel's rebels the necessary skills in guerrilla warfare, clandestinely meeting them at Chapultepec for training.
Requiring funding, Castro toured the U.S. in search of wealthy sympathizers; Prío contributed $100,000. Purchasing a decrepit yacht, the Granma, on 25 November 1956 Castro set sail from Tuxpan, Veracruz, with 81 revolutionaries, armed with 90 rifles, 3 machine guns, around 40 pistols and 2 hand-held anti-tank guns. The 1,200 mile crossing to Cuba was harsh, and in the overcrowded conditions of the ship, many suffered seasickness, and food supplies ran low. The Granma crash-landed in a mangrove swamp at Playa Las Coloradas, close to Los Cayuelos, on 2 December 1956.
At daybreak on 5 December they were attacked by a detachment of Batista's Rural Guard; the rebels scattered, making their journey to the Sierra Maestra in small groups. Upon arrival, Castro discovered that of the 82 rebels who had arrived on the Granma, only 19 had made it to their destination, the rest having been killed or captured
Setting up an encampment in the jungle, the survivors, including the Castros, Che Guevara, and Camilo Cienfuegos, began launching raids on small army posts to obtain weaponry. In January 1957 they overran the outpost near to the beach at La Plata and the revolutionaries executed the local mayoral (land company overseer) Chicho Osorio, who was despised by the local peasants and who boasted of killing one of the MR-26-7 rebels several weeks previously. As trust grew, some locals joined the rebels, although most new recruits came from urban areas.
Across Cuba, militant groups were rising up against Batista, carrying out bombings and acts of sabotage; police responded with mass arrests, torture and extra-judicial killings, with corpses being hung on trees to intimidate dissidents. In March 1957, Antonio's DR launched a failed attack on the presidential palace, with Antonio being shot dead; his death removed a charismatic rival to Castro's leadership of the revolution
Frank Pais was killed in the streets of Santiago de Cuba by the Santiago police on July 30, 1957, leaving Castro the unchallenged leader of the MR-26-7.
Castro hid his Marxist-Leninist beliefs, something in contrast to Guevara and Raúl, whose beliefs were well known; in doing so, he hoped to gain the support of less radical dissenters, and in 1957 met with leading members of the Partido Ortodoxo. Castro and Ortodoxo leaders Raúl Chibás and Felipe Pazos drafted and signed the Sierra Maestra Manifesto, in which they laid out their plans for a post-Batista Cuba.
Castro's guerrillas increased their attacks on military outposts, forcing the government to withdraw from the Sierra Maestra region, and by spring 1958, the rebels controlled a hospital, schools, a printing press, slaughterhouse, land-mine factory and a cigar-making factory. By November, Castro's forces controlled most of Oriente and Las Villas, and tightened their grip around the capitals of Santiago and Santa Clara. Through control of Las Villas, the rebels divided Cuba in two by closing major roads and rail lines, severely disadvantaging Batista's forces
The U.S. realized Batista would lose the war, and fearing that Castro would displace U.S. interests with socialist reforms, decided to support Batista's removal in support of a rightist military junta, believing that General Cantillo, who then commanded most of the country's armed forces, should lead it. After being approached with this proposal, Cantillo decided to secretly meet with Castro to see if they could bring an end to the fighting, agreeing that the two would call a ceasefire, following which Batista would be apprehended and tried as a war criminal. Double crossing Castro, Cantillo warned Batista of the revolutionary's intentions. Wishing to avoid a war crimes tribunal, Batista resigned on 31 December 1958, informing the armed forces that they were now under Cantillo's control. With his family and closest advisers, Batista fled into exile with over US$ 300,000,000. Cantillo then entered Havana's Presidential Palace, proclaimed the Supreme Court judge Carlos Piedra to be the new President, and began appointing new members of the government.
Still in Oriente, Castro was furious. Recognizing the establishment of a military junta, he ended the ceasefire and continued on the offensive. The MR-26-7 put together a plan to oust the Cantillo-Piedra junta, freeing the high-ranking military officer Colonel Ramón Barquín from the Isle of Pines prison (where he had been held captive for plotting to overthrow Batista), and commanding him to fly to Havana to arrest Cantillo. Heading toward Havana, he met José Antonio Echevarría's mother, and greeted cheering crowds at every town, giving press conferences and interviews. Foreign journalists commented on the unprecedented level of public adulation, with Castro striking a heroic "Christ-like figure" and wearing a medallion of the Virgin Mary.
On January 8, 1959, Castro's army entered Havana; proclaiming himself Representative of the Rebel Armed Forces of the Presidency, Castro – along with close aides and family members – set up home and office in the penthouse of the Havana Hilton Hotel, there meeting with journalists, foreign visitors and government ministers. The government now ruling by decree, Castro pushed the president to issue a temporary ban on all political parties, but repeatedly claimed that they would get around to organizing multiparty elections, which ultimately it never did
He began meeting members of the Popular Socialist Party, believing they had the intellectual capacity to form a socialist government, but repeatedly denied being a communist to press.
"We are not executing innocent people or political opponents. We are executing murderers and they deserve it." — Castro's response to his critics regarding the mass executions, 1959
Castro helped set-up trials of many Batistanos, resulting in hundreds of executions. Although widely popular domestically, critics – in particular from the U.S. press – argued that many were not fair trials, and condemned Cuba's government as being more interested in vengeance than justice. Castro retaliated, proclaiming that "revolutionary justice is not based on legal precepts, but on moral conviction", organizing the first Havana trial to take place before a mass audience of 17,000 at the Sports Palace stadium; when a group of aviators accused of bombing a village were found not guilty, he ordered a retrial in which they were found guilty and sentenced to life imprisonment
An argument between Castro and senior government figures broke out; the government had banned the National Lottery and closed down the casinos and brothels, leaving thousands of waiters, croupiers and prostitutes unemployed, infuriating Castro. As a result, Prime Minister José Miró Cardona resigned, going into exile in the U.S. and joining the anti-Castro movement.
On February 16, 1959, Castro was sworn in as Prime Minister of Cuba, accepting the position on the condition that the Prime Minister's powers be increased. Between 15 and 26 April Castro visited the U.S. with a delegation of representatives, hiring a public relations firm for a charm offensive and presenting himself as a "man of the people". U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower avoided meeting Castro, who instead met Vice President Richard Nixon, a man Castro instantly disliked.
Appointing himself president of the National Institute of Agrarian Reform (Instituto Nacional de Reforma Agraria - INRA), on 17 May 1959, Castro signed into law the First Agrarian Reform, limiting landholdings to 993 acres (4.02 km2) per owner and forbidding further foreign land-ownership. Large land-holdings were broken up and redistributed; an estimated 200,000 peasants received title deeds.
Although refusing to categorize his regime as socialist and repeatedly denying being a communist, Castro appointed Marxists to senior government and military positions; most notably Che Guevara became Governor of the Central Bank and then Minister of Industries. Appalled, Air Force commander Pedro Luis Díaz Lanz defected to the U.S
Although President Urrutia denounced the defection, he publicly expressed concern with the rising influence of Marxism. Angered, Castro announced his resignation as Prime Minister, blaming Urrutia for complicating government with his "fevered anti-Communism". Over 500,000 Castro-supporters surrounded the Presidential Palace demanding Urrutia's resignation, which was duly received. On July 23, Castro resumed his Premiership and appointed the Marxist Osvaldo Dorticós as the new President.
Castro's regime remained popular with workers, peasants and students, who constituted the majority of the country's population. Opposition came primarily from the middle class; thousands of doctors, engineers and other professionals emigrated to Florida in the U.S., causing an economic brain drain.
Militant anti-Castro groups sprung up, undertaking armed attacks and setting up guerrilla bases in Cuba's mountainous regions. Castro's government began a crackdown on this opposition movement, arresting hundreds of counter-revolutionaries
By 1960, the Cold War raged between two superpowers: the United States, a capitalist, imperialist liberal democracy, and the Soviet Union (USSR), a Marxist-Leninist, socialist people's democracy. Expressing contempt for the U.S., Castro shared the ideological views of the USSR, establishing relations with several Marxist-Leninist states. Meeting with Soviet First Deputy Premier Anastas Mikoyan, Castro agreed to provide the USSR with sugar, fruit, fibers, and hides, in return for crude oil, fertilizers, industrial goods, and a $100 million loan. Cuba's government ordered the country's refineries – then controlled by the U.S. corporations Shell, Esso and Standard Oil – to process Soviet oil, but under pressure from the U.S. government, they refused. Castro responded by expropriating and nationalizing the refineries. In retaliation, the U.S. cancelled its import of Cuban sugar, provoking Castro to nationalize most U.S.-owned assets on the island, including banks and sugar mills.
On 13 October 1960, the U.S. prohibited the majority of exports to Cuba, initiating an economic embargo. In retaliation, INRA took control of 383 private-run businesses on 14 October, and on 25 October a further 166 U.S. companies operating in Cuba had their premises seized and nationalized
In September 1960, Castro flew to New York City for the General Assembly of the United Nations. Offended by the attitude of the elite Shelburne Hotel, he and his entourage stayed at the cheap, run-down Hotel Theresa in the impoverished area of Harlem, meeting with journalists and anti-establishment figures like Malcolm X. Also visited by the Soviet Premier Nikita Khruschev, the two leaders publicly highlighted the poverty faced by U.S. citizens in areas like Harlem; Castro described New York as a "city of persecution" against black and poor Americans. Castro proclaimed the new administration a direct democracy, in which the Cuban populace could assemble en masse at demonstrations and express their democratic will. As a result, he rejected the need for elections, claiming that representative democratic systems served the interests of socio-economic elites
In contrast, critics condemned the new regime as un-democratic, with U.S. Secretary of State Christian Herter announcing that Cuba was adopting the Soviet model of communist rule, with a one-party state, government control of trade unions, suppression of civil liberties and the absence of freedom of speech and press under the first 30 months of Castro's government, more classrooms were opened than in the previous 30 years of government. The Cuban primary education system offered a work-study program, with half of the time being spent in the classroom, and the other half taking part in a productive activity. Health care was nationalized and expanded, with rural health centers and urban polyclinics opening up across the island, offering free medical aid.
Soon after the success of the Cuban Revolution, militant counter-revolutionary groups developed in an attempt to overthrow the new regime. Undertaking armed attacks against government forces, some set up guerrilla bases in Cuba's mountainous regions.
In January 1960 the government proclaimed that each newspaper would be obliged to publish a "clarification" written by the printers' union to the end of any articles which were critical of the government. This would prove to be the start of press censorship in Castro's Cuba.
Castro expropriated US refineries and nationalized them under state control. In retaliation, the U.S. cancelled its import of Cuban sugar, provoking Castro to nationalize most U.S.-owned assets on the island, including banks and sugar mills. At an August 1960 meeting of the Organization of American States (OAS) held in Costa Rica, the U.S. Secretary of State Christian Herter publicly proclaimed that Castro's regime was "following faithfully the Bolshevik pattern" by instituting a single-party political system, taking governmental control of trade unions, suppressing civil liberties, and removing both the freedom of speech and freedom of the press.
Castro retaliated strongly against such accusations, proclaiming that "revolutionary justice is not based on legal precepts, but on moral conviction". In a show of support for this "revolutionary justice", he organized the first Havana trial to take place before a mass audience of 17,000 at the Sports Palace stadium; when a group of aviators accused of bombing a village were found not guilty, he ordered a retrial in which they were instead found guilty and sentenced to life imprisonment. On 11 March 1961, Jesus Carreras and American William Alexander Morgan (a former Castro ally) were executed after a trial. Throughout the struggle against Batista, Morgan was vocal about Castro's anti-communist beliefs. When asked during interviews about Castro's political beliefs and where the new Cuban government was leaning, he remained firm in his belief that Castro was not a communist and that Cuba would become capitalist parliamentary democracy. As Castro began to reveal his socialist leanings, Morgan became distressed, as did other members of the SFNE, who believed in a democratic Cuba. Morgan was arrested in October 1960 and charged with plotting to join and lead the counter-revolutionaries who were active in the Escambray Mountains. Morgan was shot to death by a firing squad on March 11, 1961. He was 32 years old. Two months later, on 1 May 1961, Castro declared Cuba a socialist nation.
The Bay of Pigs Invasion (La Batalla de Girón): 1961
Under the Eisenhower administration, the CIA had organized a plan to invade Cuba using exiled Cuban dissidents – unified as the "Democratic Revolutionary Front" – thereby avoiding international condemnation. Following the election of Democratic Party nominee John F. Kennedy as U.S. President in 1961, the CIA gained his support for continuing with the plan, which would result in the Bay of Pigs Invasion of April 1961.
Eventually taking direct command of the operation, Castro oversaw the counter-offensive, bringing in reinforcements and tanks to use against the rebel army. President Kennedy was unwilling to directly intervene with U.S. military support, and so on 20 April 1189 men of the Brigade 2506 surrendered to the Cuban army.
The failed invasion strengthened the position of Castro's administration, who proceeded to openly proclaim their intention to adopt socialism and strengthen ties with the Soviet Union, leading to the events of the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962. The invasion was a major embarrassment for U.S. foreign policy, with Kennedy ordering a number of internal investigations. The invasion is often recognized as making Castro even more popular, adding nationalistic sentiments to the support for his economic policies. Following the 15 April air attacks on Cuban airfields, he declared the revolution "Marxist-Leninist"
In August 1961, during an economic conference of the Organization of American States in Punta del Este, Uruguay, Che Guevara sent a note to Kennedy via Richard N. Goodwin, a secretary of the White House. It said: "Thanks for Playa Girón. Before the invasion, the revolution was weak. Now it's stronger than ever."
President Kennedy was angered with the CIA's failure, and declared he wanted "to splinter the CIA in a thousand pieces and scatter it to the winds." Kennedy commented to his journalist friend Ben Bradlee, "The first advice I'm going to give my successor is to watch the generals and to avoid feeling that because they were military men their opinions on military matters were worth a damn
By 1962, the Cuban economy was in steep decline, a result of poor economic management coupled with the interference and trade embargo of the U.S. government. There were major food shortages, and the government introduced rationing of both food and consumer goods, with a riot breaking out in Cárdenas.[
In March 1962 Castro removed the most prominent of these "Old Communists" from office, labeling them too "sectarian". On a personal level, Castro was feeling increasingly lonely and isolated in his position as Prime Minister, and relations with his old friend Che Guevara became strained as the latter became increasingly anti-Soviet, instead favoring the Chinese Marxist-Leninist government of Mao Zedong in the Sino-Soviet Split.
The Cuban Missile Crisis: 1962
After provocative political moves and the failed US attempt to overthrow the Cuban regime (Bay of Pigs, Operation Mongoose), in May 1962 Nikita Khrushchev proposed the idea of placing Soviet nuclear missiles on Cuba to deter any future invasion attempt. During a meeting between Khrushchev and Fidel Castro that July, a secret agreement was reached and construction of several missile sites began in the late summer.
American Lockheed U-2 reconnaissance discovered the construction of the missile installations on October 15, 1962 before the weapons had actually been deployed. The U.S. government viewed the installation of Soviet nuclear weapons 90 miles (145 km) south of Key West as an aggressive act and a threat to U.S. security. As a result, the U.S. publicly announced its discovery on October 22, 1962, and implemented a quarantine around Cuba that would actively intercept and search any vessels heading for the island. Castro hit back at Kennedy, insisting that Cuba had a right to defend itself from foreign aggression.
Negotiations took place between Kennedy and Khrushchev, with Castro having no involvement. Ultimately, Khrushchev agreed to remove the missiles in exchange for a U.S. commitment not to invade Cuba and an understanding that the US would secretly remove American MRBMs targeting the Soviet Union from Turkey and Italy, a measure that the U.S. implemented a few months later. After learning of the deal, Castro was furious, believing that Khrushchev had betrayed him and given in to U.S. demands. Depressed, he lost his appetite and became ill.
Furthering Socialism: 1963–1970
In February 1963, Castro received a personal letter from Khrushchev, in which the Soviet Premier had emotionally set out his reasons for coming to an agreement with the U.S. government and in which he invited Castro to come and visit the USSR. Deeply touched by the letter, Castro set aside his resentment and traveled to the country in April, ultimately staying for five weeks. Visiting 14 cities, he gave speeches and met with locals, addressing a rally in Red Square and watching the May Day parade from the wall of the Kremlin. During his visit, he was also awarded both an honourary doctorate from Moscow State University as well as the Order of Lenin, becoming the first foreigner to receive the latter
Inspired by the Soviet daily newspaper, Pravda, Castro oversaw the amalgamation of Cuba's two authorized newspapers, Hoy and Revolución, into a new publication, Granma, named after the boat upon which Castro had arrived in Cuba with his revolutionaries in 1956. He also oversaw largescale investment in Cuban sports programmes, allowing the country to become one of Latin America's most successful sporting nations
Despite the Soviet government's misgivings, Castro continued to call for armed revolution across the capitalist world, providing funding and support for various militant leftist groups. He supported Che Guevara's plan for the "Andean project", an unsuccessful plan to set up a guerrilla movement in the highlands of Bolivia, Peru and Argentina, and allowed revolutionary groups from across the world, from the Viet Cong of Vietnam to the Black Panthers of the U.S., to train in Cuba. In particular, he thought that Africa, much of which was dominated by western colonial and neo-colonial powers, was rife for revolutionary change, and sent soldiers and medics to aid the socialist government of Ahmed Ben Bella in Algeria, supporting them during the Sand war against Morocco; in turn, the Algerian government awarded Castro its Medal of Honour. Also allying itself with the socialist government of Alphonse Massemba-Débat in Congo-Brazzaville, in 1965 Castro authorized Guevara to travel to the neighbouring Congo Kinshasa in order to train militant revolutionaries against the western-backed government. Castro was personally devastated when Guevara was subsequently killed by CIA-backed troops in Bolivia in October 1967, publicly attributing it to Che's disregard for his own safety in the revolutionary cause.
[Ernesto Guevara was born to Celia de la Serna y Llosa and Ernesto Guevara Lynch on June 14, 1928 in Rosario, Argentina, the eldest of five children in an Argentine family of Spanish, Basque and Irish descent.
Growing up in a family with leftist leanings, Guevara was introduced to a wide spectrum of political perspectives even as a boy. His father, a staunch supporter of Republicans from the Spanish Civil War, often hosted many veterans from the conflict in the Guevara home.
In 1948, Guevara entered the University of Buenos Aires to study medicine. His "hunger to explore the world" led him to intersperse his collegiate pursuits with two long introspective journeys that would fundamentally change the way he viewed himself and the contemporary economic conditions in Latin America. The first expedition in 1950 was a 4,500 kilometer (2,800 mi) solo trip through the rural provinces of northern Argentina on a bicycle on which he installed a small engine
This was followed in 1951 by a nine-month, 8,000-kilometer (5,000 mi) continental motorcycle trek through most of South America. For the latter, he took a year off from studies to embark with his friend Alberto Granado, with the final goal of spending a few weeks volunteering at the San Pablo leper colony in Peru, on the banks of the Amazon River.
In Chile, Guevara found himself enraged by the working conditions of the miners in Anaconda's Chuquicamata copper mine; and moved by his overnight encounter in the Atacama Desert with a persecuted communist couple who did not even own a blanket, describing them as "the shivering flesh-and-blood victims of capitalist exploitation"
Guevara used notes taken during this trip to write an account entitled The Motorcycle Diaries, which later became a New York Times best-seller.
Witnessing the widespread endemic poverty, oppression and disenfranchisement throughout Latin America, and influenced by his readings of Marxist literature, Guevara later decided that the only solution for the region's structural inequalities was armed revolution. His travels and readings throughout this journey also lead him to view Latin America not as a group of separate nations,
In total, the journey took Guevara through Argentina, Chile, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, Panama, and the United States (Miami, Florida for 20 days), before returning home to Buenos Aires. By trip's end, he came to view Latin America not as collection of separate nations, but as a single entity requiring a continent-wide liberation strategy.
On July 7, 1953, Guevara set out again, this time to Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Panama, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras and El Salvador. On December 10, 1953, before leaving for Guatemala, Guevara sent an update to his Aunt Beatriz from San José, Costa Rica. In the letter Guevara speaks of traversing through the "dominions" of the United Fruit Company, which convinced him "how terrible" the "Capitalist octopuses" were.
In Guatemala City, Guevara sought out Hilda Gadea Acosta, a Peruvian economist who was well-connected politically as a member of the left-leaning Alianza Popular Revolucionaria Americana (APRA, American Popular Revolutionary Alliance).
Guevara then established contact with a group of Cuban exiles linked to Fidel Castro through the July 26, 1953 attack on the Moncada Barracks in Santiago de Cuba. During this period he acquired his famous nickname, due to his frequent use of the Argentine diminutive interjection che, a vocative casual speech filler used to call attention or ascertain comprehension, similarly to both "bro" or the Canadian phrase "eh".
