A little Cuban History

This is an aviation story, so I will not invest too much time on this subject.  It is however crucial for the reader to have at least some basic knowledge about what historical events led to the Cuban Revolution, in order to fully understand the story I am about to write.

Cuba is the largest Island in the Caribbean, located just south of Florida.  Havana, Cuba's capital city is located just 160 km from Key West, and 350 km from Miami.  Cuba is a large island.  To drive from one end of the other of the island, one must drive about 1500 kilometres, which, even with today's roads, would take close to 18 hours.

Before the European conquest, Cuba was inhabited by several hundred thousand american natives, the Guanajatabey, the Taíno and the Ciboney. Christopher Columbus landed on the island in 1492 and soon Cuba was invaded and colonized by the Spaniards. The Spaniard were very harsh with the natives, who within less than one century had ceased to exist as a people.  One cannot state that they were totally annihilated for DNA tests of most old Cuban families will reveal significant percentage of native DNA. When the Spaniards decided to invest in the sugar industry, mostly after 1804, they imported large quantities of slaves from Africa. Slavery was only abolished in Cuba in 1886.  There were several insurrectionist movements in Cuba over the centuries: the Natives against the Spanish invaders, the Black Slaves against the Spaniards, and finally the Spaniard Creoles (Cuban-born whites Spaniards) against Spain.  In the latter part of the 19th century, Cuba, a Spanish Colony, was doing a lot of trade with the United States, which bought the bulk of the Cuban sugar production. When Cuban nationalists fought the bloody War of Independence against Spain (1895 to 1898) to try to gain their independence, the US intervened by declaring war on Spain.  It ended withing weeks with a US victory after what was essentially a naval war.  The US then took control of the island from the Cuban Nationalist who had shed so much blood to gain independence and ruled Cuba until 1903 when it was granted "Independence" after "elections" in which the sole candidate was a US citizen of Cuban ancestry living in the US. As one of the conditions for granting "Independence" to the Cubans, the US asked that they be given space on the Island to establish a coaling station for its warships : this is the origin of the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base that we will talk about later.

From 1903 to 1959, Cuban politics saw numerous regimes come and go, each with varying degrees of independence or subservience to the United States, but during the whole period, Cuba stayed well with the US sphere of influence, in a period where the Monroe Doctrine set the rules.

With Cuba under US rule, US investments flowed into in, mostly in the sugar and mining industries. Large sugar mills, called Centrales, were built throughout the island. These were like small cities, that in addition to the sugar producing facilities, often had administrative buildings, houses to lodge the US administrators and their families, a school and a club for the foreigners and even a clinic for the American and the mid-level Cuban administrative and technical staff. Rail companies, were created throughout Cuba to link Cuba's major cities, which were eventually merged into the existing Cuban Rail Service. When aviation came of age, mostly after World War One, airports were built at all major Cuban cities.  Most large Centrales, also added airstrips to their existing facilities.

With the huge US investments in the Cuban sugar industry, came an increased need for cheap labour.  After the US invaded Haiti in 1915, the Centrales began importing Haitian braceros (cane cutters) to Cuba to help cut the sugar cane.  That led to the establishment of a large black Haitian minority in Cuba, mostly in the eastern parts of the country.

During World War Two, the US built two large airbases in Cuba, San Antonio de Los Banos, and San Julian,  (in addition to the one they already had at Guantanamo).  These were used, along with other existing Cuban civilian airports, for antisubmarine and maritime patrol, to ward off and hunt German submarines.

A fairly large Cuban middle class was created during those years that profited from these US investments.  The dark skinned Cubans, however, those who until 1886, 17 years before independence, had mostly been slaves, were kept in the sugar cane fields in sub-human conditions and were barred from Cuban social life.  Others lived in the mountains living off coffee plantations.  As the condition of the Cuban high and middle classes improved, the condition of the poor campesinos, regardless of race and that of the mulatto and black Cubans didn't improve much at all.

After World War Two, there was an economic boom in Cuba, when the tourism industry began to flourish, which lasted until the very end of the Cuban revolution, in late 1958.

In 1958, Cuba was probably the most prosperous and advanced Caribbean island, or even Latin American Country.   It was a paradise for its rich elite and a comfortable country for its large middle class.  That didn't make it a paradise for a large proportion of its poor citizens, most of which were those with the darker skin tone.