Historia Cultural de Cuba, Episodio 4 - Cuba en los siglos XVI, XVII, XVIII (With English subtitles) (Maig 2024)
Moviment independentista cubà, revolta nacionalista a Cuba contra el domini espanyol. Va començar amb la infructuosa Guerra dels deu anys (Guerra de los Diez Años; 1868–78) i va culminar amb la intervenció dels Estats Units que va acabar amb la presència colonial espanyola a les Amèriques (vegeu la guerra hispanoamericana).
Cuba: filibusterització i lluita per la independència
Les exigències de sucre (peons, capital, màquines, habilitats tècniques i mercats) van estrènyer les relacions ètniques, agreujar la política i l’economia
Descontents amb l’administració espanyola corrupta i ineficient, la manca de representació política i els impostos elevats, els cubans de les províncies orientals es van unir sota el ric plantador Carlos Manuel de Céspedes, la declaració de la independència de l’octubre de 1868, el Grito de Yara (“crit de Yara” ”), Va assenyalar l’inici de la Guerra dels Deu Anys, en què es van perdre 200.000 vides. Céspedes va comptar amb el suport d’alguns propietaris de terres, l’interès principal dels quals era la independència econòmica i política d’Espanya, mentre que els pagesos i els treballadors estaven més preocupats per l’abolició immediata de l’esclavitud i el major poder polític per a l’home comú.
El 1876 Espanya va enviar al general Arsenio Martínez Campos per aixafar la revolució. Al mancar d'organització i de suport extern important, els rebels van acordar un armistici el febrer de 1878 (Pacte de Zanjón), els termes dels quals prometien amnistia i reforma política. Una segona revolta, La Guerra Chiquita ("La petita guerra"), dissenyada per Calixto García, va començar l'agost de 1879, però va ser atropellada per forces superiors espanyoles a la tardor de 1880. Espanya va donar representació a Cuba a les Corts (parlament) i va abolir l'esclavitud el 1886. Tanmateix, altres reformes promeses no es van concretar mai.
In 1894 Spain canceled a trade pact between Cuba and the United States. The imposition of more taxes and trade restrictions prodded the economically distressed Cubans in 1895 to launch the Cuban War of Independence, a resumption of the earlier struggle. Poet and journalist José Julián Martí, the ideological spokesman of the revolution, drew up plans for an invasion of Cuba while living in exile in New York City. Máximo Gómez y Báez, who had commanded the rebel troops during the Ten Years’ War, was among those who joined Martí’s invasion force. Although Martí was killed (and martyred) in battle about one month after initiation of the invasion on April 11, 1895, Gómez and Antonio Maceo employed sophisticated guerrilla tactics in leading the revolutionary army to take control of the eastern region. In September 1895 they declared the Republic of Cuba and sent Maceo’s forces to invade the western provinces.
By January 1896 rebel forces controlled most of the island, and the Spanish government replaced Martínez Campos with Gen. Valeriano Weyler y Nicolau, who soon became known as El Carnicero (“The Butcher”). In order to deprive the revolutionaries of the rural support on which they depended, Weyler instituted a brutal program of “reconcentration,” forcing hundreds of thousands of Cubans into camps in the towns and cities, where they died of starvation and disease by the tens of thousands.
In 1897 Spain recalled Weyler and offered home rule to Cuba, and the next year it ordered the end of reconcentration. In the meantime, the rebels continued to control most of the countryside. Perhaps more important, they had won the sympathy of the vast majority of the Cuban people to their cause. Moreover, news of Spanish atrocities and tales of rebel bravery were splashed in the yellow journalism headlines of William Randolph Hearst’s New York Journal, which beat the drums of war.
When the USS Maine sank in Havana’s harbour in February 1898 after a mysterious explosion, the United States had pretext for going to war, and the Spanish-American War ensued. By the time of the American intervention in Cuba in April 1898, Maceo had been killed, but the war proved to be brief and one-sided. It was over by August 12, when the United States and Spain signed a preliminary peace treaty. By the Treaty of Paris of December 10, 1898, Spain withdrew from Cuba. A U.S. occupation force remained for more than three years, leaving only after the constitution of the new Republic of Cuba had incorporated the provisions of the Platt Amendment (1901), a rider to a U.S. appropriations bill, which specified the conditions for American withdrawal. Among those conditions were (1) the guarantee that Cuba would not transfer any of its land to any foreign power but the United States, (2) limitations on Cuba’s negotiations with other countries, (3) the establishment of a U.S. naval base in Cuba, and (4) the U.S. right to intervene in Cuba to preserve Cuban independence. Thus, the creation of the Republic of Cuba was effected on May 20, 1902.
