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| Cuban banknotes Silver Certificate 1000 Pesos note of 1950, President Tomas Estrada Palma. |
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| Cuban 1000 Peso banknote - "Casino Note" or "Gangster Note" |
Cuban Silver Certificate 1000 Pesos banknote 1950 issued by the Banco Nacional de Cuba
Cuban peso - peso Cubano, Cuban banknotes, Cuban paper money, Cuban bank notes, Cuba banknotes, Cuba paper money, Cuba bank notes, Billetes Cubanos - billete de 1000 pesos, Papel moneda de Cuba.Obverse: Portrait of Tomás Estrada Palma, First President of the Cuban Republic (1902 to 1906).
Reverse: National arms within circle at center, denomination in letters below.
Printed by American Bank Note Company, New York.
Cuban 1000 Peso banknote - known as the "Casino Note" or "Gangster Note"
During the 1930’s and through the late 1950’s, a favorite hangout of American gangsters was the Cuban city of Havana. It was a place more elegant than today’s Las Vegas or Atlantic City, a place where anything goes (or went). What happened in Havana stayed in Havana — the city of intrigue? Havana’s high rollers loved to show off their winnings by fl ashing a handful of the 1,000 peso notes, just to demonstrate to onlookers how wealthy they were. The note was nicknamed by the public as the "Gangster bill". It was redeemable for $1,000 US dollars. The notes quickly disappeared as did the gangsters when Fidel Castro took over the country on February 16,1959.
Cuba banknotes - Cuba paper money
BANCO NACIONAL DE CUBA
1949-1960 Issue
1 Peso 5 Pesos 10 Pesos 20 Pesos 50 Pesos
100 Pesos 500 Pesos 1000 Pesos 10000 Pesos
Tomás Estrada Palma
Tomás Estrada Palma (c. July 9, 1835 – November 4, 1908) was a Cuban politician who helped gather assistance from the United States participated in the Spanish–American War. He was the first President of Cuba, between May 20, 1902 and September 28, 1906. During his presidency, he improved Cuba's infrastructure, communication, and public health.
He is remembered in Cuba for allowing the Platt Amendment to be enacted, which ensured American political and economic dominance over Cuba.
He was born in Bayamo, Spanish Cuba, around July 9, 1835 to Andrés María Estrada y Oduardo and María Candelaria Palma Tamayo. His exact birth date is not known because of a fire in Bayamo Town Hall on January 19, 1869 that destroyed his birth records. What is known about his early life is his schooling in the private school of Toribio Hernández, Havana, and his attendance in the University of Havana in which he received a philosophy degree on July 19, 1854. He was taken out of the roster in the University of Seville on January 29 in 1857 for excessive absences. He withdrew on June 29, 1857, of the same year for personal reasons.
From 1857 to 1868, he returned to Bayamo and became an administrator and a local teacher. He continued to teach in Honduras and Orange County, New York.
War for independence
Estrada Palma became the President of the Cuban Republic in Arms during the Ten Years' War.
Estrada Palma was captured by Spanish troops and sent into exile. While in exile, he traveled to New York City, where he worked with José Martí to gather political support for a political revolution in Cuba.
After Martí's death, Estrada Palma became the new leader of the Cuban Revolutionary Party. His role in the party was to be its chief representative. With that authorization, he was able to have diplomatic relations with other countries, including the US.
After the Government in Arms was established, it sent Estrada Palma to Washington, DC, as its diplomat. Estrada Palma received assistance from various individuals including an American banker who attempted to offer Spain $150 million to give up the island.
Estrada Palma was also assisted by William Randolph Hearst's newspapers to spread the cause of the Cuban Revolutionary Party by posting articles sympathetic to the Cuban revolutionaries. The newspapers assisted the revolutionaries in gaining materials, support, and popularity for the movement.
Estrada Palma got the US Congress to pass a joint resolution on April 19, 1898 that disavowed the Spanish colonization of Cuba and supported the independence of the Republic of Cuba. It also highlighted that the United States had no intention of occupying or annexing the island.
