Early Cuban History

9 Pages 2266 Words

e Indians that Columbus and his men encountered in Cuba were a simple and happy people living in a peaceful and gentle world," Jorge Guillermo writes in his book, Cuba: Five-Hundred Years of Images. "They had no enemies, human or otherwise, and were therefore unused to combat. Their pathetic inability to resist the Spanish invaders made their eventual submission in the hands of the conquistadors an inevitability."
In 1511, Diego Velasquez sailed from the Dominican Republic, then called Hispanola, to conquer and colonize Cuba. The Dominican Republic had already been colonized and the natives were put into slave labor. Velasquez was completely appalled at the lifestyle of the Cuban people when he arrived. "They're savages!" he said, "Without houses or towns and eating only the meat they are able to find in the forests as well as turtles and fish."
400 natives escaped from the Dominican Republic and brought word to the natives in Cuba. Hatuey, the leader of the escaped natives begged the Cuban natives to join them and fight against the white man or they would certainly be destroyed. He told the Cuban natives, “They tell us, these tyrants, that they adore a God of peace and equality, and yet they usurp our land and make us their slaves. They speak to us of an immortal soul and of their eternal rewards and punishments, and yet they rob our belongings, seduce our women, violate our daughters. Incapable of matching us in valor, these cowards cover themselves with iron that our weapons cannot break.” But the large majority of Cuban natives could not imagine anything as horrible as what Hatuey had described to them. They did not believe him and only a few joined his cause.
Hatuey attacked the Spaniards for about 3 months using guerrilla tactics and then retreating into the hills. The Spaniards were afraid to leave their fort at all. But...