Antonio Maceo Grajales
Encyclopedia
Lt. General José Antonio de la Caridad Maceo y Grajales (June 14, 1845 – December 7, 1896) was second-in-command of the Cuba
n Army of Independence.
Fellow Cubans gave Maceo the sobriquet
of the "Bronze Titan" , which was a reference to his skin color, stature and status. Spaniards referred to Maceo as the "Greater Lion" (El Leon mayor). Maceo was one of the most noteworthy guerrilla
leaders in 19th century Latin America
, comparable to José Antonio Páez
of Venezuela
in military acumen.
n farmer and dealer in agricultural products, Marcos Maceo, and an Afro-Cuban
woman, Mariana Grajales y Coello. His father moved from Caracas
, Venezuela to Santiago de Cuba
, Cuba
, in 1823, after some of his comrades were exiled from South America
. José Antonio Maceo y Grajales (full name) was born June 14, 1845, in the town of San Luis, in the Oriente Province outside of Santiago de Cuba , in a farm known to locals as Jobabo,. Although his father taught him skills in the use of arms and management of their small properties, it was his mother, Mariana Grajales, who inculcated in him a sense of order. This maternal discipline would be important in the development of Maceo's character and would be reflected later in his acts as a military leader.
At the age of sixteen, Maceo went to work for his father, delivering products and supplies by mule. He was a successful entrepreneur
and farmer. As the oldest of the children, he inherited his father's leadership qualities and later would become a decorated general. Maceo developed an active interest in the political issues of his time and was initiated in the mysteries of Freemasonry. The Cuban Freemasonry movement was influenced by the principles of the French Revolution
- "Liberty, Equality and Fraternity" - as well as the Masons' main guidelines: God, Reason, Virtue.
against Spain
known as "The cry of Yara" ("El grito de Yara"), Maceo, together with his father and brothers joined the war. Mariana Grajales, followed her family members into the manigua (the woods and most thick countryside) in order to support the mambises
, as Cuban rebels were known in the nineteenth century. The Maceos enlisted as privates
when the Ten Years' War
(1868–1878) began. Within five months, Antonio Maceo was promoted to Commander
(or Major
), and within a matter of weeks after that he was again promoted to Lieutenant Colonel
.
Later, a promotion to Colonel
followed, and five years later he was promoted to the rank of Brigadier General
because of his bravery and ability to outmaneuver the Spanish Army
. Maceo participated in more than 500 battles. However, the humble origin of Maceo and the colour of his skin, delayed his raising to the Major General
degree, due principally to the racist and class exclusiveness tendencies of several other patriots of an aristocratic or bourgeois origin. Men under Maceo's command began to name him “The Bronze Titan”, because of his exceptional physical strength and resistance to bullet or blade injuries. He recovered from more than 25 war injuries over the course of some 500 military battles, and none of Maceo's wounds diminished his willingness to lead his troops into combat.
He had special recognition and admiration, as chief and war teacher, of the great Dominican strategist Máximo Gómez
, who would become, in the years to come, the General-in-Chief of the Cuban Liberator Army. The use of the machete as a war weapon by Gómez as a substitute for the Spanish sword (also due to the scarcity of firearms and ammunition) was rapidly adopted by Maceo and his troops.
Antonio Maceo rejected the military seditions of Lagunas de Varona and Santa Rita
, which undermined the independent troops' unity and favoured a regionalism in Las Villas. This stood in contrast with the style of leadership exhibited by Vicente Garcia González
, who eschewed front line heroics in favor of planning from behind the lines, and who also advocated a regional approach to secession. Divisionism and the imprecise designs of García were plainly rejected by Maceo when the former asked for support to constitute a “New Revolutionary Government”.
Divisions, regionalism
, and indiscipline were the main reasons for the decline of the Revolution, of which the Spanish General Arsenio Martínez-Campos y Antón
, then already named Captain General of Cuba, drew considerable advantage. An officer of honour, he offered peace guarantees, amnesty for revolutionary men and legal reforms, in exchange for a cease of hostilities, which had already lasted 10 years (in 1878). At the same time, the Spanish Government continued the concentration of more forces to enclose the diminishing Cuban rebel forces.
Antonio Maceo was one of the officers who opposed the signing of the Pact of Zanjón
, which ended the Ten Years War. He and other mambises (independence soldiers) met with General Martínez-Campos on March 15, 1878, to discuss the peace terms, but Maceo argued that no peace could be achieved if none of the objectives of the war had been accomplished; chief among these aims was the abolition of slavery in Cuba and Cuban independence. The only immediate benefit was amnesty for those involved in the conflict and liberty for the black soldiers who had fought in the "Liberator Army." Maceo did not recognize the treaty as valid and did not adhere to the proposed amnesty. This meeting, known as the Protest of Baraguá ("Protesta de Baraguá"), began when a messenger was sent to Maceo from another Cuban high officer, who proposed an ambush against the Spanish general. Maceo rejected the plan, informing the would-be conspirator via letter: “I don’t want victory if it goes accompanied with dishonor.”
