History of Cuba

Pre-Columbian Cuba

Before 1492, Cuba was populated by two very distinct aborigine groups: Taíno and Siboney or Ciboney. Both were Stone Age cultures, the Taíno being agriculturalist and the Ciboney being a fishing and hunting society, although their development was not limited to fishing, agriculture and construction of wooden structures. Taínos and Ciboney shared similar customs and beliefs, one being the use of sacred smoke called cohaba known as smoking. Europeans learned from the Native Cubans to cultivate tobacco and to consume it in the form of cigars. The Native Cuban Indian population, including the Ciboney and the Taíno, were placed on reservations during the Spanish conquest of the Island of Cuba. Many Natives were placed on reservations. One famous reservation was known as Guanabacoa, today a suburb of Havana. Many died due to the cruelty of Spanish conquistadores and the diseases they brought with them, such as the measles and smallpox, which were previously unknown to Indians. Many of the Conquistadors intermarried with Native Cuban Indians. Their offspring were called mestizo, but the Native Cubans called them Guajiro, which translates to "one of us". Today, the descendants are maintaining their heritage: see Ciboney Tribe.

Conquest of Cuba

Cuba was first visited by Europeans when Christopher Columbus landed on the island for the first time on October 28, 1492. Diego Velázquez de Cuéllar led the Spanish conquest of the island.

Spanish Colonial Cuba

The Spanish settlers established sugar cane and tobacco as Cuba's primary products. As the native Indian population became mestizied and educated, field labor became shore. Slaves were imported from Native Florida and Bahama natives, and as that population became mixed as well, field labor was harder to acquire. African slaves were imported to work the plantations in order to replace the field labor. Slavery became especially important when Cuba's sugar plantations became important world producers. By the end of the 1800 century Slavery was abolished.

Cuba's Struggle for Independence

Cuba was the last major Spanish colony to gain independence, following a 50-year struggle begun in 1850. Carlos Céspedes led the first major uprising, the Ten Years' War, which began on October 10, 1868 with the issuing of the Grito de Yara. Neither the Cuban rebels nor the Spanish government were able to defeat the other, and the war dragged on for ten years, hence its name. The 1878 peace ending the rebellion resulted in some reforms of the Spanish government in Cuba, including some elective institutions, and theoretically promised Cuban representation in the Spanish Cortes. This peace was acceptable to many of Cuba's elites, who had supported the rebellion but preferred reform to independence. Along with the other reforms, an emancipation law was passed in 1880 and fully implemented in 1886. Race relations improved and massive numbers of Spaniards immigrated to Cuba, even as Cuba became more economically linked to the United States than to Spain.

These reforms did not dampen the Cuban spirit for independence. José Martí, Cuba's national hero, began the final push for independence in 1895, the same year that he died in the Battle of Dos Ríos. In 1896 Major General José Braulio Alemán, with contributions from others, wrote the Cuban Constitution at La Yara. This Constitution, which stood unamended until 1940, was completely revised by Fidel Castro in the 1960s. A significant feature of General Aleman's wording was that it gave women the right to vote, and re-affirmed the laws abolishing slavery that had been in effect in Cuba since 1886.

Before the USS Maine sank in Havana Harbor, came the much publicised letter to the Governor of Cuba from Enrique Dupuy de Lome, the Ambassador of Spain in the US. In the letter Dupuy characterized American President William McKinley as more or less an idiot and a pawn of others. The letter was stolen by a Cuban revolutionary and eventually made its way into the hands of an apparently sympathetic Randolph Hearst, whose hidden motives saw a Cuba entirely free of Spanish rule and opened for the economic profit of American business interests.

That same year, 1898, the USS Maine sank in Havana Harbor on February 15 due to an explosion of undetermined origin. Many years later the explosion was determined to be accidental, but at the time it was widely believed to have been the victim of a Spanish mine. This incident helped galvanize support in the United States to enter the conflict, in the Teller Amendment disclaiming any claims over Cuba and stating that its goal was an independent Cuba. (see: Spanish-American War) At the time of the US's entry, April 1898, the Cuban revolutionaries had already fought the Spanish government troops to another stalemate, holding control of the eastern half of the island to Spain's western half. However, Spain send Admiral Pascual Cervera with a large number of reinforcements to put down the rebellion. The US naval blockade and destruction of Cervera's ships and squadron ensured a swift end to the war.

Many (especially US) historians believe that a long, protracted stalemate as in the Ten Years' War was likely without US intervention; others (especially Cubans) prefer to characterize US intervention as an unnecessary mopping up operation in a war largely already won by the Cuban revolutionaries. Spain sent over one million men to Cuba, and only about 200,000 returned. The rest died in combat, succumbed to tropical diseases, or stayed in Cuba to avoid the widespread poverty in their home country.

In December of 1898, Spain relinquished control of Cuba and the rest of its colonial possessions to the United States with the Treaty of Paris.

In that year, Cuba became part of a new form of colonialism, leaded by the United States, who invested in Cuba in order to convert them in a political associate, such as Puerto Rico, due to its estrategic position in the planet.

