| |
Antonio Maceo
14 de junio de 1845 - 7 de diciembre de 1896
"My duties to Patria and to my own political convictions are above all human effort; for these I shall reach the pedestal of freedom or I shall perish fighting for the redemption of that land. . ."
Antonio Maceo
Jose Marti on Antonio Maceo
 Como una espada refulgiendo entre dos ejércitos era su valor. Como una piedra limpia en un arroyo era su alma. Antonio Maceo y Grajales, Lugarteniente General del Ejército Libertador de Cuba, fue un hombre a quien los enemigos de la libertad de Cuba temían siempre, cuando sabían que era él a quien tenían delante. Las más de 20 heridas en combate
que, como medallas insuperables, exhibía Maceo en su cuerpo, atestiguaban que no por gusto le decían: "El Titán de Bronce" y "el león de la manigua".
Antonio maceo nació en Santiago de Cuba, del matrimonio de la criolla Mariana Grajales y el venezolano Marcos Maceo. A los dos días del Grito de Yara, se incorporó a la revolución el joven Antonio, junto a Justo y José, dos de sus once hermanos. Pero muy pronto estaban todos los Maceo en combate, porque
 Mariana Grajales los había hecho jurar a
todos que empuñarían las armas hasta vencer o morir. Y para que no hubiera dudas, tambien Mariana marchó a la manigua.
Pronto se distinguieron todos ellos en el fragor del combate; pronto comenzaron a caer uno tras otro aquellos Maceo. Cuando una vez le trajeron a uno de sus hijos gravemente herido, las mujeres de la familia, al verlo tan grave comenzaron a gritar espantadas. "¡Afuera con esas lloronas!", rugió Mariana, "aquí no quiero lágrimas!".
Y al ver a uno de sus hijos más pequeños mirando aterrorizado al herido, Mariana le espetó enérgica: "¡Y tú, empínate para que salgas a ocupar su lugar!"
Con una madre y un padre así, no podían esos Maceo sino convertirse en leones , en centauros que acobardaban y derrotaban al más curtido soldado español. Por algo, comenzando de soldados, llegaron todos a mandos superiores. Pero Antonio, que agregaba a su coraje, su hidalguía, su astucia guerrera y su instinto nato para revertir la superioridad
enemiga con una maniobra inesperada o una carga de espanto que los hacía huir, fue el que mayor grado militar alcanzó, el de segundo al mando del Eército Libertador, a las órdenes sólo de Máximo Gómez.
Cuando agotada la economía del país y de la inmigración en aquella primera guerra (la de os Diez Años), sin suministros ni pertrechos, los mambises vieron que continuar la lucha era un suicidio, se accedió por fin a aceptar los generosos términos de armisticio (no rendición) que el general español Arsenio Martínez Campos proponía. Pero Antonio
Maceo no aceptó ni siquiera esos términos. Reunido con Martínez Campos en Mangos de Baraguá, Oriente, el ya mayor general Antonio los rechazó, en lo que históricamente se conoce como "la protesta de Baraguá", una página gloriosa que sólo a él pertenece en nuestra Historia.
Cuando por fín comprendió Maceo que no le llegaría ayuda, y aconsejado por Máximo Gómez de que continuar en la manigua era enviar a la muerte inútil uno por uno a los mejores mambises de la guerra futura, accedió Maceo a marchar al exilio.
 Pero, cuando Martí hizo el milagro de organizar la nueva guerra, se unió a él y con nuevos bríos se lanzó a pelear. Con Gómez realizó la Invasión que se había intentado el "la guerra grande" sin éxito. Derrotando los españoles donde quiera que éstos intentaban cerrarle el paso marchaban Maceo y Gómez primero, y Maceo solo después.
Cuando llegó por fin a Mantua, última población de Cuba hacia el oeste, tomó el pueblo y allí hizo firmar la solemne Acta de Invasión.
Los españoles lo creían copado en Pinar del Río y, tras reforzar la trocha de Mariel a Majana, lanzaron tras él cuarenta batallones. Pero Maceo los combatió, los derrotó y, por fin, los burló cruzando por la bahía del Mariel al amparo de la noche. Pero no huyendo de un cerco, sino para preparar el ataque a la misma capital del país, la ciudad de
La Habana. Cuando los españoles supieron que Maceo los estaba combatiendo tan cerca como Marianao, el pánico fue total, y se hablaba hasta de evacuar el gobierno.
Pero, la buena estralla del Titán de Bronce había sido eclipsada por una negra nube. En un combate sin mayor importancia, y cuando se preparaba para cargar contra el enemigo que intentara sorprenderlo, sin saber que los aguardaba la sorpresa de que enfrentaban a Maceo, el Titán de Bronce, que ya saboreaba la victoria, comentó sonriente:
-Ya son nuestros...