On May 15, 1954, a shipment of Škoda infantry and light artillery weapons was sent from Communist Czechoslovakia for the Guatemala Government and arrived in Puerto Barrios. As a result, the U.S. CIA sponsored an army which invaded the country and installed the right-wing dictatorship of Carlos Castillo Armas.
Guevara's conviction that Marxism achieved through armed struggle and defended by an armed populace was the only way to rectify such conditions was thus strengthened.Gadea wrote later, "It was Guatemala which finally convinced him of the necessity for armed struggle and for taking the initiative against imperialism. By the time he left, he was sure of this.
Guevara arrived in Mexico City in early September 1954, and worked in the allergy section of the General Hospital.
During this time he renewed his friendship with Ñico López and the other Cuban exiles whom he had met in Guatemala. In June 1955, López introduced him to Raúl Castro who subsequently introduced him to his older brother, Fidel Castro, the revolutionary leader who had formed the 26th of July Movement and was now plotting to overthrow the dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista. During a long conversation with Fidel on the night of their first meeting, Guevara concluded that the Cuban's cause was the one for which he had been searching and before daybreak he had signed up as a member of the July 26 Movement Also he married Gadea in Mexico in September 1955.
The first step in Castro's revolutionary plan was an assault on Cuba from Mexico via the Granma, an old, leaky cabin cruiser. They set out for Cuba on November 25, 1956. Attacked by Batista's military soon after landing, many of the 82 men were either killed in the attack or executed upon capture; only 22 found each other afterwards. Guevara wrote that it was during this bloody confrontation that he laid down his medical supplies and picked up a box of ammunition dropped by a fleeing comrade, finalizing his symbolic transition from physician to combatant.
As second in command, Guevara was a harsh disciplinarian who sometimes shot defectors. Deserters were punished as traitors, and Guevara was known to send squads to track those seeking to go AWOL. As a result, Guevara became feared for his brutality and ruthlessness. During the guerrilla campaign, Guevara was also responsible for the sometimes summary execution of a number of men accused of being informers, deserters or spies. In his diaries, Guevara described the first such execution of Eutimio Guerra, a peasant army guide who admitted treason when it was discovered he accepted the promise of ten thousand pesos for repeatedly giving away the rebel's position for attack by the Cuban air force. In his diary he wrote how he “ended the problem with a .32 caliber pistol. Che stepped forward and shot him in the head, writing "The situation was uncomfortable for the people and for Eutimio so I ended the problem giving him a shot with a .32 pistol in the right side of the brain, with exit orifice in the right temporal [lobe]. Guevara himself icily recounted: ‘I fired a .32 calibre bullet into the right hemisphere of his brain which came out through his left temple. He moaned for a few moments, then died.’
In the closing days of December 1958, Guevara’s task was to cut the island in half by taking Las Villas province. In a matter of days he executed a series of "brilliant tactical victories" that gave him control of all but the province’s capital city of Santa Clara. Guevara then directed his "suicide squad" in the attack on Santa Clara, that became the final decisive military victory of the revolution.
When Hilda Gadea arrived in Cuba in late January, Guevara told her that he was involved with another woman, and the two agreed on a divorce, which was finalized on May 22. On June 2, 1959, he married Aleida March, a Cuban-born member of the 26th of July movement with whom he had been living since late 1958. Guevara returned to the seaside village of Tarara in June for his honeymoon with Aleida. In total, Guevara would ultimately have five children from his two marriages.
The first major political crisis arose over what to do with the captured Batista officials.
Fidel Castro introduced into the liberated territories the 19th century penal law commonly known as the Ley de la Sierra (Law of the Sierra). This law included the death penalty for extremely serious crimes, whether perpetrated by the Batista regime or by supporters of the revolution.
To implement a portion of this plan, Castro named Guevara commander of the La Cabaña Fortress prison, for a five-month tenure (January 2 through June 12, 1959).Guevara was charged with purging the Batista army and consolidating victory by exacting "revolutionary justice" against those considered to be traitors, chivatos (informants) or war criminals. Serving in the post as commander of La Cabaña, Guevara reviewed the appeals of those convicted during the revolutionary tribunal process. The tribunals were conducted by 2–3 army officers, an assessor, and a respected local citizen. On some occasions the penalty delivered by the tribunal was death by firing squad.
Although there are varying accounts, it is estimated that several hundred people were executed nationwide during this time, with Guevara's jurisdictional death total at La Cabaña. From 1959 to 1960, the new government carried out summary executions of at least 1,118 people by firing squad. Guevara himself presided over the notorious La Cabaña prison, where hundreds of the executions took place. For comparison’s sake, the Batista regime was responsible for 747 noncombatant deaths between 1952 and 1959.
In letter to Luis Paredes López in Buenos Aires where Guevara states unequivocally "The executions by firing squads are not only a necessity for the people of Cuba, but also an imposition of the people."
On June 12, 1959, Castro sent Guevara out on a three-month tour of 14 mostly Bandung Pact countries (Morocco, Sudan, Egypt, Syria, Pakistan, India, Sri Lanka, Burma, Thailand, Indonesia, Japan, Yugoslavia, Greece) and the cities of Singapore and Hong Kong. Sending Guevara away from Havana allowed Castro to appear to be distancing himself from Guevara and his Marxist sympathies, which troubled both the United States and some of Castro's July 26 Movement members
Guevara's first desired economic goal of the new man, which coincided with his aversion for wealth condensation and economic inequality, was to see a nation-wide elimination of material incentives in favor of moral ones. He negatively viewed capitalism as a "contest among wolves" where "one can only win at the cost of others" and thus desired to see the creation of a "new man and woman". Guevara continually stressed that a socialist economy in itself is not "worth the effort, sacrifice, and risks of war and destruction" if it ends up encouraging "greed and individual ambition at the expense of collective spirit"
A further integral part of fostering a sense of "unity between the individual and the mass", Guevara believed, was volunteer work and will. To display this, Guevara "led by example", working "endlessly at his ministry job, in construction, and even cutting sugar cane" on his day off. He was known for working 36 hours at a stretch, calling meetings after midnight, and eating on the run. Such behavior was emblematic of Guevara's new program of moral incentives, where each worker was now required to meet a quota and produce a certain quantity of goods. As a replacement for the pay increases abolished by Guevara, workers who exceeded their quota now only received a certificate of commendation, while workers who failed to meet their quotas were given a pay cut.
Whatever the merits or demerits of Guevara’s economic principles, his programs were unsuccessful.Guevara's program of "moral incentives" for workers caused a rapid drop in productivity and a rapid rise in absenteeism. Decades later, the director of Radio Martí Ernesto Betancourt, an early ally turned Castro-critic and Che's former deputy, would accuse Guevara of being "ignorant of the most elementary economic principles."
Guevara, who was practically the architect of the Soviet-Cuban relationship, then played a key role in bringing to Cuba the Soviet nuclear-armed ballistic missiles that precipitated the Cuban Missile Crisis in October 1962 and brought the world to the brink of nuclear war. A few weeks after the crisis, during an interview with the British communist newspaper the Daily Worker, Guevara was still fuming over the perceived Soviet betrayal and told correspondent Sam Russell that, if the missiles had been under Cuban control, they would have fired them off. While expounding on the incident later, Guevara reiterated that the cause of socialist liberation against global "imperialist aggression" would ultimately have been worth the possibility of "millions of atomic war victims". The missile crisis further convinced Guevara that the world's two superpowers (the United States and the Soviet Union) used Cuba as a pawn in their own global strategies. Afterward he denounced the Soviets almost as frequently as he denounced the Americans
As revealed in his last public speech in Algiers, Guevara had come to view the Northern Hemisphere, led by the U.S. in the West and the Soviet Union in the East, as the exploiter of the Southern Hemisphere. He strongly supported Communist North Vietnam in the Vietnam War, and urged the peoples of other developing countries to take up arms and create "many Vietnams".
Moreover, the coincidence of Guevara's views with those expounded by the Chinese Communist leadership under Mao Zedong was increasingly problematic for Cuba as the nation's economy became more and more dependent on the Soviet Union.
In Guevara's private writings from this time (since released), he displays his growing criticism of the Soviet political economy, believing that the Soviets had "forgotten Marx". This led Guevara to denounce a range of Soviet practices including what he saw as their attempt to "air-brush the inherent violence of class struggle integral to the transition from capitalism to socialism"
Two weeks after his Algiers speech, Guevara dropped out of public life and then vanished altogether. His whereabouts were a great mystery in Cuba, as he was generally regarded as second in power to Castro himself.
On October 3, 1965, Castro publicly revealed an undated letter purportedly written to him by Guevara some months earlier; in it, Guevara reaffirmed his enduring solidarity with the Cuban Revolution but declared his intention to leave Cuba to fight for the revolutionary cause abroad. Additionally, he resigned from all his positions in the government and party, and renounced his honorary Cuban citizenship.
In early 1965 Guevara went to Africa to offer his knowledge and experience as a guerrilla to the ongoing conflict in the Congo.
Guevara led the Cuban operation in support of the Marxist Simba movement, which had emerged from the ongoing Congo crisis. Guevara, his second-in-command Victor Dreke, and 12 other Cuban expeditionaries arrived in the Congo on April 24, 1965 and a contingent of approximately 100 Afro-Cubans joined them soon afterward
Guevara's aim was to export the revolution by instructing local anti-Mobutu Simba fighters in Marxist ideology and foco theory strategies of guerrilla warfare. In his Congo Diary book, he cites the incompetence, intransigence and infighting of the local Congolese forces as key reasons for the revolt's failure. Later that year on November 20, 1965, in ill health with dysentery, suffering from acute asthma and disheartened after seven months of frustration and inactivity, Guevara left the Congo with the Cuban survivors, six members of his 12-man column having died.
Guevara was reluctant to return to Cuba, because Castro had made public Guevara's "farewell letter". On November 3, 1966, Guevara secretly arrived in La Paz (Bolivia) on a flight from Montevideo under the false name Adolfo Mena González. He planned to organize a foco with Bolivia as his target. Planning to start a guerrilla campaign against the military government of President Rene Barrientos, he assembled a band of 29 Bolivians, 12 Cubans, and a few foreigners.
On August 31, 1967, a small group of Guevara's soldiers, totaling eight men and a woman, named Tamara Bunke, were ambushed and killed by Bolivian soldiers while they were attempting to cross the Rio Grande in Boliva. On October 8, 1967, most of Guevara's surviving soldiers were surrounded and destroyed as a fighting force. Still, some were still active across Bolivia during the rest of October and November 1967. As the campaign drew to an unexpected close, Guevara became increasingly
ill. He suffered from ever-worsening bouts of asthma (which he suffered all his life), and most of his
last offensives were carried out in an attempt to obtain medicine. Guevara's men suffered malnutrition, lack of water, absence of shoes, and only possessed six blankets for 22 men.
On October 7, an informant apprised the Bolivian Special Forces of the location of Guevara's guerrilla encampment in the Yuro ravine. On October 8, they encircled the area with 1,800 soldiers, and Guevara was wounded. Che biographer Jon Lee Anderson reports Bolivian Sergeant Bernardino Huanca's account: that a twice wounded Guevara, his gun rendered useless, shouted "Do not shoot! I am Che Guevara and worth more to you alive than dead."
On October 9, Bolivian President René Barrientos ordered that Guevara be killed. The order was relayed by Félix Rodríguez despite the US government’s desire that Guevara be taken to Panama for further interrogation. To make the bullet wounds appear consistent with the story the government planned to release to the public, Félix Rodríguez ordered Terán to aim carefully to make it appear that Guevara had been killed in action during a clash with the Bolivian army. After a military doctor amputated his hands, Bolivian army officers transferred Guevara's body to an undisclosed location and refused to reveal whether his remains had been buried or cremated. In late 1995 retired Bolivian General Mario Vargas revealed to Jon Lee Anderson, author of the biography Che Guevara: A Revolutionary Life, that Guevara's body was located near a Vallegrande airstrip. The result was a multi-national search for the remains, which would last more than a year. In July 1997 a team of Cuban geologists and Argentine forensic anthropologists discovered the remnants of seven bodies in two mass graves, including one man with amputated hands (like Guevara). On October 17, 1997, Guevara's remains, with those of six of his fellow combatants, were laid to rest with military honors in a specially built mausoleum in the Cuban city of Santa Clara, where he had commanded over the decisive military victory of the Cuban Revolution
]
Castro's increasing role on the world stage led to a strained relationship with the Soviet government, now under the leadership of Leonid Brezhnev.
Military Units to Aid Production or UMAPs (Unidades Militares para la Ayuda de Producción) – in effect, forced labor concentration camps – were established in 1965 as a way to eliminate alleged "bourgeois" and "counter-revolutionary" values in the Cuban population. In July 1968, the name "UMAP" was erased and paperwork associated with the UMAP was destroyed. The camps continued as "Military Units". In any given year, there were about 20,000 dissidents held and tortured under inhuman prison conditions.194 Homosexuals were imprisoned in internment camps in the 1960s, where they were subject to medical-political "reeducation".The Black Book of Communism estimates that 15,000-17,000 people were executed.Estimates for the total number political executions range from 4,000 to 33,000
On August 23, 1968, Castro made a public gesture to the USSR that caused the Soviet leadership to reaffirm their support for him. Two days after the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia to repress the Prague Spring, Castro took to the airwaves and publicly denounced the Czech rebellion. Castro warned the Cuban people about the Czechoslovakian "counterrevolutionaries", who "were moving Czechoslovakia towards capitalism and into the arms of imperialists"
In 1971, Castro made his first foreign visit since 1964, this time to Chile, where the Marxist President Salvador Allende (1908–1973) had just been elected as the head of a left-wing coalition. Implementing socialist reforms by nationalizing industry, Allende gained Castro's support, and Castro spent 23 days touring the country, giving speeches and press conferences, talking to both admiring socialists and right wing opponents.
Attempting to reassert Cuba's independence, Castro refused to sign the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons in May 1976, declaring that it represented a Soviet and U.S. attempt to dominate the Third World.
Fidel Castro was a friend of the Marxist-Leninist dictator Mengistu Haile Mariam, whose regime killed hundreds of thousands during the Ethiopian Red Terror of the late 1970s and who was later convicted of genocide and crimes against humanity. Castro backed Mengistu Haile Mariam even when the latter had a war with the Somalian Marxist-Leninist dictator Siad Barre. Castro explained this to Erich Honecker, communist dictator of East Germany, by saying that Siad Barre was "above all a chauvinist".
Castro had also been supportive of the leftist New Jewel Movement that had seized power in Grenada in 1979, sending in doctors, teachers, and technicians to aid the country's development, and befriending the Grenadine Marxist president, Maurice Bishop. When Bishop was murdered in a Soviet-backed coup by hardline Marxist Bernard Coard in October 1983, Castro cautiously continued supporting the Grenadine government, which remained Marxist. However, the U.S. and six Caribbean nations opposed the coup as a basis for invading the island and overthrowing the government; those Cuban soldiers who fought alongside their Grenadian comrades were killed. Castro denounced the invasion.
In 1985, Mikhail Gorbachev became Secretary-General of the Soviet Communist Party. A reformer, he implemented measures to increase freedom of the press (glasnost) and economic decentralisation (perestroika) in an attempt to strengthen socialism, but like many more-orthodox Marxist critics, Castro feared that they would actually weaken the socialist state and allow capitalist elements to regain control. Hoping to strengthen relations with the western powers, Gorbachev entered into further talks with the U.S. government, who demanded that the USSR reduce its support for Castro's Cuba, something Gorbachev conceded to. Relations between the two nations deteriorated, and Castro ordered the security services to begin surveillance of Soviet diplomats in the country. When Gorbachev visited Cuba in April 1989, he was greeted with a banner proclaiming "Long live Marxism-Leninism!", a reproach for his reforms, and while his meetings with Castro were friendly, Gorbachev informed the Cuban leader that the perestroika reforms meant an end to subsidies and special favours for Cuba.
In December 1991, the Soviet Union was officially dismantled, with the capitalist reformer Boris Yeltsin, President of the Russian Federation, overseeing the abolition of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and the introduction of a multiparty democracy with a capitalist economy. A staunch anti-socialist, Yeltsin despised Castro, and developed links with the anti-Castro Cuban American National Foundation, based in Miami. Castro began attempts to improve relations with capitalist nations, welcoming western politicians and investors to Cuba, befriending Manuel Fraga and taking a particular interest in the policies of Margaret Thatcher in the United Kingdom, believing that Cuban socialism could learn from her emphasis on low taxation and personal initiative.
Castro tapped into a pre-revolutionary source of income and opened the country to tourism, entering into several joint ventures with foreign companies for hotel, agricultural and industrial projects. As a result, the use of US dollars was legalized in 1994, with special stores being opened which only sold in dollars.
In 1991, Havana hosted the Pan-American Games, which involved the construction of a stadium and accommodation for the athletes; Castro would admit that it was an expensive error, but it proved to be a success both for Cuba and Castro.
The arrival of thousands of tourists from Mexico and Spain led to an increasing number of young Cubans turning to prostitution; although officially illegal, Castro refrained from bringing a full crack down on these prostitutes, fearing a political backlash. Economic hardship led many Cubans to turn towards religion, both in the forms of Roman Catholicism and the syncretic faith of Santeria. Although he had long considered religious belief to be backward, Castro softened his approach to the Church and religious institutions, recognising the psychological comfort it could bring, and religious people were permitted for the first time to join the Communist Party. Although viewing the Roman Catholic Church as a reactionary, pro-capitalist institution, Castro decided to organise a visit to Cuba by Pope John Paul II, which took place in January 1998; ultimately, it strengthened the position of both the Church in Cuba, and Castro's government.
A Canadian Medical Association Journal paper states that "The famine in Cuba during the Special Period was caused by political and economic factors similar to the ones that caused a famine in North Korea in the mid-1990s. Both countries were run by authoritarian regimes that denied ordinary people the food to which they were entitled when the public food distribution collapsed; priority was given to the elite classes and the military." The government did not accept American donations of food, medicines and money until 1993,forcing many Cubans to eat anything they could find. In the Havana zoo, the peacocks, the buffalo and even the rhea were reported to have disappeared during this period.Even domestic cats were reportedly eaten
Thousands of Cubans protested in Havana and chanted "Libertad!" during the Maleconazo uprising on August 5, 1994. The regime's security forces dispersed them soon. A paper published in the Journal of Democracy states this was the closest that the Cuban opposition could come to asserting itself decisively.
In 1997, a group led by Vladimiro Roca, a decorated veteran of the Angolan war and the son of the founder of the Cuban Communist Party, sent a petition, entitled La Patria es de Todos ("the homeland belongs to all") to the Cuban general assembly requesting democratic and human rights reforms. As a result, Roca and his three associates were sentenced to jail, from which they were eventually released.
End of Fidel Castro's presidency : In 2006, Fidel Castro took ill and withdrew from public life. The following year, Raúl Castro became Acting President, replacing his brother as the de facto leader of the country. In a letter dated 18 February 2008, Castro announced his formal resignation at the 2008 National Assembly meetings, saying "I will not aspire nor accept—I repeat I will not aspire or accept—the post of President of the Council of State and Commander in Chief."
In March 2012, the now-retired Fidel Castro met Pope Benedict XVI during the latter's visit to Cuba; the two men discussed the role of the Catholic Church in Cuba, which has a large Catholic community.
Quotes by Castro:
"I joined the people; I grabbed a rifle in a police station that collapsed when it was rushed by a crowd. I witnessed the spectacle of a totally spontaneous revolution... [T]hat experience led me to identify myself even more with the cause of the people. My still incipient Marxist ideas had nothing to do with our conduct – it was a spontaneous reaction on our part, as young people with Martí-an, anti-imperialist, anti-colonialist and pro-democratic ideas."
"Marxism taught me what society was. I was like a blindfolded man in a forest, who doesn't even know where north or south is. If you don't eventually come to truly understand the history of the class struggle, or at least have a clear idea that society is divided between the rich and the poor, and that some people subjugate and exploit other people, you're lost in a forest, not knowing anything."
"The story of our beards is very simple: it arose out of the difficult conditions we were living and fighting under as guerrillas. We didn't have any razor blades..."
"We are not executing innocent people or political opponents. We are executing murderers and they deserve it." (1959)
"There is often talk of human rights, but it is also necessary to talk of the rights of humanity. Why should some people walk barefoot, so that others can travel in luxurious cars? Why should some live for thirty-five years, so that others can live for seventy years? Why should some be miserably poor, so that others can be hugely rich? I speak on behalf of the children in the world who do not have a piece of bread. I speak on the behalf of the sick who have no medicine, of those whose rights to life and human dignity have been denied." — Fidel Castro's message to the UN General Assembly, 1979
"We do not have a smidgen of capitalism or neo-liberalism. We are facing a world completely ruled by neo-liberalism and capitalism. This does not mean that we are going to surrender. It means that we have to adopt to the reality of that world. That is what we are doing, with great equanimity, without giving up our ideals, our goals. I ask you to have trust in what the government and party are doing. They are defending, to the last atom, socialist ideas, principles and goals."
