The Guarman Revolution occurred in 1899 when the sugarcane farmers on the Cuban island of Guarma rose in rebellion against the military governor Alberto Fussar and deposed his brutal regime. The revolution occurred shortly after a boom in sugar production, which had driven Fussar to force the island's peasants to labor for 14 hours a day in the sugarcane fields. The unpopularity of Fussar's rule led to the local peasants, Haitian pirates, and a gang of stranded American outlaws rising up against the Cuban Army garrison on the island, defeating the Cuban reinforcements, and killing Fussar himself.
Background[]
Following Cuban independence from Spain in 1898, the United States established a protectorate over Cuba and exploited its wealth in sugarcane, creating a sugar boom over the next year. The boom enriched wealthy American businessmen such as Leviticus Cornwall and other investors, but it also undercut the US sugar industry and led to a loss of jobs. In addition, the Cuban governor of Guarma (a Cuban island east of the Cuban mainland), Alberto Fussar, held the island under quasi-military rule, and his widely-feared security force ensured that plantation workers labored 14 hours a day to keep up with production quotas. Fields which once flourished with locally grown foods and were used to feed the island were suddenly switched to sugarcane fields, creating a single-crop economy in which food had to be imported to Guarma, to great expense for the local plantation workers. Foreign investors hired security guards and police to guard their plantations and subject the workers to harsh conditions and penalties, and Fussar even oversaw the enslavement of peoples from nearby islands (such as Haiti) to work his fields.
War[]
Popular discontent with Fussar's rule manifested itself when the socialist plantation worker Leon Fuentes gathered a band of rebellious sugarcane farmers and took up arms against the government. They were aided and armed by Haitian pirates under Hercule Fontaine, whose men took over the fortress of Cinco Torres and used it as a rebel stronghold. The government held on to their capital at Aguasdulces, and Fussar's soldiers were given orders to hang any captured rebels, attempting to brutally suppress the uprising. However, the arrival of American outlaw castaways under Dutch van der Linde aided the rebel cause, as Dutch, Arthur Morgan, Micah Bell, and Bill Williamson took up arms with the rebels once they were freed from a government chain gang. Morgan helped Fuentes rescue several of his captured comrades from a government prison camp and later helped Dutch rescue a captured Javier Escuella (their fellow gang member) from Fussar's fortress in Aguasdulces before meeting with Fontaine to receive a promised boat back to the mainland. However, the Cuban government sent an ironclad and reinforcement boats to attack Cinco Torres, preventing the outlaws from escaping. They joined the rebels in fighting off the Cuban army and navy, engaging in close-quarters fighting with the Cuban soldiers on the ramparts and on the beach before using the fortress' great cannon to sink the ironclad. After finding out that their captain had been captured and taken to Aguasdulces, the gang joined the rebels in assaulting the capital at nighttime, ambushing the garrison and once again engaging in a close-quarters battle. During a Mexican standoff, Morgan kicked a dropped rifle to the wounded captain, who used it to shoot Fussar's overseer Levi Simon. Fussar fled to a watchtower as the outlaws and Fontaine shot their way through his men and destroyed his cannons, and Fussar himself attempted to man the tower's cannon and blast the outlaws. However, Morgan used a nearby cannon to destroy the tower canno and kill Fussar, liberating Aguasdulces and allowing for the rebels to secure passage for freed laborers to escape the island to Haiti.
Aftermath[]
The outlaws left aboard the next ship out of Guarma, sailing back to Louisiana and establishing a new base at Lakay. The Guarman uprising caused political unrest which led to the American tycoon J.D. McKnight taking control of the sugar industry on Guarma, Barbados, and the Virgin Islands, and the United States would only increase its involvement in Latin American affairs during the "Banana Wars".
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