Cuba Libre: A 500-Year Quest for Independence Read online

  Cuba Libre

  A 500-Year Quest for Independence

  Philip Brenner and Peter Eisner

  Rowman & Littlefield

  Lanham • Boulder • New York • London

  Published by Rowman & Littlefield

  A wholly owned subsidiary of The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc.

  4501 Forbes Boulevard, Suite 200, Lanham, Maryland 20706

  www.rowman.com

  Unit A, Whitacre Mews, 26-34 Stannary Street, London SE11 4AB, United Kingdom

  Copyright © 2018 by Rowman & Littlefield

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote passages in a review.

  British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Brenner, Philip, author. | Eisner, Peter, author.

  Title: Cuba libre : a 500-year quest for independence / Philip Brenner and Peter Eisner.

  Other titles: Cuba libre, a 500-year quest for independence

  Description: Lanham, MD : Rowman & Littlefield, [2018] | Includes bibliographical references and index.

  Identifiers: LCCN 2017023124 (print) | LCCN 2017034717 (ebook) | ISBN 9780742566712 (electronic) | ISBN 9780742566699 (hardback : alk. paper) | ISBN 9780742566705 (pbk. : alk. paper)

  Subjects: LCSH: Cuba—History—1895– | National liberation movements—Cuba—History. | Cuba—History—Autonomy and independence movements.

  Classification: LCC F1776 (ebook) | LCC F1776 .B73 2018 (print) | DDC 972.91/05—dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017023124

  The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992.

  Printed in the United States of America

  Contents

  Contents

  Preface

  Part I: 1492–1958

  1 Columbus Arrives and Spain Colonizes Cuba, 1492–1550

  2 Sugar and Slavery

  3 Struggle for Independence, 1868–1898

  4 Cuban Independence War and US Occupation

  5 From Occupation to “Good Neighbor”

  6 Playground of the Western World and the Rise of Batista, 1934–1958

  7 The Revolutionary Struggle, 1953–1958

  Part II: 1959–1989

  8 The Quest for Sovereignty

  9 Consolidating the Revolution

  10 Consolidating the Revolution

  11 Bay of Pigs/Playa Girón

  12 The Missile Crisis

  13 Foreign Policy in the 1960s

  14 Internal Adjustments and Advancing Equality, 1963–1975

  15 Becoming a Third World Leader, 1970s

  16 Mariel Exodus—A Warning Signal, 1980

  17 Change and Rectification at Home and Abroad, 1980s

  Part III: 1990–2016

  18 The “Special Period” in a Time of Peace, 1990–2000

  19 The Cuban Diaspora and Racial Inequality

  20 Helms-Burton, US-Cuban Relations, and Terrorism, 1995–1998

  21 The Pope Goes to Cuba; Elián Goes to Miami, 1998–2000

  22 The Search for a Viable Strategy, 2001–2006

  23 The Transition from Fidel to Raúl Castro, 2006–2009

  24 Securing Cuba’s Independence through Economic Change, 2010–2016

  25 Securing Cuba’s Independence through Foreign Policy, 2010–2016

  26 Change, Continuity, and the Future

  Appendix

  Bibliography

  Preface

  The tocororo, or trogon in English, is Cuba’s national bird. Cubans commonly account for the country’s selection of this beautiful tropical species by noting that its red, white, and blue feathers are the same colors as Cuba’s flag (see photo on back cover). A second explanation is that a tocororo cannot survive in captivity and will die if caged. Thus, the tocororo reflects Cuba’s national character, Cuba libre, a people who demand to be free.

