Academia de Ciencias de Cuba (cover design: unknown; author: Lic. Rolando Alvarez Estevez), "Serie Historica No. 5: La Expedición Roloff (De No Name Key a Santa Teresa)," July 1969. Offset print, book

"La Expedición Roloff" represents the Cuban Academy of Sciences' Serie Historica, a scholarly series examining critical episodes in Cuban independence struggles. This fifth installment analyzes Carlos Roloff's 1895 expedition from No Name Key, Florida to Santa Teresa, Cuba—a crucial maritime operation during the final phase of Cuba's independence war. The cover design features charming period-appropriate illustrations of Spanish colonial sailing ships with cross-emblazoned sails rendered in sage green against cream, evoking both nautical charts and historical engravings. The whimsical treatment of these vessels creates visual continuity with Cuba's maritime colonial past while serving revolutionary historiographic purposes.

Published in July 1969 during the "Año del Esfuerzo Decisivo" (Year of the Decisive Effort), this study by historian Rolando Alvarez Estevez examines how Cuban revolutionary leaders unified emigrant communities and organized military expeditions from U.S. territory, drawing parallels between nineteenth-century independence struggles and contemporary revolutionary mobilization. The text emphasizes José Martí's role in forging unity among Cuban revolutionaries, positioning the Cuban Revolutionary Party as inheritor of this anti-imperialist tradition. Dedicated to Comandante Antonio Núñez Jiménez—geographer, revolutionary, and founding president of the Cuban Academy of Sciences—this publication exemplifies how revolutionary Cuba institutionalized historical research to legitimize the 1959 Revolution as the culmination of Cuba's century-long struggle for genuine independence, connecting Martí's generation to Fidel Castro's through narratives of continuous anti-colonial and anti-imperialist resistance.