It was not until January 1st, 1959, when Cuba reached its true independency, and became a self-governed country without intervention of foreigner influencies.

The Platt Amendment

On May 20, 1902, the United States, restricted by the Teller Amendment, granted Cuba its independence, but retained the right to intervene to preserve Cuban independence and stability under the Platt Amendment. This move, supported by imperialist elements in the USA, was passed as a resolution by only a few votes. Among those opposing this was the principal author of the Cuban Constitution Major General Jose Braulio Aleman and many others, who feared what eventually came to pass, political and economic domination by the US. Even before independence, the US dominated Cuban trade, with 90 percent of Cuban exports going to the US and 38 percent of Cuban imports coming from the US in 1894.

Although the Platt Amendment was abnegated in 1934, US influence, economic and political, shaped the history of Cuba up until the Cuban revolution in 1959 and Cuba was more or less an American protectorate during that time. This was seen (and still is viewed) as an affront to national sovereignty by all Cubans. American forces finally left Cuba on January 28, 1909.

Cuba in the Early 20th Century

Fulgencio Batista

President Gerardo Machado, originally elected by popular vote in 1925, was constitutionally barred from reelection. He decided to stay in power anyway, as a violent dictator, with some support from the United States. In 1933, a number of liberal Cubans staged an uprising which deposed the Machado dictatorship and led to a series of short-lived governments. As part of the revolutionary process, the Platt Amendment was repealed. Still, American pressure forced Cuba to reaffirm the agreement which was imposed on the country in 1903 which leased the Guantanamo Bay naval base to the United States for a nominal sum, under terms which many Cubans at the time found (and still find) objectionable and colonialistic.

A key figure in the process was Fulgencio Batista, an army sergeant, who originally organized a non-commissioned officer revolt in September 1933. After some time, he decided to become de-facto dictator, wielding significant power behind the scenes until he was elected president in 1940 in an election which many people considered to be rigged. His rule was marked by corruption and violence to opponents. Batista was voted out of office in 1944.

He was succeeded by Dr. Ramón Grau San Martín, a populist physician who had briefly held the presidency in the 1933 revolutionary process. President Grau passed a number of populist measures favoring workers and also was instrumental in passing the 1940 Constitution, which has been widely regarded as one of the most progressive ever written in terms of worker protection and human rights.

Grau was followed by Carlos Prío Socarrás, also elected democratically, but whose government was tainted by increasing corruption and violent incidents among political factions. Eduardo Chibás was the leader of the Ortodoxo Party, a liberal democratic group, who was widely expected to win in 1952 on an anticorruption platform. Chibás committed suicide before he could run for the presidency, and the opposition was left without its major leader.

Taking advantage of the opportunity, Batista, who was running for president in the 1952 elections, but had only a small minority of votes, seized power in a 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 as a result. Batista suspended the balloting and began ruling by decree.

The Cuban Revolution

Fidel Castro, a young lawyer from a wealthy family, who was running for a seat in the Chamber of Representatives for the Ortodoxo Party, circulated a petition to depose Batista's government on the grounds that it had illegitimately suspended the electoral process. However, the petition was not acted upon by the courts.

On July 26, 1953 Castro led a historical attack on the Moncada Barracks near Santiago de Cuba, but failed and was jailed until 1955, when his powerful family secured a pardon from Batista. Castro subsequently went into exile in Mexico. While in Mexico, he organized the 26th of July Movement with the goal of overthrowing Batista. A group of over 80 men sailed to Cuba on board the yacht "Granma", landing in the eastern part of the island in December 1956. Most of Castro's men were promptly killed or taken prisoner by Batista's forces. Castro managed to escape to the Sierra Maestra mountains with only 12 men, from where, aided by urban and rural opposition, he began a guerrilla campaign against the regime.

The US Department of State writes: "Batista's dictatorial rule fueled increasing popular discontent and the rise of many active urban and rural resistance groups, a fertile political environment for Castro's 26th of July Movement." [1] The country was soon driven to chaos, particularly by a very effective sabotage and urban warfare campaign conducted in the cities by supporters of Castro.

Faced with a corrupt and ineffective military, dispirited by a U.S. Government embargo on weapons sales to Cuba and public indignation and revulsion at his brutality toward opponents, Batista fled on January 1, 1959. Within months of taking control, Castro moved to consolidate power by marginalizing other resistance figures and imprisoning or executing opponents. As the revolution became more radical, hundreds of thousands of Cubans fled the island.

In July 1961, the Integrated Revolutionary Organizations (ORI) was formed by the merger of Fidel Castro's 26th of July Revolutionary Movement, the People's Socialist Party (the old Communist Party) led by Blas Roca and the Revolutionary Directory March 13th led by Faure Chomón. On March 26, 1962 the ORI became the United Party of the Cuban Socialist Revolution (PURSC) which, in turn, became the Communist Party of Cuba on October 3, 1965 with Castro as First Secretary.