  While their pursuit of freedom has been evident for five hundred years, Cubans began to articulate the goal in terms of nationhood during the nineteenth century. Independence leaders believed that with national sovereignty, Cubans “collectively could do something about the forces that governed their lives,” in the words of historian Louis A. Pérez Jr., whose research and sensibilities have informed much of this book. “Nation promised agency and autonomy—for Cubans to be responsible only to themselves.”1

  The vision of a sovereign and independent nationhood animated the revolutionaries who overthrew the dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista on January 1, 1959, and it has been their source of inspiration since then. To be sure, Cuba’s decisions in the last sixty years—the period on which this book focuses the most attention—were not always consistent with the vision. Its defense from US attacks and sanctions, and its relationship with the Soviet Union from 1960 to 1991, reduced options available to Cuba’s leaders. When the Soviet relationship ended, compromises dictated by the need to find new markets and sources of income seemed to move the country further off a course aimed at the vision. Yet the leaders’ determination to maintain as much independence for Cuba as possible often led them to make choices that seemed to defy conventional economic wisdom. Today, too, as the country lurches through a process of “updating” its political and economic organization, independence and sovereignty remain core goals that Cuba’s leaders are most concerned about relinquishing.

  Importantly, Cuba’s leaders are not the only ones to hold this aspiration. When a gravely ill Fidel Castro handed his conductor’s baton to Raúl Castro in 2006, there was none of the turmoil or chaos that many US policymakers and Cuban exiles had anticipated. The revolutionary regime did not collapse. While Fidel was the indispensable person without whom the Cuban Revolution would have taken a different course, it also had an organic quality based on an implicit social contract between leaders and followers. The broad mass of Cubans had acquired a personal dignity that they associated with the Revolution’s pursuit of national independence.

  In emphasizing the importance that Cubans attach to freedom and sovereignty, we do not ignore other explanations for Cuban behavior. These include the roles played by: personality and charisma; institutions and organizational dynamics that can corrupt how well an institution fulfills its intended function; ideology and ideological rigidity; legacies of racism, sexism, and colonialism; and external adversaries, pressures, and alliances. Yet the framework of Cuba Libre offers a compelling way to understand Cuba and is one that tends to be denigrated and dismissed in the United States. Cuba libre is so deeply ingrained in Cuba that we needed to begin our chronological narrative with its origins, when Europeans first encountered Cuba a little more than five hundred years ago.

  * * *

  We have written this book to serve the interests and needs of several audiences. Since December 2014, an increasing number of travelers from the United States—some who devise their own itinerary, some who rely on licensed organizations, and some who are students at US universities—have been going to Cuba on educational trips. This history provides them with the background to appreciate what they have experienced or will encou
nter. We expect the book will be useful also for a general audience curious about Cuba and for those in courses studying Latin America, third world politics, or Cuba itself. Finally, we hope this book will be instructive for a less obvious group—those with an interest in US foreign policy.

  While Cuba Libre is not about Cuban-US relations, the connections between Cuba and the United States are so varied and strong that we examine the history of the relationship extensively in several chapters. In doing so, we approach the subject empathetically by placing the reader in each country’s shoes, examining how each understood a particular context and sought to navigate a course through the context it perceived in order to achieve its goals. In this regard, note that we refer generally to Cuban leaders Fidel Castro and Raúl Castro by their first names, unlike our references to US presidents or other Cuban officials. This decision is due neither to familiarity nor bias; we name the leaders the way Cubans do.

  * * *

  When our patient, wise, and creative editor at Rowman & Littlefield, Susan McEachern, approached us to write this book many years ago, we imagined the task would be relatively easy and benefit from our complementary strengths. Philip Brenner took the first of his many trips to Cuba in 1974, had studied the country’s history, and wrote about and taught courses on Cuban foreign policy and Cuban-US relations. Peter Eisner had reported stories from Cuba on three different occasions, and had lived in Latin America and written about the region as a journalist and editor for the Associated Press, Newsday, and the Washington Post. But as we probed the subject, we realized how much more we needed to learn. In the process of acquiring this knowledge, we have built up debts to many more people than we name here, but we do want to acknowledge some in particular.

  We appreciate the research assistance given to us by Sarah Barnett, Alex D’Agostino, Kathleen Fairchild, Kia Hall, Uri Lerner, Emanuel Saavedra, Colleen Scribner, Althea Skinner, Paul Sparks, and Simone Williams. Our special thanks is reserved for Teresa Garcia Castro, whose knowledge and understanding of Cuban culture and history, and scrupulous dedication to accuracy, strengthened the book in countless ways.

