History of Freemasonry in Cuba

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Grand Lodge of Cuba

The history of Freemasonry in Cuba begins in 1762 with the first Masonic ceremonies by members of an Irish field lodge when British troops conquered Havana. The Creole bourgeoisie , who suffered from the high import and export taxes of the Spaniards , also benefited from this period .

Late colonial era

In 1697 France occupied the western part of the island of Hispaniola, discovered by Christopher Columbus in October 1492 and named La Isla Española by him . This part of the island was called Saint Domingue during this colonial period , while the eastern part of Spain was called Santo Domingo after the city of the same name.

During the European coalition wars between France and Great Britain, François-Dominique Toussaint L'Ouverture joined the Haitian Revolution in 1791 , during which many French colonists and large landowners fled to Cuba between 1791 and 1797. In 1802 and 1803 some of them founded the first Masonic lodges in Santiago de Cuba .

In 1802, the French jeweler Joseph Cerneau , a member of the French Réunion des Coeurs Lodge in Port-au-Prince and later founder of Cerneauism in New York City , became the second major overseer of the Provincial Grand Lodge of Saint Domingue. After his escape to Cuba, he became the first master of the chair of the new Lodge El Templo de las Virtudes Teologales No 103 , which was founded in 1804 under the patent of the Grand Lodge of Pennsylvania . With the beginning of the Spanish War of Independence , he was excluded from membership of his lodge in 1807 and banned from the island due to a petition to the governor of Cuba. So he got to New York City, where he moved from Washington Lodge No. 21 was added.

In the following years, other Masonic lodges were founded in Cuba by various American grand lodges and the Grand Orient of France . In 1818 the French general Louis de Clouet officially introduced the Scottish Rite in Havana with the Consistory of the Princes of the Royal Secret . In addition, through patents of the Grand Lodge of Louisiana and South Carolina, lodges were created that worked according to the York Rite and merged to form the Gran Logia del Rito York .

With the reign of the absolutist Ferdinand VII in 1814, severe persecution, torture and execution of Freemasons began on his orders in Spain. When he tightened anti-Masonic measures in 1824, all Masonic work in Cuba also came to a standstill.

After Ferdinand's death in 1833, Freemasonry was temporarily tolerated in Spain, but persecution began again in 1852. Under the government of General Baldomero Espartero from 1854 to July 1856, Freemasonry was able to recover briefly, but soon Masonic work in Spain turned out to be difficult again until the Spanish Revolution of 1868: King Amadeus of Savoy was a Freemason himself.

Grand Lodge of Columbus

José Martí

In Cuba, however, the Supreme Council of the Council of Kadosh of the Scottish Rite was founded in 1857 , and these high-grade Freemasons in turn founded the symbolic Fraternidad and Prudencia lodges . Later, the regular San Andrés Lodge was added, which was patented by the South Carolina Grand Lodge and whose members were mainly Cubans, including its top officials. These three lodges met in 1859 and founded the Grand Lodge of Columbus under the direction of Andrew Cassard , a Cuban of French descent who is also known as the father of the island's Masons for his role in the revival of the Brotherhood. In 1862, Dr. Vicente Antonio de Castro the Grand Orient of Cuba and the West Indies (GOCA) with the aim of regularizing Freemasonry .

Although the Spanish King Amadeus of Savoy was a Freemason, the outbreak of the War of Independence in 1868 caused renewed persecution in Cuba and many Freemasons and the Grand Masters of the Grand Lodge of Columbus were imprisoned. José Andrés Puente Badell was shot like many others - and only because they were Freemasons. Because of the persecutions, the work of the Grand Orient of Columbus was suspended until it was rebuilt in 1871. Freemasonry was reorganized and the Grand Orient of Columbus was recognized by the Grand Orient of Spain . Nevertheless, the contacts were officially broken off by the representative of the American grand lodges, Ramon Bru Lassús, and lodges were immediately founded in Havana, as well as in Cuba, Spain, the Iberian Union and Hijos von Covadonga . The reason was to cut off the Creoles fighting against the metropolis from the resources that the grand orient of Columbus gave them. In the same year, however, this incident was resolved when Bru was removed from office on charges of political intentions and personal gain.

The convention, held in Lausanne in 1875, was convened by a Cuban representative and was intended to lead to some important agreements for the development of Freemasonry in Cuba. The Supreme Council of Columbus was recognized as regular and sovereign regardless of political dependence on Spain. It was also agreed that the Supreme Council would no longer work on the three symbolic degrees, which enabled a friendship agreement and mutual recognition between the Supreme Council of Columbus and the Symbolic Grand Lodge of Columbus .

Gran Logia de la Isla de Cuba

Masonic Lodge Washington

On August 1, 1876, under Aurelio Almeida y González , the Grand Lodge of the Island of Cuba (Gran Logia de la Isla de Cuba) was founded in the west of the country and agreed on mutual recognition with the Grand Orient of Spain. In 1878, the members of the Grand Lodge were accused of rebelling against the Spanish regime and asked to justify themselves. The answer of Grand Master Gregorio González Amador and Grand Secretary Aurelio Almeida was correspondingly sovereign: It was made clear that there was no authority over the Grand Lodge and thereupon, shortly after the peace of Zanjón , the relationship with the Grand Orient of Spain was broken off.

