Cuba 12th Grade History Final Exam flashcards

32 cards. Read the term and the definition here. The deck at the top of this page is optional.

Grito de Yara

Carlos Manuel de Céspedes' 10 October 1868 proclamation at La Demajagua that launched the Ten Years' War and freed his slaves, beginning Cuba's first war for independence.

Pacto del Zanjón

The 1878 peace agreement ending the Ten Years' War; it granted some reforms but not independence, and its limitations sparked the 'Protesta de Baraguá' led by Antonio Maceo.

Hatuey

Taíno leader who resisted the Spanish conquest and was burned at the stake around 1512; he became a symbol of indigenous resistance invoked by Cuban independence thinkers.

Encomienda

Spanish colonial labor system granting colonists the right to extract labor from indigenous people in exchange for supposed protection and Christianization; it contributed to demographic collapse in Cuba.

Platt Amendment

1901 US legislation appended to Cuba's constitution granting the US the right to intervene, to lease naval bases, and to limit Cuba's treaty-making; it shaped the neocolonial republic until 1934.

Revolución de los Sargentos

The 4 September 1933 uprising of noncommissioned officers, led with Batista's involvement, that overthrew the provisional government after Machado's fall and installed a reformist government under Grau.

Autenticismo

The political movement of the Partido Auténtico (Grau, Prío) that governed Cuba 1944–1952; associated with nationalist rhetoric, social legislation, and widespread corruption and gangsterismo.

Moncada attack

The 26 July 1953 assault on the Moncada barracks in Santiago led by Fidel Castro; its failure became the founding myth of the 26th of July Movement.

Machadato

The period of Gerardo Machado's rule (1925–1933), marked by economic modernization, the 1927 constitutional extension of his term, and violent repression that provoked the 1933 revolution.

Granma landing

The 2 December 1956 arrival of the yacht Granma carrying Fidel Castro and 81 fighters to eastern Cuba, beginning the guerrilla campaign in the Sierra Maestra.

Agrarian Reform Law 1959

The 17 May 1959 law that expropriated large estates, created INRA, and redistributed land to peasants and cooperatives; it was a central radicalizing measure of the revolution.

Playa Girón

The April 1961 defeat of the US-backed exile invasion at the Bay of Pigs; it consolidated the revolution's socialist identity and its alliance with the Soviet Union.

Literacy Campaign 1961

A mass mobilization of brigadistas that taught reading and writing across Cuba in 1961, sharply reducing illiteracy and becoming a founding achievement of revolutionary education policy.

Cuban Missile Crisis

The October 1962 confrontation over Soviet nuclear missiles in Cuba, resolved by their withdrawal in exchange for a US no-invasion pledge and secret removal of missiles from Turkey.

Rectificación

The 1986 campaign against corruption and market mechanisms launched by Fidel Castro, rejecting Soviet-style reforms and prefiguring the debates of the Special Period.

Operation Carlota

Cuba's 1975 military intervention in Angola, named for a rebel slave, which became the largest and most controversial internationalist mission of the revolutionary period.

Mariel boatlift

The 1980 exodus in which roughly 125,000 Cubans left from Mariel harbor after the government opened the port, driven by economic discontent and the promise of emigration.

Período Especial

The economic crisis declared in 1990 after the collapse of COMECON and the USSR; GDP fell sharply, prompting dollarization, self-employment, and foreign investment reforms.

Helms-Burton Act

The 1996 US law codifying the embargo and allowing lawsuits against foreign firms using expropriated property; it deepened Cuba's isolation and shaped 1990s economic policy.

Lineamientos

The 2011 PCC Congress guidelines for economic and social policy under Raúl Castro, authorizing expanded self-employment, cooperatives, and gradual market reforms.

Dual currency elimination

Cuba's 2021 monetary reform ending the convertible peso (CUC) and unifying the currency around the Cuban peso, part of a broader stabilization and reform package.

July 11 protests

The 2021 nationwide demonstrations over shortages, blackouts, and pandemic conditions, the largest in decades, followed by government prosecutions and tighter controls.

2019 Constitution

Cuba's current constitution, approved by referendum, which created the presidency of the republic, recognized private property, and reorganized municipal and provincial government.

Transculturación

Fernando Ortiz's concept describing the mutual, creative transformation of cultures in Cuba, developed in his 1940 study of tobacco and sugar.

Lo real maravilloso

Alejo Carpentier's 1949 concept of a distinctly Latin American marvelous realism grounded in history and myth, distinguished from European surrealism.

Nicolás Guillén

Afro-Cuban poet whose 1930s collections 'Motivos de son' and 'Sóngoro cosongo' brought black vernacular and rhythm into the national literary canon.

Palabras a los intelectuales

Fidel Castro's June 1961 speech setting cultural policy: freedom within the revolution, no freedom against it; it framed state-artist relations for decades.

Guerrita de razas

The 1912 massacre of the Partido Independiente de Color and its followers, a foundational event in Cuban debates about race and national identity.

Perucho Figueredo

Author of the lyrics and music of 'La Bayamesa', composed in 1868 and adopted as Cuba's national anthem.

Nuestra América

José Martí's 1891 essay calling for Latin American unity and cultural independence against US and European imperialism; a key text of Cuban national identity.

Foco theory

The guerrilla strategy associated with the Cuban Revolution and Régis Debray, holding that a small rural vanguard can spark insurrection without waiting for objective conditions.

Presentism

The historical fallacy of judging past actors by contemporary norms or values rather than by the standards of their own time and context.