  Over the years, many people in Cuba have tried to help us understand the country. We especially appreciate the time and efforts of Ricardo Alarcon, Carlos Alzugaray, José Antonio Arbesú, Miguel Barnet, Hope Bastian, Jorge Bolaños, José Ramón Cabañas, Soraya Castro, Carlos Ciaño, Tomas Díez, Pablo Armando Fernández, Alfonso Fraga, Marc Frank, Fernando Garcia, Jorge Hernández, Rafael Hernández, Warnel Lores, Orlando Marquez, Milagros Martínez, Pedro Monreal, Martha Morales, Marta Nuñez, Jorge Mario Sánchez, Ramón Sánchez-Parodi, Ricardo Torres, Josefina Vidal, and Oscar Zanetti.

  Philip Brenner benefited from research support by American University’s Center for Latin American and Latino Studies at American University.

  In addition to the essential efforts of Susan McEachern, we appreciate the professionalism and efficiency of the production team at Rowman & Littlefield, Rebeccah Shumaker and Janice Braunstein.

  We will donate our royalties from this book to a scholarship fund for interns at the Institute for Policy Studies named in honor of Saul Landau, who died in 2013. Saul was a dear friend and colleague who encouraged us to know Cuba from the perspective of Cubans, to write about Cuba honestly, and to work tirelessly as he did to improve US-Cuba relations for the benefit of people in both countries. We hope this book lives up to his demands and carries on his mission.

  Our spouses, Betsy Vieth and Musha Salinas, have endured cheerfully more absence and aggravation from us than either of our marriage contracts required, and we have been blessed to have their support.

  Note

  1. Louis A. Pérez, Jr., The Structure of Cuban History: Meanings and Purpose of the Past (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2013), 4.

  Part I

  1492–1958

  Chapter 1

  Columbus Arrives and Spain Colonizes Cuba, 1492–1550

  Those that arriv’d at these Islands from the remotest parts of Spain, and who pride themselves in the Name of Christians, steer’d Two courses principally, in order to the Extirpation, and Exterminating of this People from the face of the Earth. The first whereof was raising an unjust, sanguinolent, cruel War. The other, by putting them to death, who hitherto, thirsted after their Liberty, or design’d (which the most Potent, Strenuous and Magnanimous Spirits intended) to recover their pristin Freedom, and shake off the Shackles of so injurious a Captivity: For they being taken off in War, none but Women and Children were permitted to enjoy the benefit of that Country-Air, in whom they did in succeeding times lay such a heavy Yoak, that the very Brutes were more happy than they: To which Two Species of Tyranny as subalternate things to the Genus, the other innumerable Courses they took to extirpate and make this a desolate People, may be reduced and referr’d.

  —Bartolomé de las Casas1

  Columbus Encounters Cuba

  “I never saw a lovelier sight. . . . It is the most beautiful island ever seen,” Captain Christopher Columbus wrote in his journal when he encountered Cuba.2 The explorer believed it was Japan, the headlands to Cathay, or perhaps an island that led to the westward passage. The details of Columbus’s first voyage to the Americas come from the writings of Bartolomé de las Casas, a Dominican priest whose father sailed on Columbus’s second voyage to the Americas in 1493. Las Casas himself traveled to the West Indies with his father in 1502. Still a young man, he recounted the story of Columbus’s explorations—including portions and a summary of Columbus’s lost journal of the 1492 voyage.

  While lying offshore in a rainstorm, before dawn on October 28, 1492, Columbus was welcomed by the indigenous inhabitants, men and women naked and bronzed by the sun. These were the Taino Indians; they had watched and waited as the Spanish ships cautiously approached. The Tainos warmly welcomed these beings on their godlike vessels that floated on the waters.

