s:
Yo recuerdo mucho.
querido,
roberto

Here's an excerpt from Wings of Denial published by NewSouth http://www.newsouthbooks.com/books/wd_trestdodd/excerpt.htm
Without going into details, the agent explained in a conspiratorial whisper that the CIA had a secret project in the works to arm and train a brigade of Cuban exiles for an invasion of their homeland. That the CIA had a plan to overthrow Fidel Castro was enough to demand the general's attention. The Cuban dictator had become a thorn in the side of the United States, a menace to his neighbors, and a threat to peace throughout the region. He was a cancer that needed to be removed. "So we're finally going after the bearded lady," was Doster's booming response.

The man threw Doster a quizzical look. "Fidel. You know, the bearded lady," the general said. "You're finally going after that commie son of a bitch."

Continuing in a hushed voice, the man told Doster that the CIA had sent him to Birmingham to get the Alabama Guard's help in training Cuban exiles for the secret project. The agency planned to equip a small liberation air force with refurbished B-26 light bombers from the Air Force's mothball fleet at Davis-Monthan AFB in Tucson, Arizona. A cadre of experienced pilot instructors along with maintenance and armament crews was needed, and the CIA hoped to draw from the Alabama Guard's pool of proven resources. Having retired its B-26s in the late 1950s, the Birmingham wing was the last USAF unit to fly the WWII-vintage bombers. The agent asked if the general would be willing to recruit qualified volunteers to deploy to a secret base in Guatemala for an extended period. The men would be sheep-dipped (sanitized) and sworn to secrecy. They were to talk to no one, not even their families, about the mission. "Mister, you got yourself an air force," Doster replied, jumping at the opportunity. "Nothing me and my boys would like better than to go down and kick Castro's butt."

"THE BEST OF BOTH WORLDS"

ALL-TIME RECORD LARGEMOUTH BASS (16.5 LB.) CAUGHT AT HANABANILLA BY ITALIAN DANIELE RIGATTIERI ON JANUARY 9, 2001

Do ya think ya could sell some paint in Cuba?

I know I promised ya'll I'd get a photo of American college professors schmoozing it up with some of Fidel's Politburo flunkies but I have failed to find exactly what I was looking for so I am giving up my quest for a perfect photo of a professor kissing Castro's ass for one simple reason. It is too disgusting to look over the hits you pull up when you type "cuba course university partnership" into google. The ones from Canada are especially nauseating but I did find something comparably sick from right here in the good old U. S. of A. The following is a description of a trip to Cuba by a member of St. Paul, Minnesota's Hamline University Class of 2001. Her name is Timeka Rumph and she was very upset that she and her fellow students had to fly all the way to Jamaica in order to make connections to Fidel's Cuba. Here is a portion of what Timeka had to say:

While in Cuba we met with representatives from the Cuban Communist Party (PCC), the Federation of Cuban Women (FMC), Committees for Defense of the Revolution (CDR). We visited the Museum of the literacy campaign, which holds over 700,000 letters to Fidel Castro from people that learned to read and write with the campaign. We visited the memorials of Antonio Maceo, Jose Marti, and Che Guevara. In Santiago de Cuba there is a place called San Juan Hill where both Cuban and American soldiers are buried.

During the final week of the class we saw a march on the American embassy. Two Cuban teenagers had been killed trying to get to the United States. Over one million Cubans marched and mourned for the lives of those boys. They walked waving Cuban flags chanting, "Abajo la ley asesina", (down with the murdering law). American is at a turning point in their relationship with Cuba. The Cuban Adjustment Law is killing hundreds if not thousands of Cubans a year. The Helms-Burton Law and the Torricelli Act are not only hurting the Cuban economy, but the needs of the people are not being met. It will be interesting to see what the new administration will do.

There is culture and a rich history in Cuba that is so much different than the history books teach us. Sure, Cubans lack many of the freedoms that Americans do but they also have something that I have yet to see in America, a sense of national pride. Cuba is more than just Fidel Castro and the Revolution of 1959.

http://www.cw.ua.edu/vnews/display.v/ART/2002/11/14/3dd335522c714
11/17/2002
There are other countries more deserving of affiliation. The fact you are establishing relations with The Communist Murderous Dictator is beyond comprehension. But it is like always, that the "Elite" care nothing about the plight of the people, they only care about their own agenda. All of you who go to Cuba will support the Tourism Apartheid maintained by the Dictator. The following article is one of many depicting the plight of the oppressed. You should ally with the independent journalist and librarians and support the formation of the civil society. But again being wined and dined by the Communist Dictator is all you want.