After the Spanish–American War, Estrada Palma dissolved one of the leading factions of the Cuban revolutionary armies: the Liberation Army, mostly black and rural. He gave more political power to the Asembly of Representatives, the more pragmatic white urban dwellers, neo-annexationists, and elitits.
He effectively given power to the former revolutionaries to achieve political dominance within Cuban politics. At the same time, he would attract US assistance in Cuba to rebuild the country.
First term
After a few years of General Leonard Wood's rule in Cuba, elections were to be held on December 31, 1901. There was two parties, the Republicans, who were conservative and wanted national autonomy, headed by José Miguel Gómez, and the National Liberals, who were a popular party that wanted Cuba to go toward local autonomy, headed by Alfredo Zayas. Voth supported Estrada Palma. However, he did not campaign but stated fulltime in the US, where he was a citizen.
Estrada Palma's opponent, General Bartolomé Masó, withdrew his candidacy in protest against favoritism by the occupational government and the manipulation of the political machine by Estrada Palma's followers. Thus, Estrada Palma was left as the only candidate. On December 31, 1901, Estrada Palma was elected president.
Estrada Palma did not want to have a presidency based on any racial barriers. Like many other Cuban revolutionaries, he had seen the new republic as a nonracial republic in which Afro-Cubans would be equal to whites in society. Before his presidency, Estrada Palma assured that he would bring 100 public service jobs to Afro-Cubans and repeal American regulations that supported segregation in Cuba.
The Platt Amendment was signed in March 2, 1902. The amendment allowed the United States to interfere in the domestic policies of Cuba and to lease land for naval bases or coal stations.
American troops left after the Cuban government signed a bill lowering tariffs on American products and incorporated the Platt Amendment into its constitution. Many American companies came to do business in Cuba.
On February 16, 1903, Estrada Palma signed the Cuban-American Treaty of Relations, agreeing to lease the Guantanamo Bay area to the United States in perpetuity for use as a naval base and coaling station. That was a minor victory for the Estrada Palma administration for Washington had wanted five naval bases in the island. It is a testament to his diplomatic skills that Estrada Palma was able to obtain the reduction, even with American troops stationed in the island. His policies were also responsible for improvements in education, communications, and public health, which had suffered from the devastation created by the war. As an example, land prices between 1902 and 1905 went up and he built over 328 km of road in Cuba.
Second term
Estrada Palma was re-elected unopposed in 1905. This time, there was violent opposition by the liberals. Although they claimed electoral fraud, it was used by both political parties. The National Labor Party used el copo, fraud to prevent minority victory in the first election.
The main issue in the second election was the equal representation of the Cuban provinces. Critics of Estrada Palma such as General Faustino Guerra Puente accused him of ignoring the constitution. Still, other politicians and generals like Guerra Puente recognized Estrada Palma as the only person able to lead Cuba.
The response to the opponents Alfredo Zayas was to have the force of the police and the rural guard to allow Estrada Palma to claim victory. Estrada Palma and the moderate camp appealed to the US for intervention, and in 1906, the US began the Second Occupation of Cuba and installed a provisional occupation government, which lasted from 1906 to 1909. Another pro-American government was established in Cuba under Charles Magoon. Finally, on September 28, 1906, Estrada Palma with the rest of the executive branch resigned their positions and left Cuba without a successor, which allowed the United States to take control, under the Platt Amendment.
Legacy
Estrada Palma is known less for his accomplishments in education, revolution, and infrastructure than for being a part of the annexation agenda of and his subservience to the United States.
Honors
In 1903, a statue of Estrada Palma was erected in the Avenida de los Presidentes, in Havana. His statue was pulled down by Fidel Castro's revolutionaries, reportedly because they blamed Estrada Palma for starting the trend of US interventions in Cuba. The plinth, with a pair of shoes, remains.
Estrada Palma spent many years of his US exile in the town of Woodbury in Orange County, New York. Along a road that now bears his name (Estrada Road, in the hamlet of Central Valley), he ran a summer camp, which has since been abandoned. During his presidency, Estrada Palma kept an "T. Estrada Palma Fund" to buy prizes for academic achievements in Orange County.