All language subtitles for The Cuba Libre Story - S01E01 - Sklaverei und Freiheitskampf

[in Spanish] Cuba has always been
fighting for its freedom.

[in Spanish] 100,000 died, and even though
we lost the war, the country had changed.

There is little question that Meyer
Lansky had thoroughly corrupted Batista.

It's not a lie,
they didn't promise anything.

They promised a revolution,
they did a revolution.

[in Russian] These guys were bound to
become either martyrs, or national heroes.

Una revolución!

-[man] Fidel Castro!
-[crowd cheers]

He told Khrushchev, "You should unleash
the entire Soviet nuclear arsenals."

Apocalypse.

[siren]

[in German] Cuba will never bend its knee.

Today's Cuba is a curious mix
of tropical paradise and quaint nostalgia.

The island is renowned for its cigars,
its rum and its colonial beauty.

But to understand Cuba today, you have
to understand its tumultuous past.

Because for centuries,
Cuba has been a hotbed for upheaval.

How did Cuba become
the hub of the slave-trade?

Why, of all places, did the Spanish
colonial empire collapse here?

And why does the United States possess
a military base in Cuba, at Guantanamo?

Cuba bears the scars
of 500 years of foreign occupation.

But that does not mean that its people
have ever given up their dream of freedom.

[in Spanish] Cuba is a country, which has
always been coveted by the world powers.

By the Spanish empire, by England,
and by France.

It was conquered, of course, by Spain.

[in Spanish] Cuba played a decisive
role in the discovery of the Americas.

But I'm very happy that this phrase
is not used very often anymore,

because we were here
before it was "discovered".

Cuba is the biggest island
in the Caribbean.

It spans 760 miles from east to west.

That's roughly the distance from
Washington, DC, to Miami.

Cuba's climate is hot and tropical.

The land is fertile and the ocean
surrounding it is rich in fish.

For centuries, this has made Cuba a choice
destination for immigrants and invaders.

The first traces of human life in Cuba
are more than 4,000 years old,

predating the pyramids of Egypt.

Cuba's native inhabitants
lived in palm tree huts, or caves.

They subsisted on sweet potatoes, yucca,
peanuts, as well as fish and game.

They were also the first people to farm
and smoke tobacco.

On October 28th, 1492, three caravels
appeared on Cuba's horizon.

The men who disembarked
were unfamiliar to the islanders.

They were white. They carried swords
and helmets made of steel.

They were Spaniards, and their leader
was called Christopher Columbus.

[in German] It was through Columbus,
in 1492,

that the Spaniards
discovered these islands.

Back then, they could not know

that it would one day be something
as grand as today's America.

Columbus returned to Barcelona,

to his patrons,
Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand.

They had financed his voyage,

but he brought back
neither gold nor silver,

only some indigenous Cubans,
whom he called Indians.

In his diary, he wrote that they would
make good slaves.

But the Spanish regents declared
that there was to be no slavery

in the New World, before
sending Columbus back to conquer Cuba

and the surrounding islands.
Their orders were promptly ignored.

[in German] What probably happened
is that the men

were either enslaved, killed outright,
or worked to death as porters.

Children were brought up
more or less as Spanish.

Women "joined" the families
of Spanish conquistadors.

At first, many natives
welcomed the Spaniards with open arms.

Once hostilities began, they did not stand
a chance against the conquistadors.

[in German]
They met with little resistance,

because the natives
were completely outmatched, militarily,

and were then basically
eradicated by the diseases

the Spaniards brought with them,
such as measles and smallpox.

Spanish swords and European diseases
killed 90 percent of Cuba's inhabitants

within a few short years.

But the exchange of diseases
went both ways.

For Columbus's conquistadores
also brought something back.

Syphilis.

Nevertheless, Spain's triumph in
the New World was unparalleled in history.

In the name of the cross,

the conquistadors
spread death and slavery.

Due to its strategic position,
Cuba played a decisive role.

[in Spanish]
Havana was the key to the Caribbean.

Through its port came all the riches
of the New World.

Gold, silver, wood, and spices.

[in German] Cuba was a cornerstone
of the Spanish Empire,

when it comes to Latin America.

