Search

Rebel command post of Capt. Eddie Sunol (shown checking supplies on frame 28). Anciano sifting rice is local nutritionist. On Frames 20-21: Lt. Hanibal Hidalgo, at the time photographer's travel aide. Photographer shown with photo mule on Frames 22-23.

Fidel Castro at La Plata headquarters in the fall of 1958.

Rebel recruitment meeting with local peasants also described in Print 1. Top frames are taken from the opposite vantage point as the bottom. Frame 4 shows peasants raising their hands in response to Fidel's request for volunteers willing to take the oath of loyalty to the cause. In Frame 3, standing next to Fidel Castro in the center are Luis Crespo (gesturing with his right hand) and Universo Sánchez; in the left foreground is Nano Díaz (with cigar in his mouth and cartridge belt across his chest). Frame 4 also shows in the left foreground from left to right, the young guerrilla known as "Pedrito," Efigenio Ameijeiras (in metal helmet), Luis Crespo (with hat and towel around his shoulders), and Raúl Castro (with sleeves folded up, wearing hat and no beard). Frames 5 and 6 are taken from the same vantage point as Print 1. Frame 5 shows two additional figures not included in Print 1: in far-right corner wearing a metal helmet is Efigenio Ameijeiras and next to him is Raúl Castro. See also Print 1.

Top row of frames shows Fidel Castro's column on a break from marching and Fidel Castro, alongside Juan Almeida Bosque (looking down), as he greets two men: René Ramos Latour, known as "Daniel" and leader of the revolutionary underground in Santiago de Cuba (wearing hat and looking at piece of paper); and Humberto Sorí Marín (wearing sunglasses), the rebels' first Judge Advocate General and Minister of Agriculture. Latour was killed a year later in combat while Sorí Marín was eventually executed for counterrevolutionary activities against the leadership of Fidel Castro in Havana in 1961. The next frame in the same row shows Fidel Castro pointing at a young man with an inside-out cap on his head who is a captured government soldier. Behind him is a rebel recruit wearing a chauffeur's cap. The final frame in this row shows Fidel talking to two local peasants who happened upon the rebels' resting point, and shows Fidel unhitching his rucksack. Juan Almeida Bosque stands on Fidel's right. The second row of frames shows Fidel Castro talking to a peasant porter and then to another peasant serving as a local guide. Final frames in this row show Fidel with Celia Sánchez and Fidel talking with René Ramos Latour (hatless) and Juan Almeida Bosque, whose back is to the camera. The third row of frames shows Celia Sánchez bandaging Fidel Castro's finger, Fidel Castro pointing, a sleeping soldier and Luis Crespo serving as guard in an improvised look-out post. The fourth set of frames shows Crespo again, Fidel Castro aiming a rifle and rear guardsmen advancing cautiously along the footpath. The fifth row of frames features Guillermo García in the middle frame asleep on the ground with his helmet half-off, as well as a group of local male and female peasants making their way down the footpath. The sixth row of frames shows Fidel and unidentified rebels speaking to a peasant and Lt. Humberto Díaz Rodríguez, then serving as Fidel's personal aide and bodyguard, stopping a suspicious peasant whom Juan Almeida Bosque proceeds to frisk in the first image of frames in the seventh, succeeding row. Also in the seventh row of images is a frontal view of the suspicious peasant with Díaz Rodríguez as well as a questioning session led by Efigenio Ameijeiras as the chauffeur-capped recruit looks on. The final frame of this row shows Juan Almeida Bosque pointing a rifle. The eighth and last row of frames in this sheet shows two images of an unidentified guerrilla wearing a beret (whom St. George incorrectly identifies as Manuel Fajardo), a fifteen-year-old guerrilla named Joel Yglesias, and Julio Díaz. Fidel appears in the last frame (4) of the set. See also Print 23.

Taken in September of 1957, these images document a strategy of guerrilla warfare on which the rebels had, until that point, not generally relied. According to St. George, the strategy was to interdict traffic and burn the sugarcane fields in the immediate proximity of the highway. These sugarcane fields were located near Bayamo and the vehicles seized temporarily by the rebels include a bus, a taxicab and a truck. On this occasion, as St. George writes, the rebels "rode around, in and on [the vehicles] in great high spirits. Note this was a full year before the interdiction of all highway traffic within rebel reach became a matter of policy for Fidel; in consequence, none of the vehicles or civilians shown here suffered from their encounter with the barbudos." See also Print 24.

