Bandits, Patriots or Delinquents? Social Protest in Rural Cuba (1878–1902)

Imilcy Balboa Navarro Imilcy Balboa Navarro,Translated By Bonnie A Lucero Translated By Bonnie A Lucero

doi:10.13169/intejcubastud.7.1.0079

Imilcy Balboa Navarro Imilcy Balboa Navarro, Translated By Bonnie A Lucero Translated By Bonnie A Lucero

https://doi.org/10.13169/intejcubastud.7.1.0079

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Journal: International Journal of Cuban Studies	Publication Date: Apr 1, 2015
License type: CC BY 4.0

Abstract

A charismatic form of banditry has been broadly interpreted as the only manifestation of rural protest in nineteenth-century Cuba, a version of history encouraged by the Spanish authorities who criminalised protest demonstrations in the countryside to justify repression against supporters of independence and the rural population in general. But there were also other forms of protest that were more ‘silent’ and less visible but equally effective. By analysing the socioeconomic changes and the expressions of social unrest, as well as their methods and motivations, this article examines the different ways farmers and labourers reacted against oppression in the period from 1878 after the end of the first war of independence, to 1902 when the first Cuban Republic was established.

Highlights

A charismatic form of banditry has been broadly interpreted as the only manifestation of rural protest in nineteenth-century Cuba, a version of history encouraged by the Spanish authorities who criminalised protest demonstrations in the countryside to justify repression against supporters of independence and the rural population in general
The press coverage of his appearance contributed to the legend of this King of the Countryside, who became the quintessential image of late-nineteenth-century banditry.[1]
Using a case study of the Cuban countryside in the second half of the nineteenth century, this study explores other dimensions of rural protest, focusing on the role of the family, the relationship between bandits and their communities and the ways state repression influenced the actions of those involved in these crimes.[4]

Summary

Santiago de Cuba

Banditry became the most prominent manifestation of discontent in part due to the deepening economic crisis defining the late 1880s and 1890s. Even El Español, a newspaper without a trace of sympathy for the Cuban cause, recognised Velázquez as ‘an insurgent transformed into a bandit by necessity’.19. He exemplified the image of the righteous bandit who ‘only attacked the merchant, respecting the peasant’. He even went to the extreme of setting fire to the lending books, symbolically liberating rural debtors from their burdens. Some may have happened by chance, discontented workers and

Vicente García Sixto Varela Gallo Sosa

Conclusions