Report on Citizenship Law: Cuba practices of Cuban Afro-descendants linked to the Independent Party of Colour in 1912 (Lorie Tapia 2014). René Fidel Gonzalez, Julio Antonio Fernández Estrada and Julio César Guanche have explicitly linked citizenship as status and as practice from within republican theory (González García, René Fidel 2004), (Fernández Estrada, Julio Antonio 2017), (Guanche 2013). From other disciplines, such as sociology or history, the issue is also dealt with that also explicitly work with, or argue against, the republican approach (Ferrer 1995), (Andry Matilla (coord.) 2009), (Núñez Vega 2002), (Rojas 1997), (Torres Santana 2016). 2. Citizenship in the thought of Independence The constitutional thinking behind Cuban nationalism is based on four constitutional texts. These constitute the legal order of the republic in arms, applicable to the territory liberated from Spanish colonialism and to the insurgent domain. In this context, we cannot study citizenship in its modern sense, because there is no national state in the sense of a politically self-governed civic community. Notwithstanding, the mention of these texts mention is useful in order to analyse how independentist thought conceived the republic and citizenship, and to compare it to the way in which the ideal of citizenship was consolidated after the independent republic was created (1902). It is an entrance point to analyse how the national republican framework included, limited or excluded individuals in the context of independence. In fact, the “formation of Cuban citizenship” in the sense of civic practice, not of status —citizenship took place in relation to the metropolis— was not born, nor was it subsumed, in the practice and ideal of independence. In 1812, the issue of the representation of creoles in the Court of Cádiz was part of a process of demands differentiated from peninsular representation. Later, the establishment of political parties — Reformist and Autonomist— expressed a “modern public moral within Cuban society that could stimulate pressure —from bellow— for the acquisition of citizenship rights” (Bobes 1996, p. 204). The independentist ideal chose the active side of citizenship. First, it was based on an independent republic, characterized by a self-governed political community, with duties regarding the maintenance of such community, regulated by Law. Second, it sought to develop into a social republic, a civic community of equals, with the abolition of slavery and the distribution of the right to property. For José Martí, the “role of man in the rescue and maintenance of his dignity: those are the duties, and the attempts, of the revolution. She will be governed so that the war, thriving and capable, gives soon a firm home for the new republic” (Collazo 1900, p. 112). For the enemies of independence, there were “enigmatic declarations, the calculated obscurantism of which was easily explained by the difficulty of clearly explaining their purpose” (La insurrección de Cuba ante los Estados Unidos 1895, pp. 55–56). However, it is not difficult to uncover how the meaning of the Martí’s phrase had a translation within independentist constitutionalism. The constitution of Guáimaro (1869) —reformed seven times— fully expressed the democratic republican ideal5. First, it treated citizenship as a status as well as a civic practice (a duty towards the republic): “All the citizens of the Republic are considered soldiers of the liberating army”, (art. 25); at the same time, such status granted rights over the control of 5 The cited constitutions and laws, unless otherwise indicated, appear in (Barreras 1940). As has already been written, the mambisian constitutions analysed (Guáimaro, Baraguá, Jimaguayú and La Yaya) were conceptualised for the republic in arms, during the war of Independence, without Cuba being and independent state during that time. 4 RSCAS/GLOBALCIT-CR 2020/3- © 2020 Author(s)