Gerardo Machado

Gerardo Machado was elected on a promise of one term, extended it by rewriting the constitution, and was driven out by a general strike eight years later. He had fought in the war of independence and reached the rank of brigadier general, then made money in cattle and utilities and served as interior minister. Elected president in 1924 with wide support, he built the Central Highway the length of the island and the Capitolio in Havana, and the public works were genuinely popular while the sugar price held. In 1928 a constitutional convention extended the presidential term to six years and he was returned unopposed. The collapse of the sugar market after 1929 destroyed the basis of his position, and he answered strikes and student protest with the political police: opponents were killed, and the student leader Rafael Trejo's death in 1930 gave the opposition a martyr. The secret society ABC answered with bombings. By 1933 the United States, which held the right of intervention under the Platt Amendment, sent Sumner Welles as ambassador to arrange his departure; a bus drivers' strike in Havana spread into a general strike in August, the army withdrew its support, and Machado flew to Nassau. The government that replaced him lasted three weeks before the sergeants' revolt brought Fulgencio Batista forward, so his fall begins the sequence that runs to 1959. He died in exile in Miami Beach. Cubans called his rule the years of the butcher, and the public buildings he left are still in use.

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