The word "guajiro" is used in Cuba to call peasants, that is, los campesinos. The etymology of the word has been a source of controversy, since a very well-woven version has become popular, however also very far from reality.
This story tells that during the 1895 war of independence in Cuba, the Cuban peasantry had logically joined the liberation troops commanded by Generalissimo Máximo Gómez.
In the last months of the aforementioned War of Independence, the battleship Maine had exploded in Havana, an accident or sabotage, which precipitated the United States to intervene in the war in Cuba and definitively drive out Spain.
When the heavily armed U.S. troops landed in Cuba, they called the Cuban peasant warriors, equipped only with machetes, war heroes, which to the ears of the peasants and others
Cubans commanding the troops sounded "guajiro". And for this reason, Cubans are the only peasants in all of our Latin America who would be called "guajiros".
Until now the famous version that has spread widely without taking into account at all the true history of this North American intervention, where they tried to minimize the participation of the brave Mambises. It is too good to really believe that they would have been recognized, much less the peasants, as heroes.
Furthermore, this version of the origin of the word "guajiro" to define our peasant seems totally improbable, since the word in question was already used in our territory long before. The name "guajiro" had already been immortalized in the work of the poet Juan Cristóbal Napoles Fajardo "El Cucalambé", around 1856. The voice "guajiro" had also appeared in the Provincial Dictionary (almost reasoned) of Esteban Pichardo, which saw the light for the first time in 1836, and in which it was mentioned that in Yucatan "guajiro" means lord.
Thus, well before 1836, Cuban peasants were already called "guajiros."
The Royal Academy of Language claims that this word comes from the Yucatecan guajiro, which in fact means lord or gentleman; or that it refers to the native of La Guajira, belonging to this department of Colombia.
The truth is that since the beginning of the 16th century there was already a Yucatec presence on the island, well mixed with the natives and which remained in our territory with relative continuity until the middle of the 19th century, as was its expansion throughout the island.
It is therefore believed that its origin is probably in the Yucatecan "guajiro", although the phonetics of the "guajiro" voice are more similar to the Taíno language, of the indigenous people of Cuba, than to any other.
In Cuba, in addition to the peasant himself, it is common for the term "guajiro" to be commonly applied to the Cuban who is not from Havana.
I also often call friends "guajiro", to denote a certain level of affection, no doubt proof of humble peasant origins.
The guajiros are usually good people, very kind and without a doubt rebels in the history of Cuba.
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