History

On October 27, 1492, upon arriving on the coast of Cuba, Christopher Columbus exclaimed: “This is the most beautiful land that human eyes have seen.” Eighteen years later, Diego Velázquez began the conquest of Cuban territory. From that date the first towns were founded, and at the end of the 16th century the first sugar mills appeared. Two centuries later they were the economic support of Cuba, and the first African slaves began to be introduced to exploit this new industry and introduce one of the elements that, when mixed with Spanish, gave rise to Cuban or Creole. With the advent of the seventeenth century, Cuban waters and coasts were filled with corsairs and pirates who made the smuggling trade flourish. In the middle of the 18th century, an unexpected event shook the economic, political and social panorama of Cuba: the occupation of Havana by the English. During eleven months, more than a thousand ships entered the Havana port that established extensive trade with the Thirteen North American Colonies and introduced more than ten thousand slaves to promote the development of the sugar industry.

Recovered Havana in 1763, in exchange for the Florida Peninsula (discovered and conquered by Spain in the 16th century), Spain introduced in Cuba numerous transformations in all orders; The process of formation of the Cuban nationality was accelerated and the idea of ​​liberation became stronger and stronger.

On October 10, 1868, the struggle for national independence began and the first independence war broke out, which lasted ten years. The culminating figure of the Cuban struggles for independence emerged: José Martí (1853-1895), who founded the Cuban Revolutionary Party and led the 1895 War of Independence.

In 1898 the United States intervened in the Cuban-Spanish war, the government of Washington put an end to the battered Spanish army and did not recognize the government of the Republic of Cuba in Arms. In 1902, the United States Congress passed the Platt Amendment, which authorized the US government to intervene in the country at any time. On May 20, 1902, Cuba was granted formal independence, controlled by an oligarchy dependent on Washington, with the Platt Amendment as an appendix to the Constitution.

In 1923, a small group of patriots in opposition, created the student movement of the University Reform, after the creation of the University Student Federation (FEU). The leader from Marti and Marxist, Julio Antonio Mella, stood out as a leader. It was followed by the founding of the Anti-Imperialist League, the “José Martí” Popular University for workers and other organizations.

On July 26, 1953, a group of young people led by Fidel Castro, attacked the Moncada Barracks in Santiago de Cuba, the second Cuban military fortress, with the aim of arming the people and starting a general insurrection. The attempt failed, for their action they were tried and sentenced to prison, in the Presidio Modelo de Isla de Pinos (today, Isla de la Juventud), but a strong popular campaign obtained the amnesty of the prisoners, who in 1955 traveled to Mexico as exiles.

From exile, Fidel Castro along with his companions, including the Argentine Ernesto “Che” Guevara, organized the expedition of the yacht “Granma” to Cuba and disembarked on December 2, 1956 on Las Coloradas beach, restarting the armed struggle, this time as guerrillas in the mountains of the Sierra Maestra. At the same time, the clandestine struggle was organized throughout the country.

On January 1, 1959, the dictator Fulgencio Batista, definitely defeated by the revolutionary forces, left Cuba. The Cuban Revolution had triumphed. On February 7 of that year, the Constitution of 1940 was restored when the Fundamental Law of the Republic was approved, to which the changes corresponding to the new situation of the country were introduced, such as the granting of legislative power and constituent powers to the Council of Ministers. . President Manuel Urrutia Lleó, a former magistrate, took office and Fidel Castro took office as Prime Minister on February 16. Subsequently, events occurred such as the intervention of the Cuban Telephone Company, the Cooperativa de Ómnibus Aliados and the Ómnibus Metropolitanos and the Agrarian Reform Law was signed.

But the counterrevolutionary opposition, organized from the Dominican Republic and the United States, armed and financed plans against the Cuban Revolution. The invasion of Cuba by Playa Girón occurred, where US army planes and counterrevolutionary forces trained by specialists from that country participated, which constituted a defeat for imperialism. Years later, in 1990, when the socialist camp disappeared in Eastern Europe and the USSR found itself on the brink of disintegration, the US government initiated a new phase of economic blockade against Cuba. Florida legislators presented bills in Congress with the purpose of interrupting transactions between subsidiaries of North American transnational corporations and Cuba, an aspect that had been made more flexible since 1975. They also intended to sanction ships that transport merchandise or passengers at the highest level. from the Antilles (180 days without touching US ports). On October 23, 1992, then-Republican President George Bush signed the so-called Torricelli Act and in 1997, as a continuation of this policy, Chapter II of the Helms-Burton Act was implemented. Washington has spared no effort to internationalize the law, trying to incorporate the European Union and other allies in its policy against the island.