After respecting the truce time for the interview (a few days), Maceo resumed hostilities. In order to save his life, the government of the Republic of Cuba gave him the task of gathering money, arms and men for an expedition from the exterior. Maceo's movements were useless, however, due to the dismay of the exiled sympathizers who were unhappy with the Zanjón pact.
Later in 1879, Maceo and Major General Calixto García Íñiguez planned from New York a new invasion to Cuba, which initiated the short-lived Little War
. Maceo did not personally fight in these battles, for he had sent Calixto García as highest commander. This avoided exacerbating the racist prejudices of fellow Cuban officers that were inflamed by Spanish propaganda. The Spanish tried to create the impression that Maceo was trying to start a racial war against white Cubans, though their propaganda efforts did little damage to Maceo's reputation.
, where he was pursued by the Spanish and faced assassination attempts by the Spanish consulates, and also in Jamaica
, Maceo eventually settled in the Costa Rica
n province of Guanacaste
. The president of Costa Rica assigned Maceo to a military unit and provided him with a small farm to live on. Maceo was contacted by José Martí
and urged to initiate the War of 1895, called by Martí the “necessary war”.
Maceo, with the experience and wisdom gained from previous revolutionary failures, argued that there were a number of impediments to military success in a brief but intense epistolary exchange with Martí, warning about the causes of the partial defeat in the Ten Years' War (1868–78). Martí responded with his formula of “the army, free; but the country, as a country with all its dignity represented,” and convinced Maceo of the high probabilities of success if the war was to be prepared carefully. As a precondition, Maceo demanded that highest command should be in the hands of Gómez, which was approved without reservation by the Delegate of the Cuban Revolutionary Party (Martí). In Costa Rica, he faced, gun in hand, another attempt of assassination by Spanish agents at the exit of a theatre, with fatal result for one of the aggressors.
In 1895, together with Flor Crombet and other lesser officers, Maceo disembarked in the vicinity of Baracoa
(close to the eastern tip of Cuba) and after repelling a Spanish attempt at capturing or killing him, he got into the mountains of that region. After many difficulties, he managed to gather a small contingent of armed men, which rapidly grew with other rebel groups of the Santiago de Cuba
region. In the farm of "La Mejorana", Maceo had a historic, but unfortunate, meeting with Gómez and Martí, because of the disagreements between him and Martí, regarding the question of the relationship between the military movements and the civilian government, against which constitution was Maceo, but Martí, knowing both sides of the problem, stood on his formula. Several days later, Martí, treated as a non-military “Doctor” by Maceo, would fall in battle in Dos Ríos (confluence between the rivers Contramaestre and Cauto).
After Gómez was designated General in Chief of the Cuban Liberation Army, Maceo was named Lieutenant General (second in command after the General in Chief). Starting from Mangos de Baraguá (place of the historical protest in front of Martínez-Campos), Maceo and Gómez, on command of two long mambises columns, took brilliantly the task of invading the west of Cuba, riding or walking more than 1000 miles in 96 days. After several months bleeding the Spanish forces in Havana
and Pinar del Río
Maceo arrived at Mantua, in the western extreme of Cuba, on October, 1896, after defeating for many times the technically and numerically superior forces of the Spaniards (five times the Cuban forces on occasions).
Using alternately the tactics of guerrilla and open warfare, they exhausted the Spanish Army of more than a quarter million soldiers and traversed all the island, even through the military trails, walls and fences built by the Spanish Army with the purpose of stopping them and dealing with an overwhelming technical and numerical superiority of the Spaniards. The level of coordination and cohesiveness of Cuban forces was driven by the fact that Máximo Gómez had clearly established a chain of command that subordinated all Major Generals to Maceo, his executive officer.
The invasion of Western Cuba had been previously attempted by Brigadier General Henry Reeve
during the Ten Years' War but faltered (and collapsed) between the easternmost section of the province of Matanzas
and the westernmost section of the province of Havana and Reeve perished. At the time Maceo had collaborated with Reeve under the direction of Máximo Gómez.
The eagerness for independence and the cruelty of the Spanish high officers made rural inhabitants of the western half of the island eager to give support in men and logistics to the Liberation Army. This was the cause of the institution, by Valeriano Weyler
, of the reconcentration. Hundreds of thousands of peasants were forcibly carried to the cities, mainly Havana
, Pinar del Río
and Matanzas
, besides several minor cities in these three provinces. In the concentration camps created for them, very similar to those later built in Europe by the Nazis, almost a third part of the Cuban rural population lost their lives.
