Independence of Cuba: Summary

Behind the discovery of America in 1492 by Christopher ColumbusPart of its territory became dependent colonies of the Spanish Viceroyalty and, among them, Cuba. Cuba was one of the great economic powers for Spain since it invested in the large plantations of tobacco, sugar and coffee to later establish foreign trade with other countries that demanded these highly valued products at that time in Europe. Next, in this lesson from a PROFESSOR, we are going to see what that process of independence consisted in, in which Cuba ceased to be a colony of the Spanish state. Keep reading and you will be able to access a summary of the independence of Cuba to understand how this country severed its ties with Spain.

We will start this summary of the independence of Cuba speaking of the antecedents to said revolt. Since 1810 small riots with pro-independence airs in many Spanish colonies in America especially in Cuba. Spain, in order to avoid this separation, granted him a small freedom in the fact of trading with other foreign countries. Another aspect that did not encourage separation was that the vast majority of the Cuban population was made up of Spaniards and the Creole race.

The real movements in favor of independence began when, after the Cadiz Constitution was proclaimed in 1820, Cuba sent three Cuban representatives led by Félix Valera who asked for independence among other things and these were removed from the Spanish Cortes since Cuba was not considered as a province but as a colony. Even so, Varela became the forger of that independence thought.

Thirty years later, the demand for sugar declined as many Cuban liberal sectors ended up being linked to US politics, which at that time was their main buyer.

We continue with this summary of the independence of Cuba, already entering the dawn of the war. In 1868 the first war of independence, known as the Yara's Scream and that's when Carlos Manuel de Céspedes (a prestigious landowner lawyer) started a series of struggles. At the same time, in the United States the Cuban Revolutionary Party headed by José Martí that he was deported from the Cuban island for demonstrating his patriotism, and whose objective was to achieve the independence of Cuba and Puerto Rico.

They both fought to manifest the independence and antislavery idealss. Ten years later, in 1878, the war ended with the Peace of Zanjón. Concessions were made between both parties, on the one hand General Arsenio Martínez Campos (a Spanish politician and military officer) who compensated the Cuban revolutionaries, among many other things, with the freedom of the slaves who were within the insurgent ranks and, of the same Thus, it was also granted to anyone who wanted to leave the island to do so by providing the Spanish government with all the means for the output of him.

After a period of relative calm in 1895 there was again a second stage of independence led by José Martí, General Máximo Gómez (head of the revolutionary troops) and Antonio Maceo (military chief of the Army Liberator of Cuba), which was joined by Puerto Rico who, like Cuba, also wanted his independence. These also lacked rights and their power was based on having to pay the large landowners if they wanted to obtain resources, from In this way they set fire to the fields in which they worked, the tobacco factories, so that workers and peasants joined the revolution.

Spain, faced with such a situation, stopped those revolutionary attacks although it could not prevent José Martí and his army from occupying the east of the island. Once they had seized this part, the next objective was to reach the western end of the island which was where the economic part was truly located and the one with the largest number of slaves counted. Among the conquests obtained by the Cuban revolutionaries, we must highlight the Trocha de Júcaro a Morón.

In order to paralyze the crossing of the Spanish troops commanded by Arsenio Martínez Campos to the west, Martínez Campos found himself failed before this rebellion and he was replaced by General Valeriano Weyler, who carried out an atrocious military policy that consisted of placing peasants in concentration camps in order to deprive the rebels of the support of the rural inhabitants who work in the fields.

More than one hundred thousand Cubans died without a food base, yet the Cubans did not resist and Weyler was unable to defeat them. Both Martí and Maceo died in the war.

We finish this summary of Cuban independence reaching the end of this war. In 1897 the United States protested that the war was affecting their interests since this was who he intervened to a greater degree in the production of sugar, demanding reforms from Spain to obtain peace.

The Cubans affirmed that this peace would only come if they achieved independence and it was before the destruction of the American battleship Maine what implied the entrance of the United States in the combat accusing Spain of this disaster.

The United States declares war on Spain, managing to defeat the Spanish army in Cuba and the Philippines that, together with Puerto Rico, they were ceded by Spain to the United States after the signing of the Treaty of Paris in the year 1898. These continued to be colonies but this time of the United States until 1902, which was when Cuba declared itself independent after having approved a draft Constitution that included the Platt Amendment for which the United States only ran the Cuban economy until 1934, which was when it was repealed.