Y despues dijo su última frase:
-Esto va bien...
Pero el gigante que tantas balas había tratado de abatir, recibió esta vez una en el cuello que le cercenó una arteria.
Se le vio tambalearse. De su mano izquierda (era zurdo) cayó el machete y, a continuación cayó a tierra el guerrero. Los intentos de rescatarlo sólo atrajeron más balazos sobre el agonizante centauro. Al saberlo caído, Panchito Gómez Toro, hijo de Máximo Gómez, corrió a intentar rescatarlo o morir junto a él. Los españoles lo remataron a
machetazos, sin saber a quiénes mataban. Era un triste 7 de diciembre.
Fue tanta muerte su muerte, que el sacrificio de la vida de todos los mambises cubanos de todas las guerras se conmemora precisamente el 7 de Diciembre, día que muriera venciendo el Lugarteniente General Antonio Maceo y Grajales, el Titán de Bronce. La guerra continuó, la victoria se logró. Pero nunca pudo la patria recobrarse de una pérdida tan
grande.
certificado defuncion
Antonio Maceo
The Bronze Titan
Tulia Falleti, Article Author
Black Cuban leader Antonio Maceo was one of the main fighters against slavery and Spanish rule in Cuba. Together with José Martí and Máximo Gómez, Maceo fought against the colonial domination
of Spain in the bitter "Ten Years War" of 1868-1878, and in the Spanish-Cuban war of Independence of 1895, until he died in battle in 1896.
 Maceo lived to see the end of slavery in Cuba in 1886, but unfortunately he did not live to see Cuba's independence from Spain, which finally occurred in 1898, two years after his death. Born on June 14th of 1845, Antonio Maceo was one of the nine children of Marcos Maceo and Mariana Grajales y Cuello. Maceo was born in Majaguabo, in the province of
Oriente in Cuba. His parents were two free blacks who came to Cuba from Santo Domingo. Antonio Maceo's father had a small agricultural business. The business prospered economically and his family bought several farms in Santiago de Cuba, in the Oriente province.
Unlike the majority of Afro-Cubans, Maceo's family was part of the rural middle class of the Oriente province. Antonio Maceo was educated at home, by three teachers. At the age of 16, he started working, transporting and marketing fruits and tobacco by mule. When he was 19 years old, Maceo became a member of the Masonic Lodge of Santiago de Cuba and
entered the inner revolutionary circle against Spain. At the age of 21, Maceo married María Magdalena Cabrales y Fernández, with whom he had a daughter, María de la Claridad Maceo. Militarily trained by Máximo Gómez, Maceo was a brave fighter, and that won him the nickname of "The Bronze Titán." He fought against the Spaniards and against slavery in the province
of Oriente in the "Ten Years War," from 1868 to 1878, and again against the Spaniards when the independence war broke out in 1895. During the "Ten Years War" (1868-1878), Maceo won multiple battles in the province of Oriente. However, those victories were not enough to win the war of independence. In 1878, the insurrection troops of the western provinces of
Cuba were ready to surrender and sign a peace treaty with the Spaniards. Maceo refused to sign that treaty and wrote what came to be known as the "Protest of Baraguá." In the protest of Baraguá, Maceo wrote "Our policy is to free the slaves, because the era of the whip and of Spanish cynicism has come to an end, and we ought to form a new Republic assimilated
with our sisters Santo Domingo and Haiti. The great spirits of Washington, Lafayette and Bolívar, liberators of oppressed peoples, accompanies us" (in Foner, 1977: pp. 81-82). A Spanish commander at the time said "This Negro Maceo is the key to a real peace." (Martínez Campos letter of February 26, 1878, cited in Foner, 1977: p. 77). Despite Maceo's desire to continue the fight, Maceo was forced to capitulate. He then traveled to Jamaica. Unable to raise support for the Cuban cause in Jamaica, Maceo went to New York where he worked with the Cuban Revolutionary
Committee and was a member of the Cuban Revolutionary Party created by José Martí. Between 1878 and 1895 Maceo lived in the United States, Haiti, several other islands in the Caribbean, and Honduras, everywhere working towards the cause of Cuban independence. In 1890, Maceo made a visit to Cuba and was greeted throughout the island with great enthusiasm, but the Spanish
authorities forced him to leave. Finally, in 1895 he was one of the first exiled Cubans who returned to fight in the second war of independence. He fought the Spaniards until he died in battle on December 8 of 1896.
