Escopeteros in its original usage means those armed with a
smoothboreA smoothbore weapon is one which has a barrel without rifling. Smoothbores range from handheld firearms to powerful tank guns and large artillery mortars.-History of firearms and rifling:...
long
barrelA gun barrel is the tube, usually metal, through which a controlled explosion or rapid expansion of gases are released in order to propel a projectile out of the end at a high velocity....
firearmA firearm is a device which projects either single or multiple projectiles at high velocity through a controlled explosion. The firing is achieved by the gases produced through rapid, confined burning of a propellant. This process of rapid burning is technically known as deflagration...
, sometimes a trabuco or
blunderbussThe blunderbuss is a muzzle-loading firearm with a short, large caliber barrel, which is flared at the muzzle, and used with shot. The blunderbuss is an early form of shotgun adapted to military and defensive use...
, and has been used in this general context in histories of
SpainSpain , officially the Kingdom of Spain , is a country located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula.
[The Spanish constitution does not establish any official denomination of the country, even though España , Estado español and Nación española are used interchangeably...]
and
Latin AmericaLatin America is a region of the Americas where Romance languages – particularly Spanish, Portuguese, and variably French – are primarily spoken. Latin America has an area of approximately 21,069,501 km² , almost 3.9% of the Earth's surface or 14.1% of its land surface area...
http://www.cervantesvirtual.com/servlet/SirveObras/36892845325629406974457/p0000001.htm.
Escopeteros in its original usage means those armed with a
smoothboreA smoothbore weapon is one which has a barrel without rifling. Smoothbores range from handheld firearms to powerful tank guns and large artillery mortars.-History of firearms and rifling:...
long
barrelA gun barrel is the tube, usually metal, through which a controlled explosion or rapid expansion of gases are released in order to propel a projectile out of the end at a high velocity....
firearmA firearm is a device which projects either single or multiple projectiles at high velocity through a controlled explosion. The firing is achieved by the gases produced through rapid, confined burning of a propellant. This process of rapid burning is technically known as deflagration...
, sometimes a trabuco or
blunderbussThe blunderbuss is a muzzle-loading firearm with a short, large caliber barrel, which is flared at the muzzle, and used with shot. The blunderbuss is an early form of shotgun adapted to military and defensive use...
, and has been used in this general context in histories of
SpainSpain , officially the Kingdom of Spain , is a country located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula.
[The Spanish constitution does not establish any official denomination of the country, even though España , Estado español and Nación española are used interchangeably...]
and
Latin AmericaLatin America is a region of the Americas where Romance languages – particularly Spanish, Portuguese, and variably French – are primarily spoken. Latin America has an area of approximately 21,069,501 km² , almost 3.9% of the Earth's surface or 14.1% of its land surface area...
http://www.cervantesvirtual.com/servlet/SirveObras/36892845325629406974457/p0000001.htm. It has been used to describe a
pitcherIn baseball, the pitcher is the player who throwsthe baseball from the pitcher's mound toward the catcher to begin each play, with the goal of retiring a batter who attempts to either make contact with it or draw a walk. In the numbering system used to record defensive plays, the pitcher is...
in
baseballBaseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each. The goal is to score runs by hitting a thrown ball with a bat and touching a series of four bases arranged at the corners of a ninety-foot square, or diamond...
e.g.
http://www.cantv.net/reportajes/johan-santana.asp, or a sniping
journalistA journalist is a person who practises journalism, the gathering and dissemination of information about current events, trends, issues, and people while striving for viewpoints that are not biased.Reporters are one type of journalist...
http://www.invasor.islagrande.cu/historia/pombo.htm. It has also been used in the context of fighting to until victory "El credo del escopetero"
http://buenosaires.usembassy.gov/release17.html
1950s context
During the
Cuban revolutionThe Cuban Revolution was an armed revolt that led to the overthrow of U.S.-backed dictator Fulgencio Batista of Cuba on January 1, 1959 by the 26th of July Movement led by Fidel Castro....
, this term was applied to the essential scouts and pickets from the
Sierra MaestraFor the Cuban son band,see Sierra Maestra .Sierra Maestra is a mountain range that runs westward across the south of the old Oriente Province from what is now Guantánamo Province to Niquero in southeast Cuba, rising abruptly from the coast...
and other mountain ranges to the plains (Morán Arce, 1980). The "escopeteros," were responsible for semi-continuously holding terrain against smaller sized Batista patrols
http://www.invasor.islagrande.cu/historia/pombo.htm. The escopeteros provided first alerts, communications, protected supply routes, provided essential intelligence and often captured weapons which were sent up to the mainline
CastroFidel Alejandro Castro Ruz is a Cuban politician, one of the primary leaders of the Cuban Revolution, the Prime Minister of Cuba from February 1959 to December 1976, and then the President of the Council of State of Cuba until his resignation from the office in February 2008...
forces in the high mountains.
Raúl CastroBrigadier-General ' Raúl Modesto Castro Ruz is the President of the Cuban Council of State and the President of the Council of Ministers of Cuba...
's mission to open a second front was in reality a mission to control an area already in possession of independent (“por la libre”) escopeteros (Álvarez Batista,1983).
It can be argued that Ernesto Guevara's overseas adventures failed at least in part because of the lack of equivalent escopetero support. In the series of articles written by the staff of Escambray (circa 1988 to 2007, Che entre nosotros. Supplement to Escambray)
http://www.escambray.cu/che/indice.html the critical role of escopeteros is repeatedly mentioned. Yet the Argentine guerrilla leader never appears to have planned the use of these essential, if poorly armed auxiliaries, in his operations overseas.
1960s context
A number of escopeteros joined the opposition to Fidel Castro in the
War Against the BanditsThe Escambray Rebellion was a group of Cubans that had fought side by side with Castro against Batista's government and many who did not want Cuba falling to a Communist Regime, began to take up arms against the new Communist regime, particularly in the Escambray Mountains region of Cuba...
(Encinosa, 1989)