Cueto (Cuba)

Cueto is a municipality in the province of Holguín, Cuba, of which the town of the same name is the head. Cueto is the third of the four Cuban towns that Compay Segundo mentions in his song "Chan Chan", the others being Alto Cedro, Marcané and Mayarí.

Population

The population is 31,552 inhabitants, according to official figures from 2018. It has an area of 329 km². and a population density of 95.9 inhabitants per square kilometer. It limits to the north with the municipalities of Banes and Mayarí, to the east with Mayarí, to the south with the province of Santiago de Cuba and to the west with the municipalities of Urbano Noris and Báguanos.

History

Taino communities settled in its territory, especially around the Barajagua area, where ceramic pieces have been found.

Cueto was born in the first decade of the XX century as El Tres de Jagüeyes. In 1912 it changed its name in recognition of the prominent lawyer José Antolín del Cueto (1854-1929) who won a land dispute in favor of the landowner Andrés Duany and against the American company Nipe Bay Company, a subsidiary of the United Fruit Company. José Antolín del Cueto was President of the Supreme Court of Justice of the Republic of Cuba.

It grew considerably during the first part of the 20th century, for being the center of a flourishing local sugar industry and for its advantageous position at the crossroads of the highway that connects the east of the former province of Oriente with the city of Holguín and the railway from the port of Antilla, in the north, to the city of Santiago de Cuba, in the south.

Foreign immigrants, especially Spanish, Lebanese, Syrian and Chinese, settled in the town, creating intense commercial activity.

Before 1959, in Cueto there were several schools, including one public, two private, one Catholic and one Protestant (Baptist), associations and fraternities.

With the confiscations and interventions after the triumph of Fidel Castro's Revolution and the subsequent emigration of former merchants and their families, especially to the United States, Cueto was transformed.

In the 60s, the neighborhood known as La Reforma Urbana was built, an urbanization around a park, with concrete houses, in contrast to the traditional wooden ones and metal sheet roofs. In the 70s, a new neighborhood was built with Soviet-style buildings, known as Las 108. Four-story blocks replaced many of the old wooden houses within the old town (photos at https://web.archive.org/web/20161011140958/http://www.panoramio.com/photo/5376379.

Under the government of Fidel Castro, primary schools were built such as Abel Santamaría and Rubén Vázquez and secondary schools Rubén Casaus Cruz and < b>Arides Estévez.

In the municipality of Cueto is the town of Birán, birthplace of Fidel and Raúl Castro. The Castro family home is today a museum and family mausoleum.

Cueto is mentioned in the song Chan Chan by the late Cuban musician Compay Segundo. The chorus of the son says: «from Alto Cedro I go to Marcané, I arrive at Cueto, I go to Mayarí.»