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Hotels in Cuba
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Cuba
The Republic of Cuba consists of the island of Cuba (the largest of the
Greater Antilles), the Isle of Youth and various adjacent small islands.
The name Cuba is said to be derived from the Taíno word cubanacán,
meaning "a central place." It is located in the northern Caribbean at
the confluence of the Caribbean Sea,
the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic Ocean. Cuba is south of the eastern
United States, and the Bahamas, west of the Turks and Caicos Islands and
Haiti, and east of Mexico. The Cayman
Islands and Jamaica are south of eastern Cuba.
History
Cuba was first visited by Europeans when explorer Christopher Columbus
made landfall here for the first time on October 28, 1492, at the
eastern tip of Cuba, in the Cazigazgo of Baracoa. In 1511 Diego
Velázquez de Cuéllar led the Spanish invasion, subdued the indigenous
populations, to become governor of Cuba for Spain and built a villa in
Baracoa, which became the first capital of the island and also in 1518
was technically the seat of the (Diocese) of the first bishops of Cuba.
At that time Cuba was populated by at least two distinct indigenous
peoples: Taíno and Ciboney (or Siboney). Both groups were prehistoric
neolithic, perhaps copper age, cultures. Some scholars consider it
important to distinguish the Taíno from the neo-Taíno nations of Cuba,
the Lucaya of the Bahamas, Jamaica, and to a lesser extent from Haiti
and Quisqueya (approximately the Dominican Republic), since the
neo-Taíno had far more diverse cultural input and a greater societal and
ethnic heterogeneity than the true high Taíno of Boriquen (Puerto Rico).
Most of pre-Colombian inhabitants of Cuba, including the Siboney, can in
first approximation be classified under the general group of neo-Taíno.
The Taíno were skilled farmers and the Ciboney were a hunter-gatherer
society with supplemental farming. Taínos and Ciboney took part in
similar customs and beliefs, one being the sacred ritual practiced using
tobacco called cohoba, known in English as smoking.
The Taínos (Island Arawak) were part of a cultural group commonly called
the Arawak, which extends far into South America. Residues of Taíno
poetry, songs, sculpture, and art are found today throughout the major
Antilles. It is well known that these neo-Taíno had metallurgical
skills, and it has been postulated by some e.g. Paul Sidney Martin that
the inhabitants of these islands mined and exported metals such as
copper (Martin et al. 1947). The Arawak and other such cultural groups
are responsible for the flourishing development of perhaps 60% of crops
in common use today and some major industrial materials such as rubber.
Europeans were shown by the indigenous Cubans how to cultivate tobacco
and to smoke it in various ways.
Approximately 16 to 60 thousand, or perhaps many more, indigenous from
the Taíno and Ciboney nations inhabited Cuba before colonization. The
Indigenous Cuban population, including the Ciboney and the Taíno, were
forced into encomiendas during the Spanish subjugation of the island of
Cuba. One famous mainly indigenous town was Guanabacoa, today a suburb
of Havana. Others were Jiguani, and Baracoa. Many indigenous Cubans fell
victim to the brutality of Spanish conquistadores (as witnessed and
lamented by Bartolomé de Las Casas) and the diseases they brought with
them, which were previously unknown to them. Most Conquistadors took
Taínas as brides, common law wives or as was more frequent had casual
sexual congress with these island women since few Spanish women crossed
the Atlantic in those days of conquest. Their children were called
mestizo, but the residents called them Guajiro, which originating in a
Taino word roughly equivalent to squire has been translated as "one of
us; they became the yeomen of Cuban wars neo-Taíno nations. Today, Taíno
descendants maintain their heritage near Baracoa.
Cuba had first served as base for Spanish conquest of the mainland of
the Americas, but the island was almost depopulated in this effort.
After the conquest of the Americas the resulting treasure, mined gold
and silver, emeralds, chocolate and several then important plant
products such as dyes and medicine was transported in the Spanish
treasure fleet from the Americas and later from the Philippines to Spain
using Cuban ports as safe harbors along the way. In this period there
were further indigenous risings most especially that of Guamá, one of
the last Taino leaders to organize resistance to Spanish rule.
But once Taino/Ciboney uprisings were no longer a concern, new ones
arose from buccaneers, pirates, and privateers (e.g. Jacques de Sores
[5]), Alexander Exquemelin and Henry Morgan) and invasions as other
countries (e.g. England Guantánamo Bay) tried to take the possessions
that the Spanish had gathered for themselves, and their colonial
descendents viewed as their own. Attacks on both ships and cities
required Spain to respond by organizing convoys to protect the ships and
building forts to protect the cities. However, Cuba’s most effective
defense was yellow fever which killed off invading forces.
