THE first tourist to the balmy island of Cuba, went ashore Oct. 28, 1492, sword in one hand, cross in the other, saying: “The most beautiful land human eyes have ever beheld.” The gentle Siboney Indians left their hammocks and met Christopher Columbus, crying: “Peace, we are friends.” A quarter of a century after Columbus’ first voyage to the New World, Cuba’s gold and precious woods adorned Madrid, and many Indians had died of overwork and by their own hands. Blackbirders slid into Havana harbor with Negro slaves, and on their wretched backs rose an elegant, sugar-based society of stately mansions.
The U.S. cast covetous eyes at the “Pearl of the Antilles”; Thomas Jefferson said: “We must have Cuba.” But while other Spanish colonies rebelled, Cuba reveled in its reputation as Spain’s “Ever Faithful Isle.” Not until 1868 did revolution start. A planter named Carlos Manuel de Céspedes, crying “Freedom or Death,” burned his hacienda near the town of Yara, freed his slaves and began a 30-year struggle. Máximo (“The Fox”) Gómez and Antonio (“The Lion”) Maceo rallied 26,000 Cubans to the “Grito de Yara [Cry of Yara]” and fought a hit-and-run war. In 1878 the Spaniards offered political reforms, then betrayed their promises. The Ten Year War cost 258,000 lives.
The Poet-Hero. In 1895 a frail, romantic poet renewed the call to freedom. He was José Martí, who had spent six months in ball and chain for such lines as:
Oh, how sweet it is when one dies Fighting audaciously for one’s country*
Marti re-recruited the Lion and the Fox, and on April 11, 1895 landed in Oriente, the rebel lair. Six weeks later, at 42, he died sweetly in battle, and Cuba got its national hero. Spain vowed: “Cuba shall remain Spanish though it takes the last man and the last peseta.” Rebel General Gómez vowed: “We will be free, though we have to raise a tomb in each home.” New York Herald Correspondent Stephen Bonsai, father of the new U.S. Ambassador to Cuba, visited Havana’s Laurel Ditch, the Spanish execution ground, and wrote: “Clots of dark human blood, as we slipped on it, clung to our feet like glue. In the wall, a thousand ghastly bullet holes.” Spain’s efficient, Prussian-descended General Valeriano (“The Butcher”) Weyler, the elegant Marquis of Tenerife, decreed that the noncombatants be rounded up into huge concentration camps. In Havana province alone, 50,000 prisoners starved to death. After the U.S.S. Maine exploded in Havana harbor, the U.S. outcry brought a declaration of war, sent the Marines and Teddy Roosevelt’s Rough Riders to free Cuba.
Major General Leonard Wood, original commander of the Rough Riders, moved up to govern Cuba, and in 90 days stamped out the Aëdes aegypti mosquito, freeing Havana of yellow fever for the first time in 140 years. Four years after the U.S. marched in, it marched out.
“President of 1,000 Murders.” Martí had predicted that “rascals will struggle to infest politics.” After the administration, of First President Tomás Estrada Palma (1902-06), who died in poverty, Cuba never knew an honest President. No. 2 retired to a $250,000 mansion; No. 3 parlayed $1,000,000 into $30 million to $40 million; No. 4 was known as “the peseta stealer.” No. 5, Gerardo (“The Butcher”) Machado (1925-33), coupled graft with terror, rode in a $30,000 armored car, had some of his victims fed to the sharks. President Franklin D. Roosevelt dispatched suave Diplomat Sumner Welles to smooth the way for the unseating of the “President of a thousand murders.” Welles began a subtle campaign against Machado inside the army itself, and one afternoon Battalion No. 1 of the Cabana Fortress trained its guns on the yellow-domed palace, whereupon Machado cried: “All right, my boys, I’m through,” and flew off to Nassau. A delirious crowd looted the palace, lynched 18 Machado henchmen and terrorists.
After 1933, Cuba had seven Presidents in seven years, dependent always on the kingmaker, Fulgencio Batista, an orderly-room sergeant who filled the vacuum after Machado. Said he: “I think it would be criminal to take advantage of the power I have achieved; I can never become President.” In 1940 he became President. After four years Batista allowed his hand-picked successor to be defeated in Cuba’s first honest election and retired to Daytona Beach to enjoy his graft. The administrations of Ramón Grau San Martin. (1944-48) and Carlos Prío Socarrás (1948-52) respected civil liberties but not the treasury. Prío amassed millions by the time he fled Batista’s coup.
Despite the looting, Cuba kept growing. Machado’s graft-ridden, 700 mile cross-island highway became the avenue for thriving commerce; Batista’s bribe of high wages to workers widened the consumer class, gave Cuba a living standard not far short of booming Puerto Rico’s. Today Cuba is 75% literate, boasts some of the most advanced social and labor legislation in the hemisphere.
* Paraphrasing Horace: “Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori.”
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