Ángel María Bautista Castro y Argiz (5 December 1875 – 21 October 1956) was a Spanish-born Cuban farmer and businessman, the father of Cuban dictator Fidel and Ramón Castro. He was the son of Manuel de Castro y Núñez (Láncara, c. 1853 – Láncara, 12 June 1903) and wife (m. Láncara, 16 August 1873) Antonia Argiz y Fernández (Láncara, 1857 – Láncara, 16 November 1887). Early life Ángel Castro was born in Láncara, in a small fieldstone house typical of the poor Galician peasants of that time. When he was sixteen or seventeen, he was conscripted into the Spanish military, and came to Cuba during the second War of Independence. He was stationed in the tract of land between Júcaro and Morón. Following the Spanish defeat in 1898, Castro went with the army back to Spain and returned to Láncara. A cavalryman in the Spanish Army with no future he finally decided having fought for Spanish Cuba to emigrate to Cuba through the port of Havana in 1905, shortly after an uncle had done so. He arrived in 1906 with his brother Pedro “And without a cent he started to work, being infuriated of the American control of the former Spanish colony” Fidel remarked in one of many interviews later in life. At first Castro went to work in the nickel mines near Santiago de Cuba, where a capacity for hard labour led him to become a labourer for the Nipe Bay Railway Company, which was building the Preston sugar mill. He made his way eastwards to Oriente province, where slaves worked in a hostile and mountainous region 500 miles from Havana. Working for a subsidiary of the American United Fruit Company directing the loading of sugar wagons had some compensations. At this time, American plantations in misiones were spreading throughout Cuba, and workers were being hired to cut down the hardwood forests and plant sugarcane. Castro organized a group of men and hired them out to United Fruit selling lemonade from a dealer's cart. Later he set up a shop in the town of Guaro selling equipment and supplies to the cane workers. The profits enabled him to leave the employ of United Fruits. He hired immigrant labour to load up wagons and fell timber. With the help of benefactor, Fidel Pino he opened a restaurant in Guaro fittingly called Progress, but it was not a success, and at