Cuban History

The very first group of people who called Cuba home were the Guanajatabey people, a group that has migrated from the South American forests to the island during 5300 BC. The Guanajatabeys totaled to around 100,000, and were a group of gatherers, farmers, and hunters. One of the main crops cultivated by Cuba’s Guanajatabeys was tobacco, a product that would later be the main export of the country.

Diego Velazquez de Cuellar, a conquistador of Spanish descent, later started observing the Guanajatabeys and noticed that they were living without houses or towns. The Spanish explorer also observed that their main diet consisted of whatever animal they could find in the forest and sea creatures such as fish and turtles.

Cuba was soon colonized by the Spanish, a rule that lasted from around 1511 to 1898. The economy of Cuba during the time was primarily run by agriculture, with tobacco, sugar and rice being the main harvested products. A battle between the Spanish and the Americans, thanks to the unannounced arrival of the U.S. battleship Maine, ceded the country of Cuba from Spain to the United States, where independence was promoted under the Treaty of Paris in 1898.

The country of Cuba was later subjected to more turmoil and revolutions between the regime of Batista, and the rule of Fidel Castro.