This sheet documents a principal rebel safe house in the city of Manzanillo that served as a key point in the supply and courier line for the rebels in the Sierra Maestra mountains. The top row of frames show the bay of Manzanillo as well as the photographer shooting a picture of himself in the mirror as he waited to be picked up by the guerrillas chief courier. The second row of frames apparently shows this man to be Felipe Guerra Matos. The house and surrounding rice farm were owned by Ricardo Lorie, a wealthy landowner from Manzanillo, for whom Felipe Guerra Matos worked at the time. Also shown is the photographer in Frame 4 and Celia Sánchez. The remaining frames on the sheet show what St. George described as "the various 'reception committees' encountered by our rapidly marching group as it penetrated into the Sierra Maestra foothills. There is a group of rebel runners in peasant clothes, accompanied by a teniente [lieutenant]; three peasant boys who also served as lookouts and messengers; the first rebel perimeter patrol; the first rebel sentries among the rocks dominating the footpaths approaching guerrilla territory." See also Prints 14 and 38 (for duplicate of St. George photographing himself in mirror).

Top four rows of frames show a guerrilla patrol unit that includes four of the five "Pardo brothers" whom St. George characterizes as "celebrated guerrilla fighters of the Sierra, led here by Israel Pardo." Frame 25 of row five shows Raúl and Fidel Castro in cloud of cigar smoke; frame 26 shows Raúl Castro and Felipe Guerra Matos, the guerrillas' chief courier based in the Manzanillo area; frame 27 shows Felipe Guerra Matos, Raúl Castro and an unidentified peasant recruit; frame 28 shows the photographer taking nap on the ground and frame 29 shows Juan Almeida Bosque with Israel Pardo. Row 6 shows Juan Almeida Bosque with Israel Pardo and the photographer posing with the other members of the Pardo patrol. The final row of frames depicts another guerrilla patrol and duplicates the frame of a peasant hut being guarded by guerrillas that appears in row 1 of the same sheet. See also Print 13.

Court-martial of several local peasants, accused of common crimes such as homicide, rape and robbery and in other cases, of being a double agent charged with treason against the Revolution by Fidel Castro and his fellow guerrillas. According to St. George, the trial lasted several days and involved the testimony of over 30 peasants. It took place in an area known as El Naranjo. In these images, Fidel is seen with the five-member revolutionary tribunal that he appointed and in which he occupies the central chair. Members of the tribunal are best identified in row two, frames 13, 14, and 15 (left to right): Humberto Sorí Marín (former president of the Inter-American Bar Association), Fidel Castro and Camilo Cienfuegos (front row); René Ramos Latour ("Daniel") and Celia Sánchez (second row). The accused appears with his back to the camera and his hands tied behind his back in the last frame of the second row and the first two frames of the third row. In the fourth row of frames, Raúl Castro is seen writing in his campaign diary as he sits perched in a tree overlooking the court-martial scene below. The seventh row of frames shows Universo Sánchez, now bearded, in the center of a group of rebels in a metal helmet; he is also seen sitting in the first row, first frame. See also Prints 18, 19, 23, 26, 29, 30, 31, 33, 35, 37 and 41.

Top-most set of two frames followed by five frames in another row depict Fidel Castro chatting with local peasants. Frame 21 shows Fidel Castro accompanied by Celia Sánchez and Camilo Cienfuegos in the foreground, in profile; Juan Almeida Bosque in the background, immediately behind Fidel. Frames 22 and 23 show Luis Crespo in hat with ear-flaps, smoking a cigarette. St. George identifies Lao Sardiñas in these images as well, although it is not clear whether he is the man in the metal helmet with his hand to his face or the bearded and hatted man wearing suspenders behind Fidel. Frame that is set apart shows two soldiers whom St. George identifies as "both Pardo brothers" holding fragments of a bomb dropped from a government plane. St. George adds that "Long talks with guajiros [local peasants], wherever they were encountered, were essential facet of Castro's strategy." See also Print 19.