Antonio Maceo Grajales

Cuban Military Officer and Patriot. Son of a Venezuelan father and a Black mother of humble condition, he was twenty-three years old when the Cuban Republic was proclaimed with the cry of Yara in 1868.

He enlisted immediately in the independence forces alongside his father and his brothers José and Justo. From an early age he joined the Ten Years' War as a soldier and due to his merits in combat, he achieved the rank of Major General under the orders of Máximo Gómez. His service record includes more than 800 military actions and 26 scars. He was the greatest military strategist of our independence struggles, for his valor, intelligence, political capacity, personality and tactics employed, all of this demonstrated in combats such as those of Ti Arriba, Juan Mulato, San Ulpiano, Peralejo, among many others, to be called the Bronze Titan.

His first promotion in the revolutionary ranks occurred when he was appointed aide to Máximo Gómez, and from then on he became known as a heroic fighter, and was acclaimed as leader of the insurgents of the Villas. He participated in the Ten Years' War (1868-1878) and defeated the Spanish on numerous occasions, such as at Loma de la Gallega (1871) or in the Battle of Las Guásimas (1872), after which he reached the rank of major general.

However, little by little fissures began to appear among the independence fighters, and in 1877 he rejected an offer of alliance with Vicente García to overthrow the revolutionary government; he also declined the peace proposal of General Martínez Campos and refused to accept the Peace of Zanjón of 1878. Maceo continued fighting and dominated the entire province of Oriente, until the exhaustion of his army forced him to go into exile in Jamaica, from where he continued to conspire.

The revolutionary intransigence of Antonio Maceo Grajales took shape and his stature grew, in the discontent with the Peace of Zanjón, by staging the Protest of Baragua on March 15, 1878. He organized abroad, together with Martí and Gómez the War of Independence and returned to Cuba in 1895, personally directing the invasion from Oriente to Occidente. A zealous defender of our sovereignty and with a clear anti-imperialist vision, the Titan left his political thought written when he stated: Freedom is not begged for, it is conquered with the edge of the machete. He dies in combat on December 7, 1896 in Punta Brava, province of Havana, along with him also falls his aide: Captain Francisco (Panchito) Gómez Toro.