Hemingway, Cuba, and the Cuban Works

Chronology

355 Hemingway and Cuba A Chronology Plain Face = events in Cuban life Bold Face = events in Hemingway’s life 1886 Slavery is abolished in Cuba. 1895–98 José Martí leads a second war of independence. Sinking of the USS Maine; United States declares war on Spain, February 15, 1898. Battle of Kettle Hill/San Juan Heights, involving Theodore Roosevelt ’s Rough Riders, fought July 1, 1898. 1898–1902 Under Brig. Gen.Leonard Wood as military governor, U.S. occupies Cuba. 1901 U.S. Congress passes the Platt Amendment (formally abrogated in 1934) 1902 Brig. Gen. Wood’s “whites only” immigration policy reinforces that pattern of immigration after 1898, prompting immigration mostly from Galicia, Asturias, and Canary Islands. Tomás Estrada Palma is elected first president of the independent Republic of Cuba, 20 May 1902. U.S. Marines leave Cuba. 1906 In the August War, 24,000 rebels, many black, stage an insurrection . In September, 2,000 U.S. Marines land in Havana at request of President Palma under the terms of the Platt Amendment. 1907 Evaristo Estenoz establishes the Independent Party of Color. 356 Hemingway and Cuba 1912 Estenoz leads a revolt in which 3,000 blacks die; Estenoz is killed on June 12 and his body is laid out in Moncada barracks , Santiago. U.S. Marines return to Cuba. 1913–1921 Under presidency of Mario Menocal y Deop, Cuba experiences economic growth and great expansion of sugar plantations. 1916 The pope declares the Virgin of Cobre to be the patron saint of Cuba. 1917 Liberals revolt in a rebellion known as “La Chambelona” but are defeated; U.S. Marines return to Cuba to protect sugar plantations. 1921 Sugar market crashes; National Bank closes. U.S. Marines once again return to Cuba. 1924 Gerado Machado y Morales of the Liberals wins election and establishes an authoritarian dictatorship, with support from the U.S. ambassador, Bert Crowder 1925 In August, the Communist Party is formed. 1928 Hemingway first experiences Havana as he transfers to a boat headed for Key West; he passes through Havana again during European trips in 1930 and 1931. 1929 Julio Antonio Mella, student activist and founding member of Cuba’s Communist Party, is assassinated in Mexico on Machado ’s orders. 1930 In September, Directorio Estudiantil reemerges as a secret organization engaged in a violent, terrorist campaign against Machado. Nicholas Guillen publishes Motivos de Son, a collection of poetry that places the Afrocubanismo movement in the foreground of Cuban arts; this movement, which energized Cuban art during the 1920s and 1930s, focused on negritude, on a poetic mestizaje or creole, and was admired by Hemingway. 1931 Hemingway, returning from Europe to Key West (via Havana ), meets Jane Mason on Ile de France. In March, Hemingway meets Gregorio Fuentes while fishing in the Gulf from Key West. 1932 Between April and June, Joe Russell and Carlos Gutiérrez introduce Hemingway to marlin fishing from Havana; Hemingway stays at Hotel Ambos Mundos, spending time with Jane Mason. In September, the radical right issues its ABC Manifesto-Pro- A Chronology 357 gramme, an anti-black reform program based on Italy’s fascist program of 1919. 1933 Economic hardship prompts a general strike in August and a revolution against Machado. In early February, Hemingway begins To Have and Have Not. On May 24, 1933, Jane Mason wrecks a car in which John and Patrick Hemingway are passengers; Jane Mason is hospitalized in Havana. She leaves for New York in July and wears a back brace for a year. A short-lived semifascist ABC interim government, led by Céspedes, forms, only to be ousted by a coup staged by lower-level military officers; led by a mulatto typist, Fulgencio Bastista Zaldívar, they form a provisional revolutionary government and are joined by Estudiantil to form a studentsoldier government that produces the “Proclamation to the People of Cuba.” Hemingway publishes his first nonfiction piece on fishing from Cuba, “Marlin Off the Morro: A Cuban Letter,” which appears in the autumn issue of Esquire. 1934 Batista emerges as the arbiter of political power in Cuba, operating behind the scenes until 1940. Island under increasing military control; term gangsterismo coined; machine-gun shootings occur. In April, Hemingway publishes first short story set in Cuba, “One Trip Across,” in Cosmopolitan; it is later revised as first chapter of To Have and Have Not. On May 6, 1934, Enrique Serpa publishes the short story “The...