From the early colonial days,

Havana was the main commercial hub
for colonial goods and treasures.

It was the place where,
once or twice a year,

the ships of
the Spanish treasure fleet gathered

for the so-called Carrera de Indias,
and crossed the Atlantic.

It took Spain barely 50 years
to conquer the New World.

They destroyed
the mighty Inca and Aztec Empires.

The treasures of the New World
were loaded onto Spanish galleons.

En route to Spain,
they gathered in Havana,

and added one of the island's
precious plants to their cargo. Tobacco.

Throughout the 16th century,
tobacco was Cuba's principal export.

The natives of Cuba
were the first to grow and smoke it.

Spanish sailors and merchants
took it around the globe.

Because of them, Cuba became known
as a tobacco island.

[in Spanish] Tobacco is a very demanding
plant, which needs a lot of care.

The tobacco leaves
must be watched carefully

because they can only be cut
at the right moment.

There were always slaves in tobacco,

but also a lot of independent farmers
and smallholders.

A hundred years after Columbus's landing,

the natives of the Caribbean
had been all but exterminated.

To continue the exploitation
of their new domains,

Spain had to import a new workforce.

Unscrupulous traders found the solution
in Africa's slave markets.

12.5 million Africans were crammed into
slave ships and taken to the New World.

1.5 million of them died
during the journey.

[in Spanish] Slavery came to Cuba
as it did to all of the Americas.

About two million of them
were brought to Cuba.

They were like merchandise.

It was a big, sinister business.

Slavery came to Cuba very early
when the Spanish took over,

but it didn't develop
as a major institution

until after 1804, 1805,

when Haiti, the sugar mills in Haiti,
were destroyed.

Haiti is part of Cuba's neighboring
island, and a French colony since 1660.

While Cuba relied on tobacco farming,
Haiti's staple crop was sugar cane.

With sufficient manpower,
it was a lucrative business.

In 1789, 32,000 white settlers
lived in Haiti,

as did 432,000 African slaves.

On August 17th, 1791,
Haiti's slaves rose up in revolt.

They killed their masters and fought
a bloody war to gain their freedom.

Haiti's sugar industry was wiped out.

[in Spanish] The consequence
is that the world's main sugar producer

disappears for a few years.

The Cubans see an opportunity.

They want to take over
the French colony's business.

[in German] It's important to note

that many people migrated
from French Haiti to Cuba.

They brought both a lot of money,

but also considerable know-how with them.

The Cubans welcomed the refugee plantation
owners from Haiti with open arms.

With their help, Cuba aimed to become
the Caribbean's new sugar capital.

But this required
more and more slaves from Africa.

The Haitian revolution, however, had
undermined the entire practice of slavery.

There were increasing calls
for the liberation of slaves.

On August first, 1834,
the British declared that all slaves

throughout their Empire were now free.

But Spain and Cuba refused to follow suit.

Their sugar business
depended on slave labor.

By the middle of the century, 1850, 1860,

Spain had developed the sugar industry
in Cuba, was the major exporter of sugar.

[in Spanish] Sugar,
for the Cubans at least,

meant the need to resort to slave labor.

Slaves were brought to Cuba
without much interruption until the 1860s.

Slavery was a defining part
of Cuban history for several centuries.

Several times historical censuses
show that African slaves

outnumbered Spanish settlers,

but never by the margins that had
made Haiti's revolution possible.

Even today, an estimated
60 percent of Cubans

are at least in part descendants
of slaves.

[Barnet, in Spanish] Without the blacks,
Cuba wouldn't be Cuba.

Without the Afro-Cubans,
we wouldn't have the literature,

the music and the dances
that we have today.

Cuba as we know it
would never have existed.

Nevertheless,
that is not their major legacy.

The major legacy of the African slaves
brought to Cuba

is their sweat and their blood,
which built the Cuban nation.

Cuba's sugar plantations were expanding,

despite ever-increasing taxes
and customs duties imposed by Spain.

The white settlers in Havana grew rich.
The countryside was racked by poverty.

Cuba's biggest sugar customer
was its northern neighbor,

the United States of America.

[in Spanish] Spain upheld slavery on Cuba.

