A brief history of Cuba

After almost 3 months at sea, on 27 October, 1492 Christopher Columbus said (allegedly): “This is the most beautiful land that human eyes have ever seen”, when he arrived to the Cuban coasts. 18 years later, in 1510, Diego Velazquez conquered the Cuban territory and from that time on the first villages were built: Nuestra Señora de la Asunción de Baracoa (1512), San Salvador de Bayamo (1513), La Santisima Trinidad (1514), Sancti Spiritus (1514), Santiago de Cuba (1515), San Cristobal de La Habana (1514) and Santa María del Puerto del Principe (1515).  At the end of the 16th century the first sugar mill was built, and two centuries later sugar would become the economic backbone of the island. The first African slaves arrived to Cuba  and step by step, the pro- slavery sugar plantation was born which influenced and contributed to the birth of the Cuban nationality.

When the Spanish settled in Cuba, they submitted the indigenous population to slavery. Within a few years they were virtually exterminated. To replace the labour force, the Spanish brought thousand of black people from Africa to work as slaves in the sugar cane plantations. In that way, they introduced one of the elements, which mixed with the Spanish created the Cuban or Creole. In 17th century Spain began to decline. France, England and Holland wanted Spain's conquests and the Cuban waters and coasts were full of pirates and corsairs who made the contraband sector grow and led to the introduction of  cattle, coffee and tobacco production.  In the middle of the 18th century, the English occupied Havana (1762). For months, the Havana's harbour received more than one thousand ships which established wide commercial activities with the North American colonies, and at the same time, the English brought more than ten thousand slaves to develop  the sugar industry.

Spain recovers the island in 1763 when they trade it for the Florida Peninsula. On 10 October, 1868 the fight for independence began, when Carlos Manuel de Cespedes set his sugar mill “La Demajagua” in fire. He proclaimed independence for Cuba and set his slaves free. That was the first war for independence and lasted for 10 years.  In 1878 an important figure of the Cuban wars for independence emerged: Jose Marti (1853-1895), who founded the Cuban Revolutionary Party and led the war of 1895. Maximo Gomez and Antonio Maceo continued fighting and took the war to every part of the island. Spain could do nothing to stop them. The Cuban troops got stronger while the Spanish got weaker. The United States intervened in the war at this point and they took the surrender of the Spanish. The victorious Cuban army was cast aside by the North Americans. 

The war ended with a treaty (the Treaty of Paris, 10December, 1898) between Spain and the United States, and through it,  the United States gained total control of Cuba, Puerto Rico and the Philippines. In 1901 the Senate and the Chamber of Representatives of the United States approved the “Platt Amendment”, which authorised them to intervene at any time in Cuba's affairs, and declared that Cuba had to allow the United States to rent the island the lands they could need to build naval stations and coal bunkers. On 20 May, 1902 Cuba got a formal ‘independence' controlled by an oligarchy dependant on Washington.

From that moment on, Cuba was dominated by corrupt governments and North American interventions. In 1922, the University Student Federation was created and in 1923, the Student Movement of the University Reform. Later on, was the turn of the League against Imperialism, the Popular University Jose Marti for workers, and in 1925 the Confederation of Cuban Workers, the Communist Party founded by Julio Antonio Mella, and the Socialist Party founded by Carlos Baliño. On 26 July 1953 a group led by Fidel Castro attacked the Moncada Barracks in Santiago de Cuba. The attack itself was unsuccessful but Fidel Castro became known as the leader of the revolution from that moment on. Fidel Castro and the survivors were sent to jail in the Model Prison located in the Isle of Youth. A strong popular campaign set them free, and they went into exile in Mexico in 1955. In Mexico, Fidel organised his fellow warriors of the Moncada attack, other revolutionaries and the Argentinean Ernesto “Che” Guevara.

They left Mexico in the Gramma Yacht which landed in Las Coloradas Beach on 2 December, 1956. Soon the revolution gained popular support and fighting spread all over the island. On 1 January, 1959, the dictator Fulgencio Batista accepted defeated and he abandoned Cuba taking considerable state monies with him.. The Cuban Revolution had triumphed.  On 7 February, 1959 the Constitution of 1940 was restored. The first president was Manuel Urrutia Lleo and Fidel Castro became prime minister on 16 February. However, other wars were just beginning.

There were bandits financed by the US government in the mountains, the US started its economic and financial blockade which is still being wages tothsi day and in 1961 the US invaded at the Bay of Pigs (Playa Giron). The Cuban people defeated the invaders in 72 hours and the revolutionary process continued. In 1990, when Socialism in the east part of Europe disappeared and the Soviet Union was about to break down, the United States government started a new intensified stage of the economic blockade against Cuba. During all these years the battle has continued. Cuba faces sabotages, a tremendous economic blockade and even new ways of aggression as time passes by. Despite of this, the Cuban revolutionary government started and maintains a socialist plan to achieve a level of social development unequalled anywhere in the Third World.