Antonio Zambrana Vázquez

Politician, lawyer and Cuban writer, participant in the Ten Years' War and member of the first government of the Republic of Cuba in Arms.

Antonio Zambrana was born in La Habana. He studied at the El Salvador school, which was directed by José de la Luz y Caballero. In 1867 he obtained the degree of Licentiate in Civil Law.

When the uprising of October 10, 1868 occurred, led by Carlos Manuel de Céspedes y del Castillo, Zambrana boarded a ship in La Habana on the steamship Galvanic bound for Nassau, to join General Manuel de Quesada and return with him to Cuba. At the end of 1868 he disembarked on the coasts of Camagüey.

On February 26, 1869 he joined the Assembly of Representatives of the Center, a representative body of the Camagüey revolutionaries. Like the rest of its members, Zambrana believed that the Assembly should remain independent of the Provisional Government of the East headed by Céspedes, which was based in the city of Bayamo.

As a member of the Assembly of the Center, he approved the decree that abolished slavery with timely compensation for the owners, while the enslaved people who had been freed were obligated to contribute their efforts to Cuba's independence.

On April 6, 1869 he signed, together with the assemblymen from Camagüey Salvador Cisneros Betancourt, Miguel Betancourt Guerra, Francisco Sánchez Betancourt and Ignacio Agramonte y Loynaz, two communications addressed to the administration of the United States, in which they expressed gratitude for the approval in that country's Senate of a resolution that authorized President Ulises Grant to recognize Cuba's independence, as soon as Cubans constituted their own government.

In these communications, the assemblymen insisted on the duty of the American nation to contribute to the Cubans' purpose of achieving their independence. They also warned that if the conflict were prolonged, the Island would be devastated, which would affect the United States in its annexionist interests.

On April 10, 1869, Zambrana participated as a delegate from Camagüey in the Assembly of Guáimaro. He was the principal spokesperson for the Camagüey participants, opposed to a proportional representation of delegates by regions in the assembly, arguing that a population like that of the East, four times larger than that of Camagüey and the first to take up arms, exercised what he called the tyranny of numbers. In this regard, he would declare in his work The Republic of Cuba —published in Nueva York in 1874— that he sought to have each State send the same number of representatives to the Assembly to prevent the exaggerated preponderance of some of the groups, referring particularly to the East.

On April 11 following, he occupied one of the Secretariats of the Chamber of Representatives of the Republic of Cuba in Arms together with Ignacio Agramonte. He immediately proposed that the flag of Bayamo, hoisted by Céspedes on the occasion of the uprising of October 10, 1868, be fixed in the session hall and considered as part of the Republic's treasure.

On April 13 he arranged to send a new communication to the government of the United States in which protection would be requested for the Cuban insurrection, which was approved by majority. When the debate was later opened on some proposals from Cuban annexionists that had arrived at the Chamber of Representatives, Zambrana became interested in them and defended their approval in the legislative body of the Republic in Arms. He did not pronounce himself in this way, according to his own words, because he distrusted Cuban capacity for independent life, but rather moved by the interest in avoiding loss of human lives and property.

On December 16, 1869 he participated in the meeting held by members of the Chamber with supporters of General Manuel de Quesada, who requested greater autonomy for the leadership of the army. The contradictions between both parties prompted, a few days later, De Quesada to submit his resignation as General in Chief of the Liberating Army of Cuba. Then, the Chamber took the decision to proceed with his removal.

In 1873 Zambrana moved to the United States, commissioned by the government of the Republic of Cuba in Arms. In Washington he directed the publications La Revolución and La Independencia, of revolutionary orientation. He later carried out, in the company of Manuel de Quesada, a tour through several South American countries, with the objective of gathering moral and material support for the cause of Cuba's independence.

In 1873 he published The Republic of Cuba in Nueva York, on the organization of the Cuban revolutionary government during the Ten Years' War. That same year his novel El negro Francisco was published in Chile. In 1874 The Cuban Question was published in Valparaíso, a volume that compiled his revolutionary speeches.

With the independence conflict ended by the Pact of Zanjón on February 10, 1878, Antonio Zambrana continued his travels through Europe, the United States and Latin America. In Costa Rica he stood out for his work as a teacher and lawyer, while serving as Plenipotentiary Minister of that nation in the Republic of Nicaragua.

In 1886 he returned to Cuba, where he founded the newspaper El Cubano. That same year he was elected deputy to the Spanish Cortes in representation of Cuba, although the metropolitan government did not approve his participation in them. He joined the ranks of the Liberal Autonomist Party until 1891, when he returned to Costa Rica.

During the 1895 War of Independence for the liberation of Cuba he remained in the Central American republic, in his professional work.

He returned to Cuba in 1911, and was soon appointed by President José Miguel Gómez as minister to Colombia and Ecuador, a position he had to hold for only a short time.

The last years of Antonio Zambrana took place in Cuba, without participating in political or intellectual activities. He died in La Habana on March 27, 1922.

Active Bibliography

El negro Francisco. Novel. Santiago de Chile, 1873.

Estudios jurídicos, Imp. Nacional, San José de Costa Rica, 1907.

La República de Cuba, Universidad de La Habana, Cuadernos Cubanos, 3, La Habana, 1969.

Una visita a la Metrópoli. Primera parte. Discurso pronunciado en el teatro Irijoa en la noche del 27 de agosto de 1888, Estudio Tipográfico O´Reilly La Habana, 1888.

Voces de combate. Conferencia, brindis y discursos pronunciados en Valparaíso en 1874 y en La Habana en 1888, Imprenta La Prueba, La Habana, 1916.

Passive Bibliography

Abad, Diana y Oscar Loyola: History of Cuba II. The Ten Years' War: first war of national liberation, Department of Cuban History, Universidad de La Habana, Ministry of Higher Education, La Habana, 1987.

Almodóvar Muñoz, Carmen: Critical Anthology of Cuban Historiography (colonial era), Editorial Pueblo y Educación, La Habana, 1986.

Guerra, Ramiro: War of the 10 Years, Editorial de Ciencias Sociales, 2 v., La Habana, 1972.

Instituto de Historia de Cuba: History of Cuba. The struggles for national independence and structural transformations. 1868-1898, Editora Política, La Habana, 1996.

Jiménez Pastrana, Juan: Ignacio Agramonte. Documents, Editorial de Ciencias Sociales, La Habana, 1974.

Morales y Morales, Vidal: Men of 68: Rafael Morales y González, Editorial de Ciencias Sociales, La Habana, 1972.

Pichardo Viñals, Hortensia: «Constitution of Guáimaro», Documents for the history of Cuba, v. I, Editorial de Ciencias Sociales, La Habana, 1971.

Rodríguez García, Rolando: Cuba: the forging of a nation, I. Beginning and epic, Editorial de Ciencias Sociales, La Habana, 1998.

Santovenia, Emeterio: The Cuban Constitutions of Guáimaro (1869), Jimaguayú (1895) and La Yaya (1897), Imprenta La Universal, La Habana, 1926.

Torres-Cuevas, Eduardo y Oscar Loyola: History of Cuba 1492-1898: formation and liberation of the nation, Editorial Pueblo y Educación, La Habana, 2001.

Source: EnCaribe.org