Like José Martí, Antonio Maceo is a symbol of free Cuba. But Maceo is also a symbol of racial equality, which he thought would come only with independence and freedom. Maceo embodied the hopes of freedom of the Cuban people, as well
as the hopes of equality of the black people in Cuba and beyond. The UNIA's Black Star Line, for example, wanted to name one of its ships after Antonio Maceo and they thought him to be a hero. But at the end of the nineteenth century, in the context of racist ideologies and prejudices, Maceo's race was a constant source of political controversy. During both wars of independence
(the "ten years war" and the war of 1895-1898), the Spaniards capitalized on existing racist attitudes and were able to undermine the unity of Cuban insurgents claiming that black leaders-Maceo among them--were pursuing the creation of a Negro Republic. In response to those accusations, Antonio Maceo wrote "since I belong to the colored race, without considering
myself worth more or less than other men, a Negro Republic, or anything of the sort, is a deadly thing to this democratic republic which is founded on the basis of liberty and fraternity. I do not recognize any hierarchy." (Antonio Maceo in a letter to President Cisneros on May 16, 1876. Cited from Foner, 1977: pp. 253-254). Two years after Maceo's death, Cuba-with the
interested support of the United States - achieved its independence from Spain. It would, however, take many decades before racist ideas and prejudices would stop being used by the Cuban elites and dominant classes as tools to divide those who fought against the status quo, or to persecute and massacre black Cubans, as happened in the political armed conflicts of 1912 in the
Oriente province.
From PATRIA (New York), October 6, 1893
American Nature, Maid of the Isthmus, is
a provident beauty and like an ample bosom in its domination of Costa Rica,
a country rising above the clouds, its logs hauled by animals meandering
along the blue skyscape, the broad and stony waters of its splashing
mountain streams spilling to the burning coasts on a bed perennially green.
The republic is like a hymn, and every one of its sons carries a hoe over
his shoulder. There on the Atlantic side, along the Río Matina, bananas
grow as tall as royal palms, and a Cuban who gave his blood to Cuba is the
one who grows the best bananas in the friendly soil. On the Pacific side,
that which a year ago was overgrown with weeds is now a sidewalk, and the
wasteland a small village of Cubans who brought seed out of the forest. And
there is someone there who who forsakes his recent bride for an older
lover. The good Cuban loves Costa Rica with the tenderness of a son. Costa
Rica is one of the charming places in this world, with its dewdrop cities
dotting the pleasant valleys, each a mosaic of jewels. There is vigorous
life in its serene inhabitants; the son of a doctor or a judge, his roots
in the countryside like any man who wants to be free, and the father
waiting at the coffee plantation for the blooms to appear; or the son of a
laborer with a silver-plated belt, working behind the wagons. Banks and
hotels prosper amid the country’s old beliefs because they exist for
orderly and progressive people rather than for the powerful; and the
electrically lighted roads edged with roofs take one to the common where
anyone may put his cow to pasture and where the air is life itself, or to
picturesque ravines and hillocks and age-old walls covered with flowers.
The suburban house is luxurious; gold sofas within, and outside still
displaying the colonial front door and forbidding windows. Looking out on a
courtyard there, between a fountain and a rose bush, the young son’s
library is filled with volumes from Paris and books on contemporary
America. And if there is a contest of ideas in the magnificent salon, first
all of them—magistrates and presidents, tailors and scholars, soldiers
and laborers—crowd together in the entryway to have something to drink.
Costa Rica’s shell is still oppressive, but it is a republic. Man lives
from his work and thinks for himself. And the Cuban who goes to Costa Rica
is warmly welcomed by all. A robust man goes by in the street; he neither
slights nor flatters, but everyone greets him; he has a courteous manner of
speech and a splendid bearing. He completed a three days’ journey in a
day and a half and is admired by peasants and ministers alike; loyal Cubans
from east and west set a Cuban table and put him at its head; another stage
of his journey, after contracts and important visits, and he is already in
his Nicoya—which a year ago was in obscurity—opening the land and
moving men, or building a new wing for the big hut, with roof and shed,
while accompanied by the greatly respected lady who anxiously awaited him
and stanched his flow of blood during the ten years of war. Thus does
Antonio Maceo live: waiting.
A son comes more from his mother than
from his father, and it is a great misfortune to owe one’s body to weak
or worthless people to whom one cannot owe one’s soul. But Maceo was
happy because he came from a lion and a lioness. His mother is wasting away
now, the splendid little old lady slipping away from him to a remote and
indifferent corner, and yet she still has the hands of a young girl for
caressing anyone who talks to her about her homeland. Her eyes wander over
the earth as if looking for another world; they still sparkle as they did
when the Spaniard came and told her about some good incident in connection
with her sons. She lifts her wrinkled face, her head covered with a
crow-like kerchief, and without knowing why, one kisses her hand. At the
bedside of her sick grandson—a little man-child—the old lady talks
passionately about her sons’ battles, her terrors, her joys, about when
they will all be repeated. Crouching in a hole in the ground she spent
painful hours while all around there were sabers and machetes crossing to
the hilt. She saw her son straighten up, blood all over his body, and with
ten men rout two hundred. With her own hands she waits upon and accompanies
to the door those who in the name of Cuba are still coming to see her.
