The ever-faithful isle, Cuba. Its sugar canes stand strong like the palm trees that populate its pristine beaches. Yet, beneath this facade of a loyal paradise lay a fractured society built on fear. The illusion would be shattered, and a new age would commence; however, is it one of independence and harmony?
As most of the colonies of North and South America exploded into a period of revolution from 1776-1825, Cuba remained a bastion of loyalty for the Spanish empire in the western hemisphere (Ferrer 151). With the Haitian Revolution resulting in the end of the sugar industry on the island, Cuban planters exploited this uncontested market and started to cultivate more sugar cane and import more enslaved people (Dawson 70). With Cuba still relying heavily on slavery to maintain its place in the world market, it made little sense to emancipate themselves from the Spaniards; furthermore, the brutality inflicted during the Haitian war of independence still lingered on the mind of the white planter. Shall they face the same fate if a war of independence were to break out? For them, it was either Spanish or African. (Ferrer 152).
However, this Louisiana sheet music dating to 1898, composed by Ruby Mallory Kennedy, offers us a glimpse into the long struggle for independence on the island and the dissatisfaction the Cuban people had towards the paternal Spaniard. Titled after the famous battle cry by Cuban Nationalist, Viva Cuba Libre contains lyrics such as “The North and South are one at last, Viva, Cuba libre!…. The Blue and Gray, both true and tried, will march, Will march to battle side by side, Viva, Cuba libre!” (Kennedy 5). References to the American Civil War are echoed to highlight the unity of the late 19th-century United States. Now united, they will march alongside Cuban rebels toward their independence and kick out the oppressive Spaniards from the western hemisphere. This solidarity lay in the sinking of the Maine by supposed Spanish enemies, leading many to call for war against Spain in 1898.
The United States may have played a crucial role in the independence of Cuba from Spain in 1898; however, that wasn’t always the case. The war of independence the sheet music references is only the most current from a series of two previous anti-colonial rebellions spanning over thirty years (Ferrer 152). The third and final one commencing in 1895, was one filled with rhetoric of antiracism and racial equality, expressed by revolutionary intellectuals such as José Marti and showcased by Nationalist leaders such as Antonio Maceo. This notion of “no whites nor blacks, but only Cubans” and racial integration, stood against the ideals of the United States, as postwar South was a hotbed of racial inequality and segregation (Ferrer 153). With Cuban rebels poised to remove this racial line after the revolution, it acted as a bulwark against the growing racial divide seen in the states.
While the US intervention in the Caribbean helped to establish the new nation, this was just the beginning of the United States’ growing empire. Gaining the Philipines in the aftermath of the Spanish-American War, the U.S. claw would dig itself deeper into the soil of the globe, especially Latin America. This sheet music tells a story of solidarity between the two nations; however, after the war, there was an imbalance on who would be the one to determine the outcome of Cuba’s future. The exertion of the Monroe Doctrine helped to justify the U.S. intervention in the region to rectify the perceived deficiencies Latin America had. Had the Spaniards been replaced with a much larger enemy? “Viva Cuba Libre” would once again be cried out by the 26th of July rebels in 1953, to oust the Batista dictatorship on the eve of the new year. This would only further complicate and strain the relationship between the two nations as the ragtag team of rebels was composed of outspoken communists, unsympathetic to America’s presence in the country (Dawson 209). The hostility between Cuba and its neighbor to its north persists to this very day; a far cry from 1898, once marching alongside one another to the beat of victory.
In order to view the sheet music in its entirety.
Works Cited:
Dawson, Alexander. Latin America since Independence a History with Primary Sources. Vol. 3, ROUTLEDGE, 2022.
Ferrer, Ada. “A Raceless Nation.” In, Problems in Modern Latin American History: Sources and Interpretations, edited by James A. Wood and Anna Rose Alexander, 16-21. 5th ed. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 2019.
Kennedy, Ruby Mallory. “Viva Cuba Libre.” Viva Cuba Libre | Tulane University Digital Library, https://digitallibrary.tulane.edu/islandora/object/tulane%3A18871.