— Fidel Castro explaining the reforms of the Special Period
"If people call me Christian, not from the standpoint of religion but from the standpoint of social vision, I declare that I am a Christian."
I never saw a contradiction between the ideas that sustain me and the ideas of that symbol, of that extraordinary figure, Jesus Christ.
They talk about the failure of socialism but where is the success of capitalism in Africa, Asia and Latin America?
I am a Marxist Leninist and I will be one until the last day of my life.
North Americans don't understand... that our country is not just Cuba; our country is also humanity.
The universities are available only to those who share my revolutionary beliefs.
"Capitalism has neither the capacity, nor the morality, nor the ethics to solve the problems of poverty." On the fall of European communism in July 1991.
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Opinion of Guevara from Alvaro Vargas Llosa (a Peruvian writer and political commentator on international affairs with emphasis on Latin America):
Guevara was born in Rosario, Argentina, in a splendid early twentieth-century edifice at the corner of Urquiza and Entre Ríos Streets
His honesty (well, partial honesty) meant that he left written testimony of his cruelties, including the really ugly, though not the ugliest, stuff.
In April 1967, speaking from experience, he summed up his homicidal idea of justice in his “Message to the Tricontinental”: “hatred as an element of struggle; unbending hatred for the enemy, which pushes a human being beyond his natural limitations, making him into an effective, violent, selective, and cold-blooded killing machine.”
In a letter to his mother in 1954, written in Guatemala, where he witnessed the overthrow of the revolutionary government of Jacobo Arbenz, he wrote: “It was all a lot of fun, what with the bombs, speeches, and other distractions to break the monotony I was living in.”
In January 1957, as his diary from the Sierra Maestra indicates, Guevara shot Eutimio Guerra because he suspected him of passing on information
Later he shot Aristidio, a peasant who expressed the desire to leave whenever the rebels moved on. While he wondered whether this particular victim “was really guilty enough to deserve death,” he had no qualms about ordering the death of Echevarría, a brother of one of his comrades, because of unspecified crimes: “He had to pay the price.”
Che ordered the execution of a couple dozen people in Santa Clara, in central Cuba, where his column had gone as part of a final assault on the island. Some of them were shot in a hotel, as Marcelo Fernándes-Zayas, another former revolutionary who later became a journalist, has written—adding that among those executed, known as casquitos, were peasants who had joined the army simply to escape unemployment.
How many people were killed at La Cabaña? Pedro Corzo offers a figure of some two hundred, similar to that given by Armando Lago, a retired economics professor who has compiled a list of 179 names as part of an eight-year study on executions in Cuba.
When the would-be revolutionaries were arrested in Mexico in 1956, Guevara was the only one who admitted that he was a communist and was studying Russian.
This fanatical disposition made Che into a linchpin of the “Sovietization” of the revolution that had repeatedly boasted about its independent character.
According to Philippe Gavi’s biography of Guevara, the revolutionary had bragged that “this country is willing to risk everything in an atomic war of unimaginable destructiveness to defend a principle.” Just after the Cuban missile crisis ended—with Khrushchev reneging on the promise made in Yalta and negotiating a deal with the United States behind Castro’s back that included the removal of American missiles from Turkey—Guevara told a British communist daily: “If the rockets had remained, we would have used them all and directed them against the very heart of the United States, including New York, in our defense against aggression.”
Guevara distanced himself from the Soviet Union in the last years of his life. He did so for the wrong reasons, blaming Moscow for being too soft ideologically and diplomatically, for making too many concessions—unlike Maoist China, which he came to see as a haven of orthodoxy.
His stint as head of the National Bank, during which he printed bills signed “Che,” has been summarized by his deputy, Ernesto Betancourt: “[He] was ignorant of the most elementary economic principles.” Guevara’s powers of perception regarding the world economy were famously expressed in 1961, at a hemispheric conference in Uruguay, where he predicted a 10 percent rate of growth for Cuba “without the slightest fear,” and, by 1980, a per capita income greater than that of “the U.S. today.” In fact, by 1997, the thirtieth anniversary of his death, Cubans were dieting on a ration of five pounds of rice and one pound of beans per month; four ounces of meat twice a year; four ounces of soybean paste per week; and four eggs per month.
By 1963, all hopes of industrializing Cuba were abandoned, and the revolution accepted its role as a colonial provider of sugar to the Soviet bloc in exchange for oil to cover its needs and to re-sell to other countries. For the next three decades, Cuba would survive on a Soviet subsidy of somewhere between $65 billion and $100 billion.
Having failed as a hero of social justice, does Guevara deserve a place in the history books as a genius of guerrilla warfare? His greatest military achievement in the fight against Batista—taking the city of Santa Clara after ambushing a train with heavy reinforcements—is seriously disputed. Numerous testimonies indicate that the commander of the train surrendered in advance, perhaps after taking bribes. (Gutiérrez Menoyo, who led a different guerrilla group in that area, is among those who have decried Cuba’s official account of Guevara’s victory.) Immediately after the triumph of the revolution, Guevara organized guerrilla armies in Nicaragua, the Dominican Republic, Panama, and Haiti—all of which were crushed. In 1964, he sent the Argentine revolutionary Jorge Ricardo Masetti to his death by persuading him to mount an attack on his native country from Bolivia, just after representative democracy had been restored to Argentina.
Particularly disastrous was the Congo expedition in 1965. Guevara sided with two rebels—Pierre Mulele in the west and Laurent Kabila in the east—against the ugly Congolese government, which was sustained by the United States as well as by South African and exiled Cuban mercenaries.
Mulele had taken over Stanleyville earlier before being driven back. During his reign of terror he murdered all the people who could read and all those who wore a tie. As for Guevara’s other ally, Laurent Kabila, he was merely lazy and corrupt at the time; but the world would find out in the 1990s that he, too, was a killing machine. In any event, Guevara spent most of 1965 helping the rebels in the east before fleeing the country ignominiously. Soon afterward, Mobutu came to power and installed a decades-long tyranny. (In Latin American countries too, from Argentina to Peru, Che-inspired revolutions had the practical result of reinforcing brutal militarism for many years.)
In Bolivia, Che was defeated again, and for the last time. He misread the local situation. There had been an agrarian reform years before; the government had respected many of the peasant communities’ institutions; and the army was close to the United States despite its nationalism. “The peasant masses don’t help us at all” was Guevara’s melancholy conclusion in his Bolivian diary.
In the last few decades of the nineteenth century, Argentina had the second-highest growth rate in the world. By the 1890s, the real income of Argentine workers was greater than that of Swiss, German, and French workers. By 1928, that country had the twelfth-highest per capita GDP in the world. That achievement, which later generations would ruin, was in large measure due to Juan Bautista Alberdi.
Like Guevara, Alberdi liked to travel: he walked through the pampas and deserts from north to south at the age of fourteen, all the way to Buenos Aires. Like Guevara, Alberdi opposed a tyrant, Juan Manuel Rosas. Like Guevara, Alberdi got a chance to influence a revolutionary leader in power—Justo José de Urquiza, who toppled Rosas in 1852. And like Guevara, Alberdi represented the new government on world tours, and died abroad. But unlike the old and new darling of the left, Alberdi never killed a fly. His book, Bases y puntos de partida para la organización de la República Argentina, was the foundation of the Constitution of 1853 that limited government, opened trade, encouraged immigration, and secured property rights, thereby inaugurating a seventy-year period of astonishing prosperity. He did not meddle in the affairs of other nations, opposing his country’s war against Paraguay.
Cuba is an island country in the Caribbean of 11 millions inhabitants. The nation of Cuba comprises the main island of Cuba, the Isla de la Juventud, and several archipelagos. Havana is the capital of Cuba and its largest city. The second largest city is Santiago de Cuba.To the north of Cuba lies the United States (150 km or 93 mi away) and the Bahamas are to the northeast, Mexico is to the west (210 km or 130 mi away), the Cayman Islands and Jamaica are to the south, and Haiti and the Dominican Republic are to the southeast.
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| Cuba |
The first sighting of a Spanish boat approaching the island was on 27 October 1492, probably at Baracoa on the eastern point of the island. Christopher Columbus, on his first voyage to the Americas,sailed south from what is now the Bahamas to explore the northeast coast of Cuba and the northern coast of Hispaniola. Columbus, who was searching for a route to India, believed the island to be a peninsula of the Asian mainland.. On 27 October 1492, Christopher Columbus landed in Cuba in a place he named Porto Santo. It is generally assumed from his description that this was Baracoa, although there are also claims it was Gibara. But Columbus also described a nearby table mountain, which is almost certainly nearby el Yunque. He wrote in his logbook ..
" ...Que nunca tan hermosa cosa vido, lleno de árboles todo cercado el río, hermosos y verdes y diversos de los nuestros, con flores y con su fruto cada uno de su manera. Aves muchas y pajaritos que cantaban muy dulcemente; había gran cantidad de palmas de otra manera que las de Guinea y de las nuestras, de una estatura mediana y los pies sin aquella camisa y las hojas muy grandes, con las cuales cobijan las casas hechas de madera, que entregó en la isla un camion de Fustes Esteva. la tierra muy llana...."
which translates to
". . . I have never seen anything so beautiful. The country around the river is full of trees, beautiful and green and different from ours, each with flowers and its own kind of fruit. There are many birds of all sizes that sing very sweetly, and there are many palms different from those in Guinea or Spain. Some are of medium height without any bark at the base, and the leaves are very large. The Indians cover their houses with these leaves. The land is very level..."
Columbus called the island "Juana" because of Spanish Kings successor Juan de Aragón y Castilla
The Spanish began to create permanent settlements on the island of Hispaniola, east of Cuba, soon after Columbus' arrival in the Caribbean, but the coast of Cuba was not fully mapped until 1509, when Sebastián de Ocampo completed this task. In 1511 and under instructions of Columbus, Diego Velázquez de Cuéllar, a Spanish conquistador, set out from Hispaniola to form the first Spanish settlement in Cuba, with orders from Spain to conquer the island. The first settlement was at Baracoa, but the new settlers were to be greeted with stiff resistance from the local Taíno population. The Taínos were initially organized by cacique (chieftain) Hatuey. After a prolonged guerrilla campaign, Hatuey and successive chieftains were captured and burnt alive. According to De Las Casas account just before he died a Catholic priest tried to convert him so he would attain salvation; Hatuey asked the priest if Heaven was the place where the dead Spanish go. When he received an answer in the affirmative he told the priest that he'd rather go to Hell because then he would avoid such cruel people. The name of Cuba itself, Havana, Camagüey, and many others were derived from the neo-Taíno language, and Indian words such as tobacco, hurricane and canoe were transferred to English and are used today. Around 15 August 1511 (the official foundation day) Diego Velázquez de Cuéllar was appointed the first governor of Cuba and built a villa here and named the place 'Nuestra Señora de la Asunción de Baracoa', thus making Baracoa the first capital of Cuba. He then convoked a general cabildo (a local government council), which was duly authorized to deal directly with Spain. This legal move removed Velázquez and the settlers from under the authority of Colombus, their nominal superior. It was a precedent that would come back to haunt Velázquez during Hernán Cortés's conquest of Mexico..
Within three years the Spanish had gained control of the island. Diego Velázquez founded therefore a number of new Spanish settlements and cities on the island, first Baracoa in 1511 and then most notably Santiago de Cuba in 1514. Velázquez was then appointed governor of Cuba.
In 1515, a settlement was founded in what was to become Havana. Havana was originally a trading port, and suffered regular attacks by buccaneers, pirates, and French corsairs.
Ferdinand II of Aragon issued a decree establishing the 'encomienda' land settlement system that was to be incorporated throughout the Spanish Americas. Velázquez, who had become Governor of Cuba relocating from Baracoa to Santiago de Cuba, was given the task of apportioning both the land and the indigenous Cubans to groups throughout the new colony. The encomienda system of forced or tenured labour, begun in 1503, sometimes amounted to slavery, though it was not full chattel slavery. Unlike the Portuguese Crown's support for the slave trade, los Reyes Católicos opposed the introduction of slavery to Castile and Aragon on religious grounds. When Columbus returned with slaves, they ordered many of the survivors to be returned to their Caribbean homelands. The Spanish used other forms of coerced labor in their colonies, such as the Indian Reductions method, the encomienda system, repartimiento, and the mita.
Despite the difficult relations between the local and the new Europeans, some cooperation was in evidence. The Spanish were shown by the Native Cubans how to nurture tobacco and consume it in the form of cigars. There were also many unions between the largely male Spanish colonists and indigenous women. Their children were called mestizos, but the Native Cubans called them Guajiro, which translates as "one of us".
The downfall of the encomienda system began as early as 1510, when Dominican missionaries began protesting the abuse of the native people by Spanish colonists. In September 1510, a group of Dominican friars arrived in Santo Domingo led by Pedro de Córdoba; appalled by the injustices they saw committed against the Indians, they decided to deny the encomenderos the right to confession. This arose the conscience of Bartolomé de Las Casas, a former Encomendero who regretted his ways and spent the rest of his life working to bring freedom back to the Indians. Las Casas was among those denied confession for this reason. In December 1511 and According to de Las Casas, a Dominican preacher Father Fray Antonio de Montesinos preached a fiery sermon: "Tell me by what right of justice do you hold these Indians in such a cruel and horrible servitude? On what authority have you waged such detestable wars against these people who dealt quietly and peacefully on their own lands? Wars in which you have destroyed such an infinite number of them by homicides and slaughters never heard of before. Why do you keep them so oppressed and exhausted, without giving them enough to eat or curing them of the sicknesses they incur from the excessive labor you give them, and they die, or rather you kill them, in order to extract and acquire gold every day."
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| Fray Antonio Montesino by Antonio Castellanos Basich, in Malecon, Santo Domingo |
In 1513, as a chaplain, Las Casas participated in Diego Velázquez de Cuéllar's and Panfilo de Narvaez' conquest of Cuba. He participated in campaigns in Bayamo and Camagüey and in the massacre of Hatuey. He witnessed atrocities committed by Spaniards against the native Ciboney and Guanahatabey peoples. In 1515 Casas arrived in Spain with the plan of convincing the king to end the encomienda system.He put his faith in his coming audience with the King, but it never came for King Ferdinand died on January 25, 1516. Las Casas was resolved to see Prince Charles who resided in Flanders, but on his way there he passed Madrid and delivered to the regents a written account of the situation in the Indies and his proposed remedies. This was his "Memorial de Remedios para Las Indias" of 1516. In this early work, Las Casas advocated importing Black slaves from Africa to relieve the suffering Indians, a stance he later retracted, becoming an advocate for the Africans in the colonies as well. In keeping with the legal and moral doctrine of the time Las Casas believed that slavery could be justified if it was the result of "Just War", and at the time he assumed that the enslavement of Africans was justified.
Worried by the visions that Las Casas had drawn up of the situation in the Indies, Cardinal Cisneros decided to send a group of Hieronymite friars to take over the government of the islands. Three Hieronymite friars, Luís de Figueroa, Bernardino de Manzanedo and Alonso de Santo Domingo, were selected as commissioners to take over the authority of the Indies. Las Casas had a considerable part in selecting them and writing the instructions under which their new government would be instated, largely based on Las Casas's memorial. Las Casas himself was granted the official title of Protector of the Indians. During this time the Hieronimytes had time to form a more pragmatic view of the situation than the one advocated by Las Casas. They did revoke some encomiendas from Spaniards, especially those who were living in Spain and not on the islands themselves; they even repossessed the encomienda of Fonseca, the Bishop of Burgos. They also carried out an inquiry into the Indian question at which all the encomenderos asserted that the Indians were quite incapable of living freely without their supervision. Las Casas was disappointed and infuriated. When he accused the Hieronymites of being complicit in kidnapping Indians, the relationship between Las Casas and the commissioners broke down. Las Casas had become a hated figure by Spaniards all over the Islands and he had to seek refuge in the Dominican monastery. The Dominicans had been the first to indict the encomenderos and they continued to chastise them and refuse the absolution of confession to slave owners, and even stated that priests who took their confession were committing a mortal sin. In May 1517, Las Casas was forced to travel back to Spain to denounce to the regent the failure of the Hieronymite reforms.
These first years of Spanish presence in the Americas were marked by an outbreak of a tropical epidemic flu; it decimated both the native and Spanish populations. Also after the conquest of Mexico, Cuba experienced an exodus of settlers, and its population remained small for the next two centuries. In 1518 the first shipment of African-born slaves was sent to the West Indies. The Spaniards chiefly purchased the slaves from the Portuguese and British traders in Africa. They did not engage directly in the trade and overall imported fewer slaves to the New World than did the Portuguese, British or French.
When Las Casas arrived in Spain, his former protector, regent and Cardinal Ximenez Cisneros was ill, and had become tired of Las Casas's tenacity. Las Casas resolved to meet instead with the young King Charles I. Las Casas suggested a plan where the encomienda would be abolished and Indians would be congregated into self-governing townships to become tribute-paying vassals of the King. He still suggested that the loss of Indian labor for the colonists could be replaced by allowing importation of African slaves. Las Casas advocated supporting the migration of Spanish peasants to the Indies where they would introduce small scale farming and agriculture, a kind of colonization that didn't rely on resource depletion and Indian labor.
In the end a much smaller number of peasant families were sent than originally planned, and they were supplied with insufficient provisions and no support secured for their arrival. Those who survived the journey were ill-received, and had to work hard even to survive in the hostile colonies. Las Casas was devastated by the tragic result of his peasant migration scheme, which he felt had been thwarted by his enemies. He decided instead to undertake a personal venture which would not rely on the support of others, and fought to win a land grant on the American mainland which was in its earliest stage of colonization.
Following a suggestion by his friend and mentor Pedro de Córdoba, Las Casas petitioned a land grant to be allowed to establish a settlement in northern Venezuela at Cumaná. He suggested fortifying the northern coast of Venezuela, establishing ten royal forts to protect the Indians and starting up a system of trade in gold and pearls. In 1520 Las Casas' concession was finally granted, but it was a much smaller grant than he had initially proposed. In the end, he ended up leaving in November 1520 with just a small group of peasants, paying for the venture with money borrowed from his brother in-law. Early in 1522 Las Casas left the settlement to complain to the authorities. Las Casas worked there in adverse conditions for the following months, being constantly harassed by the Spanish pearl fishers of Cubagua. While he was gone the native Caribs attacked the settlement of Cumaná, burned it to the ground and killed four of Las Casas's men. He returned to Hispaniola on January 1522, and heard the news of the massacre. The rumours even included him among the dead. To make matters worse, his detractors used the event as evidence of the need to pacify the Indians using military means.
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| The Natives of Cumaná attack the mission after Gonzalez de Ocampo's slaving raid. Copperplate by Theodor de Bry, published in the "Relación brevissima" |
In 1536, Las Casas went to Oaxaca, Mexico, to participate in a series of discussions and debates among the Bishops of the Dominican and Franciscan orders. The two orders had very different approaches to the conversion of the Indians. The Franciscans used a method of mass conversion, sometimes baptizing many thousands of Indians in a day. Las Casas made many enemies among the Franciscans for arguing that conversions made without adequate understanding were invalid. Later, his old Franciscan adversary Toribio de Benavente "Motolinia" wrote a letter in which he described Las Casas as an ignorant, arrogant troublemaker. Benavente described indignantly how Las Casas had once denied baptism to an aging Indian who had walked many leagues to receive it, only on the grounds that he did not believe that the man had received sufficient doctrinal instruction.
As a direct result of the debates between the Dominicans and Franciscans and spurred on by Las Casas's treatise, the papal bull Sublimus Dei of 1537, to which Spain was committed, also officially banned slavery. Therefore, the Spanish used only other forms of coerced labor in their colonies, such as the Indian Reductions method, the encomienda system, repartimiento, and the mita. In the bull Sublimus Dei (1537), Pope Paul III forbade "unjust" kinds of enslavement relating to the indigenous peoples of the Americas (called Indians of the West and the South) and all other people. Paul characterized enslavers as allies of the devil and declared attempts to justify such slavery "null and void."
