Cuba, the largest island in the Caribbean,…

Cuba, the largest island in the Caribbean, has replaced the former French colony of Saint-Domingue as the world's largest producer of sugar, production in the latter having declined after the Haitian Revolution—the only successful slave rebellion in world history—established the independent state of Haiti in 1804.

Colonized and ruled by Spain, Cuba has risen to become the richest land in the Caribbean (with sugar as its dominant crop) because it forms the only major island landmass free of mountainous terrain.

Instead, nearly three-quarters of its land forms a rolling plain—ideal for planting crops.

In 1826, the first armed uprising for independence had taken place in Puerto Príncipe (Camagüey Province), led by Francisco de Agüero and Andrés Manuel Sánchez.

Agüero (a white Cuban) and Sánchez (a Cuban of mixed African and European ancestry) had been executed, becoming the first martyrs of Cuban independence.

Another is the "Expedición de los Trece" (Expedition of the Thirteen) in 1826.

Perhaps due in part to the Spanish colonies' late discovery of the money to be made on slave production of sugarcane, particularly on Cuba, the Spanish colonies will be among the last to make any moves to abolish slavery.

Cuba is to retain slavery longer than the most of the rest of the Caribbean islands, as will its sister Spanish colony, Puerto Rico.

In Puerto Rico, slavery will not be abolished until 1873; in Cuba, not until 1886.