Contrary to the expectations of Weyler, the cruel reconcentration encouraged many people to join to the Liberation army, preferring to die in battle than in starvation. In 1896, after meeting Gómez in Havana (crossing once more the trail from Mariel to Majana via Mariel Bay), he returned to the fields of Pinar del Río
, where he faced bloody clashes with outnumbering forces, led by Spanish generals famous for their victories in Africa and Filipinas, and provided with artillery and the most modern weapons for infantry. After decimating them in the westernmost mountains of Cuba, he turned eastward again, crossing the mentioned trail in order to travel to Las Villas or Camagüey
. There he was planning to meet Gómez to plan the ulterior course of war, and with the Government in Arms, to establish an agreement between it and the forces in action, in relation with two main subjects: the raisings of medium and high officers in the Liberation Army and the recognition of belligerence by foreign countries and acceptation of direct military aid. His position was, at that time, acquiescent with accepting economical aid and packages with weapons and ammunitions from Europe or even from the United States, but was strongly opposed to the acceptance of a military intervention by the US in Cuba.
, Maceo was advancing into the farm of San Pedro, only accompanied by his personal escort (two or three men), the physician of his Headquarters, the Brigade General José Miró Argenter and a small troop of no more than twenty men. When they attempted to cut a fence for facilitating the march of horses through those lands, they were detected by a strong Spanish column, which opened an intense fire. Maceo was hit by two shots, one in the chest and another that broke his jaw and penetrated his skull. His companions could not carry him because of the intensity of the firefight and Maceo's size. The only rebel who stayed by him was the Lieutenant Francisco Gómez (known as Panchito), son of Máximo Gómez, who faced the Spanish column for the sole purpose of protecting the body of his general. After being shot several times, the Spaniards killed Gómez with machete strikes, leaving both bodies abandoned, not knowing the identity of the fallen.
The corpses of Maceo and Panchito were picked up the next days by Colonel Aranguren, from Havana, who ran immediately to the battle scene after hearing the news. They were later buried in secret in the farm of two brothers who swore to keep the burial place in secrecy until Cuba would be free and independent and the correspondent military honors could be given to the hero. Nowadays, the remains of Antonio Maceo y Grajales and Francisco Gómez Toro lie in the monument of the Cacahual
, close to the limits of the former farm of San Pedro, and the site is one of pilgrimage for Cuban people.
is among Cuban leaders who were inspired by Maceo. Being a member of masonry, in his correspondence one can read more than once his credo base on "God, Reason and Virtue". He was quoted as having a strict motto: "My duties to country and to my own political convictions are above all human effort; with these I shall reach the pedestal of freedom or I shall perish fighting for my country's redemption." (November 3, 1890). Martí, speaking about him, said that "Maceo has as much strength in his mind as in his arm."
Of democratic political adherence, he expressed many times his sympathy for the republican form of government, but insisted on seeking for the formula of "liberty; equality and fraternity", recalling the well-known but almost never applied principles of the French Revolution
and defining a policy on the search for social justice. Being in a dinner meeting in a very short visit made to Santiago de Cuba during the "Fruitful Truce", he was invited to make a toast and a phrase was said by a young man for a wish to annex Cuba to the United States and turn Cuba into "...another star into the constellation of the United States...". His answer was: I think, young man, that this would be the only occasion in which I would place my sword at the same side with the Spanish ones." And foreseeing the North American expansionism (he was absolutely convinced of the inevitable victory of Cuban Arms) he expressed in a letter to a friend of arms: "That who attempts to seize Cuba, will gather the dust of its ground soaked in blood, if he does not perish in fight."
Cuba
The Republic of Cuba is an island nation in the Caribbean. The nation of Cuba consists of the main island of Cuba, the Isla de la Juventud, and several archipelagos. Havana is the largest city in Cuba and the country's capital. Santiago de Cuba is the second largest city...
n Army of Independence.
Fellow Cubans gave Maceo the sobriquet
Sobriquet
A sobriquet is a nickname, sometimes assumed, but often given by another. It is usually a familiar name, distinct from a pseudonym assumed as a disguise, but a nickname which is familiar enough such that it can be used in place of a real name without the need of explanation...
of the "Bronze Titan" , which was a reference to his skin color, stature and status. Spaniards referred to Maceo as the "Greater Lion" (El Leon mayor). Maceo was one of the most noteworthy guerrilla
Guerrilla warfare
Guerrilla warfare is a form of irregular warfare and refers to conflicts in which a small group of combatants including, but not limited to, armed civilians use military tactics, such as ambushes, sabotage, raids, the element of surprise, and extraordinary mobility to harass a larger and...
leaders in 19th century Latin America
Latin America
Latin America is a region of the Americas where Romance languages – particularly Spanish and Portuguese, and variably French – are primarily spoken. Latin America has an area of approximately 21,069,500 km² , almost 3.9% of the Earth's surface or 14.1% of its land surface area...
