Cuba: Migration and Demography

Historical Background

Prior to the arrival of Europeans in the Americas, Cuba was inhabited by Amerindians called the Taíno and the Ciboney. The Taíno were primarily involved in horticulture. The Ciboney were hunters and gatherers. They migrated between the islands of the Greater Antilles.

Spain's arrival on the island in the 1490s was detrimental to the indigenous people. Attempts made to resocialize them were unsuccessful. The Taíno and Ciboney refused to adopt Christianity and revolted against all attempts to enslave them for labor. The majority of the Taíno who did not flee to other nearby islands died due to illnesses unknowingly brought by the Europeans and the maltreatment used in attempts at enslavement. The numbers of Cubans who have a multiracial heritage that includes Amerindians is unknown. Interracial marriages may have occurred, but there is insufficient DNA testing to determine the magnitude of these relationships.

The Spaniards were unwilling to forgo their plans of colonizing the island and looked to Africa and the slave trade as a means to provide labor needed to plant and harvest cane sugar, coffee, and tobacco. This colony provided Spain with products in high demand within Spain and throughout Europe. So popular were these products throughout Europe that the British took an interest in Cuba and actually took control in 1762. A year later, Spain regained the island, but a few Britons stayed.

Cuba's closest northern neighbor, the United States, considered Cuba an ally in the slave trade. Americans were interested in Cuba as a port of call for slave ships. After all, Cuba was only 90 miles from the Florida coast. American southerners were interested in investing and owning sugar and tobacco plantations on the island. Slavery was a mechanism for making this venture profitable. The continuation of slavery increased the numbers of Africans living on the island, and this relationship would play a role in the American Civil War. This relationship would continue until the abolition of slavery.

This close proximity has had a major effect on Cuban-American relations to the extent that migration from the island to the United States has affected the racial composition on the island. Over 1 million Cubans have emigrated from the island to the United States.

Effects of Emigration

Emigration from the island has long been a problem the Cuban government has yet to control. The first migration streams, from 1959 to 1964 or 1965, included nearly 400,000 exiles, the majority of them upper- to middle-class White Cubans. Their motivations for fleeing the island were both political and economic. The Castro regime was installing a communist system that would have a detrimental effect on their capital resources and negate their political voice.

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