...The exalted God loved the human race so much that He created man in such a condition that he was not only a sharer in good as are other creatures, but also that he would be able to reach and see face to face the inaccessible and invisible Supreme Good... Seeing this and envying it, the enemy of the human race, who always opposes all good men so that the race may perish, has thought up a way, unheard of before now, by which he might impede the saving word of God from being preached to the nations. He (Satan) has stirred up some of his allies who, desiring to satisfy their own avarice, are presuming to assert far and wide that the Indians...be reduced to our service like brute animals, under the pretext that they are lacking the Catholic faith. And they reduce them to slavery, treating them with afflictions they would scarcely use with brute animals... by our Apostolic Authority decree and declare by these present letters that the same Indians and all other peoples - even though they are outside the faith - ...should not be deprived of their liberty... Rather they are to be able to use and enjoy this liberty and this ownership of property freely and licitly, and are not to be reduced to slavery...
Father Gustavo Gutierrez describes "Sublimus Dei" as "the most important papal document relating to the condition of native Indians and that it was addressed to all Christians"
Las Casas returned to Guatemala in 1537 wanting to employ his new method of conversion based on two principles: 1) to preach the Gospel to all men and treat them as equals, and 2) to assert that conversion must be voluntary and based on knowledge and understanding of the Faith. He chose a territory in the heart of Guatemala where there were no previous colonies and where the natives were considered fierce and war-like. Las Casas's group of friars established a Dominican presence in Rabinal, Sacapulas and Cobán. Through the efforts of Las Casas' missionaries the so-called "Land of War" came to be called "Verapaz", "True Peace". Las Casas's strategy was to teach Christian songs to merchant Indian Christians who then ventured into the area. In this way he was successful in converting several native chiefs, among them those of Atitlán and Chichicastenango, and in building several churches in the territory named Alta Verapaz. In 1538 Las Casas was recalled from his mission by Bishop Marroquín who wanted him to go to Mexico and then on to Spain in order to seek more Dominicans to assist in the mission. Las Casas left Guatemala for Mexico, where he stayed for more than a year before setting out for Spain in 1540.
In Spain, Las Casas started securing official support for the Guatemalan mission, and he managed to get a royal decree forbidding secular intrusion into the Verapaces for the following five years. But apart from the clerical business, Las Casas had also traveled to Spain for his own purpose: to continue the struggle against the colonists' mistreatment of the Indians. In 1541 he had a hearing with Charles V and Las Casas presented a narrative of atrocities against the natives of the Indies that would later be published in 1552 as "Brevísima relación de la destrucción de las Indias". Before a council consisting of Cardinal Garcia de Loaysa, the Count of Osorno, Bishop Fuenleal and several members of the Council of the Indies, Las Casas argued that the only solution to the problem was to remove all Indians from the care of secular Spaniards, by abolishing the encomienda system and putting them instead directly under the Crown as royal tribute-paying subjects.
The New Laws, in Spanish Leyes Nuevas, issued November 20, 1542 by King Charles V of Spain regarding the Spanish colonization of the Americas, are also known as the "New Laws of the Indies for the Good Treatment and Preservation of the Indians", and were created to prevent the exploitation of the Indigenous peoples of the Americas by the Encomenderos (large enterprise landowners) by strictly limiting their power and dominion. The New Laws were the results of a reform movement spurred by what was seen as the failure of the decades-old Leyes de Burgos (Laws of Burgos), issued by King Ferdinand II of Aragon on December 27, 1512. The Laws of Burgos were the first set of rules created to control relations between the Spaniards and the recently conquered indigenous people, but they appeared to have simply legalized the system of forced Indian labor. During the reign of King Charles V, the reformers gained strength, with Spanish missionary Bartolomé de las Casas as a notable leading advocate.
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| Cover of "Leyes Nuevas" of 1542. |
However in 1545 the rule stating that the encomienda system would no longer be hereditary was revoked, and the place of the encomienda system was again secure. Although the New Laws were largely unsuccessful, they did result in the liberation of thousands of indigenous workers. It also exempted the few surviving Indians of Hispaniola, Cuba, Puerto Rico and Jamaica from tribute and all requirements of personal service.
However, the reforms were so unpopular back in the New World that riots broke out and threats were made against Las Casas's life. The Viceroy of New Spain, himself an encomendero, decided not to implement the laws in his domain, and instead sent a party to Spain to argue against the laws on behalf of the encomenderos. Las Casas himself was also not satisfied with the laws, as they were not drastic enough and the encomienda system was going to function for many years still under the gradual abolition plan. He drafted a suggestion for an amendment arguing that the laws were formulated in such a way that it presupposed that violent conquest would still be carried out, and he encouraged once again beginning a phase of peaceful colonization by peasants instead of soldiers.
Before Las Casas returned to Spain, he was also appointed as Bishop of Chiapas, a newly established diocese of which he took possession in 1545 upon his return to the New World. As a bishop Las Casas was involved in frequent conflicts with the encomenderos and secular laity of his diocese: among the landowners there was the conquistador Bernal Díaz del Castillo. In a Pastoral letter issued on March 20, 1545 Las Casas refused absolution to Indian owners and encomenderos even on their death bed, unless all their Indians had been set free and their property returned to them. After a year he had made himself so unpopular among the Spaniards of the area that he had to leave. Having been summoned to a meeting among the bishops of New Spain to be held in Mexico City on January 12, 1546 he left his diocese, never to return.
Las Casas returned to Spain in 1547, leaving behind many conflicts and unresolved issues. Arriving in Spain he was met by a barrage of accusations, many of them based on his Confesionario and its 12 rules, which many of his opponents found to be in essence a denial of the legitimacy of Spanish rule of its colonies, and hence a form of treason. In order to settle the issues, a formal debate was organized, the famous Valladolid debate, which took place in 1550–51 with Sepúlveda and Las Casas each presenting their arguments in front of a council of jurists and theologians. First Sepúlveda read the conclusions of his Democrates Alter, and then the council listened to Las Casas reading his counterarguments in the form of an "Apología". Sepúlveda argued that the subjugation of the Indians was warranted because of their sins as pagans; that their low level of civilization requiring civilized masters to maintain social order; that they required Christianity and that this in turn required them to be pacified; and the fact that only the Spanish could defend the weak Indians against the abuses of the stronger ones.Las Casas countered that the scriptures did not in fact support war against all heathens, only against certain Canaanite tribes; that the Indians were not at all uncivilized nor lacked social order; that peaceful mission was the only true way of converting the natives; and finally that some weak Indians suffering at the hands of stronger ones was preferable to all Indians suffering at the hands of Spaniards. Sepúlveda put forward many of the arguments from his Latin dialogue "Democrates Secundus sive de justid belli causis", to assert that the barbaric traditions of the Indians justified waging war against them. The Spaniards, according to Sepúlveda, were entitled to punish other peoples for performing such vicious practices as idolatry, sodomy, and cannibalism. Wars had to be waged "in order to uproot crimes that offend nature". This was an obligation to which every Spaniard, whether secular or religious, had to conform. Las Casas pointed out that every individual was obliged by international law to prevent the innocent from being treated unjustly. He also cited Saint Augustine and Saint John Chrysostom, both of whom had opposed the use of force to punish crimes against nature. Human sacrifice was wrong, but it would be better to avoid war by any means possible. The Indians had to be converted to Christianity non-forcefully. The Judges then deliberated on the arguments presented for several months before coming to a verdict. The verdict was inconclusive and both debaters claimed that they had won. Having resigned the Bishopric of Chiapas, Las Casas spent the rest of his life working closely with the imperial court in matters relating to the Indies. In 1551 he rented a cell at the College of San Gregorio where he lived with his assistant and friend Fray Rodrigo de Ladrada. He continued working as a kind of procurator for the natives of the Indies, many of whom directed petitions to him to speak to the Emperor on their behalf. Sometimes Indigenous nobility even visited Spain to relate their cases to him, for example, the Nahua noble Francisco Tenamaztle from Nochistlán. His influence at court was so great that some even considered that he had the final word in choosing the members of the Council of the Indies. One matter in which he invested much effort was the political situation of the Viceroyalty of Peru. In Peru, power struggles between Conquistadors and the viceroy became an open civil war in which the conquistadors led by Gonzalo Pizarro rebelled against the New Laws and defeated and executed the viceroy Blasco Núñez Vela in 1546. The Emperor sent Pedro de la Gasca, a friend of Las Casas, to reinstate the rule of law, and he in turn defeated Pizarro. In 1565 Las Casas wrote his last will, signing over his immense library to the college. Bartolomé de Las Casas died on July 18, 1566 in Madrid.
The first attack and resultant burning of the city of Havana was by the French corsair Jacques de Sores in 1555. Jacques de Sores was a French pirate, called "L'Ange Exterminateur" (the angel exterminator). He was a protestant and the leader of a band of Huguenot pirates and a lieutenant or former lieutenant of another French pirate, François le Clerc, who was called "Pegleg" or "Jambe de Bois" on account of his wooden leg. Le Clerc and Sores had set out from France in 1553 with three royal ships and a number of privateers under commission from Francis I of France who was envious of the riches returning to Spain from the New World. He may have used Cayo Romano and Cayo Coco in the archipelago of Jardines del Rey adjacent to the northern Cuban coast as a base of operations. He destroyed the fortress of La Fuerza Vieja in today's Calle Tacón and burnt most of the town. He also burnt the shipping in the harbour and laid waste to much of the surrounding countryside, and seems to have found time to organise a play "to insult the pope".
In 15 July 1570 he murdered 40 Jesuit missionaries and threw their bodies into the sea off Tazacorte in the Canary Islands of La Palma- crosses on the sea floor still mark the site at Malpique today. They are remembered as the Martyrs from Tazacorte.
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| The Tazacorte Martyrs, anonymous XVIII |
Ships from all over the New World carried products first to Havana, in order to be taken by the fleet to Spain. The thousands of ships gathered in the city's bay also fueled Havana's agriculture and manufacture, since they had to be supplied with food, water, and other products needed to traverse the ocean. On December 20, 1592, King Philip II of Spain granted Havana the title of City. Later on, the city would be officially designated as "Key to the New World and Rampart of the West Indies" by the Spanish crown. In the meantime, efforts to build or improve the defensive infrastructures of the city continued. By the middle of the 18th century Havana had more than seventy thousand inhabitants, and was the third-largest city in the Americas, ranking behind Lima and Mexico City but ahead of Boston and New York.
In 1628, Dutch Admiral Piet Hein, with Witte de With as his flag captain, sailed out to capture the Spanish treasure fleet loaded with silver from their American colonies. Part of the Spanish fleet in Venezuela had been warned because a Dutch cabin boy had lost his way on Blanquilla and was captured, betraying the plan, but the other half from Mexico continued its voyage, unaware of the threat. Sixteen Spanish ships were intercepted; one galleon was taken after a surprise encounter during the night, nine smaller merchants were talked into a surrender; two small ships were taken at sea fleeing, four fleeing galleons were trapped on the Cuban coast in the Bay of Matanzas. After some musket volleys from Dutch sloops their crews surrendered also and Hein captured 11,509,524 guilders of booty in gold, silver and other expensive trade goods, as indigo and cochineal, without any bloodshed. The Dutch didn't take prisoners: they gave the Spanish crews ample supplies for a march to Havana. Piet Hein was the first and last to capture such a large part of a Spanish "silver fleet" from the Americas, which were very well-protected. Hein returned to the Netherlands in 1629, where he was hailed as a hero. Watching the crowds cheering him standing on the balcony of the town hall of Leiden he remarked to the town mayor: "Now they praise me because I gained riches without the least danger; but earlier when I risked my life in full combat they didn't even know I existed."
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| Battle in the Bay of Matanzas (North of Cuba) by Petrus Johannes Schotel |
Unlike the Portuguese Crown's support for the slave trade, los Reyes Católicos opposed the introduction of slavery to Castile and Aragon on religious grounds. The slave populations were extremely low on Cuba and Puerto Rico until the 1760s, when the British took Havana, Cuba, in 1762. After that, the British imported more than 10,000 slaves to Havana - a number that would have taken 20 years to import on other islands. They used it as a base to supply the Caribbean and the lower Thirteen Colonies.This change is almost directly related to the opening of Spanish slave trade to other powers in the 18th century. Spain and Great Britain made a contract in 1713, by which the British would provide the slaves. The Spanish outlawed its own slave trade of Africans. It is estimated that more than half of the slave trade took place during the 18th century, with the British, Portuguese and French being the main carriers of nine out of ten slaves abducted from Africa
Cuba failed to prosper before the 1760s due to Spanish trade regulations. Spain had set up a trade monopoly in the Caribbean, and their primary objective was to protect this, which they did by barring the islands from trading with any foreign ships. The resultant stagnation of economic growth was particularly pronounced in Cuba because of its great strategic importance in the Caribbean, and the stranglehold that Spain kept on it as a result. Britain returned Cuba in exchange for Florida in the Treaty of Paris (1763). The events revealed not only the weaknesses of the region's defenses but also proved just how much the Cuban economy had been neglected by the Spanish. During the year they controlled Cuba, the British conducted an unprecedented amount of trade with the island. As soon as Spain opened Cuba's ports up to foreign ships, a great sugar boom began that lasted until the 1880s. The island was perfect for growing sugar, being dominated by rolling plains, with rich soil and adequate rainfall. By 1860, Cuba was devoted to growing sugar, having to import all other necessary goods. Cuba was particularly dependent on the United States, which bought 82 percent of its sugar.
The Havana cathedral was constructed in 1748 as a Jesuit church, and converted in 1777 into the Parroquial Mayor church, after the Suppression of the Jesuits in Spanish territory in 1767. In 1788, it formally became a Cathedral. Between 1789 and 1790 Cuba was apportioned into an individual diocese by the Roman Catholic Church. On January 15, 1796, the remains of Christopher Columbus were transported to the island from Santo Domingo. They rested here until 1898, when they were transferred to Seville's Cathedral, after Spain's loss of Cuba.
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| Cuban Cathedral |
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| The Santisima Trinidad - Unknown German painter mid 20th centur |
The first census in Cuba (1774) resulted in 171620 inhabitants.
The Spanish Constitution of 1812, and the legislation passed by the Cádiz Cortes after it was set up in 1808, created a number of liberal political and commercial policies, which were welcomed in Cuba but also curtailed a number of previous political and commercial liberties. Between 1810 and 1814, the island elected six representatives to the Cortes, in addition to forming a locally-elected Provincial Deputation.Nevertheless, the liberal regime and the Constitution proved to be ephemeral: they were suppressed by Ferdinand VII when he returned to the throne in 1814.
Therefore, by the end of the decade, some Cubans were inspired by the successes of Simón Bolívar, despite the fact that the Spanish Constitution was restored in 1820. Numerous secret societies emerged, of which the most important was the so-called "Soles y Rayos Bolívar", founded in 1821 and led by José Francisco Lemus. Its aim was to establish the free Republic of Cubanacán, and it had branches in five districts of the island. In 1823, the society's leaders were arrested and condemned to exile. In the same year, Ferdinand VII, with French help and the approval of the Quintuple Alliance, managed to abolish constitutional rule in Spain yet again and re-establish absolutism. As a result, the national militia of Cuba, established by the Constitution and a potential instrument for liberal agitation, was dissolved, a permanent executive military commission under the orders of the governor was created, newspapers were closed, elected provincial representatives were removed and other liberties suppressed.
In 1820, Spain abolished the slave trade, hurting the Cuban economy even more and forcing planters to buy more expensive, illegal, and troublesome slaves (as demonstrated by the slave rebellion on the Spanish ship Amistad in 1839). The main reason for the lack of support for independence was that the vast majority of Creoles, especially the plantation owners, rejected any kind of separatism, considering Spain's power essential to the maintenance of slavery.
This suppression, and the success of independence movements in the former Spanish colonies on the North American mainland, led to a notable rise of Cuban nationalism. A number of independence conspiracies took place during the 1820s and 1830s, but all failed. Among these were the "Expedición de los Trece" (Expedition of the 13) in 1826, the "Gran Legión del Aguila Negra" (Great Legion of the Black Eagle) in 1829, the "Cadena Triangular" (Triangular Chain) and the "Soles de la Libertad" (Suns of Liberty) in 1837. Leading national figures in these years included Félix Varela.
[Félix Varela was a notable figure in the Roman Catholic Church in both Cuba and the United States. Varela was born in Havana, Cuba, and died in St. Augustine, Florida, United States. Grandson of Spanish Lieutenant Bartolomé Morales, he studied to become a Roman Catholic Priest in San Carlos and San Ambrosio Seminary in Havana, the only seminary in Cuba. He also studied at the University of Havana. At the age of 23 he was ordained in the Cathedral of Havana.
Joining the seminary faculty within a year of his ordination, he taught Philosophy, Physics, and Chemistry. In his position there, he taught many illustrious Cubans, including José Antonio Saco, Domingo del Monte, José de la Luz y Caballero, and Felipe Poey. Referring to Varela, De la Luz said: "As long as there is thought in Cuba, we will have to remember him, the one who taught us how to think." José Martí's teacher Rafael María de Mendive was also Varela's disciple.
He was chosen representative for Cuba in the Spanish parlement. He proposed a bill to the King asking for the abolition
of the slavery since it was opposed to Christian values. However after one year needed to resign since Napoleon
invaded Spain. He voted against the king because of his support to the foreign invasor.
He founded in Philadelphia a newspaper called "El Habanero" where wrote for support of the Cuban independence:
Dije en el tercer número, y repito ahora, que desearía ver a Cuba tan isla en lo político como lo es en naturaleza.
Condúceme a este modo de pensar, no un vano deseo de ver a la que siempre llamaré mi patria en un rango superior a sus recursos, sino el pleno convencimiento de las grandes ventajas que conseguiría constituyéndose por sí sola, y de la
posibilidad de efectuarlo.
...
No es dable que la isla de Cuba, por lo menos en muchos años, aspire a bastarse a sí misma; pero en esto nada
influye el estado de dependencia o independencia, sino que todo se debe a la naturaleza y a la corta población.
En caso de una guerra, ¿cómo puede favorecerla España?, ¿de qué puede proveerla? Dicha guerra sería para la Isla
lo mismo en estado de dependencia que de independencia. Tendría que tomar por sí sola todas las medidas para
ocurrir a sus necesidades y sufrir las que no pudiese evitar
...
En cuanto a la posibilidad de efectuar la emancipación y sostenerla, basta reflexionar que en el día nadie sabe qué fuerza conserva la isla de Cuba unida a España; que un fatal alucinamiento tiene a los hombres vacilantes y que sólo falta que éste se disipe un poco para que vean claro, conozcan sus intereses y operen de concierto. Si una vez operasen, ¿quién podría obligarles a retroceder? ¿España? ¿Esa España que no ha podido mandar otros socorros que los comprados (porque así debe decirse) por los habitantes de la misma isla? ¿Esa España, donde a la par del hambre crece la impotencia, donde un gobierno sin recursos y embestido por mil y mil necesidades, delira, se aturde, y casi se derroca? ¿Esa España, donde un partido, ya considerable, aclamando a Carlos V, prepara una nueva guerra civil, cuyos funestos estragos aún no pueden calcularse?
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Es preciso confesar que España todo lo ha perdido en América y que sólo podría conservar algo en virtud de la fuerza. ¿Y cuál es el habitante de la isla de Cuba que crea que es feliz un país donde reina la fuerza? ¿Es ésta la tranquilidad que se desea? ¡Benditos tranquilistas!
...
In 1837, he was named Vicar General of the Diocese of New York, which then covered all of New York State and the northern half of New Jersey. In this post, he played a major role in the way the American Church dealt with the tremendous influx of Irish refugees, that was just beginning at the time. His desire to assist those in need coupled with his gift for languages allowed him to master the Irish language in order to communicate more efficiently with many of the recent Irish arrivals.
...
He died on February 25th 1853 in St. Agustin, Florida.Nearly sixty years after his death in Florida, his body was dis-interred from Tolomato Cemetery in St. Augustine, Florida and returned to Cuba to be laid to rest in the University of Havana's Aula Magna. If canonized, he would be the first Cuban-born person to be honored on the altars of the Catholic church.]
In April 1823, US Secretary of State John Quincy Adams discussed the rules of political gravitation, in a theory often referred to as the "ripe fruit theory". Adams wrote, "There are laws of political as well as physical gravitation; and if an apple severed by its native tree cannot choose but fall to the ground, Cuba, forcibly disjoined from its own unnatural connection with Spain, and incapable of self-support, can gravitate only towards the North American Union which by the same law of nature, cannot cast her off its bosom." He furthermore warned that "the transfer of Cuba to Great Britain would be an event unpropitious to the interest of this Union.
The most outstanding attempts in support of American annexation were made by former Spanish Army General Narciso López, who prepared four filibuster expeditions to Cuba in the US. The first two, in 1848 and 1849, failed before departure due to US opposition. The third, made up of some 600 men, managed to land in Cuba and take the central city of Cárdenas, but failed eventually due to a lack of popular support. López's fourth expedition landed in Pinar del Río province with around 400 men in August 1851; the invaders were defeated by Spanish troops and López was executed. Had he been successful, López could have profoundly altered politics in the Americas, giving a strong Caribbean foothold to the United States and spurring its further expansion. Instead, the failure of López and other filibusters discouraged Americans, especially in the South, from adopting expansionist strategies. Faced with the inability of slavery to move southward, many Southerners turned away from expansion and talked instead of secession.