Spanish mercantilism caused Spain to keep Cuba relatively isolated to
external influences, but beginning with the year long occupation of
Havana by the British in 1762 at the end of the Seven Years' War, Cuba
became more open economically to both the importation of slaves and
advances in sugar cultivation and processing. The massive La Cabaña
fortress, never taken by assault, which completely dominates Havana Bay
was built soon after Havana, exchanged for Florida, was returned to
Spain. However, the fortress would later become infamous as a place of
execution and imprisonment, not unlike the Bastille in Paris. Cuban
colonial forces participated in Spain's efforts during the American
Revolutionary War, helping Spain to gain East and West Florida. Between
1791 to 1804, many French fled to Cuba from the Haitian revolution,
bringing with them slaves and expertise in sugar refining and coffee
growing. As a result Cuba became the world's major sugar producer, but
by 1884, slavery was abolished after having been weakened during the
struggle to secure independence for Cuba.
The colony's struggle for independence lasted throughout the second half
of the 19th century with the first effort with any success being the Ten
Years' War beginning in 1868 . The writer and rebel organizer José Martí
landed in Cuba with rebel exiles in 1895, but little more than a month
later was killed in battle. He remains the major hero in Cuba to this
day, and his legacy is claimed by both the supporters and opponents of
the current government. While he expressed a preference for the U.S.
Constitution and enjoyed some popularity in the United States, he was
concerned about U.S. expansionism.
It is notable that some Taíno first fought the Mambi and then joined
them to comprise the Hatuey Regiment [6]. Between 1895 and early 1898
revolution controlled most of the countryside and some towns, but the
efforts of the Spanish, who held the major cities, to pacify the island
did not cease until the United States occupied the island in the
Spanish-American War of 1898. Cuban independence was granted in 1902,
though limited by the Platt Amendment, which granted the United States a
major influence in Cuban affairs and required Cuba to grant the United
States a lease for Guantánamo Bay. Tomás Estrada Palma (term 1902-1906)
was Cuba's first peacetime and elected president. Using the provisions
of the Platt Amendment, U.S. troops occupied Cuba a second time from
1906 to 1909. The Platt Amendment was revoked in 1934, but the lease of
Guantánamo Bay was extended against a nominal sum.
Fulgencio Batista, a leader of the 1933 Sergeants' Revolt that overthrew
the transitional government after Gerardo Machado’s dictatorship
collapsed, became first the Army Chief of Staff and eventually the man
in charge under a series of presidents. In 1940 he was elected president
himself. He had passed a new progressive constitution and in 1944 left
office retiring to Florida for a time. However, in 1952 Batista seized
power in an almost bloodless coup three months before the planned
election and instituted an oppressive dictatorship. As a result many
civil and guerrilla groups started opposing him.
In 1953, Fidel Castro attacked the Moncada barracks, and was exiled to
Mexico. He returned to Cuba on November 1956 with 82 fighters trained by
Alberto Bayo (a former colonel in the Spanish Republican Army), and with
the help of popular discontent managed to overthrow Batista. Batista
fled the country on 1 January 1959. Castro established a Soviet-leaning
one party Communist state, the first in the Western Hemisphere, although
Castro did not officially reveal his Marxist-Leninist leanings until
1961.
According to Antonio Núñez Jiménez at the time when Batista was deposed,
75% of Cuba's prime farm land was owned by foreign individuals or
foreign (mostly U.S.) companies. Cuba’s main crop was sugar, for the
American and to a lesser extent English market. Most of Cuba's sugar was
exported to the United States because Cuba was given a large quota,
which was paid above world prices in part to help domestic US industry.
After the revolution, Che Guevara, industrial minister at the time,
negotiated with the USSR for the export of Cuban sugar after the US
decreased its imports of sugar from Cuba. The new revolutionary
government adopted successive "land reforms" and eventually confiscated
almost all private property. At first, Castro was reluctant to discuss
his plans for the future, but eventually he declared himself a
communist, and with the backing of Che Guevara, explained that he was
trying to build socialism in Cuba, focusing on free health care and
education for all, and began close political and economic relations with
the Soviet Union and to a lesser extent with China. The USSR long after
the Missile Crisis had bases in Cuba (e.g. at Bejucal and Bahia Honda),
and the Chinese government still maintains a large electronic
surveilance presence especially at a base in Havana Province.
Since Castro came to power, the United States has since progressively
enacted legislation intended to isolate Cuba economically via the U.S.
embargo and other measures, such as prosecuting US citizens who vacation
in Cuba. For more on these issues see the Economy section below
The Bay of Pigs invasion of April 1961 by U.S. backed Cuban expatriates
failed because U.S. president John F. Kennedy left the invaders stranded
for fear of getting officially involved. The expected urban revolt
collapsed when it became clear Brigade 2506 had been abandoned to its
fate; and because the Soviet Union warned Castro, who ordered numerous
executions and preemptive mass arrests of those thought likely to
support a counter-revolution. Church schools were confiscated, clergy
were arrested, [9] and expelled en masse. In the rural central provinces
the War Against the Bandits (circa 1959-1965) was suppressed by massed
Castro militia, many executions and internal deportations of rebel
supporters.
