# Salvador Cisneros Betancourt

**Date of birth:** February 10, 1828

**Date of death:** February 28, 1914

**Categories:** Society, Patriot

He was born in one of Puerto's best families; his family already carried with pride the title Marqués de Santa Lucía granted by the King of Spain a few years before.

However, his long life will not be noted for having been faithful to the distinction of the sovereign or for accumulated wealth. Love of country and the conviction that serving it is the most beautiful way to be honored, shaped his conduct.

According to his own testimony, he was involved in the conspiracy that led to the uprising of Joaquín de Agüero y Agüero in 1851; although, he is not the namesake who in many bibliographic works appears as judged and deported to Spain.

In 1868 he was one of the principal leaders of the Revolutionary Junta of Camagüey and his firm decision not to allow the Spanish to concentrate all power against the patriotic easterners, determined the uprising of the people of Camagüey on November 4 at Las Clavellinas.

His attitude, in these first days, contributed to preventing the conciliatory and traitorous efforts of some who still trusted they could obtain improvements from the metropolis. At the meeting at Las Minas, the night of November 26 and early morning of November 27, before Ignacio Agramonte called to wrest from Spain, by arms, the freedom of the homeland and decided that the patriots should pronounce themselves for the continuation of the revolution, Cisneros had already pronounced himself for the continuation of war.

A day later, came the battle of Bonilla; the baptism of fire for the people of Camagüey who set out to stop the train from Puerto Príncipe to Nuevitas that was transporting the forces of the Count of Valmaseda, in transit to the East. Cisneros was there, standing on the railroad line, unarmed and encouraging the patriots.

The Revolutionary Committee of Camagüey, the assemblies of Representatives of the Center and the Constituent Assembly of Guáimaro, were institutions where he served, in addition to having exercised the presidency of the Chamber of Representatives and of the Republic in Arms, always in constant danger.

Hardships, confiscation of goods and, most precious, the death of his wife and several of his children in the manigua is the cost of the sacrifice. Nothing weakened him.

He protested the agreements of the Zanjón in an interview with the same captain general Arsenio Martínez Campos, and as he understood that independence on this occasion could not be obtained, he demanded, at least, the freedom of the slave.

He refuses to live under Spanish rule and poor and without family goes into exile. With the same suit in which he embarked at Santa Cruz del Sur, he remained in Jamaica and reached New York.

Some time later they remember him, on one of its main avenues, as a proprietor; but not of a large store. On the street, at a stand of tobaccos, cigars and some lottery tickets, one can see a man who sells, a man who did not want to be a marquis in order to be Cuban.

He only returns to Cuba when the great figures of the war of '68 and the Master José Martí, consider him indispensable in Camagüey for the new struggle.

At 67 years old he returns to the manigua, years may weigh but do not defeat him. Again the highest civil authority of the Republic and the defense of the freedom and democratic rights of the people; although, they do not adjust very well to the times.

When Spain could not maintain the colony, the United States prepared itself, like a wild beast, to write its imperialist history. Cisneros feared sweetened words and pushed for the occupation of towns by the Liberation Army before another foreign force.

At the end of the war came the American occupation and soon he understood the true interests of the new power. "It has never passed through my mind the idea that would lead me to suppose that the Americans will give up Cuba. They will do everything possible not to let go of the privilege…"

He denounced in various ways the American maneuvers to seize Cuba and called for the unity of all Cubans to achieve absolute independence. In 1901, addressing those of upstart thinking, he expressed:

"Do not think or dream of protectorate or annexation. Cubans still have shame, the only resource that our unforgettable general Ignacio Agramonte asked for to end our enemies, casting them out of the territory. Cuba, even if it bothers someone, will have its sovereignty and its absolute independence, fulfilling the oath of independence or death, or otherwise it will sink into the Mexican Gulf, not a stone left upon another, from Cape San Antonio to Punta de Maisí."

If his example of patriotism was his struggle against Spain, it was no less the battle for the end of the occupation of the United States and especially against the imposition of the Platt Amendment.