Armando Quincoses

MR. CASTRO'S PRISONERS

Editorial
Wednesday, November 13, 2002; Page A26
The Washignton Post
Colaboración:
Paul Echaniz
E.U.
La Nueva Cuba
Noviembre 16, 2002




--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

AT A TIME when suicide bombings and mass hostage takings have become common tools of political insurrection, the opponents of Cuban dictator Fidel Castro remain stubbornly civilized. The country's most important act of rebellion comes in the form of a petition campaign, intended to force Mr. Castro to hold a national referendum on freeing political prisoners and establishing basic freedoms. Public acts of disobedience are almost quaint in their mildness: One activist hung three Cuban flags upside down, while another ventured into the street to shout, "Long live human rights!"

Yet Mr. Castro's response to such dissent remains as harsh as if he were confronted by the terrorists of al Qaeda; in fact, he treats his political prisoners far worse than the United States treats the al Qaeda suspects it is holding at the Guantanamo Bay naval base on the edge of the island. People who circulate the petitions of the Varela Project are regularly harassed and fired from their jobs. The man who hung the flags upside down, Oscar Elias Biscet, was arrested and imprisoned for three years; after his release this month he described cruel treatment, including inadequate rations of food, involuntary psychiatric examinations and long stretches in solitary confinement. Juan Carlos Gonzalez Leiva, the president of the Cuban Foundation for Human Rights and the man who dared to shout for them in public, has been in prison awaiting trial since last March; authorities have charged him with disrespect and public disorder and are seeking a sentence of six to eight years.

Then there is Leonardo Miguel Bruzon Avila, president of the 24th of February Movement -- named for both a turning point in the Spanish-American War and the day in 1996 when two civilian aircraft carrying four members of the Cuban American Brothers to the Rescue movement were shot down over international waters by Cuban fighter jets. Mr. Bruzon was merely planning a peaceful public ceremony when he was arrested Feb. 23; since then he has been held without trial. In late August, in protest of the conditions under which he and some 230 other Cuban political prisoners are being held, he began a hunger strike. Now, according to his family, he is near death at a military hospital. His family says his body is covered with bruises and he is coughing blood; his voice is barely audible. His condition is a testament to the nature of Mr. Castro's regime. By the same token, the peaceful tactics he and other opponents have so courageously adhered to predict the quality of government that could one day succeed the dictatorship.

© 2002 The Washington Post Company


armando quincoses
mechanical engineer
weatherford texas

From the Crimson-White website...University establishes relationship with Cuba
First Previous Next Last (1 of 2 posts)
Posted 11/15/2002
How interesting that Prof. Clayton is working on a book concerning human rights. Perhaps in his travels in Cuba he may have noticed that Cubans are denied the right to speak freely, to read books and articles of their choosing, to buy a computer, to join an independent trade union, to grow and sell crops freely, or even to choose where to live in their own country. He may be aware that it is a criminal offense for a Cuban to oppose Castro's policies.
Prof. Clayton and the University will now have to decide who they will work with and stand with - the oppressors or the oppressed. I hope it is the latter. I hope on his next trip the professor takes a couple of boxes of books and gives them to one of the independent libraries. And if the professor is feeling bold, he can tell the Cuban Customs officials when he arrives that he is taking materials to groups that believe in human rights and democracy. Through such an action he may even learn something about life under a dictatorship.
Sincerely,

Ambassador Dennis Hays (ret)
Exec. Vice President
Cuban American National Foundation

Dennis Hays
hq@canf.org http://canf.org/About/aboutdkh.htm
NGO
Washington, DC

Now that CUBA,ALABAMA is entering its third month on the Net, many of my loyal Cubanologists are requesting a return of items which have dropped off the page. Even if I spent money(haven't spent a dime on this thing yet-put that in your pipe and smoke it, all you "professional academics" out there with your idiotic disparaging attitude toward "amateurs" like me), an upgraded Blog would still produce difficulties in retrieving Cuba,Alabama archives. Therefore, send all requests for archives to robertoreg@hotmail.com, and I will gladly scratch around in the old Blog and dig up all you want. Many of you will notice a rerun of old images on the current page. This was done in response to my muchachos' request for stuff that had dropped off the page. I leave you now to search for photos on the Net of effete intellectual snobs sitting around elegant rooms in Havana sucking up to FIDEL'S POLITBURO SYCOPHANTS(what a joke-and just think-they bring pictures of castro home as souvenirs of havana)

http://www.harvardmagazine.com/archive/01ja/ja01_dept_treasure.htmlThe ball shown here is three feet, seven inches, in diameter and is said to weigh 2,000 pounds. It was one of two such balls sent in 1964 by the National Museum of Costa Rica to the Central American pavilion at the New York World's Fair. At the conclusion of the fair, one of the balls went to the National Geographic Society and the other to the Peabody Museum at Harvard. (Reportedly, many other Costa Rican antiquities also left the country for good during the 1960s.)

The director of Costa Rica's National Museum in 1964 was Doris Zemurray Stone '30. She was a distinguished archaeologist and ethnographer and a benefactor of the Peabody in many ways. She was also the daughter of Samuel Zemurray, president of United Fruit until his retirement in 1951. Hoopes recalls that when he was a graduate student, the ball was known jokingly at the Peabody as the "Doris Stone."

AMAZING!!!! A story of improbable connections between events. A Russian immigrant's banana venture in Alabama leads ultimately to the Bay of Pigs invasion!

--William

This comment on Sam, The Banana Man, comes from an old childhood friend of mine from Dothan, William Arthur Wheatley,AIA,RAIC,ACFE and Chairman of the Wheatley Companies. Check out this Young Junior and Dothan High School alumnus' website http://www.wheatleyus.com/pages/672346/index.htm

http://www.unitedfruit.org/zemurray.htmlTHE WILD STORY OF SELMA'S SAM, THE BANANA MAN
1877 Samuel Zmurri is born in Besarabia, Russia. When immigrating to the United States he changed his name to Samuel Zemurray
1892 Young Samuel Zemurray arrives to the United States from Besarabia. He settles with his family in Selma, Alabama. After their arrival, young Samuel worked for an aged pack-peddler who bartered tinware for pigs, earning a dollar a week. He went to Mobile, Alabama, to enter the fruit business, buying second-hand bananas in carload lots and disposing of them to nearby dealers. He used a railroad car for his pushcart in his first banana venture, buying about $150 worth of bananas in Mobile and shipping them inland by Railway Express, telegraphing grocers along the route to come to the railroad sidings for ripe bananas. He made about $35 on his first investment.
1902 The Hubbard-Zemurray Company is established in New Orleans.
1905 Zemurray goes to Honduras to study the possibility of creating his own banana export corporation.
1910 With a loan of two thousand dollars Zemurray buys five thousand acres in the lands of the Cuyamel River in Honduras to establish his plantations. He named his new company Cuyamel Fruit Company which would eventually become into the most serious competitor of United Fruit. However, after having invested in purchasing the lands he found out that the current Honduran President, Miguel Davila, would not grant him the tax, land, and transportation concessions he was expecting from him. Then he decided to organize and finance a military coup against Davila in order to replace him with the President's rival Manuel Bonilla. Zemurray's military expedition sailed from New Orleans led by the legendary American mercenaries Lee Christmas and Guy "Machine Gun" Molony. The operation was successful and Zemurray and Bonilla got rid of Davila. When Bonilla became the new Honduran President he granted the Cuyamel Fruit Company with all the concessions Zemurray was expecting..
1911 The Hubbard-Zemurray Company changes its name to Cuyamel Fruit Company .
1915 Zemurray becomes into the most serious competitor of United Fruit
1929 November: After an unsuccessful price war against Zemurray's Cuyamel Fruit Company, United Fruit decides to merge with it. United Fruit sold Zemurray $31,500,000 in the company's stocks in return for all Cuyamel stock. After this operation Zemurray became into the biggest shareholder of United Fruit
1930 Louisiana's governor Huey Long denounces Samuel Zemurray in the U.S. Senate for being involved in corrupted businesses in Central America
1933 During the first years of the Great Depression the shares' price of United Fruit fell dramatically and its profits decreased from $44.6 million in 1932 to 6.2 in 1932. The members of the board of directors vote to name Zemurray general director of the company. Two weeks after the price of the company's stock doubled. Zemurray's first move was to replace the existing tropical managers with experienced managers from the tropics and former employees of Cuyamel. He also improved transport and intra-company communication while reorganizing the company with a clear hierarchy with a specialization of the employees within the different parts of the company.

During the 1930s Zemurray used his fortune in several philanthropic works such as a big donation to the New Orleans Child Guidance Clinic and backed financially the creation and survival of The Nation magazine
1942 Samuel Zemurray, President of the United Fruit, establishes the Escuela Agricola Panamericana in Honduras. This was a free higher-education school paid by the company for the locals and specialized in agricultural research
1948 Samuel Zemurray lets one of the company's ships to participate in the settlement of Jews in Palestine after the war. The ship was re-baptized with the name of Exodus and carried the first wave of Jewish immigrants to the Middle East
1954Zemurray approves the publication of a book called "Report on Guatemala" which claimed that Arbenz Agrarian Reform had been planned in Moscow. The book was distributed to Congressmen
June, 18. Using military bases in Nicaragua Guatemalan Colonel Carlos Castillo Armas attacks Guatemala in what his supporters called "the Liberation war against Communism." The operation was backed by all the other Central American governments and the United States. Castillo succeeded at forcing Arbenz to go on exile and immediately ended the legal actions against United Fruit under the Agrarian Reform Law. Twenty-five year old Argentinean Ernesto Guevara (later known as el "Che") witnesses the coup and gets convinced that radical changes in Latin America were only possible through an armed revolution. Guevara was living in Guatemala at that time working as a doctor and book-seller and volunteered to organize resistance militias against Castillo's army. When facing an inevitable defeat he escaped from Guatemala to Mexico where he met another political refugee who became into one of his closest friends: Cuban Fidel Castro
1961 A group of Cuban exiles attempts unsuccessfully to invade Cuba and depose Fidel Castro. United Fruit provides two ships for the disastrous Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba.

UI expert finds novel written by a Southern belle


By GREG KLINE, The News Gazette, Champaign, Illinois

She was the only woman on Civil War Confederate money, a Southern belle of head-turning beauty and, behind the scenes, a skillful political operator.
So when Vernon Burton heard that Lucy Holcombe Pickens – daughter of Texas, wife of South Carolina's powerful governor, rumored lover of a Russian czar – might have secretly penned a romantic novel published under a man's name, he was naturally interested.
But it took the University of Illinois history and sociology Professor 15 years of off-and-on detective work before he could find a copy of the book. Now, thanks to Burton and his wife Georganne "The Free Flag of Cuba" and Lucy Pickens are getting a modern audience.
"My guess is it's going to do better now than it did then because of the historical value that it has now," said Burton, one of whose specialties is Southern history.
Burton first heard about "The Free Flag of Cuba" in researching his Pulitzer Prize-nominated book "In My Father's House Are Many Mansions: Family and Community in Edgefield, South Carolina."
"There were rumors that she had written this novel," he said. "But I could never find it. "I wanted to see what she said because I'd heard so much about her."
"To write a novel would have backed up my theory that this was a disciplined, political woman," he added.
Especially a novel with a decidedly political message. The book is loose a fictionalization, and a defense, of the Lopez "filibuster" of Cuba. At the time, "filibustering" didn't mean long-winded senators speaking, but rather mercenary American military expeditions in Latin countries.
Ostensibly, the goal was to free the countries to emulate the American republic. In practice, it served to line some participants' pockets and, from the perspective of the South, had potential to add slave states to the Union.
When the Lopez expedition was quashed in 1851, many of its participants were executed by Spanish authorities, including the love of Lucy Holcombe's life, William Crittenden.
Her book is partly autobiographical. But the Burtons said it also serves a number of other purposes.
Its idyllic portrayal of slavery, for example, is a refutation of the picture in "Uncle Tom's Cabin," the classic anti-slavery book of the time. Its stance on federal authority – President Millard Filmore denounced filibustering – presages Southern arguments for the Civil War.
Over the years, as Burton searched, some libraries and other repositories claimed to have the lost book. But all the leads turned out to be dead ends.
"I would go and they would say they would have a copy and it would be a part of it," said Burton, who also found a handwritten fragment at Duke University.
The search was further complicated because the book's title was listed differently by different sources, as was the pseudonym Pickens used to write it, H.M. Hardimann.
Finally, UI librarian Carol Penka located the full text on a roll of microfilm made to preserve obscure 19th Century novels. (As far as the Burtons can tell, only one paper original, found later at the New York Historical Society, exists.)
Burton and his wife, who taught history and English, had been looking for a project to do together and went to work editing and annotating the novel for new publication.
Their introduction, which covers nearly a quarter of the book, is a mini history of, among other things, the filibuster movement, the Lopez expedition, the pre-Civil War South and, of course, Lucy Pickens.
Lucy married the rich, powerful and much older Francis Pickens (he was 53, she not quite 26) after her Crittenden's death in Cuba. Her book may have been, in part, an exercise to work through her loss.
Pickens, a former congressman, was dispatched as minister to Russia in 1858. Lucy's daughter Eugenia was born in the Russian royal palace in 1859.
Speculation in some quarters was that Czar Alexander played more of a role than providing the birth place. The Burtons discount that as sniping from Lucy's rivals, and the dates between the Pickens' first meeting the czar and the birth don't add up.
As the country moved toward Civil War, Pickens, once seen as a potential presidential candidate, returned to become South Carolina's governor. He led the state's secession and demanded the surrender of federal forts in Charleston Harbor.
Meanwhile, Lucy Pickens was the "uncrowned queen of the Confederate South," an extravagant and flirtatious hostess and a confidante to many Southern politicians, according to the Burtons.
She appeared on the Confederate $100 bill – they were called Lucys – and sponsored a Holcombe Legion in the South's Army, perhaps paid for with jewels received from Czar Alexander.