This is the only reason that it could
maintain its colonial rule for so long.

The Cubans knew perfectly well
that without Spain's protection,

the British would have put
an end to the whole system.

For 300 years, Spain ruled over
vast territories in the Americas.

It was only in the early 19th century

that colony after colony
began to rebel against Spain.

It was the beginning of the end
for the Spanish Empire.

Cuba remained faithful,
because of slavery.

It alone guaranteed
the huge sugar profits.

[in German]
It was like a trump card in Madrid's hand.

The Spanish always emphasized
that they were maintaining order,

and that thus Cuba's economy
could flourish.

The Cubans paid a heavy price for this.

[in Spanish] Spain considered
Cuba as a zone for exploitation.

They wanted to
strengthen their own economy,

which was lagging
behind the rest of Europe.

They massively exploited Cuba.

Much like Cuba, the Southern States
of the US depended on slavery.

Many Cubans, and many Southerners,
wanted Cuba to join the Union.

This would both protect slavery in Cuba,

and introduce another slave state to the
US, and hand them a majority in Congress.

But in 1860, Abraham Lincoln,
an opponent of slavery,

was elected president
of the United States.

The Southern States
promptly seceded from the Union.

President Lincoln mobilized the army.

Thus began a long and bloody struggle.

Early on in the war, Lincoln emancipated
all slaves in the United States.

After four years, the North prevailed over
the South, and slavery was abolished.

The Civil War in the United States
created a nation that didn't have slavery,

or slavery was ended, so many Cubans
saw the possibility of annexing

to the United States
as not a good possibility,

and then they began to think about, well,

we have to either reform the relationship
with Spain or break completely with Spain.

Already in the 19th century,

Cuba was divided into
an eastern and a western half.

The capital, Havana,
was in the western part of the island.

Here lived merchants of Spanish origin
and the island's leading civil servants,

people who benefitted
from the sugar trade.

[in German] We have two
completely distinct histories on Cuba.

One of a global city, Havana,
and one of the territory around it,

which I dare say
was content to be a province.

[in Spanish] In the history of Cuba,

revolutions have always spread
from the east to the west.

Cuba's slaves looked first to Haiti,
then to the USA with hope,

while their owners did so in fear.

America's former slaves were now free,
and entitled to payment for their labor.

But their condition barely improved.

Slave owners in Cuba, however,
were in trouble.

[Stucki, in German]
It's an historical twist of fate.

For decades, the plantation owners

and sugar industry aristocracy
had feared a slave rebellion.

But, ironically, the first revolt
did not arise from among the slaves.

It was a group of white,
Creole plantation owners from eastern Cuba

that brought about the war of 1868.

Cuba's fight for freedom is forever linked
with the name Carlos Manuel de Céspedes.

He owned a small sugar cane plantation
in eastern Cuba,

but benefitted little
from Cuba's sugar profits.

According to Céspedes,
the reasons for this

were Spain's excessive taxes
and customs duties.

On October 10th, 1868, he called on
all Cubans to rebel against Spain,

and declared the island
an independent country.

The next day, he freed all his slaves.

[in French] Carlos Manuel de Céspedes
said to himself,

"If I free my slaves, I have my own army."

It's perhaps a bit cynical,
but I think that's what happened.

In 1868, Spain's army in Cuba
was 7,000 soldiers strong,

and augmented by 30,000 Cuban volunteers.

Against them stood Céspedes,
his allies and their freed slaves.

12,000 men in all,
most without any military experience.

[in German] It was a guerilla war.
The Cubans had very mobile troops,

but they were often very badly armed.

Some may have had guns,
but most only had a machete.

A century after
Cuba's war of independence,

the Cuban's main weapon
was given a cinematic monument.

The film "La Primera Carga Al Machete"

shows how the slaves' basic tool was
transformed into a formidable weapon.

[in Spanish] The machete?

Well, I know that we have a weapon,
and we know how to use it.

And the Spaniards fear it
like the devil himself.

[in Spanish] We will soon be done with
this ridiculous criminal revolt,

which some peasants have been
forcibly dragged into.

Spain sent reinforcements.
33,000 additional soldiers.