, comparable to José Antonio Páez
José Antonio Páez
José Antonio Páez Herrera was General in Chief of the army fighting Spain during the Venezuelan Wars of Independence, in addition to becoming the President of Venezuela once it was independent of the Gran Colombia...
of Venezuela
Venezuela
Venezuela , officially called the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela , is a tropical country on the northern coast of South America. It borders Colombia to the west, Guyana to the east, and Brazil to the south...
in military acumen.
Early years
Maceo was the son of a VenezuelaVenezuela
Venezuela , officially called the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela , is a tropical country on the northern coast of South America. It borders Colombia to the west, Guyana to the east, and Brazil to the south...
n farmer and dealer in agricultural products, Marcos Maceo, and an Afro-Cuban
Afro-Cuban
The term Afro-Cuban refers to Cubans of Sub Saharan African ancestry, and to historical or cultural elements in Cuba thought to emanate from this community...
woman, Mariana Grajales y Coello. His father moved from Caracas
Caracas
Caracas , officially Santiago de León de Caracas, is the capital and largest city of Venezuela; natives or residents are known as Caraquenians in English . It is located in the northern part of the country, following the contours of the narrow Caracas Valley on the Venezuelan coastal mountain range...
, Venezuela to Santiago de Cuba
Santiago de Cuba
Santiago de Cuba is the second largest city of Cuba and capital city of Santiago de Cuba Province in the south-eastern area of the island, some south-east of the Cuban capital of Havana....
, Cuba
Cuba
The Republic of Cuba is an island nation in the Caribbean. The nation of Cuba consists of the main island of Cuba, the Isla de la Juventud, and several archipelagos. Havana is the largest city in Cuba and the country's capital. Santiago de Cuba is the second largest city...
, in 1823, after some of his comrades were exiled from South America
South America
South America is a continent situated in the Western Hemisphere, mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere. The continent is also considered a subcontinent of the Americas. It is bordered on the west by the Pacific Ocean and on the north and east...
. José Antonio Maceo y Grajales (full name) was born June 14, 1845, in the town of San Luis, in the Oriente Province outside of Santiago de Cuba , in a farm known to locals as Jobabo,. Although his father taught him skills in the use of arms and management of their small properties, it was his mother, Mariana Grajales, who inculcated in him a sense of order. This maternal discipline would be important in the development of Maceo's character and would be reflected later in his acts as a military leader.
At the age of sixteen, Maceo went to work for his father, delivering products and supplies by mule. He was a successful entrepreneur
Entrepreneur
An entrepreneur is an owner or manager of a business enterprise who makes money through risk and initiative.The term was originally a loanword from French and was first defined by the Irish-French economist Richard Cantillon. Entrepreneur in English is a term applied to a person who is willing to...
and farmer. As the oldest of the children, he inherited his father's leadership qualities and later would become a decorated general. Maceo developed an active interest in the political issues of his time and was initiated in the mysteries of Freemasonry. The Cuban Freemasonry movement was influenced by the principles of the French Revolution
French Revolution
The French Revolution , sometimes distinguished as the 'Great French Revolution' , was a period of radical social and political upheaval in France and Europe. The absolute monarchy that had ruled France for centuries collapsed in three years...
- "Liberty, Equality and Fraternity" - as well as the Masons' main guidelines: God, Reason, Virtue.
Ten Years' War (1868-1878)
Approximately two weeks after the October 10, 1868 revolt led by Carlos Manuel de CéspedesCarlos Manuel de Céspedes
Carlos Manuel de Céspedes del Castillo was a Cuban planter who freed his slaves and made the declaration of Cuban independence in 1868 which started the Ten Years' War...
against Spain
Spain
Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
known as "The cry of Yara" ("El grito de Yara"), Maceo, together with his father and brothers joined the war. Mariana Grajales, followed her family members into the manigua (the woods and most thick countryside) in order to support the mambises
Mambises
The term Mambises is used to refer to the soldiers who participated in the Cuban War of Independence.-Origin of the word:...
, as Cuban rebels were known in the nineteenth century. The Maceos enlisted as privates
Private (rank)
A Private is a soldier of the lowest military rank .In modern military parlance, 'Private' is shortened to 'Pte' in the United Kingdom and other Commonwealth countries and to 'Pvt.' in the United States.Notably both Sir Fitzroy MacLean and Enoch Powell are examples of, rare, rapid career...
when the Ten Years' War
Ten Years' War
The Ten Years' War , also known as the Great War and the War of '68, began on October 10, 1868 when sugar mill owner Carlos Manuel de Céspedes and his followers proclaimed Cuba's independence from Spain...
(1868–1878) began. Within five months, Antonio Maceo was promoted to Commander
Commander
Commander is a naval rank which is also sometimes used as a military title depending on the individual customs of a given military service. Commander is also used as a rank or title in some organizations outside of the armed forces, particularly in police and law enforcement.-Commander as a naval...
