Maine Monument

The Monumento a las Víctimas del Maine (Maine Monument, Malecón y Calle 17) was dedicated by the republican Cuban government to the memory of the 260 sailors who died when the USS Maine exploded in Havana [1] harbor in 1898, creating a prelude for U.S. intervention in the Wars of Independence.

Two rusting cannons tethered by chains from the ship’s anchor are laid out beneath 12-meter-tall Corinthian columns dedicated in 1925 and originally topped by an eagle with wings spread wide.

Immediately after the failed Bay of Pigs invasion in 1960, a mob toppled the eagle from its roost and broke its wings—its body is now in the Museum of the City of Havana [2], while the head hangs on the wall of the cafeteria in the U.S. Interests Section [3]. The Castro government later dedicated a plaque that reads, “To the victims of the Maine, who were sacrificed by imperialist voracity in its eagerness to seize the island of Cuba.”