Against all odds, the rebels
managed to take most of eastern Cuba

within just a few months.

[man shouts]

The Spanish countered

by massively recruiting
additional Cuban auxiliary troops.

And thus, Céspedes's rebellion
becomes a civil war,

as Cubans fight Cubans
for the future of their country.

[in Spanish] The Spaniards knew
how war was waged in Europe,

and brought these strategies with them.

They saw Cuba's geography,
its long, narrow shape,

and had the idea to divide the island.

The Spanish Army constructed a system
of trenches and watchtowers across Cuba.

Their plan was to divide the island,
and limit the war to Cuba's eastern part.

The wealthy west, and the capital Havana,
were to be preserved.

This line of defense
did little to stop the rebels.

Time and time again, they broke through,

burnt sugarcane fields
and killed Spanish collaborators.

But terror did little
but breed more terror.

Soon after, the Spaniards began
executing captured rebels on the spot,

and without trial.

[gunshots]

On February 27th, 1874, Carlos Manuel de
Céspedes was killed by a Spanish bullet.

Deprived of their leader,

the rebel army disintegrated into
a multitude of smaller guerilla groups.

The rebels could no longer win the war;
but neither could the Spaniards.

[in German] From a military standpoint,
such wars cannot be won.

It requires politicians
and skillful negotiations,

and that's what happened
after ten years of war,

leading to a peace agreement in 1878.

[in Spanish] 100,000 died,
and even though we lost the war,

the country had changed.

Cuba remained a Spanish colony,
but there were real reforms.

There was a kind of freedom of speech,
and even political parties were allowed.

Even so, Cuba remained a colony.

But Spain's reforms
were half-hearted at best.

Only slaves who could prove
that they'd fought in the war were freed.

The outright abolition of slavery would
have to wait another eight long years.

[in Spanish] During this period,
no new slaves were brought to Cuba.

But none were freed either.

The abolition of slavery was
a gradual process,

before it ended completely in 1886.

For many rebels,
the Spanish reforms were insufficient.

Thousands went into exile,
most to the United States.

Among them was
a young journalist and poet.

During the war, he was arrested by
the Spanish and condemned to hard labor.

His name was José Martí.

[in Spanish] José Martí decided to leave
Cuba, due to the political situation.

He settled in the United States and
realized that a majority of Cuban exiles

openly talked about waging
a new war against Spain,

to free their homeland.

[in French] José Martí was a little bit
like Fidel Castro, only 100 years earlier.

What I mean by that, he was
a young man from an average family,

who was convinced that the Spaniards
had no more business on Cuba.

[in Spanish] He was known
as "El Maestro", the teacher.

He taught many Afro-Cuban exiles
how to read and write.

At the same time, he was
one of the most important Spanish writers

of the 19th century
and a renewer of Spanish poetry.

To this day, José Martí's poetry
is famous around the world,

even if many people don't realize it.

In 1929, Cuban radio singer
José Fernandez Díaz

composed a song from part of
José Martí's work. The song is called...

♪ Guantanamera ♪

♪ Guajira Guantanamera ♪

♪ Guantanamera... ♪

Long before "Guantanamera", José Martí
was already famous for his poetry

while living in exile
in the United States.

Many of his works focus on
Cuba's hard fight for freedom,

which he had
personally and brutally experienced.

During the war, Martí was arrested by
the Spanish and sentenced to hard labor.

As a poet, he used his experiences
to advance Cuba's dream of freedom.

And in the name of this dream,
he sought to unify Cubans in exile.

He was the leader that brought together
different factions

within the Cuban rebels.

Maceo, Máximo Gómez, and others, and
brought them together to form an alliance.

While in exile, José Martí's generals

planned the war for
their country's liberation.

Their goal was simple. To free Cuba from
Spanish occupation once and for all.

To achieve this, they raised money among
Cuban exiles in Miami, bought weapons,

and shipped them to the island in secret.

Then, on April 11th, 1895,
Martí and the other commanders themselves

landed in eastern Cuba,

where they met up with veteran soldiers
of Cuba's war against Spain.

But it soon became apparent that Martí,

a poet, was out of place
among these military men.