(or Major
Major
Major is a rank of commissioned officer, with corresponding ranks existing in almost every military in the world.When used unhyphenated, in conjunction with no other indicator of rank, the term refers to the rank just senior to that of an Army captain and just below the rank of lieutenant colonel. ...
), and within a matter of weeks after that he was again promoted to Lieutenant Colonel
Lieutenant colonel
Lieutenant colonel is a rank of commissioned officer in the armies and most marine forces and some air forces of the world, typically ranking above a major and below a colonel. The rank of lieutenant colonel is often shortened to simply "colonel" in conversation and in unofficial correspondence...
.
Later, a promotion to Colonel
Colonel
Colonel , abbreviated Col or COL, is a military rank of a senior commissioned officer. It or a corresponding rank exists in most armies and in many air forces; the naval equivalent rank is generally "Captain". It is also used in some police forces and other paramilitary rank structures...
followed, and five years later he was promoted to the rank of Brigadier General
Brigadier General
Brigadier general is a senior rank in the armed forces. It is the lowest ranking general officer in some countries, usually sitting between the ranks of colonel and major general. When appointed to a field command, a brigadier general is typically in command of a brigade consisting of around 4,000...
because of his bravery and ability to outmaneuver the Spanish Army
Spanish Army
The Spanish Army is the terrestrial army of the Spanish Armed Forces responsible for land-based military operations. It is one of the oldest active armies - dating back to the 15th century.-Introduction:...
. Maceo participated in more than 500 battles. However, the humble origin of Maceo and the colour of his skin, delayed his raising to the Major General
Major General
Major general or major-general is a military rank used in many countries. It is derived from the older rank of sergeant major general. A major general is a high-ranking officer, normally subordinate to the rank of lieutenant general and senior to the ranks of brigadier and brigadier general...
degree, due principally to the racist and class exclusiveness tendencies of several other patriots of an aristocratic or bourgeois origin. Men under Maceo's command began to name him “The Bronze Titan”, because of his exceptional physical strength and resistance to bullet or blade injuries. He recovered from more than 25 war injuries over the course of some 500 military battles, and none of Maceo's wounds diminished his willingness to lead his troops into combat.
He had special recognition and admiration, as chief and war teacher, of the great Dominican strategist Máximo Gómez
Máximo Gómez
Máximo Gómez y Báez was a Major General in the Ten Years' War and Cuba's military commander in that country's War of Independence ....
, who would become, in the years to come, the General-in-Chief of the Cuban Liberator Army. The use of the machete as a war weapon by Gómez as a substitute for the Spanish sword (also due to the scarcity of firearms and ammunition) was rapidly adopted by Maceo and his troops.
Antonio Maceo rejected the military seditions of Lagunas de Varona and Santa Rita
Santa Rita
Santa Rita may refer to:*Rita of Cascia, a Catholic saint*Associação Atlética Santa Rita, a Brazilian football club-Places:*Brazil**Santa Rita, Macapá, a borough in the city of Macapá in Amapá state...
, which undermined the independent troops' unity and favoured a regionalism in Las Villas. This stood in contrast with the style of leadership exhibited by Vicente Garcia González
Vicente Garcia González
Vicente García González was a General in the Cuban Ten Years' War and later a Cuban President who was assassinated by the Spanish after the war. García was born on January 23, 1833 and died on May 4, 1886.-Career:...
, who eschewed front line heroics in favor of planning from behind the lines, and who also advocated a regional approach to secession. Divisionism and the imprecise designs of García were plainly rejected by Maceo when the former asked for support to constitute a “New Revolutionary Government”.
Divisions, regionalism
Regionalism (politics)
Regionalism is a term used in international relations. Regionalism also constitutes one of the three constituents of the international commercial system...
, and indiscipline were the main reasons for the decline of the Revolution, of which the Spanish General Arsenio Martínez-Campos y Antón
Arsenio Martínez-Campos y Antón
Arsenio Martínez-Campos y Antón was a Spanish officer, who rose against the First Spanish Republic in a military revolution in 1874 and restored Spain's Bourbon dynasty. Later he became Captain-General of Cuba...
, then already named Captain General of Cuba, drew considerable advantage. An officer of honour, he offered peace guarantees, amnesty for revolutionary men and legal reforms, in exchange for a cease of hostilities, which had already lasted 10 years (in 1878). At the same time, the Spanish Government continued the concentration of more forces to enclose the diminishing Cuban rebel forces.
Antonio Maceo was one of the officers who opposed the signing of the Pact of Zanjón
Pact of Zanjón
The Pact of Zanjón was the treaty that ended the Cuban Ten Years' War. Slaves who had fought against Spain were given freedom. The Maceo brothers refused to sign the treaty and kept on fighting until they took to exile to return later. Calixto Garcia was released from Spanish prison....