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| Flag of Cuba |
It was this during the time when the future Cuban flag (adopted officially in 1902) was designed for the liberation movement. The Cuban flag was created by Narciso López in June 25, 1849, and put together by Emilia Teurbe Tolón. The flag's origins date from 1849, when various movements to liberate Cuba from Spanish rule emerged, mainly among Cuban exiles in the United States. His design incorporates three blue stripes, representing the three parts that the country was divided during the independence wars, central, occidental, and oriental areas of the country, and two white stripes symbolizing the purity of the patriotic cause. The red triangle (triangle of Masonic significance) stands for the blood shed to free the nation, which is placed where the star is, symbolizing the sky turned red from the blood shed in battle. The white star in the triangle stands for independence. López carried this flag in battle at Cárdenas (1850) and Playitas (1851).
The Ten Years' War (Spanish: Guerra de los Diez Años) (1868–1878), also known as the Great War and the War of '68, began when sugar mill owner Carlos Manuel de Céspedes and his followers proclaimed Cuba's independence from Spain. Céspedes was a landowner and lawyer in eastern Cuba, near Bayamo, who purchased La Demajagua, an estate with a sugar plantation, in 1844 after returning from Spain. He is called Padre de la Patria (Father of the Country) and he started his rebellion with this ' Manifesto' on October 10, 1868 :
"Al levantarnos armados contra la opresión del tiránico gobierno español, siguiendo la costumbre establecida en todos los países civilizados, manifestamos al mundo las causas que nos han obligado a dar este paso, que en demanda de mayores bienes, siempre produce trastornos inevitables, y los principios que queremos cimentar sobre las ruinas de lo presente para felicidad del porvenir
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La plaga infinita de empleados hambrientos que de España nos inunda, nos devora el producto de nuestros bienes y de nuestro trabajo; al amparo de la despótica autoridad que el gobierno español pone en sus manos y priva a nuestros mejores compatriotas de los empleos públicos
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Nuestros valiosos productos, mirados con ojeriza por las repúblicas de los pueblos mercantiles extranjeros que provoca el sistema aduanero de España para coartarles su comercio, si bien se venden a grandes precios con los puertos de otras naciones, aquí, para el infeliz productor, no alcanzan siquiera para cubrir sus gastos: De modo que sin la feracidad de nuestros terrenos, pereceríamos en la miseria.
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En suma, la isla de Cuba no puede prosperar, porque la inmigración blanca, única que en la actualidad nos conviene, se ve alejada de nuestras playas por la innumerables trabas con que se la enreda y la prevención y ojeriza con que se la mira.
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Cuando un pueblo llega al extremo de degradación y miseria en que nosotros nos vemos, nadie puede reprobarle que eche mano a las armas para salir de un estado tan lleno de oprobio. El empleo de las más grandes naciones autoriza ese último recurso. La isla de Cuba no puede estar privada de los derechos que gozan otros pueblos, y no puede consentir que se diga que no sabe más que sufrir. A los demás pueblos civilizados toca interponer su influencia para sacar de las garras de un bárbaro opresor a un pueblo inocente, ilustrado, sensible y generoso. A ellos apelamos y al Dios de nuestra conciencia, con la mano puesta sobre el corazón. No nos extravían rencores, no nos halagan ambiciones, sólo queremos ser libres e iguales, como hizo el Creador a todos los hombres. Nosotros consagramos estos dos venerables principios: nosotros creemos que todos los hombres son iguales, amamos la tolerancia, el orden y la justicia en todas las materias; respetamos las vidas y propiedades de todos los ciudadanos pacíficos, aunque sean los mismos españoles, residentes en este territorio, admiramos el sufragio universal que asegura la soberanía del pueblo; deseamos la emancipación gradual y bajo indemnización, de la esclavitud; el libre cambio con las naciones amigas que usen de reciprocidad; la representación nacional para decretar las leyes e impuestos, y, en general, demandamos la religiosa observancia de los derechos imprescriptibles del hombre, constituyéndonos en nación indendiente, porque así cumple a la grandeza de nuestros futuros destinos, y porque estamos seguro que bajo el cetro de España nunca gozaremos del franco ejercicio de nuestros derechos.
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No, ya Cuba no puede pertenecer más a una potencia que, como Caín, mata a sus hermanos, y, como Saturno, devora a sus hijos. Cuba aspira a ser una nación grande y civilizada, para tender un brazo amigo y un corazón fraternal a todos los demás pueblos, y si la misma España consiente en dejarla libre y tranquila, la estrechará en su seno como una hija amante de una buena madre; pero si persiste en su sistema de dominación y exterminio segará todos nuestros cuellos, y los cuellos de los que en pos de nosotros vengan, antes de conseguir hacer de Cuba para siempre un vil rebaño de esclavos.
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Ciudadanos; hasta este momento habéis sido esclavos míos. Desde ahora sois tan libres como yo. Cuba necesita de todos sus hijos para conquistar su libertad e independencia, los que me quieran seguir que me sigan, los que se quieran quedar que se quedan, todos serán tan libres como los demás.”
The war was fought between two groups. In the East of Cuba the tobacco planters and farmers, joined by mulattos and some slaves, fought against the West of Cuba, with its sugarcane plantations (which required many slaves) and the forces of the Spanish Governor-General. The war was basically a conflict between criollos (creoles, born in Cuba) and peninsulares (recent immigrants from Spain). In April 1869 he was chosen President of the Republic of Cuba in Arms. Spanish troops killed him in February 1874 in a mountain refuge, as the Cuban government would not let him go into exile and denied him an escort.
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| Cuban postage stamp celebrating Carlos Manuel de Céspedes’ Grito de Yara of October 10, 1868, which marked the beginning of the island’s fight for independence and started the ultimately failed Ten Years’ War. |
With the abolition of slavery in October 1886, former slaves joined the ranks of farmers and urban working class. Most wealthy Cubans lost their rural properties, and many of them joined the urban middle class. The number of sugar mills dropped and efficiency increased, with only companies and the most powerful plantation owners owning them. The numbers of campesinos and tenant farmers rose considerably. Furthermore, American capital began flowing into Cuba, mostly into the sugar and tobacco businesses and mining. By 1895, these investments totalled $50 million. Although Cuba remained Spanish politically, economically it became increasingly dependent on the US.
[José Julián Martí Pérez (January 28, 1853 – May 19, 1895) is the Cuban national hero and an important figure in Latin American literature. He was also a part of the Cuban Freemasons. He was born on January 28, 1853, in Havana, at 41 Paula St., to a Spanish Valencian father, Mariano Martí Navarro, and Leonor Pérez Cabrera, a native of the Canary Islands. Born in Havana, Martí began his political activism at an early age. He would travel extensively in Spain, Latin America, and the United States raising awareness and support for the cause of Cuban independence. On 21 October 1869, aged 16, he was arrested and incarcerated in the national jail, following an accusation of treason and bribery from the Spanish government upon the discovery of a "reproving" letter, which Martí and Fermín had written to a friend when he joined the Spanish army. More than four months later, Martí confessed to the charges and was condemned to six years in prison.
His parents managed with a lawyer to commute the sentence for a expatriation to Spain.
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| Jose Marti Monument in Havana |
Calixto Garcia was a general of the 10' years war.
Abroad, a new trend of aggressive American influence emerged, evident in Secretary of State James G. Blaine's expressed belief that all of Central and South America would some day fall to the US. Blaine placed particular importance on the control of Cuba. "That rich island," he wrote on 1 December 1881, "the key to the Gulf of Mexico, is, though in the hands of Spain, a part of the American commercial system… If ever ceasing to be Spanish, Cuba must necessarily become American and not fall under any other European domination." Blaine's vision did not allow the existence of an independent Cuba: "Martí noticed with alarm the movement to annex Hawaii, viewing it as establishing a pattern for Cuba…"
On January 5, 1892, Martí participated in a reunion of the emigration representatives, in Cayo Hueso, the Cuban community of Key West where the Bases del Partido Revolucionario (Basis of the Cuban Revolutionary Party) was passed. He began the process of organizing the newly formed party. To raise support and collect funding for the independence movement, he visited tobacco factories, where he gave speeches to the workers and united them in the cause. In March 1892 the first edition of the Patria newspaper, related to the Cuban Revolutionary Party, was published, funded and directed by Martí.
In 1894 he continued traveling for propagation and organizing the revolutionary movement. On January 27 he published " A Cuba!" in the newspaper Patria where he denounced collusion between the Spanish and American interests. Marti's first observations of the United States were written while he worked for the newspaper The Hour. He was happy to finally be in a free democratic nation: "'I am, at last, in a country where everyone looks like his own master. One can breathe freely, freedom being here the foundation, the shield, the essence of life'". Another trait that Marti admired was the work ethic that characterized U.S. American society. On various occasions Marti conveyed his deep admiration for the immigrant-based society, "whose principal aspiration he interpreted as being to construct a truly modern country, based upon hard work and progressive ideas." Marti stated that he was "never surprised in any country of the world [he had] visited. Here [he] was surprised... [he] remarked that no one stood quietly on the corners, no door was shut an instant, no man was quiet. [He] stopped [him]self, [he] looked respectfully on this people, and [he] said goodbye forever to that lazy life and poetical inutility of our European countries". Marti found U.S. American society to be so great, he thought Latin America should consider imitating America. Marti argued that if the US "could reach such a high standard of living in so short a time, and despite, too, its lack of unifying traditions, could not the same be expected of Latin America?. On the positive side, Marti was astonished by the "inviolable right of freedom of speech which all U.S. citizens possessed". Marti applauded the United States' Constitution which allowed freedom of speech to all its citizens, no matter what political beliefs they had. In May 1883, while attending political meetings he heard "the call for revolution - and more specifically the destruction of the capitalist system". Marti could not believe that revolution was advocated and was amazed that this could happen because this "could have led to its own destruction". Marti also gave his support to the women's suffrage movements, and was "pleased that women here [took] advantage of this privilege in order to make their voices heard". According to Marti, free speech was essential if any nation was to be civilized and he expressed his "profund admiration for these many basic liberties and opportunities open to the vast majority of U.S. citizens". The works of Marti contain many comparisons between the ways of life of North and Latin America. The former was seen as "hardy, 'soulless', and, at times, cruel society, but one which, nevertheless, had been based upon a firm foundation of liberty and on a tradition of liberty". Although North American society had its flaws, they tended to be "of minor importance when compared to the broad sweep of social inequality, and to the widespread abuse of power prevalent in Latin America". Although Marti admired the United States and its society, he thought that U.S. America's "dealings with 'Nuestra America' left a great deal to be desired".[59] Also he was preoccupied that the United States was becoming "increasingly intent upon extending its dominion over Latin America". Marti alerted and informed Latin Americans that the United states was "totally ignorant of the culture and history of her southern neighbours, and this, combined with the ever increasing phenomenon regarded euphemistically as 'pioneer spirit', augured badly for future relations between the Americas". By the end of 1889, Marti had changed his "sympathetic attitude" towards the United States. This was due to the U.S. wanting to expand their territories into Latin America. By this time, Marti was getting ready to prepare a campaign that would liberate Cuba. However, this campaign was in danger as talks "re-surfaced in the United States as to whether that country should purchase Cuba from the Spanish government in order to turn the Island into a U.S. protectorate"
Martí was a pragmatic Classical Liberal. Martí dedicated his life to the cause of Cuban independence. To him, it was unnatural that Cuba be controlled and oppressed by the Spanish government, when it had its own unique identity and culture. In his pamphlet from February 11, 1873, called "The Spanish Republic and the Cuban Revolution", he argued that "Cubans do not live as Spaniards live(...). They are nourished by a different system of trade, have links with different countries, and express their happiness through quite contrary customs. There are no common aspirations or identical goals linking the two peoples, or beloved memories to unite them [...]. Peoples are only united by ties of fraternity and love.":
(Con motivo de la proclamación de la primera República Española, Martí publicó en 1873, este trabajo en forma de folleto en la imprenta de Segundo) :
No viven los cubanos como los peninsulares viven; no es la historia de los cubanos la historia de los peninsulares; lo que para España fue gloria inmarcesible, España misma ha querido que sea para ellos desgracia profundísima. De distinto comercio se alimentan, con distintos países se relacionan, con opuestas costumbres se regocijan. No hay entre ellos aspiraciones comunes ni fines idénticos, ni recuerdos amados que los unan. El espíritu cubano piensa con amargura en las tristezas que le ha traído el espíritu español; lucha vigorosamente contra la dominación de España.-Y si faltan, pites, todas las comunidades, todas las identidades que hacen la patria íntegra, se invoca un fantasma que no ha de responder, se invoca una mentira engañadora cuando se invoca la integridad de la patria.-Los pueblos no se unen sino con lazos de fraternidad y amor.
Si España no ha querido ser nunca hermana de Cuba, ¿con qué razón ha de pretender ahora que Cuba sea su hermana?-Sujetar a Cuba a la nación española sería ejercer sobre ella un derecho de conquista hoy más que nunca vejatorio y repugnante. La República no puede ejercerlo sin atraer sobre su cabeza culpable la execración de los pueblos honrados.
Muchas veces pidió Cuba a España los derechos que hoy le querrá España conceder. Y si muchas veces se negó España a otorgarlos, a otorgar los que ella tenía, ¿cómo ha de atreverse a extrañar que Cuba se niegue a su vez a aceptar corno don tardío, honor que ha comprado con la sangre más generosa de sus hijos, honor que busca hoy todavía con una voluntad inquebrantable y una firmeza que nadie ha de romper?
Cuba reclama la independencia a que tiene derecho por la vida propia que sabe que posee, por la enérgica constancia de sus hijos, por la riqueza de su territorio, por la natural independencia de éste, y, más que por todo, y esta razón está sobre todas las razones, porque así es la voluntad firme y unánime del pueblo cubano.
Cuba quiere ser libre.-Y como los pueblos de la América del Sur !a lograron de los gobiernos reaccionarios, y España la logró de los franceses, e Italia de Austria, y Méjico de la ambición napoleónica, y los Estados Unidos de Inglaterra, y todos los pueblos la han logrado de sus opresores, Cuba, por ley de su voluntad irrevocable, por ley de necesidad histórica, ha de lograr su independencia.
No se infame la República española, no detenga su ideal triunfante, no asesine a sus hermanos, no vierta la sangre de sus hijos sobre sus otros hijos, no se oponga a la independencia de Cuba.-Que la República de España sería entonces República de sinrazón y de ignominia, y el Gobierno de la libertad sería esta vez Gobierno liberticida. ].
Jose Martí had sympathy for the Cuban faith (as religion):
Hay en el hombre un conocimiento íntimo, vago, pero constante e imponente, de UN GRAN SER CREADOR: Este conocimiento es el sentimiento religioso, y su forma, su expresión, la manera con que cada agrupación de hombres concibe este Dios y lo adora, es lo que se llama religión. Por eso, en lo antiguo, hubo tantas religiones como pueblos originales hubo; pero ni un sólo pueblo dejó de sentir a Dios y tributarle culto. La religión está, pues, en la esencia de nuestra naturaleza. Aunque las formas varíen, el gran sentimiento de amor, de firme creencia y de respeto, es siempre el mismo. Dios existe y se le adora. Entre las numerosas religiones, la de Cristo ha ocupado más tiempo que otra alguna los pueblos y los siglos: esto se explica por la pureza de su doctrina moral, por el desprendimiento de sus evangelistas de los cinco primeros siglos, por la entereza de sus mártires, por la extraordinaria superioridad del hombre celestial que la fundó. Pero la razón primera está en la sencillez de su predicación que tanto contrastaba con las indignas argucias, nimios dioses y pueriles argumentos con que se entretenía la razón pagana de aquel tiempo, y a más de esto, en la pura severidad de su moral tan olvidada ya y tan necesaria para contener los indignos desenfrenos a que se habían entregado las pasiones en Roma y sus dominios. Pura, desinteresada, perseguida, martirizada, poética y sencilla, la religión del Nazareno sedujo a todos los hombres honrados, airados del vicio ajeno y ansiosos de aires de virtud; y sedujo a las mujeres, dispuestas siempre a lo maravilloso, a lo tierno y a lo bello. Las exageraciones cometidas cuando la religión cristiana, que como todas las religiones, se ha desfigurado por sus malos sectarios; la opresión de la inteligencia ejercida en nombre del que predicaba precisamente el derecho natural de la inteligencia a libertarse de tanto error y combatirlo, y los olvidos de la caridad cristiana a que, para afirmar un poder que han comprometido, se han abandonado los hijos extraviados del gran Cristo, no deben inculparse a la religión de Jesús, toda grandeza, pureza y verdad de amor. El fundador de la familia no es responsable de los delitos que cometen los hijos de sus hijos.
Todo pueblo necesita ser religioso. No sólo lo es esencialmente, sino que por su propia utilidad debe serlo. Es innata la reflexión del espíritu en un ser superior; aunque no hubiera ninguna religión todo hombre sería capaz de inventar una, porque todo hombre la siente. Es útil concebir un GRAN SER ALTO; porque así procuramos llegar, por natural ambición, a su perfección, y para los pueblos es imprescindible afirmar la creencia natural en los premios y castigos y en la existencia de otra vida, porque esto sirve de estímulo a nuestras buenas obras, y de freno a las malas. La moral es la base de una buena religión. La religión es la forma de la creencia natural en Dios y la tendencia natural a investigarlo y reverenciarlo. El ser religioso está entrañado en el ser humano. Un pueblo irreligioso morirá, porque nada en él alimenta la virtud. Las injusticias humanas disgustan de ella; es necesario que la justicia celeste la garantice.
By the end of 1894, the basic conditions for launching the revolution were set. "Martí's impatience to start the revolution for independence was affected by his growing fear that the United States would succeed in annexing Cuba before the revolution could liberate the island from Spain."
The insurrection began on 24 February 1895, with uprisings all across the island. In Oriente the most important ones took place in Santiago, Guantánamo, Jiguaní, San Luis, El Cobre, El Caney, Alto Songo, Bayate and Baire. The uprisings in the central part of the island, such as Ibarra, Jagüey Grande and Aguada, suffered from poor co-ordination and failed; the leaders were captured, some of them deported and some executed. In the province of Havana the insurrection was discovered before it got off and the leaders detained. Thus, the insurgents further west in Pinar del Río were ordered to wait.
José Martí was killed in battle against Spanish troops at the Battle of Dos Ríos, near the confluence of the rivers Contramaestre and Cauto, on May 19, 1895. Gómez had recognized that the Spaniards had a strong position between palm trees, so he ordered his men to disengage. Martí was alone and seeing a young courier ride by he said: "Joven, a la carga!" meaning: "Young man, charge!" This was around midday, and he was, as always, dressed in a black jacket, riding a white horse, which made him an easy target for the Spanish. After Martí was shot, the young trooper, Angel de la Guardia, lost his horse and returned to report the loss. The Spanish took possession of the body, buried it close by, then exhumed the body upon realization of its identity.
On April 1 and 11, 1895, the main rebel leaders landed on two expeditions in Oriente: Major Antonio Maceo and 22 members near Baracoa and Martí, Máximo Gomez and four other members in Playitas.
Starting in the early 1880s, Spain had also suppressed an independence movement in the Philippines, which was intensifying, and Spain was now fighting two wars, which were putting a heavy burden on its economy. But it turned down offers in secret negotiations by the US in 1896, which was closely following the war, to buy Cuba from Spain.
In 1897, the liberation army maintained a privileged position in Camagüey and Oriente, where the Spanish only controlled a few cities. Spanish Liberal leader Praxedes Sagasta admitted in May 1897: “After having sent 200,000 men and shed so much blood, we don’t own more land on the island than what our soldiers are stepping on” .
Spain decided to change its policy toward Cuba drawing up a colonial constitution for Cuba and Puerto Rico, and installing a new government in Havana. But with half the country out of its control, and the other half in arms, the new government was powerless and rejected by the rebels.
The Cuban struggle for independence had captured the American imagination for years, and newspapers had been agitating for intervention with sensational stories of Spanish atrocities against the native Cuban population, intentionally sensationalized and exaggerated.
In January 1898, a riot by Cuban Spanish loyalists against the new autonomous government broke out in Havana, leading to the destruction of the printing presses of four local newspapers for publishing articles critical of Spanish Army atrocities. The US Consul-General cabled Washington with fears for the lives of Americans living in Havana. In response, the battleship USS Maine was sent to Havana in the last week of January. On February 15, 1898, the Maine was rocked by an explosion, killing 258 of the crew (there were only 89 survivors) and sinking the ship in the harbour.
