History of Cuba: Encyclopedia II - History of Cuba - Minor Wars

History of Cuba - Minor Wars

Conspiracy to overthrow the Spanish rule started a little after Simon Bolivar with support from nominally Mercenary English troops defeated Spain in the Battle of Carabobo in 1821. Blacks and whites began acting together overthrow slavery and colonial rule. In 1826 the first armed uprising for independence took place in Puerto Príncipe (Camagüey Province), led by Francisco de Agüero and Andrés Manuel Sánchez. Agüero (white) and Sánchez (mulato, of mixed African and European ancestry) were executed, becoming the first martyrs of Cuban independence" [10]. Agüero (white) and Sánchez (mulato, of mixed African and European ancestry) were executed, becoming the first martyrs of Cuban independence"

Perhaps the second most significant military action, to that date, after the English capture of Havana were the landings of Narciso Lopez.

History of Cuba - Cuban Bandits

Cuba was once perhaps 90% forest. It was still heavily forested at the end of the 19th Century. Buccaneers Alexander Exquemelin and Bandits [11] form an important part of Cuban history. Jose Marti when plotting the 1895-1898 Cuban War of Independence from Spain fearing the contagion of crime, rejected the most valuable help of Manuel Garcia, the "King" of the Cuban Countryside. Manuel Garcia was killed just before this war started. Batista, apparently feeling the need to rid Oriente Province of those who could support resistance, had Edesio Hernandez killed [12]. Crecencio Perez protected Fidel Castro in the early days in the Sierra Maestra Sierra Maestra and was a major factoopr in the survival of the Castro revolution. same here

Castillo Ramos, Ruben 1956 Muerto Edesio, El rey de la Sierra Maestra {Edesio The king of the Sierra Maestra Is Dead 1914-1956} {Photographs by Perez Tamarit and Rudolfo Vasell}, Bohemia XLVIII No. 9 {August 12 1956} pp. 52-54 and 87

Daley, Larry 1997 Context and Significance of the Bandit Edesio Hernandez in the Cuba of the 1950s Revista Guaracabuya http://www.amigospais-guaracabuya.org/oagld001.php

de Paz Sánchez, Manuel Antonio (en colaboración con José Fernández y Nelson López) 1993-1994. El bandolerismo en Cuba (1800-1933). Presencia canaria y protesta rural, Santa Cruz de Tenerife, two , 2 vols.

Perez, Louis A. 1989 Lords of the Mountain: Social Banditry and Peasant Protest in Cuba, 1878-1918 (Pitt Latin American Series) Univ of Pittsburgh Press ISBN: 0822936011

History of Cuba - Independence from Spain

Cuban independence from Spain was gained by a complex of three larger wars (with the second La Guerra Chiquita overlapping the end of the first La Guerra de los Diez Años (Ten Years' War) and a number of other actions. On 10 October 1868 Carlos Manuel de Céspedes freed his slaves and thus started the Ten Years' War when other plantation owners and guajiros joined in the guerrilla fighting in the Eastern regions. However, the Spanish used mistrust among the rebels to reach a settlement on 10 February 1878 with the Pact of Zanjón. After that, José Martí, who was exiled after an attempt to back up the rebels in the West, started campaigning in the United States, where there was a sizeable community of Cuban exiles. In 1880, there was another significant rising, the so called "Guerra Chiquita" but bad coordination between Antonio Maceo and Calixto Garcia doomed it to failure. On 24 February 1895 and a little before insurrection was re-started, followed by landings of major Cuban independence fighters near Baracoa, starting the Cuban second major War of Independence, commonly called the War of '95. Soon, Martí was killed, but Máximo Gomez and Antonio Maceo fight on defeating the Spanish Governor Arsenio Martínez Campos victor of the Ten Year War himself and killing his most trusted general at Peralejo, and in a brilliant cavalry campaign "invade," all provinces [13]. This is the campaign in which Winston Churchill receives a medal from the Spanish [14]. Maceo is killed in Havana province while returning from the west [15], but Calixto Garcia, escapes Spain and soon is at it again, taking Spanish strong places with cannon and infantry. As the war goes on the major limit to Cuban success is weapons supply, strangely enough although the weapons and funding come from within the US the major obstacle is the US Coast Guard; of 71 re-supply missions only 27 get through, 5 are caught by the Spanish but 33 by the US Coast Guard [16].

Riots in Havana by dangerously rawdy pro-Spanish "Voluntarios" gave the United States a reason to send in the warship USS Maine (to protect U.S. citizens). When the ship blew up on 15 February 1898, the United States, alleging that it had been deliberately destroyed by the Spanish, declared war. Various theories have been proposed for how the ship was sunk, with the two principal ones being an internal explosion sparked by a coal bunker fire and an external mine, variously attributed to being planted by the Spanish who commonly used these devices as protection for their ports, the Cubans, and the United States (to create an excuse to enter the war). While no conclusive evidence has been found to absolutely determine the cause of the ship's sinking, the Spanish-American War that led directly not only to Cuban independence from Spain, but also the loss by Spain of Guam, Puerto Rico, the Philippines to U.S. control. On 17 July 1898 the Spanish surrendered and on 10 December 1898 they signed the Treaty of Paris in which Spain recognized Cuban independence, albeit with considerable U.S. control, which was resented by the Cubans.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Minor Wars", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki