At the beginning of the 19th century, Cuba welcomed thousands of Spanish immigrants from Louisiana, as well as the immigration of the French population from Santo Domingo. These French immigrants settled almost entirely in Santiago, Guantánamo, Baracoa, and towns in the foothills of the Sierra Maestra.

In 1812, Cuba made its first attempt at independence, following the example of Haiti. This independence attempt, led by the slave Antonio Aponte, aimed at achieving the emancipation of our country and establishing a Black government, failed. Aponte was captured and sentenced to death with eight of his followers.

The Spanish conquistadors established cattle raising and the planting of sugarcane and tobacco as Cuba’s main economic objectives. Thus, Cuba’s wealth rose to unprecedented levels between 1823 and the end of the 19th century. The captains-general transformed the island into a dictatorship completely unlike any previous autocracies. Slavery and the (prohibited) slave trade underpinned progress. African slaves were imported to work on ranches and plantations via ships from the United States and insured in that country. Several American presidents entertained the idea of ​​acquiring the island.

In the following years, Cuba’s economic situation underwent significant changes. Coffee production collapsed, driven by Spain’s clumsy tariff policy, competition from Brazilian beans, and the superior profitability of sugarcane. Sugar production itself was driven to modernize its manufacturing in response to the commercial push from European beet sugar. Increasingly dependent on a single commodity—sugar—and the U.S. market, Cuba urgently needed profound socioeconomic transformations, to which slavery and Spanish colonial exploitation posed major obstacles.

The failure of the Information Board convened in 1867 by the metropolitan government to review its colonial policy in Cuba was a blow to the reformist hopes that had been dashed on several occasions. These circumstances fostered the latent independence movement among the most advanced sectors of Cuban society, fostering the formation of a vast conspiratorial patriotic movement in the central and eastern regions of the country.

During this period, the first national expressions of Cuban music emerged, with composers seeking a national imprint in their works, and in many of them enunciating later Cuban genres.