During this time, Freemasonry respected the government's policy, but the Obreros de la Luz Lodge was founded , among whose members was the revolutionary Julio Sanguily and who brought documents and messages in preparation for the Little War (Guerra Chiquita). Later he was to help General Calixto García to escape. The Plus Ultra and Evolución lodges were created under similar circumstances .

After a steady rapprochement of the grand lodges and a restructuring of the symbolic Freemasonry, in 1891 the grand lodge of the island of Cuba crystallized out as the only, symbolic and sovereign body and in the following year a single Supreme Council was involved to monitor the high degrees of Freemasonry.

With the establishment of the republic in 1902, freemasonry in Cuba experienced a great boom. Three of the first five presidents of Cuba were Freemasons: Tomás Estrada Palma , José Miguel Gómez and Gerardo Machado . Machado issued a decree in 1929 , which gave the Gran Logia de la Isla de Cuba state land for the construction of a grand lodge temple. On this he made the condition that a public library and a lay school be set up in this building. The building's bell tower received a statue of free thought with a fanal burning at night .

In 1930 the grand lodge had around 14,000 members in 25 districts with 190 lodges; in 1950 there were around 20,000 members in 258 lodges. In the mid-1950s there was a union with the Grand Lodge of Columbus . By 1959 the total number of members rose to 35,000 Freemasons in 339 lodges.

Since the 1959 revolution

When Fidel Castro , who invoked the ideals of the Freemason and national freedom hero José Martí , took power in Cuba in 1959, he did not forbid Freemasonry. But after the course of the revolutionary government, which was originally supported by Freemasonry, became radicalized, this led to a split among the supporters. The reigning Grand Master of the Grand Lodge, as well as its Grand Secretary and numerous members, fled to the USA, where they founded the Gran Logia de Cuba en el exilio in Florida in 1961 . After decades of separation, the leaders of the Cuban Freemasons in Cuba and in exile began a process of reunification in October 2013.

Interest in Freemasonry grew among Cubans in the early 1990s, while the country went through a period of severe crisis after the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe. By 1991 the number of members in Cuba had fallen to 22,000 in 317 lodges and then rose to 24,313 members in 314 lodges by 1999. In Germany there are around 14,000 Freemasons for every 82 million inhabitants, Cuba has almost twice the number of members with around 11 million inhabitants, so that Freemasonry is firmly anchored in the population. Freemasons are also represented in the political opposition. Among the 75 government critics who were sentenced to long prison terms during the so-called “ Black Spring ” in 2003 , there were twelve Freemasons. In March 2011, the Cuban state media announced that the pediatrician José Manuel Collera Vento had been an employee of the Cuban State Security Service since 1975 - at the same time he entered the Grand Lodge of Cuba, of which he was elected Grand Master in 2000 - and had been a double agent of the US from 2000 -American foreign intelligence service CIA had operated. Collera appeared in Havana as a witness for the prosecution in the criminal case against the American Alan Gross , in which he was convicted of espionage.

Since the maintenance costs for the grand lodge were too high and the library threatened to deteriorate, the building was given to the state telephone company. However, the top floors were secured and thus received free rooms including security guards and ancillary costs.

See also

literature

  • Eugen Lennhoff, Oskar Posner, Dieter A. Binder: International Freemasons Lexicon . Herbig Verlag, 5th edition 2006, ISBN 978-3-7766-2478-6 .
  • Robert A. Minder: Freemason Politicians Lexicon . Edition am rauhen Stein, 2004, ISBN 3-7065-1909-7 .
  • William R. Denslow, Harry S. Truman : 10,000 Famous Freemasons from A to J, Part One . Kessinger Publishing, ISBN 1-4179-7578-4 .
  • William R. Denslow, Harry S. Truman: 10,000 Famous Freemasons from K to Z, Part Two . Kessinger Publishing, ISBN 1-4179-7579-2 .
  • Eduardo Torres-Cuevas: "Historia de la masonería cubana seis ensayos". Imagen Contemporanea 2004, ISBN 959-7078-86-4 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Interview with the Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of Cuba regarding the unification of Freemasonry, on the website of the Masonic Press Agency of November 6, 2013, accessed on September 19, 2014 (English)
  2. ^ A b Gary Marx: Masons gain tenuous foothold in Cuba, in: Chicago Tribune, April 24, 2005, accessed September 19, 2014
  3. ↑ Revelan identidad agente cubano infiltrado en proyectos “humanitarios” de EEUU en Cuba (+ video), in: Cubadebate of March 28, 2011, accessed on September 19, 2014 (Spanish)
  4. ↑ Gran Logia de Cuba, Seguridad del Estado y manipulación: masones en la encrucijada, in: Martí Noticias of July 12, 2012, accessed on September 19, 2014 (Spanish)
  5. ↑ Entrevista con José Manuel Collera Vento, ex doble agente entre Cuba y EE. UU. (Video, 28 min.), Interview on RT.com from July 22, 2014, accessed on September 19, 2014 (Spanish)
  6. ↑ Patrick Oppmann: Cuba: US using new weapon against us: spam, in: CNN.com of April 10, 2014, accessed on September 19, 2014 (English)