, which ended the Ten Years War. He and other mambises (independence soldiers) met with General Martínez-Campos on March 15, 1878, to discuss the peace terms, but Maceo argued that no peace could be achieved if none of the objectives of the war had been accomplished; chief among these aims was the abolition of slavery in Cuba and Cuban independence. The only immediate benefit was amnesty for those involved in the conflict and liberty for the black soldiers who had fought in the "Liberator Army." Maceo did not recognize the treaty as valid and did not adhere to the proposed amnesty. This meeting, known as the Protest of Baraguá ("Protesta de Baraguá"), began when a messenger was sent to Maceo from another Cuban high officer, who proposed an ambush against the Spanish general. Maceo rejected the plan, informing the would-be conspirator via letter: “I don’t want victory if it goes accompanied with dishonor.”
After respecting the truce time for the interview (a few days), Maceo resumed hostilities. In order to save his life, the government of the Republic of Cuba gave him the task of gathering money, arms and men for an expedition from the exterior. Maceo's movements were useless, however, due to the dismay of the exiled sympathizers who were unhappy with the Zanjón pact.
Later in 1879, Maceo and Major General Calixto García Íñiguez planned from New York a new invasion to Cuba, which initiated the short-lived Little War
Little War (Cuba)
The Little War or Small War , was the second of three conflicts in the Cuban War of Independence. It followed the Ten Years' War of 1868–1878 and preceded the War of '95, itself sometimes called the Cuban War of Independence, which bled into the Spanish-American War, ultimately resulting in...
. Maceo did not personally fight in these battles, for he had sent Calixto García as highest commander. This avoided exacerbating the racist prejudices of fellow Cuban officers that were inflamed by Spanish propaganda. The Spanish tried to create the impression that Maceo was trying to start a racial war against white Cubans, though their propaganda efforts did little damage to Maceo's reputation.
The fruitful truce (1879-1895)
After a short stay in HaitiHaiti
Haiti , officially the Republic of Haiti , is a Caribbean country. It occupies the western, smaller portion of the island of Hispaniola, in the Greater Antillean archipelago, which it shares with the Dominican Republic. Ayiti was the indigenous Taíno or Amerindian name for the island...
, where he was pursued by the Spanish and faced assassination attempts by the Spanish consulates, and also in Jamaica
Jamaica
Jamaica is an island nation of the Greater Antilles, in length, up to in width and 10,990 square kilometres in area. It is situated in the Caribbean Sea, about south of Cuba, and west of Hispaniola, the island harbouring the nation-states Haiti and the Dominican Republic...
, Maceo eventually settled in the Costa Rica
Costa Rica
Costa Rica , officially the Republic of Costa Rica is a multilingual, multiethnic and multicultural country in Central America, bordered by Nicaragua to the north, Panama to the southeast, the Pacific Ocean to the west and the Caribbean Sea to the east....
n province of Guanacaste
Guanacaste Province
Guanacaste is a province of Costa Rica located in the northwestern part of the country, along the coast of the Pacific Ocean. To the north it borders Nicaragua. To the east is the Alajuela Province, and to the southeast is the Puntarenas Province. It is the most sparsely populated of all the...
. The president of Costa Rica assigned Maceo to a military unit and provided him with a small farm to live on. Maceo was contacted by José Martí
José Martí
José Julián Martí Pérez was a Cuban national hero and an important figure in Latin American literature. In his short life he was a poet, an essayist, a journalist, a revolutionary philosopher, a translator, a professor, a publisher, and a political theorist. He was also a part of the Cuban...
and urged to initiate the War of 1895, called by Martí the “necessary war”.
Maceo, with the experience and wisdom gained from previous revolutionary failures, argued that there were a number of impediments to military success in a brief but intense epistolary exchange with Martí, warning about the causes of the partial defeat in the Ten Years' War (1868–78). Martí responded with his formula of “the army, free; but the country, as a country with all its dignity represented,” and convinced Maceo of the high probabilities of success if the war was to be prepared carefully. As a precondition, Maceo demanded that highest command should be in the hands of Gómez, which was approved without reservation by the Delegate of the Cuban Revolutionary Party (Martí). In Costa Rica, he faced, gun in hand, another attempt of assassination by Spanish agents at the exit of a theatre, with fatal result for one of the aggressors.
Cuban War of Independence
Baracoa
Baracoa is a municipality and city in Guantánamo Province near the eastern tip of Cuba. It was founded by the first governor of Cuba, the Spanish conquistador Diego Velázquez de Cuéllar in 1511...