See also: Cuban Revolution

Communist Cuba

Relations between the U.S. and Cuba deteriorated rapidly as the Cuban government expropriated U.S. properties, notably those belonging to the International Telephone and Telegraph Company (ITT) and the United Fruit Company. In the Castro government's first agrarian reform law on May 17, 1959 it sought to limit the size of land holdings, and to distribute that land to agricultural workers in "Vital Minimum" tracts. In compensation the Cuban government offered to pay the landholders based on the tax assessment values for the land. Actual payment would be with twenty-year bonds paying 4.5% interest (instead of the then U.S. investment grade corporate bond rate of 3.8%). Landholders from most other countries settled on this basis. The problem was with the tax assessed values. Most of the large landholdings had been acquired in the 1920 period when world sugar prices were depressed, and the land could be bought at bargain-basement prices. In the intervening period Cuban governments friendly to these interests had kept these bargain prices as the basis for calculating property taxes, thus insuring that those taxes would be kept low.

In response, the United States imposed an embargo on Cuba in October 1960, and broke diplomatic relations on January 3, 1961. (The embargo is still in effect as of 2004, although some humanitarian trade in food and medicines is now allowed.) However, the embargo does not extend to other countries. Cuba trades freely with most European, Asian and Latin American countries. One major exception to the embargo was made on November 6, 1965 when Cuba and the United States formally agreed to start an airlift for Cubans who wanted to go to the United States. By 1971 these so-called Freedom Flights took 250,000 Cubans to the United States.

Bay of Pigs Invasion

The United States then sponsored an unsuccessful attack on Cuba, using conservative political groups as the main source of support. The attack began on April 15, 1961, when exiles, flying planes provided by the U.S. bombed several Cuban air force bases. This attack did not succeed in destroying all of Castro's air force. In response, Castro declared Cuba a socialist state in a speech on April 16, 1961.

On April 17, 1961, a force of about 1,500 Cuban exiles, financed and trained by the CIA, landed in the south at the Bay of Pigs. The CIA's assumption was that the invasion would spark a popular rising against Castro. Castro's forces were forewarned of the invasion and had arrested thousands of suspected subversives before the invasion landed. There was no popular uprising. In hindsight it seems unlikely that one would have occurred even had Castro not conducted the arrests. What part of the invasion force that made it ashore was quickly defeated as President Kennedy was unwilling to offer overt US military support, the only possibility to make the invasion successful for the USA. Many believe that the invasion, instead of weakening Castro, actually helped him consolidate his grip on power.

For the next 30 years, Castro pursued closer relations with the Soviet Union until the demise of the USSR in 1991.

The Organization of American States suspended Cuba's membership in the body on January 22, 1962 and the United States Government banned all US-related Cuban imports and exports a couple weeks later on February 7. The Kennedy administration extended this on February 8, 1963 making travel, financial and commercial transactions by US citizens to Cuba illegal.

The Cuban Missile Crisis

Tensions between the two governments peaked again during the October 1962 Cuban missile crisis, when the U.S. blockaded Cuba to force the USSR to withdraw their newly-installed MRBMs from the country. The USSR agreed to remove the missiles in exchange for an agreement that the United States would not invade Cuba. The U.S. has honored this agreement, although the CIA continued to support anti-Castro groups by mounting an extensive international campaign and several botched assassination attempts throughout the 1960s.

Castro's military provided support to revolutionary regimes in Angola and Nigeria and to guerrilla groups in South America. During one such campaign, Ernesto Che Guevara, who has become a symbol of revolution in the world, was captured by U.S.-trained commandos in Bolivia in 1967 and then executed. In the late 1970s, Cuban forces defeated the stronger South African army in a major battle in Angola.

Cuba after the Soviet Union

When the USSR's support was lost, Cuba's economy was essentially paralyzed, and living conditions in Cuba worsened. This led Castro to open the country to tourism from Europe and Asia, and to enter into several joint ventures with foreign companies for hotel, agricultural and industrial projects. As a result, the use of U.S. dollars was legalized in the late 1990s, with special stores being opened which only sell in dollars. This has created a social split in the island. Persons with access to dollars live much better than those who do not.

Some non-violent initiatives have been launched by Cubans in the island, aiming at political reform. 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, titled "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.

In 2001, a group backed by the powerful Catholic church collected thousands of signatures for the Varela Project, a petition requesting a referendum on the island's political system. The process was openly supported by former U.S. president Jimmy Carter during his historic 2002 visit to Cuba. In response, Castro backers formally proclaimed that Castro's brand of socialism would be perpetual.

In 2003 seventy-five anti-government activists were arrested and summarily sentenced to heavy jail terms. Cuban officials described it as a response to provocative actions by the head of the US interests section in Cuba, who had been travelling around the country holding publicized meetings and press conferences with the dissidents. Castro's action was widely criticised by mainstream human rights organizations and even by American leftists generally sympathetic to his government.

In an unrelated matter six men were sentenced to death for hijacking a ferry with guns and knives, steering it into international waters where it ran out of fuel, and threatening to kill the passengers. Some accounts confused the two and accused Castro of sentencing dissidents to death, something which did not happen. A second ferry was hijacked, several days later and this time the hijackers were apprehended and executed within 24 hours of capture.