page_title: Early life of Fidel Castro
section_title: Childhood and education: 1926–1945
hierarchical_section_title: Early life of Fidel Castro / Childhood and education: 1926–1945
context_page_description: The early life of Cuban revolutionary and politician Fidel Castro spans the first 26 years of his life, from 1926 to 1952. Born in Birán, Oriente Province, Castro was the illegitimate son of Ángel Castro y Argiz, a wealthy farmer and landowner, and his mistress Lina Ruz González. First educated by a tutor in Santiago de Cuba, Fidel Castro then attended two boarding schools before being sent to El Colegio de Belén, a school run by Jesuits in Havana. In 1945 he began studying law at the University of Havana, where he first became politically conscious, becoming a staunch anti-imperialist and critic of United States involvement in the Caribbean. Involved in student politics, he was affiliated to Eduardo Chibás and his Partido Ortodoxo, achieving publicity as a vocal critic of the pro-U.S. administration of President Ramón Grau and his Partido Auténtico.
  Immersed in the university's violent gang culture, in 1947 he took part in a quashed attempt to overthrow the military junta of Rafael Trujillo in the Dominican Republic.
context_section_description: Castro's father, Ángel Castro y Argiz (1875–1956), was born to a poor peasant family in Galicia, a province in northwest Spain. A farm laborer, in 1895 he was conscripted into the Spanish Army to fight in the Cuban War of Independence and the ensuing Spanish–American War of 1898, in which the U.S. seized control of Cuba. In 1902, the Republic of Cuba was proclaimed; however it remained economically and politically dominated by the U.S. For a time, Cuba enjoyed economic growth, and Ángel migrated there in search of employment. After various jobs, he set up a business growing sugar cane at Las Manacas farm in Birán, near Mayarí, Oriente Province. Ángel took a wife in 1911, María Luisa Argota Reyes, with whom he had five children before separating. He then began a relationship with Lina Ruz González (1903–1963), a household servant of Canarian descent who was twenty-seven years his junior; she bore him three sons and four daughters, legally marrying in 1943.
  Castro was Lina's third child, born out of wedlock at Ángel's farm on August 13, 1926. Because of the stigma of illegitimacy, he was given his mother's surname of Ruz rather than his father's name. Although Ángel's business ventures prospered, he ensured that Fidel grew up alongside the children of the farm's workforce, many of whom were Haitian economic migrants of African descent. This experience, Castro later related, prevented him from absorbing "bourgeois culture" at an early age.
  Aged six, Castro, along with his elder siblings Ramón and Angela, was sent to live with their teacher in Santiago de Cuba, dwelling in cramped conditions and relative poverty, often failing to have enough to eat because of their tutor's poor economic situation. Aged eight, Castro was baptized into the Roman Catholic Church, although later became an atheist. Being baptized enabled Castro to attend the La Salle boarding school in Santiago, where he regularly misbehaved, and so was sent to the privately funded, Jesuit-run Dolores School in Santiago. In 1945 he transferred to the more prestigious Jesuit-run El Colegio de Belén in Havana. Although Castro took an interest in history, geography and debating at Belén, he did not excel academically, instead devoting much of his time to playing sport.
caption: A letter written by the 14-year-old Castro, learning English, to U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt—"My good friend Roosvelt  [sic]." In the letter Castro expresses his joy at Roosevelt's re-election, states his age as "twelve years old" (he was actually 14) and writes, "If you like, give me a ten dollar bill green american [sic], because never, I have not seen a ten dollar bill", signing the letter, "Thank you very much. Good by [sic]. Your friend, Fidel Castro."[1]
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