[Zeuske, in German]
He was a very emotional man.

More importantly, it is
obvious that he was no soldier.

He was brilliant when it came to preparing
the war, when it came to communicating

and convincing all the old war heroes,
telling them, "You must be with us again!"

But when push came to shove and he had
to prove himself a leader, he could not.

[in German] Historians
unanimously consider Martí

to have been, in a way, longing for death.

When he galloped forward on his white
horse at the battle of Dos Rios,

it was basically suicide.

On May 19th, 1895,
during the war's very first battle,

José Martí charged
between the Cuban and Spanish lines.

A Spanish bullet hit him in the chest.

José Martí died without seeing
his dream for freedom come true.

[in Spanish] I think he died
the way he wanted to die.

Martí wanted to live, to be sure,
but he died the way he wanted;

on the battlefield.
It was the best possible death for him.

[in Spanish] Martí only lived to be 42.

But he left an extraordinary heritage, as
politician, as journalist, and as writer.

His biggest achievement was

that he decisively shaped
Cuba's longing for independence.

The remaining Cuban generals
make a martyr out of the fallen Martí.

They use his heroic example,
as well as terror and intimidation,

to recruit new soldiers in Cuba.
Their tactics were successful.

Many Cubans, especially from rural areas,
began to sign up to fight.

[in German] We must not forget
that neither the revolution,

nor the wars of independence
were popular uprisings.

They did not originate from the people,
but from an intellectual elite.

Remember that they were led by José Martí

and numerous other generals
from the upper classes.

They then gathered their troops and were,
of course, supported by the Cuban people.

The Spanish Army suffered one defeat
after another. Once again,

the Cuban insurrectionists managed to
conquer large swaths of eastern Cuba.

To counter these successes,

the Spanish government realized
that new leadership was needed in Cuba.

They sent their most ruthless general
to win the war by any means necessary.

His name was Valeriano Weyler.

[Pitaluga, in Spanish] Weyler was a man
of extermination methods.

He created the so-called
Policy of Reconcentration.

This meant a forced resettlement
of the rural population into the towns.

Weyler's Reconcentration Policy was
designed to deprive the revolutionaries

of their rural support base.

Large swaths of Cuba were depopulated.

The rural populace was
forced to leave their homes

and to move to
the already overcrowded towns and cities.

Those who resisted
were immediately executed.

In the deserted rural areas,
everything was razed to the ground,

down to the last banana tree.

And when Cuba's cities had
no more room for refugees,

Weyler ordered the construction
of concentration camps.

[in German] Waves of refugees became mixed
up with those who were being resettled.

It was a refugee crisis
of unimaginable proportions.

Tens of thousands of civilians streamed
into the remaining towns and villages

and had to be cared for.

It was a gigantic humanitarian disaster.

Imagine, 400,000 people were resettled.

Between 155,000 and 170,000 of them died.

I think today, the United Nations
would vote in favor of an intervention.

An intervention could only come
from Cuba's powerful neighbor,

the United States.

In view of the Spanish terror on Cuba,
it was the rebels' last chance.

To bring about an intervention,
they turned to a new ally;

the American yellow press.

Cubans smuggled photos and reports
of atrocities to the United States,

and handed them to newspapers
owned by press barons Joseph Pulitzer

and William Randolph Hearst.

[Stucki, in German]
It can be said that this was

one of the first modern wars
of information.

The Cuban revolutionary organizations
in the United States

sought to raise awareness of the war,

and to feed information to the press.

They of course emphasized the atrocities
committed by the Spanish

and the great victories
of the revolutionaries.

In this propaganda battle,

the revolutionaries
clearly had the upper hand.

Many newspapers in the United States
were against Spanish control of Cuba

and began to accelerate
the mood of the American people,

and preparing the mood of the American
people for military intervention.

US president William McKinley
was under pressure from the press.

Many Americans demanded
an intervention in Cuba,

but McKinley did not
want to drag his country into war.

Instead, he sent Spain
an ultimatum. Free Cuba,

or the United States would begin
selling modern weaponry to the rebels.

As a show of force, McKinley ordered

one of the US Navy's most modern ships
to Havana in January of 1898.

