Revolution

                              Source: http://file1.npage.de/009011/59/bilder/castro-1.gif

 

 

Revolution- A drastic change in government or society from an opposing association

 

 

The Cuban Revolution started on July 1953 in hopes of bringing in a socialist state. Why was this considered a revolution? According to the definition, revolution is change coming from an opposing group. That being said Fidel Castro and the 26th Of July Movement along with his followers were this opposing group of associates. Their goal being to bring down their president at the time, Fulgencio Batista. Later becoming a successfully unsuccessful revolution. Successful because their armed forces brought down Batista on 1 January 1959. The organization was later not so much of a success due to its communist approach. This Communist party to this day still continues. His brother Raul continuing to rule from Fidel’s success. Fidel's Cuban Revolution will have changed their country forever. The effects of the Cuban revolution continues to effect the nation of Cuba to this day. Castro’s opposing government transformed the country’s wealth and society

Sugar Cane in Cuba and its Effect on the Cuban Revolution

Source: http://www.fasttrackteaching.com/burns/Unit_6_World/Cuba_sugar_harvest_ca1900_dbloc.GIF

Sugar cane, first introduced to Cuba in the 16th century by the Spaniards, has had a detrimental effect on the island's economic development, its foreign relations, and ultimately the history of this small island nation. Upon the introduction of slavery to Cuba in 1511, nearly 800,000 African slaves supplied labor to work the large plantations. When slavery was outlawed in Cuba in 1886 as a result of a Spanish royal decree, their descendants, as well as the arrival of many Haitian and Jamaican contract laborers, continued to work the plantations, producing 1/3 of the world's sugar production by the middle of the 19th century. As a result, the United States began to invest in the sugar-based economy, quickly purchasing land and mills in the American protectorate controlling nearly half of the sugar mills in Cuba between 1916 and 1919. Because Cuba's economy was wholly dependent on sugar and because most of the sugar plantations were in the hands of US investors or wealthy upper class Cuban elites, this created structural inequalities in the Cuban population. Finally, the United States level of investment was so high which caused the Cuban sugar markets to be closely tied to the United States. Therefore, when the US decided to reverse its previous decision to eliminate trade tariffs on imported sugar in 1984, the economic effect devastated the Cuban economy and set the stage for the social and political upheavals that occurs in twentieth-century Cuba.