Cuban Link Gallery
The island of Cuba has been occupied for at least several thousand years by Amerindian peoples called the Taino and Ciboney. The Taino were known to be mostly farmers while the Ciboney were hunter-gatherers. The name Cuba in fact is derived from the Taino word cubanacan, which means "a central place”. Christopher Columbus sighted the island in the period of his first ocean trip of discovery on 24 October 1492, and forthwith claimed it for Spain.
Spain possessed the island of Cuba for 388 years, governed by the governor of Havana. It had an economic base of plantation agriculture and main exportations of sugar, java and tobacco to Europe and later on to North America. British conquered the island in 1762, but returned it to Spain the following year. Like most of the Spanish Empire, a minute land-owning elite of settlers maintained all the social and economic force. They were served by a universe of modest farmers, laborers and slaves.
Many architectural masterpieces manufactured during Spanish rule still stand nowadays. An excellent example is the Catedral de San Cristobal, Havana. During the 1820s, when the rest of Spain’s empire in South America arose and seceeded, Cuba rested loyal, although a select few crusaded for independence. Partly because fears of a slave revolt (as had materialized in Haiti) if the Spanish withdrew, partly because the prosperity of Cuban settlers depended on their exportation trade to Europe, and partially because Cuba feared the ascending power of the United States more than they disliked Spanish colonial regulation.
Due to the fact that Cuba is a mere 90 miles from the United States has had a wakeless influence on the nations exploitation. Politicians in the south planned the island’s annexation as a means of bolstering the pro-slavery forces in the U.S. throughout the early 1900’s. In 1848 a pro-annexationist insurrection was thwarted after various failed invasion atemps from Florida turned up fruitless. After that the United States sought to buy Cuba from Spain but was always turned down.
Rural impoverishment in Spain led to a significant Spanish emigration to Cuba. Among people arriving were the parents of Fidel Castro. During the 1890s pro-independence agitation resuscitated, fueled by rancor of the limitations inflicted on Cuban trade by Spain and antagonism to Spain’s more and more tyrannical and incompetent governance of Cuba. On 15 July 1895 revolt erupted and the independence party, led by Tomas Estrada Palma and the poet Jose Marti, extolled Cuba an sovereign republic. Marti was killed not far thereafter and has become Cuba’s undisputed national hero.
This abbreviated paper can’t possibly address the vast story that is Cuba. I have listed a few first-class books at the conclusion of this site. You can find them all at Amazon or your local bookstore.
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