DENBIGH HEADING OUT ON THE MOBILE-HAVANA RUN, 1864

THESE BONDS PAID FOR THE MOBILE-HAVANA BLOCKADE RUNNER'S CONSTRUCTION IN LIVERPOOL

THE $100 CONFEDERATE BILL WITH THE PORTRAIT OF LUCY PICKENS, AUTHOR OF THE FREE FLAG OF CUBA

WANTA LET MY OLE BUDDY, KEN BABBS(AKA. capn skyp) KNOW I APPRECIATED HIM LINKING "Cuba,Alabama" UP ON HIS WEBSITE
The intrepid/prankster one does some great work. Check him out and JOIN THE CLUB NOW!!!! athttp://skypilotclub.com

from http://scribblguy.50megs.com/ruby.htm
Ferrie later admitted that after the Bay of Pigs invasion, he severely criticized President John F. Kennedy, both in public and in private. Ferrie was asked to discontinue his remarks at a speaking engagement in July 1961 before the New Orleans chapter of the Military Order of World Wars. His topic was the Presidential administration and the Bay of Pigs fiasco. The organization put a stop to Ferrie's remarks when he became too critical of President Kennedy [and proclaimed that "anyone could hide in the bushes and shoot a President."]. He [later] denied ever making a statement that Kennedy should be killed with the intention that this be done.

Ferrie's troubles intensified [in August, 1961,] when charges were brought against him by parents of boys [the Alexander Landry and Albert Cheramie cases] who had run away from home. .... The parents of another boy complained to authorities [letter from William Bell] that their son was staying with Ferrie. As a result, Ferrie was arrested on August 8, 1961, for contributing to the delinquency of a juvenile. Cuban exile leader Arcacha Smith intervened on Ferrie's behalf by telling police that the boy would be returned to his parents if they did not press charges against Ferrie. But Ferrie was arrested again on August 11, 1961, for crime against nature on a 15-year-old boy and indecent behavior with three others.

An intensive New Orleans police investigation of the charges against Ferrie produced statements from several boys that Ferrie had commited indecent acts with them. The boys also told investigators Ferrie had told them he had had homosexual relations with a married man in Houston. On August 26, Eastern Airlines removed him from the payroll for an indefinite period, and the Federal Aviation Administration then opened its own investigation into the charges.

