God and the Nation: Protestants, Patriotism and Pride in Cuba, 1890-1906

Abstract

Evaristo Collazo was a humble man with a tenacious spirit. Photographs show him in his forties with a receding hairline and a great moustache. He is dressed in a three-piece suit with a cravat, holding a Bible in his right hand. His back is straight and his eyes stare outward, looking like a man with a purpose. He had left the Cuban Catholic Church, joining first the Episcopalians, then the Baptists and finally, the Presbyterian Church in 1890. He found a home in the Reformed theology and structure of the Presbyterian Church as an alternative to the hierarchical constraints many Cubans felt with the Catholic Church that served more faithfully the Spanish king than the people of Cuba. He desired to see his homeland free from the Spanish monarchy and served in the War of Independence from 1895 to 1898. Evaristo Collazo also advocated for Cuban leadership in the Presbyterian Church in Cuba, at times coming into conflict with the American missionaries who wanted to retain control. The origin of the Presbyterian Church in Cuba, however, did not begin with the American missionaries who descended on Cuba during the US occupation from 1898 until 1902. Instead, it was a Cuban, Collazo, who requested Presbyterian missionaries, and then asked to be ordained by them in order to lead the church he had established. This Cuban-ness-evangelical and nationalist-was something Presbyterians in Cuba shared with other Protestant denominations in adapting Protestant theology to the needs of Cuban society as nationalists who advocated for reform and social justice. This relationship between Cuban and American Protestants is significant because it afforded Cubans opportunities to blunt US hegemony, permit Cuban leadership and placate Cuban pride. These ties continue to this day and present an important dynamic as US-Cuban relations continue to evolve.In the years leading up to a new war of independence, Cubans increasingly found US Protestant denominations in Cuba to be supportive of rebel goals. Then, when the United States took over the conflict and occupied the island, increasing numbers of US Protestant missionaries arrived. Most studies of Cuba in this period focus on the military occupation, the political foundation of the republic and the importance of US business interests. American and Cuban Protestants were involved in all these aspects but are seldom studied in depth. Richard Gott (2004) suggests that a horde of US missionaries descended on the island at the turn of the twentieth century and helped impose a US-based structure on the island's evangelicals. Histories of Cuba by North American and European scholars and writers describe the importation of US institutions and values in the period of occupation and the early Republic. Luis A. Perez (1995: 63) states, 'Almost immediately, the small Cuban ministry was overwhelmed and displaced by a vast influx of North American missionaries of all denominations'. He identifies several Cubans who became Protestants while in exile in the United States. However, his theme of hegemony leads him to undervalue the significance of the Cuban spirit, and he makes these early Protestants tools of North American domination, despite showing several of these Cubans standing up to their Protestant denomination and its missionaries. Jason M. Yaremko (2000) presented details about Baptists and Methodists in Eastern Cuba to explain tensions between Cuban pastors and US missionaries by the 1920s and the 1930s. However, the example of Evaristo Collazo indicates that differences in church organisation allowed more flexibility to Cuban Presbyterians, and the impression of Cuban Protestants as overwhelmed and frustrated can now be more nuanced. There was a mixture of cooperation, subordination and resistance present from the beginning.This study uses material from the archives and library of the Protestant Theological Seminary (Seminario Evangelico Teologico) in Matanzas, Cuba, not available in the US and has three main points. …