Cuba History Flashcards
This man was a Cuban hero who was born in 1853 and his family left Cuba but he kept it in his heart and dedicated his life to Cuba Libre
José Martí
This man wanted Cuba to govern itself and he was a journalist who published Cuban articles and poems and died in the Spanish American War
José Martí
By 1905 American individuals and companies had bought this percent of the land in rural Cuba
60%
By the 1920s, the United States owned this percent of Cuba’s sugar business
63%
Cuba had this problem where if there is a bad year for crops (such as sugarcane) people make almost no money
A one-crop problem
In these first three decades after Cuba gained independence, there was lots of corruption and stealing from the government as well as bribing
1900-1930
This is when people in power give family members high positions in jobs
Nepotism
These were the years in which the United States had to run Cuba’s government for them
1906-1909, 1912, and from 1917 to 1922
These are two examples of how there were fraudulent elections in Cuba for the first three decades after gaining independence
Ballots could’ve been stuffed or people were denied the right to vote when they should’ve been able to
Eventually all men were allowed to vote in Cuba as long as they were literate, but women were only given the right to vote in this year
1934
Afro Cubans and Black Cubans made the first black political party in the Western Hemisphere called this in 1908
PIC
The PIC was banned in this year and still is to this day
1911
In this year the PIC tried to have a protest, but it resulted in a massacre
1912
Cuba was a popular tourist location that was know primarily for these two main reasons
Their nightclubs and baseball (but people also loved the music and celebrities there as well as many other things)
This was how baseball became so popular in Cuba
Cuban men went to study abroad in the United States and brought it back to their homes and Cubans loved it because it wasn’t from Spain and it felt new and modern because it was from the western culture which they were growing into
Cuba began to get sick of the United States intervening and the Great Depression hit Cubans hard and at this time, this president went into office in Cuba
Machado
President Machado was the leader of Cuba during these years until the final one when he had to leave Cuba
1924-1933
Franklin D Roosevelt tried to help Cubans for this reason
He was worried that we were starting to lose our ties with Cuba
Havana was known as this capital of the world
The nightclub capital of the world
Leaders kept getting into office for this reason
They promised many reforms
People often protested in the streets saying Cuba Libre which means this
Free Cuba
This president of Cuba made three major improvements for the country including he required foreign companies in Cuba to hire Cubans, he gave women the right to vote, and he began land reform
Ramon Grau
Ramon Grau began land reforms, which means this
If your land was previously taken away from you, you could get it back
The United States didn’t like Ramon Grau for this reason
They thought he was too Cuba-focused and we wanted someone in power who we could control more easily
This man was a military leader who the U.S. convinced to start a coup
Fulgencio Batista
This is another word for an uprising against the government
A coup
In this year, Grau’s government collapsed
1934
Fulgencio Batista worked under lots of this type of president, who are presidents who are told what to do and say
Puppet presidents
Behind the scenes, Batista told presidents what to do and say so that every branch of government was under this type of power
Military power
The U.S. liked Batista and thought that they could control him so they repealed this amendment
The Platt Amendment
The United States still wanted something from Cuba so we got this, which is where we keep terrorists to this day
Guantanamo Bay
Batista eventually became president himself, but he left in this year
1944
In this this year, Batista returned to Cuba and led a coup and became president again and made lots of reforms and executed many people
1952
In 1953, this movement took place where 150 people went into the mountains of Cuba and planned an attack on a military post and then followed through with their plan, resulting in many people dying
The 26th of July Movement
Two of the survivors of the 26th of July Movement were these two men
Che Guevara and Fidel Castro
This is the reason why people led out the 26th of July Movement which is still celebrated to this day
They saw such poverty and inequality in Cuba that they decided it was time for a change
These were three of the most well known, recent leaders in Cuba
Che Guevara, Fidel Castro, and Raul Castro
Sometime after the 26th of July Movement, this happened to Fidel Castro
He was arrested
This was the name of the last battle between the Batistas and the government, which Joaquin Castilla was a small character in (this battle was the revolution that overthrew the government)
The Battle of Santa Clara
In this year, Fidel Castro became president
1959
This was the reason why people liked Fidel Castro and elected him president
He was the leader of the revolution which overthrew the government, which was the Battle of Santa Clara
The U.S. didn’t like Castro because he was all about Cuba and because we had lots of land in Cuba, but Castro decided that this would happen to the land owned by the United States
The Americans who owned land in Cuba lost it and it was the Cubans’ again
Castro believed in these two ways of governing a country
Communism and socialism
At the beginning of this decade, the United States wanted to rid the world of communism
The 1960s
