Communism in Cuba Compared to The Salem Witch Trials and The Triangular Trade
The Triangular Trade and Salem Witch Trials are two events that have a lot in common with Communism in Cuba. The Triangular Trade was the trade between Europe, America and Africa in the 17th and 18th centuries. America exported raw materials like tobacco and sugar to Europe and Africa. Europe exported manufactured goods like clothes and alcohol to Africa. Then Americans would go and exchange goods for captured slaves. The Salem Witch trials were a series of events that started in 1692 and went through the early 1700's. This is when people, mostly women were punished for being witches. People could be condemned as witches based on witnesses who said they saw them practicing witch craft or someone having a dream about the person being a witch. Many of the condemned people were killed. People that committed adultery were also punished like witches.
The Triangular Trade and and the Communism in Cuba have a lot in common. This is because Cuba had its own kind of triangle trade. Cuba had been exporting sugar to America but when Cuba nationalized American property in Cuba, America placed a trade embargo on Cuba so Cuba could no longer trade with the U.S. So then Cuba made an alliance with Russia that said Russia would provide them with basic materials if Cuba let Russia use Cuba as a kind of military base. This is like the Triangular Trade because Russia is like the 18th century Americas. Russia gave raw materials to Cuba and America gave raw materials to Europe. Then Cuba is like 18th century Europe. Cuba exported sugar it's own product and 18th century Europe exported their own manufactured products to Africa. This is where most of the similarities stop though. 18th century Africa continued the trade by exchanging slaves for the European products and sending the slaves to America. But present day America was enemies with Russia so they did not trade with them. They also stopped trading with Cuba after 1961 when they put and embargo on them so it was more like only a two way trade after that. We are also still feeling the effects of both of these events today. Racism is still an issue which was started by the triangular trade. And there is still a hatred towards communists caused in part by the Cuban missile crisis.
There are not as many similarities between The Salem Witch Trials and Communism in Cuba but there are a lot of comparable aspects between them. The conflict with Cuba and America was because of Cuba's alliance with Russia and it's importing nuclear weapons to Cuba. The conflict between the so called witches and rest of the new England society was because of their anxiety about evil and people that supposedly practiced witch craft. The effects of these events today are that Cuba's economy is still hurt by the trade embargo installed by the U.S. and people are still reading books about the Salem witch trials written by Nathanial Hawthorne. Many stereotypes also came out of these events. After the witch trials people were paranoid about witches and anyone, especially women who were seen doing something strange or out of the ordinary were assumed to be witches. After the Cuban missile crisis Americans started to be paranoid that there were communist spies everywhere and that communists were horrible people. In both cases the people who were affected were the most helpless. In the time period where Cuba was communist the citizens in Cuba probably suffered the most. Their economy was ruined because of the trade embargo installed by the U.S. and they were often without basic supplies. In the witch trials the people most affected were the witches because they were killed or punished even though they often didn't do anything wrong. So overall the conflicts were similar but the witch trials were based on false accusations and the communist conflict was based on things that actually happened.