  Columbus and his men found that the native people were “innocently simple,” as las Casas wrote, “altogether void of and averse to all manner of Craft, Subtlety and Malice, and most Obedient and Loyal Subjects to their Native Sovereigns; and behave themselves very patiently, submissively and quietly towards the Spaniards, to whom they are subservient and subject.”3

  His three ships had arrived in the Americas on October 12, 1492, touching land in the Bahamas archipelago, most likely on what is now Watling Island. He referred to the people he encountered—the Taino and other indigenous groups—as Indians, assuming he had reached India; and these people told him that further on there was another land they called Colba. An alteration of that indigenous name from the Taino language gave Cuba its modern name. Beautiful though it was, the island was protected by shallows and treacherous shoals. Columbus reached Cuba two weeks later, disembarking along the northeastern coast, probably at or near today’s port town of Gibara.

  Map 1.1. Map of America by Diego Ribero, 1529. Geography and Map Division, Kohl Collection no. 41 (4), Library of Congress, Washington, DC.

  The expedition to the “New World” was embroiled in European politics, the drive toward opening trade routes to Asia, and specifically the allure of discovering new sources of wealth. Columbus had set sail from Spain on August 3, 1492, with three ships, the Niña, Pinta, and Santa Maria. His voyage represented the culmination of seven years of maneuvering and lobbying with the Spanish court and the kings of Portugal and England. Its official purpose, to establish a western passage to China and India and to find gold and other riches, served Columbus’s personal goal of acquiring political power; he later demanded the title of Great Admiral of the Ocean Sea. Ferdinand and Isabella financed the fitting of the three ships and agreed to give the Italian explorer a portion of the wealth he would gather on the journey.

  Despite Columbus’s shortcomings as a navigator—faulty calculations fed his hope and mistaken notion that a voyage of a month would land him in Asia—the enterprise wa
s equivalent to the most death-defying feat imaginable, as if modern-day astronauts were set free from the tethers of the known world. The prevailing view had been that anyone sailing west would die of thirst and starvation before reaching land. In fact, no ship of his day could have stocked enough food and fresh water for the trip he had envisioned.

  According to las Casas’s account, Columbus explored Cuba for about five weeks. Finding neither riches nor signs of the Chinese empire, at the beginning of December he set sail eastward toward Hispaniola in search of gold, carrying six Cuban Indians as slaves. He and his crew did in fact discover quantities of gold on Hispaniola’s northern coast. As a result, he left behind a troop of thirty-nine men on Hispaniola to search for more; loaded the Niña and Pinta with gold, spices, and provisions; and embarked on the return voyage to Europe. The Santa Maria was abandoned after being disabled off the coast of what is now northwestern Haiti.

  Columbus’s return to Europe with his spoils and exotic tales provoked competition among the Spanish and Portuguese monarchs for mounting a larger expedition, and Columbus easily was able to outfit sixteen ships.4 He set out on his second voyage on September 25, 1493, with 1,500 men, many of whom intended to be colonists and a large cadre of whom would serve as soldiers to subdue any indigenes who might stand in their way. They brought munitions, artillery, horses, seeds, and agricultural tools, along with merchandise for trading with the native peoples.5 When he reached the settlement that he had established on Hispaniola, any hope of peaceful coexistence was discarded. Columbus found that all the members of his first crew had been massacred by the Indians, who had recognized quickly the greedy intent and aggressiveness of the Europeans.

  In April 1494, six months after his second arrival in the New World, Columbus sailed back across the Windward Passage to Cuba. This time he explored Cuba’s southern coast, moving westward from Guantánamo Bay. He continued to believe that Cuba was a peninsula, part of the Chinese mainland, reasoning that no one previously had encountered an island so large.6 Still, without seeing China, he went back to Hispaniola in the late summer. There he launched a series of punishing attacks on the Indians. When he subsequently disembarked in Spain at the end of his second expedition, Columbus displayed five hundred Indians whom he hoped to sell as slaves. He was greeted as a conquering hero, garnered widespread praise for his daring adventures, and finally achieved his personal ambition as the Spanish crown granted Columbus the right to rule over Cuba.