Life and struggle of Salvador Cisneros in the Republic, a Yankee neocolony.

When in 1913, at 85 years old, Salvador Cisneros Betancourt wrote "Despite my advanced age I believe I have enough spirit to see Cuba... completely sovereign, absolutely independent and master of its destiny. After I see this, I will be able to die like others, rest peacefully and assured that the foreign plant will not tread on our graves, earned, well earned, in the shadow of our flag", he demonstrated confidence in the qualities of the Cuban people, his indelible patriotism and persistence, in the face of the weariness or surrender of others, in the commitment made to the Homeland in 1868: "Independence or Death".

His decisive role in the decision of the people of Camagüey for incorporation into the struggles of '68 and '95, his work as civil leader of the revolution and his attitude in the Constituent Assembly of 1901, when the United States imposed the Platt Amendment, and he demanded of his fellow deputies the only dignified attitude: "absolute independence or nothing"; however, his action in the years he lived in the Republic born on May 20, 1902, has hardly been publicized, a period in which he held the position of senator for the province of Camagüey without belonging to any of the political parties, which he considered instruments to satisfy the interests of important public figures.

With the Republic created, very soon he faced the betrayal of his former companions in the manigua, who now in power and serving the political parties, forgot the people. Invoking José Martí and the Cuban Revolutionary Party, he proposed the creation of a great civic movement –whose fundamental force would be the veterans of independence, workers and students– to confront the old evils that survived colonialism and, what he considered the main cause: the imposition of the constitutional appendix and the interference of the United States government.

In all forums, as well as in wars, without fear of bullets, he said all he thought without the slightest concern for the reaction of the great interests he attacked. At the end of 1905, after denouncing in several articles the frauds of Estrada Palma and accusing him of using violence, including murder, to achieve political ends, and knowing the comments that the President said he did not have time to read the newspapers, he attempts as a senator to visit him, but was not received.

La Discusión, organ of the Moderate Party, mocks the failed attempt and suggests that on Saturdays the President receives the people. Cisneros responds that "I was not received because I do not belong to the privileged camarilla... while the door is opened to those who have been sinister enemies of Cuba."

With respect to the suggestion, he states, "And it bothers me... not because my pride is hurt by mixing and mingling with the people; since I have many times proven and today with more reason than ever that I do not depart one bit from their destiny, that I defend them, that I am with them, that I depend on them and in a word, that for the people I occupy this position. We advance nothing, with the fact that Salvador Cisneros Betancourt depends on old stock and was born in good swaddling clothes, that he is of distinguished lineage and good pedigments; since the latter should only be acquired after a man has formed himself, and only through conduct and procedure that he observes in society"

To an invitation from several generals of independence to commemorate October 10 of that year he responds that it was impossible for him to participate since that would be the "celebration of a political party; not the celebration of the homeland dreamed for all and with all". He expresses that "the majority of Cubans roars with indignation... and there in the depths of their homes tears of pain are shed" due to the "crimes being committed in the name of the Republic."

He does not resign himself to tolerating in silence a situation that undermines the foundations of nationality and sentences "Let others toast, while I prepare myself to gather those who suffer like me, to remedy the ills of the present"

The accommodationist attitude of Estrada Palma and the Second American Occupation decided him –he considered that the principal evil that the Republic suffered were the rights that the United States had obtained with the Platt Amendment– to found the Patriotic Junta to bring together all good Cubans, regardless of political affiliation or social class, and transform it into a great Cuban Revolutionary Party capable of saving the Republic that had failed in its first attempt.

In 1913, accompanied by new rather than old companions, he creates the Committee for the Abolition of the Platt Amendment to unite all those who heeded the Apostle and directs propaganda to the labor movement that has always served Cuba unselfishly, to the students of the University of Havana and to the people in general.

At his death the magazine Cuba Contemporánea published: "How many times his half-muted voice was the only one that did not yield to the elegance of oratory, to the tricks of lawyers, to the flatteries of interest, nor to the bonds of friendship or social considerations! ...he seemed, in our vicious environment, the living image of protest against everything that was not purely Cuban..."