Cuba Before Fidel Castro, Part 2
Revolt, Regroup, Repeat
In 1868, a planter from eastern Cuba, Carlos Manuel de CÃ?©spedes, started the first large-scale fight for Cuban independence, later known as the Ten Years’ War. Spain responded by sending in tens of thousands of well-trained, well-armed troops.
Outmanned and outgunned, CÃ?©spedes’s machete-wielding patriots nevertheless held out for (you guessed it) 10 years, and the Spanish promised political reforms in return for peace. Most of the rebels agreed to Spain’s terms in 1878, but a few retreated to the United States, regrouped, and returned to revolt again the next year. The Spanish squashed that effort, too, but Cuban nationalism was waxing as loyalty to Spain waned.
By the early 1890s, pro-independence forces had again begun to organize in exile. This time they were led by JosÃ?© MartÃ?Â?Ã?Â, a Cuban poet based in New York City. In 1895, MartÃ?Â?Ã?Â’s revolutionaries invaded and declared the Republic of Cuba. Spain responded with 200,000 troops, who forced tens of thousands of Cubans into “reconcentration” camps, where many died of disease and starvation.
Enter Uncle Sam
News of Spanish atrocities won the Cuban rebels sympathy at home and abroad – notably in the United States, where journalists (especially those at William Randolph Hearst’s newspapers) churned out anti-Spanish copy. Then, in 1898, a mysterious explosion sank the Maine, a U.S. battleship in Havana’s harbor. Many Americans blamed the Spanish – though it likely wasn’t them – and Congress declared war.
The Spanish-American War lasted just months and ended with U.S. forces in control of Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the Philippines. Spain relinquished any claim to Cuba. Yet Cuba wasn’t fully independent. The U.S. military occupied the island until 1902, by which time the United States had won constitutional concessions that enabled it to oversee Cuban affairs and to establish a permanent naval base at Guantanamo Bay.
Heavy U.S. influence would help define the early decades of the Cuban republic. Marines returned to protect U.S. interests in 1906, 1912, and 1917. In 1920, the sugar market collapsed, and U.S. banks, businesses, and entrepreneurs bought huge swathes of Cuban property on the cheap. Meanwhile, Cuba’s government became increasingly corrupt.
From Corruption to Castro
In 1933, with support from the U.S. government, a Cuban army sergeant, Fulgencio Batista, seized power in a coup. Batista held power for a decade, first through a series of puppet presidents, and later by getting elected himself. In 1944, he retired quietly to the United States, but returned to Cuba in 1952 and seized control once again.
This time, opposition groups cried foul, and new organizations opposed to Batista cropped up across the island. One such group, led by a young lawyer named Fidel Castro, raided a military base in the city of Santiago de Cuba on July 26, 1953. The attack failed, and Castro was arrested, but he used his trial as a platform to promote his political cause. Though sentenced to 15 years in prison, Castro was released along with other political prisoners in 1955.
After regrouping in Mexico, Castro and his “26th of July Movement” invaded Cuba in December 1956. Many of his 80 or so men were killed in an ambush as soon as they landed, but a handful – including Fidel, his brother Raul, and the iconic revolutionary Che Guevara – escaped into Cuba’s Sierra Maestra Mountains and launched a guerrilla war.
Meanwhile, Batista’s hold on power was slipping. Urban guerrilla groups joined forces with Castro’s movement, and a variety of civic groups openly supported the developing revolution. Students protested, workers struck, and fractures began to show in the Cuban military.
In 1958, the United States stopped shipping arms to Batista. Later that year, the rebels won a series of key battles, and Batista saw the writing on the wall. After an annual New Year’s Eve party, he and his close advisers skipped town for the Dominican Republic. Castro entered Havana in January 1959. He’s been in charge of Cuba ever since.