The U.S. wanted to keep Cuba under their power, but so did this other nation
The USSR
In this year the United States made a trade embargo with Cuba to punish them which ended up benefiting the USSR because they could get more power over Cuba
1962
In April, 1961, John F Kennedy was the president in the United States and he led this invasion in which he got 1,400 Cuban exiles to go back to Cuba to fight there and he got lots of planes and painted Cuban insignias on the sides so that when they went to Cuba, they would think that Cuba was fighting them
The Bay of Pigs Invasion
During the Bay of Pigs Invasion, 1,400 Cuban exiles went back to Cuba to fight, but when they got there they were met with this many Cuban soldiers because Fidel Castro had heard about what was going to happen and was prepared
25,000 soldiers
During the Bay of Pigs Invasion, this happened to over 1,000 of the Cuban exiles who were sent back to Cuba to fight and were met with 25,000 Cuban soldiers
They were captured and tortured as well as other things
In 1962, this major event happened in which the CIA discovered that Cuba was hiding Russian missiles underground
The Cuban Missile Crisis
During the Cuban Missile Crisis, John F Kennedy didn’t know if we would have to go to nuclear war and he didn’t tell Americans about what was happening for this many days
13 days
During the Cuban Missile Crisis, the United States made a deal that if they left the missiles and didn’t use them, we would do this
Leave turkey, where we had lots of military, and take back our plan to invade Cuba
This was the year that Christopher Columbus came to America with his ships
1492
This was one of the main resources that Columbus found when he went to Cuba as well as he found indigenous Cubans
Livestock
When Columbus introduced Spain to Cuba, Spain treated Cubans as slaves and making them do these things for them as well as bringing lots of disease
Mine gold and get food
The Spaniards treated the Cubans terribly when they first met and they sold this to other people
Their land
When the Spaniards met the Cubans, they banned them from doing this
Practicing their own religion
This is how the Spaniards ruined the Cubans’ crops when they first met
They brought over animals from Spain which destroyed the crops
When the Spaniards came to Cuba, many indigenous Cubans died from these causes since they were being kept as slaves
Malnutrition, suicide, disease, and abuse
By this year there were less than 3,000 indigenous Cubans, even though originally there had been 100,000 indigenous people
1550
Spain wanted Cuba for their resources for these two primary reasons as well as Cuba being Spain’s way into the Caribbean and the new world
Money and power
In this century, everyone wanted sugarcane to make sugar
The 1700s
In this year there was a slave revolt in Haiti where they burned down all of the fields and plantations and went to Cuba and took land there to start sugar plantations there
1791
Cuba had had 3.2% of the sugar in the world in 1770, but by this year it produced one third of the world’s sugar
1862
These were two of the positives of growing sugar in Cuba
Hundreds of miles of roads were built to get sugar to boats and they made new technology to increase the production of sugar and they started to use the technology in other fields other than growing sugar
These were two of the negatives of growing sugar in Cuba
There was lots of deforestation and they stopped exporting tobacco and cattle and started having to import these things
In Cuba, there were these three types of people
White Cubans, black Cubans, and mestizos
This is another word for person who is mixed race
Mestizo
Sugar production increased slavery and they brought in lots of African slaves and 80% of the slaves in Cuba in a 300 year period were arrived in Cuba between these years
1790 and 1867
The average African slave brought to Cuba to help grow sugar died within a period of how many years
Seven
Slaves weren’t completely free until this year, even though on paper it said that they had been since 1856
1886
There were enslaved Africans in some parts of Cuba, while in others, there were Africans in this state
They were free
These were villages where Spaniards didn’t go and people of color (black Cubans and mestizos) could be free
Palenques
In 1792 there were only this many free people of color in Cuba, but by 1841, this many people of color were free
54,000, 153,000
White people in Cuba didn’t know what to do because their slaves were becoming free so they thought that if they joined the United States this would happen in Cuba
Slavery would be preserved
After this state became part of the United States, Cuba wanted to become part of the U.S. even more since they were so close to it
Florida
In 1868 there was this war, which was an attempt to be freed from Spain
The Ten Years War
This was a war which took place in 1895 which was another attempt to be freed from Spain
The War of Independence
This was the continuation of the War of Independence in 1898 which the United States joined to help fight the Spaniards
The Spanish American War
These were four of the reasons why the U.S. may have joined the Spanish American War
To save Cuba from Spain, to help Cuba gain independence, to protect our property and business in Cuba, or to try and take over Cuba
The U.S. won the Spanish American War in a couple of months and signed a treaty with Spain, giving us power over this
Cuba
The United States made Cuba sign the Platt Amendment in this year
1901
The Platt Amendment gave the United States these three rights
It let the United States oversee their finances, intervene with domestic affairs, and they had to lease at least three ports to the U.S. military
