Cuba’s San Juan Hill Bears Few U.S. Traces

Posters of Che Guevara are tacked on the shacks of workers at the entry to San Juan Hill. Spare roofing tiles lean against the old stone pillar at the gate.

On the grassy hilltop, two Cubans take their lunch break in the shade of rustling trees, near silent monuments to American, Cuban and Spanish soldiers killed in the struggle for Cuban independence.

No site in Cuba is more famous in U.S. history or illustrates more ambivalence toward the past. San Juan Hill may be the only place left in Cuba where polite references to the United States can be found.

It was on this hill that Theodore Roosevelt and his Rough Riders fought the Spanish in July, 1898, during the brief Spanish-American War. The battle helped free Cuba from nearly four centuries of Spanish rule and propel Roosevelt to the presidency.

“The blood of the brave and true Cuban Insurgent and that of the generous and noble American Soldier sealed a covenant of Liberty and Fraternity between the two nations,” reads one of the few remaining plaques that mentions U.S. forces.

Three decades of hostility between the United States and Cuba have left their mark. The hotel, now popular with Spanish tourists, was known until last summer as the Leningrad--homage to the sponsor of Fidel Castro’s communist regime. It is now the San Juan Hotel.

The only remaining monument to Roosevelt is half a mile away, across a small valley.

On the hill itself, references to the Americans have vanished. Identifying plaques have been pried off several monuments topped with bronze figures that appear to represent U.S. soldiers.

Many references to the United States were removed in the early 1960s as hostility between the governments increased. But now, “the idea of how it was has returned, and the history of Cuba is the history of Cuba,” said Anamaria Rodriguez, the hotel’s publicity officer.

A few courteous exhortations in English remain, including: “Show your regard for this place, taking good care of the plants and works--1928.”

Hardly any Americans have visited San Juan Hill since the U.S. government banned travel to Cuba in the early 1960s.

Officials are now fixing up the site and expanding the hotel for the centennial of independence from Spain in 1998.

“We are struggling hard to rescue our patrimony,” Rodriguez said. In the soil of the hill, she added, “is the blood of the three countries that participated in the battles. That is indisputable.”