The Cuban Missile Crisis started with the Soviet Union installing
nuclear missiles in Cuba in 1962. In response, the United States put up
a blockade in international waters. This is generally believed to be the
closest the world has come to a nuclear war. The Soviet Union backed
down, agreeing to remove the missiles in exchange for United States
promises to remove similar nuclear missiles in Turkey and to never
invade Cuba again.
Between 1962 and the early 1970s, it has been known that Cuba sent
trained guerillas to numerous South and Central American nations to aid
in socialist revolutions which were, at the time, in progression. It was
in Bolivia that Che Guevara, a major proponent of the socialist
revolution, was asassinated after leading a Cuban led rebellion in the
jungles of Bolivia. Not only did Cuba aid in numerous South and Central
American rebellions, but also in the Democratic Republic of the Congo,
on the African continent. Che Guevara is known to have led the Cubans in
the rebellion in the DRC, formerly known as Zaire. Within Cuba, Che is
held as a hero of the socialist movement, but only since the mid 1980s,
when the launch of the 'Era of Rectification' saw his ideas being
re-asserted as Cuba distanced itself from Gorbachev's USSR.
After this, the United States never openly threatened Cuba again, but
was said to engage in absurdly elaborate covert activities to
assassinate Castro, namely The Cuban Project. Castro and the US duel in
Cold War actions. In a 1976 notorious terrorist attack on Cubana Flight
455 in which 73 died was allegedly masterminded by CIA funded Castro
opponents operating from Venezuela. The United States has also supported
anti-Castro terrorist groups in their attacks against Cuba.
Cuba and the US have also engaged in continuing acts of espionage
against one another. It is believed by some although disputed by others,
that the Cuban government, now allied with its Venezuelan counterpart,
continues "destabilization" activities efforts supporting radical and
violent Marxist groups in the U.S. and Latin America.
In April 1980, over 10,000 Cubans stormed the Peruvian embassy in Havana
seeking political asylum. In response to this, Castro allowed anyone who
desired to leave the country to do so through the port of Mariel. Under
the Mariel boatlift, over 125,000 Cubans migrated to the United States.
Eventually the United States stopped the flow of vessels and Cuba ended
the uncontrolled exodus.
The collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 dealt Cuba a giant economic
blow. This led to another unregulated exodus of asylum seekers to the
United States in 1994, which was slowed to a trickle of a few thousand a
year by the U.S.-Cuban accords. Now it is increasing again although at a
far slower rate than before
Cuban music
Cuban music is the most commonly known expression of culture. The
"central form" of this music is Son, which has been the basis of many
other musical styles like salsa and mambo. chachachá was invented to
make it possible for American 'Yankees' to dance to Cuban music. The
Tres was invented in Cuba, but other traditional Cuban instruments are
of African and/or Neo-Taino origin, and include the maracas and various
wooden drum variants. Popular Cuban music of all styles has been enjoyed
and praised widely across the world. Cuban "classical" music has also
won international acclaim. Cuban "classical" music often includes music
with strong African and European influences, and features symphonic
works as well as music for soloists.
Geography
Geologically Cuba was once in the Pacific, and crossing between North
and South America before they were joined, "crashed" into what is now
Florida [80]. Cuba, 65 million years ago, also received part of the
impact of Chicxulub Crater with tsunami kilometers high reaching at
least 500 Km away to the middle provinces [81], [82] and beyond. The
elongated island (aprox. 760 miles long) of Cuba is the largest island
in the Caribbean and is bounded to the north by the Straits of Florida
and the greater North Atlantic Ocean, to the northwest by the Gulf of
Mexico, to the west by the Yucatan Channel, to the south by the
Caribbean Sea, and to the east by the Windward Passage. The Republic
comprises the entire island, including many outlying islands such as the
Isla de la Juventud (Isle of Youth), previously known as the Isla de los
Pinos (Isle of Pines). Guantánamo Bay, is a naval base that has been
leased by the United States since 1903, a lease that has been contested
since 1960 by Castro.
The main island is the world's 16th largest. The island consists mostly
of flat to rolling plains, with more rugged hills and mountains
primarily in the southeast and the highest point is the Pico Real del
Turquino at 2,005 m. The local climate is tropical, though moderated by
trade winds. In general (with local variations), there is a drier season
from November to April, and a rainier season from May to October.
Wikipedia.org
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