 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 . 
