Antonio Maceo spent six months in Havana in 1890. Late last year, through the Spanish Consulate in Kingston, he had asked Captain General Manuel de Salamanca’s permission to come to Cuba on the pretext of getting some papers related to the possessions… from his mother. Its purpose, in reality, is to learn firsthand the country’s readiness to start a new war and, if possible, to start it. The ship that will take him, named Manuelita and María, will set sail from Haiti on January 29th.
The next day the ship makes a first stop in Santiago de Cuba, an opportunity the traveler takes to meet Flor Crombet. The steamer continues its voyage, touching on Baracoa, Gibara and Nuevitas before arriving in the island’s capital on February 5th. It is said that in Gibara, where he met Lico Balán, a World War I combatant, Maceo’s hat fell into the water as the ship put to sea. Someone tries to catch it and Maceo calls out: “Leave it there, I’ll look for it soon.”
Back in Havana, he stayed at the Hotel Inglaterra. The news spread throughout the city and caused a great deal of excitement. Everyone wants to meet and greet you. The veterans and the young, the intellectuals, the rich and the poor. The Spanish military also stand to attention when they see him and treat him like a general. The secret police also keep an eye on him inside the hotel complex. Rumor has it that they want to attack him and the young people from Acera del Louvre act as his escort and assistants: they accompany him everywhere to protect him. He convinces everyone who knows him. He is the hero of war and also an impeccable knight.
Through the half-open frock coat, he reveals the coat of arms of the Republic, which is embossed on the belt buckle. He has a massive body and muscles made of steel. He is tall, broad-shouldered. His hair is already graying, but his face is fresh and his eyes are bright. The voice is slow and soft, although the accent is slightly guttural. He has a deep and scrutinizing gaze, but sweet. What a figure! says the tailor Leonardo Valenciennes, who is proud to count him among his customers, and Julián del Casal, who dedicated his poem to him to a herohe couldn’t help but exclaim when he saw it, “It’s very beautiful.”
The patriot in Havana wants to see everything and is tireless in his work. He visits trade unions and cultural associations and visits the editorial office of El Fígaro magazine on Calle Obispo. Havana seems to him a dirty city, but Havanans, he writes, are sociable and loving. He meets with Julio and Manuel Sanguily. With Manuel García, the famous bandit who drifted to revolutionary positions. With his old friend, the patriot Félix Figueredo. With Mayia Rodríguez and Perfecto Lacoste. With millionaires like the Terry brothers. Also with Miguel Figueroa, an important figure of autonomism.
He asks that 40,000 pesos be collected to be sent to Máximo Gómez and other chiefs to pay for his transfer to Cuba for the new war which he thought was due to start the following October 10th. He meets with cops and firefighters who have the guns and also want independence. He is frequented by intellectuals such as Manuel de la Cruz and Ramón Agapito Catalá, and has endless conversations with Enrique José Varona.
But he opens his political thinking and his heart to no one as much as Juan Gualberto Gómez, with whom he draws up an insurrection plan in Havana.
Here’s my story!
Here in Havana, two Separatist-minded journalists want Maceo to tell them the story of his wartime exploits. The hero agrees to the request. He quotes her one day for his room in England; probably the one marked with the number 117 on the second floor of the house, then owned by Amancio González. Even there, after the obligatory greeting, the Titan takes off his tight-fitting English frock coat, then takes off his shirt and shows his naked, scar-covered upper body: “Here is my story!” he says.
To this moment he has the marks of 27 wounds left on his body by enemy bullets. Five more would be added until his death on December 7, 1896, 126 years ago. Thirty-two wounds in all. The first of them at the Battle of Michoacán on February 16, 1869; the last two, those that caused his death, in San Pedro. In more than one battle, he received multiple wounds: two in the chest in the Battle of La Matilde on January 6, 1872, six at Cayo Rey on July 25, 1876, and eight in the Battle of Mangos de Mejía on August 6, 1877. Among the Recorded is the one suffered in the attack on him in San Jose, Costa Rica, on November 10, 1894.
This information is contained in General Antonio Maceo and his unknown woundsby Joel Mourlot, an article reproduced by the historian Manuel Fernández Carcassés in his book Antonio Maceo Grajales; short biographical essay, published in the Bronze Collection of Editorial Oriente, in Santiago de Cuba. Interesting and novel essay in which the author, who was born in 1959, dares to approach the latest findings on the life of the titan.
For many years, Carcassés insisted on the need for a biography of Maceo, updated with new research and written in a language accessible to different audiences. In the end he would write it himself.
Doctor Israel Escalona confirms in the work’s prologue: ‘Certainly, as Carcassés suspects, some readers will prefer more information about Maceo’s campaigns; others may require more detail about his rich anecdotes and mutual judgments with his contemporaries. But fair to say that this concise biographical essay achieves its goal…».
Definitely a book to read carefully. The author hopes to do so shortly. To prepare this page, he stopped for the time being, after flipping through the work’s appendices, including the one collecting opinions on Maceo after his death in battle. Another alludes to his brothers, 13 in all, three of whom are the result of Mariana’s union with Fructuoso Regüeiferos Echavarría, and another, Justo Germán, who only went by the surname Grajales and was the first of the brothers to give his life to the cause gave Cuban; Shot dead in San Luis in 1868. The rest go by the surname Maceo Grajales. José, Miguel and Julio were killed in acts of war. Rafael, imprisoned in Chafarinas, died of tuberculosis.
In one of these appendages there is room for Maceo’s horses, of which there must have been many, although only five survive in history: Guajamón, whom he was riding when he was wounded at Mangos de Mejía; Concha, Tizón, Martinete and Libertador, this legendary horse. He drove it during a good part of the Pinar del Río invasion and campaign. He went to literature because the poet Federico Urbach wrote a nice article about him.
Another appendix contains a list of the doctors who treated Maceo, from the aforementioned Félix Figueredo, who belonged to the Protestants of Baraguá, to Máximo Zertucha, who wrote the Titan’s death account.
Maceo’s son
Of great interest are the pages dedicated to General Antonio’s son by Manuel Fernández Carcassés. Maceo had no children with María Cabrales, his wife. Yes, from his extramarital relationship with Amelia Marryat: a child born in Jamaica in 1881, named Antonio Maceo Marryat.
Carcassés says that the general loved his son in an extraordinary way and was always concerned for him, sending the mother through friends the money needed for Toñito’s proper care.
From 1891 the trace of Amelia is lost. Perhaps he died that day, it is suspected. Maceo then takes the child to Costa Rica, where he lived with his wife, and puts him in a school.
When Maceo entered the War of Independence in 1895, he left precise instructions to his brother Marcos and his friend Alejandro González to take care of the education of Toñito, who had already been posted to Jamaica. After Maceo died, the boy’s education was paid for by the Cuban Revolutionary Party. His delegate, Tomás Estrada Palma, is particularly concerned with Toñito’s whereabouts at York Castle High School in Kingston.
The War of Independence ends, the offices of the Cuban Revolutionary Party are closed and the situation for Maceo’s son becomes difficult. His uncle Marcos lacks the funds to attend to his education, and it is again Don Tomás who encourages Toñito to complete his secondary studies in the United States and later enroll at Cornell University, where he received his engineering degree in 1909 .
Back in Havana, he works as an engineer in the Secretariat – Ministry – of Public Works. He makes a brief and ill-fated foray into politics and returns to his usual simple life, only interrupted when he attends a memorial service related to his father.
He died of prostate cancer in Havana on December 4, 1952 and was buried in the necropolis of Colón in Havana. He had one son, Antonio Jaime, born August 9, 1909, the result of his marriage to Alice Ysabal Machle.