(close to the eastern tip of Cuba) and after repelling a Spanish attempt at capturing or killing him, he got into the mountains of that region. After many difficulties, he managed to gather a small contingent of armed men, which rapidly grew with other rebel groups of the Santiago de Cuba
Santiago de Cuba
Santiago de Cuba is the second largest city of Cuba and capital city of Santiago de Cuba Province in the south-eastern area of the island, some south-east of the Cuban capital of Havana....
region. In the farm of "La Mejorana", Maceo had a historic, but unfortunate, meeting with Gómez and Martí, because of the disagreements between him and Martí, regarding the question of the relationship between the military movements and the civilian government, against which constitution was Maceo, but Martí, knowing both sides of the problem, stood on his formula. Several days later, Martí, treated as a non-military “Doctor” by Maceo, would fall in battle in Dos Ríos (confluence between the rivers Contramaestre and Cauto).
After Gómez was designated General in Chief of the Cuban Liberation Army, Maceo was named Lieutenant General (second in command after the General in Chief). Starting from Mangos de Baraguá (place of the historical protest in front of Martínez-Campos), Maceo and Gómez, on command of two long mambises columns, took brilliantly the task of invading the west of Cuba, riding or walking more than 1000 miles in 96 days. After several months bleeding the Spanish forces in Havana
Havana
Havana is the capital city, province, major port, and leading commercial centre of Cuba. The city proper has a population of 2.1 million inhabitants, and it spans a total of — making it the largest city in the Caribbean region, and the most populous...
and Pinar del Río
Pinar del Río
Pinar del Río is a city in Cuba. It is the capital of Pinar del Río Province.Inhabitants of the area are called Pinareños.Neighborhoods in the city include La Conchita, La Coloma, Briones Montoto and Las Ovas.-History:...
Maceo arrived at Mantua, in the western extreme of Cuba, on October, 1896, after defeating for many times the technically and numerically superior forces of the Spaniards (five times the Cuban forces on occasions).
Using alternately the tactics of guerrilla and open warfare, they exhausted the Spanish Army of more than a quarter million soldiers and traversed all the island, even through the military trails, walls and fences built by the Spanish Army with the purpose of stopping them and dealing with an overwhelming technical and numerical superiority of the Spaniards. The level of coordination and cohesiveness of Cuban forces was driven by the fact that Máximo Gómez had clearly established a chain of command that subordinated all Major Generals to Maceo, his executive officer.
The invasion of Western Cuba had been previously attempted by Brigadier General Henry Reeve
Henry Reeve (soldier)
Henry Reeve was a Brigadier General in Cuba's 'Ejército Libertador' - more commonly known as the 'Ejército Mambi' - during the Ten Years' War ....
during the Ten Years' War but faltered (and collapsed) between the easternmost section of the province of Matanzas
Matanzas Province
Matanzas is one of the provinces of Cuba. Major towns in the province include Cárdenas, Colón, Jovellanos and the capital of the same name, Matanzas...
and the westernmost section of the province of Havana and Reeve perished. At the time Maceo had collaborated with Reeve under the direction of Máximo Gómez.
The eagerness for independence and the cruelty of the Spanish high officers made rural inhabitants of the western half of the island eager to give support in men and logistics to the Liberation Army. This was the cause of the institution, by Valeriano Weyler
Valeriano Weyler
Don Valeriano Weyler y Nicolau, 1st Duke of Rubí and 1st Marquis of Tenerife Don Valeriano Weyler y Nicolau, 1st Duke of Rubí and 1st Marquis of Tenerife Don Valeriano Weyler y Nicolau, 1st Duke of Rubí and 1st Marquis of Tenerife (Seed in Ambos Camarines.-Philippines:In 1888, he was sent out as...
, of the reconcentration. Hundreds of thousands of peasants were forcibly carried to the cities, mainly Havana
Havana
Havana is the capital city, province, major port, and leading commercial centre of Cuba. The city proper has a population of 2.1 million inhabitants, and it spans a total of — making it the largest city in the Caribbean region, and the most populous...
, Pinar del Río
Pinar del Río
Pinar del Río is a city in Cuba. It is the capital of Pinar del Río Province.Inhabitants of the area are called Pinareños.Neighborhoods in the city include La Conchita, La Coloma, Briones Montoto and Las Ovas.-History:...
and Matanzas
Matanzas
Matanzas is the capital of the Cuban province of Matanzas. It is famed for its poets, culture, and Afro-Cuban folklore.It is located on the northern shore of the island of Cuba, on the Bay of Matanzas , east of the capital Havana and west of the resort town of Varadero.Matanzas is called the...
, besides several minor cities in these three provinces. In the concentration camps created for them, very similar to those later built in Europe by the Nazis, almost a third part of the Cuban rural population lost their lives.
Contrary to the expectations of Weyler, the cruel reconcentration encouraged many people to join to the Liberation army, preferring to die in battle than in starvation. In 1896, after meeting Gómez in Havana (crossing once more the trail from Mariel to Majana via Mariel Bay), he returned to the fields of Pinar del Río
Pinar del Río
Pinar del Río is a city in Cuba. It is the capital of Pinar del Río Province.Inhabitants of the area are called Pinareños.Neighborhoods in the city include La Conchita, La Coloma, Briones Montoto and Las Ovas.-History:...