His wife María, an exceptionally noble
lady, would not even see terror in death, for she had seen its shadow many
times; she would see terror only in one heart of a son of Cuba, a heart in
which a strong desire for the country’s independence might have been
snuffed out; that was a fierce night indeed. To her it seems a strange lack
of courage and monstrous ingratitude for so much bloodshed, for she, a
woman, has seen that Cuban perform stubbornly and marvelously and then,
with the machete he used in fighting, has seen him earn his bread. There is
no more cultured matron in the drawing room, nor was there a better
untrained doctor in the war. That cry; “If there aren’t going to be any
more women now, who will take care of the wounded?” came from her. With
welcoming arms she anticipates anyone who brings her hopes from the
homeland, and with haughty silence she confuses those who distrust or
forget her. May her husband see other blood in the fight and not give his
own! She always dresses in black, but it is as if she were clothed in the
flag. “Oh, the most beautiful thing on earth was to see the president,
with his white beard and the huge hat he’d wear on the road, leaning on
his walking stick, climbing the hill on foot, because when going through
Oriente he would always stop off to see Antonio.” And her spirit is music
when she tells about “the entire army that joined forces in Camagüey to
attack Las Villas, and they would set out in the morning with cavalry and
infantry and flags, the wives and mothers going along, and all those
bugles.” It is easy to be heroes with such women!
The Cuban who had no rival in defending,
with strength and respect, the laws of his republic now lives in Nicoya, a
splendid place before the Conquest froze the ingenuous life of America. The
useful man is silent, like cannon on the walls, as long as the burning
ideal does not burden him with justice and death. In passing, the astute
rider takes his horse among the little villages—that horse which once
leaped into the midst of the enemy bayonets, stirring up sand with its two
hind legs.His clear-eyed gaze, which would drink in
an entire camp at a glance, now investigates the colonists’ small
transgressions and neighborhood complaints. Now and then he smiles, and it
is because he sees the war coming. He urges his horse into a trot but soon
resorts to the bridle in order to sense the true hour, in order to punish
his spirit for the impetuosity of his youth. The rain and strong sun beat
down upon him without distracting his silent thoughts or robbing him of his
jovial smile; and as at the open-air banquet that was once given to him,
everyone will gallop away if the clouds begin to gather, while he will stay
and face the storm. He can do everything. In his time he will do
everything.When he secures settlements for the
colonists; sees to each one’s role with the govenrment and that each is
personally obligated; sees to the selling of rice, the arrival of some
machine, a license for the tobacco store; conveys by land and sea what is
needed to change the learing which he and his men opened in the dense
forest into a beautiful and lively town—when he accomplishes all these
things, there is no guest more warmly received on the marble threshold or
at the deal table, and no contractor whom the government views more
favorably, and no man to whom his compatriots give of themselves or entrust
their lives more willingly. Anger does not quicken his pace or debase his
person with jealousy and vengeance, nor does his scarred hand grip the hand
of an unworthy man; since he is soon to die for his country, he does not
talk much about it. But he can, and he will. In the meantime he works in
the colony for a month and remains in San Jose for a week, in his twill
Prince Albert, light trousers, and bowler hat. Within his formidable frame
lies a great heart. Apparently that man can never, with his serene vigor,
harm or offend the country which he loves so dearly, by too much action and
too little wisdom; so dearly that when, alone with his curses, he talks
about its realities and the fire burning within it, his eyes light up with
happiness and he becomes speechless. The camp is before him, the horses
galloping, and the way is clearly seen. His is the joy of a bridegroom, and
it must be assumed that there is substance in what he says because
Maceo’s mind is as powerful as his arm. No childish enthusiasm would get
the better of his wise experience. His thinking is firm and harmonious,
like the likes of his skull. His words are polished, as though with
constant energy, and of an artistic elegance derived from his painstaking
adjustment to wise and sober ideas. He does not give himself away verbally,
which is truly noteworthy, but treats the subject at hand in a roundabout
way, while, like someone returning from a long voyage, he hints at all the
pitfalls and difficulties. He leaves no phrases ragged, uses no impure
expressions, or hesitates when he seems to do so; rather, he carefully
considers his subject matter or his man. He never exaggerates or drops the
reins. But the sun sets one day and rises upon another, and through the
window that looks out upon the field of Mars its first splendors shine upon
that warrior who spent a sleepless night searching for paths for his
country. His support will be himself, never his dagger. He shall serve his
troops with his ideas even more than with his courage. Strength and
greatness are natural to him. After that night the sun blazed through his
windows.
Patria (New York), October 6, 1893
|
