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N A
T I O N A L |
Havana.
June 14, 2005 |
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Antonio Maceo in
Honduras and
Costa Rica
• Unpublished documents from the
Spanish intelligence services show how the
colonizers used every means to break his will by
using the stick and the carrot
BY RAUL RODRÍGUEZ
DE LA O – Special for Granma International –
GENERAL Antonio Maceo, born in Santiago de Cuba
on June 14, 1845, was one of the most important
figures in our struggles for independence starting
with the first war, which began on October 10, 1868
at the Demajagua sugar mill in Mazanillo, Oriente
province, until the third and last, 1895-1898, where
he fell heroically in the battle of San Pedro,
Havana, on December 7, 1896, with the ranking of
Major General and occupying the post of second chief
of the Cuban Liberation Army.
His father, Marcos Maceo, and some of his
brothers fell during the first war. His mother, the
legendary Mariana Grajales, had accompanied him
throughout the 10 years of war until the signing of
the Treaty of Zanjón in Camagüey on February 10,
1878. She was also at his side during the glorious
Protest of Baraguá – which symbolized his
revolutionary intransigence – on February 10, 1878,
in a meeting with Spanish General Arsenio Martínez
Campos, in Mangos de Baraguá, Santiago de Cuba. In
that meeting, he refused to accept the treaty that
ended the first war unless it took into
consideration the abolition of slavery and the
island’s independence and ratified his disposition
to continue fighting until victory was won.
Nevertheless, despite Maceo’s supreme effort to
save the Revolution and continue fighting after the
glorious Protest of Baraguá, he had to leave the
country for Jamaica in May of 1878 to undertake, in
a disciplined manner, a mission entrusted to him by
the Provisional Government in Arms, at that time
headed by General Manuel de Jesus Calvar (Titá), to
check on the situation of the revolutionary Cuban
émigré community and whether or not its members were
prepared to continue helping the cause of
independence. Unfortunately, Maceo had to send a
messenger with instructions to sign the peace pact,
given that he had not found the necessary support or
will among Cuban immigrants to provide resources.
And that was how the Provisional Government in Arms
finally signed the peace treaty with Spain in 1878.
Under such circumstances, Maceo was unable to
return to Cuba, and remained abroad, saddened but
willing to continue the battle for independence.
That opportunity arrived very quickly, given that by
the second semester of that same year, 1878,
preparations began for the second independence
movement (known as the Little War (1879-1880) under
the leadership of General Calixto García, who headed
the New York Cuban Revolutionary Committee, He
coordinated his plans with General García’s support,
and to leave for Cuba as part of a large expedition,
but in spite of his efforts and desire, was unable
to do so.
Subsequently, on the advice of General Máximo
Gómez, who had been residing in Honduras since
February 5, 1879, Maceo moved from Jamaica to that
country, where he arrived on July 20, 1881, followed
by other outstanding patriots, including Carlos
Roloff, Flor Crombet, Eusebio Hernández, Manuel de
Jesús Calvar, Rafael Rodríguez and Manuel Morey. The
leader of the Protest of Baraguá then served as
Division General in the general staff of the
Honduran Army, and at the same time, assumed the
military command of Tegucigalpa. He also assumed the
responsibility of stand-in judge for the Supreme
Court of War in that country, and in July of 1882,
was named Commander of the Ports of Puerto Cortéz
and Omoa, with residence in the former.
Our most important history books have always
maintained that, with the objective of helping the
Cuban independence patriots, the Honduran government,
led by Dr. Marco Aurelio Soto (1879-1883), offered
them high-ranking military and civilian posts and in
some cases, economic and humanitarian help. However,
unpublished confidential documents, located by this
author in files No. 4822 and 4829 of the Overseas
Fund Government Section at the National Historical
Archive in Madrid, Spain, reveal that all that "generous
help" from the Honduran government actually obeyed a
highly paid Madrid intelligence activity within the
Tegucigalpa government, headed by Aurelio Soto in
his first mandate. A letter to Spanish General
Arsenio Martínez Campos and forwarded by him to the
Overseas Ministry, from where it was immediately
remitted on account of its importance (dated August
23, 1884) to Ignacio M. Del Castillo, Captain
General of the Island of Cuba, states at one point:
"General Prendergast is fully aware of how necessary
it was to work to get men like Máximo Gómez, A.
Maceo, Crombet, etc. to move to Honduras, only
obtained by sacrificing money so that their families
went, and then pulling them in with military ranks
and commands in those provinces. And the fact that
it was convenient was proven by the results, given
that not once in 6 years have those good relations
been disturbed. In addition, there was the assurance
that Soto’s government was a powerful lever for the
Binney and Melhado house ¼
"
This sinister espionage plan was so carefully put
together by the colonial rulers that, taking into
account the prestige already enjoyed by José Martí,
they also invited him in 1878, all expenses paid and
using Cuban poet José Joaquín Palma, who traveled to
Guatemala on behalf of President Marco Aurelio Soto
expressly to invite the national hero to visit
Honduras, as he subsequently did in Jamaica in the
case of General Máximo Gómez.
During our research over several years into
archives in Cuba, Spain and other countries, we have
been able to confirm the veracity of this enemy
intelligence activity, revealed in the above-mentioned
document, with a large volume of other evidence
beyond the scope of this article.
The objective of the Spanish colonizers was quite
specific: once the Treaty of Zanjón was achieved, to
put as much distance as possible between the Cuban
coast and the bravest and most important
independence leaders. Provide them with economic and
all kinds of other help, offer them high-ranking
civilian and military posts, so that once they were
comfortable and living the good life, they would
desist from their revolutionary and patriotic ideals.
