Sierra Maestra
Sierra Maestra is a mountain range that runs westward across the south of the old Oriente Province in southeast Cuba, rising abruptly from the coast. The Sierra Maestra itself is located mainly in Santiago de Cuba Province and in Granma Province. Some view it as a series of connecting ranges, which joins with others extending to the west. The Sierra Maestra is the highest area of Cuba. It is rich in minerals, especially copper, manganese, chromium, and iron. At 1,974 m, Pico Turquino is the range's highest point.History
The Sierra Maestra has a long history of guerrilla warfare, starting with the resistance of the Taínos under Guamá, the Cimarrón Neo-Taíno nations escaped slave cultures, the Ten Years' War and the Cuban War of Independence, and various minor conflicts such as the Race War of 1912, and the uprisings of Antonio Guiteras against Gerardo Machado and Fulgencio Batista. After Fidel Castro returned to Cuba in 1956 from exile in Mexico, he and the few other survivors from the failed 1953 attack on Moncada Barracks hid out in Sierra Maestra. There they succeeded in expanding their 26th of July Movement, starting a revolution throughout the region. They built up guerrilla columns, and in collaboration with other groups in the central provinces, Escopeteros on the foot-hills and plains, and the urban resistance, eventually overthrew Fulgencio Batista on 1 January 1959.Ornithology
The ivory-billed woodpecker, now possibly extinct, was last seen in the Sierra Maestra in 1998.
