AMERICAN REBELS IN CUBA

American Rebels in Cuba follows the very unusual life of “Rebels” Neill and Nancy Macaulay and their involvement with the Cuban Revolution. Neill  Macaulay, an American who fought with a band of Fidelistas in the final months of the Cuban Revolution and his young wife Nancy tell their incredible story of war, revolution, and attempt to settle in post-war Cuba. 

A young Army veteran from South Carolina, Neill Macaulay contacts Castro's 26 of July Movement in New York in August of 1958 and volunteers his guns and himself to the Cuban cause. His motive is his belief that Cuban insurgents are fighting for real human rights. Eloping the week before the beginning of this adventure, Nancy goes back to college, and both of them hope for the end of the rebellion by the end of the semester so they can gain a home and a livelihood in Cuba. Assigned to the forces of Comandante Escalona in the province of Pinar del Rio, Neill is spirited into the rebel camp of Captain Claudio and fits readily into the guerrilla regime.  Immediately, he endures forced marches, run-ins with the enemy batistianos, and attacks on their barracks and highway patrols. 

Neill is promoted and becomes a rebel officer. He is put in charge of firing squads as Castro’s forces sweep into power. When Fidel’s forces take final authority in Havana, the Macaulay’s are given a tomato farm, but soon realize that their dream of sustaining their lives in Cuba is not possible due to the changing political climate in Castro’s Cuba.  Finally, they are forced to leave, but their lives are forever affected by their Cuban experience. 

One of the few non-Cubans to be intimately involved in the Cuban Revolution, Neill and Nancy Macaulay give the viewer an inside look at one of the most important historical events of the 20th century.