Ferrie managed to stay afloat financially despite his loss of income from Eastern Airlines in 1961. .... Ferrie made payments on his car and met living expenses. According to Carlos Quiroga, a Cuban who had been involved with the CRC, "Ferrie has $100 bills around all the time," even after he lost his job with the airlines

ALABAMA AND THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR- 1898
Dr. Leah Rawls Atkins, Auburn University
The Spanish-American War was one of the shortest wars fought by the United States, lasting only from April 25 to December 10, 1898. Alabama had three white regiments and one black battalion (composed of the Montgomery Capital City Guards and the Mobile Gilmer Rifles), but the state had a difficult time bringing its National Guard units and volunteers up to desired strength of numbers because too many men could not pass the physical exams of the War Department (they failed at the rate of 50 percent). The commissioning of the units was delayed and many Alabama troops never left the state.
Alabama's troops gathered at Camp Clarke near Mobile where clothing, food, and medical care were inadequate. It was June 24 before Alabama troops were moved to Miami, where things were hardly better. The war was over before these troops could leave the United States.

Alabama, however, did provide two of the war's most highly regarded heroes: Joseph Wheeler and Richmond Pearson Hobson.


"Fighting Joe" Wheeler was born in Augusta, Georgia, in 1836. A West Point graduate, Wheeler was a twenty-five-year-old cavalry lieutenant fighting Indians in the west when the Civil War began. He returned to the South and was offered a commission in the Confederate army. By May 1864, he was made senior cavalry general of the Confederate armies. At the end of the war he retired to his plantation in north Alabama and studied law. In 1881 he was elected to represent Alabama's 8th Congressional district. He was serving in Congress when the Spanish-American War began and immediately petitioned for an army commission. President McKinley made Wheeler a major general, and he was sent to Cuba and given command of the cavalry. As one historian has noted, Wheeler was "a potent symbol of national reunification." Wheeler distinguished himself in the battles of Santiago and El Caney. Suffering from a fever (the usual reason given for his lapse in memory), Wheeler yelled to his troops during a charge against the Spanish position at San Juan: "Now, at them, boys, and wipe those Yankees off the face of the earth!"


Richmond Pearson Hobson was born in Greensboro (Hale County), Alabama, on August 17, 1870. He was a graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy at Annapolis (1889) and of the French National School of Naval Design in Paris (1893). He left the U.S. Navy in 1903. During the Spanish-American War he led the Merrimac and a volunteer crew of eight in a daring attempt to sink the Merrimac in the channel of Santiago Harbor, thus preventing the Spanish navy from sailing. This daring feat was not completely successful, but it made Hobson a naval hero. He was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor in 1933 for this heroic deed. Hobson represented Alabama in Congress from 1907 to 1915, when he retired from political office and left Alabama for California. He later moved to New York, where he died in 1937.

French refugees from the West Indies, white and black, who had fled from the St. Domingue rebellion to Cuba, arrived in the Louisiana territory after 1809 when the Spanish government expelled them from Cuba. More than 3,000 slaves and 3,000 free people of color along with a small number of whites settled in New Orleans. The existing community of free blacks in New Orleans were outnumbered by the French immigrants and conflicts arose over culture and societal norms.
PLEASE SEND ALL SUGGESTIONS AND OTHER UNWANTED COMMENTS TO robertoreg@hotmail.com

WILL CUBA BE THE NEXT VANCE?
Jobs by the thousands may be coming to Sumter.

Alabama Governor Bob Riley said Saturday, March 2 that he is working to create an Industrial site in Cuba that may be home to the next Mercedes, Honda or Hyundai Plant that have recently come to Alabama providing thousands of jobs.

The industrial venture will be a joint effort between Alabama and Mississippi. Riley told newspaper editors and publishers who were attending the Alabama Press Association meeting in Birmingham.

Riley said that the high paying jobs could be as high as $60,000 and employ up to 2,000 people.

Riley said the plan is in the talking stages and Mississippi Governor Ronnie Musgrove has expressed interest as well as Mississippi’s economic development agency.

The plan thus far is for both states to buy up to 4,000 acres each that would be suitable for a auto manufacturer or other suitable tenant.

A definite site has not been located but Riley’s said the logical choice would be CUBA,ALABAMA.