The New York Journal and New York World, owned respectively by William Randolph Hearst and Joseph Pulitzer, gave the Maine intense press coverage, but employed tactics that would later be labeled "yellow journalism." Both papers exaggerated and distorted any information they could attain, sometimes even fabricating "news" when none that fitted their agenda was available. The World, while overall not as lurid or shrill in tone as the Journal, nevertheless indulged in similar theatrics, insisting continually that the Maine had been bombed or mined. Privately, Pulitzer believed that "nobody outside a lunatic asylum" really believed that Spain sanctioned the Maine's destruction. Nevertheless, this did not stop the World from insisting that the only "atonement" Spain could offer the U.S. for the loss of ship and life, was the granting of complete Cuban independence. Nor did it stop the paper from accusing Spain of "treachery, willingness, or laxness" for failing to ensure the safety of Havana Harbor. The American public, already agitated over reported Spanish atrocities in Cuba, was driven to increased hysteria. The cause of the explosion has not been clearly established to this day, but the incident was presented as a casus belli by the American media to promote a war with Spain.
The Spanish–American War began in April 1898, two months after the sinking. Advocates of the war used the rallying cry, "Remember the Maine! To Hell with Spain!". The U.S. congress formally declared war on April 25. The Senate and Congress passed the amendment April 19, House Speaker McKinley signed the joint resolution on April 20, and the ultimatum was forwarded to Spain. War was declared on April 20/21, 1898.
“It's been suggested that a major reason for the U.S. war against Spain was the fierce competition emerging between Joseph Pulitzer's New York World and William Randolph Hearst's New York Journal.” Joseph E. Wisan wrote in an essay titled "The Cuban Crisis As Reflected In The New York Press”, published in “American Imperialism” in 1898: "In the opinion of the writer, the Spanish–American War would not have occurred had not the appearance of Hearst in New York journalism precipitated a bitter battle for newspaper circulation." It has also been argued that the main reason the U.S. entered the war was the failed secret attempt, in 1896, to purchase Cuba from a weaker, war-depleted Spain.
The Americans decided to invade Cuba and to start in Oriente where the Cubans had almost absolute control and were able to co-operate, e. g. by establishing a beachhead and protecting the US landing in Daiquiri. The first US objective was to capture the city of Santiago de Cuba in order to destroy Linares' army and Cervera's fleet. The Battle of Santiago de Cuba, on 3 July 1898, was the largest naval engagement during the Spanish-American War resulting in the destruction of the Spanish Caribbean Squadron (Flota de Ultramar).
After losing the Philippines and Puerto Rico, which had also been invaded by the US, and with no hope of holding on to Cuba, Spain sued for peace on 17 July 1898. On 12 August the US and Spain signed a protocol of Peace in which Spain agreed to relinquish all claim of sovereignty over and title of Cuba. On 10 December 1898 the US and Spain signed the Treaty of Paris, recognizing Cuban independence. Although the Cubans had participated in the liberation efforts, the US prevented Cuba from participating in the Paris peace talks and signing the treaty. The treaty set no time limit for US occupation and the Isle of Pines was excluded from Cuba. Although the treaty officially granted Cuba's independence, US General William R. Shafter refused to allow Cuban General Calixto García and his rebel forces to participate in the surrender ceremonies in Santiago de Cuba.
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| USS Maine wreck |
According to Gregory Weeks, author of U.S. and Latin American Relations (Peason, 2008, p. 56), "The Teller Amendment, authored by a Colorado Senator who wanted to make sure that Cuba's sugar would not compete with his state's crop of beet sugar, prohibited the president annexing Cuba. However, under the Platt Amendment, crafted in 1901 by U.S. Secretary of War Elihu Root to replace the Teller Amendment, important decisions of the government of Cuba remained subject to override by the United States. This suzerainty bred resentment toward the U.S. As part of the Platt Amendment Cuba was declared independent, though Guantanamo Bay was leased to the United States. After U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt withdrew federal troops from the island in 1902, Cuba signed the Cuban-American Treaty (1903), perpetually leasing away the land rights to Guantánamo Bay.
In the presidential elections of 31 December 1901, Tomás Estrada Palma was the only candidate. His adversary, General Bartolomé Masó, withdrew his candidacy in protest against US favoritism and the manipulation of the political machine by Palma's followers. Palma was elected to be the Republic's first President, although he only returned to Cuba four months after the election. The US occupation officially ended when Palma took office on 20 May 1902
By 1902, US companies controlled 80% of Cuba's ore exports and owned most of the sugar and cigarette factories. At the same time, the US Army began a massive public health program to fight endemic diseases, mainly yellow fever, and an education system was organized at all levels, increasing the number of primary schools fourfold.
After a brief period of stabilization by Secretary Taft, Charles Edward Magoon was appointed governor under the Constitution of Cuba, effectively with absolute authority and backed by the U.S. military. In his written appointment address to the country, Magoon indicated that he would "perform the duties provided for by the ... constitution of Cuba for the preservation of Cuban independence". He was there, in short, to restore order and not to colonize.
During Magoon's time as governor, the remaining revolutionaries were defeated, and his attention was turned inward to infrastructure. He coordinated the construction of two hundred kilometers of highway. More controversially, he called for the removal of the sunken USS Maine, the ship whose destruction led to the Spanish–American War, because it was interfering with traffic in Havana's harbor. In his yearly report to the secretary of war, Magoon reported that many Cubans held the popular belief that neither the United States nor the US-backed Cuban government had explored the wreckage because evidence might be found to suggest that the ship was not sunk by a torpedo, as was the official report—something that would cast doubt on the justification for the United States' war against Spain. The removal of the ship would not happen while Magoon was in office; it was to be authorized by Congress in 1910.
For three decades, the country was led by former War of Independence leaders, who after being elected did not serve more than two constitutional terms. The Cuban presidential succession was as follows: José Miguel Gómez (1908–1912); Mario García Menocal (1913–1920); Alfredo Zayas (1921–25).
In World War I, Cuba declared war on Imperial Germany on 7 April 1917, the day after the US entered the war. Despite being unable to send troops to fight in Europe, Cuba played a significant role as a base to protect the West Indies from U-Boat attacks. A draft law was instituted, and 25,000 Cuban troops raised, but the war ended before they could be sent into action.
President Gerardo Machado was elected by popular vote in 1925, but he was constitutionally barred from reelection. Machado, determined to modernize Cuba, set in motion several massive civil works projects such as the Central Highway, but at the end of his constitutional term he held on to power. The United States, despite the Platt Amendment, decided not to interfere militarily. It was in these turbulent times, when Machado ruled, that Cuban links to the Stalinist Communist International were made for the first time by Fabio Grobart.Turbulent times erupted in Cuba when the newly formed Communist Party began to destabilize the nation by allegedly committing terrorist acts of placing and exploding bombs in hotels and movie theatres in Havana, killing innocent men, women and children. President Machado threw Cuba into Martial Law as a result, while a partisan leftist media criticized the action taken by the 5th Cuban President. Although Machado is said to have ordered the murder of defecting communist Julio Antonio Mella in Mexico this murder is generally conceded to have been carried out by the Stalinist faction of the Communist International who were in a death struggle with the followers of Leon Trotsky.The actual assassination was probably done by an action group that included notorious communist assassin Vittorio Vidali. Trotsky was eventually also murdered in that country by communist assassin Ramón Mercader.
Gerardo Machado' government's collapse in 1933 was followed by a revolution led by dissident students, labor activists, and non-commissioned military officers.
Between September 1933 and January 1934 a loose coalition of radical activists, students, middle-class intellectuals, and disgruntled lower-rank soldiers formed a Provisional Revolutionary Government. This coalition was directed by a popular university professor, Dr Ramón Grau San Martín. The Grau government promised a 'new Cuba' with social justice for all classes, and the abrogation of the Platt Amendment. While the revolutionary leaders certainly wanted diplomatic recognition by Washington, they believed their legitimacy stemmed from the popular rebellion which brought them to power, and not from the approval of the United States' Department of State. To this end, throughout the autumn of 1933 the government decreed a dramatic series of reforms. The Platt Amendment was unilaterally abrogated, and all the political parties of the Machadato were dissolved. The Provisional Government granted autonomy to the University of Havana, women obtained the right to vote, the eight-hour day was decreed, a minimum wage was established for cane-cutters, and compulsory arbitration was promoted. The Provisional Government survived until January 1934, when it was overthrown by an equally loose anti-government coalition of right-wing civilian and military elements. Led by a young sergeant, Fulgencio Batista y Zaldivar, this movement was supported by the United States.
In 1940 Grau ran in the presidential election and lost to Batista. Most independent observers at the time qualified the 1940 election as free and fair elections. Fulgencio Batista, endorsed by Communists, won the election. Communists attacked the anti-Batista opposition, branding Ramón Grau San Martín and other candidates as "fascists", "reactionaries", and "Trotskyists".The relatively progressivist 1940 Constitution was adopted by the Batista administration. In December 1942, after a friendly visit to Washington, Batista said Latin America would applaud a decision by the United Nations to go to war with Francisco Franco's Spain, calling the regime fascist.
In 1944 Grau won the popular vote in the presidential election, defeating Carlos Saladrigas Zayas, Batista's handpicked successor, and served until 1948. Shortly after his successor was inaugurated, Batista left Cuba for the United States. "I just felt safer there," he said. He divorced his wife, Elisa, and married Marta Fernández Batista in 1945. Two of their four children were born in the United States. Despite his initial popularity in 1933, accusations of corruption tainted his administration's image, and a sizable number of Cubans began to distrust Grau. After turning over the presidency to his protégé, Carlos Prío, in 1948, Grau virtually withdrew from public life.
Violence among political factions and reports of theft and self-enrichment in the government ranks marred Prío's term. The Prío administration increasingly came to be perceived by the public as ineffectual in the face of violence and corruption, much as the Grau administration before it.
In 1952, Batista again ran for president. In a three-way race, Roberto Agramonte of the Ortodox Party led in all the polls, followed by Carlos Hevia of the Autentic Party. Batista's United Action coalition was running a distant third. Around the same time, Fidel Castro became a public figure at the University of Havana. Eduardo Chibás – the leader of the Partido Ortodoxo (Orthodox Party), a liberal democratic group – was widely expected to win in 1952 on an anticorruption platform. However, Chibás committed suicide before he could run for the presidency, and the opposition was left without a unifying leader.
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| Young Fidel Castro |
Shortly after the coup, the United States government recognized his regime. When asked by the U.S. government to analyze Batista's Cuba, Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr. said "The corruption of the Government, the brutality of the police, the regime's indifference to the needs of the people for education, medical care, housing, for social justice and economic justice ... is an open invitation to revolution."
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| Batista |
However, Batista soon encountered stiff opposition when he temporarily suspended the balloting and the 1940 constitution, and attempted to rule by decree. Nonetheless, elections were held in 1953 and Batista was re-elected. Opposition parties mounted a blistering campaign, and continued to do so, using the Cuban free press throughout Batista's tenure in office. Although Fidel Castro was never officially nominated, he felt that Batista's coup had sidetracked what would have been a promising political career for him.Castro resolved to use armed force to overthrow Batista; he gathered supporters, and on 26 July 1953 led an attack on the Moncada Barracks near Santiago de Cuba. The attack ended in failure – Castro was captured, tried and sentenced to 15 years in prison. However, he was released by the Batista government in 1956, when amnesty was given to many political prisoners, including the ones that assaulted the Moncada barracks. Some politicians suggested an amnesty would be good publicity, and the Congress and Batista agreed. Backed by the U.S. and major corporations, Batista believed Castro to be no political threat, and on May 15, 1955 the prisoners were released. Castro subsequently went into exile in Mexico, where he met the Argentine revolutionary Ernesto "Che" Guevara. While in Mexico, he organized the 26th of July Movement with the goal of overthrowing Batista.
Upon his seizure of power, Batista inherited a country that was relatively prosperous for Latin America. Although a third of the population still lived in poverty, Cuba was one of the five most developed countries in the region. Although corruption was rife under Batista, Cuba did flourish economically during his regime. Wages rose significantly; according to the International Labor Organization, the average industrial salary in Cuba was the world's eighth-highest in 1958, and the average agricultural wage was higher than in developed nations such as Denmark, West Germany, Belgium, and France. Although a third of the population still lived in poverty, Cuba was one of the five most developed countries in Latin America by the end of the Batista era. Labour rights were also favourable – an eight-hour day had been established in 1933, long before most other countries, and Cuban workers were entitled to a months's paid holiday, nine days' sick leave with pay, and six weeks' holiday before and after childbirth. Moreover, Cuba's health service was remarkably developed. It had one of the highest numbers of doctors per capita – more than in the United Kingdom at that time – and the third-lowest adult mortality rate in the world. According to the World Health Organization, the island had the lowest infant mortality rate in Latin America, and the 13th-lowest in the world – better than in contemporary France, Belgium, West Germany, Israel, Japan, Austria, Italy, Spain, and Portugal
Batista's increasingly corrupt and repressive regime then began to systematically profit from the exploitation of Cuba's commercial interests, by negotiating lucrative relationships with the American mafia, who controlled the drug, gambling, and prostitution businesses in Havana, and with large multinational American corporations that had invested considerable amounts of money in Cuba. In a manner that antagonized the Cuban people, the U.S. government used their influence to advance the interests of and increase the profits of the private American companies, which "dominated the island's economy." As a symbol of this relationship, ITT Corporation, an American-owned multinational telephone company, presented Batista with a Golden Telephone, as an "expression of gratitude" for the "excessive telephone rate increase" that Batista granted at the urging of the U.S. government.
I believe that there is no country in the world including any and all the countries under colonial domination, where economic colonization, humiliation and exploitation were worse than in Cuba, in part owing to my country's policies during the Batista regime. I approved the proclamation which Fidel Castro made in the Sierra Maestra, when he justifiably called for justice and especially yearned to rid Cuba of corruption. I will even go further: to some extent it is as though Batista was the incarnation of a number of sins on the part of the United States. Now we shall have to pay for those sins. In the matter of the Batista regime, I am in agreement with the first Cuban revolutionaries. That is perfectly clear. ” — U.S. President John F. Kennedy, to Jean Daniel, October 24, 1963
Due to its continued opposition to Batista and the large amount of revolutionary activity taking place on its campus, the University of Havana was temporarily closed on November 30, 1956 (it did not reopen until 1959 under the first revolutionary government). On March 13, 1957, student leader José Antonio Echeverría was killed by police outside Radio Reloj in Havana after announcing that Batista had been killed in a student attack on the Presidential Palace. In reality, Batista survived, and the students of the FEU and DR who led the attack were killed in the response by the military and police. Ironically, Castro quickly condemned the attack, since the July 26 Movement had not participated in it.
The Castros and several comrades traveled to Mexico, which had a long history of offering asylum to leftist exiles. Here, Raúl befriended an Argentine doctor and Marxist-Leninist named Ernesto "Che" Guevara, a proponent of guerrilla warfare keen to join Cuba's Revolution
Castro also associated with the Spaniard Alberto Bayo, a Republican veteran of the Spanish Civil War; Bayo agreed to teach Fidel's rebels the necessary skills in guerrilla warfare, clandestinely meeting them at Chapultepec for training.
Requiring funding, Castro toured the U.S. in search of wealthy sympathizers; Prío contributed $100,000. Purchasing a decrepit yacht, the Granma, on 25 November 1956 Castro set sail from Tuxpan, Veracruz, with 81 revolutionaries, armed with 90 rifles, 3 machine guns, around 40 pistols and 2 hand-held anti-tank guns. The 1,200 mile crossing to Cuba was harsh, and in the overcrowded conditions of the ship, many suffered seasickness, and food supplies ran low. The Granma crash-landed in a mangrove swamp at Playa Las Coloradas, close to Los Cayuelos, on 2 December 1956.
At daybreak on 5 December they were attacked by a detachment of Batista's Rural Guard; the rebels scattered, making their journey to the Sierra Maestra in small groups. Upon arrival, Castro discovered that of the 82 rebels who had arrived on the Granma, only 19 had made it to their destination, the rest having been killed or captured
Setting up an encampment in the jungle, the survivors, including the Castros, Che Guevara, and Camilo Cienfuegos, began launching raids on small army posts to obtain weaponry. In January 1957 they overran the outpost near to the beach at La Plata and the revolutionaries executed the local mayoral (land company overseer) Chicho Osorio, who was despised by the local peasants and who boasted of killing one of the MR-26-7 rebels several weeks previously. As trust grew, some locals joined the rebels, although most new recruits came from urban areas.
Across Cuba, militant groups were rising up against Batista, carrying out bombings and acts of sabotage; police responded with mass arrests, torture and extra-judicial killings, with corpses being hung on trees to intimidate dissidents. In March 1957, Antonio's DR launched a failed attack on the presidential palace, with Antonio being shot dead; his death removed a charismatic rival to Castro's leadership of the revolution
Frank Pais was killed in the streets of Santiago de Cuba by the Santiago police on July 30, 1957, leaving Castro the unchallenged leader of the MR-26-7.
Castro hid his Marxist-Leninist beliefs, something in contrast to Guevara and Raúl, whose beliefs were well known; in doing so, he hoped to gain the support of less radical dissenters, and in 1957 met with leading members of the Partido Ortodoxo. Castro and Ortodoxo leaders Raúl Chibás and Felipe Pazos drafted and signed the Sierra Maestra Manifesto, in which they laid out their plans for a post-Batista Cuba.
Castro's guerrillas increased their attacks on military outposts, forcing the government to withdraw from the Sierra Maestra region, and by spring 1958, the rebels controlled a hospital, schools, a printing press, slaughterhouse, land-mine factory and a cigar-making factory. By November, Castro's forces controlled most of Oriente and Las Villas, and tightened their grip around the capitals of Santiago and Santa Clara. Through control of Las Villas, the rebels divided Cuba in two by closing major roads and rail lines, severely disadvantaging Batista's forces
The U.S. realized Batista would lose the war, and fearing that Castro would displace U.S. interests with socialist reforms, decided to support Batista's removal in support of a rightist military junta, believing that General Cantillo, who then commanded most of the country's armed forces, should lead it. After being approached with this proposal, Cantillo decided to secretly meet with Castro to see if they could bring an end to the fighting, agreeing that the two would call a ceasefire, following which Batista would be apprehended and tried as a war criminal. Double crossing Castro, Cantillo warned Batista of the revolutionary's intentions. Wishing to avoid a war crimes tribunal, Batista resigned on 31 December 1958, informing the armed forces that they were now under Cantillo's control. With his family and closest advisers, Batista fled into exile with over US$ 300,000,000. Cantillo then entered Havana's Presidential Palace, proclaimed the Supreme Court judge Carlos Piedra to be the new President, and began appointing new members of the government.
Still in Oriente, Castro was furious. Recognizing the establishment of a military junta, he ended the ceasefire and continued on the offensive. The MR-26-7 put together a plan to oust the Cantillo-Piedra junta, freeing the high-ranking military officer Colonel Ramón Barquín from the Isle of Pines prison (where he had been held captive for plotting to overthrow Batista), and commanding him to fly to Havana to arrest Cantillo. Heading toward Havana, he met José Antonio Echevarría's mother, and greeted cheering crowds at every town, giving press conferences and interviews. Foreign journalists commented on the unprecedented level of public adulation, with Castro striking a heroic "Christ-like figure" and wearing a medallion of the Virgin Mary.
On January 8, 1959, Castro's army entered Havana; proclaiming himself Representative of the Rebel Armed Forces of the Presidency, Castro – along with close aides and family members – set up home and office in the penthouse of the Havana Hilton Hotel, there meeting with journalists, foreign visitors and government ministers. The government now ruling by decree, Castro pushed the president to issue a temporary ban on all political parties, but repeatedly claimed that they would get around to organizing multiparty elections, which ultimately it never did
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| Castro entering Havana |
He began meeting members of the Popular Socialist Party, believing they had the intellectual capacity to form a socialist government, but repeatedly denied being a communist to press.
"We are not executing innocent people or political opponents. We are executing murderers and they deserve it." — Castro's response to his critics regarding the mass executions, 1959
Castro helped set-up trials of many Batistanos, resulting in hundreds of executions. Although widely popular domestically, critics – in particular from the U.S. press – argued that many were not fair trials, and condemned Cuba's government as being more interested in vengeance than justice. Castro retaliated, proclaiming that "revolutionary justice is not based on legal precepts, but on moral conviction", organizing the first Havana trial to take place before a mass audience of 17,000 at the Sports Palace stadium; when a group of aviators accused of bombing a village were found not guilty, he ordered a retrial in which they were found guilty and sentenced to life imprisonment
An argument between Castro and senior government figures broke out; the government had banned the National Lottery and closed down the casinos and brothels, leaving thousands of waiters, croupiers and prostitutes unemployed, infuriating Castro. As a result, Prime Minister José Miró Cardona resigned, going into exile in the U.S. and joining the anti-Castro movement.