, where he faced bloody clashes with outnumbering forces, led by Spanish generals famous for their victories in Africa and Filipinas, and provided with artillery and the most modern weapons for infantry. After decimating them in the westernmost mountains of Cuba, he turned eastward again, crossing the mentioned trail in order to travel to Las Villas or Camagüey
Camagüey
Camagüey is a city and municipality in central Cuba and is the nation's third largest city. It is the capital of the Camagüey Province.After almost continuous attacks from pirates the original city was moved inland in 1528.The new city was built with a confusing lay-out of winding alleys that made...
. There he was planning to meet Gómez to plan the ulterior course of war, and with the Government in Arms, to establish an agreement between it and the forces in action, in relation with two main subjects: the raisings of medium and high officers in the Liberation Army and the recognition of belligerence by foreign countries and acceptation of direct military aid. His position was, at that time, acquiescent with accepting economical aid and packages with weapons and ammunitions from Europe or even from the United States, but was strongly opposed to the acceptance of a military intervention by the US in Cuba.
Death
His plans for meeting with Gómez and the Government in Arms never took place. In the vicinity of Punta BravaPunta Brava
Punta Brava is a small town and suburb of Havana, Cuba, located to the southwest of Havana, with a population of roughly 1500 inhabitants. It has been the site of different military encounters during Cuba's struggle for independence, and is most notable as the site where Cuban General Antonio Maceo...
, Maceo was advancing into the farm of San Pedro, only accompanied by his personal escort (two or three men), the physician of his Headquarters, the Brigade General José Miró Argenter and a small troop of no more than twenty men. When they attempted to cut a fence for facilitating the march of horses through those lands, they were detected by a strong Spanish column, which opened an intense fire. Maceo was hit by two shots, one in the chest and another that broke his jaw and penetrated his skull. His companions could not carry him because of the intensity of the firefight and Maceo's size. The only rebel who stayed by him was the Lieutenant Francisco Gómez (known as Panchito), son of Máximo Gómez, who faced the Spanish column for the sole purpose of protecting the body of his general. After being shot several times, the Spaniards killed Gómez with machete strikes, leaving both bodies abandoned, not knowing the identity of the fallen.
The corpses of Maceo and Panchito were picked up the next days by Colonel Aranguren, from Havana, who ran immediately to the battle scene after hearing the news. They were later buried in secret in the farm of two brothers who swore to keep the burial place in secrecy until Cuba would be free and independent and the correspondent military honors could be given to the hero. Nowadays, the remains of Antonio Maceo y Grajales and Francisco Gómez Toro lie in the monument of the Cacahual
Cacahual
Cacahual is a town and municipality located in the Guainía Department, Republic of Colombia....
, close to the limits of the former farm of San Pedro, and the site is one of pilgrimage for Cuban people.
Legacy
In addition to his role as a soldier and statesman in the Cuban movement for independence, Maceo was an influential political strategist and military planner, and José MartíJosé Martí
José Julián Martí Pérez was a Cuban national hero and an important figure in Latin American literature. In his short life he was a poet, an essayist, a journalist, a revolutionary philosopher, a translator, a professor, a publisher, and a political theorist. He was also a part of the Cuban...
is among Cuban leaders who were inspired by Maceo. Being a member of masonry, in his correspondence one can read more than once his credo base on "God, Reason and Virtue". He was quoted as having a strict motto: "My duties to country and to my own political convictions are above all human effort; with these I shall reach the pedestal of freedom or I shall perish fighting for my country's redemption." (November 3, 1890). Martí, speaking about him, said that "Maceo has as much strength in his mind as in his arm."
Of democratic political adherence, he expressed many times his sympathy for the republican form of government, but insisted on seeking for the formula of "liberty; equality and fraternity", recalling the well-known but almost never applied principles of the French Revolution
French Revolution
The French Revolution , sometimes distinguished as the 'Great French Revolution' , was a period of radical social and political upheaval in France and Europe. The absolute monarchy that had ruled France for centuries collapsed in three years...
and defining a policy on the search for social justice. Being in a dinner meeting in a very short visit made to Santiago de Cuba during the "Fruitful Truce", he was invited to make a toast and a phrase was said by a young man for a wish to annex Cuba to the United States and turn Cuba into "...another star into the constellation of the United States...". His answer was: I think, young man, that this would be the only occasion in which I would place my sword at the same side with the Spanish ones." And foreseeing the North American expansionism (he was absolutely convinced of the inevitable victory of Cuban Arms) he expressed in a letter to a friend of arms: "That who attempts to seize Cuba, will gather the dust of its ground soaked in blood, if he does not perish in fight."
External links
- Excerpt about Antonio Maceo from History of Negro soldiers in the Spanish-American War, and other items of interest. published 1899, hosted by the Portal to Texas History.