That was the final goal of the Spaniards, whom, of
course, did not take into account the principles,
humility, morale, dignity and honor of men like
Gómez, Maceo, Crombet, Roloff, Martí and many other
Cuban leaders.
Logically, this enemy intelligence activity was
not known of by our patriots – including Gómez and
Maceo – who thought that the help offered them was a
noble gesture of solidarity, although they went to
Honduras without abandoning their revolutionary
ideals, as demonstrated by rigorous research into
that question that also confirms – among other
matters – that they constantly continued conspiring.
In August of 1884, Máximo Gómez and Antonio Maceo
left for the United States to lead the new
revolutionary movement, recorded in history as the
Gómez Maceo Insurrectional Plan, August of 1884 to
September of 1886, and that in spite of their
efforts, also failed to materialize, as they were
unable to send an expedition to Cuba.
But these setbacks did not cause Maceo to lose
enthusiasm. On the contrary, his love for Cuba grew,
as did his optimism and his faith in victory for the
revolutionary cause. That is why he made a trip to
Cuba from January to August of 1890 on the pretext
of family business, but really with patriotic
objectives. That is why, on account of espionage
operations against him – according to documents in
this author’s possession – Cuba’s Spanish colonial
government forced him to leave the island via
Santiago de Cuba before he could rise up in arms in
Oriente, which was his objective.
In early 1891, he decided to move to San José,
Costa Rica. Initially, his purpose was to establish
an agricultural colony of Cubans on the Atlantic
coast, with the goal of creating a base of
operations for his revolutionary activities.
Via their diplomatic representatives in that
country and in Central America, the Spanish
authorities exerted influence and pressure so that
the general would be given land in another region,
farther away from the Cuban coasts, and the
redoubled their spying on him, as is demonstrated by
a series of secret Spanish authority documents in
Cuba and from its Overseas Ministry, dated 1891 and
also in this author’s possession. Here are a few
excerpts:
"I understand that neither within the agreement
with the Republic of Costa Rica, nor within the
principles informing international law, can the
Spanish government oppose the implementation of the
contract between the Ministry of Promotion of that
nation and Antonio Maceo ¼
"
"If the purposes of this were in reality to
establish and develop an agricultural colony, we
should be congratulating ourselves for freeing
ourselves of the threat to the peace of this island
constituted by a man of Maceo’s abilities and
tenacity ¼
"
"All of those who know him believe that his idea
is to gather together resources and to have under
his command a nucleus of men with whom to launch a
war when he has the opportunity to do so; however,
even believing this, it seems to me that we can do
nothing more than monitor him wherever he is in
order to avoid any surprise ¼
"
Finally, and as a result of the pressure,
blackmail, bribes and intense espionage deployed by
the Spanish colonial authorities, Maceo solemnly
signed the contract for his agricultural colony at
the National Palace in San José, Costa Rica on May
13, 1891, which authorized him to establish it in
the lands of Nicoya, on the Pacific rather than the
Atlantic coast, as he had wished for his patriotic
goals.
In any case, this did not stop him from bringing
together a large group of Cuban patriots there,
including José Maceo, Flor Crombet and Agustín
Cebreco. His determination, and that of his comrades
converted that desert-like and unfertile land into a
prosperous agricultural community that even spurred
José Martí to publish an article in Patria,
on October 6, 1893.
In 1892, Maceo visited the United States on a
mission related to the community and his patriotic
activities. Later, José Martí would visit him in
Costa Rica on two occasions to coordinate with
Maceo, who was a delegate of the Cuban Revolutionary
Party, the plans for the last independence war.
Maceo’s efforts during that period were such that in
November of 1894, he was the victim of a terrorist
attack with a firearm in San José, Costa Rica that
left him injured and his attacker dead. Later that
same year, they tried to poison him twice.
During his time in Costa Rica, from 1891 until
1895, when he set off on an independence expedition
to Cuba, Maceo’s revolutionary activity was very
intense. There, he also received the sad news of the
death of one of his sisters and of his mother,
Mariana Grajales, in Kingston, Jamaica, on November
23, 1893. In a letter dated Costa Rica, January 12,
1894, to respond to one from Martí, and thanking the
latter for having written about his mother, he
expresses to the PRC delegate his state of mind at
that moment: "Three times, in my anguished life as a
Cuban revolutionary, have I suffered the most
intense and stormy emotions of pain and sadness that
come with the death of such beloved persons, such as
those I have just lost now in a strange land,
putting to the test once again my patriot’s heart,
which belongs entirely to your cause, and that of a
grateful son. She, the mother I have just lost,
honors me with her memory of virtuous matron, and
confirms and increases my duty to combat for the
ideal that was the altar of her divine dedication in
this world.
"Oh, what three things! My father, the Treaty of
Zanjón and my mother, that you, to my good fortune,
have calmed a bit with your consoling letter. That
you, with your labors, could lift my head and take
from my face the shame of exile for Cubans and
submission to the colonial government."
In a later letter to his wife María Cabrales,
undated but probably written in March of 1895 when
he was leaving Costa Rica to participate in the last
war of independence, he told her, "Honor comes
before everything. The first time, we fought
together for liberty; now, it is necessary that I
fight alone, for both of us. If I triumph, the glory
is for you." •
Raul Rodríguez La O is a Cuban
historian, researcher and journalist.
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