Cuban Cruise: Political Perspective

Empress of the Seas anchored at Havana’s Port two days as we did bus and walking tours. I increasingly gained respect for the Cuban people as sequenced history revealed their tumultuous past. Consider:

1522: first African slaves, 1555: piracy age begins

1607: Havana becomes capital, port for Mexican/Peruvian silver trade

1741: British Admiral Vernon captured Cuba; yellow fever ends British war

1762: British occupy until exchanged for FL in 1763, Anglo-Spanish 7 years’ war

1791: French fled Haiti rebellion, coffee established

1808: Jefferson begins U.S. interest in Cuba

1868: 10-year war against Spain, 1896 Maceo killed

1886: Cuba abolishes slavery; 1892: Jose Marti, dies a martyr

1896: General Maceo killed during Spanish-US War; U.S. occupies Cuba 1898

1920: Sugar makes fortunes

1925: Gen. Machado establishes public works program, becomes a despot

1933: Batista revolt; 1952: bloodless coup; 1953; Castro leads rebels; 1955-59 Che Guerera’s revolt; 1958: Bautista “El Hombre” leads 3 decades; 1959: Castro welcomed

1960: Castro (PM 1959-1976) sells sugar to Russians

1961: U. Bay of Pigs Invasion; 1962: Soviet Union installs missiles

1967: Guerera killed in Bolivia; 1968: 58,000  small businesses reformed; 1970: sugar declines to a stop, 2002; Castro president, 1976-2008

1976: Cuban jet attacked by terrorists, 75 killed; by 1980: 125,000 fled to U.S.

1988: Cuban forces in Angola; 1991: Castro’s “Time of Peace”; Soviet collapse

1996: Cuba shoots Miami”s Brothers’ rescue plane

2003: Bush restricts travel; 2006 Raul replaces Fidel; 2009: Obama lifts visit restrictions

2008: Raul Castro re-elected, licenses 175 private businesses in 2011

2014: Obama est. diplomatic ties and telecommunications, aid to Cuba

2016: Trump declares no Cuban terrain travel; Fidel Castro dies Much more to follow these neighbors to the southeast of the U.S. Are we learning from our past? They appear to be doing so from theirs.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Walking past a horse-drawn buggy, a shiny vintage cab, and a new checkered cab van in Cienfuegos, the Pearl of the Caribbean, the centuries of revolt came alive beneath the watchful gaze of Jose Marti’s statue. I could almost hear the strains of “Guantanemero” with Marti’s poetry inflaming hearts between the well-known verses. I could easily “come back to Guantanemero”–or Cienfuego–or Cuba’s soil.