The USS Maine was just three years old,

and its formidable ten-inch guns
had a range of 18,000 meters.

The Maine's official mission was
to protect American property in Cuba.

[Stucki, in German] The chief US diplomat
on Cuba insisted already in 1896

that a fleet should be kept close,

to protect American interests,
assets and citizens, in case of emergency.

The Spanish government was prepared
to meet President McKinley's demands.

But the deployment of the USS Maine

was denounced by the Spanish yellow press
as an act of aggression.

[in French] Just by its proximity,
one could imagine a courtesy visit,

or in fact a reconnaissance mission.

Anyway, nothing hostile, officially.

It's 9:40pm on the evening
of February 15th, 1898.

The USS Maine is
anchoring in Havana Harbor.

Most of the 355 American sailors
and officers aboard are asleep,

when the unthinkable happens.

Without warning, a terrible explosion
tears the ship in half.

It takes hours before the full extent
of the catastrophe is known.

The death toll is horrific.

261 of the 355 men on board are killed.

An investigation into the cause
of the explosion begins immediately.

There are several points of view.

The Castro point of view is
that the United States blew it itself

to justify an intervention.

Some people point out that the Cubans
that were fighting against Spain

may have blown it up
to bring about an intervention.

[in Spanish] In my personal opinion,
it was a provocation.

The United States needed
an excuse to intervene in Cuba,

and this excuse was the Maine.

[in German] It seems logical to me that
the cause was a technical malfunction,

since during this time, there were
similar cases involving other vessels,

which suffered similar explosions.

A US warship sunk.
Hundreds of dead Americans.

The American public was outraged.
They demanded justice.

After two years of relentless
warmongering in America's newspapers,

it did not take long
until a culprit was found.

The immediate reaction
in the United States

was that this was something done
by the Spaniards,

that they were trying to kick
the United States out of the island

and that therefore
they had to do something.

President McKinley finally caved to
public pressure, and mobilized the army.

On April 21st, 1898,
Congress declared war on Spain.

The official objective
was to give Cuba its independence.

Additionally, Congress decrees that Cuba
is not to be annexed to the United States.

For Spain, the declaration of war
was a disaster.

[in Spanish]
Cuba was regarded as part of Spain.

This made it an attack of a foreign
power against the nation.

For many Spaniards,
this was an unacceptable aggression.

The Spanish Army in Cuba could not last
long without reinforcements from Europe.

To exploit this vulnerability,

the US Navy quickly established
a naval blockade around Cuba.

Spain's own navy found itself
in the same trap as its army.

Its ships were anchored
in the port of Santiago,

the largest city
in the east of the island.

Following the blockade,
US troops landed in southeastern Cuba

without encountering any resistance.

[in German] Cynics claimed that the
United States let Cuba bleed itself dry

in three years of war,
before intervening at the last moment,

when everyone was exhausted.

In 1898, the regular American Army
numbered only 28,000 men.

Far to few for an invasion of Cuba.

To bolster its numbers,
volunteer units were drawn up.

The most famous of these
was known as the Rough Riders,

and commanded by Theodore Roosevelt.

Roosevelt was assistant secretary
of the Navy.

Now, he volunteered for
the cause of Cuban liberation.

In June of 1898, the Rough Riders were
the subject of one of the first films

of pioneer filmmaker Thomas Edison.

[in German] In the United States,
if you wanted to be a real man,

it was seen as cool to volunteer.

And so Teddy, who didn't really have
the physique for it,

but was a great hunter, signed up as well.

[in French] Roosevelt and his Rough Riders

were sent to Cuba
as part of the war effort,

after the United States officially
declared war against Spain in April 1898.

The Rough Riders landed in Cuba
on June 23rd, 1898.

Their first mission was to take
the Spanish stronghold of Santiago.

The Spanish Army had taken up
strong positions outside the city.

With the battle in full swing,
Theodore Roosevelt,

commanding the Rough Riders, ordered his
men to storm the hills outside Santiago.

Casualties on both sides were tremendous,
but in the end, the Americans prevailed.

♪ Now hear the call
throughout the land... ♪

The battle brought fame and distinction
to Roosevelt and his Rough Riders.