On February 16, 1959, Castro was sworn in as Prime Minister of Cuba, accepting the position on the condition that the Prime Minister's powers be increased. Between 15 and 26 April Castro visited the U.S. with a delegation of representatives, hiring a public relations firm for a charm offensive and presenting himself as a "man of the people". U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower avoided meeting Castro, who instead met Vice President Richard Nixon, a man Castro instantly disliked.
Appointing himself president of the National Institute of Agrarian Reform (Instituto Nacional de Reforma Agraria - INRA), on 17 May 1959, Castro signed into law the First Agrarian Reform, limiting landholdings to 993 acres (4.02 km2) per owner and forbidding further foreign land-ownership. Large land-holdings were broken up and redistributed; an estimated 200,000 peasants received title deeds.
Although refusing to categorize his regime as socialist and repeatedly denying being a communist, Castro appointed Marxists to senior government and military positions; most notably Che Guevara became Governor of the Central Bank and then Minister of Industries. Appalled, Air Force commander Pedro Luis Díaz Lanz defected to the U.S
Although President Urrutia denounced the defection, he publicly expressed concern with the rising influence of Marxism. Angered, Castro announced his resignation as Prime Minister, blaming Urrutia for complicating government with his "fevered anti-Communism". Over 500,000 Castro-supporters surrounded the Presidential Palace demanding Urrutia's resignation, which was duly received. On July 23, Castro resumed his Premiership and appointed the Marxist Osvaldo Dorticós as the new President.
Castro's regime remained popular with workers, peasants and students, who constituted the majority of the country's population. Opposition came primarily from the middle class; thousands of doctors, engineers and other professionals emigrated to Florida in the U.S., causing an economic brain drain.
Militant anti-Castro groups sprung up, undertaking armed attacks and setting up guerrilla bases in Cuba's mountainous regions. Castro's government began a crackdown on this opposition movement, arresting hundreds of counter-revolutionaries
By 1960, the Cold War raged between two superpowers: the United States, a capitalist, imperialist liberal democracy, and the Soviet Union (USSR), a Marxist-Leninist, socialist people's democracy. Expressing contempt for the U.S., Castro shared the ideological views of the USSR, establishing relations with several Marxist-Leninist states. Meeting with Soviet First Deputy Premier Anastas Mikoyan, Castro agreed to provide the USSR with sugar, fruit, fibers, and hides, in return for crude oil, fertilizers, industrial goods, and a $100 million loan. Cuba's government ordered the country's refineries – then controlled by the U.S. corporations Shell, Esso and Standard Oil – to process Soviet oil, but under pressure from the U.S. government, they refused. Castro responded by expropriating and nationalizing the refineries. In retaliation, the U.S. cancelled its import of Cuban sugar, provoking Castro to nationalize most U.S.-owned assets on the island, including banks and sugar mills.
On 13 October 1960, the U.S. prohibited the majority of exports to Cuba, initiating an economic embargo. In retaliation, INRA took control of 383 private-run businesses on 14 October, and on 25 October a further 166 U.S. companies operating in Cuba had their premises seized and nationalized
In September 1960, Castro flew to New York City for the General Assembly of the United Nations. Offended by the attitude of the elite Shelburne Hotel, he and his entourage stayed at the cheap, run-down Hotel Theresa in the impoverished area of Harlem, meeting with journalists and anti-establishment figures like Malcolm X. Also visited by the Soviet Premier Nikita Khruschev, the two leaders publicly highlighted the poverty faced by U.S. citizens in areas like Harlem; Castro described New York as a "city of persecution" against black and poor Americans. Castro proclaimed the new administration a direct democracy, in which the Cuban populace could assemble en masse at demonstrations and express their democratic will. As a result, he rejected the need for elections, claiming that representative democratic systems served the interests of socio-economic elites
In contrast, critics condemned the new regime as un-democratic, with U.S. Secretary of State Christian Herter announcing that Cuba was adopting the Soviet model of communist rule, with a one-party state, government control of trade unions, suppression of civil liberties and the absence of freedom of speech and press under the first 30 months of Castro's government, more classrooms were opened than in the previous 30 years of government. The Cuban primary education system offered a work-study program, with half of the time being spent in the classroom, and the other half taking part in a productive activity. Health care was nationalized and expanded, with rural health centers and urban polyclinics opening up across the island, offering free medical aid.
Soon after the success of the Cuban Revolution, militant counter-revolutionary groups developed in an attempt to overthrow the new regime. Undertaking armed attacks against government forces, some set up guerrilla bases in Cuba's mountainous regions.
In January 1960 the government proclaimed that each newspaper would be obliged to publish a "clarification" written by the printers' union to the end of any articles which were critical of the government. This would prove to be the start of press censorship in Castro's Cuba.
Castro expropriated US refineries and nationalized them under state control. In retaliation, the U.S. cancelled its import of Cuban sugar, provoking Castro to nationalize most U.S.-owned assets on the island, including banks and sugar mills. At an August 1960 meeting of the Organization of American States (OAS) held in Costa Rica, the U.S. Secretary of State Christian Herter publicly proclaimed that Castro's regime was "following faithfully the Bolshevik pattern" by instituting a single-party political system, taking governmental control of trade unions, suppressing civil liberties, and removing both the freedom of speech and freedom of the press.
Castro retaliated strongly against such accusations, proclaiming that "revolutionary justice is not based on legal precepts, but on moral conviction". In a show of support for this "revolutionary justice", he organized the first Havana trial to take place before a mass audience of 17,000 at the Sports Palace stadium; when a group of aviators accused of bombing a village were found not guilty, he ordered a retrial in which they were instead found guilty and sentenced to life imprisonment. On 11 March 1961, Jesus Carreras and American William Alexander Morgan (a former Castro ally) were executed after a trial. Throughout the struggle against Batista, Morgan was vocal about Castro's anti-communist beliefs. When asked during interviews about Castro's political beliefs and where the new Cuban government was leaning, he remained firm in his belief that Castro was not a communist and that Cuba would become capitalist parliamentary democracy. As Castro began to reveal his socialist leanings, Morgan became distressed, as did other members of the SFNE, who believed in a democratic Cuba. Morgan was arrested in October 1960 and charged with plotting to join and lead the counter-revolutionaries who were active in the Escambray Mountains. Morgan was shot to death by a firing squad on March 11, 1961. He was 32 years old. Two months later, on 1 May 1961, Castro declared Cuba a socialist nation.
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| William Alexander Morgan being applauded by Fidel Castro, in Havana in 1959. |
Under the Eisenhower administration, the CIA had organized a plan to invade Cuba using exiled Cuban dissidents – unified as the "Democratic Revolutionary Front" – thereby avoiding international condemnation. Following the election of Democratic Party nominee John F. Kennedy as U.S. President in 1961, the CIA gained his support for continuing with the plan, which would result in the Bay of Pigs Invasion of April 1961.
Eventually taking direct command of the operation, Castro oversaw the counter-offensive, bringing in reinforcements and tanks to use against the rebel army. President Kennedy was unwilling to directly intervene with U.S. military support, and so on 20 April 1189 men of the Brigade 2506 surrendered to the Cuban army.
The failed invasion strengthened the position of Castro's administration, who proceeded to openly proclaim their intention to adopt socialism and strengthen ties with the Soviet Union, leading to the events of the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962. The invasion was a major embarrassment for U.S. foreign policy, with Kennedy ordering a number of internal investigations. The invasion is often recognized as making Castro even more popular, adding nationalistic sentiments to the support for his economic policies. Following the 15 April air attacks on Cuban airfields, he declared the revolution "Marxist-Leninist"
In August 1961, during an economic conference of the Organization of American States in Punta del Este, Uruguay, Che Guevara sent a note to Kennedy via Richard N. Goodwin, a secretary of the White House. It said: "Thanks for Playa Girón. Before the invasion, the revolution was weak. Now it's stronger than ever."
President Kennedy was angered with the CIA's failure, and declared he wanted "to splinter the CIA in a thousand pieces and scatter it to the winds." Kennedy commented to his journalist friend Ben Bradlee, "The first advice I'm going to give my successor is to watch the generals and to avoid feeling that because they were military men their opinions on military matters were worth a damn
By 1962, the Cuban economy was in steep decline, a result of poor economic management coupled with the interference and trade embargo of the U.S. government. There were major food shortages, and the government introduced rationing of both food and consumer goods, with a riot breaking out in Cárdenas.[
In March 1962 Castro removed the most prominent of these "Old Communists" from office, labeling them too "sectarian". On a personal level, Castro was feeling increasingly lonely and isolated in his position as Prime Minister, and relations with his old friend Che Guevara became strained as the latter became increasingly anti-Soviet, instead favoring the Chinese Marxist-Leninist government of Mao Zedong in the Sino-Soviet Split.
The Cuban Missile Crisis: 1962
After provocative political moves and the failed US attempt to overthrow the Cuban regime (Bay of Pigs, Operation Mongoose), in May 1962 Nikita Khrushchev proposed the idea of placing Soviet nuclear missiles on Cuba to deter any future invasion attempt. During a meeting between Khrushchev and Fidel Castro that July, a secret agreement was reached and construction of several missile sites began in the late summer.
American Lockheed U-2 reconnaissance discovered the construction of the missile installations on October 15, 1962 before the weapons had actually been deployed. The U.S. government viewed the installation of Soviet nuclear weapons 90 miles (145 km) south of Key West as an aggressive act and a threat to U.S. security. As a result, the U.S. publicly announced its discovery on October 22, 1962, and implemented a quarantine around Cuba that would actively intercept and search any vessels heading for the island. Castro hit back at Kennedy, insisting that Cuba had a right to defend itself from foreign aggression.
Negotiations took place between Kennedy and Khrushchev, with Castro having no involvement. Ultimately, Khrushchev agreed to remove the missiles in exchange for a U.S. commitment not to invade Cuba and an understanding that the US would secretly remove American MRBMs targeting the Soviet Union from Turkey and Italy, a measure that the U.S. implemented a few months later. After learning of the deal, Castro was furious, believing that Khrushchev had betrayed him and given in to U.S. demands. Depressed, he lost his appetite and became ill.
Furthering Socialism: 1963–1970
In February 1963, Castro received a personal letter from Khrushchev, in which the Soviet Premier had emotionally set out his reasons for coming to an agreement with the U.S. government and in which he invited Castro to come and visit the USSR. Deeply touched by the letter, Castro set aside his resentment and traveled to the country in April, ultimately staying for five weeks. Visiting 14 cities, he gave speeches and met with locals, addressing a rally in Red Square and watching the May Day parade from the wall of the Kremlin. During his visit, he was also awarded both an honourary doctorate from Moscow State University as well as the Order of Lenin, becoming the first foreigner to receive the latter
Inspired by the Soviet daily newspaper, Pravda, Castro oversaw the amalgamation of Cuba's two authorized newspapers, Hoy and Revolución, into a new publication, Granma, named after the boat upon which Castro had arrived in Cuba with his revolutionaries in 1956. He also oversaw largescale investment in Cuban sports programmes, allowing the country to become one of Latin America's most successful sporting nations
Despite the Soviet government's misgivings, Castro continued to call for armed revolution across the capitalist world, providing funding and support for various militant leftist groups. He supported Che Guevara's plan for the "Andean project", an unsuccessful plan to set up a guerrilla movement in the highlands of Bolivia, Peru and Argentina, and allowed revolutionary groups from across the world, from the Viet Cong of Vietnam to the Black Panthers of the U.S., to train in Cuba. In particular, he thought that Africa, much of which was dominated by western colonial and neo-colonial powers, was rife for revolutionary change, and sent soldiers and medics to aid the socialist government of Ahmed Ben Bella in Algeria, supporting them during the Sand war against Morocco; in turn, the Algerian government awarded Castro its Medal of Honour. Also allying itself with the socialist government of Alphonse Massemba-Débat in Congo-Brazzaville, in 1965 Castro authorized Guevara to travel to the neighbouring Congo Kinshasa in order to train militant revolutionaries against the western-backed government. Castro was personally devastated when Guevara was subsequently killed by CIA-backed troops in Bolivia in October 1967, publicly attributing it to Che's disregard for his own safety in the revolutionary cause.
[Ernesto Guevara was born to Celia de la Serna y Llosa and Ernesto Guevara Lynch on June 14, 1928 in Rosario, Argentina, the eldest of five children in an Argentine family of Spanish, Basque and Irish descent.
Growing up in a family with leftist leanings, Guevara was introduced to a wide spectrum of political perspectives even as a boy. His father, a staunch supporter of Republicans from the Spanish Civil War, often hosted many veterans from the conflict in the Guevara home.
In 1948, Guevara entered the University of Buenos Aires to study medicine. His "hunger to explore the world" led him to intersperse his collegiate pursuits with two long introspective journeys that would fundamentally change the way he viewed himself and the contemporary economic conditions in Latin America. The first expedition in 1950 was a 4,500 kilometer (2,800 mi) solo trip through the rural provinces of northern Argentina on a bicycle on which he installed a small engine
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| A 22 year old Ernesto Guevara in 1951 while in Argentina |
In Chile, Guevara found himself enraged by the working conditions of the miners in Anaconda's Chuquicamata copper mine; and moved by his overnight encounter in the Atacama Desert with a persecuted communist couple who did not even own a blanket, describing them as "the shivering flesh-and-blood victims of capitalist exploitation"
Guevara used notes taken during this trip to write an account entitled The Motorcycle Diaries, which later became a New York Times best-seller.
Witnessing the widespread endemic poverty, oppression and disenfranchisement throughout Latin America, and influenced by his readings of Marxist literature, Guevara later decided that the only solution for the region's structural inequalities was armed revolution. His travels and readings throughout this journey also lead him to view Latin America not as a group of separate nations,
In total, the journey took Guevara through Argentina, Chile, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, Panama, and the United States (Miami, Florida for 20 days), before returning home to Buenos Aires. By trip's end, he came to view Latin America not as collection of separate nations, but as a single entity requiring a continent-wide liberation strategy.
On July 7, 1953, Guevara set out again, this time to Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Panama, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras and El Salvador. On December 10, 1953, before leaving for Guatemala, Guevara sent an update to his Aunt Beatriz from San José, Costa Rica. In the letter Guevara speaks of traversing through the "dominions" of the United Fruit Company, which convinced him "how terrible" the "Capitalist octopuses" were.
In Guatemala City, Guevara sought out Hilda Gadea Acosta, a Peruvian economist who was well-connected politically as a member of the left-leaning Alianza Popular Revolucionaria Americana (APRA, American Popular Revolutionary Alliance).
Guevara then established contact with a group of Cuban exiles linked to Fidel Castro through the July 26, 1953 attack on the Moncada Barracks in Santiago de Cuba. During this period he acquired his famous nickname, due to his frequent use of the Argentine diminutive interjection che, a vocative casual speech filler used to call attention or ascertain comprehension, similarly to both "bro" or the Canadian phrase "eh".
On May 15, 1954, a shipment of Škoda infantry and light artillery weapons was sent from Communist Czechoslovakia for the Guatemala Government and arrived in Puerto Barrios. As a result, the U.S. CIA sponsored an army which invaded the country and installed the right-wing dictatorship of Carlos Castillo Armas.
Guevara's conviction that Marxism achieved through armed struggle and defended by an armed populace was the only way to rectify such conditions was thus strengthened.Gadea wrote later, "It was Guatemala which finally convinced him of the necessity for armed struggle and for taking the initiative against imperialism. By the time he left, he was sure of this.
Guevara arrived in Mexico City in early September 1954, and worked in the allergy section of the General Hospital.
During this time he renewed his friendship with Ñico López and the other Cuban exiles whom he had met in Guatemala. In June 1955, López introduced him to Raúl Castro who subsequently introduced him to his older brother, Fidel Castro, the revolutionary leader who had formed the 26th of July Movement and was now plotting to overthrow the dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista. During a long conversation with Fidel on the night of their first meeting, Guevara concluded that the Cuban's cause was the one for which he had been searching and before daybreak he had signed up as a member of the July 26 Movement Also he married Gadea in Mexico in September 1955.
The first step in Castro's revolutionary plan was an assault on Cuba from Mexico via the Granma, an old, leaky cabin cruiser. They set out for Cuba on November 25, 1956. Attacked by Batista's military soon after landing, many of the 82 men were either killed in the attack or executed upon capture; only 22 found each other afterwards. Guevara wrote that it was during this bloody confrontation that he laid down his medical supplies and picked up a box of ammunition dropped by a fleeing comrade, finalizing his symbolic transition from physician to combatant.
As second in command, Guevara was a harsh disciplinarian who sometimes shot defectors. Deserters were punished as traitors, and Guevara was known to send squads to track those seeking to go AWOL. As a result, Guevara became feared for his brutality and ruthlessness. During the guerrilla campaign, Guevara was also responsible for the sometimes summary execution of a number of men accused of being informers, deserters or spies. In his diaries, Guevara described the first such execution of Eutimio Guerra, a peasant army guide who admitted treason when it was discovered he accepted the promise of ten thousand pesos for repeatedly giving away the rebel's position for attack by the Cuban air force. In his diary he wrote how he “ended the problem with a .32 caliber pistol. Che stepped forward and shot him in the head, writing "The situation was uncomfortable for the people and for Eutimio so I ended the problem giving him a shot with a .32 pistol in the right side of the brain, with exit orifice in the right temporal [lobe]. Guevara himself icily recounted: ‘I fired a .32 calibre bullet into the right hemisphere of his brain which came out through his left temple. He moaned for a few moments, then died.’
In the closing days of December 1958, Guevara’s task was to cut the island in half by taking Las Villas province. In a matter of days he executed a series of "brilliant tactical victories" that gave him control of all but the province’s capital city of Santa Clara. Guevara then directed his "suicide squad" in the attack on Santa Clara, that became the final decisive military victory of the revolution.
When Hilda Gadea arrived in Cuba in late January, Guevara told her that he was involved with another woman, and the two agreed on a divorce, which was finalized on May 22. On June 2, 1959, he married Aleida March, a Cuban-born member of the 26th of July movement with whom he had been living since late 1958. Guevara returned to the seaside village of Tarara in June for his honeymoon with Aleida. In total, Guevara would ultimately have five children from his two marriages.
The first major political crisis arose over what to do with the captured Batista officials.
Fidel Castro introduced into the liberated territories the 19th century penal law commonly known as the Ley de la Sierra (Law of the Sierra). This law included the death penalty for extremely serious crimes, whether perpetrated by the Batista regime or by supporters of the revolution.
To implement a portion of this plan, Castro named Guevara commander of the La Cabaña Fortress prison, for a five-month tenure (January 2 through June 12, 1959).Guevara was charged with purging the Batista army and consolidating victory by exacting "revolutionary justice" against those considered to be traitors, chivatos (informants) or war criminals. Serving in the post as commander of La Cabaña, Guevara reviewed the appeals of those convicted during the revolutionary tribunal process. The tribunals were conducted by 2–3 army officers, an assessor, and a respected local citizen. On some occasions the penalty delivered by the tribunal was death by firing squad.
Although there are varying accounts, it is estimated that several hundred people were executed nationwide during this time, with Guevara's jurisdictional death total at La Cabaña. From 1959 to 1960, the new government carried out summary executions of at least 1,118 people by firing squad. Guevara himself presided over the notorious La Cabaña prison, where hundreds of the executions took place. For comparison’s sake, the Batista regime was responsible for 747 noncombatant deaths between 1952 and 1959.
In letter to Luis Paredes López in Buenos Aires where Guevara states unequivocally "The executions by firing squads are not only a necessity for the people of Cuba, but also an imposition of the people."
On June 12, 1959, Castro sent Guevara out on a three-month tour of 14 mostly Bandung Pact countries (Morocco, Sudan, Egypt, Syria, Pakistan, India, Sri Lanka, Burma, Thailand, Indonesia, Japan, Yugoslavia, Greece) and the cities of Singapore and Hong Kong. Sending Guevara away from Havana allowed Castro to appear to be distancing himself from Guevara and his Marxist sympathies, which troubled both the United States and some of Castro's July 26 Movement members
Guevara's first desired economic goal of the new man, which coincided with his aversion for wealth condensation and economic inequality, was to see a nation-wide elimination of material incentives in favor of moral ones. He negatively viewed capitalism as a "contest among wolves" where "one can only win at the cost of others" and thus desired to see the creation of a "new man and woman". Guevara continually stressed that a socialist economy in itself is not "worth the effort, sacrifice, and risks of war and destruction" if it ends up encouraging "greed and individual ambition at the expense of collective spirit"
A further integral part of fostering a sense of "unity between the individual and the mass", Guevara believed, was volunteer work and will. To display this, Guevara "led by example", working "endlessly at his ministry job, in construction, and even cutting sugar cane" on his day off. He was known for working 36 hours at a stretch, calling meetings after midnight, and eating on the run. Such behavior was emblematic of Guevara's new program of moral incentives, where each worker was now required to meet a quota and produce a certain quantity of goods. As a replacement for the pay increases abolished by Guevara, workers who exceeded their quota now only received a certificate of commendation, while workers who failed to meet their quotas were given a pay cut.
