Lifa In Cuba

In the 1820s, when the rest of Spain's empire in Latin America rebelled and formed independent states, Cuba remained loyal. Its economy was based on serving the empire. By 1860, Cuba had 213,167 free people of color, 39% of its non-White population of 550,000. By contrast, Virginia with about the same number of blacks, had only 58,042 or 11% who were free; the rest were enslaved. In the antebellum years, Virginia discouraged manumissions after the Nat Turner's Slave Rebellion of 1831 and strengthened restrictions against free blacks, as did other southern states. In addition, there was a high demand for slaves, and Virginia planters sold many in the internal domestic slave trade, to be shipped or taken overland to the Deep South, which had greatly expanded its cotton production.
• Independence movements
Full independence from Spain was the goal of a rebellion in 1868 led by planter Carlos Manuel de Céspedes. De Céspedes, a sugar planter, freed his slaves to fight with him for a free Cuba. On December 27, 1868, he issued a decree condemning slavery in theory but accepting it in practice and declaring free any slaves whose masters present them for military service. The 1868 rebellion resulted in a prolonged conflict known as the Ten Years' War. Two thousand Cuban Chinese joined the rebels. Chinese had been imported as indentured laborers. A monument in Havana honours the Cuban Chinese who fell in the war.
The United States declined to recognize the new Cuban government, although many European and Latin American nations did so. In 1878, the Pact of Zanjón ended the conflict, with Spain promising greater autonomy to Cuba. In 1879–1880, Cuban patriot Calixto García attempted to start another war known as the Little War but did not receive enough support. Slavery in Cuba was abolished in 1875 and was completed in 1886.