But their actual contribution to victory
has been hotly contested.

[in Spanish] I laugh, because there's been
a lot of propaganda in the United States

about the Rough Riders.

But when studying the battlefield,

even my North American colleagues
had to admit that, in reality,

the Rough Riders
didn't even take San Juan Hill,

it was a different hill
which is a bit further away.

[in French] The battle of San Juan
was the most important battle of the war,

even if it was no Austerlitz or Waterloo.
It was a much smaller battle.

But even so, it was very important,
for Americans and Spaniards alike,

because it decided the war.

Following the victory,
American troops and Cuban rebels

laid siege to Santiago itself.

This threatened not just Spain's army,
but also its last chance of victory.

The Spanish battle fleet
still lay at anchor in Santiago harbor.

The fleet was outgunned by the US Navy
blockading the harbor.

But Spain's vessels, a mix of cruisers
and destroyers, were more modern.

Breaking out to the open sea
was their only chance.

On July 3rd, 1898,

the Spanish fleet steamed out
of the harbor to attempt the breakout.

[in German] In fact, the smaller
and more mobile Spanish ships

were thought to be able to overcome the
US Navy's might through superior speed,

and thus gain a tactical advantage.

But they had problems,
beginning with a shortage of quality coal,

which meant that they could not even
reach their maximum speed.

On top of that, the Spanish sailors
were simply not trained well enough.

The Spanish fleet included the armored
cruiser Vizcaya, seen here in 1898.

But the Spanish fleet soon found itself in
dire straits, because it was so brand new.

Many gun turrets had
simply not been finished.

[cannon fire]

The cannons that were able to fire
sure enough hit their targets.

But most of the ammunition carried by the
Spanish ships were filled with sawdust.

[cannon fire]

These dummy grenades rained down on
the American ships with little effect.

The US fleet had no such problems.

The entire Spanish fleet perished
in a battle lasting barely two hours.

323 Spanish sailors were killed.

1,729 were taken prisoner.

On the other side, a single US sailor
was killed, and one other wounded.

Deprived of its fleet,
the war was over for Spain.

[in German] It was a veritable
turning point in Spanish history.

There was Spain before 1898,
a global, colonial empire,

and Spain after 1898,
a mediocre European country,

on the sidelines and unimportant.

Spain surrendered, and Cuba was jubilant.

The Spanish flag in Havana was lowered
for the last time on August 13th, 1898.

But Cuba's dream of freedom
did not come true.

Hoisted instead of the Spanish flag
was not that of Cuba

but that of the United States.

Previously a Spanish colony,
Cuba was now an American protectorate.

There was significant discussion among
Cuban historians whether the Cubans

would have defeated anyway Spain
had the war continued.

Others said that no,
the United States played a key role,

but the nationalistic historians, and
later on some of the Marxist historians,

said that while
the Cubans would have won the war,

that the United States took advantage
to conquer Cuba and take over Cuba,

so there are different interpretations
to what happened there.

Victory over Spain helped open the
White House doors to Theodore Roosevelt,

who became president in 1901.

As promised before the war, Cuba was to
become independent under his presidency.

But by now, American companies

had taken control of a large part
of the Cuban economy.

[in Spanish] In 1898, the Cuban people's
opinion of the US government

and the US Army was largely positive.

[Clerc, in French] Until 1898, the
Americans are seen as the anti-Spaniards.

The Americans' image is excellent.

But this changes from 1898 on.

During the military occupation,

the image of the United States
suffers severely.

[in French] For Americans,
Cuba has historically always been a land

that was basically
an appendix to the United States.

So it's true that once the Spanish left,

they saw Cuba
rather like an American province.

It was not a colony,
but it sure looked like one.

The United States had gone from being
Cuba's liberators to its occupiers.

But Cubans were not content
to endure further foreign rule,

and after all, hadn't the Americans
waged war against Spain to free Cuba?

In exchange for withdrawing their troops,

the United States government
demanded serious guarantees.

Another thing they did was the creation
of a constitutional convention.

So the Cubans got together and began
to write a constitution for Cuba in 1901.