RPF:
I am working on another important anniversary Gilder-Lehrman may be interested in. This coming May 25 marks the 200th anniversary of the arrest of William Augustus Bowles. Bowles was financed by British abolitionists and he appealed to them for help in Sierra Leone in 1799 after his last escape from the Spanish. He was arrested at Hickory Ground near present-day Wetumpka, Alabama in late May of 1803. The Indians arrested him but Stephen Folch,son of the Spanish Governor of West Florida, Benjamin Hawkins, U.S. Commissioner to the Southern Indians, and John Forbes, head of Panton Leslie Co. were at Hickory Ground to orchestrate the arrest and make sure he ended up in Morro Castle in Havana Harbor.

Because Bowles attacked the Panton-Leslie store a St. Marks in 1792 and 1800 and the Indians loved credit, the Creeks owed Forbes over $200,000. Forbes was compensated one year to the date of Bowles' capture when the Forbes Purchase was signed by 22 Seminole chiefs at Chiscatalofa in present day Houston County, Alabama. One of the conditions of the cession was that Forbes open a store at Prospect Bluff on the Apalachicola River. This became the location of Nichol's Negro Fort during the War of 1812. Claudio Saunt deals with these events effectively in his book, A New Order of Things.
Another Bowles fact that might interest Gilmer-Lehrman: not only did Bowles like to steal slaves but he taught them how to man cannon and sail his freebooting ships. He attacked and forced the surrender of the Spanish fort at St. Marks in 1800 using Indian and Negro cannon crews. OH, another thing, the 7 mile long island across the river from the Negro Fort is known to this day as FORBES ISLAND. Look it up on the map. The site of the Negro Fort is now named Fort Gadsden and is located about 20 miles north of the town of Apalachicola, Florida.
A buddy of mine emailed me the N.Y. Times article from 2001 which mentioned ya'll and the controversy about profits from slavery being used to start up Yale. Sounds like ya'll got a lot a folks with raw nerves up there. Hope Gilder-Lehrman can do something to sooth those tormented souls and while your at it, help those New Haven Puerto Ricans to chill out too!
Best,
Robert


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Robert P. Forbes, Associate Director
The Gilder Lehrman Center
for the Study of Slavery, Resistance, and Abolition
Yale Center for International and Area Studies
P.O. Box 208206
New Haven, CT 06520-8206
http://www.yale.edu/glc/

This fellow, William Augustus Bowles, was imprisoned and died in Havana's Morro Castle. May 25, 2003 will mark the 200th anniversary of his arrest at Hickory Ground (home of the Porch Creek Bingo Parlor) near present-day Wetumpka, Alabama. More on Director-General Bowles later.

1864 Nemiso Guillo returns from school in Mobile, Alabama. He brings a bat and baseball in his trunk.

1866 American sailors help spread baseball in Cuba by playing with the locals at Cuban ports.

1869 Spanish authorities issue a ban on Baseball on the island of Cuba...Esteban Bellan joins the semipro Troy Haymakers.

1871 Cuban Esteban Bellan becomes the first Cuban and Latin American player to play in a Major League in the United States. He played with the Troy Haymakers and New York Mutuals of the National Association.

1874 The first official game is played on December 27, 1874, at the Palmar del Junco, in Pueblo Nuevo, Matanzas. Club Habana defeated Club Matanzas, 51 to 9, in 9 innings.

1878 Club Habana and Club Almendares are organized. They participate along with Club Matanzas in the first Championship which is won by Club Habana
http://www.cubanball.com

THESE PICTURES OF CARDENAS COME FROM http://www.delafe.com

Pulled this out of my bag of tricks this morning: Restitution of Property In Cuba: Lessons Learned From East Europe by G. Douglas Harper. I haven't read the complete paper, however, it appears to approach a description of Post-Communist/Post-Castro Cuba. http://lanic.utexas.edu/la/cb/cuba/asce/cuba9/harper.pdf
This paper deals with schemes for dealing with confiscated property in Post-Communist/Post-Castro Cuba. Harper examines the Restitution Model where the state actually returns property to the former owners and the Compensation Model which can take the form of cash, bonds,stocks or vouchers.
Harper concludes that a post-Communist/post-Castro Cuban government should reconvey commercial property to former owners but suggests that a method be adopted to make it simple for residential property to be conveyed to the current occupants. When Cubans are secure in their housing, they will be of more help in stabilizing the new government.