Cuban Link Freestyles
The island of Cuba has been populated for the last several thousand years by Amerindian peoples referred to as the Taino and Ciboney. The Taino were known to be mostly farmers while the Ciboney were hunter-gatherers. The epithet Cuba in fact is derived from the Taino word cubanacan, which means "a central place”. Christopher Columbus sighted the island during his foremost sail of discovery on 24 October 1492, and at once laid claim it for Spain.
Spain ruled the island of Cuba for 388 years, ruled by the governor of Havana. It had an economic base of grove agribusiness and main exports of refined sugar, coffee bean and tobacco to European Community and afterwards to North America. Brits appropriated the island in 1762, but gave it to Spain the following year. Like most of the Spanish Empire, a modest land-owning elect of colonists kept all the social and economic might. They were serviced by a population of small farmers, laborers and slaves.
Many architectural masterpieces built in the period of Spanish rule still stand today. An first-class instance is the Catedral de San Cristobal, Havana. During the 1820s, when the rest of Spain’s conglomerate in South America rose up and seceeded, Cuba persisted loyal, though a few pushed for independence. Partly because concerns of a slave rebellion (as had occurred in Haiti) if the Spanish pulled away, partly because the prosperity of Cuban colonists counted on their export trade to Europe, and partly because Cuba dreaded the climbing power of the United States more than they disliked Spanish colonial reign.
Due to the fact that Cuba is a slim 90 miles from the United States has had a fundamental influence on the areas maturation. Politicians in the south diagrammed the island’s annexation as a way of supporting the pro-slavery forces in the U.S. throughout the early 1900’s. In 1848 a pro-annexationist revolt was foiled after a few failed invasion atemps from Florida proved fruitless. After that the United States attempted to buy Cuba from Spain but was universally turned away.
Rural poverty in Spain led to a real Spanish expatriation to Cuba. Among those inbound were the parents of Fidel Castro. During the 1890s pro-independence unrest vivified, fueled by resentment of the restrictions enforced on Cuban trade by Spain and hostility to Spain’s increasingly tyrannous and bungling administration of Cuba. On 15 July 1895 insurrection broke out and the independence party, led by Tomas Estrada Palma and the poet Jose Marti, announced Cuba an independent republic. Marti was killed shortly thereafter and has become Cuba’s unquestioned national hero.
This brief article can’t possibly address the huge account that is Cuba. I have numbered several excellent books at the closing of this page. You can locate them all at Amazon or your local bookstall.
Cuba: A New History by Richard Gott
The Cuba Reader: History, Culture, Politics (Latin America Readers) by Aviva Chomsky, Barry Carr, and Pamela Maria Smorkaloff
This is Cuba: An Outlaw Culture Survives by Ben Corbett
Inside Cuba by Julio Cesar Perez Hernandez, Angelika Taschen, and Giani Bosso