At that point a number of congressmen,
led by a senator named Orville Platt,

decided that in order to give Cuba
its independence

and the United States to withdraw,

they have to have certain guarantees
that American property would be protected,

and if not, the US would have
the right to intervene.

When the Cubans learned this,
they immediately rejected the idea.

Under the Platt Amendment,
Cuba would not be a free country.

And yet, as they well knew,

without concessions to Washington
there would be no withdrawal of US troops.

The Cubans voted on it and accepted,
many of them protested,

but they accept it
as a way of ending the war

and ending the occupation of the US.

The Platt Amendment
also authorized the United States

to establish military bases in Cuba.
Among other locations,

the Americans chose Guantanamo Bay,
in the extreme southeast of the island.

The bay features a natural, deep harbor,
ideal for sheltering even large warships.

[in Spanish]
Cuba had to hand over territory,

such as the base at Guantanamo
that exists until today.

Thus, the United States
solidified their control of Cuba.

Since the 18th century, all world powers
had been interested in Guantanamo.

From here, it was
possible to control the Caribbean,

and thus access to the Americas.

At Guantanamo, the US Navy built their
biggest naval base outside the USA.

At the same time, they began
construction of the Panama Canal,

linking the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.

From Guantanamo, the American Navy could
control all shipping in the Caribbean.

One of the interests of the United States
was to protect the Panama Canal,

which was, at the time,
beginning to be built.

So having naval stations in the Caribbean

would protect the entrance
to the Panama Canal in the Caribbean,

so that was a strategic interest
of the United States then.

The US has leased the Guantanamo Bay base
from Cuba in perpetuity since 1903,

for an annual rent of $4,085.

The base itself is huge, and features
many amenities for US sailors,

like the only McDonald's restaurant
in Cuba.

But internationally, Guantanamo became
infamously known for its prison camps

and the human rights abuses
committed here.

Then, as well as now, the issue of
Guantanamo is a flashpoint of tension

between the United States and Cuba.

[in French] Here are armed Americans
on Cuban territory.

There are other Americans as well,
in the sugar factories and businessmen.

But that isn't the same. It's business.

Guantanamo Bay
impinges upon Cuban sovereignty.

In 1901, President Theodore Roosevelt
authorized elections in Cuba.

On December 31st, 1901,

Cubans were allowed to vote
for their president for the first time.

But as a sign of protest against the USA,
the most promising candidate,

a general of the wars of independence,
withdrew his candidacy.

The only remaining candidate
was Tomás Estrada Palma,

a Cuban living in exile
in the United States.

Tomás Estrada Palma had lived
most of his time in the United States,

he was a teacher in Philadelphia,
didn't participate actively in the war.

Facing no opposition,
Estrada Palma's victory was inevitable.

Almost three-quarters of Cubans
voted for him,

the other votes were blank, or invalid.

Through his military commander in Cuba,

President Roosevelt sent
his congratulations.

[in French] Tomás Estrada Palma
was the first president of Cuba.

He was not made
president by the United States.

He was, after all, democratically elected.
But one thing is clear.

He was president,
but under the Platt Amendment.

Under Estrada and his successors, Cuba
remained largely under American influence.

In homage to the USS Maine victims,

a monument was
erected in the center of Havana.

An American eagle to watch over Cuba.

[in German]
Cuba was never truly independent,

apart from a brief period
after the wars of independence.

But very quickly, the United States
intervened, and took control of Cuba.

[in Spanish]
We emerged from Spanish colonial rule,

only to fall directly into the
semi-colonial rule of the United States.

In this way, Cuba has always been fighting

for its freedom,
for its dignity, and for its sovereignty.

In 1901, Cuba was allowed to
take its first steps towards freedom.

400 years of Spanish colonial rule
had ended,

but Cuba's future was as uncertain then
as it is today.

The concept of democracy that
the United States brought to the island

was entirely new to Cubans, and harder
to implement than we can imagine today.

And, should Cuba begin to waver,

US soldiers stood ready
to take over the island again.

And so, since the times of Pulitzer
and Hearst, since the USS Maine disaster,

the Spanish-American War,
and the US occupation,

relations between the United States
and Cuba have never been free of tension.