Whatever the merits or demerits of Guevara’s economic principles, his programs were unsuccessful.Guevara's program of "moral incentives" for workers caused a rapid drop in productivity and a rapid rise in absenteeism. Decades later, the director of Radio Martí Ernesto Betancourt, an early ally turned Castro-critic and Che's former deputy, would accuse Guevara of being "ignorant of the most elementary economic principles."
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| Guerrillero Heroico, the iconic photo of Che Guevara, was taken by Alberto Korda at a memorial service for victims of the La Coubre explosion (La Coubre was a French vessel carrying 76 tons of Belgian munitions from the port of Antwerp) |
As revealed in his last public speech in Algiers, Guevara had come to view the Northern Hemisphere, led by the U.S. in the West and the Soviet Union in the East, as the exploiter of the Southern Hemisphere. He strongly supported Communist North Vietnam in the Vietnam War, and urged the peoples of other developing countries to take up arms and create "many Vietnams".
Moreover, the coincidence of Guevara's views with those expounded by the Chinese Communist leadership under Mao Zedong was increasingly problematic for Cuba as the nation's economy became more and more dependent on the Soviet Union.
In Guevara's private writings from this time (since released), he displays his growing criticism of the Soviet political economy, believing that the Soviets had "forgotten Marx". This led Guevara to denounce a range of Soviet practices including what he saw as their attempt to "air-brush the inherent violence of class struggle integral to the transition from capitalism to socialism"
Two weeks after his Algiers speech, Guevara dropped out of public life and then vanished altogether. His whereabouts were a great mystery in Cuba, as he was generally regarded as second in power to Castro himself.
On October 3, 1965, Castro publicly revealed an undated letter purportedly written to him by Guevara some months earlier; in it, Guevara reaffirmed his enduring solidarity with the Cuban Revolution but declared his intention to leave Cuba to fight for the revolutionary cause abroad. Additionally, he resigned from all his positions in the government and party, and renounced his honorary Cuban citizenship.
In early 1965 Guevara went to Africa to offer his knowledge and experience as a guerrilla to the ongoing conflict in the Congo.
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| Che Guevera in Congo |
Guevara's aim was to export the revolution by instructing local anti-Mobutu Simba fighters in Marxist ideology and foco theory strategies of guerrilla warfare. In his Congo Diary book, he cites the incompetence, intransigence and infighting of the local Congolese forces as key reasons for the revolt's failure. Later that year on November 20, 1965, in ill health with dysentery, suffering from acute asthma and disheartened after seven months of frustration and inactivity, Guevara left the Congo with the Cuban survivors, six members of his 12-man column having died.
Guevara was reluctant to return to Cuba, because Castro had made public Guevara's "farewell letter". On November 3, 1966, Guevara secretly arrived in La Paz (Bolivia) on a flight from Montevideo under the false name Adolfo Mena González. He planned to organize a foco with Bolivia as his target. Planning to start a guerrilla campaign against the military government of President Rene Barrientos, he assembled a band of 29 Bolivians, 12 Cubans, and a few foreigners.
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| Che Guevara under the false name Adolfo Mena González as a Uruguayan businessman |
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| Che Guevara taken prisioner in Bolivia. Few hours before his execution. |
On October 9, Bolivian President René Barrientos ordered that Guevara be killed. The order was relayed by Félix Rodríguez despite the US government’s desire that Guevara be taken to Panama for further interrogation. To make the bullet wounds appear consistent with the story the government planned to release to the public, Félix Rodríguez ordered Terán to aim carefully to make it appear that Guevara had been killed in action during a clash with the Bolivian army. After a military doctor amputated his hands, Bolivian army officers transferred Guevara's body to an undisclosed location and refused to reveal whether his remains had been buried or cremated. In late 1995 retired Bolivian General Mario Vargas revealed to Jon Lee Anderson, author of the biography Che Guevara: A Revolutionary Life, that Guevara's body was located near a Vallegrande airstrip. The result was a multi-national search for the remains, which would last more than a year. In July 1997 a team of Cuban geologists and Argentine forensic anthropologists discovered the remnants of seven bodies in two mass graves, including one man with amputated hands (like Guevara). On October 17, 1997, Guevara's remains, with those of six of his fellow combatants, were laid to rest with military honors in a specially built mausoleum in the Cuban city of Santa Clara, where he had commanded over the decisive military victory of the Cuban Revolution
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Castro's increasing role on the world stage led to a strained relationship with the Soviet government, now under the leadership of Leonid Brezhnev.
Military Units to Aid Production or UMAPs (Unidades Militares para la Ayuda de Producción) – in effect, forced labor concentration camps – were established in 1965 as a way to eliminate alleged "bourgeois" and "counter-revolutionary" values in the Cuban population. In July 1968, the name "UMAP" was erased and paperwork associated with the UMAP was destroyed. The camps continued as "Military Units". In any given year, there were about 20,000 dissidents held and tortured under inhuman prison conditions.194 Homosexuals were imprisoned in internment camps in the 1960s, where they were subject to medical-political "reeducation".The Black Book of Communism estimates that 15,000-17,000 people were executed.Estimates for the total number political executions range from 4,000 to 33,000
On August 23, 1968, Castro made a public gesture to the USSR that caused the Soviet leadership to reaffirm their support for him. Two days after the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia to repress the Prague Spring, Castro took to the airwaves and publicly denounced the Czech rebellion. Castro warned the Cuban people about the Czechoslovakian "counterrevolutionaries", who "were moving Czechoslovakia towards capitalism and into the arms of imperialists"
In 1971, Castro made his first foreign visit since 1964, this time to Chile, where the Marxist President Salvador Allende (1908–1973) had just been elected as the head of a left-wing coalition. Implementing socialist reforms by nationalizing industry, Allende gained Castro's support, and Castro spent 23 days touring the country, giving speeches and press conferences, talking to both admiring socialists and right wing opponents.
Attempting to reassert Cuba's independence, Castro refused to sign the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons in May 1976, declaring that it represented a Soviet and U.S. attempt to dominate the Third World.
Fidel Castro was a friend of the Marxist-Leninist dictator Mengistu Haile Mariam, whose regime killed hundreds of thousands during the Ethiopian Red Terror of the late 1970s and who was later convicted of genocide and crimes against humanity. Castro backed Mengistu Haile Mariam even when the latter had a war with the Somalian Marxist-Leninist dictator Siad Barre. Castro explained this to Erich Honecker, communist dictator of East Germany, by saying that Siad Barre was "above all a chauvinist".
Castro had also been supportive of the leftist New Jewel Movement that had seized power in Grenada in 1979, sending in doctors, teachers, and technicians to aid the country's development, and befriending the Grenadine Marxist president, Maurice Bishop. When Bishop was murdered in a Soviet-backed coup by hardline Marxist Bernard Coard in October 1983, Castro cautiously continued supporting the Grenadine government, which remained Marxist. However, the U.S. and six Caribbean nations opposed the coup as a basis for invading the island and overthrowing the government; those Cuban soldiers who fought alongside their Grenadian comrades were killed. Castro denounced the invasion.
In 1985, Mikhail Gorbachev became Secretary-General of the Soviet Communist Party. A reformer, he implemented measures to increase freedom of the press (glasnost) and economic decentralisation (perestroika) in an attempt to strengthen socialism, but like many more-orthodox Marxist critics, Castro feared that they would actually weaken the socialist state and allow capitalist elements to regain control. Hoping to strengthen relations with the western powers, Gorbachev entered into further talks with the U.S. government, who demanded that the USSR reduce its support for Castro's Cuba, something Gorbachev conceded to. Relations between the two nations deteriorated, and Castro ordered the security services to begin surveillance of Soviet diplomats in the country. When Gorbachev visited Cuba in April 1989, he was greeted with a banner proclaiming "Long live Marxism-Leninism!", a reproach for his reforms, and while his meetings with Castro were friendly, Gorbachev informed the Cuban leader that the perestroika reforms meant an end to subsidies and special favours for Cuba.
In December 1991, the Soviet Union was officially dismantled, with the capitalist reformer Boris Yeltsin, President of the Russian Federation, overseeing the abolition of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and the introduction of a multiparty democracy with a capitalist economy. A staunch anti-socialist, Yeltsin despised Castro, and developed links with the anti-Castro Cuban American National Foundation, based in Miami. Castro began attempts to improve relations with capitalist nations, welcoming western politicians and investors to Cuba, befriending Manuel Fraga and taking a particular interest in the policies of Margaret Thatcher in the United Kingdom, believing that Cuban socialism could learn from her emphasis on low taxation and personal initiative.
Castro tapped into a pre-revolutionary source of income and opened the country to tourism, entering into several joint ventures with foreign companies for hotel, agricultural and industrial projects. As a result, the use of US dollars was legalized in 1994, with special stores being opened which only sold in dollars.
In 1991, Havana hosted the Pan-American Games, which involved the construction of a stadium and accommodation for the athletes; Castro would admit that it was an expensive error, but it proved to be a success both for Cuba and Castro.
The arrival of thousands of tourists from Mexico and Spain led to an increasing number of young Cubans turning to prostitution; although officially illegal, Castro refrained from bringing a full crack down on these prostitutes, fearing a political backlash. Economic hardship led many Cubans to turn towards religion, both in the forms of Roman Catholicism and the syncretic faith of Santeria. Although he had long considered religious belief to be backward, Castro softened his approach to the Church and religious institutions, recognising the psychological comfort it could bring, and religious people were permitted for the first time to join the Communist Party. Although viewing the Roman Catholic Church as a reactionary, pro-capitalist institution, Castro decided to organise a visit to Cuba by Pope John Paul II, which took place in January 1998; ultimately, it strengthened the position of both the Church in Cuba, and Castro's government.
A Canadian Medical Association Journal paper states that "The famine in Cuba during the Special Period was caused by political and economic factors similar to the ones that caused a famine in North Korea in the mid-1990s. Both countries were run by authoritarian regimes that denied ordinary people the food to which they were entitled when the public food distribution collapsed; priority was given to the elite classes and the military." The government did not accept American donations of food, medicines and money until 1993,forcing many Cubans to eat anything they could find. In the Havana zoo, the peacocks, the buffalo and even the rhea were reported to have disappeared during this period.Even domestic cats were reportedly eaten
Thousands of Cubans protested in Havana and chanted "Libertad!" during the Maleconazo uprising on August 5, 1994. The regime's security forces dispersed them soon. A paper published in the Journal of Democracy states this was the closest that the Cuban opposition could come to asserting itself decisively.
In 1997, a group led by Vladimiro Roca, a decorated veteran of the Angolan war and the son of the founder of the Cuban Communist Party, sent a petition, entitled La Patria es de Todos ("the homeland belongs to all") to the Cuban general assembly requesting democratic and human rights reforms. As a result, Roca and his three associates were sentenced to jail, from which they were eventually released.
End of Fidel Castro's presidency : In 2006, Fidel Castro took ill and withdrew from public life. The following year, Raúl Castro became Acting President, replacing his brother as the de facto leader of the country. In a letter dated 18 February 2008, Castro announced his formal resignation at the 2008 National Assembly meetings, saying "I will not aspire nor accept—I repeat I will not aspire or accept—the post of President of the Council of State and Commander in Chief."
In March 2012, the now-retired Fidel Castro met Pope Benedict XVI during the latter's visit to Cuba; the two men discussed the role of the Catholic Church in Cuba, which has a large Catholic community.
Quotes by Castro:
"I joined the people; I grabbed a rifle in a police station that collapsed when it was rushed by a crowd. I witnessed the spectacle of a totally spontaneous revolution... [T]hat experience led me to identify myself even more with the cause of the people. My still incipient Marxist ideas had nothing to do with our conduct – it was a spontaneous reaction on our part, as young people with Martí-an, anti-imperialist, anti-colonialist and pro-democratic ideas."
"Marxism taught me what society was. I was like a blindfolded man in a forest, who doesn't even know where north or south is. If you don't eventually come to truly understand the history of the class struggle, or at least have a clear idea that society is divided between the rich and the poor, and that some people subjugate and exploit other people, you're lost in a forest, not knowing anything."
"The story of our beards is very simple: it arose out of the difficult conditions we were living and fighting under as guerrillas. We didn't have any razor blades..."
"We are not executing innocent people or political opponents. We are executing murderers and they deserve it." (1959)
"There is often talk of human rights, but it is also necessary to talk of the rights of humanity. Why should some people walk barefoot, so that others can travel in luxurious cars? Why should some live for thirty-five years, so that others can live for seventy years? Why should some be miserably poor, so that others can be hugely rich? I speak on behalf of the children in the world who do not have a piece of bread. I speak on the behalf of the sick who have no medicine, of those whose rights to life and human dignity have been denied." — Fidel Castro's message to the UN General Assembly, 1979
"We do not have a smidgen of capitalism or neo-liberalism. We are facing a world completely ruled by neo-liberalism and capitalism. This does not mean that we are going to surrender. It means that we have to adopt to the reality of that world. That is what we are doing, with great equanimity, without giving up our ideals, our goals. I ask you to have trust in what the government and party are doing. They are defending, to the last atom, socialist ideas, principles and goals."
— Fidel Castro explaining the reforms of the Special Period
"If people call me Christian, not from the standpoint of religion but from the standpoint of social vision, I declare that I am a Christian."
I never saw a contradiction between the ideas that sustain me and the ideas of that symbol, of that extraordinary figure, Jesus Christ.
They talk about the failure of socialism but where is the success of capitalism in Africa, Asia and Latin America?
I am a Marxist Leninist and I will be one until the last day of my life.
North Americans don't understand... that our country is not just Cuba; our country is also humanity.
The universities are available only to those who share my revolutionary beliefs.
"Capitalism has neither the capacity, nor the morality, nor the ethics to solve the problems of poverty." On the fall of European communism in July 1991.
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Opinion of Guevara from Alvaro Vargas Llosa (a Peruvian writer and political commentator on international affairs with emphasis on Latin America):
Guevara was born in Rosario, Argentina, in a splendid early twentieth-century edifice at the corner of Urquiza and Entre Ríos Streets
His honesty (well, partial honesty) meant that he left written testimony of his cruelties, including the really ugly, though not the ugliest, stuff.
In April 1967, speaking from experience, he summed up his homicidal idea of justice in his “Message to the Tricontinental”: “hatred as an element of struggle; unbending hatred for the enemy, which pushes a human being beyond his natural limitations, making him into an effective, violent, selective, and cold-blooded killing machine.”
In a letter to his mother in 1954, written in Guatemala, where he witnessed the overthrow of the revolutionary government of Jacobo Arbenz, he wrote: “It was all a lot of fun, what with the bombs, speeches, and other distractions to break the monotony I was living in.”
In January 1957, as his diary from the Sierra Maestra indicates, Guevara shot Eutimio Guerra because he suspected him of passing on information
Later he shot Aristidio, a peasant who expressed the desire to leave whenever the rebels moved on. While he wondered whether this particular victim “was really guilty enough to deserve death,” he had no qualms about ordering the death of Echevarría, a brother of one of his comrades, because of unspecified crimes: “He had to pay the price.”
Che ordered the execution of a couple dozen people in Santa Clara, in central Cuba, where his column had gone as part of a final assault on the island. Some of them were shot in a hotel, as Marcelo Fernándes-Zayas, another former revolutionary who later became a journalist, has written—adding that among those executed, known as casquitos, were peasants who had joined the army simply to escape unemployment.
How many people were killed at La Cabaña? Pedro Corzo offers a figure of some two hundred, similar to that given by Armando Lago, a retired economics professor who has compiled a list of 179 names as part of an eight-year study on executions in Cuba.
When the would-be revolutionaries were arrested in Mexico in 1956, Guevara was the only one who admitted that he was a communist and was studying Russian.
This fanatical disposition made Che into a linchpin of the “Sovietization” of the revolution that had repeatedly boasted about its independent character.
According to Philippe Gavi’s biography of Guevara, the revolutionary had bragged that “this country is willing to risk everything in an atomic war of unimaginable destructiveness to defend a principle.” Just after the Cuban missile crisis ended—with Khrushchev reneging on the promise made in Yalta and negotiating a deal with the United States behind Castro’s back that included the removal of American missiles from Turkey—Guevara told a British communist daily: “If the rockets had remained, we would have used them all and directed them against the very heart of the United States, including New York, in our defense against aggression.”
Guevara distanced himself from the Soviet Union in the last years of his life. He did so for the wrong reasons, blaming Moscow for being too soft ideologically and diplomatically, for making too many concessions—unlike Maoist China, which he came to see as a haven of orthodoxy.
His stint as head of the National Bank, during which he printed bills signed “Che,” has been summarized by his deputy, Ernesto Betancourt: “[He] was ignorant of the most elementary economic principles.” Guevara’s powers of perception regarding the world economy were famously expressed in 1961, at a hemispheric conference in Uruguay, where he predicted a 10 percent rate of growth for Cuba “without the slightest fear,” and, by 1980, a per capita income greater than that of “the U.S. today.” In fact, by 1997, the thirtieth anniversary of his death, Cubans were dieting on a ration of five pounds of rice and one pound of beans per month; four ounces of meat twice a year; four ounces of soybean paste per week; and four eggs per month.
By 1963, all hopes of industrializing Cuba were abandoned, and the revolution accepted its role as a colonial provider of sugar to the Soviet bloc in exchange for oil to cover its needs and to re-sell to other countries. For the next three decades, Cuba would survive on a Soviet subsidy of somewhere between $65 billion and $100 billion.
Having failed as a hero of social justice, does Guevara deserve a place in the history books as a genius of guerrilla warfare? His greatest military achievement in the fight against Batista—taking the city of Santa Clara after ambushing a train with heavy reinforcements—is seriously disputed. Numerous testimonies indicate that the commander of the train surrendered in advance, perhaps after taking bribes. (Gutiérrez Menoyo, who led a different guerrilla group in that area, is among those who have decried Cuba’s official account of Guevara’s victory.) Immediately after the triumph of the revolution, Guevara organized guerrilla armies in Nicaragua, the Dominican Republic, Panama, and Haiti—all of which were crushed. In 1964, he sent the Argentine revolutionary Jorge Ricardo Masetti to his death by persuading him to mount an attack on his native country from Bolivia, just after representative democracy had been restored to Argentina.
Particularly disastrous was the Congo expedition in 1965. Guevara sided with two rebels—Pierre Mulele in the west and Laurent Kabila in the east—against the ugly Congolese government, which was sustained by the United States as well as by South African and exiled Cuban mercenaries.
Mulele had taken over Stanleyville earlier before being driven back. During his reign of terror he murdered all the people who could read and all those who wore a tie. As for Guevara’s other ally, Laurent Kabila, he was merely lazy and corrupt at the time; but the world would find out in the 1990s that he, too, was a killing machine. In any event, Guevara spent most of 1965 helping the rebels in the east before fleeing the country ignominiously. Soon afterward, Mobutu came to power and installed a decades-long tyranny. (In Latin American countries too, from Argentina to Peru, Che-inspired revolutions had the practical result of reinforcing brutal militarism for many years.)
In Bolivia, Che was defeated again, and for the last time. He misread the local situation. There had been an agrarian reform years before; the government had respected many of the peasant communities’ institutions; and the army was close to the United States despite its nationalism. “The peasant masses don’t help us at all” was Guevara’s melancholy conclusion in his Bolivian diary.
In the last few decades of the nineteenth century, Argentina had the second-highest growth rate in the world. By the 1890s, the real income of Argentine workers was greater than that of Swiss, German, and French workers. By 1928, that country had the twelfth-highest per capita GDP in the world. That achievement, which later generations would ruin, was in large measure due to Juan Bautista Alberdi.
Like Guevara, Alberdi liked to travel: he walked through the pampas and deserts from north to south at the age of fourteen, all the way to Buenos Aires. Like Guevara, Alberdi opposed a tyrant, Juan Manuel Rosas. Like Guevara, Alberdi got a chance to influence a revolutionary leader in power—Justo José de Urquiza, who toppled Rosas in 1852. And like Guevara, Alberdi represented the new government on world tours, and died abroad. But unlike the old and new darling of the left, Alberdi never killed a fly. His book, Bases y puntos de partida para la organización de la República Argentina, was the foundation of the Constitution of 1853 that limited government, opened trade, encouraged immigration, and secured property rights, thereby inaugurating a seventy-year period of astonishing prosperity. He did not meddle in the affairs of other nations, opposing his country’s war against Paraguay.
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